Dungeon's Path
Akhier
Doyle rolls his core. ‘As if I have a choice. The diffuse one is just silly and my vine room would be in darkness with a single source. Realistic it is, though a torch isn’t really my speed. Let me try something.’
Doyle settles down and imagines an LED light strip. When he tries to place this in the entry room nothing happens. Not that he expected it to work but it should be possible. In fact LEDs are incredibly simple in concept. Just power passing between two bits of metal through a semiconductor. He had wanted a light strip because those always looked neat but a single LED isn’t bad. Of course a single LED doesn’t work either.
At this point though he knows what to do. There is no reason a torch would work and an LED wouldn’t. He just isn’t thinking of it right. A torch likely works because it is so obvious. Fire on the end produces light. With that in mind he just has to imagine the inner workings of an LED more.
That does it. Doyle is now the proud owner of a single LED light. Then of course the system sledge hammers another data dump into his brain. He had expected this, Ally had told him it was coming after all. Though now that he has it figured out it seems obvious. That and the fact that the system had to have electric lights or similar as there was the abandoned space station style. He just has to cover his dungeon in lights now.
Or that is what he thinks when Ally interrupts him, ‘oh yeah, don’t forget to spawn your monsters. I might have sidetracked you with the lights.’ He wasn’t going to tell her he had been sidetracked. Two assassin vines, six kobolds, 20 goats, and an absurd number of LED lights later and the floor is mostly finished. For the lights he actually got a bit clever with it. Most rooms would work better with a single light source so he just made a big pile of LEDs on the ceiling. He only made three exceptions for the moment.
The vine room was all shadowy because he hid the LEDs in alcoves and behind plants. For the two by three room with the orderly bushes he had a small group of the lights over each bush. The last exception was the pseudo boss room. He raised a stone throne for the kobold to sit on and has the lights all behind it. He still has one last monster based thing to figure out now with the lighting done. Which kobold to have in the boss room. He remembered that the males were more likely to develop mana and the females qi. ‘Hey Ally, should I stick a girl or a guy in the last room? Do you think qi or mana would work out better?’
Ally cups her chin, “hmm”, ‘that is a good question. If you just had a single goat with them, I would say go with mana. Mana users tend to develop familiars and a goat might work. With two of them though I would advise a girl. That way she makes the best use of both goats you provide her with. Plus magic based mobs aren’t the best for important monsters this early. A well-placed firebolt can turn the tide but you really want a monster with more sustain. Qi users are less bursty in general.’
Doyle tilts his core, ‘good enough a reason for me. One of the girls gets to sit on the throne. Though I guess I should have thought of this before. I currently have an even split but it sounds like I might want to replace a male kobold with a female one. As it is the kobolds home room has more potential mages than martial artists.’
‘Just replace one’, Ally shrugs, ‘later on once you get named monsters it will matter but right now everything is a clean slate. Since you aren’t open to the outside at the moment just like your world energy pool isn’t emptying, you won’t lose any energy when you deconstruct stuff. More so than even other dungeons you’re a bit of a closed loop. Sure energy is coming in but that’s it.’ A brief pause for Doyle to switch his kobolds around and Ally continues the tutorial.
‘Now that you have everything ready we can finally get around to busting open your core room. The first step to that though is designating your dungeon's entrance. If you just tried to open up your core, it would place an entrance without your input and that could be terrible. No one wants adventurers to spawn in their core room even for a minute. As a dungeon in the void it is easy enough for you to reposition the entrance but more dimension bound ones are not so lucky.’
Doyle rolls, ‘as if I have much of a choice anymore. I had already decided when I placed one room farthest from my core. Maybe if I had enough room for multiple branches, there might be somewhere else to put it hell, I was already calling that room the entryway. [Set dungeon entrance there in the center of the left wall of the last large room].’ With that command a circle of crystals burst out of the room’s wall. At the center a black dot forms and expands to fill the crystal structure. As if a never ending hole the blackness of the portal seems to eat everything that touches it, even the light. Only the fact that the crystals themselves glow keeps that side of the room lit. This darkness isn’t a lack of light but rather an object of its own.
