Floor Upgrades!
"Kyle what the hell?! That kid isn't a monster which means she might as well be a bonafide adventurer! We trick them into helping us, maybe even make deals with them but we don't freaking adopt them you dummy! And you want me, ME, to teach that runt magic? I'm a pixie and a familiar, meaning my magic is racial, I have no idea how you expect me to do that!! What in the name of Gogliek were you thinking?!?" Tilly screams at me as I mentally flinch at the anger in her voice. She continues on a tirade for several minutes before finally running out of breath and pausing to gasp several times as her normally pale face is tinged red in anger.
'Calm down Tilly and let me explain first and then you can get mad ok? I remember that before I was a core I was human, and a lot of the stuff we've done isn't stuff that would be normal to a human. I know that I'm not but I feel like I have to hold onto some sense of who I was and one of those things means we don't kill kids unless they're like super dangerous or something. Plus I figured she might be useful, think about it Tilly! She's a kid right now which means she's easy to teach stuff too. We can train her maybe and I can use my skill to bless her and we can have a perfect person to represent us outside the dungeon! Plus if we keep our promise to her she'll respect us and spread the word of our dungeon so we have more than bandits afterwards.' I explain sheepishly as Tilly tilts her head in thought before smiling maliciously.
"Ok granted the child has potential in that regard. And I understand your feelings Kyle, but you also have to remember that we're in this together. You can't just make decisions without me all the time, especially when it could effect us both negatively. Just for big decisions run stuff by me please?" Tilly asks as I agree and an awkward silence between us follows.
'So I think we should update the floors. We have new mobs now and I have that skill to make traps so why don't we make some cool updates and create a better challenge?' I say as I watch Tilly's face light up and she flits over and sits atop my core.
"Lets do it!!! I love updates! What's the first change?" She asks as I explain my idea's. Soon we start on the first floor and I spawn several zombies of each type to help. The zombies begin to fill in the pitfall trap that's been in the first room since the start and slowly begin planting the vegetation I spawn in front of them until the first room looks like an extremly creepy haunted forest. Dead or cursed tree's are everywhere as small bushes of poisonous berries and tall grasses hide the possible threats within. I spawn several giant rats in the first room and move the group of three bats as well. I leave the two side rooms the same but instead of Stalkers hiding in the one room I remove them and place several grats instead. Remembering that they're a vaguely intelligent species I try to equip them with a mace and it actually works but the weapon is several times to big so instead I swap to a common dagger.
Moving onto the "village" floor I spawn several of Night Gnomes inside of the various buildings and have them emulate a functioning town. Watching the mobs I can see that their movements are really stiff and robotic and curiously out of the six I spawned all of them are men and identical. Asking Tilly about why they turn out this way she's silent for a moment before speaking.
"Well it's just a guess but I'm assuming that since they're newly spawned they have no knowledge of what their supposed to do so they're just following your orders directly. Until they get more experience and become actual mobs with some sentience they'll be kind of bad at anything but what they're made for and since these guys are combat mobs they can only pretend. As for the gender that ones simple, the blueprint you obtained is of that specific creature and so any you make will be a clone until you obtain more of that species. I also have information on a blueprint modifier and creator but apparently it's locked until we meet certain conditions." She answers as I nod along before sighing in acceptance as I equip the gnomes with several of the new pieces of armor and weapons that I got from the bandits.
After I finish spawning in the new mobs I bring the zombies into my core room and decide to try something new. Even though I'm at max for my dungeon rooms I noticed that the ambush castyr has been digging an underground nest and that as it expands the nest I can absorb that cleared area into the dungeon. Equipping the zombies with steel maces I order them to begin digging a staircase downwards starting behind the building that Shank lives in. Watching the undead slowly make their way there I wait excitedly as they finally begin to dumbly bash the maces into the stones and earth wall and after several minutes chips begin to fall from the wall that get absorbed by me. I gently focus my mana into the chipped area as they work and to my joy I realize I can excavate new rooms and hallways with my mobs and add them to my dungeon maybe, its just much slower!
"When did you think of trying that Kyle?" asks Tilly in surprise as she makes her way to the wall that the zombies are working on and begins to inspect the small excavated area.
'Well the castyr made nests and the area of their nests could be added to the dungeon even though I never spread my mana through that spot so I thought that maybe my maximum rooms is just what I can make through absorbing the area to create new rooms and whatever magic that helps. I figured maybe my mobs can do this and if it works we can make more challenges and rooms for the people to explore. Didn't hurt to try it and if it works we found a way to cheat! We win either way!' I say with a smile in my voice as Tilly hovers excitedly, watching the undead work. Inspecting the rest of the dungeon I realize that several days must have passed during the updates because in the living area there are three new houses built out of harvested wood and stone from outside, small homes for a single person but still impressive. Looking outside the entrance I also notice several groups of people fixing the broken down buildings while also building a wall nearby to cut the work area off from the wilds.
"It's about time you two woke up! It's been eight days since you closed off the entrance to the dungeon and core room, is everything ok?" asks Tyr as she enters the core room with Slax and Sarah, all three looking worried.
'Sorry! I didn't realize the dungeon would close down during the upgrades! Yea everything is perfectly fine and next time we update the dungeon we'll give you a heads up first, now why don't we open the doors and welcome in our new guests?' I say excitedly as I focus on opening the entrance and watch the people outside jump in surprise.