Doyle, ‘Fire leaves are cool and all, but can it be made entirely of fire?’
Ally shrugs, ‘That’s called an elemental. At which point you start getting into philosophical debates on whether it’s actually a tree anymore. Like, physically? Most certainly not! However, it still fills the same role and has the same appearance.
‘Though admittedly, it fills the role if placed somewhere heavily fire-aligned. Try to put it in the middle of a regular garden and everything else will burn down and any animals will die from the poisonous gases it puts off.’
Doyle, ‘Well, good thing I’m not going that far. Though it does make me interested in other flavors of elemental, but tree.’
Ally smiles, ‘Elemental realms don’t try to perfectly copy mortal realms, but a lot of things rhyme.’
Doyle, ‘I’ll keep that in mind, but I really should go and get my ideas out on the 21st floor.’
Which he does, though it takes quite a few iterations.
The very first try was straightforward. He has trees on the ledges, right? Easy! A simple one-to-one swap for Earth-attuned trees.
Though, as noted, it takes multiple iterations and so obviously this doesn’t work. In particular, the Earth trees he places easily pierces the stone with their roots. Which causes a slight problem. Mainly that the ledges collapse and not as some sort of trap. They simply fall off the mountain randomly.
This led to a few similar attempts, except it starts with a couple trees where the mountain meets the ledge. All in the hope of the roots burrowing into the mountain proper and anchoring the ledge as a whole. Which resulted in the ledge falling faster as the roots aren’t as sturdy as solid rock.
Go figure.
Still, Doyle wanted to include the trees. Which first succeeded in the simplest application. As in, instead of trying to place them on a ledge, he goes and replaces those on the plateau at the top of the mountain.
Though even this doesn’t work perfectly. Doyle has to return the outer couple layers to being regular trees. Not because they fell down or anything. Rather, their roots rounded the edge of the plateau. Which would not work as Doyle wanted the edges to be sharp, as if someone had cut off the top of the mountain.
That still left a decent amount of Earth oaks, because he had decided to go with oaks since the town already has access to regular oaks. Sure, something fancy like mahogany, ebony, or teak would be worth more to the town. Except that isn’t what Doyle wants, at least not on the floor right after a boss.
Besides, since they are already working with oak, especially magical oak? They’ll know how to handle Earth oak at least a little. Not that Doyle wasn’t tempted to create a few examples of those rarer trees. If only to find out if he can.
It should be possible? Pre-system he was lucky enough to have some experience with those woods. Not as something luxurious owned by a person, mind you. However, a museum he had been to during school had a display for exotic woods which included small samples you could touch. A bit of a tenuous connection, but more of one than other more exotic woods.
Not that oak was going to be the only Earth tree on the floor. Doyle had two other types that he was even more familiar with than oaks. Specifically, jack and red pines. Both are fine in full sun and dry soil.
Not vital in a dungeon since Doyle can force things to grow as long as it is possible for them to grow. However, keeping things sane wasn’t a bad thing.
As for where they would grow? Jack pines around the bottom half of the mountain and red pine the top half. This wasn’t for any environmental reason, but rather resource desirability progression.
Jack pines are scraggly trees that hate the idea of growing straight up. Their environmental niche is to reforest an area after a fire. So much so that their pinecones are adapted to open up after experiencing a fire. Which is nifty and Doyle wonders how that would be affected if they were attuned to Fire? But that would have to wait.
For right now, Doyle turns to red pines. They’re about the opposite? They grow straight and unbranching for most of their length. In other words, perfect for timber. Pre-system, Doyle had seen them grown in more than enough tree farms. Row after row of pines extending off into the distance, straight open aisles flashing past as you drive by.
Now he simply has to place them in the one manner he found that works on the garden ledges. In small amounts, at the very edge of the ledge. While their roots aren’t strong enough to anchor the ledge itself, they’re more than strong enough to hold the trees themselves.
Though the ledges do lose a tiny bit of rock from it falling off. Still, they were stable enough and if someone used a ground pound skill or cast earthquake? Well, that is on them. The ledges probably wouldn’t have survived such a thing, anyway.
Doyle pulls back and frowns. The oaks are too tall. They’re on top of a mountain, for one. In theory, they shouldn’t even be there to begin with, the whole “tree line” and what not. But besides that, the oak trees are right next to the exit.
Down below, the jack pines come first and if someone wants to harvest them? Well, it will be easier for them to extract the wood, but it won’t be the best lumber. Then in the middle? You’ve got the straight and unbranching red pines. Perfect for lumber, even as a softwood. Besides, they’re Earth-attuned, which should make up for some of that. Also, they’re not going to be that easy to extract from the dungeon.
