Long story short, after a large time of panic and stress, I realized that I wasn't on Earth anymore.
I was your average Joe living on Earth, but I died and reincarnated or was transported to my personal Realm, a pocket dimension with a large floating island of dirt and rock.
I stood on the first underground floor of the island, with a floating fist-sized red crystal emanating with power before me.
My realm core, a dungeon core, a phylactery that could respawn me if I died.
So here is my current status, after I spent 1000 Dungeon Points on a large pool of choices, like when starting a generic jump chain.
(Free/mandatory) - Dungeon Heart Realm Type Warehouse
A buildable and upgradable dungeon that can store every type of loot and companions powered by your Dungeon Heart under your control, in case of death, you may respawn here with a 24-hour cooldown but beware, this Heart core acts as your phylactery, if it is ever destroyed you will lose and die forever.
The Heart is an item through which you work your will and maintain a hold on the Realm.
The in-game ability to manifest the 'hand of evil' to slap creatures and move items, is considered to be a power granted by a Dungeon Heart, along with consuming gold to instantly construct and deconstruct rooms, use spells on any claimed tile and provide an awareness of your dungeon and the general state of your minions.
200DP - A big guy for evil
While personally brawling with goodly foes is generally beneath most Keepers, it does have a certain visceral appeal...and being a Keeper is all about being visceral.
To ensure that your chosen vessel can properly bear your evil might, you shall be imparted onto an ancient process that causes your invading spirit to greatly strengthen whatever new bodies you inhabit.
Oh? How curious. It seems that any other effects you may have that improve your abilities will also carry over to whatever bodies you take possession of in the future.
300DP – Resource Shrine
Left attached to your warehouse or dropped into the world wherever you like, this oversized geode can be mined for an unlimited amount of small but high-quality resource types that you may discover. The supply is slow but steady, allowing four minions to mine from it.
500DP - CopyCat
Any new item brought to the dungeon may be absorbed to be replicated via a production room or spawned using an increased mana consumption.
This does not apply to unique rooms, special items and boss-type minions.
I am sort of a dungeon master, with the powers for anything, except, I had no spells, I could spawn no rooms and only have four worker imps from dungeon keeper 2 available.
The only thing I can do is spawn a Jump Gate, that opens a portal that connects to other realms, one at a time and it takes either 10 years to recharge or complete some main objective.
My first jump is into the dungeon keeper 2 campaign, the main objective is to kill King Reginald with the side objective of obtaining portal gems for Horny, a powerful demon that wants to use them to reach the surface.
For this specific jump, I am allowed to claim and own one extra dungeon heart, allowing me to build a second dungeon on the other side and each portal gem I acquire for Horny will unlock a new floor in my realm.
It's time I get to work, or better yet, my imps get to work, I currently only have to heart room at the centre of the floor, so I marked a long line leading north, ending in a 5 by 5 room where I would spawn the jump gate.
Three imps began clearing the path while the fourth claimed the tiles, while they kept working, I planned more tunnels, one east, one west and one south.
It took fifteen minutes to finish the north tunnel and thirty minutes to claim the said tunnel and the gate room.
Bored as hell I got, so in seconds, I placed the jump gate for free.
And.
It looks like a large mix of black stone and metallic circle, embued with magical teal runes, which reminds me of a skin copy of the gate from the Stargate show.
It is supported by two columns on each side, and white dirty stairs allow people to go up to enter or leave my realm.
Currently, it's shut down, I have a dialled code, of a random unknown gibberish dialect that I can't read or understand, but at the end is in English.
"Dungeon Keeper 2 modded campaign address"
It took me extra minutes to start the gate, because of one certain word.
"modded"
MODDED
Mods
Modifications
This worries me, at first, I thought it would be the normal campaign, but modded can be anything!
From higher or easier difficulty, improved or nerfed things and stuff from other franchises can even appear at random.
After some thought, I decided to go forward, transporting myself with the hand of evil towards the room, because let's face it, this is my only choice, so even if the other side connects to some impossible shit, like, demons of chaos, Cthulhu or some other entity that really mess my head up...
But unless I want to live forever bored in my empty dungeon with just 4 imps to interact with, I had to go forward.
The blue liquid portal like Stargate opened and I crossed realms.
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On the other side, I arrived in a heart room, which said heart began beating and I felt it like the connection to my own, except I could lose this one without facing permadeath.
