Chapter 20: Floor 2 (Part 1)

Zion returned to the monster catalog and started scrolling through the cheaper contracts with considerably more attention than he had the first time.

The goblins were still tempting. Now that he had more than five thousand essence, their prices no longer felt impossible, and he could easily afford the fortified camp he’d imagined along with enough warriors, archers, and spearmen to make it look properly defended.

The problem was that he’d spent an entire day watching adventurers fight, and a large group of armed goblins would only stop some parties. Zion had seen swordsmen cut through his sheep without slowing down and archers kill them from halfway across the pasture.

Throwing more bodies in front of those people would only work until someone stronger arrived.

He kept scrolling.

Dungeon Rats disappeared almost immediately.

Venom Beetles were more interesting, especially against groups without antidotes or healers, but their descriptions suggested they were fragile once discovered.

Cave Worms had enough durability to make him pause, though their movement was limited unless he invested heavily in compatible terrain.

Then he reached the Lesser Slime.

He had ignored it before because there was very little about a translucent blob of pale green gel that inspired confidence. It had no claws, no weapon, and not even a face that looked particularly threatening.

This time, he opened the full description.

[Lesser Slime]

[Rank: F]

[Threat: Very Low]

[Affinities: Ooze, Acidic, Damp]

[Preferred Terrain: None]

[Traits:]

[Amorphous Body]

[High Resistance: Piercing Damage]

[Moderate Resistance: Slashing Damage]

[Weakness: Fire]

[Surface Adhesion]

[Summoning Cost: 6 Essence]

High resistance to piercing damage was much more useful than the slime’s appearance suggested, especially after everything he’d seen throughout the day. Most adventurers carried swords, spears, daggers, or bows, while actual magic casters had been considerably less common.

An archer could put twenty arrows into one of these things and accomplish very little. The same applied to spears, and even swords would be less effective than normal.

Fire was an obvious weakness, but that required someone capable of using it in the first place. Zion had seen several parties enter Floor 1 without a single magic caster, while others had brought mages who specialized in something completely different.

For only six essence each, the slimes suddenly looked considerably less pathetic.

He opened the preview and summoned a temporary model into the empty Floor 2. A pale green-yellow blob appeared on the stone and wobbled gently in place.

"You still don’t look very impressive," he said, still calculating its worth.

It offered no response. Looking impressive had never been the point.

Zion dismissed the preview before committing to a purchase and opened the terrain catalog instead.

The sheep had already taught him not to separate monsters from the environment they lived in. Pack Mentality had only become truly useful once the pasture gave the flock enough room, cover, and movement lanes to take advantage of it.

The Lesser Slime was different.

[Preferred Terrain: None]

"That helps."

It gave him far more freedom.

Caves were inexpensive and easy to shape, but Zion dismissed them almost immediately. Pale green slimes sitting on dark stone would be visible from halfway across the floor, which defeated one of the advantages he wanted to create.

The sheep had always been obvious. Even when the hills blocked sightlines or the fences controlled movement, adventurers entered Floor 1 already knowing what they were expected to fight.

He wanted Floor 2 to feel different. If the slimes blended into the environment, people might not realize where the danger was until they were already inside it.

He began sorting terrain by color and environmental traits instead of compatibility.

[Moss Cavern]

[Shallow Marsh]

[Rotting Fen]

[Yellowstone Grotto]

[Acidic Bog]

Several options came close, but either the color was wrong or the cost was higher than Zion wanted to justify.

Then another terrain preview caught his attention.

[Sulfur Field]

A wide stretch of pale yellow stone appeared inside the preview, broken by shallow depressions, mineral deposits, and irregular formations of yellow-green crystal. Thin clouds of vapor drifted close to the ground while small vents released occasional bursts of steam.

The coloring was almost perfect.

He placed a Lesser Slime against the terrain. The creature became difficult to distinguish at a glance, especially near the mineral deposits where its green-yellow body blended naturally with the sulfur staining.

He rotated the preview, impressed.

"That could work."

Then he noticed the additional environmental properties.

[Sulfur Field]

[Terrain Grade: F]

[Environmental Traits:]

[Reduced Visibility: Minor]

[Persistent Sulfur Odor]

[Minor Respiratory Irritation during prolonged exposure.]

