Dungeon World: A Dungeon Core Experience
Page 16
After only about 20 feet, the tunnel opened out into a room slightly larger than the last; although it was obviously bigger, it almost felt the opposite because the entire floor was covered in flowers. Every size, shape, and color seemed to be represented, though Fred wasn’t an expert by any means. And zipping around the room, going from flower to flower, were giant bees bigger than his head.
Large Wasp (Level 1)
Vitality: 10
Attack: 2, Slowing Poison
Defense: 3
“This is probably where we’ll find the flowers we’re supposed to collect. Once we take care of those couple of bees, we should be able to easily find some in there,” Eisa remarked, after looking at the scene before her.
The mana content in the room was a little overwhelming, as some of the flowers had an extra helping of mana contained within them, unlike the nearly manaless plants from the room before. The bees had mana inside them, of course – and he counted 20 of them. Once he was able to concentrate, though, he was able to see what looked like intense concentrations of the green Nature mana in two different places underneath the field of flowers – right underneath two small patches of the higher mana-infused ones.
“Does the flower we’re looking for have a pure white center and…uh, six deep purple petals?” Fred asked, after looking closer at one of the special flowers.
“Yes, I believe those are the ones – why? Do you see one?”
“I see…let me see…I count 16 of them, though they are growing in two different sections, right above what appears to be traps. I’m not sure of what kind of trap it is, but we’ll have to be careful. Oh, and I count 20 of the Large Wasps – and watch out, their stingers probably have a slowing poison inside them.” Fred pointed out the different patches as best he could, though it was a little difficult as they were on the far side of the room.
He could see his companion look at him strangely, as if she didn’t believe him. However, Eisa shrugged again, as though not caring how he knew everything he was telling her and ordered her bear forward. “Hopefully it shouldn’t matter too much, as my animated corpses are immune to poison. You be careful, though – if you get swarmed, there might not be anything left of you to save.”
He took her warning to heart, as he didn’t want a repeat of the first room. “Thanks, I think I’ll hang back and see if I’m needed.”
The reanimated bear shuffled forward, trampling over the flowers in his way toward the middle of the room. The act of floral devastation must’ve annoyed the wasps, as every visible one swarmed the bear, as well as a few that were hiding underneath the flowers.
They were fast, much faster than the bear, who had trouble rearing up and swatting them out of the air, though he got lucky early on with a quick swipe of his claws. With the remaining 19 still hovering around, dodging relatively clumsy swipes, and attacking incessantly, however – they were at a stalemate. The stingers on the wasps couldn’t penetrate the bear’s fur, let alone its skin, so nothing much was getting accomplished. Fred thought that a few of the large flying insects would eventually get caught, but it would probably take a while.
“Shall I go in?” he asked, unsure because he didn’t want to get swarmed like she said. Although he wasn’t afraid of dying – because his mana totals were still fairly high, and he would regenerate – he was tired of feeling pain for the day and wanted to avoid it as much as possible.
“No, hold on, I have something for this. It’s a bit painful and uses a bit of power, but it will get these guys gone in no time. Stand back here at the entrance – it will hurt you too if you’re too close.”
Hmm, I wonder what spell she’s going to use?
Fred didn’t have to wonder long, because she was moving even before she stopped talking, following the same path as her bear. He almost cried out in alarm when – instead of just casting whatever spell she was planning on using right away – she whipped out a shiny black staff and smacked one of the wasps from behind, killing it instantly. Where did that staff come from?
Sooner than he could blink, the bees were all focused on her, stabbing her with their stingers; he could see that it caused her a little discomfort from the impacts, but none of them broke the skin. So that’s what the Body stat does…hmm…
She closed her eyes and held out her hands, where a ball of power – that looked like it was literally ripped from her body – formed between them; now he could see real pain on her face as the sphere of power seemed to shrink and condense, growing smaller and smaller over the course of 10 seconds. Really looking at her, he pulled up her Adventurer Status and was relieved that she was still fine, even if it didn’t look like it. Concentrating even further, he exerted his will on the interface, making it so that whenever he looked at her for more than a second, a brief description came up.
Eisa Howells
Vitality: 55/80
Stamina: 60/80
Power: 1440/2200
As soon as the spell was ready, the power she held in her hands seemed to explode, creating a shockwave that rippled outward from her, shredding everything around her except her animated bear, who stared at her with dead eyes. The wasps were flung away from her, some now in literal pieces; fortunately, the explosive wave ended before it reached Fred, though he felt a pressure push him backwards a little.
Unfortunately, her spell also destroyed many of the flowers around her, ripping a few out of the ground altogether, while others survived but had all their petals blown off. As he regained his balance, Fred looked around the room using his mana sight and saw that there was only one of the special flowers they were looking for still standing, though it had lost two of its petals.
I guess we’re not turning any of those in today.
