[D'sP] Not Worth The Weight - Chapter 492

Ally sighs, ‘Dungeon breaks are honestly some of the stupidest things. Well, I guess if no one is strong enough to delve a dungeon, I can’t blame the locals. Besides that, though? You need people to keep a dungeon occupied.

‘What my job is normally compared to is babysitting and I can’t say that’s wrong. Whenever a dungeon Fae can be paired with a core, the instances of dungeon leaks and breaks go down significantly. But what works the best?

‘Making sure people delve the dungeon at least a little bit. Part of the Adventurers Guild’s responsibilities is making sure dungeons don’t get neglected. That’s why on more developed worlds their quest boards will always have a bunch of “make-work” quests to delve unprofitable dungeons and such.’

Doyle, ‘Well, I don’t really have to worry about that. The town is pretty big in keeping the beef stocked.’

Ally laughs, ‘There is that! Abandoned dungeons tend to either have low-quality stuff for the area or are too strong. With the one being a lot easier to handle than the other.’

Doyle, ‘Wouldn’t a dungeon eventually have good stuff once deep enough? Like, even if they don’t get any good loot, their monsters should grow in strength and drop better drops.’

Ally shrugs, ‘You cheat and make it too easy on the delvers. Most dungeons don’t get shortcuts like you do and so delvers have to actually go through the entire dungeon. So yeah, even if deeper down there are valuables, it might not be worth it.

‘Though even then, what we consider valuable might not be seen as such. For instance, silver pieces are inherently valuable. The system will always take them after all. You literally can’t have more than the system is willing to buy.

‘But they have weight and take up space. Silver plates would alleviate things since they don’t weigh too much more, but are worth ten times as much. Even then, there is a limit. If you find chest after chest of sp, eventually the weight is either too great or you simply can’t carry anymore for simple size considerations.

‘So yeah, if a dungeon doesn’t end up dropping gold? Later floors might not actually be worth it for those who can make it that deep. After a certain point, sometimes the coins just aren’t worth spawning anymore and you depend on special drops to draw in the delvers.’

Doyle, ‘Okay, I can see that. It was always a bit of a joke about coins. The roleplaying games either ignored the physical nature or the coins weighed a realistic amount. Which, given how worth scaled, meant money alone would weigh you down well before being worth the weight. And I guess that is exactly what is happening here?

‘But what about storage devices and combining coins into higher values? While early RPGs would weight you down by counting each copper, later games, especially video games, would have magical packs and allow the conversion of coins into higher denominations.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Storage devices help a little. Though their value tends to mean being able to afford one that would allow you to carry all the coins also means it isn’t worth storing the coins.

‘And no, coins don’t automatically convert. Otherwise, every dungeon would have every kind of coin that would be reasonable for them to have. Not that you can’t convert coins, you just have to do it at a system bank and each conversion costs a hundredth of the larger piece.’

Doyle, ‘Huh?’

Ally shrugs, ‘The bank has a better way to explain it that I don’t remember. Basically, if you want to turn 100 copper pieces into a single silver piece, it costs a copper piece. And if you want to turn that silver piece into 100 copper pieces, it also costs a copper. And this works for any denomination you’ve stored at the bank and below.’

‘Now, you don’t have a choice with up conversion as you need 101 copper pieces to get a silver, but going down? You can pay out of what you’d be getting, so a silver into 99 copper pieces. Rich families will start a child bank account off with the highest coin that is reasonable so it is always open for them going forward.’

Doyle, ‘How high do the pieces go?’

Ally shrugs, ‘I don’t know, how high would you want to go? While the system uses metal and such, they’re just a way to represent the quintessence held within. They could be pieces of paper with numbers on them and work just the same, except the coin and plate form factor works better. Paper money is too flat. You want more depth than that.

‘Anyway, technically there isn’t any cap on how high the numbers can go. Instead, you run into practical limits. Remember, you need the coin before a bank will convert to it. At the high end, new coin types tend to be from quest rewards. Not that we need to worry about that kind of thing in the next few million years. Coins at that level are the realm of universe-spanning merchant houses and the highest-level individuals.’

Doyle, ‘Well that’s. A thing. Do the coins at least get bigger after a certain point?’

Ally laughs, ‘That would be nice! But no, high-end coins are the same size yet contain the power of a sun or more.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Well that’s worrying. I’m going to go play with my traps.’

Ally nods, ‘Not really something to dwell on. Besides, I doubt any coin even near that level of power is close enough to matter. And they’re quite stable all things considered.’

Doyle, ‘Don’t need to hear more of this. Have a nice day.’ And he turns back to the 21st floor.

The bear is still wandering around, getting rocks dropped on it every once in a while. So that’s fine for now.

