Cameron
I heaved a mental sigh of relief as the group left my Dungeon. Their delve had not gone how I had expected it to. I had known their group was powerful from the no experience messages I had received the last time they had come, but I had no clue they were that strong.
As much as their power caught me off guard, I was more shocked by how well my new monsters had performed. I knew a large part of that was due to the terrain I had painstakingly shaped to give them every possible advantage, but their performance was still astonishing. They had exceeded my expectations in every way.
It wasn't only that either. They had surprised me with their lethality. It looked like the moth woman had nearly gone down from blood loss. I hadn't so much as considered that a possibility. I did know they could drain people's blood, but since that effect hadn't even been listed as an ability, I had greatly underestimated it.
“I told you that you made the room too deadly,” Fabian huffed as he buzzed in.
It worked out in the end, though, didn't it?
“No, it didn't. That group works directly for the Adventurers Guild. They are far stronger than you, and you nearly killed one one them!”
I don't see the problem. That means my defenses held up, right?
“They are too effective. Level ones shouldn't normally be able to match up against level tens, especially not in the first room of a Dungeon. That in itself is bad enough, but it isn't the main problem here. The sheer deadliness of your second room's design is. Yes, it will be easier to defend yourself like this, but if you become too deadly, the Adventurers Guild will decide that you are more trouble than you're worth, and they will have you killed. If they make that decision, it won't matter how good you're defenses are. You won't stand a fighting chance against them.”
But, I need to be able to fight off attackers. I need to stay alive to protect Vie, Pee, and the other monsters. There's also the whole being responsible for the world's survival thing that you've placed on my shoulders.
He let out a sigh as he got his frazzled state under control. Then, he began to speak more calmly.
“Cameron, I get it. You've had more attempts on your life and people poking and prodding at your core than any new Dungeon should have to deal with. You've also had a lot of responsibilities you don't want foisted onto you, but you need to find a balance. There is a reason why the pact you made with the Fairy Council magically enforces an inability to intentionally kill more than one-third of the people that enter your Dungeon. If you make it too dangerous, you will end up angering people far stronger than you have any hope of being able to deal with.”
Right.
It wasn't that I didn't take the threat seriously, but I dismissed his concerns to change the topic. It was an instinctive response to the mention of the pact. I couldn't let the fact that I, as far as I could tell, was not bound to it slip.
Yeah, my defenses were better than I expected. I didn't think the Bloodthorn Vines would be so good. Sure, they are a bit expensive, but they aren't priced high enough to warrant that kind of power.
“It's because they are a limited species. Also, they aren't normally that powerful. You just put them in places that they could attack from without being directly targeted. I assure you, that insectinoid wouldn't have had anywhere near as much trouble if you hadn't hidden its body and put a massive spike pit next to it.”
Maybe I should move them.
It pained me to actively weaken my defenses, but I did still have my Horned Dracos as a trump card. If my fairy hadn't convinced me not to go out of my way to kill the group, I would have thrown everything I had at them, the lizards included. The only reason I hadn't was because they clearly mentioned their objective, and it wasn't to destroy my core.
Since that was the case, I kept my last species of monster secret along with my elites. I needed some stuff to surprise anyone who intended to kill me with, after all. It was also probably a good thing that I had hidden them for another reason. They would have been overkill for any normal group, and if my Dungeon was already too deadly for the guild's liking, the last thing I needed was for anyone to report my capabilities in full to them.
Ugh, I groaned internally, why is this so complicated?
“It's because mortal politics are a mess, and different groups rarely agree on anything, the same reasons why the different nations are always at each other's throats and Abustine is currently at war.”
Is that something else I need to worry about?
The grimace on his face answered my question without the need for words.
Never mind. We'll shelve that problem until I get a free moment.
My thoughts returned to my defenses. I hadn't expected my new monster to be anywhere near as good as it was. Sure, I had modified it to have slightly higher stats, but I had taken advantage of my achievement that gave me cheaper customizations to do that to everything. I had only strengthened the Bloodthorn Vines to the point of it costing me single point more for each of them. That shouldn't have made all that much of a difference. At that thought, the memory of the group questioning why a level one Trenti was giving them experience pushed its way forward from the back of my mind. I mentally winced.
Maybe modifying the Trentis to have eight extra stat points on top of the ones given by their upgrades and also giving one an elixir was a bit much.
“You think?”
My questionable balancing decisions aside, I was confident that it wasn't the extra stats that had made the plant so effective. In an attempt to figure out why that was, I redirected my attention to my new monster species and brought up its information.
