{Sixteenth floor dimensionally anchored

  World Energy cap +9,700 [Constitution(97) * 100]

  Sixteenth floor spending limit set to 91,560 [Previous floor’s limit(81,480) + Intelligence(84) * 120]

  Monster level cap updated

  Quintessence debt paid back by 5}

  The message had been there for a while and Doyle just stared at it. He had honestly just went straight into making a new floor almost on instinct. Except he was, well, not tapped out? But his pool of floor ideas wasn’t feeling right. Maybe if he had actually gone with a theme, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

  For now, all he could do was note down that starting on floor 21, there would be a theme for the next five, if not ten floors. That still left figuring out 16, 17, 18, 19, and what would definitely be a boss floor at 20.

  It was at this point that Ally spoke up, ‘Need someone to bounce ideas off of?’

  Doyle sighed, ‘I’m already having trouble figuring out floor sixteen and there are dungeons out there with thousands of floors? Am I actually cut out for this?’

  Ally, ‘Hey now, most dungeons are quite boring in the early floors and even the later ones. You have a lot of variety and that’s causing you stress, but you don’t have to let it. Most dungeons will have their first ten floors be almost copies, with the only difference being monster placement, power, and numbers.

  ‘And those ancient, because they are truly old, dungeons with thousands of floors? You better believe that they have stretches of hundreds of floors with little change. After a certain point, you can’t not. Well, I guess you could? But that’s a waste of time.’

  Doyle, ‘But at that point, won’t the parties be on each floor for a long time? Wouldn’t you need more to each floor?’

  Ally shakes her head, ‘Nah, even with floors of truly prodigious size, delvers tend to still spend the most time on either farming floors or the last few floors they are stuck on. Even without checkpoints like you provide.’

  Doyle, ‘How is that possible?’

  Ally shrugs, ‘You’re underestimating how fast high-level delvers can travel through a floor. Plus, after a certain point dungeons end up not using the entire floor space for the dungeon proper.

  ‘Flisle is a good example of this. He has all those continent size chunks of rocks? The actual entrance and exit for a floor like that tends to be on the same chunk or neighboring ones at least, with the rest there mostly to reinforce their dungeon’s dimensional stability.

  ‘A properly geared team can cross that in a day if they don’t have to worry about the monsters. Remember, the actual level of monsters on a floor grows slowly. Your current growth rate is only a couple extra levels after all. Besides, after a certain point, levels are more of a limit on path growth than a direct means to power. To someone out in the town, a hundred points of Strength might be twice their current score. To someone who is even just level 100, that might not even be a percent of their Strength score.’

  Doyle tilts to the side, ‘I can see stats getting a little extreme. Is there anything to stop that?’

  Ally shrugs, ‘If you’re asking if there is something to stop stats from becoming best displayed with scientific notation? No. However, the System does offer that as an option as well as stat truncations, where it divides everything by some multiple of ten and just displays that.

  ‘The key thing with late stage dungeons stops being the minimum level, but rather the maximum. So while there might be entire herds of beasts that if released on the outside world would devastate solar systems, the actual threat will be a much smaller number of leveled monsters. And not even because of the levels, but the skill levels that come with it.’

  Doyle, ‘And those skill levels, won’t I end up with kobolds better at crafting traps than basically anyone on the planet?’

  Ally scoffs, ‘Only if you don’t have proper delvers. And don’t think that this is a cheap way to level your patterns later on. Skill levels don’t automatically translate into skill use, especially with crafting. While the Barrais aren’t wrong that the monsters have become more refined with their higher level patterns, what it also did was refine their ability to use their skills.

  ‘People tend to forget the depths that it will go, but stats change the body to fit what you do. A goat with a high level charge skill will have more developed leg muscles than one without, even if they otherwise grew up exactly the same.

  ‘Now, let’s put that aside for the moment. We have a blank slate here and if we don’t put something down, it will stay that way. Make a giant mountain and we’ll go from there.’

  Doyle doesn’t argue and plops down a mountain. ‘Now what? I’m not exactly inspired by this, except being made to think of things like Mount Olympus and other examples of famous mountains. Can’t really do that, though.’

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  Ally shrugs, ‘But you did make something. Though a mental connection to something like Olympus wouldn’t be all that desirable. So, chop off the peaks and make it a dormant volcano. Then add a beach and ocean below.’

  Doyle nods, ‘That is easy enough to do. Though instead of chopping the top off, I’ll shove it over and see how it breaks.’

  Ally laughs, ‘Still thinking of those deities? Fair enough, being a dungeon can definitely seem godly. Except you’re better in the long run. Never forget that becoming a god is one of the dead ends to growth. While they can still grow, it won’t be because of being a deity, but rather, in spite of.’

  Doyle tilts to the side and then gives the mountain a good shove near the top. In doing so, a large section going down the side shatters off, leaving it looking like something had exploded out at an angle.

