[D'sP] Third Floor Skip - Chapter 479

The boy, ‘No, man’, he corrects himself, rests his club on his shoulder. Their team had just cleared the second floor and were about to hit up floor three. He laughs, ‘hit up’, he’s done that to a few of the lighter monsters. That one kobold that tried to ambush from the top of a boulder ended up rising above said boulder before they fell to the ground!

Next to him a guy leans on his staff and watches the boy. Though that wasn’t fair of him. The kid was an adult, if only by a birthday. His entire team except the guy was the same. Before this mess, they’d have been going into debt for college or working a dead-end job. So while “adventurer” was more dangerous, at least it provided them a chance.

The guy sighs, he had spent the last decade of his life as a school nurse taking care of kids just like them. No matter how he tries to justify it, he simply can’t feel this was alright. They should be coming to him complaining about a headache whose only cause is next period’s class is math.

Whatever worries the two might have, there’s no more waiting. The team of six walks through the portal to floor three, all rested for another grueling grind. Except they’re met by someone standing in the entrance room.

It is a Wolfkin lady who looks up as they enter. “Oh, fresh meat. Welcome to floor three, a non-instanced floor. We’ve got miners working right now so monsters haven’t had a chance to respawn. If you’re here to mine, well, good luck, head down the left passage and follow the markings. That will bring you to the ore vein they’re currently working on.

“If instead you’re looking to keep moving? The passage next to me is the way to go. Once again, follow the marks and you’ll end up at the exit. Oh, and if you try anything funny? Well, I’m being paid quite well to make sure the only ones who ‘get’ the joke are those trying to be funny.”

The five young kids all flinch away from the lady. On the other hand, the middle-aged healer sighs, “We’ll just pass through.” He turns to the team, “Come on, guys. No need to dilly-dally.” And his confident steps practically drag the others along behind him.

Soon enough they leave the floor and move onto number four. While down in the core room, Doyle grumbles.

Ally shrugs, ‘What did you expect for a floor that isn’t instanced?’

Doyle sighs, ‘Fair enough. I guess I can’t expect them not to take advantage of things. It just feels so cheap for them to have someone literally standing there like a store greeter!’

Ally laughs, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve actually kept an eye on the situation and would have raised it to you if they'd kept this up. How they actually run things is that they “reserved” the floor for mining in the morning. What with how the ore replenishes in the middle of the night.

‘However, once they clear out the ore, well as much as they can bother with, they leave the floor and let it properly reset. That team simply came early in the morning, and so it was still being held. If anything, them skipping the floor is better for us. They go straight into the fourth floor without a chance to adapt to the increase in power.

‘Sure, this early on that’s only an extra level, but then again, those who need to worry about it will be the same. So yeah, it evens out. You don’t pay for more monsters on three and they end up having to fight a little harder on four.’

Doyle, ‘Okay, yeah, I can get behind that. Besides, if it is only part of the day? Well, I’m sure with levels in magic or mining will only reduce how much time they keep things locked down.’

Ally laughs, ‘Mining becomes magic when you take it far enough. Most things do. Though I guess it would be more appropriate to say that at the high end, everything becomes more than mundane.

‘Physics can’t explain how a high-level miner can swing their pick once and shatter a moon, stone reduced to powder, revealing the ore veins perfectly preserved. Or when they mine out a vein and there’s more ore mined out than the vein could physically hold. All without actually using any supernatural powers. No Mana, Qi, Prana, or even Quintessence. Their will and knowledge of mining is such that reality warps itself around their actions.’

Doyle, ‘Well, that sounds amazing! Can my monster eventually do that?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Maybe? Like, as a dungeon, most such things will be powered. Besides, it is way too far away. Let’s finish checking out floor three and if we want to talk about it more, we can cover it then.’

Doyle nods. That sounds like a decent idea, and he turns his attention to the floor.

Of course, the floor itself looks like a bit of a jumbled mess. This was his first go at a shifting maze and it showed. The entire floor was made of cave segments that could fit together any number of ways. Though Doyle had set up the generation of the floor to be only semi-random, there would be a certain feeling of sameness after observing the floor enough.

Then there were the bits that were always the same. At each of the corners was an ore vein of either tin or copper, though always at least one of each. More than that, Doyle didn’t remember when, but every restock, there was a chance one vein would be attuned with Earth, Wind, Water, or Fire. Which helped explain why the town was so focused on personally mining out the veins.

Doyle focused on the process and nodded, one-third chance every day of an elemental ore. Not too much, but enough that they should get a couple veins a week.

