"More kittens?" Stew was beginning to wonder if he was going to regret asking Bossy what she wanted for her level.
"And more cattle. A herd." Bossy was standing by the treeline in the meadow, munching on fresh flowers while watching the wolves run between the trees looking for deer.
Stew was almost positive they wouldn't find any.
It had all started when he came to feed the kittens again. He had been so busy with remodeling and fighting for his life, that he hadn't even noticed that none of his minions or monsters had leveled up since before the delvers arrived.
That changed all at once.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Sluice is now a Level 2 Stone Slime.]
With the upgrade, Sluice's mucus became [Mineral Oil] which allowed any stone-based creature to accomplish twice as much in one action. Stew immediately had Sweeper assimilate some stone too, evolving into a Level 1 Stone Slime. That would keep the pit and the arena balanced.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Smittee (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Johnny 5 (view specialization options)]
Johnny 5 now had an option to specialize as a [Controller Golem] and Smittee had two options [Controller Golem] or [Crafting Golem].
[Controller Golem
No longer limited to simple tasks, the Controller Golem specialization allows a golem to accept a desired outcome then derive an optimal strategy to achieve that outcome based on specified constraints. For any sustained task flow, the Controller Golem has a 1% chance per hour of identifying a small improvement in that task. Gains are remembered if the task is paused and resumed, but forgotten should the controller golem switch to managing an unrelated task.]
[Crafting Golem
Practice makes perfect, and the Crafting Golem is no exception. The first item of a given type created by a crafting golem has a 1% chance of failure. This chance of failure reduces by 0.05% for each item of that same type created by the same golem. Once the error chance reaches 0%, each item a crafting golem makes of that same type has a 0.05% chance of being of a higher grade or lower material cost than the last item of that type made by the same golem. Higher-grade items produced by this process will still count as practiced items regardless of any differences in quality or description. Higher-grade items produced by this process will not require additional materials, even if these are required for standard recipes.]
The Crafting Golem specialization sounded amazing, but, assuming Smelter wouldn't be far behind Smittee for crafting, Stew chose [Controller Golem] for both Smittee and Johnny 5.
And surprisingly even Exterminator 1 leveled up. Apparently, the little guy was earning experience for "defeating" each weevil.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Exterminator 1 has evolved into a Level 2 Toxic Slime.]
So rather than assimilating something, Exterminator 1 found a sort of combat adaptation and invented pesticide. This meant there were two ways, at least, of evolving slimes. Stew filed that away for future thought.
The big news came with a flurry of notifications from the rest of the Milk Run Bunch.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Fluff is now a Spectral Panther Acolyte (Juvenile) - Level 2]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Socks is now a Spectral Panther Acolyte (Juvenile) - Level 2]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Boo is now a Spectral Panther Acolyte (Juvenile) - Level 2]
Each of the kittens was now the size of a Labrador Retriever. Instead of generating two actions per milk, they generated five for every two milk. They still had no special attack, but they had added a new special ability [Shadow Walk] that sounded very interesting.
None of that compared to the news for Bossy.
[One of your minions has leveled up! Bossy is now a Cow (Demi-Goddess) - Level 2]
He looked at her stats.
[Bossy - Level Boss, Temple of the Hidden Moon, Fourth Floor]
[Cow (Demi-Goddess) - Level 2]
[Mana Cost - 1 / day]
[Health 20/20]
[Agility 3]
[Strength 5]
[Constitution 7]
[Actions: 1/1]
[Action Recharge: 1 / day]
[Special attack: Scold]
[Special Ability: Follow The Herd]
[Passive Ability: Room To Graze]
[Produces Two Divine Milk Per Action]
It was mostly underwhelming except for the doubled milk production and the new abilities.
[Follow The Herd]
[You may add one additional, nonsapient, cow to your herd for each one hundred milk produced. Each cow will provide one milk when the herd matriarch produces milk, and will cost one mana per day. There is a 5% chance that any cow summoned will be a bull. Each bull increases milk production for all cows by 20%. Each bull also provides one [Defense] for the herd. Cows and bulls do not advance in level, but may be upgraded for 100 mana each.]
So each cow would be an action multiplier. That was already sounding good, but adding a bull for an extra bottle every five for the whole herd could make quite a difference with enough cows, especially with Bossy's doubled production, but what was [Defense]?
The next one was a very big deal.
[Passive Ability: Room To Graze]
[Nothing's better than grazing with your herd in the wide open spaces. Find all the best forage while keeping an eye on the horizon for trouble. Turn one [Secluded Hollow] into a pocket dimension, decorated to your taste.]
Pocket dimension! Stew didn't even wait to talk to Bossy, he spent the mana and turned the boss room into a [Secluded Hollow].
Nothing at all happened. The room looked exactly the same when Stew looked out of Bossy's eyes.
Stew moved his attention to Lassie and looked again from another angle, something seemed strange about the open door. It now led to the banquet hall since Stew had moved the Arena to the fifth floor, but that wasn't it. There was something strange about the edges.
