the lobby looked a little bland. all the stone and granite kinda made the place looked dead. sooo plants!

do I need item templates to place plants?

[The core would already know this if it had gone through the tutorial properly!]

are you really sassing me right now? never mind, I'll figure it out myself. [Create Template]!

I didn't want to mix the gross dirt with the granite floors so I went with the next best thing: planter pots!

a stone cube popped onto the blueprint, somewhat matching the image I had in my head. it was close enough, though, and I didn't need anything fancy. plain dirt filled the inside.

I saved it as 'Stone Planting Pot'. it cost 3 mana to summon which was rather expensive at the moment. the greenery was worth the six mana. I place one by each bench.

now as for the plants...

[Plants can be found under decoration templates! To access these templates, say-]

I got the gist of it. [Decoration Templates].

[Your current decoration templates are:

Cane Grass

Soft Rainbow Vines

Shy Poinsettia

Whispering Huckleberry

Nutty Bonsai Seed]

I mentally selected the Shy Poinsettia.

[Template: Shy Poinsettia

With its sweet scent and vibrant red colors, this poinsettia invites creatures of all sorts to admire its flowers. However, its shy nature makes it shiver away from one's touch.

2 MP to spawn.

Upgrades available!]

hmm. I'd worry about upgrades later. for now, I placed one in each pot. now, I was fully drained of mana and I felt a bit sluggish.

[Warning! Core is out of mana! The dungeon cannot sustain itself without mana!

Mobs will be despawned and the dungeon will collapse if the core does not restore its mana supply!]

oof. that's tough. I sent Brick back up into the world to find something for me to absorb, warning him not to go too far.

"WHAT DID YOU DO??" came Fanny's shrill cry. she flew out of the core room, her tiny face all red and scrunched up. I was too tired to make fun of how she looked.

'i'm working on it,' I said lazily. 'don't worry about it.'

"Don't worry?" she asked, voice strained. "Are you-"

Brick zipped back into the dungeon and dropped a stick onto the floor.

[You have absorbed a stick! +2 Mana for new discovery!
New resource unlocked: E-grade Wood!]

the sluggishness receded, but not by much. feeling a tiny bit better, I smirked at Fanny. 'see? I had it handled.'

"You...are insufferable," she hissed.

***

'I need more mana,' I told Fanny. 'how come I have to keep absorbing new stuff to get any? should some come automatically?'

"It's your wisps," she said, flying back into the core room. She looked uncomfortable staying too long in the lobby. "They're passively absorbing the ambient mana your core is collecting. You need to either unsummon some or create more rooms."

[You can see your mana absorption rate in the Dungeon Overview!]

how come I didn't know that was a thing before?

[You did not follow the tutorial!]

ugh this thing is way too cheery when it's sassing me. I pulled up the Dungeon Overview to get a gander of what I was missing out on.

[Dungeon Overview

Name: Core | Age: 10 hours| Durability: 10/10 | Mana: 2/10

Floors: 1 | Rooms: 0 | Mobs: 5

Mana Regen

Core: 0 MP (+5 MP Generated; Brick: -2 MP; Unassigned Mobs: -3 MP)]

'Brick, you greedy bugger...' I glared at the wisp. it twirled, innocent and confused. sighing, I turned back to the overview. 'hey, how come it doesn't list the lobby as one of my rooms?'

I looked up at Fanny, who was lazily flying on her back. she yawned. "You have to designate it as a room. Right now, it's just an 'area'. It won't absorb mana or anything."

[To designate a room, you must give a Name and a Challenge! A Challenge is a task that is required to further progress into the dungeon! A room can have up to 5 Challenges but only one needs to be a requirement with a Punishment if not completed. Challenges require daily mana upkeep as well! Cost will depend on how complicated the Challenge is!]

huh. well, this is the Lobby. uh, people need to...wait until they're given access to further into the dungeon? no, they need to pay for access with tribute! And if they don't...the mobs in the room will attack them.

the room shook. any wisps who'd been in the Lobby darted out and hid behind my core, trembling. Fanny clapped gleefully.

"Finally! What'd you make it, what'd you make it?" she asked, poking my core.

her tapping felt like hammer blows, striking me relentless. 'ow! cut that out!'

"Oops." she dropped her hands, grinning sheepishly. "So? It didn't look that impressive, but I could hardly see when it was so dark-you're gonna need to add a light source for adventurers who can't see in the dark."

A brilliant screen popped up in front of my core, answering for me.

[You've created the Lobby!

Challenge: Pay tribute to the receptionist gain further access to the dungeon. Failure to do so results in neutral mobs becoming hostile.

Mana generation: 9 MP per day.

Challenge upkeep: 1 MP per day.

+5 mana cap!]

"That's...odd?" Fanny muttered. "I mean, a good way to get new things, I guess, but who's the receptionist? If I have the word right, none of your mobs really suit that role."

the fairy glanced down at me. "Are you banking on finding some weird creature to make it?"

'no,' I said, a grin metaphorically spreading across my core. 'that's what I have you for.'

Fanny protested vehemently. when I pointed out that a) waiting for a better mob to come around was inefficient and b) probably take too much mana to make right and c) she had pretty much nothing else to do, she finally relented.

"At least," she sighed, "make a light source?"

hmm. good idea. it wouldn't do to have a dark lobby. so I began construction of a simple stone sconce. it cost 1 mana to make (cheap!) but that brought me down to 1.

as if Fanny could hear my thoughts, she told me not to send out Brick again. not until I had more rooms, at least. I obliged her because she wouldn't stop poking me.

I could wait until tomorrow for more mana...but I had no idea how long the days were on this new world. the next could come in an hour but I didn't want to wait that long.

the only other option was to...unsummon some of my mobs.

I turned my eyes away, unwilling to watch what I had to do to my beautiful and dimwitted creations.

[You have unsummoned x3 e-wisps! +9 mana!]

you're too happy to see me in pain!

but I had to move on. turning away from dark thoughts, I thought about how I'd go about making light. I inquired about this to Fanny.

"Fire," she deadpanned, picking at her nails.

I made Brick spit at her.

"Agh!" she yelled. The fairy flew to the other side of the room, shooting me a dirty look. "Am I wrong? Does fire not give light?"

Brick spat at her a few more times. she shrieked and ran into the tunnel to be alone. I heard her muttering blasphemous words about me but I ignored her.

fire does give light...and what better to get fire than fire wisps??

I summoned a normal one, ignoring the pain in my core as it twirled around. throwing heavy fire thoughted mana at it, I waited sadly for the notif.

[Unnamed Wisp #2 has turned into a Fire Elemental Wisp! You can now spawn Fire Elemental Wisps for 3 mana!]

of course, the obligatory name change to f-wisp....

I sent the wisp to the lobby and had it sit in one of the sconces.

[Assign Unnamed F-Wisp #1 to Lobby?]

huh? what does that mean?

[The Lobby will become Unnamed F-Wisp's mana source instead of the core. This will lower the overall mana absorption of the room but will allow your core to absorb more mana into itself.]

...you're telling me that I didn't have to use Fanny as a mana source?

[All unassigned mobs automatically use the core as a mana source. Which the core would have known if-]

I get it! is it possible to change its source?

[Yes. Simply assign the unassigned mob to a new room or an object or being with mana in it!]

sighing, I looked for Fanny.

she was still in the tunnel, muttering to herself. the wisp I'd bonded to her was in her arms. she hugged it tightly as she rocked back and forth. hmm. guess I'd let her keep it. if I knew anything about customer service, she'd need the emotional support wisp.