Doyle sighs, he had made a smaller floor and now was a little stuck on where to spend his points. ‘Hey, Ally, is there something to do with spare points?’
Ally flies out of her apartment and takes a look at the floor. ‘You could always place more monsters? They’re not sparse right now, but there is space to fit some more.’
Doyle shakes his head, ‘I am not against it, but I feel like there should be more?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Not particularly? Each floor gets bigger and monster patterns become more expensive. Like, I’m sure there are things out there? But they’re not things a dungeon will naturally have, so basically you need to find them or open them through a Path.’
Doyle, ‘Well, I’ve got eighty-k and change points left. Some of that will go towards a bit of trap experimentation, but that means I haven’t even spent half of the points I intended to spend.’
Ally laughs, ‘Then just don’t spend them. That or play around with the floor conditions. Like what you did with that original mithril forge, but at a wider scale.’
Doyle, ‘That is another use, but what is the use?’
Ally rolls her eyes, ‘Depends on the change? I mean, you increased the Mana density to allow the forging of mithril. There are other conditions you can aim for.
‘I mean, you have permafrost lynxes running around, right? Well, they’re fine at room temp, but you could spend a few points to chill their home ground.’
Doyle, ‘Didn’t exactly need to do that for my little volcano diorama?’
Ally laughs, ‘Well, you had a bunch of those ashen cattle in there! Also, you don’t need points for a reasonable temperature change. As long as you aren’t trying to break thermodynamics, you can have a warm room or a cold room.
‘Not hot enough to cause heat exhaustion and certainly not cold enough to cause hypothermia. At most there will be a bit more sweat on the brow or they’ll feel a slight shiver going into the room.
‘Anything more will cost you. Same with things like gravity. Well, gravity matters more if you increase it as shown by the fact that you have an entire room of zero-g for free. Though, of course, zero-g can be harmful in the long term.
‘If I was to boil it down? There is a point cost for forcing extreme conditions on delvers. If the dungeon entrance was in a desert? We’d have a higher natural temperature to work with, and reducing the temp to a point that would be fine right now, would cost. The temp difference would be a shock to the body of delvers.’
Doyle, ‘So the rules are all nonsense and subjective?’
Ally, ‘No, it has to deal entirely with what your delvers are experiencing compared to the conditions right outside of your dungeon. Having it reduced to points alone simply makes it seem arbitrary. There are many factors that will change things and even something as simple as raising the temp of a room has many things that could change.
‘Though gravity is easier to explain right now, given the floor’s current setup. If you lower gravity even a smidge? Your traps will cost fewer posts. Increase the gravity by the same amount? The traps will balloon in cost because a fall of any distance can be dangerous and any change in gravity can be disastrous.
‘And that is just how it would change the traps. The actual cost of the increase or decrease is going to be odd and seem random.’
Doyle sighs, ‘That doesn’t exactly make it easy to plan around?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Not really meant to be planned around? You build a floor and it is pretty self-contained, especially for a portal dungeon. At least in other dungeon types, an actual passage of some sort or at least a doorway handles the passage between floors.’
Doyle shakes his core, ‘Well, I’ll play around with more traps for now. I don’t really have any that I’d class as deadly. More nuisance traps.’
Ally nods, ‘Rocks falling on someone kind of loses its oomph with enough levels. You need something special going on for falling rocks to be a threat. Enchant the rocks, maybe switch them out for metal pieces? It isn’t impossible, but better to move to weapon traps. Even with assistance, natural falls are too slow for a trap.’
Doyle nods, ‘True.’ And he settles down to plan some lethal traps.
Well, it doesn’t take much to plan a lethal trap. You put a hidden pointy bit somewhere attached to a spring and a trigger. Also, “attached” doesn’t have to be literal given things like dart traps.
Doyle’s big question is what form of pointy? Though it could also be simply sharp or even blunt. The current traps would all fall under blunt. Well, maybe a bit sharp or pointy, given the specific rock?
Then Doyle remembers a trap that is often set up by the kobolds down on the first floor. They’d set up a bar on the ceiling that would swing down and try to thwack people in the neck. A fun trap that the kobolds would be short enough not to get hit by.
The problem that trap has is that it swings down. Which is even worse than falling rocks. At least the rocks are falling straight down. The bar needs to swing along a path. Most power came from the bar being heavy, except Doyle now had a plan.
It wouldn’t be the most hidden of traps, but he didn’t mind that. See, it would be the whole “bar swings down at around neck height” trap. Except with more oomph because Doyle can alter the dungeon to a greater degree than the kobolds can.
For this trap, that meant installing a metal pole on one side instead of using rope to hold the bar. And that bar? It extends up into the ceiling and has a hollowed-out area because the far end of the pole is capped with a blob of lead. That way, instead of the weight of the falling bar, the trap depends on the weight of the lead.
