《Heretical dungeon》 CH1: Arrival I feel confused, something is wrong... I don''t remember who I am but it is strange. I can see things, but it doesn''t feel like sight to me, I can tell I am the rock in my field of view, but I don''t feel like I used to be a rock, and sight shouldn''t be from a third perspective...
Welcome to Gregantair! You are a new dungeon, and I Mariel, goddess of life, will tell you
Quiet, I am busy.
How are you busy? You are a newborn dungeon of 3 seconds before I reached out to you.
What I am busy with isn''t your buisness, but since you''ve insisted I''ll have your know that gathering your bearings is very important buisness.
Is that any way to treat a godess!?
Yes it is most certainlyaway to treat a godess, are you slow?
Stop interuptingme!
I was showing concern for your well being, how am I the bad guy?
I can feel your insencerity, do not hide behind your twisted reasonings. And your sarcasm isn''t witty, it is simply rude.
It is a little witty, and I am showing you some respect and considerations,just not as much as you would like.
Outwardly you show mild restraint, but I can sense the audacity and disrespect you havedirected towards me since I mentioned being a goddess, do not turn away the grace of the gods lest you face the consequences.
And there it is folks! The threat, gods always laking about their grace and kindness, while punishing those who don''t fall in line. They claim to give your free will and then get all pissed off when you use it in ways they don''t approve of. Here you go, have some free will, but don''t use it and listen to me or you will have terrible suffering. Well guess what? I would rather face the consequences of my mistakes than be coddeled and complacent! So fuck off, I AM BUSY!
You assume much, and do not seek guidance. So be it, you are on your own wretched one, you will regret this.
You have denied guidance of the gods!Godly blessingselection terminated! You have fallen out of favor with the gods!
Maybe I just carelessly threw out an opportunity, but something deep inside of me despises the very concept of working for a god, and right now? It doesn''t feel like this is something I will regret.
Gehehe, it is rare that a dungeon rejects the gods, I Asmozebub can grant you great power
As long as I side with you or sell my soul or something? Pass.
You haven''t even heard my offer.
I don''t trust you, I still don''t know what or where I am or was, but I don''t even trust other people enough to give me information yet until I confirm some things myself, so go away, I am busy.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
It is not so easy to dissuade a demon, we are much more... flexible in our approach then the gods, in fact
Enough of the sales pitching, fuck off or be stuck with this in your head. I know a song that gets onEVERYBODIESnerves... EVERYBODIES nerves... EVERYBODIESNERVES! I know a song that gets onEVERYBODIESNERVES! AND THIS IS HOW ITGOES! BUM BUM BUM
You really think such a petty trick will work?
It took a full day of monotonous repitition, but it most certainly worked.
You have rejected both the gods and the demons, you have unlocked a new achievement, the defiant The Defiant: Monsters spawened have a higher ability to defy your orders, but also have a higher resistance to mind magic and are less daunted bypowerful opponents
It is about time that I finally assess my situation. I was offered to cooperate with 2 powerful orginizations, both of which I refuted in a way that may have left a bit of a bad impression. I am a rock, I don''t know how I am aware of this, but I am. My memory is cloudy, there is alot I cannot remember, I don''t know who I was but I know that I am me and that simply knowing I am me brings some kind of great reassurence that is difficult to explain. It''s like simply being myself is enough that all other concerns and problems become secondary and are less concerning. The memory issue is important but not an urgent problem. What I can see is the room I am in and a tunnel. The room is round with me at the center and suspiciously smooth. I can see sunlight outside the tunnel, but all I see are some plants and can only adjust my field of view within the room. Vision shouldn''t be my only sense, i feel something similar to touch, but it is alien in a way, just...offsomehow. As I focus on myself with this feeling...
Name N/A Age <1 day
Dungeon rank newborn Dungeon status Healthy
MP 5/5 Dungeon points 0
MP/day 0.1 rooms 1
floors 1 Monsters 0
Traps 0 Achievements none
Titles 1
I have a name, the listed N/A is so infuriating, I know howwrongit is, but to not know the right way to correct it. I could simply pick a name to fill it in, but that feels so much worse, to give up on who I am, not was,AM. No, now isn''t the time to get sidetracked by this. I need defences of some kind, traps or monsters should be a priority.
Monster list Due to refusing the god''s blessing and the demon''s power, you do not get to select a free starting monster. There are no available monsters to spawn.
That doesn''t bode well.... what about traps?
