“Anyway, I’ll be going.” Luna announces immediately afterwards. “I have important things to do in the Upper Realms. You know, people to torture, cocaine to snort, all that jazz.”
Cocaine?
Torture?
Wait, why is cocaine what you focus on first?
The concept of a god snorting divine-equivalent of cocaine was actually interesting unlike them torturing people
I’d ask what is wrong with you but we don’t have time to listen to the full list.
“Awww, you two are so adorable together.” Luna lets herself squeal a little. “Anyway, I’m leaving you a single-use ‘get out of jail free’ card. Consider it a little something from me so that you can’t say that I dropped you here without any help.”
She extends her hand and lets some of her shadows drop onto the floor, merging with the near darkness of the cave, one illuminated only by the odd light given out by the tesseract.
Nice.
Just one should be enough, she knows who is going to visit the place first, perks of being a god of her caliber, and anything more than that would be absolute overkill.
Unless, you know, other gods of her caliber would intervene directly, but it was highly unlikely as they were probably very busy fighting a never ending war in the Spiritual Realms and above.
“Have fun!” She then shouts… and disappears instantly.
…
…
You think it’s really gone?
I don’t know
But I don’t care
Because I have a DUNGEON TO FURNISH, FUCK YEAH
I wanted to say some variant ‘we’re lost in a magical world and there is no coming back to who we once were’, but then I realized that for you it has to be a dream come true.
Yes
Also, you’re the last person I want to be in charge of anything whatsoever.
pffft
git gud hero bitch
You’ve never commanded anything
Yes.
Which makes me the better pick for the job than you.
what?
One of us has brought dozens of hardened thugs, a bioengineered superweapon and a living portal to attack a hero school, defended by four heroes and twenty students in total. And lost everything he brought with him, aside from the living portal. While managing to knock out of battle a grand total of, what, two enemies?
The other one is me.
You little shit, that was an action tutorial, those sometimes lead to an unexpected boss that you have to evade before spending rest of the game preparing to defeat him
Like in the Rifts, ever heard of it?
You’re probably the only person in the world who knows about whatever it is.
Besides, the Training Camp attack went off much better
…
You lost Muscular, Moonfish and Mustard, plus let the enemies track you back to your base.
In exchange you’ve managed to kidnap one student and one teacher, and I’m not entirely sure if the teacher wasn’t knocked out by All for One in person rather than by one of your underlings.
And both of the people you kidnapped were promptly rescued because you missed a tracking device on a noumu. Within, what, one day?
Truly, you’re the modern Sun Tzu of villainy and we should all bow before your superior strategic skills.
What the hell
why are you acting like that?
That’s not very All Might of you
First of all, don’t mention that name.
Second of all, in the last two weeks, I ended up having to battle Overhaul to the death and witness the death of Sir Nighteye, and then, as I started to calm down after all the stress, I was kidnapped into a fantasy world and locked together with you in a cube the size of your attention to basic hygiene.
I’m very stressed, and I’m not coping well with the situation.
bruh, chill
You’re acting worse than Dabi on a bad day
do you have any knowledge about playing strategy games?
No.
Fantasy games?
No.
…
You’re absolutely useless then
Sit back and enjoy me streaming any% speedrun of this shit
Start
using
normal
W O R D S.
No.
***
The cave they were in was extremely small and unassuming. From the entrance, there was an about ten meters long and mostly straight corridor that was largely easy to walk through - the ceiling started at around two point five meters up and then steadily declined to about two meters. It was also at least one meter wide, and had a largely even floor.
At the end of the distance, the cave turned to the right only to begin to rapidly decline in width and height. After about two or three meters it reached the point where - for about two more meters - Izuku would have to crawl (if he, you know, had a physical body).
It was really tight, and even then you had to climb down a bit, as the entrance to that section was about half a meter above the exit.
A sufficiently overweight person could absolutely get stuck there, and only get out because it was pretty short.
Behind that point, the cave split. If you came in from the outside, you’d be facing a short (maybe four meters long?) segment of the tunnel leading to the location of their Astral Core. Meaning that they were less than twenty meters form the entrance, and that was very unsafe.
