I blinked mentally at the sudden influx of system notifications. Naming things had such power? Names were truly amazing. Actually, thinking of it, naming myself was one of the first things the tutorial voice had had me do. Maybe I got power from my name, as well. Regardless I was happy for Stalker, as I watched it… no, her… inspect her new form. It looked very similar to her old one, except she was slightly larger, and blended in with the cave around her in a more… ethereal way. Her eyes also gleamed with more intelligence than before, giving me a similar feeling to the skeletal necromancer. Maybe I could speak to her as well? She didn’t have a mouth shaped for words, but then again neither did skeletons, so it shouldn’t be that bad.
The first Floor is yours to Guard. I sent. Stalker shifted her head towards my Core, immediately attentive to my words. Go familiarize yourself with the layout, and with the Floor’s other inhabitants.
I shall do this task. Stalker sent back. Interesting. Instead of speaking aloud like the necromancer, she’d used a similar kind of telepathy as I was using. Her voice, such as it was, felt more like music and an assortment of tones than words, though the meaning was quite clear. I sent back affirmation, then returned my attention to the necromancer. Might as well name him as well while I was at it. Let me think… A good name for a necromancer…
Your name will be Krazad. I sent it. Krazad the Necromancer.
This time the surge of mana was much more intense. I’d recovered most of my mana in the time since the first naming, but I wasn’t quite back to full. Plus which, Krazad seemed to require much more mana for his naming than Stalker had. I half wondered why, but mostly I was occupied with feeling like I was being wrung inside out as mana left as quickly as it recovered. The edges of my awareness turned dull, black almost. Like the void before existence. Thankfully I was able to hold on, though only just, until eventually the process finally finished. I sank deep into myself, shutting down most of my external senses as I gathered myself after the ordeal. That had been horrible. Note to self; do not mess with naming. I’d have to figure out what caused that sort of thing, then keep that from happening in the future. For now though I was just glad to be in one piece.
Your creature Krazad the Necromancer is being strengthened!
Your creature Krazad the Necromancer has become a [Skeletal Necromancer (Elite)]!
Experience gained!
I was vaguely aware of the new notification from the system, but I still spent a few moments within my Core, recentering myself. Afterwards I began to stretch my awareness back out to examine the new appearance of my second Floor boss, only to find that it hadn’t changed. At least outwardly. I could feel that Krazad was different, stronger, than the Skeletal Necromancer had been. But outwardly he looked the same. That didn’t matter to me though, as long as the naming did what it was supposed to. I only wished I could see exactly what was different though…
I flinched mentally as a status screen suddenly appeared to my senses. One that was not mine.
Name:
Krazad the Necromancer
Level:
20
Race:
Undead (Arcane, Darkness, Death)
Grade:
Elite (Guardian)
Attributes
Strength
40
Vitality
132
Dexterity
38
Perception
58
Spirit
90
Force
100
Health
1320
Mana
900
Skills
[Mana Bolt], [Detect Magic], [Darkness], [Raise Skeleton], [Necrotic Aura], [Death Mark]
My first thought was that this was incredibly unfair. My status wasn’t anywhere near this extensive. And that wasn’t even mentioning the Skills and Mana Krazad now had access too. But then I realized that if he had access to them, I had access to them as well, so I relaxed and began going through the page in earnest. The thing that stood out the most was that Krazad had many more attributes than me. In fact the only one we shared was Mana, the rest were foreign to me. Though I could sense something about their function and domain through my connection to the system, and the Attributes as they were called were pretty much standard across the native creatures of this world. To check I opened up Stalker’s status as well.
