Doyle sits there in stunned silence as the adventurers leave. Ally, not so much. ‘Oo Oo Oo, care package, care package, what’s in the care package? I’ve heard good things about the endless caves dungeon.’

Doyle takes another moment to come out of his daze, ‘what was that?’ Ally shrugs, ‘from my count about three critical flaws and one very well trained party. You didn’t order your monsters around properly. Missed some side effects of their abilities, and as a bonus didn’t give your kobolds anything to use. That last is why I want you to open the care package. If anything, you will at least get the pattern for leather! The naked kobold thing isn’t really your fault as you had nothing to give them. Sure you could have fashioned some stone tools but without leather or bark to wrap the handles with it would have done more harm than good.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Gah, whatever, sure I will open the dang package. Though I am going to replace the dead monsters first. At least they left the one assassin vine alone, so I didn’t lose too much.’ Seven new monsters later and Doyle turns to the package. The leather is wrapped tightly around whatever is inside with a rough cord and the note is made of paper. Strangely the cord isn’t tied on but rather one piece so he has to resort to deconstructing it.

With the cord gone the sheet of leather falls to the side revealing the package's contents. Before him in a small pile is a collection of simple clothes and weapons plus two little coins. All of it sized for either a child or a small race. Ally claps her hands, ‘Yes! This is exactly what we need. Don’t mind the size or fit, we can change that as needed. For now, just absorb everything and get the patterns.’ Doyle rolls to the side but does as she says.

The pile deconstructed Ally points at his character sheet, ‘You now have some sub tables to your database! I was expecting to first get around to this with your rooms but this is fine by me. Open up the weapon and armor pattern tables as well.’

{Name: Doyle Huxley

Race: Dungeon Core (Strange Caverns)

Soulbond: Ally Huxley

Paths: [27] Dungeon Core 1/1

Level: 0

[2] S[8] A[7] C[10] I[12] W[9] P[5] D[14] K[20] L[16]

World Energy(/R per hour): 1000/1000(250)

Skills: Territory Control lv4, Dungeon Rules lv4, Universal Deconstruction lv4, Dungeon Pattern Database lv10, Creation(Energy Powered, Pattern Based) lv5}

{Dungeon Patterns: goat lv9, dungeon soil lv5, clothes lv5, kobold lv4, assassin vine lv4, weapon patterns lv3, armor patterns lv3, shrubbery lv2, vines lv2, clover lv2, horned rabbits lv1, Earth standard air mix lv1, volcanic rock lv1, Basic Room(Small, Medium, Large) lv1, leather lv1, cloth lv1, metal(copper, tin, silver) lv1, wood lv1, system coins(copper, silver) lv1

Weapon Patterns: sword lv3, dagger lv2, bow lv2, arrow lv2, mace lv1, staff lv1, wand lv1

Armor Patterns: tunic lv3, greaves lv3, helmet lv3, boots lv3, cloak lv1, gauntlets lv1, shield lv1}

She traces the armor patterns with her finger, ‘you got lucky. So many level three patterns just from deconstructing the things once. The level five clothes is to be expected with you having worn them all the time as a human but your world wasn’t very up on more classical weapons and armor. You must have at some point had some experience with the stuff though. My guess is a fascination with swords and some light use of daggers and bows.’

‘Anyway, sub tables in your database skill work just like the database itself. They tend to form when you get enough patterns in a specific category. Overall, better to have the one sub table than each of the contained patterns in your actual database. Some testing has been done and we at least know that under this system one higher level pattern is worth more to your databases level than a bunch of low level patterns.’

‘Also, you might have missed it but your world energy is full but not overflowing. While you aren’t technically open to earth yet adventurers can now enter and leave so it would skew the energy released when you do open up there. Instead of messing with it the system has just stored all the spare energy and will release it when appropriate. This is also so you don’t cheese the tutorial as having all that energy would let you refresh your monsters too quickly and allow you to arm them better than expected.’

‘Speaking of arming stuff lets do that with your kobolds. Not too much as depending on the material and item it will cost you world energy. You need to find the right balance so you can keep your monsters armed but not at a deficit. At the moment you have copper and tin so that means bronze weapons. I advise the classic mix of nine copper to one tin. There are other ratios for stuff like armor but a ten percent tin alloy will do you with weapons.’

Doyle bobs upward, ‘but what about the fact my goats didn’t attack at all?’ Ally’s face goes slack and in a monotone voice says, ‘well they’re goats? What did you expect?’ Her voice returns to normal as she rolls her eyes, ‘Sure they can attack but if left alone they will generally leave you alone. You already knew you could give your creatures orders such as getting rabbits to stay in their burrow. Not to be rude but I basically said that already just moments ago. Though I guess to be more specific here are your three problems again.’

