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

Chapter 6

Uh…what do I do?  You said that I’m safe?  For some reason, Clay wanted to panic, despite the fact that he didn’t know what to panic about.  It was probably because, as strange as a sensation it was, his dungeon felt bare and naked; he was reminded of his nightmares when he was younger—ok, a year or so ago, if he were being truthful—of arriving at his daily deliveries without any clothes on. Except, those had been dreams; this was reality.

“Yes.  Your Dungeon Core is currently invulnerable to any attacks,” Dwight quickly responded, before turning and flying back to what he was considering calling his BOO, or Base Order of Operations.

Hehe, another math joke.  You know, because I make all the decisions from here, based on—

“This isn’t really a joking matter, Clay.  There should never be any Human habitations this close to the entrance of a new dungeon.  As in never; either something is even more wrong than I had first believed, or there is some sort of purpose to all of this – of which I am wholly unaware.”

The baby dragonling seemed extremely worried, which didn’t help his own anxiety.  Whereas his dungeon had felt naked before, now it felt as if he was standing there naked while his invited guests arrived.  They weren’t invited, of course, but that didn’t seem to matter to his sudden panic.  So, what do I do?!

It took Dwight a moment to answer.  “There isn’t enough time to summon any monsters and place them accurately for defense; your best chance of making a good impression right now is to present your dungeon as empty, but preparing to become operational as soon as possible.  As a former Hero, you should know—no, you wouldn’t.”

Know what?

“That it is extremely rare – practically unheard of, in fact – for a dungeon to start seeing Heroes before they are prepared.  What is more common, though, are dungeons going through a transition to a higher difficulty; at that point, while rooms, environmental décor, monsters, and traps are rearranged, the dungeon will be temporarily shut down.  It usually doesn’t take more than 24 hours to complete a transition, however, so all that Heroes need to do is wait for a short time before they can start delving through again.”

So…you want it to look like I’m going through one of these transitions?

“Yes, essentially,” Dwight responded when she arrived in his BOO, which didn’t take all that long.  He was halfway convinced that she probably could’ve just disappeared from where she was near the entrance and appeared near his Dungeon Core whenever she wanted, but he didn’t say anything.  Now that it seemed like the little dragonling had some sort of plan for him concerning the unexpected visitors, his panic and anxiety began to subside.  “I think that all you’ll have time for is to add some illumination so that they can see that there is no immediate threat to them.  Anything else will take too much time, and trying to add any quick defenses is a poor idea without at least 5 monsters in the first room.”

Clay didn’t bother asking about why that was a poor idea, because he decided to trust that Dwight had his best interests at heart.   Or illusionary heart.  Or whatever.

Therefore, using a total of 1 whole Crystal Chip, which seemed expensive compared to all the construction he had done earlier on the dungeon, Clay added torches secured to the walls of each hallway, spaced apart as evenly as he could.  All it took was a simple thought about where he wanted them, and they appeared; he could instinctively tell that they would continue burning forever, without any maintenance needed on them.

“You can add torches to your rooms, as it will help illuminate them in the future without giving everything away.  For your Boss Room, I would suggest something a little different: Glowstones.  All you have to do is concentrate on any small sections of stone you want and imagine them glowing; you can dictate the amount of ambient light you want within the room at any given time.  The best part of Glowstones, which you cannot do with torches while there are Heroes present anywhere in your dungeon, is that you can adjust the light at any time, other than when there is a Hero directly in the same room.”

That seemed somewhat useful, though because his lack of experience meant he couldn’t come up with any scenarios in which they might come in handy, he declined to comment on them.  So, like this?

He looked at the entire ceiling of the Boss Room and thought about them glowing—and they lit up so brightly that even he, as a Dungeon Core that didn’t have physical eyes, could barely look at them.

“No, not quite like that.  And…not quite that much Glowstone.”

With a mental command and a supreme force of will that prevented him snapping back at Dwight, he reduced the brightness to a level that seemed consistent with the light level coming from the torches in the hallways.  Ok, I think I can see where that could prove useful.  He was feeling quite proud of himself, in fact, but then he saw a larger than normal mote escape from his Core, only to disappear into nothingness.

“I thought I made it clear that you only need to turn a small section of stone into a Glowstone; to do otherwise is a bit more expensive.”

What?  You didn’t say— Clay started to complain, but then he remembered that she had stressed the word “small” earlier, but he had obviously misunderstood.  It was an expensive mistake, too, because when he looked at how many Crystal Chips he had left, he found he only had 30 – which meant that the glowing ceiling took