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  [Dungeon]

  The notifications were a shock, had I really been missing out on so much mana, so much growth without adventurers?

  It seemed I had. Four levels, 2200 dungeon points and a new perk. I was overwhelmed, what on earth did I focus on next. I had points to spend and a perk to pick.

  The points could wait, I would need to really think about what to use them on, I couldn’t afford to waste them. As levels got harder and harder to progress, running out of points was going to be a real issue, wasting them could be my death.

  The perk was a much easier choice. Any materials or blueprints were not great, they were cheap to buy and absolutely not worth spending a perk on. The 8000 dungeon points was more than enough to buy the material and the blueprints so why anyone would choose that was a mystery to me. The mana boost was good, if levelling up was my main motivation, however, recently I had been choosing to level up to get points and not because I had a mana overflow or I needed more capacity or unlocks, so that too was seemingly out. The question then was is the extra points better than the discount. More money, or more discount.

  With 22,370 points to play with, those 8000 points were effectively the same as a 40% discount assuming I spent them all on one purchase. The other discounts were less than that and as such it was clear to me that the points would be by far my best bet, unless I wanted to heal myself again. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that without a perk, but for now I couldn’t justify wasting the opportunity for points on a non-essential heal.

  With a rush, I selected my perk and watched my points shoot up. All the way to 30,370 points. Truly far and away better than I had ever had before.

  Looking at the number I felt ideas flood through me, the idea of spending the points tantalising.

  Before I could get carried away however, I returned my attention to the ice. I had plenty of time to consider these points, but only so much time to finish my floors before people came back.

  Now that I had eliminated the gas problem from the ice, it was smoother and clear. But still there was not enough reflection.

  When testing it, I could still see through the effect at certain angles. This wouldn’t do, I needed more reflection. Enough that it was confusing to be trapped inside the ice walls. Enough that you couldn’t tell exactly where you needed to go, or where anything else was.

  So why could I see through it sometimes? I pondered.

  Playing around with the lighting I realised my mistake. When the light was directly on, the light didn’t bounce back so much and it was easier to see through the ice, in fact the greater the angle the better the reflection of the image I wanted, and the darker the other side of the ice was the better the reflection too.

  Considering all these aspects I was happy enough with the effect, it was time to start building.

  From the exit of the eighth level, a set of stairs descended as usual, before opening out into a set of caves. This time however, there was no large open cavern, but rather a termite mound style cave network. With jagged edges, stalagmites and stalactites, and very limited light.

  Corridors of roughly carved out stone, coated in ice, spiderwebbed out in various directions, opening up into rooms and then closing back down to corridors again.

  This system of tunnels spanned a good 500 by 500 metres of ground. Though not very maze like, it still had enough dead ends and tricky bits to be annoying.

  In each of the rooms, I placed slabs of this reflective ice around the edges against black walls that overhung the ice, blocking the light from the pale ghostly flames that danced in the higher reaches from getting behind the ice.

  I hoped that images of the mobs and the adventurers would appear and change the perceived space of the room as they all moved about. It was supposed to be confusing and with a decent reflection in the low light I hoped it would work. I implemented many hidey holes at ground level and high up for the Synth cats to occupy and that was it. Chests and small valuable plants were added to the rooms and corridors to finish it off.

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  To test whether the concept worked or not, I released both predators and prey into the caves to see what would happen. They slid around on the icy floors a little, their newfound legs, unstable and uncontrolled as they floundered around.

  Test one failed as I had forgotten to block off the access to the previous room and the animals had run upwards to try get somewhere warmer. Though it was still icy, the water level was warmer, and the nature levels natural warmth bled down through the layers. As it went deeper, the ice became colder and colder. I suspected that the adventurers would begin to seize up as the cold started biting into their bones and a cold weariness set in.

  Test two was more successful and the animals stayed in the level. Admittedly, it was just that I had corrected my oversight. But, improvement, no matter where it came from was still improvement. Unfortunately, that was the only way in which it was more successful. I had placed the animals so far apart that they never got near each other. I got bored fast.

  Test three could also be classed as a failure. I had chosen wolves as the predators and deer as the prey. Both animals gathered in a pack or herd respectively and so when they saw themselves in the mirrors, they just accepted it as there were more of them or so I guessed. The wolves were more cautious since they couldn’t smell these phantom wolves, but they weren’t intelligent enough to realise why.

  I figured I would have to use the synth cats after all, I hadn’t wanted to implement them until I was sure the effect worked but I had no choice.

  The synth cats that popped into existence were a dull white with a vaguely shiny tint to their exterior, metal spines and teeth that could crunch through all but the most stalwart of armours were the signs of its danger. The tail looked like it could whip around and spear through an adventurer. I loved them.

  Of the five I had been given I had several smaller ones and two large ones. I would need some more so I found them on the store and bought another five to go alongside these, costing me 1550 points.

  Placing them in, I thought this floor was barren, not like the ecosystems I had crafted before but just as beautiful.

  The only task left was to put in the secret room. A simple task. I worked in a small tunnel behind an outcropping at one of the dead ends which led into a small room with some treasure, done. It was one of the easiest ones but there wasn’t much to be done in such a simple format. A simple mirror ice wall made the concealment better and I hoped it would be enough to challenge the adventurers. With any luck it wouldn’t be too easy.

  Finishing off floor ten - the boss level for the ice realm -took me another day. Its cave was simple, with few stalactites and decorative features to get in the way. It took very little time at all. The boss drained most of my mana though. It was a large behemoth that I couldn’t wait for the adventurers to have to face it.

  I had originally planned my dungeon to have rest levels at floor five, 15, 30, 50, 75, 100 and so on. But I was now reconsidering whether or not to do so. Every five levels was also a good option for the safe haven and I would then be able to have very tricky floors if they only had to make it through five at a time.

  I decided to go for it and create another safe haven. I could always change later.

  The main reason that I wanted to do such a thing was because I wanted to throw adventurers from frigid icy conditions into blisteringly hot deserts. Making the safe haven allowed the temperatures of the floor to not affect one another so much. Floor ten must have been about -20°C whereas I was hoping for about 30 to 40°C for the desert floors.

  Before starting to build I looked over my ice levels to see if I had missed anything.

  I had. Floor nine had no ecosystem and having not viewed the cats as organic I had forgotten to add their food.

  Icesteel was a valuable metal and implanting some deposits in the walls was brilliant because it was food for the cats, a valuable resource and certainly would encourage mining efforts from adventurers who would have to be on the lookout for the cats when they respawned each time.

  It cost me a small bit of mana and another 400 points to get the materials in a respawning vein. But with that done I was truly finished. Time for the safe haven.

  I once more carved out a large cavern, filling it with water like a frozen lake, with snowy banks around the edges.

  Sat on this frozen lake, in the middle of a frosted cavern I built a delicate, imposing castle of ice. A gate of frosted spears sat between two sharp towers, rising up into the sky like skyscrapers.

  Within its walls was the central courtyard, designed like a old luxurious villa, with a central garden inside the house as well as a larger one surrounding it. The bricks and stone of the original building peeking through the ice every now and then, especially surrounding the large firepit that I placed in the centre. Covered corridors around the edge led off to many different rooms which provided the same amenities as I had put in the first room. I provided ice fishing equipment for a few points that they could unlock for some mana, and under the ice were some fish they could catch, again for a few points.

  It would do that was for sure.