《Web of Isolation》 0 - Prologue and Panic After being jolted awake by his mum dashing into his room to remind him of the time and then bolting out the door to go to work, leaving Dane alone again as he unsteadily worked his through his room, the desk full of half finished projects making him think for the millionth time ¡®I should really get back into those¡¯, fully knowing he never would, and the miniatures arranged atop his drawers bringing a faint smile to his face as he ducked slightly so as to avoid the door frame. After going through to the kitchen and making a quick breakfast he began to wake himself up properly. As he slowly ate through it he let his mind drift ¡®the new chapter comes out today, right? I¡¯ll read through that at lunch. I feel like there¡¯s nothing worth it left out there for me to find¡­ maybe I should finally give some of those movies on that endlessly growing ¡®to watch¡¯ list a try? Finally make a dent in it before it grows too large and I never want to start. I¡¯ve got computing double first thing huh, maybe I can finally make some progress on that assignment due next week¡­ it¡¯s probably going to be a theory period first half so maybe not¡¯ as Dane¡¯s idle thoughts drift past he ran through the day in his head quickly, trying to build a slight blueprint of any plans he has before packing what he¡¯d need. Running a hand through his dirty blonde hair (though he always thought that was a stupid way to describe what he saw as basically just ¡®very light brown¡¯) and going back into his room to rummage around he finally found his school tie and dashed out the house, he was running late though at this point that was basically just ¡®on time¡¯ for him. With a pair of bright green ear defenders that matched his eyes when they weren¡¯t covered up by his hair he started down the long, dirty road he had to walk on the way to school. The air always felt suffocating because the cars used dodgy exhaust pipes and it was always painfully loud for pretty much the same reasons and with a myriad of pungent smells from all the different shops on the side of the pavement it created a perfect storm to overload Dane but with equal helpings of practice, effort and the aforementioned ear defenders he could just about make it through and afterwards there was a park that was rather peaceful and allowed him to reset slightly. Well enough for school anyway. He passed through the playgrounds saying a quick hello to the few people he actually spoke with but not much more, he was always too exhausted in the mornings to properly manage an interaction any longer than that. After arriving in school he goes to his assigned pc and logs in, only speaking up during the register and gets to work on his project making some good headway even if he had to look somethings up every now and then as well as spending about 15 minutes trying to figure out why one of his algorithms weren¡¯t working only to realise he¡¯d written the variables in the wrong order when calling the function and Dane went to the teacher to ask some questions about an article he¡¯d read last night that he had found a little confusing. By the time he was satisfied with his answers break was already done and he mostly zoned out the rest of the day, his classmates constant chattering went right through him after all, even if what they where talking about seemed interesting it hurt his head to try and focus on them for too long so he¡¯d given up long ago on that, it was hard enough to keep track of all the constant drama over who said what to who anyway so he decided it just wasn¡¯t worth it. Half way through the last period a fire alarm went off, some of the younger pupils probably set it off in the changing rooms, Dane knew, but he was a bit preoccupied with the hyperventilating; his heart pumping in his chest; his thoughts tearing up his mind in a cyclone; his skin felt like it was being pulled taught, about to tear, over his bones; he felt himself shaking and felt so cold even though he was overheating and everything felt¡­. hazy, like he was in a blur. It took a couple seconds but he managed to calm himself down enough to focus again and follow some of the rules his counsellor taught him, the 5 senses exercise and some meditative ¡®self-suasion¡¯ that basically boiled down to telling himself he was calm till he actually was. The damned fire alarm was excruciatingly loud and had a piercing pitch that seemed to be solely designed to drill right into his skull however he was used to it well enough by now he could properly ¡®reset¡¯ himself by the time he¡¯d need to actually get up and leave the class, running his hand through his hair to un-tense himself he managed to make it out to the muster points if still slightly in a daze when he hears shouting in the surroundings and a teacher rushes up to him ¡°Are you feeling okay Dane!?¡± They shout looking extremely concerned, almost haggard, ¡°Huh? Uh, oh yeah¡­ yeah I¡¯m fine I guess, I just had another attack is all, I¡¯ve got it under control now though!¡± He says, in an awkward attempt to sound optimistic and not cause worry, after all it¡¯s not as if they can help and he would be able to control himself better without people fussing over him, this didn¡¯t seem to work as intended though as the teacher doesn¡¯t calm down in the slightest, only becoming more worried ¡°Not that! The blood! Do you not feel strange anywhere, Dane? You¡¯re hands are covered in the stuff! What happened? Can you try and remember?¡± Huh? What¡¯s he- I look down at my hands seeing them stained crimson before my vision seems to turn static and I feel myself sway woozily Oh, I guess something is wrong, where the hell did all this blood come from? It looks almost cartoon like for it to coat me this thickly, surely if I¡¯d actually lost this much blood I should¡¯ve noticed earlier right? I try and reply to the teacher but I just end up stammering out incoherent noises, my mouth not obeying my intentions Yeah that DEFINITELY should have happened sooner, where the hell am I even bleeding from anyway? As I try and pat myself down all over I just end up covering my shirt further in red Hah, mum will scream bloody murder at me for how hard this¡¯ll be to clean, bloody murder? Get it? Hah¡­ I look back up to where the teacher was before and I seem to have gathered quite the crowd at this point I¡¯m¡­ weirdly calm right now? Usually this is where I should freak out right? Sure its usually only sensory stuff that can overwhelm me but isn¡¯t this an exception? This seems a little¡­ off. Right, let¡¯s try and work through this: you¡¯re bleeding pretty bad, what should you do? Apply pressure to the wound, I can¡¯t since I don¡¯t know where the wound is; try and minimise movement, right so let¡¯s sit down then¡¯ As I lean back slightly while bending my knees to try and sit down my balance suddenly tilts and I collapse, landing on my side with my right arm trapped underneath me ¡®okayyyyy that didn¡¯t work, next? I uhh, I don¡¯t know? I should definitely know! Come on! It¡¯s a critical situation right now isn¡¯t it? Don¡¯t people get, like, supercharged when they¡¯re like this? Surely I should be able to come up with some better ideas when it¡¯s life or death! Wait¡­. Am I going to die? Oh fuck I am aren¡¯t I? Wha-¡®Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Before I could finish that thought it all faded to black and then now, whenever now is, it¡¯s still definitely all black but I¡¯m not unconscious anymore? Maybe this is what the afterlife is¡­. It would be kind of disappointing if that was true wouldn¡¯t it? I suppose I did die then didn¡¯t I? It does worry me a little but I still feel strangely calm, is that maybe another afterlife thing? But I was definitely alive beforehand and I still felt this weird serenity back then. So I¡¯m going to guess it¡¯s got something to do with how I died and that carries over, does that mean I don¡¯t have a body right now since I was cremated? I never really discussed it much but I did mention to mum that I didn¡¯t like the idea of slowly rotting away in a box somewhere. Mum¡­ I really hope she¡¯s taking this well, long term I think it will be better for her; financially I mean but¡­ yeah. Other than that though I suppose I don¡¯t have much else that I¡¯ll be leaving behind: I mean I definitely had hobbies, sure, but they where mostly passing fancies. I only stuck with a few for more than a year: my war game models; reading light novels and a slight obsession with insects. I always found them fascinating, hive insects specifically, the more you learned the more alien they seemed, and then there¡¯s all the strange ways they¡¯d behave if you interfered with their pheromones: did you know that if you place a certain pheromone on an ant it will be believed dead by its colony and taken to a graveyard by them even if it resists? Oleic acid, I think. Ah, I¡¯m going off on tangents again, but bees are really cool too! After calming myself back down I took a moment to think: just about everything, about how I¡¯d lived; about my regrets; about what I was going to miss; about why I died; about where I was. It was¡­ a strange experience, to really just spend what felt like day¡¯s thinking; just thinking. But I didn¡¯t have to worry about not having the time to waste and I didn¡¯t have any other options really so I just¡­ thought about everything. Confronting every insecurity. Going over every lost opportunity. Getting over the anger I felt over every injustice. Addressing the grief I¡¯d been brushing aside. Truly coming to terms with myself. Afterwards I just felt¡­ hollow, that feeling didn¡¯t get an opportunity to last however as while I stayed stuck inside my own mind; stagnating ; something changed. I could feel again. I didn¡¯t know what I felt; but I felt something, something deep inside and I latched onto that feeling, trying to understand it, analyse it, control it. It felt like having a heat in my chest without actually having a chest; like breathing in without lungs or a mouth; like a typhoon swirling inside of me while also feeling like being submerged. After an uncountable amount of time I felt myself get caught up in the current and as I thrashed to escape something twitched, the flow shifted, the tide raged before collapsing into a still, spherical pool and I understood, I understood how to make it move, to shape it, to control this force and warp it to my will. It was surreal, meaningless and abstract but it was something: a break in the unending void. I started to focus on the pressure from outside, trying to fight against it and break it away from me but I couldn¡¯t. It was all encompassing, overwhelming, beyond me; I tried to force it to part in every way I thought conceivable, focusing on a single area, evenly distributing the push all around me, sectioning parts of, swirling the pool inside me back into a current and grinding it against the outside, surging it all at once in a massive wave, pulling back only to let everything rush back into the gap. Nothing worked. Every attempt emptied my ¡®pool¡¯ slightly and I had to wait a while for it to return to full with it being slightly larger every time, I felt lethargic if it wasn¡¯t topped off and I didn¡¯t believe anything less than a 100% would ever work. I had a creeping suspicion about this earlier but I was sure of it now, my mind was sharper now. It was far more precise, it was quicker, my memory was borderline eidetic even though that didn¡¯t seem to retroactively fix things I¡¯d already forgotten and I had this sense of clarity now that I couldn¡¯t have ever comprehended back when I was alive. After one of his more recent attempts he had the idea to try and pull the force back with the tide rather than pushing it out, after mustering the strength to pull on the pool¡¯s centre, contracting it inwards and when it rushed out instead of trying to push the pressure away Dane let the surging tides slip through, something he realised happened when he didn¡¯t clearly define the difference between the two though it left his ¡®waves¡¯ feeling suppressed in a strange way, and as they returned he tried to force the liquid to ¡®grip¡¯ some of the surrounding pressure as it returned, this grip was slippery and loose, unpredictable and hazy, it was imprecise and straining and by the time he¡¯d pulled back half way the total amount of the pressure he managed to keep a hold of dropped down to a tenth however he maintained his focus and while it felt like sharp nails being dragged across his mind the promise of finally making progress again was enough to steel his determination. As the ¡®pressure¡¯ from outside entered his pool it acted like a liquid as well, albeit of far higher viscosity almost like oil or honey, and refused to mix with his own ¡®energy¡¯. This state seemed to stagnate for a while before Dane had the idea of ¡®stirring¡¯ his pool to try and mix the substances so as he ramped up a fierce vortex he payed close attention to the remnants from outside and as they eventually started to blend his pool as a whole was immediately enriched, some of its edges beginning to crystallise as an almost maddening energy suddenly began to fill him, making him feel alive. Powerful, even. This sensation kept on expanding till it felt like he was about to burst and he felt a pain burn through him filling every last crevice and he had to struggle to stay conscious throughout, bizarre since he hadn''t slept at all yet, and as his mind began to become hazy, just before he slipped into unconsciousness he sensed the crystal shell complete itself, he finally saw something for the first time since his death. A light that seemed to be a message.
Observation complete:
Metamorphosis beginning in 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­ Start
1 - Exposition and Establish As I began to awaken, once again that same bizarre foreign feeling that came after my death where my body didn¡¯t feel my own permeated through me, I tried to sense the pool of energy inside of me as I¡¯d done before and was immediately blown away by a sudden torrent of information. Instead of only being able to sense a vague pressure from the outside and everything else being solely internal I could feel all around me for a total of 1 meter, a measurement I seemed to be aware of instinctively even without any frame of reference, and all of my surroundings where totally dominated by a bizarre, white, fibre. I¡¯d be tempted to call it a web but it didn¡¯t seem to have any of the ¡®glue¡¯ usually associated with such things and some of the strands where a staggering 10cm in diameter: the scale of this ¡®nest¡¯ was completely impossible to grasp with my small sphere of perception but somehow I could tell it was overwhelmingly large. I was held in a strange sort of woven hammock that stretched out to each side farther than I was able to track and holding me a couple of centimetres off the ¡®floor¡¯ which was also made out of the stuff though I could see through anything within my radius and I was able to notice the shale, dolomite, quartz and hematite; once again identified by a strange guiding hand of instinct that was beginning to get on my nerves. However, most significantly of all I suppose is what ¡®me¡¯ actually was; a small, semi-translucent white orb resting on the hammock and pulsing slightly every now and then, bringing a rush of vitality like when I first pulled in some of the external pressure in for the first time. Inside I¡¯d experienced similarly extreme changes, the size of my pool doubling in radius while I slept and becoming fully encapsulated by crystalline walls that where a centimetre thick, my total diameter being 2 meters by now, and there was a pair of small sparks inside my centre: orbiting each other. As the sparks began to get closer and closer they picked up speed, thinking that they¡¯re speed was important I started swirling the insides of my inner sphere to try and add on to their velocity making their orbit slightly elliptical due to imperfections in my control however they still slowly got closer and closer, faster and faster till finally they collided creating a burst of myriad lights and bringing up two messages like from before¡­
STATUS SKILLS SPELLS CREATURES TERRAINS UTILITIES EFFECTS HELP
Name Dane Kain
Race Dungeon Core
Sub-Type Tyx Swarm
Class Dungeon Master
Sub-Class Hive Lord
Level 0
Experience 0/10
Health 7,000/7,000 (7/s)
Mana 13,000/13,000 (16/s)
Essence 150/150 (13/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 9
Endurance (END) 11
Durability (DUR) 7
Dexterity (DEX) 15
Speed (SPD) 8
Finesse (FIN) 13
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 13
Wisdom (WIS) 16
Genius (GEN) 9
Proficiency (PRO) 11
Impulse (IMP) 6
Charm (CHA) 5
NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE CREATURE!
NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE TERRAIN!
NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE EFFECT!
NOTIFICATION! STARTER PACKS AVAILABLE!
¡®I¡­ uhh what? Huh, It says I¡¯m a dungeon core? I feel like I should be freaking out about this, yknow trying to say it¡¯s a dream or something but it kinda makes sense all things considered¡­ is this maybe related to how I was weirdly calm just before dying? Is that why I feel so accepting of this? It says I¡¯m a ¡®hive¡¯ and ¡®swarm¡¯ so I guess that means I get to use bugs a lot; as for the stats I don¡¯t really know what any of them mean but if I assume 10 is average it looks pretty good on the whole right? I seem to be skewed towards the mental stats but I could¡¯ve predicted that on my own. Also the main three are pretty simple I¡¯d say, health goes to 0; you die, mana does magic stuff and is probably the ¡®energy¡¯ I¡¯ve been using, essence is a bit more confusing but if I just assume it does dungeon stuff then that¡¯s whatever. I¡¯d say this is probably reincarnation but it has the same name as before I died so it can¡¯t be right? I¡¯d have a new name if I was reborn, probably. The tabs up the top are pretty self explanatory as well, skills are stuff I can do; spells are magic I can do; creatures will be whatever monsters I make; terrain is my environment; utilities is probably just the miscellaneous tab and effects is¡­.. okay less sure on that one. A help tab however, that seems special. I¡¯ll mark that one as something to deal with later. Now, the notifications. These 4 are probably just to give me beginner stuff and help me get started, I feel like I shouldn¡¯t use any of that while I¡¯m still uninformed, maybe check the help function first.¡¯The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
HELP
PREVIOUS QUESTIONS! ASK A QUESTION! TIP OF THE DAY!
¡®Huh¡­ let¡¯s check this ¡®tip of the day first¡¯ see if it¡¯s any help.¡¯
TIP OF THE DAY!
Sometimes, you can create a monster for less essence by swapping out parts for weaker equivalents!
¡®Right¡­ completely worthless for beginners then, let¡¯s try asking a question. Hmmm what would actually be helpful, maybe¡­ I¡¯m a dungeon right? That means I¡¯m going to get raided by adventurers or something similar so a question related to them? Maybe what the average level for my area is, but that would be meaningless since I have no frame of reference for levels so it probably wouldn¡¯t help much would it¡­ asking something to do with stats then? But that¡¯d have the same problem. Plus if there¡¯s someone min maxing a stat in the area it¡¯d break everything. Maybe I could just ask how long it would take them to get here from the nearest town? But that feels like it wouldn¡¯t work either¡­ oh right they probably don¡¯t know I¡¯m here yet do they! So ask about how long it will take for them to discover me AND how long it would take for them to arrive after that! Alright, first question; how long will it take for me to be discovered.¡¯ Answer: it will be approx 605000 seconds till discovery. Next free question in 86400 seconds. ¡®Oh so it¡¯ll take about a week then, wait I need to wait a day for another question!?!? Wait how come I just worked that out so easily, it came to me so naturally¡­ I guess I¡¯m still not used to how odd my current self is, I remember thinking my mind was sharper before but I suppose this proves it. Anyway, one week till discovery, let¡¯s assume that¡¯s a hard deadline and I¡¯ll be at risk immediately rather than being optimistic and hoping it would take another few days for any unwanted guests. It¡¯s time to look at the monster tab I suppose¡¯ The creatures tab was separated into parts and blueprints, each being blank with a large button at the bottom that said ¡°FREE CREATURE¡± after ¡®clicking¡¯ it with my mind I was presented with 9 options 3 labelled as ¡®Race Options¡¯ and all having the name ¡®Tyx¡¯ as a prefix; 3 labelled as ¡®Class Options¡¯; 3 labelled as ¡®Special Options¡¯ and the specified as an ¡®Environment Option¡¯, ¡®Personal Option¡¯ and ¡®Random Option¡¯ specifically as-well as a prompt saying that I could pick three. The three Race Options where a swarm type monster that looked like a bizarre cross between a wood louse and a spider, having 12 long spindly legs holding it up at half a meter in height and a flat body that was covered in a flexible, segmented shell called a Tyx Swarmling; a large worm type monster that was a meter in diameter and had a gaping maw full of many layers of spiralling, serrated teeth called a Tyx Burrower; a monster that looked like an oversized tick 2 meters tall and fully engorged but instead of being filled with blood it was bursting with tiny eggs called a Tyx Spawner. The three Class Options where a small spider, only a centimetre tall but with very large eye clusters, that specialised in controlling other types of arachnid and commanding them to fight in its place as well as clever web use for traps called a Webling; a type of fly that was so small it could be mistaken for a speck of dust however they created large swarms to hound larger prey and would explode into a small burst of sparks if killed often causing a chain reaction that where known as Leaf Dust; and a gargantuan preying mantis that was nearly as large as the Tyx Spawner, had a dark grey chitin and an extra two limbs folded in by its sides that could spring out to pierce prey. The special options, well they lived up to their name at least, they where all certainly unique but¡­ maybe a little too much so. There was a wisp that leeched mana to sustain itself meaning it had no essence cost and could use illusions to hide its existence from invaders as the personal option but wasn¡¯t able to do literally anything else; a lindwurm which appeared to be a snake like dragon as the random option, which would be absolutely fantastic if it didn¡¯t drain all of my essence in its entirety some 1,000 times over and a slate golem for the environmental option, a glass canon that was the only creature with a material requirement. All of these seemed alright on the surface, their problems not exactly overwhelming but my main problem with them is that they just don¡¯t fit the theme at all. It might not be that big a deal yet I get the feeling synergy will be important with these kind of things, maybe I¡¯ll have some skills for it? Actually I should probably check those.
Skills
General Skills
Robust Change DUR:Health ratio to 1:1,000
Rapid Regeneration Change Health regeneration into a per second measurement
Mana Crystallisation Change INT:Mana ratio to 1:1,000
Mana Font Change Mana regeneration into a per second measurement
Spell Craft You can precisely shape the flow of your mana to achieve magical effects
Race Skills
World Essence Generate essence at a rate of FIN/he to a cap of 10*DEX
Creature Creation For an essence cost generate certain creatures within your dungeon
Terrain Manipulation Spend mana to manipulate the area that is under your control
Utility Implementation Create and maintain structures within your dungeon with mana
Special Effects Using mana, create supernatural effects within your territory
Tyx Host Tyx Hives are able to act without the restrictions on dungeon life
Tyx Assimilation Tyx Hives can incorporate Tyx variants of compatible dungeon creatures
Class Skills
Cerebral Commander You can order all of your creatures through mental commands in a manner similar to telepathy
Power of Names You can bestow a number of names equal to your GEN to dungeon creatures, this allows them to advance in ways impossible for dungeon life
Manifest Weave By weaving all mana in the dungeon into a central tapestry, You can source your spells from any position in the dungeon as if it where the casting location
Mana Link By connecting the mana flow of the dungeon to your own, you can gain a portion of all mana gained and spent in the dungeon.
Possession For a period of time equal to your PRO minutes you can assume direct control over any of your dungeon creatures.
