When there were only three days before her countdown finished, she finally told the confused Shale what her plan was. The Dungeon Assistant hadn’t really said anything while she was constructing more rooms; in fact, when he realized it might be a while until someone came, he Activated his Hibernate Ability and basically slept while Tacca worked away below the Core Room. “Shale, my countdown is almost up. I’m going to use a method that I—I mean Tacca—told me about to boost my Core Improvement Points up as much as possible before that happens.”
He was still sleepily waking up from his Hibernation, and he was confused at what she said. When Tacca explained the general idea, he started to pay a little more attention. “I’ve heard of that working when the dungeon hasn’t even opened yet, because there’s usually a lot more Dungeon Force available; I guess that – even though you’re open – you probably have a lot of Force to play around with because of this weather. How many more CIPs are you planning on boosting yourself? Enough to get you to Core Improvement Level 3?”
Of course, “Tamara” hadn’t told Shale that she was already Level 4, because that would be revealing a bit too much about her unique origins. “No, I think I may be able to get myself all the way up to Level 6.”
Shale seemed suitably shocked, mainly because she technically only had 135 CIPs from her previous banked amount last month, as well as what she had finished filling her dungeon with by the time she was complete. She was going to need a total of 1,000 CIPs to get to Level 6, though for all Shale knew she actually needed 1,600 because he wasn’t aware of her previous Level increases. “That’s impossible and you’re crazy. If you didn’t have that massive reduction on how many CIPs you can earn, you would easily be able to do it; as it is, what you’re thinking of doing just isn’t possible, despite how much you seem to know.”
It turned out that he was partly right – she never would’ve been able to get to 1,600 CIPs, because she just barely got to 1,000. It wasn’t because she didn’t have enough time, enough Dungeon Force, or even enough space in her dungeon to create the relatively cheap Confusion Enchantment Traps; no, it had to do with the strain that placing so many traps had on her Core.
At 600 additional traps, she started to feel like her concentration was starting to wander; at 700, her mind began to slow down, so that it felt like she was trying to wade through sticky honey; at 850, she started to feel the tell-tale sign that she was pushing her Core too far as a strange ache infused her entire being. She pushed through the mounting pain to place another 15 traps to bring her total up to 1,000, and just as she finished a tiny crack appeared on her Core. Fortunately, there was only about an hour to wait for her countdown to finish, and as soon as she acquired all of those Points she blacked out again.
It wasn’t for too long, though – at least according to Shale, who witnessed the entire thing happening and felt her unfiltered discomfort and pain through their Bond. “What did you do?! Are you alright?” he asked, genuinely worried for her when she could finally think again. The increase in her Level managed to fix all but a tiny crack again, and the strain from having so many traps was thankfully a little less than it had been – but still really uncomfortable.
Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!
You have reached Core Improvement Level: 5
You have reached Core Improvement Level: 6
Current CIP Countdown: 0/800 in 30 days
Core Improvement Points earned: 1000 (1000)
Special Characteristic Points earned: 50 (125)
Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!
You have reached Assistant Rank: Novice
You have reached Assistant Stage: 5
Current Experience Countdown: 0/800 in 30 days
Maximum Fairy Mana: +50
Fairy Mana Regeneration: +2 per minute
Before she chose what she wanted to do with her Points she had earned, Tacca immediately absorbed all of her small Confusion Enchantment traps; as soon as they started disappearing, she started to feel worlds better than just a few minutes before. I assume this means that I shouldn’t even attempt to do anything like that to get the 800 I need for the next Level.
Theoretically, there shouldn’t be any limit to how many traps she could place in her dungeon, unlike the creature Control Limit; this was made plainly clear by how many traps that her old Core Jeff had, which far exceeded how many Tacca just placed. She momentarily thought it might be because she spent too much Dungeon Force constantly for too long, but when she considered it more, she knew that it felt completely different than when she used Force recklessly. This felt more like she was overly full at first, and then overloaded with information in the next moment, and only when she added even more did she start to feel pain. The fact that the pain lessened after her increase in Core Improvement Level meant that she’d probably be able to handle a larger quantity of traps in the future, but for now she had hit her limit.
“I’m sorry, Shale,” Tacca apologized for worrying her Assistant, before attempting to explain. “I think I used too much Dungeon Force again when I was making my traps; don’t worry, though, I won’t be doing that again if I can help it.”
“Good, because you scared me there; I felt so much pain and agony sent to me through our Bond, and I was really worried for you,” he said, before fluttering over and tentatively touching her Core – as if his touch might cause more cracks to appear. “Now that I know you’re safe-ish…did it work?”
