(Master, the rooms have grown slightly again.) Laura said to me as I was following my swordswomen through the dungeon.
(How much?)
(They are 12 cm taller, 38 cm wider and 22 cm longer.)
(Isn’t that basically nothing?)
(At the moment, yes. But it's proof that the dungeon is growing and you should mention it to Christina. The dungeon might even develop new rooms.)
(Oh. That might be useful. Perhaps if I install some more cards to the core I can force it to grow faster.)
(I can make a list of recommendations.) Laura said.
(Thanks.)
“Brian, these monsters. Why do you think they are the ones to appear?” Christina asked.
“No idea.” I told her. The dungeon nowadays was filled with human sized skeletons that had wooden clubs and little imps that carried sharpened sticks. In the seventh room, some of the imps had spears with a stone tip as well. And then there was the large skeleton boss monster. Last time it was a dinosaur, but this time it was a large, four legged beast with two horns. It almost looked like the horned bison I took down on my first day. The imps were similar to Spear Cretin, and the skeletons were almost the same as Skull Servant. And perhaps the skeletal boss monsters took after Mammoth Graveyard, but were just different species.
“It just seems strange. Usually undead monsters like skeletons only die if you break their core, but these ones seem to die just by cutting them to pieces.” Christina commented.
“Well if you don’t like it, we can possibly change what monsters the dungeon spawns. Probably. I don’t actually know if we can do it.” I told her.
“I think these would be fine as well, but perhaps we could add some variety to them.” She said.
“Here we are.” I said as we reached the core.
“That fool really did use it. I wasn’t fully convinced until I saw it myself.” Christina commented as she looked at the dungeon core. She might still be angry at Brandon because he used an S-rank monster core for the dungeon core. Or perhaps she is perplexed. I guess using a high class monster core for a dungeon this small might be a waste.
“Well, I’m thankful for it. Because of the strong core the dungeon is growing.” I told her.
“Growing? Is it really?” Christina confirmed.
“Yes it is. The rooms have expanded slightly since last time.” I told her. “Laura even said that the dungeon might grow new rooms with time.”
“I would say that is great, but that means a lot more work for us.” Christina said.
“Well, that’s true. But it should also result in more profit. But let’s get on with the naming.” I told her.
I walked over to the core and pulled up the management menu.
| Dungeon 22_090 (unnamed) |
| Core Status: Strong |
| Miasma Status: Intermediate |
| Monster Status: Some |
| Founder: Brian Wood |
| Current Master: None |
| Generation Points: 19853 |
| Generatable Items |
The miasma status has gone up. Hopefully that won’t cause a problem. I guess the spirits said something about the miasma building up in the area around this forest, so I guess this dungeon would absorb more of it. Perhaps I could try spawning more monsters and then just exterminating them with my summons. That might lower the miasma status. But I should ask Christina about it first. And perhaps do the card installing as well.
I touched on the current master part.
| Name a Dungeon Master |
| Please have a person touch the core to name them as a Dungeon Master. |
| You must have at least one Dungeon Master before being able to name a Sub-Master. |
So there can also be sub-masters. That might be good. Perhaps one of the maids could do that. Or perhaps I’ll even name Zayaan as a sub-master. That way Christina can still leave sometimes, in case of something like parties or other celebrations that nobility take part in.
“Christina, please come touch the core.” I told my to be Dungeon Master.
“Is that all it takes?” She asked.
“I think so. But I think you need permission from the founder to do it. Or perhaps even a Dungeon Master can name another Dungeon Master.” I told her. “But that’s not important at the moment. Touch the core, please.”
Christina came up next to me and slowly inched her left hand to the core. As her hand reached the core, a message popped up.
| Name Christina Watchman as a Dungeon Master |
| [Yes] [No] |
Of course, Yes.
| Permission acquired. Generating Dungeon Master terminal. |
What happened next reminded me of when I got my founder’s terminal. A light from the core gathered around Christina’s wrist, consolidating into a bracer. It wasn’t as large as mine and it had a slightly different appearance, but it was basically a copy otherwise. Except that it had a slot for a card on it. From the looks of it, for just one, but still. It’s something like an inferior version of my DiaDhank.
“... is this … a Dungeon Master terminal?” Christina asked, looking at the golden bracer on her arm.
