TODO list for hubby.

We need more firewood. I don’t think we can last through winter like this. If you have time, we could also use more water brought up from the river. The rain barrels are getting low.

Some of the hunters brought back a whole giant Boar and distributed meat to the rest of our village. I’m planning on making a roast tonight. If there’s a merchant in town try to trade for some spices. I left some chips by the door if you do.

Alverno is coming of age soon. He wants to pick some useless artsy class. Can you convince him to pick something more useful? Monster attacks have been growing these past few years so an adventuring job will help him out tremendously. It makes good money and you know he needs that. If he doesn’t want to pick a physical class (sigh), the least he could do is pick a mage variant. It’s the best way for him to make his way in the world and he listens to you. I just want what’s best for him.

I adore you. <3 have a good day my love.

Excerpt from a typical small village family's post-it notes.

Okay, what is a trap?

It’s a way of catching beasts and the unaware... I want to make some defences that won’t immediately kill careful adventurers; however, could damage or even kill something like that demon.

Feeling annoyed by the need to he checked the market for traps and was slightly vindicated by the fact there wasn’t any highly rated ones. He bought one set of 3 only to stare in disbelief at how unimaginative they were.

*tripwire: Heres how you make a wire...here's how you run it across a hallway.*

*pit: Dig a hole in the path and hope someone falls in*

*pressure plate: anything that steps on this makes a metal spike shoot up*

Ah well! Guess I’ll have to make them myself… shame... shame... I do actually really want some non-monster defences.

Let’s see. I’ll make a "straightforward path that’s dangerous" and a "hidden path that’s safe" to start.

Picking one of the hallways at random, he carefully dug out a smaller meandering crack of a path beside it, connecting the two rooms. Then he dug a pit across most of the straight path and started growing several large crystal spikes upwards.

There was obviously a problem. He wanted the stupid to fall into the spikes but…even the stupid would see them currently. At least this was just the start.

Is there a way to hide them more?

He tried growing a thin sheet of crystal over it that would shatter with weight – picking one of the mostly opaque variants.

It kind of worked out how he was hoping – if you were being careful and looking down, you could see the spikes faintly through the floor – but anyone rushing would step on them.

The only thing is I can’t be sure someone will break this… what if a flying demon comes?

Checking his newfound (dirty bought) knowledge, he kept circling back to Gravity mana.

Gravity mana flipped the material interaction from Kinetic mana. So, a material made with it would stay still. Either pushing or pulling things towards it in a range – instead of pushing or pulling the object itself as Kinetic mana did.

Of the variants it was one of the easier combinations he could try, so he worked on making the new mana type. Less an entirely different flavour like Crystal off shooting from Earth – Gravity mana was almost the other side of a coin from Kinetic mana.

Let’s see.

Following the mana guide, he sort of… inverted some Kinetic mana. Pulling it into itself and then pulling that back out, Innearth made the mana turn a deeper purple and attached it to a plate of metal.

Trying to move that plate to the center of the hallway, Innearth pushed the fragile floor down too much and caused it to shatter as the plate passed overhead. The floor, breaking with nothing but its own mass pushing down on it.

Tch.

Digging upwards, Innearth played with the range of the plate. After moving it up and down he found a position that was far enough away to push down on things near the top of his hall but not break the pathway at the bottom.

I guess someone could crawl through the hallway if they were light enough, because the gravity is nearly normal at the bottom…but I’m sure anyone light enough to do that without breaking the floor anyways, is going to be unimportant. And anything flying above will be pushed down much harder, knocking it down faster.

Making several plates of varying sizes he found the thickness of the plate affected how strong the push was, while the surface area affected how far it pushed.

Kinetic mana was weird and Gravity mana more so. The plate radiated out in one direction while completely ignoring the other…and instead of making a dome around it, the range of effect was closer to a slightly cone-shaped (square) cylinder. Kind of like a really tall pyramid that was cut halfway through, centred on the plate. The line between nothing and being effected nearly instantaneous. The guide just described how it functioned...it didn't mention how weird it was! I want to study this more sometime...when I have more time.

