Repair Animation 1 – 0/1000
Vitality Transfer 3 – 0/9000
Vitality Explosion 1 – 0/1000
Shield of Darkness 1 – 0/1000
Lifedrain 1 – 0/1000
Repair Object 1 – 0/1000
Conjure Object 4 – 0/27000
Disarm Trap 3 – 0/9000
Sudden Shock 1 – 0/1000
Fireblast 3 – 0/9000
Flamestrike 1 – 0/1000
Spike Arrows 1 – 0/1000
(List truncated due to space – focus here for additional abilities…)
Not much had changed since the last time he had checked, although he had lost quite a bit of his Unconverted Mana due to being almost sucked dry by the Horrorling that had gotten hold of him. As a result, he didn’t want to use too much of his stored Essence, because he wanted it there in order to convert to UM if he needed it; still, he wanted this Teaching session to be as successful as possible. With an additional 27,000 Essence added to his Teach Instructor ability, he found that he upped his maximum chance of success from 80% to 85% – a significant jump when it came to ensuring something worked as often as possible.
He started with Eisa, as she needed his help more and she was likely to be the easiest to Teach. It wasn’t necessarily because she would be able to acquire everything that he had to Teach her, but for the opposite reason; there were some abilities that were for a higher-Rated Adventurer (depending on the class) and the likelihood of learning it was going to be so low that it wasn’t worth it to try at the moment. It was better if she had more time to increase her Rating and acquire them when she had more of a chance to succeed, because if it didn’t work, she would be locked out from learning it in the future – from him at least.
He started with the Mage abilities that she already technically had access to; by learning them as “Taught Abilities”, she would keep them even if she changed her class. With the extra boost to Fred’s Teach ability, the result was ideal. She was a Mage-Fighter, she already had access to the abilities, and her Mind Stat was more than high enough to accommodate her class.
E-7th-Rated Instructor --> Magestrike --> F-2nd-Rated (Mage-Fighter)
Maximum Chance of Success: 85%
No deductions: -0%
Resulting Chance of Success: 85%
As he had hoped, every single Mage ability that she already had access to were successes: Magestrike, Barrier, Magelight, Flamestrike, Froststrike, and Minor Shock. Next was her Fighter skills, though he only had access to Teach Focused Irritation; most Fighter abilities relied on Stamina to produce an effect or had an internal Power use, which he wasn’t able to observe. Focused Irritation was a Power effect that expelled an aura outside of the Fighter’s body that “irritated” the nearby monsters to cause them to want to attack the Fighter instead of the more vulnerable members of the group. It was because he could see that “irritating” aura that he was able to adapt it as an ability. Fortunately, he was able to Teach her that one as well, because the Mind stat requirement for a G-Rated Fighter was fairly low.
For the next portion of the Teaching session, he had her bring out the Class Selector and change her class to the next two beginner types of Adventurers, the Scout and the Healer. She was already familiar with the Healing abilities – as she had been one originally before branching off into Necromancer territory – and that knowledge actually seemed to help.
E-7th-Rated Instructor --> Heal Minor Wounds --> F-2nd-Rated (Healer-Scout)
Maximum Chance of Success: 85%
Target’s Prior Knowledge: +5%
No deductions: -0%
Resulting Chance of Success: 90%
It wasn’t a large bonus, but a 5% increase in the chance of success was significant. At 90%, there was very little chance that it wouldn’t work; as a result, she easily acquired the four basic Healer Abilities that he had adapted himself: Heal Minor Wounds, Minor Protection, Remove Blindness, and Lightscythe. The Lightscythe was a low-damage ability that sent out a blinding shock of light in an arc toward a target, but it was rarely used because the cost was rather high for a Healer whose main job was to heal. There were other abilities that he likely could learn from a G-Rated Healer, but he had never seen them used in person.
As for the Scout, there were only two Power-based abilities that he had Adapted, as most of the Scout’s abilities were either internal, Stamina-based, or something he’d never seen in action before. The first one was one that was the staple of the profession: Disarm Trap – which allowed for the disarming of the defenses that a Core placed in their dungeon. Concealment – the only other ability he had access to for a Scout – was also a handy one to have; an aura of Power surrounded the person using it, which blurred their outlines enough that it was hard to pinpoint them. It wasn’t quite the same as some of the more advanced Scout classes like Infiltrator, who could disappear almost completely, but it was much better than nothing.
Eisa tried a few of those other advanced classes, but as her stats and even her F-2nd-Rating were still relatively low, the penalty for trying to learn them was large.
E-7th-Rated Instructor --> Spike Arrows --> F-2nd-Rated (Archer)
Maximum Chance of Success: 85%
Target Rating Too Low for Higher-Rated Ability: -30%
Low Brawn Stat: -10%
Low Speed Stat: -10%
Resulting Chance of Success: 35%
For instance, when he tried to teach her Spike Arrows as an Archer, her Rating and stats weren’t quite high enough, therefore the chance of success was only 35%; it was still possible that she could learn it, but as it was likely that she wouldn’t learn it, it wasn’t worth doing in the long-run. Almost every other spell or ability he tried to teach her from what he had adapted was similar, with varying degrees of success depending on what it was, though none of them had a better than 50/50 likelihood of working.
