No Need for a Core?

Once the new pieces to the hell route were complete, and all entrances had their sequenced chambers added, Kazue took about an hour to doze and recharge, curled up against him in their bed. Mordecai pet her hair gently while she napped and took the time to consider what he wanted to redo on the first floor. Kazue’s path didn’t need alteration, it already served its purpose as it was, but it did need a touch of reinforcement. It was his own path that he was concerned about. And being able to create a second boss would certainly be helpful, but it could only help so much with the power of a first-floor boss.

When the dungeon had 10 floors Mordecai could give it one of the Raid Boss nodes, but that was a way off. And even a focus on breadth of power had its limits. Of course, he didn’t have to make the second 1st-floor boss another hidden raid boss, but it felt weird to have such a power discrepancy between two bosses on the same floor.

Oh, wait, could he…? Mordecai tested out a new idea in his mind, and it felt like it should work. The intent was going to play a part too. It was a very different sort of ‘loophole’, or rather, it let you do things that you wouldn’t be able to do normally if you think through how to apply it toward the reason the rules exist. And that thread of thought gave him some ideas for the floor itself. He was finding himself quite excited to try some new stuff out, which left him amused as well. By the time he was trying to counter more difficult problems before, he had more floors and power, he didn’t have to get the most out of each floor. He was going to have to be trickier than in his previous life.

Of course, he was being perhaps a touch paranoid in trying to make sure that the normal combat route stood a chance against enemies more powerful than a given level was intended for, but being a little bit paranoid was healthy as a way to cover as many edge case contingencies as possible. If a hostile managed to get through to the end without having revealed their true nature, he wanted them to have worked for it, and make it easier to defend the core.

Kazue stirred, then pulled him down to her for a kiss. “Give me a little bit more time and I will be ready to go.” Mordecai watched as she pulled herself together by going through the ritual of making tea. In all reality they could have continued on as their cores alone, but it was good for Kazue to find the limits of her avatar and how best to cope with her own head-space. If they had to take breaks more often and for longer, well, he saw no problems with that.

When she was ready they headed back to the war room to begin. “Alright love, your mother taught us a lesson about specialists in a favored environment. I basically handed her the first three floors. So let’s work on that.” He waited for her nod before continuing with careful wording. “The resources we’ll be generating are meant to keep people from bypassing challenges or cheapening the purpose and intent of our levels, so we’ll do our best to keep relatively precious construction materials undetected by proper explorers, and troublesome for rule breakers.”

There was a slight hum in his mind, and from Kazue’s expression, she felt it too. But it only took a moment for her to catch up, recalling what he’d told her before about his visit. “Ah, our intent. And how exactly are we going to implement that intent?”

“First, five feet behind the surface stone is where we will put our outer layer of containment. And with that intent and protection, it should be easy and cheap enough to create layers of mithral and pure sapphire, sandwiched together to create a very tough lamination that earth magic will not budge and will resist attacks well enough to be a waste of energy. Go on, give it a try, and feel free to experiment.”

Kazue did exactly that. He watched as she quickly created the security layer, then created a different layer of crystal over that, creating a sheath of the living crystal that they’d made for the bunbee's flowers on the second floor. From that she drew roots to the surface, creating more crystalline blooms. It was rather like the root system of many fungi, and by creating a layer of artificial life over the core of pure metal and crystal, well, it would take several different specialists to penetrate through directly, and cost a lot more time and effort than going through normally would.

“Oh, that’s nice.” Mordecai said as he examined her work “Hmm, easily replicated for all the floors really, though I think I’m going to tweak the concept a bit for the combat library, make the flowers more mushroom-like. That way I can bring some into the maze to give it a bit more of an exotic decaying atmosphere.”

Kazue beamed up at him. “Glad you like it! So what was the next part you wanted to change?”

“Well, I’d like to make my path a touch more interesting. We were in a bit of a hurry before and had fewer resources. But to take from what you’ve done, I’d like to see my side made into a hedge maze, floor to ceiling of course. 5 plant themes since we have so many to choose from, and each section can be one of several patterns that will change after a party goes through. I’ll tweak the results from there.”

“Oh, are you saying that my work isn’t ‘interesting’ to you?” She asked with faux innocence, and he couldn’t help but laugh as she attempted to draw him into a verbal mistake.

“And are you saying that you put all of your best efforts into designing this part of the floor before?” He asked back with a grin, before kissing her to interrupt her game of pretending to be insulted. Mordecai wasn’t always great at playing those particular verbal spars, but he had very much learned how to either avoid them or break them.