Moving on to a quick (important) decoration session, he made sure this obvious hallway was brightly lit with fire crystals. Each set in small alcoves along its length, while leaving the less obvious path in complete darkness. The hallway looked friendly and it was hard to notice the danger below...but anyone suspicious by it would be able to spot the spikes.

Wanting feedback, he messaged Amy for the first time in a few days.

Innearth: Hey! I can’t really show you, but I want to talk about the trap I just made.

Describing it in detail he waited for her to respond with feedback.

Amy: Oh hello~

Amy: It sounds perfectly fine. You should make sure your dungeon monsters know not to wander into it. I’m in contact with “The Trap Guy” a Core that specializes in traps if you want better feedback. How have you been doing? It's been a while since you last reached out and now you’re focused on making traps when you haven’t even mentioned them before? You good?

Innearth: Yeah I’m great! Can you introduce me to the trap Core? Sorry, I haven’t reached out in awhile I’ve been busy on renovations.

Amy: Yeah sure! I’ll message him and send him your way. Well anyways if you ever want to talk, I’m here.

Innearth: I’ll keep that in mind! Thank you for your time.

Amy offering help only gave a slight twinge of what Abe had given him when he refused to explain what had happened to him.

Not important for her to know honestly.

Returning to designing his dungeon he made a branching path with separate room heading into the boss room.

*The illusion of choice* lol. Imagining agonizing over the choice when they lead to the same area. I guess I should be productive while I’m waiting for the "Trap Core" to respond.

He started expanding all the rooms slightly while waiting for a response. Two of the rooms were too close when expanded so he made a stairway to fix the level difference and bumped them up against each other. Finishing the few dead ends and branching paths he had started on earlier he pulled back to observe the whole dungeon.

Okay, that amused me, but I don’t want to connect every room to each other. I need a way of letting monsters move around, that’s separate from the dungeon path.

Working on expanding one of the mana vents he started tunnelling small snake-sized connections around his dungeon.

I like the pillar room, to be honest…I’ll make a second one! It seems like a good fit for my crystal snakes making them more deadly...and it's better than an empty room.

Connecting a somewhat empty room to the snake tube network, he designed a second pillar room, this one larger than the last.

Partway through growing the different styled crystals he got a message.

The Trap Guy: I hear you’ve decided to follow the one true path of the trap dungeon. Welcome brother. Your world is about to change.

Innearth: Hey! I heard you could provide some pointers for traps?

The Trap Guy: Yes! I’m here to indoctrinate assist you in the noble art of the trap.

The Trap Guy: I’ve made a leaflet! Please peruse and then we can get started.

Accepting the trade request Innearth read the trap information

Traps are the only real important thing for a dungeon to have. They must challenge and bewilder adventurers.

There are 3 main ways of building a trap:

#1 design it as a static system that doesn’t need to be reset. Example: making a vent that shoots fire every time it overflows with fire mana on a schedule.

#2 design potential moving parts and give them life – if the parts are attached to something, they will be similar to plants that have intelligent designs, if you let them roam free it's just a monster…not really a trap. Example: making a flame burping plant that’s attached to a wall and can aim at stuff.

#3 is just like the last. Add moving parts and then pass your own influence through them over and over again until it becomes a part of your body. Then you’ll be able to control them but –there’s the sad fact of having to pay attention if you want to set it off. Example: making a flame turret that you can aim if you so desire, or a door you will only open if someone solves a riddle.

There are also several goals with building a trap.

The main point of traps is to test one of an adventurer’s traits. Perception/Intelligence are the big ones but there are obviously as many ways of designing a trap as you can think of! For example, want to test an adventurer’s intelligence? Give them a riddle or puzzle and figure out how to force them to complete it. If you want to test Strength/Dexterity you could design a door that needs someone super strong to open it, or a series of pillars they have to jump across. You could design those as shortcuts if you don’t want to cut off adventurers that are particularly bad at them, or you could simply favour your desired traits and ignore those that don’t make the cut!

Traps are love, Traps are life. If it's not obvious from the description I’ve given, Traps are the most important part of a dungeon. Watching adventurers fight monsters is only challenging their fighting talent. A true dungeon challenges so much more.

