The Slime level was a mess.

The slimes had dutifully filled the shallow channels he had cut in the floor, but some had filled them with lamp oil and others had filled them with liquid nitrogen. Likewise the slimes had followed his instructions to battle like the golems on the fifth floor, but with no controller and no detailed directions, the free for all combatants had just been competing to see which slime could overpower the thermal power of the other. This had led to a patchwork of red hot stone and slicks of ice.

The slimes were immune to heat or cold, but the dungeon walls and ceiling were cracked and flaking from the constant heating and cooling. Just looking at it made Stew realize he had been feeling the ache for some time, but had been too distracted to do anything about it. One more thing to find a way to automate.

There was no mana moss and no stone weevils on this floor. They didn't seem to like the extreme temperatures, good to know.

He called a time out and separated the hot and the cold slimes. Three of the former and two of the latter.

The other three mining golems had been standing at the foot of the stairs. He sent them to the sides and far wall and along with Earl had them expand things as he had on the swamp level until he had a three by three square, then he sent all but Earl back down to Level 5 and the [Stone Quarry] to work.

Flamer #1 was one of the cold slimes, which just emphasized how poorly named they were. He renamed them all Thermal 1-5 and set Thermal 1 to be the level boss.

[You have unlocked a new theme - Fire And Ice]

Stew set the new theme and immediately had to scramble Earl back up on the steps to Level 2. The floor was literally lava. The room had grown as large as the swamp with each room now taking up an acre of space, only, instead of stagnant water, the floor was one large pool of bubbling lava.

There was a new lighting theme available, [Arctic Volcano]. He set it.

A huge volcano loomed over him, drooling lava down in a thick ribbon. The exit to level four was clearly visible in what looked like the bottom-most slope. The lava stream split to frame an open cave before draining into the pool.

Past the shore of the lava pool in all directions, he saw an endless plain of ice.

As he watched, in the middle of the lava lake, a winding path of black stone cooled, then cooled further until it was coated in thick, blue white ice. The ice sloped to make for treacherous and slippery footing. One of the thermal slimes, number 3, flopped across a point in the middle and melted a gap, then replaced the missing stone and ice with itself, freezing to match the appearance of the rest of the path.

Across the way, at the end of the path, Thermal #1 crawled out of the lava. Now that it was a boss, the slime had grown to be almost four meters across. It gathered itself across the exit to Level 4 and shaped itself into a rough cube completely blocking the door. It froze there until it appeared to be a nearly opaque, dark blue block of ice, coated in flowing mist as the air froze and pooled around it. He looked closer and saw its description had changed also.

[Thermal #1]

[Lesser Thermal Ooze - Level 4]

But even though it was now described as an ooze, its stats were only a few points higher than the other slimes.

He looked around for the rest and eventually found them lurking in the lava pool. He directed Thermal #2 to replace the path just before the small ledge near Thermal #1. With the wide open spaces in this level, he was going to need more slimes.

He looked through the customizations menu and found that two new options appeared there to match the theme, a steam geyser and a fire whirl. He raised a few small islands out in the lava away from the path. He spaced them just close enough to jump from one to the next, so that they made an alternate route to the exit, then planted the steam geysers in three of the islands. They appeared as small, still pools of brightly colored mineral water.

He built a ledge out from the entrance where Earl stood, and added another geyser just beside the last step. This would go off thirty seconds after the last delver in a party stepped onto the ledge, encouraging them to move fast and find safer ground.

For the fire whirl, he set the spawn near the middle of the pool and the path to cross just before the false path where Thermal #3 was lurking. Hopefully this would drive delvers to continue running forward to avoid the super heated tornado only to be surprised by the slime's trap.

I really am starting to think like a dungeon.

But do I really want to roast every delver that comes through here?

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He changed Thermal #3's instructions, instead of trapping delvers, the slime would offer them a cooling sanctuary if they could reach it before the fire whirl hit. He had Thermal #3 freeze a roughly circular patch of stone and ice around itself to make a small island. Then the slime grew the ice up into a small jagged-topped castle with an enclosed area inside. That would give the delvers a target to run toward.

To balance things out, he added another fire whirl further down that would wander off into the distance rather than toward the path. It would launch as soon as delvers entered the level to give them still another hint at the dangers here.

So they now had a set of challenges to overcome, enemies along the way and a boss to fight, but for what? He still hadn't figured out what to do about loot. The things he had been able to spawn so far had been pretty pathetic.

