Conversation and Construction

Taylor didn't get too fancy with the rooms she added.

The main goal was making sure Rachel and her dogs had somewhere to sleep.

Plus she didn't exactly have much furniture available for construction.

Which was potentially for the best, in any case. Mana spent on these rooms wouldn't be spent on keeping them safe.

It was a poor way to repay Rachel for everything, but she didn't have any other choice and Rachel was hardly unaccustomed to hardship.

After all, Rachel had, immediately after her Trigger, gone on the run without anything. A merely unfurnished room had to be an improvement over that.

It still didn't feel right to Taylor.

Still, she didn't have anything she could do, so she moved on.

It would be another day before the new floor was available, which left the current two to work on.

Both parties to enter the Dungeon had done pretty well until they found her, so the first floor could probably do with some work, so…

"Hey, Rachel, do you have any idea how I could improve the first floor?"

The other girl shrugged. "It seemed pretty straightforward so far. Straight up fights and a few easily located and disarmed traps."

The party was probably quite rogue-focused, which negated most of her advantages. Then again…

"There seemed to be a problem with the maze?"

"Markus didn't want to split us up or take too long to reach you. If he wasn't so impatient we would have worked through the room like tye others, just with fewer spiders at a time."

Which was the problem with the room if the party had enough rogues. Seems she was just unlucky about the parties so far.

"There was the puzzle room next, that could have stopped them," Taylor mused aloud. She probably didn't need to change up the floor unless she was unlucky…

"Seems cheap. A delaying tactic rather than a straight fight."

Taylor sighed. "I don't really want to harm anyone. Unless they're arseholes. In that way the puzzle room is perfect. There is less risk, but it could potentially frustrate a party until they have to retreat. A win-win."

"Until they bring reinforcements."

"I expect more parties to show anyway. The guild knows where I am now. Don't they?"

Rachel shrugged. "Not from us."

"How did you find me?"

"They had something from the last group. Dogs tracked them."

"And they didn't report my location. And I doubt there's anyone to track you, so I'm safe for now."

It seemed too easy.

"The quest was to locate the Dungeon, but I guess we needed to report."

Taylor just sighed and shook her head.

"How were they even Adventurers? Or the first group?"

Oh well. This wasn't helping her expand the second floor.

Not she really needed to expand it right now, just fill it with monsters.

To that end she placed a couple of toxin crabs and an ice crab in the first room of the hidden corridor, more a deterrent than anything likely to be too dangerous.

This was enough to bring the Dungeon manner to the current 160 point cap.

It was also, as it turned out, enough to unlock evolutions and the boss.

She immediately checked the shell crab evolutions.

The options of 'gem crab' and 'steel crab' didn't give away too much about what the changes meant, she set the shell crab in the room with other crabs to evolve into a gem crab while placing a new shell crab in the next room to evolve into a steel crab.

The gem crab evolution caused the crab to increase in size, growing gemstones into its shell, which apparently upped its physical and magical defences with a chance to deflect magic entirely, according to its stats.

The steel crab, on the other hand, looked as though it was immersed in a layer of molten metal, even as it grew by nearly half its former size.

This time it received next to no improvement in defending against magic while becoming must stronger offensively.

Taylor hesitated. Which was better for her boss..?

The choice, she decided was obvious.

She selected the evolution and set the crab as boss, watching as it grew and changed.

[Boss Created]

The system informed her.

The system provided the boss's new, unique name and set to transforming the room itself.

Much like for the [Black Widow: the Spider of Death] from the first floor the room grew in size, despite not needing more space from the Dungeon, with images of stylized crabs starting to cover the walls.

Beyond that, a pool of water, seawater Taylor was almost certain, formed against the wall soon to bear the door to her private rooms.

Well, her rooms for now, but soon enough leading to the rest of the Dungeon.

[Basic Boss Room Completed]

Add upgrades?

Y|N

Taylor accepted immediately.

The previous boss room had been greatly enhanced by the upgrades, and she had the DP for them, thanks to not spending them on getting more monsters.

Room of the Red Claw Upgrades:

-Add doors to the exit - 10 DP

-Add rock formations to floor - 20 DP

Taylor hesitated before selecting both.

The second upgrade for her first boss room hadn't seemed too useful at first, but had soon proved itself in the fight against Damiens party.

