The Healer and Scout nodded, agreeing with her. Sterge just seemed confused at what the Elf said. “I don’t feel all that confident, but if it makes you feel better I’m glad that I’ve been able to help a little.”
“More than a little,” Mordecai interjected as they were approaching the top of the exit staircase. “You’ve done a lot, and we don’t want to abandon you now.”
Gwenda led the way out of the exit, and Tacca was just barely able to hear her respond. “Well, it’s not right now, at least; we still have at least 2 months before we have to decide what to do. Perhaps if we’re lucky, an opportunity will present itself.”
Lucky? Was that some sort of prod at me to go faster? Regardless of if it was or not, Tacca was already planning on opening up her new section as soon as she could. Whether she would complete it in time to help out her Bonded Raiders and their new friends was something she couldn’t tell quite yet. But, for some reason she wasn’t sure of, she wanted to try.
* * *
Another monthly countdown passed, and this time she hadn’t been able to earn enough CIPs to achieve a new Core Improvement Level. While more than the single death from the month before occurred – a total of 3 this time – it wasn’t nearly enough to provide her with the required CIPs. Tacca still tried to accumulate as many as she could before her countdown was up, but only managed to acquire a measly 1737; added to the 12 she had banked, that put her just over 550 away from the 2,300 she had needed. She wasn’t too bothered by it, because she knew she could easily hit the necessary amount next month.
She was too involved with her project to care overly much, either. Just after the start of the new month, she finally completed her main construction project. So, Shale, what do you think?
“I think that you have a whole bunch of empty rooms, is what I think,” her Dungeon Assistant responded with a bit of snark, but his tone showed that he was joking. “In all honesty, though, what you’ve created is much larger than even my Mentor’s dungeon – and that one was quite large if I remember it correctly. Now you just need to fill it all in.”
True. I won’t be able to complete it until I Level up again, but I can finish most of it.
Tacca looked through the 20 rooms she had constructed of various sizes, though the one closest to her Core Room was the only one that was jumbo-sized. It was going to be her Boss Room, so that was expected. The others, though, would play a part as a system of rooms that would act as her main dungeon – though not every room would be visited by the Raiders every time as they delved through it. From the main “corridor” of four large rooms, she had already created an additional 3 rooms near the top that branched off from the first room: 2 that led directly to the left and right on each side, and another room that led down from the one closest to the “corridor” – which was also parallel with the “corridor”. She kept the symmetry going by adding another room that led down from the furthest rooms to the left and right, which was about half as large as her Boss Room.
To the one that led down and was closest to the main “corridor”, she added another room of the same size on each side, so that she basically ended up with three smaller rooms parallel with the main “corridor” and ended just before they reached the main Boss Room. She also added three rooms on each side that led down from the furthest rooms, turning around so that they connected to the Boss Room on the left and the right sides. When that was done, she had added tunnels connecting quite a few of the rooms nearest each other together; as a result, there were 5 rooms that had 5 entrances/exits, 4 rooms that had 4 entrances/exits, and most of the rest with either 3 or 2 tunnels linking them up.
“Won’t that be a little…confusing to anyone coming in? And what will prevent the Raiders from just going straight down the corridor to your Boss Room?”
She realized that she hadn’t solved the problem with longer creature restocking times. For all he knew, the entire section was supposed to be used every single time, but that wasn’t necessarily how it was going to be.
Well, that’s what I’m doing next. You see, I was originally going to just block off some of these main corridor tunnels so that the Raiders would be forced to go through every single room to get to the Boss. After realizing that I would need a lot more time to restock all of these stronger creatures, I developed another plan: Creating different routes and closing already cleared rooms.
“How are you going to do that?” He seemed a little worried, but he didn’t have anything to worry about. Tacca had thought long and hard about the process while she worked on constructing the large rooms, and she was pretty sure it would work. Well, it would work; whether the Raiders had been “trained” enough with changing dungeons was something else.
Well, I want to utilize the Rotating Stone Bridges that I developed for my exit staircase for that. My idea is to place them in every single tunnel connected in this entire section, though instead of opening them up, I will be able to close them when and where I want them to be closed. I’m going to place them so that they are always open, and by activating them, the Bridges will effectively shut down a tunnel of my choosing. By creating a simple stone block fused to the floor in front of them to keep them in their activated position, I can control what routes are open to the Raiders.
“That seems dangerous. You have to remember not to seal off all of the routes to where you are located, or seal any Raiders inside like you did the others.”
Not a problem. There will always be a route for them to progress further, and I can’t physically close off all access to my Core – even using these traps. I know – I’ve tried to seal off this Core Room completely, and even the thought of it just freezes up my mind. You know from DAPS that it is basically impossible for me to seal myself off; even if I could, I would likely lose all connection to the rest of my dungeon.
“That’s true. But what were you saying about shutting some rooms down?”