She laughed, because she had been concentrating on getting rid of the uncomfortable strain so much that she had almost forgotten what it was for. “Yes it did; I’m now Core Improvement Level 6!” Tacca also noticed that she was also a Novice Stage 5 Dungeon Assistant, and was only 71 Experience away from becoming an Adept; she was bummed that she hadn’t been able to add that many more traps, but she knew that she was lucky that she didn’t cause any permanent damage with what she did do. Fortunately, the 729 Experience that she earned had been banked, so when the next month passed by, she could easily add to that to achieve her next Rank.
Of course, acquiring enough CIPs for her next level was going to be difficult…unless the weather cleared up. By some fortunate circumstance (whether it was due to her luck or not was still to be determined), moments after she finished Leveling up the blizzard that had been raging for nearly a month outside her dungeon…stopped. For the moment, at least, she put her decisions regarding her Points on hold, in the hopes that she could finally see what the wider world held for her.
Chapter 20
Snow…snow…and some more snow – that’s what the wider world held for her. As soon as she could look outside, all she could see for as far as her view could reach was white with piles of snow that had to be at least 30 to 40 feet deep. In the bright sunlight that appeared after the blizzard stopped, she could see what appeared to be massive walls surrounding her entrance, almost as if she was trapped within a frozen enclosure. It took a few minutes of staring around at the snowy expanse to realize that she was actually looking at tall mountain tops nearby and in the distance.
I’m in the mountains, obviously.
There were only a couple of places where she thought she might be, and all of them would be okay – other than one, which she severely hoped wasn’t the case. If she was far to the north or south of the main continent where most of the Raiders were concentrated, then she knew that the winter snows would only last a month or so, if she remembered correctly; and if that turned out to be where she was, then it didn’t make much sense because from what she knew there weren’t any dungeons in those two mountain ranges. Still, if she was in one of them, then she knew that Raiders could reach her, though it might take a while before she was located.
Now, if she was somehow located on the other side of the world, where there was a frozen wasteland that didn’t hold any people…well, then she was screwed. Based on the sun coming out, however, she doubted that she was stuck there to live her life in eternal boredom and stagnation – because the sun never sh
one there.
She felt a little bit better about the whole situation when she determined that, so she turned back to her Points – and where to spend them.
Core Improvements
Available Core Improvement Points (CIP)
1000
0 in 30 days
Improvement Name
Value
Cost (CIP)
Maximum Dungeon Force Increase
+500 DF
500
Dungeon Force Regeneration Increase
+5 DF per minute
500
Control Limit Increase
+50
400
Select Additional Creature
1
250
Select Additional Creature Variant
1
25
Select Additional Trap Specialization
1
300
Select Additional Environment Access
1
400
Reward Tier Increase
1
100
Convert CIPs to SCPs
1 SCP
4
It was a hard decision, made harder by the fact that she didn’t really know where she was; Shale offered to go explore now that the blizzard had stopped, but as soon as he got close to the entrance he had to turn back. “It’s too cold out there still; my wings were starting to freeze before I even got within ten feet,” the Assistant said when he attempted to leave. Tacca honestly didn’t think it would really matter, because she had no real knowledge of the local areas far to the north or south of the main Raider continent.
She had enough CIPs to convert into 250 Special Characteristic Points, but even with the 125 she currently had it wasn’t nearly enough to get rid of one of her negative Characteristics yet. She could always save what she had right now to use towards getting rid of them in the far future, but the near future was of a bigger concern. Unless Raiders started showing up soon – and in big numbers – then these Core Improvement Points were likely going to be the last she’d see in a while. The SCPs that she’d accumulated – all 125 of them – she was certainly going to save, but in her opinion there was no good reason to save the 1,000 CIPs that were available now for a later time.
The “normal” thing to do with her Points was to increase her maximum Dungeon Force and regeneration, but Tacca was finding that she wasn’t exactly “normal” as a Core. While having more Dungeon Force would be beneficial in creating stronger traps, higher-Level creatures, and would help to replenish her dungeon after it was invaded, she felt that she couldn’t really use more than 1,000 or so at a time without straining her Core too much. It was possible that may have changed a bit with her recent Level increases, but it still likely wouldn’t be more than her current maximum. The whole point in having more Force overall was to be able to create stronger components for her dungeon – which she couldn’t do at the moment.
Therefore, increasing her maximum was out – but she could always use more regeneration. Selecting that as the first Core Improvement for 500 CIPs, she was left with another 500 to spend; after eliminating the only other thing that cost that much already, that made her other decisions even easier. First, having the ability to have more creatures in her dungeon was always a good thing, even with the special circumstances revolving around her Dungeon Force use. For 400 CIPs, upping her Control Limit by 50 for a total of 200 was the smartest move she could make.