“It should be. Also, you should take a look at your status. Based on the fact that the terminal has a slot for a card on it, I think you probably got the Card Summoner skill, but you should confirm it.” I told her.
Christina took a second to stare at the air in front of her. I hadn’t really considered it up until now, but I guess looking at your status might look a little strange to someone just looking at you. Unless you open it up, but that’s generally not a great idea.
“I got two new skills.” Christina said. “Card Summoner and Dungeon Master.”
“I see. I guess you would get a skill like that. I also gained a skill for Dungeon Founder.” I said. “But it’s good to hear that you did get Card Summoner.”
“Yes. Now, let us update this dungeon so we can open it to the public.” Christina said.
“Sure, but first, we should name the dungeon.” I said to Christina.
“We must name it after you.” Christina demanded.
“... do we really? I’m fine with it being named something else. Or at least name it something like the ‘Wooded Dungeon’, or ‘The Deep Woods Dungeon’. I will not allow you to name it ‘Brian’s Dungeon’ or something like that.” I canceled her idea.
Like come on. Having a dungeon named after its founder is just cringe. I don’t want that. And it’s literally a dungeon in the woods so something like that would make a lot more sense.
After some more back and forth, we decided to name the dungeon ‘TinaWood’. It’s still cringe, but at least I can handle that much. Also it sounds a bit like tin wood. I want some tin soldiers in here. Perhaps I can make some tin golems to act as tin soldiers. Sadly Tin Archduke is something I won’t see for a while. Not that I really even want it. Actually, is there an archetype around Tin Archduke? I don’t remember one, but I could be wrong. Perhaps Konami should make one. But then again, it would just be another rank 4 spam archetype and no one wants more of those. And Tin Archduke is bad anyway.
Christina was looking up all the dungeon information that she now had access to, so I decided that this would be as good of an opportunity to install some cards as I would ever have. Better to do that before we make the dungeon good, as we might need to redo it otherwise.
(Laura, did you check out what cards I should install?)
(Of course. Labyrinth Wall and Magical Labyrinth are the first two.) Laura said.
(I guess installing ‘Labyrinth’ cards into a dungeon would be smart. But Labyrinth Wall is a monster. Won’t it cause a problem?)
(But the monster will be under the control of both Master and Christina, so there is no problem.) Laura said.
(Fine. I’ll believe you with this.) I said as I pulled out the two cards.
I held them over the core before saying: “Install.”
The cards shone lightly before they were absorbed by the core.
After that, a light earthquake shook the dungeon.
“Is everyone OK?” I asked as the earthquake subsided.
“....what was that?” Sana asked.
“Brian, what did you do?” Christina asked.
“I’m not completely sure.” I told her. “Well I know what I did, but I don’t know what happened because of it.”
I looked around the core room. It still looked just the same. Then I turned back to the core and pulled up the dungeon info.
… The seven rooms that used to make up the main dungeon had blown up in size. They weren’t that large yet, but now they were over 100m x 100m in size. They also seemed to be at least 20 meters high. They could definitely fit some large monsters into them.
There were also smaller rooms that you could access from the large rooms. The smaller ones were about the size of the dungeon’s original rooms. In total, the number of rooms in the dungeon went from seven, to over 40 in one go. And the size went from small to … well I don’t know if this would be large or huge. Perhaps just large.
“Just how much power do you have?” Christina asked. “I’ve never heard of a dungeon growing like this.”
She had gotten up and was next to me looking at the dungeon info.
“Well perhaps you’ve just not heard of it. I’m sure someone else could do something like this.” I answered her.
“I want to say that that is impossible, but perhaps some legend could do something like this. I just never expected to experience living with a legend.” She responded.
… am I a legend?
(No you are not, Master. A legend is made when people know you and talk about you. You haven’t reached that point yet.) Laura said to me.
… good point. So I’m a legend in the making? I’ll accept that.
We spent a good amount of time going over the new enlarged dungeon. I also ended up installing more cards into the dungeon core.
With Gift of the Mystical Elf and Solemn Wishes we made healing areas. And we also used Ground Collapse to make safe zones that monsters couldn’t enter. Well technically they could, but they prefer not to. But they couldn’t spawn there at all and would only enter if it was absolutely necessary. Like leaving the dungeon.
