FINAL CORE - Chapter 8

A dungeon-core is a mass of condensed magical energies, come to life. In a sense, they’re similar to fairies in this regard.

However, while fairies are birthed of the ambient magics of a location or along the leylines of the world, dungeon-cores seem to have much more specific birthing conditions; these have never been observed or documented.

Dungeon-cores, in the rare circumstances in which they have been seen or even communicated with, have done little to reveal their secrets and why would they?

After all, they live their life on the defensive, always fortifying and upgrading their lairs, their dungeons, for the next wave of intruders to come. It would give them very little benefit to reveal any of their secrets.

It is a great tragedy for us as scholars. However, it also offers a great opportunity as researchers, as there is so much left for us to discover about dungeons, their mannerisms and their pasts.

~Introduction into dungeon scholarship, edition one, chapter one - Written by red-professor Hazel Hailstone of the central-academy for magical sciences

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“Pook!”

“No! You don’t understand!” says Isaiah.

“Pook-pook-pook!” chirps the blackbird, flapping its wings.

Isaiah backs off from the nest, sighing as it leaves. It has tried again, but the communication barrier simply isn’t able to be crossed under these circumstances. The entity looks down at the nest it is flying next to, checking to make sure that all of the eggs are still there.

They are.

Frowning, it returns back to the tower.

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[Stockpile]

• Berries:

Red: 99

Blue: 99

• Rotten Fruit: 2kg
• Meat: 02 kg
• Spoiled Meat: 47kg
• Bones: 08kg
• Quarried Stone {15kg}: 278
• Quarried Stone {30kg}: 09
• Impure Iron Ore {5kg}: 21

Isaiah holds its nose shut, looking at the pile of stinking meat and berries.

“Not bad, right?” asks the red-uthra. “Stinks like hell, but we sure do have a lot of it.” It shrugs, seeing Isaiah’s confused look. “It’s mostly the boar meat and a bunch of old berries. It went sour,” explains the entity. “We don’t really have proper food storage, you know?”

Isaiah blinks, lifting one hand to point at the meat, while still holding its nose closed with the other. “Why didn’t you dry the meat?” it asks.

“What? Dry it?” asks the red-uthra. “Because you didn’t tell me to do it. You told me to collect berries.”

Isaiah rolls its eyes. “Take self-initiative.”

“Then I feel like I should have attacked that dark-elf,” it explains. “Bet you would have complained about that too.”

Isaiah points a talon into the creature’s chest. “Take reasonable self-initiative.”

“Sure,” replies the uthra. “So I guess I should stop collecting berries?” it asks. “You’re the only one who eats here right now anyways, well, except the slime and that bird.”

Isaiah sighs, looking around for an idea. It would be a shame to just let a whole boar’s worth of meat go to waste.

“Black.”

“Yeah?” asks the black-winged uthra, flying up from the graveyard.

“Do you need bad meat?”

“Uh… gross,” it looks at the pile of rotting boar meat. “No, the graveyard can’t do anything with that. But I have an idea?” it suggests. Isaiah nods. “Why don’t we use it to fertilize the dirt for a garden and use some of it to bait fish in the river?” it asks. “We can pull in some plant and water monsters for the outside area that way.” It nods, thinking about the plan for a moment.

Isaiah nods, pleased, looking at the red-uthra. “See? Self-initiative.”

It rolls its eyes, waving Isaiah off.

“Go. Do.”

The black-winged uthra nods and the two creatures fly off, seeding the land and the river with old meat.

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 “The gods must be pleased with our work. We are unable to tunnel, but we have located some metal on the surface of the quarry,” explains the white-winged uthra, holding out a chunk of dirty, dark-gray metal to Isaiah. “Iron. Impure. But it can be worked well.”

Isaiah looks at the lump of metal, nodding. This is good. Stones are important for the tower, perhaps they are the most important thing, in fact. But metal will be needed for all sorts of things like traps and golems, or even just equipment for monsters like skeletons.

“I suggest that we begin developing a forge,” it says.

The gray-uthra raises its hand. “I’d like to do that,” it says. “I like metal-work.”

