FINAL CORE - Chapter 9 (Patreon)

“— Dungeons? I fucking hate ‘em,” says the stranger. “Giant god-damned damned cesspits full of monsters and shit,” they snarl, adjusting a wooden mask on their face. “Who needs ‘em?”

“Huh?” asks the priestess who is walking next to them, somewhat taken aback. “We need them,” she replies. “The dungeon is where we get most of our materials, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” sighs the stranger. “Get off my ass. The only things that dungeons are good for are for their chests,” the remark, waving her off. “So, they’re a lot like yo -”

The priestess interrupts them. “— If you finish that sentence, I’ll boot you into a slime.”

“Please. If you ever saw a slime, you wouldn’t be able to tell, because you’d think it’s a mirror.”

The priestess sighs, rolling her eyes. “You’re such a horrible, little gremlin.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep walking. We’re going to be late. These tickets were expensive.”

The priestess plays with her sleeve. “…Do you think the others are fine at home?”

“What? They’re adults. Of course they’re fine. Sheesh,” mutters the stranger, as the two of them walk away.

~ Noted encounter of an odd couple, documented by a self-proclaimed ‘people watcher’, sitting by the Ruby Stone teahouse, by the far-eastern western bay.

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Isaiah has a very difficult time deciding.

The shrine sounds enticing. Free offerings are, of course, very interesting for the development of the tower. Plus it will help solidify their image as a holy place, while also placating the more aggressive voices of the human populations. They have yet to reach them, but they inevitably will.

On the other hand, it might end up becoming an attraction, which will draw in more people than before, just by itself.

Tunneling seems counter-intuitive. Isaiah wants to go up to the sky, not burrow away from it. But maybe the stones and the metals beneath the ground will be more useful than the dirty iron, which they can currently find across the river in the quarry?

Plus the uthra could use the tunneling ability to enhance existing locations of the tower, like adding some catacombs and tombs to the graveyard or maybe even redirecting the river through some underground channels. Or even just better equipment for the monsters.

It thinks and then it decides on the tunnels.

[Tunneling] : Allows your workers to efficiently dig deep tunnels to collect basic resources, such as higher quality stones and metals in the process.

It will take the shrine next time. Perhaps this is the smart move anyway, as with the newer, potentially more potent metals, the impending shrine will be of higher quality anyway.

Isaiah nods, pleased. This is a good idea.

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“I’ve started work beneath the tower,” says the white-uthra. “I’ll be leaving the quarry as is and focusing my efforts here for now.”

Isaiah nods. “Find strong metal. Find good stones.”

“Of course,” replies the uthra, before flying away to return to work.

Isaiah looks out over the forest. The area around the tower has been cleared out nicely. The damage from the goblins has been repaired and their nine bodies are buried in the graveyard, bringing their total number of will o’ the wisps up to three.

They glowing orbs roam the forest, searching for any intruders.

The goblins, despite being listed as a challenge by the system, really weren’t. The monsters had made very quick work of them.

Isaiah isn’t sure if the goblins were just that weak, or if maybe the tower isn’t unusually strong in its defenses? It’s a little confusing and hard to say, without further information. Maybe once some real humans try to attack the place, it will be able to say for sure.

— Though it doesn’t really want that either. Killing humans is a thought that it doesn’t like. After all, it itself was a human once before. But, if they are invading its home, it is only fair.

Perhaps it is best to hope that it will just not come to that? Maybe with some things like the shrine and the hot-springs and their holy image, the humans will simply hold themselves at bay out of a mutual reverence?

That would be ideal.

Isaiah flies off, heading into the dungeon to check out the progress of the forge on floor three.

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[Floor three]

The shining forge

A large, extremely clean and well stocked forge. Glowing melted metals and flowing holy-water fill the space.

Monsters: {0} - Capacity: {8}

Room Effects:

• Allows manipulation of raw ores into ingots, which can then be turned into treasure, equipment, traps and other building materials.
• Reduces all ICE damage by 25% on this floor.
• Raises all FIRE damage by 25% on this floor.

“This is good,” says Isaiah, pleased. It looks over towards the thing on the side of the room, that the uthra has already started working on. A large, wooden chest, bound with iron fastenings.

— A treasure chest.

Seeing the entity looking, the gray-uthra flies over to the chest. “Our first chest,” it says proudly, knocking on the construction. “Do you want to have them randomly around the tower, or at specific spots?”

Isaiah thinks for a second. “Randomly.”

“You got it,” affirms the uthra. “I’ll restock them with whatever seems to fit to the floor, in that case,” it says.

“Holy.”

“Holy items?” it asks. “Sure.” The uthra shrugs. “How about we fill them up with stuff like equipment, but also with some holy items to fit the flavor?” it suggests. “Once we get an alchemist’s lab set up, we can start making potions too.”

Isaiah nods. “Do it.”

“You got it,” replies the uthra and it carries the chest, several times its own size, downstairs to floor two, which Isaiah still hasn’t examined.

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[Treasure Chest]{Floor 2}

This is a treasure chest. It can be opened by anyone. Treasure chests can be trapped, once traps are available.

Contents:

33% Equipment

Dagger

Boots

Talisman

33% Materials

Iron ore

Iron ingot

Wooden flask of Holy water

33% Obols

1% Rare Item

Protecting Charm

Dungeon-Territory: +0.15% for each treasure-chest.

