The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Her Dungeon Assistant smiled sadly. “One can only hope.”

  Indeed. Tacca started to restock the Boss Room with creatures while she cleaned up the…mess. It was actually a bit more difficult for her than usual because for the most part the deaths in her dungeon were a bit cleaner than this – and typically in one piece. She didn’t feel bad for those that had died, because they were venturing somewhere she now knew they were specifically told not to go; but she did regret that they had to die because of their curiosity and greed, instead of testing themselves against her regular dungeon.

  Indeed, she repeated to herself. One can only hope.

  Chapter 13

  The next week and a half went rather smoothly, with no one even attempting to infiltrate her Core Room again, nor making any overt threats or indications that they were there to destroy her. In all, despite another half-dozen Raiders dying to her traps and creatures, it was rather calm. It was so calm and relatively routine, in fact, that Tacca nearly missed her monthly countdown.

  “Tacca? How long do you have until your countdown is complete for the month?” Shale suddenly asked one day. “I can barely keep track of the days, anymore, with how these Raiders come at all hours of the day and night.”

  Huh? Oh, well I have…2 hours! I completely lost track of time, myself!

  Looking around her dungeon, Tacca realized that she had been in a sort of daze, automatically restocking her dungeon when the time required it and directing the Raiders inside when it was ready. There hadn’t really been anything over the last few days to break up the monotony; she really wasn’t complaining about that, however, because lately boring meant safe. Therefore, she had easily lost track of what was going on with her Core.

  There was currently a new group of Raiders starting their delve through her dungeon (at least, she hadn’t seen them before – so they were new) and one just exiting via the staircase tunnel, and she had just a little over 500 DF at her disposal to play with if she needed it. She began to place additional inexpensive traps in one of her empty rooms, but stopped in surprise after just over a dozen; the familiar strain of having too many traps was pressing at her Core again, and she didn’t want to deliberately crack her form any more than it already was.

  What? I only have about a dozen of them throughout the rooms above, including my Core room. How could I—? Oh. Looking at the room that housed her creatures wearing the enchanted gear she salvaged, she discovered that she had gone a little overboard with the defensive traps she had placed. She did a quick count and estimated that there were over 500 of them – in a variety of different kinds – inside the room, placed over nearly every foot of the floor and even the walls. It shocked her that she had done all of that without her even knowing about it, but thinking back at it she knew exactly what she was doing the entire time. Instead of consciously considering what she was doing, however, Tacca had been doing it all as an automatic response to wanting to protect herself.

  Unfortunately, not all of them were as intense of a strength as she had planned on using; approximately 10% of them had the Strength of 70, as she had originally designed, but the other 90% were a mixture of various potencies, including many that had a Strength in the single digits. They wouldn’t be worthless, of course, but they wouldn’t be quite as effective as she had planning.

  Why did I—? Oh. She perused her memories even more and discovered the reasoning behind the change in her original plan. It basically boiled down to not wanting a Mass Disarm spell or Ability to wipe out the majority of the traps in one fell swoop. For those traps that were identical in construction and Strength, using a spell or Ability like that would eliminate all of them that were exactly the same; if there were a wide variety of traps, however, it would help to minimize the risk that they would all be nullified at the same time.

  She knew that, of course, as she had learned it when she was at DAPS. However, it had taken being hypnotized by monotony for that to emerge as something to consider in her paranoia-driven defensive setup. Tacca was secure enough in herself to take a mental step back and acknowledge that her need for defenses emerged as a direct result of the trauma of nearly being destroyed and the paranoia that occurred afterwards; as a result, she knew she wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind when she was thinking up ways to defend herself. Fortunately, despite her original absence of serious thought, her mind had corrected for the issues that had sprung up.

  What it also essentially meant was that there wasn’t much that Tacca could do to increase her CIPs any more than their current number, so all she had to do was wait for the countdown to be over. Based on what her information said, though, there really wasn’t any reason to panic – because it was going to be a good day.

  Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

  You have reached Core Improvement Level: 7

  You have reached Core Improvement Level: 8

  Current CIP Countdown: 67/1200 in 30 days

  Core Improvement Points earned: 1800 (1800)

  Special Characteristic Points earned: 50 (175)

  Tacca had gone up 2 Core Improvement Levels! By having Raiders inside of her dungeon for an average of 22 hours a day, she had earned 660 CIPs from their presence over the last month; a total of 35 Raiders had died inside of her dungeon for 5 CIPs each, giving her 175 CIPs; and the 532 new traps she had placed far down below gave her a Point each. Added to the 500 CIPs she had banked from the previous month, she ended up with a total of 1,867 CIPs – 1,800 of which were used to increase her CI Level immediately and she could now spend them, and the extra 67 were banked for the next month.

  Now there was an important choice to be made. With 1,800 Core Improvement Points to use, there were numerous choices as to the items on which she could spend them.

