I was filled with a terrible sense of certainty of dread over what I was going to find when I focused back onto my ‘entrance’. Seeing a random human, dressed in rough spun clothes and what looked like leather sandals, unmoving in a twisted heap on the floor of the room wasn’t exactly what I feared, but close enough that it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t moving, the fall was just long enough to easily be fatal if it was taken wrong, and knowing my luck the worst had happened.

I sat there for a short time, whether it be panic or fear or some other unidentifiable emotion freezing me in my tracks, but it paralyzed me for longer than I’d like to admit. Finally I shook myself and realized I could try and do something, even if it was just flipping the man over. Tendrils of stone grew from the ground, easing him onto his side before rapidly letting gravity take over, causing him to flop onto the ground with a whump.

I realized if he was alive and had some sort of spinal or neck injury I likely just made them many, many times worse, but the damage would be done. Based on the clothes I didn’t think I was in a time where people even knew what a spinal cord did other than being very important.

Taking some time to examine him, and hoping against hope that I hadn’t made a mistake. My sight took him in all at once, and much to my chagrin, it seemed his neck and head decided to eat all of the momentum of his fall, if the terrible angle it was at was any indicator, or the prodigious amount of blood seeping from his forehead. The man had sandy blonde hair and a fairly dark tan. A wide nose was set into a broad face, which had been lovingly reshaped into a flatter form by my Dungeon floor.

Turns out that regardless of my intentions, I’d managed to kill somebody just by opening up an entrance into my Dungeon. A sort of melancholy filtered in and made me feel sluggish - was this depression? It sure felt like it. I was a screwup of major proportions and I wasn’t even a week into my existence as… Whatever I might be.

I remained in an forced apathetic torpor for some time, lest I break out into a crystalline screaming fit, but that could only last for so long. Dread certainty broke through my lethargy that someone would learn of this, that I’d already killed someone, and take it in literally the worst way possible. Speaking of dread and certainty in the same sentence, surely Box has something to say about this?

Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear.

[Due to your excellent job in killing a human before you even have any traps or truly deadly minions prepared, you have been given a reward!]

[Based on your pre-existing bonuses and perks, your reward has been tailored to you!]

[Death-Mana Alignment has been increased!]

[Perk Acquired:]

[Slayer of Man:]

Although you lacked the normal means, you’ve already managed to slay a human. Due to your prodigious efforts and spectacular results, your creations and their abilities gain an increased potency when facing humanoids.

Well, that wasn’t terrible for when I actually needed to defend my core. For literally everything else though, it was the polar opposite of what I was aiming to do. Granted, I still had no idea what I was going to do other than killing people, but I was hopeful that a focus on Life-Alignment would give me some options! Like maybe a pool of healing. Or something.

So far all I’d gotten was freaking Enticing Aura.

It seemed Box wasn’t done with me yet, however.

[Level Up!]

[You’ve reached Level 2.]

[Leveling increases your Mana Cap, Maximum Size, Minion Cap, and Mana Regeneration.]

[1 Trait point awarded.]

[New Trap and Minion options appear as you Level Up.]

[Mana refilled.]

Oh joy.

[Experience Gained!]

[Experience is gained when engaging and killing foes in your Dungeon. Experience can be used to purchase unique bonuses and augmentations for your Dungeon.]

Is it finally over? Thanks for making me feel happy about a man dying (by accident) in my Dungeon Box. You’re the best.

Is this like positive reinforcement? I do something bad but am given several nice looking rewards for doing so? I won’t give in to you Box! My will is!!!.... Not exactly steel, but some other hard metal! I won’t give in to your machinations and I won’t give up my day old dream of helping people with my killing people powers!

Regardless of that, I suppose I should look at the new points I’ve gotten…

I’m not accepting your bribe, Box, I just want to make sure I don’t die an early death and fail to fulfill my dream!

