The lesser myconid troop guard also allowed Doyle to test one more thing out. It had a level requirement of 9 while the lesser myconids had a lower limit of 6. So with that in mind, Doyle went back to the sixth floor and temporarily cleared out enough space to put in six of the lesser myconids. Then he tried to smoosh them together. Even after putting them into a box and literally putting the squeeze on them, they did not form into a guard.

This was an important discovery as it told him that his guess was correct. His floors can only have monsters with a requirement equal to or less than the minimum level. So even though it seems he can grow the myconids perfectly fine until he has a floor with a high enough level limit the next stage is locked off from him. On the other hand, it does tell him he can likely grow his own myconids, just not right now.

Satisfied with the results Doyle turns back to populating the seventh floor. And first up are the lesser shadow wolves. Fun little monsters with a price tag of 500 points. For this floor specifically, they’re extra fun as the whole floor is practically set up so they can take advantage of their shadow phasing skill.

That, however, does bring up the question of what shadow phasing actually means. When Doyle had first seen it, he assumed short range shadow to shadow teleportation. But he now remembered another potential use for it and so spawned in a wolf to check. A good thing he did too as the ability was multifaceted in a way Doyle couldn’t have predicted.

It did allow the lesser shadow wolves to teleport within the shadows. However, that took a lot of power and likely isn’t going to be the average use of the skill. And while powerful, the second use for shadow phasing is worth more to Doyle than that is basically the ability to teleport once a battle. Such a simple ability and yet so powerful, as long as the wolf is partially in the shadows it can flicker between substantial and insubstantial.

So yeah, the ability to literally phase out of existence for a moment and thus dodge an attack, even those that are area of effect, is a bit powerful. They don’t seem to have full control over the ability but that would make sense as they don’t have many levels in it. So for now Doyle decides to limit it to just a small pack of four to roam the whole floor with a pair up in the farm.

Next up is the assassin vines. Mostly because Doyle plans to flood the floor with myconids, so getting the smaller population monsters out of the way first will make it easier for him. Of course, smaller and actually small are different things. The vines only cost 300 points and so he easily places down ten of them over the floor.

While it doesn’t seem like too many, if the area was laid out on a square you would be meeting one every 100 meters or so. There might be a lot of space on the inside of the sphere, but the ground quite visibly angles upward for anyone standing on it. Of course, since he gave them free rein to move around the likelihood of the vines being evenly spaced is entirely up to chance and the vine’s own instincts.

That aside, Doyle throws a couple assassin vines into the farm. Technically, they only need a single vine to reproduce but something nudges him to allow for cross-pollination. And since this was a simple enough thing Doyle didn’t mind going with his instincts, or more likely his biosphere balancing skill but either way is fine by him.

Now all Doyle has to do is figure out how he wants to deal with the myconids and this isn’t some easy problem to solve. The lesser myconids and the lesser myconid troop guards are easy enough on their own, but the sprouts are where the real difficulty comes from. Since he isn’t just spawning in each group and allowing for the random nature associated with it, Doyle has complete control over group composition.

Does he want a bunch of groups with fifty tiny myconids? Maybe a pair of big sprouts or any mix in between. The only thing he can’t manage is a sprout that would be worth over fifty points. That seems to be the tipping point between being a sprout and a lesser myconid. Though why adding arms to a sprout triples its point, cost is a question for another day.

Doyle pulls back his view and takes in the floor as a whole. The wolves are roaming wherever they want and the vines are slowly shifting into position while jockeying between each other for whatever attributes their veg based minds value. Though one pair of vines have grouped together which should provide an interesting challenge.

And of course also prompted Doyle to try for another transformation based on sticking multiple monsters together. It didn’t work sadly, but was worth the try as far as he was concerned. Anyway, he refocuses on where and how to place his myconids.

The guards would fill exactly that position so there wouldn’t be a lone one out wandering the place. Besides that, myconids are a communal species to begin with so only swarms could be seen as going it alone. And that thought leads Doyle to how he wants to place things.

On the end of the floor, with the exit, would be the main colony of myconids. A decent gathering of lesser myconids, three guards, and a large variety of sprout sizes. Basically, making it like an actual colony of the things instead of a random gathering of monsters. Only the lesser myconids can even match the goats for smarts so it isn’t like a kobold camp, but their higher wisdom should make up for it.

