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

more he explained himself, the less he was frightened of the whole thing.  By the time he was done, the room didn’t scare him in the least, especially considering that he could add and eliminate his monsters inside it, any time he wanted.  Clay ended up spending another 5 Stars of his 15-Star maximum, but it was worth it, he thought.

2 Jumping Spiders★

1 Cave Spider★

1 Explosive Shambler★★

He thought the undead monster would be a horrific surprise, and it seemed to fit the theme of the room enough that he placed it near the exit leading to the next room.  The 3 Spiders were placed on a few of the large webs he had created in the room, where they were able to stand incredibly still until they were ready to move.  The Shambler, however, gently swayed back and forth, and a horrid sound emitted from its rotted throat, as if it was trying to say something – but all that came out was the sound of death.

“A bit dramatic, but I like your use of a theme for your dungeon room.  From the information I possess, it’s rare for dungeons to set up a ‘theme’, instead relying on environmental décor to either help their monsters or slightly hinder Heroes as they make their way through.  I have no objections to this, however.”

It was nice having Dwight’s approval, as that meant he could move on to the next room – the so-called Boss Room.  At first, of course, he placed his Colossal Serpent inside to see how it looked…and it was so cramped inside of the room that it essentially took up about half of the floor space alone.  He thought that he could probably expand the room so that it would better fit, but then he remembered what the baby dragonling had said about having a monster too strong for the Heroes.  At 5 Stars, it was quite possible that his massive Serpent was beyond the skill level of whoever visited in the near future; therefore, with great reluctance – since the giant monster was actually quite hypnotic to watch as it slowly slithered around and around in circles through the cramped space – he got rid of it, and instead turned back to what else he had available.

This was the “Boss Room” and the final defense between Heroes and his Dungeon Core, so it still had to be formidable.  While he was a little bit worried about his current vulnerable state due to using up his Core Structure Health, he thought it was nonetheless more important to provide a challenge to Heroes that ventured inside of his dungeon than to make it impossible.  He wouldn’t be doing his job if he only thought about protecting himself, after all, and as much as he wanted to be selfish, he didn’t want to let this island full of people suffer the same fate as Renton…and himself, of course.

Keeping that in mind, he looked at his 2-Star Uncommon monsters: Flame and Gloom Kobold.  They were more formidable than many of his other monsters because they could actually fight with weapons, and…probably?…had some sense of tactics.  The only problem was that the Gloom Kobold appeared to want to use dark shadows to assist with a stealthy approach, and the Boss Room just so happened to be lit up nearly as bright as it was outside in the sun. He knew he could turn down the brightness so that it was quite dim, but that still wouldn’t help.

“Despite your accident with changing too much of your ceiling to Glowstone, you might be able to take advantage of it.  I believe you can change only some portions of the Glowstone so that they are brighter than the others and focus their light in one direction, and you can completely eliminate any light coming from the rest.”  Clay followed her instructions and thought about “turning off” one corner of the room and…it worked!  Further experimentation allowed him to focus the light from a strip of the Glowstone so that it shone brightly downwards instead of suffusing the entire room, and once he got the hang of it, he spent some time having fun turning on and off the Stones in random patterns.

Finally, though, he ended up making a very bright strip of light, 4 feet wide, that ran from the entrance of the room to the exit, leaving the rest of the room completely dark.  Well, not completely dark, as it was still possible to see a little bit out into the shadows; but for any Heroes inside of the light strip, they would have trouble adjusting from the bright (but not blinding) illumination in the middle.

He placed the two Kobolds on either side of the light strip in the darkness, where they could attack and ambush those who chose to challenge the Boss Room.  The Flame Kobold was much easier to spot in the darkness, but that couldn’t be helped. To distract Heroes from seeing it right away, Clay placed a very obvious distraction near the exit leading to his BOO: the Swamp Troll.  In all, he placed only 3 monsters:

1 Flame Kobold★★

1 Gloom Kobold★★

1 Swamp Troll★

Despite that, it would likely be a challenge to most Heroes, especially when he spent another 2 Chips (more than he wanted to spend, but he found it necessary) to add some stone cylindrical columns throughout the shadowed parts of the room, allowing his Kobolds to close with the entering Heroes a little more circumspectly.  At least, that was his intention; he wasn’t really one for battle tactics, after all, but he’d played hide and seek with his sister enough times when he was younger.  Line-of-sight advantages could be the difference between success and failure.

With that complete…he was done.  Now all he had to do was wait for some Heroes to arrive.  So he waited throughout the night, the morning, and