A new menu opened up, identical to the others, and I chose to look at the Trait points first. Until I looked at the rewards I could get from Experience, I couldn’t say for certain, but it seemed like trait points were much rarer and provided larger rewards designed to, as the name implied, shape what kind of Dungeon I was. There were many focused on basic elements, or even boosts to types of monsters, such as humanoid monsters, increasing their craftiness or quality of tools they had. Others focused on boosting up monster traits, like increasing insect reproduction rate, reducing purchasing costs of certain types of monsters, and more.

I have no idea how many levels I would be gaining, but I’d rather treat Trait points as a rare delicacy to be spent with extreme care and after much consideration.

Which is why I promptly bought the only thing I could see that boosted Life-Mana Alignment.

[Perk Acquired!]

[Let There Be Life:]

Life-Mana Alignment Increased. Life grows in your Dungeon and at an increased rate. Flora, fauna, it matters not, if it lives it shall grow and be hearty and hale.

[SYNERGY DETECTED!]

[Let There Be Life // Life, Death, and Everything Between.]

Let There Be Life now also improves constructs of Unlife. Creatures raised through Necromancy or in the ‘Undead’ Category now also grow as time passes, though slowly, as well as providing a flat bonus to stats across the board.

While that wasn’t an interaction I was expecting, I can’t say I was looking for a specific reaction out of it. Maybe it was pure pique, but Box kept on insisting on improving my Death-Alignment even though I hadn’t actually done anything yet, and yet my very first perk boosted both Life and Death Mana Alignment, so in a way it made sense increasing both was actually beneficial.

They seemed so contrary in terms of what they did though… Odd.

My attention was drawn back to the corpse resting in my entrance room, which Timmy was pecking at. Wait, stop that Timmy! NO! BAD BONE HYDRA!

Those bones aren’t for you, young Hydra. As interesting as it would be to see Timmy grown with some human sized bones, I’d rather not tear them from the poor man who’d fallen into my Dungeon. Not only because that was wrong and not the kind of Dungeon I wanted to be, but it was also like cheating. I hadn’t earned it, or something.

A weird sense of honor or something, to be sure, but one I would stick to.

For the time being I decided to leave him there, purely because if someone saw the hole in the ground and him resting at the bottom, they would likely come to the correct conclusion that he’d fallen in, rather than I’d intentionally slain him. Hopefully.

Making sure Timmy stayed away from the body, I distracted myself by actually making a plan of some sort for defending myself. Oh, and adding stairs to my entrance, because I didn’t want any repeats.

I was still undecided on raising the body of the adventurer I’d found, so for now I focused on the hallways. Currently just packed earth and stone, in addition to pillars for support, I need to expand them or else anybody who comes down is gonna have a real quick trip to my core, and I’ll be sad. And likely dead.

Currently, due to my random expansion, my tunnel had formed a sort of upside down bracket shape, arching up, then right, then back down until I made a connection to the graveyard. I had since covered the whole thing with my mana, successfully expanding and gaining knowledge of its entirety. I’d also avoided consuming anything else without triple checking what it looked like first. At least, I wanted to avoid eating anything that looked like a damn bone again without being sure it wasn’t a human’s, or that Timmy didn’t need it first.

So far that mostly consisted of roots, stone and dirt, and not much else, just like I’d originally been finding until I hit the graveyard and made my tiny little mistake.

The ‘bracket’ wasn’t as large as I wanted it to be, the tunnel maybe stretching a couple hundred feet from core to entrance. I’d prefer not to dig under the graveyard because then I’d literally be the stereotype Box is currently trying to force me into, so I began expanding outwards, in the opposite direction from my ‘bracket’, almost as though I was trying to ‘close it’ and form a square around my core and the entrance. I didn’t intend on making a second entrance to my core room, however, I’m no idiot.

Since consuming the rotten pine, I’d gained access to several basic wooden building materials, so I decided to make my tunnels look less like an old, rundown mine not even capable of affording wooden supports, and more like a proper Dungeon hall.

I didn’t know what other Dungeon hallways looked like, but I knew that I wanted to have some degree of class.

