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Chapter 54. Its dangerous to go alone. Taaake this!

Does anyone else think something weird is happening in this dungeon? A few days ago there was a thunderous rumbling sound and today I shifted into a wide open area that looked like it had been hit by a massive bomb. It looked like a battlefield I'm telling you!

Ever since I obtained the shadow shifter class I've been able to get into places I don't belong but I'm telling you this is weirder than normal. Call for me if something weird happens okay? Here. I got these mind linking rings from this dungeon last week. Keep one and use it to call me if you get into trouble okay? I have a weird feeling about this.

Excerpt obtained from a conversation held outside the "Hypnotic Dungeon" -Year 2000AS

Rules: Restricted Item Crafting.

Part 1: 12 hours to design and create a item using limited materials that follows the following rules. Part 2: 12 hours to design and create a item using limited mana that follows the same rules. Part 3: is a secret until the time of the event but follows the same rules as well.

All Items designed have to be "Non Dungeon Dependant" Giving life to your creation to increase its abilities is cheating because a loot item that cannot be brought out of the dungeon is useless.

For Part 1: there is the additional rule that "Recycling" is not allowed. The definition of recycling is making a material out of what you are given. Reclaiming it for raw materials. And getting more than you put into it. You may absorb the materials given once, however as soon as you combine or place it you cannot reabsorb it - even if you make a mistake.

For part 2: you are allowed to use your entire inventory of raw materials HOWEVER no unique materials may be used in the creation of your item. This is a competition of your skill not your luck we've already done the unique materials event.

Final Description and sign-up.

The restricted crafting event is a way of showing off your skill in item creation. Event is split by Tier and the winner is determined by a combined set of two criteria. A panel of judges chosen from your peers and vetted for vested interests and the systems classification. Judges provide a score from 1-16 and the system provides a "value" we will use to offset the judges. Unlike previous events there is no penalty for participating and you can even keep your item afterwards. The prize for winning is a lesson on secrets provided by your host Phantasmal Patterns as well as a "Winner Packet" that explains some tips and tricks of this world not normally distributed on the market.

Enter? Y/N? Current participants [32]

Yep. I'm joining this. It sounds directly up my alley. Sure I haven't made many things with constraints - I usually just throw as many materials as I can at something and work off of synergies... but I bet I can do well with this.

Joining the event Innearth checked his friends. Doc was also competing but everyone else was taking a break from games after the last event.

Waiting for a bit Innearth was told due to the number of participants they would need to be split into two batches with 12 hours between each one. He was in the first batch that was between tiers 4 and 5 and would start shortly. A few minutes after that he was given a "collaboration panel" similar to the one he used to make something with Abe and Innearth realized why they were separated.

Phantasmal Patterns must be setting these up and then not helping... to give us a place we can build that's not in our dungeon!

So because he has 113 cameras and I assume floors that means he can only host that many Cores at once.

...and that means I can't use the crystal dwarf's help. Shame...That would have been a huge boost.

Waiting a bit longer, a hole in the wall opened and his materials were given along with the final rules.

...is this a joke?

The materials Innearth was given were as follows: A metal cup filled with water and a single leaf floating on top.

The best part of the materials (the cup) had a sign on it. MAY NOT BE USED IN THE ITEM CREATION.

A few seconds later a panel appeared.

Time left in event. [12 hours]

And started counting down.

Innearth stared at his materials before laughing. I guess this isn't as bad as I first thought... I was just surprised. I thought we would be given a super small amount of some useful materials like Iron not that we would be given something weird but I guess that makes sense.

Let's absorb this because I sure as granite don't want to work with those materials as is.

Quickly sucking up the water into his inventory and then slowly eating through the leaf which resisted being absorbed ever so slightly due to its incredibly minor lifeforce Innearth checked his gains

Water [240 grams]

Oak Leaf [0.23 grams]

Splitting those materials up once again Innearth looked at what he had to work with

Water 240.00g

Dry Mater 0.312g

Crude Protein 0.0333g

Crude Ash 0.0547g

Neutral Detergent Fiber 0.269g

Acid Detergent Fiber 0.250g

Ether Extract 0.0269g

Condenced Tannin 0.0550g

...That leaf is hard to sort through.

Flipping through multiple times Innearth slowly grew more and more confused by the sheer number of trace compounds in the leaf.

...I thought limited would mean they only gave us one element or something. Not a very very small amount of hundreds of them. What am I even supposed to do with these?

Actually how many compounds are in leaves - and why are there so many! It doesn't do anything! It just sits there! It has no business being that complicated.

