Whilst Tier and Aenirus was busy brainstorming with each other…

‘Well today is a bit of a shitshow’ Verk decided as he observed many of the others panicking at what to do from the events after the venture towards the abandoned village. It was a bit worrisome when Tier told them he would need to work on a 3rd floor immediately and Verk was Savvy enough to catch the tinge of pain in the mental voice.

It was a strange time indeed without Tier telling them what to do or how they should do things around the dungeon ‘It is funny to see the others panicking though’ Verk smirked as he remembered the time fondly working on crafting stuff whilst watching the others scramble around like a bunch of idiots.

Thankfully, Tier came out of it after a while and even bought Aenirus down with him to help on the 3rd floor ‘I still don’t fully understand her, why she’s helping us or why Tier allowed her to just go around everywhere but… she is certainly useful and friendly’

During the time Tier was working with Aenirus, he experimented a bit on the core crystals of the ghouls the teams bought back… he was right about his theory and Aenirus explanation on them being undead creatures “Into the trashcan these things go… advisor thingy please remove the patterns for these abominations of nature pretty please?” Tier said in a sickening too sweet of a voice for him.

“I can stand things like robots but these things… nope! I will do my best to kill anything like those freaks of nature… unless they are sapient, sentient or can talk because then they are basically another creature of nature” Tier explained why likely to a curious Aenirus.

“Alright people, I want you guys to continue doing your thing whilst I finish my 3rd floor with Aenirus, also Blackie and… unnamed Yao Guai come down here and so will… pick some volunteers or play rock paper scissors, I need 10 vespers, 8 serpents excluding both the armored serpents, all 10 varmilleons of any kind and… the four maned kanids down here on the 3rd floor” Tier announced.

‘Of course, when Tier told us to pick some of our own to go down towards the 3rd floor to likely help defend it will be a bit of a problem… a lot of problems actually, there’s this weird instinct in place to serve and protect him though I don’t feel it as strongly as when I was born’ Verk pondered as he turned his head from where he was working.

“Father Tier… there is a problem” Marve voiced a potential problem “alright Marve, what is it?” “there are more than 4 of our lesser kin” he answered his question “wait what? I made only 4 of them” Tier stated in confusing “one of the females gave birth recently” Mirsk answered that one ‘Wait how… oh right…’

“Oh… OH… oh right… I forgot I enabled you guys to breed” Tier remembered that decision of his “No I do not want to disable it… thank you though advisor… now the-” Tier stopped talking suddenly as something came up ‘Strewth… did something went wrong’ Verk wondered as Tier went silent for a bit.

“GAH!!! Okay… more patterns… at the perfect time as well… I need to increase the space though since everyone can respawn and they can all breed with each other… work on it later… excuse me but I find some of these stats odd…” Tier admitted out of nowhere “why do the evolved kobolds start with an art and trained proficiencies in many areas?” he asked out loud.

…

“Okay… some things to keep an eye on eye guess” Tier then kindly smacked himself mentally for the terrible joke before moving on to go back to fleshing out the 3rd floor “Also, before I forget, if anything happens tell me about it, I do not want to get blindsided by an invasion force during floor creation because you think that they are not worth my time or because of your arrogance!” Tier announced his order before going back to doing some designing…

“Wait a second… where was I?” he found himself asking before looking down and seeing the two 2nd floor bosses casually and patiently waiting for him to finish his monologue “… oh shit… sorry guys I got a bit distracted and… okay enough with this half-hearted apology, I am very sorry for putting static blue screens over you guys” Tier apologized to the two of them ‘Well isn’t he a dad’ Verk gave out a small giggled once Tier realized what happened.

“It is okay father, it wasn’t that long of a wait” Mirsk replied “…it’s not nice lying to him Mirsk” Marve said coldly “…okay it was a bit too long of a wait though” Mirsk added “However, we forgive you wither way” they both said in unison ‘Aren’t they both a pair of friendly mates’

“Thank you, you two are so kind and understanding… I’m going to start doing stuff now and also tell the others to stop doing the thingy to making new babies as I would be doing an announcement of that soon” Tier reminded them before leaving.

‘Well that’s that… It’s been a while since I’ve eaten any kind of food huh… yeah my stomach’s a-grumbling… should check if there’s any brekkie waiting for me’ Verk wondered as he quit working on his current project of making a crossbow based on the parts he seen from the village.

It took a bit of a while to get to the designated dining area on the 1nd floor as Verk has to trek from the 2nd floor where he was working without distraction ‘Hmmm… wonder what’s for brekkie today… we have a lot of variety now that the dungeon absorbed a buncha random shit’ he pondered as he entered.