My customization options weren’t very fine, but it allowed me to make slightly smooth wooden planks that would at least reduce the chance of splinters, should someone walk around barefoot down here. The floors of each tunnel became interconnected boards, not quite the hardwood floors I knew but close, using a form of what looked like Ash wood.

I added a light layer of stone to the walls, making it look less natural and more ‘man-made’, with a level of smoothness that was rather amazing for my complete lack of power tools or machinery. With that, though it was nice, the hallways lacked any sort of ornamentation, so I added wooden arches, ironically like those of a mining tunnel, though more decorative and fine.

Increasing the size of each room, and thus reducing the length of hallways between them was my next step. Although it required me to redo some of my work, I also decided just having a short 20 second walk in between each room wasn’t intimidating enough, so I expanded my control, and once that was done, I made each tunnel meander from side to side in the space between rooms. I lowered the elevation and raised it back up, meaning anyone traveling through them would at some point cross over or under the same point they’d just been while attempting to reach the next room.

Because the hallways I was working on were the ones connected to my core, I at random made them revert to dirt and become quite claustrophobically tight. While I hadn’t looked at defenses yet, if undead hands grasping somebody from the dirt was possible, I’d add that nightmare fuel to them in an instant.

Again, because this was the defense of the core, I made the rooms fittingly terrifying. Adding aesthetic touches to the stone turned out to be quite easy, so in one room I added multiple ‘coffins’ which had fake names inscribed into them, as well as varied causes of death. The lids were totally removable, and if my monsters could be put inside some of them I was definitely going to do that.

If I could, they wouldn’t be the stupid kind that popped open the moment the room was entered, but more like a supplement to the existing forces in the room. Whatever was there would engage the adventurers, and while they thought they had a handle on things the new enemies would pop up behind them to surprise them.

At some point my expansion discovered what seemed like a river, and it was deep enough for my expanding mana to touch it. I consumed some and gained it as a building resource.

With that added, one of the rooms became a marshy, muddy swampland. Each step taken there would be a battle, as the very ground itself sucked in their feet and tried to hold them down. It would reduce the adventurers ability to use agility or dodge my (likely slower) undead creatures.

I could only fit one more room and keep it decently sized, and my Dungeony instincts kicked in. It became a wide open area, similar in appearance to my hallways but with stone bursting through the wood floor on occasion, making it not a perfectly flat surface. Wooden struts and pillars appeared, ensuring the structure was secure.

This really looked quite like a… Oh damn. It's totally a boss room.

I’m curious to see what I wind up with here, hopefully soon.

Further exploration of options showed me ‘Room Effects’ which let me add atmospheric fog to basically everywhere. There were other options, but none really did anything to the room that made sense. Like sure, I could mark one as a [Grassy Plain], but seeing as how that added a little tiny fake sun in the corner and made grass start sprouting up through my stone floor, I decided against it.

Instead, each room was designated with [The Chill of the Grave]. Its description clearly indicated it was born from my Death-Mana Alignment, which was fair, and the fog was really just a side-effect of its nature. It basically added a slight enhancement to Undead creatures, while also helping obfuscate details that might otherwise stand out to adventurers, as well as increase paranoia and fear. Not by huge amounts, but the rest that was up to me and all the little things would add up.

Naturally, the next thing to do was populate my rooms with scary, icky monsters.

Loading up the menu, I noted a few that I was likely to use. I could see why Dungeons really needed to specialize, because the base stats of most of the standard creatures like Goblins, Kobolds, etc. were all scarily weak. I mean, that made sense, and likely as things progressed bigger, scarier options were available, but since that seemed tied to Alignment Mana it made sense why focus was important.

Hence, I continued with my theme and looked at the Undead options, though it also looked like I had a few new options from my Life-Alignment as well.

[Zombies]

Cost: 5 Mana

Slow and sluggish, but irritatingly durable. Can be upgraded with diseased bites, noxious gasses, and more.

[Skeletons]

Cost: 5 Mana

Faster than their more fleshy counterparts, but less durable at lower tiers. Can wield equipment better than zombies can earlier, however.

