The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1)
Page 11
Projectile
Blade
Pit
Entanglement
Mechanical
Puzzle
Explosive
Poison
Fire
Water
Earth
Air
Death
Life
Enchantment
The name, “Trap Specializations”, was a little misleading; all that choosing one really did was make anything that was made in those categories cost a lot less Dungeon Force to create and replace. Every single trap that had ever been thought up, created, and installed in a dungeon could be used by any Dungeon Core at any time; the same Jeff that had the Dragonlings had dozens of traps of all different kinds, though his Trap Specialization had initially been Pit – which was made obvious by how many he had set up on the floor of his dungeon before he had been destroyed.
Therefore, the Specialization she had to choose from the list really just benefitted Dungeon Cores initially, making the entire dungeon creation process smoother, faster, and more efficient; many Cores unfortunately got lazy after a while and primarily used variations of the traps they specialized in, which helped to change things up enough not to be boring…but it certainly wasn’t exciting. Tacca knew she had to change the way her dungeon operated to bring that excitement and challenge, but it was likely going to be a while before she really could afford to branch out and use hundreds of different kinds of traps – because they could get expensive in terms of Force the more complex they were.
Therefore, to give her a base to work with that was a bit more flexible than the others, she chose Enchantment for her Trap Specialization.
Enchantment – Trap Specialization
Enchantment traps are for the most part non-lethal, but when used in conjunction with other traps and dungeon creatures, they can be highly effective. Examples of Enchantment-based traps are ones that can augment physical capabilities for a limited time, to other status-inflicting ones such as blindness, exhaustion, confusion, fear, rage, dizziness, and even extreme hunger.
Specialization Benefits:
Enchantment-based traps require 60% less Dungeon Force to create
Enchantment-based traps require 75% less Dungeon Force to replace when used
By themselves, Enchantment traps weren’t very effective in killing Raiders, but that wasn’t necessarily her primary objective – at least at first. She had absolutely no compunction about killing them – and would probably slaughter thousands of them if she survived long enough – because that was just a normal part of the entire dungeon invasion process; no, what she wanted to establish was a place where Raiders could come and have a “good time”, even if there was danger involved. That was the balance that most Cores had to address: dangerous enough that it could kill the unprepared, but not too dangerous or difficult.
Besides, it wasn’t as though she couldn’t make traps that could kill Raiders outright, only that they cost more Dungeon Force to create.
Once she finished her choice for her Trap Specialization, it was time to choose her Environmental Access. This was a bit more of an aesthetic choice at first but would help immensely in her efforts to create a diverse and “exciting” dungeon for Raiders to invade.
Environmental Access
Mountain
Forest
Grassland
Volcanic
Frozen Tundra
Jungle
Swamp
Desert
Aquatic
Tacca eventually wanted to acquire access to creating all of the different environments, but she started with one that would work the best with her current creature family: Forest.
Forest – Environmental Access
The Forest Environment allows the creation of soil, trees, ferns, shrubs, lichen, moss, and a few wildflowers within the dungeon.
Access Costs:
Soil: 2 DF per cubic foot
Trees: 10 – 100 DF depending upon size
Ferns: 5 – 20 DF depending upon size
Shrubs: 3 – 15 DF depending upon size
Lichen: 2 – 10 DF depending upon size
Moss: 2 – 10 DF depending upon size
Wildflowers: 1 – 5 depending upon size
Most Dungeon Cores didn’t even really apply whatever environment they initially chose until they were much stronger – because it could cost quite a bit of Force to create an immersive environment; that and it usually took a larger room to make the environment fit the space, and that of course meant more DF in the construction of that as well. It was an Assistant’s job to get a Core to create something quickly to open up for Raiders, after all, and taking a year or more to create proper environments in the dungeon went against that speed. Once they were open to the world, then they would start to customize their rooms – but usually by that time they had moved on to bigger and better things and would rather use their Dungeon Force on something else.
Regardless, there were some great dungeons in the world that took great advantage of their Access, with some that created large, water-filled rooms with the Aquatic Environment, and still others that created hot, moisture-rich jungles that could hide almost as much deadliness as their traps and creatures. However, Tacca had never heard of a Core utilizing more than one Environment, except for in rare instances where they used environmentally adjacent objects – such as some darker swampland for their aquatic theme.
For a starter, at least, the Forest Environment would allow her to create rooms that had places for her creatures to hide, as well as allowing for the perfect placement of traps along pathways she created. There was a lot of potential with being able to create a variety of plants and trees, and not just for scenery.
Now that she had selected the Environment she wanted Access to, she came to the last choice – choices, actually: Special Characteristics. She could select up to three Special Characteristics or even none, depending on what she wanted and how she wanted her dungeon to run.
