Jake tried to keep Baxter happy. He made him snacks twice a day, varying the meat composition. Red meat, deer meat, chicken, you name it, he tried to create a snack using it. He even made a snake meat drumstick. Baxter looked puzzled at first but seemed to enjoy it by the end. The only one that he didn’t like was the crow drumstick. Jake didn’t blame him, it turns out crow is a very dark and stinky meat. Baxter proceeded to roll on it, but refused to eat it. Baxter brought him back both plants and monsters. The plants he pulled up and carried back to the entrance in his mouth. It took a long time for a plant to die because Jake never had a problem absorbing them and gaining their patterns. The monster’s he brought back alive. Alive enough, Jake guessed. During the week, Jake gained the following monster’s patterns:

Giant Red Squirrel

Giant Wild Turkey

Giant Prairie Chicken

Giant Mountain Boomer

Giant Mexican Bat

Giant Skink

Giant Toad

Giant Bull Frog

Giant Tree Frog

Giant Timber Rattlesnake

Giant Copperhead Snake

Giant Snapping Turtle

Giant Chickadee

Giant Blackbird

Giant Crow

Giant Mallard

Giant Canadian Goose

Giant Cooper’s Hawk

Giant Barn Owl

Giant Hairy Woodpecker

Giant Blue Racer snake

Giant Prairie Dog

Giant Eastern Cottontail

Giant Golden Mouse

Giant House Mouse

Giant Coyote

Giant White Tailed Deer

Giant Bobcat

Giant Armadillo

Baxter was a busy boy. Jake wondered about it, but Baxter insisted that he wasn’t trying to kill things, they attacked him whenever he traveled through the woods. At least that was Jake’s interpretation of his two-word answers. The worst of the battles was the Giant Wild Turkey because it was huge, high-level, and could use its wings to keep Baxter away while pecking like a jackhammer. The second worst was the Coyote, closely followed by the White-Tailed Deer. Both were big and high level. The snapping turtle removed Baxter’s tail and Jake gained a skill ‘Heal Monsters’ from that one. The rattlesnake poisoned him and Jake got another skill, ‘Cure Poison’ from that one. Up until Jake gained theses skills, Jake just would have to watch over Baxter when he came back and hope he recovered. It was strange but in the new world, it looked like (within limits) that if it didn’t kill you, you’d recover from it. Although, you wouldn’t regenerate missing bits without help.

Jake got a bunch of trees from nuts he brought back and a bunch of herbs and grasses. All of them interesting and mutated from Mana. Mana flooded the world, not just the building.

While Baxter was killing his way through the woods, Jake was a digging fool and his skills grew like mad.

Jake made holes in the rock, holes in the floors, rooms holes, monsters to go in rooms, and healed and fed his good little boy. That was the extent of his life now. Dig, dig, dig.

Jake had a dungeon plan now. Four levels. Each level a different design. Each one with various monsters bound in the rooms waiting for adventures to show up and take their loot. He thought he wanted each level to have a specific plant or plants in it. Something that an herbalist or alchemist would go a little bit crazy over. Make plant beds and have the monster’s guard them. But then he had this other idea of just creating housing for people. Maybe see if he could save some people. Have one side for adventurers, another side for crafters. Life and Death.

During all this, Jake got some notifications:

Hey, now you can be rude and keep digging and nobody will know it. Experience gained.

Ability Gained.

Mental Split

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

Ability to break your mental focus into two mental constructs. Now you can talk to, well, Baxter and keep working at the same time. Or, well, siphon and dig or whatever.

He got that ability after trying to talk to Baxter, heal him and make Loot Snacks all at once. ‘Pretty cool,’ Jake thought. He immediately made one ‘mental construct’ siphon, siphon, and siphon. The other one, he used to talk to Baxter, dig, well, everything else.

That ability would give him around 1200 mana points a day plus his 370 regular mana when it reset. Sweet!

Ah, you like him. How sweet! Experience gained. . Experience gained.

