Gem tried to keep track of time as he generated blocks and built walls, but it was impossible. One moment he’d be mindlessly generating blocks at mid day and then the sun would be missing from the deep maroon sky. Another moment he’d be designing his Boss Room while the Plantlings worked above, and the next they’d all be asleep and he’d have only built two walls.

The shrieking of the Plantlings accompanied every moment, and Gem loved it.

He could just picture how off-putting it would be to adventurers roaming his halls. Their voices were so much larger than their little bodies, and because of their plant-like composition, they’d be able to blend in with the forest.

It wasn’t the haunting song of Gem’s vision, but it would do until he could figure out how to achieve it.

By the time Gem was finished establishing his other two rooms and texturing them the same as the first, three days had passed. It seemed like a moment in time and also an eternity.

He missed Chesu.

The wisp hadn’t been kind to him, but he also hadn’t been unkind. However, his wisdom and humor were welcome, and the emptiness his departure left was a gaping hole of loneliness. Sure, Gem talked to the Plantlings. And they talked back, if the shrieking counted. But until Gem figured out a way to translate their cries, it was a one-sided conversation.

I think all I have left to do is Pylons and mobs, Gem thought with a mixture of joy and fear that would have wound his stomach in knots had he still had one. Perhaps I should get started on that…

Another spike of anxiety shot through his core. He wasn’t quite sure what he was worried about, but he could guess. It was one thing to design rooms without guidance. Blocks were just time, and he could take them down and put them back up with little effort.

But Pylons and Mob Hearts were mana. A finite resource.

Gem did some quick calculations and found them damning. If he assumed no levels between now and when he opened his way to whatever adventurers still remained, he only had 50 command points to work with. With his mobs costing between two and three command points each, he didn’t have room for mistakes.

He could assume, and perhaps rightly so, that there was a way to unsummon mobs, if he somehow did things wrong. But after seeing the different personalities and uniqueness of Shriek and pals, Gem wasn’t sure he could make himself unsummon them.

If Chesu were here I’d ask how it worked.

A tightness crossed his mind, like the thought of a frown.

He better have a good excuse for this.

Gem didn’t let himself ponder that any longer. It was dangerous to think damning thoughts about the wisp.

From the moment that Gem met him, Chesu seemed distracted. Anger and frustration seemed to fuel the wisp more than anything else. Perhaps he needed some time to cool off, was all.

And besides, there were things Gem could do in the meantime.

For now, his mobs toiled at generators above the dungeon. His Core Room also sat exposed to the sky. Those were two things Gem wanted to rectify before he started fretting about mana.

Gem contemplated the issue. He could, of course, just leave the generators in plain sight. His endless supplies of lava and water were above the surface, and adventurers couldn’t destroy his blocks. He assumed that applied to generators as well as walls. But leaving them out in the open felt tacky. And he didn’t want his mobs distracted by the generators while adventurers roamed the halls.

Instead, Gem made a small ‘underground’ system of tunnels for them.

His Plantlings were tiny, so he didn’t have to make it more than a block deep. These tunnels ran under the entire floor, and Gem was certain to put entrances in the rooms against walls or behind a dirt block, which signified that he was going to put a Pylon or natural tree there. The Plantlings' natural camouflage would help them blend in and the tunnels might even provide a way for them to move freely among the dungeon.

Had he a mouth, Gem would have smiled dangerously at the idea of Shriek and his pals not bound to any particular room. Their constant shrieking would give adventurers quite a fright.

When the tunnels were laid out, Gem made small divots in them for the generators. He carefully fetched buckets of lava and water, filling each new generator with the appropriate liquids.

But he didn’t call Shriek and the others down. Firstly, they had no way to get into the dungeon yet. But secondly they were content up above. It wasn’t important that they got settled in their new home until it was done. Their early-warning-system capabilities were still invaluable.

Gem did start working on a way up to his core room, however.

He started with a stairwell on the outside of his dungeon, away from the entrance. But he didn’t just want to have an opening in the wall that invited adventurers to explore.

Gem remembered one of the Alterations he unlocked by selecting his theme.

Doors and Windows.

In general, Gem knew adventurers would be attracted to doors. He had compared them to house cats in other ways, and this was no exception. A closed door held unfathomable riches or death. A veritable riddle of physics. It would remain a mystery until the door was opened and one of the two fates was held.

To counter this curiosity, Gem would need to create many doors. All of them leading to potential death. It would satisfy the curiosity of the mortal beings that wandered his halls, and also keep them from wanting to explore more doors. If five doors led to death, a sixth would just as likely lead to death and should be left alone.

The best way to have doors lead to death would be to use traps. A variety of traps, all leading to the same outcome, would keep things interesting and also dissuade further examination. Gem supposed he could trap a few of the doors themselves, just to keep things interesting.

His Traps menu was woefully simple, however. Selecting his theme had unlocked Basic Traps, but it seemed like the word ‘basic’ was an understatement. The options available were things like rock fall traps and poison traps; useful, but not really deadly.

I’ll have to give some thought to this, Gem mused as he selected his Alterations menu instead.

The options within this menu were basic as well, but they were what he was expecting. Simple doors and windows, as well as a few combination options. Most of the door and window options were single-block affairs, but there were a few that were two-block-wide doors or even wider windows that looked quite impressive.

Gem was able to select the primary material for each door and window, but he seemed to be limited to those he had in his inventory. When he hovered over a window, a small popup appeared to let him know that he was missing the component ‘glass’ and so windows created would just be frames.

Wooden doors were pretty but uninspired. But when Gem selected cobblestone for the material, he was amazed.

They’ll blend in entirely, he thought with a mental grin. This won’t change my plan; I’ll still have a bunch of doors leading to traps in case they have the ability to sense them. But to the casual observer, these doors won’t exist.

Each cobblestone door required two cobblestone blocks, although it took up three blocks worth of height. Gem chose strategic places to put three doors in his first room, four in the second, and two in the Boss Room. He hooked up one door in each room to the tunnels he built for his Plantlings, and made a mental note to add some sort of trap to those to keep adventurers from exploring too far.

Gem wasn’t sure what to do with the other five doors in his first two rooms, but that was a problem for a future version of himself.

The other door in his boss room he hooked up to a set of stairs he crafted along the outside of his dungeon. It was a simple solution for now, especially since the stairs were just made out of offset blocks. The stairwell was open to the elements on one side, which was an inelegant solution. But he was running out of blocks, despite having the Plantlings creating more, and he was feeling a bit tired of building. Gem wanted desperately to move on to other things, even if he wasn’t sure how.

But once the dungeon and the roof were connected, Gem saw how much work he still had to do.

Connecting his Core Room to the stairwell securely would be easy enough, but it would cut off access to the rest of his roof. If he was being honest with himself, his Core Room was pretty unimpressive as well. Sprucing it up a little would help him feel a little more secure, and would allow for him to access more of his buildable area. He could have an active tree farm up here, as well as some extra generators and spaces for his mobs to rest and relax.

A builder’s job is never done, Gem thought with a mental sigh. As soon as you think you’re out, the thrill of another build catches your eye.

He got to work.