Dungeon Core Online 12 Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Time's ticking away Glyax." Rue was tapping her foot again, waiting to regain his attention. They had been about to start loot, but he froze after he summoned his boss. It was all just, so cliché.

Old Man Jenkins stood nearly 10ft in height, towering over all of the over mobs that milled about on the first floor. The boss mob was wearing what appeared to be overalls, a dirty and torn s.h.i.+rt, and a rather poor looking straw hat. In his mouth, a corn-cob pipe, that the boss seemed to contentedly be puffing on. In his right hand, a ma.s.sive pitchfork. To make him appear demonic, the developers had simply given him a reddish tinge to his skin, sharp teeth, glowing red eyes, and a set of horns that protruded out of his hat. Oh, and he had the demon like tail, how could James forget that.

"I know, but, really?" He glanced from Rue, back to the boss. Now he thought about it, his other mobs seemed to have quite literal changes to make them appear demonic. It was like the developers just pulled out their bag of cliché demonic traits, and applied them, in large quant.i.ties, to all of the mobs. James was suddenly feeling like a very cheap dungeon.

"These aren't bad, trust me." Rue shot him a level look, with a smirk on her face. James was suddenly terrified to see what his second floor became. What mobs could be worse than Demonic Farm?

"I'll take your word for it." He turned his full attention back to Rue, glancing for a moment at the clock. He had spent over an hour upgrading his boss mob, leaving him roughly 12 hours to finish his dungeon creation. If loot was all that was left, he had plenty of time. "So, what do we use for loot, a Loot Generator?" James was certain they developers would continue their basic naming scheme.

"Oh, aren't you the quick one." Rue laughed as she waved a hand, pulling up a screen. Sure enough, Loot Generator, showed across the top. He would have claimed the developers were unimaginative, if he didn't currently have a floor full of exploding sheep and mad cows.

The loot generator screen was set up similar to the other screens he had seen. With a list of tiers going down it, all but tier 1 being greyed out. Instinctively, James selected Tier 1, bringing up a new window. This window showed all of his tier 1 mobs, including his boss mob. There were also empty s.p.a.ces on the screen, with a question mark on each of them.

"What are those question marks for?" James nodded towards one, curious. Were there other mobs he could summon, that would have loot at tier one? He was a bit worried about that. As much as he hated his demonic farm animals, he would have hated it more if there were mobs that didn't fit the floors theme running around.

"Those s.p.a.ces are your special loot instances."

"Special loot instances?" James wasn't quite following.

"Mhmm. Every floor can have special loot instances that offer adventurers a chance at rarer or unique loot that otherwise wouldn't be dropped on the floor. When you unlock special loot instances, you will be able to apply them to your floor."

"So, give me an example of one." Was she talking about treasure chests? He had found a wide range of treasure chests on his Dungeon Creator screen after all.

"Well, I don't want to ruin the surprise-" Rue looked from him, to the screen, and then back to him. "But, if you really want to know-"

"I do." His comment made the pixie grin.

"Very well. Special loot instances can include special mobs that you unlock, that can randomly summon, outside of your control, on any of your floors. Some of these mobs, you will notice immediately, thanks to their tendency to make a lot of noise. Others, you won't notice appear unless you are paying attention, because they can take on the appearance of-"

"I get mimics?" James was no stranger to mimics, nasty creatures that usually took on the appearance of a treasure chest, luring unsuspecting adventures to not only a jump scare, but also usually death.

"Yes. You can eventually get mimics." Oh, James really wanted one of those.

"How?"

Rue held a finger up to her lips, staring at him for a moment, before shaking her head, grinning. "Not right now Glyax." She pointed back to the Loot Generator screen. "First, you need to finish the task at hand."

"Alright." James felt his excitement die down a little. He really wanted some mimics. He was certain watching adventurers get eaten by those mobs would prove quite amusing.

"So, when it comes to loot, you can control it in a few ways." Rue waved her hand at the d.i.c.ken, pulling up a screen. Underneath the name d.i.c.ken, multiple options appeared.

Copper Coin (X-X)

Demonic Feather (common) (X-X)

d.i.c.ken Meat – Raw (common) (X-X)

d.i.c.ken Egg – (uncommon) (X-X)

d.i.c.ken talon – (uncommon) (X-X)

"Are those the options for loot to drop?" James glanced over the items again. Most seemed like reasonable drops for a low mob like the d.i.c.ken. He was certain different professions in the game would be able to use different parts of the d.i.c.ken to craft and create things with. For instance, he was sure people would be able to use the feathers for basic arrows, while the meat and eggs were probably for cooking.