Doyle also doesn’t want to place monsters quite yet, which means decorations and the newest addition, traps! Though definitely the decorations go down first. If only because that would give him a better idea where the traps should go. Like how he built the rockfall trap into the mineshaft decorations.

Decorations that will be spread through all of the tunnels. It wasn’t kobold tunnels though. They’d be a little short for the normal delvers. Not too short, because it isn’t like you build a tunnel to be exactly head height. If only because head height isn’t always the same for everyone.

So yeah, Doyle sets up the wooden supports and laid down a track. Not a wood or metal rail system though. Rather, he chisels into the stone itself. Doyle had a vague memory of some places using this sort of thing? Not like he was placing down any minecarts for them to use.

If anything, getting things not quite right would fit a dungeon better. Though once the tracks are down, he is tempted to test it out with a minecart.

Doyle looks around and of course the only other being on the floor is a certain bear and mutters to himself, ‘Oh, what the hell. Might as well have a bit of fun.’

And it was quite fun.

He didn’t worry about making the carts nice-looking or even realistic. The first couple were a metal, stone, and wood cart. Each purely made out of their material.

They raced along fine enough. And even better, the metal cart scuffed up the track! Made things look more realistic. Which wasn’t quite what he was looking for, but it would likely make the delvers worry about a cart barreling down at them from a trap.

It wouldn’t work, not quite. There were turns in the track that would see the cart derailed. Oh, a short run wouldn’t be a problem, but the cart wouldn’t be going fast enough to cause a problem unless it happened right in the middle of a fight and no one noticed it. Yeah, good luck with that.

Satisfied with his bit of play, Doyle turns back to decorations. The tunnels are all set up, which leaves the small platforms that circle around the mountain.

Now, technically the mountain should be above the tree line, given the “setting”. However, not only are trees going to be sturdier with magic around. But what did Doyle care about getting those kind of details to match reality? Not that he was going to be planting a bunch of tall trees.

That was for later though, as the platforms are a blank slate, even more so than the tunnels. After all, a tunnel is meant to have stone walls. And sure, this was a mountain, so this far up it could also be a bunch of blank stone. Doyle didn’t want that. Instead, these places would be small garden-like areas with bushes and trees at the edge to keep the wind out.

This wouldn’t explain water and warmth, but Doyle had already decided that the mountain wouldn’t be too realistic. So, he was going to have his little garden platforms.

Which meant first goes down the dirt. There is a rut where the stone track cuts through the land, but otherwise, a good half meter of soil was way more than needed, but trees. In fact, now was the time for trees as they can hold down the fort.

In particular, he has a bunch of them spaced along the edge. Partly to block wind and partly to hold the dirt in. Then some bushes to block more wind.

Which left bare dirt to cover up everywhere else. The question then was clover or grass? Doyle mentally shrugs, why not both? It would create a more varied landscape. Oh, and clover has pretty flowers, which is nice.

And speaking of flowers, Doyle sprinkles in some wildflowers with a chance of herbs. He nods, looks quite fetching! And you could still see the mountain, which gave it quite the bracing view.

That left one last platform, which Doyle had specifically left bare. The very top, where the exit portal would be. Though for the moment it was simply a hole in the ground that led down into his core room.

Up on this rarefied peak, Doyle was going to leave it mostly bare, except for one tree. One scraggly tree growing directly out of the rock. He had seen enough scenic pictures of similar trees. A real desolate beauty. There was even a temptation to not have any monsters up there. Simply a nice view.

Eh, time would tell.

Doyle pulls back and observes the entire mountain. The lonely peak piercing the sky. Small plateaus of greenery circle downward. The bottom visually extended past sight. Truly, this mountain was a symbol of the power of the land.

Doyle nods to himself. This took a while to get right, but seeing the mountain as a whole made the time spent worthwhile. Oh sure, rarely would anyone from outside get to see this view, but in the end, he is the one that has to live with it.

Now to check back on the bear!

He wasn’t expecting a change and none met him. The bear was still in their cave. It was a bit scruffy, but that’s sort of what happens when you keep getting rocks dropped on you. Even the magic of dungeon traps didn’t completely remove the dust.

Though this particular bear had survived quite a while now. All throughout his time building up the mountain, Doyle would occasionally have to spawn in a new bear. For the moment this was being done manually, but soon enough he would set up the farm once there were other monsters. However, this latest bear had actually hung on for quite a while so maybe he would get lucky? More likely, it would soon pass once he wasn’t fiddling with the floor and time sped up.

Except he wasn’t done fiddling! Now it was time to place some traps of his own. Why should the kobolds get to have all the fun?

Rock Size - Chapter 491

A Lot Of Ways To Cheat On Traps - Chapter 493