Chapter 11: Designing the Second Floor As quickly as he lost consciousness, Lethe roused himself from his stupor. He felt distinctively larger, not in the sense that he was big, but in the sense that he had more "space" in his mind. Expanding his consciousness further, he was unable to find any changes to the dungeon itself with one notable exception. His core was now at the end of his first floor instead of in the first room he had made. Seeking more concrete numbers, Lethe willed his [Status] to appear. STATUS NAME: Lethe RACE: Dungeon Core CLASS: Locked LEVEL: 2 XP: 53 / 200 (Earned XP/Required XP) FLOOR ONE MOB POINTS: 25/25 (Used/Total) ROOMS: 6 (60m^3 total volume of control FLOOR TWO MOB POINTS: 00/50 (Used/Total) ROOMS: 14 (140m^3 total volume of control SKILLS [Creation - Floor 3 | Rank: 3/5 | Allows user to designate a room with maximum volume of 10m^3 as a single room. Allows user to set up design templates. Can combine two or more rooms together to increase allowable maximum volume.] [Territory Control 3 | Rank 3/10 | Allows user to expand his territory by spreading consciousness. Direction of expansion can be specified with will. Territory can now be shrunk by ceding consciousness.] [Creation - Mob 2| Rank: 2/10 | Sub Skills: [Combine] | Allows user to generate mobs based on mob points. Mobs can increase in rank by consuming or defeating mobs of equal rank.] [Design Structures 1 | Rank: 1/10 | Allows user to create and design various structures (traps, buildings, objects, etc.) inside rooms.] TEMPLATES Cavernous Room MOB TYPES Slimes: [Acid Slime 1], [Stone Slime 1], [Treasure Slime] STRUCTURES [Acid Pool] [Locked Chest] RULES Ambush Trap - Acid Slime (F1-R1) Mob Fall Trap - Stone Slime (F1-T1) Ambush - Room (F1-R2) Floor 1 Boss Fight - Room (F1-R3) BOONS Applied to [Jones and Folks] [Adventurer Boon - Trusted Companions | You and your party members have demonstrated a trust that is rare to find in this world, although much more expected in adventurer's than mercenaries. Grants increased effectiveness in working together with your party members.] QUESTS Defeat adventurers 0/5 The first change he noticed were his resource pools. His mob points, or MP, and the number of rooms he could control were now separated based on the floor he was working on. The second detail that caught his attention were that his resources were both reset and increased for his second floor. On hindsight, he realized, this was something that he should've already known about when he had first received the information about dungeon cores. However, he only understood the portion of knowledge now when he actually experienced the change. Lethe decided to attribute this particular gap in his understanding, which was one of many, to the fact that he had received a lot of information. Since he woke up and landed in this world, if he just sat down and started to process the information, by now he would have only understood less than 10% of it. Regardless, he now had a whopping 50 MP and 14 rooms to design for the second floor! Enthusiastically, Lethe started to imagine how he would structure his next floor. His primary mobs were still slimes, but due to the [Merge] and [Combine] mechanics, he started to develop an idea on how he would design the new area. The biggest issue with his first floor, Lethe thought, were the final two mobs, the rank 3 [Stone Slime] and the rank 4 [Mutated Acid Slime]. He realized that these two mobs were usually too dificult for just a first floor. As such, for the next floor, he didn't want to challenge adventurer's. Instead, he wanted to reward them, obviously with risk of losing limbs still involved. He invokved both [Creation Floor] and [Territory Control] simultaneously, and started to shape a staircase from the end of little alcove in the final room, each step curving inwards, wider at the end and narrow towards the center. Slowly but surely, a curved stairway leading to the depths was made, while his territory created a cylindrical area hugging the walls of structure. Each stair was about 1 meter long, with the whole cylinder going down for about 10 meters before he stopped. Internally sensing the amount of area the staircase took up, Lethe was pleased to note that he had about 110 m^3 in area left for the floor. Before he could expand further, Lethe felt his connection to his first floor closing off. Checking the issue, he realized that [Jones and Folks] had returned. Evidently, it was already morning, which was surprising as Lethe didn't think that he had spent that long unconscious or on making the stairs. Or perhaps, it wasn't that he was unconscious for the whole night, but rather the passage of time seems to slow down when he starts working? Making a mental note to himself to investigate this, Lethe shifted most of his focus to the second floor while keeping a sliver of his consciousness on the party. Taking control of the area at the bottom of the stairs, Lethe expanded his territory through the skill, Lethe imagined a large rectangular box, with a height of just above 3 meters and expanding until he felt that the area took up about 100 m^3. Setting his territory into place, Lethe expanded into the area with [Creation Floor], slowly starting to shave away the earth. About a quarter way through on creating the large floor, Lethe sensed that the party had exited the dungeon, their first run for the day seemingly much faster than any of their previous delves. Unfortunately, he noticed that they still hadn't found the resolve to continue to the last stretch of the first floor. Continuing to expand, Lethe invoked the template for [Caverns] as well, shaping the area as it expanded, growing stalagmites and stalactites out of the floor and ceiling, hanging moss all over the area, interspersed with dirt and loam. He created shallow pools with [Acid Pool] but didn't bother to spawn any mobs in them. He scattered the pools around the floor, some nestled in stalagmites and some covered by weeds and moss. He shifted some of the mass being removed to the corners and edges of the room, making sure that they looked more 'natural'. While working, Lethe noticed that the party had come and gone twice more, realizing now that time did pass much faster for him, or