"These are the default loot options for the mob. As the dungeon core, you can control how many of each item has a chance to drop, and also turn on or off options for the drops. Then, when the mob is killed, a number of items will drop randomly as loot."

"So, if I wanted to, I could make a d.i.c.ken drop 50 feathers?" He grinned at the thought. While he was sure the game would work like most, where players had to loot the body after defeating it, some of the dungeon core novels he had read had more amusing methods. One such method, was to have the objects immediately appear after adventurers defeated the mob, and in his mind, he was imagining a d.i.c.ken exploding into 50 feathers. He may have to do that later on, just to get it out of his system.

Rue snickered at his comment, and James was curious what she was thinking. Obviously the AI would know how the loot would appear, so what was she imagining would happen if a d.i.c.ken dropped 50 feathers?

"So, am I able to adjust the loot for each mob individually, or is it limited to just the mob type?" He had 20 d.i.c.kens after all. If the mobs did explode and the loot magically appeared-

"Unfortunately, for now you can only a.s.sign loot by mob type." Whelp, there went that idea. "But, later on you will be able to not only a.s.sign loot to specific, individual mobs, you will also be able to begin creating your own type of loot." Oh, that sounded fun. So he might not be able to make a d.i.c.ken explode in feathers for now, he had something to look forward to in the future.

"Alright, does it have to do with my tiers? Does it unlock later on?" So far, everything she mentioned for later on the game, unlocked as he climbed his ranks and tiers.

"Nope, it's something you resear-" She covered her mouth, stopping herself from finis.h.i.+ng her sentence. Had she been about to say research? There was a research aspect to the game?

"I can research things?" That opened up a whole new world of possibility. In most strategy games there was usually a research option. Players could use these options to research new skills, traits, abilities, or even to improve the performance of various aspects of their gameplay. If there was a research option for DCO, James wanted to know, and he wanted to know now. Research usually took time, and he had just wasted 12 hours of precious research time building his dungeon. His first task, had he known there was research, would have been to start something researching, before going about the rest of his tasks.

"Well, yes-"

"-why didn't you-"

"and no." Rue motioned back towards the loot generator and sighed. "There is a specific order that you have to complete things in for now. Once you finish your loot a.s.signment, you will have completed all the basic tasks to building a dungeon. The, the final part of the tutorial, is your research unlocking. Once that is done, and you have started your first research project, the tutorial will be completed, and you will be able to do as you please.

James stared at his pixie. Did she just call this a tutorial? Was he really stuck in a tutorial right now? He had to admit, now that he thought of it, everything did seem tutorialish so far. However, the fact the developers had hidden a research option at the end of the tutorial was frustrating. Especially since he and Rue had been taking their time with dungeon creation. He could only imagine some players losing themselves to dungeon creation for hours. Those poor dungeon cores wouldn't have much extra time for research before adventurer's showed up.

"So, let's finish this loot generation, and get to the research option." James absentmindedly started pulling up each mobs screen, giving the items a cursory glance. He found when it came to numbers, he could a.s.sign a min and max number for each item to drop. James also noted that at the top of each screen, there was a min, locked in as a 1, and a max, that he a.s.sumed was the number of item types that could drop per mob killed. He adjusted that number to 3 for all the mobs quickly, and gave all the items in each mob the chance to drop 1 to 3 of an item. When it came to the coins, he gave his mobs the ability to drop a coin range equivalent to their mob cost. That meant his d.i.c.kens cold only drop 1 copper, while his mad cows could drop up to five.

The task took him maybe five minutes, a lot less time than he normally would have spent on his loot distribution. He had also only glanced at his boss's loot options, so made a mental note to revisit that mob. However, for now, time was ticking away, and he was sure that time would be valuable for something much more important in his mind at the moment, then a.s.signing loot.

"Loot's done Rue." He closed all the windows, turning towards the pixie. Her usual smile was gone, and her eyes were filled with fire. If he had to guess, she was less than amused with his antics. However, it was her fault for slipping up about the research, and he wasn't about to let that opportunity drop.

"Very well." Her voice was strained, and she waved her hand, pulling up a new screen. The screen James had been hoping for. The name at the top of it, confirmed it.

Dungeon Research