Harvest Dungeon - 53 Chapter 53

I blinked in surprise, that wasn’t the answer I was expecting. Perhaps this was why the chairwoman had sent us this gift? If we were smart enough we would be able to figure out who was really behind our troubles. Unfortunately, I had no idea who they were.

Looking around I noticed that Vanessa and Candice had paled, seemed like they did. Which lent some credibility to the fox’s claim.

“Get to work!” Candice told me seriously, “We will talk with them for a little longer.”

I nodded, I wasn’t sure what the threat was, or even if the foxes were telling the truth, but Candice seemed convinced which was enough for me. I knew Candice would explain when she had a chance. Besides I had wanted to get to work anyways.

“Fine, but when you want to let them out you will have to let me know.” I told her then returned to the chair and the dungeon configuration screen.

Returning to the screen I started to move all of the crops tiles from the first level to the second. Then I shifted the badgers to the same floor of the second level as the crops. With the increased size of the level I figured there was no reason to keep the same design. Instead I intended to try and maximize the use of the level.

As for the first floor I reset it to the standard settings. Thankfully, it refunded me some energy but I left it in the configuration system as I was sure it would disappear soon enough. Going with the idea I had from studying the orb I started to redesign the first floor. First I opened up an area at the top of the sixty feet I had available to me. It was eight feet tall and encompassed the entire one hundred tiles that made up the floor. Then I added another floor just like it three feet under the first eating up nineteen feet of the space available to me. The configuration didn’t want to do it as the material wouldn’t be able to support its own weight towards the center so I solidified it into a solid block of rock a foot tall at the bottom of the three feet. I also turned the entire center tile into a rock pillars on both floors. As it was the same material as the walls, the ceiling of the lower floor fused to the walls with no issue. It cost a bit but I was fine with that.

I started the next area four feet under the second open space after making the bottom two feet of that four feet the same rock as the wall. This was to support the floor above but also to hide the fact that I was using the space above the floor the invaders would enter.

I set the portal in the center most tile at the southern end of the floor. I created an eight feet tall room that encompassed the whole tile, then ran tunnels out of the east and west of the room. The tunnels were five feet wide then after a few feet it split into two four feet wide tunnels, the tunnels separated for several feet before rejoining into one only to separate again several feet later, then coming together again right before it hit the centermost tiles on the eastern and western walls. I created the same open room on those tiles to match the tile the portal was in. the tunnels continued out of those rooms in the same way until it reached the centermost north tile. I created another room like the one the portal was in, then added a false portal that looked like the exit portal. Those who were fooled and used it would be returned to the surface instead of entering the second level.

With that done I created the false wall on the innermost wall of the southern room which could only be forced open or opened with the use of a key. From there was a tunnel to the center most tile of the floor where I installed a stairway up to the two growing floors above. There was also another false wall in the stairway that led down a half a flight of steps to the actual exit portal leading to the next floor.

Finished I took a look at the floor then realized I had a bunch of empty space I hadn’t used. The top floor was eight feet tall, then a three feet tall separation, the second growing floor was also eight feet tall then a four feet tall separation, followed by another eight feet tall floor where the invaders would be. That was only thirty one feet not including the stairs down to the exit portal. I thought about creating a warren and filling it with badgers that could pop out of the floors and walls, but I resisted. It wouldn’t work with the design I had in mind. Instead I left it as is. I considered adding another growing floor below it but decided not to. If this design didn’t work I wanted to have the room to rework it if I needed too.

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With the overall design in place I used a precision tool that was a part of the dungeon configuration to carving runes along the ceiling of the western tunnel leaving the southern room. It took me a while to carve out the design I had seen in the orb which included the runes that powered the spell from the ambient mana flowing through the dungeons. I couldn’t use the exact same spell that the orb used, but I could alter it to make the invaders incredibly confused and disrupt their sense of direction. Once I was done with the spell I found a feature that let me copy it then spam pasted it all over the tunnels so the invaders would be constantly under the effect of the confusion.

Sitting back I looked over my work then frowned. I was sure this would work well with the beasts we were likely to see, but it probably wouldn’t work for long against intelligent beasts or races. Plus I needed to kill off some of them in case they did make it to the next floor. I decided to add the typical pitfalls full of sharpened rock spikes, and arrow traps. Then added runes to both. The pitfalls would only work if someone got separated from their group, while the arrow slots would work on crowds and rearmed themselves after a couple seconds. Then with an evil smile I added another rune set just inside of the arrow shooter so that if the invaders attacked the wall where the arrows came out of and pierced through to the trap, it would cause an explosion.