[Skeletal Miners]

Cost: 3 Mana

Although not oriented towards combat, these Skeletons appear armed with pickaxes, but cannot wield other equipment.

[Ghosts]

Cost: 7 Mana

Ethereal spirits that pass through their foes and leave physical wounds behind. Susceptible to magic and silver or highly magical metal, these creatures are otherwise unaffected by normal attacks.

[Ghoul]

Cost: 4 Mana

A stronger variant of zombie that hungers for flesh. Their strikes cause a weak form of paralysis, and as they evolve they become faster and more agile.

[Geist]

Cost: 2 Mana

A spirit that does not interact with the mortal world in a normal way. Instead, it can focus on humanoid senses and provide tricks and distractions while remaining undetectable.

[Cursed Sword]

Cost: 10 Mana

A cursed sword, animated and deadly, that inflicts necrotic and disease damage with each blow.

While there were some other options, at this point they were all slight variants of the same thing. I liked my options thus far, and the fact they could grow and evolve was promising. Zombies and Skeletons were both marked plural, which indicated their higher base mana cost than, say, a ghoul, was because I’d be getting more than one.

Ghosts too, also were marked plural, and they were the most expensive creature I could afford right now. Skeletal Miners piqued my interest, because beyond the mentions about gear that implied I could either obtain, craft, or somehow provide gear to my creatures, their name implied I could either harvest resources or use them to expand faster, possibly beyond my own mana borders if they could leave them. My expansion and editing had kept my mana just below my cap, which was now 50, in addition to expanding my regeneration to 24 per day.

I looked at the Life-Alignment options I’d gained as well.

[Faeries]

Cost: 2 Mana

Faeries have no combat potential, but let off a bright glow and serve as excellent distractions.

[Blessed Sword]

Cost: 10 Mana

A blessed sword, animated and deadly, that inflicts holy and fire damage with each blow.

[Budding Tree]

Cost: 10 Mana

A tree that grows fruit, choosable by the Dungeon. As it grows it gains grasping vines and draining pods.

[Lifedrinker]

Cost: 5 Mana

A small creature that consumes life energy. Though initially small and weak, as they feed they grow larger and drain more rapidly.

Well, at least if I made an alternative path it would be slightly less terrifying than my core defense…

Speaking of Faeries and light, I realized my Dungeon was pitch black. I should probably fix that. Going through the options again, I found torches to be free and easily placed. The larger rooms were still shrouded in a significant amount of darkness, but that was fine. A good adventurer would bring their own torch, so it's not my fault if they can’t see a damn thing in certain parts.

With that minor distraction out of the way, I actually made some purchases with my mana. I put a squad of skeletons and zombies in the first two rooms, getting 10 with each purchase, making them effectively half a mana each. I idly wondered if I would have to repurchase them again each time they died, because if I did… That would suck.

I only regenerated just under half my mana a day, and they weren’t super cheap.

An intrinsic understanding flowed into me, telling me that they would respawn after a certain amount of time. The initial purchase was more like setting magic into stone that allowed them to exist there, and it coalesced the energy into their forms, or something. It was strange, but basically they would come back if they were defeated, which was an extreme relief, because while I still had 30/50 mana left, it wasn’t going to remain that way for long.

The zombies were exactly as I’d assume one would appear if a body that had been exposed to nature for a short time would appear, ranging anywhere from only missing some patches of skin and possessing a few holes but otherwise looking like a particularly damaged human, to the whole rotting skin, eyeball hanging by a thread, entrails and bones exposed kind. Skeletons spawned with gear at random - some possessed a rusted chest plate and nothing else, while some spawned with a bow and arrows. Only half got something major to differentiate themselves, the rest at least got low-quality shortswords.

I added a Geist for the distractions, a pack of Ghosts, of which I got three for my purchase. Down to 21/50, I also chose to buy some Skeleton Miners for fun, dropping me to 18 mana. I spawned them in my core room, and five weathered skeletons appeared, each armed with a dull looking pickaxe. A mental flex of my will that was far easier than it should have been, seeing as to how this was my first time actually doing such a thing, had them begin digging into the wall behind my core.

