Dungeon Core Chat Room.

The first mass application towards magic on the central continent wasn't some grand public service project. But towards the ability to wage war – while Archers and Gunmen have superior range and higher use at low levels. Mages have always had higher damage – even before the system.

Mages tend to make up for their lower range with pure firepower – streams of flame that scorch dozens of soldiers at a time. Clouds of frost that can freeze the flesh of their enemies or poisons that can petrify them to stone. A group of heavily protected mages could turn the tides of a whole battle.

Usually.

At the end of the day however, mages have problems preventing them from taking over other niches entirely.

The most important is their mana pool. While mages can regenerate mana over time – in long drawn-out battles their mana pools become incredibly limited. A Gunman or Archer is limited only by physical ammunition they can carry.

Additionally, everyone knows the tactical value of mages drawing both long-range snipers and close-quarters raids when they aren’t sufficiently protected.

Despite their issues, a nation without – or having lost most of their mages – would be a sitting duck for kingdoms that do. Before the system despite their high fertility many human settlements lived in constant fear of elven and orcish armies due to being constantly destroyed by mage-filled armies. Many humans to this day retain some prejudice against elves and orcs for these years despite millennia passing since then.

The only spells available to humans pre-system were potions and rudimentary alchemy – leading to some of the most dangerous permanent mutagens and gasses ever created. Many innovations from this time have since been added to the list of [war crimes] enforced by the system.

Excerpt obtained on the military handbook. “War Mages – a tactical volume”.

As if making light of all the time and effort that Innearth had been putting into attracting adventurers, less than 24 hours after he had set up a “adventurer sharing portal” with Doc, his first group came through.

Six adventurers!! Six whole glorious adventurers decked out in silky smooth “form-fitting materials” and carrying strange weapons.

From front to back in the order they arrived – the first to step through Innearth’s portal was a bulky human. This…man was wearing incredibly thin, “slate grey armour” and carrying a pair of long and riveted rods that sparked semi constantly.

Behind him two mean-looking women stepped through confidently – striding forwards fast enough to stand on either side of the baton-wielding man and falling in line in a military manner. They wore black form-fitting outfits and carried black…guns? They kind of bear a passing resemblance to the hand cannons that frequented Doc’s dungeon – but they are made in a bit of a longer and sleeker design and have plenty of fiddly bits that his didn’t have…If one of them decides to leave their weapon behind I’m totally going to pull it apart and see how it ticks.

Behind these two ranged adventurers stepped a distracted-looking male human holding a disk that blinked in various hues of reds and greens. This man was constantly touching parts of his machine while waving his hands about and muttering in various cadences. His voice would start off with a soft nearly imperceptible muttering (as if speaking to himself) and would periodically raise to a higher-pitched and excited tone punctuated by wild jabs and sweeping gestures as he spoke at his partners. Not to his partners for they seemed to be ignoring him but at them.

Behind the "obviously separate from his companions' adventurer" two final specimens walked through. The one on the right of the “researcher” had completely covered themselves in the same skin-tight material as the others – from their shoeless feet and lithe stomach to their slightly creepy face they were cocooned in stretchy fabric.

On the left was the first and only normal-looking adventurer of the group. He was wearing a faded blue robe and using a tall magic staff as a walking stick. The staff could have been ordinary but context – the giant flowing crystal covered in constantly moving script – said otherwise.

With the group, a single suction cup egg of a demon rolled through – along with two of the "feathered masses" that he had seen in Doc’s dungeon. The tip of a translucent tentacle also started to slip through in the few seconds the gate was open – before sharply jerking back so the portal wouldn’t close on it.

As the group stepped out into the middle of the stone dais, the first to react was the wizard. His eyes shone a deep blue and a pentagram shape formed in front of his left eye – like a glowing monocle suspended in the air. Turning back and forth he seemed to be staring at the suppression array around them in increasing alarm.

He yelled something while shooting a faint blue ball towards the researcher less than three steps into the room. Looking up sharply and frowning slightly, the researcher aimed their device around their surroundings while continuing to fiddle with it not gaining the same urgency as his companion.

