Chapter 764: A shifting Labyrinth

Eisen walked through the dungeon for a short while, trying to check on everything to see how the expansions were working. Each floor of the dungeon was getting more and more complex, and even though some of the changes had been relatively minuscule, the overall balance of the dungeon improved considerably as well. On the first floor's town, they had set up a 'review booth' to get the opinions of the people that challenged the dungeon, to figure out how to make it more fun to them, in an attempt to get more people to actually seek out the dungeon, and how to make it more challenging. Not only would this keep them in the dungeon for longer at a time, giving Sigurd more Dungeon Points to use on the expansion, but players were also killed more frequently now, giving Fafnir some more experience than before. But even though that was the case, no matter how many times they died, a lot of the players still came back and kept on trying to clear the dungeon.

At times like these, when they weren't in any towns, the dungeon changed to its construction mode so that they could spend this time wisely. But still, there were times when the dungeon needed some interference from the outside for a few specific tasks. Some of the systems of the dungeon, like the recovery room at the end of a floor, was something initially created by Eisen. Once he was done with that, Sigurd was able to place these down himself, as the room had been properly acknowledged by the system, but the furthest thing that Sigurd could do was place copies of the systems created for the dungeon. Since it wasn't originally in the system, improvements had to be made manually to add them to the system. And that was one of the things that Eisen was planning on doing now.

They had collected a few ideas for the dungeon that Eisen had to first figure out so that Sigurd could properly implement and adjust them for active use later. The Dungeon Core Guardian soon appeared right beside the old man, looking up at him, "Are you sure you want to do this right now?" It asked, and Eisen smiled lightly as he placed his hand on its head, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, don't worry. I managed to get some rest." He explained. He took some time to take a nap, and even logged off for a while to catch some fresh air with his other body. The group would camp out here for a while longer anyway, so Eisen figured this was a good a chance as any to work on some things he had put off, "So, what exactly do you want me to work on here?"

"Well, if you say you're fine...  There are a few main things that we would need your help with. Most importantly, in one of the deeper levels, there's a maze-section, but we want the maze to continuosly shift around and change. There isn't a real way to do it through the system while there are people down there." Sigurd explained, with a wave of its hand creating a gateway that led to the section of the dungeon. It was one of the desert-themed floors, and in front of him, in this place that was supposed to be eternally nighttime, was a huge space reserved for a complex labyrinth. There were ways to get past it, sure, but there were a lot of rewards in the labyrinth that would make it worth it to go in there. And most importantly, on the next floor, there were some puzzles that had to be solved on one of the later floors, and one of the clues to those puzzles could be found here somewhere in the dungeon.

"Alright, that shouldn't be too complicated..." The old man muttered to himself, trying to think about a good way to do this. He looked at Sigurd curiously, "To what extent do you want the dungeon to change? Just a few walls appearing and disappearing here and there, or do you want the whole layout to change periodically?"

Sigurd, with a somewhat annoyed expression, quickly started to explain, "I figured that the best way to do this was to have the labyrinth change in random ways. Otherwise, one of the 'Players' could share the right route to get through it quickly, and the whole fun of it would be ruined."

"Right, of course. I guess I might have to ask Benji about it, he might know a few good ways to do the rando

mization." Eisen muttered out loud, before he noticed Sigurd's slightly confused expression. After a moment of thought, the old man realized what was the issue, "Ah, sorry. I mean Stahl. I'm not quite used to calling him that name yet."

"...Speaking of. Eisen, what's your name on that side?" The core guardian asked, surprising Eisen. He didn't expect to be asked this all of a sudden, "My full name is Benjamin Theodore Joyce. 'Benjamin' from my father's father, and Theodore from my mother's father. It's a tradition in our family. Stahl got my first name from me as well."

"That's nice." Sigurd said with a light smile on its face, before turning silent for a few moments. To Eisen, it seemed like it wanted to ask something else, but held back before it could do so, "Well, anyway, do you want to know what else I wanted to ask you to work on?" It asked instead, trying to change the topic, and Eisen figured he should just go along with it. There was no need to force it out of Sigurd, after all.

"Sure, show me the way." Eisen responded, watching as Sigurd created another gateway, this time leading into what seemed to be the boss room of the ocean floors, "It would be great if you could make some items for the boss monsters again. The one that's most in need for a good weapon would be this floor's 'Siren Prince'." 

"Just a weapon, or armor as well?" The old man asked, looking at the space around him. This was certainly one of the more interesting floors. For two out of the five floors with this theme, they had carved out a huge space that they simply filled with water, as well as some small, weak fish-type monsters to make everything feel alive. Then, they created some pathways in the water that reminded of ant-tunnels overall, with the floor being the only solid thing. Since the water itself was created by the dungeon's system, it could be forced to stay in a specific shape the whole time to allow the ones that entered the floors to actively walk through these open tunnels in the water. Some stationary rock-platforms were used to create the pathways for everyone to walk on, but otherwise, they could even swim through the water if they wanted to. Of course, it wasn't recommended, but there was technically nothing from stopping them. There were even some hidden secrets for players that did choose to do this because they wanted to explore.

The boss-room followed this same pattern. It was a huge hollow space in the middle of the water, and the boss monster would spend a lot of time jumping in and out of the water that surrounded the dungeon-divers from nearly all sides. While it was outside the water, it would attack in regular melee-combat, and otherwise, it would attack with long-ranged attacks based on shooting water at the dungeon-divers from all around.

"The weapon is the most important part. The Siren Prince's combat is based around agility, so it doesn't really need any armor. Although maybe some decorative jewelry would be good? To get the 'prince' part across?" Sigurd suggested after crossing its arms in thought. With a quick nod, Eisen started to come up with some ideas. While he was thinking, the boss monster in question jumped out of the water, soon standing in front of the old man and the dungeon core guardian.

It was a four meter tall, bipedal, roughly humanoid fish-like creature. It had sharp teeth that were peaking out of its mouth, and sharp claws that came along with them. It had webbed hands and feet, and dead, emotionless eyes that one would expect to see from any other fish. Its scales were mostly cyan and aquamarine, but had some areas that were more distinctly blue or green. Currently, the 'Siren Prince' was already carrying a weapon, but it was clearly not good enough for a boss monster to hold onto. Maybe in other dungeons, sure, but this was Eisen's dungeon they were talking about. He couldn't just let the monsters have low-quality weapons.

"In that case, what other Boss Monsters need improved items?" Eisen asked, and the core guardian quickly replied, "Two others, the Naga and the We

rewolf Bandit Captain," it said, turning its head toward the Siren Prince still standing in front of them as if completely frozen, "But this one here needs better items the soonest, the others will be fine for a while longer."

"In that case, I should get started right away." Eisen said, "Since I can't do anything about the labyrinth right off the bat, I'll start working on the items for now." He explained, and before he was able to do it, Sigurd had already created a gateway that led directly to Eisen's private room in the dungeon.

"In that case, just let me know when you're done, and I will be right there." Sigurd pointed out in an excited tone, watching Eisen step through the gate.