Names and Decisions.
It took Mary nearly a full day before she managed to reach beyond the rock around her to open air. Naturally this didn't mean reaching out to the ocean but rather up to the top of the cliff where the cave she was in sat. She managed to reach the ocean rather quickly in only an hour or so. She didn't, however, expect it to take so long to reach the top of the cliff from where she sat with the main reason being she had to stop twice for her mana to refill despite starting her expansion from nearly full mana. It seemed that the further she expanded her influence the more mana it took to make it permanent. As for the reason she expanded so far, it was because she wanted to see if there was anything that might indicate where she was.
Sadly, she didn't recognize any of the fauna or flora around her, though luckily the stars were still the same. In between expanding as she waited for her mana to refill she talked with Neira to learn a bit more about being a dungeon and what it entailed. She was both happy and somewhat disappointed that she had been chosen truly by random and that she didn't have some grand destiny planned out for her. Then again, it's not like this was some novel, this was real life and most life-changing events like this happen by pure accident usually.
Asking a bit about her status she learned the Epitaph was essential the future name or title her dungeon would go by and would be unlocked when she reached rank 5 and was qualified to open up to the world. Before that any creations she made would have their anima cost paid for by the Gods in order to make sure she can make a solid base for her dungeon. She also learned that Titles essentially represent great achievements for dungeon's and many of them would grant rewards from the Gods as acknowledgment for their hard work. For a cliche example it would only be right to reward a newborn dungeon for managing to slay a dragon now wouldn't it?
Their discussion about the various Titles and her Epitaph was in fact much more nuanced than that but Neira glossing over several details convinced Mary to move on to other topics. Namely, improvements, to Mary the choice of wording was strange. Why not upgrades, boons, perks, etc, Neira then revealed it is because aside from a few very specific ones all improvements are in fact things that a dungeon can already perform. Want to spawn a fire affinity monster without the fire affinity, go ahead. Create a hallway full of arrow traps that slow's anyone who enters, sure thing. Feel like building a tower all the way to the stars, knock yourself out. There is just a few caveats however to all of these which are cost, time, effort, knowledge, or skill to name a few.
Improvements worked on the basis of expanding upon a dungeon's basic abilities to allow for bigger and more complex creations. After all who is going to expect a former farmer to be able to build a castle the size of a mountain and have it to actually be structurally sound? Hence, improvements are there to aid in the dungeon's growth for whatever path they may choose to walk.
Once Neira and Mary got to this point in their discussion Mary's influence finally reached the surface of the cliff. Heaving a mental sigh of relief Mary would have collapsed on the ground if she had been able to do so. While several years as a maid had done wonders to train her patience and self-control, even she couldn't deny how boring and frustrating it was to do such a task when she had to stop for such long periods of time between attempts. Her sphere was now roughly a mile in diameter which shocked her considerably as she couldn't think of anywhere that had such huge cliffs in the few continents that she knew of.
After taking stock of her new home to be, Mary started to absorb plants and minerals around her. The results were somewhat surprising as with the lack of large flora beyond a few trees on the cliff face and some scattered shrubs, along with the open grassland around the cliff, Mary would have thought she was in a more northern climate but instead based on the feedback from the plants she absorbed she instead found she was actually in an area with a tropical climate.
Being in a place with a tropical climate did somewhat hamper her plans as she had come up with several ideas for her storm affinity, especially with the ice component. Distraught that her dreams of being a magical princess in a giant frozen castle wouldn't be viable for a decent while as the kind of large-scale weather changes needed would take several improvements to make it viable and perpetual took the wind out of her sails. Mentally grumbling she 'ate' a small hole up to the surface for Neira to come up and take a look in order to help her figure out what to do.
After a few minutes Neira popped out of the hole and spun around as she took a deep breath before prompts choking on the air which was much hotter and more humid than in the cave. Snickering to herself at Neira's antics Mary gave her a few moments to recover before speaking. "So it looks like we're somewhere in a tropical climate though with the cliffs and lack of signs of civilization I don't think we're going to be getting visitors for quite a while Neira. You got any suggestions for what to do from here on?"
"Hmm~, well how about we first decide what kind of dungeon you wanna be, open or submerged? I don't mean underwater by the way. What I mean is do you want to be some kind of massive sprawling dungeon or a more traditional floor-by-floor kind of dungeon. There are benefits and demerits to each approach. For an open dungeon it allows for a much wider array of minions and higher population as you don't need to worry about space. It also allows for easier collection of new specimens in the dungeon since you won't have to dig for them or wait for something to enter the dungeon through the entrance. On the other hand it makes traps much more limited and you're much more vulnerable to intrusions as beings can enter from almost any direction." Neira paused for a few moments to let Mary think and ponder before she continued.
"As for submerged dungeons most of the time these are what people think of when they talk about a dungeon. A deep cave leading down into an abyss, often decorated according to the main affinities of the dungeon though some dungeons with a more artistic flair do try to make the dungeon look appealing. Incidentally, tower style dungeons also count for these despite moving up rather than down as they usually also follow the floor-by-floor. The benefit and demerit of these is more or less the opposite of the open type with the added bonus of making it easier to add in things like ore veins to draw in adventurers. So in the end it really just boils down once again to the question, what kind of dungeon do you want to make?" Neira looked over expectantly to where Mary's view was centered as she waited for an answer.
Mary considered the question hard for several long moments as she took stock on everything that her influence covered. Her influence was about as wide as it could get in the short term with her current mana regen and pool. Then she thought back to her life before turning into a dungeon, how tired and overworked she was every day with never a moment's rest save for when she passed out on her bed in her small room. Even further she went back to when she still lived at home staring out at the clear beautiful sea from her family's porch on bright sunny days.
"I want to..."