While the two INT spec’d adventurers tried to figure out what they had stumbled into, the two “assault rifle wielding swat team members” turned and let loose a spray of bullets toward their tagalongs.

There seemed to be a subtle difference between their weapons and skill styles – mean-faced women on the left held their weapon in front of their eyes and shot in a straight line. Each shot was sent out with half a second of delay between them and rang true. Bang, bang, bang.

Mean-looking women on the right held their weapon in one arm resting against their side. In comparison to straight shot she sprayed bullets in a continuous stream. A swerving line of shots that chipped stone in a snake-like shape as it swerved towards the demons and cut through them in a line. Ratatatata.

I have to keep them here for a minute or so before I can send them through the second portal.

…Dammit I'm not prepared. Quick hydra. Make a distraction. Chop Chop.

Leaving entertainment to his guardian, Innearth went and threw together a quick quest.

Survive a wave of strange monsters.

Reward [this portal’s return key], [that portal’s exploration key] +variable upon good performance. [59s] remaining.

It was at that moment his human centipede rushed out or the side – moving to tackle the skin suit in from the back.

Moving with unnaturally quick reflexes, the strange adventurer seemed to wrap themselves in mana from every single one of their pores...a shimmer from thousands of pinpoint positions that rushed out and combined. As more mana thickened it seemed to meld with the suit and solidified into a set of bestial armour. Fur and plates in browns and dark greys.

Around their head, a bear-like helmet of mana formed and around their hands long clear and sharp-looking claws sprouted in a fluid and smooth instantaneous moment.

Turning before the monster even managed to reach them, the armoured bear made a swiping motion and slashed 5 thin grooves in the monster. The slash rang true as the human centipede slid past with skittering momentum leaving a sludgy light blue liquid crystal smear on the ground.

Whipping around, the two gun girls peppered the monster's side with more bullets – its form quickly becoming torn apart as it continued on towards the edge of the array and safety.

Roaring at the cowardly retreat, the bear launched itself after the centipede – becoming nearly immediately pushed down by the array around it. The bear buckled and slowed down – moving after the much less affected attacker as if running under thin but sticky molasses.

For the first time since they had arrived, the shock trooper spoke – calling out at the bear to return in a sharp barking tone.

Turning – obviously annoyed – the bear pushed back through the invisible mud and then stepped onto the dais slowly dissolving back into their suit form as they did so. Armour and fur flaked and fell around it as the adventurer walked leaving a messy trail of hair on the ground behind them.

From the opposite side of the ring “two halves of a whole” walked ominously forwards. In one hand a spell was channelled towards them from the hydra – being pushed out of the charm they held like a [priest] channelling a divine spell from their god.

In their other hand, a sword was swung back and forth in tight swishing swings as if gathering momentum.

Moving the hand with the charm out and sliding it along the sword's length – their preparations were complete. Greenish flames spread forth like a sticky paste on fire as their sword was “blessed”.

The duality of monsters turned, green light dancing across their artfully designed face and flickering in the hollows that Innearth had sculpted for each gem that was their eyes. A blue for their warrior a purple for their priest. For this brief fleeting movement, everything combined together making the monsters look “epic” and “powerful”. Even the macho shock trooper stepped back slightly at this moment in an involuntary stumble.

Suddenly – completely breaking the built-up ambience – the monster split in two as the sword-wielding side lunged forwards ripping away from the priest. All the “cool” looking effects were lost as the monster hopped forward on one leg excitedly swinging its sword back and forth on each hop.

The priest fell back into the surroundings smoothly moving through the suppression array while its dumber half jumped forward like a pogo stick. Their sword continued to swing back and forth but now instead of looking like a dangerous weapon it gave off the appearance of a dog wagging its sharp tail back and forth as if looking for praise.

…that’s fun. Guess I’ll trash this stream I was recording… I don’t think my friends need to see this. It's almost embarrassing. Scratch that. It is embarrassing. Stop looking dumb.