Name:
Stalker
Level:
10
Race:
Leatherwing (Blood, Darkness, Water)
Grade:
Elite(Guardian)
Attributes
Strength
35
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Vitality
81
Dexterity
61
Perception
56
Spirit
32
Force
41
Health
810
Mana
320
Skills
[Water Jet], [Blood Poison], [Darkness], [Meld]
She was a lower level than Krazad, and her Attributes were substantially lower as well. That made sense to me, considering that she was on the first Floor and Krazad was on the second, but I didn’t really know where that feeling of supposed order came from. Because at the same time I also didn’t particularly want Stalker to be weak just because she was supposed to be. That didn’t feel right either. More stuff I need to ponder about. Lovely. At this rate I’d never get anything else done but pondering. When I first awakened I’d been nothing but a bundle of excitement, but the more I learned, and the more I became aware that I didn’t know anything about anything, the more frustrating it became not knowing. Maybe I’d been too eager, too responsive to my impulses to grow and expand, where what I should have been doing was taking things more slowly, and learning why things were happening.
…Well, it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. And I got this sweet new Floor aesthetic as a result, so everything worked out fine in the end apart from the naming issue. Still, I felt that I should take a break from growing for a bit, regardless of how icky that sentiment was to my sensibilities, and examine what I could actually do. Not just with mana, but with the System as well.
With that decided I dismissed Stalkers status window and checked on the bats and manta rays. They had statuses just like the leatherwing, though their grade was “Mundane” instead of “Elite”, and of course they weren’t Guardians. They were also all Level 1, and had vastly lower Attributes than Stalker, with only one Skill each. [Meld] for the bats, and [Water Jet] for the mantas. Even though they were all the same level there was some variety between their Attributes, letting me work out how Health and Mana worked; Health being ten times Vitality and Mana being ten times Spirit. Something I really should have noticed instantly now that I think about it, but oh well.
After that I summoned some Skeletons on the second Floor; the new creature type unlocked to me after selecting Krazad to be my Guardian, to check their stats. Their status looked pretty much the same as the other monsters, though they started at level 10, and cost a noticeably larger amount of mana to create. In fact just one cost 15 mana, almost my entire mana pool, so I had to wait a bit after each summon. It also seemed that instead of different monsters I’d gotten a subtype this time. At least that was how it was organized in my system window. There was the base Skeleton, and below that was a subtype called Skeletal Archer. They cost 5 more mana to summon, but had higher stats on average and even came with their own equipment. Though they weren’t Elites and still spawned at level 10. On a hunch I tried spawning a Skeleton on the first Floor instead, both to see what would happen and just to check if I could. I selected the base Skeleton from the system list and waited with baited breath. Then, just like normal, I felt the now familiar feeling of mana draining from me as the summoning began. I checked the new Skeleton’s status. Level 1 this time, and much lower stats than the other Skeletons. Then I frowned when I noticed that it had still cost me 15 mana to make. That was three times as much as the Manta or the Bat for something at the same level. Still, it was an interesting discovery. It seemed there was some kind of level range on each Floor. Maybe you could only be below 10 on the first one, since that was the level of the Guardian… No, that didn’t seem right. The Skeletons had been level 10 even on the second Floor too… Whatever, I didn’t have to learn everything right away. And I had plenty of other things I needed to investigate. Like my own status page. I hadn’t checked it once since I leveled, and at that time I’d been too excited to think clearly about anything other than continued expansion. As I recall now I obviously got some rewards from leveling up. And I hadn’t even checked out what they were yet, apart from the Skill. I felt a profound sense of disappointment in myself. Bad dungeon. Everyone should always check their rewards.
I decided to check out the thing called ‘Edicts' first… Only to find very little in terms of information. I had two ‘Edict Slots’, I could feel that instinctively. But exactly what they were for I had no idea… Something about defining Rules, with a capital R, that everything within the Dungeon had to follow. It seemed nice in theory, especially if I could make one that made people unable to kill me, but I didn’t know how to use it. My mysterious instincts brought forth by the system weren’t much help, either. With a mental sigh I moved on to the next thing on the list. Dungeon Perks.