Trap list 0.5MP Pitfall trap: makes a 1x1x1 meter hole
I make a pitfall, and it is just a uncovered hole in the room, it might be useful when combined with something else, but on its own it seems rather useless. When I try to open the floor and room layout, it is different. There is no screen with instructions, I can just feel the way I want to expand my territory and it does, but it costs mana quickly so I stop after spending 0.2 MP for a tiny increase in size. I try to restructure the room to add a slope or put spikes in the hole, but to no avail. So here I am, a rock in a room with a hole in the ground,progress is progress no matter how small. I am so going to die. CH 2: What now? Despite my fears of my immenent demise, nothing even entered my cave to threaten me. On the bright sidethis gave me plently of time to gather more information, on the other hand I still lack the resources to do much with it. I tested my pitfalls a bit, I can''t make a pitfall within a pitfall to deepen it, but I can make pitfalls in the walls and ceiling, although that doesn''t seem like it''ll help much. I also can''t build a pitfall within a foot of another pitfall,norstart the pitfall underground to weaken the floor. I only actually built 2 more pitfalls in testing as I wanted to preserve mana, even after a week I only barely got back what I spent on my first day. There is no option to convert mana to dungeon points, the dungeon points have a perk store that I still haven''t fully read through, but the gist of it is that by killing things I get dungeon points that can expand my mana pool, upgrade my monsters, increase my versatility, ect... For example one of the perks will allow me to shape my room more freely, this costs 10 dungeon points. While no option exists to buy a monster spawn, you can buy new traps for 10DP.
More traps Cost: 10DP Gives access to new traps
I can upgrade my pitfall to be deeper, have slippery walls, be harder to notice, have a spiked bottom, have a sticky bottom, and even options to make it "more decorative". Each of these pitfall upgrades are seperate and cost anywhere from 1-10 dungeon points. There are also options for elemental pitfalls, but even the least expensive options is just a light flame at the bottom that costs 50 DP. It seems to be a rule that none of the perks will directly increase the amount of dungeon points (DP) you gain, they will make it easier to kill or lure things to kill for DP, but no increasing the amount of DP per kill or producing DP per day. I can increase my mana in quite a few ways though.
Increased mana regeneration Cost: 5 DP Gain an extra 0.3 mana every day
Increased mana pool Cost: 5DP Increase mana capacity by 5
Lesser mana reaper Cost: 20DP Gain more mana when killing intruders
Lesser conversion bonus Cost: 15DP Converting items from outside the dungeon into mana provides slightly more mana
Weekly mana bonus Cost: 7DP Gain 1 mana at the end of each week
Monthly mana bonus Cost: 10DP Gain 10 mana at the end of each month
Yearly mana Bonus Cost: 15DP Gain 200 mana at the end of each year
Day of the week bonus (There is a seperate one of these for each day, but they each follow the same format) Cost: 5 DP Gain an extra 0.4 mana at the end of X day of the week
Lesser mana investment Cost:175DP Gain mana at the end of the day equal to 0.1% of the mana you have when the day ends
Lesser mana leech Cost: 500DP Gain a tiny boost to mana income when an intruder is within your dungeon
Branch dungeon Cost: 10000 DP Creates a subordinate dungeon core that will provide you some of the mana it collects, branch dungeons can produce anything the main dungeon can, but always have a lower natural mana regeneration rate then the main dungeon. If the main dungeon is killed all branch dungeons become independant newborn dungeons and lose everything they had while being a subordinate dungeonThe narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
And with that just being the tab for increasing mana, you can understand just how insanely large the dungeon point store is. But today is an exciting day, I have my first intruder! It is a worm. Not a big worm, not a mutant worm with teeth, not a work with acidic mucus, just a regular boring worm. Unless it is just disguising itself or secretly knows magic, but it looks to be an ordinary worm. Which means that I stand a chance at victory! I just need to hope that it rolls down the pitfall, dies of old age, or is killed by another intruder that shows up. Truly the odds are in my favor. I stare at the worm for 3 minutes as it crawls slowly on the ground, it tries to burrow a few times but it isn''t able to pierce my floor and I don''t feel it at all. This take a turn for the worse when the worm, well, turned around and I start to painic. I try to gather my mana to shoot it at the worm, but it won''t channel into the air, I press and focus with all I have to make even a pinprick worth of mana to shoot at the worm before it escapes, but to no avail. The worm escapes, and I am once more left with nothing to do. I spendDAYSafterword trying to do anything with my mana other than expand my territory or make pitfalls, but the only thing I can do with it other than those is feel it move throughout my room''s floor, walls, and ceiling. Luckily moving mana around does''t use it up, so I don''t have to stop for days for it to recharge. The only real improvement I have is moving several groups of mana at higher speeds or improving coordinated movement of mana. I am just so powerless to do anything to kill the intruders, the only weapons I have are time and luck. A few days later and it rains, and with rain comes water inside my dungeon. I quickly absorb some of the water, I am careful not to absorb all of it as it could drown insects that may be inside or attract creatures later. And absorbing the water leads to a newoption.