More things to add to the to do list. Maybe Eira or Cecil could figure out a way to make some fire or ice magic themed weapons or armor.

That reminded him. He had completely forgotten to give Eira her welcome gift. He sent an order down to Smittee.

He checked things over again, then named the new level "Inferno Springs."

He was enjoying having a body, although Earl would probably level better in the [Stone Quarry]. He marched the golem back up the stairs. Closed back the sarcophagus, then he cut across the swamp to take the stairs back to the first level.

As he walked, he checked in on Drinking Bird and the [Big Red Button]. He still had several hours left until it was ready to trigger again.

Back on the first floor, the wide open temple entrance was still in place with just a single bench for decoration. The office supplies he had spawned were down with Cecil on the fifth. The entrance to Femur's cave opened off to the right. He had decided he wanted the first level to become a goblin level, but he couldn't afford any more goblins just yet. He could, at least, take a step in that direction.

Thinking about how the other rooms had adapted to the level themes, he pulled up the unused theme from the undead floor and set the entrance to [Empty Marketplace].

The room expanded back into the hillside and a dozen wooden stalls of all shapes and sizes appeared behind the stone pillars. In keeping with the name, they seemed to have been abandoned and only worthless odds and ends remained. The stalls themselves looked sturdy and well maintained. He suspected they wouldn't have looked as nice on the swamp level.

Assuming he could get enough traffic from delvers, and from Raek and Garrik's talk it sounded like that wouldn't be much of a problem, he could fill the market stalls with goods, or maybe even rent them out to others and just charge rent. The money could go to hire more goblins.

Once he had enough goblins, he had an even better idea for how to make money, but that would have to wait until he had more delvers. It was weird to think about actually wanting people to come attack his home, but now that he'd had time to make some preparations, he could see a clear way to mark off the second biggest thing on his to do list.

Make myself more valuable alive than dead.

But all of that could wait because the [Big Red Button] was almost fully charged, and he was finally ready to make some real progress on both items number one and two on his list.

Learn. Build. Grow. And, Make myself too tough to kill, even if they try.

[The Big Red Button Is Fully Charged]

Drinking Bird, dutifully stopped this time. It wouldn't press the button again unless it dipped below full charge.

Stew swapped his attention to the fighting golems on Level 5. He gathered them into a double line and marched them up the stairs along with the slimes, the controller golems, and Cecil.

They looked pretty awesome marching out of the temple on Level 4. Bossy and the kittens watched them pass. He saw that there were now six cows in the herd, still no bulls.

There was something strange about the sky on Level 4, and at first he couldn't place it. It was always night here, but that wasn't it. The moon was still there, glowing bright and low to the horizon. The stars were also unusually bright above, but that wasn't different. He let his vision unfocus slightly as he looked through M.C.P.'s eyes as the golem marched. It was like looking at a hidden-image stereogram. The new detail leapt out at him immediately.

All the stars in the sky formed the body and face of a woman who arched above with her hands on one horizon and her feet on another. The whole sky was one big constellation. A sense of profound awe filled him. Somehow he could sense that this was more than just an illusion painted across the ceiling. He felt like he was looking at a being larger than galaxies. He realized the stars moved. The figure was breathing.

He was definitely going to have to ask Bossy who that was. One more thing for his to do list. It seemed like it was growing as fast as he knocked things off, but that was nothing new.

He marched his tiny golem army out onto the plains. The spectral cats appeared and vanished around the edges, curious and watching.

His plan was to hit the [Big Red Button] and start spawning golems as fast as he could, using the higher level golems to smash them so that he could respawn them quickly to level them all up to match the golems he had been testing. The individual combat numbers were already interesting, but he needed many more trials. And after those were through he wanted to move on to testing some formation tactics for massed assaults and defense.

He gave the order and the golems of all types fell into a mixed skirmish line and snapped to attention, at the ready to start some power leveling.

He would only have five minutes, so he double checked his mana reserves, crossed imaginary fingers and pressed the button.

[Big Red Button Pressed - Berserker Rage Bonus, all minions and monsters engaged in combat will receive 50% less damage and deal 25% more damage until all action points are consumed. Once all action points are consumed, all minions and monsters will receive damage equal to half their remaining health.]

Not cool, Button, not cool. So much for easy power leveling.

[Button Bonus 0.001%]