The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (the false prince TXT) 📕

Getting rid of her negative characteristics had been like snapping the chains weighing down her development, making her feel lighter as a result.  Being “freer” felt like additional possibilities suddenly opened up for her; it was as if she had previously been hindered by such excessive Dungeon Force costs in her creatures and traps, and with a decrease in that cost, she could do so much more.

“Are you alright, Tacca?  You seemed a bit strange there for a moment?”

Yes, I’m fine – that was just unexpected.  It was true, she did feel quite good.  Almost like she was on the right track.

With the remaining 700 of her SCPs, Tacca used them on another Characteristic that cost quite a bit: Decreased Control Limit for all creatures: 60%.  This was the second of the two limitations that had been concerning her with her future expansion plans.  With the new Characteristic, she now felt even more free to do what she wanted.  It wasn’t a complete elimination of costs and limitations, but she was absolutely convinced her new acquisitions were going to be the best of any of her purchases.

Just like that, all but 50 of her CIPs were used up, purchasing increases in Dungeon Force, DF regeneration, Control Limit, and converting into new Special Characteristics.  Using 28,300 Points that quickly was a rush, and she felt better about her future – and the future of her dungeon.  When the heady feeling of gaining so much in such a small space of time finally faded, Tacca got to work.

Within seconds of starting to fill her new section up with creatures, she noticed the difference in costs.  For instance, her Werewolf Warrior in her Boss Room, which previously cost 900 DF and had a Control Limit requirement of 95 (which was a little less than a tenth of her total Control Limit), now only cost 540 DF and had a requirement of 38 CL.  Her entire first section now required a measly 76 of her Control Limit to operate creature-wise, and her second section – once she finished filling it – only required 413.  She now had a little over 700 CL to spend, which would go a long way towards a new section once she decided to work on it.

What her new acquisitions had the most impact upon, as far as she was concerned, were her traps.  For her Trap Specializations, her Enchanting and Life traps, they cost 40% less than the previous discounted cost; unfortunately, the 60% reduction didn’t stack with the 40% to make them 100% less – otherwise known as free.  Still, when each reduction was taken one after another, it amounted to a total of 76%!  Better yet, the automatic replacement of them was 75% off of that cost, which equated to a measly 6% of its original cost before reductions.

The only thing that the new Characteristics didn’t affect were the Rewards she placed inside of each creature, but with the reduction of their Dungeon Force costs, it didn’t matter all that much.  Most of the time, the additional DF spent on Rewards was relatively negligible, other than for some of the Enchantment Scrolls – and most of those were reserved for hard-to-acquire treasure chests or as Rewards for defeating her Werewolf Boss.

Overall, she was extremely happy with how things had turned out, and she was glad she had listened to Shale about how to use her Core Improvement Points.  With the second section completely done, with traps placed, creatures ready, Rewards placed (as well as a few hidden treasure chests full of goodies), and Rotating Stone Bridges set up correctly, Tacca opened up the rest of the tunnel leading to the surface.  Once she was open for business again, she spent some time etching some stylized skulls outside of each entrance – 1 for the original section, and 2 for the new section.

It was actually Shale’s idea on how to indicate which one was which.  At first, she wanted to put a literal inscription detailing that the easier dungeon was for Raider Levels 1 – 5 and the newer dungeon was for Raider Levels 6 – 20, but that just seemed like too blatant of a communication.

“I know you already used this method to talk to those you Bonded with,” he had said disapprovingly, “but for the rest of the world, I would recommend not advertising exactly how ‘intelligent’ you are.”  He gave it some consideration, before offering a solution.  “Why don’t you use some sort of picture like the exits to indicate the difficulty.  Like…maybe a skull?  The more skulls, the more chance of death, perhaps?”

So that was how it came about.  After that, there really wasn’t much that Tacca could do, especially when there weren’t any Raiders coming to visit her.  As she idly spent some time and her constantly regenerating Dungeon Force carving out even more of the massive mountain where she made her home – in anticipation of designing a new section – Shale spent more and more time working with Malachite and the Head Instructor from DAPS.  Mostly, he used his free time to scout out what was happening around the continent, which was growing more worrisome as time went on.

By the time her two Bonded Hill Dwarves arrived, Tacca had learned a lot from Shale regarding the state of affairs – and about the blue-skinned, 6-armed invaders and their systematic destruction of Dungeon Cores up north.  Which was why she had sent them away with her messages, because as much as she wanted them to delve through her dungeon again, bringing other Raiders, it would be extremely selfish of her if she didn’t do whatever was in her power to help everyone.

As she was essentially the only real point of contact the Fairies and Dungeon Cores had with the mortal races, now that the Conclave of Sages had been wiped out (that took a little bit of explanation from