Day 1 Phase 2

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I’m trying to shake my left hands with my right hands – both at the same time – when Parsi flies to me and interrupts my only partially successful attempts.

“Hi Claudia, in about ten minutes the next phase begins and the entrance will open. But there is one choice I forgot to mention.

In an adventuring phase, we can only do mana placement, nothing else. We will only get one mana from the system, but the six mana runes will automatically be collected and vanish. That gives us a total of seven mana, and there are two different ways to use those points.

We can either create another white tiger for 4 mana and fifteen mana runes from the remaining three mana, or we can use all seven mana for thirty-five mana runes, giving us much more mana in the next phase.

I think we should risk going all mana, especially if we stay nearby – one white tiger is already a Rank E defense after all. What do you say?”

“I agree with the 35 mana runes, there are too many things that need mana at the moment. And you said there is no maximum storage. I will also remain four-armed for the first scouting, despite my problems with coordination. Because carrying is much easier, I only need to slowly pick up one thing after the other.” I answer.

“Now just hurry to the Heartroom to be able to set the mana runes while I wait here in case something dangerous waits directly before the entrance”

About five minutes later a system screen opens next to the entrance.

Construction Phase ends

Path between Entrance and Dungeon Heart detected

Opening Dungeon Entrance

WARNING:

Entrance cannot be closed.

Dungeon Barrier will not become active until floor 1 has been created.

Dungeon Heart will remain unprotected even during Construction Phase until moved to floor 1

PERK GAINED:

First Hybrid Tower/Dungeon on Newara established

One Random Bonus available on command.

While I wait for Parsi to return, I read the screen and look out of the entrance.

‘About what we expected and discussed, only the perk is a surprise. I wonder what that random roll will give us?

And the outside looks like some form of light forest, similar to European forests. No direct danger or even any animals visible.’

“Hey! What does this mean? Hybrid Tower/Dungeon???” Parsi has flown in and checked the screen for herself.

“That Power that send me here changed some of the rules so I can build outside the original dungeon, but still restricted by similar rules. I don’t have any details, but we can build up in addition to building down.” I answer her question.

“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning to me before? Aaarggh – this could mean a lot, but we better use the time to collect things now. But next construction phase you’re going to tell me everything that that god told you, who knows what else might be important.” Parsi throws up her arms in frustration, then heads to leave the dungeon.

I slowly follow her. The walls seem to be five feet thick, which makes the entire structure 36 by 36 meters. It is in some form of clearing, the forest begins about forty or fifty meters out from the entrance.

“Sorry, there was too much to learn and discuss, it slipped my mind. Can you fly up to get a better view around? I’ll jog around the ground floor of the dungeon in that time.”

Parsi nods and begins to rise. I slowly walk around the building that houses our dungeon. It is in the center of a roughly circular forest clearing, with the trees between forty and up to sixty meters or so distant. The floor is mostly grasses and ferns, although there are two bushes with blue berries on the opposite of the entrance – south I guess if the entrance was really to the north and not just a map convention during the construction phase. I grab a handful to show to Parsi before continuing the walk.

I can see the pixie descend when I’m approaching the entrance again. She speaks “We are in some form of half-valley between two different mountain ranges. To the west and partially the south is a really impressive mountain range going up to snow-covered tops in the distance. To the north there is a more modest mountain range that seems to go from west to east as far as I can see.

This half-valley opens to a plain in the south-east. In the north-west the ground rises slowlier and seem to and in a mountain pass between the two ranges.

Most of the area is covered by forest, but there are a dozen large clearings, and two lines where the forest is interrupted. One line is more or less the center of the valley, going from the mountain pass in the northwest to the plain in the south-east.

The other line begins in the hills in the north and passes east of our dungeon on its way to the south, but turns south-east as well a bit later. Both interruptions seem to join each other going southeast in a distance of several miles.

The top of our floor zero building looks a bit peculiar however. Where we have rooms placed it is an area of mortared stone blocks, but where the rooms are missing it is basically mudfill.”