The Necromancer spells and abilities he had adapted from watching Eisa in her previous incarnation added a bonus to her chance of success because of her prior knowledge, but she wasn’t able to select the class quite yet. It was only available on the Class Selector when someone was Rated “E” or higher, which made those Necromancer abilities unfortunately unattainable at the moment. When she progressed to the E-Rating, Fred would be able to Teach her quite a bit more.
All of that only took about ten minutes, because the whole Teaching process didn’t require an elaborate setup and it wasn’t necessary to be at full Power. When there wasn’t much else that he could teach her, she changed her Class to Researcher-Researcher so that she would have an extra boost to her maximum Power and Power regeneration.
An extra-powerful rumble shook the entire dungeon just then, causing a few cracks to spiderweb across the ceiling of the room they were in. Fred looked up in alarm and checked the integrity of his dungeon; overall, it looked stable enough, but many more impacts like that probably wouldn’t be good for their continued survival. He spared some attention before he got started Teaching Regnark to see how the fight aboveground was going.
He discovered what had happened to damage his dungeon. Two separate Rock Giants had lost portions of their legs and came crashing down right on top of where the third room was located underground. Even though the Giants were down, they weren’t completely incapacitated; they flailed around and destroyed dozens of Horrorlings in the process of their thrashing, though they were eventually consumed enough that they stopped moving and were swarmed over soon after.
The entire battle seemed a bit insane, actually. Mindless void creatures were battling against Earth Core-created defenders, and neither of them were seemingly making any headway toward defeating the other army. More and more Earth-based defenders arrived every minute – from multiple directions even – until Fred thought that every single Earth Core in that part of the world had sent something to kill him. In one respect, he was strangely a little flattered that the Cores thought he was enough of a threat to send so many after him; at the same time, he was awed at
the sheer amount of Mana that they used to field such an army. He was a little worried that the stream of defenders would never end, and he’d have to run from them for the rest of his life.
But they had to stop sometime, right?
There was nothing he could do about it right now, so he turned back to Regnark and started to Teach him everything he could. Because the big man couldn’t change his class – well, he technically could, but it would erase all of the Essence he had placed in his abilities – it made Teaching him anything past the basic starter classes nearly impossible. While not having the correct class played a big part in reducing his chances, a lot of the Power-based abilities or spells that he could Teach required a higher Mind stat to be compatible – and Regnark only had 12 in Mind. To be fair, that was probably all he needed for his main class, but it didn’t help with learning new Taught Abilities.
Regardless, there were still quite a few new abilities that both of his friends now had access to; from healing abilities to ranged Mage spells, they had a little something for every situation they might encounter. Granted, they weren’t super-powerful, but even a simple healing spell or being able to detect traps might be just what they needed to survive in a dungeon – or elsewhere.
With nothing else to do, when Fred’s power regenerated enough, he used his Repair Object ability to repair the wooden plank in front of the tunnel leading into the final room and with Regnark’s help, was able to put it back in place. While it didn’t seem to do much in the way of preventing the Horrorlings from entering, it still slowed them down – a little. There wasn’t much else that Fred himself could do since Regnark was inside the dungeon, however, so he just concentrated on converting his Unconverted Mana into useable Elemental Mana and feeding it little by little to Eisa and Deecy; if they indeed were attacked again, they would be the ones that could utilize the Mana better than Fred could.
The UM he was gaining from Regnark was still quite a bit at least and didn’t seem to be slacking off quite yet; he knew from experience that the longer a human was inside his dungeon, the less Mana he would acquire from them – though with as powerful as the big man was, he thought it might take a bit longer to hit the point where it slacked off a little. From what he understood, Dungeon Cores tended to make their dungeons lengthier not because they wanted to challenge the humans, but because the more powerful they were, the longer they could spend inside the dungeon and be “profitable” in terms of giving as much Mana as possible while they were there.
For hours they waited for something to happen, Eisa and Regnark nervously watching the wooden barrier inside the tunnel. Deecy was back in her Pup form somehow napping as she regenerated her Mana and seemed to ignore everything around her. Fred watched the fight aboveground as countless void monsters and Earth defenders fought and were destroyed, trampling the ground underneath them until he couldn’t see a single blade of grass still standing upright in his territory.
Finally, after what seemed like weeks of waiting and experiencing the shocks of large Earthen forms stomping or collapsing on the ground, a change was finally starting to become apparent to his Territorial Sight. The massive wave of Horrorlings seemed to slack off until he couldn’t make any more out in his territory, though he counted at least four Greater Horrors still present. That was significant enough, he thought, but the flow of Earth Core defenders also started to slack off. In fact, after another group of Enormous Sand Crabs had been destroyed by the reaching tentacles of two Greater Horrors, there were only three Rock Giants in his territory.
Fred waited to see if any more reinforcements were coming – from either side of the battle – but there…was nothing. He watched as the three Giants smashed and stomped on their opponents, destroying an equal number of opponents before they themselves fell to the grasping multiple appendages of the fourth – and last – Greater Horror. The ground stopped shaking for the first time basically since the battle aboveground started and the others looked to Fred to see what was happening.