Right before the Core Room, there were two side corridors, one to the right, one to the left. The one to the left (this time when looking from the direction of the Core) was a bit higher than the Core Room, while the other side was slightly lower.
Unlike the tight passage leading to it, that whole side corridor was pretty… passable. High Walls, ceiling and floor were far enough from each other to allow a person to stand and maybe swing around a weapon, if it wasn’t very long.
That was their home now.
image [https://i.imgur.com/76lvzFV.png]
1. Entrance, 2. Narrow Passage, 3. Dungeon Core
This sucks
Literally anyone can just walk inside and do a quick stroll to the Core
What about the passage in the middle?
It feels like something to make a person, you know, stop.
Looks like a place to get easily stuck in, and it’s too dark on the other side for people to know that there’s something cool inside.
Do you actually have to speak to me
We’re going to be here, together, until we die.
Get used to it.
Urgh.
You have a point but also no
The Core gives off just enough light to be able to see that there’s something down there
Right.
Now that I think about it, the entrance is where we’re exhaling all of that mana thing to.
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If there are mages out there, they might be able to spot it.
And now you’re using your brain, wowie zowie
But yes, you have a point there
Hmph
We definitely have to find a way to move ourselves further away from the entrance
Alright, now… how do I make changes?
Oh, there’s the UI..
???
How do you open the UI?!
Git gud
Oh, it opened up when I wanted it to open.
Ghrr
The UI was pretty simple. To the right, they had a list of resources and stats. It listed them as being on the “Level One” of the Dungeon, which had an Ambient Mana Level of 1, and for their Core to have accumulated 34/100 units of Residual Mana.
To the left they had several buttons, which showed up what they’ve managed to obtain thus far.
[Layout]
[Locations]
[Entities]
[Decorations]
[Items]
[Skills and Abilities]
[Laws]
[Decorations], [Items], [Skills and Abilities] and [Laws] (whatever that was) were grayed out, being clearly locked for now.
Clear enough.
When Izuku opened up the [Layout] section, the new window that popped up involved a full list of [Biomes] that they could work with.
There was a whole one of those. The [Limestone Cave]. When Izuku looked at it, the UI immediately displayed a brief information blurb, describing it as a completely natural cave with walls formed out of limestone and no notable things about it.
For as long as he ‘pushed’ a button right next to it, he could start… repainting their Domain. That much he knew from the start. Just, somehow . And to a degree, the process was… streamlined?
He could create a location while painting every single detail of it, down to the exact shaping of the walls… but he could also let it run on an autopilot, letting the instinctual understanding of the concept of ‘Limestone Caves’ that the Dungeon Heart absorbed (how did he know that it was another common name for the Core?) guide the creation. Making it look… natural on its own.
Very intuitive.
Luna might have been an evil god, but it knew how to make things intuitive and easy to use.
Izuku ends up ignoring Tomura and tries,for a test, to draw a slight extension to one of the two side tunnels. The result?
Once he decides what’s the desired shape, the system informs him how much of the Residual Mana would this require to be done. He then gets to decide whether he wants to do it or not.
Huh.
Oh, fuck me
What?
Before he gets an answer, he is prompted to accept the modification to the Level One layout by his co-administrator, Tomura Shigaraki.
Pffft.
So much about letting me sit back and witness your strategic genius at work, huh?
Fuck off
Truly, the greatest streamer in history.
Oh, now you’re pissing me off
I am?
…
Wait a moment, did you actually try to stream videogames but no one watched you?
PISS OFF
I can diagnose your streaming career’s problems from here.
Too much ranting about the heroes and not enough positivity, humor, mental cohesiveness, basic hygiene… and the list goes on and on.
…
Have you considered becoming a VTuber? At least no one would have to see your face.
The alternative was for you to start caring for your skin, applying a good make-up and getting a real-time voice changer so you could maybe pass for a girl with some minor animal mutation? That could actually sell on the market.
If I let you offer your input on creating things, are you going to stop being somehow more annoying than All Might
Your terms are acceptable.
