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

Heroes gaining more items for their use, but they were also dying, giving Clay more Crystal Chips to work with.  If he had his choice, he would just make a few rooms full of extremely easy monsters – to give them the items they needed to get stronger – but that wouldn’t benefit anyone in the long-run.  The Heroes were learning to work together as a team, figuring out strategies that worked or didn’t work, and were becoming used to dying (which sounded very strange to his mind); if he made it easier, they wouldn’t gain those valuable experiences he knew they needed – and Clay wouldn’t get any Chips from them to develop himself.

Watching the drop rates of the different items that appeared, he saw that they were fairly consistent with the probability charts that Dwight had supplied to him.  There were a few outliers, such as more than a few extra weapons and armor compared to the other types of items that weren’t classified as Trash; with such a small sample size, however, those types of things could happen.  Once he saw more, he was sure the distribution would be more consistent with the figures he had seen.

“Clay?” Dwight asked, as he was listening to Jeska’s group talk about the changes in his dungeon to the next group.

Hmm…yes?

“You’re doing exactly what you should be doing.  I know this will be hard, but what you have created here is working very well – better than I was expecting, I’ll be honest,” she admitted.  “Especially based on your history as a Hero – or lack thereof.”

Thanks…but I still don’t like it.

“Just wait until they all acquire their Classes.  That’s when things will start to change.  It’s only right now that there is so much need for Resurrections; what you’ve seen here today is certainly not typical.”

Oh, yeah?  What is typical, then?

The baby dragonling settled down on the floor of his BOO, sighing heavily and expelling a little belch of flame in the process.  “It varies, of course, based on the current Core Stage of a Dungeon Core, but the range at your current Stage is usually between 10 and 30 a day.  You’ve already surpassed that within the first 4 hours. Like I said, this is not typical.”

I’m guessing that the difference is because these Heroes didn’t have a Guild to give them a head start, am I right?

“Precisely.  Once they get rolling, however, this period of time will have been very beneficial to them. Knowing themselves to be overwhelmed and outmatched by a monster or group of monsters will help when they go up against World Threats.  You can see that by their tenacity and determination to get better and deduce a way to beat your second room without dying.  One day, that will come, and it will be easy for them – and then they will move on to your next room, and the room after that, and so on and so forth.”

That sounded about right to Clay, but he realized that he had neglected to ask one important question.  Dwight?  How long does this process usually take?  A few months?

She was still for a moment, before a genuine laugh erupted from her lizard-like throat.  “What?  No, not a few months.”

That was a relief.  Oh, good; I was worried that I’d have to watch them for—

“Years, Clay.  Or more accurately, decades.  Most Heroes who are Tier 8 and above have been Heroes for upwards of 100 years, if not more.  There are exceptions, of course, but I highly doubt that any of these people will be ready to take on a World Threat – even in conjunction with each other – for at least a decade, and that’s being generous.”

…Why?

“Why, what?  You’ve seen the probabilities of the Drops, or at least the probabilities from your weaker monsters.  It gets a little better as they kill stronger monsters, but there is still a lot that needs to be collected by them in order to advance in their Tiers. Not only that, but they need to collect all of the equipment and Skills for their current Tier, in order to be effective.  Then they need to practice with those Skills and weapons until it becomes second-nature, so that when they finally tackle a World Threat, they don’t freeze up against impossible odds.”

Decades….  He thought he might be able to handle watching all of this death for a couple of months, even if it were hard, but years or decades?  It was an extremely daunting task.

“Then even if they are successful in eliminating a World Threat, there will inevitably be casualties, which means that more Heroes will be selected.  And where will they need to go to learn how to be a Hero? Your dungeon.  Plus, after a while, the Heroes won’t want to stop improving; they will continue to visit your dungeon to get even stronger—”

Ok, Dwight, you’re not helping.  If Clay could have had a panic attack, he would have been hyperventilating at that point.  What the innocent-looking baby dragonling was proposing was that Clay would be stuck there as a Dungeon Core indefinitely, watching people die over and over and over for as long as he survived.  But, if he refused to be what he was, he was dooming thousands or perhaps millions of people around the world, starting with the island he found himself on.

I never wanted any of this.

“I know, Clay, but you’re stuck with it.  You’ve done an excellent job already, and these people are counting on you.  Not just these new Heroes, but everyone else who is relying on them to save them when trouble comes knocking on their door.”

I’m well aware of that; but the problem is, I don’t think we have a decade to prepare these Heroes for the inevitable World Threat coming this way.

“What