Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience

by Jonathan Brooks

  Fred saw variations on the first few rooms with the blood-red walls and chains, but it soon changed to even darker colors mixed with glowing red stones embedded in the walls and in strategic places around the room. The light inside the dungeon by that point was soon cut off to practically nothing, and Metlin was forced to add his own light spell – Moon’s Reflection – to Fred’s Magelight, which acted nearly the same but was a bit brighter.

  Overall, the atmosphere was indeed dark, but it didn’t look like the lair of countless undead. First, there was no rotting flesh smell permeating the air; in fact, it almost smelled like…eggs, for some reason. They might have even been rotten, which he had smelled once in Gatecross when a shipment of spoiled eggs arrived in their normal shipments to the restaurants around the town that catered to the Adventurers.

  In the 27th room – and less than four minutes into their journey through the dungeon (they had made excellent time) – they finally met their first defender. When it emerged from the dark cloud in the room, it was nothing like what he was expecting.

  “I thought this was a Dark dungeon – where are all of the undead?”

  Chapter 26

  “Undead? Uh…not in this dungeon?” Metlin responded, casting his Nature’s Breath spell on his group – but this time it included Fred and his friends, too. There had been some initial sideways glances at Deecy aboveground when they finally noticed her, but as she was staying next to Eisa in her smaller Pup form, they mostly ignored her presence. Her size wasn’t really a threat to any of the more powerful group – even the Druid or Channeler, who both had the least amount of Vitality and natural Base Defense.

  “What do you mean, not in this dungeon? I thought all Dark dungeons had undead,” Fred said, confused.

  “Not at all, Fred,” Regnark interrupted their conversation, as he readied his massive two-handed sword for a fight. “The most common are Undead, sure, but there are also ones that are filled with Hellspawn – and this dungeon appears to be one of the latter.” Joining Trenk at the front line, the big man took the opposite side of the large, red, winged demon emerging from the cloud of darkness.

  Pit Fiend (Level 2)

  Vitality: 1280

  Attack: 105, Claw Swipe, Disembowelment

  Defense: 90, (+70% Dark defense, +70% Fire defense, -85% Light defense)

  The Pit Fiend tried to lift into the air with great flaps of its 30-foot wingspan, but two quickly shot arrows from the Sniper tore large holes in each wing; the sheer power of the fired arrows caused them to fly straight through, impacting the wall behind it. The 14-foot-tall Fiend dropped the few feet it had managed to lift up and crashed to the ground, where Trenk and Regnark immediately went crazy and hacked away. When the demon recovered from its uncoordinated fall, it immediately struck out at the Knight-Mage with a powerful swipe of its claws – which rebounded off a barrier protecting the front of the fully armored man.

  Trenk had cast the temporary barrier so quickly that Fred hadn’t even seen him do it, but it was obvious why he had taken Mage as his second class. A quick look at the Knight-Mage’s abilities showed that his Barrier spell was at Level 8 – which meant that he had spent over a million Essence to increase it to that level. It was worth it, though; another swipe that likely would’ve wrecked his armor a bit was reflected off the Barrier, doing no damage to him whatsoever.

  While the two front-line melee group members were doing quite a bit of damage themselves (Trenk was doing a bit more, but not by much), the Pit Fiend had no chance when it was assaulted by the rest of the people filling the room. A channeled Light explosion – unoriginally called Light Explosion (Channeled) – erupted in its face, which almost seemed to burn the demon with its intensity. A few Lightscythes thrown out by Fred and Eisa – as well as two more arrows that *thunked* deep into the flesh of the Fiend in strategic places – was enough to finish it off in less than thirty seconds from when it had emerged.

  Fred could tell that if the others hadn’t been there, the fight would’ve gone quite a bit differently. He thought that they might’ve still won, but it would’ve taken a bit out of them to accomplish that; regardless, they had the help and they rushed ahead without even picking up the loot that the Pit Fiend dropped – when Fred realized that he hadn’t seen Pollianne in the fight.