...is this part of the event? See if someone gets confused and spends the whole time trying to figure out what these elements do? Okay. Here’s what I'm going to do. I'm going to focus on what I've already learned and base my creation off of that. I only have 12 - ah closer to 11 and a half hours left! That’s nothing, I spent that much time designing a section of floor some days.

Let’s see. I need to focus on what I have the most of - Water. I'm thinking of designing a weapon – I know the event specifies a “Loot Item” and that means it doesn’t need to be a weapon but…well I also know Bob Ross didn’t win that streamcast event and dungeons are voting.

What can I make with water? I can obviously break it apart into oxygen and hydrogen…but alone those aren’t as useful unless I’m thinking of Air mana and I hate Air mana. I could try and combine those with some of my other items to increase their strength?

But I’m not sure how useful that train of thought is. Let’s walk through this from the top down. My largest quantity of material is H2O. I can make a pretty good ice material using that. I can also make an incredibly thin variant of liquid crystal if I use crystal and water mana. Finally, I can make a consumable healing potion-like liquid with Life and Water mana…I don’t want to make a consumable item however I feel like I can do a lot better than that.

I could make a living weapon? There’s tons of carbon in the leaf. I’m sure I could combine that with life mana to help the healing liquid out?

…

While Innearth bounced around different ideas the main event group was lively.

Phantasmal Patterns: I have a special entertainment prepared for those that aren’t participating. Please enjoy the ADVENTURERERERERS!!!

A panel appeared showing a giant wheel with brightly coloured slices breaking it up.

In the center, a red lever sits and a group of three stands over it arguing. Two lights are lit up beside it and the one of the adventurers keeps pointing at them and then at the surroundings with sharp motions.

Finally, they seem to come to an agreement and reach out to pull the lever.

Immediately the wheel they are on begins to spin but they all maintain their balance having done this twice before.

Phantasmal Patterns: Round and Round and ROUND SHE GOES. WHERE SHE STOPS? NOBODY KNOWS!

With a sudden jolt the room shivered and jolted to a stop. A red door directly across from the group opens to a cascade of beads spilling into the room. Walking over, the group stares down at the swirling beads, before picking them up and analyzing them.

For the most part the group seemed to think this spin was a dud and this time they move back to the center to pull it again. Three lights are lit up around the lever and when the group pulls it, the room spins once more.

Phantasmal Patterns: Round and Round! Ehehehehe. Come on explosion. Come on explosion. Trying for a 4th is GREEDY You KNOW.

Stopping after a few more spins a yellow door opens to a sickly buzzing sound. Hundreds of small thumb-sized monsters flicker into the room and spread out to hover about the room. Surprisingly the “bees” don’t attack preferring to simply circle around the group who jumped back before watching the monsters warily and then almost surprisingly turning to ignore them.

Once more the group argues over whether to pull the lever or not but as time progresses their actions start growing more and more erratic their speech slurring and their actions jumpy and paranoid.

Phantasmal Patterns: Ehehe. They really should have learned by now they have to have gotten past some of those before they reached the gambling room. For any viewers here you go.

Confounding Bees

These thumb-sized bees’ glow like fireflies, illuminating the hypnotic dungeon. They don’t generally attack directly unless provoked. The sound of their activity creates a mild confusion aura throughout the dungeon that makes it more difficult to think (as though you are inebriated) and vaguely makes enemies feel like they are outnumbered and surrounded by movement. Their sting injects a mildly pleasant hallucinogen (their honey is mildly alcoholic). There is also a larger queen version the size of a large dog that provides tactics and better coordination to the other monsters throughout the dungeon through a telepathic network.

Final review. Bring either noise cancelling items or kill these as soon as you can spot them.

The group goes for a 4th time pulling the lever with swinging arms and low coordination. This time when the room begins to spin, 2 of 3 adventurers’ trip and fall on their face and back with wild yells.

Phantasmal Patterns: Buzz, Buzz, BUZZ AWAY YOUR THOUGHTS. Ehehehe.

This time when the room stops on a brown door and opens a large table slides out into the room. On it a sword, a crown and a sceptre lay, each with enough magic packed into them to make them positively glow to mana sight.

Grabbing their loot the adventurers run like bandits tripping over their feet and swatting at bees as they exit the gambling room and exit deeper into the dungeon.

Phantasmal Patterns: ANOTHER GROUP OF HAPPY CUSTOMERS! I will continue streaming this room for the duration of the event stopping only to switch to the voting portions. Enjoy my FELLOW CORES! ENJOY WATCHING THE ADVENTURERS SPIN!

…

Okay. I’m pretty happy with this setup.

Innearth had made a rod of thin liquid crystal and doped it with some Kinetic+Water+water material he had come across while trying stuff out. The result of those two mixing was an almost solid spinning "core of water" that resisted being broken.