Which leaves the Earth oaks way at the top. In theory, farthest from the entrance. Which means closest to the exit. Oh, sure, the red pines near the top are also close to the exit? Except you still have to haul them up to the top. The oaks are just there.
So, Doyle simply shortens the Earth oaks. If you want a long plank of wood? Earth red pines are right there, down the slope a little. That won’t stop the Earth oak being the most popular lumber. Everyone and their grandma will want furniture made of the stuff. Only if he places down something fragrant like sandalwood or uniquely colored like purple wood, will that change.
Doyle also placed a few more mature specimens on the slopes themselves. That way, if delvers wanted particularly fine lumber, there were options. They would just have to work for it.
In particular, he had them grow slowly with tight growth rings. Fast growth might be good for quicker harvests, but slow and steady makes for denser wood. So yeah, the Earth oak growing off the side of the mountain? Not only is it taller than the easily reached oaks, but the wood is simply of a higher natural quality.
Which might be a bit hard for people to figure out. Except the hard-to-reach trees are also taller than the others. Oh, and Doyle also allows them to keep growing slowly. That way, if they aren’t harvested? They’ll keep getting better until someone can’t help but try for them.
Doyle nods to himself, this was much better. There was a reason to redo the floor besides it being the first floor after a boss. It might not end up as popular as floor six, but that was inevitable. Almost anyone can get to floor six and you always need more food.
Quality wood? Sure, there is likely always a market for it, but any delver that can make it to the 21st floor? Likely not going to be the most profitable thing to farm.
Besides, steak dropping from the cattle? That was naturally going to happen. To harvest the lumber? Well, it isn’t as easy as cutting the tree down and dragging it out.
Their effort needs to go into the trees to make them real enough to remove from the dungeon. Otherwise, they’re going to be losing most of the lumber and even more if they try to simply drag entire trees out.
The act of processing the trees into lumber and blocks of wood is another step where they can invest their effort into the wood. Though what will be the most important part of extracting the lumber? To have the actual skills for it.
Someone who struggles to cut down a single tree and drag it out? Sure, that is a lot of effort and if they’re something like a mage so they have a lot of power, it just isn’t physical might, that could be a lot.
If someone else with a skill for tree chopping and to make the logs into lumber? They’ll get more because what effort they are investing will be more effective. This is basically the difference between someone trying to paint a wall by throwing paint at it compared to someone using a paint roller.
Hmm, Doyle pauses, ‘Maybe the good trees are a little too easy to reach?’
From his understanding, the jack pines will be good for training those skills. The difficulty in sorting out their scraggly mess of branches and such is good experience. However, quality also helps. Working with the highest quality wood allows you to focus more on the pure skill instead of needing to use techniques to counter flaws.
Besides, quality is worth more.
So, things are going to have to get harder. But how? The mountain is already tall and treacherous. After all, it was designed to encourage people to take the tunnels.
‘Hmm, the ledges spiral up the mountain, so there isn’t much of a gap to fit the quality trees. To make it harder, I’m going to have to mess with that. A little stretched space here and there would make that easy. But I don’t want to.’
It really is just a moment of stubbornness, but the mountain is fine as it is. Besides, Doyle had already stretched space a good bit to make the place properly mountainous. Compared to a mountain outside? Still small, but optical illusions and some fog can help cover up many a sin.
‘So. If it won’t be done with spatial manipulation, what will work instead?
‘There’s the spiral, can I do something with that? Spirals can have various mystical meanings applied to them. They’re an unbound circle, can be the golden ratio, and more.
‘I guess I haven’t carved anything on the floor yet? Which means I should figure out what kind of concept I want to focus on.’
Doyle settles back and watches as delvers work their way through his lower floor. More people are challenging the post-slaughterhouse floors. Which is nice to see. Having them delve deeper and grow stronger scratches an itch. Likely some kind of instinct.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? While the cosmic purpose of a dungeon is to take in all the cruft from people using magic and doing mystical nonsense, that is achieved through strengthening them to go deeper. To exert themselves more. To Progress.
‘Progress.
‘I want them to have the trees be progressively harder. To allow them to progress their skills. As a measure of progress, with each tree harder than the last. Both to get to and to harvest. Weather conditions, loose rocks, and whatever else a mountain would throw at you. Like, can I also make the air thinner? Maybe I’ll just have to give it a try and see how it turns out!’
So Doyle settles in to carve out the details. A big one being that delvers should be able to start with whatever tree they want. That way, if they just want a single quick and easy tree? They can get it. Doyle won’t force them and won’t provide any extra reward if they manage to get a lot of them.