94 Chapter 94 (1/2)
Chapter 94
Now that James had gotten over his mental breakdown, it was time to get to work. He reabsorbed the surprisingly helpful Jolly Dolly and prepared for what he needed to do.
The first step to building his third floor, was obviously spreading his influence. He currently had 1812 resources to use, out of a total of 4900. Sadly, he had used 1800 resources the last time, on his second floor, to make a 900x900 yard expanse. If he wanted to continue growing the dungeon, well he needed to make an expanse even larger.
”Should I double the size of the second floor?” He had, after all, doubled the size of his first floor when he designed the layout of his second floor. His first floor was 450 x 450, his second was 900 x 900, so should his third be 1800 x 1800? It was simply math, but James knew doing just that would quickly make his dungeon skyrocket in size, and he was pretty sure he couldn't keep up with those resource costs.
”Eh, do you really need it to be that large?” Rue was glancing at the expanse, that went on all around them. From what James had found of these pre-generated floors, they would go on infinitely if he had the resources to continue spreading his influence. If he got to the current edge, it just autogenerated more of the same environment. And, when he finalized the instance, the space created invisible boundaries, which kept both mobs, and players, confined in the area.
James, back in a good mood, couldn't let the pixie's phrasing go unnoticed. ”Oh, are you implying size doesn't matter?”
The pixie shot him a devilish grin and traced a finger along a tentacle. ”I'm just saying, bigger doesn't instantly mean better.” She moved closer to him as she spoke, continuing to trace her finger as her hand drew close to the full tentacle. ”It all depends on how you use it.” She gave him a quick, playful squeeze, and flew away laughing.
James broke…
The tentacles weren't erogenous zones, in fact, they acted as arms would. So, had he been in human form, she would have just been tracing her fingers up his arm, and then gently squeezing say his bicep, or shoulder. Such an action would have been innocent enough, though still have sexual undertones. However, given the phallic nature of tentacles, it literally seemed to James like a scene out of an anime. Hell, if this was an anime, he was sure his nose would be bleeding currently. And the damned pixie knew exactly what she was doing.
”Don't get too worked up Glyax. I'm not THAT into tentacle monsters.” She flashed her wicked smile and wink and flew laughing away. ”But I'll give you a moment to cool off. I'm sure I can find a way to entertain myself while I wait.” And with that, she was gone.
James took a few deep breaths, doing all he could to calm himself. His current form really was a blessing and a curse. Sure, it was great she couldn't see his facial expressions or tells when it came to nervousness, embarrassment, etc. But seriously, floating tentacle monster? Whoever the hell came up with this, had some explaining to do. As James sat there and thought about the developer, he decided actually, there wasn't any explanation needed. Xander was just a lonely pro gamer with a thing for anime and some dark fetishes. Totally made sense. Creep.
Chuckling to himself, James turned back to his task at hand. The more he thought on it, the more he liked the plan he was formulating. And, luckily for him, he once again had a decent amount of Dungeon Tokens to play with for his floor development.
First, James decided to be economic, and utilize all of his current resources. Rue was right, he didn't need to double the size of his floor. In fact, he didn't need to increase the size of this floor just yet. He could always do so at a later time. As such, he decided to use his 1800 resources, and simply recreate a 900 x 900 square yard expanse like he had last time. Given the fact that everything was marshlands, it actually made the size seem irrelevant. No one could really tell how large a marsh was, when they were in the middle of it, surrounded by swamp, trees, and monsters, after all.
With that done, James was able to really get to work. He popped a dungeon token and filled his resources back up to 4900. Given some…er, inspiration, James finally had a plan for all of his mobs, and a vision on how to best utilize the swampy area to make it work.
Starting with his lowest cost mob, James began to build small huts and pathways within the trees of the marshland. Small structures, and the creaking, wooden bridges James was making, normally were rather low cost. In fact, they still were, but James spent nearly an hour working through his resources to connect essentially the entire canopy of the trees in some way or another with these huts and pathways.
The reason for this, was to utilize the Jolly Dollies in probably the creepiest, most effective way possible. Their voices and visage in this setting, already seemed like something out of a Stephen King novel. Combine with that, the fact that James knew there was an old, supposedly haunted island of dolls in the real world, and James's imagination had started to flow. Then, the final aspect, those creepy pull strings on the back of the dollies, combined with one of their abilities, put the final, er, nail in the coffin, so to speak. Japan, was once again, his final inspiration for this aspect and utilization of the mob.
For the next mob, his Teddy Knights, James had to get a little more creative. Mainly because the Teddy Knights were multipurpose mobs. The first he had really come across. Though, considering they were knights, it seemed rather fitting. When given the option to summon them, they had an ability, Bear-Essentials- which allowed him to choose what type of knight he wished to summon. There were Basic Knights, Mounted Knights, and Light Knights.
The basic knights were just that. A Teddy Bear, covered in shiny cloth armor, wielding a plastic sword and shield. Mounted Knights shared the same armor, but had a lance instead of a sword, and the ability to ride on another mob as a mount. Interestingly, that ability didn't' really specify what type of mob, so James had some ideas for that. The third, Light Knights, were just Paladins. Like, seriously, once again, the developers had tried to be funny, and it was rather lame. Instead of shiny silver cloth, Light Knights had gold cloth armor, and wielded gold swords and shields. The most amusing part of that, was their 'holy symbol' was a lightbulb emblazoned on their shields. That part did make James laugh.
Each of the types of knights had pros and cons, and James knew they were going to most likely make up the majority of his fighting mob force on the third floor. As such, he needed to know how to fully utilize them, so once he summoned of each, he moved on to his next mob.
So, with the Teddy Knights on hold, James summoned a Snuggle-Woof. This mob was literally what looked to be a cross between a stuffed wolf or stuffed husky. It was covered in stringy, soft looking 'fur' of greys and whites, and had bright blue plastic eyes. James was pretty sure it was more husky than wolf, but it really didn't' matter. The things stood about four feet in height, making them larger than a dog should ever be.
These mobs were, of course, his pack tactic mobs. Just like Dickens, and Velocity Raptors, the Sunggle-Woofs got a buff for being in a pack. Their pack size, sat right in the middle of the other two mentioned mobs, at 4 mobs for the buff. What James wanted to test though, wasn't their skills, but the Mounted Knight's skill. After he summoned the Snuggle-Woof, he directed it over to the Mounted Knight. To James's amusement and delight, the Knight placed a leather saddle on the back of the Snuggle-Woof and climbed aboard. The first test was a success.
Grinning to himself, he moved on to the second to last mob. The Funky Monkeys. These, these were something that had to have some explanation to them. They were lanky, strange looking monkey like mobs, with two bongo drums on their back, as well as…. Well, what looked like a cape. Their description of their skills made even less sense when James read them over, which was why he really needed to summon them to see what they did.
Funky Monkey (14) Lvl 33
Type: Screaming Monkey
HP: 1150 (375 out of 375 fluff)