The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1)

by Jonathan Brooks

  In the case where they couldn’t accumulate enough, though, there were some options that could be temporarily applied to boost them enough to get at least a single Level. With the first Level threshold at 100 Points, there were two easy ways to get almost any Core to that number. The first method was the easiest and required time, lots of unused space, and a lot of Dungeon Force, but those were things that were usually in great supply by the time a year was up. It usually took a week or more, but a Core could cover every single inch of their constructed rooms with traps temporarily – unlike the paranoid Jeff from her past – to acquire enough Points to Level up.

  When the countdown time period was over and the Points “banked”, they could eliminate whatever traps they didn’t want and go on from there. This could also be done in the future when a Core was shy of gaining another Level at the end of another countdown period, but the required Points made the extreme method of covering every inch of a dungeon with traps not quite viable – plus by that time they were probably open to the world, and (as Jeff had proven) having hundreds of traps in a few rooms wasn’t a good way to ensure you stayed alive.

  The second method was similar to the first, though it was harder and less common – because it required special conditions. First, you needed to have a dungeon creature that didn’t contribute much to the Control Limit: 1 or 2 at the most. Then, if it was something that only contributed 1 to the Limit, you could make 100 of them and it was as easy as that. With 2 (or technically even more, though it didn’t help as much), you could create 50 of them, which would get a Core halfway there to the first Level, and the rest would have to be made up with traps and/or constructing more rooms. Afterwards, the creatures could be reabsorbed if they weren’t needed, and progress would go on.

  Luckily, Tacca had access to many creatures and their Variants that contributed only 1 to the Control Limit, so this was the method she would use just before the countdown ended. It wouldn’t do much good to do it right then, so she waited another 7 days before she did anything; over that next week, she amazingly got her first room complete, which was faster than she expected. It was rough around the edges at first, so she spent some time smoothing out the floor, walls, and ceiling using her Carve Earth option – but then she remembered that she could use the same method to manipulate what was already there.

  The last few hours before she had to start making more creatures was spent hardening the dirt and rock perimeter of the new room, which was surprisingly simple; all she had to do was focus on it using Carve Earth, and instead of the walls being eaten away it would solidify until it was harder than stone and nearly unbreakable by all but the strongest Raiders. It was also watertight, which was how dungeons that utilized a lot of water ensured that it didn’t just sink into the floor and disappear – or make a muddy mess. She was just starting on the tunnel leading to her Core Room – which she was planning on expanding and securing with the hardened walls soon – when she determined that it was about time to start filling her one-room dungeon with creatures.

  Foxes were in general smaller than her other creature options, so she decided to just create approximately 10 or so of each Variant – 98 additional ones, because she already had one Root Fox and also received a single Point from constructing her first Room (her Core Room didn’t count). They practically filled the entire floor of that first room, but they were an eclectic assortment of colors.

  The Fire Fox was a deep red – nearly a crimson color – and thrived in hot, fire and lava-based environments; the Shade Fox was a dark grey, almost black in coloring, and it worked well in dark, swampy places; the Sand Fox was a beige-ish tan color, which allowed it to hide quite well in desert-like environments; the Crag Fox was a striped light-grey and dark-brown creature that could perch on the side of a mountain and blend in to the stone and rock flawlessly.

  Those colors were dull compared to the others, however; the Arctic Fox was a blinding white color that almost seemed to light up the room all by themselves, which worked well in a snowy environment; the Cape Fox was a semi-aquatic Variant that a mixture of dark-green and light-blue, where it could hide in the shallows of a pond or river and attack from the water; the Bush Fox was a grass-green color, which – obviously – worked well to hide it in tall grass; and the Camouflage Fox wasn’t exactly a single color, but would constantly shift its shade to match with whatever was near – though it was always slightly off-color, making it easy to see if you knew what you were looking at. Finally, the Gliding Fox was the most unique, because it was practically clear like glass in color; they worked best in jungle-like environments where it could jump down from high in the canopy and glide down using flaps of skin, though it was relatively simple to kill because its skin was also like delicate glass – and could be destroyed just as easily the fragile material.

  When they were all done, she spent the time until the countdown finished strengthening the tunnel with hardened walls, before starting to enlarge her Core Room. It wasn’t as though it felt small, necessarily, but compared to what she had already made it felt a little closed in. She was only able to enlarge the entire ovoid space about two inches before she received what she was hoping for.

  Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

  You have reached Core Improvement Level: 2

  Current CIP Countdown: 0/200 in 30 days

  Core Improvement Points earned: 100 (100)

  Special Characteristic Points earned: 25 (25)

  Excellent! Now I can spend those points to make things a little easier—

  Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

  You have reached Assistant Rank: Novice

  You have reached Assistant Stage: 2

  Current Experience Countdown: 4/200 in 30 days

  Maximum Fairy Mana: +50

  Fairy Mana Regeneration: +2 per minute

  Tacca’s mind froze as she tried to process what had just happened. I can still…increase in Assistant Rank? She had thought that she was pretty much just a Dungeon Core now that had access to some of the same Abilities as she had before, but now it seemed as if her life as an Assistant wasn’t quite over yet. Acquiring the second Stage in her Novice Rank didn’t do much for her other than essentially putting her Fairy Mana back to where it used to be, with her original maximum and regeneration rate; in the future, however, there were some things that could make quite a difference—

  As soon as she closed that notification with thoughts about the future, she expected to be able to allocate her Points (CIPs and SCPs)…but her vision went blank and she lost all awareness of the world around her.

  Not…again…

  * * *

  She wasn’t out nearly as long this time, as she estimated that it was only a couple of minutes – but still, it was unwelcome. She could sort of understand what happened before when she finished her initial selections and blacked out, since whatever she had become was likely trying to reconcile her Fairy soul into her new Dungeon Core systems. However, she thought that was all done with by that point, and losing consciousness again was worrisome; unfortunately, there really wasn’t anyone she could ask about it, even if she wasn’t going to hide the truth from the Council in the future – because nothing like this had ever happened before. Or at least hadn’t ever been reported and recorded.

  She now had the opportunity to spend the points she had earned, but first she took a moment to examine her physical Core. That, more than spending her CIPs or SCPs was more important by far…and she inwardly smiled when she saw that almost all of the cracks in her crystalline form were repaired. There were a few hair’s-width cracks here and there, but for the most part she was where she should be. With another Level-up or two, I should be back to normal. With that better, if not perfect, she turned her attention to her options.

  Core Improvements

  Available Core Improvement Points (CIP)

  100

  0 in 30 days

  Improvement Name

  Value

  Cost (CIP)

&nb
sp; Maximum Dungeon Force Increase

  +500 DF

  50

  Dungeon Force Regeneration Increase

  +5 DF per minute

  50

  Control Limit Increase

  +50

  100

  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

  50

  Convert CIPs to SCPs

  1 SCP

  4

  Despite most other things so far being screwed up from the transition from Assistant to Core – like having half as much Dungeon Force and more expensive Special Characteristics – the Core Improvements menu didn’t seem any different. Tacca was thankful for that, mainly because it was extremely hard to accumulate CIPs, so if the Improvements themselves were also more expensive, then she would’ve cried. Though she didn’t really have the ability to make tears anymore…she would’ve attempted to anyway.

  She barely had to look at her options, mainly because she knew exactly what she needed to continue growing faster: Dungeon Force. Doubling her current maximum Dungeon Force was a bit of a no-brainer, as it would allow her to work longer; adding an additional 5 DF per minute to her regeneration would also allow her to keep ahead of the expense used with Carve Earth, as well as allowing her to do other things as well. Tacca knew that she still had to be cautious about rapid expenditures of large amounts of Dungeon Force or lengthy sustained use, since her Core wasn’t completely fixed up yet; nevertheless, having both of those things would help to alleviate her worries.

  After selecting those, she was back to having no Improvement Points to spend, though she did receive 25 Special Characteristic Points. Rather than waste time looking for somewhere to spend them, though, Tacca closed the menu without hesitation; she was already planning on saving them up until she could get rid of her negative Characteristics.

  With renewed vigor, she went back to expanding her Core Room another few feet all around her Core and flattening the floor so that she could tell right away what was up and what was down; she never really thought about it before, but telling direction when looking at her Core from the outside was a bit difficult when the room was shaped the way it was before, so having a level flooring helped immensely. By the time she was done, the room was still ovoid in appearance, but now had a flat side and stretched out 12 feet in diameter at its widest. Tacca felt much better about it for the simple reason that it didn’t feel like such tight quarters anymore.

  After that, the Fairy-turned-Core spent three hours at a time – and then 30 minutes of rest – creating another tunnel from her first room, sloping it slightly upwards and to the left in a gradual curve 50 feet in length. She kept it to the same 4-foot-wide and 7-foot-tall proportions as her original tunnel so that it would be consistent, before opening it into a smaller room than the first – only 30 feet long and wide, instead of 50. The new room was finished much faster than the previous one had been, mainly because her construction speed was boosted significantly now that she could do three hours and only 30 minutes off; she thought she might be able to do even more, but she still didn’t want to push it.

  With the second room complete, Tacca continued her tunnel-digging and room-making for another four weeks; she varied the tunnel distances between 30 and 50 feet, and made an assortment of rooms, though none nearly as big as the first room she had built. That one she was planning to be her “boss” room – otherwise known as the “final” room – of her dungeon, where she would have the toughest creatures and challenges…and the highest reward for the Raiders, of course.

