Ebony Maw (Sallin_Kari)

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

That's half the fun and we both know it. Like a dragon-born (Vengeance) paladin / (Raven Queen) warlock hybrid. When you absolutely, positively have to fuck up some undead.

The first test works great, although the sharp flash stuns you as well, you're confident you could make at least ten of them. Best to mention that to all of your little spawnlings so they know to stay out of any room with this, at least until it goes off. The location triggers don't seem to work that well, at least not at first. Detecting motion, or an interruption of light patterns seems easy enough, like the type of spell and the triggering mechanism work best when they're the same element and doesn't really add to the cost. The rest of the triggers seem to fall apart as you try to build them, but it feels like it's out of your range rather than something fundamentally impossible. Your attempt at the door opening trap seems to work the best, as the sharp change from no light to a sudden flare seems to work flawlessly, whereas the motion or 'shade ratio' triggers seem a bit more finicky, with one in five not going off right.

Placing two spell crystals next to each other makes them... echo a bit, and they don't seem to be working quite as well. They also don't feed properly as you try to feed just a bit of mana to the one that's been fired, but the other tries to slurp the mana up too, much of it 'spilling' over the top and seeming to disappear back into the dungeon. There's nothing intrinsically broken about it, and your plan to booby trap your magic crystals seems like it would work, it would just take twice as long for the main one to recharge and be slightly wasteful. So far, you haven't taxed your new supply of mana too much, but if you want to keep some magic for yourself, you'll need to limit yourself to ten of these, or three pairs if you're going to place them as double traps and you plan on recharging them on the fly without having to go out and recharge them manually. You can save some serious magical energy doing that, but you'll constantly have to expose yourself or Velvet, and you'll leave tracks.

[Sallin_Kari]

Next I try to see how much power I can put into one of these. I check all the elements to get an idea of just how much power I can get out of them. It's also worth testing if magical fire can get flared up by wind like normal fire can. Also I have an idea of a trap but I want to see if I can camouflage the crystals in any meaningful way first. I also want to test if I can have an earth trap react to a stone door moving, and if so how far away I can have it function. Another question is if I can have the crystals cast their spell even if they are removed from their housing assuming the conditions for their spell are still met.

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Any particular element you want to work with? Theory being that the dungeon core might have a basic elemental preference. Give a chosen element 1.5 power, and the 'opposite' element 50% power.

The magical crystals seem to be able to store above your bare minimum, but not much more than that. You haven't seen much in the way of magic, but this feels... basic level stuff, not something that is anywhere near what you can do in person, but it won't require you to risk yourself. The core does seem to have a preferred element, but not by much. Many of the basic magical attacks you could practice before, you can stuff into a crystal and have it regurgitate with a simple trigger mechanism like being touched firmly or something more complex with an agreeing element.

The magical fire doesn't seem to react to the wind beyond being blown around, although you're not sure why exactly that would be. The fire seems to be burning the mana itself, rather than being an air breathing fire like you'd expect. Camouflaging the crystals works okay at first, but firing the spell seems to cause it to shake and vibrate, or otherwise give its position away, not to mention triggering the spell seems to grab the attention of your magical senses. The earth magic and stone door trick seems to work out pretty well, although the comparative complexity of a door moving rather than striking a spell crystal eats into your crystals power storage, weakening the spell. A full length of the chamber feels like about the limit of any particular spell trigger, although you're not sure why the spells would be sensitive like that.

Your attempts at autonomous crystals works well too, the spells seeming to not care about housing at all, the housing just being a convenient way for the dungeon to control the crystals and feed them power. Something like that seems like you might be tempting fate though, if it ever got out that your dungeon was a source of spell crystals that don't need to be processed to be useful, you might find yourself drowning in adventurers.

[Sallin_Kari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

*Shrug* I don't really see a specific element being thematically relevant to Adam so I don't really have an opinion.

I have a few ideas for how to use this. My tests seem to provide interesting possibilities... Unfortunately most of my ideas for them seem to be rendered useless due to the lack of power they pack. Still the idea that the housing isn't necessary isn't exactly a bad thing. Especially since my idea was that they would still serve as traps even if spotted and collected. All I have to do is make the triggers be too general or too specific for them to be useful for adventurers to be able to either safely contain them or practically use them and there is no threat. If simply touching a crystal changes its temperature enough to trigger a fireblast to the face, it'd to far to dangerous to attempt to be an attractive piece of loot.

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Fair enough, no elements for you.

The fireblast one seems easy enough to make and you're confident you could make a great deal of them if you so chose, although keeping them charged would be a bigger problem. You even get it to the point where physical contact will trigger the spell, so you've got a few basic traps ready to go whenever you want to start placing them. Or you could see what Velvet has come up with, most likely some kind of lewd something or other.

