Dungeon’s Path

Doyle watched Jim and his team leave, feeling quite disappointed that he would have to wait for the zero g room’s test. Though he can’t fault their decision on the matter. This was doubly so when viewed from his end, as he knew there were six mages waiting for them in the room. A fact that might be a wee bit hard for their current equipment and might hold them up some.

On the other hand, it had been long enough that he could get working on a new floor. Which would make him feel all the more comfortable as it would mean that once again, people wouldn’t be delving into his very last floor. It wasn’t too bad, but there was a sort of itch in the back of his mind that came from delvers being on the same floor as his core. An annoying itch that wouldn’t go away.

So yeah, new floor time!

Though first he turns to Ally and informs her of his plans. She doesn’t have anything going that would need him so gives a new floor the green light. From there Doyle goes through the usual mind bending process where he puts the entire new floor within the space his core took up on the floor before. This time there is one difference: he can feel more of what is happening. As if he is on the tip of understanding something. Not this time, though.

{Ninth floor dimensionally anchored

World Energy cap +5700 [Constitution(57) * 100]

ninth floor spending limit set to 27000 [Previous floor’s limit(22600) + Intelligence(44) * 100]

Monster level cap updated

Random on-theme monsters package purchasable for 10000we

Quintessence debt paid back by 5}

Doyle notices that he gets another random monster package and can’t help but sigh at the cost. Ally, on the other hand, has a more optimistic outlook on it, ‘It isn’t completely random after all. It says on-theme so it will likely pick something related to your current paths. That and it says monster”s” and not just monster. You might get more than one from it.’

Doyle nods, ‘Fair enough, though I’m going to need to wait for the energy to buy it. I will, however, pick it up before populating the floor. Should have enough by then as it is going to take a while for the floor to finish the main expansion period and to fill it with stone.’

Ally laughs, ‘Going to get to the point that you have more space than you can use.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I’m going to have to make simpler floors. The eight floor was fun, but that was way too much effort. It was like I was making the first floor over and over again. Not exactly a sustainable thing to be doing on every floor.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Compared to most dungeons, you’re super varied. Part of this comes from having the diverse keyword in your race, but mostly it is just you being a human. Dungeons tend to have blocks of floors which follow a theme. The fact you switched from a normal cave on the first floor right into an open area of forest on the second is strange. Which I guess goes with your race, but even a strange and varied dungeon would have likely kept the cave theme going for five to ten floors.’

Doyle’s core sink for a moment, ‘Well that’s a relief. I figured that was the case, but I guess I had gotten into a sort of rut. Do you think I should keep the ninth floor weird and start with themes on the tenth floor? It feels like that would be a round number to start on.’

Ally laughs, ‘Whatever feels right for you. If the tenth floor feels right to you, then start with the tenth floor. Dungeon design is very much an artistic sort of thing. While there is some science to it, as long as you aren’t just creating a straight hallway directly from the entrance to the exit, you’re probably fine.’

Ally can’t see it, but when she mentions a straight hallway, certain thoughts take root in Doyle’s mind. So with a plan in mind, he says farewell to her and focuses on expanding the floor. Though he is back with her much sooner than planned.

With a sigh, he announces, ‘Well, I have more space again.’

Ally tilts her head to the side, ‘What do you mean by that?’

Doyle tilts his core to the side, ‘So, it isn’t exactly a sudden change, so much as I just recently hit a breakpoint. The first floor just grew to the size that it can fit a square of 18 small rooms by 18 small rooms. It isn’t much, but apparently that extra space scales in some manner. So floor one and two only gained an extra small room in size. However, three to six gained two small rooms while seven, eight, and presumably nine gained three.

‘That still doesn’t sound like much until you realize that is an extra few rooms to both sides. The eight floor went from what I count as being almost seven thousand meters squared, to almost eight thousand. An increase of about 900 square meters.’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘You really haven’t been keeping track of your dungeon size, have you?’

Doyle laughs, ‘Not really at the top of my mind. For some reason, I was able to keep track of what the size was supposed to be and ignored any extra space. It was just this time something ticked over in my head and suddenly I realized how much space I had.’

Ally frowns for a second before snapping her fingers, ‘I think I know what happened. As a dungeon core, you now have an innate sense that keeps track of things like what monsters go where and similar such nonsense. After all, despite not automating most of the floors, you’ve still managed to keep every single floor stocked almost on autopilot with exactly the right number of monsters.

‘Sure, a few of those are now happening because of your farms, but that isn’t quite the case for the earlier floors. With this, your subconscious was capable of figuring out the formula for how the floor size was increasing and so it just kept ticking away in the back of your head until just now.’

‘Huh’, Doyle tilts his core back, ‘That is an interesting bit of tech in my head. I’ll have to figure out if I can abuse it more later. For now, I should get to setting up my new floor. That and buying the new monster pack. Goodness, saying that feels like I’m playing a trading card game again.’

