Trash Mountain Dungeon

It was the next day by the time I had enough mana to make the formation room, the stone walls becoming rougher and less uniform, taking an appearance closer to that of a more naturally occurring cave than a room in a dungeon. As it finished forming, the golems scattered amongst the rubble, crawling over stones and the beginnings of crystal formations, nothing too exciting though, whatever leftover knowledge I retained from school about minerals told me that they were mostly just quartz, agates, and what I think is fluorite, I never paid to much attention to geology in sophomore year.

With that room operable my mana production was bumped up to 7 per hour, with 130 mana storage, quite the improvement I say. But since I have some more mana production and storage, I should look towards using it now, I still have two more rooms to fill and another monster spawn to use, the wolves might not be the most thematic for my dungeon but perhaps they could be useful. Worst-case scenario I either don’t make anything or just copy an existing room and monster node.

Before I could get into my thoughts though, I could feel a shift in the dungeon, standing at the entrance I could see that guy from before, the one who had that demon bear with him. Only, this time he was surrounded by a group of more demon creatures, several small hellish-looking dogs led by a larger more wolf-like hound. Without much of a word, he sent his creatures up the cliff, having figured out how to use the lift, and sent his creatures on the attack.

They first stepped into the entrance proper, the lift docking into the room, the door shutting tight behind them. They were momentarily confused but after a second, they pushed forward into the hatchery, seeing the three metal puppets swaying towards them with blunt and razor arms. My movers were able to surprise them initially with a speed that something made of clunky metal probably shouldn’t have, managing to group up on the closest of the hounds, beating and stabbing it with clumsy yet deadly precision.

This benefit didn’t last long though, the leader hound commanded the remaining four to jump back before my puppets could move onto them. After they began to encircle the trio, nipping and biting at them to make them move back, thankfully since the puppets were just that, the tactic didn’t work as well. And it wasn’t until a second dog was killed did, they abandoned the defensive stance and went on full attack, the remaining three hounds and leader dog piled onto one puppet that had its back turned toward them and began dragging it away from the other two. The result of this was rather funny though, the skeletal mover was pulling on the puppet’s strings with the help of the other two, drawing attention to themselves while their puppets fell to the floor.

Unfortunately for my innocent, yet creepy, spiders the leader hound took the chance to jump an impressive height and drag the three down, using their teamwork to snatch them. Sadly, the other hounds began to bite and rip apart my spiders, my poor poor spiders. But as much as I mourned my brave soldiers, I did get to see what happens when they die, once the hounds were done with their attacks what remained of them began to glow and fade away, leaving behind three items. Two of the three was a rather nice-looking spool of spider silk, the third item though, was a set of gloves with a spool of thread on one, inspecting it revealed something rather interesting, in the fact that it’s incredibly fantasy.

Spider Silk Razor Wire (Low Quality)

A dungeon-made set of razor-wire gloves, usable by control mages and skilled individuals.

Attributes:

Mana Wire, the wire is infused with magic, it can be controlled by someone skilled in mana manipulation.

Razor Wire, the wire is sharp.

Magic razor wire that can move around with more magic, I don’t play bingo but if I did, I’m sure I would be able to mark off the ‘unusual magic weapon’ box if it was there.

But returning to the battle, the hounds ignored the loot drops and began to move a room forward, inching their way into the assembly room where they were assaulted by my clockworkers. Whether they had anticipated being attacked immediately or not, they were able to get back before the first clockworker got them. Unlike last time they had no hesitation in attacking, dragging one of them away and tearing its arms and legs off, but while they were busy tearing it apart my other three were able to drag two of the remaining smaller ones off, one worker quickly crunching the skull of the one it got. In contrast, the other two tore theirs in half, discarding the body to the wayside.

Stopping themselves, the remaining two made a break for the next room, both jumping over the workers but only the leader hound succeeded, the one that failed met a similarly grim fate to the rest of them. I’m not sure what its plan was, to be honest, since the moment it landed in the formation room it got swarmed by 10 different grasping metal hands, and it gave them a good fight too since it was able to chomp four of them before the remaining six managed to take it down. But with the last of the attack dogs taken care of, I could feel the dungeon return to normal as well as cleaning up the mess they left behind, I even gained another 10% in my growth.

As the last of the blood was absorbed by the ground, I could see the spawn nodes begin to resummon their monsters, creating a rather sullen-looking trio of spiders, a somehow confused quartet of clockworkers, and replacing the missing four golems, all none the wiser to having been killed.

Are these monsters the same as the ones before, the spiders aren’t exactly sending me feelings of happiness at having been taken down at once.

Correct, however, the resummoned monsters retain only the moments before their death, this can be altered by purchasing a special trait for the floor the monster resides on through the use of DP.

DP, aside from that first accidental purchase I hadn’t interacted with it all that much, perhaps after this situation I could start messing around with it. As things returned to relative normality, I could feel the dungeon go back into combat mode and saw a fresh trio of hounds at the entrance. But unlike before these showed no interest in fighting, simply grabbing the dropped loot and running back to the entrance and somehow getting the doors and lift to go down, taking their prize with them. I couldn’t see much of where they went after they got into the trees below the entrance, but I assumed that the guy was there.

My main concern is the performance of my defenses, yes, they did stop them but at a hefty price, two-thirds of my forces were killed, and if it wasn’t for my golems swarming the last one, I'm not sure what would have happened. But what I know is that it needed to change, and fast, if the summoner was still around then it was very likely that I would face similar attacks shortly. So far all three of my existing rooms and their occupants were a mixed bag as far as combat performance was concerned, which realistically wasn’t that unexpected, the clockworkers were stated to be laborers and busybodies, while the golems were more of an accident in covered in metal.

