Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 37

Achievement Unlocked- The Chest is a Lie- Place a mimic on a floor

Reward- 1500xp 500 resources 1 dungeon token

"Well, that's nifty." James had just built his first mimic, in the exact place he had told Dwight to look. The mimic looked exactly like a chest, with no distinguishable feature at all. Some games liked to have slight difference between regular chests and mimics, not DCO. James had to wonder if they attacked it, would it attack back? Or did the adventurers have to open it, before it activated? Regardless, James couldn't help but chuckle as he looked at it. Dwight deserved exactly what was coming for him.

"Now, what type of-" James pulled up the information on the mimic, seeing what loot was available to it. However, all that showed up on its loot table was ???, apparently, either his loot level wasn't high enough to interact with the mimic, or it had a randomized drop thanks to its status as a special loot instance on his floor. Either way, the added mystery just made him even more excited for it. He also had to grin at the mimic's level.

Every mob on his first floor was level 10, with Old Man Jenkins being level 15. The mimic was level 20, putting it at the same level as B.L.U., his miniboss on his second floor. That mean, it was highly unlikely a group would be able to take down the mimic, unless they had already spent some time on floor 2. James was even more curious now, what type of loot that mimic would drop.

He sighed, resigning himself to the fact he wouldn't know, and turned towards the clock the voice had summoned for him. There were still 2 hours before Rue was returned to him. For some reason, he felt her absence even more fully now, than when she was resting. He felt extremely lonely, and slightly vulnerable. James had gotten extremely comfortable and used to her presence, after all.

"No time to mope." James whispered to himself, as he hovered away from the barn, grinning at the glowing portal in the middle of it. The barn now had two traps for players, a mimic, and a portal to a brand new floor, that very few teams were likely able to travel to. The portal would take them to the 'entrance' of his second floor. That entrance was a single, dusty road, heading through the savanna, towards his crumbling city. All along it, James had built up old rusting cars. He was surprised to find he could assign a mining quality to these vehicles, so players would be able to harvest various materials for crafting from them. James was sure players would begin hiring adventurers to collect these materials.

"So, we've got a mimic." James began looking around his first floor, deciding it was time to begin setting up treasure chests throughout the map. If he was going to have mimics, it was only right to have regular chests as well. He found with regular treasure chests, he could choose his own type of loot to assign to the chests, ranging from every item his mobs and boss could drop on the floor, as well as generic loot that James was sure could be found on any level. This included basic items such as health and mana potions, and regular pieces of gear like weapons and armor. James decided for the most part, he would use his chests to drop these generic items for the players.

Every chest he also gave a 1% chance to have piece of Demonic Farmer gear. While the gear would be nearly useless on his second floor, save for the group boost to stats, he was certain a lot of players could still take advantage of the gear on his first floor. Beside, James could already predict what the high level gamers would do the moment they realized the set gear wasn't going to be helpful on the second floor. He felt sorry for all the low level players they would be 'helping' as they sold off the useless gear to the unsuspecting noobs.

Some of his chests he put in difficult locations, such as inside a Dicken Coop, or partially buried near the orchard. A few chests he put in fairly obvious locations, so that players would take notice of them, and begin searching. These easy chests would just drop some coins and a health potion or two. The harder to find chests would have the more valuable items James decided. He also chose some of them would be trapped, and even added a few more mimics across the floor. James really loved mimics, and he was certain he would net a good amount of experience thanks to those new mobs. He was curious what the other special loot instance mobs would be like.

After he finished playing hide and seek with treasure chests on his first floor, James headed back to his second floor, to do the same. Floor 1 chests looked like generic fantasy chests, floor 2 looked like military storage chests. James was going to do his best to keep his floor themes darn it. He was going to use his random mob type to his advantage when he could. Especially because now he could make each floor almost feel like exploring a new game. James was sure on later floors he might even change up his dungeon floor layout, to try and keep his adventurers on their toes.

The chests on his second floor James also trapped differently than his first floor. On the first floor, the chests he had trapped would summon wooden spikes underneath the adventurer opening the chest. For his second floor, the chests would release a toxic smoke. James felt it was only fitting. As he finished his last mimic location, within a crumbling building labeled "library", James stepped back, noting he had 1 hour remaining before Rue returned to him. He also had a few hours before Boss Mob rank 5 research finished. James debated resting, but he really wanted to be awake when Rue returned to him.

"What to do, what to do." James started muttering, as he flipped through his screens. He had drained most of resources setting up his treasure chests and mimics, but he also had earned another dungeon token from his mimic achievement. He glanced at his floors, knowing he wouldn't get enough resources to fully improve the floors to the level he wanted. As he flipped through his screens, he slowed as he noticed a tab he had been neglecting. Traps. He hadn't glanced at that screen since he first unlocked it, and he was interested what level 5 traps would give him.

The pitfall traps were his level 1 traps, costing 50 resources. Next, he had basic spike traps, poison traps, boulder traps, and, explosive traps? Each had a basic resource cost, but also an upgradable cost. James was curious if he could continue upgrading traps over time, making them more and more formidable. Looking at his first floor, an idea started formulating in his mind. Maybe he could save some resources while setting up some of these traps.

James dumped his dungeon token into his resources, immediately filling his resources back up to 2500. From there, he decided to summon a basic pitfall trap within his cornfield. The trap shimmered into life, and sunk into the ground, becoming practically invisible. The corn even remained atop of it. James hovered over the trap, noting currently it was just an 8 foot hole. He had an upgrade option to put spikes inside of it for an additional 50 resources.

"Or" James quickly unsummoned one of his mobs on his dungeon, and then focusing within the pitfall, resummoned it. To his joy, a sacrificial lamb popped into existence inside of the trap, letting out a startled baaaa as it looked around its surroundings. Adventurers had gotten good about killing those lambs before they got close enough to be in their explosion range. Now though, any adventurer unlucky enough to drop into that trap, was in for a baaaaaad day.

James gleefully began summoning pitfall traps across his first floor, changing his mob counts just to fuel his newfound trap enthusiasm. By the time he finished, he had 10 pitfall traps spread about the floor, each with a sacrificial lamb in it. The rest of his mobs for his first floor consisted of 60 dickens, 10 more sacrificial lambs, 10 swiners, 10 scapegoats, and 6 Mad Cows. His dickens were in flocks of 6, because adventurers had begun learning to take down a single dicken, to cancel the buff. By adding in one more, James figured adventurers were likely to not only fail to clear their buff quickly, but risked activating Flock Together before they could. He loved watching his dickens overwhelm adventurers.

With thirty minutes remaining before Rue returned, James took himself away from his first floor, deciding to set up some basic traps within his town on his second floor. He decided against pitfall traps, deciding instead to set up falling traps, deciding falling debris made sense as a trap within a desolate town. He also could imagine how the surprises would cost a few groups some members, especially if they were being hunted by velocity raptors. James couldn't help but start grinning as he went to work. Rue was going to be so proud of him. And, James pulled up his character sheet.

Glyax Tier 2 Rank 1 Dungeon

Mob Type: Random

103,861 xp

16,139 xp to next rank

196,139 xp to next Tier

Resources: 2000 of 2500

Currency: 0 copper 0 silver 5 gold 0 platinum

Dungeon Tokens: 2

He had a lot of experience to go till he hit Rank 2. And he really wanted to hit Rank 2. The more mobs he could summon on his second floor, the better.