Skill Gained.

Heal Monster

Elemental Sphere: Life

Rank: Bronze

Level: 1

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

SP: 25 mana per 150 points of damage healed. Allows reattaching separated body parts and healing them once attached. Does not allow regeneration of lost body parts. Monster must be out of combat.

Jake got this one when he attempted to reattach Baxter’s tail. Big baby! You’d have thought he was dying the way he carried on about it. Who knew that dogs were so vain about their tails. All that wagging, a certain part of it must be ‘Mine’s Better!’

Hopefully, you won’t have to use this skill to often. Because it looks like that really hurts. Ooh! Just ooh!. Experience gained.

Skill Gained.

Cure Poison

Elemental Sphere: Earth

Rank: Bronze

Level: 1

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

SP: 25 mana 50 points of poison damage done. Healing the damage heals the poison.

Ability to heal and provide antidotes for poisons. Cost more mana to heal higher level poisons than the skill.

This was a bad time for both Jake and Baxter. After fighting the giant rattlesnake, Jake almost found out if he could resurrect Baxter. He almost needed too. It looked like the venom was magical or something. Or maybe there were just massive amounts of it. The snake bit Baxter twice before he almost tore the snake’s head off of its body. He dragged it into the tunnel in the middle of the night, whining and almost delirious. The poison turned his skin black where Jake could see it and later caused his fur to fall out on the area where the snake injected the poison. Fortunately Jake cured the poison. And when he got the Heal Monster skill, it took care of the fur. Once again, who knew dogs were so vain about their fur. Jake didn’t want to break it to him, but he thought the chances of him finding a 4 meter long, two-meter high dog that enjoyed romantic walks in the dark was pretty slim. And, who else would care, besides Baxter?

Finally, there was all the skill level up notifications and the Loot Pattern Creation notifications that Jake received:

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant Western Rat Snake Meat Drumstick

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant Western Rat Snake Meat Drumstick. That’s a new one. BTW, you notice that this one cost double? Pattern modification costs extra, not too many snakes with legs. Well, Wade aside.

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant Crow Drumstick

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant Crow Drumstick. As if anyone wants to eat crow.

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant Prairie Chicken Drumstick

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant Prairie Chicken Drumstick. At least this one makes sense.

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant Wild Turkey Drumstick

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant Wild Turkey Drumstick. Planning on starting a booth at the State Fair?

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant White-Tailed Deer Rack of Ribs

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant White-Tailed Deer Rack of Ribs. Another one that makes sense. That’s four. We thought you were going to make a deer drumstick too.

Loot Pattern Gained. Experience gained.

Giant Canadian Goose Drumstick

You have gained the loot pattern for a giant Canadian Goose Drumstick. So, five out of six make sense. Bob!

Num, nums. We didn’t really think you’d level the skill making doggy treats, but hey, a happy Baxter is, well, a happy Baxter. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Loot Creation

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Minus 5 mana to use skill

At least that choice was easy to make.

Jake had decided that he needed to get all his skills to at the highest level possible so he tried to use them all.

His first level, the one with the big corridor to nowhere with a single room on it, he did more of the same. He attached rooms to it up and down the corridor. After making 22 rooms along the corridor, he ran out of space for more. He went a little crazy with the traps, adding a trap before and after each tunnel that the adventurers had to crawl through to enter the room. He wasn’t sure how popular the design was going to be, but he needed to level some skills and the only way to do that was to use them, so tough. Besides, no adventurers were knocking on his doorway to get in yet anyway.

He wound up with 32 traps in the corridor. He wondered if anybody would be dumb enough to fall in them. He hoped not, but figured if they did, it was evolution in action. ‘I mean they’re holes in the ground. Don’t step in them and you won’t have a problem.’ Of course, about then, he started wondering if he could have a giant worm monster come out of the holes and grab an adventurer or two. He sighed and thought, once again, ‘this not being a murder pit is going to be harder than I thought it would be.’