For utterly lacking muscles, they were fairly strong, clearing dirt and the small amounts of stone they encountered with ease. The material they broke away didn’t just vanish like it did when I was using [Dungeon Manipulation], but that made sense. I could technically clear out their debris all the time, but that would be very distracting, so instead I set up what was essentially a fairly deep hole in the ground, about 5 feet by 5 feet, that they could dump the excess material into, where I could then every once in a while just check it and remove whatever it contained.

To achieve that, I created a crude wheelbarrow made entirely from wood as well as some shovels, with heads of stone. Since the shovels wouldn’t be being used to actually break anything, I hoped they wouldn’t need the supernatural durability their pickaxes were currently showing. Even if I had to replace them at the end of each day, it was better than nothing.

It wasn’t like they would use their hands, since they were made entirely of bone… Everything just kind of ran through their fingers. I’d watched them try for all of 20 seconds before making their current solution.

They reached the end of my Dungeon’s current ‘area’ and while they didn’t stop or otherwise seem inconvenienced by leaving my control, the further they got the further they had to travel with the debris to have me remove it. I had them stop before they got too far, while it was perfectly possible for them to dig a tunnel forever it would be rather difficult without my incredibly easy method of removing the excess.

Instead, I had them start digging down below my core room, because my mana had already extended a fair way downwards just from… Gravity? Something was slowly pulling my reach downwards, and it had reached far enough now that I could probably build an entire other level of floors that would be very helpful if only I… could move my core.

[Core Feature]

[Floor Moving]

When you’ve gained a second floor to your Dungeon, and expanded on it enough, you will be able to relocate your core to the new floor!

Thanks Box! I actually appreciate seeing you for once since you're being helpful and not an utter bastard.

Twat.

Moving on, that makes a certain amount of sense. Grow big enough, gain layers, force people to travel farther and farther to make it to you. As in, the core, the important bit.

Some time had passed, while I was testing my Miners, and my mana had generated back to 20. I purchased another group of Miners, and got a nice surprise.

[Perk Synergy Activated!]

[Skeletal Miners] will become [Skeletal Delvers]

I’d actually forgotten that tidbit, because it specifically said ‘raised by this ability’ in reference to Necromancy. I’d assumed that meant it would only apply to when I actually raised something the same way I did Timmy, but I don’t think I’d checked my monster list at that point - maybe Necromancy was a requirement to even summon undead creatures in general, meaning they technically fell under its umbrella for random improvements as well.

Either way, I’d take it.

The skeletons that spawned all had what looked like primitive hardhats on, to my great amusement. Instead of being garishly colored with reflective strips, they were a dull green padding of some sort, with a stone that glowed and shined a light for them to see by… If they had eyes, or didn’t have perfect vision in the dark regardless. Another fact I found endlessly entertaining.

Their pickaxes were of a higher quality material, though what exactly it was I couldn’t tell. Not only that but they were also equipped with a shovel strapped to their backs, lengths of rope, and what looked like a rock hammer.

Then they got to work, and I was even more astounded. While the normal miners' picks were, for all their shoddy appearance, tough enough to get the work done, the Delvers' picks gouged large chunks of stone and rock from the tunnel they were digging with every swing. They made excellent time, quickly outstripping the normal miners by a decent margin. They followed the same strategy the others did, however, dumping their excess materials into designated pits I would create at regular intervals.

Every once in a while, however, they would stop, take out their rock picks, and tap on an exposed piece of stone. It was an oddity I simply chose not to acknowledge, assuring myself they were born to be miners and knew what they were doing.

Their instructions were simply to carve out large rooms and connect them with tunnels, in a similar vein to what I had done, and I began extending my influence as far as I could to widen the 2nd floor as much as possible. Timmy began to follow them around excitedly, and I was personally glad that his ability to steal bones didn’t seem triggerable off summoned skeletons, because that would have been irritating to deal with.

