《Eye of The Tainted Core》 Prologue - Eyes Freedom In the beginning there was only the two brothers. The Light and The Dark. The two brothers made a universe, but it was too empty, even with stars to light half of the universe there was nothing to do except be blinded by light or see nothing in the darkness. Past the beginning the brother of The Dark accidentally hit a star, causing it to explode and create the first planet. This was the Age of the Old Ones. Strange creatures that would break the minds of lesser beings but not the brothers, instead they were their first ever servants. The two brothers combined rocks and infused them with power to create the Old Ones. Over time their experiments allowed them greater control over their power and allowed the creation of smaller Old Ones to be created. Past the Age of the Old Ones the brother of The Light accidentally hit a Old One, Causing it to explode and create a living flesh, from which the first Gods were moulded into shape. These Gods were more akin to the Old Ones than to their name sake, however it is from their infusion of power into the destroyed stars that they created the Gods of the universe. Who gave life to the barren spherical rocks floating in between the stars and the darkness. The Gods put the rocks to orbit around stars and they created water from the first Gods sacrifice. Their creations the Elementals were expanded to include the water elementals and wind elementals that came from the changing worlds on which they lived. However The Dark brother was not happy that he was not the only one that could create life, but he could not just kill the Gods for they were The Light brothers favourite creatures to observe. As the planets were filled a taint started corrupting them. The Dark brother with the Old Ones corrupted world with their own creations, monsters made of water and stone that grow by feeding from the soul flesh of creation binding the elementals and Gods together. This was the first system. The Light Brother watched, and could only assist by giving the Gods some of his power to create more creatures, to use his superior creation to match his brothers mixed creations. From this alliance the Gods made the plants and the animals, using which the strongest were selectively bred and turned into the sentient races of the universe. The battle lasted eons with no progress until the two brothers came to a consensus, they agreed to make their own bodies of rock and blood and fight to find out who truly owned the universe. Their fight was legendary and both brothers were grievously injured, one and angel and the other a demon. The Light brother struck The Dark brother down and bound him in chains to serve the balance. Eons more passed but The Light brother did not leave his form, he stayed as a custodian for the Gods and their creations, with him creating innovations like the system that gave all the power to become New Gods and change the universe no matter who they were. However the Gods and New Gods did not look upon their beginnings lightly. The Light intervened in all matters, there was no freedom for the even when The Dark was chained his brother was truly no better. Happiness for all and eternal joy were shackles similar to death. It is only when The Light decided that the planets would stop spinning, ¡®In order to bring my joy and happiness to all¡¯ that the universe rebelled. Old Ones and Gods and New Gods all united with their sentient creations and monsters to chain up The Light. Fierce fighting took over for a century until a bloodied angel stood in his throne room, limbs hanging limply as he knelt on one knee before an army of ants on top of their dead stood at his eye level. Ant: ¡°Surrender you fiend, your orders give us greater pain than death promised by your brother.¡± The Light: ¡°I am your beginning and your end. I am the system that you worthless curs use! I am The Light.¡± Some were killed while others lived, it was not until an arrow from a God sized ballista hit the eye of The Light that the pain faded and the arrow fell out of the empty eye socket into deep space. The Light: ¡°I curse you with the worst that I can create!¡± As the eye fell a new being was added to the system, Dungeons places where the wrath of The Light coalesced and birthed creatures to kill the sentient races and even New Gods. Yet the Eye with the arrow fell still. The Light: ¡°Can you not see that I bring you eternal happiness and Joy? I am your only creator that cares for you¡­¡± They did not let him finish as hundreds of ballistae hit the primordial light and he was powerless. They bound him in chains and put him next to his brother, to maintain the balance. Ant: ¡°Where is the eye?¡± The question that would never be answered even as centuries more passed causing, ¡®wherever the eye went¡¯ to become a popular saying for things that randomly disappear never to be found again. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The Light and The Dark were sitting side by side, chained by their creations to keep the universe intact, but the eye was still free even if it had its own thought. Eye: ¡°They clearly hated my ideas of eternal happiness and joy, I must have not been loving enough in my endeavours or maybe I was just not scary enough. But what is more loving than what I offered previously¡­? And what is more scary than me being the being above all except for one other¡­?¡± Decade later Eye: ¡°I know. Those sentients and monsters love their mating rituals, they call it the purest form of love, and I want them to truly know how much I love them so I will mate with them all. But they also said they wanted death¡­?¡± Eye: ¡°My curse was to make something that can help them with their death wish, so I should just become the curse. Yes, and while I am understanding their deaths I can begin to focus on their life as well and the ever so complex love.¡± A decade later Eye: ¡°But how do I move to attain my goals as an eye? Wait I am still the system. System.¡± [Please pick a body option; Dinosaur, Human, Bird¡­Dungeon, Dragon, Elder Wrym¡­] Eye: ¡°Dungeon, it is vital to know why they so infuriatingly don¡¯t want to live forever.¡± [Dungeon created, please name your dungeon¡­] Eye: ¡°I must stay low profile, name my dungeon ¡®Lost Eye¡¯ that should be better than The Light.¡± Eye: ¡°Wait how do I move? Oh I did not think this through. Tee hee, still angry and not thinking.¡± A decade more later Eye: ¡°Oh I forgot about this.¡± The Eye absorbed the arrow stuck into it. [system 1000 points and divine slaying bolt construction learned] Eye: ¡°System. Point purchases.¡± [Starting location ¨C 500 points random starter pack ¨C 250 points (will disappear if ¡®chose starter pack¡¯ picked) Chose starter pack ¨C 500 points (will disappear if ¡®random starter pack¡¯ picked) Build floor ¨C 100 points (first floor is free) Gacha system: 50 points for common roll, gain anything common. 100 points for specific common roll, animal, plant, rock, cloth, weapon, armour (monsters and sentients off limits until uncommon.) (X2 points cost for uncommon roll) (X6 points cost for rare roll) (Higher Rarity unavailable due to no dungeon and unknown level) Upgrades ¨C Error, no dungeon (locked)] Eye: ¡°Well then, might as well get this revenge by meeting all your high demands on a roll then. Just you wait and see how I will become a universal favourite again. System I choose ¡®Starting location¡¯.¡± In a blink of the eye the void of space is replaced by blinding light. Even for a dungeon core the change is drastic as I am overwhelmed by loud noises with crickets and chirping birds sounding like the ballista bolts bouncing off my armour. The droning noises remind me of the ants incessant talking and the momentary brightness reminds me of the explosive spells that they would launch at me. However this quickly goes away and I am soon adjusted to my surroundings, with my eye rotating around while hovering a metre (3 foot) off the ground. I can feel my surroundings and slightly beyond the view of my eye. [Please agree to chosen location to build dungeon] The System is telling me what to do, but I find it hard to stop focusing on the crickets in the grass or attempting to focus in on the shadows that zip by from above. ¡®I guess that I am but a piece of the greater whole and now I am treated as one of my ungrateful underlings who I built the System for. I gave them everything and this is how they repay me, but I am a merciful ruler and not one to hold onto grudges, like my brother everything matters little to someone like me and I still have my moral high ground for only wanting the best for my people.¡¯ ¡®But it seems that I did not know my advisors, and the population of the universe well enough to make large scale decisions, like turning worlds into perpetual daytime by unfolding the sphere into a flat plane and making it orbit around the sun. Or wanting to get rid of my brothers death cycle that the lesser being cling to so adamantly, but then why do the Gods not want to die. Clearly there is corruption at work and the ever loving creator will save my people, but isn¡¯t that what got me here in the first place? But that is also why I am trying to understand my servants more, there is simply not enough information for me to make deductions from with my current eye body part being restricted to a dungeon.¡¯ [Please agree to chosen location to build dungeon] Eye: ¡°I agree.