Stew switched back to his core and experienced momentary vertigo. It took him a moment to reconcile the precise feeling he had for the dimensions of the boss room and the rest of the dungeon with his simultaneous certainty that the boss room was now much, much bigger. He could feel the edges, but they seemed farther away than his dungeon sense could manage precisely.
He switched back to Lassie and, with her permission, walked forward until he reached the wall beside the door to the banquet hall. He took one more step and walked right through. There was no sense of a wall at all. The door just stood in empty space. From behind, there was no trace of the door either. Lassie took a deep sniff on her own and Stew could feel her excitement. The boss room had always smelled like a dungeon to her, regardless of the visual illusion the walls and ceiling showed. Stew realized the dungeon grass was gone too, replaced by grass and flowers from the meadow.
The boss room section of the meadow merged seamlessly with where the real meadow would be and it filled in the space that should have contained the hillside and the dungeon. There were flowers and bushes and trees, but Stew didn't see a single bird or insect.
"We'll need more kittens," Bossy said, strolling out into the meadow. The two wolves ran off into the trees, chasing a scent.
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"More kittens?"
"And more cattle. A herd."
Stew thought it over. The kittens, well, cats now, didn't seem to have any limit on how much milk they could turn into actions, but there was a practical limit on how fast the process could happen. They were close to the limit now for what Stew could do himself, but the new production numbers meant he could finally automate the process completely. With a [Controller Golem] and [Mineral Oil] he could double the current rate even without the greater production, but if he was going to continue to scale it, Bossy was right, they would need more kittens.
He watched Fluff and Boo for a moment. The growth had changed them, rather than tumbling around playing the way they had as kittens, they had taken to stalking each other and attacking with a much more serious attitude. Socks just attacked whoever ended up on the bottom. They were solid muscle, and their fangs and claws were now big enough to look menacing.
"You said you wanted to redecorate? Is this more what you wanted?"
Bossy watched the disappointed wolves returning, then glanced at the floating door leading to the stairwell. She turned to look at the door to the banquet hall. She waggled her head. "No, I think I can come up with something more appropriate. With your permission?"
"Sure."
The banquet hall door shrank into the distance so fast it looked like it was falling. The sky darkened and stars came out. A huge moon rose, revealing a changed landscape.
It was the dark, grassy plain from Bossy's vision. Behind them a stone platform rose. It was square with stepped sides and a flat top. There was a smaller temple in the center and the sealed door to the next floor was now inside of that.
Stew reached out his senses and found the banquet door now opened in a cliff face that was part of a barren mountain range that surrounded the plain. He couldn't sense anything beyond the mountains. They seemed to mark the edge of the world.
The banquet hall and tawdry treasure room were the only things left on this level that didn't fit, so he discarded them, connecting the moon puzzle room directly to this door into the boss level.
He was just relocking the door when Boo appeared out of nowhere right next to it and pounced on Fluff who was hiding in the grass right across from the door. Then they both vanished into thin air, or rather, back into the shadows.
Stew was startled and a little miffed that they were delaying action production, but he couldn't blame them for trying out their new abilities. With more kittens, he could start to rotate them and let them have some fun. They might enjoy the arena. The wolves would probably like that too.
Once the cats were back near Bossy and Johnny 5, Stew used Johnny 5's new abilities to begin optimizing and balancing action and mana production. He wasn't sure what to expect, so he planned to check back in, but it was a relief to know he wouldn't have to drop everything to feed the kittens now.
He switched his attention back up to the first floor to check with Femur.
"So you want mushrooms," Stew said as he switched to Femur's perspective. "I'm thinking for that you'll want caves?"
"And rats."
"Right, rats. Let's see, we can start with this." Stew created another [Twilight Cavern] and saw that he was starting to run low on stone again. He had stopped the miners because it felt wrong, somehow, to just dig tunnels to nowhere. He would have to look at his options there soon if he wanted to work on the rest of his levels.
He bounced some ideas off of Femur, but he had a pretty good idea of what the goblin wanted, and he found that he had goblin-specific options now that Femur was the level boss. After a few false starts, he created a creepy-looking cavern with half a dozen different types of mushrooms including one called [Cauldron Cap] that glowed a dull red and gave off heat. The mushrooms made him wonder if potions were a thing here. It seemed likely. Maybe he could unlock alchemy or potion-making or whatever they called it here?
He created a pen for the rats and created four rats to start, two males and two females. They were the size of pigs and acted more like boars than rodents. It was weird enough he had to ask Femur. "You're sure they'll just stay behind those low fences? Why would they do that?" He expected an answer like "Magic."
Instead, Femur shrugged and said, "They're domesticated."
That almost made sense, though looking at their legs and the height of the pen he just couldn't see how it worked.
Stew also built a small cookfire and a hide shelter with a straw bed and a small chest inside. Various tools and blankets came for free. There was a new [Cavern Glow] lighting setting which spread an ever-changing green glowing mist that flowed around the ceiling of the cavern like toxic gas. It barely lit the room, but Femur seemed to find it cozy.