Myriad Hive All eligible dungeon life is interconnected into one, central, hive mind
Hive Master For a number of minutes equal to your WIS each day, you can use skills within the hive mind equal to your GEN as if they where your own
¡®Okayyyy so 1. Hive master seems to have insane potential for exploitation; 2. Apparently there are restrictions on dungeon life? And I have a couple ways to bypass that; 3. Definitely sticking with the theme is a good idea, I don¡¯t know what makes something ¡®eligible¡¯ or ¡®compatible¡¯ but I assume more bugs can¡¯t be a bad idea; 4. We finally know why my core 3 stats are completely busted compared to every other creature I¡¯ve seen, skills are why. That seems to be al, the important stuff to take note off? Damn that¡¯s a lot to process¡­ checking tabs for more informed decisions = good idea, something to remember¡¯ Hoping to preserve that same spirit I decided to next check the ¡®spells¡¯ tab, I doubt it¡¯ll have anything relevant to dungeon creatures but I didn¡¯t expect skills to come as such a big shock so it¡¯s worth checking at least, upon opening the tab I was presented with another window this one containing 5 categories: conjuration, elemental, enchantment, divination and alteration and a notice saying I had ¡®9 spell points¡¯. Since that looked like another rabbit hole of choices I wasn¡¯t ready for right now I instead moved along to the utilities tab, I felt like terrains was going to be another decision, however I only received a notice saying UTILITIES LOCKED TILL LEVEL 3 and moved into effects. In effects I was presented with an option to claim the free effects mentioned in the notification as-well as a currently empty list of effects that only had the message ¡®Experiment and discover!¡¯. I decided I could at least check my options and clicked ¡®claim¡¯. Thankfully my options where far less fatiguing this time as I only received three choices ¡®Elemental effects¡¯, ¡®Mental Effects¡¯ and ¡®Restrictions¡¯ all only containing a single option ¡®Imbue element¡¯, ¡®Exhaustion¡¯ and ¡®Party Size¡¯ respectively however I immediately selected ¡®Party Size¡¯ without even thinking about it. The idea of armies upon armies charging into my dungeon and spawn camping every mob, scouring every corner to try and destroy me, or enslave me, or just turn me into a fancy paperweight? Horrifying. I was told to specify a restriction size between 10 and 14 and simply picked 10, the lowest option, before moving on to the terrains tab. In ¡®Terrains¡¯ I was given a map of the 1 meter currently within my perception and was told that I was currently inhabiting a cave system and Tyx nest and should pick which one to theme my dungeon after, another easy choice, after picking Tyx not much changed externally but I got a very, very wonderful notification.
NOTIFICATION!
Terrain type chosen! +200% to Tyx reproductive speeds, +1% chance of variant births, +3 Free Multi¡¯s with every Tyx Mother.
This basically set me choosing the Tyx Spawner in stone however I had to wonder, what if it can only spawn monsters I have access to? Wouldn¡¯t I be screwing myself by not selecting another Tyx unit at that point. So just to be safe that basically forces me to spend 2 of my 3 picks of the Tyx and the third one I¡¯ll spend on a class option, the special options just aren¡¯t worth it, so weblings; Leaf Dusts or Reavers. Weblings are out because I don¡¯t have other spiders¡­ wait but what if their abilities can be used on Tyx due to Tyx Assimilation and Myriad Hives? Still¡­ I don¡¯t want to make gambles with this choice. So no weblings, dust leafs I feel could benefit extremely well from my skills and could maybe lead to flying Tyx later on but I feel like they overlap too much with the swarmlings so¡­ I suppose I¡¯ll have to pick Reavers. Let''s see if the starter packs have anything interesting then, my decisions are basically all made already but there might be something useful that maybe makes the Leaf Dust more useful, I open up the starter pack notifications and get the following message
DUNGEON STARTER PACKS
Creature packs Humanoid / Beast / Vermin / Elemental / Construct / Undead
Spell packs Elemental / Divination / Enchantment / Alteration / Conjuration
Utilities Packs Livelihood / Magic / Hostile / Production
Bonus - Stat blocks
Race Tyx Multi
Sub-Type Tyx Swarmlings
Health 4/4 (4/s)
Mana 6/6 (7/hr)
Stamina 40/40 (4/hr)
Cost 0.05 (0.005/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 5
Endurance (END) 4
Durability (DUR) 7
Dexterity (DEX) 7
Speed (SPD) 6
Finesse (FIN) 3
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 6
Wisdom (WIS) 7
Genius (GEN) 2
Proficiency (PRO) 6
Impulse (IMP) 7
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Hive mind, swarm tactics, dark vision, reliable shells, Tyx Venom, Rapid Regeneration, fragile.
Race Tyx Workers
Sub-Type Tyx Burrowers
Health 800/800 (8/hr)
Mana 4/4 (3/hr)
Stamina 80/80 (8/hr)
Cost 0.1 (0.01/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 7
Endurance (END) 8
Durability (DUR) 9
Dexterity (DEX) 4
Speed (SPD) 5
Finesse (FIN) 3
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 4
Wisdom (WIS) 3
Genius (GEN) 2
Proficiency (PRO) 4
Impulse (IMP) 3
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Hive mind, dark vision, reliable shells, Tyx Venom, durable, grinding maw, rock eater
Race Tyx Mother
Sub-Type Tyx Spawner
Health 20/20 (8/hr)
Mana 8/8 (12/hr)
Stamina 40/40 (4/hr)
Cost 10 (1/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 3
Endurance (END) 4
Durability (DUR) 2
Dexterity (DEX) 3
Speed (SPD) 2
Finesse (FIN) 4
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 8
Wisdom (WIS)If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. 12
Genius (GEN) 5
Proficiency (PRO) 7
Impulse (IMP) 3
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Hive Mind, Tyx Venom, dark vision, self sustaining reproduction, rapid reproduction, hive tender.
Race Arachnoid
Sub-Type Webling
Health 1/1 (1/hr)
Mana 6/6 (5/hr)
Stamina 20/20 (2/hr)
Cost 10 (1/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 4
Endurance (END) 2
Durability (DUR) 1
Dexterity (DEX) 4
Speed (SPD) 6
Finesse (FIN) 5
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 6
Wisdom (WIS) 5
Genius (GEN) 4
Proficiency (PRO) 5
Impulse (IMP) 6
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Kin control , dark vision, webbing, tactical thinking, interbreeding, thrall sight, fragile
Race Brood Fly
Sub-Type Leaf Dust
Health 3/3 (3/hr)
Mana 2/2 (3/hr)
Stamina 60/60 (6/hr)
Cost 0.01 (0.001/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 2
Endurance (END) 6
Durability (DUR) 3
Dexterity (DEX) 6
Speed (SPD) 7
Finesse (FIN) 5
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 2
Wisdom (WIS) 3
Genius (GEN) 2
Proficiency (PRO) 3
Impulse (IMP) 6
Charm (CHA) 2
Skills Swarm tactics, infectious bite, fragile, paralytic venom, spontaneous combustion
Race Shade Hunters
Sub-Type Reaver
Health 140/140 (8/hr)
Mana 6/6 (8/hr)
Stamina 80/80 (8/hr)
Cost 10 (1/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 12
Endurance (END) 8
Durability (DUR) 14
Dexterity (DEX) 8
Speed (SPD) 12
Finesse (FIN) 13
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 6
Wisdom (WIS) 8
Genius (GEN) 5
Proficiency (PRO) 7
Impulse (IMP) 13
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Ambush predator, stalking, skilled bladework, air slash, speed burst, weakness detection
Race Mana Spirits
Sub-Type Magi Leech
Health 9/9 (9/hr)
Mana 600/600 (-3/s default, 60/s when draining from environment, 1% of targets mana when draining a target)
Stamina 40/40 (4/hr)
Cost N/A
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 1
Endurance (END) 8
Durability (DUR) 9
Dexterity (DEX) 7
Speed (SPD) 9
Finesse (FIN) 5
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 6
Wisdom (WIS) 7
Genius (GEN) 2
Proficiency (PRO) 4
Impulse (IMP) 2
Charm (CHA) 7
Skills Mana construct, mana pump, siphon mana, mana drain, immaterial
Race Mineral Golems
Sub-Type Shalelings
Health 3/3 (3/hr)
Mana 11/11 (5/hr)
Stamina 40/40 (4/hr)
Cost 5+ 1kg shale (0.5/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 8
Endurance (END) 4
Durability (DUR) 3
Dexterity (DEX) 7
Speed (SPD) 11
Finesse (FIN) 3
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 11
Wisdom (WIS) 5
Genius (GEN) 2
Proficiency (PRO) 6
Impulse (IMP) 9
Charm (CHA) 4
Skills Assimilate surroundings, fragile, reinforce edge, shape shale
Race Lindwurm
Sub-Type Juvenile sand lindwurm
Health 1,400/1,400 (14/s)
Mana 80/80 (14/hr)
Stamina 130/130 (13/hr)
Cost 500 (50/hr) (minimum level 50, +4 free stat pts/level)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 16(+1/level)
Endurance (END) 13
Durability (DUR) 14 (+1/level)
Dexterity (DEX) 8
Speed (SPD) 11 (+1/level)
Finesse (FIN) 7
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 8(+1/level)
Wisdom (WIS) 14(+1/level)
Genius (GEN) 9
Proficiency (PRO) 13
Impulse (IMP) 12(+1/level)
Charm (CHA) 11
Skills Draconian magic, draconic vitality, dragons scales, dragon breath, sand manipulation, minor time manipulation
2 - Spells and Spawns Starting with the creature packs I immediately discounted elemental, humanoid, undead and construct as I didn¡¯t believe any of them would be considered ¡®eligible¡¯ or ¡®compatible¡¯ with my skills, that left me with vermin or beasts as my choices. To take the most advantage of Tyx assimilation I want a diverse range of creatures with unique abilities that the Tyx can make use of and I don¡¯t know how my monsters handle food so I want to try and prepare for establishing a food chain so with that in mind I think the diversity of such a vague category like ¡®beasts¡¯ has the most potential;
Creature pack chosen! Beasts:
Monsters Wolves Vipers Stag
Creatures Hogs Rabbits Pigeons
Flora Fern Grass Pine trees
¡®Okayyy so that brings a lot of questions, sucks about the plants since I doubt I can plant them on pure webbing but the presence of a rudimentary ecosystem in the creature pack makes me feel that my creatures do need to eat somehow but what¡¯s the difference between monsters and creatures? I have a stat block for any of them unlike the creatures so it¡¯s probably that? Though it¡¯s not the best to just take an assumption at face value, it does make the most sense¡­ and it can¡¯t be to do with predators or prey since a stag is considered a monster, it can¡¯t be based on something arbitrary like ¡®strong enough to kill an unarmed person¡¯ since boars can very easily kill people if I remember correctly, maybe it¡¯s based on size? But a hog is bigger than a wolf¡­ well putting that aside for now¡¯ Next was the spell pack, as a dungeon I¡¯d say that divination would probably be the most valuable since I¡¯m unlikely be directly fighting intruders but instead planning against them so information would be most important however the help function seems better than what a spell could provide and I want to avoid redundancies as much as possible; for the same reason I¡¯d rather not take Conjuration since I think I can cover that with the production utility which seemed the most useful out of the options available there: ¡®magic¡¯ seemed resources intensive; ¡®livelihood¡¯ would probably only be useful to humans/humanoids; ¡®hostile¡¯ probably referred to traps and since I¡¯d rather have my defences be monster based so they can grow naturally and thus, production. So elemental, enchantment, alteration. Elemental sticks out to me for 2 reasons, all the other magics seem to be centred around a central purpose; something that the magic didwhereas elemental seemed to be focused on how you did it and the effects tab mentioned infusing the elements so theoretically I could learn an effect by using elemental magic, it did say ¡®Experiment and discover¡¯ so surely that means I can unlock more through trial and error right? And elemental magic seems to be the best option in that regard, in addition, as I mentioned earlier as a dungeon my magic won¡¯t really be getting used against invaders so my magic being able to buff the dungeon as a whole seems to be the most valuable option
Spell pack chosen! Elemental:
Skills 4 elements magic Elemental fusion Elemental control
Spells Fireball Earth-bind Ice-wall Wind-blade Elemental charging Elemental weapon
4 elements magic:
Grants the ability to cast magic of the four base elements; discounts mana costs when using these spells in areas with plentiful mana of the chosen element; can, very inefficiently, convert elemental phenomena into mana (large fires, mudslides, hurricanes etc)
Elemental fusion:
Grants the ability to fuse elemental magics to create a spell that mimics the effect of the base spell but with a fusion element (fire+water=steam, air+water=cloud, earth+water=mud, air+fire=plasma/lightning, earth+fire=magma, air+earth=poison)
Elemental control:
Grants the ability to control the 4 elements passively in your surroundings, able to slowly move a volume of 1m^3 of earth by 1m every minute, able to quell or strengthen flames, generate a faint breeze or clean dirty water.
Fireball:
Cast time: 3s Generate a basketball sized ball of flames and hurl it at a target within 10m after which the fireball peters out.
Mana cost: 5
Range: 10m
Earth-bind:
Cast time: 10s Channel mana through the ground to control tendrils of earth that wrap themselves around their target.
Mana cost: 10
Range: 3m
Ice-wall:
Cast time: 1s Create a 0.1m thick, 2 meter tall, 1m wide wall of ice that can be shaped as a flat or curved surface or instead, at the cost of reducing the walls height by half, make a 1m diameter circular wall.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Mana cost: 15
Range: 1m
Wind-blade:
Cast time: 1s Fire out a 0.3m long blade of wind that rapidly covers a distance of 5m before dispersing.
Mana cost: 3
Range: 5m
Elemental charging :
Cast time: 1m Spend a minute to infuse a person with elemental mana to strengthen them, more SPD for wind, more DUR for earth, more END for water, more POW for fire.
Mana cost: 30
Duration : 10m
Elemental weapon:
Cast time: 10s Wreath a weapon in an element to strengthen attacks with it.
Mana cost: 5
Range: 1m
¡®Well if elemental charging can be used on monsters that would be fantastic but I doubt it since it says ¡®person¡¯ though that might just be because system definitions of spells are written both the creator or something, or maybe based on the majorities understanding of a spell. Though if it was the second one surely some kind of monster tamer class should have made it common knowledge by now, right? Elemental weapon is probably going to be useless which sucks, then elemental fusion as well; that seems to have the most potential of all these abilities by far. Though some combinations seem quite¡­ strange. Poison blade? Either useless or very, very powerful depending on whether or not it can still cut¡¯ ¡®If we assume that average intelligence is 10; mages have slightly better intelligence, let¡¯s say 12; standard mana for beginning mages is 1:1; then ice-wall should be some kind of last resort, panic button type spell. Used right when there¡¯s no options left to block a fatal blow and escape rather than it being used more generally as a defensive tool. Wind-blade seems to be the spell most designed for general use: cheap, quick, single target. Earth-bind seems to be support focused, I can imagine if you have an ally in melee combat it would be a lot more powerful than it seems, probably the most user for me by far since I could use it to support my monsters since they¡¯re all melee combatants¡­ wait wouldn¡¯t it be even better if I have ranged monsters since they couldn¡¯t dodge? Nice. It doesn¡¯t make it clear in the description but just from the way that all the spells seem to have their own niche it would be a crowd-control/area attack type spell which makes sense as long as the fireball explodes on contact. No idea on how to ¡®infuse¡¯ an area with an element though, I suppose using the channeling from earth-bind or elemental-charging to try and figure it out since they try and channel magic through the ground and elemental-charging fills something with elemental magic to achieve buff like effects which is what I assume the elemental effects are since we already have debuffs in the mental effects tab.¡¯ ¡®Next is the utilities, it seems a bit strange I have a starter pack for them when they¡¯re level locked though. Are you meant to not have access to the starter packs till then or are most dungeons level 3+ to start? But starting at a high level doesn¡¯t make sense isn¡¯t it just a fancy, high value level 1 at that point? Well anyway, I¡¯ve already decided on production so let¡¯s just get it over with¡¯
Utilities pack chosen! Production:
Ore vein Forge Casting
Lumber mill Carving Carpentry
Crystallisation Embedding Powdering
¡®Right, all mainly self-evident except that third row¡­ well, time to see if we can check it ye- UTILITIES LOCKED TILL LEVEL 3, okay so that¡¯s a no. Time to finalise the other choices,
Free creatures chosen!
