Trash Mountain Dungeon

Acknowledged, merging [empty room] with [ratling checkpoint] to form, [ratling barracks]

And with another brilliant glow, the room changed once more, the room expanding and diversifying in appearance. Where before it was plain barren stone it was now a seemingly living cave system, nothing fancy of course, the cave felt more natural in its design with a few notable differences and problems. The point of interest was a large stone building that encased the exit door like the checkpoint before, but unlike before this was a proper structure that was separated into three main parts, two side buildings which could only be accessed from the central building they connected to. As far as I could tell the design was meant to funnel things into a main courtyard where the rats would rain down with arrows or any other weapon while the ground-level defenders distract. I’m not familiar with warfare or tactics but this setup should be more than enough considering the numbers I had on hand, seeing as the room addition also gave me another node to put ratkin in. Now with 18 ratkin, I had a fully functional and well-armed line of defense, offering a different challenge than that of the canid or the other support rooms. But with that last room dealt with and a gentle sprinkling of traps here and there I was almost ready to begin to tackle the third-floor requirements, aside from a small issue that's arisen, while the nodes help subsidize the need to eat for the ratkin, their rather loud stomachs makes it clear to me that even if they weren't hungry, they certainly would be better off with a decent meal.

Initially, my thought was that I could perhaps try using the critter rats as a food source but that quickly turned out to be a bad idea, and it wasn't because the ratkin had any qualms about eating them, it was that even with the paper mache ecosystem I had set up I had nowhere near enough rat to feed more than one or two, the ratkin are voracious little things not to mention the fights I had to break-up between them. My next idea turned out to be more fruitful however, when I unlocked the [ogre bulls] I figured that I could use them as cattle for the ratkin, after all, with the presence of the barracks I could give myself more leeway with how I set up the rooms before it. The problem was that I had no more rooms to build, and the existing rooms were already being used.

Hmm...

I mean, I guess I don't need a second [assembly room] seeing as the barracks already came with gear and the first was still more than enough for the needs of the existing three ratkin rooms anyway so I guess I'll reuse it for this. Having the system clear out the room, I merged it with the hamlet just before the barracks to keep it centralized for the other two rooms and added the [ogre bulls] to the room.

Ogre Bulls

Large bovines domesticated by mountain ogres for a variety of purposes, ogre bulls are capable of filling many niches required by a community. From beasts of burden to a stable food source, these large-bodied creatures are famous for their usefulness to ogres around the world. Due to their long history of being bred to be more docile and unintelligent, ogre bulls lack the necessary intelligence to properly react to threats to the dungeon, however, if they are sufficiently aggravated, they will attack.

Ogre bulls are pseudo-magical creatures and are capable of sustaining themselves off of inorganic materials, primarily raw mineral deposits.

Ogre bulls can be consumed by any entity that can process meat, but taste is not guaranteed.

Ogre bull females can be milked for their mineral-intense milk.

This monster does not drop any items, instead, the corpse will remain as the prize.

Due to being saturated in both raw [aether energy] and refined [mana] the materials from this creature contain innate magic.

As dungeon monsters, these creatures are rendered infertile.

Creations Cost:

100 mana

20 lbs. of inorganic material per 24 hours

Node Cost:

240 mana

4 mana taken from production

Creates: 4 individual ogre bulls, 2 male and 2 female.

Now isn't that something, cost aside, it was certainly a useful monster despite its less-than-stellar ability to act as a defender. As it finished, the bulls were all massive beasts, not room fitting thankfully, but they were easily double the size of regular meat and dairy cows, to be honest, it was actually a godsend that there were only four of them, any more and even the ratkin wouldn't have a whole lot of space left. Of the group, the males and females had visible differences between the two, the males were bigger and fatter, likely to improve both the yield and quality of the meat and materials, while the females were smaller but not by much, stockier and more dangerous looking, they had two sets of horns on their head with one going forward and another going upwards, both had a dangerously sharp-looking point on them. What surprised me, I really should be used to this by now, was that they unlocked two rooms without having a double room. Thankfully the system had a quick explanation as to why.

