I had some choices to make on what I wanted my first third tier purchase to be, I had already decided that it would be a monster. Primarily because I wanted to make it my avatar. According to the stats it looked like tier three monsters were stronger than the average human.

There were a wide variety of tier three monsters though. I quickly discarded most of the undead. The only one that came close to interesting me was the vampire. The main problem being that it was a tier four monster. Meaning it would cost a thousand points to purchase. Plus they had a ton of weaknesses. I didn’t want an avatar that would be killed with the first light spell or dash of blessed water.

Demons were obviously out. I didn’t want to risk people viewing me as evil just because of the avatar I picked. The only reason that wouldn’t have been as big an issue with the vampire was because of recent vampire fiction. I kind of doubted real vampires sparkled and drank animal blood though.

That still left a ton of options. After a bit of examination I discarded the plant tier three’s also. I wanted something humanoid. The only humanoid tier three plant was the dryad. Since I also wanted a male avatar that wasn’t an option for me. For similar reasons anything slime based was out. None of the tier three options were humanoid.

Next up were the tier three animals. Anything reptile was out since all the tier three humanoids were scaled and cold blooded. That wasn’t terrible but there were better options. It looked like tier three was when the first few lycanthropes became available. When I looked though I realized all of the tier three lycans were rodent or herbivore based. I wasn’t interested in being a wererat or worse a wererabbit.

For a moment I was tempted by the tier three elemental. A large earth elemental would drastically speed up expanding my dungeon. Eventually I decided against it because I wasn’t interested in doing the work myself. I also wasn’t sure about them as an avatar. I wasn’t sure what having a body made of water, air, earth, or fire would be like. I’d have to keep them in mind as a fourth monster choice.

There were a bunch of other monsters but one by one I eliminated them as choices. In the end the choice was kind of ironic. I had selected goblinoids as my first monster. It looked like a tier three goblinoid monster was also the best choice for what I wanted in an avatar.

Stat wise the orc was nearly perfect. It had very high strength, constitution, and dexterity. Its intelligence, wisdom, and charisma were average, which was lower than most tier three monsters. Since my dungeon stats would replace those last three, it was nearly perfect.

I selected the orc and another screen showed up asking me which orc I wanted. Each orc had a name and slightly different looks. There were some slight variations in stats, but they were fairly similar. Since it was going to be my avatar I cared far more about how the orc looked.

As I was clicking through suddenly I stopped. One of the orcs didn’t have tusks. Without the tusks the orc looked a lot like a very muscular green human. Although it did have quite a few scars. On the plus side it’s stats were above average for an orc. Since I wasn’t a fan of the tusks and the stats were decent I decided that it was the winner.

The orc appeared and I instantly designated it as my new avatar. As I flexed my new muscles I smiled. I hadn’t been in great shape a few days ago.I had a six pack now and my arms were bigger than my legs used to be. Looking down I realized that orcs were also pretty well endowed. Significantly larger than the average human.

I created a set of leather armor that was orc sized. Resizing armor was one of the benefits of using mana to create it. Then I looked into the store to see what else I could purchase. A couple of tier two items would drastically increase the power of my avatar.

The first item I settled on a necklace that had the ability to deflect ranged attacks. I was really hoping that it would work on bullets. Like all enchantments the necklace had limited mana capacity before it needed to be recharged. I was pretty confident that I could figure out how to recharge it though.

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I absorbed it so that I could create as many as I wanted. When I created it I looked on in shock as it used as much mana as summoning a goblin. I quickly gave up on the idea of equipping more than a handful of my goblins with them.

Eventually I decided that my second purchase would be a melee weapon. A rifle was a good weapon, but less useful inside an enclosed space such as the dungeon. In addition a melee weapon would take advantage of the high strength stat of my orc avatar.

I started out looking at the swords but quickly realized I didn’t know anything about fighting with a sword. I needed something simpler. Eventually I found the perfect weapon for my orc avatar. It was a metal warhammer, similar to a sledgehammer except that one side was pointed.

The warhammer also had a simple magical enchantment. Using that enchantment would drastically increase the force of the warhammer when it struck an enemy. A rune would let me activate and deactivate the enchantment. It seemed to be a common way to set up an enchantment on weapons, that way the user could decide when to use the mana in the enchantment and when to save it. With a limited number of enchanted strikes it would be best to save them for when it counted.

For instance it would be overkill to use the enchantment if my blow was going to strike a human in the head, or even the chest. With my orc’s strength it would be a miracle for anyone to survive a simple strike from the warhammer, unless they had armor, or I was hitting them in an arm or leg. On the other hand I suspected that the bear would have been able to survive a body shot from the warhammer, although it would probably have been severely injured. So using the enchantment would probably turn the same blow into something that was instantly fatal. I suspected there would eventually be enemies even tougher than the bear. So even if the warhammer was overkill for fighting humans it would still be useful.

I purchased the warhammer and absorbed it. It cost as much as the amulet in order to create. Well worth it for my avatar but not remotely worth creating for my goblins.

That left me with fourteen points. Up to this point I had been focused on the various monsters and equipment that I could purchase. Before I spent more points I wanted to see what else was available.

My eyes widened as I settled on a few interesting items. One was a collar that would allow me to bind a creature to my dungeon. I took a closer look at the details.

Dungeon Compliance Collar – Cost 10 points

Any living creature wearing this collar will be bound to the dungeon. Like dungeon spawned creatures they will not age, and if they die in the dungeon they will respawn within twenty four hours. They will be unable to remove the collar or leave the dungeon. They will be forced to obey all orders given by the dungeon.

It was expensive but well worth the cost. I wish I had seen the collar before the bear from earlier had invaded my dungeon. Collaring it would have drastically increased my power. Next time I ran across a similar opportunity I wanted to be able to take it.

The rest of the items that caught my eye were books. There was an entire section of the shop devoted to various books. Some were simply informational and contained descriptions and images of the various sentient races, monsters, plants, and so on. Others contained information about how to use magic. The book that caught my eye was one that was a blood magic grimoire

Novice Blood Grimoire – Cost 10 points

This book explains the basics of blood magic. Blood magic can be used to gain mana from pain, suffering, and death. It can also be used to heal flesh wounds or make injuries worse.

It sounded evil but I was pretty sure that magic was a tool like any other. Just like any weapon or tool it was all about how it was used. The fact that blood magic could heal seemed to prove this point.

Both these items were second tier and would cost ten points each. I was hesitant to buy both of them though. For now I decided to only purchase one of them in case I needed the points for something else.

After a bit of consideration I decided on the blood magic grimoire. It was still a few hours until morning and I needed something to do. Also it would be very useful if I could heal my injured goblins.

A couple hours later I had gained a basic competence in blood magic. My high intelligence was good for more than just increasing my mana capacity. As my goblins were starting to wake up my orc avatar walked into their room, it was time to introduce myself to them. I could have done so with the overnight crew but they had already been busy working on the next room.