The Trap Guy: Wellllll, what do you think? Pretty convincing huh? Anyways, I heard you made a trap already – tell me what you came up with!

Finishing reading the short guide Innearth closed it and saw the trap Cores message. Quickly giving a description of what he had done they responded favourably.

The Trap Guy: For a first shot? Pretty good! You’re testing perception by making it somewhat hidden but still obvious if someone’s paying attention. You could have tried even harder to hide it with illusion magic for example and then given a riddle that warns of the danger of picking the obvious path to test intelligence/impatience instead.

The Trap Guy: Gotta say, the only real problem is you’ll have to manually reset it if anything walks across and breaks the floor. How about making a stronger floor - putting it on a hinge or spring and making it either a mechanism or attaching it to yourself. That way you just have to flip it up to reset instead of actually regrow the thing. Minor pointer feel free to ignore.

Innearth: Alright, I’ll try and remake it that way.

The Trap Guy: I’m just glad I’ve come across a fellow connoisseur. A lot of these…rocks we must call countrymen completely ignore traps. Fake dungeons I call em.

The Trap Guy: Nothing but dens of wild monsters they are.

Innearth: I mean yeah traps seem important do you have any good traps I should make?

The Trap Guy: No! Traps must be unique…or at least somewhat unique…they can be similar, but they should all have a hint of freshness. I can’t just give you a trap design. If I do that adventurers will find traps to be too similar.

The Trap Guy: I'm conflicted when I check the store. There's a thousand useless monster variations and no real good trap designs...but I also believe no Core should copy and paste another's trap. If I saw good trap designs I'd be annoyed too...

The Trap Guy: I can just imagine adventurers walking around with a puzzle guidebook “this one always tells the truth this one always lies? Yep page 5 go to the left”

The Trap Guy: I wonder if I can commission a Mental mana core to make something that makes adventurers forget if they've heard of a trap before...

Innearth: Okay…I’ll try and come up with stuff myself.

The Trap Guy: Good luck!! If you come up with any sick-looking ones make sure to give me a shout. Remember traps are designed to test some skill. I can’t give you any trap designs, but I can tell you a good place to start is to look at it from the point of view of testing something you like.

Well…I guess I’ll test intelligence or wisdom then, considering I want to catch demons not adventurers…I can’t think of any good riddles right now though. I don’t even know how to make a riddle to be honest? That core mentioned something about always lying and always telling the truth like I should know what he’s talking about.

What about just making defences I’ll keep deactivated for adventurers? I could throw in a fake requirement in case they notice them? Or maybe I should just design stuff that has a context clue to avoid it that only smarter adventurers could figure out...

Making a second murder hallway Innearth flipped the previous concept on its head – This time he made a whole bunch of gravity plates under the floor and strung them along a rod. He would be able to flip them upwards and hopefully push anyone walking down the hall off the ground.

That didn’t sound very lethal however and he did want it as a demon deterrent. So, growing hundreds of spikes onto the roof, he grew the hallway up and made the ceiling a deadly mess.

Now all I have to do is infuse the rod and plates and I’ll be able to control them?

Pushing on the plate and rod several times he couldn’t figure out how to push his influence into them.

They are already in my influence? Expanding I can only affect it by sending waves of mana over the membrane…how am I supposed to control it?

Innearth briefly considered asking the trap Core for clarification…but he kind of wanted to do this himself. He had been almost passively accepting information for a while – he wanted to go back to figuring stuff out on his own.

After all, he had already made a choke point of a trap that any demon would be forced to cross…and his monster following had grown over the past few days to 10 greater crystal snakes and 10 normal ones…he had been spawning them whenever he had free mana and was thinking, but hadn’t started re making the other monster types yet.

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: Disciple! How goes your grand undertaking?

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: Not that It's anywhere near my own but it's been quite a while since we last spoke.

Innearth: I'm fine. just busy I'll talk to you again when I'm done.

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: What could possibly be taking up your attention? Have you been struck by the genus of the monster you saw that fated day we swapped?

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: Are you working on a monster to surpass me? I await that day mwahaha.

