Krista was excited to play around with her new options. First things first, she wanted to strengthen the primary dungeon, Altera Vita, so that the Dungeon Core was better protected. Even though Bruce had proven himself to be able to fight off the incoming players pretty well, the level cap would be increasing soon and there was no guarantee that just Bruce was enough. With that in mind, she looked at her current monster list:
Upgrade Monsters
Goblin
Base Monster
Goblin Chieftain
Unique Monster
Dusk Boar
Base Monster
Weregoblin
Advanced Monster
Timber Wolf
Base Monster
Goblin Boar-rider
Advanced Monster
Hardy Rock-burrower
Base Monster
Hearthfire Orc Guard
Unique Monster
Sure-footed Mountain Goat
Base Monster
Dusky Rock-boarer
Advanced Monster
Starving Mountain Lion
Base Monster
Ogrepult
Advanced Monster
Shrieking Harpy
Base Monster
Horcy
Advanced Monster
Scaled Wyvern
Base Monster
Goblin Pole Dancer
Advanced Monster
Majestic Roc
Base Monster
Wyveroc
Advanced Monster
Hearthfire Orc
Base Monster
G-Bomber
Advanced Monster
Hearthfire Ogre
Base Monster
Burrowgoat
Advanced Monster
Magma Shroomba
Base Monster
Goatlin
Advanced Monster
Lava Salamander
Base Monster
Pussy-master Orc
Advanced Monster
Fire Drake
Base Monster
Giant Magma Shroomba
Unique Monster
Hearthfire Dragonkin
Base Monster
Mega Lava Salamander
Unique Monster
Huge Fire Drake
Unique Monster
Mighty Flame Dragon
Unique Monster
In the past, Krista had to place one of the new base monsters in her dungeon in order to see what she was working with. Now, all she needed to do was to visit their new acquisition and check them out in action. She decided to leave the dungeon alone for the moment and let it continue running the way it had been. In the future, she would probably change it depending on how much her dungeon expanded, but it was fine the way as it was. She was able to watch as another group entered shortly after Devin and his guild friends left and watched as they quickly made their way through the various mobs.
The Magma Shroomba was interesting – she didn’t have anything even remotely like it yet. It was fairly harmless by itself, but she had some plans to enhance it with some of her other monsters. As the group she was watching fought its way through the first floor, she started her experimentation with her new mushroom friend.
First, she wanted to increase its size to make it harder for the players to avoid an attack. And, of course, she chose the largest base monster she had access to for her new hybrid.
Shroomba of Doomba (Advanced Monster)
The Shroomba of Doomba is a hybrid of a Magma Shroomba and a Majestic Roc. This massive mushroom is 20 feet wide, 30 feet tall, and can fly. That’s right – it can fly.
Pollenate
Current level description:
At 50% health, the Shroomba of Doomba creates an outward expanding explosion of magma spores that does fire-based magical damage in a large area if they touch an enemy. They can be destroyed if they land on the ground without contacting an enemy.
Magical Damage:
40 per spore
Damage Radius:
50 feet
Number of Spores:
50
Trigger Threshold:
50% health
Germinate
Current level description:
At 25% health, any spores that are created during the Pollenate attack are turned into normal Magma Shroombas for the duration of the battle.
Trigger Threshold:
25% health
This sounds impressive; I can’t wait to see it in action, thought Krista. The Shroomba of Doomba sounded like it would be best used by itself in a room that had plenty of room to move vertically. Pleased with this hybrid, she moved on to making a combination of monsters that she could use multiples of. To this end, she combined a Sure-footed Mountain Goat and the Magma Shroomba together…
Goat Sucker (Advanced Monster)
In this interesting combination of mammal and fungus, the Goat Sucker is comprised of a Sure-footed Mountain Goat and a Magma Shroomba. Smaller Shroombas are attached all over the body of the Mountain Goat, providing it additional protection and a DOT effect if the Shroombas are penetrated.
Goat on Speed
Current level description:
A Shroomba is grown on the top of the Goats’ head, which it then used as it rushes ahead and slams into an enemy. The head Shroomba provides the goat increased speed and damage compared to a normal Mountain Goat rush attack. Also has a chance of knockdown upon impact.
Physical Damage:
250
Knockdown Chance:
40%
Speed Increase:
20%
Cooldown:
60.0 seconds and must be at least 15 feet away from target
Hallucination
Current level description:
Used as a last-ditch effort to avoid damage, the Goat Sucker explodes all the Shroombas on its body at the same time creating a cloud of hallucinogenic vapor. Any caught in the explosion will suffer hallucinations for a certain period of time – time in which the Goat Sucker will try to escape, leaving its incapacitated enemies to others.
