Feeding the Dungeon

I need to toss some people into the dungeon to feed it. The dungeon doesn’t care who but our intrepid heroes do. That means I need a couple/few bad guys.

There are plenty of places around to find them. An obvious possibility: People in jail (for something serious, of course). There are problems with that. How does one convince someone to allow you to execute their prisoners? Who does one need to convince? How do you transport them?

It would be a bit too plot-convenient to have a gang attack the town, but that would solve the problems. I am the author, though; plot-convenient is at my discretion.

Maybe a biker gang? I like that idea better than trying to convince the Rapid City police to turn over some prisoners to be executed. Maybe do it out-of-order. Have the biker gang show up before their lives are required and they’re just conveniently at hand (or already eaten) when needed.

The plot point that calls for this is time dilatation. I need to get Marcy trained up as a mage without spending calendar time on it. We need spatial storage now, not after years of training. Therefore, embrace the power of “and” and do both. However, that requires resources. The dungeon is honest about it: It will take three years of subjective time to train her. Off ambient mana, it can be cut to one year. For every “adventurer who dies”, I can decrease that.

If the bikers have already been fed to it, it can say “thanks to the recent adventurer deaths, I can decrease that to a month.”

I think this will also be the first time the dungeon “instances”. This will allow other people to use the “main” dungeon while Marcy gets her own instance. This also requires resources, but with most of a biker gang available (some of them will die in the fighting), it seems workable.

There is supposed to be an attack in chapter 20. Right now, it’s “ZZZ: Something attacks”. I have been trying to figure out what attacks. That makes three birds and one biker gang that will feed all of them. Done.

I also have not put any bad guys “on screen”, yet. This will be a good chance to get some news from outside. A fourth bird! Not just “plot convenience” now. Good.

This is why I write these posts: Just thinking about it doesn’t get results this quickly.

BTW: There will be very little of that training shown. I think I have the magic system defined sufficiently that I can write a magic school graduate. We’ll see.

Oh, I also need to rewrite the dungeon’s offer. It is presented, and received, as an unusual bonus, but dungeons exist as training tools. What makes this unusual is that it will (mostly) not be trying to kill her while doing it, not the training, per se.

And I spent my lunch writing this. Time for Feeding the Human.