at least in different degrees, depending on what he focuses on. Soon enough, the room for the second floor was ready, a large somewhat rectangular open space with columns of stone hanging from the ceiling creating impassable areas, crevices and pits of acidic water, some hidden from view with vegetation and lichen, and random patches of granular pebbles dotting the floor, making some pockets of terrain with hazardous footing. Seeing as he would likely get access to his third floor by the end of the day, Lethe didn't bother to complicate the design for the space. He shaped another small alcove, similar to the one in the final room of the first floor, and put in another [Locked Chest]. For his mobs as well, Lethe wanted adventurer's to face a different issue on this floor. Instead of small groups, he wanted them to always be aware and wary of a large amount of mobs. As such, he proceeded to summon 30 [Acid Slime]s and 15 [Stone Slime]s, instantly using up all of his mob points. The [Acid Slime]s he spawned in random pools out of the many he placed on the floor. Instead of the larger ones on the first floor though, these pools were small, hidden in crevices and crenulations. The [Stone Slime]s, he spawned them from the stalagmites and stalactites, most of them sinking into the column of stone they spawned out of. Finally, he created a sinewy, torturous path from the stairs to the alcove at the end, going through multiple different passes flanked by the columns of stalagmites, with the ceiling sinking down in some areas to less than 2 meters, giving barely enough room to pass through while standing. The path itself, he created out of hardened dirt specked with gravel and natural stone cutoffs, with cracks and crags at the sides. Lethe looked over his finished second floor, a feeling of satisfaction passing through him for being able to bring a vision to fruition. He imagined that the light used by most parties would be limited in a space such as this, and the large number of mobs he created would allow for them to grind much better on this floor. However, he still wanted to see what would happen if someone died in his dungeon. And so, Lethe willed one final trick to be created through a [Rule]. [Rule Established] Subject: Floor 2 mobs Rule: Roam within 10 meters of spawn Designation: Passive behaviour - Floor 2 Mobs [Rule Established] Subject: Floor 2 mobs Rule: Ambush enemy Trigger: 1 enemy within 3 meters Designation: Ambush Trap - Floor 2 Mobs By the time he was finished with creating the second floor, the part of his consciousness paying attention to the group came in to focus, letting him know that the party had made 5 runs for the day and were on their way to leaving the dungeon. Completely bringing them in focus, Lethe noticed that all of them appeared to be completely exhausted. The [Shieldbearer] and [Skirmisher] were hanging on to each other's shoulder, grime on their poorly made leather armor and sweat on their hands and faces indicative of how much they pushed themselves for the day. Their ranged counterparts didn't seem to be faring any better. The robes of the [Acolyte] and [Hedge Mage] were dirty with dust, specks of moss hanging on to corners, with visible sweat stains on their backs. The [Trapper] however, seemed to be doing the both the best and worst out of everyone. Physically, he looked to be fine. However, his equipment didn't seem to be doing as well. The string for his bow looked frayed, as if used and not cared for at all, with only a handful of arrows left in the quiver attached to his back. Evidently, the group had pushed themselves today. Add on the fact that they had been coming into the dungeon from dawn to dusk for about 2 days straight now as well as their first run 3 days ago, they looked ready for a break. As the group reached the end of the dungeon, all of them stepped outside once more, seemed to whisper a few words, and reentered the dungeon. Without saying anything like last time, they all simply bowed forwards for a few seconds, stepped back, and exited. [Ding! Tribute XP received from party [Jones and Folks]] [170 XP received!] [XP 223/200] [Ding! Core is ready to level up! Warning: Increasing levels will close access to [Dungeon] until the process has finished.] [Increase level? Yes/No] Receiving the jagged pieces of broken light once more into his core, Lethe didn't see any reason why he shouldn't continue to level up. He had the whole night to spend and he was already finished in so far with his second floor. Accepting the level increase, Lethe was once more witness to the incredible density of mana and movement that comes with a dungeon increasing its level. The entrance changed from its usual opaque grey to a pitch black, his recently expanded territory sinking into the walls of his second floor, all of his mobs repopulating on the first floor, Lethe once again sank into unconsciousness. ------- Jones was happy tonight as well but the mood came with a weariness as well. They had pushed themselves hard today, barely taking time in between the dungeon being reset to rest up before entering once more. Thankfully, they were all able to level up again today. However, everyone looked miserable. All of his brothers sat around the campfire, eating dry rations while cleaning their equipment as best as they could. Harry was able to find a fast flowing stream the first night they had spent outside of the dungeon, thankfully allowing them to refill their waterskins and clean their equipment better than they would have been able to without it. Checking their party list, Jones stared at the progress that they had made after 3 days of delves (and well 2 days of grinding). [Party: Jones and Folks] [Party Members] [Jones Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Acolyte | XP: 239/345] [George Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Shieldbearer | XP: 242/345] [James Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Skirmisher | XP: 242/345] [John Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Hedge Mage | XP: 239/345] [Harry Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Tracker | XP: 247/345] One more day. One more day of grinding and then they would be ready to face the remaining challenges. -------