Kazue gave into the kiss for a moment, then broke free with a smile. “Alright, one hedge maze in five parts, coming right up!” This didn’t take her very long, and she was even nice enough to color-code each section with flowers so that someone exploring would know when they cleared each maze. And though the tiny kitsune might not have a killer’s instinct, she did have a clever mind and no love for cheaters. The hedges became brambles a few inches in, covered with thorns and every inch covered in itch-inducing oils. It cost a little more mana than normal hedge walls would, but not as much as that many traps. Only a cheater would get caught in it, and even then it was only an inconvenience unless you were really stupid.

“Perfect, thank you. Now, let's see, I think here would work.” It cost some amount of magic for a druid to command plants and earth to move, so one of the best things he could do was force them to waste that magic. Into the center of Kazue’s hedge and brambles, Mordecai wove a fence of thick steel wires, with an occasional plate hanging in the middle, about 5 feet above the floor. He couldn’t use mithral as it was too accessible, but this would do. “And once we are done with the upgrades, I can go through and manually put trap glyphs on those plates that will go off if exposed.”

She frowned slightly in puzzlement at him. “Why manually?”

“If I just create them, they come out of our mana budget, though with the advantage of resetting for free. But if I go in with my personal skills, spend an hour per glyph and use up some of the materials we traded to acquire or that are otherwise lost to us, that’s a permanent cost that does not come out of our budget. This lets us save our budget for traps that will get used more often.”

After a moment’s thought Kazue nodded. “Makes sense. Sounds like a bit of a pain, but that’s part of the trade-off, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. Now, we just seed a few places where we want regular encounters to occur, and we have a solid challenge. You never know what might jump out at you in this maze, and they’ll have less maneuvering room. That puts the enhanced rabbits at an advantage.” They were technically monsters, but Kazue never seemed happy with them being called that. “Now for our boss. I think I have had a brilliant idea.”

Skeptical silence awaited him as Kazue raised an eyebrow. “Not going to inflate my ego huh?” Mordecai chuckled. “Alright. So, first I want this second boss to have two modes. The first mode will be a normal boss for the first floor, to be used when Zushi isn’t available for any reason. The second mode will be used in conjunction with Zushi, for a group that needs a stronger challenge. The second mode technically starts off weaker, but is empowered by how much energy Zushi absorbs. So if Zushi goes into full Raid Boss mode…”

“The second boss gets stronger as Zushi starts sucking in magic!” Kazue exclaimed. “OK, I like it. But I am not certain I’m willing to call it brilliant yet.”

He smiled with anticipation as he explained. “Well, I started with the thought that Zushi could use some aerial support. And then I remembered that there’s a promise I have not yet fulfilled for you. I had originally been thinking a lower floor, but if he can get empowered when needed, I don’t think the form will go to waste.”

A beat passed before Kazue pulled the clues together. “Wait, on our first day, you talked about some creatures we could create together…”

“And it’s about time to do that. Ready to create our first dracobit?”

“Oh gods yes!” She was practically dancing in place with excitement. “Let’s do this!”

It took a little bit of refining before they were satisfied within the constraints of a first-floor boss, but they had no problems finding a volunteer to be upgraded. The creature stood almost human height, his body protected by a mix of white scales and fur, and his leathery wings stretched out to twice his height. His neck stretched a little more than a normal rabbit’s would, enabling him to angle his head for a breath weapon attack. His long ears swept upwards in a more narrow shape, doubling as horns to channel a lightning attack through. And finally, his front paws grew wicked claws and his incisors grew sharper and harder, capable of being a true threat.

“Mmm, I think I have the name for our new friend. Ryuhoho, we welcome our newest floor boss!” Mordecai smiled as Ryuhoho shook himself and then turned around to examine his form. “Go on, get used to your form. You have a few different breath weapons available, but they all draw on the same reserves, so you should learn how best to use them. While you do that, we’re going to prep the room.”

“We are?” Kazue asked. “We already reinforced the level.”

“Yes, but I can use some of our trap budget here. Not for actual traps however. Instead, the ‘traps’ will be trapdoors that both Zushi and Ryuhoho can create on the fly. They’ll have a limit to how often of course, but it will enable Zushi to duck out of a normal challenge to give victory to a weaker group that had proven resilient and strong enough to be allowed past. It will also allow Ryuhoho to have a lair up in the ceiling, where he can be charged up by Zushi before entering the fray for a two-stage battle. And by giving control of the room to the two bosses, it’ll be more difficult for someone to command even the surface-level earth against them. Hmm, actually, we have enough budget, oh, that could be fun.” Mordecai grinned. “I just thought of something else. Instead of hinging, the trap doors can optionally rotate instead. If one of them chooses that option, the side that rotates into the room will be a sticky trap, so say someone is chasing Zushi when he decided to leave, they get stuck. So for more challenging fights, the longer it goes on, the more difficult Zushi can make it for people to move around. There’s less reason for Ryuhoho to use that option, but it is available if it comes up.”

“Well, let me try it. I like this sort of trap much better than the other type.” Kazue said, then went to work.