The next addition was a shell of Ice mana water that existed mostly to create bulk and contain the center swirl. Bits of it dug inwards and thus the spinning core could pull the surrounding shell about with it.

Next Innearth tried remaking living crystals with a tiny bit of carbon and a massive amount of crystal mana compressed to a single point. This was attempted several times and the failed results had been shoved into the central spinning core.

Right before he had given up on remaking those, he had managed to recreate the plant – although this variant was shaped a little differently, preferring an almost fuzzy thin structure instead of a thicker spikey one.

These living crystals were carefully cultivated in the room Innearth had been given by transplanting them several times and then finally planting them deep into the spinning ice – letting the tips of them reach down and drink from the liquid inside.

A strange sort of synergy happened to strengthen the fuzzy needles slightly once they could drink the liquid crystal – and the item was almost done at this point.

The ice that made up most of the bulk of the weapon was reasonably strong…however it could still melt quite easily. There were trace amounts of Iron in the leaf – barely enough to do anything but Innearth used all of them with some Oxygen. Printing out hematite ice Innearth put a dozen miligrams of it throughout the water ice to keep it from melting. The next difficulty was making a handle. Warping the end Innearth made a socket and then used a mix of most of the leftover random materials and crystal mana to make a rainbow handle. This handle contained what looked like thousands of strands of different kinds of crystal swirled together and while it didn't appear to have any huge effects, it was pretty and provided a solid grip.

The final result was a spinning rod that was covered in regrowing blades of thin crystal. The rod could be held up against something and the tips of the living crystal would stab and shatter into whatever they were placed against. The weapon was stable however it couldn’t really be used like a mace because the core was still ice. It also would probably be broken pretty easily by a weapon or spell that was hot and melted through its icy bulk despite it not fully being an ice weapon.

Either way for what I was given? I think this is a good attempt. Let’s see how I did.

Waiting the last 30 minutes out, Innearth found his item blipped out and lined up against 39 other items made by tier 5 cores.

…his weapon was hard to store as he didn’t have enough materials to make a sheath for it, but the host simply shaped the ground slightly in the viewing area and stuck the handle a few cm into the stone.

Phantasmal Patterns: There! Let’s see, I’ve already found a bunch of system-sworn neutral judges to join me in this undertaking. Please welcome the other judges for this event.

A Kingless World: I’m here to give these items a fair and just review. How much I think adventurers will like them. How strong they are. Stuff like that.

Len923: I’m here to say the “Kingless World” has horrid taste and needs someone with a more refined pallet to PROVE that boop is the one true solution.

A Kingless World: Why are YOU FOLLOWING ME EVERYWHERE. Anything but Bop is heresy, and this is distracting from the voting. I vote we remove Len923 from the panel of judges – all in favour?

Phantasmal Patterns: We do not vote on trival matters like that. This is NOT a democracy! We are here to judge the following items. The first result is…a cup of healing potion? Simple. Effective. They made a cup out of the leaf and filled it with healing liquid.

A Kingless World: …that’s it? Did they even try? 1/16. Boring. Next!

Len923: And this is why I’m required. Simple? Yes. Reuseable? No. However as far as loot goes I think this works. Sure, its not very flashy and after the end of a boss fight most adventurers would be disappointed... but in the right scenario this could save someone’s life. It's also far far better than nothing. I think 3/16 is a good fair score for this item. Phantasmal? What say you.

Phantasmal Patterns: You’ve STOLEN the words I was going to write. My score is 4/16 however. I knew someone would do this and it kind of makes me happy to guess right. Next!

Continuing on down the line the trio commented and gave their scores over and over again. At one point two of the judges got distracted by claiming “Boop or Bop” was superior but for the most part they remained on track. Of the items before Innearth, There was one wooden dagger that had been grown out of the leaf as it consumed water and shaped itself into a dagger. That had been the most impressive piece of magic done even if the result -

Simple Wooden Dagger [Tier 1 Weapon]

Description: A simple wooden dagger grown from simple materials into a practical form. This dagger matches the self made weapons of many elves while being made by a dungeon.

Stabbing damage 0-120. Slightly Increases Natural Affinity. Slightly stores Nature mana. Slightly increases effectiveness of Elven magic. Durability 40/40

- was slightly lackluster...Because of that, it got the most dividing score.

A Kingless World: Now That’s Impressive! For what they had to work with? I’m going have to go with 15/16. Marvelous use of some sort of natural affinity? Plant Magic? I have no clue how they went about making that!

Len923: 6/16… It's impressive the skill that went into making that but honestly as far as loot goes the previous water bomb was more impressive. Even if I docked points for it being single use.

