The Dungeon Instructions were, thankfully, of more help for item creation than they were for many other topics. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been written with mimics in mind.

Loot tables are set when mobs are created for the Copper Floor and up. You can manually set the Tin item tables, but it’s best to just allow auto generation to take care of coins, as most adventurers will have mundane gear better than you can create or will be able to purchase it easily. Your own generation catches up with mortal crafters, starting at Copper. Note that if your dungeon spawns with a Fissure nearer to you than a Sapient Settlement, your coinage will be unusually large. This is a deliberate to entice adventurers to risk coming to you.

Vysala raised an eyebrow and gave Zaria a sideways look. The Dungeon was displaying the words in the reformed crystal ball for the Vysala to read. “So that’s why your coins are so large.”

“Apparently,” Zaria said. “I’m glad I couldn’t figure out how to change it, then. With me being mobile, the extra large coins will probably be another incentive. Although I do wish the mimics wouldn’t drop them for the Reclaimers.”

Vysala shrugged. “Just make sure that none leave alive with coins your mobs drop. Either they leave behind their winnings or they don’t leave.”

Zaria gave her a fierce smile. “I like the way you think.” She turned back to the dungeon instructions.

Upon reaching Copper, you will be able to set loot tables on a per floor (Floor also meaning per Room or Wing or per Sector or any other designation) and per boss basis. Individual mobs can be given custom loot tables, but it is not recommended - just allow the entire floor to share a loot table. While doing so, it is recommended that you include some consumable magic items - potions of healing and potions of mana will drop freely, while other Copper Tier consumables will drop once you’ve absorbed, duplicated, and assigned. It is recommended that you set them on a low percent-

Zaria scrolled through faster. All of this was information on how to make loot drops, not how to make the loot. It was a couple more paragraphs covering recommended drop rates and other information that Zaria needed after she was working on her Copper Floor.

Right now she wasn’t interested in that - she was looking to go to war.

“There it is,” Vysala said, pointing. A footnote directed them to a new section of the text, and Zaria focused on that.

Item creation is accomplished through runes. Unlike mortal crafters and casters, you do not need to learn the runes, any more than you need to learn anatomy to make your mobs. You just need to express your intent upon the item when it is created or assigned to a loot table. If you’ve just hit Copper, it is recommended that you only create a couple uncommon items, as magic items can create balance problems if adventurers get a combination that runs contrary to your dungeon design.

Item creation is not limited to mob elemental heart types unless you are making items for your mobs to wield. The following weapon properties are available for all dungeons, unless an upgrade or ability explicitly removes it from your list. [NOTE: Due to the recent influx of demons, the available properties have been expanded.]

All of these may be upgraded for later tiers.

All Items: Copper Properties.

Repairing: The item will, after eight hours of not being used, restore itself to its ideal shape. This cannot repair an item that has been completely sundered, but will repair dents, small punctures or cracks, and restore sharpness. Locating: Once someone has used a locating item, they will be able to sense its location so long as it is within one mile of the user. Calling: An item with the Calling property can be summoned to the user, fully equipped, so long as it is within one mile of the caster. Mystic - A mystic weapon may be granted any minor property the crafter can think of that does not directly increase its combat potency, but provides some other benefit. Some examples include: Armor that blends in better with particular terrain types, weapons that make the user more intimidating when held, and shields that focus reflected light to a particular point.

General Weapons: Copper Properties.

Bleeding - A bleeding weapon, upon hit, causes a light debuff that drains stamina. Accursed - An accursed weapon will slightly dull the target's reaction time upon hit. Irritating - An irritating weapon will cause additional pain, increasing aggro on mobs and causing the normal effects of pain on mortals. Charging - A charging weapon may be charged with the user’s mana, increasing its damage when the charge is spent. Casting - Choose a Tin tier spell that you have witnessed cast within your dungeon. Upon hit, there is a 5% chance for the weapon to also automatically cast the spell, targeting whatever was hit.

