Hmm... hmmm... HMMMMM...

ARGH! I don't know! Why're there no guidelines here!? Specifically, why're Identification not working on this Message Window? 

Alright, deep breaths, let's take it from the top.

I got to start up the Core. That's good. 

The three Magic Stones got used alongside the Core, and I can create the Dungeon just as I wish. That's also according to the plan.

Then, I got the option between several different attributes, Dungeon types, and Monster Lines. What the heck!?

The Kigal-Note completely forgot to mention that aspect. Rather, who was it that wrote that page in the book? Now that I think about it, despite there being several books regarding Dungeons in the library of the Adventurers' Union, there's close to no detailed explanation. The Kigal-Note is actually better than the whole library combined on that subject.

No, instead of who "did" wrote those books, I should consider who "could" write them. Besides the info that outsiders already know about, who would know anything about making Dungeons? The answer: Dungeon Masters.

And why would Dungeon Masters try to increase the number of Dungeons? That's still a question to be answered. I got an idea, but there's still no real solution...

Not that whatever the other Dungeon Masters are plotting have anything with me at the moment. Except for the fact that this choice may become even more important for my future than I first expected.

Alright, enough fantasizing. Time to get to work. Can't have the others waiting forever.

First, let's decide on the attributes. There's a "Main" and a "Sub" attribute, both being able to enhance the facilities, treasures, and monsters related to those attributes. And if the few nuggets of knowledge I found are right, the Sub-attribute only has half the bonus compared to the Main-attribute.

Well, better take Water as the Sub-attribute. Water is important in the desert after all, and it's the main reason we're out here in the first place. 

While there is stuff like Desert Tunas, I don't think that Water attributed monsters thrive that well in the desert. It may be possible to have some individuals, but it's probably not that smart to have them as the Main-attribute. Therefore, Sub.

As for the Main-attribute... I should go through them all earnestly. 

Regarding the Heretic attribute... yeah, let's toss that. It's more of an attribute for saboteurs, which would be good for a Sub-attribute for a Dungeon, but as a Main, it's not enough. There may be Outer Ones that I can call on, but honestly, the thought itself scares me. And we're also gonna use this place as a training ground sometimes, and we're not after reducing the trainees' SAN points to zero.

So yeah: 0 points.

If we continue upward through the list, then the Death attribute... it's strong, sure, but kinda risky. What if the facilities become "infected" with it? The Poison attribute is a mix of the Death- and Water attributes. It may just be my imagination, but you can never know. And also, it may just end up with a bunch of suicide-bombers.

In the end: 15 points.

The Earth attribute delivers monsters that are physically strong, both in muscles and in stamina. There's also the possibility of being able to cultivate the desert with the Water attribute. But that's just a theory, like with the one above. 

Therefore: 75 points.

The Sand attribute is a safe bet here in the desert, but people that come to the Dungeon will probably be used to those monsters already. However, I mustn't forget that these attributes also influence the Dungeon's facilities, meaning traps like quicksand have more than a large possibility to be damn cheap.

Considering my personal experience during the travel here: 80 points.

Then, there's the Darkness attribute. My main. Its strengths lie in its power of weakening, its stealth abilities, and its trickiness. The weakness is that it lacks a solid, physical brawn, and as mentioned, it's tricky, as in the meaning of "being difficult to master". Facilities will probably be something like "dark rooms", where one can't see anything in front of them. Add running water to disturb one's sense of smell and hearing. Still, it's not perfect.

Overall... I have to settle with 80 points. *Sniff*.

Hmm, the contenders here are Sand and Darkness, but if we ignore the need for traps, then Earth is a stronger contender... 

No good. I can't decide on just this. Let's move over to the Dungeon Types for now. Here we got "Cave", "Desert", "Castle". and "Ruins".

Can toss away "Desert". Both me and Alf won't survive without a real roof. Even if I could add some buildings somehow, I feel like that option would destroy the options for the Water attribute facilities.

As for "Castle"... probably gotta cross out this one as well. There's a rumor going around these types, that once you've pushed past the first wave of monsters, the whole castle will crumble down as if it was made of sand.

In other words, castle-type Dungeons have low recovery power. The one in the undead capital operated under the same principles. After Regina and the rest broke through the fiery undead, there was close to no other troops that undead-princess could use. I've got various theories that could explain this, but the most likely one is that castle-types have too high upkeep to worry about producing monsters.

Then there's the fact that a castle in the middle of the desert would stick out too much. We need to be discreet... for now. And there are stories about Dungeons suddenly changing their appearance and design, so it's not impossible to graduate to a castle later on when we got more clues about what's going on.

This means I'm standing with two options left: "Ruins" and "Cave". 

"Ruins" is actually pretty widespread, as it can be something similar to a graveyard, or acting as a simpler castle-type. The problem is that I don't know what kinda ruins will be generated. The plus-side is that ruins will attract adventurers like bees to honey, except that only experienced adventurers know that "ruins = chance for treasures". Maybe too experienced as well...