[Sallin_Kari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

You can do an element if you want, I just never thought of an element for him.

I'll see what Velvet suggests before we begin, at worse I'll just disregard them.

[porne]

Velvet brings you a few spell crystals she's created spells with. The first she's put together seems like a general utilitarian one, you mount it in the floor, and when it or the tile it's under is stepped on, it tunnels out sideways, creating an ankle breaker trench. That's surprisingly tame for what you expected. The next one is more what you expected, when it's given a smack, it releases an aphrodisiac gas around it. Naturally, you're resistant to it since it's difficult for any part of the dungeon to alter your mind without your permission. The last one... you can't actually touch. When you go to touch it, your hand passes right through it. You feel a bit of magic triggering though, but it takes very little magic to respond. You also note that it is exceptionally reflective and beautiful. That's just cruel.

[Sallin_Kari]

I look over the crystals, immediately disregarding the second one. While the first one could be useful, these traps aren't going to defeat anyone so I'd like combo potential and it would be difficult to utilize this one in such a way. The third one, on the other hand... That would be the perfect bait for a trap. I thank Velvet before trying one trap I had in mind. Specifically a way to prevent them from just retreating. Simply put they enter a small room, and when they open the opposing door, the first door gets barred from the outside by stone. While certainly not impossible to escape from it should at least slow them down enough where I can attempt interdiction.

[porne]

Even though it's got one charge, it seems to be able to last a little while untouchable, a few minutes before your hand is forced out from where the gem is. Your attempt at creating a door closing gem works pretty well, and you even with the penalty, you're able to make it close the door. It seems to have a bit of a range limit though, and the dungeon does not like you sealing off an exit without there being a later connection back to the main tunnels. You could push it, but creating a one way trap like that is going to be limited to one for the dungeon, at least for now. That said, as long as there's a 'reasonable' connection back to the main tunnels, it seems fine. Filling said connection with naga seems to be juuuuuust fine by the dungeon.

[Sallin_Kari]

With the tunnels set, I begin setting out the traps. First is the trap that blocks off their escape, and in the next room I have the bait trap with a flame blast right behind it. I see if I can modify the temperatures of the rooms so that it would be cold, so that when the bait gem turns incorporeal the cold air washing over the actual fire gem could act as a trigger. In the following door, I have a light based trap, designed to blind them for the naga in the next room. If my memory is correct I have two more traps I don't know what to do with, so I ruminate on what to do. Hell, I'll even bring Velvet in. She had some good ideas... and other that were less so but...

[porne]

The air inside of your mountain cave is naturally fairly cold and damp, although it takes you a moment to realize this as your body seems to be less concerned about temperature than it used to be. The temperature trick seems to work pretty well, although you're a bit resistant to testing it fully charged. The flashing trap works as well, without any problems. You do indeed have another two traps you can set as you please. Velvet makes various suggestions including setting the aphrodisiac one in the blinding room, although with your naga, you're not sure what else do suggest. "I suppose we could try and make a healing one for the naga spawnlings?" she suggests.

[Sallin_Kari]

Things look good with the traps I have set. As for the last two traps, I finally relent on the aphrodisiac trap, as it would be hindering to fight while weak in the knees with lust. Though when she drops her last comment I freeze, "Wait, heal? You can do that?"

[porne]

"Kind of? It's not as broadly useful as you're thinking, it really just allows them to drink from the magic of the dungeon. I don't know enough about healing to make a 'real' healing magic crystal." Even so, that would be quite useful...

[Sallin_Kari]

"An advantage is an advantage, let's do that," I nod, making a note to see if I can find someone with more knowledge on healing... Perhaps that priestess we capture could help with this?

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Was she a priestess or just a healer class?

You set up a central 'healing' chamber for your naga and gargoyles, somewhere they can rest and feed from the dungeons magic supply to heal themselves.

[Sallin_Kari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I believe you said priestess. I have no idea if she had healing and neither does Adam, but he figures of the people here, she'd be the one.

"So does that consume the mana for the last trap?" I question now that it's done.

[porne]

"The gem itself doesn't 'cast' a spell, but anytime they want to use it, it'll start pulling mana from the collective supply. We need to be careful about the total number of spells crystals we have, the dungeon will confused if we have too many of the up and running."

[Sallin_Kari]

"I'm aware but we had one crystal we didn't know what to do with," I point out.

[porne]

"Not a problem my darling, I just wanted to make sure you didn't want to start healing those girls scrapes and booboos. It doesn't work like that."

[Sallin_Kari]

"I mean I do, but if we can't then we can't," I sigh, "We'll need to make it a priority to find someone that actually knows that kind of thing so we can replicate it."