Dungeon-Territory: 1.0015km

“This is the current loadout,” says the uthra. “Whenever somebody opens the chest for the first time, these are the chances they’ll get something,” it explains. “Like I said, I’ll update the contents once we get more stuff.”

Isaiah nods, looking around the room. The center of the room is a large, stonework bridge. A large part of the floor is now missing on either side of it, allowing one to look down into the first floor below. Massive, stone-hewn faces stick out of the cylindrical walls, and stare towards the bridge. Water leaks out of their eyes and rushes down over the edge, splashing into the wading pool, down on the first floor.

Isaiah watches as the slime wobbles around floor one, living its best slimy life.

[Floor two]

The weeping bridge

A long, wide, white-stone bridge. The walls on either side of it are adorned with mournful angelic statues, which act as fountains. Holy water rushes down to the floor below, splashing and creating a fine mist in the air.

Water also splashes down over the bridge, making it rather treacherous to cross, despite its generous width.

Monsters: {6} [Holy-Slimes]

Room Effects: Holy Mist

• All DARK and UNDEAD type entities take passive HOLY DMG at a rate of {3}* per minute.

This effect also applies to the floors below.

*Mist damage is equivalent to your Dungeon-Level

Isaiah looks around. It had told the crystal-uthra to do whatever it wanted with the space and the entity once again seems to have really pulled it off. This looks great!

Plus the effect seems like a very strong filtering mechanism. The holy mist, which does passive damage to the more unsavory entities of the world, affects not only this floor, but also the first floor below too, as it drifts downward.

Water runs over the bridge and several slimes swim around, hiding beneath the ankle high surface of it.

The gray-uthra places the chest at the end of the bridge, in a little nook.

“Hey, asks Isaiah, pointing at the slimes. “Can they drop down? Like the water does?”

“Huh? The slimes? Uh…” The uthra scratches its head. “Monsters usually stay on their floor, but I guess it’s not impossible?”

It flies down and picks up one of the slimes, who wobbles in indignant protest. Flying over the edge of the bridge, it drops the monster down to floor one.

Isaiah watches as it splashes, squirming around angrily, before meeting up with the other slime down below, who seems happy about having a friend.

“Looks like it,” says the uthra. “But like I said, they’ll prefer to stay on their floors, normally.”

Isaiah nods, looking down at floor one, which is one monster stronger than it was before now.

______________________________________

“So I was thinking,” says the crystal-uthra, as Isaiah inspects the grounds. “We’re currently setting a lot on the holy image and holy-water and all of that, right?” it asks. Isaiah nods. “Why don’t we really go deep then?” it suggests. “We’ll add holy-water features like the second floor to the whole tower, all the way up!” It frames Isaiah with its fingers. “Then we’ll give it a super edgy name like the ‘mourning tower’ or something like that. It’ll really sell the marketing!”

Isaiah thinks for a moment. “Where does the water come from?” it asks, looking up. Sure, the water comes from the river. But how exactly do the uthra get so much of it up the tower, just so it can flow back down again? It seems very impractical. The theatrical imagery certainly is noticeable and definitely not unpleasant though.

“Huh? Oh, dungeon-magic.”

Isaiah blinks. “Dungeon-magic?”

“Dungeon-magic,” repeats the crystal-uthra. “All dungeon-cores emit dungeon-magic from themselves,” it explains, pressing a finger against Isaiah’s chest. “It lets us do all sorts of fun stuff that doesn’t necessarily make sense.”

“Aaah,” says Isaiah, understanding.

“There are rules to this stuff, but there are also times when there aren’t rules. Dungeon design is one of the gray-areas where, as long as you have the prerequisites, we can kind of do whatever.”

Isaiah follows the uthra around as it works. “Who makes the rules?”

“The gods,” replies the uthra, picking up some stones from the stockpile.

Isaiah’s eyes open wide. “The gods?!” it asks, excitedly. “Can you talk to them?!”

“Huh? Me?” The uthra shakes its head. “No. They don’t really talk to people like us,” it explains. “Even if we shouted for a year and a half, I doubt they’d even hear a peep.” It points up to the sky with its free hand. “They’re too high up there and we’re too small.”

Isaiah frowns, nodding.

Then construction of the tower must continue. There’s nothing else to do.

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The dark-elf is here again.

Isaiah watches up from its roost on the top of the very-big-tree, which is on top of the not-so-very-big-yet-tower, as the woman stumbles around as before, laughing and having the time of her life.

She falls down to the ground again, staring up at the sky.

Suddenly, her expression becomes very grim and stiff.

- Then, after a strange moment of laying there in the grass in silence, she lifts a hand and starts howling in laughter, clutching her stomach with the other one.

Isaiah tilts its head. It simply does not understand what it is that she finds so funny, let alone why she’s back here again.

Oh well. She’s not really bothering anyone.

______________________________________

Isaiah’s eye twitches, as it stares through the vision of the angelic-statue on floor-two of the dungeon.

It really doesn’t understand how, but the dark-elf had somehow gotten into the dungeon and went through floor one all by herself. She then made it to the new bridge on floor two.

But, instead of proceeding to cross it, she simply… stumbled over the edge of the bridge in a fit of spontaneous laughter, landing face-first into the full basin of a fountain, where she now lays and drowns in a pool of holy-water and her own drool.

“RED!” it calls in exasperation, listening to the wings of a creature buzzing its way.