Chapter 12

And this finishes yesterday's explanation! Returning to the present… 

Today, I talked with Ricard about the unexpected critter bodies I got as rewards, and we both agreed that the Kidnapper must have been capturing critters that were unlucky to get close enough for my Chain Lightning to hit them. So I decided I'm going to keep using the Kidnapper for a veeeery long time. "It brings me a lot of happiness to finally see a Stitched doing better than what I expected! Instead of worse, as everything until now…" I say, remembering the mass of flesh and limbs. I shudder.

There's been two players that invaded my dungeon since yesterday. "My first two customers!" I say while making a fist pose. They stomped my dungeon, not a single of their support units died. It's a shame, because you get better rewards the more invaders you kill. "But I got 20 cp and 1 xp for each invasion, so it's something good!"

One of the invaders even left a comment: 'The dungeon style isn't bad, but the dungeon is too easy.'

"Yes, I already know! This is why today is a dungeon improvement day!"

Right now, I have 128 cp. The first thing I'm going to do is improve the dungeon mobs. Aka: the Stitched. But simply adding more of them isn't really going to make too much of a difference, so I instead decide to upgrade a few of them.

"I have five squads, so what I'm going to do is upgrade the Braindead Leaders into level 2." With five level 2 units, the dungeon is going to be a lot harder. I also add the active skill 'Toxic Spit' with the skill point they got for reaching level 2.

Toxic Spit (Active skill)

Cost: 20 EP

Deal (2 + 0.5 * STR) poison damage to a single enemy.

With this skill, the Leaders will have a ranged attack. I hope that by including a ranged attack they will turn a lot more dangerous. At least, the enemies will take some damage even if they stay at range. Unlike what happens now. They are so slow that they can be kited indefinitely.

 Braindead Leader (Lv 2)

HP66 (60) STA5 (5) SOU3 (3)

 EP55 (50) MP33 (30)

STR5 (5) CON7 (7) AGI2 (2) 

SPI4 (4) WIL4 (4) DEX1 (1)

SPD3 INT1 COM1

Skills: Toxic Spit (active), Commander (passive)

"These are the Braindead Leader's current stats, huh? As I was expecting, neither the Intelligence nor the Command/Communicate increase with level ups." I already knew about the Speed not increasing, because I leveled up my Champion and the Speed didn't increase either. The upgrades cost a total of 50 cp, leaving me with 78 cp.

"Now to the next element to improve my dungeon: Traps!" Currently, I have only one trap available. I can research more through the technology trees, but I don't have the luxury to spend resources to unlock them yet. The trap I can use is 'Falling corpse'.

Falling corpse (Trap)

Cost: 10 cp, 1 corpse

When an enemy passes under the trap, a corpse falls and deals 30 damage. This damage cannot be reduced. Only triggered once for each dungeon invasion.

"Sooo… yes. A falling corpse. Literally. I'm not sure if the enemies are going to die from the damage, but at least their sanity is going to take a hit for sure." An interesting fact is that the damage from traps cannot be reduced or prevented with skills. If the trap hits you, you take damage. That's it. This way the players can't simply ignore them by putting a 'tank' unit in front or something similar. Instead, almost all traps can be spotted, avoided or deactivated, rewarding players that properly pay attention to the dungeon.

"I don't want to spend too much on the traps, so I'm going to buy only three, for 30 cp and 3 corpses. This is going to leave 48 cp for upgrading the dungeon rooms and decorations, which is more than enough for now." 

"Now the dungeon layout changes." I start the dungeon renovation by adding a small rocky passage between the Cave room and the dungeon entrance portal. I make it straight while keeping it as natural-looking as possible. Now, from the entrance the players can see the cave at the end of the tunnel. I also put one of the Falling corpse traps here, just before the cave opening. "The first enemy, when about to reach the cave, will have a corpse fall on top. Hahaha! A very nice way to start a dungeon invasion! At least for me, hehehe!"

Then, I add several more tunnel entrances to the cave. Instead of being like before, where there was a single entrance to the tunnels zone, now there are four of them distributed through the cave.

I also add a fifth tunnel, but this one leads to a small rock cavern with only one entrance. This cavern is a 'resting place' where none of my units will appear. And I add the second trap here. I set the trigger of the trap to only when an enemy exits the room. "Aha! You dared to take a rest in MY dungeon!? Have a corpse fall on top of you as you exit the 'resting room'!"

Returning to the tunnels, I now have enough cp to add the underground river that I wanted before. I make some of the tunnels partially inundated, and it is possible for the units to fall into the river. If they fall inside the river, the river current will move them in the direction of the big cave, where the river ends in a lake. I've turned a part of the big cavern into an underground lake for this reason. I also added lots of mushrooms in the areas closest to the water.

I keep the laboratory in the same way as before except for… the last trap, which I put just in front of the dungeon core. "You wanted to destroy my dungeon core? Take a corpse to your face!" I don't think this trap will accomplish anything except making people angry. But I want the invaders to not underestimate my dungeon.

For the mob distribution, I only need to set the butterfly into one of the rooms, so I put it into the Cave room. This way, the butterfly has a higher chance to find a 'victim', because all invaders must walk through the big cave.

I create a solitary and inaccessible room, where I put the Followers and the Kidnapper. They don't have skills for defending the dungeon, the AI needs me close for working properly, and I prefer that they don't wander around. Otherwise, players can rate the dungeon worse because a few of the stitched are doing weird things. "The only requirement in a dungeon is that there's a path between the entrance and the dungeon core. If you like doing so, you can create as many inaccessible areas as you want."

I end spending all of the cp that I had into improving the dungeon. But I don't regret it. I don't add or remove any Rooms, only expand the Tunnels room to encompass all the new tunnels and the underground river.

I have three plans for the future: add more Death Butterflies, upgrade the Braindead Mob to level 2, and add a few more Falling corpse traps. "Well, and finally create my first Hybrid… So let's make it four! I have four plans for the future!"

"Oh, oh! And research the Collectionist tech! So this makes it five plans… And then also…" I keep adding more and more plans for a while, before leaving the game. The list is currently veeeery long.