Then I used The Dark Door to make challenge rooms. These challenge rooms were only located in the deeper parts of the dungeon. You would need to enter them alone and face either multiple weaker monsters, or one stronger one. And if you won, you would get a reward. For rewards, I installed cards like Legendary Sword, Twin Swords of Flashing Light - Tryce, Lightning Blade, Silver Bow and Arrow, Electro-Whip and Gravity Axe - Grarl. I also added the treant staves that I analyzed earlier as potential rewards.
I did also think about using cards like the trap holes to make… well traps, but decided against it. Having an adventurer die in the dungeon would give me a lot of generation points, but I’d prefer them to die because they suck at fighting, not because they fell into a hole.
“Brian, a large monster just spawned in the seventh large room. I think we should kill it.” Christina said as she was looking at the core.
I was laying down on a bed I made with the dungeon core. We had already had dinner and I was about to go to sleep for the day as Christina said that to me. For safety reasons, one of us would need to stay awake to watch over the dungeon.
I got up from the bed and walked over to the core.
“Wow, that thing is quite large.” I commented as I looked at the surveillance video.
What I saw was a super sized version of the horned bison I once fought. A massive cow, bull thingy that was around 7 meters tall. God that thing is big. It also had two massive horns that looked like swords.
(A sword-horn bull. An A-rank monster.) Laura said to me. (It’s considered to be good practice before fighting a lesser behemoth.) She added.
“Laura said that thing is a sword-horn bull and it’s A-rank.” I repeated to Christina what Laura said. “And I do agree, it’s a little much. I’ll go take care of it.”
“Please be careful.” Christina said as I turned to leave.
“Sure. I’ll be back.” I said to her as I walked towards the corridor leading to the seventh room.
This is actually a great chance to test out one monster I’ve wanted to test. A real Kaiju battle incoming. … well not really. I don’t have any Kaiju monsters yet. But it’s still a battle between two large monsters. Well it’s going to be.
Meanwhile, above ground. Something large was moving. It wasn’t as large as the sword-horn bull, but it was still a sizable monster. Just yesterday, it was just a small critter running around the forest, but after the miasma corrupted it, it had explosive growth to make a large beast.
And now, it was now following the cleared path towards Alewatch.
(Master, the rooms have grown slightly again.) Laura said to me as I was following my swordswomen through the dungeon.
(How much?)
(They are 12 cm taller, 38 cm wider and 22 cm longer.)
(Isn’t that basically nothing?)
(At the moment, yes. But it's proof that the dungeon is growing and you should mention it to Christina. The dungeon might even develop new rooms.)
(Oh. That might be useful. Perhaps if I install some more cards to the core I can force it to grow faster.)
(I can make a list of recommendations.) Laura said.
(Thanks.)
“Brian, these monsters. Why do you think they are the ones to appear?” Christina asked.
“No idea.” I told her. The dungeon nowadays was filled with human sized skeletons that had wooden clubs and little imps that carried sharpened sticks. In the seventh room, some of the imps had spears with a stone tip as well. And then there was the large skeleton boss monster. Last time it was a dinosaur, but this time it was a large, four legged beast with two horns. It almost looked like the horned bison I took down on my first day. The imps were similar to Spear Cretin, and the skeletons were almost the same as Skull Servant. And perhaps the skeletal boss monsters took after Mammoth Graveyard, but were just different species.
“It just seems strange. Usually undead monsters like skeletons only die if you break their core, but these ones seem to die just by cutting them to pieces.” Christina commented.
“Well if you don’t like it, we can possibly change what monsters the dungeon spawns. Probably. I don’t actually know if we can do it.” I told her.
“I think these would be fine as well, but perhaps we could add some variety to them.” She said.
“Here we are.” I said as we reached the core.
“That fool really did use it. I wasn’t fully convinced until I saw it myself.” Christina commented as she looked at the dungeon core. She might still be angry at Brandon because he used an S-rank monster core for the dungeon core. Or perhaps she is perplexed. I guess using a high class monster core for a dungeon this small might be a waste.
“Well, I’m thankful for it. Because of the strong core the dungeon is growing.” I told her.
“Growing? Is it really?” Christina confirmed.
“Yes it is. The rooms have expanded slightly since last time.” I told her. “Laura even said that the dungeon might grow new rooms with time.”
“I would say that is great, but that means a lot more work for us.” Christina said.