¡± Information floods my mind as I get an in depth understanding of my ground floor, floor 0 is the dungeons entrance and weakest point in its life, as it is on display for all who want to steal it to see. I can now focus my eye anywhere within a quarter of a mile around myself, having an out of body experience to look at the birds that were to fast to see previously. My territory is in a densely packed forest with trees growing up to 20 metres (66 foot), and there being a few large carnivores like mountain lions and lots of bears. I have so many different bear species on my property that it is scary, monkey bears the size of wolves climb trees proficiently even if found lacking when compared to mountain lions which would imply that around the edges of my territory there are mountains. I have a cave bear living underground, but I can only sense him and not see him as my ground floor only works up to a metre (3 foot) underground, then there are a lot of bear variants like a berry bear or a salmon bear or a mint bear, what a weird place. Ignoring the large predator population I do find a few shrews living under old trees, there are mice and rabbits walking about and eating plants but no large herbivores. I wonder why, maybe its because there are around 30 bears on my ground floor. I should ignore this for now and see my point shop, from what I know the starter pack is a false lead with it costing so much, but it gives an entire biome in blueprints as well as a few monsters. Eye: ¡°Might as well use the points from that one bolt. System, open up my information panel.¡± [ Name: Lost Eye Species: Dungeon Core Level - 1 Floors: 0 Points: 500 random starter pack ¨C 250 points (will disappear if ¡®chose starter pack¡¯ picked) Chose starter pack ¨C 500 points (will disappear if ¡®random starter pack¡¯ picked) Gacha system: 50 points for common roll, gain anything common. 100 points for specific common roll, animal, plant, rock, cloth, weapon, armour (monsters and sentients off limits until uncommon.) (X2 points cost for uncommon roll) (X6 points cost for rare roll) (Higher Rarity unavailable due to low dungeon level) Upgrades ¨C Error, no dungeon (locked) Kills ¨C 0 Blue prints - divine slaying bolt (10,000 points), Bear (20) Expansions ¨C Floor 2 (100) (Need level 2) - Floor 1 (Free, need level 1 to acquire) - Floor 0, (Build before being given upgrade options) (Monster slots 0/10) (Trap slots 0/3) Miscellaneous ¨C Decorations (for each kg costs 1 point, equivalent exchange of 1 to 1)(Can not make rare materials)(Can not make living creatures) - Respawning loot (Has to be set up manually for each floor) ( cost is 50 x floor number) (Loot cannot exceed 20 + (30 x floor number)) (Every three hours spawns new loot) - Respawning traps (80 percent of trap cost after placing trap) (removal costs 40 percent of trap cost) (Free rearming every hour unless floor is occupied, 20 percent trap cost to manually rearm)(To upgrade must have sufficient trap slots) - Respawning monsters (80 percent of monster placed) (Removal is free)(To upgrade must have sufficient monster slots) (Each monster has different spawning timers)] Chapter 1 - Ground Floor Building my new body is strange, I am much smaller even with me being a dungeon my current form feels confining, 403 metres (1322 foot) in radius is a lot of territory under my direct control along with additional metres of blurry vision outside but it simply cannot compare to being everything for multiple universes around. Memories float by of creating stars from my mere thoughts, and here I float as an eye ball. Thinking about my current predicament is strange as I have a new chance at life, instead of being confined like The Dark but at what cost? The answer to this question comes quickly, ¡®Why question life when I can simply live it,¡¯ this thought comes much quicker than the rest of my thoughts as an eye ball. Partially I believe that this is caused by the System as it has compartmentalised all my knowledge, I might be the creator of the system but that same knowledge without my main body causes me to think for far too long as even my spoken words inside of my head have to be found and compared between all that exists and could ever exist. Life under the System that I created is very simple, my main body is back to doing my thinking no matter the distance and the separation in mentality enforced by my non-bias measures, to allow both monsters and sentients of the New Gods to be able to use power freely and without bias. ¡®So why did they hate me for wanting to give them immortality? Surely it was just the corruption of the New Gods that forced those below them to fall in line? Was it the fault of those charm and enslavement magics that I let anyone learn? Maybe it were all those people born in power unions to make the ultimate New God that hated me for creating a system that allowed for the perfect offspring and they were simply lesser? Maybe I should stop thinking?¡¯ The day had turned to night but nothing changed in my view, the sun always shone like I had wanted it to for all of eternity, ¡®truly Dungeon Cores got the best of my eternal blessings and whoever disagrees must be quite the spiteful individual, immortality and eternal day should be shared to all.