After they left the soldiers still outside began to set up their camp, albeit far more organized and less precariously placed. Already they were setting up camp basics all around with a few having to be further down the mountain due to the terrain. But for now, I could rest for a bit, use the time to remodel and adjust things, like all the damned messages that kept popping into my eyes, I swear, if I had actual eyes, I'd be blind right now.

But I digress and open the first of the messages.

Large Invasion repelled.

+10 DP

Nice.

New Monster Blueprint Unlocked: Greeble

Greeble

Small unruly creatures, greebles are a known pest worldwide and tend to infest areas with higher levels of mana. When a group is formed two of the strongest Greebles will undergo a metamorphosis after defeating and consuming their rivals into the primary leader known as the 'king', and a secondary leader known as a 'prince'. Both become physically larger and more intelligent but lack any major behavior changes. Greebles are a known pest for dungeons of all sizes and ages.

Greebles are magical pseudo-intelligent creatures and can form self-sustaining communities.

'Edible'

Useful as fodder.

Individuals do not retain any impressions from slain predecessors.

Creation Cost:

100 mana

10 lbs. of organic material per 24 hours.

Node Cost:

200 mana

10 mana taken from production

Creates: 20 Individuals, 1 king, 1 prince, 18 standard greebles.

So that's what they were, kind of a shit name if I'm honest, but it's not like I'm expecting myself to use them. They certainly proved dangerous during that attack, but I'm fairly certain the only reason they were as much of a threat was because of their numbers, which were in the hundreds more than a mere 20, it was a lot for a single node and that making combined rooms would allow for possibly hundreds, but I kind of don't like these things. There was also a non-zero chance that I just wanted to make more rat people, not only did they keep up despite being hours old, but they also amused me greatly, especially that one rat that was using a regular rat as a hat while he cooked, maybe not the most sanitary practice but that's hardly a concern here. Overall, I'd say that perhaps I would use them in the future for one thing or another, but until that day I was going to wait until I could unlock the monster merging ability.

Moving on, I had also gained another growth level from all of that, and now having reached level 3, I gained around 6 DP per month, almost a full monster each month. But instead of going straight for monsters, I felt like I should spruce the place up a bit, and by that, I mean to unlock proper doorways so that it becomes harder for attacks to know what the next room held or if they were on the right path. So, after spending the DP I had just gained, many bronze and iron doors shimmered into existence in every room's entrance and exit, a small fun thing I noticed was that I could control them.

From there I moved on to the other messages.

Notice

The core has gained one(1) unique monster point.

This point will allow the core to purchase a respawnable monster with a unique feature that falls under one of three categories.

1. 'Roaming Elites', a monster that has been improved dramatically in its combat capabilities, roams multiple floors searching for invaders. Cannot be directly controlled.

2. 'Loot Goblins', a monster tasked with drawing in invaders deeper into the dungeon or traps, has a small collection of the rarest items the dungeon is capable of producing. Invaders may use the dropped items.

3. 'Merchants', a monster designed to interact with invaders to facilitate trade, the merchant's stock can be altered to be harmful but appear useful, or altered to provide real benefits.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Unique monsters are affected by dungeon theme and subtheme.

Well, that's interesting, and rather game-like as well. The idea seems to introduce an adjustable element to the dungeon, a tool for me to fight or reward invaders with. The elite was obvious in how it could be used, it would roam around and kill things, simple as. But the other two were a bit trickier, the loot goblin was a honey trap essentially, meant to distract greedy adventurers off the main path and into monsters or traps, while this 'merchant' was meant to 'help' people that entered either giving them poisoned drinks or just selling them actual stuff.

It's not an easy choice I'd say, but also not the most pressing. The elite could provide the level of security I needed at the upper floor or to reinforce the second one, the goblin could steer people away, and the merchant could, over time, be able to trade for more exotic materials or perhaps more monster blueprints if we're lucky. The biggest downside is that I couldn't control where the elite went, making it difficult to include them in any consistent planning, the goblin could give them a power boost that could steamroll my defenses, and the merchant was a monster offering strange drinks in a place designed to kill or severely maim them, I highly doubt people would take it without some assurances that the merchant was genuine. What that meant was the elite was the only net positive choice, but the other two were gambles, options that if they worked would provide far more than their costs, the idea of a goblin leading some idiots into the startlingly deep wormhole was both hilarious and devious, or if the merchant traded 'healing' potions for parts of a dragon or something to that effect.

