You have reached Level 4!

Receive 50 percentage points to use on any blueprint(s).

Leveling up this time was easy. There was nothing to choose other than where my one new stat point went. I placed it in wisdom to get a small bump in mana.

Arizo buzzed around for a bit. “You are growing so quickly and so well!”

“Thank you. You’ve been a big help.” I giddily replied. “Now do we try to make a boss first or traps and puzzles?”

She refocused on me. “Let me explain traps and puzzles first. I don’t think any of your current creatures will work as a boss, but I don’t know what to do about that.”

We sat in silence for a bit thinking over the issue.

“When I next need to rest I’ll think more on it. Let’s keep the good mood going with puzzles. There are several stuck in my head.” I all but cackled with mischievousness.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I think I’ll start with some simple pit traps and add stuff to the bottom. Using the slate or salt to make the top weak.”

Arizo nodded. “That’s a good starting point and rather easy to make. So pick where you want the pit and focus on the area.”

“Now what?” I asked, choosing a section of hallway I wanted to use.

“Now you need to comand the area to be a trap.”

That sounded dumb but I tried it anyway. To my surprise the area I was focusing on began to glow a light purple color. It felt a bit like the outlines of creatures that Arizo couldn’t see. Which explains why she was giving a bad description.

With the area still highlighted I turned it into a 20 feet deep pit with 5 feet of water at the bottom. I added a thick layer of soft clay to the walls of the trap to make it harder and gross to climb out of, made the water rather cold and finally covered the top with a thin slate tile. I made the tile just a touch darker than the stone around it. I wanted to make any that came into my dungeon work for their prizes but not make it impossible.

As I was finished I decided to dig a few little holes in the walls of the trap and put some items in them. I used the more gross feeling items to fill them. Like mouse tails, raw chicken meat and raw fish filets. The point of this trap was to mentally mess with those that fall in it, not hurt them.

“Ok trap built.” I stated. Then I showed her the trap and my little surprises.

“Why did you add prizes in the walls?” She asked.

I chuckled. “Because they are behind a layer of mucky clay and touching any of them is going to freak the person out.”

That got her to laugh with me. “So are you going to continue making fun of your visitors?”

“Probably. I like to laugh and watching them find a ‘hand hold’ and realise there is an unknown squishy thing inside will be priceless.”

She shook her head, still smiling at me. “Now focus back on your trap.”

“Hm now it says Gross Trap. There is an option to copy the trap and a list of it’s XP.”

“Looking at this, each time a sentient passes without setting off this trap you get 1XP but each time they fall in you get 5XP and if they are killed by the trap you get 10XP plus the XP for killing them.” She said looking over the window that had come up. “The harder the trap the more XP you earn.” She paused to make sure I didn’t have any questions. “Puzzles work the same way. There can only be one puzzle per room so think hard about what you want to use.”

“OK. I don’t think I’ll put any puzzles in the bat room or the kobold room. And not in the boss room either so that leaves 4 rooms that need puzzles. And at least 6 more traps. I want one in each hallway except the entrance.”

I put a few more pit traps in the hall right after the kobolds bringing the total up to 5. What was at the bottom varied. Mouse tails and fish scales in one, iron spears, and a tangle of short vines in 2 others. To make it less likely that everyone would die on the spears I put a pattern on that cover. The last and largest had the walls lined with poison ivy and fireweed. I knew too much exposure to either could kill so I made the pit wide and shallow, only 4 feet deep.

I was interrupted with an odd feeling. Looking around I found that something had entered the dungeon.

It was long and black. I knew the creature but I couldn’t pull up it’s name. As it was almost 4 ft long my kobolds attacked.

The battle was short and decisive with the kobolds only minorly injured.

Blueprint Unlocked: Black Racer

Blueprint Unlocked: Snake egg

Blueprint Unlocked: Snake Fang

Blueprint Unlocked: Snake Skin

Snake Egg: An unborn snake. Used in potions and divining.

Snake Fang: Fang of a snake. May contain leftover poison. Used in potions making.

Snake Skin: Skin of a snake. Can be used like cloth, though less durable to physical damage it offers some magical resistance.

I was glad to have another creature added, but hoped that random attacks and invasions didn’t happen too often. It was lucky this was a non-venomous snake. I hope that any venomous ones can’t pierce the kobold’ scales.

