Since then, it had been one dungeon after another, three or even occasionally four a day with different groups. Sometimes Eisa would have to heal, but most of the dungeons they were “delving” through were in the high G-Ratings or low F-Ratings. As most of the guild members were in their high F’s or low E’s, they were relatively simple affairs to go through. He rarely had to use any of his slowly accumulating bank of spells, and when he did, it was more because he wanted to try out an experiment he had been working on.
Most of the dungeons surrounding Gatecross were Nature-based dungeons, though there were a few Earth ones here and there; the Earth-element dungeons were an experience in themselves, as they tended to have sucking-mud traps, falling rock traps, and defenders like small dirt golems and rock worms. Since the Earth dungeons were in the minority in the region, they were all fairly low-Rated – which meant that they were relatively easy to complete.
Initially, Fred concentrated on using his accumulating Essence to unlock most of the adapted spells and abilities he picked up along the way. After he had nearly reached the F-Rating, he had unlocked nearly 100 different ones, so then he concentrated on increasing his Brawn, Body, and Mind stats. While relatively easy to increase at first, they started to cost so much Essence to improve that he then saved the rest of his Essence for when he Rated-up to the F-Rating.
As soon as he reached that milestone, he immediately went to upgrade his class – and was immediately disappointed by his lack of choices: Alchemist, Combiner, and Instructor. Unlike the first time when he picked his class, when he placed his hand on the apparatus Jaymes provided him, he received some information about his choices.
Alchemist
Allows for the production of defensive potions imbued with the effects of certain spells and abilities.
All potions are single-use and single-target, usable only by Adventurers.
If previous class was a Researcher, all Essence used in the Experiment ability is converted to the new Concoct ability.
At its highest level, the Concoct ability can mix up to 3 different spell/ability effects and can replicate 90% of the power of the original spell/ability.
Combiner
Drastically increases the success probability of combining spells or abilities together to create something new.
If previous class was a Researcher, all Essence used in the Experiment ability is converted to the new Combine ability.
At the highest level, the Combine ability can allow the combination of up to 8 spells and/or abilities.
Instructor
Allows for a chance to teach another Adventurer one of your spells or abilities.
Success probability depends on multiple factors, including: Instructor Rating, target Rating, complexity of spell/ability, compatibility with class, and the Mind stat of both parties.
If previous class was a Researcher, all Essence used in the Experiment ability is converted to the new Teach ability.
Once activated, the Teach ability will drain all of the Instructor’s Power and the Power of the target, regardless of success
Teach can only be used once per spell/ability per target; if unsuccessful, that spell/ability will be locked from the target, though the Instructor may attempt to Teach another target that same spell/ability.
At the highest level and with sufficiently high enough Instructor Rating, the Teach ability can teach ANY spell or ability the Instructor possesses to ANYONE.
Alchemist wasn’t something he wanted to pursue; being able to make potions didn’t appeal to him in the least. On the other hand, the Instructor class seemed interesting because he could possibly teach someone like Eisa how to cast non-Necro or Healer spells, though he suspected that with his Rating so low, the probability of actually succeeding at that might be next to nothing. And, if it didn’t work – which he thought might be the case most of the time – he couldn’t try it again.
With those out of the running, his only choice was the Combiner class. He initially thought it would just be a copy of the Researcher class, which he liked for the Power bonus – but that was it. He was excited at first to try out the Experiment ability…but it was horribly unproductive. Even after spending some more Essence to upgrade it to level 2, the probability of success was less than 1%. After hundreds of tries using different spells, he ended up with not a single success.
However, the Combiner class turned out to be a major step in the right direction. When it converted his Experiment 2 ability to the Combine 2 ability, the base success was at 10%. After spending another 12,000 Essence to upgrade it to Combine 4, he was able to increase it to 20% – a much more likely endeavor.
At that level, as well, he was able to combine up to three different spells/abilities to produce something, though the probability of success dropped by 75% when he added in another – down to 5%. Still, it was enough of a chance that he spent many a night in the nearby forest experimenting with different combinations.
His ultimate intention was the same as what he had initially told Eisa; he wanted to be powerful enough that he could single-handedly make his way through a dungeon and interrogate a dungeon core without endangering anyone else. Although he had been embracing his own inner dungeon core lately, he still felt and looked like a human; as much as he told himself that he was only using them as temporary allies in his investigation and revenge against those that killed his parents, he was starting to care for them as something other than an “ally”.
Some of the guild members he was starting to get to know better than just acquaintances – not necessarily friends, but they had a respectful relationship. On the other hand, Eisa he thought he might consider as a friend; she was always there for him to go through dungeons, did her part to protect the group through her healing, and additionally made sure that he survived.
