The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (online e reader TXT) 📖

She had also started to slowly replace all of the traps she had placed near her Core hiding down below with the exact same ones, using some of her available DF that wasn’t being spent on altering what was above.  She did it slowly instead of all at once, because she was still worried that any moment a new group would come inside looking to destroy her, so she wanted to keep her defenses as much in place as she could.

She was glad that she did that, too, because even replacing only half of them Tacca had managed to accumulate an additional 252 CIPs.  She hadn’t been consciously striving to gain as many CIPs as possible this time, though she wasn’t going to let a few Points go when she had a chance to net them; instead, most of what she gained (other than replacing the defensive traps down below) was more a natural accumulation rather than trying to “cheat” the system, which was what she had been doing before.

In total, Tacca managed to acquire 1,139 new CIPs during the month.  The bulk of the Points – 690 to be exact – came from Raider presence in her dungeon; 45 came from Raider deaths; 152 came from moving creatures and rewards around in her; and lastly, 252 came from those traps she replaced down below.  When added to the 67 CIPs she had banked from the month before…she ended up with 1,206 – just enough for her to increase her Core Improvement Level!

Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

You have reached Core Improvement Level: 9

Current CIP Countdown: 6/1400 in 30 days

Core Improvement Points earned: 1200 (1200)

Special Characteristic Points earned: 25 (650)

Shale!  You know what this means, don’t you?

Her Dungeon Assistant was excited as Tacca was.  “Absolutely!  Do it!”

Without hesitation, Tacca converted 200 of her 1,200 CIPs into Special Characteristic Points, giving her a total of 700 from what she had converted from the last CI increase.  Using those SCPs, she went into her Special Characteristic Menu and selected the Core Improvement Points are reduced when earned -95% option and mentally indicated that she wanted to remove it.  With it originally granting her 600 SCPs to use elsewhere, she “paid” that back, along with the 100-Point fee to get rid of it.  After confirming what she had selected, the negative Characteristic appeared to *pop* like a burst soap bubble and disappear.

Tacca wasn’t exactly sure what to expect after that, but the intense feeling of an enormous weight being lifted from her mind and even her Core wasn’t it.  It wasn’t unwelcome, but it caught her by surprise.  The only thing she could compare it to was if she was still a Fairy and being weighed down by hundreds of pounds of weights, straining to fly away – and then having those weights fall away all at once and shooting into the sky.  It felt incredible, being free of the restriction – but also overwhelming.

“Tacca!  Are you ok?  What happened?”

Um…I think so?  Why?

“Because your Core seemed to shake a little and a new crack formed on your Core,” Shale told her, a look of serious concern on his face.

That was…intense.  I’m not sure why it did that, but I feel much better now.  Tacca looked at her Core and saw that the cracks that had been on there before were pretty much gone because of her increase in her Core Improvement Level, but she could also see the new crack he was talking about.  It didn’t look too serious, but the fact that it happened in the first place was a little worrying.  Despite that, though, it was worth it to have gotten rid of that negative Characteristic.

Doing some mental calculations, she knew she was going to need 550 more SCPs to get rid of her second negative Characteristic – and that it wasn’t going to happen right now.  She had 1,000 CIPs that could be converted into 250 SCPs, which was still a bit off from what she needed.  The next time she increased her CI Level, the Dungeon Core knew she would be getting 1,400 CIPs to use; when converted, that was a total of 350 SCPs.  When added together, that would equal 600 SCPs – 50 more than she needed.  When she added in the 25 SCPs she would receive from leveling up, that equaled 75 Points she didn’t have to convert.

All of that mental math led to one conclusion to Tacca: she had 300 CIPs she could use right now on whatever she wanted.  It meant that every single Core Improvement Point next month would be spent to get rid of the negative Characteristic restricting her creatures’ levels, but that was okay – because she could go shopping right now.  After converting 700 CIPs into 175 SCPs, she went looking for what she could unlock.

There wasn’t really a lot that she could purchase, however.  With 300 CIPs, she was limited to only 3 Core Improvements to choose from: Select Additional Trap Specialization (300 CIPs), Select Additional Creature (250 CIPs), and Select Addition Creature Variant (25 CIPs).  Obviously, she didn’t need any more Variants because she already had access to them all, but it was a hard decision to pick between the other two.  Basically, it came down to two choices: prioritize the defense of her Core, or play around with an additional creature family, placing some gradually inside the dungeon above to add some more variety.

The prospect of having access to more creatures was exciting and would be beneficial for when she finally expanded her dungeon, opening it up to stronger teams of Raiders.  By introducing them now, she would be able to slowly acclimate the delving groups to changes she was still making and prepare them for the future – because she had some big plans.  This seemed like the most fun choice to Tacca…but it wasn’t the most practical.

If