Melee Weapons: Copper Properties.

Parrying - a parrying weapon will reduce impacts when used to parry. Impacting - An impacting weapon will, upon hit, propel the target backwards as if shoved. Sundering - A sundering weapon, upon hit, reduces the target’s defenses by 5% for 3 seconds. Throwing - A melee weapon with the throwing property will balance itself mid-air, allowing it to be thrown with far greater accuracy than its construction would allow for. Rare and above weapons with the Throwing property may also be given ranged weapon properties.

Ranged Weapons: Copper Properties.

Seeking - A seeking weapon will, mid flight, change its path by 1 degree for every 10 feet traveled to a maximum of 10 degrees over 100 feet to ensure it hits its target. Bouncing - A bouncing ranged weapon will, upon striking a nonliving object, ricochet once without losing any momentum. Hunting - A hunting ranged weapon will, upon hit, mark its target with a glyph that floats over the target’s head for 5 seconds. This glyph persists and is visible through stealth. Bashing - A ranged weapon with the bashing property can be used in melee without any risk that it’ll be less effective as a ranged weapon. It will retain the normal vulnerabilities of its construction material, but it will only lose ranged effectiveness if it is broken. Rare and above weapons with the Bashing property may also be given melee weapon properties.

There was a longer list that included Armor and Shield properties, but Zaria didn’t delve into those right now. She was focused on the weapon properties. “There are so many options,” she said, practically giddy, then turned to Vysala. “You know more about item strength than me,” Zaria said. “Are any of these properties a bigger increase to damage than just making the item Uncommon? Because a lot of them feel very powerful.”

“That’s because they are.” Vysala drummed her fingers on the table. “The rule of thumb is to assume an uncommon weapon will hit 15% harder than its mundane counterpart. Those are probably in line with that.”

Zaria frowned. “I’m confused by a few, though. Hunting doesn’t seem to match that, for example.”

“Stealth is almost unbreakable at Copper,” Vysala said. “It’s not until Silver that options to break it become more common. Which means that things that break stealth are treated as disproportionately strong at lower tiers. That being said, I agree. It would be better on a Rare once you unlock the ability to make those, or when you get Hunting II, where the mark also increases damage done against the target, but on its own… it’s underwhelming.”

Zaria nodded. “Then I can discount that one for now. Once my core is stable, I can afford to play around with the more niche abilities, but until then I’m going to focus on the ones that are clearly useful. Bouncing is off the table for now. Bashing could be incredibly powerful on a mimic - but I’ll need to test how strong they are in melee already first. It might not be needed for them.”

“Not looking at the melee abilities?” Vysala said.

“Not yet. I do want to make a sword mimic before we go into the fight, but I’m going to start with just the Crossbow mimics for right now. Worst-case scenario, I stick a bunch of them to my roof and become a living turret of doom.” Zaria let out a quiet sigh at the thought. “I mean, I’m doing that anyway, but it’s a question of the ratio.”

Vysala nodded and grinned. “I do like that.”

“Thought you might.” Zaria looked at the general weapon abilities. “Casting seems like it would be much more useful if I had more traditional casters in my dungeon, so I’ll leave that alone for now, too. I haven’t seen any spells worth duplicating only one out of every twenty hits. My mimics also don’t have a mana pool, so charging is out until I figure out how to give them one. That leaves me with Seeking, Bleeding, Accursed, and Irritating. I’ll make one of each and test them on the Candlemen.”

Vysala leaned forward. “Which are you going to start with?”

“I’m going to run a test first.” One candleman walked out of the second floor room. It carried a shield in front of it, and dropped down to one knee, hiding its full mass behind the shield. At the same time, the crossbow mimic began to slide along the floor, out of the door and into the hallway. It went to the opposite end of the hall from the candleman and set itself up, extending the “arm” it had been granted by the Weaponry Mimic upgrade so it could hold itself up and take aim. Zaria commanded it, speaking both telepathically to the mimic and out loud for Vysala’s benefit.

