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Little Lost Dungeon

Reader mode
[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Conceal your entrance. (Requires success on: Absorb ambient [Decoration].)
[X] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.

Lets give ourselves some set up time.
If someone tried spelunking us now they'd leave awfully disappointed, so lets hide until we're ready for our GRAND INAUGURAL DUNGEON CRAWL!
 
I don't like being hurt, and I really don't like the sound of "Undungeoned" (which I rather suspect might prevent healing, among other things). The first step is to have a somewhere to put things, and I guess we may as well try fixing our little boo-boo as well - I'd love to be wrong about that, and if I'm right we'll probably learn something about ourselves. (The predictable result of this attitude is that in one or two turns we'll have an urgent need to learn how to respire mana, but that's for future-core to worry about.)

[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[x] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
 
[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[x] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
 
[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[x] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
 
Merior said:
You were in the basement of a startling large building which was a 'high school' of the subtype known as 'Catholic'. There was some sort of shrine within it, but as there was no [Holy Power] present you could only guess that it hadn't been properly dedicated yet.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Catholic high school means there are catholic high school girls! And nuns!

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Scry for information on the building. (2 Mana)
[X] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana)
 
Vote Tally : Little Lost Dungeon | Questionable Questing
##### NetTally 1.7.10.1

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Conceal your entrance. (Requires success on: Absorb ambient [Decoration].)
[X] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
No. of Votes: 4
Anaja
macdjord
NoFunposter
shanagan

[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[x] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
No. of Votes: 3
DIT_grue
mc2rpg
Seventeen

[X] Plan Bii
[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
No. of Votes: 2
Plan: ◈Bii
Biigoh
Happerry

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
No. of Votes: 1
Robotninja

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Conceal your entrance. (Requires success on: Absorb ambient [Decoration].)
No. of Votes: 1
Gaemnomut

[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs.
[X] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
No. of Votes: 1
Latewave

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Scry for information on the building. (2 Mana)
[X] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana)
No. of Votes: 1
Alexander

Total No. of Voters: 13
Random events currently disabled.

[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
Rolled 19 vs [30+1 LVL +20 Routine] = Success (3)​

[X] Conceal your entrance. (Requires success on: Absorb ambient [Decoration].)
Rolled 37 vs [30+1 LVL +20 Routine] = Success (1)​

[X] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.
Rolled 08 vs [30+1 LVL +0 Challenging] = Success (2)​
 
Newborn 1.3
[X] Absorb ambient [Decoration] so your rooms will fit the building.
[X] Conceal your entrance. (Requires success on: Absorb ambient [Decoration].)
[X] Figure out active [HEALTH] recovery.

oOo​

In theory a Dungeon Core such as yourself shouldn't go around casually absorbing things.

Of course there was stuff which you could absorb, things that delvers had dropped or bits which used to be a delver before running into trouble, but the general rule was that taking stuff which was with someone or which was outside of your dungeon was sort of cheating.

Nobody had told you this, it hadn't been in even the small section of the tutorial that you'd bothered to read, but you just... knew it. It was the way of the world: birds flew, fish swam, Cores knew how to dungeon properly.

There were, you had started to realise, a few grey areas were it didn't feel wrong though. You were sure that it was fine to take a few things, a few samples, which wouldn't be missed from around your entrance. Just so that you could make it fit in properly, right?

With that firmly in mind you had metaphorically stretched out, groping around until your metaphorical hand found what you wanted, then drew it into yourself to be absorbed.

And it was tasty.

Thousands of details streamed through your mind as matter was reduced to concepts. You didn't even try to understand all of them, simply letting the complex patterns stream into your [Inventory] while savouring the myriad tastes of things like 'concrete', 'paint', 'wiring', and even 'electric bulbs'.

Tasty was good!

Despite your appreciation of the complex tastes you were forced to meddle with the forming pattern of [Decoration] at one point. Those copper strands, and the glass things which provided light, require some sort of power which made them work which wasn't mana. It took several clumsy attempts, and you were thankful that nobody could sense your efforts, but you finally managed to force your mana to mimic the right sort of flow.

Happy that your genius had overcome this obstacle (and making a note to work out why they weren't just conjuring light with mana) you didn't hesitate before applying the [ Institutional Utility Area ] pattern to your entrance.

