Satisfied with the look of the enchanted painting I turned my attention back to my assistant.

Ok, so now that you have a grasp of what you can do to shape your Dungeon there is one more thing for me to tell you about right now, Creatures. Creatures are what you populate your Dungeon with and can alter to suit your needs given enough mana. You will also get a new set of creatures every other floor. Additionally as you are blessed by Vita you already have access to a select group of Creatures even if they are currently limited. Anyway think the phrase “Creature Menu” and it will show you the options you have for your first Creatures.

Following her instructions, I think “Creature Menu” and a new screen appears in front of my perception.

Creature Menu:

* Current Creatures:

* Small Beasts (Harmless)

* Plants (Harmless)

* Creature Sets: (1 Set Point Available)

* Beasts: Animals of all types that contain a great amount of potential. Allows the Dungeon to use all the animals of the world for whatever they might require.

* Plants: Plants of all types that contain a great amount of potential. Allows the Dungeon to use all the plants of the world for whatever they might require.

* Sentients: (requires Beasts, or Plants) Capable sentient versions of beasts or plants. Allows the Dungeon to uplift beasts and/or plants into a sentient version of themselves.

* Giants: (requires Sentients) Larger versions of sentient creatures. Allows the Dungeon to increase the size of a sentients by many magnitudes. Also allows the Dungeon to create giant beasts and plants.

* Mutants: (requires Beasts or Plants) Mutated versions of beasts or plants that gain random mutations. Allows the Dungeon to destabilize a creature such that it will begin to randomly develop traits both harmful and helpful.

* Monstrosities: (requires mutants) Stabilized mutant versions of beasts or plants. Allows the Dungeon to stabilize a mutant such that it will no longer mutate.

* Magical Beasts: (requires nature spirits, and beasts) Innately magical beasts that possess more strength and variety than common beasts. Allows the Dungeon to make beasts into magical beasts by granting them magical abilities.

* Magical Plants: (requires nature spirits, and plants) Innately magical plants that possess more strength and variety than common plants. Allows the Dungeon to make plants into magical plants by granting them magical abilities.

* Nature Spirits: Embodiments of natural things whose form and powers are based off of the spirits core. Allows the Dungeon to turn creatures or objects into the core of a nature spirit.

* Elementals: (requires nature spirits) Nature spirits that have outgrown their core and taken on a greater form. Allows the Dungeon to mature a core into an elemental. Elementals possess increased magical power and intelligence.

* Golems: (requires nature spirits) Magical creations that lack any intelligence but can take nearly any form. Allows the Dungeon to create golems by consuming a nature spirit’s core. Golems are artificial and don’t possess intelligence.

Woah that is a lot of options. I mutter as I look at the largest menu I have seen yet. Wait why are beasts and plants considered two different creature sets?

Beasts and plants are considered two different creature sets because the Gods decided that placing them both in one creature set would be too powerful and that either one could adequately defend a dungeon in its initial stages.

Wait what do you mean defend me, I thought I was just supposed to provide and challenge followers? I asked surprised at the prospect of facing danger.

Oh that is right, you will also have to defend yourself from fallen followers, and followers of other Gods. Sometimes when a new Dungeon appears some of the followers doubt the Dungeon’s purpose and try to destroy it before it could resist random followers. So all new Dungeons are encouraged to quickly grow able to defend themselves.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Really followers would just try to destroy Dungeons given to them by the Gods for no reason other than paranoia. Oh well, I guess I will just have to make my Dungeon faster than I thought. I grumble to myself as I think of how my vague plans of what my Dungeon will need to be changed. Also what do the modifiers for my current creature sets mean? I ask as I move back to choosing my first set of creatures.

For your beast set, small means nothing larger than a rabbit, while harmless means they can’t be seriously harmful to a follower so many venomous and poisonous options have been excluded. For your plants set harmless means you cannot grow any plants that will seriously harm a follower so animate plants, carnivorous plants, and poisonous plants have been excluded. However some medicinal plants with minor side effects have been allowed.

Hmm so Vita’s blessing gives me a base for an ecosystem correct? I ask after realizing the purpose of the blessing.

Correct, the blessing of Vita gives a Dungeon the tools to make a balanced ecosystem and the inclination to do so. Vita wishes to give her followers a place where they can hunt that won’t disturb the balance of nature so she often blesses Dungeons..

Does that mean that Kirios’ blessing tries to push my Dungeon towards ice magic?

Correct again, Kirios wishes for his followers to have ample access to ice magic and it’s complementary magics, as well as ice aspected resources, and examples of what ice magic is capable of.

Neat, anyway if I chose nature spirits right now could I choose magical beasts on floor three? I ask thinking to exploit Vita’s blessing into giving me more than I should have.

Compound creature sets can only be obtained by having both complete sets. As clever as you think you are you are far from the first Dungeon to think of exploiting Vita’s blessing.

Oh well, it was worth a shot. I replied as I looked through the three options I had to choose from for my first monsters. The first was beasts, it was a the tamest option but not by much. I could see myself using the various creatures contained within well even with only harmless plants, after all a deer can be quite deadly when it needs to be and only eats plants. The second option was plants and it was the second most exotic option. While the idea of using animate plants and poisonous flora did interest me a little I felt that any Dungeon built around poisons would not do well with Kirios. Finally there was nature spirits the most exotic of the three. While it was the most exotic it was also the most promising in terms of leading to magic, as all of the magical creature sets required nature spirits.

Making up my mind, I decided to choose beasts first as any followers that came to my Dungeon would need food and hides before they would need whatever could be gained from killing a nature spirit. “Unlock Beasts” I thought at the creature menu as I thought of which creatures I could place in my icy floors. After a minute of waiting for something to happen, I realized that my assistant had never told me the command for selecting a creature set. Assistant what is the command for choosing a creature set? I ask sheepishly.

The command for choosing a creature set is “Select creature set” followed by the name of the set.

Thanks, I mutter before I recited the command and waited for something to happen. A couple of moments passed before I was hit by a wall of information about all of the countless beasts I had just unlocked. One moment I knew every single detail about a long tailed hog, the next my mind was filled with the dimensions of a healthy black horned deer. After what felt like a nearly eternal parade of animals had trampled themselves through my mind they suddenly stop. Once I realized that the parade was over I exclaim, What in the name of all that is good was that!

That was the process of imparting the knowledge of the creature set you just selected. I understand that it is quite overwhelming the first time but it gets easier after you experience it once.

So you knew it was going to happen but you didn’t tell me about it! I asked angrily.

Correct. However, while you may think that telling you about it would have let you be more prepared that is not true. The process is just as jaring no matter how much I could have told you to prepare as the process is the same for all Dungeons.

Still tell me next time something like this may happen in the future. Anyway how do I summon a creature?

To summon a creature just think of the creature you want to summon, where you want to summon it to, and supply some mana. Then the creature should appear where you wanted it to be. Remember to not choose a large creature as your Dungeon is currently just one small room.

Ok, let’s do this. I say as I think as I imagine an adult grey squirrel appearing by my door, while releasing some mana. Once I had provided enough mana an orb of light yellow light appears and begins shrinking before me. I watch in anticipation for my first creature to form as the light entirely fades leaving only a small baby squirrel in its place.

What is that I summoned a squirrel not baby one!