I review over the alert again and again, I even learned that I can sort of pin it in place as I circle the thing. My mind is rushing about a mile a minute as I think about all the possibilities I saw coming, this was not one of them, not even slightly. How in the world was I supposed to anticipate my “choice” to lead to every living dungeon to suddenly know about it. The only good thing I can see from this alert is that the dungeons don’t know it’s me. That’s a small comfort considering what this message says and implies, that I have suddenly become one of the most important places in the world. I hope the risk comes with some great rewards because this is going to suck if it doesn’t. I would ask what I got myself into but it wasn’t my fault this time….mostly wasn’t my fault...ok I may be at fault. Putting that aside and trying to slow my racing thoughts I focused on what this meant for me. First and formost, any dungeon that learned I was the font would be b lining it to me to get a taste of power. Second, it might only alert all the dungeons but that doesn’t mean dungeons are the only ones effected, people will be rushing once they learn aswell. Finally, I need to set up defenses for not only the dungeons coming my way but the people, which meant going deeper and getting stronger.
That was a lot to focus on all at once, the good news is that I still have some choices left in order for me to continue growing. So next, and last on the list for this level, is bosses, plural surprisingly enough, that might just be how things are though. I am surprised the system has a differentiation between them, mostly because I thought I had already made some and got no notification about it. Though the word did feel a bit weird, it translated well to my mind, but when I feel it out it feels a lot like [Aether] more concept then word. However it seemed there was a word that matches close enough to the feeling so it kinda melds with the word boss. Well pondering the nature of words and the feelings there in is a past time better left to poets and fairies, and I sure as hell am no poet. Though I might be able to start leveraging myself a fae at this point, might start asking people their names for power. No focus, bosses, from what I can tell I have two slots for them, area boss and dungeon boss.
Dungeon boss seems clear enough, I assign a monster as the strongest creature in the dungeon, and it gets strong enough for that mantle. From what I can tell it bypasses certain restrictions that the system places on dungeon monster power levels. So I could likely ascend anything from a very low power state to an extremely high power state. Considering I am being given the option now, from what I can tell, the dungeon boss will scale with the power level of my dungeon. Very handy. Area bosses seem to be more specialized, reading through the description and checking the limit, two right now, it seems that every distinct area I make can have one boss. There appear to be more restrictions in place and the area boss won’t scale with the dungeon, so it is likely to be left behind as I go deeper and make more defenses. Assigning an area boss also comes with a fun skill, [Create key] which will allow me to lock my core to anyone who hasn’t beaten all the bosses or isn’t sufficiently strong enough. That second point seems to be to keep things fair with getting to me.
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Assigning bosses definitely seems like a big deal for dungeons, and if I had to guess, they are given this late so that dungeons can get a healthy supply of monsters figured out before making choices. They where big choices too, I am fairly nervous about them all together, just looking through all of my creatures was certainly something. Making the choice would be way too much if I only had normal creatures but I have named ones too. This is going to be complicated. I look over the areas that can have a boss, surprisingly it’s the necropolis and the unfinished castle, though looking at them it isn’t hard to understand. They are the only spots with clear differnece between them since I haven’t gotten around to making everything as I need yet. I can hold off on assigning a boss to the castle, as it’s not finished and I know who will be boss there, but the necropolis. I know who deserves that.
The guardian crawler has been a loyal watchdog at the gate and has been with me for so very long. Being one of my first creations and my first wholly original creation I think he deserved the title of first area boss the most. Terra was also high on the list, but he deserves the be the dungeon boss if anything, though I feel off assigning that yet. So with a nod and some mental preparations I get the crawler’s attention. Considering all it did most of the time was sit there, it wasn’t hard. I tried to impose the title of boss onto it but something pushed back. Trying a few more times I got the same issue, where the energy would begin to form the title take, then nothing. Maybe the baseline strength of the crawler was too low? Hmmm, or maybe a title needs a name to take. With that idea solidified I focus on the title again, and then my mind rearranges the word boss. Shattering it and taking the energy in that title, I focus on the crawler and give it both the power of a name, and a title.
“I name you Bastion, The First Guardian”
Do we end the book at 50