  He saw her near the end of the room near the exit when he looked around for her, and it appeared as though she had just finished disarming a trap just before the tunnel leading on. He couldn’t tell what it did, but there was a lot of Dark Mana invested in it; his best guess – based on its placement on the floor and the theme of the dungeon – was a pit filled with shadowy Hellfire. Of course, he never got to see it, so his guess may have been way off.

  In less than a minute since they first entered the 27th room they were done with it and they entered the 28th – where they faced two more Hellspawns. The black-skinned demons that emerged from the large clouds of darkness were both at least 12 feet tall and had deep-red accents along their bodies, highlighting their broad chest and arms – all six of them. At the end of their arms there were long thin-bladed knife-looking projections, sort of like Eisa when she was in her Earth Elemental form and could manipulate the dirt covering her into bladed weapons. These Hellspawn, however, used those knives for something completely different from killing Earth defenders.

  Flaying Tormentor (Level 2)

  Vitality: 1050

  Attack: 85, Skin Flaying, Crosscut

  Defense: 75, (+70% Dark defense, +70% Fire defense, -85% Light defense)

  Fred really didn’t want to see what its special Skin Flaying attack did, because it sounded more than painful. Fortunately, he didn’t have to; Trenk and Regnark went right to work getting their attention and inflicting large wounds on the two demons within seconds. The two tanks were backed up by the rest of the group as similar spells from the prior room bombarded them, one at a time, and multiple arrows – which Fred noticed were made entirely of high-quality steel instead of wood – embedded themselves into the throat and chest of each Tormentor.

  Unfortunately, before the demon that Regnark was fighting was killed, it managed to sneak one of its bladed arms past the big man’s defense, slicing deep through the multiple bear furs covering his body and carving a chunk of his skin off in the process. He cried out in temporary pain before he activated his Unflinching Stance ability, which apparently numbed any of his wounds for a limited time and allowed him to keep fighting.

  Metlin healed him up with a spell called Accelerated Regrowth, which sped up his body’s natural healing process exponentially; within a minute, he was back to full Vitality – which was good, because Pollianne was just finishing up with the disarmament of the defense that encompassed the last half of the room.

  Long, mostly transparent shadowy tendrils dropped down from the ceiling and hung there largely inert – except for two near the Assassin as she worked on disarming the trap trigger on the floor. The two tendrils reared back and struck at her – but passed through her form as if she wasn’t even there; it was only when Fred looked harder that he noticed another figure of Pollianne crouched down safely about two feet to the left of what appeared to be some sort of illusion. He hadn’t seen her use an ability, but then again, he hadn’t really been watching her at the time. That would be handy to be able to do, though.

  A few seconds later, the shadowy tendrils disappeared, and Fred saw the Dark Mana from the defense, as well as the blobs left over from the two Flaying Tormentors, zoom away through the wall toward where he could detect the Dungeon Core – which was getting closer by the minute. He had barely even registered it happening in the previous room because he was still reeling from the presence of Hellspawn in the dungeon, but he also noticed that everyone received some Essence – not a lot, because there were quite a few of them in their group, but he estimated that he had received approximately 1,200 from the last two rooms.

  “This next room is tricky, but once we’re past it we’ll be at the last room �
�� and then you can do whatever it is you said you need to do there,” Metlin said, before adding, “and, of course, pay us that gold you mentioned earlier.”

  Fred ignored the gold comment, as he was more curious about what he had meant about the next room being tricky. “What do you mean—” he began to ask, before he emerged into the 29th room – and saw exactly what the Druid-Thief meant.

  Instead of there being a single large demon – or even a pair, like the previous room – there were dozens of the black clouds of infinite darkness scattered around the huge, 200-foot by 200-foot room. Fortunately, it appeared as though the Dark Mana clouds were much smaller than in the later rooms; in fact, they almost looked like the ones Fred had seen still present in the first dozen or so rooms. That similarity turned out to be accurate, as smaller demons emerged from the clouds scattered across the area.

