In the end, I waited a good ten hours for my mana to fully regenerate while I pondered if the system would allow me to make the golems as I wanted, or if it was a set-in-stone kind of body.
Okay Fel, you got this man. No pressure, just your first three dungeon minions... I hyped myself up as much as I could, and began summoning the first of the three golems. I opted for the minimum amount of resources available, to start with. Within thirty seconds, the very first golem was standing in my core room.
“Congratulations! You have created your first dungeon monster and earned ten Exp,” System chimed in happily.
“Uh, thanks buddy,” I replied, staring at my first golem. Well, guess for now it’s the ‘can’t edit how it looks’ variety. It stood three feet high, and was about two feet wide. The limbs were chunky and rough-hewn, as was the rest of the torso. I have no idea why it’s missing a head, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask. Well, onto the next one!
Another thirty seconds, and I went for the maximum amount of physical resources allowed for my golems. Immediately, I noted that the mana cost remained the same at five, which was nice. This golem, however, filled up a good chunk of my core room’s available space. Ten feet high and six wide, the golem appeared as if a boulder had decided to get up and walk around, using smaller boulders for limbs. I quickly made a twin of this one, for one mini golem and two big golems total.
“Alright you three, congratulations on being my very first minions!” I said aloud while feeling a weird sense of lethargy. Huh, with the dimensions of the hole I dug to get the stone, and their dimensions... Are they hollow or something? Somethin’ ain’t exactly adding up, but I ain’t never been the best at math so it’s probably fine. Probably. I was able to ignore the feeling for now, as a new button popped up in my vision below a small clock that displayed the remaining time till I had to open up. The golems didn’t move at all.
I activated the button, and suddenly found myself in a third-person-view of my dungeon, with the surroundings all dark and foggy. Okay then... hmm, this must be the dungeon-sight all those dungeon core series I read mentioned. I waved a hand over the section leading from the hole I’d dug earlier, and felt happy as a ‘blueprint’ came into being into the darkness, stretching out from my core room. In moments, it stretched twenty feet down at a gentle decline, eleven feet wide and thirteen high, with roughly arched ceilings. Alright, this looks good for now. Let’s see if they’re able to dig this out.
The trio stood near-motionless near the pit. I looked at the area they were to dig, and noticed a little box near the tunnel-to-be with a [confirm] and [cancel] button. I sighed in light frustration, and hit [confirm]. Immediately the golems jumped down and began striking the earth, tearing great chunks out of the stone which disappeared as fast as the chunks were made.
“Woohoo!” I exclaimed aloud, watching the golems go. The two large ones tore out the large chunks, and the tiny one finished the edges of the tunnel into nice corners.
It was then the feeling of lethargy got more than a little worrisome, so I checked my statbox.
Name:
Fel
Floors:
1
Level:
1
Treasure Quality:
Poor
Race:
Grand Dungeon
Creatures:
3/10
Exp:
10/15
Traps:
0/2
Mana:
0.0/15.0
Inventory:
+
Mana Regen:
0.9/Hr [1.5]
Skills/Traits:
+
Magic Disciplines:
+
“Hey System, what happened to my mana regeneration?” I asked.
“Each uncored golem, due to your specialization, costs 0.1 mana per hour, Additionally with the rate of current expansion, 0.1 mana per hour per golem is required to make sure said golems do not fall apart due to leaving your territory as they dig!” System replied like it was explaining to a child that was having a hard time grasping the concept. “This should have been fairly obvious to you as a dungeon.”
That... makes sense, though that really puts a hurt on my rapid expansion dreams. My domain, for lack of a better term, looks like it expands as my creatures dig out the rooms and tunnels, which makes sense. Kinda sucks that it sucks out mana that I could use to get more creatures or traps faster, but hopefully that won’t be as much of a problem in the future. For now, I think I’m gonna sit back, relax, an-
“Search is complete. The [Constructs] category is available for specialization,” System interrupted my train of thought.
“Ah, sweet! I’ma take that then,” I smiled and did just that. Hmm, can’t make anything in that category right now ‘cause it’s EMPTY! But at least this puts to rest one little worry. My golems don’t now suddenly cost as much as normal, but I’m betting that anything else is double-priced.
I took one look under the [Humanoids] category, and felt my eyebrows raise. Those... are some really damn high requirements. Fifty mana for the smallest gnome, two hundred for a dryad, five hundred for a fairy? Geez, and that’s not counting the organic components, and some inorganics... Some intere- I stopped as I noticed one creature species in particular.
