Dungeon Day 187 to 260

  One thing Dan had been thinking about for a while now was what he would do about his original bosses. He had grown somewhat attached to them and felt bad about leaving them on the dungeon floor for eternity, along with the rest of his creations. Not that they even questioned it since they were all pre-programmed for that exact thing. It was more his humanity getting attached to them as pets of sorts. They had been his first creations, and he had been wondering if he should do something for them.

  Dan was going to need more monsters to lead the charge against the rest of the areas he planned to conquer, and he questioned why he shouldn’t just make his first 14 bosses into these conquerors. Additionally, he was worried about losing himself to his Eldritch Memories and wondered if he could somehow attach pieces of himself to these bosses so they could act as the anchors for his mind. There was still some time to go before he made any final decisions on the matter, even if he was leaning towards it. The only reason he didn’t entirely go with the idea was that things could always change, and he wanted to toy with the idea some more.

  After putting aside those thoughts, Dan looked over to the next area he was going to remake. It had been a toss-up between the kobolds and the green skin area, but he had ended up deciding to go with the green skin area first. The main reason behind this was that the kobold area would need some extra careful touches due to the fact that he did not fully control the gnolls. This added an issue of the quests between the gnolls and kobolds becoming an oddball of annoyance until he got the gnolls in working order. And more than likely, that would be left to the very end of his dungeon-making spree.

  So, with that in mind, Dan began his dungeonfication of the green skin camp.

  The first thing he did was divide the camp. His idea for the area was to copy the original story he had dealt with himself and make some tweaks. The first change was that each race would be its own thing and have its own camp. So, the goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs would all be properly divided into their localized area within their territory or dungeon area. A dungeon area, Dan planned to call the Green Skin Territory.

  As far as where each species would be placed well, they would be put in a way that they made a triangle. The hobgoblins and their camp were shifted to a hilly area up in the northeastern part of their zone. Meanwhile, the goblins would be placed opposite them, almost in the southernmost western part of the zone. Finally, the orcs were in the northernmost western part of the zone, completing the triangle.

  Dan had placed them like he had because he was planning to use the classic trifecta of three factions at war, neither wanting to commit to an attack. Otherwise, one faction might hold back and let the other two fight it out before sweeping in and winning the conflict. Again, it was somewhat similar to the original conflict all three green-skin factions had, where each commander wanted to be in charge but did not want to make any real moves.

  Of course, this time around would be different for a few reasons.

  One, there would be fighting. All three factions were technically at war but had yet to commit, so, instead, their respective forces were skirmishing in small groups. The skirmishes would take place where each faction's territorial borders touched, which was all over the place. Okay, not all over the place, but a decent distance from their main camp. An issue Dan planned to solve easily by creating paths for each of the patrols to patrol. Naturally, the paths would cross, and conflict would ensue.

  The second thing that would be different in this conflict compared to the original one was rather obvious: there would be adventurers. When entering the Green Skin Territory adventurers would once again be given a prompt. The prompt would vaguely inform them of the conflict and give them a quest to speak with each green-skin leader. From there, adventurers would have a system mark, something Dan was becoming a big fan of, and that would let goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs know not to attack the random strangers. Instead, they would offer to take them to their respective leaders.

  This mark would only wear off when two things happened. One, the adventurer attacked one of the three races in the territory. And even then, only those whom they attacked would begin targeting them. The second thing that would cause the mark to wear off was the adventurer officially joining a faction. At this point, they would get a different mark, marking them as friendly to that faction. Either way, both times, the marks would work the same way, which was by updating the adventurer's profile, which would then react with the respective creature’s inner workings. Essentially, it would either flip a switch saying, “Hey, this guy is bad, attack,” or “Hey, this guy is good, don’t attack.” Obviously, it would be more nuanced than that, depending on a bunch of factors.

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  Anyways, with the adventurers on board, they would begin receiving a variety of quests. Like usual, there were the find the enemy and kill them quests, in this case, it would be enemy patrols. However, there would also be quests specifically made to infiltrate enemy camps and steal stuff, like patrol routes, which could be used to carry out specific assassinations against enemy sub-commanders. Commanders who would stop respawning after being killed, thus possibly altering the difficulty of the final fight.

