Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 39

"Bet ya-"

"Nope." James cut Rue off before she could state her bet. They were watching the countdown timer, and there was less than a minute for the adventurers to arrive.

"But, you didn't even let me finish."

"You were going to bet Z and the gang were the first guys to enter the dungeon this time around." James glared at his Pixie. He was on to her shenanigans. She wasn't going to get any more easy bets from him.

"You don't know that." The way she looked at him, confirmed his suspicion. That was exactly what she was going to bet.

"Oh yeah, then what do you want to place a bet on?" He was fine gambling resources, just not on something he had no chance of winning. She had gotten him for a good amount of resources when he was sleep deprived.

"Ummmm." Rue watched the timer, there were only a few seconds remaining.

"Well?"

"Never mind." She huffed and turned her back to him, acting like she was watching the entrance of the dungeon instead. From their vantage point, they could easily see the path leading from the forest to the dungeon entrance, as well as make out the town that had been considerably growing during the last night of immersion.

"Called it." James pumped a tentacle in the air in victory, as he watched a bright light wash over the landscape. The adventurers had returned.

James rubbed his tentacles together excitedly. He couldn't wait for another night of immersion with the adventurers. James had to wonder how far he could climb.

From what he could glean from the dungeon core forums, those dungeons that had reached tier 2 in a single night were the oddities. The part they all had in common was their love for hunting achievements, meaning the group was also some of the more inquisitive types of players.

Because of this, the forums had been filled with explanations of dungeon layouts, trap brainstorming, secret achievements, and secret features. The last two had drawn James's attention the most, and he had spent the last few hours of his time, before his 8 hours of rest, browsing those threads.

James thought he had been handling his dungeon nicely, but some of the dungeon cores on the forums had taken a whole different approach. They had rushed a lot of their research using dungeon tokens, leaving their floors a lot barer than James's. However, this had allowed them to unlock more tiers of research than James, and they had shared the combinations they had discovered.

Mimics, James knew, came from rank 5 research in mobs, loot, and traps. What James had learned though, was that rank 5 in events, mobs, and loot would summon random floor specific loot mobs. These mobs were specific to mob type, but when they summoned on a floor, would make a large amount of noise, and reward any adventurers lucky enough to kill them with good rewards and experience. James had already started researching events, before he read this fact. But now that he knew what waited for him at rank 5, he wished he had some more dungeon tokens. His event research had hit rank 1 while he was asleep, and it now had just under 23 hours before it would hit rank 2.

He had also learned that rank 5 in boss mob, event, and instance would lead to the creation of random 'world' boss generation. These bosses would spawn randomly, at a higher level than even the boss mob on the floor, and generally took adventurers teaming up and working together to bring them down. James was no stranger to such events, and after reading this fact, had dumped his second research option into instance research. Rank 1 research for that had been started before he went to bed, meaning he had about an hour remaining on it.

Someone else had mentioned that rank 5 in loot and mobs gave you access to a secret loot option, which they had stumbled across. Luckily, they detailed how to find the secret option, and James had quickly not only found the option, but activated it. The option gave mobs the ability to drop smaller, juvenile versions of themselves as the occasional loot, though frustratingly, it didn't seem like dungeon cores could manipulate the drop percentage just yet.

The dungeon that had discovered this feature went on to explain players who got such drops were able to have them follow them around, and even train them up. It seemed the developers had put in essentially a form of Pokémon into the game for players to enjoy, likely given the fact that Pokémon was still going strong, even though it was created in the 1990s. Heck, Pokémon Alpha and Omega launched last year, and James still played it on his AR glasses when he was in class. James was already looking forward to players facing off against each other with baby farm animals. He was also certain higher level groups were about to make a lot of money selling steampunk dinosaur pets to other players.

"Here they come." Rue pulled James from his thoughts, he had been in the middle of envisioning a dicken chick taking on tiny mad calf. For some reason the thought made him really chuckle.

"Hooray. Food." James grinned to himself as he watched a mass of adventurers make their way towards dungeon entrance. At the front of the pack, James was able to make out his favorite group, The Knights Who Go Ni. He would have lost that bet.

"Oh, I bet you the Knights go through the portal first." Rue was rubbing her hands together, eying the groups of players. James pulled up his screen, making sure he had his alert set for his mimic. He planned to watch the Knights on their quest, but wanted to make sure he didn't miss Dwight's group.

"What's the amount this time?" James had a little over 100 resources remaining following all his trapping. He was fine betting some of it away, since his next task was to build a few more resource storage units. He wanted to see what those 3000 cost energy pylons could do next.

"50 resources?" Rue was watching as Z's group stepped into the dungeon entrance, initiating the first instance window. The stream of adventurers steadily began entering behind them.

"Sounds good to me." Five hours of resources lost wouldn't hurt him too bad if he lost the bet. And, James had a feeling he wasn't about to lose this bet. Z's group were all veteran gamers. They knew death would cost them their experience, and the group was close to level 13. They had failed to level up fighting Old Man Jenkins the last time, and James knew it would probably take them one more boss fight with him to hit level 13, meaning they were likely to stick around and avoid risking death by going through a strange portal. Other groups though, less hardcore players, would be likely to hop right on through that portal. James could hardly wait.

"Alright. So, let's watch them, and see how quickly they get me my resources." Rue summoned her chair and bowl of popcorn and got comfortable. Grinning at his pixie's antics, James enlarged the instance with Z's group in it. The players all seemed in fine form, and were already in the midst of cracking jokes. They walked into his first level without a care in the world, confident in their abilities, and why wouldn't they be? Before they logged out, they had brought Old Man Jenkins down again. They had nothing to fear. Or so they thought. The danger of being the first ones to enter James's dungeon firs, following his last 24 hours of improvements was that they were in for a world of surprises.

The first surprise was a testament to the fact that James was a gamer and troll himself. He had put a pitfall trap a few feet from the entrance to the first floor, meaning, any group that casually walked through on their way to the barn, would fall into it. As such, after all of 20 seconds of being in the dungeon, Oak was in a pit, cussing up a storm, while his team struggled to pull him out, fighting their fits of laughter.

Around the trap, the rest of the adventurers began slowly making their way past the Knights Who Go Ni, eying the trap, and Oak, who was covered in lamb's blood, with trepidation. A sacrificial lamb was strong enough, thanks to James's upgrades, to kill practically any adventurer currently on the floor if they were caught in the explosions, and all the adventurers knew that. That meant these new traps would be a death sentence for anyone who fell in one. The only reason Oak had survived was because he and his group had a full set of Demonic Farm gear, giving them the 50% decrease in damage from Tier 1 Demonic Farm animals. Z's group was the only group James knew of that had the full set.

"Oh, you are so evil." Rue grinned at him in between bites of popcorn, and James found himself grinning in return. He had his character sheet up, and was already watching his experience slowly climb as more instances were created, and more and more players stepped into his first pitfall trap. He really enjoyed being a dungeon core.