Red took in a deep breath as he appeared back into his dungeon, frowning as he realized that it was once again a needless action. He looked down at himself and acknowledged the fact that he was entirely made of crystal. He still had all the definitions that he had gained before he had ‘officially’ finished his first floor. He could still see that despite looking completely made of red gemstone, he had a band t-shirt and shorts on, that went well with his tennis shoes. His hair was still a bit blocky, not quite the texture he could run his fingers through the curls if he wanted. He was back to being Red, the Dungeon Core, and master of this domain.

As he considered that, he realized he was in a place he didn’t recognize within his home. He looked around and found himself in a five-foot cubed room made of old moldy boards. There were two doors, one to the north and one to the south, or at least what his dungeon instincts designated as those cardinal directions. As he looked around, he realized that it reminded him quite a bit of how he started. There were no windows or signs of life, but it looked exactly like the material of the shack before he had gained his first theme.

“Must be my second floor, or my first if this is now the entrance like I wanted,” Red muttered as he looked around before noticing that his notification tab had a few new things in it. He figured that it would be right to check out what he had working for him. The contract that Scott had found him was rather nice, especially with the bonuses it added, but surely that wasn’t the only thing that would come with his second floor.

He skipped through all the things that he had looted from the dwarven party that had come through and mostly died. He got metals, weapons, armor, that stone that upset Velua, some poisons, adult scrolls, souls, a flute, and just a bunch of random supplies that didn’t matter all that much. What was more interesting was all the things that Velua had been carrying that he had gotten during his mental reset.

Items - Velua WatchfulBronze

Bottomless Bag

Bronze Earrings

Portable Inkwell

Stone-Finch Quill

Diary of Velua WatchfulBronze

Mana Potion (5)

Glass Bottle (24)

Rations (7)

Change of clothes (5)

Change of Armor (2)

Water-Skin (1/4 full)

Dart-Tongue Frog (dead)

Giant Mosquito (dead)

Felidasp {Cat-Wasp} (dead)

Swampy Gulper (Headless)

Swampy Gulper (Head)

Hero’s Might (Red Dungeon Origin)

Metal Lobster {Snips} (dead) (Red Dungeon Origin)

Slime Demon Horns (Red Dungeon Origin)

Slime Angel Feathers (Red Dungeon Origin)

He was going to restore the diary and the other personal items for the dwarf later, but for now, he was more interested in the creatures she had been killing in the swamps. The creatures were all aggressive things, but there was no sense in dismissing the new additions to his menus. He needed to make sure that he was able to get as much as possible from what he was given. If that was a couple of monsters from outside, then he would see if there was anything of note.

The Mosquito was nothing, a parasite that was bigger and had more vampiric traits too. He might have considered it if he didn’t already have the murder of vampiric crows upstairs. It didn’t help that they were one of the creatures from Earth that he detested the absolute most. There was no such thing as a good or useful mosquito, even if they were dead and being fed to lizards. The Dart-Tongue Frog would be useful if he could figure out how to devolve something. He needed more critters in his menus. He was considering using those newly gained souls for the sake of that end. The same was the case for the Felidasp, it had potential but not for anything that he was looking for at the moment.

The only thing that caught his eye was the Swampy Gulper. It was some kind of salamander or frog person that had adapted to be able to swallow someone whole and suffocate them with their innards. It was rather intense, but they had just enough intelligence to be classified in the minion category rather than the monster. Once he got to work on the plan for the floor, he would need one or two of them to get this place ship-shape. He stopped his thoughts on the future and returned to the notifications that he had received.

Floor 2 Unlock

With the completion of the first floor, a starting room has been constructed alongside a stairwell leading to the next level.

Floor 1 Reward

By completing the first floor, a new feature of being a dungeon has been unlocked. Rooms now have passive banes and bonuses based on the structures and purposes of the room.

“That’s interesting. I wonder if that’s just for the first floor, or if it’s a feature of the entire dungeon now.” Red murmured before he opened up his menu to check on a tab that he seldom had a reason for messing with. He clicked on his Rewards menu, and the secondary window appeared showing him both a list of rewards he had gained as well as the loot that he had gotten from them. He had gotten five free unlocks from defeating the adventuring party, a small trophy that he could place in his core room, and the ability to mount their heads on a wall. He pushed his finger against that option and pulled it to the left, revealing a red trashcan symbol which he promptly pressed. There would be no heads on walls in his dungeon.

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He then found the reward the notification had told him about, getting the info on it. A quick read through the additional text confirmed that each room could now have a secondary theme to it. While all rooms had to connect to the primary floor theme, there could now be room themes that had their bonuses. Then with a swift click of the collect all button, he was back on task.

“Simple enough. Now, where is the notification for the things I got from my second-floor contract.” Red rubbed his hands together, glad that he wasn’t made of crystal or the sound would be horrendous. A mana construct could look like anything, and he just happened to look like rubies.

With his prompting, the next notification came up and showed the two things that he was looking forward to. He and that strange bureaucratic spirit Scott, had to sort through fifteen Greater Spirit contracts to find one that appealed to Red. There was never a large market for dungeons to have restaurants, so all spirits associated with that concept had open contracts for anyone to take.

Wafden Spirit of 24/7 Diners Contract Boons

* No matter if an individual has a [Cook] tag or not, they will be able to make palatable meals within the floor’s kitchen.

* Floor Theme: Diner at the End of Reality. This liminal space always feels just the other side of strange no matter what time of day it is. But no one can say no to a good midnight burger.

* All minions tagged with a restaurant-associated title have expanded abilities within the floor.