The ill-defined portal between concrete reality and Instance Space which was your entrance drank in the pattern eagerly. Belatedly you realised that prying the pattern away to replace the [Decoration] style with something different was going to cost you mana, but surely that wouldn't be a problem?

Pushing that thought aside you nudged the [Decoration] as it settled in properly, making sure that it did match the surrounding area rather than being a 'generic door'. A few artistic scuff marks felt like a good thing and, in your opinion at least, made it more distinctive, ominous, and benefiting the greatness of your entrance.

Woo! Woo! Woo! You were going to be a really scary dungeon!

Pulling your attention back from the changes you had made you came as close to a heart attack as a Dungeon Core was capable of. Where there'd been dozen, scores, or even hundreds of young people in the building above there was nobody at all any more.

Pushing your senses upwards through the building you searched frantically for someone, anybody, but to no avail. Nobody was in the building, nobody was on the grounds you could hazilly sense, nobody was there.

Where had they gone?

You hadn't meant to scare them away!

You promised to make your entrance look happier, less frightening, if they'd just come back...

It took quite a while for you to quell your panic enough to realise that you had a way to get an answer to this vitally important question. Pulsing mana into [ Least Scrying ] the answer that you got back was confusing at first.

After all how were you meant to know what "Normal school hours are 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, Monday to Friday" meant?

Happily it turned out that, regardless of what it was actually used for, a 'high school' had some educational texts in it and ones which you could understand at that. A lot of peering through them finally found something relevant.

While it was disheartened to learn that nobody would be around for more than half the day, you guessed that it was a trade-off for the sheer numbers of people who would otherwise be present.

(You were dubious about those 'school vacation' things. Maybe if you sent out a mob to change the numbers on the calendars then people wouldn't realise and they'd stay?)

You 'stared' at a clock, wishing the young people would return, but after a while (one hour, seventeen minutes, thirty seven seconds by the clock in the kitchen-like place) you realised that wasn't doing you any good.

Seeking a distraction from the passing of time you began to cautiously poke the damage you had suffered. The loss of [ HEALTH ] wasn't anywhere near critical yet, but you did notice a few more points had already ticked away. The strain of having an open entrance and no rooms made the crack slowly propagate across your surface.

You paused for a moment, mourning your (temporarily) ruined flawless looks, then decided to forge onwards in experimenting on how to fix the damage. Carefully you applied soothing strands of mana to the injury, testing which ways seemed to have any noticable results at all, in a case of simple trial and error.

In the end something clicked, the damage was fractionally lessened, and a blue box popped up explaining the new skill that you had gotten. Happily you glanced at the inf-

IT'D TAKE HOW MUCH MANA FOR ONE POINT OF HEALTH?!

By the time you noticed the young people were finally returning into the building you'd thought up a lot of insults for dumb, stupid, ugly, flobbering, ugly, blue boxes which wanted to take all your precious mana.

oOo​

What will you work on? (Pick three.)
Multiples of same action are allowed. Rolls will be involved for success.)

[ ] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[ ] Eavesdrop on some of the classes. (Counts as three actions because boring...)
[ ] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
[ ] Examine one of your traits or skills in detail. (Must write-in which.)
[ ] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[ ] Lure delvers. (Requires a successful action with a * first.)
[ ] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.) *
[ ] Practice one of your traits or skills. (Must write-in which. May cost mana depending on skill.)
[ ] Scry for information on the building. (2 Mana)
[ ] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana)
[ ] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (2 Mana)
 
[ Core Restoration ]

Often more complex and powerful things require more mana to repair with magic. As a Dungeon Core is potentially one of the most complex and powerful beings in existance it is understandable that healing one is mana intensive and uncertain for an inexperienced caster.

10 MANA may restore 1 or more HEALTH.
 
Character Sheet [1.3]
Jewel-Cubic-Zirconia-Shiny-Luxury-Gem-Diamond-123338.png
STATUS
<UNNAMED DUNGEON CORE>
LVL 1 (2 EXP)
HEALTH 85 (100)
MANA 20 (30)
[ Newborn ], [ Undungeoned ]
TRAITS
[ Blissful Ignorance ]
[ Dimensional Affinity ]
[ Race : Dungeon Core ]
[ Wandering Door ]
SKILLS
[ Core Restoration ]
Least Scrying (LVL 1; 2 XP)
INVENTORY
[ Institutional Utility Area ]


EDIT: Corrected XP for Least Scrying.
 