“Well, that’s true. But it should also result in more profit. But let’s get on with the naming.” I told her.
I walked over to the core and pulled up the management menu.
| Dungeon 22_090 (unnamed) |
| Core Status: Strong |
| Miasma Status: Intermediate |
| Monster Status: Some |
| Founder: Brian Wood |
| Current Master: None |
| Generation Points: 19853 |
| Generatable Items |
The miasma status has gone up. Hopefully that won’t cause a problem. I guess the spirits said something about the miasma building up in the area around this forest, so I guess this dungeon would absorb more of it. Perhaps I could try spawning more monsters and then just exterminating them with my summons. That might lower the miasma status. But I should ask Christina about it first. And perhaps do the card installing as well.
I touched on the current master part.
| Name a Dungeon Master |
| Please have a person touch the core to name them as a Dungeon Master. |
| You must have at least one Dungeon Master before being able to name a Sub-Master. |
So there can also be sub-masters. That might be good. Perhaps one of the maids could do that. Or perhaps I’ll even name Zayaan as a sub-master. That way Christina can still leave sometimes, in case of something like parties or other celebrations that nobility take part in.
“Christina, please come touch the core.” I told my to be Dungeon Master.
“Is that all it takes?” She asked.
“I think so. But I think you need permission from the founder to do it. Or perhaps even a Dungeon Master can name another Dungeon Master.” I told her. “But that’s not important at the moment. Touch the core, please.”
Christina came up next to me and slowly inched her left hand to the core. As her hand reached the core, a message popped up.
| Name Christina Watchman as a Dungeon Master |
| [Yes] [No] |
Of course, Yes.
| Permission acquired. Generating Dungeon Master terminal. |
What happened next reminded me of when I got my founder’s terminal. A light from the core gathered around Christina’s wrist, consolidating into a bracer. It wasn’t as large as mine and it had a slightly different appearance, but it was basically a copy otherwise. Except that it had a slot for a card on it. From the looks of it, for just one, but still. It’s something like an inferior version of my DiaDhank.
“... is this … a Dungeon Master terminal?” Christina asked, looking at the golden bracer on her arm.
“It should be. Also, you should take a look at your status. Based on the fact that the terminal has a slot for a card on it, I think you probably got the Card Summoner skill, but you should confirm it.” I told her.
Christina took a second to stare at the air in front of her. I hadn’t really considered it up until now, but I guess looking at your status might look a little strange to someone just looking at you. Unless you open it up, but that’s generally not a great idea.
“I got two new skills.” Christina said. “Card Summoner and Dungeon Master.”
“I see. I guess you would get a skill like that. I also gained a skill for Dungeon Founder.” I said. “But it’s good to hear that you did get Card Summoner.”
“Yes. Now, let us update this dungeon so we can open it to the public.” Christina said.
“Sure, but first, we should name the dungeon.” I said to Christina.
“We must name it after you.” Christina demanded.
“... do we really? I’m fine with it being named something else. Or at least name it something like the ‘Wooded Dungeon’, or ‘The Deep Woods Dungeon’. I will not allow you to name it ‘Brian’s Dungeon’ or something like that.” I canceled her idea.
Like come on. Having a dungeon named after its founder is just cringe. I don’t want that. And it’s literally a dungeon in the woods so something like that would make a lot more sense.
After some more back and forth, we decided to name the dungeon ‘TinaWood’. It’s still cringe, but at least I can handle that much. Also it sounds a bit like tin wood. I want some tin soldiers in here. Perhaps I can make some tin golems to act as tin soldiers. Sadly Tin Archduke is something I won’t see for a while. Not that I really even want it. Actually, is there an archetype around Tin Archduke? I don’t remember one, but I could be wrong. Perhaps Konami should make one. But then again, it would just be another rank 4 spam archetype and no one wants more of those. And Tin Archduke is bad anyway.
Christina was looking up all the dungeon information that she now had access to, so I decided that this would be as good of an opportunity to install some cards as I would ever have. Better to do that before we make the dungeon good, as we might need to redo it otherwise.
(Laura, did you check out what cards I should install?)
(Of course. Labyrinth Wall and Magical Labyrinth are the first two.) Laura said.
(I guess installing ‘Labyrinth’ cards into a dungeon would be smart. But Labyrinth Wall is a monster. Won’t it cause a problem?)