* Specialized Diner rooms unlocked

* Always understaffed: No matter the size of the adventuring party, the Diner at the End of Reality always seems to be understaffed. This can either be used to make a challenging floor where [Guest] marked individuals have to fill in for missing employees or their moral compass is tested to see how they treat service workers.

* Strange Clientele: A setting the dungeon can choose to activate or deactivate. When activated any dungeon individual from another floor can come in through the front entrance to participate as a customer. If attacked while being a customer, the instance will vanish and the individual will reappear on their respective floor.

* Unique Boss: Ka’ron, Bane of Management becomes the boss of this floor. The soul of a horrendous individual was taken and given new life in the same position as those that she tormented. Special abilities tied to how kind [Guest] marked individuals are to workers. Special abilities tied to how ‘customers’ are treated. Special abilities associated with the waitstaff and floor.

Red was deeply curious about what Ka’ron’s character sheet looked like. He could only imagine the kind of dangerous power that something like one of her ilk could be refined down into. He didn’t remember much of his life as a restaurant owner, but like how a lamb knows fear at the growl of a wolf; the name sent shivers down his spine.

“Alright… alright. I’ll summon Ka’ron and then I’ll check in on Lotus and everyone to see how the first floor is doing.” Red promised himself, feeling like a child having to meter Christmas candy so they didn’t run out too fast. The temptation was great, but indulging too fast could lead to problems.

He opened up his menus for minion summoning and smiled at the new option. He looked around the room, frowning as he realized she would be in a rather dull place. He opened a second menu and made a chair, table, and meal for Ka’ron to enjoy before he got to work on her floor. The thought came to him as he did this that he needed to check outside to see how Herc and Megara were doing. He had been checking them every couple of days, but time had gotten away from him after his first set of adventurers.

Herc was saying something after alerting Red about the dwarves that the core didn’t have time to think about as he got everyone into position. He was certain that Herc said that they had a surprise for him, but what it was escaped him. He figured heading outside for a quick check would be easy enough after he was done upstairs. Splitting his focus should have been a talent he had as a dungeon core, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to be in more than one place at a time. He still needed to look in a mirror and see if he could upgrade his avatar.

Red pressed the button to summon Ka’ron and balked at the sheer amount of time that she would take to spawn. The initial spawn always seemed to be longer than the respawn, but twenty-four hours was still the longest he had ever seen. It at least meant that he would be able to check on everyone else while he was waiting.

He walked to the north door, walking the long way to make sure he understood what his future adventurers would be seeing. He phased through the door and found that he was at the entrance of a spiral staircase. With the steady steps up the stairs, he found that it was not that long of a walk. It was the same simple jaunt from one story to the next as any ordinary building would be. The only thing to note was that at the midpoint, the theme of the first floor began to make itself known. Interspersed with the wooden boards and rot of the themeless first floor, were off-white bricks that slowly became more numerous until he was at the top of the stairwell. He wasn’t too fond of how the stairs looked, even as they transferred from wood to stone. He remembered the stained glass window he had back when he didn’t have a plan for the first floor. “Maybe I’ll have windows in all of the stairwells. That’d be nice.” He mused to himself as he looked at the stone entrance to the top floor.

He stepped through it into the palatial fairy gardens that had become the home to everything and everyone he cared for in this life. A gentle breeze that mimicked the outside world sent flowers bobbling and fluttering in the grass. The checkerboard pattern of ordinary grass and leech grass was becoming more vague by the day as the weirding worms turned it into pink fey-reed. The strange creatures were doing just as he had hoped, and since no new weird effects were caused by them multiplying in their spawner, he was inclined to let them do their work.

He took in a breath, blinking in surprise as he could smell the flowers that were in constant bloom in the front part of the garden section. The smell was wonderful, and he began to have a light jaunt through the garden bed section, only pausing to pet some of the Snap-Drakes as they burst out of the ground to get affection. “You’re such good boys and girls. I’m glad you’re not upset about those mean old dwarves.” He mused with a smile as he finished petting the silver flower in the back, heading deeper into the dungeon.

He followed along the river, the midday sun shining bright and glittering off the pure water that the massive tree ahead of him constantly produced. He watched the forms of all different breeds of crawdads and lobsters scuttling along the floor of the riverbed, giving little waves whenever a pincer was waved at him. He paused when he got to the roots of the tree, lifting a brow at all of his brownies, Snips, and the unmistakable puddle of Glut were passed out at a root covered in playing cards. “Looks like they had a good night.” He muttered before he headed to the clearing in front of the tree.

All of the fairies were back to their usual tasks of maintaining the Alchemical Oak that towered above him like a world tree. Scout Fairies were checking any new knot holes for whatever chemical substance the tree was now producing. The soldier fey were doing drills off in the western field, their Mage Captain directing them with a glass whistle she had made. He stopped as he found himself in the party area, all the tables and chairs patiently waiting for the pageantry of the first floor to happen once again. While his Seasonal Fey did get married a day or two before the first party arrived, they didn’t seem to have any problem living out their ceremonies a dozen times over. Speaking of which, he saw the two semi-elven individuals heading towards the cooking area where their Witchling friends were making something new in the cauldron.

“Huh, are they able to take familiars?” Red muttered as he noticed that each of the black feather-cloaked Witchlings now had a vampiric crow on each shoulder. That was almost half the population of his vampiric crows. While it wasn’t a lot, he realized that he also didn’t want to have too many more of the blood-sucking birds floating around. He scratched his chin and nodded. “System, can spawners have their background spawning turned off?” He asked, knowing that a box would reply. He was not prepared, however, for the box to reply in a way it had never done before.

[Yes, Dungeon Core Red, all spawners have several settings that their menus can access.]