Losing some of its happy wagging as it got close to the group, the warrior-half did a pirouetting spin sword flying around in a tight 360 loop towards the shock trooper.

Stepping forward into the strike the lightning baton wielding adventurer parried the first strike – only one arm raised to catch the sword and knock it upwards. A burst of fire and sparks accompanied the impact and shot down in a diagonal gush as the shock trooper pulled their other arm back. A half a second pause was followed by a rapier-like jab forward – the second baton moving momentarily faster than anything Innearth had ever seen before, impacting the poor half with a tightly compressed spark of paralyzing lightning magic.

The adventurers first baton was still raised and holding the still flaming sword above them, while the second baton stabbed forwards again and again. The adventurer shanked the paralyzed monster and releasing jolt after jolt of lightning mana than tunnelled through crystal flesh and left black holes where they landed – the monster perishing after less than a dozen strikes.

Ohhh! Gotta get a reward ready for that one. Give a random item maybe? Hmmm.

Before Innearth could figure out what loot to give the nice shock trooper, they had already bent down and picked up the crystal sword – still burning slightly with greenish fire.

Taking a few practice swings, the man made a visible shrug to his teammates and pocketed the item.

Guess they like it? It's just one of the mana oven weapons, but I guess this sort of manual loot giving is fine… Next time I really should set up a better system with monster items. Of course, I run into problems the first time I get them for real in my own dungeon. You would have thought with all the time I had to prepare I’d have solved everything before they got here.

Fiddling around with the settings – finding more and more hidden options he hadn’t thought to look for – Innearth figured out how to “donate” a monster's weapon to the item pool upon death. Then all he had to do was gift a randomized “tailored to winner” reward for monsters that were difficult enough to warrant a special reward.

The next group is going have it set up perfectly.

A minute had passed and the group was gifted several of Doc’s keystones. They stood there for a moment and Innearth was suddenly worried he hadn’t placed the gateway directly across from them in an obvious enough spot.

Come on…this is just the decontamination room. Please. Continue on to my actual dungeon. Don’t tur-NO!

Watching devastated as the shock trooper and two gun-wielding sidekicks reactivated the return portal Innearth cried out. His disappointment calmed down as he saw the bear/researcher/wizard stayed behind.

The wizard snapped his fingers twice and killed the two small demons that fell through with small nearly colourless bolts of azure energy that homed in on their targets.

Roughly a minute later the three were back.

I…I have to restart the 1-minute timer. But also…I don’t want to make it seem like they can farm this trial. I also think Doc said I need to up the decontamination stage if they are done in a frequent period.

Hey hydra…can you distract them again but make it harder?

Sending a second quest notification now. I'm going to make sure my [customize] ability shows through with this coloured alert.

Survive a wave of monsters.

Due to frequent use of the gate reduced rewards and increased difficulty!

Reward: the ability to progress in the dungeon. [120s] remaining

Watching as all of the still living hydra's monsters appeared at once and began pelting the group, Innearth saw how they worked well together. As far as monsters went the weird shapes and non-focused design meant that most of them were…weaker than the strongest crystal snakes. To make up for that they were buffed dozens of times by the hydra – each head overlapping a separate benefit on all the minions and pushing their strength up forcefully.

The most damaging combo was formed when the O and X familiars “combined”. A void singularity was formed by a spinning X and then shaped into a bolt and shot by an O as it passed through the center of it.

That shot was dangerous enough that the wizard was forced to erect a massive 5 layered barrier that broke several times before stopping the wailing spinning singularity.

After 2 minutes had passed, all the minions disengaged and ran back out of the dais. They returned to their living area and left a surprised group of adventurers standing there – tense and waiting for something to continue.

…I kind of feel bad they went through that for nothing.

...they deserve a reward or two…or six.

Showering his adventurers with prizes, Innearth gave each of them a randomized loot item from his “common” pool.

Now continue on! Onwards! To explore!

