Dungeon Invasion Successful! Rewards Obtained ...

“Hmm… where did I put the list…” I search my pockets. “Oh, here it is!”

I take out a crumpled list and carefully open it. Of course, this is all unnecessary and purely aesthetic. I could make the game show the list in front of me using the game’s interface.

But I like it best when it matches the roleplay.

I take a pen and scratch one of the elements in the list. “With this, I’ve finished capturing the goblins. It’s a shame I didn’t find any trolls... Well, I did, but it’s useless if the troll is the boss because I can’t capture it…”

If I want to increase the number of Hauntlings, I’ll need at least one troll for the Regeneration skill. I want to create more of them, and with the same skills, so there’s no other way than to get a troll somehow.

This is why my faction is considered the worst when it comes to efficiency…

Sure, we have the most versatility and can make the strongest units – though it’s only when we reach the maximum level and have an absurd amount of cp to spare – but, and this is a big BUT, it takes so long for us to capture the units we want that it isn’t worth it.

Of course, it’s not worth it for most players. If you want to play as a mad scientist, as I do, there’s nothing better.

But the Flesh Monstrosities being amazing doesn’t make the faction any easier.

“It’ll take a lot of time to find a dungeon around my level with a troll I can capture… if only I wrote the name of the dungeon where I found the first…”

Ladies and gentlemen, please, don’t be like me. When you find something important after lots of time looking for it, don’t say ‘This is done, now let’s forget about the pain it was to search for it!’ as I did, and plan for the future instead.

I scratch my furry head in annoyance. “If I don’t want to spend any more time with this, I’ll have to ask Ricard to help me… but I don’t want to do it…”

The problem with asking Ricard is that he’ll treat me like a noob. And he’ll start explaining a lot of random stuff about the game, rambling for hours.

Sometimes, it is so bad that it feels as if he is trying to turn you into one of his undead minions, either by brainwashing you or by killing you out of boredom.

“Guess I have no choice, then. I’m going to regret it so much…”

Maybe, I can pull Laura into this mess so I don’t have to suffer Ricard’s ‘wrath’ alone. Yeah… let’s do this.

I’ve solved one of the biggest problematic items in the ‘shopping list’, as I like to call it, so I move on to the next item.

“I’ll have to capture some rabbits too. They're the most common in human dungeons, but there’s no way I’m going into one just to capture some rabbits. Let’s hope I find some somewhere else.”

I’ll hope for the best and ignore them for now. I have to capture a few wererabbits too, and it isn’t unusual for them to be mixed with rabbits. If I’m lucky, I’ll find both at the same time.

The problem is going to be to find the wererabbits themselves, but this and that are two different things.

“The next one is… Geodis, the earth elemental. This one should be easy to find… yep, let’s go for this one next!”

It should be easy to find because it’s the second tier of earth elemental units, the one that costs around 100 cp. There should be plenty of them in any Primordial dungeon around my level.

If I find a dungeon themed on a specific type of elementals, – which are very easy to spot after the teleport if you pay enough attention, – I only need to abandon the dungeon invasion and look for another one. There’s no need to waste time.

Are you curious about what I’m going to do with them? You’ll have to wait to see it! Fufufu! Hahaha!

Primordial dungeons, get ready because here I come!

I prepare my usual follower mobs, the three Good Followers and Cyam, and select the first Primordial dungeon I find with a similar level to mine.

The dungeon is called ‘Elemental Totems’. I don’t know what I’ll find in it, but at least the name promises more than one elemental type.

----------------------------------------

The light from the teleport fades away.

“Uaaa!” I stretch. “It’s been a while since I was last alone in a dungeon invasion… Except for the last one with the goblins, but it doesn’t count because I’d already been in that dungeon before. I hope I didn’t lose my touch.”

I turn to my support mobs and start giving orders.

“For now, you’ll stay on guard mode. And you, Cyam… you do whatever you usually do.”

The guard mode is one of the basic modes available to all units with at least four in the Intelligence stat. When a unit is in this mode, it’ll always stay within five meters of the player they belong to, or the unit you order them to guard.

It might be the mode most used by all players in this game.

Monsters in guard mode do join combat if the enemies are close, but they’ll never wander away. You also don’t need to worry about them sticking too close to you unless you’re in a very narrow space.

The only drawback is that mobs in the guard mode will never chase or attack ranged enemies unless they themselves have ranged attacks too. They can be poked to death easily. But this isn’t really a problem because you can simply give them the order to attack, and they’ll follow your orders.

