My name is Lupin and two minutes ago I became a dungeon core.
Now it’s a bit strange. I can see the red crystal that is me, my body. But my sight comes from an entirely different thing, I’m like a spirit floating around. I can see, talk, hear, smell and feel in this form, but I can’t interact with anything.
Okay so currently. All I’ve got is a small room, like a two meter cube, with a small teleporter attached to one of the walls. It looks like a large red door, the material looks to be a liquid with stability. I can almost see through it.
I’ve got a few windows that can help along. Let’s look through them.
Status
Tier: Wood.
Sustenance: 10/10
Temperature: 15 celsius
Xp: 0/10
So I’m currently wood tier, with a sustenance of 10. Wait, wtf is sustenance.
Sustenance resembles the amount of mobs and traps you can support. Different mobs and traps require a different amount of sustenance.
That’s a lot of information at once. Hehehe. I’ll remember it, somehow. Anyway. Let’s go to the other window.
Choose your starting perk!
Dark dungeon ~ Dungeon will naturally be dark.
Warm dungeon ~ Dungeon will be ten degrees hotter
Shaking dungeon ~ Dungeon floor and walls will shake.
Okay. This isn’t at all what I was expecting. I guess perks will help me make my dungeon more unique. Let’s go through the options together reader (yes I know you’re there) and I’ll reason through them.
Shaking dungeons seems strong. It can make it more difficult for enemies to keep their balance, but that goes for my mobs as well. I think this could work perfectly if I make a dungeon that’s as chaotic as possible. Could work.
Warm dungeon. Uhh. Restricts too many options.
Dark dungeons will impact my mobs as well.
Huh. Every option has its own drawbacks. I think a dark dungeon is best long term, I can design a team that doesn't need sight, so when other dungeons invade me, if they don’t have that in mind. They’ll be punished hard.
Okay. I felt that. The dungeon is darker, but I can still see perfectly, if that makes any sense.
Okay. Then we’ll get to the most important option. Mobs.
Starting mobs!
5 Skeletons!
Wow. That’s a lot of decisions right there. Okay I can assume that all the other dungeons also only have five skeletons. Or can I? Perhaps they start with other mobs.
Already made a critical error, should have checked mobs before picking perks. It’s not at all like there is an author that can simply rearrange the order of those events, nah, that would be silly.
I click on the button and five skeletons appear in my dungeon. My remaining sustenance drops to 0. Clearly each skeleton is worth two points. With that decided, I need other things.
Okay I’m naming you guys, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Great. Now. It seems I have an option.
I can make them manually controlled or give them free will. For the time being I’ll keep them at manual. Okay.
Time to morph the dungeon.
Okay so. Essentially. I can only work with one substance, stone. And there are only two restrictions.
The first one would be the gobblegoy test. A gobblegoy is a fat large creature similar to a gigantic snail, it will start at the portal and slowly crawl to the core. It is very bad at overcoming obstacles or climbing in general. So there must be an easy path to the crystal.
If the gobbledy cannot reach the crystal then the dungeon isn’t viable.
The second rule would be to have a starting zone. So a small empty space where the enemy can simply enter safely. It’s a safe zone that is only active for the start that I can’t morph.
Okay. Other than that. I’ve got roughly ten meters length, and five meters width, and two meters height to toy around with.
I’ve gotta design the perfect room for skeletons. hmm. Wait a second, give me a definition system.
Skeleton ~ 2
Description
Hp: 10/10
Mana: 10/10
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A very weak monster that resembles the skeleton of an average human. It can not take fall damage.
Weaknesses
Fire: 80%
Water: 80%
Earth: 80%
Air: 80%
Slash: 10%
Bash: 90%
Pierce: 1%
Arcane: 100%
I can work with this. I can 100% work with this. Considering that I will be fighting against other wood tier dungeons means that magic probably won’t be an issue for now.
I have a brilliant idea. Humans have thumbs, that means… skeletons have thumbs! I can create tools out of stones, huh let me try that.
Floating down to the surface, I try to morph the ground. The ground bends with a simple thought; I can morph it as if it was clay. I make a spear, a sword, armour, and a shield.
I force the skeletons to equip everything, but they can’t move. The armour is simply too heavy and they don’t have the strength. But it looks like they can clumsily swing the long swords.
It makes sense though, stone is quite a heavy material.
Alright other than that, I’ve stretched the out, made a slight slope to give the skeletons high ground. room and covered the core in a wall with a door, as to give it slight cover.
