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Core Controller Chapter 11
🕑 Added 2024-03-20 14:02:05 +0000 UTCChapter 11
The news that the dungeon’s evolution was responsible for the decrease in the spawn rate of water elementals, and not the actions of Tom’s party keeping the cores to themselves, took the wind out of the sails of the three locals who confronted Tom and Antoine. While Tom’s abilities as a Controller were responsible for the change in the dungeon’s layout and behavior, the existence of the Controller Class was not widely known among the population. Even if Tom had explained that he was responsible, which he came close to doing, it was unlikely that the Rogue, Alchemist, and Enchanter would have believed him.
Instead, the Rogue got her own party together to begin exploring the new depths of the dungeon, now that she was aware that they existed, and Tom returned with Antoine and his controlled monsters to where Zeta Core awaited him. The other adventurers had already cleared the first floor of the dungeon, so they didn’t even encounter any enemies along the way.
When they arrived at Zeta Core, Tom once again interacted with it for some time. He considered what he wanted to do with it, now that he was armed with the knowledge that some of the magical item industries relied heavily on this dungeon for materials. After some consideration, he decided to take a chance and use one of his riskier abilities on the Core.
Evolve was a very powerful ability. He had used it twice on humans, once to unlock Sevin’s Warrior class and once to unlock Rogue for Rowena.
He had used the ability more frequently on his monsters. Lo and Brutus were both significantly more powerful than they had been before he’d evolved them.
However, the ability was not restricted to usage on monsters and people. Evolve could also be used on Cores themselves, a fact which Tom recalled well from his early experimentation with his class in the unnamed dungeon north of his home village of Tilluth. Evolving that dungeon had unlocked several new monsters.
Tom was uncertain what effect Evolve would have on Zeta Core, but he breathed a sigh of relief once the skill kicked into effect and he got a vision of what the change would be. He saw crystals; a red crystal with flames dancing around it, a clear crystal which he sensed gusting air from, and a dark orange crystal with floating bits of earth.
As soon as he felt the evolution tick into place, he sensed a humming happiness from Zeta core. He understood it quite well; he’d previously sensed an incompleteness from the core. It had been that sense which had caused him to evolve the core in the first place, and he knew now that doing so was a good move. He had unlocked the four basic elementals for Zeta dungeon, and by extension the rest of his network!
Zeta dungeon had already possessed water elementals, and previously he hadn’t changed floor one because he’d known that the dungeon was popular because of those monsters. Now that he had a better appreciation for how important water elementals were to the economy, he decided to revisit that decision.
He explored his customize ability and found Biomesthat he hadn’t used yet. He activated it on floor one, and began customizing the twisting hallways into threelarge open areas. He divided the floorinto three wings, one which possessed a large lake, another a marsh, and the third a river. Collaborating with Zeta Core, he set all three of the wings to spawn water elementals.
He was rather excited by the newly available elementals, and he quickly changed the later floors. He triggered the forest and grassland biomes in floors two through five to begin spawning air and earth elementals. They had previously been spawning wolves as their monsters, and while wolf pelts had some value, Tom was certain that the elemental cores of the new monsters would be far more valuable.
On the six and eighth floors, which were Savanna and Desert biomes respectively, he was able to trigger fire elementals to spawn. While these monsters were more dangerous than the other forms of elementals, he was certain that their cores were likewise valuable. If the party was worried about taking damage from the dangerous elementals’ magic, they could easily bypass those floors, as the stairwells to take them deeper were close together.
The rainforest biome on floor nine was set to spawn water elementals again, while the taiga and tundra biomes of floors seven and ten were set to spawn earth and wind elementals.
Tom took a census quick, and while the core indicated that several wolves and direwolves still remained, those creatures would likely be taken care of by either Tom’s own party, or one of the other parties who were beginning to explore the lower floors.
While he had extensively changed the top ten floors in terms of what monsters were spawning, he only really changed the layout of floor one. The rest were mostly open spaces, large cavernous zones with a false sky reflecting the biome’s natural climate.
In the deepest floors, eleven through fifteen, Tom didn’t make any changes at all. They were set to spawn the more common monsters that many dungeons used, and while they weren’t particularly valuable, they were good for generating experience. Additionally, the floors were spawning valuable metals, such as iron, copper, zinc, tin, and, on floor fifteen, mythril silver.
While Tom’s other dungeons were largely valuable for their mining resources, Zeta dungeon would be most valuable for the wood that it produced, the elemental cores available in the top ten floors, and the food that it generated through Seeding floors one through ten. Floor one, with its aquatic biomes, was set to Seed fish. Floor two, grasslands, was generating a legume that was considered a food staple in Welsius. Floors three through five were generating trees which could be harvested for valuable types of wood. Floors six through ten were set to Seed wildlife, which Tom now knew would include food game including various poultry, as well as larger game like deer and elk.
Satisfied with his efforts, he returned to the surface to wait for his friends to emerge from the depths. While they were waiting, Tom engaged the Alchemist and Enchanter in conversation, as the two were drowning their sorrows at the dungeon’s sudden shift with a few drinks.
“So, I’m just curious, because I know you’re worried that the dungeon is going to be spawning fewer water elementals,” Tom began, not letting on that he suspected that would no longer be a problem, “but what would you do if the dungeon began spawning all four of the basic elements instead of just water?”
“Sing sweet hallelujah,” the enchanter said immediately. “Water elemental cores are valuable, but fire cores are worth ten times as much. Earth cores aren’t terribly valuable, a little less than water cores, but wind cores are worth double.”
