It was a strange feeling. Like the sense I had of my dungeon, but so much greater. My awareness spread through the dungeon. I gained a very in-depth sense of the physical layout, but at the same time couldnt pick out individual creatures.
Innately I knew where things were located, which floor monsters were on, and their approximate numbers. I felt at the energy I had availablethere would be enough, though not much to spare.
The first thing I did was dig a tunnel that led to the Altar of Creation. The excess material I gained from this process I stocked up on the harbor floor. Once the connection was complete, I used some of the material I gained to smoothly close off the entrance so it looked like wed never been there. I created rough but simple rooms in that area large enough for both us and the animals Raven wanted kept out of the fighting.
I had done the tunneling part so I would have access to the materials I needed. Technically I could create them using pure dungeon energy, but that was a more expensive proposition.
Then came fulfilling my promise to Michael. I closed the stairs leading to the biome floor, smoothing the stone and restructuring it so it looked like nothing had ever been there. From that room, I created a larger archway leading out to a balcony. I then made stairs running down the side of the wall that faced the harbor. I didnt put railings upon the stairs, because if people were stupid enough to fall off, they deserved it.
Putting the stairs on the outside of the ziggurat did mean that players could attempt to jump down. I was okay with this though. Being strong enough to survive that fall meant they were more than likely strong enough to survive the floors down to the harbor. That also gave me the opportunity to use flying monsters in a way I hadnt before. With that thought, I made sure to add a few roosts for monsters under the stairs.
Once I was done and had reconnected the stairs below the micilium village, I closed off the stairs that connected the micilium village to the floor below it. To give the micilium access to my dungeon, after all they were part of my staff, I created a hidden spiral staircase that opened through a fake wall. I made several of these hidden entrances, using my expanded senses to make them as undetectable as possible.
Closing off the stairs leading from the forge down to the archive, I then created a hidden tunnel at the far end of the forge floor. To access it, one had to walk a fairly simple pattern, that pattern was just complex enough that it was doubtful anyone would do it by accident.
I looked over the changes, essentially zooming out and giving myself an overview. Something like map tacks you get when you zoom in on a map showed up when I did this. There was one for each floor, and five different ones stood out in particular.
The first two were for the micilium colony and the biome floor. When I focused, there was an option to turn them into a hidden sanctuary floor. It cost quite a bit of energy, and would be a place delvers could rest. You might think that would be pointless, but dungeons had an ecosystem of their own. The more delvers came in the faster the dungeon grew, for each successful group there would be at least four groups that failed. Places like hidden sanctuaries were favorites of players. There would be some kind of boss, probably Michael, that would protect the peace in those floors, but it would allow the players to potentially even trade with the micilium.
The harbor had an option to set up a small mermen settlement in the deepest section. There wasnt enough of them to be of much use, but eventually they might be if they had some kind of base of operations.
The fourth pin was for the forge room, offering a list of different upgrades I could add to the boss room of the dungeon. The final fifth pin was one that represented where I had built our rooms. They called it a hidden sanctuary, evidently the dungeon understood its purpose. I could add multiple different upgrades that would increase healing or help with focus and so many different options. I used the rest of my energy to smooth out and repair as much of the interior of the dungeon as I could.
I willed myself to exit this dungeon editing mode, and before long I found myself standing before the forge once again. I could still sense the dungeon, but it was back to the way it normally was.
Once I got up to the harbor floor, I admired my handiwork with the stairs. All it had taken to make the new stairs more elaborate was a little bit of concentration, a fragment of what it took to control the dead. The edges of the stone stairs had been carved with skeletal forms, and in the wall along the stairs different statutes had been set into alcoves, also all skeletons. Every one would turn into monsters.
That was cool, Maxwell chuckled.
It was fairly cool to do as well, I agreed. I may go find Michael and get him to have some of his people move our furniture into our new living quarters.
The micilium, now a part of the dungeon, were able to more freely move through it than they once had. After Michael dispatched a group to do as I asked, he also set out different workgroups that would further repair and restore the dungeon. Since they were not considered the normal combatants, they all had a sense for when danger was coming and would be able to flee back into their hidden village, hopefully before they were even seen.