“That mudfill sounds strange, but nice overview otherwise. The clearing is mostly grasses and ferns, but there is a berry bush on the other side” I show her the berries I collected.

“Nice – the berries themselves aren’t anything special, but it will start the material skill that will allow us to get a berry treasure and lure in animals later.

Basically we need to collect samples of every material, but there are diminishing returns for the same material and starting at the entrance would have us miss special options like those berries.

What is considered the best option for dungeon pixies is to fly out a hundred meter in a direction, then circle the dungeon in that distance collecting only the more valuable materials but noting everything for later.

Should we split up to cover more ground that way?” she asks me.

“No,” I answer “not yet – I don’t have enough knowledge of this world to see what is special at the moment. And the large building instead of a small hole means we better use a larger distance.

How about this: we go out two hundred meters to circle, and you basically ride on my shoulder and show me if something noteworthy is found. Then we repeat at 500 meters if there is nothing of note.”

“Sounds like a plan” Parsi flies to me and settles on my shoulder “Giddy-up!”

Since I can somehow feel the exact distance and direction to the Dungeon Heart, I set out north (or what I assume is north) from the entrance until I am 200 meters away, then turn to circle. I don’t know any of the three or four different types of trees here – hell, as a born and bred city girl I don’t even know the different nature noises and voices we can hear around, aside from a few chirping birds.

There is less grass between the trees and more ferns and similar underbrush, and at a particular large patch I stop to collect several bushels. At that Parsi speaks up.

“We can use some grass to bait animals, but there is a diminishing return on absorption. You’re collecting too much, that will not give more than a dozen points.”

“I’m not planning to absorb most of them” I answer “I have currently no idea how it was done, but there were people on my original world who could create bags by braiding long grass blades. I want to try if I can do the same, to make collecting things easier.”

“Good idea – and right, you can learn crafting skills and perhaps use them on traps or treasures later. Most pixies don’t bother due to our tier limitations, and later we would get dungeon-granted skills that are rarely crafts.” Parsi looks thoughtful about these possibilities.

“I haven’t seen anything special so far – the wood and trees can be sampled later. Wait – what is that noise?”

Before either of us can react, a shadow suddenly launches itself at me. I try to hold it with my arm and are rewarded with a sharp pain as something bites into it.

“Wolves!!” Parsi shouts and takes off at high speed somewhere. I can’t spare any attention to this betrayal as I’m in a fight for my life against three – no, four wolves.

‘Hey – isn’t that wolf going to…’ before I can even realize what happens, my two left clawed hands strike out to one of the wolves, tearing up its entire side and dropping it. But it costs me another bit in the ankle before I kick the third wolf away.

The rest of the fight is a blur between terror and confusion. Somehow I’m able –again and again – to strike at the wolves in critical ways even though I can barely remember which hand is which for the rest of the time.

Finally I stand panting and bleeding over four corpses. All the wolves are dead and I’m still alive somehow. At least the system hasn’t blinded me with any screens during the fight – some decent bars on the side of my view were all. The screen only happens after the last wolf dies.

Combat results: Victory

4 Forest Wolves have been slain

7 Body points and 8 Agility points temporarily lost

State: Minor Bleeding received (-1 Body per minute, 2 minutes remaining)

New Title: Rank G

You solo-killed your first Rank-G-creature and are now recognized as a Rank-G-being by the System

Reward: 200 XP

New Title: Animal Killer I

You killed an animal of the same rank as you are

Reward: 100 XP

Level-up: Slitar

Your Class: Slitar has leveled up to level 2

You gained Mind +3, Presence +2, Agility +1 and one free point

I stand there for a few minutes, panting and slowly calming myself down.

“Claudia?” I hear someone calling “Claudia?”

I look around and see Parsi slowly flying nearer, high up in the trees.

“I’m here – no thanks to you” I call back.

The pixie quickly approaches me at that.

“Hey – wolves are BIG – would you have stood there if an elephant had been charging you?

