Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (interesting books to read TXT) 📕

“That was your Dungeon Core using up one of your available Crystal Chips.  You’ll find that you’ll use more of them before you reach the cliff face, but I estimate that it won’t be more than 10 in total.”  Dwight hesitated for a moment before she went on.  “Don’t worry, this is a normal part of the process.”

He had to admit that he had been a little worried at first, but the explanation made some sense.  Clay had worked in a general store, after all, and exchanging one thing for another was an important part of the business.  In fact, it would’ve been strange if what he was doing hadn’t required something in exchange, because that would have seemed unnatural.  As if burrowing through solid rock is natural, but doing it for free would just be wrong.  He chuckled internally at the thought of what his new “normal” was swiftly becoming.

When he judged he had gone far enough, Clay started working on the room the dragonling had mentioned.  Instead of the precise measurements she had rattled off, all he did was expand out his digging until he made a fairly large space.  It was probably larger than it needed to be, but he wanted it to look as natural as possible; he left the walls looking unfinished with sharp edges here and there as if it were formed that way by nature, and the ceiling he made a bit uneven.  At one section it was only 15 feet or so tall, whereas the majority of the room was between 25 and 30.  It wasn’t perfect, but it felt right to him rather than a strange uniform box, which was what he pictured that Dwight was describing.

“Excellent job, Clay.  Now, all you need to do is make some more hallways, two more rooms – which don’t need to be nearly as large as this first one – and you’ll be done!”  For the first time, the baby dragonling had moved away from the floating red gem once he had finished his efforts in the room.  She had taken off from the floor where she had been sitting patiently while he worked, and now she glided effortlessly around the room he had constructed, looking it over with a critical eye…and he preened internally a bit when she approved.

Watching her glide around the room, her wings extended to their fullest of nearly 3 feet, Clay was suddenly confused.  He knew birds could glide over wind currents in the air, so he assumed dragons and dragonlings were the same – but there was no air movement inside of the enclosed cave system he had created.  So how was she gliding so effortlessly?

The answer was a simple one, which didn’t even need to be answered by Dwight.  She was a product of his Dungeon Core and didn’t really exist, so she could theoretically do whatever she wanted.  And breathing air was something that wasn’t necessary, either, because she didn’t have lungs with which to breathe.  Yet, something else occurred to him; I understand that there is no air in here, so you can fly and glide around however you want – but how do you see?  Better than that, how can I see this place, since there shouldn’t be any light?

“I can see this through your own senses, which don’t require actual visible light to ‘see’.  You’ll have to add some sources of illumination later, through a process which requires some more Crystal Chips to create, but that can wait until you open up to the outside.  It will likely be weeks or months before your entrance is discovered, so you have some time to accessorize, decorate, and properly defend your dungeon.”

Huh.  Ok, note to self: Add some torches.

“It doesn’t have to just be torches—but we can get into that later.”

Tabling that discussion until it was relevant, Clay moved on with his construction efforts.  He had noticed that 3 of his Crystal Chips had floated out of the red gem while he was finishing that first room, so in total he had used 4 of his 50 Chips – which was what his Transcribed Status backed up.  As he spent even more of his resources to create the next hallway leading further towards where Dwight had pointed earlier – and staggering its positioning so that there wasn’t a straight line from one room to the next – he finally decided to ask a little more about what exactly the red gem was, since he had some spare time while he was working.

I’m given to understand that the red gem floating in that cave is…me?  What exactly is a “Dungeon Core”, anyway?

The baby dragonling didn’t hesitate to explain.  “You are absolutely correct.  Your soul has been transferred to the ‘red gem’, which has a crystalline structure created by condensing ambient energy over the course of hundreds of years.  The cave that you began in used to be entirely solid stone, but the creation of your Core has eaten away at the fundamental nature of matter in such a way that it was transformed into what you see now.  As you increase in Core Stages, the consumption of these Crystal Chips – which are tangible manifestations of this condensed energy – are applied to your structure; by consuming these Chips, the process builds upon what is already there, increasing both the size of your Core and the number of your abilities.

“Those abilities,” she continued, “are important both to your own defense, and to providing an adequate challenge to Heroes delving through your dungeon.  Don’t forget that all your efforts, as fun as they might be, are to fulfill your Duty to protect the entire Human race.”

Her words seemed as if they were recited by rote, as she had mentioned his