> Type
> —————
> Tundra
> Forest
> Desert
> Jungle
> Island
> Wastes
>
> User input:
> Desert
>
> ——————————
>
> Starting Monster Class
> —————
> Scorpion
> Construct
> Elemental
> Undead
> Salamander
>
> User input:
> Scorpion
>
> Processing… Stand by…
> …
> …
> …
> …
Existence rushed into being and she had the impulse to gasp, and when she couldn’t, she tried to choke, and when that didn’t work, she gave up trying for bodily functions like breathing. Instead she took stock of what was around her. She was inside what appeared to be a room, or some kind of cave. In the middle was a pillar with a gemstone on it, which glowed bright aquamarine. That was it. Nothing else in the space, no obvious entrances or exits, no objects, nothing that seemed interactive.
She could move around, but didn’t seem corporeal, and she wondered why she expected that. Why she assumed she would be. She still had an instinct to breathe, even, despite the failed experiments from before. She experimentally tried to go up, to see if she could float.
Well, that’s jumping, what she just did. She jumped. So, she kind of works like a human. She could crouch, lie down, roll around, but couldn’t seem to close one eye or the other.
As fascinating as this all was, it wasn’t going to help whatever this situation was. She assumed she couldn’t starve, but she wasn’t sure. In fact, she felt a tug that was like hunger, but… adjacent. Not quite the same. Now that she noticed it, it was getting stronger and stronger.
“I need help,” she said, which, okay, she can talk.
> User input:
> Help
> ————————
> Select category:
> Getting Started
>
> User Input:
>
She eyed the text box that appeared in front of her. It was teal, like the gemstone. She hovered a finger over it, and tapped ‘Getting Started’. The box changed.
> User input:
> Help
> ————————
> Select category:
> Getting Started
>
> User Input:
> Getting Started
> ————————
> Introduction
> Construction
> Monsters
> Treasure
> Research
> First Steps
>
> User Input:
>
Huh. Okay. Introduction.
> User Input:
> Introduction
> ———————————
> Self-Identification
>
> You are a dungeon. Look around the room and for a pillar with a glowing gem. — Kinda hard to miss, she thought — That is the Dungeon Core. For all intents and purposes, that gem is you. As long as that gem is unbroken, and you don’t degrade (See heading Resources) you are immortal.
> Resources
> In order to keep from degrading, you require Build Ingredients (See subsection Construction) as well as Mana Tally (See subsection Monsters).
> You will also require Research Grist (See subsection Research)in order to upgrade your abilities.
> You can toggle your tracker for all of your resources with the command “Track”.
She looked away from the text box and said, “Track?” Like that, she had more teal projections hovering in her vision, moving with her head, almost like a HUD. What’s a HUD? Where did that thought come from? She shook her head and looked them over. On the upper left were two bars.
MT: 140/140
(15/tic)
So that was probably the mana tally. She wondered what the fifteen-slash-tic thing meant. She moved on.
RG: 0/0
Okay, so that’s the tracker for the Research Grist… Probably. But why was it at zero out of zero? Did that mean she couldn’t gain any? Maybe she could increase her capacity somehow, but it wasn’t clear. She was tempted to look at the Research subsection prematurely, but figured that would just confuse her, since it would skip a lot of information.
She looked at the other side of the HUD. There were two numbers, each next to a colored hexagon. There was a golden one, labeled ‘5’, a black one labeled ‘255’ and a green one labeled ‘15’. Those were probably the lists of build ingredients, but what they meant she wasn’t sure. She kept reading the help box.
> Summary and Explanation
> You are a dungeon. In order to thrive and survive, you will need to lure travelers, explorers, and adventurers in. Once they are inside, you must kill them - Woah, that’s intense - and consume the material they bring into your body. Many will try to destroy your Core, killing you. It is of utmost importance that you protect your core and kill them before they arrive in the Core Chamber (See subsection Construction).
> In order to do this, you will construct rooms, which you will fill with Traps (See subsection Construction) and Monsters (See subsection Monsters). To do this, use the resources you start with and the resources you gain from killing intruders to build new rooms, learn new skills, and summon more monsters.
>
> Back
So, that’s heavy. A life of killing to survive, obsessively upgrading things to kill them even harder? It… was a lot. But… the idea of having these resources, tracking everything, strategizing was compelling. Maybe she’d finish reading the ‘Getting Started’ pages before making a decision about how she felt about all this.
> User Input:
> Back
> ————————
> Introduction
> Construction
> Monsters
> Treasure
> Research
> First Steps
>
> User Input:
> Construction
> ————————
> Introduction
> Construction is the most basic and most important tool in your toolbox. Near everything you do will require you to use Construction abilities to expand your dungeon and design each room.