"Cave" on the other hand is the more stable choice. There are no great gains like with ruin-types, but I know what I get from it. It also becomes possible to set up "Mining spots" where one can produce metals. A good opportunity to attract smiths, and in case its cost-ratio performance is good, a great source of metal for the other Departments in the organization.

So, there are either the stable-but-boring cave-types, or I can take the risky ruins-type, which may produce better results than the cave-types.

...Let's weed out the Monster Lines as well before deciding. The options here are "Demon", "Snake", "Mucus", "Arachnid", and "Undead".

Demons have a large variety of species, so you won't make a miss with this one. Except that a demon-only Dungeon will attract the attention of adventurers using Demonbane weapons. Not to mention that it would be a hint to deduct that I'm the Dungeon Master, but that's probably just my paranoia talking.

Snake... ignore the memory of Glavras for now. Anyway, snakes work well with both Water and Sand. I'll bet there are some strong specimens among the Earth attribute as well. As for Darkness... assassin snakes? Don't seem too farfetched of an idea.

"Mucus" refers to slimes and slimy creatures in general, including slugs. Not so sure if those can handle well with the Sand- and Earth attributes, but maybe Darkness...? Water's an obvious yes for them. 

"Arachnids" are spiders, scorpions, almost anything with eight legs. They're good in both ruins and caves, and there are variants of them all for all attributes I've thought of. The scorpion part could probably be cheaper than most,  due to us living in a desert, but there's no guarantee for that to be true when the Dungeon itself ain't a desert-type.

Undead. I want this one. The reason for this is that undead comes in many variants, just as with demons, and this extends to even having many classes from "birth". More importantly: they don't need to eat or sleep. They're the perfect type of guards! And I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feed a whole Dungeon, at least in the first stages. Better go with something safe then.

I can produce undead on my own, but even a single F-rank normal Skeleton or Zombie requires 100 Materials. That's 10 D-ranked Trolls! No way I can make enough undead for a whole Dungeon. And a Necromancer camping by a Dungeon with many undead could be a nice cover story.

Therefore, the undead is a big YES to the Monster Lines. It means I have to settle with a cave-type Dungeon then. Having a barrier up 24/7 like the undead capital sounds like a real pain... oh, this world's week has six days, not seven. 24/6 then. Still a pain.

As for the second Line... demons. They're too good of an option to say no to. That would lead to the Darkness attribute being the best choice for the Main attribute, as there are more demons of that attribute compared to Earth and Sand. It could also lead to anti-light traps or the like, which would also help the undead. Light and Darkness are both strong and weak to each other after all.

Then, for the last Monster Line, I've got the option between slimes, spiders/scorpions, and snakes. One S to rule them all! Just joking.

Slimes... don't sound like a strong contender. Sure, there's the Water attribute that will help them, even if it's only the Sub-attribute, but I don't think they're that strong out here in the desert. What if the adventurers dragged in loads of sand or something? 

Spiders and scorpions have the advantage of being usable as both "soldiers" and "spies". Later on, maybe I could create something like a breeding ground in one of the caves? The queen spider in the Water-Knot did the same thing, and boy it worked. 

Snakes can become damn strong, and that's proven both in the Water-Knot and on Sea Tree Isle. Glavras even demonstrated that snakes can become dragons! 

Wait, wasn't there a demon that was also a dragon? I think I could evolve into it... and snakes and demons are closely intertwined, was it? The attributes of the Dungeon are gonna Darkness and Water. So, won't the snakes I can choose, limited to those attributes, be pretty similar to the demons of the same limitations?

There's nothing that can prove my idea, but I've convinced myself. I'll say no to the snake-line. And considering the mucus-line being too much of an unknown, I'll have the Arachnid-line be my third choice!

A flash of light appeared from the Dungeon Core and covered the whole cave for a moment. After that... huh? Nothing? It's the same old cave. The only difference is that the Dungeon Core has turned reddish-purple and is placed on a pillar made of bedrock.

...What am I supposed to do now? Ask for some Dungeon Menu-

It really appeared! Still, what is all of this? 

Now Identification works! About damn time! Let's have a look at the others:

I see. Guess you can't start with the end-game Dungeon right of the start. Good thing I expected something like this... wait, wouldn't this mean that the Water-Knot was a level 10 Dungeon!? Wow. 

Wait, doesn't that mean my place is the weakest of them all!? And what's this "degree of abilities" supposed to mean? 

Hoh, so it's not the Dungeon that gets stronger, but the created items/monsters? It doesn't sound like there's a power-boost to the inhabitants of the Dungeon, but that one can create new monsters related to those stats. Kur Kigal may be possible in the future if I keep on increasing the Movement stat. 

Then what about this? Does it increase the monster's INT?

