Harvest Dungeon

"Stick close to me or Vanessa." I replied. It would be best if she didn"t go inside alone and risk meeting the fake Candice. I didn"t even want to imagine the number of things that could go wrong in that scenario.

"You could also come down here and nestle into my fur." Elisia offered.

"I can?" Lilian asked.

"As long as you are willing to answer some of my questions." Elisia replied.

Lilian landed on Elisia"s neck and snuggled into her fur before Elisia even finished speaking.

I didn"t pay any attention to the pair. I didn"t have any secrets, and I doubted Lilian knew anything embarra.s.sing about me.

"If we want to upgrade, I need to go inside." Zephirah told me.

I winced, I really didn"t want to go inside right now. Getting into another Q & A with Candice would delay the work that had already been pushed off. Besides the sooner this work was done, the sooner Zephirah could synchronize the serpent gem, then we could start working with the serpents to create strong beasts. I was really curious to see what we could do with a beast gem.

"Don"t worry I can go in by myself." Zephirah told me. "Just accept the changes when the screen appears." Then Zephirah flew off to the house and disappeared inside.

I was a little curious about how she got inside without me opening the door for her, but figured it was probably related to her being the dungeon.

A few moments later and a screen appeared in front of me asking if I wanted to expand the territory and add a new floor. All the expansions we had agreed to were present. Territory increased to a four by four, third floor with a one to two spatial expansion. Everything seemed as they had discussed so I agreed to it. I wasn"t sure why, but I had thought she would try and slip something extra in with everything else, but I seemed to have been wrong.

Zephirah reappeared a moment later then the ground rumbled. Before I could see the changes I entered into the dungeon configuration. I frowned then remembered that when a new floor was added I needed to set the location for the portal to the next floor.

I set the portal in the opposite corner from the original, then noticed that the expanded the walls beside the original portal to the surface making it stand in the open. I shifted it back into the corner then was about to leave the configuration when I realized that there was no reason to leave yet. I had reason to look at the floor with my own eyes, but I already had an idea I wanted to try. There was no reason to wait.

I moved over to the corner where I had the cold crops. Picked them up and shifted them two squares over as the wall they had been beside had shifted with the expansion. Once they were all moved I shifted each tile depth down by a foot so they were lower than the rest of the tiles. When I was finished I went ahead and shifted the shack, well, and normal crops down to the third floor so my experiments with the cold didn"t harm them. I also noted the earth golem I had on that floor and moved it up to the surface floor to join the others. Since I had another floor I could add three more guardians but I decided to wait until I could ask Zephirah about other forms of guardians. If everything else could be advanced, then their had to be other kinds of guardians too.

Taking a quick peek at the surface level I left the portal where it was but s.p.a.ce the golems out and turned the whole area in arena s.p.a.ces.

Once I was done, I left the configuration to see the results of my experiment.

"That wasn"t much." Zephirah commented.
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"I know, but I need to see how the ice mana moves before I can come up with a plan for this floor." I replied walking over to the sine tiles that still had crops. As I walked the others followed, but I ignored them as I shifted my mana sight so I could see ambient mana put off by the blue gra.s.s.

As I had hoped the ice mana seemed heavy so it floated along the floor but didn"t flow out of the hole that I had placed the crops in. I waited and watched for a few more minutes, but rather than gathering together and flowing out of the hole the layer of mana along the floor grew denser. I waited several more minutes and while the level of the mana did rise a bit higher, the density of the mana continued to increase. I had a feeling that eventually the mana would eventually rise high enough to flow out of the hole if there wasn"t anything to absorb the mana, as there was a winter vine amongst the crops I doubted the ice mana would ever escape the hole.

I was happy to see that as I had already come up with a way to use the blue gra.s.s to make the floor unbearable while also helping his winter vine grow. I would have to redesign the floor a bit when I added the white ice roses, but by then I might be able to increase the size of my territory anyways.

"Well?" Vanessa asked tired of waiting.

"It is moving like I hoped it would. I should be able to make a decent floor. Its difficulty will be based on the cold, then the beasts and guardians." I replied.

"Good, well let"s get the floor design down, then we can discuss the minions and guardians." Zephirah told me. "For the time being just the cold should be enough to keep the enemies from delving deeper into this level."

"Not necessarily." Elisia spoke up. "There are candidates from various worlds here. Some of them are trained how to handle the harsh environments, they use it as a way to condition their bodies."

