Dungeon Day 121 to 143

  The druids won the toss-up, and Dan’s attention shifted to that area.

  As he had done in every area so far, the first thing Dan did was remove the humanoids from existence after remaking them. This time however, he didn’t bring all of them back in the same area.

  Dan didn’t feel like the bandits were right for what he was currently going for, and as a result of that, he did not want to give them their own area. He could have just kept them deleted from existence, but his humanity made him feel a bit bad for them. So, instead, he remade them over in the town area, where he made a nice little cozy cave hideout for them, where they could drink and eat while occasionally getting killed. Because, of course, Dan added a quest or two in town about eliminating bandits and once that was complete, he continued on with the druid lands.

  Now, the question was where he should start with the druid area, which, for the purposes of this next dungeon creation session, expanded all the way up to the old bandit ruins mainly because those two areas were going to be interconnected with the things Dan had planned.

  After looking around, Dan felt he needed to start by making the ex-bandit area more forestry. Since, as it currently was, it was more plains than anything, which wouldn’t do for what Dan was planning. After all the plains would offer easy targeting for both sides when the fighting started.

  It didn’t take long for Dan to make the area into a forest since trees didn’t cost that much mana. Still, it was a large area, so a couple of thousand mana were spent growing more trees all around.

  With the trees done, Dan felt it was time to get the party going.

  For this particular area of the dungeon, Dan was planning a classic cleansing vs corruption story. He would have one faction corrupting the land while another was trying to cleanse it.

  The faction doing the cleansing would be led by Dena and was going to be based in Druid Rock. Meanwhile, the corrupting faction was going to be led by Dena’s sister, Diana.

  Diana was the other D rank druid in the druid circle, and Dan felt that having both sisters become enemies was a rather interesting theatrical touch. Of course, how they became enemies or how the sister was corrupted would be for the adventurers to find out.

  Diana and her faction would be based in the bandit area, which would now be called The Tainted Lands. The faction was fairly straightforward, and its goal was to corrupt the druids and their lands. This was mainly because the druids were going to be the opposing force attempting to stop them.

  To that point, adventurers would be introduced to the two factions in two ways. The first one was getting a quest from Typic Town to eliminate a few corrupted beasts that had entered the town's land. This quest would eventually prompt them to enter The Tainted Lands or the Druid's Domain, which was the new name for Druid Rock. Upon entering either of the two areas, an adventurer would be prompted to speak with Diana or Dena. From there, they could choose to join one of the factions.

  If an adventurer chose to meet with Dena, they would travel to the Druid's Domain. They would have to go to the large tree, which would be the druid’s new home. Dan had decided to get rid of their small shack because he didn’t feel it was good enough for a future faction headquarters. It had taken him longer than he liked, but Dan had carved into the tree as seamlessly as possible as if the tree had been grown to fit its new shape. He doubted the carving would kill the tree since it was massive, and if anything did happen, he was sure he could fix it.

  The carving started at its base as he hollowed out a large dome. From there, he dug into it, making various rooms and ensuring there was room for each druid.

  Afterward, he began the decorating process by adding beds and other simple furnishings to each room. In the central dome, he added tables with herbs, bottles, and odd-looking items, along with random ritual drawings on the ground as he tried to make it all seem like it was the headquarters of the druids. Finally, Dan added hanging vines and fruits that glowed, along with various gardening spots and even an enchanted little stream of endless water. The dome needed to look amazing because it was in this dome that adventurers would come to speak with Dena.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  ?? Humanoid Statblock ??

  Rank: Mid D Rank.

  Name: Dena Liasis.

  Type: Humanoid - Beast Elf.

  Choice: Forest Matriarch.

  Size: Medium.

  Hierarchy: Boss.

  Arcane Mana: 2000/2000.

  Arcane Mana Regen: +8 Per Minute.

  Pure Arcane Mana: 1000/1000.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +4 Per Minute.

  Innate Abilities: 8.

  Dark Vision. Beast Shapeshifter. Nature Attuned. Language of Beasts. Forest Attendant. Presences. Long Lived. Mana Storage.

  Proficiencies: 6.

  Cleansing. Enchantment. Ritual. Soul. Basic Ritualist. Basic Enchanter.

  Spells: 18.

  Beam of Extinction. Heal. Mass Heal. Shield. Barrier. Control Elements. Clean. Summon Light Fruit. Root Control. Body Enhancement - General. Soul Sight. Cleanse Corruption. Enhancing Winds. Root Spike. Mass Cleanse. Binding Roots. Summon Nature Elemental. Summon Storm.

  Techniques: 1.

  One with the Forest.

  Respawn Timer: Conditional.

  Respawn Cost: 88 Mana.

  Creation Cost: 175 Mana.

  ??