___________________

Getting back to increasing defenses. I placed 2 traps in the hall leading to the garden. They worked together. The first trap was several vines hanging over a darker slate floor. Just coming from a hall of pits I hoped they would grab the vines to swing over. Only each of the vines was trapped. Some just broke and they would fall on their back, others were really poison ivy vines. And some were attached to loose stones that would fall on them. Doing a bit of experimenting I set it so that the vines changed each time it reset and that one vine would see a shower of soil fall along with a single chunk of iron ore.

The other trap was the exact opposite. It looked the same only this time the vines were safe and the floor wasn’t. Instead of another pit I made the floor tiles pressure plate. Step on them and barbed iron spikes would come out of the floor and stab feet and legs.

After the garden room were a short set of steps that led to the chicken room. 2 of the steps at random would have ball bearings under them. When stepped on the stone top would roll out form under foot causing the person to fall.

Blueprint Unlocked: Ball Bearings

Ball Bearings: useful in crafting complex machines.

_____

For the hall leading to the cathedral room I set up a series of shooting traps. The first fired iron arrows at a set rate. The middle one shot balls of quartz that shattered on impact leaving a fine sand on the floor. And the last one fired ball bearings. Each fired at a different rate and the arrows were blunted so it would take several impacts to kill. To add difficulty I put 3 inches of soft clay on the floor to make running harder.

Blueprint Unlocked: Iron Arrow

Iron Arrow: Heavy and poorly balanced. Will work in a pinch.

For the room leading from the cathedral to the bat room I made the floor only 6 inches wide with 30ft pits on either side. Both sides had 2 feet of water at the bottom and the sides were covered in slick Goblin’s Gold moss with each of my 3 mushroom types dotted throughout. I did put a ladder near the door to the cathedral room so people could climb out and start again. I added stopping places at each of the 3 lanterns, so you only needed to go 10 feet each time.

Just for fun I decided to use the same ball bearing trap on the steps in the other hall that connected the bat room and chicken room. Thinking on what I wanted to do in the labyrinth room I decided not to trap the hall before or after it.

Going back I put several traps in the bat room too. Anyone that stepped on them would slide into the natural pool at the back of the cave. Several small holes were also added and the floor was made to be uneven to increase the trip hazard.

“Alright all the traps for this floor are set. I kept most of them simple. I don’t see the need for over complicated traps right now. Though I might add a trap/puzzle room later on.”

“So you need a break before setting up your puzzles?”

“Yeah I want to think over what to have people do in each room. I know what I want for the chicken room and the cathedral. But I need good ideas for the garden and labyrinth.”

“You focus on ideas for a boss and I’ll try to think of something good for the garden.”

“Thank you.” I stated, before meditating and looking through my memories of uses for all the creatures and materials I had access to.

I stayed meditating longer than I really needed to but I had several ideas to try out.

“I have some ideas. Let's get making.”

Arizo chuckled but just waited to see what I would do.

“First I think we need to make this room a bit nicer.” I focused on the 2 items I needed.

Blueprint Unlocked: Chair

Chair: A simple seat. Can be made from almost any material.

In the room near where Arizo tended to hover a chair appeared. It had 4 legs and a back all made of quartz. The seat was woven vines to make it more comfortable.

“Thank you.” She said flying over and taking a seat.

A pair of quartz pillars appeared behind and to the other side of my core. Between them I wove a vine hammock.

Blueprint Unlocked: Hammock

Hammock: a simple woven bed

Arizo flew over and tested the fairy sized bed. “This is nice.” She said curling in the bed.

I smiled and made some little shelves randomly up each pillar and filled them with lavender. To increase the lovely smell in the core room, I dug a couple holes near the door and planted Honeysuckle. As a core I didn’t have a sense of smell but I had memories of how they smelled.

Turning away from the core room I made little sconces on several walls throughout the dungeon and placed plants in them. As most of my plants were dangerous I hoped no one would harm them. They added some splashes of color and light in the case of the Goblin’s gold and Lilac bonnet.

In the small area where the halls T heading to the garden or the cathedral I placed a stone table and 2 stone chairs.

Blueprint Unlocked: Table

Table: A place to work or eat

Hidden under the table was a small stone pocket door that would reveal a treasure.

In the hall between the labyrinth and the boss room I added more quarts planters filled with poison mushrooms on a bed of Goblin’s Gold. Adding a bit more manna into the glowing plants and dimming the lanterns made the hall seem eerie. Well I hoped it did.

“I’m going to try and make a creature now.” I informed Arizo who was enjoying the honeysuckle trees.

