“Do you think that means that he found the dungeon, but it isn’t open yet?” he hazarded, and was rewarded with a cautious nod from his best friend.
“Yes, that is what I would assume. He probably found where it was located, but it hadn’t opened its entrance yet; while he was waiting for it to do that, the storm must’ve come and surprised him up there. I’m actually surprised he made it this far before…this happened to him.” Sterge was surprised as well, though he knew that Raiders were much stronger than a normal person.
The second thing was almost overlooked at first. It was a flat piece of stone that had a few markings on it, but it didn’t seem like it was overly important; that was, until Gwenda held it in both of her hands as she was going to put it back in the Elf’s pack, and it started glowing with small little lights on it. She almost dropped it in surprise, but she held on long enough to see that the lights moved when she shifted her hands. After some experimentation, they discovered that a large, circular, and bright-green light halfway to the center of the stone pointed south towards the mountain range, while there were very faint, tiny green lights pointing to the north, past where Heftington was located and beyond.
“This must be the ‘tracker’ that you said the Raider was using to find the dungeon; I can only guess that the larger and closer the light is to the center of this thing, the nearer it is to our location. If that’s right, then these small ones to the north must mean that there are some up there, but they’re quite a distance away; no wonder the Elf seemed excited – there’s no other dungeon even close to here, and unless they were in town they probably wouldn’t even see it on this ‘tracker’,” Gwenda mused.
Sterge could only agree, because it made the most sense. Silence fell over the cabin, only broken up by the fire popping in the hearth. He couldn’t help but ask what was on his mind after seeing the map and the tracker that the Raider had left behind. “So, what are we going to do with this.”
“I’m not really sure,” Gwenda said after a minute of thinking. “All I know is that – as the Elf told you before he ran off into the mountains – the discovery of this dungeon will change this place; whether that change is for good or ill, I don’t know yet. What I do know is that I’m not sure we’re ready for it, either way; I think we need to keep this information to ourselves as long as possible. The presence of it won’t be a secret for long, I’m sure, but maybe we can at least prepare before it does happen.”
“Sounds good to me; it’s just a shame that we can’t turn in this information ourselves…you know, because we’re not Raiders.”
“That’s true,” his best friend said, before she smiled strangely. “Though…maybe we can do something about that.”
Uh, oh – I’m afraid to ask what that’s supposed to mean…
Chapter 19
The month on her countdown came and went while Tacca was working on her dungeon, and she didn’t bother to take the time – or use the Dungeon Force – to upgrade her Core Improvement Level at that point. For one, she didn’t want to have to explain anything to Shale quite yet; two, she was too focused on trying to get her dungeon ready to open up and didn’t want to interrupt that. She did manage to “bank” 82 CIPs from the creatures and traps she created and placed during the current countdown cycle – as well as the additional rooms she had constructed – so it wasn’t all a waste. Her previous worry over whether her Dungeon Assistant would notice the reduction of his potential Experience when she removed all of her Confusion Enchantment traps was eliminated as he didn’t even notice…or if he did, he didn’t say anything.
Another week went by as she created creatures of different species and positioned them in her dungeon, and then she spent some time placing traps. Those traps, unlike her small Confusion ones that she had used to gain CIPs, were much stronger, if not necessarily deadlier. Tacca had Enchantment traps that produced enormous rage in its victims, ones that produced fear, and even one that caused anyone caught in the trap to become significantly slower. She also had some deadlier pit traps in a room, even though they were ridiculously expensive in terms of Dungeon Force.
Soil-covered Pit Trap
The Soil-covered Pit Trap can be placed on the floor of the dungeon, must be covered by soil, and is triggered by proximity. Once triggered, the soil collapses and victims plunge into a deep pit lined with small stone spikes. All traps can be disabled with high enough Disarm Trap skills.
Cost: 950 DF
Replacement Cost: 475 DF
Creation Time: 2 Hours
Disarm Trap Resistance: 2
Activation Range: 4.0ft X 4.0ft X 20.0ft
Trigger Proximity: 0.2 ft
Strength: 8.0
Duration: N/A
Resistance Category: Physical
Special Effects: Causes physical damage from the fall, as well as potential physical damage from impalement upon stone spikes
If Tacca hadn’t increased her Core Improvement Level, she wouldn’t have even been able to afford to create a simple 4ft-wide, 4ft-long, and 20ft-deep pit trap with spikes on the bottom. As it was, 950 DF was a serious drain on her maximum of 1,500; normal Dungeon Cores wouldn’t have to worry about that, but she was almost hesitant to even try it because of the risk of cracking. What she did to prepare for it, though, was to wait an hour before using that much Dungeon Force and an hour afterwards before using any more…and that seemed to work. There was a strain on her Core that she felt deep down, but by using her Force cautiously like that, she prevented any more damage from occurring to her spherical form.
