Chapter 3
“Do you think there’s a reason Nyx turned us down?” Oak asked hesitantly from within the shack that led to the sixth floor. James couldn’t help but smile as the man spoke. Part of him felt bad for eavesdropping. The other part found it more than a little amusing to hear what the players had to say about his developer persona. “Like, what if the next floor is really dangerous?”
“They’re all really dangerous.” Faust said dryly. “That’s kind of the point of you know, a dungeon.”
The group all laughed at that. Ever since the first day of DCO, the Knights Who Go Ni had been a favorite group of James and Rue. Their camaraderie spoke volumes, and their skills were without question. No matter the challenge they faced, if they had proven time and time again, they were up to the task. And if not, well, they always gave it their best effort and put on a good show.
“No matter how dangerous it is,” Z said patting Oak on the back, “I believe in you. Besides, it gives you a good chance to test out your new shield.” As he said the final bit, James saw Z’s hand tighten on Oak’s shoulder. A look crossed the tank’s face, showing that Z had clamped down hard enough not to cause pain, considering pain wasn’t a thing in immersion unless you were a sadist and turned off the setting, but instead the tingling heat that denoted pain.
“Still salty about the shield, aren’t you.” Oak said with a smirk as Z let his shoulder go. “You know, you could be mad at Faust too. He got a Unique as well.”
Oak’s shield was in fact, a Unique Item. It was actually the first unique to drop within James’s dungeon. Called the Predator’s Shield, Oak had received it from Sergeant Jenkins, the fifth floor’s boss, after a battle gone wrong against a… er… miniboss created from the corpse of Badgy the Badgerker. The shield was a part of the Predator Armament set, and while its initial stats and abilities were already crazy, gaining more pieces would increase the stats by an even greater chance.
“Yeah, but the headpiece is less noticeable and irksome than your shield.” Z countered. “Besides, for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, you getting a unique before me bothers me more than Faust.” He shrugged. “Who knows.”
“Uh huh.” Oak looked over at Faust, who was smugly playing with the energy that sparked off his headpiece, then down at his own shield. The Predator’s Shield was a grotesque piece of equipment, made from the head of the A.L.I.E.N. mini-boss, with its mouth open, occasionally dripping bright green acid. Faust’s headpiece, the Harbinger’s Headpiece, was a small set of horns, curved in a similar manner to the Pall Sheep from his fifth floor. They sparked lightly with electrical energy, which combined aesthetically quite nicely with Faust’s own ambient crackling.
“After this little excursion,” Elm said as he glanced at the rest of his team members, “I’m all for farming Sergeant Jenkins and the A.L.I.E.N.s for more gear. I’d be lying if I wasn’t a bit jealous of the unique loot either.” Elm looked down at his own gear. “Plus, you know, it’d be nice to farm up a proper set of gear for once. Maybe get enough mats to craft everything so its nice and cohesive?”
The others all took a moment, suddenly self-conscious, to look over their own gear as well. It was a hodgepodge of pirate-type gear from James’s fourth floor, and cybernetic, artic gear gained from the fifth floor. With the outliers, of course, being the unique items of Faust and Oak. While both of those had been gained on the fifth floor, Oak’s definitely stood out the most. James had to wonder what the rest of the Predator gear set would look like for Tank class players. He knew the drop rates were astronomically low, but still, he couldn’t help but drool over the thought of seeing all of the players below him in full on unique gear.
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“It would be nice to finally look good while adventuring,” Z said as he tugged at the Solar-Bear pelt cloak he was wearing. It’s bright white clashed hard with the orange pirate leggings he wore. “And now that leveling has slowed a bit, I figure it’s about that time in a game where we can put in the effort for such things.”
That was another part of games, MMOs especially, that James remembered from being on the player side. Early on, the gear was so quick to drop and come by, that you were constantly changing it out for better stuff. This meant, unless a game gave you a cosmetic option to transmogrify everything to a certain pattern, you ended up looking like a hot mess. It was also, comically, why so many of his players spent much of their lower levels running around looking like farmers, the first gear set they could unlock, and one with stat boosting properties that made it viable almost all the way to the third floor.
DCO, James had noticed, provided a pretty steady level progression for the players. Outside of the penalty players acquired after completing a dive or fully wiping in the dungeon, they had extensive chances to level up. Add in siege events, skirmishes, dungeon wars, and the ability to go to other Dungeon Core instances and dive in their dungeons, and there hadn’t actually been a stagnant portion of leveling that would slow the pace of players by any large degree. Still, with their party levels in the mid-eighties, with Med Ic and Faust both at 86, their growth was slow enough now, that perhaps, just maybe, they could farm a cohesive set and keep it for a while.
James also wanted to point out that if there ever was a time for gear, grabbing a unique set from his fifth floor was a great choice. Not only was the gear crazy powerful if they did manage to get a full unique set, considering they had abilities that permanently increased stats for the players, but if he was being completely objective… as objective as possible mind you, Cybernetic Arctic armor was just plain old badass. Compared to, er, whatever it was the ‘Monster Mash’ mobs were dropping on the sixth floor, from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, the fifth was the better option.
Of course, none of that mattered right now. It was pure speculation. Oak had triggered the whole conversation, James knew, purely to stall. If there was one thing the tank liked to do, it was put off the inevitable. Oak made it clear, at every chance he got, that he didn’t like tanking. And now, was no different. Tanking the unknown, even more so, was something he despised. After all, he was quite literally the test dummy for the rest of his party, and it had gotten him in some really, really, really crappy situations. Including the stomach of a toilet mimic disguised as an outhouse on the third floor.
“Enough stalling,” Z said with a clap of his hands. “It’s getting cramped in here, and I want to see what the sixth floor has.” Between his four friends, his three beast companions, and each of their pets, the cabin was, indeed, quite cramped. Though, to be fair, Z’s largest pet, the new one he’d gotten when he became a Beastking, was outside. There was no way the massive, antlered, humanoid chimera named Hornz would fit just yet. And, having fought alongside it in person, James knew it stunk something fierce. Z’s party had called it a skunk ape more than a few times, which he found appropriate.
“Fine.” Oak said with a grumble. He moved towards the creepy ladder and began to descend it.
“Let’s just all climb down a mysterious ladder in an abandoned cabin in the woods. I’m sure there’s absolutely nothing bad waiting for us at the other end.” He grumbled some more. “Because this has never, ever, been the plot point in who knows how many horror movies.”
“It’s a dungeon,” Z said with a smile. “Of course, there’s something bad at the end of the ladder.” He chuckled and motioned for Elm to begin following Oak. Elm, Oak’s brother in real life if James remembered correctly, gently kicked down at Oak with a chuckle, causing the tank to lose his grip and slide a few feet down before he regained his composure and hold on the wooden ladder. “But unlike in those movies,” Z continued, everyone, save Oak, now smiling and in good spirits, “we’ve got you to face tank the horror for us.”
James couldn’t help but smile at that as well. While he was still peeved at Steve for spilling the beans on the location of the sixth-floor entrance, he was excited. Excited to finally see a group explore his labyrinth. Excited that it was Z’s group doing the first dive. And more than anything, extremely excited to finally see his brand-new mobs in action. A lot had happened since he hit Tier 6, and he’d not been lacking for entertainment and new things. But hands down, the best, most exciting moment of being a Dungeon Core was always, always, watching his new floors be tested for the first time, and seeing how the newly created mobs acted.