STATUS

SKILLS

SPELLS

CREATURES

TERRAINS

UTILITIES

EFFECTS

HELP

Name

Dane Kain

Race

Dungeon Core

Sub-Type

Tyx Swarm

Class

Dungeon Master

Sub-Class

Hive Lord

Level

1

Experience

10/20

Health

8,000/8,000 +1,000 (8/s) +1

Mana

15,000/15,000 +2,000 (18/s) +2

Essence

90/150 (14/hr) -3 +2

Physical Statistics

Power (POW)

9

Endurance (END)

12 +1

Durability (DUR)

8 +1

Dexterity (DEX)

15

Speed (SPD)

8

Finesse (FIN)

15 +2

Mental Statistics

Intelligence (INT)

15 +2

Wisdom (WIS)

18 +2

Genius (GEN)

9

Proficiency (PRO)

13 +2

Impulse (IMP)

7 +1

Charm (CHA)

5

Free Points

5

New skill: auto expansion unlocked!

Auto Expansion:

Passively expand towards the maximum territory size (a disc PRO*10^3m in radius and PRO*10^2m in height each floored to a single significant figure)

‘So I finally know why I couldn’t expand any higher or lower I suppose, if I’m reading that correctly it’s not actually going to matter till I get 20 proficiency right? If I get the same stats every level I could do that next level, though I’m more interested in investing finesse for the essence generation. That seems to be the closest thing to a ‘hard limit’ I have at the minute for my growth: my magic stats still seem insane, especially compared to my monsters, I feel like I could probably deal with some weaker invaders just by hurling spells at them but I should get some practice with monsters despite that. Though I definitely feel magic could be a game changer for me, as soon as I get the time I should spend those spell points, I put it off earlier since I was getting sick of menus and I kinda just kept going since then. I still can’t stop yet though, not till all my monsters are down. The vipers and Swarmlings are dealt with, the vipers took far more time than I expected but it paid off for sure. Getting experience with achievements could be worth trying to target before I get my first visitor… though only 20 EXP for creating basically a whole new species? I feel like that’s shortchanging me quite heavily… I mean the EXP needed for the next level doubled so it’ll probably do that every time like with the help timer. Probably not worth it when the rewards are bad and actually getting them is seriously uncertain.

I’m going to assume killing adventurers gives me EXP and that this isn’t literally the only way to level up else I might lose my mind completely… as for the free points if I distributed them amongst my stats that got no bonus I would have 1 for each but I feel that’s not the best idea, would make me to generic. Not strong enough to deal damage, not tanky enough to take hits, not fast enough to dodge them. That sort of situation, I need a strong point. As I see it my current advantages are magic and the hive, I could buff finesse for more essence and ergo more bugs or I could buff one of intelligence and wisdom for more mana and thus more spells so I think I’ll go down that route, +3 FIN, +1 WIS, +1 INT. is the plan, unfortunately there’s not much to do with that skill. It’ll mostly just be taking up space in my menus till I get quite a bit of proficiency but it’ll be nice to have then I suppose.’

With that slight distraction out of the way, I returned to my cave wolves. My primary change was decreasing the angle of their knees and elbows (they each bend in different directions yknow)so they where lower to the ground. Realistically this didn’t involve much change to the joint itself, some slight realignment so it’s rest position was a little more bent inwards but nothing major. What it actually involved was extending the forelegs and shrinking the hind legs to change the angles used when walking; I had previously trying to make this work solely by moving the joints higher and higher up and making their range of movement narrower and narrower but that’s nothing but counterproductive in the long run. By altering the proportions of the wolves limbs it achieves the desired effect in a way that is completely natural for the creature rather than ‘forcing’ them into the posture I wanted them to use while also adhering closely to the philosophy of balance that creature modification hinges on; I figure this is for reasons related to that tip mentioned earlier about how the parts of a creature effect essence costs but I don’t know how to ‘swap’ any of them yet so I’m still not fully sure what it was referring to. Back with the cave wolves, I’m now naming all my modifications in hopes that helps them become variant, in addition to the limb changes I’ve also decided on their colouration: a murky off white with grey splotches. This in the hopes that it’ll allow them to blend in with shadows, the cave walls and the vegetation. A bit ambitious, but a man can dream, no?