Monsters Tyx Swarmer Tyx Burrowers Reavers
Creatures Cockroach Borer beetles Shade bats
Flora Pop Lichen Panstip Fungi Shade phlox
From my free creature choices I got some far stranger creatures and flora than I did with the starter pack, the cockroaches and borer beetles where fairly similar to what you¡¯d find on earth but the shade bats where completely alien. These bats had bodies only 0.1m long but a staggering 2m wingspan tip to tip and was pitch black with ears that where each the size of its entire head, it almost looked like a caricature of what a bat should be like. They seemed to have evolved to make long, gliding flights with minimal noise to avoid detection. Just one part of the knowledge I gained from unlocking the things. They fed of shade phlox and made their nests as high up in whatever cave systems they inhabited, natural fliers and with a tendency to raise their young on a perch many never touch the ground their entire lives and their number one predator is, you guessed it, reavers. The plants where also fascinating: the panstip fungi are large, flat mushrooms that are bioluminescence and will basically be my number 1 light source in these caves, the lichen seems mundane but when bloated with water, diced into a powder and then dried out properly it creates a strange sort of rudimentary gun powder: though it isn¡¯t used that way; or at all really, after discovery it was pretty quickly discovered that it could be weaponised into a sort of grenade like weapon however compared to say, a fireball spell, the power was disappointing for all the time, resources, risk and effort put into its creation; the resources where simply too sparse for mass production to ever be practical and while more powerful alternatives where found their problems where more of the same to an exponential degree for a minimal increase in strength and while it was used in the mining and constructing industry for a while increased educational standards led to a proliferation of young, poor, low skill earth mages willing to take on such odd jobs for a good wage and therefore they, once again, where made redundant. When growing if it¡¯s stepped on it will create small explosions which are the source of the ¡®pop¡¯ in its name. The shade phlox however, is an entrancing purple flower that hangs from the ceiling in order to get the most advantage of the lowdown bioluminescent fungi, usually not panstip¡¯s in their natural environment but something similar, they are a thin hanging vine adorned with far too many small, three leaved flowers too count and have been found to have slightly hallucinogenic properties that some avid users claim to open the path to enlightenment and power beyond what even an archmage could comprehend however no such results have made themselves public as of yet though there may be more to the claims than just drug influenced rambling as a small excerpt in the shade bats information mentions that the bats can become a type of monster called a ¡®Seer Bat¡¯ with enough shade phlox of high enough potency consumed. I considered going into my spells to spend my SP but to be honest at this point I was getting slightly tired of the constant menu navigating and wanted to do something so I started to work on creature creation, I felt that I should start from the ground up so that all the framework is in place immediately so the goals I set for myself where, in order: expand territory (to 3*10^8m^2 hopefully) since even just a single wolf pack would want about the same amount to prowl in however hopefully the geography of a cave system and the fact they wouldn''t be roaming would cut that down significantly, then I want to place the flora, then place herbivores/insects before finishing up with placing predators. For now I wanted to place all the flora, creatures and monsters on my free choices; a small amount ferns and grass to see how they adapt; the rabbits and pigeons quite liberally to see if they can actually manage to maintain a population at all here and 3 sets of a dozen wolves with some vipers scattered throughout. The vipers where actually the ones I expected to adapt best to environment but maybe the lack of plant cover would make things difficult for them. I began expanding my territory pretty much just as a perfect sphere in hopes of finding cave systems below and the surface above while the sides where just for the sake of surface area, after spending most of the day just expanding my territory I had gotten 100m out giving me about 3*10^4m^2 of surface area since it was mostly just a massive clearing at this point with the occasional stone pillar or stalagmite however it was all covered in the ludicrously thick webbing from before; the reason I stopped is because I finally found a change, three passages that where north, south-east and south-west of me respectively each had the web coming to an end less than a meter deep into them. The end of the nest, the east and west where still on going making the entire nest seem to be almost olive shaped with the passages on the long sides. I took a moment to plan what to do from here, I¡¯d half been expecting nothing but webs for the entire distance as stupid as that seems in retrospect, I needed to consider what I¡¯d do upon finding any forms of life. Do I want to try and incorporate it into my dungeon or just kill everything I came across, life unrelated to the dungeon would come at no cost to me unlike natural born dungeon monsters which still have an hourly essence cost but no initial cost however they wouldn¡¯t listen to orders properly¡­ it just doesn¡¯t seem worth it to try and change things to accommodate. Right, that¡¯s settled then, we just ignore them, we won¡¯t hunt them down but worst comes to worst they just become food for our monsters and if we¡¯re lucky they¡¯ll stick around without me wasting resources on trying to force them too. Continuing to expand I found that the caverns where completely barren, markings on the walls seem to indicate that these caves where carved out by water and I doubt they¡¯ve been discovered since the hematite is abundant enough here for it to be a worthwhile resource and I know that the humans of this world at least do mine for things due to the information about the pop lichen, it¡¯s been about 200m and I still see no sign of us being near the surface so it might just be too deep? After all things definitely have to be able to get in here to create that nest. On a more positive note, I¡¯ve found quite a few branching paths by now and they all seem to be large enough for my wolves or bugs to patrol them and I think they¡¯ll serve as the perfect camouflage for Tyx Burrower paths and we¡¯re nearly ready for the next help question. Thinking back on it, there¡¯s no way for the help function to have been able to answer my question with only knowledge of me and how a dungeon functions so it at minimum has to have access to all information about every dungeon in order to get those numbers through an average however, while this sounds ridiculous, it could also be omniscient. I think it¡¯s worth spending this second question checking something that it couldn¡¯t possibly know through dungeon knowledge alone, maybe something to do with human society? But what if there are dungeon masters who have positive relationships with society, I mean we¡¯ve definitely got plenty to trade and some of the dungeon functions of the dungeon master class so far seem to be tailored to a human who controls a dungeon so maybe it would know that way. 3 - Plans and Plants Alright, since I can¡¯t figure out how to distinguish between human knowledge and dungeon knowledge I just need to find something that no-one knows but that I can figure out relatively easily; I could try and do something like ¡®flipping a coin¡¯ by creating a magma ball and placing it on top of a steam wall and having the help function guess what side it¡¯ll land on though that seems quite frivolous, I¡¯d rather avoid questions that are completely useless after all, and it might just be able to work out which side it would land on by observing what I can perceive; I mean you would¡¯ve expected my perception of the dungeon to get less precise as it grew but if anything it¡¯s more detailed now, I can almost make out the individual fibres of some of the webs at this point, though I¡¯m starting to notice a distortion effect where the points furthest away from wherever I¡¯m focusing start to become compressed slightly so it¡¯s likely I won¡¯t have infinite range to this detection and will end up with an area that I can focus on at any one time and move around at will and given the area of the distortion I think it will end up being about 100m diameter total once it¡¯s been completely separated from my territory as a whole. That was quite the tangent huh¡­ how about ¡®how far down is the nearest gas pocket¡¯? Since my cave hasn¡¯t been discovered yet the general geography should be unknown right? Sure there¡¯s a chance it might have enough information from other dungeons for a guess, especially if they go quite deep as well but I doubt it could actually be at all reliable with that. Okay let¡¯s go; how deep would I have to go to discover a natural gas pocket? Answer: the first natural gas pocket below your current location is 457.942m with minor deviancy towards the north east. Next question in 172,800s. ¡®Okay, so it might actually maybe be omniscient, that¡¯s certainly something I suppose. I don¡¯t have enough here to make any big claims for certain but I definitely did NOT expect that to work¡­ also the cool down just straight up doubled I really hope it doesn¡¯t do that every time¡­ though I basically just guaranteed it by saying that now didn¡¯t I? I¡¯m slightly regretting not taking divination magic now but elemental looks like it¡¯ll be worth it in the end anyway so I shouldn¡¯t complain too harshly. As I expanded further out towards the 458m~ value I was given I managed to discover a surplus of interesting things, the caves where still mostly a mess of tunnels but I found a couple of slightly larger caverns that where anywhere between 3m and 20m in diameter approx that all had one trait in common, they had a small natural waterfall. Though in all honesty that term was far from accurate as it was closer to a slight dribble of moisture that had carved out a groove for itself in the rock which then was absorbed by the slightly porous rock and trickled into an underground river system which as soon as I incorporated into my territory I got a notification telling me Natural resource discovered: water source. With no accompanying changes of any form which was slightly concerning but I simply hoped that it would bring benefits in the future and continued my expansion. Once I reached the radius of 458m I¡¯d already spent most of the day on expansion, leaving me with only 5 days left till discovery, and Natural resource discovered: methane gas. That was far too precise for me to ever believe that the help function had figured out where that pocket would be simply from averages and past data no matter what or how anyone tried to convince me otherwise. So that means the help function, and in extension the system itself, has some way to detect things pretty much at will. I¡¯m going to assume, If only for the sake of my sanity, that some divination magic is involved in the process and just write it off like that for now because we have far more important things to worry about, mainly expanding our territory to prepare for this whole hostile invasion of an unknown militant force thing we¡¯ve got going on here. After expanding to a radius of 600m I discovered a sealed underground lake, some pockets of carbon monoxide, more methane, some trapped water in porous rock and an absolutely stunning cave far to the north of my territory that I had only begun to scratch the surface of but it was full of karst (a hanging formation formed of calcium carbonate if I remember correctly), stalactites and stalagmites as well as some stupefying pillars of crystal, mainly a cloudy white but others have tints of other shades running through them, that seemed to tower up endlessly as they reach a staggering height, some more than 10m tall. It took half of the third day, but I finally reached my goal of a 10^4m radius. I haven¡¯t noticed any signs of the surface or even other cave systems not connected to mine but my tunnels seem to be trending upwards towards the south, hopefully that means the invaders would come from that direction and I can prepare in advance, though I believe the surface can''t be that much higher than 2,000m since I was rendered unable to expand upwards after reaching 1,000m in that direction, flattening my sphere considerably. It was finally time to start planning my distribution of creatures since I¡¯m about to put the flora in place. My territory can largely be divided into 4 categories: the nest area, the large cavern about 10^4m from end to end composed of three caves. The central cave is 400m on the wide side that goes north to south and 600m on the long side which goes east to west, on both the western and eastern ends there are caverns attached directly to the nest but filled with rubble due to cave ins that make them mostly unusable for now and thus will be, mostly, ignored until I can have them cleared. The entire nest acts as the centre and heart of my dungeon, it has three major tunnels that branch out: two that face southwards while intersecting, overlapping, splitting, merging in ways that boggle the mind and one that extends down northward diverge into a myriad of dead ends, only one leading to the crystal cavern I¡¯d discovered before. I intended to make this the colony for my tyx hive as well as where I¡¯d place the majority of my reavers, hogs, shade bats and pigeons so I would also be placing some of all types of vegetation other than the pine trees here, however I¡¯m not exactly hopeful about anything other than the lichen and shade phlox¡¯s chances. My thinking was that since this was the only area with the high ceilings required for flying life it necessitated me placing the pigeons, shade bats and thus reavers here but the reavers could still stalk the corridors only using this area as a place to rest and eat whereas my Tyx would be me central forces and even if I haven¡¯t taken the Tyx spawners because they are necessary for a long term defence even though they won¡¯t be cost effective in the short term which unfortunately led to me taking the decision to ignore them in favour of the Burrowers which can be used for terraforming purposes an ability that is going to be revolutionary while we are only starting out, I will still be taking the spawners immediately at the soonest available opportunity, with the bonuses granted by the terrain type it is basically mandatory. Next is the crystal area, the natural cavern full of natural cave formations that made it completely stunning to the eye which after fully expanding my territory I found was 300m wide at its shortest side and closer to 400m on its longest being vaguely oval shaped and the longest side pointing towards the nest area, as you advanced further from the nest area and thus deeper down the oval the colours became more vibrant, the rock patterns in the wall became more striking and the architecture of the various structures became even more bizarre till it seemed physics defying and right at the very end there as the chaos reached its climax there was an area of calm: containing nothing but a 1m diameter, hexagonal crystal pillar that was a mesmerising shade of magenta. I was tempted to fill the place with panstips in order to light the place up and fully draw out its beauty but when I fought about the mushrooms potentially destabilising the place I couldn¡¯t bring myself to do it, besides, meddling with the place just seemed so wrong. The entire place seemed almost sacred and from what I¡¯d read about how easily disturbed areas such as this where I intended to leave it completely untouched.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The tunnel systems is a sprawling mess that covers a rough circle 9*10^3m that I wanted my wolves to make use of and composes the majority of my total surface area, I hope to have a total of 10 packs each with 10 members patrolling the tunnel systems as well as some boars for the sake of food and I intend to make the place be positively vibrant by filling it with any and all plant life that¡¯ll stick except the pines and phlox, the pines because I¡¯ve chosen not to make use of them anywhere for the lack of space and resources as well as how unlikely it is they will adapt to this environment and the phlox because I want to make that exclusive to the large nest cavern. The reavers will also roam the tunnels closer to the cavern but their habitat will be strictly within the cavern itself. Finally are the alcoves, the interconnected network of small caverns all part of the same underground water system, I primarily want these to be the dens for my wolves and will fill them solely with panstips to enhance the feeling of their ¡°uniqueness¡±. Some of the smaller ones, however, i instead plan to make the homes of the vipers as well as placing some rabbit warrens in others to fill the tunnels with life underfoot both friendly and hostile. As I spread the plants across it took me 10 essence only to place all the shade phlox in the nest cavern, plants and creatures don¡¯t need hourly essence to maintain themselves like monsters but they still have an initial cost attached so they¡¯re not exactly ¡®free¡¯. When I placed the plant life it was like I was watching the entire growth process on a time lapse as some small buds quickly sprawled across the entire ceiling to create a sky of vibrant purple stretching out endlessly across the horizon. I then began to liberally distribute the pop lichen and panstips across basically any free surface I could find while scattering some ferns and patches of grass here and there. It was the second I placed the ferns I noticed something was off. The leaves where completely ghostly white and so was the grass, a sign of them being albino if I remembered correctly, nothing strange about that; at least not it every single fern I¡¯d placed shared the same trait¡­ albinism is a mutation that only occurs very rarely so it must be something else for it be occurring this consistently¡­ it only took me a second to realise the cause ¡®there¡¯s no sunlight down here so they have no need for chlorophyll¡­ therefore it just got completely removed¡­ but I don¡¯t know anything about this happening naturally under any circumstance let alone it happening instantaneously. Does that mean that what I place gets automatically adapted to the environment I place it in? That could be useful¡­ maybe the pine trees and stags aren¡¯t useless after all.¡¯ I decided to stick with the current plan at least for the moment and continued distributing the same plants as before until I¡¯d spent a third of my total essence leaving me at only 100 left and took a moment to look over the new nest. It no longer felt as barren and hollow as it did before but the pale plant life and faint glow of the panstips created an eerie atmosphere that made you feel as if there was something right behind you at all times and that the very air you where breathing was an enemy, it had a mystical grandiose to it that was subtly and subconsciously hostile. Looking around I took a pride in my work that I hadn¡¯t been able to feel for quite a while, even when I was still alive, it was just so cathartic so have everything come together so beautifully. I quickly did the same in the caverns, using more ferns and grass in the far sections to act as cover for the wolves and snakes while using less of the panstips and placing them behind outcroppings of stone in the closer tunnels to provide ample shadows for my reavers to shroud themselves in for camouflage, their stealth and ambush skills as well as they¡¯re dull grey colouration should make them a fish in water with this environment and draw out the full potential of their skills. On a whole the tunnels are a nightmare enough to navigate just by their layout alone but now with some lighting tricks and how generally cluttered the space is with a dense undergrowth of white ferns, panstips and lichen it is easy to get yourself lost constantly going in circles, hopefully the Burrowers will amplify that effect. The lichen also has another effect to wear down an invaders nerves, the pop that comes with every misstep will not only slowly start to stress any delvers but it will also help with alerting the wolf packs throughout the tunnels, I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ll actually need to ¡®find¡¯ the invaders or if I just directly control them or if they have some kind of ¡®dungeon sense¡¯ but I figure the fail safe can¡¯t hurt. The occasional areas of respite throughout the maddening tunnels are small alcoves that have a constant drip¡­ drip¡­ dripping of whatever to continue the mental fatiguing of our guests and the chance of an entire wolf pack coming back to settle in for the night will force them to be ready to awake and make a run for it at any time will stop them from getting any decent rest and to further the need for constant vigilance there¡¯s the ever present threat of a venomous viper that could climb into your bedroll while you sleep. I think that this area will help instil a far more aggressive sense of dread that would serve to intensify the more subdued terror of the nest through contrast. By the time I was done I¡¯d spent another 50 essence but I¡¯d spent a lot longer on specific details so I had recovered more than that in total, making a gain of 15 essence. After placing all of the flora it was time to place the creatures, while I¡¯d spent nearly the entire remainder of the day on the plant life, there was still three days left till discovery, and it was only going to get more expensive from here so I decided to take things slower and pace myself. It was nearly time for the next question and I already knew what I was going to ask, when is my next monster unlock. But for now it was time to place the creatures, I placed the ones I was worried about least first: the shade bats and immediately noticed what I was growing to expect was a theme. They had snow white fur that was adorned by hypnotic, piercing purple patterns and eyes of the same colour. The skin on their wings however, had no fur and was completely black meaning they blended in with the darkness while in flight but when resting and eating they camouflaged with the shade phlox and if they ended up on the floor they could hide amongst the ferns and grass. I next went to summon a pigeon, fully knowing what to expect by now, and as I expected I got what was better described as a dove. At this point I was extremely curious about how this palate change to match the webbed environment and the pale plant life would effect all of my other creatures so I quickly summoned one of each of the insects that the Tyx had as creatures however, while they had white shells that allowed them to disappear into the fibres of the web in all honesty it wasn¡¯t that interesting so I went ahead and summoned the hog. What I got out was so completely bizarre, yet mundane, I was stunned for a second. It was a boar, standing at a height slightly taller than a meter hoof to head and looking far more dignified than it had any right too with a thin white coat; all expected at this point but what surprised me was the faint yellow blotches it had covering its flanks that crackled and popped as it walked, that was pop lichen! It seemed my dungeon creatures could incorporate plant life into themselves in what I assume is some form of symbiotic relationship though I fail to understand what either party gets out of the situation. After spending some time on experimentation I finally was off cool-down and could ask ¡®when do I unlock my next monster¡¯ Answer: level 5. Next question in 345600s. ¡®Well uh¡­ that was abrupt¡­ it¡¯s a goal though I suppose and it¡¯s better than some vague answer like ¡®when you¡¯ve proved yourself¡¯ or something¡¯ With that swiftly dealt with I could go back to my creatures and soon enough my entire dungeon floor was bustling with life, even if it took me most of the fourth day to do so, I would be able to start placing monsters tomorrow with nothing left to distract me and then, I would be ready. 4 - Swarmlings and Strategy It¡¯s the fifth day now and I can finally summon some of my monsters. My essence is a little low from the creatures I had to distribute yesterday, totalling 4 dozen boar in the main nest area; over a 100 rabbits and the same amount of shade bats; then followed by too many cockroaches and beetles to count however I¡¯ve made a decent recovery since I went a little slower than when placing all the plants and took some time to observe how they where adapting to the environment: thankfully most of them are behaving as expected even though the boars seem to think they own the place. First I want to plan out my monsters since they all have an associated essence drain I want to place as many of them as possible while still benefiting from the 13/hr I¡¯ve got for now. Ideally I¡¯d love to stay with 10/hr but that would only let me have 3 Reavers! On a side note, the essence upkeep of Tyx is insanely cheap, for the price of a single reaver I could get 200 swarmlings! And the swarmlings aren¡¯t even that weak in the grand scheme of things, not compared to say, a Dust Leaf which has the same upkeep and the Burrowers are only twice that cost while also being incredibly effective tanks even though they don¡¯t seem combat focused. My current plan for the dungeon is: 200 swarmlings, 100 Burrowers, 5 reavers, 100 wolves, 50 vipers and then a Tyx Spawner once I get to level 5. That costs me 9/hr (200*0.005+100*0.01+5*1+100*0.015+50*0.01=9) for now and 10/hr when I add a Spawner. The first thing I intend to spawn is a swarmling, they¡¯re by far the cheapest creature I have available to me so if anything goes wrong I¡¯ll lose the least and there¡¯s something I want to try when it comes to the adapted colouration that¡¯s been going on at the moment due to them being adjusted for the environment. By default all of the tyx creatures have a slightly bony, off-white shell that is unnaturally smooth and is almost mirror like. Their completely silent movement and spotless appearance create an unsettling impression that they¡¯re something alien, not meant for this world. The Tyx swarmlings have a half meter long body that is reminiscent of woodlice, appearing completely flat and being about 20 cm wide, it¡¯s covered in the same shell mentioned before and all of the plates slide into each other creating a mostly seamless surface that looks almost rubbery and has a line of compound eyes that are reminiscent of what a fly possesses, each line contains 7 eyes that are of identical size and are partially protected by the overhang of the top half of their chitin. Their dozen limbs are far longer than their body, each 2m long. They create long upside down V shapes peaking at a height of 1m, twice as tall as where the main body is held above the ground, and comeback down at a sharp angle. These legs behave similarly to that of a spiders however have nearly twice as many joints, eleven, which allows a surprisingly diverse range of movement for each limb. These limbs are completely covered in some of the thickest chitin in the Tyx¡¯s body because, while each joint can seal up to prevent blood loss through a damaged or destroyed limb, these legs are the most important part of a tyx swarmer. Each leg has a slightly bulbous segment that is only a few centimetres long but double the usual diameter of the rest of the leg; these segments each contain their own venom gland that contains the unique ¡®Tyx venom¡¯, a paralytic neurotoxin that causes severe necrosis almost instantly and spreads across the body in a matter of minutes, unfortunately due to the size of a swarmlings venom gland each injection will be able to paralyse at most a limb and kill the cells of the immediate area (e.g. forearm, hand, foot, calf etc). The venom is stored at extremely high pressures which can then be released through a tiny hole that is imperceptible to the naked eye on the tips of their extremely sharp legs. These tips are often blunted through day to day wear and tear however and while they can often still pierce with enough force most Tyx keep their two front limbs off the ground, however swarmlings don¡¯t do this; at least not without a swarm leader, they simply don¡¯t have the capacity to come up with the idea and it¡¯s not a part of their instinct as it slows them down slightly, unfortunately they have no offensive options like biting as they are herbivorous and have mouths completely in capable to pierce of crush, instead tearing their meals apart with their limbs into bite sized portions and using one of the three furthest forward sets of limbs as skewers to raise the food to their mouths. Their undersides are mostly unprotected, the chitin being far more flexible and also far thinner thus, weaker. This chitin is a dull grey similar in shade to the shells of the Reavers which was my focus for now, I intended to see if I could change this chitin to the same colouration as the rest of the shell as well as cover it in the same patterning that the shade bats (as well as the rabbits, which where changed in the same way) had when summoning them, I wasn¡¯t exactly sure on how I would do that but I felt like I had a good shot if I just sort of ¡®willed it¡¯ to happen like I had done with my mana way back when. As I began summoning the swarming I held the image of what I wanted it to look like in my mind, as if it where a CAD model, and focused on my changes to the underside and let my instincts guide me as I subconsciously made slight changes and corrections to the essence as it flowed out of my and dispersed into the atmosphere, collecting into the shape of my Tyx Swarmling. As it began to form I felt a tether connecting me to the Swarmling which I assumed was how I would control it and was why my essence was consumed hourly as there was no such connection to my current creatures and I had no way to order them either. When the essence was finished shaping itself there was a quick flash of light and then my first monster was standing their, tapping its limbs on the webs where I had summoned it and taking a couple of steps every which way as if it needed to get used to moving, I supposed that was fair enough as it had just been born. After leaving it to its own devices for a while it began mindlessly meandering the nest so I figured it was time for my first orders focusing on our tether I tried to send some thoughts down the line: ¡®Hello?