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

yes, 20 – monsters, 10 Bats and 10 Rats; he didn’t want to make it too difficult with an Elemental Resonance, so he made sure to include only Fire, Light, Dark, and Nature Elements in the room.  Then, to aid his monsters, he used some of his Chips to place stalactites coming down from the ceiling, where his Bats could lie in wait for the Heroes to enter, as well as stalagmites sticking up from the floor, spaced wide enough apart that even the largest of Heroes could pass in between them.  Those would aid in camouflaging his Rats just enough to allow them to approach without too much warning.

He wanted the room to be easy, but not too easy.  It was a simple design, and with some torches spaced unevenly around the room, throwing shadows around because of the protrusions sticking up above and below the floor and ceiling, it provided a challenge without being too hard.  At least, he hoped.

Next, he turned to the “average” difficulty room, which he wanted to have a theme of sorts.  Looking at his list, he saw the 3-Star Nether Mage Slime and decided to use that as a base for the rest of the room.  For this one, he wanted to make it a test of the Heroes’ ability to overcome ranged and magical attacks; to prevent easy access to his monsters, he carved out a large pit that bisected the room near the middle, and then he spent a whole 10 Crystal Chips to fill it with a lake of lava.  It was an expensive material, to be sure, but most of the cost came from a layer of freezing cold air that he had to place directly over the lava to prevent the room from becoming an oven.  Unlike his torches, which didn’t produce heat and were essentially an illusion, the lava was real – and would quickly burn anyone who decided to take a dip in it.

Opposite from the entrance of the room, he created a series of stone risers, onto which he placed a pack of monsters.  The Nether Mage Slime was in the center, prominently up front, but it was flanked by the presence of Ranged or Magical monsters on either side.  They included a Spitting Serpent, 3 Stone-tipped Ferns, 2 Gust Ferns, a Weak Light Elemental, the Goblin Dancer, and the Lamia Flameweaver.  The biggest surprise of all of the monsters he placed out there was the size of the Lamia; he had expected it—her?—to be larger, but she was apparently only about as tall as a 10-year-old, though the “human” part of her body was obviously a mature woman.

He wasn’t exactly sure what all would happen with all of those unique monsters, but he was excited to find out.

In front of the lava – and there to harass the Heroes while they tried to defend against the attacks from the back – was a small horde of 13 Slimes of different kinds.  While none of them were particularly dangerous to any Heroes that were challenging the room, they were there to distract and annoy them; the Slimes were relatively small blobs of gooey substance, and hopefully difficult to defeat quickly because of their flexible forms.  At least, that was the impression he got from them as they were placed and made ready.

To make access to the other side at least possible, especially if the Heroes were able to kill all of the monsters at a distance and then needed to collect the Drop Chests, Clay carved several handholds and footholds along the walls on either side of the lava pool.  If any of the Heroes tried to use them when there were still enemies firing on them from afar, they would be extremely vulnerable while they were in the process of crossing; one wrong move or decent hit with a projectile or a powerful gust of wind could end up with them falling in the lava.

When all was said and done, he had used 27 Stars’ worth of his Star Limit on the room and had all of the Elements represented, which gave it a Multi-Element Burst Elemental Resonance. It would certainly be a challenge to any groups that wanted to attempt it, but how much of a challenge it actually was, that had yet to be seen.

The group of Heroes outside was rapidly approaching, so he turned to his “nightmare” difficulty room.  There wasn’t a lot of time yet to perfect it the way he wanted, so all he basically did was throw inside his most powerful monsters, add a few random traps in the room and the hallway, and then used up the rest of his Stars he was allowed to use in his dungeon.  He was going to decorate it with environmental décor, but he ran out of time; instead, he used the last few seconds before the Heroes walked in his dungeon to place 3 things on the floor where the main hallway branched out to the different rooms.

For the “easy” room hallway, he placed a single square patch of Glowstone on the floor; for the “average” hallway, there were 2 square patches; for the “nightmare” hallway and the path that led to his Boss Room and BOO, he placed 3 patches.  He thought that would be simple enough, especially as he had attempted carving something on the walls of his dungeon before, but it wouldn’t appear.  Dwight said it was to prevent interspecies communication, whatever that was.

And with that, his free time had come to an end.  He had plans to redo his nightmare and Boss rooms whenever he got the chance, or else he would be forced to close the dungeon for a little bit in order to do that; regardless, it wasn’t going to be needed for a few days at least, because none of the Heroes were getting through that room right now.

Because at the