I’ve also changed their overall musculature to favour quick bursts of speed and power over long periods of high endurance exertion, a theme that will be repeated in my other changes. I’ve narrowed the snouts slightly so the force is focused on a small area, shortened the front teeth so that they won’t grip into a target in the way they’re usually employed and in exchange for that I could lengthen and sharpen the rest of teeth, I weakened their grip force to increase the power of a single crushing bite and changed their hunting behaviour to dash in for a snapping chomp before immediately retreating. The hope for all of this is that it comes together into a creature that avoids all attempt to pin it down and while it keeps you occupied one of its pack mates takes the opportunity to land a single devastating blow before they before escape biding their time till another chance presents itself. Long drawn out battles are something I want to avoid, instead I’d rather delvers spend 3 days dealing with the building mental stress till they lose everything in a period of 10 minutes. I don’t need my monsters to fatigue the opponent, I can handle that myself. My monsters just need to be the dagger I slip into their backs when the time is right.

Before I start preparing to place the first of the wolves I proceed to make Samanthas name official and summoning the other 4 Pack Vipers to let them start adapting to the Tyx. Hopefully since they’re a small clan and this is their first assimilation it’ll go quickly if not I’ll just have to hope they treat adventures as opportunities to prove their worth. That would mean they still cooperate as I intended even if it’s in a little bit of a roundabout way.

With those loose ends tied up I could refocus slowly on establishing the new packs, most of my monsters had been focused round my heartland and the entrance tunnels but that was mostly to make space for this. I want to keep my wolves as a ‘forward force’ so to speak that can cut of the exit and harass the adventures into haste so that they are more liable to fall for all the other tricks and traps I’d been establishing with the plants, snakes and so on and it’ll make them more vulnerable to the reavers if they think they’re out of the woods once they escape the packs. I’ve allotted myself 100 wolves which I intend to split into packs of 10, a little bloated but I figure they’ll need it. I intend to cram as many ambush and pincer tactics into their instincts as possible in addition to a seriously rigid hierarchy so that they can implement some more advanced planning. I figure their numbers and all the modifications I made should make them pretty well optimised for hunting in the tunnels but with some basic ideas like splitting of a portion of the pack in order to cut off escape routes and harass the back line, in addition to some more specific stuff like target any healers, they should just be that slight bit more potent.

After Spencer and Samantha I’ve decided I want to make one named for every monster type I make, my goal for how to apply this with the wolves is to have a single, central pack which has a named alpha (yes alpha wolves aren’t real, I’m going to build in a hierarchy so they will be) and the other packs will be subordinate to this leader pack. The packs themselves will have a limited amount of inter cooperation but will mainly work on their own when not following the orders of the head wolf as the chain of command is liable to get confused. As for the hierarchy that I’ll implement I want it to be changeable but unable to be challenged within the moment so maybe something like honour duels that have specific time requirements? I’d make it a full moon just because they’re wolves but that’ll be impossible to see underground. Maybe something to do with the panstips? They spread their spores every third of a year which creates large, luminescent spore clouds so it could be that honour duels are only applicable during the time when these clouds are in the air. It will be one on one duels with the person who lands the first significant blow winning and taking their opponents position if it’s higher up. We’ll keep things simple with the hierarchy being strictly linear, position 1 can give orders to anybody, position 2 can give orders to anybody but 1 so on so forth. All big decisions have to be made by the ‘alpha’, position 1. Actually since I’ll keep confusing myself if I use the whole ‘alpha’ ‘beta’ thing but just calling them position 1 is boring how about we use German? The leader of all the packs is “Null”, a pack leader is “Eins”, below them is “zwei”, next “drei” and so on. I might need another term if I end up with 10 nulls and one becomes the next tier of that, also the pack leaders will be referred to by a number then followed by eins as if it where a surname to show how they measure up against the other leaders so ‘Zwei Eins’ for example.