Innearth: Something like that.

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: You should still be able to spare some attention for chatting! Split some off.

Innearth: Sorry I'm not fully in the mood. Some other time.

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: Hey disciple, has something happened? You seem different.

Innearth: Nah I'm just busy. I'll probably be back to normal soon.

Bringer Of Serene Eternity: If you say so...this one can listen and provide advice at any time!

Innearth: i know. i'll reach out if i need help. talk to you later. bye

Bose was even lower in guilt level than Amy and Abe. The twinge he felt was not even worth mentioning.

Returning to his trap design he felt out the rods. He picked them up and dropped them a few times. Finally, he focused on grabbing them without actually physically touching them…and something felt different. Remembering the trap core had mentioned multiple times, Innearth continued to grab the objects without touching them and felt more and more connected.

Finally, as if a threshold was reached, he was fully connected.

For the first time, Innearth had a dungeon part. It felt weird. Vastly easier to control than straight picking it up had been, Innearth immediately pushed and pulled it about.

I’ve only been able to carry small parts…does this mean I can move larger items just by making it a part of me?

I don't know how to let go of this though so it might be better to just continue splitting stuff into more manageable parts.

Finishing the hallway, he wanted to communicate somehow with the adventurers a fake goal for it…One he might enforce depending on mood.

Now that I think about it, I can’t send them a private message, can I? Do they speak the same language? I could write the goal into the stone…but they might not understand.

Just in case he wrote down “walk don’t run” message in the dungeon script and made two stick figures with noodly limbs. One running and one walking. Adding a skull above the running one and a smiling face above the walking one he pulled back.

There. One requirement that a demon can’t read and thus will trip them up! Although if I see a demon, I’m blasting them anyways. Doesn’t matter if they can magically read it and decide to walk.

This hallway is my offshoot...I should do the other one if I don't want to allow people to just bypass them.

Spending the time to copy the concept into the other offshoot he felt himself start to relax for the first time in a few days.

Three traps are already enough to make me feel a bit safer. I think one more for good luck should be good and then I’ll rebuild my defenders...and then maybe explore the halls above.

Once again working off the Kinetic mana and crystal spikes mess, he worked on creating a long hallway lined with spikes all along the bottom. Next, he started making several solid cubes with incredibly complex inner workings in comparison to their purpose. Partway through this design, Abe messaged him…again.

Abe: Hey bro. You done making your floor? What’s up! Listen I’m making a new monster and I’m thrilled by the initial results. Its not perfect yet but I want you to tell me what you think when its done! Also, what’s new!

Innearth: Oh, just playing around with stuff now. It takes a lot of focus so I’m not responding as much.

Abe: Bruh you can just split your focus. I’m making monsters right now! There’s another one! And another! See.

Innearth: Yeah, I split my focus on stuff that I’ve already done but I like using 100% when studying something for the first time.

Abe: what could possibly require that much attention lol. Sounds more like you don’t want to talk to me.

Innearth: Nah bruh. Don’t worry about it I’m just really busy.

Abe: Even back when we were less able to split our focus in tier 1 you never went more than a few hours without messaging me. But whatever I won't pry. Just reiterating you can talk to me.

Innearth: I know. I’ll tell you sometime okay? Just. Let me think for awhile okay. I’m making traps for the first time. You should try them! Bet you could make land mines that explode when stepped on! I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.

Abe: Yeah sure. I’ll try that out. Nice talking to you m8...

Innearth was getting really tired of people asking what was up. He. Was. Fine. Just fine.

Some things were more important than socializing. Like his life. Like not being a pathetic weak core that can’t even defend against threats.

It took Innearth a few minutes to regain his composure. Something about Kinetic cubes. Yeah I was working on cubes.

Each cube had several flying tubes, similar to his flying crystals. These were for movement. On the bottom of each was a solid plate of Kinetic mana. This plate pushed the whole thing up along with kinetic crystal shards to increase the force if needed. There was a smaller thin plate on top with Gravity mana, making everything above it lighter. As well as a series of much thinner strips on the side, slightly pushing anything towards the center so it was harder to slip off.