¡¯ it paused for a moment then¡­ nothing. I suppose that means it can¡¯t speak back, maybe try something more like¡­ ¡®Freeze!¡¯ it stopped dead in its tracks, not even its chest twitching slightly for breath, though its breathing was already mostly unnoticeable before so while it was keeping steady there was no real method of detection. While it was stationary I took a moment to see if my changes had worked and was greeted with an overwhelming success, I only hoped it would be easier a second time. If I had to put in my full focus for all 200 of them it would be impossible to get things done in time. I decided to try giving a more complex order of ¡®Eat till your full but only half of each patch of vegetation, then patrol around the southern entrances¡¯ however the swarmling didn¡¯t respond again, knowing the limits of the orders I can give will be crucial so I suppose I should find exactly where the limit is, next up a 2 part order ¡®go north¡¯ the Swarmling began to advance towards the entrance of the crystal cavern. Right, let¡¯s see if it can figure out something like ¡®Reverse!¡¯ it turned around and started advancing southwards. Okay let¡¯s try something more ambitious, ¡®Patrol the southern entrances¡¯. It continued onwards without changing course but that might just be because it¡¯s in the same area, so it¡¯s fine to wait for now. After reaching the southern end of the nest it went towards the western entrance; peaked inside slightly before taking a few cautious steps inside; tapped around a bit before scraping a patch of lichen of the wall to eat and rustled around in the bushes before leaving confidentially and then went towards the eastern entrance and did the same again before going back westwards. With that I was sure the problem with my first order was the fact that it was more like two orders at once, it seems the swarmlings are able to do relatively complex tasks but can only follow one order at once; or maybe I can only send one order over the tether at once? Can¡¯t be sure yet.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I returned to summoning the swarmlings, since the first proved they had no need to be order to eat I simply gave them all patrol orders around different parts of the nest: filling the place with life. The first 30 I summoned I had orbit around my little web hammock, I¡¯d made the surrounding area a patch filled with ferns and grass so it was harder to spot and now I had the first 10 just spend all day grazing in this patch, hopefully that would discourage any invaders from picking this spot to explore, the other 20 I gave patrol paths that seem just like all the other swarmlings but I made sure each of path intersected in this clearing. I had all my swarmlings stay in groups between 3 and 5, enough variation to keep people guessing but still fairly consistent. I figured the number would be good for ambushes, surprise attacks on the enemy back line and be able to hold their own in a long enough to keep the enemy busy will reinforcements arrive: another reason for this consistency however, was a lot more sinister. I made the next group of 30 and had them patrol the area just before the crystals, far enough away to be out of sight until you where at least half way into the nest, these 30 would stay as a single group in order to force a head on attack if someone wanted to leave the nest through the crystal area and once the delvers spotted this group I would have some of the patrols behind form up into one just as large to pincer them in between, at which point I¡¯d have both groups slowly move their patrol paths closer and closer till a head on confrontation where one would reinforce the other from behind. The next 40 made up my generic patrol groups just to fill out space and make traversing the area a constant risk. The ferns I¡¯d been placing in the central nest I went over again and try to make them grow larger, something that came quite easily at the cost of some essence, so I applied that treatment to them all as well as placing some more only stopping when I nearly began eating into the budget for the rest of my summons creation costs, after making all the ferns grow to a meter in height it was now impossible to spot my tyx patrols from a distance when they where under these ferns and the plants providing effective cover and camouflage during combat always giving them the first move and a home field advantage during engagements. My tyx where extremely weak, health wise, so I couldn¡¯t expect them to take more than a single straight on hit each, but if I gave them opportunities to escape after each glancing blow then they¡¯d be able to heal instantly due to their regeneration being incredible, with that in mind I tried to avoid creating zones that didn¡¯t have any clear lines of retreat for the swarmlings. I doubted they would choose to retreat as they are now but the information on the Tyx Swarmling biology I received mentioned something called a ¡®swarm leader¡¯, I assume they take a commanders role and would make the swarmlings behave more intelligently so they could take advantage of my more tactical considerations. Before I started placing my final 100 I had an idea that I wanted to test, I picked one of the tyx from a 5 member group and gave it an order ¡®climb the walls¡¯, I figured with all the webbing they could slide their limbs between that it should definitely be possible but I wasn¡¯t completely sure and wanted to check before I fully committed. Awkwardly at first, but slowly with greater ease, my tyx swarmling made its way higher and higher up the wall and stopped once the wall started to slope slightly, I was certain that if it hooked its limbs round the individual fibres it could probably keep going, even hanging upside down but I wasn¡¯t quite sure and didn¡¯t want to test it till I¡¯d tried something else ¡®Drop¡¯, I¡¯m sure where I¡¯m going with this is obvious but I needed to check my swarmlings wouldn¡¯t die from a fall of these heights first and, surely enough, flexing its limbs mid fall, the Swarmling completely flipped itself and bent their many knees to completely nullify any impact the fall may have had. If I could I would be on the floor laughing, I was just far too ecstatic with this success, if I could manage to get these things on the roofs next then it would be perfect. I once again ordered it up the wall and decided I would be adding this swarmling to the 10 that protect me personally for its usefulness in this experiment. I might name it too, but I only have 9 of those so I can¡¯t be quite so rash, once again the swarmling stopped when it got to the point it couldn¡¯t just pull itself up the web like a ladder anymore and I sent it another order ¡®Continue, hook your limbs round the web¡¯ it tried to do what I had said but found very little success, this making me feel even more certain that these swarmlings where anything but stupid but far less certain that the earlier order had failed because it contained two instructions. The swarmling fell a great number of times and while it tried to work out how to climb the final stretch of webbing I began making preparations for the wolves, I was hoping to change their limbs slightly so they rest lower to the ground at the sacrifice of their running speed since they wouldn¡¯t be making much use of that feature in the narrow tunnels but it was proving quite difficult to do it in a way that was even remotely effective and decided to leave it for a while and start on the snakes instead, that would be far easier since all I intended to do was change the scales to white with the purple patterns something I expect would happen automatically anyway but I wanted to make sure that it was exactly how I liked it. After spending some time scattering snakes throughout the tunnels and trying to decide on my orders for them I felt a twinge in my brain and the specifics of exactly how to climb upside down on webbing using 12 multi-jointed limbs rushed through me, ¡®the hive mind at work I suppose¡¯ since this information basically guaranteed to me that Spencer, I¡¯d decided I would name it, had succeeded I rushed my perception back to the nest where it was currently hanging upside down on the roof of the nest amongst the shade phlox and some very concerned looking shade bats. I took a deep breath and gave the most difficult order to give yet ¡®Drop¡¯ but Spencer, once more, proved to be exceptional immediately sticking the landing. I tried to send a feeling of gratitude over our tether and got little response back, ordering Spencer to join the royal guard I had set up around me in their ever so critical task of eating some grass I triggered the naming function to make its name official, simply calling a creature by a name didn¡¯t seem to be enough for that, and I felt all of my mana drain my at once as a notification appeared. Creature named: Tyx Swarmling ¡°Spencer¡± ¡®Phew, that really takes it out of you huh? Glad it only costs mana rather than essence though. Things could¡¯ve been bad otherwise¡¯ After the naming ceremony was completed Spencer lit up with the same burst of light that comes after creating a monster but after things dimmed down it didn¡¯t seem to have changed at all only making it¡¯s way towards the centre of the grazing swarmlings beside my hammock and poking it a couple times before joining the group. After that success it was time for my goal in all of that to be realised, I summoned 100 swarmlings, these ones with the patterns on their tops rather than undersides and the pattens extending over the limbs as well. And I ordered all of them into groups of 10 which I then had climb onto the ceiling and space themselves out evenly, creating a cover of 1 swarmling group every 20m or so for instant reinforcement. Update - Not a chapter So, it was brought to me attention that some of the Math in my chapter was off, like really off, because square kilometres are 1,000,000 square meters rather than being 1,000 square meters. I''ve went through and tried to change every measurement I''ve found to meters and will be using meters in scientific notation in future to side step something like this ever cropping up again but that did lead me towards making some overall changes to the numbers and layout of the dungeon so far. I do have a map but I wanted to post this chapter 20 minutes ago and couldn''t because I was trying to get uploading that image to work. It''s just not happening for me at the minute, the iPad I''m using both for uploading these chapters and making things like the cover photo for this book is school owned and doesn''t let me use image hosting sites. With that out of the way I''ll try and describe to you as clearly as possible what the new layout of our dungeon looks like. The dungeons total territory is a now 10,000m radius (10^4m) or 2*10^4m diameter that extends 10^3km both up and down before stopping as Dane hit some sort of barrier at that point. Within the territory there is the Nest, made up of three caves: a central cave that is 400m north to south and 600m east to west and two auxiliary caverns that are completely blocked by lose rubble from a cave in at the moment but are approximately 200m diameter each even though their shapes are very uneven. Next is the tunnels which can be found both south and north, the northern tunnels coming to a series of dead ends with on path specifically leading to the crystal cavern which is 300m east to west and 400m north to south and the tunnels in total occupy an area of about 2,000m total from the nest till the cavern whereas the northern tunnels are now basically 10,000m long from the exits of the caverns to the tips of Dane''s territory, even wrapping around slightly to give them even more area. These tunnels make up the majority of Dane''s territory and the rest is mostly solid stone, you can think of Dane''s dungeon as a castle on a hill surrounded by plains: obviously the hill is of most importance but it''s only really a speck compared to the surrounding landscape.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. 5 - Vipers and Variants With my nest populated by Swarmlings and my ambush units in hiding amongst the shade phlox I returned to the vipers, they where each slightly over a meter long and their scales allowed them to curl up in the ferns completely unnoticed, they used a delayed haemotoxin that is mostly painless but causes extreme fatigue or even unconsciousness after half an hour and kills after slightly more than an hour total. Their ability to sense their surroundings with their forked tongues is extremely undeveloped only able to allow them to sense whether there is life in their vicinity, not giving them a direction or any sense of size, however they have impressive eyesight for a serpent: extreme dynamic vision that allows them to make snap second adjustments in their lighting fast lunges and precise clarity though they are extremely shortsighted so have a tendency not to notice prey that is more than a meter away because, while they can sense its presence, it blends into the background completely. This leads to them being almost exclusively ambush predators only ever pursuing prey after having bitten it since they can follow the trail of blood left after a successful strike as their prey loses an average of 1mL of blood every other second. These vipers, while physically capable of constricting prey, rarely do so outside of when finishing off prey that¡¯s already stopped resisting in order to avoid risk. These snakes are rarely territorial as they¡¯re largely nomadic in their life style however they will biannually lay eggs and maintain a more permanent nest for half a year, 4 months being spent on hatching the eggs and 2 spent on raising the young: a figure near fourfold that of earth snakes if I recall. This incredibly long developmental phase and increased familial bonds in the species has been cited as either a cause or a symptom of the increased intelligence members of this viper species exhibit. When placing the vipers I tried to make sure each viper would have access to at least 3 others with at most half a days slither while still spacing them out as much as possible, I started by placing a single viper in each of the 5 alcoves I wanted them to nest in and then expanded out from there which led to small groups of 8 snakes taking up large swathes of the tunnels and only a small strip of space between each of these viper ¡®packs¡¯ in order to let them intermingle if one of the snakes truly went out of its way while still being out of each other¡¯s faces. Snakes tend not to travel much if they can help it but the information on this breed specifically states that they are nomadic so I assume that means I can expect them to cover a lot more distance especially if they are looking for a mate. I saved 10 of these snakes however because I wanted to see if they would be able to make use of the webbing in the nest as it very closely resembles their overall body shape. I intend to place 5 in the same clearing as Spencer in order to assist them in hunting as well as to observe the interactions between a Tyx and non-Tyx predator and I would scatter another 5 pretty close to the entrances of the crystal caves so they wouldn¡¯t be interfered with by adventurers for the most part. For the ones in the caverns I first picked the smallest of the alcoves that I would be making use of, it only had about 1m^2 floor space and was more like a slight widening of the tunnel rather than a cave of its own right; as with all the alcoves it wouldn¡¯t have any ferns or grass for the vipers to use as camouflage, only a surplus of oversized panstips and some baby sized variants lining the walls however the lack of places to hide was a deception in and of itself. As large panstips are relatively broad, flat and lowdown they cover a large portion of the floor however there is still a small 0.1 meter gap that my vipers can nest under and the underside frills of a panstip are shaped in a slight cone meaning there was even more space closer to the stem which is where the eggs would be kept. Safe, secure, hidden, warm, stable. It¡¯s just a coincidence that this also makes a wonderful place for the snakes to go undetected and potentially ambush any and all threats to the eggs in question, just a coincidence. As the essence collected and wound round itself into a long rope like structure before bulking up I felt anticipation build in my figurative chest and waited for the signature flash, it was my first time trying to influence a creatures behaviours during the creation phase and it was making my nerves go haywire, sure it was just a slight nudge towards nest choices but I¡¯m pretty sure the original template these vipers come from hasn¡¯t even seen a panstip let alone hid their eggs in one! With a burst of light the serpent sprung to life, surprisingly elegant with their pristine scales and enchanting patterns that the purple only aided in making seem all the more regal. It coiled round itself and raised its head slightly, inspecting its surroundings before slithering towards a panstip, the moment of truth, the snake liked the panstip slightly with its tongue and with what seemed to be a nod of approval slid comfortably underneath. Success! Edits to a creatures instincts will be ridiculously important degree when it comes to the wolves as I''ll need to completely erase their use of long chases in order to fatigue prey due to how ineffective it would be with their new body types and in these winding tunnels. Ramping up pincer attacks in exchange as well as helping their ability to map out their territory could help as well but I feel that would be a little overambitious so I probably won¡¯t bother. Well with those edits successful it¡¯s time to move onto the next project, the five snakes that I want to cooperate with my Tyx Swarmlings. I have 3 major changes I want to make to these snakes for this to be considered a success: 1, I want to remove the nomadic behaviours and have them be borderline static in the patch of grass that I inhabit; 2, I want them to accept food from the Tyx Swarmlings, I¡¯ll order Spencer to hunt some rabbits and bring them to the snakes every other day so that the snakes don¡¯t need to worry about the fact that very few rabbits enter the patch; 3, I want to make their venom more fast acting, they won¡¯t matter much in a high stakes close quarters combat encounter if it takes 30 minutes before they have an impact, I could try make it a cytotoxin or neurotoxin instead of a haemotoxin but I think just increasing the potency and removing the slight delay it has before it starts wrecking havoc would be simpler and more effective, especially since the tyx already have a venom that is both neurotoxic and cytotoxic. So for change 1 I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll take much effort as that is basically the standard for snakes naturally so I¡¯d just have to strip away the changes rather than implementing any of my own; change 2 is bit more difficult, instilling the idea that the Tyx are allies feels unrealistic so maybe instead I could make them think of it like something symbiotic? Like the Tyx are powerful herbivores so staying in their vicinity scares some smaller predators away and in exchange for the vipers killing of predators that pose a threat to the Tyx they get given food? Maybe make them slightly more sociable and familial to make them find being assimilated into a collective easier, I remember reading that¡¯s why domesticating wolves was such a common thing, they already have those traits anyway so it shouldn¡¯t be hard. The venom though¡­ I suppose I can just go about it like I did with the wolves legs, emphasise one trait by minimising another. Maybe making them smaller? Or making their venom be produced slower? A bit of both is probably a good idea.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I continued placing all the remaining snakes, even the ones in the nest which immediately started slipping between the webbing and became effectively undetectable in seconds, while mapping out my symbiotic variant. I had Spencer go hunt a half dozen rabbits to get a small stockpile started as I was making the final touches and took a moment to go over my work, turns out my idea of strengthening one trait by weakening another was on the money as will I edited I felt myself be forced to maintain a sense of ¡®balance¡¯ in the creature which caused slight edits to the entire overall design. The final model was about 0.6 meters long and couldn¡¯t ¡®lunge¡¯ in the way it could before, its eyesight was improved a little to try and remedy the problem of completely ignoring a target because it wasn¡¯t immediately within range leading them to having eyes that where slightly bulbous, almost like a frogs, with a purple tint to their eyes which matched then patterns which where far finer and more intricate. These snakes had a far more potent venom, causing debilitating pain almost immediately upon being bitten and being potentially fatal in a mere 15 minutes and their fangs where sharper and longer, able to pierce through thick hides and, hopefully, leather armour. These new snakes where very opportunistic hunters that target prey that is weakened and are often scavengers when the option is available to them, they have a propensity for using larger animals as deterrence and protection and are extremely intelligent: actively aiding whatever creature they are using for cover in order to seem useful; making sure to show themselves and be friendly with the young of whatever herd they¡¯ve assimilated themselves into so they are imprinted as part of the group to the next generation and even showing some potential for tool use at times but the lack of proper appendages makes this unverifiable. They spend their entire lives in family units, fusing with other clans in order to mate and splitting once too large in size, anywhere between one and two dozen signifying the splitting point, they lay clutches of only 1 or 2 eggs at a time however and only lay biannually so it can take quite some time to reach such a point, often instead fusing with a clan to mate but breaking off afterwards since combined the group would be bloated, when a clan loses large amounts of their number for whatever reason the remaining members will return to whatever clan they had been in previously as long as their new number wasn¡¯t enough to reach a ¡®tipping point¡¯ and have them break off again in which case they will mate out of cycle and lay more young to restore their numbers. Some clans spend a long enough time period, usually over multiple generations, with a certain herd that in the event of the herds demise the ¡®orphaned¡¯ clan will only select herds of the same species to assimilate with after the fact, after choosing a herd to assimilate with the clan does not approach as a unit but instead makes a temporary nest near the herd and sends of ¡®envoys¡¯ periodically to test the waters and expose the herd to their presence before, one by one, they trickle into the herds territory: this process can take a full generation to complete however it is always adhered to almost ritualistically even when the clan is severely dire straits, often leading to utter annihilation. Hopefully that¡¯d be enough for them to fit right in with the Swarmlings as long as I made sure Spencer kept them fed and happy, there could be some issues with inbreeding since they¡¯ll be starting with such a small population but if that really becomes an issue long term I¡¯m sure it could be solved with culling some and then replacing them by creating new ones for genetic diversity though for some reason I just don¡¯t see it coming to that. Hell I feel like I could make a single breeding pair who give birth to male/female twins and have those two do the same ad nauseam without it ever becoming an issue, I guess it¡¯s just a magic thing, maybe the essence tether solves issues like that as part of the maintenance? If so then I wonder what else I could ignore and let the essence handle, do I even need to feed them? Could essence handle that? Would it increase the costs or is it already covered? On that note, what about new monsters? Dungeon life can definitely give birth since I noticed one of the rabbits are pregnant, does that mean monsters can too? Do they have a passive essence cost? What if a creature gives birth and it brings my passive essence negative? There is just too much I don¡¯t know still and I¡¯m only halfway through the help functions cool down as well. Hopefully after I get everything set up some of this stuff just solves itself otherwise I¡¯ll never be able to get through all this stuff with the help questions alone especially if the time between between answers keeps doubling and I don¡¯t see why it wouldn¡¯t. Hahhh I guess I just have to deal with the present for now cause there isn¡¯t much to do about it. As I summon the snakes I send a quick order to the Tyx just to make sure that things don¡¯t have a rocky start of ¡®don¡¯t attack the snakes¡¯ I¡¯ll return it to the base order of protecting me and my hammock after a while but I¡¯ll keep the active order as this while the two get used to each other so the Swarmlings can realise that my ¡®Pack Vipers¡¯, as I¡¯m going to call them, aren¡¯t a threat. I also intend to name one of them in hopes it turns into some kind of ¡®Snake Chieftain¡¯ since the point of naming monsters is to let them grow unconventionally: I¡¯ll probably make it one of the females since I can imagine their society being matriarchal, actually I think I might modify the, slightly just to guarantee that so my named is actually able to become a leader. I¡¯ll name the one I summon first so that they have a slight advantage due to their ¡®seniority¡¯ and I¡¯ll give them a second to acclimate as well, I need to rig this race as thoroughly as possible after all. Preparations complete I prepare to summon ¡®Samantha¡¯, the prospective leader of my snake clan, instated by an outside power against the will of the greater populace as in any civilised society and while she slowly begins to take shape at about a 10th of normal speed as seems to be the norm for the first summon of any monster I went back to optimising the new wolves, I figured from what I¡¯ve learned making the pack snakes that the issue might be I need to alter them so they¡¯re slightly leaner and reduce their muscle mass so that it works with the modified limbs, while I was implementing those changes I got stunned out of focus by a sudden notification. Award achieved: Hand craft new variant; ¡®Pack Viper¡¯, 20 EXP rewarded EXP Gained: 20/10; Level up! Level 1 achieved! 6 - Growth and Growls
STATUS SKILLS SPELLS CREATURES TERRAINS UTILITIES EFFECTS HELP
Name Dane Kain
Race Dungeon Core
Sub-Type Tyx Swarm
Class Dungeon Master
Sub-Class Hive Lord
Level 1
Experience 10/20
Health 8,000/8,000 +1,000 (8/s) +1
Mana 15,000/15,000 +2,000 (18/s) +2
Essence 90/150 (14/hr) -3 +2
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 9
Endurance (END) 12 +1
Durability (DUR) 8 +1
Dexterity (DEX) 15
Speed (SPD) 8
Finesse (FIN) 15 +2
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 15 +2
Wisdom (WIS) 18 +2
Genius (GEN) 9
Proficiency (PRO) 13 +2
Impulse (IMP) 7 +1
Charm (CHA) 5
Free Points 5
New skill: auto expansion unlocked!
