[D'sP] An MMO Classic - Chapter 483

Of course, both Doyle and Ally realize they don’t have the beginning of an idea for how one would go about turning a cow into a minotaur. But neither of them brings it up. It is something to grapple with later, but for the moment, they’re in the middle of a few things.

Doyle in particular, turns his attention to the ninth floor. Which is like a breath of fresh air after eight. Oh sure, being just a big hallway, tunnel, thing is a little boring. Though it has a small selection of delvers who actually make frequent trips to it.

Now, admittedly, those delvers are hitting up the floor for the ore. After all the first vein is iron, the second has a fifty percent chance of being attuned and the last? That one was always attuned to one of the four basic elements. Good stuff!

Though Ace and the other inner circle mostly ignore the iron for now. Doyle isn’t 100 percent certain, but it feels like they have a plan. After all, with magic it isn’t too difficult to smelt the iron. It isn’t even that hard to get the carbon for steel. Yet they stick with bronze. Which, now that Doyle thinks about it, might be important?

He turns to Ally, ‘Heyo, just thought of something. Do you know why Ace and friends are focused on the bronze over the iron?’

Ally, ‘Well, for one, I think floor nine is the only floor with iron at the moment? Also, there are no attuned pockets. Besides that, I think they’re trying to skip right to mithril.

‘Not that mithril is a substitute for iron or anything. But honestly, bronze does a decent job. The reason your world went bronze to iron is related to ease of being able to work the metals and supply. Bronze is easier to work with , but tin was rare, whereas iron isn’t. So yeah, when they lost connection to their tin supply, iron was the next best thing.’

Doyle, ‘How does bronze compare to iron when it comes to magic?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Metals which aren’t inherently magical always perform worse in the magic aspect than those that are. Which does get sidestepped by having an attuned metal, but even that only goes so far. As for comparing non-magical metals against one another? That’s more a factor of location than metal.

‘Which of course means any metals from the same floor of our dungeon will be about equal. Though I guess there is one other difference? The way you process the ore into metal can affect the results. So maybe the town simply has a better method of smelting tin and copper than they do iron?’

Doyle, ‘I guess we’ll find out, eventually. Though this does remind me that I should add some decent ore deposits on 21. Maybe they’ll switch to iron with a more convenient source?’

Ally, ‘Weren’t you avoiding giving them one giant respawning ore vein? Like, all the rest of the ore veins, it only respawn at night.’

Doyle, ‘Eh, I was trying to keep things too realistic. Well, realistic compared to my pre-magic world. Don’t know how ore veins work in the greater universe or other dungeons. Anyway, I’m going with an MMO classic. Resource nodes that have practically no ore in them, but respawn frequently.’

Ally crosses her arms and nods, ‘Yeah, that’s not a normal method.’

Doyle, ‘So what is?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well, for one, dungeons generally don’t care about people crashing the local market for metals. So they’ll just plop down veins and let it be. Honestly, the only reason this isn’t as harmful as it seems, is that the lower floors tend to have lower quality metal than you can find in regular mines. Then once dealing with veins that are deep enough? Well, that’s self-limiting.’

Doyle nods, ‘I can see why it would be. If people tend to only manage to level to what the world’s energy allows, that also means the floors that have resources above what they can get out and about requires those who are stronger than natural for the world to have in any decent quantity.’

Ally, ‘Yep, but the other reason is more important. Even resources like the ore in the ground aren’t as nonrenewable as they are without magic. And for a number of reasons.

‘High enough mining skill? You can mine off chunks of ore with a chance to not remove any mass from the vein. This one is particularly effective with the magical ones. Since mithril is already partly made of magic, there is less work the miner’s skill has to do.

‘You can also find ore seeds, hearts, or whatever they end up being called locally. These are bits of ore found at the center of a vein, which is not only a magnitude higher quality, but a qualitatively higher ore. They’re conceptually heavier in ways that are hard to describe because you just wrap back around to saying they’re like the regular stuff, but more.’

Doyle, ‘Given the name “seeds”, I’m going to guess it grows more of itself? Or more likely, the ore vein you found it in is grown from it.’

Ally nods, ‘As the ore heart absorbs world energy, it grows more of the regular ore or if possible, transmutes other similar materials. There are a few catches and the system doesn’t actually recognize them. Because they’re just more ore.

‘What makes them special is the fact they’re so far above the local average, that their concept basically infected what is around it with a version of itself that matches the local area. However, if the world advanced? That heart would likely lose its ability.’

Doyle, ‘You said “if the world advances” and not something about bringing it to a more advanced world. Is that important?’