These selections were really what set apart every dungeon, because while you could have 500 Cores that chose a Goblin Fighter for their initial creature and Variant, Pit-based traps as their Specialization, and a Mountain Environment, each of them could still be different based on their Special Characteristics. Each Characteristic had a point value, depending on how powerful they were – at least if they were beneficial ones; there were also undesirable Characteristics that had negative point values. Simple beneficial ones like increasing your Dungeon Force regeneration by 10% were relatively inexpensive pointwise; now, one that would increase your regeneration by 100% was much more expensive – and was precisely why there were “bad” Characteristics to afford something like that.[1]
There were thousands of different Characteristics that could be chosen, both bad and good, which really made each Core different. It was very rare for two dungeons to choose the exact same things, because every Dungeon Core was an individual consciousness that were their own people with their own decision; the evidence of that was plain enough with how poor the decisions made by her previous assignments had been.
There was a limit to how many Special Characteristics could be chosen during the initial selection process; if Tacca could choose more than the three allotted to her, she would’ve. However, things being what they were, she had to be very specific with what she chose; at the moment, she was basically useless as a dungeon because she technically couldn’t create any creatures for defense. Fortunately, there was only a single Special Characteristic that would help with that – and to which she specifically searched for in the list.
When Tacca pulled up the Special Characteristics list, she was shocked at what she saw. My SCPs have been cut in half!
Just like her Fairy Mana was reduced by half, so apparently was her Special Characteristic Points (SCP); every Dungeon Core was supposed to begin with 100 SCPs, but it was only showing half of that amount. Tacca was starting to get a little worried, because she wasn’t sure what else might
be affected. Will my maximum Dungeon Force and Dungeon Force Regeneration be cut in half as well? Of course, she had no way of telling if that was the case yet or not, because she couldn’t access that information until she was done with her selections.
As far as those selections went, she was forced to make some difficult decisions; while the loss of 50 SCPs didn’t sound like a whole lot in the scheme of things, it threw her entire plan off. The result put an unfortunate hitch in her development plan, but there was no going back now – it would just take longer to get everything up and running the way she wanted it.
Special Characteristics (Choose up to 3) [Partial List]
Available Special Characteristic Points (SCP): 0
Special Characteristics
Value
Cost (SCP)
Access all known Variants for available dungeon creatures
All
1100
----------------
--------
--------
All creatures are reduced in Level (cannot be less than 1)
10
-450
Core Improvement Points are reduced when earned
95%
-600
Tacca thought that it was unfair – now that she was an actual Dungeon Core – that the negative characteristics weren’t proportional to their positive counterparts; for instance, to increase Dungeon Force regeneration by 10% cost 40 SCPs, but a decrease in the same amount only gave out -5 SCPs. Also, as the benefits increased (or decreased, depending on what it was), the cost shot up outrageously until it seemed like they would never be obtained – like earning 100% Special Characteristic Points upon Core Improvement for 2500 SCPs.
When she was just a Dungeon Assistant, the differing amounts made sense to her because it ensured that the Cores had to work for what they wanted to obtain, instead of just having them given to them. Being on the flipside, however, she wished that it wasn’t so skewed – and not in her favor.
Regardless, she had to sacrifice a bit more than she had expected, mainly because she had forgotten how much the beneficial Characteristic she settled upon cost. That’s not precisely true, though; I remember exactly what I was taught, but everything seems a bit more expensive than I recollect. Obviously, her memory couldn’t have been that bad, so her status as a former Fairy and Assistant may have had something to do with it.
The “Access all known Variants for available dungeon creatures” characteristic was kind of a joke in the Assistant community, or at least it was taught that way at DAPS. For one, it was horrendously expensive at 1,000 SCPs (hers cost 1,100 which was likely due to the same reason some other things were messed up), and there were hundreds of other Characteristics that those Points could be used for that were far, far better.
Another reason was – although having access to every Variant of a Goblin or a Panther was great for their dungeon – unlocking those Variants was relatively easy by using Core Improvement Points (CIP), which was sort of like Experience to Dungeon Assistants. To most Cores, it was a waste of valuable SCPs to acquire this Characteristic – because they rarely used every Variant, instead concentrating on two or three and then adding additional creature types using those same CIPs.
For Tacca, though, having access to every Variant of the creatures she had available was a big deal…at least she hoped so. Theoretically, by being able to access every Variant of a family of creatures – in this case, Canines – she would, hopefully, be able to actually create them for use within her dungeon. This was why she chose Canines instead of going with her original pick of a Gnoll Scout; while she could’ve chosen the Hybrid Bipedal family – and she was planning on possibly doing that in the future – and obtained access to quite a few different species, they were multiple reasons why her selection was better. Dungeon Force cost and Control Limit requirements were some factors that she had to consider when first starting out…but there was also a special characteristic of Canines in particular that she was looking forward to taking advantage of. Of course, she had to make sure everything was going to work out the way she wanted it to first.
