“Alright! So… what do you want to do now?” Ricard asks as soon as my two sisters leave to go play together.
Laura gives him a stern look. “What do you mean? Didn’t you say you were going back to studying after this?”
“That’s… you know…” he stammers, “now that I’m here, we might as well play some more…” His voice trails off, intimidated by our stares. “...uh, you know, it won’t hurt a little bit longer, right?”
“Are you kidding?” For some reason I can’t understand, I feel as if Laura’s indifferent tone is hiding hostility. “Are you willing to risk your grades for a few more minutes of play?”
“No, this is… I mean, we can…”
“Just accept it, “ I give him the last push, patting his back. “Why don’t you focus on the important stuff instead of fooling around? We can… I don’t know, have a gaming marathon once the final exams are over? How about it, huh?”
I don’t know why, but I have this weird feeling I have to convince him to leave before things go south.
“Yes, why don’t we do that?” Adds Laura. “You leave now, and we spend a whole day playing DMA when the exams end.”
“Haaaaa…” Ricard exhales, an awful expression on his face. Is it just me, or does he look way worse than somebody conscripted for war? “Alright, I’ll go study now… But it’s a promise, we’ll play once we’re done, ok? At least for a full day!”
I don’t mind it, in fact, I would do it anyway, so I of course agree to it. “Yes, let’s do it. Ah, also… I’ll keep track of your account, to make sure you don’t sneak into the game.”
“I wasn’t going to do it! …but maybe I could play a little…” We send him a deadly glare at the same time, forcing him to stop. “I understand, I’m leaving, I’m leaving. Stop looking at me like that!”
“See you on Monday, “ I say, before he disconnects.
“Yeah, see you.”
Laura waves him goodbye. “Goodbye!”
With a grim face, Ricard’s figure disappears from our view. Now that he’s finally gone, the usual smile finally returns to Laura’s face.
“What are we doing now?” She asks. “You wanted to go capture more monsters, right?”
I nod. “That was my plan. There’s time for one Dungeon Invasion before I have to go back to study. Maybe two if they’re short…”
“But isn’t this the only thing you’ve been doing the past few days? Aren’t you tired of it?”
“Well, you’re right, too… Do you have a better idea?”
“I don’t know…” She puts her finger on her lips in thought. “Ah! Have you ever tried the 2vs2 Dungeon Battles?”
“No, I haven’t. How does it work? Is it similar to the 1vs1? Apart from those fights against you, I’ve tried it a few times, but I’m not the best there. My units aren’t very suited for Dungeon Battles...”
“I haven’t tried either, but I know how they work! It’s the same as the 1vs1, except we can use units, traps, etc. from both of our dungeons. We use our Champions to attack the enemy team. The win condition is also the same: the first team to destroy the core wins; or the ones that survive if the enemy team dies.”
“So it’s the same but with two players instead of one...” I imagine the two of us fighting together against a short dungeon specially designed to kill us as soon as possible. It isn’t such a bad plan, isn’t it? “Alright, let’s try it. But… do you have good units we can use? Because mine suck.”
She slaps me on the back. “Hahaha, don’t worry. Not all of them suck, you just need to use them properly!”
“Is that so…?”
“Yes! With my plans and your dangerous monsters, I’m sure we can achieve victory. Imagine what deadly combinations we can create! We’ll bring insufferable pain to their bodies, and then we’ll crush their souls too!”
She grasps the air and squeezes as if she were crushing somebody’s heart. She looks really into it, doesn’t she?
So, she’s proposing me to create the deadliest dungeon we can imagine? Deadly traps, impossible encounters, dangerous monsters… bringing despair to our enemies…
“...When are we starting? Fufufu! Hahaha!”
----------------------------------------
As soon as the process of creating the dungeon for the Dungeon Battle starts, Laura asks me.
“Andreu, do you have everything ready?”
“Yes, I do. You’re lucky I captured a few spares in case I wanted to create some more monsters… But I only have three. Will it be enough?”
