Unfortunately for Veronica, she was unable to generate any new mana until the next day. At first, she had been hopeful that she just had to wait a short while before her mana would refill. That was how it worked in games and fantasy stories, right? However, that might have been a bit shortsighted due to it being based on the assumption the mana pool was hers rather than the dungeon's. Later on, she had tried things that had made her feel a bit silly with everything from trying to feel mana in the air and willing the mana to collect to shouting things into the air. She was really glad no one was there to witness such things as it was, honestly, mortifying to reflect upon.
Of course, the next morning was when her mana finally increased, but it wasn't by much. Only twenty five percent of her max mana pool regenerated, but it rounded up instead of down, so she ended up with 13 MP from it. Still, this was enough for her to summon her first gargoyle, which was the most exciting thing to happen in far too long. If the first day had taught her anything, it was that being stuck in an empty dungeon by yourself all day was very boring.
Granted, there had been other discoveries as well. She no longer required sleep, food, water, or to use the bathroom. All of this had stressed her out to no end until she had realized that she didn't exactly feel hungry or tired either. Veronica actually felt far better than she ever had before in her life. Of course, she still planned to ask Seraphina about it all once she showed up later today, just to be sure.
Much as she had been warned, a group of three adventurers turned up in her dungeon a few hours later. While she had no problem with small talk, as it was an essential skill for hospitality work, Veronica didn't exactly want to get in the way of the adventurers either. Instead, she chose to hang out on the opposite side of the dungeon from where they were. This was far easier than she thought it would be as she could somewhat sense where they were in the dungeon. Although, the uncomfortable alarming sensation she felt at their arrival was rather difficult to ignore.
For some reason, the group of three were spending an awful long time on the inn side of the dungeon. There wasn't even anything there, so she couldn't fathom why they would do that. When she opened her [Dungeon Status] menu, she was surprised to see her mana was full again. Did her mana only regenerate when adventurers were in the dungeon? Well, Veronica supposed, it was a good thing she was planning on opening an inn then. She'd be able to earn plenty of mana once she started to get some regular patrons. It was just too bad that she couldn't spend her mana while they were in the dungeon.
After some time, she boredly opened her menus again and went through the options. However, something strange happened and she found she was able to summon a new gargoyle. That shouldn't be possible, right? Seraphina didn't seem like she was lying about the limitation, but here she was with two gargoyles now in front of her. They were rather small creatures with very typical appearances that you might expect of the sort used to adorn a tall building. However, they lacked a stone base and they could freely move around. They seemed to be fond of perching high up in the trees where it was more difficult to find them, but that wasn't a problem for Veronica thanks to the system.
Feeling bored, she decided to check out her [Missions] tab.
Origin:
Status:
Info:
Reward:
System
Incomplete
Complete first dungeon room
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Set up first spawner
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Set up first challenge
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Place first [Trap]
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
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Complete a boss room
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Complete half of the first floor
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Unlock the second floor
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Complete the first floor
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Unlock ten [Critters]
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Unlock [Critters] from five different phyla
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Complete first inn room
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Make a first-floor reception
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Make a first-floor tavern
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Check-In First Guest
Unlock a new [Critter] option
System
Incomplete
Earn the favor of a patron god or goddess
Unlock new schematic (Altar)
The sheer number of them was a bit overwhelming, but there was one bit that stood out. The mention of spawners made her question what it meant. Surely it didn't mean something like Minecraft where she could set [Monsters] to spawn indefinitely from them for free. That would be too OP and would defeat the purpose of having the option to summon the [Monsters] individually. Perhaps it was something more akin to a respawn point? Either way she definitely wanted to learn more about them!
Would you like to begin research on [Monsters] spawners? Requires 100 DP.
Yes
No
Sighing, Veronica selected the [No] option. She faintly remembered seeing something referred to as dungeon points on her [Dungeon Status] menu. She, unfortunately, didn't have any right now, nor did she know how to earn any. Sensing the adventuring party coming her way, she turned to head towards the dungeon core room.
It was a bit unfortunate, but it was likely that her two new gargoyles would end up dying at the hands of these adventurers. Unless they were completely clueless beginners, she couldn't see any reason why they would struggle with [Monsters] her system classified as having poor defense and weak combat skills. Oh well, she mentally shrugged, she should be able to afford some new ones after they leave.
Before they left, however, Veronica did have one thing she wanted to test. Sneaking back into the dungeon side, she tested her menus again. However, while she was able to open her [Dungeon Status] screen, she only received an error message when she tried to open any of the others. This was hardly the only error message she had seen in her time in the dungeon either. Just yesterday, she had tried leaving the dungeon only to receive a completely different error. Deciding it was worth testing again, she tried leaving just after the adventurers.
Error! The Dungeon Master cannot leave the limits of the dungeon. Only non-dungeon entities and contracted [Monsters] may pass the safety zone.
Yep, that's how she remembered it being yesterday night as well. Veronica supposed this meant that she couldn't try and trick the dungeon into letting her out by having a shorter cooldown between non-dungeon entities leaving and her own attempts to leave. She was well and truly stuck in here.
Thinking back on the issue with the system locking her out, she also had to wonder if that was due to her dungeon being split in half. If she was meant to have adventurers staying in the inn, it could easily lead to her being unable to make changes to her dungeon pretty much ever. That would be way too limiting, but things would be different if it was limited by halves of the dungeon. Perhaps she could only interact with the half of the dungeon that was empty of adventurers, regardless of whether it was the inn or the tropical dungeon side. It would be good to know whether the limitation is usually applied based on the separate floors or if an adventurer on the first-floor prevented normal Dungeon Masters from making changes to all floors. If it was floor-based then her version of the system wouldn't even be that far-fetched or different from the usual.
Still pondering the matter, she went back to her first room and spent 45 MP, of her now full mana pool, on three new gargoyles. The adventurers had, in fact, killed the previous two. It would seem the dungeon had also either absorbed their bodies or the adventurers had brought them with them. Well, either way was fine with Veronica, she didn't exactly want corpses everywhere, stone or otherwise.