This subject had much more information, and further cemented me as an utter moron. Perks were, as it turned out, passive abilities that Dungeons got that would steer their growth. There were ones that made different creature types cheaper to make, ones that improved creatures based on their innate elements. There was even one that increased the maximum sizes a Floor could have, or how much Mana was generated through certain processes.
The last two were the most interesting to me. I could take one focusing on darkness attuned mana, as that overlapped between my two Floors. But I didn’t feel like restricting myself like that. If anything I’d instead take the one that increased the power of a Floor’s creatures for each element that floor had that wasn’t on any of the other Floors. That one could’ve been interesting. Though selecting it now that I already had an overlap… No, I couldn't do it.
After some more reading I got bored, and simply narrowed down the Perks I’d already read through to three contenders.
[Improved Mana Flows]
Dungeon Perk, (Common)
Increases the Core’s mana generation by 10% for each Floor in the Dungeon.
[Spatial Expansion]
Dungeon Perk, (Uncommon)
Increases the maximum size of a Floor by 1.5x the normal Floor limit.
[Elemental Darkness]
Dungeon Perk, (Uncommon)
Grants the Core’s minions attuned to the Darkness element +15% Mana and Health.
I frowned internally. All of them were good, making it difficult to pick just one. But I also refused to just wallow in indecision. That was not who I was. I was Veos. I acted.
I picked [Spatial Expansion]. It was the only choice really. Though the other ones might give me an actual power increase… I’d been forced to stop my mausoleum before I’d been happy with it. I hadn’t thought it had bothered me that much until I’d seen this Perk, and realized just how much I needed to change it into the Floor I actually wanted.
Unfortunately the first Floor was already done, and so I couldn’t expand it with this. But that was ok. I was happy with that Floor as it was anyway. The Mausoleum however needed more work. I dismissed my status window and was about to get started, then forced myself to stop.
Hold on. You’re not done yet. There are still things left to go through.
The Random Creature Template, specifically. I dejectedly opened up the status again, and started going through my sudden influx of memories about the subject. I instantly became fully alert, and I felt excitement once more start to build in my soul. This was… I couldn’t quite put it into words. But something about getting something at random was incredibly attractive to me. Was that what people felt when they got my Rewards Chest? I could only hope so, for their sake.
With rapt attention I activated the random template, and felt a massive dice started rolling around in my head. It spun and spun, each face representing a different creature. All my attention was focused on it as it began to slow down, gradually at first, before it finally landed.
You have unlocked the [Flame Wisp]!
Experience gained!
A Flame Wisp… I tested the word on my tongue, mentally speaking. It was definitely different from the other creatures I had. Which was both good and bad. Good, because they might come as a surprise to future delvers. Bad, because they wouldn’t fit with any of my Floor aesthetics. Bah, maybe that wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe one wandered in from outside. With my mind made up I activated the System and summoned one onto my first Floor. Then I quickly checked its Status. What I saw caused my elation to deflate slightly. These Wisps had even lower attributes than my Bats!
But they did have [Flame Conjuration], and quite a lot of mana. So my instincts told me they could still be quite useful. Though I probably wouldn’t use them on any of these first two Floors considering the themes going on.
With the chores left to me by my previous selfs foolish eagerness taken care of, I was finally able to get back to constructing my second Floor. I’d made the critical path, the boss room, and a pair of chambers I felt fit into what a mausoleum should look like. My issue was the area around the staircase. My area of control wasn’t broad enough to make anything before, while still wasting a lot of my precious Floorspace. Now though I could expand the area around and underneath the back parts of the staircase, and make a final, hidden, chamber. It wouldn’t be vital to completing the Floor. But it would allow you to get better rewards. I smiled internally as I worked, unaware of the passing of time. Around me my two Guardians, their minions, and a singular Wisp wandered, or floated around, wordlessly protecting me while I hummed to myself and decorated the stonework along the corridors of the mausoleum. This Floor was going to be so cool!