Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 15

"Alright, I think that's done." James let out a long sigh, looking at his hard work. It had taken him 30 minutes to deal with his dicken, sacrificial lamb, swiner, scapegoat, and mad cow loot. It took him almost 20 minutes of thinking, and reading, to finish Old Man Jenkins' loot. However, he was pretty sure he had done a good job.

"How's it look?" Rue looked up from the table she had summoned. It seemed the pixie had grown bored while he assigned his loot, and she had quickly summoned a table and a deck of cards. Apparently solitaire was more amusing to her than James trying to fix loot.

"Take a look for yourself." James pulled up Old Man Jenkins screen, directing the pixie's attention to it.

Old Man Jenkins – 5

Copper Coin 1-10

Cooked Dicken (common) 1-4

Lamb's wool (common) 1-4

Swiner Hide (common) 1-4

Goat's Milk (common) 1-4

Mad Cow Jerky (uncommon) 1-2

Moonshine (uncommon) 1-2

Demonic Farmer's Boots (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Demonic Farmer's Gloves (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Demonic Farmer's Pitchfork (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Demonic Farmer's Overalls (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Demonic Farmer's flannel shirt (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Corn Cob Pipe (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

Straw Hat (Demonic Farmer Set Piece) (Unique) 1-1

"Hmm, those set pieces are going to be hard to track down." Rue was nodding approvingly as she skimmed over the list. James had increased his boss mob's amount of items dropped from 3 to up to 5. From there, he had spent a good amount of time reading about the different items his boss could drop. The common items all seemed pretty basic, and could be dropped by other mobs as well in one way shape or form. As such, James gave each the ability to have up to 4 of those common items drop at once. The cooked dicken had the ability to heal adventurers a percentage of their health, as did goat's milk. However, the goat's milk could also be used for cooking, while the lamb's wool and swiner hide were crafting materials.

Old Man Jenkins surprisingly only had two uncommon items that could drop, being Mad Cow Jerky and Moonshine. The Mad Cow jerky appeared to be a health item, but could also increase an adventurers strength stat for a small amount of time, likely the reason behind it being uncommon. The Moonshine, on the other hand, seemed to quite the double-edged sword. It would increase a user's spell damage for 5 minutes, but decreased their intelligence by 1, and the description warned it could make an adventurer drunk after a single use. James was really looking forward to drunk adventurers running around in his dungeon. If there was an easier way to get experience, he hadn't thought of one.

With the common and uncommon items out of the way, James had decreased the amount dropped on all the set gear from up to 3, to just one a piece. There were 7 pieces of the set gear, and it gave adventurers bonus at 2 pieces, 4 pieces, and 6 pieces. James was used to that mechanic, and he could imagine adventurers would be attempting to trade pieces of gear around in order to complete their sets.

"What percentage do you think those pieces will have?" James couldn't see the percentages, which frustrated him to no end. He really needed his research to complete so he could research loot. It had taken quite a bit of willpower not to simply finish his trap research with one of his 5 dungeon tokens.

"Let me see." Rue waved her hand, and suddenly percentages appeared next to each of the items. She could do that?

"What-"

"Did you think I was going to do the math in my head?" She turned, hands on her hips, as the percentages shimmered. "As your pixie, I have access to skills you haven't unlocked yet. IF-" she stressed the word, "you ask nicely, maybe I'll show you a few others later on." She shot him a wink as she turned back to the screen. "So, as we already know, your coins have a 30percent chance to drop." Yup, James already knew that. He had already glanced over the entire list, but figured he should let her continue her explanations.

"Your common items each have a 12 percent chance to drop, for a total of 48 percent." Her hand moved to the uncommon items. "These have a 4percent chance to drop each, for a total of 8percent." Her hand waved and the numbers disappeared as she turned to face James fully. "And your unique items each has a 2 percent chance to drop, for a total of 14percent." 30 percent for coins, 48 percent for uncommon, 8 percent for uncommon items, and a 14 percent chance at a unique piece of gear. At first it seemed like they had a higher chance to get unique gear over the uncommon items, but James was certain most of their gear would drop as common or uncommon. Especially since even if RNG gave them all 5 items, one of those items would most likely be coins. That left six items, four with six times the chance of dropping as the unique items, and two with twice the chance. And, even if they got a unique item, trying to get a full sets worth, would prove quite the task.

"Thanks Rue." The pixie smiled kindly at him, as she looked back from him, to the table, and her unfinished game.

"So Glyax, what are you going to do now?" She glanced at the clock. "You have just under 9 hours remaining."

"Probably going to do some achievement hunting, and then finish decorating my dungeon." James intended to wait until the last hour to begin actually building things in his dungeon that weren't needed for achievements, because he wanted his resources to refill as much as possible before he emptied them. He had already mentally committed one dungeon token to refilling his resources when the time came. With the time he had remaining, he could still complete the 6 achievements he had tracked down, before players would begin entering the game.

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

"Sleep is for the weak." He responded smugly, though inside he knew he was going to regret that. Even though players were technically 'asleep' during immersion, many games incorporated sleep mechanics into them. Most games even encouraged players to sleep, giving them temporary bonuses', such as increased experience for 1 hour after a full 8 hours of rest. This was because if players slept while immersed, 8 hours of in game sleep correlated to 20 minutes of complete rest in the real world.

Apparently, scientists have found that such a sleep schedule, called polyphasic sleep, was all that was needed for a human to function at high levels. By encouraging these bits of complete rest while in immersion, they could insure players didn't miss out on too much immersion time, but still gave their mind moments of complete rest. It was rumored that the idea for such schedules, had been pulled from reports that great minds such as Da Vinci and Albert Einstein and Nicola Tesla had partaken in a form of polyphasic sleep called Uberman Sleep. Needless to say, many people had differing opinions, and there was even a running thread on reddit with whether or not sleeping while immersed was important. James usually chose to sleep 8 hours per 24 hours of immersion play, simply because he found he woke far more rested from immersion if he did.

James had already made the mental decision not to sleep at all during this immersion cycle. Ironically, it was for an achievement that was titled Sleep is for the Weak. The achievement required him to stay awake for 200 hours of in game time straight, meaning more than 8 of the 9 hours that immersion occurred. James was sure he was going to regret that, but it was worth a whopping 10000 experience, 1000 resources, and 5 dungeon tokens. He could suffer for those rewards, especially this early on.

"Suit yourself." Rue waved her hand dismissively at him, as she turned back to her game. "Just don't start complaining to me when you're tired."

"Trust me, I'm used to pulling all-nighters." When the last expansion for WoW Universe had come out, he had literally spent an entire week of immersion not sleeping while immersed, so that he could claim a good amount of instance first achievements. He shuddered as he remembered that week in real life. He had practically been a zombie at school, and had even gotten detention for falling asleep in class too many times. However, he was certain pulling one all-nighter wouldn't be nearly as draining.

"Probably not in the fun way." James did his best to drown at Rue's laughter at her own comment, as he pulled his Dungeon Creator tool back up. He was a gamer. When he committed to a task, he would see it through. Even with an annoying AI who kept reminding him of his social awkwardness.

James glanced at the clock. He had under 9 hours before adventurers arrived. He would do his best to prove he was a somebody. He would show Rue. As he started his task, he glanced at Rue one last time. A thought floated unbidden to his mind, and he couldn't shake it. Who do I need to convince? Her or myself?