{Time Until Core Breach: 1.00.00
0.59.59
0.59.47}
Doyle has other things to worry about though as a timer popped up with the completion of the entrance. Ally glances at it and sighs, ‘don’t worry about the wording. All it means is that unless you open up your core room within the hour, the system will do so for you. More because to not do so would cause a much more catastrophic breach. Since your dungeon is ready, though just create some door between the core and your last room. Try to hide it a little so people can’t just sneak past your monsters but it has to open enough to allow people through. Something about how dungeons are formed requires it. Oh, and once you do create the doorway, you will be open to people. Specifically, because of the nonsense with Flisle there will be people from your planets tutorial tromping through.’
‘Where to put the door? Well, okay that is a stupid question. I place it on the wall next to the boss room. The real question is what kind of door. It has to open but I really would prefer if a single person could not do so. Unless of course they had enough stats under the belt but not much I can do about that. For now, I think just making the door require three normal people to open it should be enough. Someone should be able to double their strength easily enough during the early game as humans aren’t exactly the best weightlifters.’
‘In fact, anyone who specializes in brute force might easily have a raw power well above that. However once again, if they can reach my core room with strength alone not much I can do. Instead, I have to hope that stealthy types will focus agility early on so even if they do make it to the door unnoticed they can’t open it. With that in mind a big rolling stone block might be my best bet early on.’
‘Not much room so I will have to have it roll to cover the entrance to the boss room. I am okay with that but how to get it to roll back? Right, of course. Just [set boss room to be smooth again]. That leaves a ledge and if I [adjust the rock here] to make the slope steeper. Almost done now [smooth the ramp] and [put in some guides] so they can’t just knock the rock over and finished. [Create the rock door] and [remove a circular plug of stone] from my core room opens my dungeon for business. Now how much time did that take?’ He looks over at the timer which is now just blinking on the same number.’
{0.21.33}
Once he has read it, the window closes itself and a new one opens up.
{Searching for Challengers}
Ally looks up at the window and nods, ‘ah the joys of being in a tutorial. The system brings challengers right to you and then gives you a break after they leave. Once we are hooked up to your world, there will just be an open door for people, animals, and monsters to wander through. Not so bad for you as dungeon cores don’t need to sleep but until we are safer, I will be a nervous wreck. Now for the fun part though, the waiting!’
And waiting there was. After the first hour Doyle was worried about it and asked Ally but she can only shrug. ‘At this point as far as the tutorial is concerned we are second-class citizens. Not only does there need to be someone ready to do their dungeon run. They also have to choose the option to try our dungeon instead of just the one they had been training in. With how big earth was you won’t need to worry about no one choosing us but it could take a while. Proper tutorial guides will try to get their trainee to soft cap five skills and train with their group for at least a week. Even with the learning boost in the tutorial this can take a while.’
‘Of course the bad tutorial guides will just try to shove people through as quickly as possible. We have probably missed that deluge of newbs though and I half bet the system wouldn’t count it anyway. Just wait a few days and if by then we still have gotten no one I have some options.’
The first group showed up just shy of three days. Though calling it a group would be a bit of a misnomer. Yes, under the system it counted as a team but a single sneaky boy does not a party make. Doyle informs Ally right away about this event and she quickly demands he brings up a view. He rolls completely to the side tipping her off and asks, ‘What are you talking about? This is the first I have heard of being able to share a view.’
Ally flies back up to his core, ‘oh right. We didn’t really need it so it just slipped my mind. The system provides a nice feature to help dungeon companions. Just focus on one wall intending to show me something that is happening in the dungeon and you will act like a magical projector.’
Doyle does so just in time for them to watch the adventurer step right back through the portal. Ally nods, ‘yeah he was probably a scout for his party. Give it an hour and he will be back with his party. This first trip was just to test the water. He left right away so a healer could check him for any disease, parasite, or poison that might have been around. Though the fact that we didn’t greet him with a lava pool makes it likely his party will be the first to face us unless some other group sneaks in.’
Akhier
Also if you want to read more, my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ) has two free chapters, two more chapters for only a dollar, and even more beyond that for the early access tier.
Chapter 19: Opening Up for Business – Chapter 19
Doyle rolls his core. ‘As if I have a choice. The diffuse one is just silly and my vine room would be in darkness with a single source. Realistic it is, though a torch isn’t really my speed. Let me try something.’
