Cat Core, Chapter 17.

Chapter 17.

“That did it for us, Florence, the last group pushed us over the mark for level two, see what we’ve unlocked,” Doug said, excited about their new level like a kid at Christmas. If she was honest with herself, and Florence Valentine was always honest with herself, she was as excited as little Doug was. She respawned her defenders and reset the traps. Pulling up her interface, Florence watched as her home automatically sealed off from the outside world while she reviewed the changes that had occurred.

Florence Valentine

Cat Core Level, 2.

Experience: 18/500.

Funds: $158/$200.

Defender Expense: $125/200.

Your defenders have increased in power to match your new level.

The summoner ability has improved. You may now summon three defenders every 24 hours.

Uh on, she had totally forgotten about that there summoner ability. Why, she could have used it to really fry the bacon of that annoying Korbo character the other day. It weren’t her fault though; Doug should have reminded her. After all, he was the assistant, wasn’t he? She had a sneaking suspicion he had secretly avoided telling her because she hadn’t let him help choose.

“Looks like we’ve gotten a good upgrade in our defender expense. That should be more than sufficient to create enough defenders for this level. After were satisfied with what we’ve made on this level, we can take a look at expanding a bit,” Doug offered. She liked the sound of expanding, almost as much as she like the fact she could make more cats.

“Since we’re closed for business right now, let’s take a look at everything. First off, the front lawn. Do you think we need to add anything there?” Florence asked.

“No, I believe with our two stealthy cats prowling about along with the crossbow trap are enough of an initial challenge without being too deadly. It’s a sold warm-up encounter for the adventurers. I also feel the living room is appropriate, a slight ramp up in difficulty from the front lawn, but we could perhaps use a fourth defender inside,” Doug added. She agreed and went ahead and made another kitty for the living room. This time, the cat was a tan, black, and white shorthair tabby. She always had a soft spot for tabby cats, they looked like little lions with eye liner on.

“Think this one will be Baxter, he kind of looks like a Baxter don’t you think?” Florence asked.

“That is fine, if not terribly exciting. At least this one is following orders,” Doug said as they watched Baxter saunter his way into the living room, taking time to introduce himself to the rest of the family along the way.

“What about the hallway, I think with just Buddy and Princess in there, it’s not that much of a challenge. Maybe another pair of defenders, or is that a bit much?” Florence asked. She wanted to include Doug in the process, but he was distracted, gazing off into some other part of their home.

“Doug, you with us?” Florence asked.

“Why, yes, my apologies, that’s just so disturbing every time I see it,” Doug said, pointing her view toward the Home for Unwanted Goblins. She watched in horror as one of the goblins grunted and screamed as he pulled with all his might on the two poles that she had set into the floor. She hadn’t thought about what purpose they served, but now she was getting more information than she ever wanted.

“What’s that goblin doing? Is he hurt, that’s a lot of blood?” Florence asked, concerned as a vertical line of green blood appeared, dripping directly down the center of the goblin.

“Well, it looks like you’re about to get a lesson on goblin procreation. When the little scamps have eaten enough, they split off into two creatures,” Doug explained as the goblin pulled and screamed. Over the next minute, the goblin slowly pulled itself apart, flesh growing from the bloody line until there were two separate goblins. A final heave, two gooey and disgusting goblins lay panting on the floor. The new goblins looked strange, the fresh half of each body was even more scrawny than normal.

“That’s not right,” Florence said with disgust.

“It’s the way of this world and the reason that the greenskin tribes are such a threat. If even one survives, an entire army of them can be rebuilt so long as they have access to food supplies. With our core energy powering them, our newest goblins will look normal in no time, well, as normal as goblins look anyhow,” Doug said.

“I think I may have to expand the goblin room soon, if they keep doing that we’re going to be overrun with the creeps,” Florence said.

“They will multiply much slower with only the core energy to support them. If they start to get out of hand, begin funneling adventurers into the place to thin the herd. We just need to make sure there are lots of hidey holes for the little cowards to run to when they start to lose the fight. As long as we get a single survivor, they’ll rebuild their numbers eventually,” Doug advised.

“That sounds like a plan. Once we’re done with the rest of the house, I’ll expand their area a bit and add some hiding places for them. Now back to the hallway, another cat there do you think?” Florence asked.

“Yes, having three in total will present a respectable challenge, given the limited room for adventurers to maneuver in. Keep in mind that as we level, our defenders will improve. We might start seeing them develop their own abilities and fighting styles,” Doug said. Florence created another kitty; this one was all black except for some white markings on his face that made him look like he was wearing a skeleton mask.

“My turn to name, I believe,” Doug said. She’d let him have this one, it was kind of odd looking, but was still a cutie pie. “Hmm, I think you are Mortimer Skullshaper,” Doug said.

“Quit giving my kitties weirdo names. We don’t need foe renders and skull monster whose it what’s,” Florence ordered. Doug didn’t reply and just stood there looking smug, at least as smug as a tiny kitten could look, which is surprisingly more than you might think.

“Now, last but not least, our little Zeus needs some friends. He did really good in his first fight, but he could use a couple of bodyguards,” Florence announced as she created another pair of cats. The glowing balls of cash resolved into two identical kitties. Both were beautiful white Persians with long luxurious fur.

“These two beauties are going to be Fluffy, and Fluffy Junior,” Florence said.

“I have no comment,” Doug said, shaking his head. The three new cats all ran off to their new assigned rooms, pausing to play with the other cats along the way.

“Now I also think we should see about some traps in the library,” Florence said, her dungeon desire to become deadlier overcoming her desire to observe the new cats get settled into their home.

