Okay, “practically unheard of” was a bit of an exaggeration. Those who delved into Doyle’s dungeon will have heard of such things. Portals above all else is a feature of the dungeon.
Anyway, it wasn’t in the original plan, but now that Doyle wants this floor and the following ones to be Earth-themed? Well, a hole in the ground, even if said ground is a pretty nice mountain, feels a bit lacking. A proper abandoned mineshaft needs some more pizzazz.
First was to make the regular changes. Right now it was a human mine. The mine tracks and tunnel height are all based on the average size of a human. Well, a human pre-system. Even before magic, there were people on the edges of the bell curve, north of 250 centimeters and south of 64 centimeters.
So with magic? Well, not only is it likely the issues that prevent people from exceeding those limits by much are now at least offset. People are going to practice all sorts of body sculpting techniques to reach the extremes with greater ease and a purpose. The body might not be like clay in a master sculptor’s hands, at least not yet, but such basic changes are well within reason. Especially since such changes would likely come with their own benefits.
And that all ignores the reality that humans are not the only people on the planet. Yes, so far what Doyle has seen are all within the human range. That isn’t assured even at this very moment. Nevermind the fact that there are probably Fae already mucking about the planet who certainly break the limits in all sorts of interesting ways.
Which gave Doyle a better idea. He had already made a maze or two, using seamless portals to pretend it was one continuous space. However, teleportation isn’t the only way to mess with space!
Even better, this wouldn’t require all that much in the way of changes to the existing structure of the floor. Rather, this would involve adding a bunch of kobold-sized tunnels connecting things. In fact, as Doyle begins to make the alterations, he goes further.
Instead of a simple set of crossover tunnels, it expands into an entire secondary space. All to stack a second civilization on top of another. From a human mine to a kobold den and, well, now an animal den since the kobolds are gone now. For the most part?
Doyle still isn’t sure if he is going to have any on the floor. They’d fit, but also weren’t needed for this floor’s design. Besides, Doyle’s trick means he doesn’t need a kobold to run through the tunnels.
Though he does realize he should test it. A little late to think of this as the entire floor is already laid out, but better now than after delvers make it to the floor. So with a bit of restless energy, Doyle sends the evolved bear to poke around the “kobold” tunnels.
---
Halfway down the mountain, in their offshoot tunnel, the lesser half-plate bear grumbles. There isn’t any true thought to it beyond animal sentience, but it’s a bear so it grumbles. At this moment in particular, the grumble is because orders came down and the bear would need to leave their den.
The bear trundles through the tunnels, because of course there couldn’t be any other place to access the “kobold tunnels” near said den. Soon enough, though, it comes across the first example, a hole up near the top of the tunnel with a small ledge. Said ledge is enough that from directly below you’d have a problem getting a look in.
More to the point, it makes the bear eminently unsuitable for checking this particular hole out. A little high off the ground, and the ledge very specifically is designed to not support even a human’s weight, let alone a full-sized bear with stone armor plates attached.
So irritated, the bear continues rumbling through the tunnels until it finds one of the small holes at ground level. In theory, this shouldn’t be hard as most are, except once again, the tunnels have been kept away from the bear’s den.
From Doyle’s side of things, this is to prevent people getting an easy kill on the bear. Equally and thematically, the kobolds aren’t exactly going to excavate a tunnel right next to an apex predator. Kobolds, after all, are about the perfect size to be a bear snack.
And all that goes over the bear's head as it approaches the hole level with the floor. The bear is just satisfied at finding the hole so it can get back to its den. After all, this should be quick as the hole is sized for a kobold. It isn’t even a round hole, so any attempts to squeeze in would quickly meet failure at the bear’s shoulders.
Except as the bear lazily swipes a paw into the kobold tunnel, things don’t go as planned. Well, not as planned by the bear. Doyle knew what to expect as he watched from on high. Literally, for once as his core room was at the top of the mountain.
Anyway, the bear’s paw visually seems to shrink as it enters the tunnel. This is almost enough for the bear to beat a hasty retreat. Natural beasts and even magical ones like a lesser half-plate bear aren’t exactly set up for this kind of sensory offset.
Doyle clamps down on the bear and tells it to get in there, which the bear reluctantly does. The beast isn’t exactly set up to be a puppet and still relies heavily on natural instincts.
And so the bear enters what appears to be a kobold-sized tunnel, only to fit perfectly. In fact, the tunnel it enters ends up being the same size as the previous one . Though when the bear glances over their shoulder, said tunnel appears massive!
This sight doesn’t bother the bear as much. While the appearance of size-change disturbed it. A complete change of scenery is simply accepted.
Anyway, from there the bear simply wanders around these hidden in plain sight tunnels. After all, what delver is going to try sticking their head on a hole perfectly sized for a kobold to be waiting for an idiot? Which given quite a few of them have a quick bend is more a worry than not.