He did what he could to protect her as well – both inside the dungeon with a well-placed spell here or there and by doing his best to change the perception of those who had heard about her reputation. It was rare lately that someone looked at her with derision, and those were normally just by someone passing through. The rest of the town had accepted her.
Lately, though, she had been giving him funny looks that he couldn’t decipher. During their “delves”, she tended to stay a lot closer to him than before, sometimes brushing up against him for no discernable reason. It was thoroughly confusing, but he put down her behavior as something about her personality that he hadn’t seen before. Maybe it has to do with her own increase in power or about her improving reputation. Either way, it hasn’t affected our relationship any.
So, again, his original intention to leave his human allies out of the way of danger still stood; he didn’t want any of them – but especially Eisa – to get in the way of any retaliation he might incur from his investigations. With going solo into a dungeon on his mind, he cobbled together two main spells after hours of Combining that he planned to use to achieve that goal.
Vampiric Stunning Fireblast 4 – 0/27000
A combination of the Lifedrain (Necromancer), Sudden Shock (Wizard), and Fireblast (Elementalist) spells, this spell will stun the target, drain a portion of their Vitality and convert it to increase the caster’s own Vitality, and create an explosive fireblast that damages the target with the element of fire. Depending on the target, the fireblast may cause the target to be lit on fire, causing additional damage-over-time.
Power cost of Vampiric Stunning Fireblast: 150
Stun duration: 10 seconds
Vitality drained/restored: 30/10
Fire damage: 90
Blast radius: 8 feet
Dark Rebounding Spike Shield 4 – 0/27000
A combination of the Shield of Darkness (Necromancer), Slamming Shout (Knight), and Spike Arrows (Ranger) abilities, this spell creates a transparent shield made from darkened shadows that surrounds the caster and prevents most damage for a limited time. Additionally, any potential enemies impacting the shield will be violently rebounded backwards after t
aking damage from the sharpened shadowed spikes protruding from the outside of the spherical shield.
Power cost of Dark Rebounding Spike Shield: 250
Duration: 15 seconds
Rebound distance: 15 feet
Spike damage: 40
Cooldown period: 1 minute
With those spells, as well as having access to a plethora of smaller, less expensive spells, it should be enough to tear through anything that stood in his way. Especially since he took Researcher as his second class when he achieved his E-Rating. As he had hoped, the bonuses to his Power was cumulative with his other class, meaning he had more than enough Power to see him through.
Dungeon Core Status
Fredwynklemossering
Core Faction: ********
Core Age: 2
Core Structure Level: 1
Fire Mana: 128/128
Water Mana: 127/127
Unconverted (Unusable) Mana: 2965
Unconverted Essence: 3075
Skills
Master Mana Sight: 100%
Novice Mana Communication: 52%
Novice Mana Absorption: 71%
Novice Mana Conversion: 56%
Novice Essence Conversion: 8%
Novice Mana-formed Object Creation: 72%
Novice Core Crystallization: 21%
Novice **** Mana-formed Object Creation: 20%
Dungeon Information
(none)
Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface
Name: Fredwynklemossering
Class: Combiner-Researcher
Rating: E-6th
Essence Needed to Rate-up: 58755
Total Essence: 712245
Available Essence to Distribute: 30758
Unconverted Essence: 29650
Body: 14 (0/81920)
Brawn: 13 (0/40960)
Mind: 16 (0/327680)
Vitality: 180/180
Stamina: 160/160
Power: 6280/6400
Base Physical Attack: 13
Base Physical Defense: 13
Power Regen Rate: 30/min
Class Traits (Combiner)
Your available Power is greatly increased by your Mind stat
Your Power Regen Rate is greatly increased by your Mind Stat
You are able to combine up to 3 spells or abilities into a single activation
Class Traits (Researcher)
Your available Power is greatly increased by your Mind stat
Your Power Regen Rate is greatly increased by your Mind Stat
You have a much-heightened ability to adapt known spells and abilities for use in other applications
Class Abilities (Combiner)
Combine 4 – 0/27000
Vampiric Stunning Fireblast 4 – 0/27000
Dark Rebounding Spike Shield 4 – 0/27000
Class Abilities (Researcher)
Experiment 0 – 0/100
Adapted Abilities
Animate Dead 1 – 0/1000
Repair Animation 1 – 0/1000
Vitality Transfer 1 – 0/1000
Vitality Explosion 1 – 0/1000
Shield of Darkness 1 – 0/1000
Lifedrain 1 – 0/1000
Repair Object 1 – 0/1000
Conjure Object 4 – 0/27000
Disarm Trap 3 – 0/9000
Sudden Shock 1 – 0/1000
Fireblast 1 – 0/1000
Slamming Shout 1 – 0/1000
Spike Arrows 1 – 0/1000
(List truncated due to space – focus here for additional abilities…)
Communicating with Deecy every day had dramatically increased his Mana Communication skill – even if he couldn’t actually speak back to her using the same technique. The one side-effect of the increase in the skill was that he could now “hear” the dungeon cores speak while inside the dungeon.
