[D'sP] Flow Between Floors - Chapter 443

{

Nineteenth floor dimensionally anchored

World Energy cap +12,700 [Constitution(127) * 100]

Nineteenth floor spending limit set to 132,600 [Previous floor’s limit(118,920) + Intelligence(114) * 120]

Monster level cap updated

Quintessence debt paid back by 5

}

Doyle pauses, it felt odd making a new floor so soon after the last. He hadn’t done so since the first few floors. Though this was more to distract himself from another realization he had made. One that felt so obvious in hindsight.

These floors were turning out wind themed. Kobolds? Normal enough. Windbreaker Axebeaks? Eh, fancier than regular axebeaks, so he used them. Now though? Razor foxes. Another wind-based monster.

It was almost enough to make him want to change things. Doyle had been avoiding being too elementally biased. He didn’t, though. Rather, it made him consider putting void kobolds on the floor.

They cost the same as regular kobolds and could be technically seen as air aligned. Sure, the pressure sensitivity skill wasn’t the most useful, but it would be interesting to see how things would turn out. And it did cause him to conduct a test right away.

{

Elder Void Kobold (Elder Voibold, lv10)

S[6+2] A[26] C[8+2] I[8] W[24] P[9]

Inherits from [Elder Kobold]

Required Skills: Pressure Sensitivity

Extra Skills: 3D Movement lv3, Pressure Sensitivity lv1

Cost: World Energy[100]

}

Yep, it was quite easy to turn a voibold into an elder voibold. No reason it wouldn’t be, but you never know. Doyle had noticed some monster interactions could be odd. Whether because of lacking conditions or level restrictions, it was impossible to tell.

Though Doyle did notice one oddity. The elder voibold inherited from elder kobolds, not voibolds. Which is super important! After all, any new skills Doyle might end up buying for the kobolds or voibolds would not mirror over.

It actually pushed Doyle towards only buying new skills for the elders instead of backtracking to improve the regular kobolds and voibolds. Which when he thinks about it, does make sense. The whole dungeon M.O. seems to be always moving forward. Don’t go back and update things, just make a new floor, a new monster, a new challenge.

This push can be seen over and over. From the story Ally had told Doyle a year ago about a dungeon who died from early floor monsters becoming unsustainable and yet the dungeon not changing them out to his own resistance to even updating the skills on early floor monsters. Except, Doyle is able to get around this to some extent. He has made changes to his early floor. In particular, he has been slowly carving on that giant sphere on the seventh floor.

On the other hand, Doyle doesn’t really have that many floors yet. Oh sure, 19 floors is a decent number, but look at the levels involved. The monsters on the floor are level 33 to 36. When levels easily go into the four digits at the high end? Well, either he would have thousands of floors or the increased level range per floor would skyrocket. Maybe both.

Doyle shakes himself, it was time to design the floor. The available space had finished rapid expansion and he could build out the stone skeleton of what would be. Which brought up the question of what kind of floor best fit the theme of “wind”.

Oh sure, some sort of zero-g environment would fit the voibolds, but it wouldn’t fit the previous couple floors. It wasn’t like 18 ended with a space elevator, though that would eventually be a fun floor to play around with in some capacity.

Then it hits him and all it would take is a quick change to the end of floor 18. Instead of another cave exit, have the exit be part of a ramp upwards towards the top of the ravine. Because the setting for 19 would be on top of a plateau.

Which could result in a pretty open floor plan, but the tall vision blocking grass would play double duty. Both to block the line of sight as well as hide an occasional bit of natural danger in the form of ditches. Well, Doyle settled on ditches.

In reality, they would be crevices, but that felt a little too dangerous. Maybe a later floor can have a many story long drop into a tight canyon. This floor, though, would be limited to small channels which would appear to be carved by water flow. That would be dangerous enough.

Anyway, for this floor, the windbreakers would be the visible threat, standing tall over the grass. Well, when they’re standing up. It would be interesting to see the first group to make it to the floor. Their reaction to a party of kobolds birdback, suddenly rising up out of the grass as the birds stand up.

The only thing is, the floor would be pretty short if delvers were allowed to just walk straight to the exit. Doyle looks over the rough outline of a plateau. There is a good bit of space that could be used.

While themed as a plateau, that didn’t mean it needed to be some giant hunk of stone rising up out of the ground. He just needs to have an edge somewhere to make the facade look convincing, preferably near the entrance. Which was easy enough to set up, just requiring more space.

Doyle also figured that a massive rift down the plateau could help. Except anyone that got here would likely have a method to get across a small gap. Easier to just leave it be.

Instead, he simply stretched out the top of the plateau by removing the area underneath. A long plateau being easier to manage than winding things back on itself. All while preventing the delvers from skipping things with stuff like flight or simply being able to jump really far.