Auto Expansion:
Passively expand towards the maximum territory size (a disc PRO*10^3m in radius and PRO*10^2m in height each floored to a single significant figure)
¡®So I finally know why I couldn¡¯t expand any higher or lower I suppose, if I¡¯m reading that correctly it¡¯s not actually going to matter till I get 20 proficiency right? If I get the same stats every level I could do that next level, though I¡¯m more interested in investing finesse for the essence generation. That seems to be the closest thing to a ¡®hard limit¡¯ I have at the minute for my growth: my magic stats still seem insane, especially compared to my monsters, I feel like I could probably deal with some weaker invaders just by hurling spells at them but I should get some practice with monsters despite that. Though I definitely feel magic could be a game changer for me, as soon as I get the time I should spend those spell points, I put it off earlier since I was getting sick of menus and I kinda just kept going since then. I still can¡¯t stop yet though, not till all my monsters are down. The vipers and Swarmlings are dealt with, the vipers took far more time than I expected but it paid off for sure. Getting experience with achievements could be worth trying to target before I get my first visitor¡­ though only 20 EXP for creating basically a whole new species? I feel like that¡¯s shortchanging me quite heavily¡­ I mean the EXP needed for the next level doubled so it¡¯ll probably do that every time like with the help timer. Probably not worth it when the rewards are bad and actually getting them is seriously uncertain.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I¡¯m going to assume killing adventurers gives me EXP and that this isn¡¯t literally the only way to level up else I might lose my mind completely¡­ as for the free points if I distributed them amongst my stats that got no bonus I would have 1 for each but I feel that¡¯s not the best idea, would make me to generic. Not strong enough to deal damage, not tanky enough to take hits, not fast enough to dodge them. That sort of situation, I need a strong point. As I see it my current advantages are magic and the hive, I could buff finesse for more essence and ergo more bugs or I could buff one of intelligence and wisdom for more mana and thus more spells so I think I¡¯ll go down that route, +3 FIN, +1 WIS, +1 INT. is the plan, unfortunately there¡¯s not much to do with that skill. It¡¯ll mostly just be taking up space in my menus till I get quite a bit of proficiency but it¡¯ll be nice to have then I suppose.¡¯ With that slight distraction out of the way, I returned to my cave wolves. My primary change was decreasing the angle of their knees and elbows (they each bend in different directions yknow)so they where lower to the ground. Realistically this didn¡¯t involve much change to the joint itself, some slight realignment so it¡¯s rest position was a little more bent inwards but nothing major. What it actually involved was extending the forelegs and shrinking the hind legs to change the angles used when walking; I had previously trying to make this work solely by moving the joints higher and higher up and making their range of movement narrower and narrower but that¡¯s nothing but counterproductive in the long run. By altering the proportions of the wolves limbs it achieves the desired effect in a way that is completely natural for the creature rather than ¡®forcing¡¯ them into the posture I wanted them to use while also adhering closely to the philosophy of balance that creature modification hinges on; I figure this is for reasons related to that tip mentioned earlier about how the parts of a creature effect essence costs but I don¡¯t know how to ¡®swap¡¯ any of them yet so I¡¯m still not fully sure what it was referring to. Back with the cave wolves, I¡¯m now naming all my modifications in hopes that helps them become variant, in addition to the limb changes I¡¯ve also decided on their colouration: a murky off white with grey splotches. This in the hopes that it¡¯ll allow them to blend in with shadows, the cave walls and the vegetation. A bit ambitious, but a man can dream, no? I¡¯ve also changed their overall musculature to favour quick bursts of speed and power over long periods of high endurance exertion, a theme that will be repeated in my other changes. I¡¯ve narrowed the snouts slightly so the force is focused on a small area, shortened the front teeth so that they won¡¯t grip into a target in the way they¡¯re usually employed and in exchange for that I could lengthen and sharpen the rest of teeth, I weakened their grip force to increase the power of a single crushing bite and changed their hunting behaviour to dash in for a snapping chomp before immediately retreating. The hope for all of this is that it comes together into a creature that avoids all attempt to pin it down and while it keeps you occupied one of its pack mates takes the opportunity to land a single devastating blow before they before escape biding their time till another chance presents itself. Long drawn out battles are something I want to avoid, instead I¡¯d rather delvers spend 3 days dealing with the building mental stress till they lose everything in a period of 10 minutes. I don¡¯t need my monsters to fatigue the opponent, I can handle that myself. My monsters just need to be the dagger I slip into their backs when the time is right. Before I start preparing to place the first of the wolves I proceed to make Samanthas name official and summoning the other 4 Pack Vipers to let them start adapting to the Tyx. Hopefully since they¡¯re a small clan and this is their first assimilation it¡¯ll go quickly if not I¡¯ll just have to hope they treat adventures as opportunities to prove their worth. That would mean they still cooperate as I intended even if it¡¯s in a little bit of a roundabout way. With those loose ends tied up I could refocus slowly on establishing the new packs, most of my monsters had been focused round my heartland and the entrance tunnels but that was mostly to make space for this. I want to keep my wolves as a ¡®forward force¡¯ so to speak that can cut of the exit and harass the adventures into haste so that they are more liable to fall for all the other tricks and traps I¡¯d been establishing with the plants, snakes and so on and it¡¯ll make them more vulnerable to the reavers if they think they¡¯re out of the woods once they escape the packs. I¡¯ve allotted myself 100 wolves which I intend to split into packs of 10, a little bloated but I figure they¡¯ll need it. I intend to cram as many ambush and pincer tactics into their instincts as possible in addition to a seriously rigid hierarchy so that they can implement some more advanced planning. I figure their numbers and all the modifications I made should make them pretty well optimised for hunting in the tunnels but with some basic ideas like splitting of a portion of the pack in order to cut off escape routes and harass the back line, in addition to some more specific stuff like target any healers, they should just be that slight bit more potent. After Spencer and Samantha I¡¯ve decided I want to make one named for every monster type I make, my goal for how to apply this with the wolves is to have a single, central pack which has a named alpha (yes alpha wolves aren¡¯t real, I¡¯m going to build in a hierarchy so they will be) and the other packs will be subordinate to this leader pack. The packs themselves will have a limited amount of inter cooperation but will mainly work on their own when not following the orders of the head wolf as the chain of command is liable to get confused. As for the hierarchy that I¡¯ll implement I want it to be changeable but unable to be challenged within the moment so maybe something like honour duels that have specific time requirements? I¡¯d make it a full moon just because they¡¯re wolves but that¡¯ll be impossible to see underground. Maybe something to do with the panstips? They spread their spores every third of a year which creates large, luminescent spore clouds so it could be that honour duels are only applicable during the time when these clouds are in the air. It will be one on one duels with the person who lands the first significant blow winning and taking their opponents position if it¡¯s higher up. We¡¯ll keep things simple with the hierarchy being strictly linear, position 1 can give orders to anybody, position 2 can give orders to anybody but 1 so on so forth. All big decisions have to be made by the ¡®alpha¡¯, position 1. Actually since I¡¯ll keep confusing myself if I use the whole ¡®alpha¡¯ ¡®beta¡¯ thing but just calling them position 1 is boring how about we use German? The leader of all the packs is ¡°Null¡±, a pack leader is ¡°Eins¡±, below them is ¡°zwei¡±, next ¡°drei¡± and so on. I might need another term if I end up with 10 nulls and one becomes the next tier of that, also the pack leaders will be referred to by a number then followed by eins as if it where a surname to show how they measure up against the other leaders so ¡®Zwei Eins¡¯ for example. With their hierarchy planned out, even if it¡¯s quite simple, I finally felt confident in creating the first of them. As planned I¡¯ll officially name the ¡®Null¡¯ and the summon their pack, wait an hour or so, then summon the other packs. The creation of null was actually quite fascinating, the wolves by far have the most complicated muscle structures of any creature I¡¯ve made so far since the vipers have no limbs and the Tyx actually use something similar to hydraulics in their legs. So watching it get pieced together was rather insightful, it was like a tapestry with all the fibres of essence winding round each other into bulky layers that slowly formed intricate 3D shapes, I wasn¡¯t able to learn much since I don¡¯t use precise mana shaping often and have never shaped essence manually, it¡¯s too much of a risk at the moment while I¡¯m still getting myself set up. Once finally fully formed Null sprang backward and bent down to hide behind a fern while growling cautiously, she seemed to be worried due to the unfamiliar environment. A strange reaction since technically this is her first environment but I suppose all the inherent memories I created mean the cave wolves are born confused and scared rather than na?ve and curious; potentially concerning but not exactly something I feel qualified to comment on so instead I just give Null some orders in order to guide her to the largest and most spacious alcove, practically a small cave in and of itself. The trickle of water in this room is closer to a small burn that splits and spiderwebs throughout the room before being completely absorbed by the rock when it flows over a patch of shale. The banks of these tiny rivers are covered in a myriad of baby panstips that are tall and thin with a bulbous top and some slightly hydrated pop lichen covers the floor created a soft resting area while larger panstips jut out of the walls. The room was by far large enough to hold 15 wolves let alone 10 but a little extra luxury for those at the top should hopefully act as a motivator that drives the wolves to climb the social ladder, if my monsters actively seek to improve themselves then I¡¯d get a lot more bang for my buck with each creature spawned since they could rise themselves beyond what I built them to accomplish. Their essence costs are determined by the quality of their biology if the tips are to be believed so if my creatures can strive beyond their bodies natural limits then I¡¯d basically be getting a monster that performs at a higher essence for the cost of its original. Creating the individual wolves was easy enough but they all seemed very cautious of each other and refused to interact¡­ they didn¡¯t group up into packs at all but just maintained a distance and some held a low growl in the back of their throats. This¡­ could be a problem, by making their hierarchy based on duels that can only happen during a certain time and then centring all of their society on that hierarchy seems to just make them completely incapable of interacting. Not good. Definitely not good, I think that¡¯s something to take note of but for now I need to fix this. The easiest option I can think of is just cause all the panstips to spore right now but I¡¯m not exactly sure how to go about that, maybe if I try to flow essence through them in the same way as when I created them since that sped up plant growth it would speed up the sporing process? This gonna hurt the budget¡­ maybe if I only make half the burrowers I was planning on since they won¡¯t be used in combat? I can make them again after we¡¯ve been discovered I just want to get my Reavers set up first¡­ all right here goes nothing! With a colossal burst of light the tunnels are all filed with smoky wisps of a faint blue glow, the tunnels had a calming, mystical and ephemeral atmosphere and all the growling and posturing died down into silence, all 10 of the packs formed up into circles and each had the first two of their members step forward. Then, in perfect unison, 20 wolves all launched into their own battles, beginning what would soon be a night filled with constant battle that would decide the fates of every wolf within our tunnels. The duels each lasted only slightly over a minute each and there was more than a hundred duels for each pack as every wolf took this as their only chance to earn them self a place in the upper echelons of the hierarchy. The battles started tame but as the positions became more and more apparent those who seemed be loosing out slowly started mounting in ferocity till some of the duels didn¡¯t even last 10 seconds since before parties went all in right to begin with, after the ranks of each pack where set in stone all of the pack leaders stepped out to host their own tournament. Null, unscathed by her battles, maintained a regal air throughout the proceedings that inspired great confidence and when it came time to duel she was so swift it was difficult to perceive anything more than blur. When disadvantaged she would slip into the mist and vanish from sight only reappearing to flank her foe and end the match in a single exchange. Making it to the position of her namesake with no competition made me believe that perhaps being named had more immediate effects than I was led to believe however mostly I just felt pride that she has so perfectly exemplified what I desired the cave wolves to become. With this, I felt confident to let my vanguard manage themselves. 7 - Burrowers and Building Leaving the cave wolves to organise themselves, I turned my attention back to the nest. Specifically, the two large caverns both completely inaccessible due to a surplus of rubble. It was time to bring in my landscaping and remodelling crew, the Burrowers. My hope is that I can use them to expand the labyrinth of tunnel to fill all of the solid stone take up multiple layers using them. Looking over their design I don¡¯t see many issues, overall most dungeon life is well optimised but the Tyx seem to be refined till a stage of perfection: that standard of perfection made one thing stick out to me like a sore thumb. The tyx venom. Why in the hell do the Burrower have Tyx venom? It has literally zero use for them, I can¡¯t even remove it¡¯s glands for some reason and making any changes towards it is a nightmare as well! Thankfully I do have one idea that, if it works, will turn their venom into something legitimately useful. I will, however, have to completely revamp the entirety of the venom gland basically only preserving the fact it¡¯s a gland. My idea is simple, bees have this little trick where they eat some nectar and some pollen, drink some water and then just chill for a while; afterwards, they somehow magically turn all that stuff they made into honey, royal jelly or bees wax. In addition, worms, when eating soil immediately excrete their waste behind them basically filling their own paths and this soil is more nutritious for plants as the compounds in it have been broken down already. My plan is to create a hybridisation of these two things, the burrowers have the ability to eat stone already so the goal is just to have them process this stone into a building material that can be secreted through their now defunct venom glands! Perfect! Well, no, there¡¯s quite a few problems with this approach. Firstly, this would create the rebuilt walls in the form of some quickly hardening, cement like goop within the burrowers mouths and the idea of it hardening while still within their mouths could be a very real threat. Secondly, since the substance is being created at their fronts it won¡¯t replace the land they¡¯ve just dug through and that would instead have to be dealt with through a labour intensive process. Thirdly, the ingoing stone could contaminate the outgoing ¡®Tyx Cement¡¯ making it brittle/weak/unstable/unusable in some other way. Thankfully, I¡¯ve already brainstormed some basic solutions to these issues and think I have something approaching a workable design, to address these problems in order. First, we¡¯ll create 2 glands, one that creates a liquid that quickly evaporates upon exposure to open air and the over is the main building material. When still in the burrowers maw these liquids would be mixed and thus stay as a sludge however after being lathered on the intended surface the primary liquid evaporates leaving the other remaining substance to return to its natural state as a solid. This will also make the Tyx Cement far quicker to dry and harder to replicate if I get some over enthusiastic researchers making visits, In addition, it makes the Tyx Cement a lot easier to dismantle in a non destructive manner and since the solvent disperses as soon as its exposed to open air I doubt invaders will be able to make use of it. Second, this problem I believe we¡¯ll mostly have to tolerate as a trade off for the fact Burrowers where never meant to leave anything behind and honestly, since it¡¯ll allow for more creative uses of the cement I don¡¯t feel that bad about it however I feel the need to refill tunnels efficiently is something that needs resolving. My plan for this is a bit imperfect, what I intend to do is have them be able to pump out their cement and in exchange for it to having small air pockets the Burrowers can ¡®reverse¡¯ down a tunnel to quickly fill it with cement. The third solution is too actually design the cement to be full of stone chips by default, this is usually referred to ¡®aggregate¡¯ and I remember when I was interested in being an architect for a while I looked some information about the foundations of a building and I read the mix ¡°1/3/6¡± somewhere. I¡¯m pretty sure that it¡¯s actually concrete at that point but concretes better anyway right? I feel like that makes sense¡­ anyway so if we use shards of stone that get trapped in the maw of the burrowers as aggregate, use their modified saliva as cement then we just need a fine dust to replace the sand. I¡¯m stuck between two ideas on that front: I could use spores from the panstips since it would help the species spread and grow as well as making the source be self replenishing however it might threaten the overall integrity of the structure if fungi starts growing inside the walls and since the spores might wear down; or I could use crystal shards, which would still make the walls feel filled with light and are also durable however there is a limited supply, there¡¯s still an abundance for now but that can¡¯t last forever. I put that aside for now and start thinking about what I want to make tyx cement out of. Obviously, I¡¯d love to just have my walls be made of diamond and call it a day but that¡¯s impractical, first of all, if anyone comes here they¡¯ll just spend all day mining my walls and nothing else. Secondly that would take a lot of carbon, a material I unfortunately only have access to in the forms of my creatures and plants. Thirdly, emulating the necessary environment inside the burrowers so that the carbon doesn¡¯t just become graphite and is thus useless would almost certainly kill the poor things. Fourthly, diamonds need to grow and form as one cohesive unit, even if I do use them my walls will just be as weak as whatever I come up with to glue them together. No, diamond doesn¡¯t work. I do, however, remember a material similar in hardness that occurs naturally. Hell, I even have some in my territory. Silicon carbide. It¡¯s used in a bunch of stuff: even bulletproof vests! And it gets formed using pressure rather than heat so it should be possible and there¡¯s no other silicon/carbon compounds that I know of so it doesn¡¯t have the diamond problem where it¡¯ll probably form something else instead. There are other problems and I have ideas to resolve them but¡­ well my chemistry isn¡¯t that good, I do have a qualification in it but I forgot everything from that class immediately. My hope is that I can tie the Burrowers mana into the process which should let magic smooth over some of the stuff that shouldn¡¯t work, I¡¯m hoping to create a molecular structure similar to beeswax while still preserving the SiC crystal. I don¡¯t exactly trust magic yet: I don¡¯t understand it. That¡¯s why I haven¡¯t been using it in my other creatures, however, I will need to do something with it eventually. No magic is just too big of a handicap, my wolves are hopefully smart enough to figure out how to make use of it eventually and the Tyx will be able to share knowledge through the hive mind but baking it into somethings biology is just too unique of an advantage for me to turn down. Maybe this won¡¯t work out but I¡¯d rather it happen with a non-combatant than one of my fighters. So the plan is to increase the precision of the Burrowers in exchange for them loosing out a little on power and speed. Swap out their venom glands with two different ¡®Tyx Cement¡¯ glands that have the liquifying agent in one and the concrete base produced by the other, the cement based on silicon carbide while the liquifying agent will use the excess calcium. Give them something similar to ¡®hamster cheeks¡¯ in their maws so they can store shards of stone that they¡¯ll turn into aggregate as well as the ground up quartz dust and then link up their mana to the whole system. With that we¡¯ll have our perfect tunnel crew that can both hollow out and fill new paths as they¡¯re needed, hopefully with this we can create a ¡®shifting maze¡¯ effect to shut down any mapping attempts for the tunnels.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. After spending an hour or so properly designing the new ¡®Tyx Tunnelers¡¯ I was confident that despite the problems it was rife with, my Tyx Cement plan was it actually had a chance of success. Surprisingly, once I had a clear idea of what I wanted the glands to end up like I felt far less resistance in changing them. Maybe it¡¯s because ¡®Tyx Venom¡¯ is something very specific so I have to be completely changing the venom glands or not at all and that¡¯s why it resisted the small adjustments earlier. Getting the mana to behave itself was actually very interesting as well, I had to create a mana ¡®heart¡¯ that would pump mana as if it where blood down some mana ¡®veins¡¯ that led to the glands of the Tunnellers, the process was quite enlightening since at first it felt like I was creating a mana which meant I kept trying to do just that. Create a bundle of mana, swirl it around a little, let it collect and then viola! But no, after many failures I finally figured out where I was going wrong. Everything alive had mana, I already knew that but I was being pretty ignorant of its implications. What that actually meant was every living thing naturally had a mana pool that collected mana as they lived, what made someone able to do magic was the ability to control and shape that pool therefore once I realised that I knew my entire approach had to change. Giving the Tunnellers the ability to manipulate mana, basically making them an entire race of mages, solely through instinctive memories was way to big an ask. Instead I had to make it easy for them to do the one thing I wanted, I knew this had to be possible since the Dust Leafs could do it for self-destruction purposes I just needed to retro fit the idea into my Tunnellers concrete production. For a while I was lost till I remembered the air slash skill of the Reavers, surely that used mana. After checking the Reaver blueprint I got so fascinated I almost immediately wanted to start work on them but I put it aside in order to stay on task, I¡¯d figured out how these ¡®mana skills¡¯ that weren¡¯t actually spells but instead simple magic effects worked. It was their I saw the mana veins. Little metaphysical channels for the mystical energy to flow through the body, the reavers had them all throughout the body but mainly focused on their scythes but I figured the Tunnellers can afford to devote everything to their glands and started to work on locating the tunnellers mana pool. It was located at the base of their stomach, seeming to play a part in the earth eating abilities of the Burrowers, modifying this ability so it would be able to store one part of the stone, convert another to mana and use the third part as food I then started drawing large channels that linked the Cement Glands into the network. This ensured the material and magical supply needs of concrete creation could be fulfilled so I just needed to make some small, superficial changes for my own personal perfectionism. The first was the hamster cheeks for stone storage which where rather simple, just two overlapping flaps of skin that when loose would be able to let some materials through but when pulled taught would create a perfect seal and partition some small pockets of the mouth area of from the rest, I was quite proud of these despite their simplicity just due to how elegant of a solution it was if o where being perfectly honest. The next was a purely aesthetic change, I first made sure the Tunnellers where completely bone white then I went back to the glands. The goal was to make them compound they created be coloured a slight chalky type of white with some metallic purple swirls running through it that would make the tunnels even more disorienting. The purple I figured I could achieve since silicon carbide produced this strange metallic rainbow usually characteristic of bismuth. I watched a video of someone creating bismuth crystals one time and they mentioned that the rainbow was determined by the thickness of the oxide layer so if I just make it all uniform at the point that shines purple then I¡¯ll have that sorted. The chalk was even easier, I could create actual chalk with some calcium, carbon and oxygen so if I made that be a surface layer residue left by the dissolving liquifying agent then it shouldn¡¯t just get scraped of either. My final change was more just to see if it was possible than for any tangible benefits. I wanted to emulate the piercing, snapping limbs that reavers have on the tunnellers to help them move. The reaver limbs acted like pincers, being slowly wound back by tightening limbs before releasing all that pent up force at once to puncture through prey, my idea was to build some legs like that by the sides of the tunnels that could help force them forward when in tight spaces that they can¡¯t easily crawl through. The idea was to have these limbs slip underneath sections between the tunnellers shell and usually lie flush next to their bodies but they could stick onto slight outcroppings of stone for when in use. This was strangely easy however I found myself limited to only creating two of these¡­ maybe because the reavers only have two? Though that wouldn¡¯t match how things behaved when copying over the idea of the mana circuits¡­ another question filed away for later. I was going to stick with trend of giving my first summon a name, Kivi, it¡¯s the Finnish word for stone as well as calculus. I remember seeing a joke about that double meaning on a forum once and for some reason it stuck with me but I figure it fits with the purpose of the tunnellers and it¡¯s a good name anyway. I spent some essence on the first tunneller, watching as the essence was wound into a behemoth of a worm. It was about a meter in diameter and nearly ten meters long, had small beady eyes that where covered by slits of overlapping chitin armour like a knight¡¯s armour and their was a faint white fog constantly wafting from their gaping maw which was filled with countless rows of teeth that looked like they could chew through steel. An accurate assessment, all things considered. Watching as the beast slowly raised itself of the ground and a constant monotone, drumming warble was emitted through the cave I felt giddy in a way that sent me back to being a kid at Christmas. This was mine! I