Watching the group step through the second portal with barely contained glee, Innearth took the time to really get to know them. In many ways, he had already experienced delvers in the drunk dwarf and during the island…but in every way that counted these were his first real adventurers. This was the first time a group walked through his crystal caverns and got stabbed by exploding spikes.

Or kicked a hedgehog against the wall and watched it shatter off a dozen living crystal spikes in all directions.

Or…

The adventurer is defecating…on my nice clean floor!

Innearth watched horrified as the bear suit cleaned out a side chamber and took a dump in the edge of it.

This…Is this is something adventurers regularly do? Or just that adventurer…it goes directly against my clean dungeon initiative! Just as I found out it matters too!

Fuming Innearth searched the market and found plans for a void toilet he could make…it was crude and Innearth decided to scrap it and make his own.

A nice kinetic door that could protect adventurers while they were in it. Complete with universal toilet sign – a large cartoonish representation of the war crime left in his side room.

A round seat with a hole that fell down to a slab of solid void – with a carpet of spikes growing up out of it to help increase the surface area that could melt waste down.

A smooth crystal basin – complete with water crystal that spurted liquid when mana was pushed through it and drained down to a void disposal chamber…A spinning plant that regrew thin sheets of paper-thin material to dry and clean themselves.

Innearth designed his toilets and made sure to put one every few kilometers before going off on a tangent and attempting to make portable versions that could be safely transported about. Those were greedily taken by the system and turned into high-level rewards despite their “relative” ease of creation.

…

Meanwhile, the group continued on down his crystal hallways while the main portion of Innearth’s attention watched – attention glued to each and every movement. As far as adventurers went they were Innearth’s first and he was excited by everything they did.

The only problem Innearth could think of was…well they were kind of over levelled for his crystal cavern and didn’t seem to be having any troubles navigating it. They were a scouting group of high levelled adventurers and when they got close to the end of his caverns Innearth started to get worried.

…I haven’t looked in this area in a while. I was meaning to set up a boss fight where the boss is driven away instead of killed because it's hard to impossible to remake the crystal dragon if they steal its parts.

Fixing up a quest notification – Innearth set the crystal dragon boss fight to start with a “Drive the dragon back to slumber” notification – then tried to choreograph its fight. The chamber to the side of the boss room would be the room the dragon retreated to if it felt fatally injured. He planned everything out in this moment even if he didn’t have time to complete it.

The dragon would be injured and at a certain point would limp into this room – letting the door shut behind it ending the fight. A questline that was somewhat thrown together but Innearth was not nearly as good as FED at this sort of thing and it felt exciting enough for now. Eventually he would have a healing potion pool and tree to complete the recovery room…but it had taken him a few hours just to set up the kinetic door to the side room and the adventurers were here cutting off his preparation time.

Striding into the room confidently, the man in the lead looked excited for the first time in Innearth’s dungeon. Pointing and jabbing at the “dragon” as it stood catlike on its pedestal, the adventurer turned his head and said something excitedly to his companions.

Probably “Look how cool it looks. It’s a dragon!”.

The shock trooper turned around once more and pulled out both of his lightning rods cracking his neck on both sides and stretching his arms to loosen up.

A heaviness filled the room as the Boss’s natural domain spread forth – suppressing everyone slightly…Where the weaker monsters would fall to the ground and the stronger one move slowly and laboriously…these adventurers simply looked uncomfortable as it washed over them.

The wizard cast a barrier around himself – waving his staff in a figure-eight pattern while muttering in a guttural and strange tone to do so.

As he did the shock trooper charged forward. The lizard jumped forward to meet him – claw’s outstretched as if they were about to hug the adventurer.

The four remaining adventurers stayed by the door relaxed – clustering around the wizard as he increased his barrier to cover all of them…

Okay no, he probably said something closer to “I got this one” or “let me attack solo”. I’m getting good at translating adventurers.

Several “shocking” exchanges were made in quick succession. The crystal dragon shrugged off most of the initial attacks – but as more and more landed their natural and magical resistance started to fail.