Besides – we are trained to lure all predators to the dungeon where the core could fight and absorb them. I was almost at the entrance before I realized that you were not following me…”

“OK, we are both new to this, and this is another case of different expectations and training.” I think aloud “We really need to sit together and compare notes soon. Especially since I’m not sure what happened during that fight.”

“Oh? Please tell, perhaps I can explain something. And even if I can’t explain it, it might help the next such situation if I know what might happen.”

“I had almost no coordination problems with my four arms during the fight, but afterwards I was back to those problems, although a bit reduced. Additionally there were several moments during the fight when I just knew how to strike for best effects.”

“That sounds as if you have been granted a combat skill. That is actually one of the rarer results of the Dungeon Bonus Roll we gained an hour ago, the option to give a monster or a contract a single skill without training it.

But because you haven’t trained it, the skill can take over for you until you have used it enough to gain a level or two in it.”

“Yes, I have a skill called Sar’mra’shen that went from 0% to 16% during the fight, and one of the book titles I got is ‘Sar’mra’shen – the Six Claws of Fighting’. So it sounds as if that is a combat skill.”

“Then I think we should cancel exploration for now, at least until you’re healed. Unfortunately we won’t have the mana to heal you for another six or seven hours. But we need to carry those wolves to the Dungeon for absorption anyway. And if you allow, I would really like a look at your status then.” Parsi says after a bit of thinking.

“If you give me the same and promise to explain what we can read there, then OK. And I hope that we won’t need mana by that time – when I look at my missing points the system informs me that I have a regeneration of +1 per hour.” I answer.

“That sounds like a rank F or E healing ability – a rank G human can regenerate eight points total once every 24 hours.” I hear from Parsi, while I start picking up wolf corpses and the ferns and grasses I dropped.

It looks like we have to leave one of the corpses. There is no problem carrying one each under my upper arms, but the lower arms are not articulate enough – I can only carry one corpse by holding it in front of me with both arms.

“Should I run back to get the last corpse after depositing these?” I ask.

“No, that corpse will draw scavengers too quickly, and you won’t know how many or how strong they will be.”

Silently we walk the rest of the distance to the entrance where I drop everything and proceed to absorb one of the cadavers and some of the grasses.

Absorption Summary

4 Blueberry berries

1 Wolf corpse

6 Soft Tree Fern

2 Silver Tree Fern

5 Goosegrass

Berry Absorption – 7 points gained

Fur Absorption – 3 points gained

Meat Absorption – 3 points gained

Ivory Absorption – 2 points gained

Claws Absorption – 2 points gained

Ground Plant Absorption – 12 points gained

Skill levels improved

Berry 0 (14%)

Fur 0 (6%)

Meat 0 (6%)

Ivory 0 (4%)

Claws 0 (4%)

Ground Plant 0 (24%)

After studying the screen, Parsi comments “Everything looks as expected. If you had fought and killed the wolves inside the dungeon, you would have gained about three times as many points and a chance to get a wolf monster entry for the dungeon, but that’s in the past.

Anything you want to know about this screen?”

“Yes, I would like to know what those skills can do and how do we access them? And I assume that the ivory is for anything from teeth?” I ask.

“At zero they do nothing. But later we will be able to access them during placement to change whatever we are placing, from traps to obstacles to monsters. And the higher we can get those skills, the more complex our creations can be.” Parsi answers.

“What about the books I got there on the table?”

“There is a material skill ‘Writings’ that is increased by absorbing books, scrolls and the like – but until the skill level is higher than the level of the writing, all contents would be lost. And we are currently at zero there as well, so don't absorb them until we know they are useless or we have a better skill.

However once we have a higher skill, anything we absorb after that could be recreated with mana. The mana cost for magic scrolls is unfortunately rather high.

Can we exchange Status now?”

“Yes, just let me absorb the other two wolves, then we can share. I assume it works the same way as with the transformation window?”