made this! Even the Pack Vipers didn¡¯t bring the same joy as these, they felt too easy. This, however, this shouldn¡¯t have worked but¡­ but I made it work. Even though there where issues, even though the final product is imperfect, even though I cheated by using magic. I won. This idea seemed impossible when first starting off but now, now it¡¯s right in front of me. After the creature was finished getting used to its own existence I gave it the name ¡®Kivi¡¯ officially and ordered it to first, drill through a small section of the blocked tunnels and second, produce some Tyx Concrete (patent pending) on a nearby wall. As soon as it got to work on the rubble I started to feel that the spring loaded limbs where a bit of a waste, Kivi raised itself up and after teetering slightly dove right into the stone, gliding through like a fish in water and leaving nothing in its wake. All of a sudden my plans for a maze that changes while you¡¯re still in it felt a lot more practical. It then made its way over to the nearby wall and laid down some Tyx cement. The wall dried within minutes, emanating the same white mist throughout the entire process and leaving behind a chalk white wall with sporadic swirls of a mystifying amaranthine which your eyes followed along almost by instinct. I had some Tyx Swarmlings trying and crack some of the stone rubble, using their legs like picks to get a comparison point and in a few full power swings they finally made some cracks. Looks like the Tunnellers success isn¡¯t just because the stones soft, huh. Next I had some tyx do the same with the Tyx Concrete walls and it took them ten tries to even get to to see the metallic lustre hidden underneath, I didn¡¯t bother seeing how long it would take for cracks to emerge. The concrete was more than strong enough, far more than enough. Creating the remaining 100 Tunnellers, I decided the 5 essence I¡¯d save by only making half wasn¡¯t worth it, I had all of them immediately dedicated to covering as many of the tunnel walls in the concrete ASAP. I made half of them start from the tunnels nearest to the nest and the other half I scattered throughout the tunnel systems in order to make delvers unable to target the nest by looking at where the walls switch to concrete. Only one creature left now. 8 - Reavers and Representatives With my Tunnellers making my dungeon far more robust it was time for my last creatures, the Reavers. Unfortunately, due to having to forcefully incite the fungi¡¯s spores, I was too short in essence for making all 5 of them but if I wait about an hour I¡¯ll recoup those costs. I¡¯ll have to wait until the budget is refilled before creating any of the Reavers since even one of them is as expensive as all of my Swarmlings and will cut my hourly income harshly, once all of them are placed I¡¯ll only make 8/hr (17 from FIN, -5 from Reavers, -2 from Tyx, -2 from wolves/vipers). The Reavers are going to be my elite force, I honestly don¡¯t believe that one Reaver is 100x more valuable than a Swarmling but I need some fighters who can go one to one with more powerful enemies, my Swarmlings are extremely weak health wise. A single serious blow can wipe out any of my Swarmlings immediately and my basic spells alone show that the idea of a single powerful individual overturning an army might actually be possible here. I need individuals who can challenge some of the more powerful threats, I might be a ¡®hive¡¯ and ¡®swarm¡¯ but if I let myself get chained down by that then all it will take is a single mage that has some wide range extermination spells and a shielder or two who can hold of the small fraction of the horde that is able to maintain contact while the mage recharges. I mean, think about it. If there are a million Swarmlings and only 2 invaders, then it¡¯s only the perimeter of their forces I can field troops around, I can use at most 10 swarmlings and the rest would have no room to fight. They¡¯d be blocked by their allies. I need elites to face elites, in fantasy stories quite often a single person can turn the tide of wars. If I want to grow this dynamic will only expand, there is no way to just ¡®add more troops¡¯ and solve the problem. Sure it could exhaust them but how much would I have to lose for that? And how can I be sure, how can I know that they actually will be exhausted? If they¡¯re able to pace themselves properly and keep themselves in a relatively risk free situation (hence the shielders) then they would be absolutely fine no matter how long I kept bombarding them with more and more Swarmlings. Powerful units that can challenge stronger invaders are necessary. The battle plan is to exhaust invaders with the tunnels, make my very environment hostile. The plants, the geography, the positioning. Everything. I need my pop lichen to keep them paranoid, I need the labyrinthine architecture of my tunnels to keep them feeling lost and frustrated, I need to rob them of opportunities to rest, I need them to feel agitated, I don¡¯t want them to feel enthusiastic about their descent, I need them to hate every minute they spend here, I need them to feel enraged. If they are enjoying their time in any capacity they will have a more harmonious sense of cooperation, I need to break that down. If they feel safe they can take time to rest and plan, I need to break that down. If they can focus then they can make better decisions that are well thought out, I need to break that down. I need them to hate each other; to be impulsive and aggressive; to act irrationally; to be jumping at shadows; to be completely drained of all will to go on. I need my very environment, even before I attack them once, to slowly erode them. To wear them down. Next, I need my wolves to harass them, this will force them to use up any of their resources like potions or magic crystals or scrolls. I don¡¯t know if any of those exist, but if they do I want them gone. The wolves will also test the invaders: I¡¯ll better understand their party composition; their roles in battle; if there¡¯s any non-combatants; their skills and any spells they have; how strong they are relative to my monsters; how they fight together; how much damage they can take and how much damage they can deal. Hopefully my wolves can force them to split up or expose any vulnerabilities the party has and exploit them, if not then they can simply continue to grind away at the invaders. Then, once in the nest they¡¯ll be faced with the Tyx. They¡¯ll need to act slowly and cautiously. Surrounded. It will capitalise on their pre-existing stresses that the tunnels created and force them to keep everything under control. They¡¯ll be extremely distract and slowly but surely start to lose hope and give in to desperation as they get constantly ambushed and the groups of tyx just get larger and larger. Then finally, once I force them to confront one of the larger patrols and I deem them to be thoroughly weakened. The Reavers sneak attack their back line and the swarm descends upon their vulnerability. That¡¯s the plan. That¡¯s how we win. This way, even if invaders are strong enough to be completely unthreatened by everything I can throw at them. If their strength is so overwhelming I cannot even scratch them, we still win. So for that I¡¯m going to need a lot from my Reavers. My goal is to separate them into 2 groups, a caste of straight up brawlers and one of high damage ambushers. If I make the separation gender based I don¡¯t need them to be two distinct species and can expect the distribution to self regulate in a sense. Since by default female Reavers are bigger and bulkier sort of like with normal Praying Mantis¡¯ I¡¯ll make the women the head-on attackers and I¡¯ll make the men the hidden stealth option. I¡¯m gonna need to do something about the long body as well. It¡¯s extremely useful stability wise but I feel like there¡¯s a lot of wasted potential there. Reavers have a thin, wing like membrane with a chitin blade between the front two segments of their upper limbs that allows them to cut instead of tear their prey. This completely changes how they go about using their upper limbs as they can no long effectively snap their tibia closed forcing them to use horizontal slashes instead as they can¡¯t grasp prey as effectively anymore. They have a sharp spine on the tip of their tibia which can be used to pierce and is curved to facilitate effective use in the curved sweeping motions necessitated by the Reavers limb structure. Their abdomen is both wingless and far more diminished than that of a standard Praying mantis, only about half the length of the thorax in order to only require one set of limbs that are far bulkier. The removed set of limbs are raised up into the thorax where they can be used as extra legs for stability or wound back with a muscle group that can be pulled taught and then released with immense force, snapping with the force a coconut crabs claws instantaneously and with enough sharpness to puncture steel. My plans are as follows, first I want to lengthen the abdomen to be twice as long as the thorax. Then I want to add a second set of legs to it. Thirdly, I want to have angle that the claws thrust from to be more forward-facing in order to increase the range of positions it can attack from rather than being limited to a single point half a meter ahead. Finally I want to make the females stronger and more durable while making the males harder to detect and able to deal more immediate damage. The first point is easily addressed, its relatively simple to just make something longer all things considered however it does mean for the next while the sense of balance will feel seriously off until I do something to mitigate that. The second was easy enough as well, I just took the back set of limbs and inverted them so the joints are forward facing instead and placed them near where the abdomen and thorax connected. For the third change what I decided to do was use the idea I¡¯d implemented in the Tunnellers, I brought the claws down to the joint between the thorax and abdomen while straightening them out and removing their central joint that they affixed the ¡®spring muscles¡¯ to.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. After bringing them to the joint I created two ¡®chambers¡¯ which I rested the claws 0.1m deep inside of their 1m total length and filled the rest with spring muscles that connected to the base of both the chamber and claw. This would allow the spring muscles to slowly wind back, pulling the claws deeper into the chamber till only the tip was exposed and when the tension was released they would rush out along a mostly straight path. Burrowing deep inside whatever they impact. In order to balance the creature I first weakened the hind limbs significantly as they no longer needed to bear half of the weight each, instead more effectively distributing weight amongst the four corners. Next, removing the joint in the claws also contributed positively to the balance. Finally, I weakened their field of vision significantly by reducing the size of their eyes and setting them lower in the skull of the Reaver. I don¡¯t need them to spot ambushes, I have near enough omniscient perception after all. At this the balance finally returned and I could move onto the differentiation of the two sexes. First, the females. Their changes would be simplest and I wanted to start easy. I begun by diminishing the spring muscles and bulking up the forelimbs, then I diverted some of the mana circuits dedicated to allowing silent movement towards their blades. Not all, mind you, I still want them capable of stealth. I¡¯m just shifting their focus. The next change was to make their legs slower and less precise in exchange for returning them to their original bulk and thickening their shells overall. I changed the shape of their shell so it was a little easier to spot while also being a bit bulkier and better at blocking hits then after deciding on their colouration as a dusty grey base with white markings I called it quits. Then, it was time for the males. I had a lot of changes I wanted to put in place since this caste was going to be extremely overspecialised and it would take a little bit of time. The first major change was to completely remove the bladed membrane meaning the forelimbs would rely solely on their tibia spike, this is because I want to make their entire purpose centred around a single attack from the claws so the only use of the spike is to hold the target in place. In addition, by removing the membrane the Reavers can hold their limbs in a vertical position rather than their horizontal sweeps which means the spike can be driven into the skull of unarmored targets like archers for a quick kill that doesn¡¯t have a long recharge associated with it or buried deep in the gaps between shoulder armour for a solid grip on the enemy to ensure an effective puncturing of the victim. This also gave me a rather generous amount of ¡®modification energy¡¯ before I had to worry about the creature experiencing any disparity that would lead to everything starting to malfunction, I used a large portion of this not direct a host of mana circuits towards the claws and legs of the Reaver in order to better facilitate the stealth and damage capabilities of the male reavers. In theory, this would allow for the female Reavers to hold back their front line with Tyx assistance and the males to land a single strike that would disrupt the enemy formation while disappearing in the chaos to later repeat the process. I decided to give the male reavers the same colouration and patterning as their female counterparts, substituting the white markings with a similar metallic purple as is found on the walls. It took the best part of an hour to create these creature plans so I¡¯ll be able to summon 5 immediately. I¡¯m just not fully sold on how to distribute them and which one to make their named representative, as grow further the development of these ¡®representatives¡¯ is basically going to dictate the future of their entire species. Even Spencer, a mostly mindless member of the hive is seemingly developing a leadership role amongst the Swarmlings assigned to guarding me. Let alone Null and Samantha who are by design commanders of their kin. No matter who I make my named they will become the face of the modified Reavers and if I pick two named it¡¯ll likely lead to internal conflict between the Reavers as well¡­ wait¡­ is that really such a bad thing? I mean as far as I can tell they¡¯re unable to oppose my orders and if they all get linked into the hive they¡¯ll place it above all else so at worst they¡¯ll inconvenience each other, I shouldn¡¯t need to worry about the infighting leading to sabotage or anything but the conflict could lead to innovation¡­ and since they¡¯re sex based castes it¡¯s not as if either can cut the other off. They¡¯ll both need to constantly interbreed which should keep them close and since every paring will produce members of each caste there¡¯ll be a vested interest in amiable relations. Yeah. I think I¡¯m actually starting to like this whole ¡®opposing factions¡¯ idea, I think since the males will be getting more kills as a whole due to their role and the females are more at risk I¡¯ll give them the extra member and I¡¯ll place the males first to try and minimise that advantage. I¡¯ll make sure that the chance of a newborn being a member of one gender is inversely proportional to that genders abundance so the system is even better at self balancing. As for their names I think I¡¯ll take them from mandarin since the Chinese Praying Mantis is a pretty big deal, I don¡¯t remember much mandarin but I know the word for claw was romanised as something like ¡®Zhao¡¯ and that the word for sword was romanised as ¡®Jian¡¯ so I think I¡¯ll name their representatives that way respectively. Once I was decided I immediately began the creation process and after all 5 had been summoned and the representatives named they all seemed to poke curiously at each other with their forelimbs before the two representatives slowly started taking light slashes and stabs at each other, the spar ramping up in intensity as the two got more familiar with each other and their own capabilities. Building in speed and skill. And as they changed, so did the hive. All of my Tyx seemed to stop dead for a moment as the Reavers took glancing blows and got more creative in their attacks. The observing reavers slowly started doing practice attacks that resembled their representatives, the tyx changed their footwork so they disturbed the grass around them less. The Tunnellers began make use of their appendages to more effectively glide through stone and some of the ambushed Tyx started dangling by a single limb and swinging across the ceiling soundlessly. As the spar slowly came to its climax and both of the Mantis¡¯ finally fired their claws while making use of air slash everything fell silent and both representatives stepped back seemingly satisfied while the hive felt a rush of information and each members battle sense surged to new heights immediately as I was bombarded with notifications.
Hive update:
The hives understanding of mana grows .
Hive update:
The hives understanding of combat grows.
Hive update:
The hives understanding of stealth tactics grows.
Achievement: Council
Have a total of five different leaders of Kin that are all allied with each other in your dungeon. +10EXP
Achievement: Civilised
Have 3 previously ¡®bestial¡¯ races become ¡®tribal¡¯ +10EXP
EXP Gained:
30/20; Level Up! Level 2 achieved!
9 - Spells and Spam
STATUS SKILLS SPELLS CREATURES TERRAINS UTILITIES EFFECTS HELP
Name Dane Kain
Race Dungeon Core
Sub-Type Tyx Swarm
Class Dungeon Master
Sub-Class Hive Lord
Level 2
Experience 10/30
Health 9,000/9,000 +1,000 (9/s) +1
Mana 18,000/18,000 +2,000 (21/s) +2
Essence 9/150 (10/hr)
Physical Statistics
Power (POW) 9
Endurance (END) 13 +1
Durability (DUR) 9 +1
Dexterity (DEX) 15
Speed (SPD) 8
Finesse (FIN) 19 +2
Mental Statistics
Intelligence (INT) 18 +2
Wisdom (WIS) 21 +2
Genius (GEN) 9
Proficiency (PRO) 15 +2
Impulse (IMP) 8 +1
Charm (CHA) 5
Free Points 5
Achievement: Wise
Have total of 20 wisdom; halves all future wisdom gain; eidetic memory.
Skills unlocked:
Unending Swarm:
You no longer have to wait for your Tyx swarms numbers to recuperate naturally after their deaths. Instead, for half the creatures initial essence cost, return it to life.
Recyclable Hive:
You are able to make use of the corpses of your fallen. The bodies of any dead within your walls may be absorbed to generate essence.
¡®Nice, only one more level up till utilities. Looks like my efforts with Pack Vipers paid off double, I wonder if the Reaver Representatives are considered to be allied with Samantha since they¡¯re also members of the hive? Quite a nice exploit that is. I don¡¯t know how efficient the ¡®recyclable hive¡¯ ability but if it gives me back even 25% that means whenever one of my Tyx die I can instantly respawn it for a quarter of its initial purchase cost so that¡¯s insane. Also the ¡®unending swarm¡¯ ability seems to imply I can only resurrect my Tyx which does kinda suck but the recyclable hive might be useable even on non dungeon creates, it says ¡®Any Dead¡¯ after all. Though this does make the idea of long, drawn out, battles of attrition far more attractive. The wisdom title kinda sucks though, I guess that means pumping one of your stats up to ridiculous levels might be a bit more difficult than I expected. The eidetic memory bonus doesn¡¯t help much either, I basically had that ability already . . . Wait does that mean my improved memory was caused by wisdom? Anyways I think putting free points into any stats about to hit 20 is just wasteful. However, the 2 points that pushed wisdom over the edge didn¡¯t get halved so I ended up with 21, I think that might be worth taking advantage of. I¡¯ll put one point into INT so I can make use of the excess. I think I¡¯ll put the rest in charm since it seems the system encourages balanced stats, having one stat that¡¯s literally a quarter of another doesn¡¯t seem good . . . The hive updates however, those are what I feel most excited about in all honesty. It seems that having higher skilled members in the hive improves the performance of every member and it seems that the hive is a sentience of its own that¡¯s able to learn based on those notifications rather than a sort of ¡®collective will¡¯. I am kinda worried about it going full skynet on me but my class is literally called ¡®Hive Lord¡¯ if I can¡¯t control a hive mind then what¡¯s even the point? Anyways! Let¡¯s put that worrying thought that I¡¯m able to do literally nothing about aside! All our creatures are officially on the board! This calls for celebration, and I have just the thing. Spells! Magic! I have 9SP that I never spent, I just have to do something with it. I should really wait until I get my next question first but that would mean I have to wait a whole day after discovery, no can do. Right! Time to take the plunge! Spell points menu:¡¯
Spell Selection Menu!
Elemental (Unlocked) Conjuration (Locked: 1SP) Alteration (Locked: 1SP) Enchantment (Locked: 1SP) Divination (Locked: 1SP)
¡®Right, Looks like I can unlock all the spell classes eventually but for now I think I¡¯ll stick with elemental¡¯
Spell Selection Menu! Elemental
Upgrade Spells New Spells New Elements Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. New Skills Fuse Spells
The upgrade spells section contained a single option labelled ¡®basic spells¡¯ which could be upgraded for a cost of 3SP. The ¡®New Spells¡¯ category presented me with 3 options, each also costing 3SP (I was beginning to sense a pattern), the options where: Basic Offence Spells; Basic Defence Spells; Basic Support Spells. I assumed that offence spells would be stuff similar to wind blade and fireball whereas defence spells would be stuff like ice wall. What I was less sure of was the ¡®support¡¯ category, would that mean spells like earth bind or the elemental charging spell? I would feel inclined to pick support if it was either but the uncertainty made me hesitant . . . I decided to put it off just in case there was a better option in one of the other categories. New elements gave me 4 options: metal, crystal, acid and darkness. Each costing, you guessed it, 3SP. I¡¯m not even going to mention cost at this point. Putting aside the edginess of ¡®Darkness¡¯ magic for a moment, I think it¡¯s a good idea to take a guess at what the basic spell of each element would look like. Metal; I feel would have an offensive spell. Something high cost and high damage while still being single target, maybe a metal bolt being fired out at stupidly high speeds? Something in that category. Crystal; crystals in fantasy tend to have all sorts of weird uses like being mana batteries and stuff, maybe something associated with that? Though I feel that it¡¯s more likely to just be something like a crystal shield for a basic spell. Acid is easy enough, you cover an area in it, the people there have a bad time. Not exactly rocket science. Darkness magic I think would be a sort of ¡®debuff¡¯ magic, maybe weakness or lethargy spells? Of all those, metal and darkness stick out the most but none of them feel worth it. None feel like they could be the game changers if it ever gets to a desperate situation. The new skills section was infuriatingly vague . . .
Elemental: New Skills (3SP)
Improved Efficiency Elemental Fission Elemental Substitution
Elemental Strike Assimilate Elements Enchant Element
None of the skills had accompanying explanations but if I where to take guesses ¡®improved efficiency¡¯ would make spells have a lower mana cost, ¡®elemental fission¡¯ should be the opposite of the fusion skill but I don¡¯t actually know what that¡¯d mean. Elemental substitution probably lets me do something like cast fireball but with water instead. The next three are a bit more confusing, elemental strike is probably some kind of generic attack, assimilate elements? Maybe I can absorb elements? Definitely a bit too vague for any accurate guesses. Enchant elements . . . Is that kinda like elemental weapon but more permanent? Or is it the element that I¡¯m enchanting? ¡®This is why descriptions are important! This system is infuriating at times . . . Oh well, not as if I can change it, might as well check the last tab¡¯ The ¡®Fuse Spells¡¯ tab had nothing indicating a cost, only two slots for spells to be selected and one for am output. Specific spells, by the way, not categories like ¡®basic¡¯ but the individual spells like ¡®Wind Blade¡¯. However, even without it costing SP I was wary about it due to a single disclaimer, any spells used in fusion will be lost. I just seriously don¡¯t want to give up any of my spells at the moment, maybe when I have like a thousand spells I¡¯ll be more tempted but for now it just seems like a straight downgrade. So 9SP, 3 points a piece. That gives me 3 upgrades assuming the costs don¡¯t increase but I feel like we can assume they will so let¡¯s say I can only afford 2 upgrades. I feel like ¡®support¡¯ category spells are just objectively the most valuable as long as the work on my monsters, on that note: ¡®Spencer, hold still a sec would you?¡¯ just giving one word orders is possible but I feel the ether band thicken slightly with more proper sentences so I figure it¡¯s worth it since it causes some form of improvement. After that I focus on Spencer and get ready to cast elemental charging, this is my first time using magic but if I hand things over to my instincts I¡¯m able to let the mana shape itself sort of like the essence. This does beg the question, can I modify the spells like I do my creatures? I¡¯ll have to experiment with that later for sure . . . Always more to do huh. Oh well if there¡¯s improvements to be made it¡¯s a sin not to make them, I¡¯ll put that off as a future project for if I have free time. Following the channeling process I seem first start the pool swirling in a vortex that pulls it up and in, creating an almost hourglass shape out of the surging tides. Within the pillar of energy the closer to the centre you get the stronger the pressure grows till the very core starts to form a strange oily substance which I give ¡®colour¡¯ to, this colour determines it element. I chose earth for the time being since it feels like it¡¯ll be the least destructive in the case of this all going horribly wrong. Once this droplet has been stretched out into a long fibrous sinew I slowly start looping it round itself forming a tapestry as some strands split of and create intricate flowery patterns of their own. After the abstract, 3D sigil is fully shaped it crunches down on itself into a small orb which I can transport throughout myself using a network of ¡®mana vessels¡¯ that are far finer and more complex than those in my Reavers or Tunnellers. However, I also notice the mana weave, a complex spider web of mana that strings along my entire territory leading to every nook and cranny that I can use as a highway to eject the spell crystal anywhere I want. Sending it through the floor and into Spencer it gains a faint earthen glow as small particulates of dirt waft off it like smoke. Success! I¡¯m not exactly willing to test how much it¡¯s durability has increased but I¡¯ve definitely succeeded with the spell. So the decision is made, support spells. Maybe I could get darkness spells to up the psychological war fare factor? Some fatigue spells here and there, targeted on specific members so that they start to seem like a liability and cause party friction. Maybe the added shadows could be used to help the Stealth Reavers as well, I wonder if my knowledge contributes to the hive or not¡­ I¡¯ll just assume it doesn¡¯t till I¡¯m proven wrong. Hope for the best, anticipate the worst and all that. Any spare SP I have I¡¯ll spend on unlocking the other branches, maybe divination? Though their still feels a bit of a waste¡­ Conjuration is definitely interesting, if it allows me to literally conjure something out of nothing that would be wild. I don¡¯t see why I couldn¡¯t just leave those sorts of needs to the production utilities though, so that just leaves alteration and enchantment. Enchantment my elemental seems like it will cover on its own so I guess I¡¯ll be taking alteration? That feels reasonable enough even if it¡¯s just a mostly insignificant upgrade, it¡¯s only to dump points in and since I don¡¯t seem to be getting any extra SP from levelling there¡¯s not much point in just hoarding them. Alright let¡¯s go, support spells and darkness element unlock! Do you wish to spend 7SP to unlock ¡®New Spells: Basic Support¡¯ and ¡®New Elements: Darkness¡¯? ¡®Confirm¡¯
Curse:
Cast time: 5s A surge of darkness mana imbues itself in the target, weakening them considerably over time until they are able to purify themselves.