Originally, he wanted to make them monsters that flew around but…he didn’t actually want them flying about his dungeon outside of the trap. Their only real purpose was for this obstacle and he hadn’t given them any real way of fighting.

Innearth made thin metal rods packed with as much Earth mana for strength as he could fit and a small directionless vibrating Kinetic core to aid in making it slippery. He laid each pole across the room. Stringing each cube from wall to wall at various angles some angled on a slope some on a different level he created a long line of potential stepping stools.

Now…you have to jump across, but the platforms are moving \o/

Giving each platform life instead of controlling them he watched them aimlessly slide back and forth at different speeds.

Does this count as a monster or a plant?

It's moving…so monster…but it's kind of constrained by the rail and doesn’t seem that smart…so plant?

Eh idk…either way they serve a purpose. I’m going to call them plants because they aren’t designed to attack anything.

Adding the plant to his plant tab the system seemed to agree, as it helpfully finished filling itself out.

Plants Description Living Crystal Singing Crystals that grow and spread when alone, as well as regrow when the top is broken off. Crystal Tree Beacons of healing for those who are receptive to letting it in. This tree heals any being with crystalline body parts. Moving Platform Threaded stepping stool existing solely to be used as a crossing point. Not able to support a great weight.

It was weird. The system only let him add stuff he had made…or potentially had bought the schematic for? But plants and monsters were treated quite differently – monsters had a description and stats, along with showing strengths and weaknesses... but plants only had a description.

All of the monster’s descriptions looked like they were written by different entities and the few creations Innearth had made, that were different enough to be considered unique… were not very descriptive until he renamed them.

In comparison, all the plants were given a description right away – they also either appeared to be written by the same person – containing the same tone – or were somehow automatically written by the system.

Can the system only write descriptions for simpler creations? That doesn’t really make sense though because the cubes I just made were pretty complex internally in comparison to a slime for example.

Maybe because it has a set function? Even if it's complex it can’t do much but slide back and forth as a stepping stool? But if I break it off the rod it should be able to move around in all directions? So why does the system confirm classification as a plant?

I mean I obviously was the one who shoved it in this category – but the fact that the system finished it means it recognized it as a plant…

System's weird. Let’s leave it at that.

Should I make a trap tab and see if the system autocompletes that? Although I don’t think I want to reuse traps…and that trap obsessed Core said not to share them.

So! Seeing as there’s less point if it's only done once. Guess I’ll just leave it as a plant.

It follows the same logic as not making a room tab… I don’t want every room to look the same. That would get old real fast if they were just copied everywhere. I’ll make em up as I go along and hopefully that will make them more varied.

On the idea of plants and traps I have one last plan!

Taking part of the spike shooting concept he had already used, Innearth designed a static crystal plant that could explosively shoot off its tip. Instead of living crystals he added a fleshy stretchy thread to them that would pull back the flung spike after it was shot.

Okay heres where the perception and wisdom of adventuers comes in

Innearth started to colour code each room. By choosing the same Physical materials for the plant as the floor he could give a hint as to which plants were dangerous.

Each room has a bunch of different crystal stalagmites and stalactites...however in a reddish room the red spikes are dangerous and in a purple room, the purple spikes are dangerous!

Finishing his train of thought Innearth arrived at a solution.

I can make weaker ones near the start of the dungeon so adventurers get damaged but not fatally and can learn the pattern before making much stronger ones further in. Hopefully, demons and wild beasts won't be able to recognize the pattern and I can continue to follow it for my whole dungeon!

Of all the first traps Innearth had designed. This was his favourite. He could trap his entire dungeon – not just specific hallways.

Hey! I made a bunch of new stuff where’s my level “system”! Where’s my “first use bonus” giving me massive amounts of exp!

Ah, it's fine… Maybe because I used the same types of mana for all the traps? Maybe because I reused stuff, I used in monsters…still wish it went up more.

Grumbling he checked his experience bar that had shot up quite a bit… but was still not full despite him having made traps for the first time. I think the boss gave me more exp than those 3 traps... 205/286…over two-thirds of the way to level 13, let's goo.