Oh, well, after the Raiders have progressed far enough, I can seal off some of the satellite rooms and restock them; they won’t be directly connected to either the main entrance, my Core Room, or any exits, so there won’t be any reason for those delving through to backtrack. Plus, when you consider that each group will likely only visit two-thirds of these rooms on each delve, it gives me a head-start towards restocking for the next group.
The Dungeon Core could tell that her Assistant was reviewing all that she had said, looking for flaws most likely. She hoped that he couldn’t think of anything, because she had considered just about everything – or so she thought; if he did, though, she’d rather know about it now before she started.
“Sounds very complicated…but I think that it will work. I’m assuming that the rooms that you have closed off from one group will be used on the next group passing through, and then close off some additional rooms during that delve which will be used for the next, and so on?”
Correct.
“Then I can’t wait to see it; yet another thing I’ve never heard of being done before.”
Tacca got started immediately, hollowing out sections of each tunnel to install what was basically the reverse of her exit tunnel traps up above. They lay flat against the ceiling of the tunnel, and when they were activated – via a small rock that she created above it that dropped down on the activation trigger – the Bridge trap would swing down and shut off the pathway. A thin strip of stone attached to the floor in front of the trap when it was activated prevented it from resetting, and it was all set. She just had to make sure that there weren’t any Raiders in either adjacent room, however, as she wouldn’t be able to create either the small rock to activate the trap or to seal it closed.
Once those were done, and since she was already working with those Rotating Stone Bridge traps, Tacca started to add additional exit tunnels to the exterior rooms, including the Boss Room, which ran up both the left and right sides of the entire section, where it would connect to the exit staircase already in place up above. It took a little bit more work constructing
them, but it was worth it to ensure that the Raiders could leave at any time they chose – because it would help to rotate another group inside even faster.
Then came the fun part – decorating. Not decorating, per se, but filling up her 20 rooms with Environmental Objects. Only the very first room of the new section and the Boss Room were going to be unique; the symmetrical “wings” of rooms were going to mirror each other for the most part. There would be some differences, certainly, but for the most part they would contain the same Environmental Objects, traps, and creatures – but rearranged differently, similar to how her easy dungeon operated currently.
The first room was the easiest to complete, as she was planning on it being the introduction of what they would be facing, and not a danger to them. First, she used her Mountain Environment to create a miniature mountain range along the backside of the room, complete with 5 sharp peaks made from basic stone. They were only really there for show and were impassable – not that there was anything but bare wall behind them. Leading down from the peaks, she created some smaller juts of stone that stuck out in multiple directions straight up into the air, making it look like a pile of jagged rocks had fallen off of the top of the mountain and cracked apart. Further down the “mountain range”, she added a little more stone in tiny rolling hills, before transitioning to dirt that led all the way to the entrance.
“Either it’s a tiny mountain range, or I suddenly grew 1,000 times larger and somehow got outside. Nice job.” Tacca wasn’t the most artistic, but she was happy to hear that it didn’t just look like she shoved a bunch of rocks in there willy-nilly.
Behind the jagged rocks and at the base of the peaks, Tacca had “caves” hollowed out that led into one of 5 different rooms. Each of them would technically be open if inspected, but only 2 of them would go further than the next room – because she was planning on closing off the tunnels leading elsewhere. Of the 2 that led further on, one of them wouldn’t go further than 2 or 3 rooms before hitting a dead end, causing the group to have to turn back and pick another route. She didn’t want to make it easy or obvious where the right pathway lay, and when they eliminated one direction from the first room as being a dead end, she could easily close it off after they left it and start restocking whatever they managed to kill or traps they activated. Her tunnels were also angled in a way that it would be impossible to tell from the tunnel leading into the dead-end rooms that they wouldn’t be able to go any further, so they would be forced to risk going inside each room to check.
Starting with the left and right rooms, which were going to be symmetrical in design, if not exact placement of the components inside, she used her ability to shape a rocky cliff face that directly bisected the room from corner to corner, cutting off the view of the two tunnels leading further into her dungeon. It had a simple, narrow pathway crisscrossing back and forth over the front and back of this cliff face, so that it was more like a wall they had to walk up and then down than an actual cliff. It reached nearly 100 feet up to the ceiling before it went back down, which meant that if someone was knocked off from up near the top…well, they certainly wouldn’t have a good day after that.
To assist with that, she created four Level 5 Cliff Lynxes, which were able to hide along the cliff face and easily camouflage themselves with their striped fur against the rock. Looking at them from even 15 feet away, and from below, it was nearly impossible to see them. Perfect.
To further assist in “helping” the Raiders accidentally fall off the cliff, Tacca added an Enchantment-based trap that induced severe dizziness; the victims would experience extreme vertigo and even suffer from a bout of nausea, which wasn’t the best feeling when trying to scale a tall hunk of rock. Of course, they could avoid the trap altogether if they identified where it was in time, and by jumping over the relatively small trigger range of the large trap effect area; but then, they would also end up jumping right into range of the Cliff Lynxes. There wasn’t really more to the room than that, though someone with a fear of heights would probably hate it. Not really her problem, though, as callous as that sounded; if they wanted to delve through and gain rewards and Power, then they would have to conquer those fears. You could say that I’m helping them.