  Core Improvements

  Available Core Improvement Points (CIP)

  1800

  67 in 30 days

  Improvement Name

  Value

  Cost (CIP)

  Maximum Dungeon Force Increase

  +500 DF

  500

  Dungeon Force Regeneration Increase

  +10 DF per minute

  750

  Control Limit Increase

  +100

  600

  Select Additional Creature

  1

  250

  Select Additional Creature Variant

  1

  25

  Select Additional Trap Specialization

  1

  300

  Select Additional Environment Access

  1

  400

  Reward Tier Increase

  1

  400

  Convert CIPs to SCPs

  1 SCP

  4

  Having a greater maximum Dungeon Force at this point might be beneficial, because that would mean she could create even deadlier traps to protect herself. The same went for the additional Trap Specializations, as those would allow her to expand what she could create and would provide better defense for less cost, in terms of DF. However, both of those would only really benefit her Core and peace of mind – though they weren’t something to discount, because they were only for those purposes.

  An increase in her DF regeneration was always beneficial for just about every aspect of her dungeon. It would allow her to restock her dungeon while still having enough left over to expand it a little – though that would also depend on whatever else she purchased with her Points. Or, if she didn’t want to expand right now, it would just increase the speed at which she could invite more Raiders in to delve through her dungeon.

  Additional creatures and environments were something she would love to play with, because she had plenty of ideas for another section of her dungeon. Of course, that meant that she needed to expand her Control Limit, and even her DF regeneration, so that she could afford to stock the rooms initially and restock them after a Raider group destroyed her creatures and sprung her traps.

  The two things she r
eally didn’t need right now were choosing additional Variants and increasing her Reward Tier again; one, because she already had access to every Variant; two, because she already had Reward Tier 2, which was plenty enough for her dungeon at the moment.

  Therefore, many options of what to select were at her figurative fingertips – but there was something hanging over her Core that needed to be addressed. Not only that, but it needed to be addressed quickly, because otherwise she might not have an opportunity later on. It had to do with her negative Special Characteristics, namely the ones that reduced the Level of her creatures by 10 and the reduction of her earned Core Improvement Points by 95%.

  Shale, what can you tell me about the conversion rate between CIPs and SCPs? I want to make sure, with everything going on lately, that I remember correctly.

  “Uh, sure. Well, you can exchange any number of available Core Improvement Points for Special Characteristic Points at a rate of…4-to-1, I believe. Ah, yes, thank you,” her Dungeon Assistant said after she shared her Core Improvements screen with him.

  When he didn’t expand on that, she asked, And what happens when I raise my CI Level past a certain point?

  The Dungeon Fairy looked confused for a moment before he got what she was talking about. “Oh, well, at Level 11, 21, 31, and so on for every 10 levels, the conversion rate goes up—oh. Yeah, that could be a problem.”

  In Tacca’s position, as a Dungeon Core, it was quite unfair; as a trained Dungeon Assistant, she understood the increase in conversion rate. As Cores gained higher Core Improvement Levels, they required more and more CIPs to progress to the next one – and therefore had more Points to spend on Improvements. For instance, to progress from CI Level 40 to CI Level 41, the Core was required to accumulate 18,800 CIPs; if the conversion rate stayed the same, then if they used every single CIP they earned on Special Characteristics they would have 4,700 SCPs – more than enough to purchase two or three of the most expensive beneficial Characteristics. Doing this for a few Levels, especially as they grew in CI Level, would end up with them being so powerful that they could practically do anything they wanted, with minimal effort on their part.

  The Special Characteristics were supposed to be special, and not options that could be unlocked by every Dungeon Core. As a result, when she hit CI Level 11, the conversion rate increased to 12-to-1; at Level 21, it increased to 36-to-1. From then on, every 10 Levels would see the conversion increase by 36, until at least Level 81 – where it was 252 CIPs to 1 SCP. What it was after another 10 Levels, no one knew, because there hadn’t been any dungeons that had survived long enough to see it.

  Tacca was hoping to be the first to experience it herself.

  At DAPS, one of their exercises had been to calculate how many SCPs a dungeon could receive if they used every single CIP they collected up to CI Level 80 using these reductions in conversion rates; including the nearly 2,000 SCPs they would receive achieving that Level 80 (at 25 per Level), they would have access to a little more than 20,000 SCPs total. Quite impressive, yes, and more than enough to outfit a Core with the best of every available Special Characteristic – and yet they would fail, because they would be stuck with very little available Dungeon Force, practically no DF regeneration, a single creature with no Variants, and a Control Limit that would be even less than her own Core.

  It was a balance between wanting “bonus” Characteristics and growing a dungeon at acceptable rates; in the end, very few Dungeon Cores chose to spend much – if any – extra CIPs on purchasing additional SCPs in their lifetimes, instead using the 25 Points they received each Level increase to make small purchases that helped incrementally. Some even saved their SCPs for decades or centuries to get that one, desirable Characteristic they had their eye on for a long time, potentially converting a few CIPs into small amounts of needed SCPs at the time.