“G’day Parl, whatcha have for us today mate?” Verk asked as he approached “Oh well good day to you as well mate, we’re having some simple fish and mushroom stew for breakfast” Parl answered with a reptilian smile “Well I sincerely hope the mushies aren’t well… poisonous tutos… those things are just painful” Verk said sarcastically.

“I can assure you that they aren’t” Parl answered “We also added a bit of herbs as sort of a spice as well” Meena popped up as well “You two mateys have been approving haven’t you kinda like a couple” Verk cracked a bad joke “haha… no” both of them said after a bit of a laugh.

“Hmmm… I haven’t seen Hraeta today at all” Verk muttered curiously as he observed the rest of the room… there was Kaide, Taika, most of the others as well minus Hraeta, Johta, some other kobolds and even Batra and a couple others.

“Oh sorry mate but Hraeta and some of the others went ahead to go out early in an expedition today… said that they want to I dunno… revisit the village, pick up whatever else they can find and then loop back through the forest in the west” Parl answered that question.

“Bugger, I would’ve wished to come back out in the outback again… I just figured out how to make some new potions from some of the ingredients Tier provided” Verk complained loudly sighing from the missed opportunity “You can’t get all that you want Verk, sometimes you just don’t” Meena commented

“I’ve heard that the other mates have plans on another sorta tournament style of sparring session” Parl suddenly said “What’s so special about this one?” Verk asked curiously “Klaki is good enough to fight now and there is a match between Marve and Mirsk, also there will be team matches today since I have a couple problems with how some of the people coordinated” Parl answered.

“Wait… MARVE AND MIRSK? You mean we get to see two bosses fight each other?” Verk asked enthusiastically in which Parl nodded “This is way better than going out there, a proper kanid fight!” Verk added enthusiastically before going to the new private fighting pit on the 2nd floor.

He then proceeded to remember the grumbling in his stomach, went back to get his share of breakfast, downed it almost instantly and then he went to go see the fight ‘Finally, a real big fight between some of the bosses, this is going to be great’ Verk thought as he ran towards the training grounds.

The dungeon has become must livelier than what it used to be, there were plant life all over the place, shine mushrooms lighting up all the walls, rooms and corridors… Some variety in herbs, plants, etc… especially in the private hidden section of the dungeon.

The booming population of critters and some monsters is a clear sign of how lively it had become with many of them play-fighting or mimicking predator-prey relationship and even hunting each other for real though the last one is rare and for both parties it’s just water under the bridge.

Every creature in the dungeon can respawn… automatically… which was a problem Tier had a bit of difficulty fixing… his solution was simple. He made a maximum population size for each species on certain floors and rooms which would somewhat solve the overpopulation problems in the dungeon for a little while at least.

As Verk Ran through the tunnels both of the main dungeon and of the hidden parts, he could see many of these predator-prey relationships. Some who were supposed to be dire enemies in the wilds grew close bonds with each other for the few days they were familiar with each other since Tier only recently enabled EvE.

This makes it harder for some to fall back into the natural cycle… so they play fight instead which grew to became the most popular options even though they do actually need food due to one of Tier’s traits ‘It’s a good thing most of us only need like a meal each day or even less’ Verk thought as he sees a Vesper released a Giant Varmilleon from its grasp before both of them ran off to repeat the game.

‘Though it is a good little activity that I like to partake in… good thing we don’t have to shit or anything since most of the excess stuff we swallow down our gullet gets turned into excess many or whatnot’ Verk thought about the breakfast this morning.

As he passed by many more tunnels and rooms, he could see the populations of every creature has boomed. Many of the dungeons creatures now cycle their positions from guarding to training to sleeping or whatnot as it would not be fare for newcomers to be denied important roles because they were simply born or created or claimed or contracted later than others.

However, today it was peaceful… most had fallen into a sense of security, especially those in the lower floors. Though as Verk walked through the last of the tunnels, he remembered about the changes to the 1st floor where he usually resided.

Before Tier went back to creating the 3rd floor with Aenirus… he did alter the 1t floor a tad bit, the entrance stayed the same with only 3 flying kanids inside, the entirety of the 1st floor looked like any normal old cave with mushrooms, spiderwebs, rocks, some boulders, moss, stalactites, stalagmites, etc… even the creatures Tier chose for the defense of the 1st floor are from those that generally live in caves.