The problem with the monster’s AI comes when they have three or lower Intelligence because they don’t have the guard mode by default.

And it gets worse as the Intelligence goes down… The best example of this are the Stitched, with one Intelligence. I’m sure you remember all the trouble I had just to make them move as groups.

Why am I saying all this? It’s because Cyam doesn’t have the guard mode. After all, it only has three Intelligence. It also doesn’t help that I had to use two of the allowed AI changes to make him capture units and never look away from petrified enemies, to prevent the status effect from wearing off.

The only other change I could make to Cyam’s AI was to ‘follow me’. It stays right behind me most of the time and continuously bumps into my legs.

But don’t be deceived, it isn’t as disgusting as with the Stitched.

Cyam is a Cockatrice and Giant Spider chimera. It looks weird and funny, but not extremely disgusting – disgusting as in wanting to tear your eyes away, I mean.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It isn’t too annoying either, as it’s only about fifty centimeters tall. You would imagine Giant Spiders to be the size of a human by the name, but giant spiders are just about fifty centimeters tall. And heck if they are giant compared to real-life spiders! I don’t think a spider taller than ten centimeters exists in the whole world!

Cockatrices, the weird chicken-like monsters, are a similar size too.

So as much as Cyam bumps into my legs all the time, it’s easy to imagine it as a chummy, although extremely weird, small pet. A winged giant spider pet with a crest, reptile tail, and two chicken legs, sure; but still a pet.

Cyam is my adored weird pet!

The saving grace is that Cyam can at least understand the simplest of commands. Like ‘stay still’, ‘attack’, and ‘run’. As long as he understands those, I can make anything possible.

By the way… I’m sure you suspect it, but the Stitched don’t even understand those simple commands. They’re the worst in so many ways… So stupid, slow, ugly, disgusting, useless, weak… Did I mention they’re stupid? They’re so stupidly stupid!

Ah, I’m sorry, I lost myself a little there… Where was I…? I always get sidetracked when I start complaining about the Stitched… Oh, yes. Cyam’s AI.

In short, Cyam isn’t as smart as the Good Followers, but he’s the best!

You can’t imagine how many times he saved me by luckily petrifying an enemy at the most dangerous moment. And he’s captured so many units without me having to lift a finger! You can’t imagine how much time he saved me.

Having finished my usual preparations, I take a look around our current position.

“Hmm… there are two paths. On the left one seems like there’s some magma, and… is that snow what I can see on the right path?”

Since I can see two different areas from here, this dungeon has a high probability of having most, if not all, the elemental types, separated by zones.

If that’s the case…

“If there’s magma, there must be fire elementals close by. But magma is also related to rock… I’m here to capture earth elementals, so it’s clear which path I need to take.”

Without hesitation, I walk into the left path.

Let’s see if I’m right or not.

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“No, no! Please, stop! Not one of you again!”

I stumble, trying to raise my body from the floor. The enemy takes this chance to get closer to me. Aaah, this is bad...

“D-don’t come! This isn’t fair, I can’t fight like this! Pfft…!”

This situation is so stupid, I can’t stop laughing. My wobbly legs can’t sustain my weight, and I can’t focus on the fight.

“Hahaha! I never expected this when I came here, this isn’t fair! There should be a warning somewhere, telling invaders what to expect! Puhahaha! How am I expected to defeat them if I can’t stop laughing?”

Still on the floor, I raise my head to look at the monster once again.

Or should I say ‘monsters’, in plural…? Because there are two of them: one Geodis, the earth elemental I want to capture, and one Pyris, a fire elemental of similar strength to the first.

But the problem isn’t with the units themselves but rather with what they’re doing.

“Who was so stupid to think it was a good idea to make them walk like this!? I mean, I can understand the dungeon is called ‘Elemental Totems’, but did you have to take it so literally!?”

Yep, you’re right. The two elementals are walking in my direction as if they were a totem, and with this, I literally mean one on top of the other.

“Hahaha! This is so ridiculous! I thought it was a glitch the first monster we encountered, but two in a row it’s impossible. This is designed to be like this on purpose. Who is the player who thought of this? This is an idea worthy of me!”

As I laugh on the floor, the Geodis-Pyris totem keeps approaching. Soon, it will engage in combat with the closest Good Follower. They’re currently surrounding me on both sides.

This is bad… I can’t allow it to happen again…

Let me explain. In the first fight, I had such a hard time refocusing on the fight that the ‘totem’ managed to kill one of my Good Followers before I could recover. It’ll be really bad if another Good Follower dies because of me… I’m not sure I’ll be able to beat the dungeon with only one remaining.