  In all, she now had a total of four rooms (including her boss room), twisting back and forth through the ground, steadily heading towards the surface. While she couldn’t accurately sense that she was getting close to breaking out, she had a distinct feeling that another few rooms – if she kept up the same pace – would open her up to the world. It was completely opposite of what she should be feeling as a Dungeon Core, and she could only attribute it to some extra sense imparted to her because of her former existence.

  Speaking of her former self, she found that – with a little bit of effort and Dungeon Force – she could create a dome of hardened stone over her corpse, sealing it up inside and hiding it away at the same time; with it out of sight, she found that she felt much better about her current circumstances, as if seeing her dead body was a reminder of what she used to have, instead of celebrating and taking advantage of what she had now. She still mourned her previous “freedom” of flight and being able to go where she wanted, though the longer she had time to actually think about it she realized that her life wasn’t as “free” as she had thought.

  Because being a Dungeon Assistant was for life – or at least for so long that there were very few that actually retired from the profession. The way it was going, as well as the constant destruction of her assigned Cores, Tacca thought she was destined to spend the rest of that life suffering from one torturous Bond-breaking after another. Before she had come to this dungeon, she was starting to feel the effects of so much pain in such a short period of time that she thought she might lose her mind. Luckily – or unluckily – her “bad luck” had broken that cycle, and it seemed as if that part of her life was behind her.

  Inevitably, as soon as she thought that, her ominous birth decided to catch up with her.

  Chapter 14

  “You want me to go…where? Oh, please no – I don’t want to go anywhere near The Deliverer!”

  The Lead Placement Council Member gave him a look and he shrunk back, scared for the first time since being unexpectedly called into an office in the DPRC that he didn’t even know existed before he heard the door open. He’d never seen or heard of Council Member Lily before, but that wasn’t surprising since he’d just been pulled out of his – very successful, he had to admit – Mentor training.

  “Shale, this isn’t a request – it’s an order of grave importance. And Tacca is her name, not this ‘Deliverer’ crud I keep hearing…how in the world did you hear about that, anyway?” Lily, the Lead Placement Council Member, asked.

  “That kind of stuff gets around, even when we’re stuck in a dungeon most of the time. When there’s a Dungeon Assistant that goes around delivering Cores to their deaths—”

  “Tacca doesn’t deliver anything – she’s a valuable asset to our organization, and I won’t have you judging her harshly for what she does for us. I don’t know how this nickname even started, but I suggest you keep this to yourself when you go fetch her,” she said with a look that promised harsh consequences if he messed up.

  “I’m just supposed to bring her back…and that’s it?”

  “Initially, yes. It depends on whether she’s managed to get the Dungeon Core she was placed with to communicate with her or not; we know that it’s still there, so the possibility that she was successful is a good one.”

  Why would a Core not communicate? The idea of a Core not responding to a Bonded Dungeon Assistant was foreign to him, and nothing in his schooling had mentioned anything like that happening before. Granted, he graduated at the same time as The Deliverer—Tacca—so he wasn’t as knowledgeable about those types of things, but he was pretty sure he would’ve learned about something like that. “Why was she placed with an unresponsive Dungeon Core if she’s so valuable—?”

  “It’s not your place to question our decisions,” Lily said sharply, before her face and tone softened…slightly. “For just this once, however, I’ll explain a little. Tacca is…unique…as I’m sure you know, and she helps us with…difficult…Dungeon Cores like the one she’s placed with now. It’s because of her that relatively new Assistants – like yourself – aren’t assigned
to a Core that could be detrimental to your personal growth. I’m not going to go further into it, but you should be thanking Tacca, not treating her as some sort of scourge.”

  Huh. Shale IronSchist had difficulty reconciling his memories of Tacca GloomLily from DAPS and this supposed “importance” she had with the Council. While he had never really joined in on the ridicule and derision towards the young, black-haired, pale, and “gloomy” Fairy, he shared many of the prejudices towards her. It was probably because he himself had some different features than normal – with his dark grey hair and ruddy complexion due to his birth near shale stone in the Irontooth Mountains – but at least his origins weren’t portentous…just unusual. Maybe we’re all wrong about her and her “bad luck” she supposedly possesses because of her birth. Then again, maybe it’s this luck that causes so many Cores to be destroyed when she gets near them.

  Regardless of his own thoughts on the strange Fairy, he didn’t argue with the Council Member and nodded his acceptance. “I apologize…I will do as you ask.”

  “Very good! And if Tacca was able to get the Core up and running, I’d like you to take over while she’s placed elsewhere. It’ll likely mean that you weren’t there for the initial selections, but I doubt the Core has progressed much from that point.”

  That doesn’t make sense. “Why would you take her away, then? I was taught that the Bond between a Core and their Dungeon Assistant is stronger when it was created from the very beginning. If she’s managed to do that, it seems unfair—”