Tier did spread out colonies of microorganisms around the place after finding some place kind of empty of them and he somehow managed to give them some orders as of what to and not to do… somehow… ‘It is a scary thought though… somehow being able to order trillions or likely more of tiny thingies all around the dungeon’ Verk thought as he remembered.

The 1st floor changed some firstly with the 1st corridor leading to the 1st room having 5 pitfalls now, the dimensions of the pitfalls were changed to being only as wide as the 8ft wall, 8-12ft long and only 10ft deep with a foot or two of mud at the bottom.

The first floor did not change much, Tier didn’t want to add any rare or valuable plants or herbs to most rooms but did randomize edible plants, poisonous plants, common herbs and generally low valued things to be distributed randomly in all the rooms, corridors and whatnot.

The first room now lacked the 10 lesser giant varmilleons from before but were replaced by their offspring bringing the total up to 12 of them supplementing the 3 new lesser cave serpent since the original 2 had evolved with a vesper to be a backup in case the 3 flying kanids messed up somehow to warn whoever was in the 1st room in the dungeon proper.

Every creature inside of the dungeon knows of their duty and their station though Tier did let them freely pick though he did have to balance things out in case things get a bit too easy or hard. They were told to challenge or attack invaders or delver to how they see fit, the defenders of the 1st room decided on stealth strikes against those who come to invade but will generally leave anyone alone if they do not attack first or are friendly.

The large 13ft wide corridor to the puzzle room now house 2 large pitfalls traps wide as the width of the corridor and long as they are wide, they are also 10ft deep with 1-2ft of mud in them. The 1st puzzle room remain unchanged, the puzzle was still as of last time: rearrange a bunch of letter to say the words ‘open sesame’ in Middish and the door to the East should open up.

The corridor to the long cliff/lake room changed a bit gaining 3 more pitfalls similar to the ones in the corridor to the 1st room. The actual room did not change, though the defenders did shift a little, with 3 modified monitors armored up in some bronze armor.

There was also Johta and the three other kobolds who were currently outside the dungeon, 6 vespers to provide some aerial support, 2 lesser cave serpents modified with paralysis poison to provide some extra support from the back and 2 black slimes on the cliffs.

From what Verk heard, during their down time, Johta and her boys managed to set up some wooden fortifications on the cliff as cover since they were hybrid ranged/melee fighters but that was about it for the room, the chest was still in the same spot.

To get past the room, the challenge was unchanging as one only needs to either fish out 2 special fish with the keys inside of them, get the kobolds to somehow give you their key or be a murderhobo and take the key by force.

The corridors leading to the 2nd last room are not very special… unless you, brute force your way through either door which would fill the walls with repeating arrow traps firing actually sharpened arrows with bronze arrow head laced with poison.

A punishment for brute forcing your way through a puzzle, he even made the inhabitants of the long room pay no attention if someone doe try to destroy the door though they do get warnings in both rooms.

The 2nd to last room was a small maze of big boulders, small pitfalls, foot falls, etc… inside of a room filled with Flying kanids, Vespers, some varmilleons but most dangerous of all lesser cave serpents with two regular versions and a greater version mixed in alongside 3 of the paralysis venom variety.

The room remains unchanged except for the extra pitfalls, any who tries to sneak their way through would find it difficult but successful, you can also probably bribe the defenders with trinkets or food though that would not be obvious, if not then prepare for a hard fight in a big maze like room filled with traps and enemies that have poison.

The puzzle room remain unchanged, the pitfall in the corridor leading to it was new though but the actual room is unchanged down to the smallest of details. The puzzle remained the same, match the pieces together to create a picture or mural depicting a creature in Tier’s dungeon from the smallest ant to even bosses like Asur or Marve and Mirsk if they are lucky.

The corridor leading to the boss room remains unchanged, so is the boss room and all the chest, apparently from what he heard, Tier contemplated changing the 2nd floor as well but decided against it later as he went back to the 3rd floor…

Verk finished his memory as he entered the training grounds on the 2nd floor, it was a round 150ft wide circular room with a 100ft wide circular fighting ground with a couple of natural obstacles like boulders, rocks, etc… placed randomly by the denizens of the dungeon.

Unfortunately for him… he kinda got there a bit early… ‘Go Fuck me dead… I forgot that it was still extremely early… but I already got here’ Verk thought as he decided what to do ‘You know what… let’s wait it out… surely the mates will come in a few minutes’ They didn’t… it took 3 hours.

…

‘Ah… finally, the fighting has now commenced’ Verk thought as he stood on the stands with 4 scores of other dungeon inhabitants. Kaide was the main judge, referee whatever he was on the ground as he chooses who goes to fight and when.

