Getting ready for a bounty

You return to your tower with a spring in your step in what feels like no time at all. You find yourself back at the tower just as the sun is setting, with your faithful abishai chipping away at one of the large boulders against the cliff face, seemingly tired of logging for the moment. The world quest "failure" dialog mentioned a bounty will be placed on your head tomorrow, so given that adventurers will probably take some time to organize and prepare afterwards you estimate you have about a day and a half to get your lair ready for their arrival.

First things first, it appears the construction downstairs is finished. You draw out a hallway perpendicular to the one that your bedroom and add three more hallways to make a large square, lining the sides with torches and ominous-looking statues of gargoyles, angels, and demons. You add a large central room and leave alcoves for doors on the outside of the square. On top of serving as a convenient location for industry and storage later on, it will also give you some room to manoeuvre should adventurers drive you into what's currently the deepest part of your not especially deep dungeon.

Looking at your faithful worker slowly start to chip away at the new construction, you realize this isn't going to be done anywhere near on schedule at this rate. You really need to expand your modest workforce, and that means new workers and new tools. You place a smithy near the entrance to the square hallway and mark it as high-priority, then check your fame to see what you have to work with.

Fame: 321
Recent Activity

• Defeated a hero (x8): +40
• Shamed a hero: +5
• Subject of a local world quest: +100
• Victorious in a local world quest: +100
• People are talking about you: +53
• Quest accepted (x4): +4
• Quest abandoned (x9): +9

Looks like the priestess' bounty hasn't gotten much interest: only a few more adventurers have picked it up, most of them have abandoned it, and you haven't had a single one come knocking just yet. You hope that people will feel the same way about the upcoming world bounty as you glance down at your fame options. Most of them don't seem especially useful right now or are still far out of your price range, but you make note of the ones that are of immediate interest or good short-term goals.

Fame: 321
Promotion: Microboss -> Miniboss (1000 fame) (Missing requirements: 12/20 underlings, 2/5 minions, 2/5 liegelord level)
Daemonic Liegelord: 2/10 (90 fame)
Summon Minion: 2/10 (50 fame)
Designate Champion: 1/(1 each at liegelord levels 1, 5, 10) (250 fame)

If you recall correctly, 12 is the number of imps who live upstairs, so that must be what this new "underling" category is. Unfortunately you aren't immediately sure how to get more, but you make a mental note to look for opportunities. Given how good the microboss affix is, working towards a further increase in your status seems like a good goal. You make a note not to overspend fame so that you can upgrade your level as soon as possible. Given how helpful Tlax was on your recent sortie you'd also like to get another champion sooner rather than later, but first you need to find a good candidate. In any case, it seems like liegelord level 5 will be your next milestone.

In the mean time your focus is on getting crafting set up and activating some more workers. You purchase another level of Daemonic Liegelord (the next one costs 160) and are pleased to see you've now unlocked craftsmen. You purchase a craftsman (apparently a white abishai), a harvester, and two more workers, seeing that your harvester has been somewhat outpacing your worker thus far. All in all, you're left with 81 fame, not enough to do much of anything. The familiar light, cacophony, and a whiff of brimstone announce the arrival of your new minions. A few orders later, the craftsman heads off to make tools and the others follow to pick them up when they're complete.

With the most urgent and menial work out of the way, it's time to check on the fun stuff. First, your unique buildings—the whole purpose of your recent sortie. Apparently the fountain is still only at 1/5 adventurers slain: it must only count adventurers slain near the dungeon. Oh well, by the sounds of things you'll have the opportunity to fulfill that soon enough. You have however fulfilled the requirements for two other structures. First, you place the candles on the Daemonic Altar and set it to high priority, and moments later an abishai walks by and completes the job in seconds given its small size.