Mana cost: 10
Range: 1m
Shroud:
Cast time: 1s A curtain of shadows covers an area 2m in diameter that can move very slowly and makes those covered in the shroud harder to detect.
Mana cost: 5/s
Range: 2m
Smoulder:
Cast time: 2s Embers ignite on a target, slowly burning away at them and causing damage over time.
Mana cost: 20
Duration: 10s
Rejuvenate:
Cast time: 5s You generate a flow of purifying water that can cleanse wounds and ailments while healing people slightly.
Mana cost: 10/s
Range: Touch
Haste:
Cast time: 10s Imbuing an ally with the power of the wind they gain extreme swiftness and are able to glide with limited range.
Mana cost: 20
Duration : 1m
Barrier:
Cast time: 1s A fragile barrier shining barrier able to block any single attack but will shatter immediately after stunning the protected for less than a second.
Mana cost: 30
Range: 1m
¡®Wait¡­ could I use barrier to stun enemies? It doesn¡¯t say I¡¯m not allowed to¡­ and curse would be nasty as long as people don¡¯t notice it, just have them spend their entire delve while weakened¡­ at that point even if they notice they¡¯re still fucked since it¡¯ll have completely exhausted them. Nice. Smoulder and haste are pretty cool too, rejuvenate won¡¯t get much use since my Tyx tend to die in one blow however my barriers could minimise that issue. Cast time is gonna be my main limiter instead of mana just based on my stats so the 1 second cast time is quite useful, haste could be pretty cool for my ambush Tyx. Shroud is obviously gonna be insane with the Reavers, I wonder what a mud rejuvenate would look like? Mixing the elements with these support skills is gonna be fun to experiment with. I suppose now the battle plan is to keep the invaders cursed 24/7 to exhaust their purification options and drain their stamina then when battle starts use shroud on the reavers, haste on the wolves and barriers on the Tyx. If I¡¯ve got time then place barriers on the invaders and break them with wind blades¡¯ After the quick replan it was time to unlock the alteration school, giving me another wave of notifications:
Mana Craft:
Imbue an item with your mana in order to change its shape and mold it to your will. Different materials will be harder to shape than others and things like the heat of a material can make it easier to shape as well. In addition more precise control may prove difficult.
Mutable Nature:
Your biology is volatile and easily manipulated, you can make permanent changes to your very nature in order to attain strength. Caution, however, must be advised. After all, every body has its own limit and finding yours isn¡¯t a pleasurable experience.
Both abilities screamed potential to me even though they are completely useless for now at least, the sheer weight of my mana capacity might make me able to achieve some nasty things with mana craft however¡­ the mutable nature is definitely cool sounding but I can¡¯t exactly do much with it since I¡¯m just a little sack of moisture sitting on a web hammock at the moment. Maybe I can use the alteration abilities on monsters I possess? I remember having that skill as one of the starter abilities as a Dungeon Master. Aside from that I¡¯ll check the menu for alteration.
Spell Selection Menu! Alteration
Upgrade Spells New Spells New Mutations New Skills Fuse Spells
The ¡®upgrade spells¡¯ section was just completely blank, the New spells only had the ¡®basic spells¡¯ option, the new mutations and new skills menus where far more interesting however.
Alteration: New Skills (1SP)
Refine Material Precise Shaping Incite Growth
Degradation Liquify Overcharge
Alteration: New Mutations (1SP)
Accelerated Constitution Limb Node Leathery Hide
Venomous Wrist Spines Malleable Chitin
Disregarding the mutations, other than the fact the idea of ¡®Limb nodes¡¯ might explain why I could only give my tunnellers two spring loaded legs. The skills seem to be ¡®refine material¡¯ which should be to do with turning ores into more usable resources. ¡®Degradation¡¯ which I guess makes things rot? Something similar. ¡®Precise shaping¡¯ is probably a flat buff to mana craft. ¡®Liquify¡¯ I think is obvious enough. Incite growth probably just makes me able to artificially cause what happens when I first create plants. Overcharge though¡­ I¡¯ll just take a wild guess and say its probably a ¡®Limit Break¡¯ type of ability. The fact everything costs 1SP all but confirms the fact that the costs increase with each upgrade too, since we for 3 Skills and a spell pack with the elemental pack but only 2 Skills for alteration so if we say it also bought me a skill and spell pack for free then that means it costs one more SP after each upgrade¡­ what interests me most is definitely degradation.
Degradation:
Age an item considerably, spending 1 mana per second for a 2x time increase on an item. Increase the factor of mana spent by 10 increases the time by a factor of 2. This only works if you are the only one holding the item and there is no mana presence in the item at all.
10 - Discovery and Decisions There were only a few hours left till discovery so I began to prepare for discovery, pulling back the patrols of my cave wolves so they wouldn¡¯t come into contact with the invaders at first. I can detect anything inside my territory after all so I have no need for them to act as scouts after all and I want to culture a false sense of security as well as drawing my discoverers in deeper. I changed the patrol paths of my Tyx slightly so there would be more near the blocked of sections and less by the entrance so they¡¯re harder to discover at first, I ordered all the ambush units to be stationary and I gave the pack vipers an order to move closer to the fern patch my hammock is inside. I can¡¯t order them to enter it and assimilate immediately as that goes against their nature however I can at least change their tendencies to be a little more aggressive for the course of the raid. In addition, I gave all my representatives a unique order. I gave Spencer the order to hide under my hammock, either to make a run for it with me in tow or to strike anyone who attempts to attack me directly. I gave Null the order to have her pack stalk the intruders, only staging small assaults whenever it seemed they were about to rest. I ordered Zhao to kill their unarmoured combatants if he had the opportunity to do so unnoticed and I ordered Jian to take the rest of the Reavers and follow slightly behind one of the large Tyx patrols while staying hidden, she was told to ¡®Lead an attack when you find a good opportunity¡¯. I was hoping to test the decision-making ability of my monsters. Kivi and the Tunnellers, however, where a difficult group. I wasn¡¯t sure if I wanted them to be changing the tunnel structures, I didn¡¯t think it would have an impact when the tunnels where first being explored but at the same time it''d make good practice. In addition, I didn¡¯t know how to order them. If I were to leave them cementing the walls, they¡¯d be at risk of being attacked but I can''t put in both a ¡®stay far away from the invaders¡¯ and a ¡®cement the walls order¡¯ at the same time. I decided to try staggering the orders. I¡¯d give 40 an order that reads ¡®Cement the walls with the cement group¡¯, 40 I would order ¡®carve out tunnels with the tunnelling group¡¯, then I¡¯d have 10 with the order ¡®fill up useless tunnels¡¯ and finally I''d give the last 10 the order ¡®lead all the other Tunnellers away if you detect invaders¡¯. For now, I''ll make the order be for wolves instead of invaders and see if it works, I will place Kivi in the detection group in order to try and increase the ¡®leadership¡¯ that the representatives develop. After giving out all of the orders the Tunnellers seem to separate themselves into their groups with decent enough effectiveness, I also notice that the ones order to create tunnels seem to concrete their own walls as they go. Kivi didn¡¯t do that when I ordered it to carve through some of the rubble so maybe they decide whether or not to apply the concrete based on if they¡¯re ¡®making¡¯ something or if they¡¯re ¡®destroying¡¯ something? Definitely going to be useful later on at least, even if they are a little bit slower than when carving out a tunnel without cementing the walls, they¡¯re many times faster than if they were having to cement the walls after the fact. The tunnels only being a meter tall would have been an issue but they seem to have eschewed that by grouping up into fours where they all are entwined round each as they dig like the fibres in a rope being bound round themselves. Now for the real test, I take Vier from Sechs Eins¡¯ pack and order him to go towards the section that all the Tunnellers are working on, as he approaches one of the patrol group raise their head and twitch slightly before letting out the characteristic warble of their kind that made you feel as if your organs had turned to jelly and were getting rearranged inside you. The Tunneller dashed backwards as more of its Kin began to follow behind and the other five on patrol did the same thing before linking up with Kivi¡¯s horde, the sight of the Tunnellers all making a mad dash through the winding labyrinth of tunnels as a single swarm was quite honestly both horrifying and mesmerising. It was awe-inspiring. After they had made an escape and continued on for a few minutes they all abruptly scattered as one before looping back around to re-join at the cavern they had begun at. This, definitely, seemed exploitable. Not in the way where I benefit either, in the way where as soon as the adventurers realise all the Tunnellers have going for them in combat is their insane health pool they start abusing this as a tactic to farm them like livestock. I gave Kivi its order, the ability to decide the next construction location. This means Kivi isn¡¯t on patrol anymore but if my understanding of how these orders work it''s likely that the Tunnellers will start distributing themselves into these roles on their own now they know how, they¡¯re bound to obey my orders but that doesn¡¯t mean that they need them. I updated the orders to allow slightly more freedom for more adaptive decision making and switched the patrol target to invaders, after which I called it quits with the Tunnellers. Now, with all my preparations in place and all my orders given it was time for... well, nothing. All I had left to do was wait, I experimented with my spells to familiarise myself with them and not waste this free time but mostly I had nothing to do. In this moment of peace, as my mind finally found itself free to think in this period of silence. For the first time in a week, I really took a moment to examine myself. I had been far too accepting of my situation for my circumstances to ever allow, I had thought that feeling of my emotions being suppressed was a part of being trapped in that void but even now I feel mostly nothing. I still have emotions; I just don¡¯t feel trapped by them anymore. Even now, as I wait on my first encounter with the outside world, I don¡¯t feel consumed by worry, instead only a faint anticipation. I mean, I''m going to have to kill people! That should freak me out at least a little, right? But no matter how I think about it I feel nothing. It¡¯s like eating meat, sure if you think too hard about it, you¡¯ll feel a little guilty but you¡¯ll be right back to not caring as soon as your attentions anywhere else. I just have this passive disdain towards the idea of people, it¡¯s not as if I''m consumed by bloodlust or hatred or anything just a faint thought that ¡®They¡¯re inconvenient¡¯ which makes me feel distasteful of them. The idea that this, just situation as a whole, is affecting how I think and feel however. That. That is horrifying, the idea of my thoughts and emotions being altered by some outside source always terrified me, I mean those two things basically are what make you, you! Without them you¡¯re nothing, definitely a top number 1 or 2 existential dread. I suppose feeling, less. Having your emotions slightly subdued the way mines are, is the best outcome of all potential ¡®Emotional Manipulations¡¯ but I still hate it. I despise it. I wonder if it has something to do with me not having a body? I mean technically I¡¯m just this little egg looking thing, maybe I¡¯m not biologically developed enough for a full range of feelings yet and that¡¯s why everything but my excitement, curiosity and anticipation are completely repressed. I wonder how I go about hatching myself then... I suppose it¡¯s another thing I just need to wait for. My current situation I¡¯d say is objectively superior to a more biological body but I¡¯ll need one to properly capitalise on alteration so I suppose if I use it to fight back serious threats and also for emotional fulfilment aside from that I guess it doesn¡¯t matter much.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. I¡¯ve got an hour left now, all my resources are at full and I¡¯ve sent a mass rest order that will last for the next 50 minutes so all my creatures are on top form before combat, I¡¯ve prepared barriers with a fusion from haste on all my Tyx by creating the small spell crystals but leaving them in my network, each one comes with a passive mana drain but it allows me to bypass the cast time restriction in a way since it takes over almost 2 hours for those to expire if they go unused. I¡¯ve also prepared 20 curses and the same number of mud-binds and poison-blades, I left the curses unfused since the darkness fusions where all very vague. ¡®Hex¡¯ for fire dark, ¡®Ritual¡¯ for earth dark, ¡®Scourge¡¯ for air dark and ¡®Blood¡¯ for water dark. While what the fusion elements meant was easing enough, in fact I even got an intuitive understanding: Hex, was used to place permanent debuffs to a target as well as having some nasty damage options; Ritual allowed you to carve spells into the ground making them ¡®permanent¡¯, something of a theme with the dark fusions; Scourge was a type of soul attack magic that left lifelong damage and Blood magic was used to drain life force to power spells as well as having other effects that could forever alter someone''s bloodline; either having some unique effect on their descendants, usually positive, or creating an effect that was like b-tec Alteration. No, understanding them was easy. What I was worried about was I hadn''t a clue how they effected the actual spells themselves and I was unwilling to test them on my creatures or my territory due to the whole ¡®permanent¡¯ thing. I had created on of each fusion for curse and then stopped because my entire passive mana regeneration was now being spent on maintaining spell crystals. 10 minutes left, the rest order has expired and its business as usual for the creatures who have returned to their prior instructions. I don¡¯t have much in the way of certainty if it comes to when the exact arrival will be I need to be prepared at all times, I can keep this up for the best part of five hours before the mana drain will screw me over. Don¡¯t want to know what happens if I hit zero with all these still active in my network... I get the feeling it would force me to make good use of my high health values. Definitely not fun. At a total of 3 hours and 28 minutes after the timer''s expiration, I finally saw movement. A group of 10, 3 in heavy armour, 3 wearing some leather or cloth and 4 in robes. The robes where a gradient of colours but mainly shades of black and grey with some dark blue in the mix, except the robe of a slightly aging man in the centre who seemed to be giving orders which was completely sky blue. The people in heavier armour all seemed to be melee combatants. One had mostly gambeson on with some metal plating spotted around to provide extra protection and carried a short spear who looked extremely dissatisfied with his situation; another was wearing full plate and carried a large tower shield as well as a small mace dangling by their side, they towered above their party being above 2m in height while standing as still as statue, slowly scanning the area; the final armoured member of the party was some kind of cheetah person, they were covered in spotted yellow fur from head to toe and held a bardiche on their shoulder and was chatting happily with one of the robed members, well more at than with since they hadn¡¯t gotten a response for the entire time I was observing, it was also at this point I realised that I didn¡¯t understand the language at all. It''s too be expected but still disappointing, if I could learn their plans, I¡¯d be able to counter them. Oh, blue robes seem to have gotten irked by the cats'' constant nattering and is giving them a hard time over it. Actually, other than blue robes¡¯ orders none of them seeming to be talking at all. Whelp, guess I didn¡¯t lose much then. Of the three in lighter armour, 2 had bows and the other one was covered in a lot of flowing black cloth that was slightly translucent and draped down from every point of her body. She seemed to be an elf of some sort due to the pointed ears and moved completely silently, a rogue archetype I¡¯d assume, potentially a threat if she can counter stealth so I¡¯ll try and get the vipers to focus on her. Of the two archers, one had a small composite bow reminiscent of what the Mongol''s used and was leading the group whereas the other stood at the back and had what seemed to be a compound bow, the pully made of some sort of crystal and the string almost transparent. I was sure compound bows where actually a rather modern invention but I guess the presence of magic has made this worlds development completely different compared to where I first lived. The robed people seemed to separate into two groups of 2, with the leaders being a blue robe and another who wore a dull orange. I can''t be sure why they¡¯re in the groups that there in but at least I can be sure that the two who have authority are important somehow. Add them to the top priority list. They¡¯ve came up on one of the alcoves, this one was too far forward so I left it empty of vipers and wolves so it seems they¡¯ve gotten lucky for their first night. I¡¯ll have my wolves stay back, just for tonight. I¡¯m going to deploy some of my curses as they stop to rest which will allow my mana to regenerate again, for now though. I''ll just watch. As they step into the alcove the short bow and rogue search around for a while and the short bow points out a pile of rabbit droppings to her compatriots though none of them pay any mind to the panstips, afterwards most of them unpack some bedrolls or the like and turn in after a quick soup-like meal leaving 3 of their number to stand guard. I take this opportunity to deploy my curses whenever any of them fall asleep. They change guard four times during their rest; each shift having one robe, one light armour or one heavy; notably neither the blue robe or his one of the robe-pairs ever take a shift. VIPs maybe? Something like higher ranking members? Or is this an escort? Or are their abilities important enough they get priority for rest? Definitely taking note of that. After waking up none of them seem to notice the curse thankfully and they pack up before the three that didn¡¯t take a shift start setting up all sorts of bizarre contraptions and taking notes. Researchers, I suppose. I notice most of the devices have a myriad of multicoloured crystals that all pulse with light, another point of importance. After spending near enough an hour taking notes and another discussing (arguing about) the results, one of them goes to speak with the full-plate who doesn¡¯t respond, instead calling the rest of her party for a discussion that seemed to illicit reactions of worry, anger, excitement or enervation from its members. I guess that means the job just got worse but also better paying. As they went about their day the researchers seemed to want to collect samples of everything, slowing their pace to a crawl and then when they encountered my first fern patch, they went ballistic. It took them nearly another hour of what seemed to teeter on devolving into a screaming match before they continued, not before harvesting an ample amount of plant life of course but they were moving again at least. By the time they spotted the first rabbit they didn¡¯t react anywhere near as extremely however there was some definite muttered curses and after a whole day, they had only covered a 900m worth of tunnel, and that¡¯s distance not displacement, they¡¯re only a third of that closer to me than when they started. I had Null occupy some of the tunnels behind them to cut of their exit and made my choice. One more day, they have 24 hours till I release the peace order, I just hope they don¡¯t choose to leave first. I need the EXP after all. 11 - Delving and Discovery (P) */ Alexi - Expeditions Scout /* It was the morning of the day we had to leave on this hellish trek, Count Xara¡¯s Phentamancers had detected a flux in the ambient mana within her territory so she¡¯d created this team to investigate. We were mostly unfamiliar with each other at the start of all this since the formation had been rushed and was a little bit messy but at least now we¡¯re mostly on speaking terms with each other. The Phentamancer himself, Vurla, had been sent out with us so unfortunately that means this mission is being treated with some significance. Not exactly ideal for the first job I¡¯ve been given since joining the Directive but at least it means they trust me? Anyways, Vurla. He¡¯s a bit stuck up but all Phentamancer¡¯s are, it¡¯s a rare talent and they¡¯re basically necessary for any noble to have in their employ so Phentamancers tend to get revered their whole lives. They can detect the nature of the ambient mana for thousands of meters, some even millions. They can find optimal farm land, monster dens, Kyrias mines and even dungeons. A dungeon can completely revolutionize a city, I mean benefits of the dungeon aside it basically means merchants will flock to you like moths to a flame. I remember hearing the capital city is actually built on a tame dungeon but only the royal guard are permitted entry, probably a rumour but I''d believe it. I mean their all level 10! I''ve heard breaking that barrier without access to a dungeon is nigh impossible. I''ve heard dungeons can also be used for food during sieges but I don¡¯t think id fancy eating goblin meat personally... Vurla¡¯s apprentice, Ryan, is certain that what was detected is a dungeon but Vurla doesn¡¯t believe it. Too sudden, he says. The emergent pattern is different, he says. The mana pulses are ¡®too irregular¡¯ he says. Vurla thinks it¡¯s a Kyrias mine, he¡¯s ecstatic about it as well, his experiments always need more gems apparently. I''m a bit worried though, if it is a dungeon this will be my first delve. I tried asking around about it but the only ones here who¡¯d ever delved before were Sere, Wahuj and Sonya. Hell, Karus was uninitiated! Apparently, this was meant to be a ¡®test¡¯ before he¡¯d be allowed into the Directive, but I couldn¡¯t help but think the homifeles would be a liability. I¡¯d heard his kind where a lot more agile than us humans but I''d only recently been initiated and the difference was like heaven and earth! Sure, using my ¡®skills¡¯ still felt weird but it was almost as if any of the tracks of my prey glowed when I looked for them, or like my arrows turned in mid-air to hit the target. I just don¡¯t see how he would be able to keep up with beasts that have abilities like that if he¡¯s still mundane... I tried asking Sere about her experience delving since she was apparently the highest levelled one here, already level 4! But all I got was a scathing remark about how I ¡®wouldn¡¯t understand¡¯ so I gave up on that approach. I mean id been warned the half-elf was in a bad place at the moment but we¡¯re a team, right? You¡¯d expect at least a little give and take, but no. She was the youngest here but she¡¯d been a member of the Directive since she was a kid and was initiated very young, I think when she was 10? That might be wrong though. Point being, she got the noble treatment. Killing captured Monsters, initiated into the system young, skill training, elixirs every meal etc etc. She was the golden girl of the Directive so I was kind of walking on eggshells round her and she was quite withdrawn as well making it hard to try and hold a conversation, Sonya seemed worried about her though so I wanted to at least try. Sonya was like a kind older sister for me, for all of us really. She¡¯s one of Count Xara¡¯s knights and the caretaker of our little organisation, she selects who will get initiated and trains us all. She helps out a little in the villages in Count Xara¡¯s territory a lot and is willing to listen to the opinions of us peasantry so much most everyone has a nice word or two to say about here. Couple that with the fact she gives out the opportunities to get initiated she¡¯s become both a bridge between us and the Nobility as well as a symbol of hope for a lot of people. She¡¯s only a junior knight so she¡¯s just recently reached level 3 but I hope she hits level 5 soon. I heard as your level increases you age slower so the younger you get your levels the better. I asked her about delving but apparently, she¡¯d only been taking on delves as a part of knight training and that tends to be heavily controlled and isn¡¯t a good reference for what we¡¯ll experience if this is an emergent dungeon. She did tell me one story though, about a time when there were some kids who¡¯d sneaked into the dungeon. They were hoping to get some easy kills and become a natural ascended rather than an initiated since the Directive hadn¡¯t been launched yet and there was no way anyone not associated with the aristocracy would be able to undergo the ritual. They¡¯d been slaughtered obviously but somehow the kills had made one of the goblins undergo an evolution which meant when it showed up during their training it nearly killed one of the squires. She told me with an unknown dungeon I should expect everything to be like that. Something about that story seemed off to me though, aren¡¯t you unable to get EXP for anything mundane? How''d they evolve from killing some uninitiated kids then? I suppose I should leave questions like that to the scholars, not in my purview. Wahuj was one of the people with us that weren¡¯t a member of the directive, he was loaned out from a nearby martial order to see what a normal, balanced expedition was like since in their orders people trend to only mixing with others that have a similar skillset. It''s not exactly intentional they just spend more time together and have similar interests so they find it easier to get on. I¡¯d heard people from orders like his tended to be rather arrogant but thankfully he¡¯s just a little cocky, it¡¯s a bit cute actually even if he can get annoying. He was a little taller than me with black hair and brown eyes and seemed to be around the same age, he was only one level higher than me as well but he was far more competent with the skills he¡¯d learned. Apparently, he¡¯d went delving with the order once before and he described levelling up as a feeling of ecstasy that nothing else could compare to, he said that low-level monsters tend to just be an animal but bigger and if you encounter anything different than that then you should probably run. At least that was the important bits in what turned into an hour of anecdotes and bragging, he got so caught up in some of his tangents I did have to just stop him mid sentences and bring him back on topic but I did at least get some useful information. After 2 days of walking, we found the source of the mana pulses. A relatively large rocky hill in the middle of absolutely nowhere, the Kyrias theory all but guaranteed at this point. After all, dungeons need access to the outside otherwise they¡¯ll just starve. Either a lack of mana or essence can kill one of them off, so with no exit we can basically guarantee that any dungeon that spawned here would die. Since the mana is still active however, this can¡¯t be a dead dungeon. We have a group of earth mages with us in order to handle situations just like this so we have them start hollowing out the hill while we set up a small camp. Vurla prepared to send a message back to the relay station in the city, as he set up the ritual with his apprentice Lee set up a large bonfire with his fire magic. He was an elementalist but he was a specialist, a group of elementalists who gave up the variety in their abilities in exchange for an increase in overall potency. A relatively new skill path that was developed in the neighbouring nation of Beria recently and has been popularised due to the immediate rewards afforded to specialists and its exponential growth, apparently. Lee seemed to be very enthusiastic about an opportunity to explain the history associated but I very quickly lost track of what he was talking about. Magic is only fascinating when its mystical, a lot of its practitioners seem to make it extremely technical. Theres so much jargon that I just can''t keep up so I just smiled and nodded along with whatever he said.