(But the monster will be under the control of both Master and Christina, so there is no problem.) Laura said.
(Fine. I’ll believe you with this.) I said as I pulled out the two cards.
I held them over the core before saying: “Install.”
The cards shone lightly before they were absorbed by the core.
After that, a light earthquake shook the dungeon.
“Is everyone OK?” I asked as the earthquake subsided.
“....what was that?” Sana asked.
“Brian, what did you do?” Christina asked.
“I’m not completely sure.” I told her. “Well I know what I did, but I don’t know what happened because of it.”
I looked around the core room. It still looked just the same. Then I turned back to the core and pulled up the dungeon info.
… The seven rooms that used to make up the main dungeon had blown up in size. They weren’t that large yet, but now they were over 100m x 100m in size. They also seemed to be at least 20 meters high. They could definitely fit some large monsters into them.
There were also smaller rooms that you could access from the large rooms. The smaller ones were about the size of the dungeon’s original rooms. In total, the number of rooms in the dungeon went from seven, to over 40 in one go. And the size went from small to … well I don’t know if this would be large or huge. Perhaps just large.
“Just how much power do you have?” Christina asked. “I’ve never heard of a dungeon growing like this.”
She had gotten up and was next to me looking at the dungeon info.
“Well perhaps you’ve just not heard of it. I’m sure someone else could do something like this.” I answered her.
“I want to say that that is impossible, but perhaps some legend could do something like this. I just never expected to experience living with a legend.” She responded.
… am I a legend?
(No you are not, Master. A legend is made when people know you and talk about you. You haven’t reached that point yet.) Laura said to me.
… good point. So I’m a legend in the making? I’ll accept that.
We spent a good amount of time going over the new enlarged dungeon. I also ended up installing more cards into the dungeon core.
With Gift of the Mystical Elf and Solemn Wishes we made healing areas. And we also used Ground Collapse to make safe zones that monsters couldn’t enter. Well technically they could, but they prefer not to. But they couldn’t spawn there at all and would only enter if it was absolutely necessary. Like leaving the dungeon.
Then I used The Dark Door to make challenge rooms. These challenge rooms were only located in the deeper parts of the dungeon. You would need to enter them alone and face either multiple weaker monsters, or one stronger one. And if you won, you would get a reward. For rewards, I installed cards like Legendary Sword, Twin Swords of Flashing Light - Tryce, Lightning Blade, Silver Bow and Arrow, Electro-Whip and Gravity Axe - Grarl. I also added the treant staves that I analyzed earlier as potential rewards.
I did also think about using cards like the trap holes to make… well traps, but decided against it. Having an adventurer die in the dungeon would give me a lot of generation points, but I’d prefer them to die because they suck at fighting, not because they fell into a hole.
“Brian, a large monster just spawned in the seventh large room. I think we should kill it.” Christina said as she was looking at the core.
I was laying down on a bed I made with the dungeon core. We had already had dinner and I was about to go to sleep for the day as Christina said that to me. For safety reasons, one of us would need to stay awake to watch over the dungeon.
I got up from the bed and walked over to the core.
“Wow, that thing is quite large.” I commented as I looked at the surveillance video.
What I saw was a super sized version of the horned bison I once fought. A massive cow, bull thingy that was around 7 meters tall. God that thing is big. It also had two massive horns that looked like swords.
(A sword-horn bull. An A-rank monster.) Laura said to me. (It’s considered to be good practice before fighting a lesser behemoth.) She added.
“Laura said that thing is a sword-horn bull and it’s A-rank.” I repeated to Christina what Laura said. “And I do agree, it’s a little much. I’ll go take care of it.”
“Please be careful.” Christina said as I turned to leave.
“Sure. I’ll be back.” I said to her as I walked towards the corridor leading to the seventh room.
This is actually a great chance to test out one monster I’ve wanted to test. A real Kaiju battle incoming. … well not really. I don’t have any Kaiju monsters yet. But it’s still a battle between two large monsters. Well it’s going to be.
Meanwhile, above ground. Something large was moving. It wasn’t as large as the sword-horn bull, but it was still a sizable monster. Just yesterday, it was just a small critter running around the forest, but after the miasma corrupted it, it had explosive growth to make a large beast.
And now, it was now following the cleared path towards Alewatch.