The first fight was between the new greenhorn litter of 6 lesser maned kanids who grew to adolescenthood quickly due to dungeon cheats against 4 kobolds from the 2nd floor with 2 skirmishers and 2 spear fighters. It was going well for the maned kanids outnumbering their opponents, despite being newly integrated to the dungeon.

‘Wonder how this’ll turn out’ Verk thought before one of the skirmishers got a good shot in on the left eye of the lead kanid with her sling which caused a panic and the others charge in as the fight devolves into a mess of infighting and close quarters combat as claw meet sword and tooth meet spear.

“Okay stop, the fight’s over!” Kaide yelled out as the fighting stopped, two of the kanids and one of the kobolds lie dead however “the kobolds won, let’s not drag the fighting any longer” Kaide announced his decision as the referee.

Both sides pay their respects to their opponents and lost kin and return to the stand “You guys both did great though the kanid pack could’ve done much better, once the leader got critically injured the rest of you charged into a readied braced enemy formation and forgot your hit and run tactics” Kaide gave some advice.

“The kobolds did great though, good defense and nice shot there Mirah, you were definitely mvp of the kobold side, for the mvp of the kanids… that would be Torgar the pack leader” Kaide pointed out a couple more spots they could improve on but let the remainder of both groups go as the 3 that perished dissipated into energy deforming later on.

Next match was boring, so was the next, both were one-sided beatdowns so Kaide had the winners of both match fight against each other. A greater cave serpent against a modified monitor and two lesser cave serpents, both sides eyed each other for a long while before the fighting began.

It was… quite even as they both exchanged a dozen attacks between all the combatants before the monitor managed to get into the greater serpent’s reached and started shredding at it at which the fight was decided. Kaide got a few choice words for both sides though pointing out some flaws in their strategies and how both sides could’ve won in that situation.

‘Now then… for one of the main event’ Verk cheerfully thought as the next fight was announced. Klaki was alone on one corner facing against one of the monitors of the expedition, everyone thought there was a mistake in the matchup… those who knew of Klaki’s abilities felt sorry for the monitor.

It started with the monitor who actually knew of Klaki charged at them with all it’s might only to get stopped in its track when a literal 3ft thick wall of ice was instantly formed in front of it and it crashed into it.

Klaki then covered the field in a thin sheet of slippery ice and created a cold mist reducing visibility by a lot. It wasn’t a one-sided beatdown, Klaki whilst being skilled in magic was very squishy if caught in melee or even when attacked at all so they had no choice but to play their best or get mauled immediately.

‘Good thinking Klaki, you’re a good intelligent Sheila and one of the more gifted spell casters from my point of view… go strong on that bloke’ Verk mentally cheered though some of the others do not have the same restraints as him.

Thanks to a lack of strong offensive ice affinity options being more of a support spellcaster meant that it was a drawn out fight were she had to fend of the monitor as she slides around the ice retaining superior mobility as she had to keep the slippery ice floor up whilst attacking from stealth as the monitor whilst having no counters make up for it via superior physique and could manage a surprisingly high speed even on the slippery ice floor even though it fell flat on its head a lot of times.

The monitor gave up after a while and the fight ended in a victory as a very exhausted Klaki was carried onto the stands by a very injured monitor being hit by a lot of ice bullets from the fight. Kaide told both of them about some mistakes but let Taika handled explaining about how to use magic better and how to defend against it.

The next fight was very exciting, it was Ruma who was finally out of Aenirus and cold compete for once against the newly spawned Lesser Yao Guai. It was… supposed to be a very exciting close quarters match… but… everyone kind of forgotten about the 100ft tall ceiling.

It wasn’t even a fight… it was way too one-sided to be called a one-sided beatdown… in terms of matchups… it was more akin to… a Vesper fighting against a lesser giant varmilleon, the varmilleon has a chance but flight is way too much of an advantage for that chance to be more than an impossibility especially when one was new and the other was more experienced.

Either way, Kaide did have to berate Ruma for being overconfident and landing to get into a ground based battle at the end… it would’ve been more even but Kaide called it not wanting either two of the stronger defenders perish in a silly sparring session in case something bad happens.

Next fight was exciting but brief, so was the next but finally it got to the good part, it was the fight between Marve and Mirsk… 2 of the bosses in the dungeon. It was… so close of a fight that for the longest time no one knew how it would go. Marve was the more magically focused of the two combatants whilst Mirsk was more physically focused though still have some fire magic up her mangy fur.