Pulling up the clay blueprint I used my mind to shape it into a large humanoid figure. As I got closer to getting the blocky face and body formed it was becoming harder and harder to keep focused. When I didn’t think I could hold the blueprint a moment longer I sat it before us and waited.

There was a long moment as the blueprint seemed to waver as if it would shatter. I gave a cheer when it started to fill with green.

Blueprint Unlocked: Clay guardian

Before us now stood a 6 ft tall blocky humanoid.

“HAHA!!” I shouted. “Even more memories unlocked.”

Before Arizo could question me, more clay figures were made. One was an 8ft skeleton in a suit. A lady that seemed stitched together was next, followed by a beautiful zombie bride. Finally an almost human looking thing that I knew should be green and named Gumby was added. In my mind these characters had color but all I had to use was common brown clay.

“Are you ok after making that many creatures?” Arizo asked in worry.

“A bit tired but mostly excited. There were whole stories related to something called claymation. And once I made a clay figure they all unlocked. These 4 were my favorites.” I reabsorbed Gumby and sent the other 3 to the bat room. It seemed to fit their looks.

“Once I recover a bit I plan to make stone and quartz guardians too.” I looked at the first guardian I made that was still in the room with me. “I don’t know what to do with this one. I think stone or quartz would make a better boss.”

Arizo flew around the creature. “How many DP do you have left?”

I pulled up the stats and looked. “Right now I have 75. I’ll add the other bats and chickens that I want to stock those rooms before doing anymore creation.”

She nodded and headed back to her bed to wait. And I sank into meditation.

_______________

14 bats were added to the bat room and 9 chickens to theirs. “Ok now I’m down to 40 points. I have 15 bats in the bat room, plus the 3 guardians, 10 chickens in the chicken room, 4 kobolds in the first room and I just need a boss and maybe some minor creatures in the garden.”

“Just over half of your points used and all you need to do is make a boss.” Arizo sounded impressed.

“I think once I have the boss I’ll use up the rest of my point in little creatures, maybe another kobold or some bats.”

“In that case we could leave this creature here as a last line of defense.”

“I think in front of the door to this room would be better. I don’t really want him in here. I’ll have him not attack unless someone tries to enter the core room.”

“That will work as well.” She agreed, not asking why.

Without saying more I got to work. Making the other 2 guardians was much easier. I used the blueprint for the clay guardian and swapped the material.

Blueprint Unlocked: Quartz guardian

Blueprint Unlocked: Amethyst

Blueprint Unlocked:Aventurine

Blueprint Unlocked: Rose Quartz

Blueprint Unlocked: Stone guardian

Blueprint Unlocked: Magical Stone

Amethyst: A type of quartz with a purple color. Often used for mental and spiritual healing.

Aventurine: A type of quartz that is usually green. It is used for protection and luck.

Magical Stone: Stone infused with magic or mana. Has many uses but is coveted by alchemists and wand makers

Rose Quartz: Soft pink in color. This type of quartz is used for purification. Though some try to use it for love.

“These 2 came with new items!” I showed her the boxes and started swapping out some of the common quarts in the dungeon for these new colorful kinds.

“They both look nice. Which are you going to make the boss?”

“The quartz guardian. It fits me better than stone or clay.” That being said I reabsorbed the clay guardian and sent the stone one to guard the door to the core room. “Now what?”

“Send the guardian to the boss room.” Arizo followed the construct and spoke again once they were there. “Now focus on the room, like making a trap.”

“The box is asking to make this the boss room or add a puzzle.” I selected the obvious option. “It now says do I want to make the creature in the room the boss.”

“Accept and your dungeon magic should do the rest.”

I watched as the 6ft blocky guardian began to glow. It seemed to be encased in light. Soon enough the light shattered and fell over every inch of the room. That is when everything changed.

The room stayed the same size but there were now massive crystals of all 4 types jutting out around the room. Some looked almost like flowers. Many of them had the same glow as my mana lights. In the center where the guardian had been was now an 11ft creature that looked less like blocks of quartz and more like a creature made of armour.

It stretched and looked around the room. The strange being smiled at Arizo and gave a pleasing hum noise.

“Your boss isn’t going to be mindless like other guardians. It will be able to fight and strategize.” She told me scratching the massive guardian under the chin. It happily hummed again.

Once Arizo left the gentle giant it folded in on itself and looked like just a massive bunch of crystals.

“That is impressive.” She told me when I showed her what our boss could do. “I wonder how much that cost?”

“A whopping 12 DP. Taking us to 72 DP used and 28 to play with.”