Unique Structure: Daemonic Altar (Level 1: Basic)
Level 1: Accepts basic offerings and generates small bursts of mana.
Upgrade to Level 2: 20 obsidian
Yes/No

Unfortunately this thing is as frustratingly vague as ever, but you suppose you'll have plenty of time to test it out. In any case, while the obsidian sounds like it will give the altar a cool vibe, you're not immediately sure where you'll find some. It sounds as if upgrading these structures isn't going to be an everyday thing: it was only via a fair bit of luck and a dash of sacrificing your allies that you even managed to get this much done. Finally, you pull out the small, translucent blue mana crystal and order construction of the wizard's tower: the real prize from your successful sortie. You're about to order an abishai to begin construction when you see the sheer size of the progress bar. Unfortunately it looks like this won't be an overnight project. As much as you'd love to get things started as soon as possible, getting the dungeon ready for adventurers is much more pressing.

Next, you're curious how Tlax fared in her first major fight.

Tlaxxana, Level 7 Naga
Monster, Champion, Daemon, Explicit
Experience to level up – 660
Attributes
STR 45 (+5), DEX 50 (+10), END 42 (+7), CHA 15, MAN 25, APP 10, PER 37 (+2), INT 21 (+1), WIT 27 (+2)
Skills
Stealth 43 (+3)
Feats
Champion, Monstrous Appearance, Venomous Fangs
Hardened Scales – This naga's scales are magically hardened. In addition to standard daemonic fire and poison immunity, they provide resistance to cold and acid.

Not bad, not bad. Wait, two levels? Despite every adventurer being lower level than her? You remember the world quest mentioning that all experience was doubled: evidently it hadn't just been for the heroes. You can't help but wonder if that meant the adventurers dropped exclusive cosmetics too: it's a shame that you didn't have the chance to loot any of them. Oh well, priorities.

Finally, perhaps the most exciting thing of all. You've resisted the urge to check your character sheet thus far, but you remember gaining at least one or two levels in all of the chaos.

Azazel, Level 6 Greater Imp
Monster, Daemon, Microboss, Explicit
Experience to level up – 460
Attributes
STR 20 (+4), DEX 35 (+8), END 20 (+9), CHA 29 (+2), MAN 42 (+1), APP 19 (+3), PER 29 (+2), INT 41 (+8), WIT 35 (+4)
Skills
Athletics 35 (+15), Awareness 32 (+2), Dodge 60 (+5), Occult 37 (+6)
Feats
Firestarter – You may light yourself on fire when casting any fire spells. This magical fire may spread to enemies who get too close to you or who strike you in melee.
Spells
Fireball – You launch a large ball of fire which explodes upon contact, immolating everything nearby.

Three levels!? By your calculations that means that every adventurer you defeated except one gave double XP, the odd one out probably being Arialle (Sarah?) given you knocked her out after the world quest was over. Based on your stat gains being mostly focused around athletics and spellcasting, it looks like your advancements are tied to what you were doing when you levelled up. Makes sense. You wouldn't mind diversifying from the fire theme you have going on, although you aren't sure if you keep getting more because of your propensity to light things on fire or just because that's your path as an imp. Maybe you'll have the option when you finally get your unique buildings fully online. Well, you can worry about that when you actually figure out how the damn things work.

Finally done catching up with the outcome of your recent raid, you wash up in the fountain and head to your new bedroom. It's a relatively plain affair, with a small table, a white bed with black sheets, and a few suitably imposing statues. To you, used to sleeping on dirt in a ruined basement, it might as well be fit for a king. You spend a decidedly non-imp-like amount of time arranging your recent spoils from the church around the room when you hear a high-pitched yell heading in your direction at high speed. As it gets to your door you can finally make it out as the voices of one of your imps.

"Boooooooooooooooooooooooss! Boss! Goblins! The leader-type says she wants to see you!" he salutes and then speeds off as fast as he came while you're still processing what he said. Uh-oh. Did the goblins find out you basically betrayed them by leaving all of the ones they sent you to die? Well, there's nothing for it: you'd better go find out whether there are friends or enemies waiting for you upstairs.