Now that I'm finally on a roll I decide to just keep going. The next room however will be more of a cave system. I place it on the opposite side of the main room from the second room I created. It takes me a bit longer to create the actual terrain this time because I'm going for a cave system instead of just a cave. This inevitably means creating tunnel networks that lead to large open areas. I plan to have the majority of fights confined to these open areas, although I do plan to have a few monsters in the tunnels. If the 5th floor works out the way I hope it will delvers inside this cave system will start to question if they've passed through rooms or how many rooms they've passed through while being in the same room.
The tunnel network I create has multiple converging and diverging paths making it a little maze like. Admittedly not my intention but I'm also not going to complain about it. The cave design also means that I can use more of the rooms actual volume instead of just a tiny fraction of it. Once I'm satisfied with the layout of the room, I stop adding stone. Then I go around and place a few dozen small puddles in as random an order as I can manage. None of them more than a few centimeters deep or a meter or two in diameter. In fact, the majority are around half a meter in diameter.
After that I place some of the mushrooms I have around the puddles in a way that feels natural. I even grab a few more varieties of mushrooms from the shop. One has healing properties while another is simply edible. A third type is actually poisonous. The best part is that it looks identical to the first mushroom a got back when I was still a little worried about delvers leaving due to lack of resources. Well, almost identical. The main difference being that the colors of the poison mushrooms are actually much more vibrant and lively. The opposite of what I would have expected.
The poison isn't fatal. Like always I want them to get used to the idea that I would include something like this in my dungeon. It will however cause enough intestinal distress to put a quick end to the delve, as well as the dignity of any poor soul who tries to power through. A basic purification spell could ease the symptoms, though only slightly. Those with the foraging skill will start to distinguish between the two when gathering mushrooms in the future. Eventually leading to them being able to spot poisonous plants without needing a fellow delver to 'test' it first. That's my plan at least. Still not a hundred percent sure how skills actually work. Although I do know a lot more than I did six years ago.
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Now that the mushroom situation is settled, I turn my attention to traps. This time I go all out, one hundred percent lethal and well-hidden enough that those without the skill for it aren't going to spot them. I could hide them even better but again I don't want to make it completely unfair. That said the spike traps have poison tipped spikes the dart traps have poison tipped darts and the poison gas trap is actual poison not just sleeping gas. Honestly the only reason the mushrooms aren't fatal is because it was only after listening to those with the foraging skill complain about the lack of advancement in that skill that I realized the skill was more versatile than just 'picking berries in the woods'.
After that comes the least time consuming yet most expensive part of the entire room, iron ore nodes. I place seven around the room in strategic locations. More than any one party can carry out in a single delve. At least I hope so because I plan to let them replenish themselves naturally over time. I could feed the nodes to speed up the process, but I'd rather spend that mana elsewhere. As for why I can't just place iron like I do with everything else I have no idea. I suspect that spawning iron directly involves a related skill I don't have which nodes are somehow able to bypass. Either way nodes are insanely expensive for the amount of Iron I get. I'm guessing at least. I have no idea if spawning the iron directly would be cheaper.
As for the types of mobs I plan to use, of course you got to have giant scorpions in an underground cave. I even give them the swift strike skill allowing their stingers to move at a frankly insane speed. Anyone not paying attention is going to be in for a world of hurt. Anyone making it this far should naturally have excellent equipment and skills so they should be able to react in time to at least dodge. Aside from the giant scorpions there will also be stone golems, Giant spiders about the same size as the scorpions, and cave crawlers which are basically giant centipedes. All level 26 of course.
After getting everything set up, I pull back and realize that I've spent way more time on this room than the first two rooms of this floor combined. While working though I was struck with a bit of inspiration. I'm going to create two paths, one above ground and the other below ground. Each path will have its own pros and cons with certain things only available on a specific path. For instance, while the cave path is arguably more dangerous it does contain iron ore. Whereas the above ground path will contain more food as well as varied scenery.
