I realized I felt bad about that last Challenger dying, which was a new thing for me.

Up until now, while I’d felt that Challenger deaths were as a concept a ‘bad thing’, as it meant a failure in them rising to the Challenge while at the same time halting the progress of the Story, I never really felt guilty about their deaths. Even as I’d grown more familiar with these humans as more and more had entered, I’d still felt detached, like an outside observer not participating in the events that were taking place, but just watching them happen. Which sidenote, I didn’t want to be. Eventually I wanted to interface with the world through my Story even beyond my borders, if that was possible. So perhaps caring more about the Challengers was a natural evolution towards that goal. Regardless though it was something for future me to figure out. For now I had enough trouble thinking about what to do about this uncomfortable new feeling. I thought this last death had been different from the others due to the fact that he’d died after already giving up. It had taken some introspection to figure that out, but once I did it made sense to me.

Him giving up was the ending to the Story of his Challenge, so the death happening after the fact just seemed unnecessary, especially since if I’d thought ahead I could have prevented it. If I’d disabled the trap once it was clear the Challenge was going to fail I could have gotten the ‘proper’ ending. It felt like a waste, and that waste was my own fault.

It wasn’t a nice feeling to have, like a nagging itch deep within me, and it only compounded when I realized that I was also uncomfortable about the fact that I was feeling bad for the Challenger. Like I was supposed to hope they died and was going against my instincts somehow by instead hoping for their success.

That threw me for a loop considering how powerful my drive was to provide a proper Challenge and reward those who proved themselves. I knew I could make every Floor next to impossible if I wanted to, with constantly changing death traps in a Floor that in no way tried to teach or prepare anyone for what was to come. But that wasn’t what I was meant to do, so I hadn’t ever really even considered the option, at least consciously.

I focused inward, deeper than I’d ever done before, toward the metaphorical kernel that was the source of the uncomfortable sensation. Minutes turned to hours, and the feeling came and went as I pondered about the different things that had happened during the Challenge. It was tricky, examining my own emotions so directly like this, but eventually I was able to figure out that whenever I thought that a Challenger failing their Challenge was bad, or that I’d done something wrong somehow by making them fail, the kernel would squirm and send out tentacles of discomfort through my mind. Discomfort and a hint of… was that fear?

…No, fear wasn’t the best way to describe this emotion. I wasn’t even sure if emotion was the correct term for this. Perhaps some kind of internal sense was a more apt description. It felt primal, almost like the pure instinct of the Challengers when they flinched away from pain. Something they did without thought, purely through an ingrained reflex to avoid danger.

There was something deep in the back of my mind that was afraid of Challengers… no, delvers… defeating my Guardians and reaching my Core. I thought back to what the tutorial had said so long ago, of how some people wanted to ‘gain my treasures’ in a way not according to the customs of the Challenge.

That had to be what was causing the reaction. I was flinching away from the danger of progress. The conflicting feelings were coming from my instincts fighting over which was more important; the Challenge or my safety. Up until now the Challenge had been winning out I thought, as I hadn’t ever really felt in any real danger. But perhaps feeling bad for them failing was a step too far? Were my instincts worried I would grow lenient, perhaps let someone pass I shouldn’t due to a desire not to inflict unnecessary harm?

There was some logic to that, but I didn’t like it. Not only because discomfort wasn’t a nice thing to experience, but also because now there was a seed of doubt in my head.

I’d only noticed it now, but how could I be sure I hadn’t been overly harsh in an attempt to avoid leniency? Considering how lacking the progress had been I could definitely see an argument for me having made the Challenge unfairly difficult. Which I definitely did not want it to be. I was already feeling a bit discouraged by the Challengers' lack of progress through my Story, and if it had been due to me being unfair rather than them being foolhardy or not skilled enough… that would just make me feel stupid.

I once again thought back to the various Challengers that had been through the Floor so far, remembering how they would react to my creatures’ attacks or whenever they had at the time seemed overly hesitant to walk into an area where there could be a trap, and recognizing the reaction as similar to what I was now feeling. Apprehension. An itch within their mind warning of something that could potentially cause harm. Something that could threaten their lives. Right now mine was muted, since the danger was all theoretical, but for the Challengers that was far from the case. For them that itch had to be much more severe. Though to give myself some credit, they were also probably much more used to this whole 'emotions' and 'sensations' thing, whereas I was not. It could be that this wouldn't really be a problem at all, once I was able to get used to it. The problem was I had no way to know that for sure.

For the first time I tried to place myself in the Challengers shoes. I hadn’t ever really thought of them as being separate from the Challenge before, despite knowing logically they had to have lives outside my Dungeon. Those lives just hadn’t been very interesting to me. Now though I thought I understood more about them, as well as the invisible challenges that they had to undertake in order to even attempt the Challenge in the first place. They were risking their lives every time they stepped into my Floor, and I very much wasn’t.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

And though that made some sense since the Challenge was primarily for their benefit, and not my own, it still felt like I was missing something by just capitulating to the fear and playing it safe. The risk, the fear, was what made the Challenge be worthy of the reward. If I wanted to understand that better, I ought to take some risks myself as well. Or at least not let the part of my instincts that was determined to make the Floors as difficult as possible run the show. Maybe I've been too hard on them, and it would be better if I’d ease up in the future…

I shook myself. No, I shouldn't rush too far in the opposite direction just because I might have made a mistake. I wasn’t sure if there was a way for me to ever find out what ‘too harsh’ or ‘too lenient’ was objectively, but what I did know was that I didn’t want to be ruled by fear. I would need to pay attention to my own emotional response as well as any logical conclusions I could draw from the actual Challenges before I started making potential changes to my Floors moving forward.