  “This isn’t good – they’re not supposed to come out all at once!” Metlin shouted, his voice rising in pitch as fear set in. Fred ignored him as he took in what they were up against.

  Defiled Goblinoid (Level 14)

  Vitality: 85

  Attack: 30, Knife Stab

  Defense: 25, (+80% Dark defense, -60% Light defense)

  Lesser Imp (Level 12)

  Vitality: 110

  Attack: 35, Hellfireball

  Defense: 30, (+70% Dark defense, +70% Fire defense, -85% Light defense)

  Succubus (Level 8)

  Vitality: 125

  Attack: 50, Whipcrack, Entangle

  Defense: 25, (+80% Dark defense, -60% Light defense)

  Hell-touched Bear Demon (Level 6)

  Vitality: 200

  Attack: 60, Maul, Bear Hug

  Defense: 55, (+80% Dark defense, -60% Light defense)

  Desecration Devil (Level 4)

  Vitality: 250

  Attack: 70, Pitchfork Stab, Divebomb

  Defense: 60, (+70% Dark defense, +70% Fire defense, -85% Light defense)

  Twelve large Goblins that were vaguely similar in appearance to Eisa’s Goblin Gnomes appeared first to Fred’s sight in a semi-circle around the entrance. Unlike the Earth-based version of her Goblins, these ones were all black with glowing red eyes, wielded steel daggers instead of the rusty iron daggers hers held, and were at least twice as large. They were still shorter than any of the humans by at least a foot, but they definitely appeared more dangerous than a normal Goblin Gnome. They approached the ready group of Adventurers cautiously but with murder in their eyes.

  Above them, suspended in the air, were ten darkness-filled clouds that spat out dark-red winged Lesser Imps, who immediately started to fling out Hellfireballs at the assembled group. They weren’t the typical thrown ball of fire; instead, they had a core of black flames in the center of them, with unnaturally dark-red flames surrounding it that barely flickered as they flew through the air.

  Most of the Hellfireballs either crashed harmlessly against Trenk’s barrier or were dodged by Regnark, but one of them managed to get close to harming Metlin. A hastily thrown-up wall of vines filled with thorns blocked it as the Druid-Thief cast another spell, Thorn Wall; the wall was consumed almost completely by the Hellfire, but it also prevented Metlin from harm.

  Meanwhile, eight barbed-whip-wielding, red-skinned, horned, female demons appeared, wearing next to nothing on their over-exaggerated “human”-like bodies. They advanced slower than the others, but Fred could understand it; they had some serious reach to their weapons, and he watched them snap their barbed-tipped whips forward with a loud *crack* that looked capable of tearing the flesh off someone’s body.

  Next to them were half a dozen large, black-furred forms of Hell-touched Bear Demons, and Fred honestly had to say they looked fairly normal…until they reared back on their hind legs, which seemed to grow longer and more sturdy as he watched. Standing over 9 feet tall, the Bear Demons’ eyes glowed red with demonic energy as they advanced on two feet and judging by the strength in their chests and arms, looked like they could take Regnark in a fair fight without weapons.

  Finally, appearing in the rear of the room, four much larger and deadlier-looking versions of the Lesser Imps appeared above the ground with their wings outstretched, wielding long red-steel pitchforks in their hands. Instead of staying at a distance like the Imps, however, they immediately shot forward and started to dive towards the group with their weapons extended.

  Fred took in all of that information within the first few seconds, and after Metlin had mentioned that the defenders weren’t all supposed to attack at once, he realized that the Dark Core was changing up their attack patterns. While it couldn’t create anything new or change anything inside its dungeon, it could certainly dictate how its defenders could attack. He couldn’t blame it, though, because he probably would’ve done the same thing if he saw a potential threat to his existence.

  Based on that knowledge, he realized that – unless he and his friends pulled out all the stops – some of them wouldn’t live long enough to get to the Dark Core. While none of the 40 monsters arrayed against them were particularly powerful – Fred and his friends could probably fight them in groups of 5 or 6 – there were too many of them to properly defend against.

