Redo of a Dungeon Core - Chapter 2

“A non-sentient dungeon creature will follow their master’s orders to the letter. If you were to tell a skeleton monster you summoned to remove its left arm, it would. If you tell a wolf you summoned to kill itself, it would follow your orders. The issue with order obedience comes with intelligence, or rather, sapience.

A monster summoned with sapience has the potential to disobey your commands. They will mostly follow basic commands, of course, but there is still the potential of disobedience. If you order them to put their life on the line, they could potentially revolt against you. This issue is resolved by giving them an Ultimate Command and a Primary command.

Ultimate Commands are commands that cannot be broken. They will do everything in their power to accomplish whatever the Ultimate Command is that has been given to them. For that reason, you can only issue one Ultimate Command per day to an individual creature. If you issue a second Ultimate Command the following day, then the previous one will be overwritten in favor of the new command.

Primary Commands are a lot more relaxed in the sense that it is more of a guiding light to a creature. A primary command should be vague and be able to be followed over the course of a lifetime. An example would be to protect your dungeon core. It is for that very reason that I give most sentient monsters in my dungeon that very command.”

-Teachings of Elder Dungeon Master Bartholomew to newborn Dungeon Masters

I sat in one of the chairs in the shack and readied myself to summon my hunting parties. The first leader will be a goblin scout, summoned with sapience. It will lead a group of 3 basic goblins. The second will be an assassin variant with the same party composition.

“Go north,” I ordered them, “Kill anything you can, but stay away from humans and humanoids. We don’t need that attention yet. Be back by nightfall.”

The 2 goblin leaders bowed their heads and ran out the door, quickly followed by their party members. I didn’t have high expectations for them, but I would see how it goes. With any luck, they would be able to kill a few things here or there and come back with a bit of xp. If I was unlucky, then they would run into humans or be immediately slaughtered. I just have to wait and see how it goes.

I looked at my status and saw I still had more than enough to summon my first boss. I looked at my 3 summonable monsters and debated which one I wanted to give Boss status too.

A base goblin given boss status would be interesting. From what I knew of them, it would likely be given some minor regeneration, a power attack, or maybe a party buff skill. A goblin scout would probably be less interesting though. As far as I’ve seen of the scouts, they only had some minor armor and a bow to differentiate them from base goblins. The ranged attack would be great for a party, but I don’t think it will work well as a boss.

The one that I was most interested in and would most likely decide on was the goblin assassin variant. Being an assassin would likely give the boss a stealth skill and a sneak attack skill. If I infused it with the shadow element, then it could lead to some very interesting things.

Before I made any final decisions though, I pulled up my status.

Name: Corrin

Level: 1 (43:20)

XP: 2,236

Maintenance: 4/day

Personal

Observe

Build

Summon

I still had quite a lot of experience to use and plenty of time to use it. If I used a full 2,000 xp on summoning the boss, then I would still have enough xp to last me over a month. I should be fine spending big on the most important monster I will ever summon in this life, and with the discount, it really shouldn’t be too bad.

I selected the goblin assassin and brought up the summon page. I selected the indicator to make it sentient which was a prerequisite to being given boss status, then I also added the shadow element to it. That brought the cost all the way up to 1800 xp, before the discount that is. With the discount, it was brought down to 900.

Damn. Being stripped of elements might be less of a boon than I thought.

I then indicated that I wanted this summon to be raised as a boss monster, which doubled the price again. However, since this was my first boss monster, it was given an additional 50% designation discount, bringing it down to 1350 xp. I was getting nervous at how expensive this was, but knew that this monster would ultimately be worth its cost. The more xp I put into it now, the more I would get out of it later.

Since this was a boss monster, I was able to purchase random titles for it. Unfortunately, they cost 600 xp each and I only had 650 xp left in the boss budget. Yet again though, the discounts saved the day, making it 600 for 2 titles. I went ahead and added both to the summon and searched around for anything else to add to my boss. Given I only had 50 xp left to spend, I opted to just give him a random extra attribute point.

Having finished my shopping spree, I selected the summon button and watched as my xp plummeted all the way down to 236 and my daily cost jump to 5 per day. My heart hurt a little at seeing such low numbers, but I knew it would all be for the best.

The shadows in the room all seemed to gather in front of me and swirl around. They started to condense and take form, shaping into a goblin. Once the form was complete, the shadows seemed to drip off of him like he just climbed out of a black sludge pool. My first boss shook like a dog and rid himself of the remaining miasma that birthed him, then stood there at attention, waiting for his first orders.

I pulled up his status and looked at what I was dealing with. After theatrics like that, I had high expectations.

Name: (Unnamed)

Race: Goblin

Class: Assassin

Level: 1

Str: 5

Agi: 8

End:6

Mag: 2

Skills: Backstab, Dark Vision, Shadow Daggers, Shadow Step

Titles: Boss [Top], One with the Shadow, Shadow Born

I tried not to show my disappointment at his lack of stats, which was easy to do when I saw the skills and titles he had. I opened the description for each, taking care to read through all the skills now at my disposal, plus his two titles.

Backstab: Deal extra damage to your target when attacking from behind.

Dark Vision: Passive. Allows you to see in the dark as if it were day.

Shadow Daggers: You have a chance of inflicting bonus Shadow damage while in shady places.

Shadow Step: You can teleport between shadows. Longer distances cost more stamina. Cost decreases with use.

One with the Shadow: You deal bonus shadow damage while in the dark, but you deal reduced damage in the light.