The skeletal movers were the only ones who seemed to have the expressed intent of being designed to kill seeing as they use puppets to fight with, this big problem is that they are held back by their low status, and the quality of the parts they are using. One solution could be to fill the next two rooms with some of my existing monsters and structures, the big problem is that people would only need to go through one of them since the other is a splinter room with little to attract them.

Perhaps there is a solution in this DP shop?

Dungeon Store Point - Current balance: 29

This store exists to enable dungeons to utilize DP.

Monsters*

Purchase Random Low-tier monster: 10 DP

Purchase Random Mid-tier monster: 30 DP

Purchase Random High-tier Monster: 100 DP

Purchase Existing Monster Variant: 120 DP

Purchase Random Special Monster: 200 DP

Purchase Random Critter: 5 Dp

*Monsters will typically trend towards the core's theme; however, it is still random.

[Multiple options locked due to core level.]

Traps*

Purchase random trap: 5 DP

Purchase trap improvement: 25 DP

*Trap level and effectiveness are scaled according to the floor it is on.

[Multiple options locked due to core level.]

Room Features*

Advanced Assembly Line: An all-around improvement to the simple assembly line, it allows for the creation of more advanced components. Expensive to construct.

Price: 50 DP

Puppet Evolutionary Pit: Allows arachnid-type monsters to undergo specialized evolutions, the number of evolutions is limited based on the floor number. Evolutions require DP.

Price: 50 DP

Purification Room: An improvement over the formation room, it allows denser mana crystals and can generate wild crystal golems. Wild golems are uncontrollable but can be consumed by dungeon golems to temporarily improve stats.

Price: 50 DP

Room Gating: Allows the construction of durable doors between different rooms, these doors can be controlled by the core at will provided a challenger is not present in the room. Unlocks further door-based upgrades once purchased.

Price 10 DP

*Available purchase options are dependent on unlocked room features.

Special Upgrades*

Room Upgrades:

Combat Assembly Line: This allows the core to modify an assembly line to produce combat parts and weapons and reduces mana production.

Price: 25 DP

Bio-Puppets: This allows puppet hatcheries to produce organic puppets of a chosen specialty. Bio-puppets require sustenance.

Price: 60

Golem Core Amalgamation: This allows any golems assigned to a formation room to randomly amalgamate another golem, granting increased stats and granting the resulting golem the abilities of both. This may result in the creation of chaos-aligned golems.

Price: 100 DP

Monster Upgrades:

Clockworker:

Hardened Materials: Improves the base materials of all clockworkers. Price: 25 DP

Simple Electronics System: grants clockworkers improved work efficiency at the cost of requiring a source of electricity. Price: 35 DP

[Multiple options locked due to core level]

Skeletal Mover:

Steel String: Improves web durability. Price: 15 DP

Chitinous Spray: Grants the ability to produce a chitin-derived spray that can trap enemies. Price: 30 DP

[Multiple options locked due to core level]

Inferior Golems:

Lesser Durability: Grants greater physical resistance. Price: 10 DP

Group Cohesion: Allows for group thinking. Price: 50 DP

[Multiple options locked due to core level]

*Special Upgrades are unlocked when monsters, rooms, and traps are unlocked.

*Upgrades are priced according to their impact and potential benefits.

Well, that was a lot to read, and rather irritating as well. Pretty much most of the stuff in the store is just out of my price or so far beyond it that I don’t know how long it would take to get the points for them, and most of them are cool-looking too. And while some of them are concerning like the oddly gatcha options for traps and monsters, most of the other upgrades and unlocks could be lifesavers and the rest would be convenient to have.

Calming myself down, if they’re priced the way that they are then it should be possible to earn more DP than just what my production gives me. What other methods of acquiring Dp do I have available?

There are many methods of acquiring DP, one such method is the achievement of various special goals or necessary milestones of growth. Additionally, the deal of soul-bearing creatures awards 10 DP each time.

Other methods are available at later core levels.

Well, that was helpful and uninformative to boot.

Assumably, it means growth milestones like when I broke to the surface and finalized my core, which means I need to start grinding away at those requirements for the next core level. The problem I’m seeing though is that I might get swept up in trying to get DP and levels that I might not properly build my dungeon. For the short term, I could probably work on getting core levels and filling out space since I did still have two extra rooms, but as time goes on, I’m going to have to think in terms of the long game. Pulling up the requirements, it's probably better to know what I'm getting into before I commit.

Core Requirements

Build and fill five rooms (3/5)

Create two monster nodes (3/2) Complete

Establish a simple ecosystem with critters (Incomplete)

Survive your first attack, Complete

Hmm, I honestly thought I would be harder, but then again, I am a baby core so I guess simple is what I should expect for a couple of levels. Filling out the rooms is going to be annoying since I’ll have to juggle my production and stored amount, but it should be easy. What gets me though is the critter ecosystem, I already know that they could be useful. Still, I don’t need to be an ecologist to tell you that I have no idea what a balanced ecosystem looks like with three creatures, two of which aren’t even actual animals. Short of making the rats prey on themselves I have no idea what to do here, although I could buy a new critter to see if I can luck my way into something I could use.

What the hell, let's spin the wheel!

Acknowledged -5 DP, processing...

Congratulations,

You have been granted the critter, [Black Ouraborian Worm]!

Ok, what the hell.