"Ah, keeper, welcome back to the underworld!" A familiar older male voice spoke in my head, the mentor of dk2.
"And I see that you already possess a personal body? Most of you kin never do such, but this might be more fun.
You are in Smilesville, Keeper! Before you lie a happy and carefree realm.
The local champion, Lord Antonius, holds the first Portal Gem you require.
Learn how to construct a dungeon.
Build up your forces so that you can crush Lord Antonius, and wipe the smile from his face.
Construct a lair and a hatchery, collect the gold nearby and claim the portal to build up your forces and crush any resistance!"
My second heart's Imps appeared in the heart room, shuffling about as the mentor spoke, I had already done this campaign several times, but with the modded version, I will take my time building up as he provided me with the two rooms.
Lair (Sleep Room)
The Lair is where creatures go to slowly heal after getting injured or just to rest after a hard day’s work.
Hatchery (Production Room)
This room generates a chosen unlocked critter from which creatures eat to sustain themselves, for every 3x3 section of the Hatchery you build, an egg-producing coop will appear. The eggs will in turn hatch into the edible critters of choice.
I begin my work, marked tiles to be dug, this map, at least from what I can tell from out of the fog, is the same as the original so there's barely any room, still, I can fit a 4 by 5 hatchery on the south and a lair on the west of the heart room.
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While digging to the east to get the gateway for minions, I remembered something.
In the original mission, digging north would lead to dwarf miners, the scouts of goodly forces, so I did a trick.
From the lair I ordered for a tunnel to be dug in 2 L shapes and ending in a line until reaching the undiggable rock, this would prevent them from reaching my heart room directly by digging into it and instead forced them to go around.
In the last step, I placed the resource shrine east next to the minion gate, as if I risk mining the gold north might trigger the dwarfs.
So instead my imps can mine and give me gold for eternity.
[https://imgur.com/F45BxIo.png]
1- Heart Room 2-Resource Shrine 3-Lair
4-Hatchery 5-Minion Gate 6- Tunnel with fortified walls
"A new species of creature has entered your dungeon." Commented the mentor.
"The goblin is a stalwart dungeon minion. It is quick to recover from stunning and while weak individually, in hordes they can be a ferocious pack."
Goblins represent the staple of any thriving dungeon.
Goblins excel at nothing, but are eager and willing to serve, although they may well turn their noses up at research or manufacturing work.
In combat, their effectiveness really depends on their numbers; they simply don’t have the strength or skills to be considered effective independent warriors but as a pack, they can overcome their innate fear of danger.
Possibly due to their size and lack of exceptional skills or maybe just because they’re ugly, Goblins have a slight tendency to be picked on by other creatures. They themselves despise Dwarves.
[https://i.imgur.com/06NkClq.jpg]
I waited now, as one by one, goblins join my banner.
But after the 7th goblin, something new came, at the same time the dwarf miners penetrated my tunnel, a black large thing the size of a dog walking on six legs, the beetle from dungeon keeper 1.
"A very basic creature that gets stamped on in a fight has entered your dungeon! Beetles are very weak and are regarded as training fodder by the stronger heroes."
Surprised, I simply picked up my goblins and dropped them at their lair, who began fighting the dwarfs that entered the room before ignoring their fight and staring at the cute monster beetle.
A Beetle has no default task, with no jobs that it likes to do or is particularly good at, and nothing it hates. It's a lazy creature that will, without guidance, just idle in its Lair except to take meals, train and fight.
This means that there might be more dk1 minions and enemies that don't exist on dk2.
And, so surprised I was, that when I checked the battle, it was already over, with three goblins that took some hits but returned to their beds to slowly heal and four dwarfs unconscious laid on my lair, a bit of a waste since I didn't have a prison or a graveyard.
With the scouts defeated, I waited a bit more, originally it is supposed to be only 2 dwarves, so I am taking this free time to test my dungeon realm. First, my imps tried to go through to it by the second dungeon heart, but something blocked them.
Second, they picked up gold and threw it to my realm and it worked, my imps on the other side picked up the gold and carried and dropped it on the tiles around my main dungeon heart, capable of holding 16k gold, so my minions of secondary kept mining and trowing the gold.
With that and my orders still working, the imps on my realm began digging new rooms.
On the west tunnel of my realm, I added a 5 by 5 lair that faced north and a 5 by 5 hatchery that faced south.
With this, I try my third test.
Picked up a goblin and ordered him personally to go to my realm.
It worked!
