Goblin Shenanigans & Dungeon Building

George was sitting in his room, out of all the homes in the goblin village, his was definitely the most majestic, although, this isn't much of an achievement as all the rest look like crumbling mounds of garbage.

George was sitting at his desk, a small table that had 2 of its 4 legs missing, he was looking at a parchment. He was the only member of the goblin village that could actually read the goblin language.

The parchment said:

"To George, head of Goblin Village #3345

This message has been sent from Goblin Capital Territory.

And has been sent to all goblin villages. The war against the kobolds is reaching a stalemate.

We are in need of more soldiers, as we believe we can beat them with just a few more troops.

This message has been endorsed by Head Shaman Gobblim.

Please have 10,000 soldiers send to Goblin village #3300, they will then be received by a representative from the goblin capital.

Signed -GCT".

George sighed.

10,000 Soldiers! That was practically half the city. Who was going to protect them if some stray kobald raiders come down from Goblin village #3372. They'd wipe his poor town out. As George was lamenting this fact, another goblin burst through his door.

George glared at the intruder, "you better have a good reason for this, I shouldn't have to remind you of the consequences for interrupting me in my free time." George stated, still glaring.

"Sir! Something strange is going on with the villagers, we must hurry!", said the goblin, panting.

Groaning, George stood.

"One problem after another, can't I just get a break," he lamented.

As soon as George stepped out of the building, he saw it. Almost every villager was sitting down on the street, cultivating mana.

"How is this possible?", he thought "There is no way this area has the correct type of mana to supply everyone."

Even he, who normally cultivates the 'contract' mana - a type of mana that is produced whenever a contract is made - could feel the change in the air, he could cultivate here! George was excited.

So, he wrote a letter to the High Shaman, explaining his findings, and sat down with the other townspeople to cultivate.

...

"Uhhh... Celes, what happened to Rocky?", Carl asked, questioning why there were 16 rock goblins idling in front of his core.

"I know right, this is so awesome, Carl, your abilities are so fantastic. This is amazing!" Celes squealed, excitement clear on her face.

"Yeah... but what is going on?"

"Oh yeah, I probably should explain this to you," she said, visibly calming down, "because of your new ability, Quintessential Asexual Reproduction, Rocky had kids! So far he's had 14, and his oldest one, has had a child as well. Honestly, this reproduction rate is, frankly, unbelievable. You'll probably never have to buy a rock goblin again. Soon you'll be able to create your own mob specific floor, but I'll tell you about those later.

"But, with this, you'll be able to seriously increase the number of monsters in your dungeon, you'll definitely need to expand your dungeon. But more importantly, you can now create quintessence," The excitement coming back to her voice. "With this, Goaty and I will even be able to cultivate."

"Wait, you guys can cultivate... even Goaty?" I asked slack jawed at the potential of my new abilities.

"Of course, everything in this World can cultivate, even animals like Goaty, I cultivate 'Purgatoric mana', which is a combination of all the basic mana types that have opposites; everything except time and void. As for Goaty, he chose to cultivate 'Living string mana', a combination of Earth, air, Life, and Abyssal mana, but I digress. Now, everyone who knows about your dungeon will want to come here to cultivate." She said, looking towards Goaty, who just bleated in reply.

Just then, I suddenly felt a slight tingling sensation, coming from the location of the goblin village. I had been coallessing my mana into the village for a while now, and I had essentially filled the village with my influence.

I shifted my consciousness there, and what I saw was something spectacular...

Thousands of goblins sitting in the streets... meditating! I immediately realised this was the result of my quintessence Producer ability. It had turned all of the ambient mana I had created into Quintessence, and the goblins were cultivating it.

I told Celes this.

"This is bad, we can't let them figure out that there's a dungeon core here, especially one that can produce quintessence!"

"We have to start building out your dungeon immediately. At least we have several more Rock Goblins to help." She replied, worriedly.

Hearing this, I finally was excited. I had wanted to start building my dungeon ages ago, but I had to wait for Rocky to finish.