---
While the bear wanders, Doyle gets back to work. His proof of concept. Err, complete work, had proven successful. The “small” tunnels provided an amusing not so hidden extra depth to the floor.
Also, it would train the delvers to expect this kind of trick. So later on? Well, not every “kobold-sized” tunnel is going to actually be spatially expanded. Some will simply be a tunnel sized just right for a kobold.
Subverting expectations was a fine tactic for dungeons! A shame that most never become aware enough to make use of it. Not that it requires an awakened dungeon core. Though most cases come back to an accident.
Maybe a dungeon begins working on a floor, but gets distracted for a while. Then, when they come back to it, they take it in a different direction, simply because they didn’t bother remembering the details of their original plan. This has caused more than a few dead ends that shouldn’t have been.
Doyle nods to himself, a little trickery was exactly what the “Earth” floors could use. An element generally seen as stable and slow to respond, yet it had tricks and traps? A fun mirroring that still stayed on theme.
Now, he just needed to place the monsters, but how many points did he have? It had been a bit since Doyle stabilized the floor.
{159,960}
Okay, Doyle nods to himself, that was a decent number of points to work with. Though, as always, the first order of business was to subtract a tenth of the total for the farm. So, that would be 15,996 taken, leaving 143,964 points to spend on monsters. And speaking of monsters, he also brings up a sub-list of said monsters.
{
Brown Bear 100p
Lesser Half-Plate Bear (Lv34) 200p
Stone Wolf (Lv4) 75p
Elder Assassin Vine (Lv8) 750p
Plated Crystal Core Crystal Clay Hexape Golem 70p
Kobold 50p
Elder Kobold (Lv10) 100p
Earthen Cattle (Lv3) 18p
Permafrost Lynx 60p
}
Doyle was a bit surprised at how long the list ended up being. Admittedly, he was looser with the rules on this one. The Air floors had Doyle being quite strict on what counted. Now he’s thrown in monsters like the kobolds. There were even the golems, purely because they’re made of clay and quartz instead of any actual innate elemental alignment.
Anyway, obviously there would be at least one plated bear on the floor. Be a waste of all that time if he didn’t use it. The question is how many?
Doyle glanced over the entirety of the mountain and decided on three. Two guarding what was currently the core room and the other halfway down in the current den. Sort of a family thing with the two parents at the top and the kid down trying to make their own way.
Though to make up for the light dusting of specialty bears, Doyle threw ten times that many regular bears into the mix.
Now, what about stone wolves? Doyle had used them on previous floors. Well, he can only remember using them on the fourth floor, nevertheless, they were straightforward. Pack hunters that traded some of a wolf’s stealth and speed for staying power.
Eh, why not? A pack of ten that sticks to the base of the mountain. They could act as an intro monster to the theme of the next five floors.
Then Doyle skips some options and settles on the hexape golem. Small, weak, and relatively versatile. Well, this was an “abandoned” mine. Golems were perfect workers for stuff like that. In particular, small golems wouldn’t get in the way. And sure, the tunnels are relatively spacious now that Doyle thinks about it.
A proper mine would be more cramped. Well, Doyle wasn’t going to change it now and this was more of the entrance to the theme? So, yeah, it could work. This wasn’t an active area of the mine even when it wasn’t “abandoned”. Rather, it would have been some of the earliest areas and later on expanded and secured. After all, you’d have to pass through it to go deeper.
Though why would active golems be left?
Meh, who cares? It’s a dungeon and as much as Doyle wants it to make sense. It is entirely his prerogative to not make any sense whatsoever. And these golems could be a part of that, especially since he has an idea for them.
Like, they’re clay? Right? So they’re a bit moldable and can fit together.
Now, this wasn’t going to hide what was going on. Though Doyle will make sure it’s dark enough to give them a chance. But what if he shoved together a sizable group of golems making a sort of plug, blocking off a tunnel? Delvers not in the know could get buried under a collapsing wall of golems when they check said wall for traps or hidden doors.
Though if he wanted them to look for hidden doors, there would need to be previous examples. So Doyle takes some time to spread hidden doors around. Not too many, between 1 and 7. He placed a Rule to randomize where the doors appeared and how many.
Doyle was temporarily tempted to add more, but it seems they count as traps, so each cost five points. Not much, but it is literally an unlocked door that is simply hard to spot. Doyle also gets the feeling that unlike a monster pattern, the point cost for traps is a lot more variable.
Anyway, satisfied that there will not be a reason for rogue archetypes to poke at the walls, Doyle spills out an even 200 golems. Most split up into small groups, though some moved to strategic choke points Doyle had noticed and formed a clay wall.