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

invulnerable…at a full 20 Core Structure Health,” the baby dragonling replied, a little of her previous annoyance coming back into her voice.  “But as soon as a Dungeon Core drops below a CSH of 20, they become vulnerable to being shattered by a Hero’s weapon.  At 18 or 19, the only thing that can hurt a Core would be a Tier 10 weapon, which would be something I doubt you would see anytime soon; but as the CSH drops even further, so too does the weapon Tier requirement.  At CSH 1, for instance, all it would take is a simple Tier 1 weapon and you wouldn’t survive more than a single strike.”

That was not good.  His recklessness had inadvertently put his life in danger, and by extension Dwight’s life, and all because he didn’t stop to consider the consequences.  And what would it take to destroy a Core with a CSH of…4?

“At a CSH of 4, all it would require is a Tier 3 weapon, or perhaps a very strong Tier 2.  Now can you see why I’m worried.”

Not…really.  I don’t understand enough about these Tiered weapons, but if they are anything like my 2 and 3-Starred monsters, I can only assume that they will be relatively common.  Is there any way to…I don’t know…request a refund and get my Health back?

She shook her head.  “No, there are no ‘refunds’ for this conversion.  The only way to get your CSH back up to safe levels is to wait.”

Wait?

“Yes,” she explained, “your daily accumulation is put on hold while you are under a full 20 CSH, and each day it will slowly increase your Health back up to 20 – 1 point at a time – before returning your daily accumulation to normal.”

So…I have to wait 16 days?

“Correct.”

That just means that I have to be careful for a little over 2 weeks, right?  That doesn’t seem so hard.

“Normally, no, that wouldn’t be too difficult…in a much larger dungeon.  Right now, though, your Dungeon Core is so close to your entrance that you will have difficulty keeping Heroes away from your location.  And it isn’t so much the distance, but the defenses that are lacking; there is very little right now keeping even a single Tier 1 Hero away from your Core.”

I think that I can at least work on that, but I have one more question, he replied, knowing that he had some work ahead of him.  Why would any Heroes want to destroy me?  Don’t they know we are here to help them?

“You should know—no, I keep forgetting,” she answered, before sighing dramatically again.  This time, though, it felt like she was annoyed at herself, rather than at him; it wasn’t a big difference, but it was enough of one that he strangely felt a little better.  “While Heroes use dungeons to help make themselves stronger, they aren’t aware that you are—or were—a person, a Hero…usually.  They don’t even know that Cores are sapient at all, but think that they are just mindless constructs designed for them to take advantage of their presence.

“As for why they would destroy something that is helping them, it has to do with probabilities again.”  Dwight hesitated for a moment before continuing.  “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

Uh…yes?

“Okay.  Well, when a Dungeon Core is shattered, there is a 95% probability that they will drop a full set of Tiered armor for a specific Class that participated in the Core’s destruction, as well as a weapon of the same Class.  How high of a Tier depends on the Core’s Stage of development, so for you it would be a full set of Tier 1 armor and a weapon.”

That doesn’t seem worth it.

“Oh, it’s not.  Cores aren’t destroyed because Heroes want or need more armor, because they get plenty of those from your monsters.  No, they shatter Dungeon Cores because there is a 5% chance that they will drop something else, something that is normally a very, very rare drop and can be extremely valuable to them: A Reclassification Orb.  What the Reclassification Orb actually does isn’t really important to you, but it is to them – which is why Heroes are willing to destroy Cores with barely a second thought if given half a chance.”

Great.  So, I’m a dead man.  Or Core.  Or whatever.

“Not…necessarily.  From what we’ve overheard, there aren’t any Heroes on this island; the best you can hope for is that no one who is powerful enough to harm you will learn of your existence before your CSH replenishes back up to safe levels.”

Ok, I think I can do that. Now, since I can’t really take back my stupidity, what do you say we spend some of these ill-gotten gains?

Chapter 11

Since Clay now had a veritable treasure trove of Chips at his disposal, he chose to pursue the special Bundle Pack #1; as it said in the description, it was a “Good Deal!” that he couldn’t pass up.  It was the original reason he had opted to convert 16 of his Core Structure Health, so that he would have at least 180 Chips.  He now had 185, which was enough to purchase the Common Spawn Egg pack costing 45 Chips a total of 4 times!  He would have 5 Chips left over for…emergencies, he supposed…but 40 Spawn Eggs should be enough to get him by for a while.  He hoped.

Fortunately, the pain he had experienced earlier had subsided to a low ebb, so he was actually able to enjoy what came next.  As soon as he selected the Bundle Pack for the Common Eggs, he felt 45 Chips spill out from his Core in a much larger ball of light, before disappearing.  Then, like before, a multicolored blob appeared near the ground in front of his Core – ten of them, in fact!  They were spread out