‘Now this… this will be the main course’

It was a nice fight, starting off with Marve firing a burst of rock bullets at Mirsk who swiftly swatted or dodged the bullets traveling at speeds up to 50m/s. However, the barrage only picks up with Marve adding some wind bullets into it as well as trying to trip Mirsk up with earth bumps under her.

Mirsk however, uses her magic to send a bolt of fire towards Marve making him dodge and letting up the barrage for a second allowing her to close the gap with the speed burst skill. What follows was an intense battle where tooth, claw, fire, air, earth and sound all played a major role in deciding the outcome.

A quickened barrage of searing lances gets blocked by a quickened earth wall, a blade of wind getting countered by a few fire bullets, both combatants barking in the middle, it was a great fight... that ended in a draw. Despite Mirsk getting hit with more attacks overall, Marve also gotten hit by a few too many hits and goes down as well due to his lower endurance.

‘Well that was exciting to watch… never knew either of them can do what they did here, they are arguably way better magic users than most of the others… though I still say even if both of them fight alongside each other… they wouldn’t stand a chance against Asur’ Verk theorized a small fight between the 2 2nd floor bosses and the 1st floor boss.

Kaide declared the fight over and both combatants went back to the stand where they licked their wounds as Kaide lectured on about some parts where they could do better “Good job, very few slips up from either of you guys and fix on some of your weaknesses and your good” Kaide commented on before the next fight begins.

However, before anything else could happen… something unexpected happened, the expedition team returned… way too soon and they came bearing some very… unsettling news “TIER WE HAVE A SITUATION HERE!” Hraeta screamed once she enters the dungeon loud enough that they can hear it echo down here ‘Strewth… this probably isn’t good’

Verk knew something bad was going to happen so he took a quick way out of the fighting pit alongside many of the others and made his way near the entrance. As he neared where Hraeta is, he starts to hear the faint outlines of a conversation.

“Okay, we spotted a group of 8 somethings” Hraeta answered “Okay… that isn’t enough to get you to panic so much… spill the beans on the catch” Tier instructed her mentally talking over a pretty wide area “The things aren’t like the normal animals, critters or anything else, they were bipedal like the things from the village bit they also wear clothing and armor and carry weapons like we do!” Hraeta explained.

“Where are they?” Tier asked his voice seemingly calm “They were checking out the village… examining the tracks we left when leaving it… I think they will get to the dungeon in at least an hour” she answered dutifully and truthfully.

“Thank you, you and the rest of the team can go rest now… EVERYONE TO YOUR STATIONS, WE HAVE A GROUP OF SUSPECTED SAPIENT VISITORS COMING IN AT LEAST AN HOUR!” Tier announced to the entirety of the dungeon “Strewth this really isn’t good” Verk said out loud as he went to get ready.

Everyone kind of panics as they drop what they were doing to get to their stations, it took half an hour just to get all of the defenders to man their posts whilst the reserves wait in the hidden private parts of the dungeon ready to attack if necessary.

Many of the inhabitants who were actually ready to evolve though they have been deliberately not doing it in hopes for better evolutions in the future… panic evolved immediately once they heard the news one of which was Klaki and another is Batra.

Tier got rid of a couple of kinks in many areas of the dungeon, respawned a couple of those who have died and manually healed everyone to full health if possible before going to inform Aenirus about what happened and fixing many of the kinks in his dungeon.

‘Okay this is a bad situation to be in, potential sapient invaders are coming to us soon… okay stay focus’ Verk focuses back on his work and manages to get the crossbow he was working on finished ‘Alright, hopefully this thing works, a lot better than my sling for this type of warfare’ He decided as he grabbed a bundle of bolts newly spawned nearest to him.

As he ran to his post “Kaide, Mate! Can I ask you what we’re doing?” he asked as he spotted him “Oh Verk, you came in just the right time, we’re getting assigned to Tier’s core room” Kaide answered the question.

“Wh-Why? Aren’t we getting assigned to the 1st floor or 3rd floor or whatnot as defenders?” Verk asked confused but then it dawned on him a little “From the look on your face you probably figured it out but to be safe, we’re going to be Tier’s personnel guard alongside many others, we will defend both him and Aenirus if the invaders are dangerous” Kaide stated.

Verk felt the feeling of pride surged onto him ‘Tier’s personnel guard?’ he rhetorically asked as he simply followed further orders ‘This… this is like some sort of dream come true isn’t it… it probably comes from instinct but… well damn am I a lucky son of… well a dungeon’ he thought as he took in sight of the hastily built core room and took position as one of the guards waiting for the delvers.

1st Floot map (made in Calamus map maker):