Tiny Dungeon

Valterra retreated to his inner sanctum where he sensed his Mouse Captain resided. He hovered over the creature and considered what name he would give the loyal mouse. Diving into the primer of the old language that Maph’Ira had provided him, Valterra found a couple of possible root words he could use that would help to describe his first guardian. He could name him Belkor for strength, Vaknar for valor, or Wedin for courage. None of them really stuck.

So the young Core gave an approximation of a shrug and just went with something he thought fit. “I name you Wenigo.” He felt the last reserves of his potential dissipate, looking on as his first guardian underwent a change. The mouse’s fur turned coppery, shining in the light of Valterra’s Core. His guardian grew slightly but the real change was internal as Valterra sensed the mouse’s musculature strengthen and bones harden. Satisfied Valterra drew back and let his creature sleep, soothing it further with Aether. There would be time later to test its strength.

He immersed himself in his Dungeon Vision and felt his senses expand. All over he felt his creatures trying to get back into a smooth rhythm despite heavy losses and destruction. He soaked in those sensations for a moment, attempting to understand where he could make adjustments without completely ruining his Dungeon’s Aether flow. It was while he was in this state that he came to his answer. The house would need remodeling.

His vision also gave him a rough estimate of size and Valterra could feel how disproportionate his floors were in size but also in Aether flow. The Third Floor barely got anything. His First Floor got something because the Aether flowed through it but his Second Floor got almost nothing. The only problem was how he would go about changing things.

For one thing, it would take a massive amount of Aether which would require him to be cautious. Secondly, he had no idea how his Floors would respond. He knew he could change the floor layout to a certain extent but he had never tried changing their order. Considering that they directly contributed to his personal evolutions he was concerned that moving them around might make his Core unstable.

Feeling the devastation caused by the invaders through his Dungeon Vision, Valterra surrendered to the unknown. He would make his changes and hopefully, his uncles and aunties would be able to save him if he bit off more than he could chew. He still had the whole cabin/mansion to manipulate, with several rooms empty but within his influence. They would not be the focus of this move.

Nope.

Valterra was going to fix his established Floors. To do that he had to first decide the new layout and then remodel the Dungeon to fit his new model. He first looked at a way to do a top-down model of some kind like a normal Dungeon but quickly put it out of his head. It wouldn’t work and he had never been a normal Dungeon to start with so he wasn’t going to be one now.

However, perhaps he could take some tips. The Third Floor, the space underneath the porch would become the First Floor and it would be the first gauntlet invaders would have to go through. Nothing had to change to do it either since it was the actual first line of defense. That was the easy part. Now came the harder decisions.

His First Floor would have to change, as would his Second. The First needed to change because it wasn’t really first and the Second needed to change because it was kind of superfluous. It had barely seen action when the invaders attacked, although it had seen enough to have them evolve which posed its own problem. Now that they were going to be a higher evolution, the High Danian Ants would need a way to travel deeper in order to get the Aether they needed.

He started by opening additional breathing holes for himself in the roof of the cabin, followed by further holes in the ceiling that allowed the Aether to travel further down into different parts of his Dungeon. The result of this was that the original Aether flow began to thin. Moving quickly, Valterra shifted the Aether flow that came down from the roof to fill the inside of the walls before entering into the Fourth. That was a temporary fix but he could feel the Aether balancing out for now.

That was good. He would need his Aether for this next bit. Flexing his Aetheric muscles, Valterra lifted the various strongholds his mice had been using and, making sure there were no mice inside them first, moved them en masse to the top of his house, setting them on the roof. He then further manipulated the stone to form one massive stronghold that ringed the oval rooftop. Roughly 96 feet in circumference it was a truly impressive edifice.

He left a lip at the front and formed gates out of steel, a material he had gotten from some of the invaders. He then fashioned a keep over the holes leading down from the roof, reinforcing the wooden structures underneath so the roof could hold the new weight. Next, he spread a light layer of soil over the clay shingles that made up the roof and tamped it down. It would be nicer for his creatures to walk on.

This would be the main section of the new Third Floor and a fitting place for his mice, once they had evolved at least once. The new Second Floor was going to be on the porch right above the new First Floor. It would be a sprawling affair that mirrored the New First Floor in the way that it would be a free-for-all, not only for the best dens but for the right to climb higher.

All along the length of the porch Valterra spread soil and seeded more grass. He then took his Wind-Blown Moss and created chains of it that climbed the sides of the building. At different places, he fashioned rough ledges with caves dug into the stonework of the outside walls. All around the building, he fashioned little caves and out-of-the-way dens so that his creatures had places to stay before climbing ever higher.

On the porch itself though he did something different. Removing the railings from the porch, the Core used the wood to fashion large pillars of the substance that rose parallel to the walls until they reached the roofs. There were six of these spires and they were going to be the homes of the true guardians of the Floor.

He gently coaxed his two remaining Danian Queens to take up their positions within the pillars closest to their original colonies. He helped them move and then spawned four more, one to make up for the fact that his first colony was evolving, one for the queen he had lost during the invasion, and two more for the remaining two pillars.

Two eastern pillars, two middle pillars, and two western pillars. He then connected the pillars to the main roof and secondary roof respectively before examining his work carefully. He placed an Aether-holding rune within the heart of each of the pillars, allowing the Danians to grow as fast as they could. He would not have them be under-defended like the colony he had lost.

Each pillar was roughly nine feet high with unnaturally smooth outer walls. He would let the Danians create their floors on the inside but he hoped they would be able to be more militant towards any invaders that came while remaining defensible. With the bridges at the top, they would also be able to move deeper if any of them reached the necessary amount of Aether for evolution.

The entirety of the new First and Second Floors was the same owing to their mirrored states and was like his own vast and terrifying jungle. Valterra found that he liked it. With that settled he moved to the secondary roof over the cabin's Western Wing and filled it with soil and grass. He raised multiple mounds of dirt to allow for his creatures to make burrows before creating a ramp of moss to the main roof.

His Third Floor now complete, he began moving all of his creatures, including some of his evolved ones. He made sure to hide the evolving ones, even going so far as to make burrows for them or situate them in ones already created. He hadn’t forgotten the dangers present in this outside world but he hoped his creatures would soon be strong enough to take down such predators. They would make excellent additions to his vault of Schemas.

Satisfied for the moment, he moved his evolving High Danians up into the attic of the main roof where they would be directly within the flow of his Aether. Looking everything over one more time he finalized the changes and closed up his bottom entrances, leaving only the ones on the main roof. Immediately he sensed where he had made errors and the System screamed at him with notifications he didn’t have time to read.

The new First and Second Floors were suddenly bereft of new Aether as his Dungeon began to absorb it straight from the atmosphere above the house. To fix it Valterra made Aether pools. He fashioned pools similar to the ones in his Aether funnel only smaller and more localized. He then set a pillar in the center and placed a large Aether-holding rune on each one. He did the same for the new Second Floor in various places and in certain dens and placed a massive one in the center of the keep on the Third so that the Aether there had the proper density.

Slowly, as he worked, his Dungeon stabilized and accepted the changes. The System stopped blaring at him and he breathed deeply in relief before looking at the notifications scrolling within his Core. He was sure he had succeeded but now it was time to see if he truly had.