When she was all done with construction, Environmental Object placement, and creature and trap production, there was one last thing to do: rewards. While Raiders benefitted in their own way from killing creatures – and even surviving/disarming traps, or so she’d learned – many of them wanted tangible “rewards”. At the moment, she only had access to rewards in Reward Tier 1 – which was basically only copper and silver coins, crude iron weapons, ragged leather armor, and a few basic cloth pieces of clothing. It was suitable for a dungeon just starting out, though, so it would work for now.
Reward Tier 1
Reward
Cost
Copper Coin
1 DF
Silver Coin
10 DF
Rusty Iron Dagger
20 DF
Rusty Iron Shortsword
20 DF
Rusty Iron Mace
20 DF
Rusty Iron Axe
20 DF
Flimsy Pine Bow
20 DF
Cracked Maple Staff
20 DF
Small Battered Oak Shield
15 DF
Ragged Leather Chestpiece
15 DF
Ragged Leather Leggings
15 DF
Ragged Leather Vambraces
15 DF
Ragged Leather Boots
15 DF
Ragged Leather Helmet
15 DF
Ragged Leather Gloves
15 DF
Basic Cloth Robe
10 DF
Basic Cloth Tunic
10 DF
Basic Cloth Trousers
10 DF
Tacca thought about Darlene, who had likely spent most of her CIPs on raising her Reward Tier to much higher levels than she probably should’ve. Thinking about her actual dungeon, which was fairly plain and only barely larger than Tacca’s own, she realized that the other Core had likely spent almost all of her available Points on unlocking more rewards; in fact, there were even a few Special Characteristics that related to rewards as well, so it was entirely possible she had those as well. Even if Tacca hadn’t seen the folly of having entirely too rich of rewards in a relatively weaker dungeon herself, she knew enough common sense that having access to that kind of thing – and using them – was a very poor idea.
To assign a reward to a creature – or eventually she would be able to acquire a chest to hold additional rewards – all she had
to do was concentrate on it and choose one of her rewards. When the creature was killed, the reward would automatically appear once it disappeared, even if it was larger than the creature itself; for instance, if she had a Rusty Iron Shortsword as a reward for a slain fox, the weapon was actually longer than the length of the creature – but that didn’t matter for the reward rules. There was technically no limit to how many rewards she could assign to each creature, though a balance of not too much and not too little was important to achieve.
Once the reward was in place, it would automatically add to the cost of replacement of the creature once it was killed – if it was set up for automatic replacement, of course. So, for example, a Level 1 Root Fox that cost 5 DF to bring back could have 2 copper coins as a reward and would therefore require 7 DF to fully replace. Luckily, all of that was easily automated so she didn’t have to remember how much she put with each creature, as that could get complicated after a while. That automation – she realized – was also what led to many older Dungeon Cores to become complacent; when they had their dungeon set up the way they wanted, they really didn’t have to do anything to maintain it. They just reaped the rewards for a long time, probably refusing to do any more work to expand and change difficulties and make it fresh, especially if everything was operating just fine already.
The automation was beneficial for now, though, because she wasn’t planning on changing things up too much in the near future. Most of the creatures throughout her rooms she set up to give out a few copper coins; her deadlier ones, however – including what she had prepared in the boss room – dropped a silver coin here and there, along with some weapons and armor that she had to choose from. Overall, she spent just over 900 Dungeon Force to supply rewards, which sounded like a lot, but when you considered that some were just a few of the lowest-value copper coins it really wasn’t a lot.
“Are you ready, Shale?”
The Dungeon Assistant had been going from room to room over the last day, watching as Tacca made final adjustments to her creature and trap placement, as well as assigning rewards. She could tell that he was feeling nearly as excited and nervous as she was; the prospect of opening up was a momentous occasion, and it really only happened once in a Dungeon Core’s lifetime. “Yes, I am…but are you sure about all of this? Some of what you have seems risky, and I’m a little worried about what you have planned for the Raiders; there are some things in here that you wouldn’t even tell me about, so I’m not even sure what’s going on in a few of your rooms,” Shale said with more than a bit of irritation in his voice.
That was true; she didn’t feel like explaining everything she did, so she left a lot as a mystery to the Dungeon Assistant. Shale was clearly annoyed by that, but she thought it might be fun to see his reaction. Tacca had been growing more and more accustomed to him being everywhere and she felt the Bond between them growing stronger every day; she knew that before long some extra benefits of a strengthening Bond would make itself known, though she didn’t actually know when that would happen. It was apparently different for every Assistant-Core pairing, so it was anyone’s guess.
“Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense when you see it in action. I’m going to start tunneling out from my topmost room because I’m as ready as I can be for the moment. I wonder what it looks like outside?”
“Good question. I’m kind of interested as well, because I haven’t been outside for a while and I have no idea where we are in relation to the world above. When I get the chance, I’ll fly out and try to ascertain where we are to give you a better idea what to expect from Raiders,” he offered, for which she was thankful. While she knew she could look outside her entrance, she wouldn’t be able to see any more than a normal person would when peering outside the confines of her dungeon.