> Basics
> Start by using the ‘Construction Menu Toggle’ command. When you do, you will be granted access to the construction menu.
‘Kay. “Construction Menu Toggle.”
She didn’t know what she was expecting, but considering all the talk, she thought it would be flashier. Instead, it just added what she suspected was a diamond-shaped button to the HUD. It sat just under the Ingredient Tracker, and had a stylized hammer in the middle. She tapped it, and by her right hip, a menu appeared. At the top it said ‘Construction’, and there was a bar she could use to scroll through, but no options. She pressed the button again, and it closed. Back to the menu.
> Build Requirements
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> In order to build anything, you will need to research it first (See subsection Research and subsection First Steps). Once that happens, you will then need the proper Ingredients. Ingredients come in many different types. At the beginning, you will only have certain Ingredients unlocked, based on what materials were harvested when the starting space was formed. Currently you have unlocked:
> Amber Ingredient(AI) - represented by an amber yellow symbol, AI is gained from harvesting gemstones and precious metals.
> Obsidian Ingredient(OI) - represented by an obsidian black symbol, OI is gained from harvesting rock, sand, dirt, and gravel.
> Lime Ingredient(LI) - represented by a lime green symbol, LI is gained from harvesting organic materials.
> Each constructed object will require a different combination of Ingredients, and some may require Mana Tally in addition to the ingredients. Some may require a MT point per tic. Each requirement will be displayed in the Construction Menu.
>
> Back
Okay. Interesting. Maybe that’s what the ‘15/tic’ meant. She eyed that bit of her HUD (again, where was she getting that term?), and thought about it. It was likely that it meant she was getting another 10 mana every second. Or, “tic” whatever that was.
She pressed ‘Back’, and continued onto the ‘Monsters’ menu.
> User input:
> Monsters
> ———————————
> Basics
> Monsters are the guardians of every room, and your main line of defense when intruders wander in. To start, they are generic, and will regenerate after the intruders leave the room. However in time, they can be upgraded to Unique, which will give them special powers and will give them greater personality.
> Start by using the “Monster Menu Toggle” command.
She used it, and upon doing so was encountered with a button and a menu much like the construction menu, though the button was on the left, and rather than a hammer, it instead had what appeared to be a dripping fang.
> Cost
> Rather than paying in Ingredients, to create a monster you will instead use Mana Tally. There will be an up front cost, and then an additional Mana Tax per tic that the monster continues its existence.
> Special monsters and certain upgrades may also cost Ingredients, or other resources, in addition to the Mana Tally. Upon upgrading a monster, they will require an additional Mana Tax.
> Mana Tally
> Your Mana Tally tracks how much magic energy you have within you at any given moment. When the bar gets low, it is normal to feel a level of exhaustion.
> Below your Mana Tally is your rate of mana generation. It is imperative that it stays positive. If it remains negative, and your Mana Tally is at 0, you will begin to degrade. When this happens, all material pieces of you, the dungeon walls, the traps and monsters, everything but your core, will begin to crumble, rot, and generally fall into disrepair, eventually killing you. The only way to stop this is to get your mana generation rate, or MGR, higher than 0.
> Repairing this damage comes at the cost of spending Ingredients, Mana Tally, and most importantly, your precious time.
>
> Back
Thank fuck she learned that. So, she thought, Mental note: The two ways to die are to get my gem broken and to use more mana than I produce. A pop-up appeared.
> Note made
It disappeared and she examined her HUD. A new button appeared next to the Mana Tally, this one with a paper and pencil. Cool.
She navigated to the treasure subsection, and got to reading.
> User input:
> Treasures
> ———————————
> Basics
> Treasures, though nonessential for defense, are of utmost importance for resource generation. They can be found in the build menu, and require ingredients up front to place. Once they are collected by adventurers, they will require a smaller portion of ingredients, plus a small amount of mana to reform.
> It is key to properly balance your dungeon. If you do not, adventurers will walk in, take everything, and leave, leaving you no Ingredients or Research Grist. Worse still, they may find the core, and destroy it, killing you. However, if you make it too deadly, intruders will come in and die, and be unable to spread the word about your existence. Your goal is to perfectly balance the two, killing enough to maintain your Ingredient stores and defending your core, while also allowing some to leave and draw in other intruders.
Short and sweet. It seemed strange that this had its own section. She had been reading for a while, and she realized she felt like she should have to get up and stretch or take a break. But she didn’t. No physical form, not really. But then, she could see her hands, right?