She thinks for a while before answering. “It would be best if there were at least five, but it should work. Did you give them the skills I asked you?”
Laura makes a serious expression and asks again, this time with a serious expression on her face. But I can clearly see her smiling eyes. She’s planning something. I don’t know what, but I’m sure she is.
“You didn’t give them any weird skills, right?”
“Of course I didn’t! Who do you think I am!?”
She smirks, seductively tilting her head. “Aren’t you a mad scientist?” She’s doing this on purpose, to laugh at me, but I won’t fall for her. “You just need to take a look at all the weird and useless monsters that fill your dungeon to understand what I mean…”
“I…” I want to counter her argument, but there’s nothing I can say. “...all right, you got me there…” I raise my hands in defeat. “I can’t argue against it, can I?”
“Of course, you can’t. Fufufu!”
“You little demon…”
“Oh, my! Thank you!” She starts acting coy. “I never expected you to compliment me like this. Come on, keep on going!”
“You really…” For my own sanity, I should change topics. “Let’s stop wasting time and focus on the dungeon creation, ok?”
“Why?” She asks. “Are you getting flustered?”
“No, I’m not…”
I cross my arms in annoyance, and she immediately returns to her usual serious expression.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” She waves her hand. “Let’s pretend you didn’t get flustered–” I didn’t! “– and return to the topic. About those monsters, you gave them the Reduce skill as I told you, right?”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
I nod. “I did. As for the attack skill, I gave them the Toxic Spit one because I already know how it works.”
“Hmm… I’m not sure I remember that skill... Damage? Cost? And most important, range?”
“Low poison, low cost. I’d say between short and medium range. About five meters maximum? It’s good for its cost, and it also fits the theme.”
“I see… I’d like something with a longer range, but it should be enough. If you say this skill is good for them, I’ll believe you.”
I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell are we talking about right now.
You see… When we were brainstorming for ideas, we came up with one that we both liked; but for it to work, we needed some monsters only I could create. Luckily, I had some spare bodies in case I wanted to add more Tunnel Mimics or another Cyam. Otherwise, we would have had to change our plans.
So I went back to my dungeon and quickly created a monster following Laura’s specifications: a Basic Chimera that’s half Tunneler and half Cockatrice.
I’ll keep the explanation short because you already know both units, but these new monsters can burrow through impassable terrain and petrify enemies that stay in their field of view.
And since I also gave them the Reduce skill, instead of being worms twice as long as a human is tall, they’re now about half a meter in size.
They’re stone worms with a chicken’s crest on their heads, a pair of diminutive wings in the central part of their body, and chicken legs close to the tail. As you might expect, I gave them the wings and legs because of how ridiculous they look with them, as any perfectly sane and normal human would.
Then, I named them Come Here You Motherfucker, because I’m sure more than one player will get enraged because of them, hahaha!
Well, no, I actually didn’t.
I was tempted to, but I recovered my senses and named them Spitters. Because they actually spit poison at you… but most importantly, because they ‘spit’ at you and your chances to have a normal dungeon invasion, appearing from impossible places and keeping you on guard against the danger of being petrified at a critical moment.
Yeah… I’m sure I’ll put a few of them later on my dungeon. In fact, I might put a few more than ‘just a few’.
All right, so here is what their stat block looks like. Laura asked me to keep them at level 2 so they don’t cost too much. In Dungeon Battles, every cp counts, and the Spitters already cost 130 cp to create, 140 after the first level-up.
Spitter (Lv 2) HP 148 (135) STA 11 (10) SOU 9 (9) EP 148 (135) MP 99 (90) STR 15 (14) CON 13 (12) AGI 12 (11) SPI 9 (9) WIL 12 (11) DEX 4 (4) SPD 5 INT 3 COM 0 Skills
Active: Toxic Spit. Passive: Reduce, Eternal Pain (Innate), Petrifying Eyes (Innate), Tunneling (Innate).
