Arc 2: Opening Chapter 1, Part 4: Results of the Gathering: Gains and Losses

Five Naga and Fourteen Lizardpeople sit around in the core room on the fifth floor, that is now a bit crowded despite its big size. One of the Lizardwoman is assigned to repeat the General's words to the others since other than her only the six team leaders touch the core to receive its words directly - there simply isn't enough place for more than seven or eight people to sit directly at the core-node. Booble floats to the side, and one of the silver foxes dozes under the desk. The skelerat skitters from one place to another and the General opens the discussion.

"OK, we don't have much time because I expect the first surfacers to enter the dungeon within the next two hours at max. It's still open if it will be the people from Rivansea whose ship left harbour thirty minutes ago or the elves who are ready to enter but seem to be waiting for something. The scouts from Blackmoss and the necro-fields are back, they haven't seen their adventurers approach but I assume they are also close by - I simply didn't want to risk them being blockaded as I need every silver fox I still have for the defense."

"We lost one lizardman and seven silver foxes to that single apprentice necromancer that was around the fields for whatever reason, most probably replenishing the necromantic spells on the zombies there. The more I learn about this so-called 'People's Realm' of Kaarg the less I like it, as they seem to be pressing out and abusing the people even more than most horror stories in Earth history,"

"Others were also wounded, and without the naga woman we would probably have lost more people. Part of that is due to the way spawn cores work and reduce your levels when you go up floors or leave. And considering that none of the fights were with trained adventurers prepared to enter the dungeon, that is a problem as adventurers are likely to be stronger even if you also gain levels in deeper floors. I'm still short a few levels of having enough mana to be able to create class cores for you, so you'll have to be careful for now."

"On the good side I managed to get the template from the crab and several fishes and water plants brought in by the Rivansea team. Floors four and especially five will become water floors as soon as I have the mana to fill them up with the required amount of water. Until then you'll have to stay on the fourth floor line of rooms as defenders. Depending on how careful or how enthusiastic the surfacers will be about exploring me that might or might not really neccessary - I hope they loose at least one or two days to politics when they discover that there are four entrances in four countries."

"Gunny and the teams from Blackmoss brought a lot of very valuable things - but they also raise a lot of questions. Blackmoss was a [Very Low] ranked dungeon that was destroyed before it could grow beyond half of the [Limited] levels, and several of the objects and formations we gained from there were classified despite being fully functional. Can you explain this, Booble?"

"Ok, that makes the looted formations a lot less valuable for now - I can't allow that status on me. But I might be able to use them later after I have power and time to repair them."

"On the good side, I got a lot of damaged beast cores. I will use the more damaged ones to get the material to repair the better ones and then I'll try to resurrect some of their beasts, especially the badgers. I will also wipe some of those cores to be able to replace a few of the silver fox spawn cores, especially on the fox down under the desk."

"It was extremely ... impressed by a young Paut'a that tried to capture it - so impressed that it created a memory in its gallery. I'll keep it out of regular fights for now until I can tell if I need that picture or not - the Paut'a girl looked very young but was part of the elven troop coming to my entrance, including wearing the same uniform and badges."

The General is silent for a minute before he continues. "The other question is why the adventurers took some nodes from Blackmoss and what I can do with the broken parts of the two nodes we got. Both of them seem to be for creating strong spawns but are also tagged . What can you tell us about this, Booble?"

"Then we can't do anything about that at the moment. Keep the broken pieces stored at my lowest floor, we have to see what happens with the first adventurer teams before I can spare the time and power to analyse them."

The Lizardwoman who was the leader for the Kaarg team speaks up: "What about that girdle that the system gave special attention to? The one we gained from the necromancer apprentice?"

After checking it again the General answers "it was the only magic item carried by the apprentice, and it was of a higher rank than the necromancer himself had - that is probably why it was given attention. In itself it is less useful for us, because it is basically a special bag of holding that can only hold corpses, nothing else, and amplifies necromantic spells cast on them. It basically allowed him to carry the four skeletons that he animated before the combat without straining his back or filling up a rather large backpack with four full skeletons. At the moment I can't see any use to it for ourselves, and the system doesn't allow it as a treasure on the current floors because it is [very low] rank, not [Limited]."

"Other than that, the entire mess showed that we have a problem with communications - or rather I have one because without a contract, all spawns and swarms need to touch me to hear my words. And the regular options the system has to counter this only become available beyond level 50 or even higher, because regular cores can only gain sapience by that level."

"I have a few ideas to compensate - for example I'll try to get the signpost option from the entrance rooms to be available elsewhere in my dungeon. But for now I need two lizardmen as messengers in my core room at all times."

"And I would also like the team leaders to be here as soon as the surfacers enter. I'll cast an illusion to show you what they're doing, so you'll get your own impressions."

One of the new naga objects "But core, you casting an illusion and renewing it whenever they move will create a lot of lifeforce to recharge them. And that would be only to show everything to us, you yourself don't need it to see the adventurers."

"If they send in a better ranked team, then the points those gain from my casting would not matter anyway, but it will give us better coordination in case we need it - simply because you'll see the same things as I will."

"So it's like a movie night on earth, General? Anything that we can use in place of popcorn?"

"We did get several forms of corn from the fields and I gained templates from them - you can try roasting some of them tomorrow, Gunny."