Is this totem thing a mental attack!? A way to incapacitate your enemies without the need of any skill!?

I must admit it works.

“Hahaha! Ok, ok, let’s focus… Haaa, it was very close.” I manage to calm myself right as the ‘totem’ reaches one of the Good Followers. They start attacking each other. “Go and join the fight, you dumbass! Don’t leave one of you to die alone!” I order the remaining one.

I cast a Chain Lightning, which obviously hits the two elementals, and start to channel the next one.

“This fucking totem is a joke, but a well-thought one. You could expect them to be a prank, but the combination of both and the terrain is quite strong… I could learn some things from this dungeon.”

My dear audience, allow me to explain.

I’m sure you remember this is a magma area, right? The thing with magma is that it deals constant fire damage to any unit that touches it. This includes the monsters that protect the dungeon, of course.

Now, what do you think is the advantage of the fire elementals? Their innate skill prevents up to a certain amount of fire damage, completely negating the damage from the magma. So, if you put a fire elemental in a sea of magma with small rock islands, it’ll have a tremendous advantage over the invaders.

Now let me ask, what is the advantage of an earth elemental? Their innate skill gives them protection against all damage – and a whopping 50% at that – as long as they don’t move. Don’t move means not walking around, attacking doesn’t count as moving.

I’m sure you know where I’m going now, right?

Yep. The fire elemental is at the bottom of the totem, soaking (ignoring) all the damage from the magma, and freely moving around. And on top of it is the earth elemental, sitting still and thus not moving, receiving the damage protection.

And both of them are free to attack as they want. Well, the fire elemental can’t use melee attacks because it’s holding its companion, but can still cast spells.

Quite a deadly combination if you ask me.

But the reason I’m laughing so hard is because of how they look. Both have humanoid shapes but are quite different.

The Pyris, the fire elemental, is about 1,8 meters tall. Its shape is like a triangle, with no legs at all. It can’t fly, but its movement is more like levitating than walking. It has wide shoulders and strong arms. In general, the feeling it gives is that of an inverted fire – you know, because fire is usually wide at the bottom and thin at the tip.

The Geodis, the earth elemental, is huge. About 2,5 meters tall. It’s obviously made of rock and has extremely thick arms and legs. It looks as if it could squash a human with a mere swing of its fist.

When they’re side by side, they’re fine. The problem comes when you put one on top of the other, in particular, if you put the Geodis on top of the Pyris, because…

It looks like a fucking golem that continuously spews fire from its butt, flying around as if wearing a jetpack!

Can you imagine it? A huge golem spewing fire from its butt? I sure can, I have it in front of me right now!

“This isn’t fair… How do you dare to make mental attacks against me, dungeon owner!? I have the exclusivity! I patented it first! Nobody can do it unless I give them permission!” I shout.

Of course, it reaches nobody.

Haa… let’s focus on the fight again… I don’t want to lose a second Good Follower to this stupid gimmick.

The problem is this combination is quite strong…

I’ll start by attacking the Pyris. It’s weaker than the Geodis, and if I kill it first, the ‘raider’ will be forced to move around, losing its damage protection.

It’s also better because I came here to capture the earth elemental. Leaving it for the end will make it easier to capture.

“Eat this! Cold Blast! Cold Blast! Cold Blast!”

Like a gatling gun, I start casting the strongest, as well as the only one, single-target spell I have. It’s more cost-efficient when fighting against few targets than Chain Lightning.

“Ah, man… I really need to upgrade my champion and get another spell… But I can’t decide which one to take! It’s so frustrating!”

The real reason I didn’t upgrade my champion yet is because I forgot. But let’s keep this between us, ok?

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“...

Not everything in your dungeon must be there to make it better. Sometimes, it’s a good idea to surprise the invaders with something they never expected. Something they’ve never seen before.

Of course, if it makes the dungeon better or worse it’s up to the players who’ll find it. The objective here isn’t to improve the dungeon, but to make it different from every other one out there.

Maybe the most important is this: by adding a surprise you not only increase the chances the players will remember your dungeon and talk about it with other players; but you also increase the chances of throwing them off, maybe giving you an edge to defeat them easily.

You never know when one such surprise will immediately, or as an indirect effect, cause the players to die or make a mistake. Don’t underestimate the effects of psychological warfare.

…”

- Fragment from ‘Surprises and Unexpected Stuff’, one part of ‘The Dark Teachings’ series.