Jumping back several times in a skipping dancing manner, the dragon jumped back onto its pedestal and began breathing a frosty black liquid. Its head moved back and forth as if making a line the lightning attuned adventurer shouldn’t cross. Attempting to dash through it anyways the shock trooper grunted – seeming surprised their armour was melting.

One of the two assault rifle girls started to take a step forward at that but was held back by the second who shook her head and smiled.

Definitely saying “he’s got this don’t worry about the boss”, sure she didn’t speak but that’s what I’m getting from that interaction…either that or maybe they hate him and were stepping forward to help the dragon out? No. definitely the first idea.

As the adventurer crossed the freezing void moat and smashed the dragon's head to the side with a wide swing, the girl who stepped forward initially relaxed once more.

The shock trooper’s eyes were now set in a glinting sharpness and every swing and jab they made left after images in the air.

The fight was no longer an even back and forth. It wasn’t quite a full slaughter with the adventurer overwhelmingly stronger than the boss…but every exchange seemed to leave the shock trooper on top.

After roughly 4 minutes of getting repeatedly shocked, the quest notification was released claiming they had driven it back into slumber.

Turning – almost scrambling – the dragon slunk injured towards its recovery room but was stopped by the adventurer.

Shaking his head, he continued to beat the monster back, dodging back and forth while blocking its retreat from every possible angle.

I mean sure I could have designed a boss that repeatedly went into the backroom to heal and reengage them but that seems a bit harsh. It was retreating! You won! Do you know how hard it's going to be to remake this boss? It's very rude of you.

Innearth watched the fight progress – already knowing how it would end but strangely never feeling the need to step in and help out himself. He was separated from the fight almost like it wasn’t even real while simultaneously glued to it excitedly watching each exchange.

The dragon put up a good showing but over time the repeated shocks seemed to mess with its movements permanently. Its last few dodges were strangely robotic and when the monster fell for the last time, the adventure’s face made everything…worth it.

Tier 4 random reward seems fine huh? I mean I have a few Tier 5 random rewards I could give…but was that good enough? Sure he solo’ed it but he also didn’t seem in a huge amount of danger… T4 it isssss~

Innearth watched as a stretchy and metallic item appeared in front of the man.

…a shirt? Breastplate? It’s a…upper armour item at least.

The man reached out and watched as his reward spread across his melted and broken chest pieces. As if it had a mind of its own the new shirt ripped off the scraps and flung them to the side finally settling down after it had surrounded its new owner.

I want to figure out how to make something like that sometime. How would I even go about that? I can’t see any runes? Is it just a unique mana type I don’t know about? That would be disappointing. Ah well. Let’s see what they do next.

The group stepped forward out of the dragon’s chamber. They gathered up as they headed into the passage that lead down into the sensory deprivation area. The one straight shot "gun girl checked her “friend” over trying to find any visible wounds while the researcher looked longingly back at the “dragon” corpse they were leaving behind.

Casting a bright light above his head, the wizard confidently – but also cautiously – took the lead – letting the group fall in line behind him but constantly sticking close to them so he could step into their midst if they were attacked.

There was a brief moment where it looked like the floor was going to be a bust against the higher levelled adventurers that would actually reach it...but then they got deeper and the darkness mana caked into the walls started eating away at the light with more and more hunger.

The spell the wizard was using was a lot more than simply "light" and the darkness emitting stone was not simply "darkness" as it acted almost like a hungry black mist that attacked the light...but their fundamental properties were still opposed. And darkness was winning. Void had upgraded light into a stronger if harder to use mana type and slowly but surely it was consumed. The last few seconds of dim light almost looked like the light was converted to darkness instead of snuffed out before melting into the surroundings.

Annoyed, the wizard tried to recast their spell several times but it was hard to start in the suffocating darkness like a damp match unable to light.

The group was close by, but quickly lost track of one another. Reaching out to grab onto their partners' sides they floundered about awkwardly grabbing each other and being shoved in turn.

I need to show this off.