With their hierarchy planned out, even if it’s quite simple, I finally felt confident in creating the first of them. As planned I’ll officially name the ‘Null’ and the summon their pack, wait an hour or so, then summon the other packs. The creation of null was actually quite fascinating, the wolves by far have the most complicated muscle structures of any creature I’ve made so far since the vipers have no limbs and the Tyx actually use something similar to hydraulics in their legs. So watching it get pieced together was rather insightful, it was like a tapestry with all the fibres of essence winding round each other into bulky layers that slowly formed intricate 3D shapes, I wasn’t able to learn much since I don’t use precise mana shaping often and have never shaped essence manually, it’s too much of a risk at the moment while I’m still getting myself set up. Once finally fully formed Null sprang backward and bent down to hide behind a fern while growling cautiously, she seemed to be worried due to the unfamiliar environment. A strange reaction since technically this is her first environment but I suppose all the inherent memories I created mean the cave wolves are born confused and scared rather than naïve and curious; potentially concerning but not exactly something I feel qualified to comment on so instead I just give Null some orders in order to guide her to the largest and most spacious alcove, practically a small cave in and of itself.

The trickle of water in this room is closer to a small burn that splits and spiderwebs throughout the room before being completely absorbed by the rock when it flows over a patch of shale. The banks of these tiny rivers are covered in a myriad of baby panstips that are tall and thin with a bulbous top and some slightly hydrated pop lichen covers the floor created a soft resting area while larger panstips jut out of the walls. The room was by far large enough to hold 15 wolves let alone 10 but a little extra luxury for those at the top should hopefully act as a motivator that drives the wolves to climb the social ladder, if my monsters actively seek to improve themselves then I’d get a lot more bang for my buck with each creature spawned since they could rise themselves beyond what I built them to accomplish. Their essence costs are determined by the quality of their biology if the tips are to be believed so if my creatures can strive beyond their bodies natural limits then I’d basically be getting a monster that performs at a higher essence for the cost of its original.

Creating the individual wolves was easy enough but they all seemed very cautious of each other and refused to interact… they didn’t group up into packs at all but just maintained a distance and some held a low growl in the back of their throats. This… could be a problem, by making their hierarchy based on duels that can only happen during a certain time and then centring all of their society on that hierarchy seems to just make them completely incapable of interacting. Not good. Definitely not good, I think that’s something to take note of but for now I need to fix this. The easiest option I can think of is just cause all the panstips to spore right now but I’m not exactly sure how to go about that, maybe if I try to flow essence through them in the same way as when I created them since that sped up plant growth it would speed up the sporing process? This gonna hurt the budget… maybe if I only make half the burrowers I was planning on since they won’t be used in combat? I can make them again after we’ve been discovered I just want to get my Reavers set up first… all right here goes nothing!

With a colossal burst of light the tunnels are all filed with smoky wisps of a faint blue glow, the tunnels had a calming, mystical and ephemeral atmosphere and all the growling and posturing died down into silence, all 10 of the packs formed up into circles and each had the first two of their members step forward. Then, in perfect unison, 20 wolves all launched into their own battles, beginning what would soon be a night filled with constant battle that would decide the fates of every wolf within our tunnels. The duels each lasted only slightly over a minute each and there was more than a hundred duels for each pack as every wolf took this as their only chance to earn them self a place in the upper echelons of the hierarchy. The battles started tame but as the positions became more and more apparent those who seemed be loosing out slowly started mounting in ferocity till some of the duels didn’t even last 10 seconds since before parties went all in right to begin with, after the ranks of each pack where set in stone all of the pack leaders stepped out to host their own tournament. Null, unscathed by her battles, maintained a regal air throughout the proceedings that inspired great confidence and when it came time to duel she was so swift it was difficult to perceive anything more than blur. When disadvantaged she would slip into the mist and vanish from sight only reappearing to flank her foe and end the match in a single exchange. Making it to the position of her namesake with no competition made me believe that perhaps being named had more immediate effects than I was led to believe however mostly I just felt pride that she has so perfectly exemplified what I desired the cave wolves to become. With this, I felt confident to let my vanguard manage themselves.