Defend the Core! (Dungeon Core Quest)

Year 1025 Orsi, Okrasi Province, Slaria
As you spread your presence throughout the dungeon, you take a quick checklist of what needs to be done, 'Swamp plants are mutating, aquatic life is expanding exponentially and a few more touch-ups on the aquatic monsters' you think as your attention hovers over the four swamps which have been growing inside your dungeon. From there you quickly stretch your attention further out. 'Small animal rates have stabilized and the monsters are gaining experience, environmental traps have been activated' you notice, as you float freely inside your body and the final part of your routine, you begin focusing on the town outside,

'Even more invaders have arrived, work is still being done on the large building opposite your cave and more people come by the day' you think hungrily at the sheer amount of mana you could gather from all of them, and with that, you return your attention back inside your dungeon and begin to create more weapons in your war against those outside.

Consequently, a single ping echoes throughout your core and you watch as the roiling mana inside your core starts compacting, after a few seconds pass, your mana settles and you notice how denser it is and suddenly feel like you can do more.
(+4 DP)

Time to choose your dice:
[]Floors: From living breathing ecosystems to labyrinthine corridors floors encapsulate them all
[]Monster: Roaring monsters and spelling slingling gremlins, monsters are those that directly stand up against those who dare enter your halls.
[]Traps: A constant plague to a dropping boulder, traps are what keep invaders from your body without the physical component of monsters.
[]Research: From the flows of the world to items that harness the latent energy of the universe, research is the way to get them.
[]Core: A hidden room to a crushing rule on all that enter, core is for your entire dungeon top to bottom.
[]Free: From a much-needed push to a more slow approach free dice allow you to freely allocate where the dice will go, however, you can only have as many as your max amount of dice in a category. (2 Currently)

Year 1025 Orsi, Okrasi Province, Slaria
Kneeling, you decide to take a quick peek up at the person above you, with wide shoulders and a face full of hair. You look into the eyes of your liege and recite the oath. "I swear to become your steward, to take care of your people as my own, to provide every resource from your land to the betterment of those inside it, and to be the cradle for your reign to stay forever more." With that, you begin to feel your mana reach to the mana within your new liege, and with a snap, you are bound, to the man in front of you, to the land around you, and faintly to those who have arrived in the short few years since you have arrived here with your master.

You slowly rise and shake hands with your liege, and then he begins talking. "This is a big thing, you know, business is booming and you're going to be at the front of it, so let's have a toast, to the one who brought the protection from the plague to your new steward, let's welcome Karmir into our home!" As he brings the glass to his lips and everyone else follows him you can't help but thank the dungeon which brought this role to you and the life to town in your surroundings.
(+30 MpT)

Turn 3 Results:
Mana: 60 (310 Mana per turn)
DP: 6/20 (10 DP per Turn)
[]Swamp Ecosystem: Water, one of the advantages you have in your dungeon, is a siren song to the world outside of your dungeon, a hot harsh place where a drop of water disappears instantly. By overfilling your dungeon with water and mutating plants to take advantage of this increase in water you can begin to form a swamp-like ecosystem, which provides boosts to the detrimental effects of your environmental traps. (20 per dice 89/200) (64)

With the spreading of an oasis ecosystem, it is easy to thin areas and slow down water flow to create a place where the water will start to slow down and stagnate. From there you try and find various plants and small animals to populate your newly made swamp, however, you can not seem to find any making you rely on mutating your already established plants until they can survive in the environment you are creating. While work still needs to be done on them, they are not just a place for water to stagnate, with the completion of environmental traps which you seeded throughout the swamps and some aquatic monsters already entering your dungeon, your swamps are already seeing a small amount of work

[]Basic Resources: Most invaders don't need a reason to enter a dungeon but by placing various resources such as iron, medicinal herbs, or even sometimes mana-infused objects, you can make invaders stay for longer searching every nook and cranny for just one more item, actively giving you more mana. (10 Mana per Dice 141/100) (87) (+10 MpT) (+1 DPpT) (Unlocked Small Animal Dens) (Unlocked Herb Garden)