"I have to ask. This seems like a pretty rough way to live. Don't you want me to make you a better bed, at least? You seem…"
"Smart, not just a dumb creature waving a club and gibbering?"
"I didn't say that, but yes, I guess that's what I was thinking. Are all goblins as smart as you?"
"Goblins are as different as anybody else, but sure we're all pretty smart. That is, except my cousin Toad Licker. He's an idiot." Femur struck a spark from a tinderbox Stew hadn't noticed and began to blow the fire to life.
"Then why do you live like this?"
"Tradition." Femur added a few twigs on top of the kindling as the flame caught. "Some spend their time chasing after the easy life, clothes, metal tools, chickens. It just makes them soft. Hidden River goblins like to keep to the old ways." He grinned. "Also, rat meat gives me a fifteen percent experience bonus for one hour."
"Good to know." Stew was just about to ask him if he could actually see his experience and how gold figured into anything when more notices suddenly appeared.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Rocky (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Chuck (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Bruce (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Pound (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Smash (view specialization options)]
And five others, with more of the same. These were ten of the twenty fighting golems training in the arena. The acceleration from [Mineral Oil] was paying off.
Then there were two more he had been waiting for.
[One of your monsters has leveled up! Don (view specialization options)]
[One of your monsters has leveled up! M.C.P. (view specialization options)]
He confirmed [Controller Golem] for both Don and M.C.P. then renamed all of the newly leveled fighters Fighter A-001 through Fighter A-010. The leading zeros might be wishful thinking, but he would regret it later if he didn't do it. He renamed the rest of the fighters Fighter B-001 through Fighter B-010, and put all of the pit golems in group C.
Then he rotated group A to the pit and group C to the arena. Group B should level up next, so that would keep things flowing nicely, or at least he thought it should. He would just keep moving them as they leveled up. Everything should work fine until the golems became too tough for the spike trap.
While he was watching the arena and the pit, he saw that the slimes had really kept the stone weevils in check. He looked back in on the storage room and saw it was in good shape too. He was surprised to see the moss growing there now. Did the stone weevils eat the moss too? That didn't seem right. He did another quick check around the dungeon using eyes where he had them and checking light settings where he didn't. The pattern jumped out at him after a moment. The moss liked light, which made sense, and it liked mana-dense areas, but only if there was light.
Mana dense. That worried him. He had Johnny 5 stop generating mana for a moment and had Smelter stop making mana glass, then he watched his stats. He was afraid he already knew what he would see. The moss was probably feeding on his mana.
[Mana: 285/462]
But what he saw was just the opposite.
[Mana: 287/462]
And ten minutes later.
[Mana: 288/462]
He found Exterminator 1 and grew another eye to look closely at the moss in the storage room. It was moss. It glowed.
Kicking himself, he thought to try [Stat-o-vision™].
[Mystery Unlocked: Mana Moss]
[Mana moss is specially adapted to dungeon environments. Growing wherever it can find support and good light. Mana moss thrives in high mana environments and generates 1 mana per hour for every 10 centimeters of coverage.]
Free mana. Could he farm this stuff? It also made him think again about alchemy. Surely this had to be something that would make a good potion.
He set Smelter and Johnny 5 back to work and just enjoyed watching the numbers go up for a little while. By the time Bossy and the cats were ready to turn in, he had a full mana charge again.
[Mana: 500/500]
He built one more mana repository and set Smelter to fill it with mana glass. He would let the moss run through the night and see how much mana he gathered.
Forge had been busy too. Stew now had eight level ten mana cores. He could level-up again by morning if he was feeling adventurous enough. With the resources growing steadily, monsters and minions leveling up, and the delvers, at least by contractual non-aggression agreements, on his side, but more importantly out of his dungeon, he felt a sense of peace for the first time since he woke up dead.
He decided now would be a good time to press the button.
[Big Red Button - This big red button may be pressed once per second.]
It was a little bit of a letdown because, as far as he could tell, no actual big red button had appeared anywhere in the dungeon. He was hesitant to use it without knowing what it did. It might cause problems, but he was at least reasonably confident it wasn't something apocalyptic. From the description, he might want to press it every second and that also meant it likely wasn't some consumable, one-time thing that he would lose if he used it.
He selected, "Press The Button."
[Button Bonus 0.001%]
He pressed it again. Nothing happened, so he waited a second and tried again.
[Button Bonus 0.002%]
Again.
[Button Bonus 0.003%]
He waited two seconds and pressed it again.
[Button Bonus 0.003%]
So it goes down if you don't maintain it. But bonus to what? He couldn't use [Stat-o-Vision™] because there was no physical object to observe.
At least nothing blew up.
Even as he was thinking it, he knew he was tempting fate, but nothing more happened. Nothing went wrong. The peace lasted for many hours.
It was past midnight when a new notification appeared.
[You have received a missive from Cecil. Read it? (Y/N)]
I have mail? Y
"The false core shattered! She knows she has been tricked, and she is marching us back toward the dungeon. I believe we will arrive before dawn. Her power is weakened without the core, so I may be able to break free. If I do, I will attempt to delay Her." – Cecil (via [Magic Missive])