The Tower in the Shadows

As soon as my CP was restored to full, I began stage 2 of my plan for my first floor. I removed the pitfall trap at the foot of the stairs leading down. I realised I didn't need it there, as I wanted any interlopers to go deeper into the dungeon and ignore the stairwell that I was hiding in.

I opted not to put anything into the eastern storeroom either, as this first floor was not intended as a death trap. From the material I had read on dungeons before I became one, it was clear that making myself into a death trap early on would be a surefire way of getting myself destroyed. I had to become a danger, but valuable resources would ensure that it would cost more in the long run if I were destroyed, so I had to manage the short-term benefits or dangers.

The first room I created on the floor was where I would begin to place risks and rewards for those who ventured into me. I set a new pitfall trap under a thin layer of stone just within the doorway of this room. I put flint heads onto the wooden stakes in the ground as it was easier to produce resource-wise than iron ones. I suspected that veteran adventurers would quickly spot it and that only noobs would be at risk.

The north-facing wall here was left without a finished brick covering. All the other rooms had the same stonework all over the walls. I reached into the earth I controlled and began turning into solid stone. It took longer than I expected, but I did create a large chunk of rock where there was once a mixture of earth and stone. Next, I once again reached into it and made a copper seam. I exhausted my CP doing this but was happy it turned out so well. The idea was to have people come to mine this copper to be used in any local industry. Through my experiment, I discovered that creating something was hard, but remaking or recreating things was easier. This means I would have to regenerate the resources when I have no adventurers within my sphere of influence.

"I wonder, can I automate this?"

In response to my question, I got a message alert.

Resource Node Created!

Congratulations! You have created your first resource node (Copper seam, Quality—common). Do you wish to make this a permanent resource node? If you select yes, once every 24 hours, the node will be regenerated back to its initial amount of copper (20 pounds). This will cost four Creation Points to permanently assign to this resource node.

Do you wish this to happen: Yes or No?

"Yes!"

I received another message telling me that the resource node was now a permanent feature of my dungeon. Losing the four CP points permanently was a blow to my plans, but not worrying about constantly regenerating the resource node was a fair trade-off. I was mentally kicking myself because this was explained in my wiki and I had forgotten to refer to it during the creation of this floor. I knew there were other sections on my monsters that I would have to consider when I brought them into being.

I had already decided that there would be no monsters in this room, so I could now move on with the resource node finished and in place. The north-facing storeroom was again to be left without any monsters, but another pitfall trap was placed within it about halfway down the room, hidden by a thin layer of stone over the top.

The next room, however, was where things would start to get dangerous for anyone entering my dungeon. I only had two types of monsters: grey-striped wasps and sharoons. They were not very intimidating, to say the least, in their base forms, but they were all I had to work with, so what could you do? I went into my menus and opened up the options for the Grey-Striped Wasps. They would be the first monsters I would create to defend the floor.

They were fast and manoeuvrable but did very little damage, so swarm tactics were the way forward for them. I had to find the right balance between their numbers and the space available. I didn't want to create so many that they would hinder each other within the dungeon rooms.

"What to do? What to do?"

As I thought about the numbers, I would place this room when I noticed that Larry had decided to grace me with his presence, wandering through the new spaces I had created. I saw that he could identify where the traps were and skillfully went around them. I wondered if that had something to do with the fact that he was a wandering dungeon boss or was naturally aware of their locations. He was exploring and sniffing various things that caught his attention in all the rooms I had recently created.

The wiki clearly explained creating new dungeon monsters and assigning them to specific rooms. It also explained how to give a loot reward to each creature that would be given out on its death. However, this was the first time I had done it and I was still a little nervous as the wiki clearly stated that this would impact my CP total like the resource node had. I also had to consider that I would be creating a floor boss, which would also affect my CP total. With my limited resources, I had to be far more frugal than I would have liked.

"Decisions. Decisions." I muttered to myself.

Eventually, I decided to stop procrastinating and get on with it. Four wasps are to be placed in this room. I decided they could be a good start because it was not enough to be a significant threat to an experienced adventurer but to a new or a non-adventuring type.

I opened up the menus for monster creation and selected the wasp option listed. I selected the option to create one but got a slightly different prompt than I expected. It asked me if I wanted to place the wasp in this room, to which I said yes, which led to another prompt requesting the number to be created. I selected four and was notified that the cost would be four CP points. The exact total would be permanently deducted from my CP total to automate the respawning of these monsters. This would reduce my overall CP total from 96 to 92 and cost 4 points to create. It pains me to do it, but I made the room's four wasps.

Upon selecting the final yes on the options screen, motes of light gathered around the room. They quickly coalesced in the four forms but took on the shape of the wasps and eventually formed into them. As soon as they fully formed, they began buzzing around their room, inspecting the existing space. I watched them for a few seconds before realising I had a new prompt alert.

Loot Assignment.

The following rewards will be generated randomly after killing the four Grey Stripped Wasps.

Cythian Copper coins x1 (Chance - 85%)

Cythian Copper coins x2 (Chance – 15%)

The odds and types of rewards may be set manually, but this will increase the room respawn's overall support cost.

Do you wish to alter the rewards: Yes or No?

"No."

This caused the screen to disappear, as there was no way in hell I would alter the rewards. On the surface, they appeared fine and I did not want to risk any more my CP being assigned to this room anymore.

"Hang on. Why does Larry not have a respawn and loot cost?"

I turned my attention to my wandering dungeon boss monster, who seemed to be aware of my attention. I looked over and could see nothing out of the ordinary, so I turned my attention to the menu screens and looked up his status screen. Going through it, I noticed a small flickering icon in the bottom corner. Accessing it, I realised it was a sub-alert message. As it was not a primary alert, it did not appear like the others usually do in my vision.