The crossbow mimic’s bowstring snapped, then it reloaded and repeated. It was faster than a mortal with a crossbow would be, shooting at speeds more in line with a mortal armed with a shortbow. Of the ten shots, three hit, clanging off the shield. The other shots came close, but didn’t quite hit, instead embedding themselves in the wall behind the candleman.

Zaria commanded it.

That dropped the mimic’s firing speed considerably, closer to the normal time it would take a human to load a crossbow. Its accuracy, conversely, increased dramatically - nine out of ten shots hit the shield, and two broke through, cutting through the candleman’s wax.

Zaria said. She replaced the candleman’s shield. she told the candleman. Then to the crossbow mimic she gave a simple and deliberately broad command.

The crossbow mimic opted for the slower, more methodical firing pace it had before. It seemed it would only go for the fast shots if she commanded it to do so. The first three bolts clattered off the shield. The crossbow mimic snarled, its tongue hanging out, and paused between shots to open its eyes and stare for a second. There was something like intelligence behind that baleful glare, as if the mimic was trying to puzzle out exactly why its shots weren’t working.

Then it fired for the candleman’s knees. The smaller targets were harder for it to hit, dropping its accuracy some, but not so much it couldn’t hit the candleman. Against a human, it would have been perfect, dropping the target on the spot. Against a mimic made of wax, with no real muscles, the blows still hurt but did nothing to impede its target.

The crossbow mimic opened its eyes again, that intelligence working. It slid forward, then paused, cocking to the side like a confused animal. It looked at the door to the Oven room, then slid over there. The mimic didn’t have any arms, but its tongue lashed out, wrapping around the doorknob and starting to clumsily try to turn the implement.

Zaria locked the door. It was smarter than she’d given it credit for. She wanted to see how far that would go.

The Crossbow mimic snarled, then retracted its arm and slid up to the wall. Its sluglike motion wasn’t just for show then - it could adhere itself to the wall, and when it reached the top, it was now on the ceiling, out of the candleman’s reach.

Then it started to move towards the candleman. It crossed the distance between them fairly quickly. At Zaria’s command, the candleman tried to grab the Crossbow mimic, but it was too high up. The mimic was now heading for the stairs, clearly trying to flee the hut entirely.

Zaria said to the candleman. She’d proven her point. The mimic dropped its arms.

The moment it did, with viper-like speed, the crossbow mimic extended its arm, dropping its mandibles down in front of the candleman, and let three rounds fire. It was shooting as quickly as it had for that first volley, but now only a few inches from its target.

Zaria said to the crossbow mimic. It purred. It actually purred like a happy cat.

“If that thing decided to stay on a ceiling and drop down behind someone,” Vysala said, trailing off for a moment before collecting her thoughts. “Well. The group better hope it’s the tank it targets.”

“Yeah,” Zaria said. “Okay. So the crossbow mimic is as smart as Rav. It can fire fast, but at a cost of accuracy. Also, just good to know that I need to be careful how I phrase my orders. I’m willing to bet if I had told it to stop the candleman, without adding ‘from touching you,’ it would have shot for the knees longer.”

“That also might have prevented it from trying to engage in melee,” Vysala said.

“Good point.” She turned her attention back to the mimic.

The crossbow mimic, only a couple inches from the candleman, reared back and then lashed forward, striking the candleman and tearing chunks of wax with its jaws. It had… very little impact. Clearly, ranged weapons turned mimics were not good melee fighters.

Zaria commanded it to strike, then reabsorbed both the mimics. “So,” she said. “Let's run the tests for each property.”