Create water Cost: 0.1MP/Liter Makes water
I can feel that I gain some MP when absorbing the water, but it isn''t even enough for 0.1 points and doesn''t show up in the menu. Water occasionally flows in, but it isn''t like a steady stream. The rain blows in the wind toward my cave sometimes and a small amount of water will fall off tree leaves in a small stream the ends up in my dungeon. I am also very annoyed, because even after absorbing the water, I cannot spawn any microbes. So many microbes must be dying, but not even 0.1 points of DP and no microbial spawn options, granted I may not be able to spawn the lifeforms I kill, but I still feel cheated in some way. I am pulled out of my inner thoughts by another intruder, this time it is a bug. I actually don''t recognize the kind of bug it is, but it kind of looks like a tan beetle and is slightly larger than an ant. I filled my pitfalls with water, except the one in the wall and the one in the ceiling, and am overjoyed that the bug stumbles into one. The bug struggles for several minutes as I am glaring at it with my full attention, I try to spawn more water over it, but get an error message.
Dungeons cannot modify floors with intruders present.
Maybe it is a good thing microbes don''t count as intruders after all..... The insect finally dies after a grueling struggle, and I get my first dungeon spawn.
Egg grazer bug (Ordinary insect class) Cost: 0.1MP to spawn, 0.002MP per day to maintain A predatory bug that relies on stealth to eat insect eggs. Has weak pincers and is overpowered by most bugs in a direct confrontation.
Gained 0.01 DP, gained 0.05MP
YES!!!! I am not going to complain about having a weak first monster, there are so many things I can test now! And I confirmed something increadibly important, killing intruders allows me to spawn them, I would hate to have to rely completely on traps to defend myself. I quickly spawn my first monster. My mana channels into the air and I very carefully observe the process, I don''t want to experiment on my first try so that I understand what the baseline should be, but it all happens in a fraction of a second so there isn''t much I can notice. A tan little bug appears, it doesn''t list itself as a boss monster, there is no stat screen, and I cannot see a list of possible evolutions. I try to feed more mana to it, but there is some force preventing me from forcing more mana through, I try to push harder and harder, but nothing happens, the bug doesn''t even explode, at least that would be interesting. I try communicating with the bug, but it doesn''t respond to speak and will only follow basic tasks like "go there" or looking in a direction that I mentally indicate. It is worrying that the full extent of monsters I can currently field is 50 bugs, and not even venomous ones, but at least I can kill worms now. I won''t forget you worm, you may have won the first round but next time you won''t be so lucky. I spawn another 4 bugs, each time I try to adjust the mana as they form, but nothing changes. It is a bit worrysome that these bugs that are supposed to be stealth oriented still have a leafy pattern which doesn''t mesh with the cave walls, but it isn''t like my room has anywhere to hide yet other than within the pitfalls, which they can still do to ambush as they will be out of site. I don''t want to use up all my MP generation so I stick with these 5 for now and tell them to hide in pitfall walls or on the ceiling, one of them blatantly ignores me and direct just crawls into a corner of the room, and most of the others end up wandering around after a while of waiting in position. I suppose this is the defiant title taking effect, they understand what I want them to do, but will only do it for as long as they feel like it. I just hope I can stack up enough insect kills before something like a squirrel manages to plow through everything I have, my only hope in such a situation would be to bait it into a watery pitfall and hope it drowns. I tell one of my bugs to try and leave the cave and immediately come back to see what happens, it leaves just fine and does decide to come back to me. I also notice that after it left the dungeon, the small mana drain it takes from me went away, but when it came back so did the mana cost. The menu did say that the mana cost was to maintain it, so maybe it doesn''t need to eat as long as it has mana, that would give it enough incentive to want to stick around in my frankly bland cave. I encourage my bugs to go out and drags some plants back for me, but only 2 of them obey me this time. Insects and water might not seem like much of a difference at first glance, but I do believe it is enough to get the ball rolling. CH 3: Plotting grasses and schemes The nice thing about insects that specialize in eating eggs is that well they specialize in finding and taking eggs back to the dungeon. Over the past few days I have obtainedsome new bugs and even a few arachanids.