Reduce (Passive skill) Reduces this unit’s size by a considerable amount. This skill also reduces all base stats by 10%.
It’s funny that the Enlarge skill only gives an extra 10% health when the Reduce one, its counterpart, takes away 10% of each stat. But it’s easy to understand if you take balance into account: smaller means harder to hit and spot. If you want your monster to be smaller and abuse its size, you’ll also take a stat reduction with it.
But we mostly want the Spitters for their innate passives, so who cares about the stats?
“I like a lot how the Spitters turned out, but do you really expect them to kill the enemies?” I ask. “I think they fit more my type of units than those used in PvP… And with my type of units, I mean annoying, unexpected, and random.”
She smiles. “As I’ve told you before, it isn’t about the monsters themselves, but about how you use them. We’ll use them as distractions and as a failsafe, so they’re perfect as they are.”
“Ok, fine by me.”
Both Ricard and Marta told me to avoid random stuff in PvP battles if I want to win. But it's not like I care about winning, I simply want to enjoy this match as much as possible, and I’m sure Laura thinks the same.
The next step is to create the dungeon itself.
For this step, we both work together to get the most complex labyrinth we can design. The idea for this match is simple to understand, but very difficult to execute properly: a hard to traverse and extremely complex path, hanging over an endless abyss.
If the enemies fall, it’s an instant death. If they don’t, they’ll have to find their way through the treacherous labyrinth, filled with traps, as hordes of ranged minions harass them from afar.
There are lots of places to take cover that both sides can use to avoid taking damage. But if the other players do so, they’ll waste precious time we can use to beat them in the match.
As you might expect, the weak point of this strategy are the flying enemies, which can ignore the whole terrain and go straight to the end. Here’s where my Spitters will shine. If you get petrified, unless you’re in a very dangerous position, it generally won’t spell your immediate doom. But it’s a whole different story if you’re flying over an endless abyss…
My monsters are indispensable to stopping the enemy players in case they bring flying Champions. This isn’t very common because most factions don’t have them, but they’re a lot more common in PvP matches than you might expect.
We hide the dungeon core in a secluded cave, to prevent the purple light from revealing its position.
And, last but not least, the whole dungeon is inside a low-ceiling cave, allowing my Spitters to appear from the ceiling, anywhere they want.
Most of the terrain we’re using comes from Laura’s dungeon.
I’ve never invaded it, but it makes me wonder what the hell is her dungeon about. She has a sea of lava, which we used in the tournament, a labyrinth on an abyssal crack, and I also remember the lavishly decorated banquet hall, from when we had our first Dungeon Battle.
How the fuck do you connect the three into a single dungeon!? Or did she create a ‘dungeon construction toolkit’ so she can create any dungeon she likes?
Well… I guess it’s better if I don’t know….
Blissful ignorance.
“Do we have everything ready?” I ask, impatient to see the enemy players’ reactions.
“I think so. Now we only need to fill the dungeon with the monsters and traps. Do you think 10.000 cp will be enough, or it’s better to go with 20.000 cp?”
She’s asking me about the cp limit for the Dungeon Battle. Other than the terrain used to create the dungeon, we can only use monsters, traps, etc. up to that amount. This includes both the cost of leveling the units and our Champions.
Of course, it’s the same for the enemy team.
“20.000 cp. The more the merrier.” I answer, not doubting it for even a second. “I want to make the enemies have the hardest time of their lives! Hahaha!”
“I’m sure you know it’ll also make it harder for us too, right?”
“I don’t mind, I don’t care. I just want to see them suffer! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
“All right, 20.000 it is.” With a smile on her face, she starts planning everything we’re going to use. “What do you think if we put this here, and then…”
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“When you create your dungeon, you should focus on making it enjoyable for your invaders. In PvP, however, the only thing that matters is winning, so feel free to put into practice all the devious schemes and traps you didn’t dare put into your normal dungeon.”
- Basic DMA knowledge every player should know.