Resources, something that everyone wants more of, from the mana-infused plants of your dungeon to the precious metals you have started to leave out, your dungeon is fully ready to lure unsuspecting invaders into the jaws of your ambushes. Already there has been an uptick in invaders acting recklessly as they search more and more for the treasures of your home, allowing you to take more mana as they stay longer in your dungeon as well as lure them into their demise. Already you have started to draft more ideas, from dedicated places where you can place specialized resources, from an herb garden to a den of animals, you can seed these places with monsters hidden between your treasures and allow you to get more mana and deaths within your dungeon. (+10 MpT) (+1 DPpT) (Unlocked Small Animal Dens) (Unlocked Herb Garden)

[]Basic Animal-Based Monsters: A piece of fur, a scale, or even a bone, all of these and more exist within the air and ground everywhere you go. All of these allow the dungeon access to a quick and easy way to get monsters. Just grow them from a tiny piece of mineral and you have a willing and ready monster to fight those defilers who enter your body and trash it for riches. Even if they are a bit warped due to your affinity, what's the harm, it just makes them more deadly. (15 Mana per Dice 270/200) (144) (+2 DPpT) (Unlocks Bug-Based Monsters) (Unlocks Reptile-Based Monsters)

From sand-shredding rabbits to sand-coated reptiles, your dungeon is rife with animal-based monsters, wandering your halls they wander, sometimes erratically or to hunt down the smaller animals of the ecosystem. However, all that changes when the invader enters your dungeon. From a serene existence, these monsters rise up and become the violent predators they were meant to be, hiding in every corner, invaders have to tread carefully or they will end up bleeding from all limbs as monsters appear and attack from all around them. These monsters have sparked some more thoughts on how to coordinate monsters, from the singular existence of reptiles to the hive-mind behavior of bugs you have plenty of ideas to keep those invaders on their toes. (+2 DPpT) (Unlocks Bug-Based Monsters) (Unlocks Reptile-Based Monsters)

[]Aquatic Monsters: With the large amount of water in your dungeon it seems sensible to create monsters that can survive in the water and hunt those who dare try to steal the water from your home. With the creation of various aquatic creatures, almost every angle of the dungeon will be an ambush point, leaving them constantly fearful of when your monsters will get the drop on them (10 Mana per Dice 96/100) (96) (Autocompletes Next Turn)

Water, water, and more water, it continually pumps out of your dungeon, giving life to the world inside your dungeon as well as the invader's bustling town outside the entrance of your cave. With the creation of these monsters, you have ensured that throughout the dungeon, the invaders will be surprised as monsters rise up out of the water and attack those around them. At Least in theory, when you created these creatures, you didn't realize how hard it would be to create a creature that can live both off and in water, from the reptilian crocodile to the more humanoid reptiles that now inhabit your water, they all have one slight flaw, they can't hold their breath as long as you would like. However, with just a few tweaks you can begin to spread them throughout your dungeon.

[]Basic Environmental Traps: A brush of a plant or breath of air, all changeable to a dungeon. From airborne viruses to poisonous rocks and herbs, environmental traps promise to slowly chip away your invaders.After alll more strength sapped from invaders is more mana to save on recreating monsters. While not creating radiation or bacteria wholesale, these traps are just the first vector, allowing you to expose the weaknesses of these invaders of your body. (10 Mana per Dice 169/150) (112) (+10 MpT) (+1 DPpT) (Unlocks Basic Toxic Minerals Traps) (Unlocks Basic Pathogen Traps)

From the silver-ish liquid that is mercury to the viral fungi you have created a place where no invader may walk through unchanged, from the slow deterioration of some to the rapid death, no place is safe in your dungeon. However a curiosity arises as you watch some who have previously been given a dose of a slow death trap, come back into your dungeon unaffected. However while there may be some miracle that saves them outside, you just have to account for it, with your ever-expanding list of ideas, from more toxic minerals to spreading plague whenever they walk in you will ensure that those who enter your dungeon will not come back out easily. (+10 MpT) (+1 DPpT) (Unlocks Basic Toxic Minerals Traps) (Unlocks Basic Pathogen Traps)