  The new Dena radiated more power than ever before and actually felt like more of an imposing presence. She still had her blond hair and green eyes, but Dan had given her better leather clothing with her new upgrade since her old ones wouldn’t fit her new, slightly taller frame and much more filled-out areas. After all, she was the Forest Matriarch and needed to give off the correct energy, which was that of a hot, badass, powerful druid lady leading a faction against her corrupted sister.

  Looking at Dena’s new stats, there was the obvious Mana Storage for a raw increase in power. As for the proficiencies, well, some of those, along with some of the spells related to them, wouldn’t be used for a while, but Dan felt they were still needed. This mainly involved the Ritual and Soul proficiency, which allowed Dena to use those types of magic. Adding to these two was Basic Ritualist, which wouldn’t truly be used until and if Dena won the battle between the two factions.

  However, Enchantment and Basic Enchanter would be very useful in making it so Dan didn’t have to create as many magic items. The two proficiencies would let Dena create basic protection tokens to make sure the adventurers that sided with her wouldn’t be affected by the corruptive magic of the enemy faction. The tokens wouldn’t be all-powerful and would need recharging because otherwise Dan felt they would be too strong.

  Outside of the proficiencies, Dena had gained lots of spells with one or two following the same path of the Soul and Ritual proficiencies since they wouldn’t be used until way later on. A few more might not get used at all, though that would be because there wasn’t a point to them like Clean or Summon Light Fruit. Either way, Dan had left them on there to pad the druid's spell count.

  The final thing on Dena’s stat was her new technique. One with the Forest was a simple technique that Dan had given her to further boost her supporting role because that’s what Dena was, a supporting character in any of the events that were to come. Her job was to heal, cleanse, and support the adventurers, at least when it came time to confront her sister. As such, her technique would allow her to tap into the land around her, gaining a power boost to all her spells but also being made to stand still. Meaning she would be counting on the beasts and adventurers she was supporting to keep her relatively safe in a final confrontation.

  Moving on from Dena, Dan looked to the rest of her faction, which currently didn’t have much. And in a way it would stay that way since the conflict between the two sisters would mostly be left to adventurers and their two factions respective beasts.

  For Dena, this meant lots of wood beast elementals because that just made sense. After all, Dan was telling a story here.

  In Dan’s mind, the Druid’s Domain used to be a peaceful magical forest filled with lots of beasts and wood beast elementals. In this forest, there was a circle of druids that lived happily with the land. Then, one of the druids was corrupted and ended up deserting the circle. Her family, not wanting to kill one of their own, let the corrupted druid live.

  Then, DUN DUN DUN, surprise, the druid began corrupting the magical wood beasts and their lands.

  So, that’s where the story begins in Dan’s dungeon and his lore reasons as to why Dena has access to all these wood beasts since they are intelligent and want to stop the corruption from taking their home. Honestly, it's all very vanilla fantasy, but Dan didn’t care since it was another good way to teach new D rankers about the dangers of soul corruption and all that.

  Alright, maybe there was also a different reason for using wood beasts aside from the fact that they fit Dan’s story so well. The other reason was that Dan had a bunch of wood beast blueprints that would make monster production much cheaper for this whole endeavor.

  And once again, Dan needed a lot of monsters. It's not something he thought about a lot, but he currently only had 2700 total mana, which would limit him when the dungeon started. This limit came in the fact that he would only be able to respawn a certain number of monsters at a time, even if he had mana constantly coming in. So, to remedy this, Dan needed a large base of monsters already roaming about.

  Thinking about monster production, Dan decided to get started on that and began monster creation with one of the first wood beasts he ever got.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  ?? Monster Statblock ??

  Rank: Mid D Rank.

  Name: Howling Wood Wolf

  Type: Beast-Elemental (Wood).

  Size: Medium.

  Hierarchy: Minion.

  Mind: Intelligent.

  Arcane Mana: 250/250.

  Arcane Mana Regen: +8 Per Minute.

  Pure Arcane Mana: 125/125.

  Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +4 Per Minute.

  Abilities: 4.

  Sound Affinity. Body Enhancement - General. Fierce Bite. Booming Howl.

  Innate Abilities: 7.

  Keen Hearing. Keen Smell. Night Vision. Stealth. Befuddling Howl. Forest Friend. Mental Resistance.

  Respawn Timer: 2 Hours.

  Respawn Cost: 31 Mana.

  Creation Cost: 62 Mana.

  ??

  The wolf still had its deep green and dark brown fur mixture with glowing green eyes, which was a look that Dan liked very much. Taking a look at the stat sheet, Dan had given the new version of the wolf some new abilities, but the main power-up had been bringing it to Mid D Rank.

  Of course, the wolves wouldn’t all be Mid D Rank, and like in the lake, Dan would make both Low and Mid Ranked varieties of all the different wood beasts he was going to make.