Isaiah thinks for a second. The gray uthra is currently helping the white one in the quarry. If it does something else, their stone collection will slow by half. But, on the other hand, they already have a lot of stones in their stockpile.

Isaiah looks to the right, at the pile of large, squarely hewn stones. The stack itself is nearly the size of the tower.

“Okay.” It thinks for a moment, trying to recall all of the words it wants to use. “Melt iron. Fortify the bottom of the tower,” it explains, before pointing down at the small plot of land. “Then make a fence for the graveyard.”

“The graveyard? Sure, will do,” says the uthra. “Where should we set up the forge?”

Isaiah points at the tower. “Floor three, when it is done.”

“Will do,” replies the gray-uthra, looking over to the side as the green and crystal ones continue building the tower.

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Isaiah sits on top of the tower, on top of the very-big-tree, watching out over the landscape. The platform, which its garden-roost is located on, slowly rises upwards, as the uthra continue to build the tower up higher.

It is evening, and the sun sets across the world, falling down to rest in some far off, distant place.

Currently, it’s using a series of interlocking stone mechanisms. But once the metal production is underway, the system is going to be adapted to a series of vertical rails.

[Territory Breached!]

Intruders: 9

Average Level: 3

Difficulty: Challenging

The entity blinks, staring at the screen and then around the forest. Nine intruders?!

The forest lights up as the will o’ the wisp, having been at the right place at the right time, sets to work.

Exterior - Intruders Remaining: 08

Strange snarls and voices come out from the forest and several glows illuminate the growing darkness behind the wall of trees. The ghost seems to have killed one of them right away. It must have been a surprise attack.

Exterior - Defenders Remaining: 06

Workers: 06

Monsters: 00

The will o’ the wisp appears to have died, taking one intruder with it. That just leaves the six uthra and Isaiah alive outside, but… it doesn’t want to use the uthra again.

“Should we step in?” asks the red-uthra. “We do two damage per hit now, so it might be better than with that boar.”

Isaiah thinks for a moment, but still decides against it. “No. Let them enter,” it says. There are still the gargoyles and the slime inside of the lowest floor. It’s perhaps time that they get put to the test. “Continue your work.”

“Sure. Whatever,” replies the red-uthra, flying off again.

Isaiah looks down at the clearing as several creatures make their way down the road. They look much smaller than the dark-elf from the day before. They have pointy ears too, but they’re green and have somewhat blunter features.

- Goblins.

The eight goblins scour their way across the territory, going out of their way to break the signs and the posts that line the path for seemingly no reason, other than to be rude.

One of them lifts its gaze, staring at Isaiah. The intruder’s hands glow alight with a spell and an instant later, it throws a ball of swirling, darkly-tinged magic up towards the top of the tower.

(Goblin Darkcaster) used: {Dark}[Tinged-Bolt]

[Spell Negated]

You may not engage this entity without clearing the dungeon.

It snarls as another one drags it away, the eight of them heading in through the dungeon-gate.

Isaiah closes its eyes, focusing its vision into one of the angelic statues that has been placed on floor one of the dungeon, just about the gargoyles.

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The goblins look around at the first floor of the dungeon, staring at the seemingly empty room.

Looking back to themselves, they come to some sort of agreement and then the first one heads down the staircase. Then the next one and then the others just jump down off of the ledge, landing in the shallow water below with a series of loud splashes.

Isaiah watches as the ripples of their movements spread outward, breaking apart as something pushes through them from the other direction.

The intruders slowly wade their way through, looking around carefully for any ambushers. But they don’t seem to see any.

(Goblin) has been trapped by ({Holy}Slime)

The trapped goblin doesn’t even have time to scream, as the holy-slime shoots out of the water, wrapping itself around the creature’s full body. The goblin squirms and kicks, struggling as the others turn around to watch in horror as their compatriot starts disintegrating before their eyes, as the acidic slime eats it alive.

(Goblin Darkcaster) used: {Dark}[Tinged-Bolt]

A black spell shoots out of the goblins hands in a strange, chaotic squiggly line that pierces into the slime.