I decided to fill my dungeon with rock goblins, I turned my attention to the second thing Rocky brought along with the manashroom.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[Name: Glittering Wood Moss

Mana Cost: 1 per/Square Metre (Original Cost: 2)

Rarity: Common

Item Type: Alchemical Ingredient.

Description: One of the most important ingredients in making Low, Medium, and High Grade Health Potions.

Alteration Made by Ability: Enhancer - Glittering Wood moss now has a heal on touch effect, and can cure minor ailments when consumed.

Alteration Made by Ability: Quintessential Asexual reproduction - Growth rate of plant has increased.

Alteration Made by Ability: ??Quintessence?? - Once a day, Glittering Wood Moss will produce A Will O' Wisp that will act as a monster in your dungeon.]

"That was interesting", I thought to myself before asking Celes what a wisp was.

"A wisp is a being of pure mana. They can randomly show up within the world, and eventually turn into an elemental spirit depending on what kind of mana they're in. I have no idea what a quintessence wisp will turn into, but I'm sure it will be very powerful," Celes said excitedly.

I also got excited when I heard the term elemental, that sounded really cool. I decided that I would coat the surfaces of my rooms with this stuff.

My next task was to create several more monsters to inhabit the dungeon, since having a dungeon entirely made out of rock goblins would be boring.

I decided to create 3 more monsters for my dungeon.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[You have combined 'Goblin' with 'Glittering Wood Moss'

Name: Glittering Wood Moss Monstrosity

Mana Cost: 100 per/Square Metre (Original Cost: 200)

Base stats:

Strength: 14

Endurance: 5

Dexterity: 22

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 7

Charisma: 1

Spirit: 1

Description: "Weaponizing a bush... That's a new one." - This monster may look like a piece of moss, but it has the ability to move and attack.

Alteration Made By: Enhancer - induces 'Minor Poison' when attacking.

Alteration Made By: Quintessential Asexual Reproduction - Growth rate has increased.

Alteration made By: ??Quintessence?? - Applies the 'Hallucinate' debuff when attacking.]

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[You have combined 'Rusty Iron Sword' with 'Goblin'

Name: Rusty Goblin Blade Dancer {Iron Variety}

Mana Cost: 400 (Original Cost: 800)

Base Stats:

Strength: 22

Endurance: 16

Dexterity: 42

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 11

Charisma: 3

Spirit: 17

Description: "They strike fast and hard... just like me" The Rusty Goblin Blade Dancer took the phrase having one's blade an extension of themselves way too seriously; instead of arms, their arms and legs are dual pairs of swords. They will dance around the battlefield, destroying any enemy in their way.

Alteration Made by: Enhancer - Applies the effect 'Tetanus' when Sword penetrates the skin.

Alteration Made by: Quintessential Asexual Reproduction - Growth and Birth Rates are increased. Only one partner is needed.

Alteration Made By: ??Quintessence?? - Rusty Goblin Blade Dancer may use the 'Blink' ability - It teleports to anywhere within 5 metres of itself every minute.]

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[You have combined 'ManaShroom' with 'Goblin'

Name: Goblin Shaman-Shroom

Mana Cost: 400 (Original Cost: 800)

Base Stats:

Strength: 0

Endurance: 6

Dexterity: 0

Intelligence: 42

Wisdom: 46

Charisma: 7

Spirit: 52

Description: "Congratulations, you can now shoot glowy balls at people, very impressive" Unlike most humanoid races, goblins don't have mages, instead they use shamans that use the minor, Higher, and Greater Spirits to fight. But then again... They're still mushrooms.

Alteration Made by: Enhancer - There is a 1% chance for a Goblin Shaman-Shroom to contract with a higher tier spirit

Alteration Made by: Quintessential Asexual Reproduction - Growth rate increases, and can birth new Goblin Shaman-Shrooms from the same roots of another.

Alteration Made by: Quintessence - Can contract any affinitied spirit.]

If I could smile I would, these would be perfect for putting inside my dungeon.

...

For my first room, I didn't want it to be too hard, otherwise that wouldn't be fun.

I decided to just have the walls and floors covered in moss. There was so much moss, no one would even be able to see the stone underneath.