Innearth: Hey anyone want to see high leveled adventurers panicking?

Abe: Sold. Where's the stream.

Innearth: Over here.

Innearth set up several cameras that provided a dungeon's omniscient display of the scene – cutting through darkness and displaying the stumbling group in all of its glory.

Amy: You've made my day. How strong are they? I can't even tell with how they are fumbling about.

Innearth: don't know really. How do you find out?

Amy: hidden controls in the event setup can interact with adventurers levels. "Activate if above level 40" "above level 60" that sort of thing.

ZeMadDoctor: If you use it enough. Just to figure out the level of your adventurers. You can stick it in a scan panel. Same with classes. "Has a fighting class". "Has a fire based class".

ZeMadDoctor: You can hack together a pretty informative analysis panel if you care enough.

Abe: seems like too much work to bother.

Innearth: okay well they are above level 50.

…

Innearth: above level 80.

…

Innearth: above level 100!

Innearth: ...below level 120…

Abe: We don’t need a blow by blow m8. Just say “high leveled” and be done with it.

Amy: I have an analysis set up to give me their level to within 5 levels...seems to be the smallest enough increment to actually matter.

ZeMadDoctor: If you get their level down exactly. And then start splitting by experience to next level. You can get a more precise measurement. Level 49.5. Level 89.2. That sort of thing.

ZeMadDoctor: Did you know adventurers don't have the same stats? Sometimes adventurers have more physical stats sometimes they have more mental stats. I don't mean higher stats…I mean they literally have more “different types of stats” isn't that weird?

Abe: literally doesn't matter. Adventurers arn't numbers. They have endless random skills. Just call em adventurers and throw a few bombs at them, literally all you need to do for a good time. Hey, Innearth, you should let me send you a weak bomb to throw at the stumbling adventurers…I promise its going to be funny.

Abe: Okay, now can we talk about what actually matters? What is that adventurer doing with his hair?

Innearth: Doc. Send me some info later I love this random info. PM me a packet or a trade if you think it's worth it.

ZeMadDoctor: Of course.

Amy: I believe they are trying to navigate with their hair? Innearth what senses are you removing.

Innearth: sight, sorta hearing, sorta touch. Touch is dependant upon being touched by the slimes but is pretty well taken care of. Hearing by the banging and a few unique monsters. Oh! Also mana sight “slightly” … with nullstone in all the walls to prevent cheating by seeing or moving through the walls.

ZeMadDoctor: How would you prevent them from navigating with tons of hair? And how are they using the hair to navigate without touch?

Innearth: doc, doc, doc. You are missing the point of this floor entirely. The point isn't to make it so there's no way to progress. The point is to make it, so they have to use nonstandard senses or unique abilities to move through it. I want to see new things!

ZeMadDoctor: ...I didn't even realize what a brilliant experiment this was. I was trying for efficiency not for the goal itself.

Brutality Queen: I thought the goal was to weed out the weak. Was wondering why you weren’t sending more dangerous monsters through to attack them.

Amy: ...I thought the goal was to frighten them. Make em scared of stuff in the dark you know?

Fated Eternal Design: Okay, but what's the story for this floor. How does it tie into the crystal caverns and….what's after this?

Innearth: Ice caverns?

Fated Eternal Design: Okay yeah, why does this floor exist. Did an ancient evil ritual go wrong...flooding the whole cave system with a sense sucking cataclysmic poison? Did...is the ice floor full of a cold source of something that cannot reach the surface and this floor exists as a buffer? A floor to protect the upper caverns and contain the cold?

Innearth: doesn't need a story. I'm finalizing my theme. Zone, transition floor, zone, transition floor, zone… You know? Each has to be different so the adventurers don't get bored. It's been great for my experience to force myself to use mana types I’m not as good at…so even if I’m better at using crystal mana than magma forcing myself to use magma for the magma halls gave me more experience than doing everything in crystal.

Abe: what are you going to do when you run out of zone ideas? Can you keep that up for 100 floors?

