“Let’s go back all the way to the beginning,” she had explained. “I mean, let’s say we are starting a new dungeon floor from scratch, rather than fixing one. In other words, we don’t have to keep the original shape of whatever was here or what you built before. We can change rooms, change the layout, change the progression as we want.”
“But we are still constrained by cost,” I pointed out. “If we make wholesale changes to what we have, that’s less we can afford for additional defenses.”
Quinn frowned, “That’s definitely true, but it’s important to think only about tweaks. Even if it is ultimately too expensive, thinking big could really help us.”
“Fair, but that requires a lot of time, which, I remind you, we don’t exactly have a lot of. Let’s pick a specific element–room–and then rethink that.”
Quinn immediately focused on a particular room that had gnawed at her, “The basement room with the knights–what’s the story?”
I recount the story, “The basement was part of the original complex. I suspect it was the dumping pit for dead bodies, the unused ones at least. At first, I had installed the spikes to catch anyone falling from the bridge up above. I added the knights later as a last line of defense and because the basement was a great spot for ambushing people who fell and survived, or those who climbed down.”
“The basement is pitch black, but the knights see fine and their ability works well to stun their enemies. In the last fight against the goblins, they did a pretty good job,” I added defensively.
“I can’t say your thoughts weren’t wrong, at the time. But, you were making–uh–” Quinn struggled to find the right words, “--no, putting the wrong key into the keyhole, yea.”
“You mean, like trying to put a square peg into a round hole?”
“Yes! Yes! Square peg and round hole!” Quinn agreed excitedly, but she still winced at the correction. Quinn sometimes forgot a common idiom or metaphor and she got a little embarrassed by it.
The answer to the problem came quickly, “Move them. The old skeleton room. Expand and remodel that room and create some synergy between the room and knights. Then make a new monster for the basement.”
Quinn readily agreed and, having previously missed me doing a lot of work and not wanting to miss out, left the staircase room and backtracked her way through the dungeon, with my help in parts, until she was standing just outside the entrance of the former Skeleton room. “Okay. I’m ready. Show me the magic!” Quinn had missed my previous changes so she was adamant to see how things actually happened. I was happy to indulge.
I quickly realized we had made a teeny-tiny miscalculation, though. The skeleton room abutted the edge of the cliff. Since I wasn’t willing to risk building outside into the open air, I needed to build a new room somewhere further into the mountain. I directed Quinn back down the hallway and to go a quarter-turn further down along the spiral, which would give us plenty of “space” to work with.
With a smile, Quinn dramatically waved her arms at the wall like a conductor. I followed along, absorbing the stone of the wall to start a new passage and then continuing on to make a new hallway, albeit wide enough for two human-sized persons to walk through it side-by-side.
Five feet in, and I added ascending stairs, with each step wider than a single stride but not long enough for two. Five steps then a landing, then five steps again, and repeated a third time. I shaped an arched entryway at the end of the last landing, demarcating the start of the new room.
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I extended my demesne into the area, creating a large horizontal circular zone, adding vertical character by slanting the roof up from the edge of the circle to the center of the room. I then flooded the area with Absorption along with my intended vision, letting the skill do the detailed work to match my vision.
Starting from the top-most point, the stone dissolved into nothingness as if rainwater was carving away the stone over millions of years fast-forwarded into seconds. The width of carving kept expanding outward to encompass more of the circle, but when it reached 100 feet in diameter it stopped and just carved down until it reached the floor. The one exception was the very center of the circle, which had been left with a wide solid stone column that reached about three-quarters up towards the ceiling. The outer edge was ringed with a low stone wall, about three feet in height. The floor of the inner circle I turned into compacted sand.
On the outer side of the short wall, I dug further out. But instead of a flat floor, I created stadium-style seating area, with three levels of benches. At the entrance, I created steps that split the seating areas and led downward to the arena floor. I also created a similar series of steps at three o’clock on the right side to break up the stadium seating yet again.