Ally, ‘Yes, for a heart to work, it can’t be messed with all that much. Part of why they work is the fact that despite being qualitatively better than anything else in the area, it is connected to the area. You can move it around a planet. Though to be safe, you don’t want to move it by magic and, if possible, using something that stays in contact with the ground, which does mean the seafloor when that comes up.

‘Taking it off the planet is a complete no-go, so yeah can’t just take ore from a more advanced world and turn your current world into a massive mine. Not only that, but you can’t even process the heart all that much. Most hearts are a ball of roughly hewn stone. Because even so much as overly smoothing things, though unlikely, could ruin the magical balance needed for this to work.’

Doyle, ‘That’s cool and sounds like a major strategic resource.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Yeah, they’re a popular target for idiots. Though there is another common method that not only can’t be interrupted like the hearts, but to some extent can be imported.’

Doyle, ‘Then why bother with the hearts? Or even dungeons? If you can import it, you can control it.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well, it’s a bit of a zero-sum game. You can use metals and other valuable materials found in the ground as components to burn in crafting magical items. Well, you can also just burn them? But that’s a bit of a waste.’

Doyle, ‘That’s cool, but how does destroying a point of gold get you more of the stuff to mine?’

Ally, ‘Even if not as strict, the universe does tend towards nothing being destroyed or created. The whole conservation of energy thing. Anyway, by rendering the materials down to extract their magic, the bits that make the gold, gold, escapes to reform in the ground.

‘It isn’t perfect and if using materials from off-world? A non-insignificant chance that those burned materials either do stop existing or return to their home world. And of course there is a point where the world says no. You can’t keep going until the world is made entirely of gold.’

Doyle, ‘I’m sure people have tried.’

Ally, ‘I haven’t heard anything directly, but that is a safe assumption. When people own worlds, it is inevitable someone tries something stupid. Anyway, that about covers the whole “ore” thing. And while I won’t claim you’re the first to make something like this. The idea of small ore nodes, while a good plan, isn’t common. On any other world, I’d say you were asking for angry delvers. Though given this is an idea from the culture, it should be fine. Not that most dungeons would care what their delvers think in the first place.’

Doyle, ‘I figure the constant respawning of ores would be enough to offset anything like that. But yeah, I’ve got work to do. I’m almost halfway through the floors.’

Ally nods, ‘Yep, if you need me, you know where to find me. Have fun!’

Doyle chuckles and turns back to the ninth floor. Admittedly, there isn’t too much left to process. The place isn’t exactly tree-heavy. That’s for later floors.

Instead, Doyle appreciates the quirks he built into the place. For instance, the curve of the hallway. He would have been fine with one straight-line shot to the end, but with the curve? It blocks line of sight so people can’t see to the end of the hallway.

In fact, the curve is so aggressive you see only about 50 meters ahead. So yeah, no chance of sniping the monsters from a safe distance. You can still attack from range. Just don’t expect it to be easy or safe.

But yeah, in general, Doyle still really enjoys how he designed this floor and so feels fine moving right along to the next boss on floor ten.

A simple and yet complex floor that even to this day causes a bit of confusion among those trying to map it out “properly”. At the most basic level, floor ten is a two kilometer long cave that twists and turns and has a number of wide areas where myconids can live.

These wide areas can extend up and down, left and right. Basically, any direction though the spots that extend upward aren’t really used. Besides those expanded spots, the tunnel also has a number of places where it constricts down tight. All of which results in a challenging path leading to the boss.

Though what about all that would confuse those trying to map things out? Well, it isn’t really that complex from a certain perspective. All those twists and turns the tunnel makes? They would cause the tunnel to overlap itself. Yet physically, it clearly doesn’t.

A simple enough effect for Doyle to put in with his control over the dimensions of his floor. Though it is also easy enough to cheat as well. You simply have spots that are hidden portals, so the tunnel is actually a bunch of disconnected parts. So yeah, Doyle isn’t exactly sure why the people in Ace’s team that are trying to properly map the floor are having trouble with it? In the end though, it isn’t his responsibility to make his dungeon layout comprehensible beyond making sure people can delve the floor. Which they can.

And leaves analyzing the mushrooms on the floor. Because that’s all there is. Instead of trees, there are big mushrooms. Instead of animals, there are mushroom monsters. Instead of people, there are myconids. And you better believe the boss is a myconid as well.

Doyle is actually somewhat proud of that aspect. The entire ecosystem of this floor is made of mushrooms. Which, given what Doyle glimpsed in the void, isn’t too out of line, but certainly not normal on this world! 

Though Doyle would be leery about turning off all the assistance, the floor gets for being a part of his dungeon. If only because things would likely overgrow. Which might look more natural, but would make the floor too hard to delve in the manner Doyle wants it to be delved.

Maybe Minotaurs? - Chapter 482

Deities Chatting - Chapter 484