Speaking of rewards, she assigned an entire silver coin to three of the Lynxes, which came from Reward Tier 1. To start dipping into Reward Tier 2, Tacca picked out a Refined Iron Dagger for one room and a Crafted Pine Bow for the other room.
All told, she spent a total of 400 Dungeon Force to create everything that needed to be replaced in each room: 250 of that alone was the Dizziness trap, 20 DF for each Lynx, and 70 for all of the rewards. Luckily, since Enchantment was her specialization, she only needed to pay a little over 200 Dungeon Force to restock each room – still a hefty amount when she stopped to think about it. Her maximum DF was only 2,000, so 20% of that alone was going to be needed to bring these 2 rooms back to normal after the Raiders left them. It was one of the reasons she had thought about closing off the rooms with the Bridge traps, to give her more time while the Raider group was delving through her new section to restock.
Still, it made her think she was going to need to upgrade her DF Regeneration to keep up with the demand. The only thing she had going for her was the fact that those challenging her more difficult section were likely to be inside for a lot longer; as it was, an experienced group of Raiders (within Raider Level range, of course) could finish her easy dungeon in a half-hour if they were rushing through. More typically, it took most groups just under an hour, because they didn’t run in and start slaughtering things indiscriminately, uncaring for the traps that were placed in random spots now. As opposed to that, Tacca thought that her new section would require 5 or 6 hours to complete safely. With that much time to accumulate Dungeon Force…well, it would still be cutting it pretty close at only 28 DF per minute regeneration.
Tacca started to fill the next few rooms with Environmental Objects, borrowing some from her Forest Environment to break up the monotony of rock everywhere, always conscious of how much each room was going to cost to restock. She didn’t get very far, however, when she suddenly sensed something very strange at the edges of her perception. Something outside of her dungeon was causing a disturbance, and she could hear shouting and cries of pain coming from just outside. What is going on?
Shale answered her quickly, as he was very near the entrance, closely watching another group of Merchant Raiders making their way through her easy section; he had taken to watching them with a keener eye than she could lately, with her so focused far down below. “I’ll go check.”
He didn’t get very far before Tacca mentally shouted, NO! Fly back here now!
“What? Why?” he questioned her, but at least he stopped.
No time to explain – you have to get out of there now!
“If it’s that urgent, I’ll just Translocate back to you—what? My Translocation isn’t working!”
Just fly then! Hurry before it’s too late!
He obviously heard the urgency in her voice, and coupled with his inability to Translocate, he flew back faster than she’d ever seen him fly before. It was only when the Merchant Raiders reacted to his flying by, that she realized that his Invisibility had been canceled somehow. It really didn’t matter, though, because there was a good chance that the Merchants in her dungeon wouldn’t live long enough to tell their tale.
Because just outside her dungeon was a scene out of a nightmare.
Chapter 25
“Tacca, talk to me! What is going on?”
The Dungeon Core wasn’t sure exactly how to respond at first. Tacca was still trying to figure that out herself.
When she looked outside of her dungeon entrance – 100 feet out from it and a little down the mountainside – she could see the area where the Raiders would assemble, waiting for their chance to delve through her dungeon. Most of the time, there were only 5 or 6 groups there, biding their time until Tacca called them in via her Root Fox from the firs
t room, organized by a higher-Level Raider that had this “list” that she had heard tell of before. Before she had started really concentrating on constructing her second dungeon section down below, the Core used to like looking out and watching the assembled crowd.
Now she wished she couldn’t see them.
There is a group of…I’m not quite sure what they are…that just finished slaughtering all of the Raiders outside. I have a bad feeling about this – especially since they are running towards my entrance now. Just my luck….
The Raiders stood no chance against the blue-skinned, six-armed beings that swept through the assembled Clan members like they were nothing. Each of them were 8 feet tall, were extremely wide-looking because of all their arms, and appeared to be made of complete muscle; their legs looked like miniature tree trunks, their bare torsos (where not covered by the blood of their victims) were ripped with abdominal muscles larger than Shale, and their bald heads were sitting upon a neck so thick it could barely be classified as such. Their eyes were large, completely black orbs set back in sunken eye sockets, and their wide-open jaws that were filled with sharp, jagged teeth seemed to take up half of their skulls as they protruded a few inches out. If they had a way to smell, Tacca couldn’t tell – because she didn’t see a nose on any of them.
Added to that, each of their hands were wielding a different weapon: a massive 5-foot-long sword in one, a strangely shaped halberd in a second, a thick mace in another, followed by a double-bladed axe, a warhammer, and a trident, of all things. From the little she saw of the battle outside, they wielded the weapons with great skill, with each arm acting independently of each other; they were a figurative whirlwind of blades and blunt objects tearing through anything in their path.
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Page 28