“I agree, crossbow traps are the deadliest I can currently create. The flame trap is useful but would be a bad idea in the library. Pit traps are overdone and there is no way I want to put that odiferous sand box in a library. I could do a magic missile wand trap, but they’re not as effective as a crossbow bolt and are slow to recharge, but they never miss even if their damage is marginal,” Doug said.

“Magic wands would go well with Zeus, I think,” Florence added. Doug didn’t put up that much of a fuss, she figured he agreed with her decision even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“I think we have things set to the appropriate challenge level for now and unless you want to populate the kitchen with defenders, we should focus any further efforts on expansion. Are there any other rooms you wish to add to our home?” Doug asked.

“I did have a sewing room once, but it got taken over by my babies and I kept the litter boxes in there,” Florence said.

“Well, might I suggest a sewing room along with perhaps some play items for our defenders. There’s no need for them to be forced to stay in their own rooms unless adventurers are approaching. Let them socialize if they choose to,” Doug offered. It was a good idea, but where to place it? Why not make it optional?

“Hey Doug, if I make it a side room, is there some way defenders inside can still be useful if the adventurers just bypass it?” Florence asked.

“Sure, we can assign them as wandering defenders that activate after a party passes the door. They’ll stay inside to defend the room and after they’re bypassed, they’ll eventually start randomly wandering around our home, looking for intruders. You can vary the time it takes before they begin wandering, typically you want to give the adventurers enough time to get further into our home. It can make for some exciting fights when our wandering defenders show up behind the party as they’re focused on another group of cats,” Doug told her. It was a good plan.

Florence created a door, midway down the hall, that would lead to the sewing room. Inside the large square room, she had a worktable with various half-finished quilts and a knitting station for making lovely doilies. Several bolts of fabric were placed around, allowing for lots of hiding places. Balls of yarn were liberally sprinkled about the room.

She created two new defenders for the room but held off on any traps. The pair of cats were similar, both having long fur with tabby markings. She was surprised to see they both had stubby tails that were only a few inches long. She never had one, but she had heard about the American Bobtail cats, which these resembled. As far as names, she decided to go with Bob and Stubbs. She was going to let Doug name one, but she could see that he was a bit distracted.

“My, this is really delightful. I don’t believe that I’ve ever enjoyed myself more,” Doug said as he batted around a ball of yellow yarn. The little kitten pounced and played as hard as he could. The other cats started to wander in, playing and getting to know each other.

“No! Stop! Unhand that your ruffian! Florence, can you not do anything about this scoundrel?” Doug demanded. Spud had walked in and promptly stole the ball of yarn from Doug and was now walking out of the room with his prize.

“I can’t stop him, let him have the stupid ball of yarn, there’s plenty more,” Florence said.

“It’s the principle of the thing, quite a bother, hmm,” Doug grumbled before selecting a purple ball of yarn to continue his amusements with.

Having added the new defenders, Florence wound up using most of her defender expense limit. Before she reopened the dungeon, she spent time expanding the home for unwanted goblins, adding a few side rooms and the various hiding spots that they needed to survive an encounter with strong defenders. She would retain the remaining defender expense limit to bolster any rooms that seemed like they needed a bit more kitty or trap support.

The sewing room proved a hit, but the cats eventually started drifting around her home once they’d had their fill of play, most heading back to their assigned rooms. With everything done and her babies entertained, Florence reopened her home to the adventurers. That other party of adventurers were waiting outside, and their leader Korbo didn’t look none too happy with the wait.

They made it past the lawn without any trouble. While Obi and Shadow were getting good at sneaking up on folks, it was really hard when the party already knew they were around. The living room made for a more exciting fight, with the addition of Buddy, the group had their hands full until Korbo unleashed some more of that magic ice stuff. They easily disarmed the fireplace trap and the party continued through the hallway, taking some good hits from the three cats inside and burning up a lot of their healing magic.

The group choose to try out the new door to the sewing room, much to Florence’s delight. Bob and Stubbs gave it a go, but were overwhelmed fairly easily, Florence figured they would do better when they wandered around after some adventurers passed them by, ambushing from the rear while their foes were engaged with other kitties.

While there hadn’t been any casualties this time, Florence felt the party was using up much more of their magic mana stuff than they had on their earlier run. Once they ran out of juice, they would be far more vulnerable to her kitty attacks. Not wanting to send them through the goblin gauntlet just yet, she went on ahead and gave old Zeus a shot at them. Backed up by Fluffy and Fluffy Junior, Zeus blasted them with lightning, using all his mana before they broke through his fluffily named bodyguards.

“The challenge has definitely gone up from our last run,” Korbo said. Florence thought he looked a bit peaked, using all that magic must have worn the annoying man down.

“Yeah, I’m about dry on mana, I don’t think we should face the dungeon champion today,” Lilly offered.

“Agreed, let’s head back, at least the loot has improved a bit from last time,” Jara their rogue said. Florence looked at the rewards that had been given out, her payout percentage had remained the same, but the rewards were a bit more than before, a few extra coins here and there and a more gear dropping than before.

“Doug, why is the loot improving, I’m not having to pay more for it am I?” She asked.

“No, it’s a natural part of our home’s evolution. Each time you level, our defenders get more powerful. Going from level one to two gave our cats more health and allow them to strike a bit harder. For the magic variants, they will have a slight bump in their mana pool. As I mentioned before, they will also start to develop new abilities based on their combat preferences. While the cost to respawn our defenders remains the same, the loot tends to tick up as the levels increase. When we hit a significant tier, our first will be level five, our costs may increase for both defenders and traps. On the plus side, attaining a significant tier typically results in a much larger than normal power boost for not only the core, but also the defenders,” Doug answered.

“Well, that’s fine with me, let’s just settle in and wait for more victims, I mean, adventurers,” Florence said.