Respawn crystals. I need them.
At least for the monsters with full souls. Which the Ent Lich has.
Obviously, I need to figure out a proper shape. My core is cuboid, so when I was making the Undead Ents, I first tried to make their cores cuboid too. I found, however, that I can’t make cuboid cores. I vaguely remember Marcy telling me that “Dungeon Cores won’t work for monsters, stupid,” so I made them base spherical, and that worked, once the bacterial brain was in place to transfer thought from the mana imitation-soul and the body (side note, the Ent Lich, being intelligent enough to have a soul, went from a spherical core to an ovaloid one). So I need to find out what shape a (provisionary name) control crystal would be. I tried just another monster core, but they seem designed for imitating souls, not housing multiple. I have very few ideas, so I’ll just make random shapes until something clicks.
Three hours later, as the sun hits noon on the second day (designing monsters takes time, okay? Good thing I don’t need to sleep), I finally land on a shape. At first, I was shaping the enhanced amethyst randomly, but that seemed rather stupid, so I settled on the shapes of a standard dice set. I already have a d1, a sphere, a d2 (just a disk/coin) appears to be a logic gate base, defaulting to an on/off switch, but I'll have to experiment more with it later. A d3, a triangular prism, I couldn’t figure out. I decided at this point to skip over any other “x-angular prisms” because the other crystals seem to have ports shaped like them. A d4, a pyramid, I couldn't figure out either with what little effort I gave, but I think it has potential. The d6 is a cube, we already know. A d7 is a prism. A d8 seems to be some form of unorganized mana storage. D9 and d11 are both prisms, but d10 is seemingly a randomizer and d12 is a constrained randomizer, based on how they sent any mana I put in the top or bottom to a random side point. Finally, a d20. This, finally, is a soul storage, though it can only store one soul and its body lattice at a time. I connect the Lich Ent to the respawn core, and when I kill it, the core sends out a basic square-net lattice to capture the soul. However, I can’t get it out again. I suppose I need some logic.
Stolen novel; please report.
I start with the d4. When I run mana through the side, it points a string of mana, so it’s probably a detector. I bind it to the inert core of a new Lich Ent, and voila, I get a mental prompt to input instructions. I tell it that when it detects a lich core to be destroyed, it should send a signal to an on/off that tells the respawn crystal to spawn a new one. I connect the detector and the on/off with a d3 cord, and the on/off and the respawn with a d5 chord, and voila! Respawned Lich Ent, which means that
[sir, need a name. Here is a list of Lich and Ent names, or you can make one up on your own.]
{Yes, Father.}
[Don’t call me that. Call me creator, if you must.]
{Yes, Creator.}
Next up, designing the first floor. I want it to be eerily forested, but ultimately simple, so I’ll seed it with tree seeds that I found on the surface, feed them mana and direct them to grow fast and spindly instead of large and cored. I create a simple layout of five small rooms, with dirt floors, fog, and the aforementioned trees. I also send an Ent down that night to dig up some tall grass off of the river. The five rooms are completely linear, just rooms and hallways with Alder the Stricken ([nice name Alder, really strikes fear]) in the last one and my core room sealed behind a door that is also connected to the logic for Alder’s death. There aren’t any traps, but this is the first floor, so I don’t really need them. I’ll just substitute with the entrances and exits to the rooms be not straight across from each other. I also install a few stagnant pools and small streams just looping around the dungeon. I’ll have each room have one encounter, the first with just Shamblings but the rest with the full suite of monsters, except for the fourth, which will be larger even than the boss room and have two potential encounters. All told, the first room is about 1000 feet across, the second and third are 1500, the fourth is 3000, the hallways are 1000 feet long, and the boss room is 2000. All of the rooms are circular.
Finally, I’m ready for the first dive.
