As soon as I selected yes, a flood of information poured into me giving me ideas of what all I would be able to make right from the start, and the requirements to be able to increase my level and possible what I am able to make. It also appears that I can experiment and create new types of creatures as well.
“Hmm so Lexa it seems that I can create very basic golems, of earth or fire right now. They will only be a half a meter tall. The earth golem has a stronger defense than the fire golem, whereas the fire golems have a stronger attack it seems.”
“Well it seems that we should make a few golems to get started with right now. That way we will have some small form of protection for the immediate future. Also, I think that we should start building more rooms and tunnels, since we only have this single room right now.”
“That does sound like a good idea, it costs one hundred mana to make either type of golem, so I think I’ll just start off with four. Two of each for now, and then we can see in the future which ones we will make more of.”
Having said that I proceeded to spend my 400 mana and right in front of me appeared two brown and two red golems. The earth golems looked like solid rock and dirt in a slightly humanoid form, two legs, two arms and a head. Overall it was very basic, and it appears that its primary way of attacking is to just smash things with its arms. Whereas the fire golem has two arms, a head, and a core body, where the legs on the earth golem is, instead it has a V shaped lower body with flames coming out from it, which seems to keep it floating in the air.
“Wow, Lukas I like the fire ones they are nice and warm.” As she floated around them, “It’s like being constantly in a nice blanket, ha-ha.”
“Well you can play around with them for now, I’m going to start excavating more rooms and passages so that we have more room down here.”
The room I am currently in is rather small so I figure I should start by making it bigger, five meters square, with a ceiling of around three meters tall. In fact, I think I’m going to keep most of the rooms about that height until I get to have minions that need more space.
From there I proceeded to start making a tunnel, where all this stone and dirt is going I have no idea, but I feel like it is stored just waiting for me to have a need of it. I am making rooms for about half an hour and then suddenly I just cannot do anything else, it’s like I hit a barrier and cannot remove any more stone where I am excavating.
“Hey, Lexa, why can I not remove any more stone where I am trying to make a room right now?”
“You probably have run out of mana, it isn’t like you have that much to begin with, and you have been at it for a while now, and everything you do requires mana. You will just have to wait to gather some more before you can continue.”
As she says this I feel for my mana and I notice that she is correct, I currently only have one point of mana. How I know the exact amount that I have is unknown to me, but I just do. I can feel my mana pool slowly refilling, at about the rate of 1 mana points, or MP, a minute. At this rate it is going to take 16.6 hours to refill my pool to maximum. Well nothing I can do but wait I guess for now, or maybe there is something I can do.
I order my two earth golems to go to where I was working and have them start manually digging out, it doesn’t matter that much because I can feel that I am already rather close to breaking out into the open air and that is what I was working towards the whole time. I made 5 rooms and just straight hallways between them for now, I had just wanted to get outside to begin with, from there I will work on making my dungeon more challenging to get through.
After the golems dug for about fifteen minutes they finally hit the outside air, and instantly I can feel my mana pool refilling faster than before, at the rate of 3mp/min.
“Hey Lexa, I finally hit the outside, the golems just finished digging through to it, and now my mana is filling back up faster than before. Isn’t it just great.”
“No, no, no, this cannot be happening, we are not ready to have the dungeon opened to the outside. Now people will be able to find us and we are nowhere near ready enough to be able to defend ourselves. What will I do, this is all my fault I should have warned you about the dangers of opening ourselves to the outside sooner, I just didn’t think you would be able to make it there yet.” Lexa was talking at a mile a minute, with no apparent want to slow down so I interrupt her.
“Calm down Lexa, it is not your fault, I probably should have asked and talked to you about this first, I was just excited to be open to the outside, I don’t understand why, but it just felt like I had to open up to the outside as fast as I could, but now I don’t feel the need to be open to the outside.”
“Yes, all dungeons have the feeling of having to be open, it’s almost a compulsion, I forgot about that, well I guess there is nothing we can do but prepare for when people figure out where we are. I am going to go take a peak outside and see what our surroundings are like, and while I do that just save up your mana, we are going to need it to make some more defenders and traps.”
As Lexa made her way outside, I order the earth golems to dig a few holes in the tunnels, about two meters deep, and about a meter wide and long. These I will cover with a small layer of dirt to keep it looking like regular tunnel floor when I have the mana. I figure some basic pit fall traps will be fine for now.
When Lexa made her way back to the core room she was very excited. “So we are on top of a small hill, a few hundred meters away from a big forest. There is not much else around us, but with the forest nearby I will be able to gather plants and bring them to you so that we can have more than just plain stone and dirt walls. I think that once you have enough mana we should summon a few more earth and fire golems, that way we can set up which rooms have which minions.”
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“I was actually thinking about that, and right now since we have five rooms, besides the core room, I was thinking that we should have a single earth golem and fire golem in the first room, then two of each in the next room, and continue increasing the numbers more each room until the last where we will have five of each. I already have started the current earth golems on digging a few pit fall traps in the tunnels connecting between the rooms, just one or two in each tunnel, and when I have the mana I will cover then with a small layer of stone that will break under pressure making people fall into the holes.”