Effect Radius:
20.0 feet around Goat Sucker
Effect Duration:
15 seconds
Cooldown:
Usable if under 15% health
Krista could envision the scary sight of a horde of Goat Suckers descending on unsuspecting players, ramming into them and causing hallucinations. She was looking forward to seeing how they would handle the goat-filled onslaught.
With those two creations complete, she again focused on the group heading through the Dragon’s Lair dungeon. They had made it to the second floor already and were attacking the giant lizards down there. When Krista looked at one emerging from the lava, she found they were rightfully called Lava Salamanders. They appeared to be rather formidable but quite slow. She needed to be able to speed it up in order to make it more effective in hybrid form, so Krista started putting it together with various speedy monsters like the Goat, Boar, and Wolf. However, none of those made viable hybrids – they all melted due to the Salamanders inherent heat into a quivering mound of burnt skin, hair, and fur.
It wasn’t until she branched out and used the Shrieking Harpy that she got a result. Not precisely the result she was looking for (especially with the offensive name and attacks), but she would use it if she needed to.
“BWMYF” (Advanced Monster)
This hybrid monster – consisting of a Shrieking Harpy and Lava Salamander – turns a normal everyday Harpy into a disgusting, flying, burning force of waste destruction. The “Bitch Will Melt Yo Face” has wings of fire instead of feathers and launches disgusting flaming balls of poop at unsuspecting victims. And that’s just the beginning…
Flaming Shower
Current level description:
The “BWMYF” will land on an enemy with its feet on their shoulders, squat down, and relieve itself upon their head with a fiery release of lava. Not a pleasant experience for either of them. Has a chance to cause tempor
ary blindness.
Fire-based Magical Damage:
500
Blind Chance:
30%
Blind Duration:
30.0 seconds
Cooldown:
Once per battle
Hit The Fan
Current level description:
Mimicking the effects of severe food poisoning, the “BWMYF” quickly spins around in a circle in the air and releases a torrent of burning, flaming destruction in a large area.
Magical Damage per hit:
100
Effect Radius:
20 feet from “BWMYF”
Duration:
5.0 seconds
Cooldown:
Once per battle
“The AI” was getting more and more ridiculous as time went on. When Krista thought about it, most of the programmers she had ever met or talked to had a relatively “juvenile” sense of humor. It stood to reason that if they had initially programmed the “The AI”, then some of that must have come through into its unique personality. She was beginning not to care as much when she saw the names and attacks that the system came up with – if they were useful to her, she would try to ignore what she didn’t care for. It was more important to use all tools available to her to protect the Dungeon Core, and in turn, their lives.
The Lava Salamanders were less than useful by themselves, but if they were combined with something then they might have a better chance of reaching the players before they were cut down. She was hoping to find something that could ride the giant lizard, but when she tried her new Dragonkin, it was too large and couldn’t fit on its back. The same thing happened when she tried the Orc and she wasn’t even going to try the Ogre – it was even bigger. The only one left to try was the Goblin…
Lizard Tickler (Advanced Monster)
The Lizard Tickler is a combination of a Goblin and a Lava Salamander. The Goblin takes control of three leashed Lava Salamanders that prey on enemies like hounds on the hunt. The collars and leashes imbue extra Agility to the Salamanders which allow them to move faster and avoid attacks. The Goblin receives extra physical defense in the form of Salamander scale armor. If the Goblin falls in battle, the remaining Salamanders will go berserk and attack anything close by – including each other.
Retribution
Current level description:
All remaining Salamanders under the control of the Lizard Tickler converge on a single target enemy that is attacking their handler (ignoring aggro). This attack deals additional physical damage in addition to normal attacks.
Additional Physical Damage:
200
Duration:
20.0 seconds
Cooldown:
150.0 seconds
Scatter
Current level description:
Upon the death of a nearby ally, there is a chance that each of the remaining Salamanders under the control of the Lizard Tickler will scatter and attack enemy targets at random, ignoring aggro. Deals extra fire-based magical damage to enemies wearing cloth armor.
Extra Damage to Cloth Wearers:
20%
Duration:
20 seconds
Trigger Chance:
33.3%
Cooldown:
Once per battle
That is more like it! Now they can attack faster and even target someone besides the tank for once. This would be a great support creature to back up some other tank creatures. The look of surprise on players’ faces when the Salamanders scattered and potentially attacked the healers and casters would be priceless. Add to that the fact that it was like having four mobs in one made the Lizard Tickler a good addition to her menagerie.
