A Dungeon’s Survival

Cameron

The first day of getting adventurers again was coming to a close, and rather than farming experience with Prism, I was left looking over my mana expenditures. I only had twelve groups run my Dungeon before they seemed to realize that I wasn't restocking much anymore, yet even just that much took everything I had. I was still recovering the mana I needed to replenish my Dungeon, and I would be for quite some time.

A dozen groups didn't seem like much, but the more I looked over the numbers, the more reality set in. Even if a group didn't proceed past the first room, they still ended up costing me over seventy points of my limited mana. The farther in they went, the more that cost skyrocketed. It was to the point that my Dungeon being fully cleared, something that only the scouting group made sure to do, cost me more than I could recover after twelve hours of increased mana regeneration. That couldn't remain the case.

That was why I was looking over the costs and payouts of my various rooms. The entrance didn't bring in much experience per run, but it was the cheapest to refill by far, had the best mana to experience conversion rate, and seemed to be the final destination for most groups. Even for the adventurers that continued on past it, most didn't complete my second room, instead opting to kill the first Bloodthorn Vines before leaving. For that reason, I decided to leave it alone for now.

My second room was far more of a problem. It cost more than double the first room per run, and even if it was cleared, it generated significantly less experience. That was mostly because of the incentives I had scattered throughout it and the fact that there were only two monsters left in there. It was one of the failing points of my Dungeon, and I needed to do something about it, but I didn't want to remove the mana crystals or magical plants. They were what made me valuable to the guild, so they stayed. That left me unsure of what modifications to make, but whatever they ended up being, I did need to make them. I decided to come back to this room later.

Next up was my bog. That room generated the most experience out of all of them, but it also cost the most mana. Fortunately, the scouts were the only group going around and clearing it so far, but even just a single clear, not even taking the previous rooms that they needed to pass through to get there into consideration, was enough to cost me more than my entire mana pool to restock. It also wasn't as efficient in terms of mana to experience conversion as my entrance, but it was still worthwhile and served as my main line of defense.

That left the hallway and the first room of my second floor to look over, and it was bad. That was what had cost me most dearly. I hadn't bothered restocking it after the scouts had cleared it out, and I wasn't sure if I should. It had become clear that I had made a mistake with it.

The Crystal Puffers did exactly what I wanted them to. They let me bypass my DP limit, but they weren't as efficient as I'd hoped. What I hadn't taken into consideration when I planned out how to use them was the cost of their mana crystals. They were still good for bolstering my monsters' numbers, but they couldn't do it in an efficient manner.

The drain that the entire area was putting on me wasn't as bad as the bog, but that didn't matter if it pushed me over the edge of what I could handle with its upkeep, and to make things worse, it didn't even bring in a drop of experience in return. I still wanted it to work out, but clearly, it had been too soon to start thinking about my second floor. I wanted to just clear the entire thing out and call it day, but that didn't feel right, so I started looking for alternatives instead.

In the end, what I decided on doing was to cut the Crystal Puffers in the hall down from twelve to four. I could rotate their types and locations to keep invaders on their toes, and that had the potential to make the passage even more dangerous, so it wasn't exactly a downgrade, even if I was lowering my monster count. Next, I decided to remove all of the magical plants I had in there for people to loot. It was bloating the cost too much, but I still needed an incentive, so what I ended up doing was replacing the Puffers in the connecting room with a single large mana crystal. I hoped that would give anyone making it so far a sense of fulfillment before they turned back while also cutting unnecessary costs.

That was enough to bring the area's price down to something manageable, but it still lacked any benefit to me outside of it being a buffer to keep adventurers further away from my core room. I needed to fix that, but I was still pressed right up against my DP limit. Ironically, that wasn't my limiting factor, though. I cared about keeping my mana costs down more than my DP at the moment, so I made a decision I knew I might regret.

As things were, I stood no chance of farming experience during the day. With my newfound costs, I couldn't exactly farm it at night either, but that was beside the point. What was relevant was the fact that I didn't need to reserve DP for that operation anymore. I could take that a step farther by effectively exceeding my Dungeon Point cap by spawning extra monsters once some had died. Anyone getting there would have to pass through my first three rooms anyway, and that meant the DP from those rooms would be freed up by the time they arrived.

It was annoying since it meant I'd have to closely monitor their progress, and it also wasn't a permanent solution, but it would have to do until I could get some extra DP. With that justification, I only needed to figure out which monsters to add. In the end, I decided on the Horned Dracos.