She used the mob heart from the same crossbow mimic as before to create a Seeking Crossbow mimic. It looked almost exactly the same as before, save it had runes along its side in glowing blue, and a second set of eyes. When it fired slowly, every bolt struck into the shield. It was when it fired at rapid speeds that the difference became noticeable, however - all but one of the arrows swerved to hit the shield. However, a downside became apparent to Seeking - when it aimed for the candleman’s knees, the bolts would curve towards the center of mass, striking the shield more than they would have otherwise.

Zaria’s excitement was somewhat dampened by the notification, however.

New Mob Variant Discovered! Seeking Crossbow Mimic. 10 Command.

So it doubled the mob’s cost, but more importantly, it had probably cost her Core Stability. She went and checked. Sure enough, it had - although less than she’d feared. Discovering the crossbow mimic had would have cost her 7% of her stability - thankfully, that was covered by her free reward for reaching copper. The variant had cost her, however. It was only 3%, so not as bad as it could have been, but it wasn’t free.

Still, she didn’t want to go too far with this.

Bleeding, Accursed, and Irritating, from what Zaria could see, all had the same general effect - no change when firing against the shield, but each proved better at stopping the candleman from reaching the Crossbow mimic. It noticeably slowed from Bleeding and Accursed - although the latter was because it started to stumble after three hits from the cumulative effect of the cursed, and the former was because it just couldn’t maintain forward momentum after five hits from the bleeding effect. Irritating bolts got the candleman to eventually throw aside its shield and charge wildly, allowing the crossbow to take deadly aim.

Each mimic type, however, counted as a separate new mob. Zaria was getting notifications for each one, informing her of the new discovery and the cost increase. As such, each experiment was also draining her core stability.

Starting to get worried about pushing herself too hard, Zaria ran one final test and went for the Uncommon crossbow.

This proved to be incredibly effective - a single shot punched straight through the shield, the bolt passing through to hit the candleman behind. Zaria whooped at that.

The entire battery of tests had cost her. She was down fifteen percent core stability form all five variants, and she hadn’t yet tried a sword mimic or the new boss - which would be even more expensive in terms of stability.

“I think I can work with this,” Zaria said. “Even with the cost. If I make Uncommon Candlemen, Crates, and the Sword mimic and boss… that should give me just enough to summon mobs for the fight. I think. I was nervous going in at 43%, but now between summoning mobs and running those tests - which I think were needed, don’t misunderstand me - plus normal wear and tear from existing, and of course the new Ovens… it’s starting to get bad. Not dangerous, but we’re going to need to delay. There’s a Fissure opening in three days north of here. It’ll be safer to go there first, and…” she eyed Vysala up and down. “Why are you grinning?”

“I was going to wait to surprise you. I didn’t think you were getting this low - you need to keep me updated on your stability. Remember how I said the Coven could offer no aid because of bullshit politics? Well, it would be more accurate to say they could offer you no provable aid.” Vysala reached into her pouch. “Rahana, however, knows how important this is. And we don’t feed Minor Fissure Cores to Cestmir anymore. They don’t offer him enough benefit. So as long as the aid can't be tracked back to the Coven, she can at least do that.” Vysala pulled the Fissure Core out and put it on the table. “Absorption doesn’t leave any evidence, right?”

Zaria cackled and rubbed her hands together. “No. No, it does not. Guess we’re back in business. Last time put me back to full.”

“So go ahead and absorb it,” Vysala said.

“Not yet,” Zaria said. “Running tests costs Stability, right? Well… why not do the swords and the boss first, run the last few tests, then absorb after I’m down to 10%.” Zaria refused to drop lower than that. It felt far too risky.

Vysala nodded and left the core on the table. “Speaking of which… what were you thinking about for the Boss? It needs to be something you already had in your dungeon, right?”

“It does. And you know what I realized.” Zaria’s excitement was palpable. “Nine of the Ovens in here I created. But one? One of them was the oven I already had from before. And personally, I think an oven would make an excellent boss.”

Vysala’s nodded eagerly. “Oh, I agree fully. Shall we?”