Okay
So the idea I have right now is to expand the tunnel on the other side of the passage, in the opposite direction of the passage
So that people if they, say, get lost and decide to spend the night in the entrance cave, they might not bother to check that small crevice leading deeper into it
How does that sound, Mr. Small Might
That’s a very logical idea, and I’m on board with it.
I accept.
There was no field for cheating there. Izuku knew what changes Tomura intended to make, he just wanted to hear why exactly.
They’ve lost three Residual Mana points. In an instant, the wall of the small hall on the other side of the tight passage… retreated. Just moved back, expanding the hall in question.
Makes you wonder how fast the Residual Mana recovers and how we can get more of it.
Thinking about resource gathering, huh
I was just figuring out to apply changes here, now it’s the remaining panels before the next move
Layout panel allows them to designate segments of the Dungeon as [Room], [Hall] or a [Lair]. [Rooms] are, well, rooms - without that ‘bigger on the inside’ mechanic, but with some predefined purpose to carry.
[Halls] are apparently larger spaces with that dimensional compression thing, but they have nothing on the list, and the option is grayed out. Same with [Lairs], which are apparently dedicated areas for long-term creature settlement.
The list of options for [Rooms] involved two whole things. First one was the [Throne Room, Basic], which apparently allowed them to relocate their Core into another location (at the cost of some temporary ‘blackout’ while moving there). Second one was the [Node Room, Basic].
According to the description, Node Room involved creating a sort of secondary Dungeon Core, which enhanced your ability to store Residual Mana, while also slightly improving Residual Mana generation.
Caveats to this?
First of all, it had to be created between the Dungeon Core and the exit to ensure appropriate flow of mana between the place where it was created and where it was vented out of the Dungeon. You couldn’t put it in some random dead-end room behind the Throne Room.
Second of all, it allowed invaders and inhabitants of the dungeon to tap into your mana flow, but that wasn't a problem. The amount of magic they could steal from you wasn’t large, but it was quite enough to allow any remotely skilled mage to cast potent defensive and early warning spells, while powering them nigh-infinitely.
Apparently what passed for ‘small amounts of mana’ for the Dungeons was ‘almost incomprehensible amounts of mana’ for the mortals.
There were also items that could allow the same to be done without a mage in the party.
In short, to expand their Residual Mana generation and storage ability, they’d have to create potential safe spots for the future adventurers/invaders to rest in, restore their mana, lift their fatigue and probably patch up their wounds.
Well, that was annoying.
Also, to create the basic variant of the Node Room, they would have to spend a whopping 50 points of Residual Mana.
This is annoying.
It is, yeah
Hm
Okay so I think I figured out the meta for this game
Meta?
How the Dungeon’s supposed to look like to work
Main part is a route from entrance to the Dungeon Core, with some Nodes spread through it, and I think that Nodes improve Ambient Mana Level inside them a little, so you can put more creatures/minibosses there.
Around it, Lairs, who act as spawning points for creatures that then roam the corridors at random and make stuff more complicated for the attackers.
Lairs are also probably acting as bonus locations that can be visited and there is some larger loot, but it’s very dangerous
Halls are something of a bigger obstacle, which might become extremely dangerous depending on the location and type of nearby Lairs that can populate it with additional enemies
Makes sense.
Node Room mechanics still looks like a problematic thing, especially with how the adventurers can rest there. Even if they have to eliminate a miniboss to do that.
Not that much of a problem in the long-term
I mean, even if they lock themselves in, if there are creatures roaming around the dungeon, we can siege them until they have to leave, right?
That’s… actually not the worst idea ever!
We can also keep them inside until they die of thirst
Just have to remember to not put any water sources inside those rooms
… sigh
The [Entities] panel was very, very bare. There was a whole one subpanel, listed merely as Dungeon. In it were two whole entries.
[Astral Shard] and [Astral Slime]. Estimated Threat Level: 7 and 6 (however much that was). Both of them were described as minuscule bits of Dungeon’s mana flow made dense enough to either become semi-liquid for the slime or even solid for shards.
Both were described as extremely weak and unable to leave the Dungeon. However, due to being born directly from the Dungeon’s power, they could be to some degree commanded by the Dungeon’s will.