Doyle settles down and imagines an LED light strip. When he tries to place this in the entry room nothing happens. Not that he expected it to work but it should be possible. In fact LEDs are incredibly simple in concept. Just power passing between two bits of metal through a semiconductor. He had wanted a light strip because those always looked neat but a single LED isn’t bad. Of course a single LED doesn’t work either.
At this point though he knows what to do. There is no reason a torch would work and an LED wouldn’t. He just isn’t thinking of it right. A torch likely works because it is so obvious. Fire on the end produces light. With that in mind he just has to imagine the inner workings of an LED more.
That does it. Doyle is now the proud owner of a single LED light. Then of course the system sledge hammers another data dump into his brain. He had expected this, Ally had told him it was coming after all. Though now that he has it figured out it seems obvious. That and the fact that the system had to have electric lights or similar as there was the abandoned space station style. He just has to cover his dungeon in lights now.
Or that is what he thinks when Ally interrupts him, ‘oh yeah, don’t forget to spawn your monsters. I might have sidetracked you with the lights.’ He wasn’t going to tell her he had been sidetracked. Two assassin vines, six kobolds, 20 goats, and an absurd number of LED lights later and the floor is mostly finished. For the lights he actually got a bit clever with it. Most rooms would work better with a single light source so he just made a big pile of LEDs on the ceiling. He only made three exceptions for the moment.
The vine room was all shadowy because he hid the LEDs in alcoves and behind plants. For the two by three room with the orderly bushes he had a small group of the lights over each bush. The last exception was the pseudo boss room. He raised a stone throne for the kobold to sit on and has the lights all behind it. He still has one last monster based thing to figure out now with the lighting done. Which kobold to have in the boss room. He remembered that the males were more likely to develop mana and the females qi. ‘Hey Ally, should I stick a girl or a guy in the last room? Do you think qi or mana would work out better?’
Ally cups her chin, “hmm”, ‘that is a good question. If you just had a single goat with them, I would say go with mana. Mana users tend to develop familiars and a goat might work. With two of them though I would advise a girl. That way she makes the best use of both goats you provide her with. Plus magic based mobs aren’t the best for important monsters this early. A well-placed firebolt can turn the tide but you really want a monster with more sustain. Qi users are less bursty in general.’
Doyle tilts his core, ‘good enough a reason for me. One of the girls gets to sit on the throne. Though I guess I should have thought of this before. I currently have an even split but it sounds like I might want to replace a male kobold with a female one. As it is the kobolds home room has more potential mages than martial artists.’
‘Just replace one’, Ally shrugs, ‘later on once you get named monsters it will matter but right now everything is a clean slate. Since you aren’t open to the outside at the moment just like your world energy pool isn’t emptying, you won’t lose any energy when you deconstruct stuff. More so than even other dungeons you’re a bit of a closed loop. Sure energy is coming in but that’s it.’ A brief pause for Doyle to switch his kobolds around and Ally continues the tutorial.
‘Now that you have everything ready we can finally get around to busting open your core room. The first step to that though is designating your dungeon's entrance. If you just tried to open up your core, it would place an entrance without your input and that could be terrible. No one wants adventurers to spawn in their core room even for a minute. As a dungeon in the void it is easy enough for you to reposition the entrance but more dimension bound ones are not so lucky.’
Doyle rolls, ‘as if I have much of a choice anymore. I had already decided when I placed one room farthest from my core. Maybe if I had enough room for multiple branches, there might be somewhere else to put it hell, I was already calling that room the entryway. [Set dungeon entrance there in the center of the left wall of the last large room].’ With that command a circle of crystals burst out of the room’s wall. At the center a black dot forms and expands to fill the crystal structure. As if a never ending hole the blackness of the portal seems to eat everything that touches it, even the light. Only the fact that the crystals themselves glow keeps that side of the room lit. This darkness isn’t a lack of light but rather an object of its own.
{Time Until Core Breach: 1.00.00
0.59.59
0.59.47}
Doyle has other things to worry about though as a timer popped up with the completion of the entrance. Ally glances at it and sighs, ‘don’t worry about the wording. All it means is that unless you open up your core room within the hour, the system will do so for you. More because to not do so would cause a much more catastrophic breach. Since your dungeon is ready, though just create some door between the core and your last room. Try to hide it a little so people can’t just sneak past your monsters but it has to open enough to allow people through. Something about how dungeons are formed requires it. Oh, and once you do create the doorway, you will be open to people. Specifically, because of the nonsense with Flisle there will be people from your planets tutorial tromping through.’