“Yes, that is a good idea, and once we have the rooms set up like that you should save up your mana so that you can purchase your level two, since it will cost 1000 mana to do so. When you level up your mana pool should also increase as well as increase the gathering speed of mana for you as well. With that we should be able to continue making more rooms and minions, and who knows you might unlock another minion at your next level. I will go out and gather plants for you so that we can have a bit more diversity in our dungeon.”
Over the next 14.5 hours I continued summoning golems until I had the 15 of each that I needed to put into the rooms, and covered up the pit fall traps with dirt. With this I should be relatively safe for now, who knows how long it will take for people to figure out that we are here.
After another five and a half hours I finally had enough mana to be able to purchase my next level, which of course I immediately did, and upon doing so I felt my core grow another half and inch on all sides. My mana pool grew to 2000, and my passive mana regeneration increased to 5MP a minute. Unfortunately, I did not receive any new knowledge on more minions, but I did learn how to summon a few types of plants that could be used for decoration, unfortunately, they were all ones I already had from Lexa gathering plants this whole time.
It was at this time however that I noticed some people approaching the front of my dungeon, which was still just a tunnel three meters tall and about two wide. As the group approached I could see that it was a group of four, three men and one woman. Two of the men were wearing chain mail armor and had swords, the other was wearing leather armor and had a few daggers around his body. The woman was wearing a robe and had a staff in her right hand.
“Well look what is here, for once that stupid device back at the guild hall was not wrong, it looks like there is in fact a dungeon here. We should be able to make a decent amount of coin for bringing back information on what is inside.” One of the men in chain armor said.
“I don’t know, we are only supposed to check to see if the dungeon is here, and if so report back so that the guild can send a proper team to clear the dungeon and rate it.” The woman replied back.
This started a small argument about whether or not they should enter and try to clear the dungeon, which ended with the three guys agreeing to clear it for the extra money. They proceeded to form up with the two chain armored men in front followed by the dagger wielding man and the woman.
“Hey so Lexa, we have for people entering the dungeon, they were talking about coming here because of some device at their guild.”
“Oh, that is good, only the adventure guilds have those devices. They invented them and have never given them out because they do not want any unsavory people being able to locate new dungeons and steal their cores.”
“Well, I am grateful for that at least, I rather like my core where it is at.” I laughed
“For them to have gotten here so quickly there must be a town rather close by, this means that there should be a dungeon outpost built here rather quickly so that they can train adventurers here.”
“Well that sounds good then, they are approaching the first room, let’s see how they do.” Having said that I project what is happening in the first room into the air for Lexa to watch.
“Hey so there were no traps in the first hallway, that is always nice.” Said one of the two in the front.
‘Way to state the obvious Brian.” The woman said back
“Hey Lauren, no need to be snippy. Do any of you know what those things there are.” The other man in front said, having approached the entrance to the first room, they all saw the two golems waiting for them.
“Those are a Fire and Earth golem Eric, just basic ones judging by the size of them. However, I have never heard of a dungeon that has golems, typically you only see them defending Nobles homes or a wizard’s keep.” Lauren replied.
“Let’s just stay in standard formation guys. Lauren heal us if needed, but otherwise attack those golems, same for you Joel. Brian and I will keep their attention, and you two will take them down.’
With that the four of them entered into the room, and proceeded to attack. The earth golem started forward to meet Brian and smashed its arms towards him, to which Brian sidestepped and hit it with his sword, knocking off one of its arms.
The fire golem just started shooting small fireballs at Eric, which he dodged most, but was struck in the side by one. During this time Joel ran forward and started hacking at the fire golem with his knives. After about five seconds of hitting it, its body shattered and left behind a very small red crystal. By this time Lauren and Brian had finished destroying the earth golem, and received a very small brown crystal from it.
After Lauren finished healing the burn that Eric received, they all continued down the next hallway towards the second room. Upon entering they saw all four of the golems waiting for them, and they proceeded the same way as before, with each pair taking on a pair of golems. The golems each attacked in a pair of one earth and one fire golem.
The earth golems moved into melee range of the fighters, while the fire golems proceeded to just launch fireballs at the party. After about 2 minutes they had finished off all of the golems, but they were all sporting a few injuries. Joel had a few burns from when he ran forward to kill their fire golem, and Eric had a broken rib from where the earth golem managed to hit him. Brian only had a few burns from their fire golem, since Lauren managed to destroy their fire golem rather quickly, so he could focus on the earth golem.
After collecting the crystals from all four bodies, they decided to continue and check out the next room, and upon seeing the enemies, “Guys, I think that we should just turn around and go report what we have seen here, I’m sure that we will be able to get a decent reward for the information we have, and I do not know if we can take six golems at once right now, maybe once we have all of our team back from their mission we can continue, but right now I do not want to risk it.” Lauren told her team.
“Yeah, I think that is a good idea, lets head back to town and report what we have found to the guild, they will send out a team to rank the dungeon and maybe set up an outpost if they feel like it is a good investment.”
With that the group of four turned around and proceeded out of the dungeon, and started their walk back to Dranksay.
“So, Lexa, I don’t think we did too badly there, and at least I got most of the mana back from my minions that died. I received 90 mana when each one died.”
“Yes Lukas, any time any creature dies in your dungeon you will receive mana back. If it is one of your minions you get most of the mana back so that you can recreate it more quickly, whereas if it is an adventurer you will receive an amount based off of the individual person. The stronger the adventurer is the more mana you will receive upon their deaths.”