The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) Jonathan Brooks (read me like a book .txt) 📖

“Sure, sure, I can do that.  But what do you mean about feeling something—OUCH!”

Tacca was watching his tiny core while he attempted to create a powerful Entanglement trap in one of his rooms, and she heard and saw a tiny crack appear in his otherwise flawless form.

I guess that’s why it’s a risk.  I’m sorry, Brandon, but you’ll be a little limited on how much Dungeon Force you can use at a time before risking shattering your Core, and you’ll hit a limit of how many traps you can place in your dungeon.  Don’t worry, though, as you increase in Core Improvement Levels and are able to add to your total Dungeon Force, most of those problems will relax a bit, but won’t go away completely.

“Don’t worry?  I’ve never felt anything like that before, and you tell me not to worry?” 

She heard him grumbling unintelligible noises as he practically seethed at this new information, but the only thing Tacca could do was let him work through it on his own.  While he had some beneficial Characteristics that would help now, he was handicapped in other areas.  Still, it beat being shattered, she supposed.

“I’m not happy, exactly, but I can’t say I’m disappointed.  The steady influx of Core Improvement Points from Raider Presence is astounding, and since I only have a month to wait, I’m hoping that makes up for all the rest.  Is this how you improved so rapidly?”

Tacca went on to explain first-hand what had happened to her, even though it was likely that Tulip had told him all about her.  Speaking of Tulip, she was hovering steadily next to Brandon’s Core, looking at him with a worried expression.  The sight of her suddenly made her realize she hadn’t checked on her own Dungeon Assistant since she had been back.

Shale!  Are you okay?

She found him on the floor of her Core Room, unconscious but alive.  At her words, he started to stir, until he finally sat up with his head in his hands.

“What…what happened?”

That’s what I was going to ask you?  How do you feel?

“I have a pounding headache, but it’s going away.  The last thing I remember was you screaming at anyone who could hear you, and then it felt like something was ripping out my guts, and then…nothing.  I suppose I blacked out from the pain, and landed here.”

I’m sorry about that, Shale.  I didn’t think for one moment that it would affect you like that, especially since the other issues I’ve had when I’ve increased my CI Level or Assistant Rank were only focused on me.  Thankfully, you and I both made it through alive.

He shook his head gently, the pain still obviously affecting him slightly, as he asked, “Did it work?”

Yes, yes it did.  In a way.  Let me tell you all about it….

Chapter 27

It didn’t take long to convince the other Cores in the Nursery to connect to the now 2-Core dungeon as well, now that they had a better understanding of what would happen.  Over the next few hours, Tacca extended her tunnel nearest Brandon’s dungeon out toward the other Nursery Rooms, and connected directly to their tiny dungeons as well.  Thankfully, after the first mind-breaking and extremely painful experience, each time she connected with the other Cores, Tacca only felt the same mild discomfort and strangeness that Brandon reported.  Soon enough, all 7 dungeons were connected together, and best of all—

—they all received the same amount of Core Improvement Points from Raider Presence, meaning that it wasn’t being split in between them all.

Not only that, but as they connected together, more and more Special Characteristics were shared with the others, including Brandon and Tacca.  By the end of the “rest” period before the arena opened up again, they all now had an impressive array of benefits.

Special Characteristics:

Access all Variants for available dungeon creatures

All

Decreased Dungeon Force cost for all creatures and traps

40%

Decreased Control Limit for all creatures

60%

Increased Dungeon Force Regeneration

25%

All creatures start with extra Levels

1

Puzzle Traps require less Dungeon Force

33%

Experience for Dungeon Assistants is increased

50%

Frozen Tundra Environmental objects require less Dungeon Force

33%

Jungle Environmental objects require less Dungeon Force

33%

Increased speed of creature creation

35%

Increased speed of trap placement

35%

All of them would be beneficial in some way or another, though the increase in all creature Levels by 1 would require some restructuring of her “easy” dungeon section, considering that all of those were supposed to be Level 1 and would now be Level 2 automatically.  It would save both Dungeon Force and her Control Limit for her second section, though, because she wouldn’t have to pay for that extra boost to their Levels.  As for her arena, the ones she currently had would stay the same as they were until they were killed and replaced, so they were fine for the moment; later, she’d have to adjust some so that they weren’t too hard, but it was always possible that they would change things up anyway.

Mainly because, working together, Tacca discovered that the other Cores could create creatures and traps throughout the entire dungeon complex, not just their own little part of it. That meant that they could place Giant Spiders (which she was a little against, because she really didn’t like them; they tended to trap wild Fairies in their webs and eat them), or Goblins, or even the Apes that one of the Cores had access that thrived in his Jungle Environment.  They could also place their trap specializations where they wanted, though that wasn’t as big of a deal; every Core could still create those same traps, the specializations just helped to reduce the cost.

What they – and Tacca, for that matter