  Now, why would adventurers want to do these quests? Well, for one, to move the story along. Because, as Dan had established, at the end of the story, there would be sweet loot. However, even before that, Dan planned to have the green skins drop basic enchanted items, even if the drop chance would be low. It was the same thing with beasts and monsters. They would drop stuff sometimes but not always, mainly because Dan didn’t want to flood the market outside of his dungeon.

  Moving the story along, the next phase of the area would trigger when adventurers completed a certain number of quests. In this case, it was yet another similar event as to what Dan had seen the green skins go through. Once this phase was triggered, three stars would fall from the sky. Each “star” falling within the lands of one of the factions, and naturally, the adventurers would go and retrieve the star for their respective faction.

  For the most part, Dan hoped adventurers would leave the stars or crystal shards alone, but if they didn’t and tried to steal them, they would find no use for them. The shards were story items like the corrupting crystal, and they would stop working once they left the dungeon. Dan knew it would take some time for adventurers to accept that, and many would try to take them, and he had created failed safes for that so the event wouldn’t be thrown off balance.

  Back to the event, when the adventurers took the shards to their respective leaders. Said leaders would be stumped. They would communicate how they could feel the power within the shards but couldn’t access it. Luckily, Dan had something just for that.

  Each leader would tell their adventurers about a wizard in a nearby town. This wizard was named Merlin, and each commander would have adventurers speak with Merlin to gather information about the shards.

  Upon speaking with Merlin, adventurers would learn of a dungeon in the Green Skin Territory that might hold information about the shards. This would update their quest and have them enter the dungeon. Of course, it made no sense. Wouldn’t adventurers fight each other for the right to enter the dungeon? Yes, yes, they would, unless they could all enter the dungeon.

  See, Dan had yet to implement a unique feature given to him by Mother Infinity. There had been times when he wanted to implement it but felt it was not yet needed. Plus, he could always add it later on. Now, what was this feature? Well, it was dimensional splitting, or as gamers on Earth knew it, instances.

  That’s right. Dan could, within reason, create areas where each adventurer who entered experienced their own reality. This would let them interact with everything in that area, including creatures as if they were the only ones there, which they would be. The ability was insane, and Dan had been incredibly excited when he had first found it.

  Then, he had been with limitations. First of all, he couldn’t do his full dungeon floor like he had wanted to so adventurers could have their own unique experiences, like an RPG game. Instead, he was limited to much smaller areas, because otherwise, the cost went through the roof.

  And he couldn’t even complain. The ability effectively created a copy of the same space, shifting it to a different spatial frequency, while replicating everything inside. Meaning, all entities inside the dungeon were duplicated because they existed within his dungeon. Thus, if he had a boss and minions totaling like 5000 mana, when he split the area, it would cost 5000 mana plus some of the total cost of maintaining the new space. Therefore, he would leave this dungeon creation duplication as one of the last things he did.

  With that being said, Dan would make a mini-dungeon where adventurers would battle-themed creatures before encountering the final boss. Upon defeat, the boss would reward the adventurers with an item of their choice, within reason.

  Adding to their reward, the adventurers would all gain the knowledge their faction leaders sought, with an additional warning to keep all three shards apart.

  Having gained this knowledge, the adventurers would certainly head back and inform their faction leaders. Naturally, this would move along the story as the respective commanders began to absorb the power of their shards.

  What power did the shards have?

  Well, Dan wanted some variety, so none of them would follow the aspect of telekinetic, telepathic, or mind magic like the original Eldritch Shards had access to. Instead, he went for a different trope. Each shard was modeled after and gave powers related to the sun, moon, or stars. To add even more variety to the mix, each reset would cause the shards to fall in different directions. So, one time, the orc commander might get the sun shard, and another, he might get the moon. Then, depending on which shard the commanders got, they would gain access to different magical enhancements and abilities. Not only that, but the final reward adventurers also got revolved around which camp they joined and which shard the respective camp got. However, Dan was getting ahead of himself. He first had to finish going through the story setting to ensure it all sounded right and made a decent amount of sense.

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