[]Basic Mana Storage: While something that most don't like to talk about mana decays, whether it's because of an unwanted reaction between affinities or a more hidden reason. Mana dissipates usually over a month, for a good reason too at least for those invaders, if it didn't the land would be a mutated wasteland as when affiliated mana dissipates it usually does in an explosive reaction, usually inside some poor animal causing rapid mutation and frenzy as their brain goes into chemical imbalance. At Least outside a dungeon, inside is a different story. By utilizing various crystallized rocks you can safely dissipate affinitated mana, lessening the burden on your core. (15 Mana per Dice 122/200) (9)

While you wanted to do some work on your mana storage, you, unfortunately, couldn't find much time and what time you had seemed to not do much, however, progress is still progress and more work can be done to make sure that your storage is finished.


[]Basic Mana Items: From swords that never need to be sharpened to clothes that keep you warm, mana items are everywhere. Usually formed from instilling affintiated with a specific intention, the cost of these items can be cut down through the use of runes, specific points of concentration, and even small gems to bring down the cost of these weapons, allowing you to produce more and attract more invaders into your body hunting for these riches. (15 Mana per Dice 23/100) (23)

While not as bad as storages you still had a slow start with making basic mana items, however, progress was still made even if it was just in the basics. Through your basic understanding of mana, you have started being able to instill concepts into the dungeon around you with greater efficiency, but with more work to decrease the cost, it will still take a while for you to be able to affect the mana all throughout your dungeon, allowing you to instill rules within your body, punishing any invaders which break your invisible geas.

[]Hidden Vents: While not noticeable to the majority of the population some can see mana throughout the world, by installing hidden vents throughout the dungeon, you can hide where the mana is going, stopping people from utilizing this trick to get through mazes or in the eventuality of a mana surge which would make mana visible through sheer quantity, hide which way it is to the core. (15 Mana per Dice 120/200) (120)

Unlike your research options, you have made great headway into creating vents throughout your dungeon, from the deep parts of your swamps to the wandering oasis, you have prepared mana to go through them, preventing pathing throughout your dungeon, however, you still haven't connected your vents into the connection to your core. With a bit more of a push, you will be able to connect your entire dungeon with mana-vents allowing you to hide more of your existence from those who would try to find your core and steal it for various purposes.

Year 1025 Orsi, Okrasi Province, Slaria
With a final click your mana in your core settles down, quickly afterwards you expand out your mind and almost immediately you can feel the differences, ideas, and thoughts come quicker than they used to, already your mind begins coming up with ways to further research mana and the surrounding effects, from there you notice how you can keep track of slightly more things. These enhancements to your mind promise to allow you to get more done within the year and immediately you start to test just how far you can take this expansion.

Year 1025, Orsi, Okrasi Province, Slaria
Sitting at a wooden table, you look around, already seeing your lord and his other advisors you turn towards who is standing up and listen in, "My lord, we have seen a slight increase in deaths in the dungeon, however, we have continued to maintain within the bounds our highness has declared. We can expect the dungeon to continue to grow and with the resources it has been growing, to continue to provide plentiful food and water."

As the guild master sits down you focus on the person beside you and watch as the trade master speaks. "With the plentiful food and water provided by the dungeon we have already seen an increase in our profits, we have seen requests from some of other newly made counts requesting food and water from our stores, which we provided with a charge of course." And with that, it is your turn, you stand and begin. "We have continued to see a large increase of movement into our town, with project amount showing at least a thousand every year, I have already ordered the increase in housing to provide for these people as well as have been writing up increases in the lengths of streets to account for the rising amount of people arriving." After saying your report you quickly sit down and focus on the next person.