Shadow Born: You are much harder to spot in shaded areas. You have enhanced regeneration outside of combat while in shadows.

My disappointment instantly vanished as I read through the descriptions. I knew immediately that I would be sending my boss out to hunt for xp when the first two parties returned with information about the surrounding area.

“You can name yourself. As for your commands, I’ll be setting those when you are done.”

The goblin assassin nodded his understanding and his status changed to reflect his new name. The name popped up and he was now ready to be given his orders.

“Kree Blacktoe, set ultimate command to: Follow my orders. Set primary command to: Protect the dungeon core.”

With all the formalities finished, I took a moment to actually examine my first boss monster.

Kree stood at a full 4 feet in height, which is almost half a foot taller than the rest of the goblins I’ve summoned today, though, he thankfully lacked the stuck out belly they had. He had large ears hidden behind a black hood that was deep enough to obscure most of his facial features, including his large nose.

Kree’s armor was scuffed black leather that absorbed almost all light that came into contact with it. His arms and shins were both covered in the same black leather as his main body, as well as his boots. His hands, however, were covered in fingerless black linen gloves that showed off his clawed, green fingers. Right now, he was digging under a chipped nail with one of the two daggers that were strapped to his sides.

All in all, Kree was the embodiment of a shadow assassin. There wasn’t a thing about him that I would change.

“Go out and practice your Shadow Step skill. The stamina drain should decrease as you use it more, so I want you to be using it as often as you can. The same goes for other growth type skills you acquire in the future.”

Kree slammed a fist into his chest in a salute and headed outside. I would be joining him shortly, but I wanted to check something first.

I summoned my status screen one more time and looked at the summons tab. So far, I had only looked at the monster portion of the tab. Just below it, though, was the critter tab, which is exactly what I was looking for.

I opened the tab, full of excitement, and saw that I had…

“Nascent Slimes and Common Rats? Are you kidding? I gave up my bunnies for this?”

While I was upset that I wouldn’t be getting the rabbits for my xp farm, I knew that rats would provide just as good a source of xp, if not better than my original plan. Rats cared little about inbreeding and could survive harsher weather than rabbits could. They would eat most organic things, were more resistant to disease, and they frankly reproduced faster than the rabbits did. They were just so damn ugly.

The nascent slimes on the other hand proved to be an unexpected boon. These were one of the few critter-type summons that would evolve into a monster-type summon all on their own. I just needed to keep them well fed for long enough and they would evolve in no time. From there, I could buy the variant species from the system store and…

Wait. Why didn’t I see the system store in my status? It should have been the first tab, right under the maintenance descriptor.

I opened my status again and looked with increasing unease.

Name: Corrin

Level: 1 (35:16)

XP: 236

Maintenance: 5/day

Personal

Observe

Build

Summon

I started flipping through the few tabs I had over and over again, hoping that this was some sort of mistake, but sure enough, there was no system store for me to purchase blueprints for new monsters.

“System, what the hell? Why wasn’t I told about this? Where is the store? How am I supposed to gain new monster blueprints if I can’t purchase them?”

Monster blueprints can be learned by summoning a sufficient quantity of lower tier monsters or by one of said monsters dying while in the bounds of your dungeon. Other means of procuring monster blueprints are currently classified.

“What am I to do about traps then? I only have pitfalls, trip wires, and ground spikes! I need more than that if I am to survive out here!”

Tier 2 traps can be learned by summoning a sufficient quantity of tier 1 traps or by personally experiencing them. Other means of procuring monster blueprints are currently classified.

“Damn it system! Why wasn’t this told to me before I agreed! I would never have agreed to this farce of a deal if I knew that!”

Information was deemed irrelevant.

“Arg! Is there anything else I should know then that was deemed irrelevant at the time?”

Negative.

“Damn you, system. When I survive this, - and I will! - you’ll be hearing from me!”

One thing I did notice was that at least under my personal tab, I was still able to purchase the skills my boss monsters had for myself. Kree had one skill in particular that would be useful for me, and that was the Shadow Step skill. Since it was a growth type skill, I would be better off purchasing it now and using it as much as possible to get the decreased stamina cost it was talking about as early as I can. It could very well save my life one day if I used it right.

I purchased it for a measly, half-off 50 xp and went to close my status page when I realized how big of a fool I was. I just used almost a fifth of my remaining xp on a stupid skill when I didn’t even know what was outside my dungeon. For all I knew, it could be a barren wasteland beyond the forest’s edge, and I just spent the last morsel that could have saved my life.

I slapped my cheeks and vowed to be more frugal in the future. I had to remind myself that I was just a beginner dungeon master again and not one that could spend 1,000,000 xp on a whim anymore.

“Well, it’s not like I can undo the purchase. Might as well make good use of the skill while I have it.”

I stepped outside and buried the key to the shack under one of its corners. I didn’t plan on leaving the confines of the palisade I had made, so it didn’t matter too much if it could be easily found.

I practiced using the shadow step skill for a few short jumps before I started feeling the effects of the stamina drain. I noticed that when I went from the palisade to the shack, I didn’t drain nearly as much stamina as I did from going from one palisade wall to the next. The cost increase for distance was non-linear, and got much more expensive as the distance between steps increased. The jump from one end to the other was enough to make me short of breath and have to sit down to recover. I could see Kree making a mental note and adjusting his practice accordingly.

That was pretty much how I spent my day. It was only when the sun started to set and I got a few notifications that I stopped and returned to my shack. I used the communication function under the observe tab to invite my goblin hunting parties to my shack and give their reports. I was getting anxious waiting for so long.