“Less so in my case,” The alchemist admitted. “Actually powdered earth can be valuable for its use in an armorskin potion. In fact, powdered earth cores might be more valuable than the intact cores are to enchanters. But fire and wind cores are next to worthless. Oh, I take that back. Powdered fire cores can be used to make an Alchemist’s Fire potion, which is very valuable, but not something I’d deal with. They’re as dangerous to make as they are to have in your backpack, since they burst into flames when they’re exposed to air. Making that sort of concoction is a good way to get third degree burns!”
“It’s unfortunate that we’ve been forced to import the other elemental cores from the other nations,” the enchanter continued. “We would be able to provide more enchantments more cheaply to our clients if we had a local source, but unfortunately we only have one other dungeon in Welsius which has any sort of elementals, and that’s in the northern region. There’s a single dungeon which spawns ice elementals.”
“Ice elementals?” Tom asked. “Are they valuable?”
“They can be,” the enchanter said. “If you have an intact core, they’re worth about five times as much as a water core.”
“The powdered ice elemental cores are worth the same as powdered fire,” the alchemist supplied. “Which is to say, it depends on whether you can find an alchemist willing to make a Hoarfrost potion or not. If you can, then they’re worth the same as powdered fire elemental crystals.”
“I see. Thank you for the information,” Tom said, and he left them alone. He still hadn’t told them that their fortunes were likely to change for the better thanks to his recent efforts at changing Zeta dungeon. They would find that out eventually, but if he told them they might assume that he was responsible for the changes. Which he was, but he didn’t want the attention of people knowing he could modify dungeons.
The king already knew that much, and his life would never be the same because of that. If everyone knew what he could do, he might never get any peace.
Satisfied with his efforts, Tom spent the rest of the day reading. He had a number of books on Controller with him, but it had been a while since he’d simply relaxed, so instead he borrowed an adventure book from the innkeeper.
The book, targeted at children Tom’s age, was a story about a group of children who became stranded in the depths of the world dungeon. While they were under the protection of a mighty dragon, they were unable to return to the surface because one of the floors above the one they inhabited was filled with hostile monsters which they were not strong enough to overcome. The dragon could have ensured their escape, but she considered the children to be ‘part of her hoard,’ and was unwilling to let them leave.
He enjoyed the story immensely, and lost himself in the telling of the young heroes adventures. Unfortunately he started at book three, so he was forced to simply wonder with how the children became stranded so deep in such dangerous environs in the first place. He added the earlier books to the list of stories to keep an eye out for.
He ended up drifting off to sleep in a corner of the inn’s common room, and was not disturbed until the rest of his friends emerged from the depths of the dungeon for the day.
~~~~~~
Lord Lubald Worth was feeling much better lately. While he was still annoyed at the system’s cruel joke in awarding him the title “Champion of the Voiceless,” he had sensed a nurturing presence ever since that notification had popped up in his vision. His wounds had finished healing, although he remained unable to do more than grunt to make his presence known.
He was studying sign-language, as was a surprisingly large number of the villagers who wished to be able to communicate with him. While not everyone had forgiven him for his earlier drunken and lecherous ways, a significant portion of the village was willing to overlook his shortfalls in favor of the sacrifice he had performed for the village.
A dangerous monster had plagued Tilluth Village, and together with the leader of the militia, Harvold Tinnerman, Lubald had risked his life to slay the maneater.
Unfortunately, that was not the end of Tilluth’s troubles. More of the dangerous monsters, Flame Lynxes, had spawned. The children were reporting regular sightings of the monsters. While the Flame Lynx was known to prey on children, fortunately none of the ones currently in the valley were actively hunting humans. The children were required to carry a small bag filled with a mixture of noxious herbs which was known to deter them.
Lubald was, with some reluctance, consulting with the others on whether or not he should resume hunting them. He was presiding over a meeting in the village inn, south of the new-formed dungeon, and wishing that he were anywhere else.
“It’s only a matter of time before they claim one of the children,” Harvold was saying. “I believe that, since the new dungeon opened, the core will no longer be spawning monsters on the surface. All that remains is to eliminate the ones that have spawned so far before they breed. The last thing that we need is a repeat of the events of this spring.”
“That’s not a reason to hunt them!” one of the villagers exclaimed. “Have you forgotten that hunting them is the reason that one turned maneater in the first place?”
“We don’t know that to be the case,” Elder Lukan said. “Correlation does not mean causation. The fact that one monster turned maneater after Lord Worth had his first successful hunt is not proof that the situation will occur in the future.”
“I think that it’s more evidence that we should be proactively eliminating the monsters from our valley,” Harvold said. “Right now we’re fairly certain that there are three of them, but we’re uncertain of their sexes. If two of them form up into a mating pair again, then either we risk a reoccurrence of the maneater situation, or we have a permanent population of Flame Lynxes in Tilluth Valley.”
“You don’t know for certain that will happen,” another villager objected.
Lubald listened for twenty minutes as people argued either way, then he stomped the ground with his boots. Everyone turned and looked at him, and he carefully signed the words he had been practicing in his head.
I was sent her to hunt Flame Lynxes,he signed. If you intend to stop me, I suggest you get strong enough to restrain me. I am back to full strength. I am going to go hunting. I do not care how you vote, I am your Lord, not your errand boy.
Satisfied, Lubald walked out of the silent inn and returned to his home, which he had purchased from the Weaver family. He changed into his hunting gear, slung his bow, and Stealthed out of the village.
The monsters were known to appear to children, so when he heard the sound of laughter, he followed it to the source. He stalked nearby a group of children playing red rover and waited patiently for their group to break up. When they did, he would designate one child as his protectee, and he would follow them around for the day.
If the flame lynxes appeared, then Lubald would add their pelt to his growing collection.
If not, then, well, hunting required patience, and not every hunt was successful. He would simply select a new child to follow the next day, and the next, and the next, until there were no more flame lynxes in Tilluth Valley.
Then he would see about delving the dungeon that had formed recently, and seeing what valuables hid within its depths.