Now the question is how many of each type should be there? The guards are decided already but that leaves the swarms and lesser myconids to decide. Doyle goes back and forth over this a few times before deciding to do things in threes to match the guards. So for the lesser myconids he places 15 of them, enough to make three new guards. Then three times that many swarms of varying composition.

Mind you, they weren’t all bunched up at the exit. Like a real colony, or rather troop as that seems to be how a group of them are called, they had spread out, taking up somewhere between a fourth to a third of the floor. Though the edges are mostly roving swarms of the smallest sprouts with the larger ones increasing in quantity till right before the exit.

The lesser myconids also tended to stick near the exit though a group of five would occasionally break off to go and check on all the sprouts. It is only the guards that don’t have a specific location. Rather, they spend their entire time roving over the entire area controlled by the troop and even somewhat beyond.

And once all of that is placed Doyle takes some time to watch the floor reshuffle itself. The lesser shadow wolves quickly begin to avoid the area. Not because of any conflict between the two sides, but rather because even when not putting out harmful spores, the myconids are constantly shedding regular spores. Doyle can totally see this being a problem for anyone with fungus allergies. Not that he minds this. If they want to keep delving on this floor, they just need to put more points into the Constitution or a path to fix their problem.

Satisfied with the current spread Doyle focuses on the cost, half expecting that after putting down 45 swarms he might end up a little over his spending limit. This was not the case, in fact he is shocked to find that there are still 4,490 points left to spend. So not only does he have points left, but he is only ten points short of being able to place another 45 sprout swarms on the floor.

That isn’t actually feasible. Doyle still has to put a number of sprouts and lesser myconids into the farm so as to replace any lost to delvers. However, with that many points, it does mean he can put in a bunch more farm monsters in general so the replacement can be done instantly instead of waiting for more to be born.

In fact, Doyle decides to go a little overboard just to see how much it ends up costing. So in the farm he places eight more wolves, 20 more assassin vines, and enough myconids to replace the current troop twice over with five lesser myconids to restart things if needed. He didn’t need five of them except for what happens when they form into a guard. That explosion of spores is enough to kick start way more swarms than five alone could.

Even after that massive addition to the farm, Doyle still has 1705 points left to spend. He literally has enough monsters in the farm to replace everything on the floor twice over and that wasn’t enough to burn through it all. He can only shake his core and wonder where he will be putting all the monsters in the future. That or the cost is going to start skyrocketing.

Still, Doyle wants to fill up this floor and so looks over what he currently has. The theme of the floor is basically the slow corruption of a twisted ruin into that of a fungus ridden and spore filled ruin. As almost an afterthought, after realizing this Doyle spreads a large variety of mushrooms over the second half of the floor with the density increasing the further you get. He had already done something similar on the maze floor so it isn’t anything new to him. And except for a few spikes in spending as stranger mushrooms pop up he doesn’t pay attention to it.

Then it hits him. He had tried to combine assassin vines but that wasn’t even the first thing he did to the myconids. If there is one thing that seemed to be a constant in the various games, it was that with plants and similar, the older the more powerful. Both for the normal varieties and the monsters. So Doyle spawns in an extra assassin vine in the farm.

Of course, that alone won’t be enough. He had the vines in the farm already and none of them had grown into something new so this would take a little extra help. Help supplied by another small marble of strange dungeon stone that was set to multiply the speed whatever was holding it would age. This was a hefty cost that started to eat into his actual store of world energy when raised too high but it was for a test so Doyle ignored the cost.

As luck would have it, though, it seemed he didn’t need too high of a multiplier as the assassin vine holding the marble soon changed. Two vines grew to triple the length of the rest and sprouted backward angled thorns. All the while the rest of the vines took on a much darker green coloration that moved towards brown. And then their surface started to wrinkle and crack like a tree’s bark giving Doyle a clue that they probably were a lot tougher, if maybe a bit less flexible. Then the system dinged.

{Elder Assassin Vine (lv8)

S[30] A[12] C[24]

Skills: Grapple lv7, Slashing Resistance lv4, Rapid Movement lv3

Cost: World Energy[650]}

Doyle was, of course excited for this new monster as it looked quite dangerous. Though, after closer observation, a few things stuck out to him. Only the shorter vines had slashing resistance so the grabbing vines were still just as easy to cut. On the other hand, only the long vines benefited from the rapid movement. This was honestly even worse. Normal assassin vines moved around slowly but at a decent clip when they wanted to. The elder assassin vines, however, lost much of their speed in exchange for being able to grab their prey a lot quicker.