Trash Mountain Dungeon

You have lost access to both the [mecha-hound] and [wolf] monsters, in exchange you have received the [Black Iron Canid].

Black Iron Canid (Stripped)

The black iron canid was first seen following the fall of the first era, inspired by the once-great and now long-dead machines, this machine is designed with the quintessential aspects that all canids share and holds great speed, power, endurance, and a modicum of grace.

The canid is a lonesome creature and will gain benefits from being alone.

This creature provides little but the strength of metal and the cunning of a living mind.

Creation Cost: 100 mana, 2 pounds of organics daily, 2 pounds of metal daily.

Node Cost: 120 mana, 10 mana taken from production. Creates one creature.

This creature is derived from the First Era [REDACTED] and thus will be limited until created on floor 50.

Nothing? I guess it stays silent sometimes, I might as well get things on with then. In the final room, I summoned my newest minion and as the heavy price left my stores, I saw something that made it almost all worth it from the spectacle alone.

All black, it looked more like a skeleton than anything, the metal bones formed an almost graceful image, and the long skeletal tail was moving less like a tail and more like a weapon poised to strike. It was both futuristic and magical simultaneously, having none of the simple steam-based machinery of the clockworkers or any visible organic parts like the movers.

Pushing the room unlock to the side for now, I couldn’t help but ask why it felt so incomplete.

Due to the core level, a majority of the relevant information has been removed.

The monster [Black Iron Canid] has been stripped of nonessential mechanisms and armor due to the low-level floor it has been created in, additionally, it has been further reduced due to its design and functions being from the First Era.

No other information will be shared regarding the origin of the design or why it has been limited.

Hm, there was something more here, I could feel it, but without a higher core level, I couldn’t uncover whatever I had just discovered. Nonetheless, if I wanted answers and the best path was to gain levels, and so to get my first level up I looked at the newly unlocked room, nearly choking on my ghostly tongue when I saw it.

Canid Den (Stripped)

The den of an old killer, torn from a time long lost and set to a new goal, this den provides both a place of respite for the machine beast and its killing grounds.

This structure provides an overall bonus to a canid's abilities.

This structure provides no increase to mana production or storage as it refocuses all of its produced mana to reduce the upkeep of the canid.

No produced objects.

Creation Cost: 120 mana

God damn that’s expensive and with no mana production or storage either. But I don’t have much choice now, while I could stick with my existing rooms and get their benefits, I already took the offer and already made a canid, best if I stick with it for now. After shaving off a tiny portion of some of the worm stuff, I managed to get the mana for the room.

As it formed within the room, it formed sleek black onyx surfaces that gave the appearance of either stone or perhaps even metal. Molding into a circular shape, as though the room was one giant geode, with a cave being formed by the entrance to the core room. Once it was all done my canid took up a place inside the den that was just out of sight because of the shadows, a series of small tubes hooked up to it from the floor that pumped a clear fluid into the skeletal body.

Congratulations.

The core has fulfilled the requirements to advance to level 2!

+1 floor limit

Added gross mana production to base production. +30 mana per hour

+100 mana storage (240 storage)

+1 level 1 perk choice

+1 focusing choice.

+1 level 2 monster choice*

+10 DP for leveling up.

*Requires choosing a perk and focus choice before being available.

Wait, if I level up despite not having reached 100% growth then what’s the purpose of it?

level-up and growth are linked but separate things, level-ups improve the overall functions and abilities of the dungeon and grant a variety of choices to them. On the other hand, growth influences DP gain rate and [redacted]

So even at level 2 I still don’t have much access, just what is going on here, is there some kind of big picture out there? Regardless though I had a level-up to focus on and some choices to agonize over.

Taking in the level-up screen I certainly felt more powerful, will all level-ups be this good, cause if I’m getting my gross production back every level then I might have to be more careful what I build. Stopping myself from getting too giddy, I refocused on the other rewards, more storage was going to be useful but I’m not quite sure what perks or a ‘focusing choice’ were, perhaps a certain system could do its thing?

The information came up as always, but I couldn’t help but feel like the usual jingle was somehow, annoyed.

Perks

A reward to recently leveled-up dungeons that provides a benefit for one or more aspects.

Perks have levels of effect that are granted based on the level of the previous highest floor.

Focusing

Provides a dungeon the chance to focus on a particular area of its theme, and also allows for generalization as an option.

Rather simple I guess, a bonus for leveling up and a way to focus on a particular thing, neat.

Level 1 perks:

Structural Efficiency 1: Grants mechanical structures and monsters improved efficiency and reduces upkeep.

+1 mana production for all mechanical structures and -1 mana upkeep from mechanical monsters. Node upkeep is reduced by 1.

Offspring 1: Allows biological constructs to produce a limited number of inferior versions of themselves. Creates the chance of 'tameable' creatures.

Allows biological constructs to produce a single offspring, but does not apply to special monsters.

Artificial Elementalism 1: Some magical constructs have the chance to develop an affinity for a basic magical element.

basic elements: fire, water, air, earth. Does not influence cost. Grants a minor ability to use that affinity.

Interestingly, the perks were rather simple but that was to be expected, but still, they were more than worth considering for their long-term impact. Structural efficiency promised a small amount of mana production and a single point of upkeep that would be returned to me. This would give me two additional mana from the assembly line and den while also giving back two more mana from the clockworker and canid nodes. Short term this might not be much but long term, factoring in the level-up bonus, I could have potentially dozens or even hundreds of more mana production, once I got to those points.

The offspring perk though, was nothing to scoff at though. The addition of more monsters for almost no price was big since it would be a boost to my number of defenders and producers. Right now that would mean that I would have three skeletal movers and three lesser versions defending the first room, giving them more aid during attacks.

Artificial elementalism was the only problematic one though and not entirely its fault. I haven’t used them for much of anything, and my current dungeon layout was either biological or mechanical, leaving little room for magical constructs to showcase their worth outside of being able to catch the final hellhound. The idea of any magical construct randomly gaining an affinity for a magical element was interesting but perhaps not the best since the ability it gains might not be worth it if it only happens randomly. To add to my growing frustration though is the fact that I have no idea if I’ll get the same perk options later down the line when I might be in a better place to use each of them.

Perhaps looking over my focus options will help?

Focusing:

Mechanical Focus: Machine options will be more present, allowing for rarer options to appear. Allows for part tinkering.

Biological Focus: Biological options will be more present, allowing for rarer options to appear. Allows for selective 'breeding'.

Magical Focus: Magical options will be more present, allowing for rarer options to appear. Allows material mixing.

Hmm, it does help narrow things down a bit, if I focus on a particular aspect of the [construct] theme then I would probably choose the perk that matches the theme. It would mean I could focus on getting more and rarer mechanical options that are more mana-efficient, allowing me to grow faster and fill in my ranks more. Or I could focus on the other two, getting more biological choices that give more bang for my buck or getting rarer golems that could use magic to some degree.

This does bring up an existing problem though, while I could create more monsters and rooms, without dedicated static defenses it would be difficult to repel attacks from the outside, the canid was the closest thing I had to a dedicated fighter right now. If I go with any of these it would be my next goal to get some defensive monsters and rooms going. My current train of thought is that I would choose what focus I would go with and simply choose the appropriate perk to match, and then I would agonize over my monster choice once I had the next floor of my dungeon more planned out, it seems like the number of rooms I can make doubles every level giving me 10 rooms available to build or combine.

So, would I choose a machine, biological, or magical focus?