The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (read novel full .txt) 📕

the benefits increased (or decreased, depending on what it was), the cost shot up outrageously until it seemed like they would never be obtained – like earning 100% Special Characteristic Points upon Core Improvement for 2500 SCPs.

When she was just a Dungeon Assistant, the differing amounts made sense to her because it ensured that the Cores had to work for what they wanted to obtain, instead of just having them given to them.  Being on the flipside, however, she wished that it wasn’t so skewed – and not in her favor.

Regardless, she had to sacrifice a bit more than she had expected, mainly because she had forgotten how much the beneficial Characteristic she settled upon cost.  That’s not precisely true, though; I remember exactly what I was taught, but everything seems a bit more expensive than I recollect.  Obviously, her memory couldn’t have been that bad, so her status as a former Fairy and Assistant may have had something to do with it.

The “Access all known Variants for available dungeon creatures” characteristic was kind of a joke in the Assistant community, or at least it was taught that way at DAPS.  For one, it was horrendously expensive at 1,000 SCPs (hers cost 1,100 which was likely due to the same reason some other things were messed up), and there were hundreds of other Characteristics that those Points could be used for that were far, far better.

Another reason was – although having access to every Variant of a Goblin or a Panther was great for their dungeon – unlocking those Variants was relatively easy by using Core Improvement Points (CIP), which was sort of like Experience to Dungeon Assistants.  To most Cores, it was a waste of valuable SCPs to acquire this Characteristic – because they rarely used every Variant, instead concentrating on two or three and then adding additional creature types using those same CIPs.

For Tacca, though, having access to every Variant of the creatures she had available was a big deal…at least she hoped so.  Theoretically, by being able to access every Variant of a family of creatures – in this case, Canines – she would, hopefully, be able to actually create them for use within her dungeon.  This was why she chose Canines instead of going with her original pick of a Gnoll Scout; while she could’ve chosen the Hybrid Bipedal family – and she was planning on possibly doing that in the future – and obtained access to quite a few different species, they were multiple reasons why her selection was better.  Dungeon Force cost and Control Limit requirements were some factors that she had to consider when first starting out…but there was also a special characteristic of Canines in particular that she was looking forward to taking advantage of.  Of course, she had to make sure everything was going to work out the way she wanted it to first.

Unfortunately, the entire thing with creature “families” and accessing all their Variants was still a theory that was interesting to consider while in school…but had never been proven to work.  The main reason for that was because it had never been tried before – it was too crazy to deliberately ask a Core to do so.

First, convincing a Core that had been around for a while to choose a family of creatures instead of a single species was a tough sell; they would have to use their hard-earned CIPs on a creature they technically couldn’t even create right away.  Second, persuading them to use 1,000 SCPs on a theory was gambling an equally hard-earned resource on an ability that might or might not work was almost impossible for an established Core.  The fact that Tacca was doing it right away was even crazier, because she had to take some serious hits to her development and the initial strength of her dungeon to afford the beneficial Characteristic.

All of her creatures were going to be reduced by 10 Levels with what she chose first, which meant that she’d have to create a really expensive Level 12 creature just to get one to Level 2.  The Levels of creatures determined how powerful they were, though it wasn’t proportionate; a Level 5 Goblin wasn’t five times more powerful than a Level 1, but it would be physically stronger, more agile, and have a tougher natural resistance.  She chose this negative Characteristic mainly because she wouldn’t necessarily need to have more-powerful creatures for a while…if everything worked out the way she wanted.  She could also remove this Characteristic in the future by “paying back” what she got put into it plus an additional 100 SCPs (so 550), and she was planning on doing this at her first opportunity – in the far future.

The second negative Characteristic she chose to afford the “All Variant” one was going to hurt immensely, but really it just meant that her development was going to progress slower – 95% slower, to be precise.  With a reduction of 95% to the future CIPs she would earn, her Core development would be very, very slow – but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It was going to take her a while to create everything she wanted to anyway, though once she was up and running it would impact her growth significantly.  Again, she could remove the Characteristic eventually by using 700 SCPs, but it was probably going to be a long time until that happened.

To a normal Dungeon Core and Assistant, her choices would’ve given them a panic attack, because it went contrary to everything done before and would probably be considered foolish to the extreme.  In fact, based on the kind of Cores she had been Assisting lately, she would’ve fallen right into the category of ones that were destined to have a short existence.  I just hope I haven’t made a mistake.

With only a little bit of hesitation, Tacca confirmed her current selections of Characteristics and felt