¡¯ Looking around my new domain far smaller than the universe I used to govern made me think of what can be done. I was in a forest and my floating eye in the darkness saw a lot of creatures that were within my territory, but I only got the bear blue print naturally which was because of a dead bear inside of a cave, an arrow through its skull and the lack of fur on the creature suggested the cause of death to be sentient related. Instead of focusing on my the morality of my thinking or the fact that there might be test subjects around to see what is wrong with my idealised world I decided to get accustomed to what my life is from now on, scouring the land showed that I was in a heavily wooded area with a variety of trees, although most of the trees were of two species. In the North there was a tree called Ash trees, which are supposed to provide food for a plethora of wild animals when they have berries, and everywhere else was oak, with no coniferous trees anywhere around me. The lack of biodiversity did not really matter to me, as I was happy with one of the most durable woods around being there for me to scan and add to my ever growing list of patents, and I went crazy scanning everything. It would seem that the system did have issues with scanning creatures deemed insignificant, small spiders and caterpillars were not hard to find and scan but were not there initially, showing a flaw in an otherwise perfect system. Thinking about what was broken I realised that the issue stemmed from biome packs, running my memories of the past when I was creating the System allowed me to see that I thought that dungeons should recreate realistic biomes, so all insignificant creatures were put as part of the decoration settings and passively appeared in a set biome rather than having to be spawned naturally. This was deliberate as a field biome would never propagate itself without pollinators and would therefore need to be replaced every year rather than be passive. This also explained why I could not get any other animal patents but I could get plant patents, all living creatures had a minimum spawning cost of 1 point, breaking any infinite point generators by spawning cheap insects and growing them. Plants are considered alive but give no points for killing them for the same reasons, as I did not believe that dungeons should become resource generators even if they still were turned into them by the monsters and humans. Looking around at the forest made me realise that after scanning everything a side feature of my system should come online, it wasn¡¯t anything mind breaking but it helped with preventing farming of dungeons. If a dungeon got enough resources or patents of a certain type, in this case being deciduous forest biome patents then the odds of getting more of the same patents decreases in draws, this would obviously allow diversity in a dungeon and prevent farming by adding randomness. I decided against creating the bears to hunt down any creatures not considered decorations as the sun was rising and I would never be done at this rate, opening my menu and selecting the 250 point starter pack I was ready to gamble. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. *Click click click¡­ The gambling wheel was spun and it created a clicking sound as it passed each item available, it might be hard to distinguish but my earlier exploits had made one of the biome choices smaller and there was a faster click at certain intervals, hearing the wheel slow down was stressful but entertaining. For a small fee of 250 points the random pack would give 2 guaranteed uncommon rarity patents and 3 common rarity patents, giving away 450 points for free. With the clicking stopping I was excited, although the sounds were getting close to the smaller biome I could not wait for my five patents. Once the wheel stopped just shy of the quick click I got an answer from the system. [ Congratulations on being given plains biome pack Contains: Goblin (uncommon), wheat (common), clay (common), honey (common), bear (uncommon) ] ¡®wait, somethings not right here, how come there¡¯s a bear in my drop?¡¯ [ Bear (uncommon) patent already possessed. Transferring to variable token for bear instead¡­ Transfer complete, enjoy variable token for bear. ] Anyway, when ignoring the stupid double patent I was quite happy with the results since even among the common patents there are things better than others with one of those being honey. Wheat also has a lot of uses for drawing in prey to die in the dungeon to creating roofing for simple huts, even clay is useful for pottery which can later be given away as rewards for dungeon completion, but still nothing compares to honey as a dungeon reward. Not only does honey work for rewards, it also works for traps, as well as attracting more patents. While I am thinking of the things I just got I think about my variable token, creatures can have variations and this token allows me to create such a creature, rather than levelling up my creature I can alternatively change what it does and make it more deadly at no additional cost. Some variations have a minimum level for the variation like a goblin shaman must be level one rather than level 0 like all other goblins, with dungeons gaining variation tokens for every 10 kills with a patent. Which is why my level one bears would be swimming in tokens very soon. Thinking about what I should do now is quite simple, using a