“Well now, if it isn’t one of the most dangerous monsters in all of creation,” I mumbled to myself. I left a mental bookmark on the species, and raised an eyebrow in that it mentioned that no dungeon had specialized in it yet. “I think I’ll pick this one up later, much later.” I quietly said to myself, and with that I stopped perusing the menus and took a quick cat nap while the golems hammered away at their tunnel.
Over the next four hours I checked in on them occasionally, and looked through the creature menus noting which ones were interesting but not specialization-worthy. There were a fair few that caught my attention, but still my gaze was drawn to what had originally caught my eye. That’s when I had a thought occur to me.
“Say System, who used to have the [Construct] and [Golem] specializations? From what I imagine, they would’ve been incredibly useful to any dungeon before.”
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“The Great Dungeon of Tak’ro was the holder for the mentioned categories,” System depressedly replied. “With his death, the specializations opened back up for any dungeon to take.”
“And the others?”
“Taken by three other Grand Dungeons, if you like, I can search for their names.”
“Not right now,” I replied, deciding to take a break for now. At least now with the expansion semi-automated, nothing will go wrong. Nope. Didn’t just jinx it for myself. Not at a- GODDAMNIT MURPHY! How could I have not foreseen this?
I had just been slammed with the notification that Golem Number Three had just died after leaving my domain. How? How? There shouldn’t be anything down here other than rock and stone!
I whisked my vision over to where the golem had died, and saw that there was a large hole in the end of the tunnel, entering into another, definitely not natural hallway. A large clump of rocks that I could tell was the body of the missing golem lay on the ground in the new area, with the remaining two standing back and not moving. The boulders of the golem were cracked, showing that they were indeed hollow. I could see the barest glint of something within, but it faded away as quickly as I noticed it.
I could also feel that my mana regeneration had suddenly taken a massive hit. One quick check later, and breaking into the hallway ate up another .5 mana per hour, though the net loss was only .3 due to the golem dying on me. On the plus side, with the hallway being pre-built, my domain expanded quickly. Too quickly.
“Uh, System? How do I stop my domain from expanding?” I asked in a bit of a panic, watching my mana regen tick down another point.
“Why would you wish to do that?” System exclaimed in bewilderment.
“Because at this rate, I’m going to be depleted on mana regeneration in about... two minutes, by my estimate.”
“Ah, yes, that is bad.” I could almost feel System rolling their eyes as they put a few ounces of derision-laced sarcasm on the last word. Reluctantly, they said; “In your vision, you should see a small toggle button for automatic expansion, though I highly advise against doing that.”
I quickly found said button, and turned it to OFF. With a sigh, I felt much relieved as I saw my regeneration return to 1.1 mana per hour. Hokay then, take a moment, relax, unwind, then figure out WTF I just expanded into.
“You do realize that expansion is the goal of every newborn dungeon, right?” System butted in. “Why would you go against your own instincts, to stop your own expansion?”
“Because I have no idea what I just expanded into, and I kinda want to make sure I didn’t enter an inhabited area,” I replied. “I’m just gonna go take a quick look in the area I now own, and see for myself if I can expand safely or not.”
I looked back, down the hallway near where my golem’s tunnel exited into it. Well, a small bonus is that I’m not limited in vision to just what’s in my domain, yay. I could see all the way to the end of the hallway to where it ended in a collapsed ceiling about a hundred feet away. I looked the other way, and noted the hallway ended at a doorway about twenty feet from the tunnel. Hmm, so far so good, nothing’s immediately springing out at myself or my golems, so phew.
“Alright you two,” I began, addressing my golems. “Stay right where ya are, I’m going to keep looking.”
The golems stood still, not making any outward sign that they had heard me, but I figured that that was a good thing. It took me a little longer than I’d like to admit, but I did figure out how to expand my domain manually. Namely, by moving forward while imagining myself walking along the floor. I could feel my domain expand around me and penetrate into the stonework for several feet in every direction then simply stop.
Hmm, manual expansion requires stored mana, but automatic requires just mana regen? Note to self: make sure to keep a healthy stock of mana for when I need to do something like this. Good thing I had four hours to regenerate before this, though it’s a lot lower than I’d like. Expanding to the doorway, and a little further beyond took up only .2 mana, thankfully, but it still left me at 3.4.
I moved my vision to just after the doorway, and found an empty square room with dust covering absolutely everything. Several large stone blocks had fallen from the ceiling onto the floor, shattering what used to be a table and several chairs, along with a shelving unit. One chest over in the corner nearest to me was cracked but not flattened. Along one wall there were several shelves, some still full of baskets with fresh food in them, though there were also several that had fallen onto the ground. An apple had fallen near the door by my feet. Along the other three walls were doors leading elsewhere, one hung wide open directly across from me, the hallway extending extremely far off into the distance in a straight line for a distance I didn’t deign to estimate at this moment in time.
