Trash Mountain Dungeon

After some time, I decided it would be better to keep the one-time conversion in my back pocket; there might be better options later. But with that decision, I had deals to make and obstacles to overcome, first would be the negotiation of my first and second floors. Quickly, I had one of my dogs walk down to the camp with a simple message scratched into a metal plate, two guards readied their weapons against the mechanical hound, having heard it as the lift came down. The three had a silent stand-off before another came from the inner camp and took the plate after I had the hound drop it, returning to the lift and sitting down. Some time passed before the same entourage from before came forward with several wizardy-looking people joining them.

The lead person, Arthur if I remember correctly, spoke first.

"Greetings creature, I take it your master asks for a summons?"

I guess it would make sense not to understand the chicken scratches of my ratkin, still, he seemed to get the basic idea. I had the hound give a nod before motioning them to get onto the lift, ascending once they were all securely on. They rose up and into the entrance room, the large doors once again closing behind them as they began to follow the hound back to the merchant's shop.

"Welcome once again dear customers, my master would like to offer his thanks for accepting his invitation, and that he is ready to make good on the deal you agreed to."

Eh, more or less, might have to work on his wording skills but again they seemed to get a basic understanding of what I was telling them.

"We appreciate your master's faith and honor and are more than willing to discuss what may be done to begin good relations."

He motioned two men to set out a collapsible table, taking out and setting down a stack of paper and a quill.

As per the deal, they would have to buy the rights to enter each floor, paying whatever we agreed on for each. The big question right now was just what kind of price I could reasonably put, while the first floor held little resource value it was still useful for the metal and the fights with my monsters, add the fact that technically I could produce infinite metal so long as they collected it before it was recycled by the system meant that even the relatively scarce floor one already held immense value. Of course, they wouldn't pay the theoretically high price for it but still, it was a point to consider all the same. Hmmm, I'll ask for something absurd to gauge their reactions and see just how outrageous I can get before they refuse.

"My master would ask for the heart of a dragon, the soul of a demon, and the mind of the unknowable as the price for the first floor."

Arthur had no immediate reaction before small tells of his mood leaked through his serious demeanor, his eyes were dilating, his hands shook slightly, and his overall expression was slightly off from before, maybe I asked for too much?

He composed himself and with a cough.

"Ahem, while I am sure of the value and greatness of this floor, perhaps it would be better if we could discuss other items for trade, I'm afraid those three are in... short supply at the moment."

Definitely too much, and probably too outrageous to be honest, I didn't get much in the way of information.

"That is acceptable to him, my master would instead ask for five individuals of three different monsters you can provide as well as several sheets of magical metals and other materials."

Arthur's eyes narrowed, it seemed this one was more in reach, which meant that he was going to try and lower it.

"We are more than willing to pay your master his price, however, such an endeavor would be costly in our current situation, perhaps your master would be willing to part with an agreeable sum of resources to aid us in gathering these monsters for him?"

Oh, that's clever, he was tying his desires to my price. Not a bad tactic but it also came with two problems, he could only ask for what he knew I had, and what I actually gave him. With the deal being based on trust, as much as we could call it trust, he could only ask me for stuff he knew for certain I had, which was mainly metal from the assembly rooms, and the fuel they didn't need to know was just compact worm poop.

"Of course, my master would help you, and he would be more than willing to hand over a good amount of metal and fuel produced from this very floor. Along with that, he encourages you to peruse my stock while my brethren bring forth your resources."

He and several others in the group looked disgruntled with my decision but Arthur seemed to take it in stride, if painfully so. But while I had the different floor monsters begin hashing together different items from their rooms, and the people from the group began to look around the small shop, inspecting and looking over the strange devices, some even bought stuff with small silver or gold coins. Note to self, figure out how much these were worth, and as a side note figure out the image on each coin's face, the gold had the face of a bird creature while the silver ones had the image of a... fish? Odd but it probably has some meaning behind it if it was put on a coin, if nothing else whoever minted the coins like seafood.

After a short amount of time, my monsters started to haul their loads to the lift room, a neat pile of metal parts and sheets from the clockworkers, bundles of metallic thread from the rust trappers, some large crystals mined out by the golems, and finally a small but still massive sphere of worm poop. The people seemed to be somewhat stunned by the display, possibly from the smell now that I think about it, but also likely not used to monsters not only not attacking them but also bringing them their stuff, but they quickly got over it and began to cautiously inspect the goods. They all seemed at least interested in each thing but the two things they focused mainly on were the neat piles of metal, and the poop orb, hmmm, poorb, worm poorb.

"It is certainly... generous of your master to provide such... great gifts on us, we will take our leave and begin scouting for suitable monsters. I will be having some of my men come in to collect the aid."

I guess it does have a smell, should have figured I suppose but it never really struck me as important, oh well. Gathering themselves they left the shop and went down the lift, taking the goods they bought from the shop with them back to the camp.

But with that done I could start looking at my next floor, and while I wouldn't want to level up immediately, it would be best if I started to work on the requirements.

Level 4 Requirements

Build and fill 15 rooms (15/15)

Create a large room using several smaller rooms (Complete)

Have 10 different monster blueprints (9/10)

Utilize 5 different traps (5/5)

Endure 15 invasions or challenges (3/15)

It wasn't the most difficult of lists, I was guaranteed to get that last monster blueprint even if the outsiders took a while, I did have enough DP for a random monster roll. But the real bottleneck would be the bottom requirement, so far, I've only been attacked three times, the first was the horde of crazed animals and the other two were Edward's first attack, and then the Greeble invasion. Unfortunately, it also seemed as though simply entering the dungeon didn't qualify as a challenge, they would need to actively engage with it for it to count. The upside of that was I would eventually get it once they fulfilled their end and brought the monsters, the downside was that I could have already potentially finished that requirement if I had been more aggressive until now, perhaps they would have tried attacking me more often if I was more aggressive towards people, or perhaps if I had made a different set of choices in the past. Oh well, I made the choices I did and not the ones I didn't, so I'll just live with what I have and what I've done.

That being said There was some small stuff I'd like to look over while they got to it, the barracks ratkin were making a fuss about food or something, thankfully it wasn't the lack but rather some weirdo that was doing strange stuff to it, better look into it for any problems.