Name

Claudia

Level

12 (1) – Rank G

Race

High Sareni (10/25) 15%

Free Points

12

Classes

Slitar (2/25) 25%

Body

16/21+4 (1) * 150%

Senses

4/1+3 (0)

Mind

9/7+2 (0)

Presence

36/35+1 (1)

Agility

12/13+7 (1) * 200%

Karma

1/1 (0)

Active Skills

Sar’mra’shen 1 (Ag, 16%), Kissing 1 (Pr, 0%), 1 empty slot (Bo)

Inactive/Passive Skills

Observation 1 (Se), Inventory 1 (-)

Titles

Rank G, Animal Killer I

Perks

Claws*, Multilimbed (6)*, Reincarnated (20), Dungeon Keeper (???), Transformations (High Sareni) 10, Magic Kisses, Cursed Kisses, Language (Beregra), Language (Nerwaran Common Trade)

States

Transformed (Blue Catgirl, Sareni)*, Pregnant (1/283 days)

Name

Persiphone Leafbottom

Level

3+2 (0)

Race

Pixie (3/5) 37%

Free Points

1+2

Body

2/2 (0) * 10%

Senses

1/1 (0)

Mind

1/1 (0)

Presence

1/1 (0)

Agility

2/2 (0) * 140%

Karma

1/1 (0)

Inactive/Passive Skills

Knowledge (Dungeon Construction) 2 (Mi), Knowledge (Dungeon Core) 1 (Mi)

Titles

Dungeon Assistant, Collector, Flying High II

Perks

Dungeon Contract (???), Language (Nerwaran Common Trade)

“Oooohhhh” I watch as Parsi stares slack-jawed at my Status. And watching her numbers I can’t feel anything but pity for her.

“Sorry about bitching after the fight, Parsi” I tell her “I hadn’t realized how bad your numbers were, no wonder that you have to run from any danger.”

“Don’t worry about that – pixies have been called worse, and you didn’t know. Give me a few minutes to stare in awe, then I can answer your questions.”

A few minutes later she turns to me and asks “OK, what do you want to know? Fair warning – I know nothing about the Sareni, Slitar and their options or where they came from – this Beregra I assume.”

“No worry, I’m after more general info for now. Basically the difference between active and inactive skills, and what actions give experience because I got experience only from the two titles, not from the fight or wolves themselves.”

“Experience from fighting? What a horrible idea!!” Parsi shudders at that. “There would probably be bandits going around and slaughtering entire villages if that were to give them experience. Don’t even hint at something that bad.

No, most experience comes from skills leveling up, and skills level by usage. That is why deep dungeons are so important – they allow the adventurers to use their skills against equal opponents.

Titles are the second source of experience, but they taper of fast if you repeat enough. That animal killer series of titles? 100 XP for the first kill, 200 XP for ten kills, 300XP for a hundred kills and so on. And the same goes for the other killer type titles.

OK, let’s talk about skills – not about that horrible idea of XP for kills.

An inactive skill can be used normally, but the skill does not improve by usage nor gives XP as a result. For a skill to become active it needs to be place into a skill slot of the attribute it uses. And the first such skill slot is opened at attribute value 10.

You can remove an active skill any time, but then it drops to the next full level – any excess usage is permanently lost. You for example would lose the 16% gained from the fight if you were to unslot your combat skill now. Most people that gain access to better skills wait until they leveled their current progress before switching skills.

In your case you should spend nine of your free points on Senses to get a slot for Observation. That will help you a lot.”

“What about that inventory skill? It does not have an attribute assigned.”

“Inventory is a general skill, it will take the attribute of wherever it is slotted first and then keep that. You might consider slotting it to your empty body slot, especially as you have no body skills at the moment. However a lot of people with that skill wait until they have a slot in an attribute they rarely use.”

“I agree about improving senses and because that are most of my free point I’ll wait before deciding what to do with Inventory. How do I use that skill anyway?”

“Oh, that is automatic on your Equipment page. But can we switch to what exactly that god said, the one that send you here? That could become important as well…”