Chapter 23
Fred saw three more things that happened as a result of Eisa’s spell. First, the shockwave was apparently strong enough to trigger the two traps he saw earlier, thrusting a small square area of giant thorns the size of his leg up through the ground, where it would impale anyone unlucky enough to walk over it. Second, Fred checked his own Adventurer Status and saw another “locked” spell named Vitality Explosion on there. And third, Eisa fell to her knees afterward, panting as if she’d been running hard.
Fred immediately ran over in concern, but the stubborn Necro-healer waved him off. “I’ll be fine – that spell always takes a lot out of me.”
A few more seconds went by and – sure enough – Eisa was already looking better. At the same time, the corpses of all the wasps that were destroyed had started to melt into the ground as the mana inside of them were reabsorbed by the dungeon core. I wonder if I can absorb them before the dungeon core does? Better not try – that would definitely alert it to something being wrong.
Now that the traps had been sprung – at least from what he could see – Fred started safely gathering up what he could find of the coins that had fallen out of the Large Wasps, while at the same time experiencing the rush of more Essence as it was funneled into his Artifact. Additionally, the traps that had been sprung added to that same deluge, which was a surprisingly large amount in comparison to the deadly flying insects.
He gave all of the copper pieces (still 1 per defender) to Eisa to hold, since she seemed to have a way to hold everything easily. She pulled a small, non-descript pouch off her belt, opened it up wider than it should be able to, and placed the coins inside – where they disappeared without making any noise.
“What is going on with that pouch? How is it able to hold all of those coins? And, a better question – where did that staff come from?”
Eisa was leaning on the black staff, still recovering from the use of her spell. “What are you talking about? You should’ve gotten one of the Pocket Interface Bags from Jaymes – it comes with the SDIA…but I guess a lot did happen, so he must’ve forgotten to give you one. We’ll get you one when we get back. To answer your question, though this small pouch acts as a large ‘pocket’ that can hold a nearly unlimited number of things, acce
ssible by your Interface. If you can at least fit a portion of whatever you want to store inside the opening, it will automatically be slotted inside. Here, watch,” she responded, before opening the pouch as wide as she could.
Taking her staff, which she fortunately didn’t need to lean on anymore – as she was seemingly fully recovered – she placed the end of it inside…and it disappeared from her hand. One moment it was there, and the next it was gone; he couldn’t see Power (or even Mana) at play, so he couldn’t determine how it worked. Very interesting – I can’t wait until I get one of my own.
“You can place essentially anything you want in there, except for anything living. Time will essentially stop somehow for everything you put in there, so if you put a hot meal in there – it will still be hot when you bring it back out. There’s no limit that anyone has ever discovered, though if it is stuffed full of junk it can be harder to find what you need. It’s a marvel of Artificery that is actually what the main cost of the payment of the SDIA covers, so we should definitely make sure you get one when we get back.”
I definitely want one of those.
Eisa looked at the remaining flower they were supposed to gather and sighed, leaving the damaged item there instead of attempting to harvest it. With everything else in the room complete, she had her bear lead the way to the next room, following closely behind it through the tight passageway.
Before he followed, however, Fred pulled up his Adventurer Status and looked at what he had gotten from clearing the room – at least as far as Essence was concerned.
Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface
Name: Fredwynklemossering
Class: Unselected
Rating: G-1st
Essence Needed to Rate-up: 18
Total Essence: 82
Available Essence to Distribute: 82
Unconverted Essence: 37350
Body: 2 (0/20)
Brawn: 2 (0/20)
Mind: 4 (0/80)
Vitality: 10/10
Stamina: 9/10
Power: 20/20
Base Physical Attack: 2
Base Physical Defense: 2
Power Regen Rate: 0.1/min
(Additional stats and abilities available once class is chosen)
Adapted Abilities
Animate Dead 0 – 0/100
Repair Animation 0 – 0/100
Vitality Transfer 0 – 0/100
Vitality Explosion 0 – 0/100
Although he could save some of his Essence to unlock one of the Adapted Abilities he had acquired, or even wait until he had picked a class, Fred knew he wanted to spend at least some of it on improving his ability to withstand attacks from the dungeon defenders. Judging by the way both the bear and Eisa had weathered the attacks from the Wasps as if they were nothing, it was something that would help him not die – or at least not get hurt enough that he’d have to rely on his mana to save him.
Fred had asked about what the different stats such as Body, Brawn, and Mind meant before he had left the DAS, as well as the numbers next to them. Body was a measure of how durable your body was; most “normal” humans apparently only had a 1 or possibly a 2 in this statistic, which made sense because they were quite vulnerable. He figured he had a 2 due to his status as a dungeon core, but it was hard to tell because he was still so vulnerable to many attacks.
The Body stat also affected how much Vitality you had, which was apparently a basic measurement of how much pain and damage your body could sustain before you died. Of course, Fred figured even if you had a 1000 Vitality, you’d still die if someone cut off your head; at least most humans probably would – he was just a special case.