[Bloodthorn Vines (Limited)
Available: 5 / 5
Level: 1
Cost: 16 DP
Health: 60 (70)
Stamina: 40 (50)
Mana: 20 (40)
Stats: FORT 12 (14), VIT 14 (16), STR 12 (14), END 8 (10), SOUL 2 (4), MIND 2 (4), WILL 2 (4), COM 10 (12), DEX 12 (14), AGI 8 (10)
Skills: None
Abilities: Blood Sense, Blood Drinker
Description: A plant monster that thirsts for blood. The four vines spreading from the flower at its base instinctively ensnare victims and drain their blood with sharp thorns.
Upgrades: Professional Amateur (+1 to every stat), A Walk in the Park (+5% to DEX and WILL), Too Close for Comfort (+1 to every stat)]
I knew that, since it was a limited monster, it was more powerful than other species. That came with the trade-off of having a slightly higher cost and a limit to the number I could summon at a time. The cost was more inhibitive to me than it would have been for a normal Dungeon, but the limit was less restrictive.
Overall, my monsters focused far more on quality than quantity, so while I would eventually run into problems with numbers if I exclusively unlocked limited monsters, in the short term, only being able to have a handful of each species wouldn't be too noticeable a detriment. For that reason, I hadn't drawn a distinctive line between them and normal monsters in my mind. Now, I was starting to see that there was a significant qualitative difference.
The main reason I had chosen Bloodthorn Vines was due to their good stats and potential as ambush predators. Their abilities also played a role in my decision, but even with all of that taken into account, I had seriously underestimated them. Continuing with my analysis, I brought up more of the specifics on what they could do. I saw its abilities in a new light.
[Ability: Blood Sense
Description: You can sense blood around you.
Effect: You can feel the presence of blood around you. The range of this ability is dependent on your (COM), and its sensitivity is dependent on your (VIT).]
[Ability: Blood Drinker
Description: You become stronger after consuming blood.
Effect: For every fluid ounce of blood consumed, all of your stats are boosted by +1% for 5 minutes. Consuming more blood refreshes the duration. The bonus stats this ability grants max out at +50% with the cap raising by +1% for every 10 points you have in (VIT).]
According to Fabian, my own monsters couldn't be used to trigger Blood Drinker, and the vines had only consumed enough blood to boost its stats by a handful of points during its encounter with the adventurers. The ability seemed to have potential, but I would need to workshop its usage further.
Blood Sense, on the other hand, was far better than I could have imagined straight out of the box. It was the only way for them to see, the species not having any sensory organs that animals would have. I had expected the plants to function clumsily as a result, them not having any way to detect terrain, but they had proven themselves to be more than capable of fighting mostly blind. It was something that had allowed them to attack without exposing their bodies.
As good as all of that was, the most impressive thing about the new monster species was their power that wasn't expressed in the form of stats or abilities. Their four long vines that could attack from any direction gave them immense versatility, and the speed at which they drained blood seemed far quicker than I would have guessed.
Previously, I had only thought of their blood draining capability as a way to activate Blood Drinker. Since it was only mentioned in passing and lacked any mentions of damage or status ailments, I had overlooked it. Clearly, I had fallen into the trap of allowing my new world's gamelike mechanics to skew the way I viewed reality. That had blinded me to the truth.
Even if nothing the System said directly stated it, running out of blood was still deadly in the same way that vital organs were still vital. I had been viewing health as the be all and end all of something's survival, but the term seemed to be misleading. It was a general indicator of something's condition, sure, but it and damage numbers were only relative. A lot of damage to a limb probably wouldn't kill something, but a small amount somewhere important could make a world of difference.
It looks like I need to change how I think about things going forward.
I made a mental note to add a few ledges and platforms over the pits near the Bloodthorn Vines when I could. That would allow adventurers to position themselves to better target them. I figured that wouldn't be too big of a security risk. It would add to the chaos and provide openings for my Horned Dracos if I found myself in actual danger, and at the same time, with no one knowing about them, it would hopefully alleviate some of the risk that came with people thinking I was too dangerous.
With that thought, it was time for me to stop theorycrafting and get to work. I began resummoning my monsters, starting with those closest to the entrance. I made sure not to give the Trenti in there an elixir this time. That would hopefully help with some of the balancing issues. That had to be enough for the time being.
I didn't have the mana I needed to fully reset my Dungeon. That was mostly because the last group had stolen the bodies of the monsters they had killed, depriving me the refunded mana I would have gained from absorbing them. Since I couldn't do everything at once anyway, I decided to make more modifications as I went.
Once my first room was back to having minimal defenses up and running, I spent a few points of mana on the next most important thing for my safety: dissolving the wall nearest to me. With a hole opened up in it, I ordered the Trenti who was waiting on the other side to pick me up and move me back over.
Fabian could say what he wanted about how I handled the last raid, but there was no denying that making a fake core room that I moved myself to once I was sure the group wasn't going to kill me had worked perfectly. The group would report my fake core room location to the guild, and as an added bonus, the trick had even hidden the Trenti that served as my protector. There was no replacing the achievements it was benefiting from, after all, so there was no point in it dying needlessly.