Fruit fly egg 0.01MP spawn, 0.0001MP maintnence, 1 day to grow into fruit fly
Fruit fly 0.05MP to spawn, 0.0005MP maintnence Small bug capable of flight and annoying intruders.
Lime green cricket egg 0.015MP spawn, 0.0003MP maintnence, 1 day to grow into Lime green cricket
Lime green cricket 0.06MP to spawn, 0.0008MP/day to maintain Eats plants and jumps high to flee foes, often eaten by birds.
Lynx spider egg 0.06MP to spawn, 0.001MP/day to maintain, 3 days to grow into lynx spider
Lynx spider 0.15MP to spawn, 0.003MP/day to maintain A spider that specializes in killing pollinators, good at short bursts of speed and high damage, normal defence for an insect
Garden skink egg 0.1 MP to spawn, 0.05MP/day to maintain, 5 days to grow into a garden skink
Garden skink 0.7 MP to spawn, 0.15MP/day to maintain A small lizard that is fast. Good at eating weak insects.
Maidbane cobwebber egg 0.06MP to spawn, 0.001MP/day to maintain, 3 days to grow intoMaidbane cobwebber
Maidbane cobwebber 0.15MP to spawn, 0.003-0.3MP/day to maintain A brown spider given its namesake due to excessive web production. Villages will mobilize everyone to remove them whenever found as a single mature one is capable of filling a house in webbing in under a day. This species often starves itself as it makes more silk than it can gather food for after they have mated to protect eggs, usually followed by the children eating the corpse of the starved parent to sustain themselves until they can leave the webbed home.
Grass 1MP/square meter to spawn, 0.5MP/square meter to maintain
The cobwebber is quite expensive once it starts spamming webs, but I get one of them as the webbing can provide the first semblence of defence for my cave. I also get a handful of crickets, lynx spiders, and flies as the spiders can hunt any insects that enter, while the flies and crickets should be able to find somethings outside that the egg grazers have difficulty with. I get 3 skinks as they are rather expensive, but seem like they should be good at gathering materials. I don''t bother making the egg investment as I have kept my mana topped up with the eggs my bugs gathered, each egg they find gives different amount but thefruit fly (lowest) gave 0.01MP per egg and 0.001DP,while the skink eggs (highest) gave 0.2MP and 0.1DP per egg. I can also control when and how much of dead things brought into my dungeon that I absorb, so I was able to spawn things as I went through the pile to avoid going over my maximum. I was also able to get mana and DP from the dead eggs, not only the ones still alive when I brought them in. I havesaved up a solid 10DP, and chose to spend it on a new upgrade I found in the menu.
Artificial lighting Cost: 10DP Allows sunlight to be freely produced by your floors, can be toggled on and off for seperate floors.
At first glance this skill seems useless, but things change now that I have grass. The maintnence cost that I pay in mana for my monsters is dependent on they amount of food they need to eat, and this should also apply to the grass. So if my grass has a free food source to grow, and my monsters eat the grass, it should lower the overall cost of my monsters, it also gives me something to actually do which may have biased my decision a bit. While light shines down from my walls I make a test bed of grass while not paying the maintnence cost, after having them all wilt and die after a day I try again with a pool of water in the soil this time so they don''t all dehydrate again and this time they grow properly.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I have some of my crickets eat the grass and get a pleasent suprise, I get mana when the grass dies. It is a tiny 0.0001MP, but it represents a larger opportunity. I get MP when my monsters die, my monsters can eat and reproduce using the grass that eats for free, I can make a monster ecosystem that feeds me free mana! I don''t even notice one of the skinks and some of my other monsters joining the egg grazer bugs in hunting outside as I immerse myself in plotting grasses and schemes. Sometime later.... Finally, everything is set up. My maidbane set up a web system that my lynx spiders can ambush in to hunt insects in. The webbing also scares away birds and small animals. I plotted several patches of grass, I also managed to make the sunlight only light up the areas with grass while keeping my webbed entrance in the dark, I have also set new rules to motivate my monsters.