Namely because I didn’t know if the skill had any limits or even precisely how it worked outside of the basic idea.

Time would tell, I supposed.

With the new floor under construction, limited mainly by my ability to spread my mana out, which had grown a decent chunk faster now that I was Level 2, I focused back on my defenses. Traps were technically an option for me, but neither of my affinities really seemed to boost the options there. I had extreme basics, and while they were workable… it seemed easier to manually create some of them.

I made some basic pit traps that were hidden beneath a thin layer of floor material, which I would have to reset manually but wouldn’t be overly difficult. Sharpened bits of stone were at the bottom, though if anything heavily armored came through it would likely steamroll through it, but getting out might be at least somewhat of a challenge. Smooth stone all the way around.

The swamp room couldn’t easily hold such a trap, and I figured the terrain conditions would be enough. Ghosts would be an absolute terror to deal with there.

Rooms mostly dealt with, I returned to my entrance. I’d spruced it up a bit, adding my now standard wood floors and stone walls. I decorated them slightly, giving them basic swirling patterns to break up the monotony. Nothing to indicate what awaited them within, however.

I had another hall connected to the entrance that I needed to make use of, so with what area my influence covered I made another room. This one I applied the [Grassy Plain] effect to and watched as a tiny, glimmering sun appeared in the corner of the room while grass shoots breached the dirt floor. I’d made it slightly deeper to account for what I planned on putting in there.

22 mana later, dropping me officially to zero for the first time, I filled the room with creatures. First, Faeries. They emerged, tiny and virtually impossible to see except for the brilliant glow forming a corona of light around them. A human could likely smoosh one with a single finger, so I could understand their ‘no combat potential’ rating. Next was a Budding Tree, planted smack dab in the middle of the room.

When it appeared, roots immediately began to spread through the dirt, appearing above the surface before resubmerging, repeating this until the growth slowed and eventually stopped. The tree itself was nearly 15 feet tall, almost scraping the ceiling, though whether that was because it simply stopped itself at that height or I’d made a really lucky guess was unclear. It looked like an apple tree of some sort, and moments later I got the choice of what it should grow.

Most of the options had a decent bonus followed by a large setback, such as the [Fruit of Healing]. As with most Dungeon related things, it seemed designed to kill adventurers. Yes, it technically did what its title said, but it also incited a large amount of lethargy in whoever ate it, slowing them down and being potentially potent enough to convince someone to fall asleep inside the Dungeon. Which being one, I knew was a terrible idea.

I opted for the only good option that I had, at least the one without any drawbacks. It was titled simply [Mana-Rich Fruit] and it was exactly what it sounded like. The dense mana gave it minor regenerative properties, and possibly others I didn’t know about, but it was nowhere near the bonuses some of the others provided, in line with the fact it had no drawbacks.

Focusing on the tree itself, I got further options as to when the tree should attack. These options were probably meant to allow adventurers to eat the fruit and have enough time to be weakened by the results, but in my case I only wanted the tree to attack if it itself was attacked.

Beyond that, I added a Lifedrinker and a pack of Skeletons.

It kind of told a story, I thought, and should provide a decent challenge and reward for any who chose to adventure inside. I’m pretty sure I saw an option for chests in here, for loot, and when I was less mana-starved I could actually implement that. In the meantime, it was time to use the thing I’d been marveling at from the beginning.

[Rule Creation] Activated.

What rule would you like to make?

First things first, I wasn’t sure if I could communicate directly with people or if I even understood their language, but this Rules thing kinda seemed like it went above and beyond. Likely, it interacted with other people’s Box, who I assumed made it work. So this should at least give people the idea I wasn’t a meat grinder just waiting for some piggies to wander in. Or something like that. With my luck things will work out exactly the opposite.

I pressed my desires into the Rule, and watched as something new was born into reality.

[Rule Created!]

[Rule of Fair Trade:]

To those who are willing to bargain, I am willing to trade. Choose a rule, and be rewarded.

