Dungeon World 5: A Dungeon Core Experience Read online

  Dungeon World 5

  A Dungeon Core Experience

  Dungeon World Series

  Written By: Jonathan Brooks

  Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Edited By: Ellen Klowden (Dryad)

  Copyright ©2020 Jonathan Brooks

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, corporations, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design Copyright ©2020 Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Dedication

  To my daughter, who has just recently started playing video games with a passion that makes me a proud gamer dad.

  In addition, I want to thank all of my beta-readers and Patrons! Your help is greatly appreciated, and you’ve made this book even better than I could’ve made it on my own!

  Aaron Wiley

  Alex Canavan

  Alexandre Leroy

  Brian O’Neil

  Brian Oles

  Briar Stone

  Emma Baker

  Gereon Hinz

  Grant Harrell

  Jim Brenneck

  Rei S

  Rickie Brown

  Ryan Adams

  Sean Hall

  Steven Gene Mills

  Steven Genskay

  Tania Bay

  Tom Davidson

  Zachary Stading

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Quick Recap

  Part I – Homecoming

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part II – Invasion

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part III – Restructuring

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part IV – Advancement

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part V – Devastation

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part VI – Integration

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Books by Jonathan Brooks

  Quick Recap

  Fredwynklemossering was born of the very unlikely – and thought impossible – pairing between opposing-element Dungeon Cores. Despite hiding out in the middle of nowhere, far north of the Craytion Kingdom, Fred’s parents were found and killed as “traitors” to their respective alliances by the Supreme Council, a ruling body made up of the most powerful dungeons on the planet.

  After journeying south on his own and finding a human settlement, he tried to Create clothing using his Mana-formed Object Creation skill, so that he could blend in a little better; in the process, he accidentally created a sentient Dire Wolf that held the only two remnants of his parents’ cores. As a result of the creation process, Fred was knocked unconscious; he was later saved from freezing to death in the frozen northern wilderness when he was found by a human named Regnark from the nearby settlement.

  Regnark taught Fred a lot about the human world, and about how humans interact with each other, in their short stint together; and the time he was there in Northend also allowed the blossoming Dungeon Core powers within him time to improve. However, after Fred pushed his new human friend for information about the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate, Fred was kicked out of Regnark’s house and sent south. He met Deecy – the Dire Wolf he had inadvertently created – along the way to Gatecross, the nearest human town.

  In Gatecross, he acquired the ability to improve himself and gain a Class, just as any other Dungeon Adventurer member of the Syndicate would be able to. Fred soon created the Core Power Guild – along with a woman named Eisa, who seemed to be a friend of sorts – to delve through multiple dungeons every day, where he learned new spells and abilities along the way. The only thing the Guild members wanted in return was cold, hard currency – which he easily supplied by using his special Dungeon Core powers.

  Eventually, however, he needed some answers. Along with Eisa and three other members of the Guild, Fred was able to fight through an F-3rd-Rated Nature dungeon to confront the Dungeon Core at the end. Unfortunately, during the ensuing conversation, he inadvertently destroyed the small, green, floating, spherical gem-like core and absorbed its power into his body. Not only did he gain access to Nature Mana, but the absorption also unlocked his ability to create a dungeon.

  Faced with the need to protect everyone from the nearby Cores’ retribution for the destruction of the Nature Core – Dungeon Cores tended to take something like that very personally – Fred went back to Gatecross, with the intent to build a dungeon underneath the town for defensive purposes. Through trial and error, Fred was able to figure out how to establish a territory around the town, as well as create a simple dungeon underneath the ground.

  When the main attack, inevitably, did come, Gatecross was assaulted from both the north and south gates, though Fred’s traps managed to whittle down quite a few invaders before they were able to reach the dungeon proper. While his Human defenders did their best to fend off waves of giant insects, beasts, Treants, and Dryads, Fred fought his own battle against a massive Emerald Dragon – with an equally massive Beetle that he was able to make inside Gatecross. Fred was forced to use every bit of Fire Mana he could get his hands on to ignite a cloud of poisonous breath, which the Dragon used to kill his Beetle. Igniting the cloud of poisonous breath caused the cloud to explode in a gigantic fireball, destroying everything above the ground – and “killing” himself in the process.

  Fortunately, being a Dungeon Core, his fragile, Human shell was rebuilt, over time, and he “came back to life” – only to emerge from the dungeon as a party of high-Rated DAS members arrived to see what was going on. Shortly after he recovered from being burned to death, Fred was killed – again, temporarily – during an interrogation when he had his head chopped off; in addition, the Guild and townspeople were marked with a highly visible yellow “X” above their heads – which told everyone that saw them that they were outlawed for destroying a Dungeon Core.