Once he did that, it was a possibility that she’d have an even better idea of exactly where they were in relation to the world than Shale, because Tacca had extensively studied dozens of maps and researched Raider cultures from around the world – or at least as much as was known. When she could pinpoint exactly where her dungeon was located, she could minutely adjust some things based on local information, but for now her dungeon composition was as balanced as it was going to get.
A couple of weeks ago, Tacca had applied her knowledge of how to speed up the construction process of tunnels and rooms, so it didn’t take long to tunnel through the remaining dozen feet to the surface. All she had to do was use Carve Earth in separate locations at the same time to remove twice or even three times as much dirt and stone from her path – though it quickly ate into her Dungeon Force reserve. She hadn’t used the technique much, though, because prolonged use might lead to additional cracks in her Core, but for removing the last little bit between her and the outside world it wasn’t that much of a strain.
Tacca held her non-existent breath as the last of the dirt barrier between her dungeon and the outside world disappeared because of her use of Carve Earth. The first inklings of light poured into her new entrance as she expanded the tunnel leading outside so that it was equal to the rest of the tunnel, hardening the perimeter of it as she went. She thought that for some reason she couldn’t see anything outside, because all she saw was a wall of bright-white light. Is this another side effect of my soul being sucked into this Core?
Within seconds, however, she found out the reason everything was all white as big snowflakes blew into her entrance, piling up quickly as the blizzard outside raged, blocking out the view.
My bad luck strikes again.
* * *
“Well, this is just great. I had all of this planned out, but if no Raiders can get here, then what am I supposed to do?” Tacca exclaimed after watching the storm rage outside her dungeon entrance for almost an hour. She didn’t want to admit it, but she concluded that no Raiders were stupid enough to travel in that kind of weather – which meant that she wouldn’t see anyone anytime soon. The raging blizzard was so powerful that a couple of gusts had blown snow all the way into her first room down the long tunnel, though the snowflakes quickly melted when the ambient temperature of her dungeon warmed them up. The warmth or chill of her dungeon was something she could manipulate as easily as the lighting with just a thought, and she turned the heat up a tad, which helped to keep her entrance relatively clear.
Clear for what, she didn’t really know, because there was no way anyone was going to reach her. She could make out vague dark shapes in the distance during some lulls in the storm, but they were so far away she couldn’t tell for sure what they were; all she knew was that her plans were in jeopardy of failing – and all because of some stupid weather.
“I’m sure this will only be temporary, Tamara; I’ve never heard of a Dungeon Core being placed near an area that was largely inaccessible before, so this is probably just a fluke,” Shale told her, in an attempt to cheer Tacca up. She appreciated his attempt, but she was terribly worried that her “bad luck” had placed her far to the south of the known world, in the frozen wastelands where no one and nothing lived. What her Dungeon Assistant said was true, however, so she felt a little better: no dungeon had ever been placed somewhere really hard or impossible to get to before. It would completely defeat the purpose of their presence, after all, if Raiders weren’t able to invade them.
I guess I should be thankful that I didn’t emerge at the bottom of a lake, or inside a volcano; I hope this storm really is temporary, though, because otherwise I’m going to have an extremely boring eternity of existence.
There was nothing that Tacca or Shale could really do about her dungeon’s location, so they were forced to wait…and wait…and wait… Three weeks went by without much cessation of the wild, blowing snow outside her entrance, but the determined Dungeon Core refused to give in to defeat. While they were waiting for something to happen, and as the snow piled up so much that she couldn’t even see outside anymore, Tacca didn’t twiddle her imaginary thumbs.
She began expanding her dungeon downwards from her C
ore Room, adding additional tunnels and rooms, though there was no particular thought process behind them. The expansion was done for two main reasons. One, now that she was technically done with her forest-themed, Enchantment-trapped, Canine-guarded dungeon, she didn’t really have anything to do; the construction, while relatively boring, gave her something to do and concentrate on.
Most dungeons – from what she had been taught and had observed herself – were busy from the moment they opened up to the outside world; they didn’t have the Dungeon Force available to start expanding right away, because most of it was consumed by the regular maintenance of their dungeon after Raiders destroyed everything inside. It was only when they increased their Core Improvement Level that they could purchase some things with their Points that made expansion possible; having a higher DF regeneration rate or a larger Control Limit went a long way towards creating more difficult challenges for Raiders. By earning enough CIPs (which was usually a result of the presence or deaths of Raiders), they could acquire those things – it was a relationship between Raiders and dungeons that had worked well for tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of years.
Contrary to every other Core in the world, Tacca thought she had plenty of time to expand even after she opened up – and that brought her to her second reason for doing so. Her fourth-month countdown was approaching quickly, and she wanted to take advantage of it this time. Not only did she want to repair the existing cracks in her Core, but she needed to gain as many CIPs as possible while she had the opportunity. She hadn’t given up hope that the weather outside her dungeon was temporary, and she wanted to be prepared when Raiders finally arrived.
The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Page 19