Some rooms have the necessary level of cohesion between them to unlock a new room that combines the two rooms in some fashion. This allows some monster and room combinations to grant more rooms to the core, however, this process does not happen consistently as many monsters fall within three possible areas, they lack compatibility, the core lacks the core level to create such a combination, or the rooms and monsters are too similar to be combined.

But if I could have been doing this then why hadn't I been informed of this beforehand, this seems like incredibly useful information.

The core lacked the requirements to ask for this information before reaching level 2.

Ok, I feel like I should have seen that coming honestly, but what's done is done now and we can move on now. Looking over the two new rooms though, I was more inclined to pick out the combination option rather than just the ranch, the [Ratkin Ranch] is a small community room that focuses on using most of the available space as grazing land, and by graze, I mean the solid stone floor was turned chunky and gravely which would serve as the 'grass' for the cows. Thankfully the ranch also came with a nice boost to my production with a smaller amount of storage added on, with the ratkin already taking to their duties as the ranchers, with some hilarity ensuing already. But with that dealt with it meant that I was totally out of rooms and now I could...

Warning,

A large invasion force was detected near the dungeon entrance.

What?

Zooming back up and over I would have to spit out my drink had I both had one and was drinking from it, assembled just outside of my dungeon was a swarm of small green and brown creatures wielding clubs and worn swords. They were small things, reaching no more than my waist at best, but with the actual hundreds that were assembled before me, it was unbelievable that I hadn't been told about them before.

Actually, that's right, system, why the shit didn't you tell me an army of gremlins was squatting on my front door? This feels like the sort of thing I could use some forewarning on.

Notice

The system will only provide such a warning if it is deemed appropriate to do so.

Despite the whining of the core, this attack is just another invasion.

Entering low advisory mode for the duration of the attack.

OK... I'm not sure how to react now, so I'm just going to put a pin on this and focus on my impending attack.

You wouldn't mind telling me what they are... please?

....

Nothing I guess, perhaps I should ease off the questions and complaints.

Focusing on the army, the squat creatures weren't making their move yet, mostly they seemed to be setting up some kind of camp just outside of the dungeon, which was proving a challenge given the entrance's position. It wouldn't be for another couple of hours in fact before the first sign of action would come, a smaller group of them, 5 and some weird porcupine thing, climbed up the slope into my dungeon, and like with previous attacks, my monsters began to work.

Crush, rip, and tear was the evening's music of choice as the invaders sent wave after wave of poorly equipped and remarkably stupid attackers, each group growing progressively larger and larger with no indication that the main horde was in any way affected by the loss of dozens of their own. At first, I thought this would be easy, have my guys and gals crush some skulls and we could all eat unseasoned steak later, but no, as the minutes turned to hours and hours led to the end of the day, it was abundantly clear that this was no mere attack, it was a siege. And despite the day having come to a close and the next one beginning, the attacks were continuing to grow, and my first floor was almost totally overrun. The only remaining rooms were the wormhole which they were avoiding for some reason, and the final room with my canid, whom they were not attacking, yet.

And as I expected, they attacked the canid.

When the first creature stepped into the room, the always stoic and dutiful canid burst towards them with the same grace and authority it always held, crushing the skull of the first one in a green gory mess, using its skeletal tail to cut across another as it twisted and jumped back, ready to strike once more. More came into the room and easily had it outnumbered, their numbers would have likely been even greater had the canid not been so good at fighting, and as each creature got its turn to fight it was just as quickly shredded into several pieces, the canid intelligently using it to create a makeshift block on the door. But despite its bloody glory, the canid was quickly losing steam, the magic that allowed it to move and fight as it did was waning, giving the creatures more opportunities to strike out successfully. But even with its failing body and numerous injuries, my good machine boy was giving it the good fight, and with a final monstrous howl, it crashed into a much larger creature that had managed to weasel its disgusting body into my home. Latching onto its neck my canid held it in a death grip as the creature cried and moaned, trying its damnedest to rip it off, but only succeeding in ripping its own throat out. They both fell to the ground, my good boy disappearing into golden rays while the fucking septic tank goblin bled out to death on the floor, irritating me with its death cry.

He wasn't a dog of flesh and bone, but he was mine, and this whole place is mine, and for that, I will kill them ALL.