Wanting to know more about them expanded their description and threw in some more technical data. They were both small and not very mobile. Shard was a primarily ranged attacker, while Slime attacked up close. Their attack’s type was listed down as Arcane, which according to further inquiry meant basic unattuned magical attack.
Oddly enough, Arcane attacks caused physical damage. What they did, to their understanding of subject matter, was get a fistful of mana and fire it at the enemy with relatively high speed. Without, you know, trying to conjure anything out of said mana.
This is the worst. The worst
Complete trash mobs
It’s definitely not DnD-based as this shit sounds barely like some lvl one stuff rather than lvl eight one
Yes, but we can place thirty two of them.
Power in numbers, right?
…
…
Look, in my defense, you’re the one who thought of this.
So it totally wasn’t about the USJ?
No, no it wasn’t.
(- _ - )
Oh, look, I can do basic emojis
Why?
We’re not placing any creatures until we move the core and make the tunnel a bit deeper
Fair.
Oh, by the way, about the corpse in the throne room that I don’t want to think about.
Can we assimilate it?
We can definitely try.
And yes, they can. The moment they focus on it, the corpse of the woman lying by the wall of the throne room… shrinks into the floor(?). That’s the best way to describe what they saw.
They get their first unlocks right after. They actually manage to open up the [Decorations] panel! And that’s pretty much all of it.
The announcement they get out of it is that the equipment the corpse was carrying was too damaged to be assimilated, but they got a new unlock in the form of…
Decoration/Corpses/Sapient/Human [Woman, Dried].
They can put fake, dried human corpses around their Dungeon. For decoration. What exactly do decorations do? They have no idea. It was probably all for aesthetics. Probably.
We’re not putting any of that. Anywhere. At all.
Afraid of some spooky scary cooorpses?
No.
I just don’t feel comfortable with human remains.
I’m not scared, but I just don’t want to look at it.
Right.
Decorations are stupid waste of time and resources
We can skip it altogether
Are you sure that there’s no mechanical effect of those? I just don’t feel like something like that would be added for no other reason than just aesthetics.
A lot of people care about those
That’s a reason in itself
Hmmm.
We’ll check it out later, once we have spare RM.
Do we have to?
Yes.
You’re being annoying.
That’s kind of the whole point of my existence at this point.
The next point of the job for the day is deepening the dungeon (and adding another curve to it) so that they can then relocate the throne room into a deeper segment of the place. And it turns out that updates to the Dungeon can have more than one element to them.
In short, for as long as they think about it properly, they can smooth the current throne room into a corridor while also removing the throne room designation from it, prolonging said corridor and creating another room… before redesignating it as a throne room.
And then accept it all at once.
And yes. They temporarily black out afterwards.
That’s… an annoying mechanic.
Any idea how long we were out?
Do I look as if I own a clock
Okay.
Anyway, are we putting some creatures in now?
We have twenty RM units left.
Ten points for moving the Core is fucking cheating
We literally just teleported our tesseract into a different place.
I can understand it being fairly costly.
Why
Do not empathize with the System
We’re supposed to break it
That’s your questline. I enjoy living as a part of the System.
You’re unbelievably annoying
And I can practically feel All Might’s approval from wherever he is now.
You turned out be so much of a sassy little shit when pushed out of your comfort zone that I’m torn between starting to like you and wanting to kill you
First of all, you’ve already wanted to kill me, I’m not buying that whole ‘you’re not memorable enough for me to remember’ thing for a single second.
Second of all, two whole emotions at once?! What an impressive character development.
Yes, you’re a completely different person when pushed to the brink, good to know
Ten Astral Shards and ten Astral Slimes?
I think that putting in more Slimes than Shards makes sense, as we need to stop someone’s movement to be able to pellet them with Shards’ attacks from a safe distance.
For example, right after they crawl through the crevice.
Fifteen Slimes and five Shards?
That’s my idea, yeah.
Alright then, here goes nothing.
image [https://i.imgur.com/YekWUl4.png]
1. Entrance, 2. Narrow Passage, 3. Dungeon Core