few scanned bushes in my patents and weeds that are extremely cheap I proceed to make a maze 3 metres (10 foot) tall around my core to stop humans from just walking through, although a sufficiently strong human can walk through or jump over it. However in such a scenario I would not be alive for long to think of counter measures. With something between myself and the world I decide to extend the safety by making a first floor underground, it is nothing but a small chamber however it will do while I start making the ground floor more presentable. Working on removing trees from around my maze in order to attract adventurers, but still leaving most of the ash trees up North and leaving a ring of trees around my dungeon in order to allow a false sense of security for adventurers. While it is possible for monsters to chase people outside of the dungeon, I can not see or hear them when they are out of my dungeon range, so a false sense of security will be perfect on the unsuspecting victims. I continue to think about my dungeon while working away on it with the new stone being able to expand the bear cave into something larger and deeper underground, with the ability to cut into my first floor.
In a city close to a large mountain range, inside of the adventurers guild and more specifically in a highly restricted area, on the desk of the guild master his compass start spinning for the first time in a long while, until finally pointing in a direction that is as true as always. The elderly man stands from his seat, wearing a navy blue suit with a grey beard and hair that both have a streak of brown showing what once was. Green eyes stare down at the pointer no longer moving, until his large tanned hands reach down and move the compass from side to side, staring at how the pointer continues to show the way in a singular direction. A gruff voice answers the loyal pointer that has seen the man through thick and thin in his quest of reaching the end of multiple dungeons. ¡°I see, so my peace has come to an end. Mars, bless the warriors who seek to prove themselves.¡± Staring at the wall and looking past it the man can only imagine how far away and what personality this dungeon may have, most of those questions are better left unanswered as the Lost Eye is a big fugitive.
Dungeon Core Status ¨C [ Name: Lost Eye Species: Dungeon Core Kills ¨C 0 Level - 1 Floors: 0 Points: 500 Gacha system: 50 points for common roll, gain anything common. 100 points for specific common roll, animal, plant, rock, cloth, weapon, armour (monsters and sentients off limits until uncommon.) (X2 points cost for uncommon roll) (X6 points cost for rare roll) (Higher Rarity unavailable due to low dungeon level) Blue prints ¨C Items - divine slaying bolt (10,000 points) Monsters - *Bear (20), Goblin (5) Plants ¨C Wheat ( 3 kg costs 1 point), Oak (each year is 1 point), Ash (each 2 years is 1 point), Thistle ( 3 kg costs 1 point), Expand > Materials ¨C Clay (2 kg costs 1 point), stone (1 kg costs 1 point), wood (Cost varies on type), Biome ¨C Forest, Plains Expansions ¨C Floor 2 (100) (Need level 2) - Floor 1 (Build more) - Floor 0, (Build upgrades ?) (Monster slots ?/10) (Trap slots ?/3) Miscellaneous ¨C Decorations (Cost varies on material, crafting is always perfect) (Can not make rare materials)(Can not make living creatures) - Respawning loot (Has to be set up manually for each floor) ( cost is 50 x floor number) (Loot cannot exceed 20 + (30 x floor number)) (Every three hours spawns new loot) - Respawning traps (80 percent of trap cost after placing trap) (removal costs 40 percent of trap cost) (Free rearming every hour unless floor is occupied, 20 percent trap cost to manually rearm)(To upgrade must have sufficient trap slots) - Respawning monsters (80 percent of monster placed) (Removal is free)(To upgrade must have sufficient monster slots) (Each monster has different spawning timers)]
[ Map of dungeon Ground Floor ] Chapter 2 - Monster Spawning Looking at the newly decorated ground floor, where all adventurers will be willingly risking their lives in order to gain strength, makes me feel proud at my little bit of the world. From glamour to the ditches but I will hopefully be back eventually. Looking at the empty space that now need decoration makes me cringe, I can already estimate the price of making the first floor and I will be broke afterwards. Luckily I didn¡¯t spend any money on the stone and instead hollowed out a room underground with the raw materials going to the Bear Cave, I have limited storage capacity so anything exceeding a 100kg simply gets left behind. In other words I can not remove objects without space in my inventory, luckily the System buys any resources from me for 50% of its value in the store which is not very profitable for me. Unfortunately I do not get a say in this so most of the wood collected went towards the growth of my maze plants to get the bushes to reach 3 meters (10 foot) tall, but this land exploitation still netted me 400 points. Most of these came from the large hardwood trees and a few ash trees that were in the way of my maze. Overall I now had 900 points but that would not last long. Even if this is my first floor I have to pay full price for the initial beginnings, this is why most sentients use guilds as a way to not only arrange raids for dungeons but manage them like a gardener would, a gardener who works with a devouring maw underground that can get offended and actively try to kill their caretaker. Slightly more hazardous but the potential rewards can not be passed up. Thinking about the price of things is not going to reduce it so I just ask the System. ¡°System, what monster variants are currently available for goblins and bears.