Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

Tier 3 – and they would need 3 of those to ascend to a Tier 3 in a Class.  If his calculations were correct, then they would need 1,200 Tier 1 Class Orbs to reach Tier 3 in Class; that was only for one Hero, as well, so 6,000 would be needed for the entire group.

Of course, there was always the possibility that they could obtain Tier 2 Orbs from Drop Chests, but in all of the battles and Chests opened in nearly 3 weeks since he had first welcomed Heroes, he had only seen about a dozen scattered across all of the groups.  In addition, although he hadn’t kept an accurate count, he estimated that – at most – each group had only acquired 200 Tier 1 Class Orbs across all of their different Classes; at the rate they were clearing his dungeon, and if nothing changed, it could take at least a year to obtain enough Tier 1 Orbs to progress to Tier 3 – if they were lucky and got exactly what they needed.

“It might be ‘safer,’ like you say, but it won’t benefit them in the long run,” the baby dragonling commented.  “If those stragglers don’t move on soon, I don’t think you’ll have any other choice but to implement those changes we discussed.”

He was somewhat loath to do that, mainly because the other 4 groups were actually doing what they should be doing.  In fact, as he looked inside the average room, his “favorite” group was currently trying to tackle the room again – and this time he had a feeling they would succeed.

Jeska and her group were briefly discussing what they needed to do in the room, though it seemed that it had all been arranged beforehand.  Nevertheless, Clay was interested in their strategy, so he listened in.

“…then make sure to heal him if he starts taking too much damage,” the Mage-Classed woman was saying.  “Rosara, make sure that—”

“Yes, I know,” the woman that Jeska named said shortly, as if not wanting to be reminded of what should be obvious.  She huffed impatiently and continued, “We’ve already been over this.”  Ever since the Support Hero had increased to Tier 2, her already-impressive endowment had increased significantly; when she huffed in exasperation, it made her gigantic—

“It’s important to go over this, Rosa,” Arcen mentioned, putting his beefy hand on Rosara’s shoulder.  “We want to survive this time, don’t we?”

The Support Class’ arms were obscured as she crossed them underneath her chest.  “Yes, well, let’s get on with it already,” she sniffed.

Clay watched them all look at each other and nod, as if any more words were unnecessary.  Then, without further ado, they began.

The most problematic issue that the Heroes had with the room so far was surviving long enough to actually fight back.  In addition to the projectiles from the Ranged-type monsters in the room (3 Stone-tipped Ferns and 1 Spitting Serpent), there were Magical attacks from the Gust Ferns, the Weak Light Elemental, and the Lamia Flameweaver.  Powerful gusts of wind, beams of searing light, and streams of “weaved” flames were bad enough, but weren’t really the issue; no, the problem came from the Nether Mage Slime – which was much more powerful than even Clay expected.

As soon as Arcen stepped into the room, the Fighter was hiding behind his large shield he had positioned out in front of his body, deflecting or absorbing the attacks unleashed in his direction.  Stone shards from the Fern slammed into his protective wooden and iron-banded shield. Some impaled themselves into the hard wood, but most bounced harmlessly off; a spit of acid splashed over the wood and started to eat the material of the shield away very slowly; a few impacts against the defensive equipment from orbs of condensed air created by the Gust Ferns caused it to shudder slightly, but the shield was held firm by the enormous strength of the Fighter.

Then there was a beam of focused light that started to burn a hole through the wooden structure of the shield, along with a stream of flames from the Flameweaver monster that caused the entire thing to catch fire.  Before it could burn away and be destroyed, the shield abruptly disappeared – back into Arcen’s “Inventory” (or so he had heard it called) – and he was hit by the focused beam of light for a second before it blinked out of existence.  His Weak Light elemental wasn’t exactly weak; its attacks could cause quite a bit of damage, even at a distance.

During that entire barrage, however, the Fighter had been eclipsed by a large cloud of roiling darkness that Clay’s Nether Mage Slime had caused to form the instant the Fighter entered the room.  The dark cloud didn’t just obscure the vision of those that entered, but it also did periodic damage to anyone caught inside of the effect.  To just about anyone but a Fighter, it would kill them within moments. Even Arcen wasn’t doing so well against it, but increasing to Tier 2 had done a bit towards toughening up his resistance to both physical and magical damage.

“And…now!” the Fighter suddenly instructed, retrieving his newly completely undamaged shield from his Inventory and advancing into the room.  The darkness cloud wasn’t yet gone, which hurt the other group members as they rushed inside, but after a second the Nether Mage Slime’s attack dissipated.  It seems as though they are cutting it close and taking advantage of their past experiences in the room.  They had attempted it enough times (and died, unfortunately) to get the timing down to the second, evidently.

Kelty, the Healer, immediately used one of her Skills to heal the Fighter, while the others went on the offensive.  Clay’s Ranged and Magical monsters were “reloading” their projectiles and effects, so the Heroes had a few seconds to spare to set up a defense.  Jeska produced