  Later, when Fred found that he could absorb blueprints for his dungeon from Cores without destroying them in the process, Eisa and her group decided to bring back an Earth Core, which Fred unexpectedly took from her inside a safe room located in his dungeon. While he tried to figure out what to do about absorbing the Earth Dungeon Core without actually destroying it, the brown-colored, gem-like Core initiated its Mana Combustion skill, which was the same thing his parents had used when they were killed inside their own dungeon.

  Fred “died” – again – as a result, but there was enough of him left after the explosion for his Core to put him back together again. When he revived, he found the desiccated corpse of Eisa nearby, half
-buried underneath a collapsed wall and with a shard from the exploded Earth Core inside her heart. With Eisa dead and Fred at a loss for what to do, he had an inspiration when he remembered how Deecy had been created. Using the Earth Core shard in her heart as a primary focus, he used his Novice Sentient Mana-formed Object Creation skill and imagined Eisa as she used to be, pumping thousands of Unconverted Mana into the process. After a blindingly bright flash of light, Eisa was alive.

  Shortly after her revival, Regnark – who was apparently a B-Rated Adventurer – stumbled upon Fred, Deecy, and the recently “reborn” Eisa, after fleeing from the destroyed village of Northend. During a fight to escape the destroyed town of Gatecross, which was necessary to evade Dungeon Defenders sent by the ticked-off Earth Cores nearby, they discovered that Eisa had essentially been sent back to a G-1st-Rating, without access to her previous classes or Essence. However, she also acquired some interesting abilities, along with a new status.

  Eisa was now something called an Earth Shard; not only that, but Deecy was apparently one as well, though she was a Fire and Water Shard. Both of them found that they could use the elemental Mana they were reborn with to do amazing things like create Earth-based Defenders, Fire and Water-based Defenses, or even change their natural forms.

  Running to the west – to find his Guild and the Gatecross townspeople that had fled – Fred and his friends were forced to dodge more Earth Defenders looking for them, as well as survive a harrowing night along the Plains of Grass. Void creatures that were extremely hard to kill and tended to suck all of the Mana – or Essence – out of their victims roamed it at night, and only through the lucky intervention of their pursuers were they able to survive.

  Eventually, they arrived at the Deadlands, which was full of Dark dungeons and their Dark Cores. After having very little success with finding the Guild members, and having been chased out of a local town, Fred met up with a group of Adventurers who were delving through a local Dark dungeon. With their assistance, they were able to infiltrate the dungeon to the Core, where Fred was able to absorb just the ability to use Dark Mana and some blueprints from the Core. However, due to unforeseen stupidity on behalf of the Core, it exploded, destroying a good portion of the dungeon and collapsing its territory.

  Regnark also lost his life during the assault on the dungeon, and Fred, Deecy, and Eisa were forced to flee southwest with his body. When they arrived at Allroads – where the Core Power Guild and the Gatecross townspeople were reported to be – Fred used a sliver of the Dark Core that exploded to “resurrect” Regnark. His large friend had been reset back down to G-1st-Rating, just as Eisa had been, but he had also acquired the “Shard” status.

  After asking too many questions and calling attention to themselves inside the tightly controlled city of Allroads – which sat in the middle of an element-rich environment that Dungeon Cores reportedly called a Convergence – they were captured and questioned. While in the prison, the Guild and the others were found, and Fred was able to break everyone out by creating a very basic dungeon underneath the city.

  Just as he and the others were about to be recaptured by a scary-strong Inquisitor, who wanted to get to the bottom of who Fred was and what he was doing there, the city was attacked by the angry Nature, Earth, and Dark Dungeon Cores nearby. Using Mana sent to them from other Cores in their factions farther away, they had sent an army of Dungeon Defenders to attack the city of Allroads – all for the intent of getting to Fred and killing him. Their sudden assault was easily repelled by the resident Syndicate members and Governmental representatives, without loss of life, though it required Regnark and Eisa to contribute to the defense.

  That attack led to Fred and his Shards being called to account for his presence there by the Allroads Council, where they were allowed to live as long as they helped with the future defense of the city. The problem with that, however, was that the Convergence where Allroads was located was surrounded by Cores from every faction. Soon after its establishment, his extensive territory was, itself, assaulted by something called Territorial Warfare.

  In an attempt to slow down the advance of at least one of the elemental factions, the powerful Inquisitor who originally captured Fred and his friends, Chareese, along with many high-Rated DAS members and Governmental representatives, went south to where thousands of Light-based Defenders were contributing to the shrinking of his territory border.

  To help with the fight, Fred discovered how to combine Defender Blueprints together and created a massive Shield Net Limb Giant Spider that towered over the battlefield. While it helped to save dozens of the Humans fighting the Light’s forces, it was ultimately destroyed in the battle. Using the Mana from its death, Fred created large “Mana Bombs” that devastated the enemy – but also ended up killing Chareese. Nearly 60 high-Rated Adventurers were also captured and brought back to the nearby Light Core’s dungeon, where they were kept in a state of perpetual pain and inability to defend themselves while the Core sucked in the Mana they provided to the dungeon.