First: If you enter with intent to destroy, harm, or otherwise affect the Dungeon core in a negative manner, I shall do my utmost to kill, maim, permanently disfigure, or otherwise ruin the life of those who seek my core. This Rule is non-optional.

Rewards Decreased.

Secondly: If you have no desire to destroy, harm , or otherwise affect the Dungeon core in a negative manner, be bound to that promise. In exchange, I will do my utmost not to kill you. There will be no final blows, no intentionally mortal strikes. If you are defeated, then that is the end, and you may leave, or get up and try again.

Rewards Increased. A reward will be granted based on the number of foes beaten, based on time spent.

Thirdly: To the weak, to the cowardly, to the fearful: The right door shall be blocked, and only the left shall open. Find your courage, face your fears, and rise.

Rewards Increased if courage is shown.

It seemed like an advanced thing for a Dungeon to do, but I’d been given access straight away so surely it was meant for things like this…

Eh, as long as it got the point across, that was fine.

Also, I found it hilarious how I could decrease rewards for something like that. Granted, if all they really wanted was to destroy the core no matter the cost, it didn’t matter, but maybe if someone was doing it in hopes for something cool they would change their mind. Who knows.

As always, my good mood at having created something cool was utterly ruined.

Box struck like a viper.

[A Monster has invaded your Dungeon! Defend yourself or perish!]

Excuse me, what?

My attention rapidly shifted to the entrance. I was immediately granted sight of a large gray wolf.

[Timber Wolf Scout]

Level: 4

This wolf is part of a monster pack. It tracks down other monsters or mana sources for the pack to consume.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I classify as a mana source. Plus being a Dungeon was probably a whole thing in regards to other monsters. Luckily I’d just made my defenses! And Timmy was around here somewhere. I couldn’t see the stats on the scout but they were likely higher than Timmy’s.

The wolf, once it was done inspecting the poor kid's corpse and moving on, immediately broke for the right hand entrance, AKA towards the core. In my rules I’d make a remark about ‘doors’ but really they just kind of swung open. I didn’t have any material that made a suitable spring so… Making a latching door was a little difficult. Plus, my memories weren’t all that technical about how most things actually worked, so my ability to reproduce a door + handle was already going to be in question once I did have materials.

The wolf ran straight into the first room, and pounced on a skeleton that moved to intercept him. I was hoping for something out of him, really anything, but to my dismay the skeleton shattered under the force of the pounce. Not only that, but he was a wolf so he couldn't appreciate the extra creepy tomb I'd built! A zombie approached next, and luckily was significantly more durable. The wolf pounced and though he knocked it over, the zombie quickly grappled it with a show of strength. The scout began to savage the zombie with its fangs, and though he didn’t last long he survived until help arrived in the form of most of the rest of the monsters in the room - a ghost had sidled through the wall and was making its way over as well.

The horde of skeletons and zombies fell on the wolf like I expected a ravening horde of the original zombies I knew would, biting, clawing, and stabbing with the skeleton’s swords. Fur flew and the sound of rending flesh, combined with the pained whelps of the wolf began letting out, really drove home how scary my creatures were. The poor wolf didn’t last long under the onslaught of numbers, the ghost’s help ultimately unnecessary, as it rapidly weakened and and ultimately died.

It was a gory, gruesome way to pass, and I watched the entire thing from start to finish.

It had invaded my home and likely had nefarious purposes, but it was also an animal. Maybe I could have done something with it, but what I would never know. Box provided no answers.

Worse, it was a scout of some sort for a pack of mana hungry monsters, which likely meant there was going to be more coming. Which meant I needed more monsters. Fuck.

I really needed to find a way to get more mana.

Oh! I also had that experience point to spend! Let’s see what that can net me.

I quickly asked, and Box obliged me by opening the Experience point menu.

Inside, I found it was kind of what I expected - it was a lot of what I’d gotten from my level up, just further refinable. Increased mana, regen, Dungeon size, amount of monsters I could put in a room or in total, things of that nature. There were also things that improved chests, lights, and other customizable features of the Dungeon.