This is wonderful, why, someone might ask me.
The gateway where minions come has a limited number, 15 at the moment and my realm cant spawn minions, at least yet, so, every time my population cap gets filled, I picked one or two minions to transfer to my realm.
This cheat works really well, so much so I had to transfer the shrine to my realm, so my imps could mine there as payday there will be larger.
Now the problem is that I am getting around 5 to 6 goblins per beetle, but due to the changed mechanics and having limited storage for the gold, I prefer beetles.
Beetles are tougher than goblins due to their carapace, the damage is the same but goblins can dodge and are quicker to attack.
At first, I preferred goblins over bugs until I noticed something that made me want to get a horde of beetles.
Goblins want a daily pay of 50 gold while the beetles just require food and a place to rest!
Thanks to wanting a horde, I found a new function of the minion gateway, I could actually select the types of minions that can join my dungeon! Selected beetles, added more lairs and some hatcheries on my realm and turned the east side of my second dungeon into a lair.
Time for a big test room on my realm, 9 by 9, with a hatchery 5 by 5 placed at the centre, 25 tiles with four chicken coups.
I will fill the outer 2 lines of tiles with 56 lair tiles, hopefully, the hatchery will be enough to feed 56 beetles.
This room is placed just north of my main dungeon heart.
I walked around for a bit as I waited for stuff to get built, the rooms are the same as the game, picked up a chicken in the hatchery, little thing stared at me before I placed the bird down and it started to poke its beak around the hatchery floor with the rest of its kind.
The thing blew into feathers with a slap of the hand of evil.
Approaching one of the coups, I picked an egg, in my hands it seems the chicken doesn't come out as other eggs came out, breaking after rolling on the floor and releasing the birds
I cracked it open on the coup's ceiling, its contents spilling on the floor, perhaps I could unlock a room that stores and maintains these eggs? The mana of my heart assures me I don't need to eat, but I wouldn't mind having an omelette.
Next, I walked to the lair and noticed something.
My goblins are stereotypically short, with long noses, long ears, green skin and skinny bodies, but it seems they each bring different items.
A mix of randomly torn pants, and clothes, some have rusted helmets of different types, knight style, Viking style, and even one has a bucket on his head.
Their weapons are also old, and rusty, mostly short swords, daggers and cleavers.
And they are afraid of me.
The moment I entered their lair, the little green fellas picked up their weapons but did not point at me, instead, slowly they moved backwards to not get in my way.
I sighed and turned around, even one of them seemed ready to push his broken tip dagger down his throat instead to approach me, something that I want to change, my minions as long as they are loyal, I do not want to treat them like dirt, but is this important?
Better check everything again, my first real battle would soon begin.
The imps of my second are idle now, so I ordered them to bring me the dead dwarves.
Again stereotypical, short, long-beared and fat, like in the game.
They have clothes that don't serve me, pickaxes and bags.
Their corpses and items were thrown into my realm to be absorbed, unlocking options to use mana to spawn...
Expensive pickaxes, bags and clothes that are too short for me.
Since the mana of my realm is slowly increasing by tile, I decided to spawn at least clothes using a tenth of my mana every time it fully refills for my less dressed goblins, but the rest, uh, not much I can get.
But now I have an idea, I ordered one of my goblins in my realm to drop his knight helmet and another his cleaver.
Spent almost all of my mana, spawning replacements for my goblins and one of each for me.
The helmet barely fits, but I can work with it, the new cleaver is still rusty but I don't really have better options.
Tried a few slices, and did some poses, feels not heavy but not light.
Called an imp to me for a test.
It worked quite well.
The tiny thing was sliced in half, but no worries, a new one would respawn in a few seconds.
The last thing I want to check is, there are no hp bars, but my minions and myself have levels, we are all level one, I know that there's an item that gives +1 level, but it is near the lord of this land, so I am getting it once my horde is ready.
Took half an hour to get everything done, but it seems everyone is working out well.
Meanwhile, the first lair on the west tunnel got filled with goblins.
In total, 56 beetles and 25 goblins in my realm and 15 goblins in my second dungeon.
With the hand of evil, I picked every minion in my realm, ready to drop them on the gate.
My imps began tunnelling north to the lord's underground keep, I followed them along with the fifteen goblins, normally you would need 4 to 6 to beat him, but there were double the scouts, so there might be more enemies other than Antonius.
The imps focused first on digging left to show the box of +1 level.