I’ve made the tunnel thin. It expands outwards as the tunnel progresses. I want a scenario where I can force them into a 5v1.
Okay. Let’s open the teleporter to attacks. Let’s do this.
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Three silly cows sitting on a stone, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. Naaaahhhh, it’s getting boring cowies. Let’s go attack some nerd.
Through the teleporter we go.
Okay. So that’s a really small space. Line up cowies. We go in one by one. Wait, what the fuck, three skeletons. Wait, they have weapons. Wait, are they cheating. What the fuck.
First cows dead, oh no. Her brain’s so bashed in. Cows. Rush in there. Yeah trample over that skellie. Go go go. Kill them. Wait no. there’s more skellies? What the fuck. Oh no. I’m gonna die. Oh no. NOOOOOO. NOOOOOO…
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I only took one casualty, but I killed three creatures. I guess I played that really well. Well funnily enough killing those creatures made me level up twice.
Level up!
Level up!
Okay nice. With each level up I got a new window and some more sustenance.
Choose your reward!
Hand ghost 3
Pitfall trap 5
I’m guessing the number after the name is how much sustenance they need. Currently I’ve got 6 sustenance to spend. I know what a trap is, and that could certainly be useful, but what’s a hand ghost.
Hand ghost ~ 3
Description
Hp: 10/10
Mana: 0/0
A very weak ghost that is simply a flying hand. Excellent in scaring unprepared adventurers.
Weaknesses
Fire: 100%
Water: 0%
Earth: 0%
Air: 100%
Slash: 30%
Bash: 30%
Pierce: 30%
Arcane: 100%
A hand that I can control. I can see so many uses for this. But at the same time, it’s easily killed unlike the pitfall. I feel like this is one of those high risk high reward types of mobs. If I use this on the right occasion at the right time, it’s very deadly. Like distracting a caster in the middle of chanting.
Fuck… They both do so well with my perk. I have to go for the ghost I think. It’s so much more versatile. If it could lift a sword it could be really strong. Yup ghost it is.
I clicked the ghost and a little hand appeared. It asked me if I wanted manual control or to give it free will. I stayed with manual control. It seems that as a dungeon core my ability to micro manage many things at once has increased, but it can quickly become too much.
Okay next up, my next reward.
Choose your reward!
2 sustenance points +2
Mimic 2
I chose the sustenance points without a question. Those are just too good to give up on.
“Hey,” a voice called out to me, “psssst, do you hear me?”
“Hello,” I said, “Whose this?”
“Hello, my names Karl, his pronouns please. I’m also a dungeon.”
“’m also him/his, it’s pretty good to qualify because if somebody were to be writing a novel about this they certainly wouldn’t want to use “it said” a lot. Not that anyones writing a novel of course.”
“Yeah right, cause who’d write a novel about dungeons?”
“Anyway, how are you talking to me?” I asked.
“Through your teleporter,” he said, “it is set to the public right now, you can turn that off.”
“Oh, yeah I see that now. Anyway did you only want to say hello?”
“No man, I’m saying we team up.”
“You want to team up?”
“Yeah bro. Listen man, do you know how dangerous the wild is?”
“Not really.”
“Did you know that you have to take a material form to enter?”
“Nope.”
“Well you do, you’re gonna have to possess one of your monsters, and if they get slain whilst your inside, then you’re dead.”
“Huh.”
“Huh indeed. So I’m thinking we join into a party, that way we can hunt better prey with lesser risk. I’ve got five dogs right now, how about you?”
“I’ve got a few skeletons, so I think we make a good fit.”
“Right! I’ll add you to my friends list dude.”
“Yeah I got it. I’m accepting now.”
“Nice, let’s go out hunting soon. I just gotta level up a bit. Don’t want to die, hehehe.”
“Hahaha, wait a second, you sound pretty knowledgeable, but you’re only a wood dungeon.”
“Yeah man, this isn’t my first dungeon.”
“Wait what?”
“After you die as a dungeon you start at the beginning. Well, after a few months in hell. You’ll get used to it, don’t worry.”
“Really?”
“Wait is this your first dungeon?”
“Yup.”
“Well shit. Don’t die man, hells a horrible place. Once you get into gold, you should be safe.”
“Have you been in gold?”
“I’ve been diamond. But I got raided by some pretty strong adventurers, so it went. Now I’m trying to climb back. Ohh somebody is raiding me, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure.”
I made a friend. That’s pretty cool.