They all offered basic ideas for what to do going forward, everything obvious and expected rather than anything novel. This conversation wasn’t meant to create some genius plan to survive Aseth, it simply gave his party members a chance to talk and express their anxiety and fear.
Despite Jackal’s difficulties, they all were now much more open to each other. The talk about the forest eventually withered once everything that needed to be said was said. They went on to talk about their lives before this mission and what they did, though Jackal didn’t pay much attention. Nothing about his life was interesting, he doubted that was different for the others.
There were only a few reasons why anybody would become an adventurer: if they had nowhere else to go. There are few careers as thankless, hated, and dangerous as adventurers. Most people either die or become beggars after some disabling injury, only people with luck, skill, and talent can make a life out of this shit.
Jackal himself would have preferred to become anything, but there weren’t many places hiring an inexperienced sellsword after the war. He had dreams as a child of becoming a great warrior or knight, but now he was something less than a mercenary. If he didn’t have a thing for tracking, hunting, and swords, he would have given up or died long ago.
He gave a few stories about his many ‘adventures’ to help foster a sense of comradery before the soup was done. Out of all the soups he had in the past, this one was decent. He was able to actually swallow the soul without forcing himself. The others were able to eat it too with only modest grimacing.
It was a troubling thought that he was the best cook in this party.
Once dinner was finished, they all set up their tents. Normally this would be the time to care for the horses, but the Aseth forest forced them to travel on foot. Tiredly, they made their sleeping tarps and they all fell asleep with Jackal taking the first watch.
He stared up at the stars as he enjoyed his time alone.
The ant vomited the crystal bloom seed covered in a blue liquid into a hole in a tunnel. He has spent far too long getting this up and running. There were several ants now, each one’s growth boosted by the blessing spell from the deer.
There was only one crystal bloom at the moment, though several new seeds had been planted. All of this was thanks to his deer, though the poor thing had struggled through it all. Using his newly discovered power to speed up time, he was able to focus on getting the ecosystem up and running without getting too bored.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Now that the ball was rolling, it would take too much time for there to be plenty of the crystal blooms. As soon as he got more soul points, he would be able to start improving the crystal ants and fleshing out the rest of the ecosystem.
He had programmed basic nest-making behavior into the species and they were already creating a small den to keep their queen in. It wasn’t much and any good party of adventurers would be able to tear it apart, but it was a start.
Planning ahead, there were a few concerns. While crystal blooms were plentiful, they still took time to grow—much more time than it took to harvest them. The crystal ants were the only monsters to live on this layer, which could be a problem. Finally, the crystal ants’ ability to dig and build might cut off the dungeon core from the surface.
For the problem of the crystal ants alone on this layer, it was an issue of overpopulation and underpopulation. Normally, ecosystems need predators to keep herbivore populations in check. There was also the issue of this being the first layer. It wouldn’t be hard for an army to invade and slaughter everything on the first layer.
To prevent mass extinction, he just needed to create secret zones just like from video games. These areas will be much harder and deadlier, deadly enough to contend with the fourth or fifth layers. These areas aren’t meant to be found or explored and any adventure that found their way in needed to be killed or scared off.
The crystal ants’ actual nest served as a logical location for this. A place not made for humans or any other sentient species stuffed full of ants that will do anything to put the daring adventurer into the grave. Since the nest was made for the ants, it would be hard for any other species to navigate and traverse. This would also be where the really strong ants were.
If worse came to worse, then a new ant queen could be born. If that didn’t work, there could be multiple ant colonies in constant competition with each other. However, if that was the case, then he needed to have rank above queen, like empress, to enthrall and control all the ants.
With the problem of keeping the dungeon core connected to the surface, there weren’t many easy strategies. A strategy would be to just have a massive hole that served as an unclosable opening. Jacob wasn’t sure about how well that would work with the second layer.
He needed to ensure there was a path from the surface to the second layer, preferably several, by having the right systems. This path needed to be relatively safe to lull adventurers into a false feeling of security and to put distance between them and the safety of the Overworld.
He either needed to incentivize keeping these paths open, disincentivize closing them, or create a system that keeps them open. He probably needed a mixture of several of these.
He could create another species whose main purpose was to keep the path to the dungeon core open. While the ants were good, he needed other creatures to keep the layer functioning. Corpses and bio-waste needed to be cleaned for example.
This wasn’t something that he needed to figure out right now. The first layer was always going to be a weakness and it would take time for him to make it resilient. He had time until the Overworld gods started their attack again.
For right now, he needed to prepare for when the next adventurers come so that he could get a steady income of soul points.