Innearth: ...well at the very least I can keep it up for a few more floors. I could make each zone 4 floors instead of 3? Make the boss room a separate "floor"? Could also start repeating themes but making them much more difficult. A "nightmare silver mine/magma halls/etc". Actually, I really like that Idea. I think I might start working on the nightmare versions soon. The point is to provide variety you know?

As the dungeons discussed his dungeon the adventurers continued to progress and finally reach the end of his deprivation floor. Numbing slimes fell off and retreated quickly back into the darkness as they got near the end – dodging the attacks the mage and machine gun girl shot wildly after them.

The "hair" the dungeons had been discussing was from the "bear" adventurer who extended a mass of wires larger than the hallway they were in. For some reason, the sensations or location the bear was able to gather from the hairs was far enough away from regular touch that the monsters Innearth had tried to design against touch were useless. It was like instead of feeling the surroundings the hairs felt their shape and inferred the caves surroundings from that, in a roundabout manner.

Closing the stream Innearth watched as the group navigated his ice floors. For the most part, they were having a much worse time of it than the crystal caverns, but it was a different type of difficulty. None of the adventurers had protection against the elements and kept relying on the wizard to cast strange bubbles to warm them up – or create tent-like barriers for them to rest in.

Hmmm. I have to figure out if the difficulty is properly distributed. When fighting the snakes and Turtles…the group only really seemed to pay attention to the 3 ringed snakes. Even those were overpowered pretty quickly but that's a baseline of their strength?

Right now they seem to be taking care of the snowmen easily enough but the common enemies in zone 4 are easier than the final boss of zone 3…

The only difficulty this group seem to have in this area is the cold – they aren’t even slipping much on the ice.

Watching the group Innearth continued to tweak his plans. Snowmen attacked in teams from afar – shooting spikes of ice and absorbing bullets in turn – before their internal cores exploded. Ice mana melting into the environment just another drop in the bucket.

…Then again I was planning on having the boss retreat after “massive damage” not get solo killed. It's kind of disappointing having the first adventurers that delve me reach the end of the dungeon in one go. Also kind of disappointing that there was only ever one group to face that boss.

Based on their current progress this group is definitely going to reach the end of the ice zone and I haven’t even figured out how to get them from there to the portal to doc’s dungeon again…I’d prefer they don’t travel through the “weird” floor if I can help it.

Innearth: Hey doc...sorry to keep asking for portals but can I have another pair? I want to get from the current end of my dungeon to the suppression area...

ZeMadDoctor: ...I can do that. I don't know how many free portals I want to set up for you however. It takes a lot of time mana and materials to set them up properly.

Innearth: Okay well if you want to do a trade...X crystals? Pass mana through them to produce an effect? I remember Onyx really liked them as a material.

ZeMadDoctor: We are friends. Not everything has to be a trade… I just didn't want to continue making portals for you endlessly.

ZeMadDoctor: If they are easy enough to make I'd love some of them however. Now, for your gate setup... you know how they're made, right?

Innearth: magic. :)

ZeMadDoctor: ...yes. okay, bit of background. I've been able to make portals for a while now. What they are is… essentially I make a void singularity then rip it into two resonating points that are “essentially the same” – harder than it sounds. Next I expand that singularity with space mana – to a size large enough for stuff to fit through. Making sure both sides are resonating in the same way while I do so. By expanding that hole to the void large enough for stuff to fit through space mana melds with void mana and makes portal mana. At this point they are still a mana construct. After binding it to a material – any dual material works – they solidify into a permanent portal unless the material they are bound to is destroyed.

ZeMadDoctor: Those are the most stable portals I can make but also permenanlty stuck open so the majority of my portals have been using combinations of metals and non metals to make versions that I can still “flip” to open or closed. That was the point I was stuck at for the longest time until you told me about your dwarf providing spellwork for you. Thanks for that by the way.

Innearth: oh yeah. No problem.