But, this wasn't the only choice I would need to consider, I still had one more message aside from the slew of side messages about the rats killing those greebles.

Notice

The core has acquired an exotic metal [deep steel], presently this cannot be used in the creation of a new monster or critter, it may however be used to create a mechanical upgrade available on all current and future monsters or rooms. The upgrade will need to be rebought for each floor. Only one upgrade can be chosen at this time.

Loading options...

It's a shame there was no monster, but I already had my choice of unique ones and the Greeble blueprint so it wasn't all that bad. Besides, a relatively free upgrade was always welcomed in my dungeon. Before I viewed the upgrades though, I looked over what they gave me for the 'deep steel', a magical kind of steel that appeared gold.

Deep Steel Chassis

Improve the chassis of the chosen floor's mechanical monsters and critters, giving them incredibly durable bodies and minor resistance to earth and fire magic.

Does not affect monsters and critters already made from a superior material.

Unlocks the [Repair Port] room addition.

Increases upkeep of nodes by 1

Costs: 250 mana per floor chosen.

Deep Steel Reinforcement

Improve the output and material quality of all mechanical production rooms, and all combat rooms will have the appropriate areas converted to deep steel.

The material output of mechanical production rooms will not change but will be converted into a higher-quality version.

Unlocks the [Automaton Storage Space] room addition.

Increases production rooms mana by +5

Costs: 500 mana per floor chosen.

Deep Steel Armaments

When applicable, item-producing mechanical rooms produce deep steel versions. This event is random but is guaranteed to occur at least five times per 24 hours on the chosen floor.

For mechanically aligned structures such as the [Ratkin] based rooms, any object produced by a ratkin is included within this upgrade.

Unlocks the [Deep Steel Forge] room.

+3 mana upkeep for each floor chosen.

Costs: 300 mana per floor chosen.

Mechanical Enhancement

Choose a mechanical blueprint to enhance, this will improve the blueprint overall and grant the special passive ability [Deep-Attuned] granting low-level feromancy.

Mechanical monsters are granted innate feromancy.

Mechanical rooms will be granted low-level metal sprites to improve overall function.

Mechanical traps will utilize feromancy to improve ability when appropriate.

Unlocks the [Ferrofluid lake] trap room.

+5 upkeep to the improved blueprint.

Costs: N/A

Dang those were pricey, but also really good, I think I'll focus on these before I decide on the unique monsters. Going into analytical mode, the chassis option provided a bonus to my machine monsters as well as the [repair port] that can fix machine monsters mid-fight, it appears that room additions are more or less just improvements to the room itself without being a proper upgrade. Reinforcement was for the most part, arguably the least so far, yes it improved material production, but it lacked the 'oomph' that the others had, the thing that kept it in my eye though was that I would technically apply to the worm hole, making the already monstrous amount of mana I gained from burning the worm poop even more monstrous. It's room addition, the [automaton storage space], an addition that allowed production rooms to store their goods rather than just pile them up until the same production machines recycled them.

Deep steel armaments were both the same yet opposite of the reinforcements option, both improved produced items, but rather than providing an overall improvement, they created a few singularly high-quality goods. Still, unlike the other option, the armaments option unlocked a room for me to mess around with, a forge of all things. The final option though, was very interesting, a full upgrade to a monster, room, or trap, with each being improved both non-magically and magically. One of my monsters, likely the rats, would be stronger and have magic right from the get-go, rooms would have little magical helpers to make them deadlier or produce more, while traps would be even more dangerous, something that would complement the [ferrofluid lake] trap I would unlock with it. Considering these options, it was probably better that I hold off on the unique ones; each would benefit greatly from any of these upgrades, in their way.

As I thought about them, I sat at the edge of my entry room, watching the going ons of the small army that had the planet itself on my doorstep, considering how any of these choices would help me both protect myself and make it clear that I didn't want trouble, at least not without compensation. Taking the more aggressive options could make things tense between me and the outside, not that they weren't already, but taking too many 'cooperative' choices could put me in a situation where I couldn't deal with actual threats that came my way, or if they suddenly decided I wasn't worth the trouble.

Hmm... what to do?