Turn 4:
Mana: 370 (310 Mana per turn)
6/20 (10 DP per Turn)
Floors (3 Dice):
[]Faean Ecosystem: With the established basic ecosystem, it allows the specialization of the dungeon ecosystem, by manipulating plants throughout the dungeon you can begin to induce mana-specialized mutations in the ecosystem which theoretically would lower the cost of mana-based traps by providing more mana in the air and surrounding area for these magical traps to utilize so that they can perform at high levels and make a greater challenge to invaders. (20 Mana per dice 25/200)

[]Cavern Ecosystem: While the basics have been established you can go one step further and tailor your ecosystem to the area in it, caves. By growing more mushrooms and mutating plants to become beneficial to a cave system you can create the conditions to allow more proliferation of physical traps. Whether hiding behind a taste placement of vines or an actual boulder held up by branches, you can fit more physical traps in a cavern ecosystem allowing you to get traps in a smaller space. (15 Mana per 25/200)

[]Swamp Ecosystem: Water, one of the advantages you have in your dungeon, is a siren song to the world outside of your dungeon, a hot harsh place where a drop of water disappears instantly. By overfilling your dungeon with water and mutating plants to take advantage of this increase in water you can begin to form a swamp-like ecosystem, which provides boosts to the detrimental effects of your environmental traps. (20 per dice 89/200)

[]Small Animal Dens: With the creation of basic resources, you can now create specialized storage places for your resources to reside, allowing you to place monsters within these places, creating a place for monsters to ambush from, allowing you to save mana as well as keep the invaders on their toes. By seeding these dens with a variety of small animals, from bunnies to birds you can hide monsters within them to attack unsuspecting invaders. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Herb Garden: From flowers to various spices, you can create specialized areas where you can grow plant-based resources. These plant resources are something that the invaders, hunt for hours in your dungeon, but by making a dedicated area to place them you can then hide various plant-based monsters inside them as well. Forcing them to brave your perfect ambush points to gather the food they require, allowing you to save on mana as well as kill desperate invaders. (10 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Quarters: While Monsters are made from mana and don't require rest, building basic quarters in your dungeon would allow you to store more monsters inside your floors and allow for longer fights between you and your invaders allowing you to more of that sweet, sweet mana. (10 Mana per Dice 0/100)

[]Basic Workshop: While some traps are easy to replace some may not be, that's where the workshop comes in, allowing you to hold a variety of little helpers to automate various tasks throughout the dungeon saving you mana for replacing parts every time as well as allowing for repairs of various features throughout the dungeon. (10 Mana per Dice 0/100)

Monsters (4 Dice):
[]Basic Intelligent Bipedal Monsters: Kobolds, Goblins and Imps, and various other intelligent creatures created by dungeons, usually the first intelligent monster each dungeon makes. While only smart enough to use stone tools each has been deadly to unsuspecting rookies in large enough numbers, using ambush tactics these basic intelligent lives will be sure to cut down on those pesky invaders. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Sprite-Based Mana Monsters: Fairies, motes, spirits, some of the first mana-based life forms dungeons create, usually in the form of their starting affinity. While not much at first, all of these forms of mana-based life are known to swarm unsuspecting invaders who come for treasures of your body. After all, while one of the weakest mana beings there is a reason most dungeons make them first. Their dirt cheap, most dungeons pump them out by the thousands with just one piece of mana. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Bug-Based Monsters: From the swarms of locusts to the agile scorpions, there is multitude of bugs in the surrounding desert, which when exposed to your mana, will create monsters for your dungeon, eerily coordinated these bugs will be able to react quickly to any incursion into your dungeon and provide an easy way for you to attack the invaders who will enter your dungeon, after all, bugs breed fast and are plentiful in the surrounding area. (10 Mana per Dice 0/300)