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. In the morning as the earth mages were making progress through the hill all of sudden there was a massive crash and cheers rang out throughout the camp. As the earth and rock collapsed a large cavity was formed and a massive dust cloud billowed out, I''d been warned about this last night, the Kyrias would likely have a large amount of loose earth and stone surrounding it with a small cave covered by the hill. It was likely what had happened was during the Kyrias¡¯ rapid growth and expansion that happens during their forming it had created a large air pocket and raised up the earth to form this hill. Why the Kyrias create air pockets is beyond me but all the mage types where confident so I guess I''ll just believe them on that. After the dust cleared, we went to go in and make an assessment but instead of a Kyrias deposit there was a mound of rubble that was knee high. We had the earth mages clear it and what was left was a tunnel that descended downwards at a low gradient. Near impossible to distinguish from a flat path while walking on it, even. As we slowly moved the expedition into the tunnels system Tetra, the sun priest we hired for the purpose of this mission began claiming about how this wasn¡¯t in the contract. I never particularly liked the sun priests, they all had a sort of entitlement that annoyed me slightly, as if they saw people as cattle that needed herder. Ignorant barbarians that would be nothing without them. That and they charged exorbitant prices for their healing, they claim to be kind and charitable but will fleece you for all that your worse if their care is your only option. Tetra felt like the embodiment of that pretention, greed and pride so I had a slight disdain for him, I tried to ignore it. Really, I tried. I just cannot stand him at all. It proved difficult for the entire expedition to make their way into the tunnels. We had about 30 people in total counting the guards, earth mages, members of the Directive and people who Xara had join the expedition so things where quite cramped. The tunnels where wide enough for 3 people to stand side by side comfortably, 4 if you wanted to push it, and they were tall enough that all of us but Sonya could stand straight and all the surfaces where relatively smooth. Sure, there was the occasional rock that jutted out or cracks in the walls but on the whole it was fine. What really got to me was the air, it was suffocatingly damp and musky. It felt like swallowing a glass of mud with every breath as the dank air clung to the sides of my throat and caked my mouth in a sickly, slimy feeling. It was mostly unnoticeable at first but as we trudged forward through endless monotony things only got more severe, thankfully I didn¡¯t need to push myself at all since I was far above the average physical capability in our group and was able to keep pace with the mages without as much as a brisk walk. I didn¡¯t need to do any tracking either since Vurla had some fancy compass thing that pointed towards the strongest source of nearby mana that he used to navigate these tunnels; a fact I was thankful for given I didn¡¯t think I''d be able to keep track of the labyrinth we were traversing. After spending as long inside the tunnels as we¡¯d spent outside, we finally reached the source of the mana. We were all exhausted and frustrated but the promise of a nearby end to the constant drawling stone walls was enough to keep us moving, Ryan had mapped out the tunnels we¡¯d followed to this point so we wouldn¡¯t get lost on the way back and it¡¯d be a lot easier on the way back since we wouldn¡¯t need to stop at each turn while Vurla spends the better part of 10 minutes fiddling with his contraptions before we can get moving again. We turned the final corner only to find more tunnels, as a collective groan escaped our lips Vurla took out all his tools again he ran a million and one tests over the next hour before concluding that the source of the mana fluctuations ¡®must be here¡¯ and we would find it with ¡®just a little more effort''. A few minutes later we did find it as we continued to advance but soon noticed only the 10 of us where here: me; Sere; Ryan; Lee; Vurla; Sonya and Wahuj who I¡¯d properly talked to over the trip. There was also Tetra, the sun priest; Karus, the homifeles mundane who used a bardiche and Ellias, the son of Baron Reia who was a retainer of Count Xara. Ellias was arrogant, not actively and aggressively arrogant like most noble children though. He was more subtly arrogant, he believed himself invincible. He didn¡¯t think he was the best with the bow in the world, but he definitely believed himself a cut above his peers. He didn¡¯t think he was better than commoners by birth-rate, but he still thought them inferior due to their lacking education and etiquette. He was also one of the people who believed that the mundane where a lesser class of person. In short, he was a dick. Mainly because he was ignorant, but a dick none the less. Thankfully he¡¯d been very eager to learn and improve himself using this opportunity and had been rather respectful because of that but some of his off the cuff remarks definitely made me consider killing him on the spot. Thankfully I held myself back but if he was like that the whole time... I don¡¯t know. After we noticed that the group had been reduced to a third of its proper size, we of the vanguard immediately retreated to check and a handful of meters behind us we found a faint silvery film in the air. Vurla quickly reconvened us all and had me guide the group to somewhere we could rest, I followed traces of moisture in the stone to quickly take us to a small alcove like the ones we¡¯d used to rest in the tunnels previously and while we walked Karus continuously bombarded Vurla with questions before Vurla demanded he be silent saying ¡°It is of the utmost, utmost! Importance that none of us speak at all when not necessary, cease this incessant chatter this instant.¡± with a look of cold severity on his face that revealed a hint of worry but also anticipation. After we arrived in the alcove Vurla and Sonya stepped outside to talk for a while before returning, when they entered Sonya gathered us to give us a debriefing of the situation. ¡°It seems likely, that what we have walked into and what caused the fluctuations that Vurla measured is a new born dungeon. However, this dungeon seems to be inherently self-aware as it has activated the party size restriction. This means one of two things for us; the dungeon has been tamed by a rogue master or it is anomalous. Either way, that means this dungeon is a threat. We will purge this threat. Alexi? Can you check the surroundings for me? Tetra, perform a malady check on everyone to see if this dungeon has any poisons in the air or such. Ryan, Vurla is going to be performing some tests he¡¯ll want your help with. As for the rest of us, we¡¯ll just need to remain vigilant.¡± With that bombshell announcement I went straight to my task, scanning the area for any threats. Aside from the glowing cave mushrooms that where a fairly common sight however, I found nothing of note except some rabbit droppings. When I reported that to Sonya, she seemed relieved. She told us all that this was likely a beast dungeon and would prove to be a little easier than she was concerned about. 12 - Combat and Consequences (P) We took 8 hours to rest and let all of the sensory equipment recharge, Vurla and Ryan weren¡¯t given a guard shift so that they would be at full focus in the morning and be able to properly make judgements. After all, it''s their analysis we¡¯ll be relying on to be able to find this dungeons heart, Sonya said in beast dungeons the heart usually takes the form of a bonfire inside an animal den, though there¡¯s always a chance in any dungeon that it¡¯ll take the form of a floating Kyrias nexus. We were told that the monsters we can expect in a beast dungeon are usually wolves, boars, snakes and hawks. Some have more exotic things like porcupines or badgers and sometimes they have monster rabbits but this dungeons rabbits seem to be mundane based on their droppings, there¡¯s a low chance of a new-born dungeon having had the time to explore more interesting options so we should only have to deal with a couple different creatures thankfully. We packed up our things and left to explore, Vurla and Ryan did some tests to try and locate the heart but seemed to disagree on the results. Vurla mentioned something called a ¡®Weave¡¯ but Ryan said that this dungeon was too young to have developed one yet, Vurla said it was possible if it was tamed by a dungeon mage but Ryan called those a myth. They seem to have a lot of arguments but they thankfully came to a conclusion quickly enough this time and decided on a direction. After just a short while of walking we found something bizarre, a patch of grass and ferns that where completely snow white... I tried inspecting them but Vurla quickly pulled me back, the Phentamancer¡¯s panic was evident on his face as he cautioned me. ¡°Those plants are modified! This dungeon is already editing its creations Alexi they could be anything! And for plants to survive in this environment that means the ambient mana is enough to sustain them, but we didn¡¯t notice high enough levels for that! These cannot be natural! It could be a trap.¡± I quickly ran my threat sense skill over the ferns but nothing came up, pausing a second to let the headache past I informed Vurla ¡°My skills say they¡¯re safe, are you sure you¡¯re not just being paranoid? You guys are the ones saying this place is weird, right?¡±, I seem to have missed something here though as all I received was a scowl before he sighed ¡°Fine, it''s not as if we can progress otherwise. We¡¯ve got some general-purpose antidotes so if you feel off at all we can give you one, unfortunately Tetra¡¯s malady detection won¡¯t respond to any traces of poison though so you¡¯ll have to notice on your own¡± After being given the go ahead I plucked few leaves from the ferns and a couple blades of grass too, there was no immediate reaction so I used threat sense on them again and they were still fine, after telling the group there was no issue Ryan ran some tests on them before his eyes widened far enough that I thought they¡¯d fall out, he pulled Vurla and Sonya over to show them something before they started harvesting the plants by the fistful and filling up small pouches with the stuff. Another two hours later and we finally found our first signs of life, a rabbit. It was mundane like id guessed before which was a relief but it was still rather strange, it was the same shade of pristine white as the plants. Not even a speck of grey on it from dust or stone. And it had these markings on it, hypnotising purple patterns. I felt myself getting lost in them as I stared at the animal. Thankfully, Ellias knocked me out of my trance by placing an arrow right in the eye socket of the bunny before holding it up by the arrows shaft and proudly exclaiming, ¡°I caught dinner for us!¡± with a shit-eating grin on his extremely punchable face. Okay, maybe that was a bit aggressive but still! He pisses me off so badly. His comment about how the fur would make a coat that was ¡°only fit for the nobility¡± rubbed me the wrong way too. After that we continued on for most of the day, stopping every now and again to let the Phentamancers run their tests before Sonya called a break. She handed out rations to everyone and we made our way into another one of the alcoves and I searched around for any danger. Afterwards we made camp and separated into guard shifts. The order was: me and Wahuj; Tetra and Lee; Sonya and Sere then Karus and Ellias. Tetra was pissy about being given a middle shift but he had last shift yesterday so I honestly couldn¡¯t carer less about him, I was just glad I wasn¡¯t the one stuck with him. Lee seems to be the only one of us that can actually hold a conversation with the guy if through sheer perseverance alone so I figure that¡¯s why the two were paired up today. Taking a position where I was pretty far from the entrance while still able to clearly see anything approaching was actually more difficult than I expected, the large mushrooms with their faint glow would create a glare at the wrong angle and the shrubbery disrupted uninterrupted lines of sight so I had to take a position closer to the entrance and further from the group than I''d have liked. Wahuj came up next to me and rested his spear of the wall before sitting next to it. ¡°You doin okay? Seemed abitspookd bout this whole delvin business when ya asked bout it¡± ¡°I suppose, seems to be a whole lot of nothing so far though. I¡¯ve heard enough campfire stories about dungeons to properly relax inside one. Feels like we¡¯re missing something, like when we least expect it the floor¡¯s gonna open up on us¡± He chuckled a little at that before tapping on his spear. ¡°I feel the same in a way, I hate bein in tunnels like these. Makes it real hard to use my spear the way I was taught. Bein somewhere yaaint used to makes ya real paranoid doesn¡¯t it? Just keep a good head on your shoulders, worryin¡¯s good. Stressins not.¡± I scoffed at him trying to sound all smart, ¡°Easier said than done, genius¡± Honestly, as if he¡¯s not just repeating something he heard from someone else. I suppose I appreciate the effort. It¡¯s a bit awkward to just say that though, isn¡¯t it? Eh, whatever. He looked a little lost for a second before laughing, laughing! He laughed at me, honestly. I ignored him to focus on maintaining my kit. When the morning came it was just more of the same, honestly the worst part of all this was the boredom. It was all so repetitive, the constant crackling and bursting noises made by the pop lichen was really grinding away at me. Lee asked if he could just raze the lot of it and at this point, I''m willing to agree with him. Me and Ellias had begun to make something of a competition out of hunting the rabbits and at this point the patterns didn¡¯t even distract me anymore. It was right after I¡¯d went to fire my crossbow at one when I accidentally twitched and my shot went wide ¡°Tsk, tsk. Cheaters never win Alexi. This should show you not to use such a barbarous tool. You have enough skill to have no need of something so crude¡± Oh yeah, had I mentioned that Ellias hates crossbows? Like, really hates them. He thinks they ¡®sully the noble art of archery¡¯ or something and always has a comment whenever I use one. ¡®Still, I shouldn¡¯t have missed there. I just seemed to lose it for a second there, I wonder why?¡¯ As I had that thought I felt a chill run down my neck and activated danger sense, the rush of information immediately making my head pound. ¡°ATTACK!¡±. I bellowed out as I gripped on my skull that I felt was about to crush my mind. As I shouted the group immediately fell into formation, Sonya on one side and Wahuj on the other, Karus and Sere behind them with me, Ellias and the mages in the middle. Vurla announced locations ¡°3 ahead, 10m. 2 behind, 3m. Another 5 right on the edge on my range!¡±. Wahuj tensed up when he heard how close some of them were to him as we heard a faint growl come from one of the sidetunnels we¡¯d just passed.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. As we focused on the back, 3 wolves quickly charged Sonya. They were thinner than the wolf''s id seen in the forest by my village and they held themselves completely flat to the ground . Their claws where a little bit shorter and duller while they had sharper teeth that could be seen as they held their mouths slightly open like hyenas. One stayed back as the other pounced on Sonya¡¯s shield arm and its teeth crushed down on her arm, it left a row of dents all the way along the bite. A slight trickle blood ran down Sonya¡¯s arm the wolf immediately fell back as she tried to smash its skull using her hand-mace, the blow only glanced the beast due to its hasty retreat, breaking one of its legs like it was a toothpick. The wolf immediately ran away down the tunnel as its partner raised its hackles and postured with a deep growl. While Sonya was still dealing with the first of the wolves, the third had dashed past her in order to target Karus. It easily evaded the unwieldy bardiche and slipped behind him to land a deep bite into his calf, the gambeson he wore absorbed most of the blow but the beasts'' fangs still managed to pierce the skin. As the ambushing wolf jumped back to retreat it tore with its maw, mangling the flesh it¡¯d manged to get a good grip on. While Sonya was distracted by the posturing wolf, she heard Karus cry out and turned around to see the third wolf making it¡¯s get away, spryly dodging a firebolt that had been launched in its direction. While she was turned away the first wolf escaped and the second let out a bark and hopped forward to snap at her legs, forcing her to ram it away with her shield. This bought enough time for the wolf that had crippled Karus to escape. As the wolves dashed away me and Ellias both fired our bows, my arrow was flying straight into the injured wolf''s leg just before it turned the corner and was out of sight but the ambushing wolf that hadn¡¯t been hit yet jumped in the way of the arrow, taking the blow into its flank. Ellias didn¡¯t get much luck either, he was overambitious with his shot and aimed for the creature''s head. Sine he needed to predict their future movement to be able to hit such a small target the wolf was able to slow down and have the arrow go completely wide. After that we managed to land a few arrows in their hides but didn¡¯t deal any major damage. Tetra immediately rushed to Karus¡¯ side to give him healing but he was completely pallid afterwards, the injury may seem small but due to the extreme tissue damage it almost completely exhausted his mana. After the battle we took a short break to recover, bandage up Karus¡¯ leg so he doesn¡¯t accidentally reopen the wound. Magical healing can be a bit unstable for a short time after it''s casting after all. Next Sonya took a moment to apologise for allowing one of use to be injured and then make some plans to counter act this situation in case of a repeat. ¡°These wolves are smart, they baited us by having one group distract us and the other launch the attack. In addition, they seem to be willing to slowly exhaust us. We need to slow down our pace to win this war of attrition. Don¡¯t take risks to try and land a heavy blow on one of them, we need to reduce injury on our side as much as possible. Any attacks landed on the wolves is simply a side benefit, they¡¯re not the focus. Got it?¡± After we all answered in the affirmative, we got up to start moving again when I had that same tingle on the back of my neck before a wolf dashed out of a nearby patch of ferns hidden in the shadows of a side tunnel and pounced for tetra, clamping its jaws round his neck and tearing. We instantly retaliated, but another 5 wolves attacked from the surrounding. As I fired my crossbow of at one of the wolves that I saw approach from a left side tunnel behind us it immediately backpedalled, disappearing into the shadows. Another came from the same side tunnel as the first to grab the arm Wahuj was holding his spear in, stopping him from being able to pierce the ambusher. Next was a group of 3 that came from ahead of us, I recognised the leader as the one that had body blocked my arrow in the previous attack. Things immediately descended into chaos. First Sonya raised up her slightly damaged arm to slam down on the wolf that attacked Tetra with her hand-mace, as she stuck with a slight flick in her wrist the spiked metal came into contact with the beasts'' flank tearing its hide slightly while crushing their chest with a gut-wrenching crunch and throwing the wolf a couple meters away. There were still some clumps of meat stuck between its teeth as it snarled before dashing away. At the same time, the wolf who had targeted Wahuj dug its claws into his side to jump of, landing clear of his wide slash and only getting grazed on the snout by the following thrust. Next it lunged at Ryan, who panicked and flinched backwards and then it used the opening by him to disappear into the shrubbery. Behind the 3 wolves that had already grouped up, I saw the three that had fled appear behind them from various points in the tunnel network before they joined up with their pack. Next, another 2 pairs of wolves emerged. Bringing a total of 10 wolves packed into the corridor and just as I slowly pulled back my bow to prepare for an all-out battle, they started to retreat. Keeping facing us during the whole process before the last disappeared behind a corner and they dashed off. They¡¯d retreated easily but not without cost, Wahuj¡¯s arm was out of commission and Tetra''s throat was wrecked. I was the one with the next most experience treating injuries in the party, even if I''d only ever really used a stint on broken limbs or bandaged gashes before. I immediately scrambled through our supplies for any healing items I could find, first I bandaged his throat completely and then tried to force feed him a healing potion. The red liquid just leaked out his throat with the blood however, being mostly ineffective as our party''s healer coughed up blood and chunks of his mangled oesophagus covering my hands with a nauseating, sticky, gunky red liquid that was uncomfortably lukewarm as well as globs of meat. I was used to dissecting, skinning and gutting animals but something about this experience was far more visceral. As I began to feel a little fainter and my thoughts became woozy Tetra started to slump in my arms as they light in his eyes faded. In a panic I forced another couple potions down his throat as I pressured the gaping wound closed, the main use of potions was to replenish vitality rather than heal wounds so I hoped this would give him enough energy as I fought to keep him conscious. Another few minutes of holding onto his shredded neck and praying, praying to whatever god he served to do their own damned due diligence and keep their priest alive and Tetra¡¯s eyes closed but he still had breath. He was unconscious, there was still hope. I placed him down in a position with his head slightly tilted to the side so his blood would flow out from his mouth rather than choke him and tried to stick closed the separate flaps skin left. I managed to reduce the size of the wound considerably but it soon became clear there was just too much lost, as I scrambled for other solutions his faint breathing slowly came to an end and I sobbed. I sobbed selfishly. I didn¡¯t cry for him, or for his death. I cried because I was scared. I cried because what happened to him could now happen to me without a healer. I cried because I felt guilty, I felt like I should have been able to make it work, I felt like I should have acted quicker to tell everyone when I noticed something was wrong, I should have acted quicker to block it when that wolf burst out the shadows, I should have acted quicker to kill it when it latched onto to Tetra, I should have acted quicker after he was free. I cried because I couldn''t do anything else. As I cried Sonya came over to me and rested a hand on my shoulder before she muttered ¡°We will purge this place¡±, and for the first time. I wholeheartedly agreed.