Brawn had to do with how strong you were, and it affected how much damage you could inflict with your physical attacks. This was obvious when he had attacked the beetles in the previous room; his base physical attack, even aided by his knives, was not strong enough to pierce the outer shell of the insect. On the other hand, the bear had originally been a level 3 wild beast, but it had obviously been enhanced once it was animated by Eisa; which, in addition to having a durable exterior, allowed it to utterly destroy the comparatively weak beetles.
Stamina – which was also correlated with Brawn – was a measure of how much you could do before you got tired and had to rest; he was told that some abilities from primarily physical attack-based classes used Stamina instead of Power to execute.
His Vitality and Stamina stats were ones that he didn’t have to worry so much about reaching zero, since his mana would sustain him; he suspected that, although he couldn’t actually see it before, when he was traveling through the forest for a year and a half, both of them had been hovering around 1 the entire time. He now knew why he was burning through his mana so fast to keep him alive.
The Mind stat was not necessarily a measure of intelligence, but more about how well you could think and process information coming from the world around you. His starting stat of 4 was seemingly much higher than most people’s, which he definitely knew came from his dungeon core background; having his mind and body able to process the raw unconverted mana in his body most likely had a lot to do with it.
And, of course, Power was directly linked to the stat; different classes could affect how much power you had access to (which was obvious by looking at Eisa’s status), though those traits that boosted her ability to cast spells also precluded large gains in her physical stats. He suspected that if the Large Wasps had been level 3 or 4, she would’ve been a pincushion.
There were other stats that would only become available when he took a class, as well as possible additional traits that would become evident when he raised his Rating. Again, he wasn’t worried about those right now – he was more concerned with not dying.
Therefore, Fred mentally moved some of his available Essence into the Body stat until he reached Body: 2 (20/20). As soon as it hit the threshold, he instinctively braced for more pain…but all he felt was a strange and slightly ticklish tightening of the skin all over his body. Placing his hand on his arm, he tried to see if it felt any different – as if it might be rougher or something; either it was too small of a change, or he couldn’t feel it himself. Thinking about the few brief times that Eisa had touched him with her hand, however, he couldn’t remember thinking it was anything but soft.
It must just be evident when something tries to break the skin.
Once the sensation faded, he looked back at his status and saw that it now read Body: 3 (0/40). Since he still had more than enough to raise it again, he threw another 40 Essence points into his Body stat again. This time, in addition to a slight tingling of his skin, a slightly painful creaking of his bones radiated throughout his body, which fortunately ended after only a couple of seconds. In addition to his status now reading Body: 4 (0/80), his entire body felt denser, as if he might weigh a little bit more than he used to.
Since he still had 22 Essence left, he slotted 20 of them into Brawn; he both wanted to see what it would do to his body, and to hopefully be able to do a bit of damage to whatever was still coming up in the dungeon. As soon as the total reached 20, he felt the muscles throughout his body spasm uncontrollably for just a moment – like he had just been jolted by a lightning bolt – causing him to faceplant inside the rock-filled passageway.
Due to his increased Body, however, he didn’t take any damage. Getting to his feet after the muscle spasms ended was easier than usual, as he felt like he had a literal spring in his step; stretching his arms above his head, he could feel the change inside his muscles. It wasn’t drastic, but it was noticeable.
Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface
Name: Fredwynklemossering
Class: Unselected
Rating: G-1st
Essence Needed to Rate-up: 18
Total Essence: 82
Available Essence to Distribute: 2
Unconverted Essence: 37350
Body: 4 (0/80)
Brawn: 3 (0/40)
Mind: 4 (0/80)<
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Vitality: 20/20
Stamina: 14/15
Power: 20/20
Base Physical Attack: 3
Base Physical Defense: 4
Power Regen Rate: 0.1/min
(Additional stats and abilities available once class is chosen)
Adapted Abilities
Animate Dead 0 – 0/100
Repair Animation 0 – 0/100
Vitality Transfer 0 – 0/100
Vitality Explosion 0 – 0/100
Now out of any other options, he sped through the short passageway after Eisa, arriving just as her bear was triggering a trap.
Chapter 24
Fred saw large dark-green vines extended from the ceiling right inside the entrance to the room, four of which were wrapped around the torso and neck of the reanimated bear. Even though Eisa’s undead creature weighed almost half a ton, the long vines were just strong enough together to lift it into the air, where it flailed around ineffectually.
Although it wasn’t getting hurt or choked – since it didn’t have to breathe – it was nevertheless out of the fight. Unless, of course, someone was to cut it down.
Eisa was calm, however, looking over the rest of the room before she reacted, so Fred did the same thing. Past the other half-dozen or so vines still hanging down – waiting for another victim – the room was actually fairly dark. The previous rooms had been lit by a bright ambient light that his parents explained was an inbuilt feature of the dungeon; as the dungeon was originally constructed, the mana used to create it was infused permanently into the rocks, consumed completely – but allowing the dungeon core to adjust the ambient light level in the room with just a thought. Just like any other changes to the dungeon, however, it couldn’t be done while there were invaders inside, so Fred didn’t have to worry about everything suddenly going dark.