Unfortunately, the entire thing with creature “families” and accessing all their Variants was still a theory that was interesting to consider while in school…but had never been proven to work. The main reason for that was because it had never been tried before – it was too crazy to deliberately ask a Core to do so.
First, convincing a Core that had been around for a while to choose a family of creatures instead of a single species was a tough sell; they would have to use their hard-earned CIPs on a creature they technically couldn’t even create right away. Second, persuading them to use 1,000 SCPs on a theory was gambling an equally hard-earned resource on an ability that might or might not work was almost impossible for an established Core. The fact that Tacca was doing it right away was even crazier, because she had to take some serious hits to her development and the initial strength of her dungeon to afford the beneficial Characteristic.
All of her creatures were going to be reduced by 10 Levels with what she chose first, which meant that she’d have to create a really expensive Level 12 creature just to get one to Level 2. The Levels of creatures determined how powerful they were, though it wasn’t proportionate; a Level 5 Goblin wasn’t five times more powerful than a Level 1, but it would be physically stronger, more agile, and have a tougher natural resistance. She chose this negative Characteristic mainly because she wouldn’t necessarily need to have more-powerful creatures for a while…if everything worked out the way she wanted. She could also remove this Characteristic in the future by “paying back” what she got put into it plus an additional 100 SCPs (so 550), and she was planning on doing this at her first opportunity – in the far future.
The second negative Characteristic she chose to afford the “All Variant” one was going to hurt immensely, but really it just meant that her development was going to progress slower – 95% slower, to be precise. With a reduction of 95% to the future CIPs she would earn, her Core development would be very, very slow – but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was going to take her a while to create everything she wanted to anyway, though once she was up and running it would impact her growth significantly. Again, she could remove the Characteristic eventually by using 700 SCPs, but it was probably going to be a long time until that happened.
To a normal Dungeon Core and Assistant, her choices would’ve given them a panic attack, because it went contrary to everything done before and would probably be considered foolish to the extreme. In fact, based on the kind of Cores she had been Assisting lately, she would’ve fallen right into the category of ones that were destined to have a short existence. I just hope I haven’t made a mistake.
With only a little bit of hesitation, Tacca confirmed her current selections of Characteristics and felt a strange change come over her Core form. Pain that she didn’t even think she could experience ripped through her, blinding her to the enclosed space around her; the torture seemed to go on forever and she thought that her mind was going to start breaking if it continued any longer. Before it got to that point, luckily, she lost all awareness of her tiny dungeon as she blacked out…again.
Chapter 12
The transition from an unconscious state to full awareness was practically instant, because Tacca didn’t remember anything in between. One moment she was blind and unaware of the world around her; the next, she was looking around her small dungeon space with new eyes and a control she hadn’t had before. Whereas before she could easily look around the small space and see everything, now everything felt as if it was within her figurative grasp. Physically touching something was still beyond her capabilities, of course, but manipulating it using her mind was certainly now a possibility.
She looked with sadness towards the Fairy corpse nearby, seeing it for the first time on a fundamental level; with a thought, she was pretty sure she could make it disappear and be absorbed into her dungeon, as it was now just an i
nanimate object. Something that consisted of flesh, congealed blood, bone, diaphanous wing cartilage, and Mood Dress fabric – but an inanimate object, nonetheless. Tacca almost got rid of it because she didn’t want to see it anymore – since it brought back memories of what she had lost – though she managed to stop herself before she completed the act.
What happens if—no, when—someone comes looking for me? She knew she had some time, of course, before that happened. Once a year, every Dungeon Assistant was expected to report in to the DPRC, even if it was only for a few minutes – so Tacca assumed that it was at least another 11 months or so before anyone came to investigate her non-appearance. She reevaluated her estimation, however, after looking at her corpse a little longer; based on the decay, she figured that she might only have about half of that. I…was out for that long?
The Council had some strange way to monitor the existence of Dungeon Cores, so it could tell right away if a Core sprang into existence or was destroyed. That was how they always ensured there was a Dungeon Assistant nearby when they first developed enough to see the world around them, and also how Lead Placement Council Member Lily had always seemed to know when Tacca was available for another assignment.
As far as she knew, there wasn’t any way for them to monitor the state of Dungeon Assistants in the same way, which was why they had to regularly check in. There was some leeway, though, because if their Dungeon Core was in the middle of something important they could delay their appearance for a week or two, but after that the DPRC would start to grow worried – or suspicious. It rarely ever happened, but in the past there were some Dungeon Assistants that flat-out abandoned their placements after convincing their Core to dissolve their Bond – and then disappeared as if they had never been. Their names were known to everyone however, as they were reviled for their behavior and abandonment, even going so far as to destroy the reputation of their families.