His trap skill leveled.

Holes? That’s it? Holes? Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Trap Making

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Another meter3 of material removed Minus 5 mana to use skill

Each room had a tunnel entrance, a one-meter wide by one meter high by two-meter long tunnel. Thinking back to when he was a human, he sure as hell wouldn’t have crawled through a tunnel to get into a room where a giant monster of some kind would be waiting for him. ‘That’s crazy!’, he thought. ‘Nobody would be stupid enough to do that, would they?’

But making the rooms relaxed a part of him that he didn’t realize was tense, so he kept on. The only entrances to his dungeon were the tunnel Baxter had dug down from the surface and the small mana release tunnel that he’d dug. 'Hell’ he thought, ‘I wouldn’t even come down the tunnel Baxter made and that’s a tunnel, not a room entrance with an almost guaranteed monster behind it.’ Adventurers must be crazy!

He chose option b and his skill now only cost 20 points to use. 20 mana points for a level one trap.

He leveled his Monster Heal skill pretty quickly after he got it as well.

The snapping turtle used the skill the most, two uses to get the tail back on and then two uses to recover Baxter back to his health, and, of course, two uses to get Baxter’s fur back to health too. Baxter had been moping about the bald patches for the whole day. Fortunately there was only a day between when the snake attacked Baxter and when the Giant Snapping Turtle did. Neither was sure who was happier for Jake’s getting the skill. Baxter for getting his fur and tail back or Jake to not have to listen to Baxter’s whining about his fur during the day anymore.

Good job. Keep Baxter healthy and he’ll help keep you alive? Whatever. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Monster Healing

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Another 50 hit points to heal Minus 5 mana to use skill

That was a tough decision. He finally decided spending less mana is always better, so he said, Option b, please and when he checked his skill sheet, the mana cost for the skill was down to 20.

After he created the rooms and traps on the first floor, he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do next: monsters or the next level. No adventurers had appeared yet, so he decided that he’d move on to the second level.

He thought about it for a while. Trying to figure out if he wanted to change the plan or stick to it. He looked over the monsters he’d received from Baxter and thought, birds, frogs, snakes and a turtle. What is the point of putting a goldfinch (even a soccer ball-sized finch that pulls your hair out) in a small room and making an adventurer crawl in after it?

He threw out the plan and decided that his second floor was going to be big, real big. He’d allow an ecosystem to develop and every time Baxter brought him a new seed or something, he’d throw it down and see if it could survive.

He created a doorway, still hadn’t figured out how to make doors yet and then after playing with his bore skill he figured out how to make a staircase to the surface. He’d done this on one side of the landing that he’d formed at the end of the corridor. On the other side, he put in a staircase leading down. Both of the staircases were spiral, about 1 meter in width.

He’d wondered if he should have made them bigger to allow his monsters to follow and attack adventurers on it, but then he decided, 'no, that the stairs would be a monster-free zone'. Landings also would be monster free, corridors, not a free zone. If they attack a monster in a room, the monster can follow them out into the hallway. Besides, the landing wasn’t that big, only two meters by two meters. Not a comfortable place to stop and stay, particularly if you’ve got a party.

He had only made about 6 meters of stairs when he got another notification:

Finally. Need to get some people snacks in here. Experience gained.

Skill Gained.

Create Dungeon Entrance

Elemental Sphere: All

Rank: Bronze

Level: 1

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

SP: 25 mana per level of exit + 25 mana per 10 meters of distance + 5 per meter of width per distance.

So, (level*25 + meters distance/10 * 25 + meters distance/10*width). No standard designs +.

Create entrances (and exits, I guess) from your dungeon.

Caves (Bronze) Tunnels (Bronze) Ramps (Bronze) Stairways (Bronze) Elevators (Silver) Escalators (Gold) Portals (Platinum)

For some reason, he practically rolled with laughter when he read this notification. He couldn’t help picturing two adventure parties sharing an elevator.