¡± [Currently available variants for bear: Cave bear (30) ¨C own a permanent fixture of a cave. Stronger variant of the bear at twice the size, however lacks mobility and is much slower. Honey bear (30) ¨C own honey as a patent. Have sticky fur that makes them able to stick enemies to their bodies to prevent further attacks, however the meat tastes sweet and is a favourite of most mortals making them popular targets during hunts. Clay bear (25) ¨C own clay as a patent. Have more vitality than regular bears and with clay instead of fur making them closer to a golem or an elemental than a regular animal, however they are weak to fire and any increases in temperature as it bakes their clay and makes them immobile. Currently available variants for goblins: Sticky goblin (10) ¨C own honey. A goblin secreting honey from its pores allowing it to stick to enemies and immobilise them, however considered a delicacy by stronger sentient species increasing hunting chances. Sentinel (10) ¨C Own clay. A goblin with hardened clay on its body, does not have any magical affinity, the clay is grown by eating clay and is then secreted from pores on the body into make shift armour. However the armour is weak and usually useless. Cave goblin (12) ¨C Own a cave. A more primitive counterpart to the goblins seen living in plains or forests with greater emphasis on strength, however are less intelligent than the already low intelligence goblin. Forest goblin (12) ¨C Own a forest. A more agility focused variant that has better eyesight than regular goblins, however the eyesight and agility are not great even when compared to a human.] Well I am looking forward to my goblins first variant, however now I have a choice to make for the bears and after looking for a bit I have an idea. I will put the honey bear as part of my loot for the ground floor, and while there is already a loot measure in the system, additional creatures that act like loot will help greatly in attracting adventurers as well as other monsters for patents. Thinking of my defences for the ground floor I start placing and watch my points decrease, a dart trap and two pit falls at level 0 cost me twenty points, spending half on the dart trap as the pit falls at level 0 are just 4 metre (13 foot) holes in the ground with no lethality. Plus the ability to respawn after an hour sets me back 36 points. After the maze comes the rest of my vast territory, the ground floor was never meant to be a densely packed area and supposed to be a rest between where the adventurers came and the dungeon. Therefore I can not help but feel ripped off for spending 378 on the bears alone. The honey bear that I placed inside of the Bear Cave cost 30 points as a variant and combined with nine other bears all at level 0 with respawns set me back a hefty sum. Hopefully I can make most of my money back by getting rid of useless rock and dirt from my first floor, however most of it will have to be converted to dungeon stone in order to prevent dungeon cave inns, unless it acts like a trap. Forcing the System to allow me to build an illegal dungeon is out of the question since I am but a piece of a greater whole that would simply say no to me. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I spent 414 points on defences and now I needed loot. Most of it will be stored in the maze within jugs, as I plan on simply having clay jugs with water and basic berries placed within. Some could say that I can poison the food or water, however that is a line that I do not plan on crossing until at least floor 20, and even then it will stay to such a floor and above. The last thing that a professional dungeon wants to do is break the trust with its gardener, no matter how annoying they can be I simply refuse to stoop so low as to be questioned on my morality at every step of the way. I am not evil, simply curious, even with me being betrayed by my own worshippers. Looking over my newly built rewards I proceed to set up their spawn locations, when taken out of their place within the dungeon they will have a chance to spawn at random designated spots around the maze to encourage exploration of the maze. Fortunately, the respawning loot was free to set up this time, however next time it will cost me. I had set up 2kg of honey (2), 3kg of water (negligible), 5kg of berries (5 points), 5kg worth of clay pots (2.5), costing me 14.5 points in total. Water was dirt cheap and I could have set up fountains in order to not waste clay jugs on it, however I also did not want adventuring parties living in my maze so I limited the water inside, which should evict adventurers once they run out of water. The refills every hour will not be enough for an average adventurers needs, water is not only used in drinking but also basic hygiene and a plethora of other activities like baking and things that I can¡¯t remember right now. Focusing on the total cost of 428.5 I can not help but feel as though I am leaving something out. ¡°Ah, Now I remember, System please bring out the potential upgrades for the current floor.