Veronica decided to choose the [Goddess of Chaos] and the [Goddess of Hospitality] after much consideration. There were a lot of things to consider, but these were the options she felt best reflected her hopes for the future.
The [God of Death] wasn't necessarily a force of good or evil, but there were really only so many meanings that could be assigned to such a deity. She didn't want to be forced to deal with undead [Monsters] for the rest of her life, nor did she want her dungeon to become a graveyard. It was likely whatever patron deity she chose would also assign her [Missions], just like the system did. While she wanted to defend herself and reduce her chances of dying as much as possible, she didn't exactly want to kill people, keeping score all the way, and revel in their deaths. A quest to kill a certain number of people with her [Traps] would be disheartening, if anything, as she wasn't completely heartless.
Meanwhile, the [Goddess of Chaos] could also be seen as a neutral force that could be easily swayed one way or another. In games like Dungeons & Dragons there were concepts like chaotic good, chaotic neutral, and chaotic evil. She could be someone like Robin Hood who challenges authority and breaks rules to invoke positive change or she could be more neutral and simply be a disorganized mess that doesn't quite fit in with society. What was wrong with being an outcast anyway? Of course, there was the potential to be evil as well, but she wasn't ready to entertain such thoughts.
Then there were the options she had been given for her tavern. The [Goddess of Commerce & Knowledge] wasn't a bad option, but it just didn't quite represent her role as an innkeeper as well as the other options might. She wasn't exactly the scholarly type, but she hardly minded having a focus on turning a profit. It was always good to have more than she could spend as it would greatly reduce her stress levels. However, she was confident that she could accomplish something similar without a goddess to back her up.
As for the [God of Agriculture & Harvest] that sounded like something more fitting for a farmer than someone running a tavern. Even if it was closer to her goals for the dungeon, it just didn't quite match what she was doing. She didn't want to receive a quest for cultivating healthy crops and raising cattle. Her tavern needed the ingredients, but she didn't think it was worth the resources she'd save to put in so much hard work.
As for the [Goddess of Hospitality] it felt like the perfect choice. Hospitality could encapsulate everything from inns to restaurants and everything in between. Besides, she really needed something to reinforce the fact that she didn't want to do more harm than good. Having [Missions] that encouraged her to stick to her original goal of building a profitable tavern and inn for guests to enjoy would help ensure she didn't go off the deep end. Plus, it was kind of cool having two goddesses to serve. Girl power and all that.
Soon enough, Veronica was met with yet another system prompt.
Please select a new floor theme:
Swamp (Goblins)
Desert (Mummies)
Graveyard (Skeletons)
This time the choice was a lot easier to make. Just as she hadn't wanted to choose the [God of Death] and forever be stuck dealing with the undead, she wasn't going to choose mummies or skeletons for her next floor. A swamp hardly sounded pleasant, but it was still likely to be better than a desert or graveyard. Besides, her dungeon was technically an open floor plan. If she went with either of those, there would be nothing to serve as a proper barrier to stop adventurers. She didn't even want to imagine what the room division would look like in a desert where the landscape tended to be flat and rather devoid of plant life.
After choosing a floor theme, a new system prompt appeared showing off the new [Monsters] she now had.
Summonable Monster Options:
Mana Cost:
Info:
Gargoyle
15MP
Magic stone statue with no special features. Has poor defense and low combat damage, but is capable of evolving.
Summonable Monster Options:
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Evolution Cost:
Info:
Winged Monstrosity Gargoyle
40 DP & 30 MP
Requires a gargoyle to evolve. Unlike normal gargoyles, this variation has wings and sharp claws made of iron that allow it to deal a greater amount of damage. However, due to its weight, it cannot sustain flight for long. Due to being composed of stone, its defenses are still lacking. Only comes in one size, incapable of evolving.
Contractable Monster Options:
Mana Cost:
Info:
Will-O'-Wisp
20MP
Requires a dark environment to live in before you can form a contract. Does no combat damage, but can add ambiance and lure unsuspecting adventurers into traps.
Goblins
30 MP
Refuses to live anywhere they aren't surrounded by their own kind. Does moderate combat damage, but can obtain classes that give them unique and powerful abilities. However, their weak bodies and lack of intelligence limits their growth potential.
Brownies
50 MP
Strictly prefers the indoors. Refuses to engage in combat and has a tendency to show kindness to others. Primarily functions as a worker-type [Monster].
The goblins were double the cost of her gargoyles while the brownies were half of her new mana cap. She already knew the next spawner upgrade would allow her to have a limit of 100 MP, so she could certainly afford them, but she'd be limited to only a small handful. Any rooms designated as an inn room for guests to stay in couldn't contain a spawner and be used as a place for her [Monsters] to respawn. So, she'd be even further limited to only staff rooms like the reception, cleaning closets, the tavern, or the kitchen. Luckily, they could travel between floors, but she doubted they'd be as useful on the first floor as Elora and Eldrin were.
Veronica was hoping to look at her [Traps] to see which new ones she had access to, but was interrupted by yet another system prompt.
Please select a new skill:
Skill Name:
Info:
Masterkey
Allows for better lock controls on inn & tavern doors including designating rooms as a larger variety of room types with more strict controls on who can access the space. Does not affect rooms outside of the tavern & inn side of the dungeon.
Staff Elevator
Automatically builds a magic elevator with a teleportation circle on every floor that allows inn staff and supplies to quickly move between floors.
Housekeeping
Allows the Dungeon Master to auto-clean and straighten a room at a cost of 10 MP per use. Includes restocking supplies that were previously stocked in the room when the room was first designated as an inn room.
Almost all of these skills just sounded like they were small quality-of-life changes. She could already set the inn and tavern rooms as locked to everyone but staff, locked based on gender for bathrooms, and set them as inn rooms that required payment for entry. While it would be nice to be able to set a room for herself that no one else could enter without her permission, it still felt like a waste.
As for the [Staff Elevator], it would make it easier to restock her tavern since she could just create the supplies on an empty floor and then move everything directly downstairs. She had no clue if the elevator would be in a suitable location to make travel easy, nor did she know which rooms might be displaced in the process. It wasn't exactly as if she had empty space on the first floor where an elevator could easily be slotted in.
Then there was the [Housekeeping] skill. While it was true that she wasn't confident in being able to manage so many inn rooms by herself, she now had the brownies and Elora to help her out. Even if the brownies were as small as the lore in her world suggested, they would have more time to clean the rooms since there wouldn't be as much traffic on the upper floors. She would just have to ensure they had a way to enter the rooms despite their small size. It wasn't logical to assume they would be capable of opening the doors, after all.
She didn't know when the next time she would get to choose a skill would occur, if it did at all, so the choice was agonizingly difficult. Still, she couldn't waste time forever contemplating just this one single decision. There were other things that needed to be sorted out and she wanted to make the most of her time before the adventurers returned to the dungeon. Sighing, she finally chose the [Staff Elevator] skill, she'd just have to deal with the aftermath of wherever the dungeon decided to place the damn thing.
Suddenly, Veronica felt as if her skin was on fire as pain filtered through her every nerve ending. The last time this had happened, she had bonded with the dungeon core. What in the world was it this time?
Strengthening in progress...