A set of simple stone doors formed at both entrance and exit, looking too fragile to withstand a determined Adventurer. A number of stalagmites also grew from the ground, reinforcing the 'cave' part of the 'seaside cave' theme.

With the upgrades present, much like with the first boss room four new upgrades appeared.

-Improve door resilience - 20 DP

-Add Boss design to doors - 2 DP

-Add condition for entrance - 20 DP

-Add condition for exit - 20 DP

Taylor selected each, unlike the first floor where she skipped the design on the doors.

Before the changes could take place the system provided an announcement.

Achievement gained! [Be a Boss with Style]! You earn 10 DP!

The doors grew thicker and more impressive, the image of a giant crab with one particularly enlarged claw in bas relief.

A shudder ran through the boss, drawing her attention closer. It was almost as though...

"The design makes the boss stronger," Taylor realised.

"What design?"

The question from Rachel reminded Taylor where she was, and she shook herself.

If the enchanter had recovered while she was so focused elsewhere and Rachel hadn't noticed she would have been in danger.

Probably.

"Boss rooms for Dungeon floors can have designs on them, of the boss," Taylor explained. "It seems the presence of the design makes the boss stronger."

"Your Dungeon has a boss? Isn't it new? I'm sure Markus said something about attacking before we had to deal with one."

"Two actually," Taylor answered, trying to avoid it sounding like a boast. "I just didn't take that option for the first floor. The boss is all about taking enemies by surprise, so the design would be an inconvenient warning."

"And you're not trying to kill anyone?"

Taylor sighed. "Ideally? No, I wouldn't kill anyone. But if it comes down to me or them? Hopefully even if they get past the boss they'll think twice about going any further."

"You expect people to do the sensible thing?"

"No. But I can hope."

Taylor returned her attention to the second floor, trying to split her attention like had been so easy with her powers.

There wasn't any option to declare the floor the 'Crab Floor' yet, but that didn't mean there was nothing else for her to do.

For one thing setting the requirements to enter and exit the boss room.

The entrance requirement she set to defeating the other monsters on the floor, like with the Black Widow, and the exit requirement to defeating the boss likewise.

That seemed to be everything for the boss room…

Ah! The boss could be upgraded as well.

She nearly forgot about that with Black Widow as well, she remembered. It was only when the party was on its way back she checked and selected the upgrade that gave the spider the reinforcements that did all the direct damage to the group.

She checked the upgrades for Red Claw.

There were three to select, like the first boss, the third scaling against increasing numbers of enemies.

That reminded her.

The Black Widow boss had a similar intelligence boost upgrade she had dismissed due to not needing to worry about larger numbers of Adventurers.

Well, she had already seen a group of seven in the Dungeon, so this was a good time to select the upgrade.

Even if the next group the spider faced was only seven it would still give her a way to gauge how much impact the upgrade had.

She nodded and finished the boss upgrades for both floors.

Hopefully she wouldn't need to test the scaling upgrades (or the new boss at all), but hope didn't keep her safe.

Now, what did she need for the 'crab floor'?

She couldn't help but slap herself in the face when she remembered the notification.

It required three unique evolutions on top of the boss.

So far she had two, the gem and steel crabs, which left one more.

She checked the options for the other crabs.

The ice crab had the options of 'blizzard crab' or 'sleet crab' while the toxin crabs had 'venom crabs' or 'bomb crabs'.

The toxin evolutions seemed quite obvious, one would allow them to use their toxins without being killed while the other would make their deaths more impactful.

The magic crab upgrades, however, were not so obvious.

She decided to try both out, upgrading the hidden ice crab to the blizzard variant and the other to sleet.

The blizzard evolution saw the formerly smooth shell of the crab grow increasingly jagged, even as the area immediately around it grew noticeably colder, the beginnings of mist forming in the air.

The sleet evolution, on the other hand, saw the crab becoming sleeker, taking on an appearance much like ice itself.

Before Taylor could examine the change beyond the externally obvious the notification she had been waiting for appeared.

[Conditions Cleared!]

1) You have at least five crab-type monsters on the floor.

2) You have at least three unique crab-type evolutions on the floor.

3) You have a crab-type monster for the floors boss.

4) You have at least one crab-themed decoration on thr floor.

You may now designate this floor the [Crab Floor] for free!