They were cheap. That kept their costs down, but at the same time, I thought they could be effective in the confined space. As long as I went with the design that utilized Velocity Transference, they could disrupt delvers and potentially cause them to set off puffers unintentionally in the chaos. Most importantly, however, they were worth good experience.

Four is the amount I decided on. In total, they'd cost me thirty-six DP and fifty-two mana before what I could get back, but I could work with that. Satisfied that I had lowered the areas mana cost to nearly a third of what it had previously been while also bringing the efficiency up past the bog room, I turned my sights back to the second room.

That one needed more monsters, and up until recently, I did have Horned Dracos stationed there. They were perfectly suited for the room, the terrain having actually been crafted to complement them, but they were too deadly for normal Dungeon operations at this point, or at least, that is how it had been. In the past they served as more of a deterrent for dangerous invaders than anything, but did that need to remain the case? On a whim, I pulled up the status page of the dracos I had modified for the purposes of getting as much experience from as I could. If I saw anyone I didn't like coming, I figured it would be easy enough to to give them Velocity Transference on the fly.

Well, Adraugon did say he couldn't care less if they died in fair combat, so …

I spawned two of the feeder dracos in the trees. Then, since they were a Dungeon Point cheaper than the combat variety that had Velocity Transference, I decided to add a third. Not counting the other Horned Dracos that wouldn't be around for most of the time, that raised my DP total to just under the limit. Between that and the extra strain on my mana, the decision had its downsides, but I figured it would be worth it in the end. Besides, that was how many the room originally had before Adraugon became a special case anyway.

With that simple alteration, my second room's efficiency problem had been solved. I hoped that would be enough to increase my leveling speed. I certainly needed it to. After all, the roughly two thousand experience I had gotten from a full day of adventurers delving my Dungeon wasn't ideal. I could have gotten that in an eighth of the time from my farm, but that wasn't an option for the time being.

Even if it helped, though, I knew it wouldn't be enough to solve my experience problem outright. As it stood, I wasn't even halfway to level fourteen, and even with the changes I had just made, I couldn't see myself getting there in under a month's time. That was far too slow. I needed another solution.

Titles were out. As good as increased experience gain was, it couldn't compare to the extra mana regeneration I was relying on. Achievements had potential, but I wasn't confident I could I could hunt many as I was. Vie and Pee going back to fighting the scouting group was probably the best source of experience I had access to in general, but I dismissed that idea, too. It wasn't a precedent I wanted to set.

I wanted it to be known that they stuck exclusively around my core, and if anyone ever saw them, it was a sign that they'd gone too far and need to turn back. I would be throwing that away by having them encroach further into the Dungeon. Also, I didn't like what constantly fighting them had done to the snakes' mental states last time.

I didn't want Archie or Adraugon filling the roles of bosses either, but my reasons for that were different. I knew Archie would hate it, and he was more useful in his lab anyway. As for Adraugon, he was too deadly, and I needed him to be where he was. The fierce, little dragon was perfect to defend my core from there. That left me with only one choice.

Well, I was thinking water was an option to protect my core. I guess I'll have to see if it's a good enough substitute.

Reluctantly, I turned my sights to the only monster in my Dungeon that was being completely unutilized. I didn't want to give up my last line of defense, but if it could solve my experience issues, I'd accept it.

I guess I did unintentionally lay the groundwork for this when I accidentally left those Bloodthorn Vines down there. Oh well, if I have a new floor I should have a boss guarding it. That's how video games did it after all. I might need a bigger crystal, though.

My eyes darted from the mana crystal I had set up to be the reward for passing through the Crystal Puffer hallway to the heavily modified Bloodthorn Vines that protected my very core.

Well, if I'm making a boss, I might as well spring for a custom mechanic.

My eyes then rested on the Crystal Puffers, and I thought back to my research.

Oh, this is going to be good.

Slowly, a plan was coming together. It might not have been as good as an awakened monster, but its death had earned me a significant amount of experience last time. Sure, a large part of that had been because of its bloated level, but so what? The Bloodthorn Vines' experience pool was going completely unused. Even if I wanted to save it for an emergency, my current need to level up quickly outweighed that desire.

Muahahaha!

I laughed maniacally to myself as I threw away all of the work I had just done to make my mana usage more efficient. It was time to unleash a new boss monster upon the world.