I didn’t honestly think anyone would do that, but the fact that the arrows wouldn’t seem to stop someone could lose their patience and try to destroy the trap. At least that was the idea. I wished I could actually make arrow traps that didn’t run out of arrows, but the best I could do was give each trap enough extras to reload twenty times. If the groups were patient the traps would eventually run out of arrows. Maybe if I upgraded the traps I could get something similar to everlasting arrow traps, but that was something for later.

Satisfied that the first level was done I hit the button to confirm the changes and let the dungeon change the level. Oddly enough the most expensive part was having multiple floors on the same level, but it was a flat cost of a silver per floor so the first level wasn’t as expensive as I expected it to be. Then again that might be because a silver didn’t feel like much now that we had several platinums. I wasn’t expecting to change the first level again, not until we increased the surface size.

Now that I was actually done with the first level I decided I could use a break. Carving out the runes had taken a while, let alone getting the tunnels right so it would be easy to get confused.

Closing out the dungeon configuration I found the girls gathered around the dining table with the fox visitors. There wasn’t enough room, so Selia and Rena were on the table while some of the foxes shared a chair.

“Still here?” I asked as I stood up and stretched.

“See, rude.” the male fox said.

“Me? You snuck into my home, hide yourself until I threatened to set your hiding place on fire, then never introduced yourself.” I stated coolly.

“We established that already.” Candice spoke up.

“The design is nice, but it will be obvious to anyone who can sense the flow of mana.” Zephirah told me while she seemed at gaze at the table intensely.

I frowned having forgotten that. The hidden wall wouldn’t stop the mana flow that was necessary for us. I considered it for a moment then ignored the rest of them and returned to the dungeon configuration.

I changed the material of the hidden wall to stop the flow of the ambient mana through it. A warning appeared telling me I didn’t have mana flow through the level. I ignored it as I was working on a solution. I returned to the tunnels and created smaller tunnels at each of the intersections that were only a foot wide but led to the center most room. I placed the false wall material that allowed the mana to flow through it at the head of each tunnel hiding it from sight. Then I set a trap in the small tunnels to drop a second wall down to block the tunnel when someone got within twenty feet of it. The second wall was made of the material that blocked the flow of ambient mana.

I thought it was a clever alternative, but remembered that there might be a swarm coming. In the case of a swarm there was a good chance that all of the tunnels would be shut. So I added another set of even smaller tunnels, these were only six inches wide in size at the bottom of the pitfall traps. This set of tunnels that led up to the larger foot wide tunnels. I added the same trap walls that would block the tunnels, but these would open if three quarters of the larger tunnels closed. I also added the runes to reset everything on its own.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was something. I closed the dungeon configuration and looked back over to where the girls were. I spotted Lilian sitting on Candice’s shoulder. Seeing her made me remember that there could be something or someone who could use those tunnels so I returned to the dungeon configuration and added thin razor sharp mesh into the small tunnels. As I approved it I realized that the mesh was the most expensive material I had used on the whole floor, at least until I start altering the growing floors for whichever crops we decided to use.

Finally satisfied with the level I closed the dungeon configuration and looked over at Zephirah.

She saw my gaze then stared at the table for a few moments while everyone seemed to chat amongst themselves.

“Better.” she said approvingly.

I nodded relieved. I knew the floor wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could come up with at the moment. Further study of the orb might give me more ideas, but I wanted to use this to get rid of those who weren’t really committed to invading my dungeon.

Besides it was only the first floor. After a break, and maybe a snack, or a meal, I would put together the second floor. I still had the ideas for traps from the first time I designed the icy floor that I wanted to use this time around.

“All done?” Candice asked.

“With the first level.” I told her as I stretched again then popped my neck.

“That isn’t healthy.” Vanessa told me.

I shrugged, “Least of my concerns right now.” I replied.

“Going to start on the second level?” Zephirah asked.

I nodded, “Yeah but I need a snack first.” I replied then looked at the five foxes. “So what is going on with the stowaways?”

“We are still discussing that.” Candice replied.

“They are considering staying?” I asked surprised.

“We are trying to convince them to stay.” Vanessa corrected me.

“We would prefer to leave.” the male fox spoke up.

“Going to have to wait. We have guests incoming.” Zephirah spoke up.