No, literally not at all. How had she not realized that she’s invisible this whole time? But, it was like she could see where her body was. She could feel her position so accurately she had just been mentally assuming she could see her body until now. She counted her limbs (four), her fingers (ten), eyes (indeterminate, since she couldn’t close them, not even at the same time), she had a torso, she was bipedal, and her head was over the torso. Everything was where she expected it to be, eyes nonwithstanding.
Why did she expect this? Why did she expect to be human? Did she? Or maybe an elf or something? No, human felt right. She could feel, though, random bits of esoteric knowledge and expectations bouncing around in her head, bits that told her she was human and that she should have four limbs, ten fingers, and two eyes.
Weird.
Anyway.
> User input:
> Research
> ————————
> Basics
> Research is your way of making yourself and your monsters more powerful, and unlocking more construction options. In order to access the research menu, use the command “Research Menu Toggle”.
She was saying the command before she even finished reading the sentence. A new button appeared, with a bubbling test tube, right under the Monster menu. She opened it, as if it would do much good with an upper limit of no Research Grist.
Unlike the other menus, this one had a single option.
Basic Construction
Cost: 5 RG
Well, she had no ‘RG’ but it still looked like she could select it. When she moved to touch it, it lit up. She pressed it, and the bar changed.
Basic Construction
RG: 0/5
Oh, so it’s like that. She understood everything now. She looked back at the instructions. The rest of the subheading was explaining the UI, so she skipped to the next section.
> Research Grist
> Research Grist (RG) can be collected from objects lost by intruders. Not all objects can provide RG, and many that provided RG for one Research Project, will not provide it for other Research Projects.
> Objects, when consumed for RG, will not provide the Ingredients they would normally provide when consumed.
Finally, First Steps! She rubbed her hands together (sort of, it was more a feeling of doing it than the actual action; getting used to incorporeality would take some time) and was excited to finally do it after reading instructions. She opened the guide.
> User Input:
> First Steps
> ————————
> Research
> Start by opening your Research Menu.
She skipped the instructions until the part she had made it to.
> Use the command “Grist Spawn”. Once you do, you will receive an item, and using it, you shall learn to consume items for Grist.
Command issued, a chunk of… something appeared in the air in front of her, and clattered onto the floor. It was hexagonal and gem-like, and about the size of an orange. It was so tempting to eat, for some reason. It looked juicy and delicious, despite its hard exterior.
She picked it up (she can pick things up!) and examined it. When she did, a pop-up appeared, connected to it.
Consume for 0 Ingredients
Consume for 5 RG
She tapped the part that had the RG listed, and then, sensing what had to happen next, she crushed it in her hand. The bar filled and started flashing. She tapped it, and another pop-up appeared.
Research complete!
Unlocked:
> Hallway
> Standard Room
> Sand Scorpion
> Coin Purse
> Dungeon Entrance (research)
Dismissing it and navigating to the research menu, she clicked on the dungeon entrance research.
Dungeon Entrance
0/15
Back to the guide:
> Hallways and Rooms
> Now that you have unlocked the basic building tools, open your build menu, choose a wall, and create a hallway. It can be used to connect each room to one another, confuse or misdirect intruders, and provide paths for monsters.
She opened the build menu and let out a delighted giggle. Not only did she now have options, she had tabs. Easily sorted with different options and the promise of later potential. Right now, the only options are hallways, rooms, and treasure, but still! It was so… satisfying. As she pressed the hallway button, she sort of… felt or imagined the place where the hallway would be, much in the same way she knew where her limbs were. She moved it, wriggled it like a worm, played with different angles and curves.
It felt good. Like stretching your leg after being in a car for hours. As she played with different options, with what felt right, she got to watch the displayed cost change. It cost mana to place, and it listed an upkeep cost. Eventually, she got it at an angle she liked, with a curve to it. She checked the cost, seven mana.
That seemed reasonable enough. She placed it down, and her mana dipped as expected. The hallway wasn’t any bigger or smaller than expected, it was more like a piece of her, and she felt proud, walking down the hall and trailing her fingers across the walls. She got to the far wall, and turned back, to go the other direction. She made this! A thing! Even if it was just a hole right now, it was also something she did. She did a celebratory cartwheel, and got back to reading.
> Once placed, the hallway will match the aesthetic of the rest of your dungeon, unless manually changed.
> Next, use the build menu to place a room. It must intersect with a hallway, and provide room for intruders to reach the core.
> Rooms can be used for-
Okay, got it. She knew what rooms could be used for. Best to get to work before she got bored with the instructions entirely. She wanted more of that fun stretchy feeling. She opened the menu and pressed on the “Blank Room” button. Oh, it was so fun flipping and spinning it, making it intersect with different parts of the current dungeon blueprint. It was so stimmy and nice. Unlike the hallway, the blank room seemed to have a set mana price, fifteen.