“There’s no more Earth defenders incoming and there’s only a Greater Horror left. Fortunately, it seems like it’s too big to get in here—” he started to tell them, just as the massive void creature arrived at his dungeon entrance. Masses of tentacles struck down at the entrance; some were sliced apart when they contacted some sharp edges on the rocks blocking the tunnel, but the others wormed their way through, eroding the stone as they slipped inside. They weren’t absorbed as quickly as they would be if they were full of Mana, but just like the Horrorlings inside of his dungeon, mere contact was enough to wear away at them.
Within minutes, the void-looking tentacles were slowly clearing the way and providing access to the entrance tunnel, though Fred didn’t see the point. There was no way the 40-foot-tall Mana-less monster could fit inside…and then he looked at the plank of wood in the tunnel right next to him. He suddenly remembered how the Horrorlings had managed to squeeze themselves through the small gap at the top of the tunnel.
“I think we have a big problem,” he told them, before standing up and rushing toward the wooden barrier, Regnark and Eisa hard on his heels.
Chapter 17
Eisa followed after Fred and Regnark, confused at why they were heading toward danger, but trusting that there was a good reason for it. She assisted as much as she could with removing the wooden plank blocking the tunnel and helped to carry it over to the spike pit, allowing them to cross over it. Fred attempted to explain what was happening while they worked, but it wasn’t until she got to the first room that she understood.
Long tentacles were squeezing through and reaching inside the jumbled mass of rocks blocking the entrance tunnel, and it was plain to see that the chunks of stone were being eroded away in the process. If the grasping appendages managed to clear the way, it was likely that this Greater Horror that Fred had been telling them about could somehow squeeze itself inside and destroy them with impunity.
“We just need to hold it off for about 15 minutes; the sun is coming up soon and according to my mother’s memories, the sunlight should destroy it,” Fred told them as they stood there looking at the transparent-black tentacles working their way further inside.
It’s only been a single night? Eisa felt as though they had been trapped down there for days, not just the relatively small amount of time the sun had been down.
Fortunately, the time that they had needed to wait after the battle against those “Horrorlings” – or whatever Fred had called them – had allowed them to recharge most of their Power and even a good portion of her and Deecy’s Mana. Her capability to create Earth defenders, along with the new spells and abilities that Fred had taught her, meant that she was feeling even more equipped to defend their little dungeon than she had been before. She didn’t have as much Mana as she would’ve liked since she didn’t absorb the ambient Mana as quickly as her Power regenerated – especially since she was a Researcher-Researcher, which sped it up even more – but Fred had been feeding her and Deecy some whenever he accumulated some himself.
In fact, before she did anything, Fred hit her with another infusion of Earth Mana. He said that he couldn’t really use it while Regnark was in the dungeon, so it was better if she utilized it somehow. She checked her available Power and Mana so that she knew what she could use to help keep that…thing…outside.
Power: 4400/4400
Earth Mana: 215/710
She had enough to make a decent-leveled Crystal Scorpion or about 5 Stone Golems with her Earth Mana (leaving plenty in reserve for herself), but her available Power is what she was most excited about. Although she only had some basic spells and abilities that she could use, she had so much Power that she didn’t even know what to do with herself. Even when she had been a Necro-healer, she hadn’t had that much Power; taking two Researchers as her classes – while normally fairly stupid for anyone wanting to survive long in a dungeon – was frankly genius as it gave her an insane amount of Power to work with.
Eisa had already unlocke
d all of her “Taught Abilities” earlier, though she hadn’t upgraded any of them. She quickly upgraded her Minor Shock spell using 40,000 of her Essence reserve because she knew from prior experience how effective it was at higher levels; while it cost more Power to use and it only did a little more overall damage, its range and area of effect increased the higher the level.
Minor Shock 5 – 0/81000
When used, the Minor Shock spell will send a small orb of lightning toward a target, originating at the caster’s location, and deals air-based damage. Minor Shock also has a large chance to jump to other targets, dealing a small amount of damage and very briefly stunning them.
Power cost of Minor Shock: 25
Air damage: 8
Jump chance: 60%
Jump area: 5 feet from the point of contact
Jump damage: 2
Jump stun duration: 1 second
Maximum range: 25 feet
There were other spells that did much more damage, but that wasn’t necessarily what she was looking for. Based upon how relatively defenseless the Horrorlings were, she was banking on these tentacles being the same; while they were larger and more numerous, from Fred’s descriptions of the battle aboveground, they were likely just as easy to destroy. At least, she hoped so.
Deecy came running in after them, and Eisa saw her immediately extend her aura out and establish a Fire Wall right in the middle of the rock pile where the tentacles were squeezing through. A screeching sound that was slightly muffled by the rock blockade emitted from the Greater Horror outside as the reaching tentacles caught in the flames were cut off and dissipated into thin air. A few rocks shifted to the side as a result of some of the appendages swiftly pulling out of the tunnel, which inadvertently cleared a larger space in the blockage.
Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 14