[Compatible with: Ooze, Insect, Reptile, Earth]

[Cost: 420 Essence]

The price was noticeably higher than most of the basic terrain options, but he had more than five thousand essence now. And the Sulfur Field offered more than appearance alone.

The terrain itself actively affected anyone inside it.

The smell wouldn’t stop a strong adventurer, but he had watched people complain about far less. If someone entered Floor 2 and was immediately greeted by the smell of rotten eggs, maybe at least one person would decide the dungeon wasn’t worth the effort and leave voluntarily.

Zion purchased the terrain.

[Purchase complete.]

[Sulfur Field added to Floor 2.]

The empty stone transformed. Pale mineral deposits spread outward from the entrance while uneven yellow stone replaced the bare floor. Small vents formed along the walls and between clusters of rock, releasing thin streams of vapor into the air.

The entire floor took on a sickly yellow-green tint that made the bright pasture above it feel almost unnaturally pleasant by comparison.

He inspected the result. While he couldn’t smell anything from his throne room, the system assured him the sulfur odor was active.

He was unexpectedly disappointed by that. He wanted to smell it himself, but turned to summon a Lesser Slime instead.

[Summon Lesser Slime — 6 Essence?]

"Yes."

A pale blob appeared beside one of the mineral formations, and Zion nearly lost sight of it immediately.

The slime was still visible if he knew exactly where to look, but its translucent body picked up the colors around it. Against the yellow-green stone, it looked less like a monster and more like another wet mineral deposit.

"Oh, that’s pretty good!" He summoned several more and spread them across the first section of the floor.

Some rested beside sulfur vents, while others settled between rocks or inside shallow depressions where adventurers would need to come relatively close before noticing them.

The total cost barely mattered. Six essence per slime felt almost insulting after spending one hundred and seventy-five on a necklace.

Zion continued placing them until the opening section had enough monsters to make an approaching party cautious without covering the entire floor in wobbling green blobs.

Once he was satisfied, he watched them for a while.

Most remained where he placed them, occasionally shifting or stretching in ways that suggested they were alive without accomplishing anything particularly useful.

That brought his attention back to one trait he hadn’t tested yet.

[Surface Adhesion]

He focused on one of the slimes.

"Can you climb?"

The slime didn’t answer, but when he moved its assigned position toward a nearby rock wall, its body stretched against the stone and slowly pulled itself upward.

He watched it climb onto the wall and continue without difficulty. Curious, he moved the placement marker several feet higher. The creature followed until it clung to the vertical stone well above the floor.

"Oh?"

That was considerably more interesting.

Zion moved the marker higher again, this time toward the point where the wall curved into the ceiling. He expected the slime to stop at the edge.

Instead, its body folded around the corner and continued moving until it hung completely upside down.

Zion glanced at the wobbling slime. Then he looked at the floor beneath it.

The possibilities changed immediately.

Adventurers entering Floor 1 always looked forward because every threat was visible somewhere ahead of them. Even experienced parties inspected the hills, fences, barn, and open grass before deciding where to move.

Almost nobody looked directly overhead.

He started repositioning the slimes.

The ones sitting openly near the first passage disappeared from the floor and reappeared along walls, beneath overhangs, and across the ceiling.

He kept a handful visible near the ground so adventurers would learn what the monsters were, but most of them became part of the environment instead.

A party might enter, see two or three slimes ahead, and assume those were the entire encounter while another six waited directly overhead.

Zion imagined the tank stepping forward to deal with the visible monsters, leaving the rest of the formation behind him just as one of the hidden slimes dropped onto the mage.

He liked that a lot.

The system allowed him to define basic behavior conditions, so Zion experimented with several before settling on simple triggers.

[Ambush Behavior: Hold Position]

[Trigger: Hostile entity passes beneath.]

[Priority Target: Rear-position hostile entity.]

The slimes weren’t intelligent enough to identify classes, but they could recognize relative positioning. Rather than dropping onto the first person who passed beneath them, they’d wait for someone farther back in the formation.

That wouldn’t always be the mage.

Sometimes it would be the healer, which was even better.