Zephirah frowned. "Annoying, well the beasts and guardians can handle them, or at least wear them out. Resisting the elements will consume energy, no matter how good you are at it. Add on some beasts and they will expend their energy even faster."

"That is true." Elisia agreed. "And if it doesn"t work, the worm and I can defend the core."

Seth hissed at Elisia angrily but didn"t object to her claim.

"Alright, let me get this floor set up, then I can explain everything to you." I told them before accessing the dungeon configuration again. The design I had in mind wasn"t complicated, and to be honest, it would probably fail if it were to be judged as an actual dungeon. Then again I only had a eighty feet by eighty feet s.p.a.ce to work with, and it also needed to be used to grow crops without putting the crops into much danger.

I didn"t start immediately, but first tried to plan the whole idea out in my head. Since the ice mana stuck to the ground and didn"t float up, it was easier to control. Especially compared to the wind mana I had observed outside. Once I had the idea set in my mind I accessed the shop option to see what I could use to make my idea work. The most important part was being able to restrain opponents, while also giving myself and those who were with me an easy way through the level. I found what I wanted easily enough. It wasn"t a part of the company store, but rather the dungeon shop which provided energy prints for what I wanted. Thankfully both were actually standard issue for a dungeon so I didn"t need to pay for them. The first was a concealed keyed door which would open under certain conditions, and while it could be forced, it was very hard to break down even if you knew it was supposed to be there. The second was a fake wall.

I planned out the start and finish first. I moved the portal to the third floor from the opposite corner to the corner across from the entrance portal. If the layout was to be drawn on a sheet of paper the entrance would be on the lower right while the exit would be on the lower left. Between the two portals I erected a concealed keyed door next to each one then the fake wall the rest of the way. Once it was done the portals looked like they were in recessed portion of the wall. While in reality the concealed keyed doors opened to a path between the portals. As I would be the one to create the keys the doors would respond to I wasn"t very worried about anyone else but my own people being able to use this shortcut.

In front of the exit portal I set another concealed keyed door and beside it an actual solid wall. In front of the concealed door and the solid wall I set a two tile wide three tile long arena area. This was where I planned to have the "bosses" of the floor showdown with the intruders. If the intruders won the door to the third floor would open.

With a thought I left the dungeon configuration and looked at Zephirah. "Do I have to leave the intruders a way through the dungeon?" I asked.

"Of course not." Zephirah replied. "Since we can sell crops to the company, we don"t want them to come in at all if we can help it. However we need to leave a way in so we can draw in the ambient mana. The others just use the path that we leave open for the mana to invade. The more traps we put in place the more secure we will be." she replied.

I considered that for a moment, I had an idea or two in my head, but decided that I probably didn"t have the ability to carry any of it out yet. I could just experiment with it later. I returned to the dungeon configuration and started back to work. From the entrance portal I shifted the three tiles ahead of it into a ramp than descended three feet. The fourth tile in front of the entrance portal was the beginning of a six tile path that also decline three feet in total along its distance. This path ran straight to the arena tiles in front of the exit portal. Then I set the height for the the two paths, to be eight feet in height.

With that done it was time to create the s.p.a.ce for my crops. There was a five tile wide three tile deep area between the paths and the arena that I raised the ground level to be nine feet up with a ceiling eight feet above that. With the ground level being so high it was completely cut off from the pathways.

There was also an eight tile wide and three tile deep area on the other side of the pathway. I raised the first two rows of tiles to match the earlier area then lowered the last row of tiles until it was a foot lower than the lowest point in the pathways.

Once that was done, I made some small adjustments to the level of the raised platforms so there was a very slight incline towards the arena. The idea was that all of the ice mana would flow from the raised platforms where I grew the blue gra.s.s to the arena then flow down the pathway making almost the entire area where the intruders could go be filed full of ice mana. The last thing I had to do was create a set of small tunnels at the lowest part of the path to carry the ice mana to the last row of tiles that was even lower than the path. I would grow the winter vine down there. I needed to experiment a bit on how to make the tunnels so all eight tiles would get an equal mix of ice mana, but that was a learning experience for later.

Lastly I decreased the level of light in all the tiles except the portal tiles and secret pa.s.sageway to match the best growing conditions for the cold plants. This included the pathways and arena as I didn"t see any reason not too.

With that done the general outline for the floor was complete. Since we had chosen badgers I had a large area under the raised platforms I could use to make badger dens, I also had another idea I intended to use, but I would have to play with the minions a bit to see what I could and couldn"t do.