  Doyle then clears out much of the debris before stopping. ‘Hmm, this does give me an idea. Delvers can start on the edge of this “island” and make their way up that break. I can’t do lava, but obsidian will set the scene alright, especially if the eruption was meant to be long in the past. Plus, this would be an excellent area to use my ashen cattle.’

  Ally nods, ‘And the sea cows can go in the ocean. You could easily make it a cow island. Though that might be a little restrictive. Instead, since you just did that mental thing, maybe try and develop some variant monsters? This would be a good place to try for some other aquatic variants without throwing an actual water floor at the delvers.’

  Doyle, ‘You’re right. Better start now when I don’t need them. Hmm, but this island is a little small for the entire floor.’

  Ally frowns, ‘You’re right about that. And if you extended it further, the island wouldn’t look quite as “volcanic island” as it is meant to. The beach you added is more of a shelf, with most of the original mountain now underwater.

  ‘Hmm, what about a chain of islands? Not that you would have to swim between, though. Either with extended sand bars or maybe just throw up actual bridges.’

  Doyles, ‘That or I could add back in some rubble from the mountain and have it act as a bridge. At least for one connection point. Now the question is how many islands?’

  Ally pulls up a view of the island from overhead. ‘I would say, maybe four more? Though this is more of a question of how big do you want said islands to be? You could just make an enormous section of land and have it as if it was the original land mass only for the volcano to rise up next to it.’

  Doyle shakes his core, ‘No, I want it to be more like a small chain of islands. I think four more islands will be perfect. The entrance can be on the smallest, hardly mode than a rounded sandbar, and each subsequent one getting bigger with mode features.’

  Ally, ‘And on some you can have forests for the birds to nest in.’

  Doyle sighs, ‘Trees would be so useful.’

  Ally nods, ‘We’ll get them, eventually. But yeah, make the forest areas dangerous so the delvers have to choose between going through or around. Not that technically around would be easier going by the monsters. The difference would be able to see them coming for the most part.’

  Doyle, ‘And it would provide a chance for my test monsters to join in the fight and not just wallow in the water till the end of time.’

  Ally, ‘Though that might result in amphibious monsters instead.’

  Doyle, ‘Which I would be fine with. In the short term, that would probably even be more useful. The sea cows are useless unless a delver enters the water. At the very least, I would want any future water monster to have a ranged attack like the arowana fish.’

  Ally shrugs, ‘Ranged attacks for targeting something outside of the water is actually pretty rare for fully aquatic monsters. They normally end up with stuff that works only when underwater, if only because the mechanics for attack above and below the water are so different. Even magic has a hard time conquering that divide unless very specialized. Just the diffraction caused by water messes things up.

  ‘There is a reason that adventurers, after a certain point begin to gather environmental sets of equipment. Even if they don’t have to worry about how they’ll breathe, being underwater causes a ton of problems for even simple things like armor. Depending, they might even have different sets for whether the water is salty or not.’

  Doyle, ‘That could get expensive.’

  Ally nods, ‘Which is why this only happens after a certain point. Though even more debilitating than the cost is the need to carry it all. The dividing line tends not to be based on money, but rather access to some form of enhanced storage option. And not just for the aquatic gear, but their regular stuff as well.

  ‘You can’t exactly just leave the stuff on the shore when in the middle of a dungeon run. And even if they could leave their normal gear somewhere outside? Where would they be able to trust enough to hold it? If there isn’t an Adventurers Guild nearby or some other trusted organization, well, a party’s gear can easily be worth more than an entire inn. There are innumerable stories of desperate innkeepers “cashing out” as it were.’

  Doyle laughs, ‘I’m guessing that rarely ends well for them!’

  Ally smiles, ‘When someone’s gear is worth that much, they can generally get revenge unless the innkeeper basically spent all that money to get a trip on a fast spaceship going somewhere far away.’

  Ally then frowns, ‘Of course, most of the time that sort of thing happens because the innkeeper was in a corner. Stuff like being in debt to a gang. Innkeepers, especially those who aren’t retired adventurers, tend to realize their place if they cater to people like that. When even those in the party with roles not dependent on strength could potentially lift the inn itself over their head, it puts things in perspective.’

  Doyle nods, ‘Yep, that would do it.’

  Ally, ‘Anyway, I think we managed to plan out this floor pretty well. It might be light on details at the moment, but you could honestly just fill it with cows and birds if you can’t think of anything else.’

  Doyle, ‘And goats. Can’t not add some goats in when there is such a perfect mountain for them to play on. The biggest question is whether I include kobolds. I’m leaning towards no, but it isn’t a hard no.’

  Ally takes another look at the roughed out floor. ‘Hmm, You don’t have many predators, ironically. Normally dungeons have the opposite problem. I say, either have kobolds or wolves.’

  Doyle pauses, ‘Wait! Even if I don’t have many, I will have a small group of kobolds. I’ve already got the void kobolds, so getting some aquatic kobolds wouldn’t be out of place. Though wolves are at the top of the list for now.’

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