[]Reptile-Based Monsters: With the basic animal monsters, created you can focus more on a few types of monsters, from the lumbering desert monitor to the speedy vipers, you can take these reptiles and enhance them through with your mana allowing you to create more specific monsters, refining mutations and bring the monsters from a small nuisance to something which even the toughest invader will struggle to face. (20 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Tree-Based Monsters: From the swaying palm trees to the towering redwood, trees have a lot of variability with the form of trees. By taking advantage of this variability you can create the towering and lumbering monsters or a more agile and speedy fighter. However each of these fighters have one thing in common with their branches grown throughout their body, these monsters have limbs to spare. From specialized limbs to stab-to-bleed flesh-eating saps, tree-based monsters evoke an alien feeling to invaders with their many-branched growths. (20 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Fungi-Based Monsters: From the deadly death caps to the paralyzing mushrooms of the jungles, mushrooms have a wide range of ways to spell death for an invader, but one thing most people don't think about mushrooms is their ability to act as nervous system, with beneficial mutations, you can create a monster which inhabits a whole room, from the moment an invader walks in your fungus monsters, who spit out thing like fire, to poison spores, can accurately attack those who dare enter your dungeon, all is needed is the beneficial mutations of these strains of mushroom (10 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Heat-Sensing Monsters: From magic to plain old camouflage, there is a multitude of ways to hide, however, one that most people don't think of is heat, something that doesn't really come up that often heat is all around us as well as requiring a very technical enchantment and it can be taken advantage of through the use of heat-sensing monsters, your monsters will be able to find anybody hiding through camouflage or invisibility. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Aquatic Monsters: With the large amount of water in your dungeon it seems sensible to create monsters that can survive in the water and hunt those who dare try to steal the water from your home. With the creation of various aquatic creatures, almost every angle of the dungeon will be an ambush point, leaving them constantly fearful of when your monsters will get the drop on them (10 Mana per Dice 96/100) (Autocompletes next Turn)

[]Basic Affinity Monsters: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. The basic elements and the most prevalent, make up almost all of the mana generation throughout the world. By taking your understanding of the basic affinities you can mutate your monsters to wield these basic elements in conjunction with the sand mana you have already given them. This will give your monsters more options and provide two avenues of attack to the invaders who enter your dungeon. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

Traps (2 Dice):
[]Basic Physical Traps: Small or Tall, Complex or Simple, traps are versatile, promising to pump invaders for all their hard-earned energy. While these first few traps aren't the most complex and won't hold them forever, they don't need to, from pit traps to collapsing ceilings, these traps promise to inconvenience and set up for monsters to ambush invaders while they are down. These cheap traps won't be the most mana efficient nor self-loading but they are solid for what they are, simple and cheap. (10 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Magical Traps: Burst of fire or bone-breaking curse, magic, and traps are a match made in hell. With the passive mutability of magic and the preparation of traps, these traps promise to surprise your invaders as they do with a few cracks or an ornate light feature to spell doom for those wandering your body. After all a small bit of mana to sap more mana is a worthy investment. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Toxic Minerals Traps: From the deadly quicksilver to the small amounts of radiation some minerals release, you are flush with ways to spread toxicity throughout your dungeon, weakening those who dare enter your body to hunt for resources. Whether a slow death or a quick one, your mineral traps are sure to pump them off their mana as they struggle to escape your traps. (20 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Pathogen Traps: A spore or a bacteria, a spreading sickness or a rotting virus, pathogens allow you to spread death throughout your dungeon, even if those outside your halls have found a way to stop your sickness, it just means you can concentrate it further, from clouds of spores to animals which give bacteria, there are a multitude of ways to slow down and stop the invaders entering your dungeon and pump them for their mana. (10 Mana per Dice 0/300)

[]Basic Plant Traps: Mushrooms or Flowers, spores or pollen, plants have it all from towering trees to hidden mushrooms, all it takes is a slight adjustment and you have it all. Trees that bleed skin-eating sap, mushrooms that sprout hallucinogenic spores, flowers whose pollen makes invaders descend into a frenzy. These plant traps have a wide breadth of effects, while the first plant traps you make are not these beautiful specimens, they still can be deadly, after a strangler vine slows down invaders as much as flesh-eating sap allowing you to milk them for more of that sweet, sweet mana. (10 Mana per Dice 0/150)

Research (4 Dice):
[]Mana Connection Network: Mana is everywhere, that is known but what isn't known is that dungeons are intelligent mana, holding these thoughts inside a physical medium keeps the intelligent mana from reacting with the world outside of it and killing the core. This case of sapient mana bestows dungeons with the ability to send messages through mana, by sending this message mana through the flows of the world, you will be able to connect and talk to the dungeons throughout the world. (10 Mana per Dice 0/100)