Aside from the mass amount of moss, I also decided to add 3 Glittering wood moss monstrosities in the room, I wanted them to have free movement across the room, so I let their Quintessential Asexual Reproduction cover the whole room. It was like a jungle.

At this point, I had already lost 1,300 mana, from covering the walls and floors of the room, plus the Glittering Wood Moss Monstrosity, and I still had 4 more rooms to go.

I realised that my dungeon would be filled to the brim with monsters if I didn't do something about it, so I immediately instructed 8 of the 16 rock goblins to start carving out a massive room that can hold several thousand excess monsters, and they did.

With the other 7 Rock goblins I had available, I immediately ordered them to start creating my second floor.

I had a general idea of how I wanted it to look, but I couldn't start creating it yet.

I instructed them to make several branching tunnels that were like the caves above, and difficult to navigate.

After giving the orders, I began work on the second room.

I decided that I wanted to have an underlying theme to each floor, so with the second room, I still covered all the surfaces with moss, but this time I decided to add several ManaShrooms.

And with the new quintessential Asexual Reproduction ability, the mushrooms would spread like wildfire all over the room.

As for monsters, I decided to have 4 Goblin Shaman-Shrooms; 1 for each wall. I also added a Glittering Wood Moss Monstrosity, to distract from the Spell Casting Mushrooms.

Another 2,735 Mana Down - I only had 1,565 left.

For the third room I once again covered everything in moss, and I was really enjoying the aethstetic it created. It was like an ancient underground tomb filled with monsters, and it was really awesome.

I decided to use the last 565 mana on adding 2 Rock Goblins, and 3 Glittering Moss Monstrosity. I used the remaining 65 mana to add 13 troops of ManaShrooms.

...

Over the next several weeks, I kept storing mana and adding to the dungeon. Then I decided to add 2 Shaman-shrooms that had contracted with mid-grade spirits to the 4th room.

As for the Final Room, I decided to just have a Rusty Goblin Blade Dancer. While talking to Celes, I found that Using Mana, I can turn a regular Monster into a BOSS monster, making it alot more powerful.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[You have transformed 'RUSTY GOBLIN BLADE DANCER' into a BOSS

NEW STATS:

Name: Rusty Goblin Blade Dancer {Iron Variety} {BOSS}

Upgrade Cost: 2,000 Mana (Original 4,000)

Base Stats:

Strength: 42

Endurance: 56

Dexterity: 78

Intelligence: 34

Wisdom: 35

Charisma: 7

Spirit: 18

Alteration Made by: Enhancer - Applies 'Tetanus' when attacking. Applies the 'Lock Jaw' Debuff to those hit; Verbal spell casting becomes impossible.

Alteration Made by: Quintessential Asexual Reproduction - Growth rate increases, and gives birth at an increased rate.

Alteration Made by: Quintessence - Aside from the blink skill, this BOSS monster also has gained the skill Camouflage - Skin slowly morphs to change to the background; excellent for stealth.]

The 8 Rock Goblins I had tasked on clearing out the large storage room, they had made it big enough so that several hundred monsters could fit, so I made it so that all spare monsters and plants would be moved into there. I now had well over 100 rock goblins, all mining out a massive tunnel system.

I had added a hidden doorway in each room that can't be opened by anything except a monster within my dungeon. Now, any new born monster can go through the door to the storage room, without filling the main dungeon area.

I had also figured out how to lessen the mana density I produced. I made sure that there was essentially no quintessence in the Goblin city above, while within the dungeon each room had more mana then the previous one - a way of encouraging delving further into the dungeon.

Rocky had finished the stairway, I had it open up at two locations, one at the goblin city, and one at the surface, way above ground. I didn't want the entrance to be too flashy so I just left it as a simple stone stairwell.

The stairway opened up within a forest, with nothing insight.

...

Gobshaw was on patrol duty at the Southern gate, normally he would be extremely bored with this position, but with the story of the goblin that went missing here a few weeks ago, he was on edge.

Gobshaw decided to walk down the tunnel a bit, to scope out the area, see if anything was weird.

And that was when he saw it...

An eerie, smooth stone stairway leading down into darkness.