Though thinking of flight makes Doyle want to sigh. There will come a time when flying just is. Which makes what he had seen of Flisle’s floor make more sense. Floating islands made sense when everyone could fly.

And why could everyone fly? Ally had the answer for that in response to one of Doyle’s questions, ‘Is there any way to prevent people from chewing my dungeon with flight?’

Ally shrugged, ‘Bit of a losing battle there. After a certain point, everyone can fly. Maybe not in a traditional manner, but there comes a point where a person can propel themselves.

‘At the most basic level, flight is a simple matter. Send out force enough in one direction that you go the other despite any local gravity. Even pure melee fighters eventually get there, though they tend to do silly things like punching so fast and forcefully that they fly in the opposite direction. Though most develop an energy expulsion technique that costs less than they recover.’

That’s right, gravity is just not actually that forceful of a force. You just have to get to the point that you can push on the air in such a way as to counter it. The biggest problem generally comes from having something to push against while in the air. Magic just likes to cheat this by managing the mythical act of pulling oneself up by your bootstraps.

Doyle sighs, seems you either have to go with a completely open floor plan or a completely closed plan. Though it does make sense, why “cave” is such a common theme. Simple, yet constrained.

Doyle looked down on the plateau he had created. It would work. The long grass and the hidden ditches? Kobolds would make good use of the terrain and the windbreakers a perfect supplement. That left how to use the razor foxes.

Should they be out and about, wild, or under control of the kobolds as tamed beasts? Maybe both. Either would work, with it being more of a question of how they’d fit in the setting.

Though considering the setting, Doyle had an idea. This would be the first proper introduction of the razor foxes! Of course, they had to have a chance to strut their stuff. So it was set, the 19th floor would have mostly free foxes. Maybe a few at the end of the floor as pets to an elder.

Now to actually place the monsters. With 132,600 points, Doyle would have 119,340 points after saving for the farm section of the floor. Cut out 340 for a number evenly divisible by 1,000 and he ended up with similar math to the last floor since the foxes cost the same as a kobold. So a bird and two 50 point slots.

To start, Doyle figured 100 windbreakers, like on the previous floor, would be fine. So right off the bat, 200 kobold slots. This left 19,000 points spare that equaled 380 kobold equivalent slots. A total of 580 kobold equivalent slots.

Doyle tilts to the side, the numbers seem fine. So why not copy more from the last floor? 300 kobolds and 20 elders. All of the voibold variety, of course. That left 240 spots for the foxes.

Except, was he fine with regular foxes? The floor minimum level was 30 right now. Would that be enough for an age related evolution?

Most of the age evolutions so far had honestly pretty low minimum levels to them. Which made some sense. So far, the evolutions had mostly been a sort of “coming of age” sort of thing. Even the elder kobolds fit into pre-system understandings of getting older.

But unless the razor foxes turned into “silver” razor foxes, this would be the first age based evolution he couldn’t see happening naturally. Even the elder assassin vine fits in with certain changes that plants naturally go through. Longer, tougher vines? A lot of plants develop long woody stems for stuff like flowers or fruits.

The only catch to this, was that the other age-based evolution did in fact have a minimum level at all. That meant they had gone past the “natural”. This could be seen by looking at any regular creature.

The cattle were a good example. You got the cattle as adults and no matter how much you aged them, as dungeon monsters they only ever got closer to middle age. Now, maybe Doyle simply didn’t have a high enough minimum level for an “elder” cattle. That didn’t matter though as it was clear. A minimum level meant the creature couldn’t survive without magic.

Doyle turned his view outwards. The magic levels kept rising. Not right now, but how long before more magical beings started showing up? You didn’t develop native dragons without a ton of local magic, but the planet was edging towards exactly that sort of situation.

He shakes his core, for now the foxes need his attention. While the floors had that temporal speed up, the actual monsters seemed to need an extra shove to take the last step. At least, for the first time.

Yet no matter how much time passes, the foxes stay the same. They don’t even go grey! About the only change Doyle managed to coax out of them is if it is cold enough, they go white. Which wasn’t an actual variant, but rather just a seasonal palette swap.

This took days to work out. In the end, he could only put a bunch of regular foxes on the floor. To be specific, 240 razor foxes. Which was a lot, but once spread out over the floor actually felt alright.

Doyle nods, the floor came together and had a certain flow to it. In fact, the last three floors had a pleasant flow. The forest into the canyons which led to the plateau. That left one more floor for the boss.

Though he didn’t want to go straight to the 20th floor. Doyle was feeling a bit drained. Besides, he wanted the boss floor to be special. Oh, and he was going to add goats to the floor as well. Because he couldn’t not include goats with his kobolds.

Split Attention - Chapter 442

The Townsfolk Finally Push Deeper - Chapter 444