By this time, the group of players who had been making their way through her new dungeon was just finishing up their battle with the Mega Lava Salamander. Krista watched the rest of the battle and wished that she could put more of those bosses in her dungeon, but they were unique monsters and could only be used once – they were fine where they were at the moment. Perhaps in the future she would change everything up and shuffle them around, but she was a long way off from that.
Chapter 18
As Krista watched the group of players kill the large Salamander – while only allowing it to heal in the lava pool once – they looted the corpse and chest and made their way down to the next floor. In here they were attacked by some Fire Drakes, which made Krista happy to have another base monster that could be added to her aerial force. She watched as they lobbed fireballs at the players and saw how they were largely ineffective against the prepared tank – they just splashed off and did little to no damage. Meanwhile the flying mobs were being torn apart by the ranged attacks of the other members of the party.
Their main attack consisted of the fireballs that they flung toward the enemy – they had no real close combat abilities. Granted, they could probably do a little damage with their wicked-looking claws against a caster, but they were useless against anyone wearing a little bit of armor. Krista needed to change that with some new variations that she could create.
Fire Wyvern (Advanced Monster)
The Fire Wyvern was born from a hybrid combination of a Fire Drake and a Scaled Wyvern. This faster, more agile version of a Fire Drake cannot lob fireballs at an enemy – instead, it will get close to an enemy to breathe fire and bite any exposed flesh.
Love Bite
Current level description:
This attack is actually a common form of foreplay between mating Fire Wyverns. When used on an enemy however, the bite injects a burning poison that ignites the blood of its victim for a certain amount of time, doing fire-based magical damage in addition to the initial physical damage of the bite.
Initial Physical Damage:
40
Magical Damage:
30 per tick
Tick Interval:
3.0 seconds
Duration:
60.0 seconds
Cooldown:
25.0 seconds
Flatulence
Current level description:
Due to the Fire Wyverns’ love of eating sulfurous rock, it has produced an enormous amount of gas that can be expelled. The Fire Wyvern will glide through all of the enemies within range while expelling this gas – which then can be ignited to cause a large explosion that causes fire-based magical damage to all enemies in the area.
Affected Area:
15 foot circle
Magical Damage:
400
Cooldown:
Once per battle
Nice! Wait…what’s with “The AI’s” obsession with potty humor? It seems like everything I’m making wants to either poop, pee, or pass gas on its enemies. It must have something to do with the fire-based enemies – there wasn’t anything like this before, Krista exasperatingly thought to herself. I at least achieved what I was hoping for – a melee-focused Drake. If she was able to pair up the normal Fire Drake with the Fire Wyvern, the combination of melee and ranged attacks should give the players more of a challenge.
She was really excited about the next combination of monsters she had in mind. The initial plan had basically backfired on her when she created the Goblin Pole Dancer, but now she had something even better to work with. She was going to add the Goblin – or even an Orc – to the Fire Drake (since it was more like a Dragon than the Wyvern) but paused when she saw the Dragonkin option. She hadn’t seen one in action, but she could guess that they were a sentient race that inhabited the dungeon. Deciding to try that one first, she combined the Hearthfire Dragonkin with the Fire Drake and got the result she was hoping for.
Dragon Rider (Advanced Monster)
The Dragon Rider is a combination of a Hearthfire Dragonkin and a Fire Drake. Although the Dragonkin is a little large for a normal Fire Drake to allow for riding, the Dragonkin uses its own wings in conjunction with the Drake to keep it flying in the air. The Drake can lob fireballs toward the enemy as well as attack in close with a flame attack. Th
e Dragonkin wields a spear that can be used for massive close-combat damage.
Impale
Current level description:
The Dragon Rider plummets down from directly atop the target and impales its victim with its spear, inflicting massive physical damage.
Physical Damage:
550
Cooldown:
200.0 seconds
Firestorm
Current level description:
If two or more Dragon Riders are present and both are under 50% health, they can use the Firestorm skill together. Each Fire Drake emits a massive cone of flame that combines with each other, covering their target with overlapping blasts of fire causing fire-based magical damage.
Magical Damage:
100 per second
Duration:
10 seconds
Cooldown:
Once per battle: Only available if two or more Dragon Riders are present and have less than 50% health
Yes! Now that’s what I’m talking about! I love it! Krista had always liked Dragonriders in games and in the fantasy books that she used to read. They were always so powerful and hard to kill – hopefully these would be the same. But shouldn’t it be Dragonrider instead of Dragon Rider? She asked Carl his opinion.
Dungeon Guild Page 11