But as I looked at it, the wall block to the keep to my side crumbled, showing two dwarves running behind a tall knight.
"Traitor! It is not too late for you. Rejoin the light! Avenge the torturous ways that the vile thing used on you to put you on its side. And face the wretches behind you with us!" Lord Antonius spoke.
He was confusing me for a turned tortured prisoner, forced to fight for "evil".
Well, not that I look that evil in a rusted helmet, white shirt with a Game of Thrones dragon, black shorts and sandals.
I can't say anything, still startled at the group before me.
Four level 1 dwarves, no worries, three guards with helmets and chainmail amour with spears level 2 I could deal with losing a couple of goblins, but the lord, fuck, the lord is level 6!
The goblins charged ahead after he spoke, with bravery out of nowhere...
'Morons!'
And let me tell you, the lord fucktard, did he just slash three goblins in half with one swing?
"So be it!" The knight shouted as he rushed to hit me.
I barely swing the cleaver up in time to block the attack.
'Fuck, am I facing a berserker?'
Everything in my body hurt as I lay on the ground, the bastard threw me to the side tunnel, with the box +1 level behind me.
Nothing felt broken, so I rise up in time, blocking a second hit, our weapons clashed, him pressuring the sword against my cleaver.
I felt the dungeon warning me, most of my goblins were unconscious or dead but managed to take out the dwarves and one guard.
"Dammit!" I saw behind the knight, three goblin survivors running away from the fight.
"You should not lose focus on a battle!" The lord shouted, breaking off, putting me off balance and the next thing I knew, I am corpse-less, my spirit floating towards the second heart.
'This is bad!'
'But I still got my horde.'
Quickly I ordered my first hand to drop them on the portal, and the second hand to pick them up in groups and drop the goblins at the west lair.
Antonius meanwhile rushed the tunnel, way ahead of his men, reaching the lair.
As the goblins fought him. Fuck the guy already slain seven of them and was holding against twelve.
'What the fuck?'
Dropped the last goblins in the lair and gathered the beetles.
'My goblins are slowly beating the lord, but if the guards reach him...'
I released the beetle swarm on top of the guards, who are able to kill the first ones, but then quickly got overwhelmed by their numbers.
With them dead, my swarm rushed to the lair.
On the lair, the lord seems tired, wounded, filled with scratches, and blood running out of pierced bits of his armour, my goblins overall were alive, but I counted 9 dead, and 12 unconscious throughout the room.
"This is not over! I still..." He shouted in rage, cutting 2 more goblins and kicking a third one towards the wall, before getting caught by the beetles, who swarmed him like a pack of wolves.
Pieces of armour
Cloth
Leather
And chunks of meat flow out of the swarm.
I stared at what was left, a small gem above a pool of blood and metal. the beetles fighting over the bits to eat.
'If I had rushed...'
I didn't complete that thought as a new being teleported into my dungeon.
A huge red figure, taller than the lord, with huge long horns, goat-like feet and wearing a long ass scythe, Horny raged as he materialized.
His steps could be felt throughout the dungeon as he walks to the gem.
My minions, even those injured made way for him, way more terrified of him than me.
He picked up the portal gem and rose it up in the air before disappearing.
It took a while to notice, but as I processed how quickly everything happened, the bettles trying to clean the floor like blood was the nectar of gods.
I have now the option to leave my second dungeon and relocate.
But first, loot. The lord's sword will serve well once I respawn, and the guard's chainmail, boots and armour that didn't get damaged might fit me.
I waited to refill my dungeons with more minions, adding a second big lair for goblins and another big 9 by 9 for beetles.
Everything was brought to my realm, the corpses, their gear, and box +1 level, I even sold the rooms to bring the extra gold, forming piles of coins that spread throughout the north tunnel.
I also unlocked the second floor, once I build a free staircase gate, I'll have access to it, so I placed it at the end of the south tunnel.
I relocate my heart room and placed it in the centre of the second floor with the resource shrine south to it, set to build the same set of the four tunnels, I also built and relocated the goblins there while the beetle horde for now stays on the first floor.
I added more rooms and increased others, enough to hold 224 beetles and 50 goblins, I also made empty rooms that will get filled once I start the next level of the campaign.
The second floor on the east tunnel now has empty 5 by 5 rooms, for 1 training, 1 library, 1 hatchery and a lair reserved for warlocks and whatever new minions might appear.
'Still, 18 hours to respawn, might as well begin the second tutorial mission."