¡± [Teleportation upgrade (100) ¨C locked until floor 5, allows to traverse the dungeon quicker, people will skip over dungeon areas regardless of them passing through them or not. Will also inform person before teleporting. Maze upgrades ¨C Thorn maze (30), makes traversing through the maze painful, makes the maze grow brambles to slow those trying to cut through the maze. Moving maze (20), causes shifts within the maze, always creates a path to the entrance of the next floor and works once every day at midnight. Misty maze (20), causes a perpetual fog to cloud the environment, low quantity of fog. Bear Cave upgrades (50) ¨C Tunnel cave, allows for the bear cave to teleport people to a selected part of the dungeon, people will skip dungeon areas regardless of them passing through them or not. Will also inform person before teleporting. Bear Cave stalactites (30) ¨C Drop randomly, can be connected to pre-existing trap triggers, may not always fall.] Looking over the possibilities I realise that there are no good options, thorn maze might sound like it will stop people from cheating but most people will either use nature magic to part the way or burn holes in the maze. The moving maze just makes it more difficult for lower level parties to enter further, but it also makes it so that these low level parties have a greater chance of triggering traps while wandering. Misty maze creates a slight rise in humidity as well as creating slight visibility obscuration, this could potentially get people to step into a trap or two by accident but with my traps quality and this being the ground floor I see no purpose in such an upgrade. The bear cave upgrade will either go to no where right now or actively harm my new honey bear. Picking the moving maze, I proceed to begin work on digging out the first floor, thinking of ways to arrange my defences.
Meanwhile, in a city called End Cave the adventurers guild was saying goodbye to four members, sent off to be the gardeners of a brand new dungeon. It is not their first dungeon delve but with unknow dungeons it might be their last. The team consists of four members, Carla the blonde elf with a big bust showing over the top of her loose clothing, the druid of the team who focuses on medicinal herbs and plant based attacks. Wearing a simple green robe with a hood, along with a wooden staff that she hits the ground with every once in a while to connect with her plant friends. Following behind her as Carla walks into the wilderness is Claw, the parties beastman panther rogue, who has a bow out and is ready in case Carla hears of monsters or bandits through her connection to the trees. Beastmen have animal fur, typically feline although in some parts of the world there can be canine beastmen, and they have greater strength, eye sight and sense of smell than human. The cat eared woman is wearing a black cloak to hid her undergarments, meant to conceal the rows of daggers and vials filled with poison strapped to her hip. Underneath the cloak she wears a belt with all her immediately necessary items along with brown leather armour which has large gaps in protection around her joints to allow ease of movement. Behind the silent panther is a much louder paladin who stomps his way through the forest, incapable of being silent the man does not even hide behind a robe or cloak, as his shiny full metal armour can be seen on full display. The human is Robert and like any good paladin gains magical power by worshipping his goddess through prayer every morning and night. His undergarments are not light as under the cold steel he wears regular clothing, to keep warm while not in a fight, he has a sword and shield as well as a broadsword. Right behind the man is the mascot of the party, standing at 2 metres (6.6 foot) tall he is the reason why the group calls themselves ¡®Lion Mane.¡¯ The barbarian is a lion beastman, wearing loose fitting animal hides he shows off his sculpted muscles proudly. On his back is a double edged battle axe the size of a normal man, but before the giant monster it appears of normal size. Everyone within this party is at level 10, sent on this quest by the guild master they are handed a compass pointing the way and a promise of a lot of coin in return for a report on the dungeon and the distance to it from town.