Everything else was too expensive, nor did she want them at the moment. Having another creature family to utilize would be beneficial in diversifying her dungeon, but she hadn’t even seen how her current creatures worked. Picking something that would mesh well with what she already had was hard because she didn’t know what kind of Raiders she’d be likely to see, so that had to wait at least until her next Level increase. Additional Trap Specializations would also be nice, but it wasn’t really needed for the same reasons she didn’t want another creature. Having Access to another Environment was also tempting, but until she had a bigger dungeon it wasn’t really viable right now.
Her only other options were either saving her Points or unlocking the next Rewards Tier. While she wasn’t sure how beneficial it would be right now, having access to more rewards would certainly help her grow in the future by tempting more Raiders to invade her dungeon. She decided to go ahead and purchase the upgrade now, so that the option for better rewards would be available to her when she did end up needing it.
With those all chosen, there really wasn’t anything else for her to do but wait…and figure out where she wanted to place her extra creatures with her upgraded Control Limit…
* * *
Sterge felt like he was doing something wrong by abandoning his fields, even though Gwenda and he had worked tirelessly over the last three weeks to ensure that everything was taken care of and wouldn’t be missed if they left for a day or two. He hoped it wasn’t any longer than that, however, because he had to make sure Gussie and the other livestock were fed and maintained – even if they did a pretty good job of doing that for themselves. Still, sometimes he worried that they needed his help; he really couldn’t help it, though, as protecting them was just part of his personality.
He stepped around another large boulder blocking their path up the mountain, as he reflected on what brought him to climb into the Wentrylock Mountains on a warm, calm morning…when he’d normally be getting up to tend to his farm. Looking behind him, Sterge could see Gwenda following close after him, wearing a not-suitable-for-farming dark-blue cheap linen robe cinched at the waist with a simple everyday rope. It was fairly ridiculous-looking on her compared to how she normally appeared, but he really couldn’t talk – he was wearing a set of old, battered leather armor that was barely held together by thick threading.
When they had borrowed the “market” wagon – which was normally used to deliver their produce to the market in Heftington – and delivered the corpse of the Elven Raider to the Raider Delving Clan outpost there, they were first met with suspicion. Actually, that was putting it lightly – they were actually arrested and locked up, which was a unique experience that he never wanted to go through again.
However, after it appeared as though they hadn’t stolen anything from the Elf, they were released; it was originally thought that they had killed the Raider to rob him or something, though why they would then bring the body and show the Clan didn’t make any sense to Sterge. Not even considering that it was unlikely that they could even hurt the Elf, it was just stupid in his opinion. Sterge attributed their whole temporary imprisonment on the Raiders operating the Clan outpost erring on the side of caution, because the outpost leader was apparently away for the day.
Regardless of how they were originally treated, they were released and actually rewarded. Because they had found the body and returned him to the Raider Clan, they were entitled to half of what the Elf had on him; the total they were reluctantly offered was a bit less than half of what was actually on him – because they had already seen how much was really there – but Gwenda had another offer: to allow them to become Raiders instead.
The Clan representatives jumped at the new offer, because it didn’t really cost them anything, so they were able to keep all of the money the Elf had when he died. That day, they were initiated as brand-new Raiders of the Raider Delving Clan – really, the only Raider organization on the continent – and asked to touch a special orb that apparently all Clan outposts possessed for initiations. As soon as Sterge had touched it, something popped up in his mind that startled him for a minute or two. When he had recovered, he finally paid attention to what it was asking of him.
Choose your Starting Class:
Melee
Ranged
Caster
Healer
That was it – with no other explanation. Fortunately, the Clan members gave him – and Gwenda, for that matter, once she touched the strange orb – a brief rundown of what each of them meant. It
didn’t take him long to decide, however, as Melee seemed like the best choice that fit his personality. His best friend, as intelligent as she was, chose to be a Caster – which also perfectly fit her personality.
He had been given the set of the leather armor – that he was currently wearing as he walked up the mountain – as part of the starter kit they had lying around, as well as the rusty iron shortsword that was practically a longsword in his hands. Luckily, it didn’t scrape against the ground as he walked with it attached to his belt, otherwise he would’ve probably just taken only his knife along on their little expedition. Granted, he didn’t actually know how to use it other than putting the pointy end in an enemy, but he was told that the more he used it, the better he would become at using a sword; it didn’t make any sense to him, but he assumed it was a part of the strange new thing in his head.
Raider Status
Name:
Sterge Stonewell
Class:
Melee
Raider Level:
1
Power:
0/100
Physical Attack:
1 (3)
Physical Defense:
1 (3)
Ranged Attack:
0
Ranged Defense:
1
Magical Attack:
0
Magical Defense:
1
Resistances:
The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Page 20