She placed it, and moved to the next section, feeling a shiver of excitement.
> Monsters
> Enter the room and deploy a monster.
Oh sure, it’s that easy, huh? She walked into the room and opened the menu. Listed there were Sand Scorpion Hatchlings. They were represented with a small picture.
And that picture was adorable. It had little eyes, big cartoony pincers, and an adorable round venom bulb on it’s stinger. She grinned and pressed the button. She could see/feel/know where it would appear, and she prepared to deploy it as she checked on its mana cost.
Cost: 40m
Upkeep: 3m/t
She placed it down, and just like that, she had a little guy! It was, admittedly, larger than she was expecting, but it was still a little guy, about two feet tall from floor to tail top.
Hesitantly, she reached down and patted its head. It chittered and pressed into her touch.
She was in love. She needed a name for this guy asap. “Mental note: name the scorpion!” She got the pop-up that let her know the note was successfully made, and went back to work.
> Treasure
> Treasure can be put in any area of a dungeon except from the core room of the dungeon. It is wise to place it behind monsters and traps, to lure intruders to their deaths.
She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But the more she built, the more she wanted to keep building and expanding. Maybe… it would be okay to open the dungeon up, and just… see what happens?
She was becoming an old hand at this now. She opened her build menu and flipped to the treasure tab, where ‘Coin Purse’ was the singular item. She selected it and chose a corner of the room where she thought it would be visible from the entrance. Another check mark off the list!
> The Future
> You have now completed the tutorial on being a dungeon. You should be able to survive and thrive using this information.
> In order to take the next steps and continue constructing, select the ‘Dungeon Entrance’ research. Then, use the command “Enemy Simulacrum Spawn”, to obtain the RG necessary for the research.
She used the command, and right in front of her a wireframe construct, humanoid, appeared. It turned and made as if to attack the scorpion, but with a single flash of its tail, the sweet little guy felled the foul illusion.
She cheered, she couldn’t help herself. It’s not like she has anyone to be self conscious for anyway. She pet the beastie’s head. “Good boy! Who’s a good boy? You are! Yes you are!”
It lavished under her attention, and chittered happily. She grinned at it, and checked out the thing the wireframe dropped. It was about the same as the last thing, but with one more side, and green instead of blue. She picked it up.
GRIST TIER 2
Consume for 0 Ingredients
Consume for 15 RG
The exact amount she needed. She grabbed it, and pressed the button for RG. Like that the bar filled and she got a new pop up.
Research complete!
Unlocked:
> Research: Tier 1 Traps
> Research: Tier 1 Rooms
> Research: Tier 1 Treasure
> Research: Tier 1 Decor
> Research: Tier 1 Styles
> Room: Dungeon Entrance
She opened the research menu and barely even needed to consider which one she wanted. It’d be nice to decorate the place, but, come on. ‘Styles’? Mentally she replaced the last ‘S’ with a ‘Z’. When the menu changed to reflect that, she guffawed. So she has some control over the interface. This was so cool. She clicked ‘Stylez’ and watched it pop up on the interface.
Tier 1 Stylez
0/120
It was worth so much more RG, but it would be worth it. If for no other reason, for the Z.
She thought about the layout of the dungeon, and realized that she could perfectly envision it, if she tried. Even where The Boy was, even when he was out of sight. She had to admit, it bothered her that there was so little between her and where the entrance would be. But on the other hand, what would she do? Add another scorpion? She didn’t even have a name for the first one!
Adding another wasn’t a bad idea, actually. She’d feel bad about giving the first one a sibling before naming it, but in the end, she needed defenses. She added another, and her Tally dropped again. She wasn’t producing a lot of mana now, and she winced at the slow recharge. But now she had another perfect little child.
This one was a little more purple, but still tan, dangerous, and adorable. The two snipped at each other amicably. She looked upon her creation, and saw that it was good. She added a tunnel, just because it felt more… symmetrical. And then…
She’d have held her breath if she could. But instead, she just pressed the button to create the entrance, and suddenly she flooded with energy. Not Mana, but… excitement. She wanted to run a lap, build, kill.
She’d examine that thought later. For now she was too excited. It was all coming up…
Wait.
What was her name?
----------------------------------------
It was all coming up Lash. They stared down at the dried-out husk of a corpse with a grin, and snatched the glasses, the locket, the pocket watch - which still worked, score! - and then set to work examining the mouth and pulling out any teeth with fillings. Now, to get back to the road. Only two miles to the Dune Mausoleum, and when they get there, there’ll be plenty to do. And then on to Kaversee.