Last edited:
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
 
[X] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.

Did we get any XP for [ Least Scrying ] on why the people are gone?
 
[X] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
 
[X] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
 
"Oh, I knew I should have been growing my dungeon! I'll have to get started on that right away..."
Dungeons have rooms, and monsters (and treasure, but surely that can be slipped in next).

[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[x] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana)
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[X] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (2 Mana)
​
 
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
 
Vote Tally : Little Lost Dungeon | Page 2 | Questionable Questing
##### NetTally 1.7.10.1

[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
No. of Votes: 7
Seventeen
Biigoh
Gaemnomut
Happerry
shade argost
shanagan
Tavarokk

[X] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.) *
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
No. of Votes: 3
prandom
Alexander
NoFunposter

[x] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
[x] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana)
No. of Votes: 1
DIT_grue

[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[X] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (2 Mana)
No. of Votes: 1
Latewave

Total No. of Voters: 12
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.) *
Rolled 26 vs [30+1 LVL +20 Routine] = Success (2)​
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
Rolled 49 vs [30+1 LVL +0 Challenging] = Failure (1)​
 
Newborn 1.4
[X] Absorb the basement room your door obstructs. (Count as two actions.)
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.

oOo​

As it turned out there was a different sort of technique to absorbing a room. Not that you had trouble or anything, it just took a few... several... a couple of attempts until you got it right.

"The room is behind my entrance." You told yourself silently.

"My dungeon is behind my entrance." You reminded yourself firmly before moving onto the tricky bit.

"So the room is in my dungeon!" You declared triumphantly in your thoughts.

(...you were pretty sure there was a hole in that logic, but as it worked you weren't going to think too hard about the issue. Not until after you'd gotten yourself the room anyway.)

With that chain of 'logic' firmly in mind you finally managed to wrap the area in question in your influence, letting the non-existence of Instance Space seep into it and slowly dissolve it from manifested reality into mere a pattern and concepts.

It tasted all tingly and was really, really filling!

Mana flooded into you as the room's individuality dissolved and you watched gleefully as one of the numbers in you blue status box steadily upwards. The rumbly empty feeling you'd been starting to get as you'd been spending mana went away completely.

It was definitely yummy, but as the wave of dissolution hit the contents of the room you found yourself struggling. Not that you weren't a clever and skilled Core, but there was a lot of stuff in there and some of it was pretty complex. Hurriedly you tried to stuff as many of the patterns as possible into your [ Inventory ].

Some got lost though and that definitely wasn't your fault.

Despite what you had expected motes of mana kept trying to push into your already full tummy [ MANA ] reserves. That hadn't really hurt, not like the crack on your surface, but it definitely wasn't comfortable so you tried something fancy and started pushing it back into the room even as it tried to fade away.

At first you were just wasting the mana, even if it made it feel better for you, but eventually something clicked. Rather than fading something marvellous began to happen. A progress counter appeared, a thing that you'd never seen before but simply knew what it was, and as the minutes ticked by you could feel that some sort of process was going on.

The moment that it finished you knew what had happened and you gleefully spun in the air, levitating over concrete on which you lay, because the room had become a [ Room ].

Your very first [ Room ] even and you'd gotten a point of EXP for it!

It wasn't just some strange place in a basement any more, but part of your dungeon. You had a [ Basement Storage Room ]. The [ Decoration ] pattern which you'd applied to your entrance had spread here too and, feeling like you might burst with pride (not really!), it looked so cool.

The room was a large empty space, lit by those cute lightning fuelled 'electric bulb' dangling from above on wires, with a way high ceiling that was all dark and spooky when looked at from below. The floor wasn't boring stone, not like you'd thought that you would have, but more of that 'concrete' stuff from the pattern and the walls weren't almost the same.

Except they had 'paint' on them! You could put colours there. Maybe even a mural to show delvers about the cool deaths that might await them if they weren't powerful enough to beat enough of your dungeon. Not all of it though because you were going to be a powerful dungeon so even if you could defeat them all, letting all of them die would mean that they couldn't come back again.