I might as well start right away with this latest one. There were two main things I made note of while watching the Challengers make their way through the Floor that I didn’t like. Most obvious was of course the fight with Stalker; it was just too difficult. I would get to that eventually, but the primary thing that bothered me was that the party completely ignored the Story connections. They did make a few comments about the note mentioning Krazad in passing, so I knew they were aware of them. But they didn’t seem to think that the connections were that important. Or rather, that it wasn’t their job to investigate them further. What needed to be found had been found, and what needed to be discussed was being discussed already, so what use was it for them to go get a new copy of the same note? I could see where they were coming from, but it was still a problem because the supposed discussions that were happening about my Story were all happening outside. Where I couldn’t listen in. A few comments made off hand about ‘Farinon didn’t find any mention of it in his notes’ or ‘Alerio said they sent for more books’ weren’t enough. I not only wanted people to interface with my Story, I wanted to see them interfacing with it.

That meant I’d have to do something to either encourage the Challengers to interact with the narrative elements, or do something drastic that would force the ones outside having these discussions to come in and have them in here instead. I wasn’t sure if that was a feasible option though. It wasn’t exactly in line with my sensibilities as a Dungeon to have non-Challengers be in here to essentially just hang about and talk, regardless of how interested I was in what they had to say. So for the foreseeable future I thought the better choice would be to try and make the Challengers themselves become invested in the Story during the Challenges.

I actually had a few ideas on how to do that. I could make some puzzles for small bonuses or secret things that could only be accessed using the various items found within the narrative rooms. If it was possible I could even make the puzzles change the same way my traps did. Puzzles where the answers could only be found within the narrative. They didn’t even need to be that difficult. Perhaps a clue to a puzzle would be one of the words within Krazad’s missive, but which one it was would change. If possible the puzzle itself would of course have a limited number of attempts, to prevent them from just brute forcing it by remembering all the words in the note. That way if the party went and investigated the narrative connections, they’d easily be able to solve the puzzle and get some bonus for having done so. But if they didn’t, they’d never be able to solve the thing.

Yeah, I was liking that idea more and more. And curiously the kernel of discomfort wasn’t reacting at all to the prospect of providing additional rewards. Perhaps it only cared about progress through the Floors, and wasn’t sophisticated enough to put together that more rewards would probably mean a deeper progression later?

It would certainly be a relief if that was the case, as it would serve to assuage some of my worries that it had had a large impact on the design of my Floors up until this point. There might have been some influence, but if it had to be that direct at least it shouldn’t have made that much of a difference. At least not beyond the point where I could fix it without changing the main features of the Floors themselves. Though I might have to get pretty involved with the Stalker fight, as she was just way stronger than the rest of the Floor.

For most of the parties that had entered what they had come to call the ‘main room fight’ was still a true Challenge. Everyone acknowledged its difficulty and annoying enemy combination, yet they still went that path most of the time, so it wasn’t difficult enough that the Challengers thought it was unfair compared to its rewards.

The same could not be said for the Stalker fight. She had only been Challenged twice, once just now and once during the initial discoverer Challenge. And the first time had been an easier fight, with the water for the Mantas positioned extremely poorly and without any tunnels between the various pools.

And even with that it had resulted in the Challenger’s defeat, and Alerio would have died if not for my interference.

Stalker was a monster, and I realized more and more just how much of one she was now that there had been a true full Challenge against her. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she could handle some of the parties that went in without any help at all, let alone an almost full ‘main room fight’s’ worth of helpers.

I realized I could hit two birds with one stone, if I tied some of the helpers in Stalker’s fight to the new puzzles in the narrative rooms. Separating them into smaller encounters that could be defeated in advance if the puzzles were solved, though if the party chose to skip the narrative those creatures would return to Stalker’s chamber to help with the final fight. That way the Story would be more tied into the actual mechanics of the Floor that the Challengers cared about. If I did that I could even fill up the monster quota of the Floor completely, as there were still a few creature slots remaining that I hadn’t been sure what to do with since changing the layout of the Floor. They hadn’t been enough for a pack by themselves, but I hadn’t wanted to add them onto the already difficult fights that were already there. But if I split that final pack into thirds there was plenty of room to add them back in.

I grew more and more excited as ideas began spinning into being in my head fast enough that I barely noticed the slight wiggle of irritation from the kernel at the prospect of making the final fight easier.

No, stay quiet. I thought to myself. I make the decisions here, not you.

…that was a strange thing to think, as the kernel was also definitely me. I shook myself, that didn’t matter right now. I had changes to make. And I would make sure I consciously thought about why I was making them. All for a fair and balanced Challenge, and parties that would actually have to engage with the Story.

Now I just had to come up with some riddles.