And of course it wasn’t just free for them to mine the ore. Each vein has a team of monsters. Which included kobolds who would mine out the ore themselves. Sure, they drop more ore, the more they’ve mined, but it wasn’t 100%.

Which, after thinking about it, Doyle figured this was why the adventurers locked the floor down. Not because four kobolds, six goats, and an earthen cow is any sort of threat. In fact, they’d be all for fighting the goats as much as possible. After all, they hold the rarest drop on the dungeon. There are still only single-digit numbers of them hanging around. The Shadow Leather Saddlebags of Holding. Convenient for ore as while they only have three times the space, the bags reduce the weight of what they hold by 99%.

Except they don’t try to fight the goats as much as possible, because while the bags are important, the ore is more useful for everyone. So they clear out the kobold miners and stop more from respawning, all to extract as much ore from the floor as possible.

This also means that the six assassin vines, three brown bears, and ten groups of myconid sprouts stay gone as well. Though Ally does note that the people after the ore don’t bother to actually clear those threads out. Oh sure, if they meet them in the tunnels, the monsters are dead. Rather, it is simply a fact that the trip for any team coming through isn’t entirely safe.

But once they get through whatever stragglers there might be, stragglers which are less likely with each team tromping through to the exit portal. They will need up on one of the most challenging, boring, and all-around slog of a floor among the early floors.

Floor four is straightforward. Obvious. While the path is twisty, it never changes. The only randomness is a handful of ambush locations that never change, only if and how many monsters are there.

Combined with the timed challenge, which by this point have been worked out? Well, while not too many people farm the floor, those who challenge it always have the rewards in the back of their mind. Which, yeah, people trying to rush through the floor isn’t exactly conducive to their health.

Of course, Doyle doesn’t blame them. The challenge to quickly complete the entire floor on one go gets you 50 herbs and a box of preservation. And the box alone is worth quite a bit. Let alone some of the herbs. Which accidentally makes the floor a bit of a blind box situation.

Doyle isn’t a fan of that, but then again, random loot drops at all is a bit of a gambling thing to begin with. The difference here is that all the drops are held until you return to the entrance room or make it to the exit portal.

Anyway, the floor is well populated with monsters so new delvers should have other things to worry about. Whether it was the massive number of wolves, all of the stone wolves, or the kobolds who could be healers and knights, the floor was a decent challenge for those it was meant for. And if someone was too strong for the floor to challenge them? Well, the 50 random herbs they could get on the floor wasn’t going to be all that tempting.

Doyle takes one last look at the fourth floor. The rooms snake around and curl back on themselves. It all takes up as much space as he had given himself to work with and despite it being a bunch of stone hallways? He likes how it turned out.

Which isn’t to say anything about floor five, the first boss floor. While there are tunnels and structures on the floor, Doyle doesn’t have anything to do with them. Whenever the floor is reset, the monsters start on a large hill in a cavern with some resources.

From there, the kobold boss takes charge and gets the monsters to start building and tunneling. Each time things can be anywhere from slightly different to completely changed. All depending on how the delvers have been doing.

Doyle hadn’t intended it, but by allowing the boss and her companions control over the floor, he put in place a decent anti-cheese measure.

If too many teams start sending in rogues to take out the boss first? They build the kobold settlement to focus on catching such attempts.

When teams begin to bombard the kobold settlement first? The kobolds will build in more arrow slits and the walls will provide more cover.

Though admittedly, most of the time people are just challenging the floor in a more straightforward manner. Which doesn’t necessitate any specific design choices. In which case, the settlement ends up being an ever-shifting place as the kobolds keep changing things to make it look nicer to them or be more comfortable. A never-ending task of Sisyphean proportions as the design of the settlement is a part of the floor’s challenge and so they can only remember so much. Which results in cycles where they unknowingly swing back and forth between a few common themes.

As for how people feel about the floor itself? Well, most people don’t actually think much of it, from what Doyle can tell. Everyone has to beat the floor if they want to get into six. Except they don’t need to challenge it again.

Oh sure, Doyle had changed up things so people have redo the early floors occasionally if they don’t follow the unwritten rules. However, no amount of resetting progress would ever even out the amount of time most spend on the sixth floor compared to the fight.

Though maybe to an extent, this was for the best? Because they so rarely challenge the boss, a delvers first impression will stick around. Even after they’re much stronger, their memory of the fifth floor boss would be of a tough challenge. Much better than some bosses he remembers from video games, where no matter how tough they are the first time, you end up grinding through them so much they become just another speed bump.

And Doyle prefers they remember the challenge. After all, it isn’t like he can turn bosses into normal floor mobs. Each one has a soul of their own and are unique in a way regular dungeon monsters can never reach without a soul of their own.

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