For now I invested the point I had into increased mana regen, which increased it by one point, bringing me to 25 per day. Presumably the extra fraction of mana was being built up and discharged into the pool once it reached enough, like Box said, but I wasn’t gonna pay close enough attention to make sure it actually did that.

I’d probably find out as more levels were gained and more Experience let me increase regen further, maybe if I grew to a big number that was actually noticeable in how much it regened my mana by.

I suppose another method of getting mana was eating things that had mana. What if people brought me things to eat? That would be nice…

With that thought I made a nice little wooden offering bowl and table in between the two doors that led into my domain. I made a sign in the only language I knew, English, and hoped they understood. Without the ability to write I used two different kinds of wood that were very different in color, one extremely light and the other dark, to make sure the words stood out.

I simply wrote:

Tips Appreciated

Donations Accepted Here

The first bit was purely humor on my part, and the second was to make sure they actually knew what the hell I wanted them to do.

Whether anybody chose to do so or not was yet to be seen. That, and anybody not dead was also yet to be seen. Discounting the wolf, that is.

Speaking of, I didn’t get a chance to see little Timmy in action yet because he didn’t get there in time. When the wolf arrived, he’d been exploring the lower tunnels with the miners and delvers.

And now, apparently, with a little help from the zombies and skeletons, he’d stripped the flesh off the wolf and was utilizing his ability.

Due to his more squat shape than the leaner one the wolf preferred, the bones weren’t perfect for expanding his entire body. The legs each stole a femur from the wolf, or whatever its equivalent bone is, and its body took some of the rib bones and smaller ones to form a larger body. The smaller bones still adorned the larger ones, providing support and protection it seemed.

The wolf’s tail bones were used to increase the size of the Hydra’s tail, instead of replacing it, making it closer to just past four feet now.

Most amusingly, it did actually use the wolf’s skull to replace one of its heads. Luckily it chose the center one, but it made all the others look comically undersized. It was hard to tell it was even a ‘hydra’ at all because the primary head took up so much space in comparison to the others.

Apparently it had no issues with the weight though, so watching it nimbly dash around and play around with the zombies and skeletons wasn’t as funny as I hoped it would be. I expected it to stumble and wobble for a while, but Baby Bone Hydras are tough I guess.

I almost expected his title to change to ‘adolescent’ or something but maybe he needs to replace more of his heads to make it official. His stats have all shot up, however. Agility remained the same at around 20, but the rest all increased by fair margins. If it's anywhere near as strong as the wolf was, or more, then that’s awesome!

In fact, I’ll likely find out when I’m invaded by an entire pack of wolves… I wouldn’t have made that side room yet if I knew about them beforehand.

While I’m thinking about it, let me name the two doors as well. A sign appeared above the left-hand door, with writing on it that spelled out ‘The Orchard’. Not very original, but it seemed fitting.

On the right-hand door, I wrote ‘Where Evil Dwells’.

Hopefully people get the idea and visit the left hand side only. I made the second rule to allow people to safely try and fight the rest but… Even the base forms of the undead are tricky. At least, in combination. By themselves, zombies and skeletons are fairly weak, it seems, but throw in a ghost or a geist and things start getting trickier very quickly. That’s just with the basic forms too.

One of the Experience upgrades was to reduce the cost of upgrading a specific category of summoned creatures, which is I guess how I manually make something like Mining Delvers, instead of just miners. Or something else out of a combat unit, more likely. My ghosts are likely to be my most deadly monsters, since they shouldn’t be able to be hit by wolves…

Thoughts for when I actually had mana.

Well, time to buckle down. My Dungeon influence was slowly spreading, and while I got tiny tidbits of mana from random things, it was never really enough to get me anywhere serious, but if it helped me break even with what little costs spreading out were inflicting I’d be happy. Also, I’d yet to see anything actually grow yet from my newest Life-Alignment perk, but that probably took time.

Might as well explore some menus while I’ve got nothing else going on…