Alert!

You have been awarded a special boon award because the first minion you created was a unique wandering mini-boss type.

Boon: The mini-boss minion "Larry" has no CP upkeep cost and will keep its earned experience when resurrected.

Loot Assignment

Cythian Silver coins x3 (Chance - 90%)

Cythian Silver coins x5 (Chance – 10%)

Do you wish to alter the rewards: Yes or No?

"No."

So, that is why my CP level had not dropped when I created Larry. Then it dawned on me.

"Fuck! I will need shadow mana to recreate him!"

I was being boned again by my lack of access to affinities. The inability to store mana was hampering my abilities big time! I had found a broken mana stone, but that did not help me.

I quickly realised I was starting to wallow in self-pity over the lack of mana. I forced myself out of it and finished the floor. I moved to the next small connecting room and placed another pit trap. It was only meant to be a minor or mild annoyance in a different location from the first room.

Once this was done, I turned my attention to the third larger room I had created in the southeastern corner of the floor. My increased CP regeneration rate played a significant part in my expansion, allowing me to move faster. I looked around the room, thinking about what to do here, knowing I would create more wasps, but to what extent? I was still unsure. Looking around the paved floor and walls, I thought about increasing the number of wasps to be assigned to this room, but I had to be conscious that I didn't want to add too many. My reasoning was twofold: the first was to ensure the room was not too dangerous and the second was the permanent CP cost attached.

Ultimately, I decided to stop procrastinating again and decided that five would be a good number for this room. I set up and organised the creation of five more wasp minions for this room. I nearly wept if I was able as I witnessed my CP total drop to 87 and 5 points to create. I turned my attention after the creations were confirmed. I accessed the alert and knew it would be awaiting my attention.

Loot Assignment.

The following rewards will be generated randomly after killing the five Grey Stripped Wasps.

Cythian Copper coins x2 (Chance - 85%)

Cythian Copper coins x3 (Chance – 15%)

The odds and types of rewards may be set manually, but this will increase the room respawn's overall support cost.

Do you wish to alter the rewards: Yes or No?

"No."

This caused the alert to disappear. Larry followed me around as I created the wasps and seemed unimpressed with their buzzing. I watched the five I had created, awaiting my CP to regenerate to its now reduced level of 87.

I was becoming more aware that I was not perceiving time like I used to. I was unsure if it was due to my isolation or new existence, but time seemed to flow differently for me. In the beginning, it seemed like every minute took an eternity to pass, but I was becoming less fixated on the passage of time in recent weeks. I'm still aware of the passage, but hours nowadays seem less important to me somehow. I could explain, but waiting for my CP to regenerate was no longer the torturous process it had once been. Boredom was my main enemy.

It ended up taking me five days to regenerate my CP—the creation of the nine wasps wiped out my stored CP. Moving into the final small room that was part of the original basement, I opted not to put any pit traps here to be different.

The final room in the southwestern corner of my floor was the room with the door that only opened one way. This was to be the boss room on the floor. Traditionally, this is where access to the next floor would be located, but I had decided to take a slightly different approach to my dungeon. Each floor would be accessed through the staircase at the centre and I would design the floors around this. I decided to do this for two reasons. The first was that it would allow more experienced adventurers to bypass the earlier floors and go straight to the lower ones. The second was that I hoped to lure more foolish or greedy individuals or groups down into the areas where they were not ready to engage or handle the dangers I would create. As they would be given the option to come down faster than they were prepared for, I hope this will not cause me to be considered a threat.

I knew I would make this room much more challenging than the others, but in what way? I knew I would create a boss here; maybe just living alone would be enough. I looked around the room again at the ceiling, walls and floor. How can I incorporate them to make the boss harder?

Well, I realised the first thing I had to do was actually create the damned thing in the first place!

As all my minions on this floor are wasps, I opted to go for another one, but this time, I was going to tinker with the design. I opened up the necessary menus and began preparing for a new creation. I opted to add five additional CP points to the creation of this wasp. Once I confirmed the additional costs, I “sat back” and watched the show.

Congratulations!

You have created an improved minion.

Greater Grey Stripped Wasp created!

……………

This minion can be assigned to this room as the floor guardian.

Do you wish this to happen: Yes or No?

The motes of light appeared and correlated quite quickly in a flash of light into my new minion. It was similar to its smaller cousins but at least twice the size of the others. My CP total fell to 84.

"Yes."

I answered the question in the alert and thus was born my first-floor boss.

This is an important step forward for me. Now that I had finished my first floor, I felt like an actual proper dungeon for once. But I had a few loose ends to tie up first.

Loot Assignment.

After killing the 1st Floor Guardian, the following rewards will be generated randomly.

Cythian Copper coins x15 (Chance - 85%)

Cythian Silver coins x1 (Chance – 15%)

The odds and types of rewards may be set manually, but this will increase the room respawn's overall support cost.

Do you wish to alter the rewards: Yes or No?

"No."

With the loot assignment now finished, I was almost done. I had only one thing left: to alter the room that appealed to the evil part of my nature.

Burning through several more CP points, I created a series of enlarged pitfall traps across the room floor filled with wooden spikes with sharpened flint heads. I didn't bother trying to hide these traps as they were much larger than the others and took up a considerable portion of the floor's space. I left several walkways running through them to allow people to navigate the room, but they were only wide enough for one person to walk at a time. The idea was simple: they were here, so fighting the 1st-floor Guardian, as it was called, was much more difficult.

Before I could find out what my new Guardian could do by looking at its status sheet, I felt strange… probing around the edge of my aura on the surface.