  Luckily for the deceased Inquisitor, Fred had also been experimenting with his different types of Mana and had created a small, condensed Nature Core-like object. Using this object, he was able to bring Chareese back as a Shard with a Nature emphasis, as which she was able to grow and control plants and create special poisons.

  After the attack on the Light border – disastrous for both sides of the conflict – the Supreme Council of Dungeon Cores decided to step up their assaults. By tunneling through the ground, using their Defenders, they were able to bypass the city altogether, meaning that they were able to easily reach Fred’s dungeon directly. To combat the upcoming incursion, Fred reconfigured his current small dungeon, added more rooms, and used his Shards and their abilities as the main focus of defense.

  When The Graveler – an extremely powerful Earth Boss-type Defender – arrived, there was very little they could do other than slowly whittle away the thousands of small rocks of which it was composed. After surviving the defensive dungeon rooms intact, though much-diminished, The Graveler managed to get close to Fred in his Core Room, where the Human/Dungeon Core hybrid fought back. During the fight, Fred accidentally created a Mana Implosion that sucked in and destroyed the rest of The Graveler, leaving behind a condensed stone of Earth Mana in its wake.

  With that crisis averted, Fred was contacted by Elder Hood, a member of the Allroads Council, and she told him how her husband was one of those captured by the Light Core. A hasty plan was enacted to rescue them, but Fred was going to need to come along; he was the only one who could negotiate with the Core, so that the captives weren’t killed out of hand immediately – and so that he could locate them, in the first place. Unfortunately, he couldn’t leave his territory, or it would collapse.

  At least, his need to remain present to protect his territory was the case before Fred created a stand-in, multi-element Core that was linked directly to him, which would operate almost exactly like his internal Cores. Once that was created, he was able to leave the Convergence with Elder Hood, along with his bodyguards while away from his dungeon, Agelstein, Roady, and Ravenne. After escaping through the tunnel left by the Earth Defenders in their unsuccessful attempt to invade and destroy Fred, he and his entourage made their way to the Light Core’s dungeon. Elder Hood, a S-9th-Rated Arcanist, was able to make her way through the dungeon almost all by herself, and Fred was able to “negotiate” the safe return of the captive Adventurers.

  While the “negotiation” had to do with him acquiring the Light element from the Dungeon Core, Fred left the Light Core alive, afterwards, and sent all of her Mana back to her Core. Not only that, but he managed to increase the Crystallization of her Core Structure, also enhancing her Rating in the process. Afterwards, the Light Core’s territory collapsed, which also included the dungeon. As they raced out of the crumbling dungeon, they encountered hundreds of powerful Light Defenders outside – so Fred created a large Mana Implosion and condensed them all into a large Light
Mana stone that stood half of his height.

  On the way back to Allroads and the Convergence, Fred was “called” by the Supreme of Air to meet in a hidden negative space between the Air and Light territories. After a detailed conversation and a Communication Link which transferred a lot of information in the form of memories, the Supreme of Air offered to provide Fred with the last of the elements he was missing, and he took it from her – before giving the Air element and her Mana back with an increase in her Core that brought her up to the S-12th-Rating.

  Now, armed with all seven elements – Fire, Water, Nature, Earth, Dark, Light, and Air – Fred must find a way to protect his friends, his Shards, his Guild, and the city of Allroads, plus its inhabitants, all while figuring out how to save the world…

  Part I – Homecoming

  Chapter 1

  The Supreme of Air was still reeling from the massive change in her current state when the inevitable Mana Communication came from the Supreme of Dark.

  “Convene. Now.”

  She didn’t bother to respond, because she knew exactly what he meant with the summons. Air wasn’t too worried, however, even with the curt Communication; that was how Dark always sounded, and there wasn’t any particular malice directed towards her. None of them know about what happened between me and the Dualborn, Fredwynklemossering, she assured herself. She had taken a large gamble, even speaking to him like she had; but giving him access to her element had been the biggest risk of all. Regardless of the danger involved, she instinctively knew it was the only way for them to all to survive – and hopefully prosper – far into the future.

  Of course, the aftereffect was nice, too. The Dualborn had somehow managed to affect her Core, despite being thousands of miles away, advancing her from a S-10th-Rated Dungeon Core into a S-12th-Rated one! Air still had no clue how that had been accomplished, but from her temporary Link with the Dualborn, she knew that he seemed to be able to do some…interesting…things. Such as turning dead Humans into something he called Shards with pieces of destroyed Cores, for instance.