“Hey, Rogue. You mind pushing level 4 for us? My hands are full (showing twohanded sword and shield).

Of course, then he had this thought of mimic elevators and spent 20 minutes in a very dark place.

So, he selected stairs, one meter in width and 20 meters straight up and spent 160 mana points, but he now had stairs to the surface. He didn’t break though to the surface though. It turned out that Baxter’s tunnel surfaced about 3 meters from where his stairway ended.

He then copied what he’d just done on the other side of the landing, headed down.

The first time he used the skill, he received a level up notification:

Good job. Keep building on. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Create Dungeon Entrance

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Minus 5 mana to use level selection Minus 5 mana to distance selection Minus 1 mana per width selection

He decided to go with distance because he’d be making a long set of stairs for his second level, so said, “Option b, please” and when he opened his skill status to check, it said, ‘25 mana per level of exit + 20 mana per 10 meters of distance + 5 per meter of width per distance.’ He noticed that the skill seemed to level quite a bit faster than the other skills, so he kept on using it with the same parameters. When he hit 100 meters, he got another notice:

Good job. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Create Dungeon Entrance

Rank: Bronze

Level 3

Choose:

Minus 5 mana to use level selection Minus 5 mana to distance selection Minus 1 mana per width selection

This time he decided to go another way and tried reducing the mana per level selection. He noticed that it used less mana, 130 mp than it would have if he’d selected b again. ‘Bummer’, he thought. ‘Should have done that last time. Would have saved some mana.’

Again, when he hit 180 meters, he got another notification:

Good job. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Create Dungeon Entrance

Rank: Bronze

Level 4

Choose:

Minus 5 mana to use level selection Minus 5 mana to distance selection Minus 1 mana per width selection

He selected Option A again and the next time he used the skill, he saw the mana use drop to 110.

He’d reached the desired depth of 240 meters two uses of the skill later. He was deep underground. But, it didn’t feel that way. Every bit of space that he was now connected to felt like a part of him, the same way that when he’d been human, he’d never looked at his feet and thought, ‘Wow, those are a long way down there, maybe I should grow shorter?’ It was all him and felt natural.

The stairs exited into a blank wall of stone, which he removed with four uses of bore, leaving a 4x4x4 meter platform beside the stairwell. Turning his viewpoint, he looked at the blank wall of stone in front of him. He used “Create Room” and a 4x4x4 cubic meter space opened in front of him. He used it again and then again. His world, except for doctoring and feeding Baxter became using this single skill. He would run his mana down until he hit his mana pad, then wait, siphon, and use it some more.

His ‘Create Rooms skill had leveled when he was making the first floor. Standard offering, he’d taken five mana points off the cost of the skill. Now that he was really grinding it, it started to level rapidly.

He got his next notification when he’d used the skill 12 more times. Again, he took five mana points off the cost of the skill and when he checked the skill, it now cost him 50 mana points at level Three.

33 more uses and the skill leveled to Level Four and cost him only 45 mana points. 67 uses after that, he got another notification and after his choice, it only cost him 40 mana points to carve out a standard 4x4x4 meter3 room. Level Five. He was starting to like the skill a lot more.

But, before he could finish his dream floor, the humans left. He hadn’t been paying that much attention to them. They had come in and fought the rats a couple or maybe more times. It looked like, from what his rat could see at night, that they’d made little earthen houses and were living outside the place.

He woke up Baxter and asked him what happened to the humans. Baxter had pretty much switched to a nocturnal existence by then, so he didn’t know anything more than Jake did. They just left was the informed consensus the two came to.

Jake didn’t know how to feel about that. He’d worried about the humans, tried to keep Baxter away from them, and then, for no apparent reason, they left. He decided he needed some more and better dungeon scouts. A giant rat is Ok, but a regular rat could get up close and hear things, the same with a regular-sized bird.

He also hoped they’d learn to keep a good night watch. Baxter had pretty much kept the monsters away at night. They wouldn’t have a big monster watchdog helper out where they were traveling.