Which both makes the bar swing faster, but also puts more mass behind the swing. A thing completely missing from the kobold trap on floor one and so satisfied, he tosses out ten of them at 600 points a pop. Though this admittedly, isn’t quite a fully lethal trap. Maybe if Doyle used a blade instead of a bar, the trap would be more of a threat.
That can wait for later. Right now, Doyle is still treating the delvers with kid gloves on. After all, this is the first floor with dungeon traps. He isn’t certain if they’ll notice compared to the kobold traps, well, besides the fact that there aren’t any kobolds on the floor.
Though thinking of that and going deeper down that path, Doyle realized he wanted to do something the kobolds could not replicate. At least, not on or before this floor.
Then he goes and copies one of the most classic movie traps. Because is a dungeon actually a dungeon if it doesn’t have a giant rolling boulder of doom? Which turns out shockingly expensive, costing 2,000 points.
Doyle’s guess is that it costs so much despite the relatively cheap setup? After all, it is literally just a round stone rolling down a tunnel. Well, it doesn’t provide an easy way out. The boulder takes up the passageway and you can’t escape it by good positioning. And since you trigger it further into the tunnel, the only way out is to either stop it or outrun it.
So the conceptual danger behind the trap is higher than that of a pit trap. However, it also pointed out that traps were expensive. A little too expensive.
Doyle turns back to Ally, ‘So uh, why are traps so expensive?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Why are your monsters so cheap?’
Doyle, ‘Well, I do have some more expensive monsters.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘You have some moderately costed monsters and a bunch of stupidly cheap monsters. Goats should probably cost ten times as much as they do.
‘Then there are the kobolds. I guess 50 is a decent price, though I wouldn’t be surprised if other dungeons are paying more like 100. At least we know what is up with the goats, don’t know why your kobolds are cheap. Well, most of your monsters are cheap.’
Doyle, ‘So this is more about them being regularly priced?’
Ally shrugs, ‘No clue at this point? I would say your monsters cost less and the goats certainly do. However, it might also be that your traps cost more. After all, it took you this long to have them. You likely don’t have much of a connection to them. It is kind of hard to directly compare these points to other dungeons.’
Doyle, ‘Meh. There’s nothing we can do about it. I guess it makes things easier to spend all my points.’
Except he doesn’t really want to add much else? There are a good number of monsters, even if you discount the golems. And the traps? Well, there are 80 of the regular traps spread around, which was sufficient in Doyle’s book.
Sure, there are still 76,979 points left to spend. It could honestly even be considered higher if used on traps. After all, he doesn’t need to reserve points for the farm when using traps.
Doyle sighs, it is honestly quite hard for him to think of anything else to add to the floor. It has the tunnels, the little plateaus of greenery, and the flat top of the mountain. ‘Ally, I think I’m done with the floor.’
Ally, who hadn’t gone back to her apartment yet, shrugs, ‘Fair enough. Sometimes? You complete something before you fill in all the blanks. Leave it as it is and you can come back to the floor if necessary.’
Doyle, ‘Still doesn’t feel right to have so many points left over.’
Ally nods, ‘I can understand that. However, the right question to ask is Do you simply feel annoyed at not using the points or is it your instincts berating you for not using them?’
Doyle considers things for a bit. ‘Huh, I just don’t feel right leaving points unspent. No warning from my instincts.’
Ally claps, ‘That settles it then! If you feel fine being done, be done. No reason to torture yourself over things. This isn’t a multiple-choice test where you have to make sure you completely fill the bubble.’
Doyle, ‘So, uh, I guess I'll move on to what’s next?’
Doyle isn’t sure what that is. Oh, sure, he can proceed to the next floor, but he really isn’t feeling floor creation right now. ‘I need a new skill’
Ally raises an eyebrow, ‘That came out of nowhere?’
Doyle, ‘Well, I don’t want to make another floor yet and I’m not feeling any of my current skills. Might as well go and try something new.’
Ally laughs, ‘Fair enough. So, what are you looking for?’
Doyle, ‘Well, if I had known that, I would have said that instead of just saying “skill”.’
Ally, ‘Not even a direction? Do you want to try for crafting, art, organization, or what have you?’
Doyle, ‘I’m not feeling organization right now. Though the other two aren’t the most appealing either?’
Ally, ‘There are more than a few types of skills out there. What are you feeling?’
Doyle settles down and focuses inward. ‘I. Hmm. Maybe I don’t want a skill?’
Ally laughs, ‘A bit of indecision isn’t a bad thing. You just finished a floor. How about we spend some time watching the town? Maybe it will spark something.’
Doyle, ‘Are they doing anything at the moment?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Who knows? I guess we’ll just have to go and take a look’, and she smirks.
Doyle laughs, ‘Fair enough!’