If you choose to do so you will receive a 3 Mana/DP discount on all further crab-type monsters purchased and be able to respawn all crab-type monsters for free. You will further unlock certain crab-themed decorations, a pair of statues of the floors boss for your lair and a special room.

Do you wish to designate your second floor the [Crab Floor]?

Seeing as this was what she had been intending from the moment she unlocked the floor, Taylor didn't hesitate before accepting.

The second she did she felt the atmosphere of the floor change.

While declaring the first floor of the Dungeon the spider floor had covered the walls in webbing and cleared up the damp, designating the second the crab floor saw the levels of damp increase, pools of water beginning to form in rooms and corridors.

A quick check of the spinning blade trap saw that the water was remaining mostly clear of it, rather than risking it rust, which was a great relief.

The floor also saw a build up of what appeared to be pebbles at first, until they moved and revealed themselves as non-monstrous crabs.

Effects of Crab Floor:

1) Crab-type monsters cost 3 Mana/DP less to create; respawning crab-type monsters on this floor is free.

2) Numerous crab 'critters' spawn on this floor automatically.

3) Special Room [Crab Castle] unlocked! Room is free to place and construct but contributes to Dungeon Mana capacity and production as normal.

4) Floor water levels increased to comfortable levels.

This room sounded unusual.

Before checking on the new evolutions Taylor brought up the information for the crab castle room.

Crab Castle Room: a shifting edifice that will periodically produce Small Crab monsters between Adventurers entering and either leaving or destroying the core. These Crabs will have access to shortcuts to the Adventurers.

That sounded… interesting.

The problem was where to place it…

In the rnd Taylor added a corridor to the triangular room at end of the 'obvious route', from the corner pointing away from the hidden areas and placed the castle room at the end.

Whereas the other rooms were mostly empty space, the Crab Castle almost immediately started to fill the space it cleared with sand, swiftly forming a massive sand castle.

Not that it looked that big to navigate, Taylor decided. The main issue would likely be avoiding getting turned around, especially with the crab attacks.

The floor declaration dealt with, she turned her attention back to the newly evolved crabs.

The blizzard crab, it seemed, replaced much of its magic casting ability with the power to lower the temperature around it, creating its personal cloud of mist, and a level of stealth and ambush capability.

The sleet crab, on the other hand, sacrificed durability for increased mana capacity, allowing it to use more powerful magic and cast for longer.

As apparently ice crabs were likely to only manage obe or two spells in a normal fight, with their limited mana capacity.

So, best not to use many basic ice crabs.

She was about to check the special rooms upgrades when Rachel drew her attention again.

"Floors back to normal."

Taylor immediately abandoned her focus on the Dungeon.

She was no longer at risk of mana poisoning, she could deal with the rest of her mana later.

"Right, drag them both into the Dungeon. Then I can move the boy to the prison."

This got a glare from Rachel.

"I can't leave the Dungeon, even just to enter the entrance hall," Taylor defended. "And it's not as though the prison is just some hole in the ground."

"Why not let him go? And why do you need her?"

"If nobody knows where I am yet it's only sensible to keep things that way as long as possible," Taylor justified. "And the Dungeon is able to absorb dead bodies to allow it to grow faster."

"So we just destroy their bodies?"

"Do you have any way to get their bodies back to their families or whoever without risking our lives? We don't exactly have a lot of options here. Look, help me out with this and I'll show you the room I set up for you, and the kennel."

She hadn't thought about what the Dungeon absorbing the bodies meant when dealing with the first party.

It was only with Rachel questioning her that she realised why it could be a problem.

"Is the Dungeon doing something to my mind," she wondered out loud, the question quiet.

Rachel still heard.

"If it is, I'm going to help," she declared, getting to work on Taylors instructions.

They hadn't got along at first (to put it mildly), but right now Taylor felt that there was no one she'd rather have by her side.

AN: Second update in one day, as I had nearly finished the Butcher chapter and wasn't too busy at work!

You will note that I carefully avoided any spoilers about the boss (after writing out the full transformation and upgrades even). This is because I decided that the full impact of each boss should only come from the Adventurer perspective, as they reach the room for the first time.

So all that is known for now is that it is called 'Red Claw' and has one massive claw...

Side note, for those wondering why 'steel crab' and not 'iron crab', with steel as a further evolution, it is simple. Iron rusts. Stainless steel doesn't.