Feeling somewhat safe, I used another whole mana point to take over the room. Doing so, my vision got flooded with notification boxes.
[Organic material obtained total: 60lbs]
[Construct schematic acquired: Wood Table]
[Construct schematic acquired: Wood Chair]
[Construct schematic acquired: Wood Shelf]
[Construct schematic acquired: Wood Cabinet]
[Construct schematics acquired: Wood Door, Reinforced Wood Door]
[Construct schematic acquired: Torch]
[Construct schematics acquired: Plates (Various), Bowls (Various), Silverware (Various)]
[Construct schematic acquired: Torch]
[Construct schematics acquired: Lanterns (Candle, Oil)]
[Construct schematic acquired: Lantern Oil]
[Construct schematic acquired: Beeswax Candle]
And another twenty different schematics suddenly added themselves to my [Constructs] category, as well as several resource updates. Oh. Oh my. So [Constructs] is damn near anything man-made? That... That is going to come in very handy down the line. Now, the ultimate question: Does the category have creature-constructs like robots and androids, or the more fantasy-esque ones like Warforged? Must work on this later.
I looked around, and saw that the entire room was now barren of furniture and items, plus the four doors. I looked around at the closer of the two newly revealed areas, and noted it was a combination armory and treasury, judging by the amount of shinies and various items available from thrown open chests and armor racks. Did I just luck out or what? Was this some previous dead dungeon I landed in, and it just so happens to have no living monsters or something? Or do all dungeons get a little secret stash like this near where they show up? So many questions, probably not enough answers.
Mentally shrugging, I used my remaining mana to absorb that room while looking at the next one. One deluge of about eighty or so different new items I can make later, along with several items not becoming raw resources and simply appearing in my inventory, I now had a rather nice amount of new resources to work with and one newly-emptied room. The remaining room was a combination kitchen/mess hall/barracks, big enough for about thirty people judging by the amount of bunk beds within. Some of the chests at the foot of the beds were wide open with clothes strewn about, and the fire in the kitchen area was brightly lit, what appeared to be the body of a cow slowly burning over it. The room looked hastily rummaged through and subsequently abandoned, and above the fireplace was a large shield. I was astonished that the letters ‘D’ and ‘G’ in the center of it were legible in perfect English.
“Okay, this is really weird,” I said aloud in confusion. “What place has this kind of setup? And it looks like it was recently used... That’s uh, well I’m just going to hope nobody’s coming back anytime soon. And that shield... Do I have some sort of universal-translator skill that ain’t listed, or does this world just happen to use English as its main language? I have SO many questions now.”
I decided to put this train of thought aside, as System chimed in with a new announcement.
“Congratulations! For creating your first two rooms you have been granted ten experience points!”
“Ah sweet! Level up time!” If I had a physical body, I would be jumping for joy.
“Levelup will occur at the beginning of the next hour,” System smugly stated, dampening my mood severely.
“What? Why’s it gotta be delayed like that?” I asked indignantly.
“This is an automatic process that applies to all beings subject to the System of this universe. Said process is in place to allow beings to get to a safe location for leveling up, as it renders them unconscious for a random interval of time from one minute to three hours. Dungeons are required to have at least one safe room per floor for adventurers to level up within. Typically the beginning room of a floor, and sometimes an additional one in the room just before a Boss. Any additional safe rooms are up to individual dungeons.” Is it just me, or is System explaining this to me like I’m an idiot?
“Okay... but I’m a dungeon.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ve not even opened up to the outside world yet.”
“This is correct.”
“Then why don’t I just do it now, since I am within for all intents and purposes, a safe location?”
“There is unfortunately no way to bypass this feature of the system,” System replied in a huff. “You will level up in forty-five minutes, twenty-two seconds.”
I sighed in frustration, and decided to take a mental break in my core room for the remaining time. As I moved my vision back to the core room, I passed the golems, who had not moved an inch. Hmm, let me check something...
Going into the dungeon-planning mode, I saw that after breaking into the tunnel, the tunnel-blueprint I had assigned to the golems was flashing a gentle red. I opened up the little menu pop-up.
{Construction work has halted due to encountering an obstacle.}
“Well that’s... Uh... let’s see here,” I sighed in resignation. Of course a little thing like this would halt the dig.
Fiddling with the blueprint for a minute, I managed to get it back on track after including a steep ramp down from the golem’s tunnel to the hallway. I let the golems go back to working then, noting that my mana regen did dip down by .2 points once more. Ah, so the golem-digging-regen-drain is separate from the automatic-expansion-regen-drain, good to know!
With that complete, I got back to my room, noting that the Core was lightly shining.