For the last quarter, I brought in the stone to create a straight wall that made the arena into a partial circle rather than a complete one. Then, I made a viewing box with a large, tall open window that would give the VIPs in the box a full view of the arena.
Finally, I created a hallway that encircled the entire arena, its inner wall being the outer wall at the edge of the stands, and two entrances where the two sets of stairs down to the arena floor were. Two other sets of stairs, one each side, went from the viewing box down to the hallway as well.
“Is it done? Is it done?” Quinn was rocking on the balls of her feet in excitement. I quickly installed some lighting so Quinn could look around. She proceeded to walk through the arena, the stands, the hallways, and lastly, the viewing box. All the while, she was “hmm”ing and “hahh”ing, checking everything including the views.
“It’s acceptable, barely” Quinn deemed.
“This is just the basics.” I responded. “Take a seat and spectate.”
The next step was to do something I had never tried before. But in our brainstorming session, Quinn had asked a simple question that was obvious in hindsight: “Can you move a monster?” The rational side of my brain thought it wasn’t possible unless the monster physically moved–walked–to its new location. Woken up by the prompt, the game side of my brain thought that maybe it’s all just mana anyways so why not try.
So I selected one of the knights and pushed my will for it to be located in its new spot.
And it worked. The knight simply disappeared in its current spot and at the same time reappeared exactly where I wanted it. I felt, however, the change in an odd sort of way, as if the skeleton had been pulled by a string that was threaded through the Holding. I moved the second knight so that it stood behind the first one, both lined up behind the arena's central clumn. I hoped that this would help to hide the two monsters for just a little bit extra time so that delvers entered the arena rather than try to kite the monsters at the entrance.
I told Quinn I that I was starting to work on the trap mechanics for the room, but actually I wanted to further investigate what I had felt when moving the knights. So, I secretly ran a quick series of tests in other parts of the dungeon. Ten minutes later, with Quinn fidgeting in impatience, I had a little bit better understanding of the mechanics of moving things.[1]
The trap I worked on quickly. It was a simple variation of the bridge door system, so I didn't really need to spend time innovating on it. At the entrance from the hallway into the arena, I created an iron portcullis hidden in the ceiling. I then created two key holes nearby, one on the outside facing the hallway and one on the arena’s side. I realized I could do it better and removed the lock on the arena’s side; instead, I installed it onto the front of the central pillar in the arena.
I set the trap trigger to when two (or three) people pass the entrance. Then, the portcullis would slam down into the floor and lock. If people stuck on the outside have the right key, they can just insert into the lock and open it back up. If the people inside have it, they have to go to the lock in the central pillar, which should trigger a fight with the skeleton knights. The key that would open the portcullis I placed in the now-empty iron box in the old skeleton room, for now.
When the trap was completed, I pinged Quinn on the tablet, “Everything looks okay?”
Quinn looked around one more time, “It’s pretty basic.”
“I mean functionally!”
“Oh–yeah. It seems fine, great to go!”
“Good.” I checked the moss clock. There was little less than three hours left until the dungeon opened. “We are getting low on time. I’m going to work on the new basement minion next.”
[2]dunpedia/holding/
Based on my quick tests, I believe moving something is restricted based on two considerations: the applicable Holding and what type of thing it is. In general, things that are present in a holding can be moved. For any item currently present in a holding, I can move that item to anywhere in that same holding. Moving an item from outside a holding into a holding is not possible, as is the opposite. In addition, moving an item from one holding to another also does not work. However, changing a holding’s shape to encompass an existing item allows for that item to be moved. An item can be moved if I swap the encompassing holding for another holding. (NOTE: look into building a central “transfer” room that all my holdings can easily reach).
Movable items include:
- Monsters
- Flora and Fauna
- Trap-connected items (I only tried moving a set of keys so further testing is required)
Non-movable items include:
- Landscaped features (e.g. stone block, metal pieces, water)
- Privileged items
- Privileged creatures (NOTE: do NOT tell Quinn you secretly tried to teleport her).