  The problem with Tacca’s situation, however, was that she had stunted her growth potential by her initial selections. This was something that she already knew and had factored into her “All Variants” plan, and she also knew when she decided on that path that she was going to have to make some difficult choices in the future to negate that stunting of her growth.

  Unfortunately, that time for making difficult choices was now.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Shale asked when she explained what she was going to do. “Not that I disagree, mind you, but that’s a big decision. Luckily, it’s likely that none of the Raiders will even realize the potential you’re giving up, because a dungeon normally takes years to really change their layout and difficulty.”

  Yes, this is the only way I can grow from here. It’s already getting harder and harder to increase my Core Improvement Level, and it will only get more difficult to acquire enough CIPs in the future.

  Her decision made, Tacca converted all 1,800 of her Core Improvement Points into Special Characteristic Points – giving her a total of 450 more SCPs. She did it to remove the temptation of spending her CIPs on something more “fun”, so banking it for later was the smartest move she knew she could make at that time. She was tempted to use 550 of her now 625 SCPs to eliminate her negative Special Characteristic regarding her creatures, but she also knew the smart play would be to wait until she increased her CI Level one more time so that she could get rid of the one thing really holding her back: The reduction in her Core Improvement Points earned.

  Dungeon Core Status

  Dungeon Core Name:

  Tacca GloomLily

  Core Improvement (CI) Level:

  8

  Core Improvement Points (CIP):

  67/1200

  Core Improvement Pending/Countdown:

  0 in 30 days

  Special Characteristic Points (SCP):

  625

  Current Primary Assistant Bond:

  Shale IronSchist

  Dungeon Force (DF):

  620/1500

  Dungeon Force Regeneration:

  18 per minute

  Reward Tier:

  2

  Control Limit:

  120/200

  Core Options:

  Carve Earth

  Targetable

  5 DF per minute

  Place Environmental Object

  Targetable

  Variable

  Teleport

  Instant

  40 DF

  Dissolve Assistant Bond

  Instant

  1 DF

  Create Creature

  Targetable

  Variable

  Create Trap

  Targetable

  Variable

  Core Access:

  Creature(s):

  Canine Family, Hill Dwarves, Humans, Elves, Gnomes

  Variant(s):

  All

  Trap Specialization(s):

  Enchantment

  Environmental Access:

  Forest

  Permanent Assistant Sub-bond:

  Tacca GloomLily

  Special Characteristics:

  Access all Variants for available dungeon creatures

  All

  All creatures are reduced in Level (cannot be less than 1)

  10

  Core Improvement Points are reduced when earned

  95%

  It was more than a little disappointing not to be able to utilize any of her Points (of either kind) from all of her hard work over the last few months, but it was unfortunately necessary.

  “Don’t worry; you have plenty of time to earn more Core Improvement Points, expand your dungeon, and grow,” Shale consoled her. He could certainly tell that she was feeling a bit down. “You’ll see – once you eliminate your negative Special Characteristics, I think you’ll find that your potential will be nearly endless.”

  I sure hope so; I’m itching to expand my dungeon and introduce some new ideas to this place. The delay isn’t ideal, but you’re absolutely right – I’ll have plenty of time to grow once I get this taken care of.

  The progressi
on she craved for her dungeon was put on hold, at least temporarily, but it was something she could deal with. It wasn’t like there was any pressing need – other than her own desires – to grow rapidly and become stronger…right?

  Chapter 14

  The leader of the Dungeon Placement and Regulatory Council had been putting off his encounter with the Conclave of Sages for as long as he could. Malachite’s procrastination and hesitation wasn’t directly based on his own fear of Translocating into an unknown situation, though that certainly had something to do with it. No, it was the fact that soon after he had made his announcement, the sudden and mysterious destruction of so many Dungeon Cores had come to a standstill.

  In fact, for over a month since Malachite had made his announcement regarding visiting the Conclave, there hadn’t been any reports of Cores being destroyed for some reason. Not that he was complaining – far from it – but the entire situation was a bit strange. Lily had been practically beside herself with trying to manage the placement of different Dungeon Assistants that were left bereft from their destroyed Cores, but at least things seemed to be calming down quite a bit.

  Even the Balance Bar, the visual representation of the volatile primal forces that encompassed the world, had stopped tipping away from the side that was regulated by Dungeon Cores. It had even tipped back towards normal the slightest bit for some reason, though Malachite thought “normal” was a long way off; correcting the Balance was something that could take years, decades, or even centuries. It took time to cultivate Cores so that they became stronger and were able to handle more of that primal energy, which they knew as Dungeon Force, so corrections to the Balance were, as a result of that, rather slow.