“The time is getting near where you might be able to implement the next part of your plan. While I don’t necessarily think it’s a great idea overall, I know you’re set on seeing it through. And…truthfully, I’d like to see some answers, too. There is too much inside my head that doesn’t make sense – and I don’t like that.”
She was right, as much as Fred wanted to continue strengthening himself a little. Already, Eisa and some of the other guild members were talking about moving their base of operations to somewhere with higher-Rated dungeons (and therefore better loot). He understood it from their perspective, but he was right where he needed to be; more powerful and higher-Rated dungeons would only make his task even harder.
Not only that, but he was pretty sure he already found the dungeon he was going to interrogate.
Chapter 34
“I’m coming with you.”
Fred told her for the fourth time that he was going alone, but she wasn’t listening. “No, I need to do this alone – I don’t want you or anyone else to get hurt.”
If she only knew what I was planning to do, she’d be running the other way. Since he didn’t dare tell her, on the chance that she’d try to stop him herself or get some of the other members to help do the deed, he had been close-lipped about his intentions until that morning.
He handed her the key to his room that he took from his Pocket Interface Bag. “Look, if you’re worried about me dying and leaving you in charge of the guild, I’ve left a bag with over 1,000 gold pieces in it in my room; that should be more than enough to run everything for a couple of months – or you can pay everyone off and dissolve the guild.” He had prepared it so that if something did happen to him, he wouldn’t be leaving her without any money.
She looked offended at his comment for some reason, staring at the key in her hand as if it would bite her. “I don’t care about the money – or the guild for that matter. This was never about money for me,” she said, though with a look from Fred she blushed and corrected herself. “Well, at first it was. But now it’s not – it’s all…changed. I…I…don’t think the guild would be the same without you,” she finished in a rush.
He thought about it from her perspective and had to admit she was right. “That may be true, but this is something that I need to take care of myself. I can’t put you in harm’s way for my own selfish purposes.”
“But that’s what you’ve been doing for the last three months! I…no, we…have been delving through dungeon after dungeon in your pursuit of getting stronger. I…we’ve been risking our lives to see that you got what you wanted. Granted, you paid handsomely for the service, but that wasn’t why I did it.”
Now he was confused – after a moment, though, he realized what she was talking about. She had mentioned that she was looking forward to getting stronger herself (which she had), as well as trying to clear her name and improve her reputation; she was worried that without him there, any of the progress she had made toward changing people’s minds would be wiped out. There might be some truth to that.
“I think I know why you are so worried about me, but I’m still planning on coming back to you. I severely doubt that I will be in any major danger, so I suspect that I’ll be fine.” There, that should hopefully ease her mind a little.
“But—”
“No, and that’s final. I’m leaving this morning and I should hopefully be back tonight. If you don’t see me by nightfall, then don’t forget the bag of gold in my room – you might need it. Farewell, Eisa…until later.” He walked out the door without looking back, headed for the F-3rd-Rated Nature dungeon he had gone through with a group the week before.
Based on what he had overheard the core saying – to another core nearby, obviously – he could tell that it was experienced enough that it could at least understand the human tongue, if not actually speak it. There were a few times when he heard the dungeon core respond directly to something one of his guild members said, so it was obvious that he (at least it sounded like a he) would be the perfect one to…provide some answers to his questions.
One way or another.
* * *
Eisa waite
d until he was out the door before she found Metch in the common room of the DAS, seated around one of the tables eating some delicious-smelling food someone had fetched from the tavern down the street. He was sitting with two others, Raspel and Harriette, who were almost always seen together; the three of them had reportedly been friends since before they joined the Syndicate and complemented each other well as a dungeon-delving group.
In addition, they just happened to be the highest-Rated members of their guild in the low D-Ratings. They had reached that Rating the week before and were some of the ones who were urging Fred to move the base of operations someplace where there were harder dungeons – and more loot. She couldn’t blame them; the land around Gatecross didn’t have anything Rated higher than an F-9th-Rating – great for those in the E-Ratings trying to get to the next tier, but not so good for the now-D-Rated Adventurers.
“Metch, can I see you for a second?”
He looked surprised for a moment, but then excused himself from the table and walked with her toward the counter where Jaymes was finishing up with another Syndicate member. When the other man was gone, she approached and pulled out the key Fred gave her earlier.
Dungeon World: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 23