 ({Holy}Slime) is immune to {Dark}[Tinged-Bolt]

Floor one - Intruders Remaining: 07

The goblins all spin around, making a new formation. The more heavy, front-fighting types make their way towards the slime, while the two casters step back behind them; they step closer towards the gargoyles.

The goblins don’t even seem to notice, as they are preoccupied with fighting the slime. The stone entities crack as they move, bits of rock crumbling off of their bodies and splashing into the water. However, spells begin exploding, filling the room with a chaotic noise that overpowers it all.

The fighters have surrounded the slime and are currently in the process of slashing it to pieces. They seem to be having a moderate amount of success with this and the slime falters, bubbling apart back into the water.

Isaiah watches as a caster in the back row, in the middle of the room turns around, perhaps having noticed the presence behind itself now after all. Though this comes too little, too late, as the gargoyles break apart and come off of their pedestal.

A stone sword drives itself through the caster-goblin immediately. The blunt weapon crushes its bones and organs, rather than piercing it, and a puddle of indistinct viscera spreads out from the source.

Floor one - Intruders Remaining: 06

The remaining goblins turn around, but all of the front-line fighters are too far away now, being on the opposite side of the room where the slime was and the lone-caster, stuck by the gargoyles, has little chance to run.

- The wading pool makes movement exceptionally difficult, after all.

A stone arrow flies, smashing straight into the skull of an unprepared hobgoblin. Its neck snaps backwards with an ugly noise.

Floor one - Intruders Remaining: 05

The little damage that the goblins do to the stone swordsman is quickly ‘healed’ by the priestess statue. It’s a mess, really.

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Isaiah reopens its eyes.

There’s no need to continue watching this. It’s already over. The goblins don’t stand a ghost of a chance.

Instead, it admires the view.

“Hold tight, we’re lifting up floor three,” says an uthra and Isaiah claws onto the very-big-tree with its talons, as the top platform of the tower rises up another floor in height.

[New Area Added]

Floor {3}

The third floor of the tower dungeon. It is currently empty.

Capacity: {8} Monster-Points

1 TRAP

Monster-Point prices per monster

• F-Rank: 1
• D-Rank: 4
• C-Rank: 8
• B-Rank: 16
• A-Rank: 32
• S-Rank: 64
• SSS-Rank: 128

(The next sub-boss/challenge room will be available in {2} floors.)

(The next boss arena will be available in {7} floors.)

Excellent. The sky is closer than ever before.

Isaiah smiles. It hopes they make it up to the sky and to the gods before its eggs hatch. It would very much like to be there for the occasion, obviously.

Floor one - Intruders Remaining: 00

[The incursion is over!]

Killed Intruders: 9

Dungeon Casualties: 2

Average Level: 3

Difficulty: Challenging

+54 EXPERIENCE POINTS.

EXP: 25/25

EXP: 29/50

[Level Up!]

You are now a level {3} dungeon-core!

SOUL: 17/17

OBOLS: 000

PRESENCE: 1.0 km

Please choose an ability from one of the following trees.

- [Expansion] -

Focuses on spreading the roots of your dungeon for as far as you can. The further a dungeon’s reach extends, the more resources you will be able to collect and the larger your dungeon will become.

• [Tunneling] : Allows your workers to efficiently dig deep tunnels to collect basic resources, such as higher quality stones and metals in the process.

- [Holy] -

Focuses on your core attribute and imparting as much of this essence onto your dungeon as possible. Each attribute offers its own benefits and perks.

• [Place of worship] : As a holy site, the tower is of great spiritual significance to all who are of the faith. Allows creation of a shrine, where monsters and people may leave their prayers and sacrificial offerings. All received items are put into the treasury. In return, they will receive a random [Minor Blessing] for the duration of {24} hours.

- [Bastion] -

Focuses on the physical and magical defenses of your dungeon. Allows access to sturdier walls, tricks and traps and mazes and mechanisms, as well as higher level monsters to defend your floors.

• [Traps] : Allows your worker minions to develop simple traps and snares in your dungeon, in order to hurt enemies before they can get too deep.

Nine more bodies for the graveyard means two more ghosts for the forest. Isaiah smiles. The tower is growing in power.