[]Basic Mana Ring: With the creation of basic mana flows and the resulting growth in mana production from invaders entering your dungeon, you can begin large-scale conversions through a mana ring. By leading mana in a circular route around your core, it allows a longer process of conversion allowing you to save large parts of mana which is lost when you de-affinaited the mana in your dungeon. This will overall increase the amount of mana in your dungeon and make the ring around your core visible to the mass presence of mana.(5 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Mana Storage: While something that most don't like to talk about mana decays, whether it's because of an unwanted reaction between affinities or a more hidden reason. Mana dissipates usually over a month, for a good reason too at least for those invaders, if it didn't the land would be a mutated wasteland as when affiliated mana dissipates it usually does in an explosive reaction, usually inside some poor animal causing rapid mutation and frenzy as their brain goes into chemical imbalance. At Least outside a dungeon, inside is a different story. By utilizing various crystallized rocks you can safely dissipate affinitated mana, lessening the burden on your core. (15 Mana per Dice 122/200)

[]Specialized Affinities: With the completion of basic affinities it is time to research specialized affinities, from blood to sand. These affinities are often made through bizarre combinations between the four basic elements from the use of earth, water, and fire to make ice to the use of water, earth, and air in specific quantities to make blood affinity. It will take a long time to go through each grouping of specialized affinities but at least it isn't mind-boggling and mana-twisting high affinities such as time or space. (20 Mana per Dice 0/500)

[]Basic Mana Items: From swords that never need to be sharpened to clothes that keep you warm, mana items are everywhere. Usually formed from instilling affintiated with a specific intention, the cost of these items can be cut down through the use of runes, specific points of concentration, and even small gems to bring down the cost of these weapons, allowing you to produce more and attract more invaders into your body hunting for these riches. (15 Mana per Dice 23/100)

Core (3 Dice):
[]Basic Wall Reinforcement: Invaders are a violent and destructive force, which raid your body for various mana-rich resources. If there is a wall they can break, they will, by reinforcing your walls beforehand you can gain an advantage over those who would enter your dungeon and stop them from creating a straight line throughout your dungeon. (10 Mana per Dice 0/100)

[]Basic Ambush Points: Invaders have some of the weakest senses, they can't hunt through smell, nor understand all of a room from a sound. These weak senses allow for the creation of ambush points, places where monsters can attack from the shadows. Creating dedicated ambush points creates a surplus of places to attack from allowing your monsters to choose where to ambush from and giving a sense of variability to each group as there is always a different ambush location. (20 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Basic Statistical Counting: By counting how many people enter each day and how they act, you can get a sense of whether more or fewer people will enter your dungeon as well as what they want. This allows you to tailor your body so that the invaders will get captured by their greed and fall into traps as well as lull them into a false sense of security by tailoring monster numbers to overpower them with the least amount of monsters. (10 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Stealth Fields: Through the use of notice-me-not enchantments, you can hide your monsters from the focus of invaders, allowing them to spring more ambushes against them. However, due to the mana-based application of these enchantments, there is a chance that mages may be able to sense them, but that is a small chance after all, it takes specific skills to sense mana. (20 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Hidden Tunnels: Movement through the can be treacherous not just for the invaders, but by installing hidden tunnels throughout the dungeon, you can create a hidden system of tunnels to ferry your monsters from place to place, allowing you to hold more monsters in general as well as allow monsters to escape from conflicts if it is known that they are going to lose, allowing you to recoup costs for monsters in your dungeon. (15 Mana per Dice 0/200)

[]Hidden Vents: While not noticeable to the majority of the population some can see mana throughout the world, by installing hidden vents throughout the dungeon, you can hide where the mana is going, stopping people from utilizing this trick to get through mazes or in the eventuality of a mana surge which would make mana visible through sheer quantity, hide which way it is to the core. (15 Mana per Dice 120/200)