Dungeon rules
1. Everwhere without grass is a safe space, no attacking or killing each other in safe spaces
2. Hunting outside wil be rewarded with being fed mana for a day, violating the dungeon rules will be punished by never being given mana again
3. Those who break the rules can be attacked in the safe space
4. Everywhere with grass is a combat zone, you can fight and kill each other for food there
5. Should you lay eggs, your eggs can remain in the safe space as long as you hunt for food, otherwise they will be placed in the grass by a temporary referee as instructed by the dungeon core
6. Anyone assigned as a referee by the dungeon is not allowed to be attacked in the danger zone
7. You can give another monster your safe zone time, or save your earned time to be used when you want it
8. Hunting exceptional items may give additional rewards
9. Special contributions ordered by the dungeon core may allow exemptions
I spent a while making these rules, I spent even longer explaining them to each and every monster I had. There was no group chat, and each one needed it to be explained in a way that they understood. The cobwebber was exempt as it requires too much food to hunt and is usefull for building dungeon traps. Something interesting happened after one of the monsters hunted in the danger zone and another was rewarded for hunting outside.
Achievement unlocked: Rule setter You have invented a set of rules without assistance from the system and proven their viability. +20DP, your rules can now be set as dungeon law, all your monsters will inherently understand this law
It would have been nice if I got this reward before spending days talking to my monsters, but I am mostly relieved that I no longer have to explain the rules to every monster I create. The hunting has also gone well, I got some flowers and berries that let me add some berry bushes to the danger zone, and I also got some beetles and even a bee, the bee had a slight problem though.
Worker bee 0.06MP to spawn, 0.001MP/day to maintain A worker bee, able to sting a foe once before dying. Able to gather honey and bite a tiny insect to death.
The bees can''t reproduce without a queen and die after a single attack while being as expensive as a spider. I create a group of 50 for a special squad that is exempt from hunting so that I can kill a small animal that invades, but they don''t integrate into my ecosystem and aren''t cost effective, but they are good to have for emergencies. The beetles have good defence, but they are still at the bug level and aren''t too useful at hunting so I make a few to add to my ecosystem and let them do their thing.
Atlas Beetle 0.07 MP to spawn, 0.002MP to maintain High defence trident horned beetle with regular speed and attack
The skinks have proven useful in hunting, they can gather resources fairly quickly and are good at avoiding getting killed while hunting. There have been a few casualties for the bugs hunting, but populations are quickly expanding and causing the MP cost to raise higher than the hunting rewards. This is why I made it so that eggs need to be hunted for being in the safe zone, I set the cost of protection equal to the cost of the eggs to make it as fair as possible while staying manageable. I don''t know why the eggs cost MP to maintain when they should have all the food provided by the yolk, but any eggs I don''t maintain immediately die so there isn''t anything else I can do. The cave is pretty lively now with the constant buzzing around of bugs, I have grown all the way outside the cave in size now with the excess MP, and upgraded my max mana pool and regeneration using DP from the hunters. I finally have enough MP to buy a second room.
Create room 10MP Creates a 1 square meter room that can be expanded up to 50 square meters, max size can be upgraded with DP.
Create floor 150MP Creates a new floor, different floors can have different specialities purchaseable with DP
I haven''t maxed out the size of my first room, but I want a second room further in so that I can spawn things when an intruder arrives and I need to spawn something to counter them. I also want to avoid getting hit by a ranged intruder in the first room. I create a new room and move myself into it, there isn''t a door conecting the rooms but instead a portal at the end of the first room that coonects to this one, my monsters can move freely between the different rooms. I call up my web worker and start on some more elaborate traps. I offer some mana incentives to get some bugs to gather some rocks, I have the maidbane make a multilayered web that can hold the weight. I have some of the skinkstunnel out some small holes in the ceiling with a bar of rock remaining through the center that the web can loop around, there are four of these holes and they are able to suspend the rock filled web from the celing. I test it by having a bug bite through the web to make the rocks fall, and while the trap does work, it takes a minute for the bug to chew through the webbing. I test just chewing through webbing, and the only way to manage on short notice is to have 3 lynx spiders bite from different sides. I reset the trap and build 3 more in the first room, and 1 in the second room with a special position for lynx spiders to work here for daily mana. I am slightly miffed that I don''t get a trap making achievement, but oh well. I have had a few new intruders, but they were small bugs that got easily hunted by the lynx spiders in the webbed entrance. What is more worrying is that some birds have started nesting outside my cave, they seem to have taken note of my bugs and skinks moving back and forth from here, this in turn has negatively impacted the hunting squads and brought more attention to my cave. This can''t be allowed to continue, so it is time for some.... drastic measures.