...Okay? So, it's like a manual? I tried to touch the Knowledge stat, and a list appeared as I did so. But... it's empty. Tch. Well, if I ever get stuck, I could spend some CP on it, but for now, let's see how far I can go without a walkthrough. Maybe I'll do so anyway. That second part of it sounds definitely useful after all.

As I expected. Just hope that status G doesn't limit me to G-ranks only...

Again, on the point. I'll leave the subordinates and treasures for later and have a sneak peek at the Dungeon Customization. Mostly because I'm afraid to look at the definitely probably pathetic selection I have...

Hmm, I get the Dungeon Type, so I'll skip that, but what about the rest? 

I looked at "Facilities" as well, just to be sure. And Pseudo-Peace, is that a special bonus Dungeons get so that the Dungeon Master can build their Dungeon in peace before being invaded?

...Doesn't this mean the others can't enter until the next day? Whoops...

I exited the Dungen Maker Menu and returned to the main menu, and tried to Identify the Special tab and the thing that caught my attention the most: the "Demon Lord's Starting Pack".

...Should I open it? Some presents aren't of the happy kind... Let's have a look at it, at least.

Wait, you have to choose the present yourself? Let's exit and have a... I can't exit back to the Dungeon Menu! I tried to make it appear again but with no luck.

Grr... I did take a quick peek at the three Creation options, and it seems they all require CP to work. Guess I should just pick something and be done with it. That CP-stuff regenerates by the hour, so it will overflow at this rate. 

...It doesn't seem like I get to chose the monsters if I take the Monster Pack or the Hybrid Pack, but the same can be considered for the Facilities I can get as well.

Hmm, if I take the Monster Pack, I may end up with more mouths than I can feed. If it's the Hybrid Pack, I may get some facilities that can help me with this, and it is less hungry monsters as well, but nothing is for certain. 

The situation won't turn any better if I keep on dilly-dallying. Time is CP! 

I selected the Fortress Pack from the menu, and something like an earthquake shook the cave. Stop it already!

Oh, it stopped. I looked around and noticed some changes had been done to the cave. The Dungeon Core was now lodged into the wall, and in front of it is an impressive throne made of a platinum-like material, with a reddish-purple carpet on the ground in front of it that leads to the entrance of the cave. The ground and walls have also been paved, making the room look more fit for a castle than a cave. 

Wait a sec...

...Okay?

---

The Demon Lord Starter Pack seems to have turned all the desert that was in the Domain of the Dungeon into one big cave. I had walked out of it and met up with the others, who were waiting at the entrance of the Dungeon. They're gonna camp outside until I finish the final touches of this place.

While waiting, I examined the Facility Creation function of Dungeon Customization and inspected the various Facilities that the Fortress Pack had introduced my Dungeon to.

The small rooms are pretty much what the name suggests. I found out that Each floor of the Dungeon could have a certain amount of rooms for free, but to add more, I needed to expend FP for them. 24 small rooms are the outmost limit for the Cave-type Dungeon.

The Throne Room on the other hand consumes 5 FP to be kept, and for some reason, I can't find "Throne Room" in Facility Creation. Guess it's because my Facility stat is at G. It could lead to me having the chance of obtaining a high-ranking monster if I chose one of the other two packs, but who knows. 

The boulders are only decorations, but they're useful as hiding places, and Cave-types can set up a certain number of boulders and other rock-type Facilities for free, so I'll keep them. The Water Source requires 4 FP, but it's actually discounted by 3 FP due to the Dungeon's Sub-attribute being Water. The water is... water. Nothing more, nothing less.

The entrance is something I can't remove, nor can I create another entrance either. On that subject, I couldn't place boulders so that it becomes impossible for someone to enter the deeper parts of the Dungeon. Guess you need to keep a path open from the entrance to the Core. Doors and such, things that invaders can pass through, is okay though.

The Safe Areas is the same as the stuff we found in Tir na Nog. They're around the same size as the small rooms, but I can't enter them due to being the Dungeon Master. I tested with a Skeleton, but it couldn't enter either. I'm keeping them though, as I get 50 FP for each of them. I wanted to set up more, but I'm limited to 2 Safe Areas at a time! Damn it!

As for the Dungeon's "weapons", there are Wooden Arrows that costs 1 FP and Poison Arrows that need 3 FP. The Tumbling Boulder and the Pitfall trap, classics of the old adventurer movies, both need 5 FP, a bonus discount for having a Cave-type, apparently. The Alarm costs 0 FP, and it alarms the Dungeon Master when someone tries to invade the Dungeon.

Finally, we got the restriction of invaders. The Fortress Pack has set a restriction on humanoids specifically, so only 12 of them can enter the Dungeon at a time, excluding Dungeon-related personnel. Monsters and summons are no-counts. I tried to change the number, but even restricting 12 humans costs 80 FP. 

After doing this and that, three hours had passed. I've recovered 30 Creation Points, but there's some stuff I wanna do before spending them. Namely, increasing the stats of the Dungeon.