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‘I looked at the conditions and don’t expect to finish by having a single person try to brave your dungeon only to fall and break their neck. The group you defeat has to be a party of at least six people and of them three have to be defeated by your monsters. Also, don’t worry about them messing with your core. The system will put up another portal in the doorway which will take the winners back to their tutorial instance.’ Finished Ally sits back down on the core and takes out yet another book. To himself Doyle wonders if the reason she only brought a single pinch of dirt was because all the rest of her storage was filled with books. That wasn’t important though, so he refocuses on his core room.‘Where to put the door? Well, okay that is a stupid question. I place it on the wall next to the boss room. The real question is what kind of door. It has to open but I really would prefer if a single person could not do so. Unless of course they had enough stats under the belt but not much I can do about that. For now, I think just making the door require three normal people to open it should be enough. Someone should be able to double their strength easily enough during the early game as humans aren’t exactly the best weightlifters.’
‘In fact, anyone who specializes in brute force might easily have a raw power well above that. However once again, if they can reach my core room with strength alone not much I can do. Instead, I have to hope that stealthy types will focus agility early on so even if they do make it to the door unnoticed they can’t open it. With that in mind a big rolling stone block might be my best bet early on.’
‘Not much room so I will have to have it roll to cover the entrance to the boss room. I am okay with that but how to get it to roll back? Right, of course. Just [set boss room to be smooth again]. That leaves a ledge and if I [adjust the rock here] to make the slope steeper. Almost done now [smooth the ramp] and [put in some guides] so they can’t just knock the rock over and finished. [Create the rock door] and [remove a circular plug of stone] from my core room opens my dungeon for business. Now how much time did that take?’ He looks over at the timer which is now just blinking on the same number.’
Once he has read it, the window closes itself and a new one opens up.
{Searching for Challengers}
Ally looks up at the window and nods, ‘ah the joys of being in a tutorial. The system brings challengers right to you and then gives you a break after they leave. Once we are hooked up to your world, there will just be an open door for people, animals, and monsters to wander through. Not so bad for you as dungeon cores don’t need to sleep but until we are safer, I will be a nervous wreck. Now for the fun part though, the waiting!’
And waiting there was. After the first hour Doyle was worried about it and asked Ally but she can only shrug. ‘At this point as far as the tutorial is concerned we are second-class citizens. Not only does there need to be someone ready to do their dungeon run. They also have to choose the option to try our dungeon instead of just the one they had been training in. With how big earth was you won’t need to worry about no one choosing us but it could take a while. Proper tutorial guides will try to get their trainee to soft cap five skills and train with their group for at least a week. Even with the learning boost in the tutorial this can take a while.’
‘Of course the bad tutorial guides will just try to shove people through as quickly as possible. We have probably missed that deluge of newbs though and I half bet the system wouldn’t count it anyway. Just wait a few days and if by then we still have gotten no one I have some options.’
The first group showed up just shy of three days. Though calling it a group would be a bit of a misnomer. Yes, under the system it counted as a team but a single sneaky boy does not a party make. Doyle informs Ally right away about this event and she quickly demands he brings up a view. He rolls completely to the side tipping her off and asks, ‘What are you talking about? This is the first I have heard of being able to share a view.’
Ally flies back up to his core, ‘oh right. We didn’t really need it so it just slipped my mind. The system provides a nice feature to help dungeon companions. Just focus on one wall intending to show me something that is happening in the dungeon and you will act like a magical projector.’
Doyle does so just in time for them to watch the adventurer step right back through the portal. Ally nods, ‘yeah he was probably a scout for his party. Give it an hour and he will be back with his party. This first trip was just to test the water. He left right away so a healer could check him for any disease, parasite, or poison that might have been around. Though the fact that we didn’t greet him with a lava pool makes it likely his party will be the first to face us unless some other group sneaks in.’
Akhier
Also if you want to read more, my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ) has two free chapters, two more chapters for only a dollar, and even more beyond that for the early access tier.
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