I got a variety of useful information from Orai, so I opened the DP Marketplace. As expected, I already had 100 DP but received an additional 100 since I was starting out. Apparently, I can increase the daily rate of DP by 100 every 10 levels until I earn 10,000/day at the max lvl of 1000. Orai said that S-Class items tend to start at a minimum of 100,000 DP and S+ starts at a minimum of 250,000 DP. I knew I was significantly far from getting my hands on those Mythic rank items so I closed the store. Orai told me that I was able to leave the dungeon but leaving makes the Dungeon highly vulnerable. Until we teleport back to the dungeon control room, we don’t have complete access to the Dungeon. Thus, it’s recommended that you leave your dungeon when you have adequate defenses, mobs, etc.
“I’m going to take a walk outside. Start drafting a basic plan for the dungeon and I’ll purchase the items when I come back. I need to stretch my legs and take in some fresh air”, I said stretching.
“I’ll watch the Dungeon, Jordan. Don’t go too far, ok?”, Orai said.
As I wished her good luck, I walked out of the dungeon. It didn’t take long to find the entrance since we were still a starter dungeon. The layout was currently a straight hallway leading to an open area, followed by another straight hallway to the dungeon core room. The dungeon control room is in the “D1 void”, which is the room that’s generated when the dungeon is born. It’s was most likely the room that I initially woke up in.
After walking out of the dungeon, it seemed that we were placed in the middle of a grass plain that had a radius of 1 mile. Surrounding the grass plain was a forest, which seemed to be quite large in comparison to the grass plain. I also saw some sort of smoke coming from the west, which was most likely some type of city or town around 3 miles away. Once I saw a flock of dragons flying after a griffin, I had to accept the facts.
“I would’ve preferred the demon lord or hero route but I guess I can be a Dungeon Master. Not like I have a choice anyway”, I said jokingly.
According to Orai, the reason hostile mobs in the area weren’t attacking was us due to the God Of War putting a temporary shield around the dungeon. The shield, called “The Shield Of Hidarus”, is deployed when the dungeon master gains consciousness and gives new dungeon masters adequate time to plan their dungeons. Logically, there is no sense in summoning a dungeon master just to have him die minutes later. It’s a counterproductive practice, even to an impatient person like the God Of War. That’s why the shield lasts exactly one hour after the Dungeon Master wakes up. After hearing Orai’s full explanation of the world earlier, I still had approximately 20 minutes left before the shield came down.
The 1-mile radius of grass plains was considered part of the dungeon since it spawns with every new dungeon in Orune. Although the dungeon was primarily an underground structure, Dungeon Masters could choose how they present their dungeon on the surface. As you would expect, I turned around to see that our dungeon was built into the side of a mountain. A large, arched medieval double-door was the only thing stopping people from killing my core. In other words, we were defenseless.
“I can see why Orai was so eager to start dungeon building. Even if adventurers don’t visit us, what would stop the monsters nearby from attacking us?”, I said.
Inside the 1-mile radius were friendly mobs that wouldn’t attack unless provoked. Rabbits, foxes, deer, birds, etc. were currently inhabiting the grassland. More than likely, they were spawned with us in order to provide us food to start out. Making the area around the dungeon favorable to edible animals was a great way to ensure that the dungeon master wouldn’t starve. It was harder for a Dungeon Master to starve compared to a regular human so the food was more of a want than a need. However, outside of the grassland were numerous beasts. Wolves, Bears, Tigers, Giant snakes, Griffins, Blood canines, etc. were currently barred from entering the grassland but not for long. If I had to guess the difficulty of this area, I would say that it was far from being beginner-friendly.
I ran back into my dungeon and slammed the double-doors, fully motivated to start building. I was pretty sure that I made eye contact with a Dire Wolf, who seemed determined to kill me. Upon teleporting to D1, Orai handed me the schematic of the dungeon.
“As you have seen, this is our current dungeon. This 50×50 ft. area is the only room we have right now, which we shall call the ‘Main Room’. Additional rooms for a dungeon start at 100 DP each so it’s not economical to expand the dungeon at the moment. However, we can at least summon some mobs to protect us. The benefit of having such a large room is the flexibility it brings. A Hallway strip can also cost 50 DP so you should keep that in mind if you want to add more hallways in the future”, Orai said.
“Ok. I’ll keep that in mind. It looks like we’ll need to fill the main room with summoned beasts in order to protect our core. Then, once something is killed in the dungeon, you said we can absorb them for more points. Does [Absorb & Kill] work on the grasslands?”, I asked.
“The grassland is ‘technically’ part of the dungeon but you can’t take advantage of the [Absorb & Kill] feature until you expand its effective area. You can look at the grassland as your potential for expansion in the future. We can expand the radius once we improve our DL but that would take a drain of resources that we don’t have right now. Take a look at the DP Marketplace and buy some mobs. We have 10 minutes before the shield falls. I’ll identify any threats that are in the area”, Orai said.
I sat on the floor and opened up the DP Market. The interface was rather modern and featured great UI/UX. After switching over to the ‘mobs’ tab, I had a variety of common choices presented to me. Goblins, Slimes, Wolves, Golems, Elemental spirits, etc. were the current choices that were unlocked. It seemed that some of the items were locked behind some sort of level restriction, with the next group of mobs being locked at lvl. 5.
With 5 minutes remaining, I decided that I would spend my DP points in the following configuration:
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Goblins x 5 [10 DP each] 50 Points
Slimes x 2 [10 DP each] 20 Points
Elemental Spirits x 2 [15 DP each] 30 Points
Golems x 5 [20 DP each] 100 points
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After completing my order, 4 magic circles appeared around the main room. In an instant, the mobs that I had just purchased were quickly placed in the room. Luckily, we had a screen in D1 with the view of the entire dungeon on it. We were able to see a mini-map version & a full map version of where the hostiles, mobs, and friendlies were; which was indicated by their respective icons.
As time finally expired, we heard a variety of noises from the forest simultaneously. We switched to the outside view of the dungeon and saw that the map had at least 30+ hostiles on it. They were most likely beasts that were emitting some type of general, killing intent in the area. However, as we saw some of the enemy icons converge towards the dungeon, one of my first worries had been realized.
It seems that we have been found out already.