After you'd absorbed the room you'd meant to work on figuring out you could recover [ MANA ] without eating stuff. You were sure there was a trick to it, one that you were certain you'd be embarrassed about missing when you figured it out, but you got a little... distracted.

But that didn't matter because you had your FIRST! ROOM!

You did eventually calm down, proving that you were a composed and strong willed Core, and actually too a look at your room. It did occur to you that sitting there, on a bare floor as the only thing in the otherwise empty room, might not be a good idea. With that firmly in mind you forgot completely about getting [ MANA ] back and, instead, spent a little of it.

Just a few points and you made your room much much much cooler.

A [ Basement Storage Room ] was big compared to what you felt a 'normal' starting room would be like so you decided to take advantage of that. Pushing mana into your stored patterns until they spat out tangible examples of what they represented you began to place [ Row of Lockers ] and [ Wooden School Desks ] in a particular way.

(It was weird. You knew you were spending mana, but also you weren't? And your [ MANA ] was still full...)

You laid out a twisting path with them but added the occasional [ Teacher's Desk ] set on its side to reinforce things, the top of that seeming particularly sturdy, and speckled them with [ School Bookshelves ]. You thought that the gaps between the shelves shouldn't let anyone wriggle through, but would give them glimpses of what they couldn't yet reach.

You were making a maze! Wasn't that clever of you?

There was a little twist of placing things which made them harder to move (and less likely to topple over on their own as you obviously didn't find out the hard way) so it took quite a while to get things right. In fact it took long enough that the young people above coming and going at least once while you weren't paying attention to them.

You had just finished when you felt the mass of them returning, it being "8:30 am" apparently, and you felt briefly tempted to open up your entrance so that the first of them could come your way. However when you were on the verge of doing just that, it occured to you what you hadn't done.

You didn't have any monsters!

You didn't have any loot!

What sort of horrible mean Core would you be if you let delvers into a boring dungeon without any of those?

You resolved to fix at least one of these problems, to rectilinear the issue, as soon as you possibly could.

oOo​

What will you work on? (Pick three.)
Multiples of same action are allowed. Rolls will be involved for success.)
At least one of the actions marked with a * must be taken.

[ ] Do further work on your room.
[ ] Eavesdrop on some of the classes. (Counts as three actions because boring...)
[ ] Eavesdrop on the young people in the building.
[ ] Examine one of your traits or skills in detail. (Must write-in which.)
[ ] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[ ] Invent a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (10 Mana) *
[ ] Invent a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (10 Mana) *
[ ] Lure in the young person who is crying close to your entrance.
[ ] Make a default generic room. (Efforts this turn combine for a single room.)
[ ] Practice one of your traits or skills. (Must write-in which. May cost mana.)
[ ] Scry for information on the building. (2 Mana)
[ ] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Monster Pattern]. (2 Mana) *
[ ] Scry for a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (2 Mana) *
 
Character Sheet [1.4]
Jewel-Cubic-Zirconia-Shiny-Luxury-Gem-Diamond-123338.png
STATUS
<UNNAMED DUNGEON CORE>
LVL 1 (3 EXP)
HEALTH 80 (100)
MANA 30 (30)
[ Newborn ], [ Undungeoned ]
TRAITS
[ Blissful Ignorance ]
[ Dimensional Affinity ]
[ Race : Dungeon Core ]
[ Wandering Door ]
SKILLS
[ Core Restoration ]
Least Scrying (LVL 1; 2 XP)
INVENTORY
[ Institutional Utility Area ]
[ Row of Lockers ]
[ School Bookshelves]
[ Teacher's Desk ]
[ Wooden School Desks ]
FLOOR ONE
[ Inactive ]
Furniture Maze - [ Institutional Utility Area ]
 
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Invent a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (10 Mana) *
[X] Lure in the young person who is crying close to your entrance.
 
[x] Do further work on your room.
[x] Invent a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (10 Mana) *
[x] Lure in the young person who is crying close to your entrance.
 
[X] Figure out passive [MANA] respiration.
[X] Invent a [Poor] quality [Treasure Pattern]. (10 Mana) *
[X] Lure in the young person who is crying close to your entrance.
 
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