‘One, goats are passive animals so you need to tell them to be otherwise. I advise you to be specific so they don’t just attack everything. Two, the assassin vines can’t move around that quickly. You need to somehow set it up so it is harder to just walk around them. If that one vine hadn’t setup right at the doorway the group wouldn’t have had to fight till the kobolds. Finally number three, arm your kobolds. Luckily the little blighters are already semi aggressive and territorial so they fought back but that only goes so far. Also, your lone kobold will be a good fight once it gets a name. For now, it is just target practice. Maybe let it join the others of the fight is going against them. Oh and order her goats to follow her orders. Hard to work as a team when no one follows orders.’

Doyle sinks downward, ‘yeah I guess that does make sense.’ He sighs, ‘well I have an idea on how to fix the assassin vines. I take a goat from the second large room plus that lone goat right after and put them in the vine room. Order the vines not to attack them and have the goats try and push people into them. As for the gear I think I will keep it simple. Though how do I check the cost of equipment anyway?’

Ally smiles, ‘excellent plan. As for the equipment cost that is easy enough. Just query the system about it. The price can change depending on so many factors. Though a plain dagger will generally be worth about the same every time. As a companion I can actually help with this so let’s bring up a bronze dagger as an example. [System, how much does a bronze dagger cost?]’

{Bronze(9:1 copper tin ratio) Dagger

Temp cost: 5

Loot cost: 43

True cost: 5,000}

‘Notice how the system specifically calls out the alloy? That comes from me having a specific intent for how I want it mixed. Let me show you that again but without the specificity. [System, how much does a bronze dagger cost?]’

{Bronze Dagger

Temp cost: 4

Loot cost: 98

True cost: 10,000}

‘Most of the prices around double while that first temp cost actually went down. The more specific you are when making things the less it will cost as world energy doesn’t have to fill in as much. Now for what each of those numbers represents. The temp cost is what you pay to equip a monster with the dagger but without the intent for it to drop. You put basically no effort into making it a real item. The loot cost is, appropriately enough, how much it costs if you want the dagger to drop as loot. Barring other adjustments the price will generally be ten times the temp cost. Then we have the true cost. That’s what you pay if you just want to make the item for realsy.’

‘There is a reason it costs so much more but it will make more sense to you if we wait until someone gets a loot drop.’ Doyle tilts to one side, ‘but didn’t that last party get some loot? There was the berries and rabbit meat that dropped.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘nah, that was incidental stuff. If you had rabbit meat set as loot for the kobolds it would count. As it is, though that meat was just their energy collapsing into something. If you didn’t have the rabbits for the kobolds to hunt the result could have been quite random. Though speaking of rabbits, they all just hid when the party came through. You need to force excess horned rabbits to stay out or you will develop an overpopulation problem.’

Doyle nodded his core, ‘that all makes sense and I think I have a plan for how to outfit the kobolds.’ Ally brings up an illusion of a kobold and gestures for him to continue. ‘We have two potential magic users so a wand a piece should do. Actually, how would magic use work for my monsters? They can’t really learn much if they keep dying.’

Ally waves it off, ‘If you give the male kobolds wands they will use them. Unlike sentients who have to learn magic most monsters have instinctual spells they can use under the right circumstances.’ With that explained she waves at the kobold illusion and two wands appear next to a hand. Doyle nods again, ‘fair enough. Anyway, I don’t want too many back-line fighters so the rest will get melee weapons. I think two with double daggers and one going sword and board should work.’ The kobold image updates to include two sets of daggers and a sword next to the wands with the shield at the other hand.

‘Decent enough’, Ally admits, ‘but you might want to throw a dagger or shield at the two mages. Don’t take that human mage as an example of how they should be setup. A kobold’s instinctual spell can be done one handed so allowing for a backup weapon is a good idea.’ Doyle pauses for a moment before he continues, ‘you’re right. To even it out one gets a dagger and the other a shield. As for the boss kobold I am thinking of giving her the classic sword and board as well.’

The illusion updates again and Ally smiles, ‘well that’s their weapons accounted for. It could cost you a pretty penny though if you're not careful.’ Doyle agrees, ‘if I tried to make it all loot the gear might end up costing more than the kobolds. I think a single loot item for the five regular kobolds will be enough though. The boss I will spend a bit more on though. If anything, by having more potential drops, she might earn herself a name quicker.’

Ally nods, ‘that is true enough. You can’t be too generous though. Might not want to have all the regular kobolds drop loot. For the moment you will have to re-arm them every time they die so it is easy enough to change up their loadouts. Later on after you gain the ability to automate it things won’t be so easy.’ Doyle thinks on what she just said, ‘should I have the other monsters have actual loot?’ Ally shakes her head, ‘the only ones that might be worth it are the assassin vines and they already are almost guaranteed to drop their berries. I hate to repeat myself but once you see how real loot works, you will understand how to use it better. Now let’s focus on the armor. The system won’t put us back out there for adventurers until we are ready.’