Ally floats over to watch as he opens up the new random monsters as Doyle finishes putting world energy in and the system puts up what he got.

{Selecting random on-theme monsters...

Udoroot Selected

Shrieker Selected

Violet Fungus Selected}

{Udoroot (Lv15)

S[1] A[5] C[22] I[45] W[38] P[10]

Skills: Telepathic Skills lv16, Telekinetic Force Lv9, Body Adjustment Lv3

Telepathic Skills: Mind Thrust lv15, Energy Stun[Fire] lv13, Telepathic Confusion lv13, Thought Shield lv9, False Sensory Input lv5

Description: A plant that on the surface appears to be a small patch of sunflowers. In reality, it is a psionic plant with most of its body being a giant bulbous root hidden underground. The flowers above are non-vital parts of the body and it will not be damaged if they are destroyed. To kill an Udoroot, you need to dig it up and damage the root itself. When young, the plant starts with only two crowns and will grow additional crowns until it has six total at maturity. There are rumors though of elders of this plant managing to grow beyond this, though they are sketchy at best. The crowns are capable of projecting a number of psionic effects though the plant can only project from two at a time no matter how many it has. If all crowns are destroyed, it will only be able to slowly use its psionic power to regrow them.

Cost: World Energy [500]}

{Shrieker

S[1] A[1] C[18]

Skills: Shriek lv3

Description: A stationary man-sized purple mushroom capable of making loud noises to attract prey or when disturbed. Otherwise, it appears like a normal mushroom. Often seen together with Violet fungus so that any prey attracted can be taken care of.

Cost: World Energy[10]}

{Violet Fungus (Lv10)

S[40] A[25] C[12]

Skills: Bash lv15

Description: A stationary man-sized mushroom with a coloration ranging from purple to dull gray with violet spots covering the cap. Hidden under said cap are four tentacles that it uses to flail at any nearby enemies. The tentacles are covered in a poison that damages a being’s Strength and Constitution. Often seen with Shrieker fungus, killing any prey attracted by the Shrieker’s noise. 

Cost: World Energy[300]}

{Udoroot gained at lv15

Sunflowers gained at lv15

Sunflowers added to Food Patterns

Shrieker gained at lv15

Violet Fungus gained at lv15

Udoroot, Shrieker, Violet Fungus, Myconid Patterns, and Assassin Vine merged into Plant and Fungus Monster Patterns lv23}

Ally smiles, ‘Oh! Cool, you got the pattern for sunflowers as a bonus pattern. Though I would have thought if the system was giving you that it would have also given you some big generic mushrooms as well. While you do have some normal shrooms here and there, none are big enough to act as cover for your new mushroom monsters.’

Doyle rolls to the side, ‘I’m more interested in the fact I now have a psionic plant. Not that a plant with a mind shocks me, I do have the myconids after all, but simply the fact it is psionic.’

Ally taps her head, ‘Technically, everything with a mind is psionic. Of course I understand what you mean with your question. You’ve only seen a single guy with psionic powers coming through so far and so it seems quite rare. And to be fair, having measurable Talent is situationally rare. Something about Talent seems to pull out the psionic Talent in others so it tends to clump up.

‘The fact there is one person with it already means that the human variant on this planet is likely predisposed towards it so you will be seeing it more in the future. Though I wasn’t lying about everyone with a mind being psionic. The power of your conscious mind is psionic energy. It is just that most people don’t have enough of it or a way to channel it, instead having it contained to just their mind and providing some protection.

‘Now, going by the monsters the system pulled, I’m guessing that the list was likely limited to plants and fungus because of your basically unused vegetation variety path. The Udoroot and a decent number of other psionic plants were likely included to help counter people like that last guy. If you take a look at the Udoroot’s skills, you’ll notice it has the thought shield skill.

‘All that skill does is make it so when a guy is scanning around with their mind, it looks like you aren’t there. Sure, it provides some minor protection against other telepathic abilities, but as a plant the Udoroot is going to be immune to any the skill would have worked on, anyway. Useful for ambush predators like this.

‘Oh, and you likely were only going to get two monsters until it rolled the shrieker. The system isn’t a complete jerk about such things. Since the shrieker literally can not attack, the system likely tacked on the violet fungus to make it more fair. Still, the udoroot alone is worth the world energy. While all three are ambush monsters with even less mobility than the assassin vines, they are a lot more powerful.’

Doyle nods, ‘Fair enough. Though I would have likely thought the Udoroot was worth it even without your explanations. In general, it just sounds like a cool monster as well as one that I might be able to get more than its original world energy from. The fact they can just grow back after what is apparently just a haircut to them means that unless the delvers know, they are likely going to be left alive. This is especially true if I have them on a floor with a system like the fourth floor where all the loot is given at the end. That way, people aren’t confused when they are not dropping anything.’

Ally laughs, ‘Don’t depend on that. There are more than enough ways available to the town to identify what is really going on.’