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

She could still see him, especially as he started to move around, but when he stood still he was hard to discern with the stone and rock behind him.

“It’s called ‘Concealment’, but it only lasts 15 seconds,” he said as he abruptly popped back into focus.  “It has a 5-minute cooldown, which means I can probably only use it once per fight, but it could be a good way to sneak inside a room without being chased all over, like before.”

“That will definitely come in handy, Pas,” Arcen commented.  “Do you have any other statistic enhancements, such as Rosara’s Charm?”

Pascale looked blank for a moment before answering.  “Yes, it looks like I have something called ‘Reflexes’; even more than that, it appears as though my Speed has increased.  I must be even faster now!”  Before anyone could say anything, he ran around the room a little bit, and while he was noticeably faster, it wasn’t by a lot.  Still, it was even more of an advantage that could be useful for the future.

He also used the Skillbook he had in his possession, which was a strange process.  A book appeared in front of Pascale, floating about a foot away from his chest.  There wasn’t anything that Jeska could see on the pages, though, but that didn’t seem to matter; the pages of the book rapidly flew by, as if someone were speed-reading each page in a fraction of a second, and then a dark glow emerged from the book when it was finished.  The glow shot from the book and into Pascale’s head, where he rocked back in surprise at the sudden impact, and the book completely disappeared.

The Scout laughed off his shock.  “That was unexpected, but quite easy,” he said.  “And now I have a skill that allows me to do a whole lot more damage when I attack something from behind.  I’m not going to demonstrate that…unless someone wants to volunteer?” he asked innocently.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll pass,” Jeska said with a laugh.  It was awesome that he had gotten all of his powerful new skills and a weapon other than a wooden stick, but she had to admit that she was a little envious.  “So, shall we keep going and see what’s further inside—ha!” she started to ask, before cutting herself off with another laugh.  “I’m just kidding; I think that’s enough for this run.  Three of you are missing your Health Bands, if I remember correctly what that message said when I died before.”

There was no argument from anyone, so they left the dungeon not long after that, the wounds on Jeska and Rosara having been completely healed after another minute or so.  When they got outside, Jeska was surprised to see that the sun hadn’t moved all that much in the sky.  It sure feels like a lot longer when you’re dying.

“How long do you think that took?” she asked her brother.

He looked up in the sky as well, before thinking about it.  “Hmmm…maybe 20 minutes, all told.  Some of that was Pascale ‘investigating’ the second room with his run, as well as coming up with a plan, so maybe 15 minutes for the actual fighting, collection of items from the Drop Chests, and your healing.”

Jeska did some quick calculating in her head.  “So…we received 14 items for 15 minutes of work, whereas we would get 5 items for 5 minutes in the first room.  It doesn’t seem worth it at first, but then if you factor in the 5 minutes we have to wait outside for the dungeon to be ready for us again, that all changes.  Over an hour, we would get 30 items from only doing the first room over and over; in contrast, we would obtain 42 items from finishing off both rooms.”

That was quite a significant difference, and they hadn’t even seen the 3rd room yet; it was always possible that it would be a viable means of gaining even more items.

“But…are we going to die every time?” Kelty asked, worry painting her face.  “I know that we will be resurrected, but it isn’t what I would call a pleasant experience.  Neither is the pain that leads to that death, of course.”

Jeska shook her head.  “No, not if we can help it.  Now that Pascale has his Class, and we’ve seen what these monsters in the second room can do, I’m hoping we can minimize casualties and come through unscathed.”  It was a reasonable assumption, anyway.

Unfortunately, that didn’t match reality.  The next time they went in, they practically breezed through the first room, with Pascale demonstrating his new skills and the use of his knife – which cut through the Ferns and destroyed them much faster than beating them with a stick.

The second room went much better, as they revised their strategy a little, but they still took massive amounts of damage and Rosara, Jeska, and Pascale died.  When she and the others who had died woke up in the entrance hallway, they discovered one of the drawbacks of dying when they got more powerful.

“My Chest Armor is gone!” Pascale shouted in frustration when he saw the message after he was resurrected.  Jeska still didn’t have anything that she could lose, since she couldn’t equip anything but her Tier 0 clothing and Training Weapon, and Rosara – despite being Tier 1 – didn’t have anything but her base outfit that came with her Class; it seemed as though those things were always going to be with them, no matter how many times they died.  Pascale, on the other hand, had been equipped with something that ended up being lost when he died, and he was understandably upset.

“I’m sure we’ll get some more at some point,” Jeska reassured him, but he was still grumpy – especially when the next round of items proved not to have anything for his Class.  In fact, they got unlucky