Len923: Like "Slightly Increases"? Really? What does that even mean? 1%? 5%? Come on the system can do better than that.

Len923: Personally? If you had a weak elf adventurer they might be happy with this… but there are very few adventurers you could give this to and get a favourable result. Again. 6/16 final score.

Phantasmal Patterns: Once AGAIN MY WORDS HAVE BEEN STOLEN. Same reasoning as the thief but I would give it a 4/16. Next!

Innearth grew more and more worried they would bash his creation as they made their way down the line.

…They are brutal. I think I’ve made something much better that that but I…Now I don’t know.

Finally the judges reached his spinning tube saw mace.

Spinning Crystal Blade [Tier 3 Weapon]

Description: An almost living weapon, this creation of ice and crystal can slash through more than you would think. Less effort needs to be used for damage to be applied due to how the blade spins. However more control needs to be used to prevent the central core from breaking and time needs to be spent allowing the outside to regrow.

Slashing damage 120-280. Cold Damage 20-30. Continuous damage from injected crystals 1/sec per 3 crystals. Durability 180/100

A Kingless World: Oho…this is a doozy.

Len923: It's on another level! The amount of utility they’ve squeezed out of those materials.

A Kingless World: 15/16? No I’ve taken a peek at the rest of the items and can safely use my top slot. 16/16. This is crazy.

Len923: …I do not want to agree with the Bop heretic but it would be unfair to rate this very low. 10/16? It seems hard to travel with and once those little spikes break off it will be much worse of a weapon.

Phantasmal Patterns: …are you sure about that thief? It's not in the tooltip but let me give you a chance to change your score…or at least a chance to attempt to sway your MIND!

Creating a small glassy smooth spider covered in a mosaic of colours that slowly blended and moved together, the host threw his small monster at Innearth’s weapon. The spider tumbled through the air and then was ripped apart in a spray of twinkling light and glasslike shards as a chunk of the living crystals were stripped from the weapon.

Before the panel's very eyes, the stripped section of the weapon slowly regrew at a steady visible pace eventually becoming whole again less than a minute later.

Len923: …alright I stand corrected. It still has some problems but…well I realize I’m being nitpicky for something made with a leaf and a cup of water. 16/16 for me as well. It's not like I could have done better.

Phantasmal Patterns: I’m glad I could change your MIND! I’ve seen similar levels of weapons made in previous years of this event, but all were from Tier 7 cores. I’m impressed! 16/16 from me if only due to the tier of this group! And ON TO THE NEXT!

Innearth watched shocked at how high they had rated him.

…is it just that everyone else sucks? And why do they suck? I’m sure there are better cores than me in this tier.

Phantasmal Patterns: What is this!

Len923: …a demonic item? That’s surprising.

A Kingless World: 0/16. No adventurer would want such a horrid item.

Ah. They came to Doc’s creation.

Phantasmal Patterns: Don’t judge it based on that. Sure as a monster this would drop demons from kilometers around but try to judge this as an item not a monster? I quite like it.

Doc had made an ominous-looking pill. “Demonic cleanse”. The water appeared to have been mixed with both Life and Death mana into a swirling purple goo that shone with a sickly yellow light. The leaf had been wrapped around the liquid almost normally and after being exposed to the inner goo had grown small translucent tendrils that waved about in the wind.

The exact results of this pill were discussed as follows.

Demonic Cleanse [Tier 8 Consumable]

Description: Consuming this pill injects the very blood of demons into your soul. An inner host will awaken and attempt to consume you from the inside while burning through weakness and strengthening all in its wake. If you can manage to remain sane and fight off this challenge you will find your body vastly improved. A rough estimate can be given as follows. For a human +25 to all stats. Average chance of failure 95%. WARNING: Consumption of this dangerous item will momentarily cut your connection to the [system]. Failure to fight off the parasite will result in your body becoming puppeted by one of the worst creatures in the universe. Consumption is not advised without a willpower of at least 100. Consumption is not advised by any who rely on the [system] for ability.

Len923: To be honest. I like it as well. It’s a challenge an adventurer must overcome. If they overcome it, they get a huge reward. 15/16 from me.

A Kingless World: Fine. I’ll admit its creator seems deranged to me, but it has its uses. I could see providing this challenge in a safe location and then gunning them down if they lose to the inner demon. I still don’t like it however. 5/16. It also seems much easier to make than the spinning crystal thing even if it was given a higher tier.

Phantasmal Patterns: For sticking to a core tenet of dungeons and making me excited, I’m giving this a 16/16. NEXT!

A few more items later and the group was done. Phantasmal Patterns did something that tallied and adjusted all the scores after adding the systems scoring and displayed the results to the group.