  For the members of their group that had less Vitality and Defense – namely, Metlin, Refelynn, and even Eisa – they would likely get swarmed before they could be saved. If the other group hadn’t been relatively low on Power and Stamina from their earlier delve through the dungeon, Fred thought that they might pull off a defense, but with the current state of affairs…Eisa and Deecy were going to have to intervene.

  “There’s no help for it, Eisa – it’s Scorpion time! Deecy, you do your thing – we have to get through!” Fred yelled, while pumping 13,100 Essence that he had in reserve into Light Explosion – the new one he had Adapted from the Channeler – to unlock it and bring it up to Level 4.

  Light Explosion (Channeled) 4 – 0/27000

  Upon activation of the channeled Light Explosion spell, the caster extends their Power toward a specific point of space (non-targeted). Once enough power builds up, a controlled explosion of light will occur at that point that will harm anything within a certain distance from the origin point, with light-based damage. The explosion will continually wax and wane if the channeled conduit is maintained with sufficient Power. Origin point may be moved slowly, as quick movements could cause the explosion to become unstable and extinguish.

  Activation Power cost of Light Explosion (Channeled): 250

  Channeled Power cost: 25 per second

  Light damage: 40 per second

  Explosion damage range: 4.5 feet

  Movement speed: 1.4 feet per second

  Maximum channeled range: 22 feet

  Looking at his own Power, Fred saw that he hadn’t actually used a lot lately, as most of the heavy work had been done by the others.

  Fredwynklemossering

  Power: 4725/5100

  With his reserve of Power and his new channeled spell, he was finally going to be able to contribute to the fight. “Everyone! Don’t get distracted by what you’re about to see!” he called out to the others, as Deecy transformed into her Giant form and a Crystal Scorpion appeared on the side of the room. With a quick dodge to the side as a Hellfireball flew past his head, Fred began to unleash his Power.

  Chapter 27

  Despite Fred’s warning, the others were still distracted by what Deecy and Eisa did. She herself was only slightly distracted as she saw Fred extend both of his hands out in two directions and two simultaneous explosions of light appeared in the air, swallowing up two of the flying, fireball-flinging demons in the middle of the air. They tried to escape the destruction, but they were essentially burnt to a crisp in less than a second as the light damage destroyed their Dark-based bodies.

  She had heard a long time ago from her starting days as an Adventurer in the Syndicate about the different types of Dark dungeons, but she’d never thought that she would ever visit one. Despite having a former affinit
y for death and Necromancy, she never wanted to be surrounded by undead; the one place she wanted to visit even less than undead Dark dungeons were the ones filled with Hellspawn. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she used to have some sort of mental breakdown whenever she thought about demons and the other denizens of Hellspawn dungeons.

  But now…it didn’t really bother her. She still wasn’t necessarily a fan of demons, devils, imps, and succubi – but she wasn’t prepared to run screaming at the thought of going up against them. As soon as they entered the dungeon, she knew right away that it wasn’t an undead dungeon and she had prepared herself for the abject terror she knew was coming – but it never hit her. Whatever part of her that had rebelled against the thought of delving through Hellspawn-infested dungeons was…just…gone.

  Strangely, it worried her a little bit. What else is gone? Am I missing anything else?

  So far, she hadn’t encountered anything but a much-muted fear of death; since she had died already, death wasn’t quite as scary as it was anymore. She didn’t for a minute think that if she died again that she would come back to life, but the all-encompassing drive to save herself was almost non-existent; it wasn’t gone completely, but it seemed to be mostly replaced by a need to help others. Which was the main reason she wanted to help find her Guild and the townspeople of Gatecross – she felt a drive to ensure they didn’t die. That same drive also extended to the people of Death’s March, despite the fact that they had tried to kill them; she was glad when Fred had volunteered to help them, even though he had no idea what he had in mind in the Dark dungeon.