ZeMadDoctor: essentially I had two problems I needed to solve. One each gate had to be opened or closed by me and took a lot of my focus to do so. As more and more portals were made the amount of time I spent manually flipping them got annoying. The second was not as important but a major goal of my design. Stability. Most materials expanded from a single point into a disk and putting expandable portals near each other broke each other or interacted and forced each other open or…It was chaotic.

ZeMadDoctor: Using several researching monsters I’ve finally removed most of the worse effects. So now…basically a gate is a ring with a couple dozen spots for “portal singularities” set at even spokes around it. Each of those spokes expands into the center of the ring like a doorway and retracts back to their spot. Each singularity needs to be attached to a different material to keep them from interacting with each other and when combined with a “key” made out of that same material and some runes it opens. So the quartz key opens the quartz gate…sorry am I getting too carried away? You can tell me to stop.

Innearth: Doc, we’ve been friends for a while. You know I’m hanging on your every word – I get the same way sometimes I understand. Basically, this tangent is to say you can attach different destinations to the same gate right?

ZeMadDoctor: Exactly. Just slide one into the gate which is itself covered in some script and a couple activation runes…I think I gave yours 20 potential spots to future proof it…that’s a safe number that’s roughly half of my very unstable and large central hub version.

Innearth: Can I have one for the start of my weird/transition floor? If it's just time and energy I’ll send you one of every single X crystal I can make and in the future you can tell me which one is the most useful for you.

ZeMadDoctor: Sure. Portal pairs are already made so just set this gate up in a very stable place that won’t move about and place these two slices in.

Innearth: pleasure doing business with you!

Setting up his second link to the end of the ice boss fight Innearth tried to make a diverting path that stopped before his weird floor and wasn’t actually “attached”. They could travel directly between the middle of the suppression area to here and he could bypass the weird floor to start on his next zone.

…

The scouting group made their way through Innearth’s frozen zone and arrived at his current final boss. Entering the room set off a chain reaction of events – first snow and hail flew about the room and then a group of snowmen hiding in little bunkers around the room started attacking. Volleys of icicles were shot out of little murder slits in the walls – the adventurers having to dodge or block shots with poor visibility.

A roar sounded out and the giant snow golem thundered towards the group like a frozen semi.

Rather than try and block the charging golem the adventurers scattered. The researcher was surrounded by an azure bubble of force cast by the wizard and floated up to the ceiling where he began scanning and sending information to his teammates, lines of mental mana springing up and spooling out like a web.

Guns blazed in the storm and the shock trooper found that snow made a bad conductor of lightning mana. The heat generated with each strike melted grooves in the snow – but nothing reached the ice core deep inside. At least not right away.

The whirling snow funnelled towards the monster patching up holes and healing him constantly so long as the storm blew. Roughly two minutes into the fight a massive blue ball of complex layered magic zoomed in from the side and evaporated over a third of the boss’s mass.

Roaring the boss noticeably weakened as it lost cores. The shock trooper's attacks actually started to land true. As if the attacks started hitting harder each stab melted through and smashed cores. The muscled man appeared agile as he dodged attacks eyes squinting against the snow.

As more and more cores fell the bullets peppering from the side began landing true as well. Momentum took over and the last few moments of the boss’s destruction had it flailing about as it was scattered and smashed mana infusing the already highly concentrated boss room in waves.

Hmmm. Wizard MVP this fight. The boss will definitely be a lot easier for groups that have attacks with heat…I should see if I can block that somehow in the future.

Receiving their rewards Innearth slipped in gate keys and positively led them to the portal out of his dungeon.

The end of the dungeon has been reached. This dungeon is still growing and may have more in the future for you to explore. Please come again.

Appearing back in the decontamination ring, Innearth received a final surprise.

His name and information were changed.

Sub Dungeon of “The Concerning Dungeon”

Cleared once. More Information is needed.

Found monsters and bosses logged.

I feel...fulfilled. Just for this…that's bad right? That's not very... stable. I haven’t even been given a proper name. They think I’m part of Doc’s dungeon. Why…why does this make me so happy?

At least it's better than “pit stop”.