Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Read online

  Dungeon of Chance:

  Even Odds

  A Dungeon Core Novel

  Serious Probabilities Series – Book 1

  Jonathan Brooks

  Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Edited by: Celestian Rince, Ellen Klowden

  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

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank everyone who has believed in me and has supported my writing endeavors! In addition, I want to especially thank my editors, Celestian and Ellen, for helping my books come together and be better than even I thought they could be!

  To my beta-readers – you’re the best! Thank you for helping to improve this book!

  Aaron Wiley

  Brian O’Neil

  Brian Oles

  Christopher Burr

  Grant Harrell

  Joshua Chausse

  Josiah Myers

  Karel Young

  Nate Martin

  Pat Goodwin

  Rickie Brown

  Scott Killingsworth

  Sean Hall

  Steven Gene Mills

  William Faughnan

  Zack Devney

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Final Stats

  Author’s Note

  Books by Jonathan Brooks

  Tables

  Chapter 1

  “Did you fill that order from Perkins?” a voice asked him from across the room. “It was due this morning, Clay.”

  Clay nodded in his mother’s direction, his dark-brown hair in need of a trim falling over his eyes. He flipped it out of the way with a free hand while responding, “Of course; I got it ready last night.”

  She should know by now that I can’t sleep unless everything is prepared for the next day. His family ran a small general store in their little town of Renton, providing basic goods for the locals. Most of the residents had standing orders every month that were automatically fulfilled and delivered to them as a free service, which they appreciated. His family also appreciated it, because they were guaranteed sales, something that they could count on to get them through the current drought of Heroes passing through their town. Granted, it wasn’t like we had a lot in the first place.

  After his father had severely hurt his back trying to lift a crate of iron ingots, putting together and delivering all of the orders had – for the last few years – been the job of Clayburnside Shuntwise (a name that he despised, so he often went by Clay instead). Now, his old man was in charge of the supply chain, which meant that he was frequently traveling in order to secure the best prices and choicest goods. His injury turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since diverting his focus had allowed their profits over the last year or so to steadily increase. They were by no means wealthy, but they were secure enough in their business that even the loss of income from Heroes hadn’t affected them enough to really hurt their bottom line.

  It was one of the reasons that Clay couldn’t sleep unless everything was ready to go for the next day, because he usually spent the time in the morning with his mother going over their books – which he enjoyed immensely. Numbers had always been easy for him, and by seeing how the store’s financials were broken down – especially looking at historical accounts – he could see what sort of benefits his father’s efforts had yielded for business. Eventually, if things kept going as they were, his mother was planning on letting Clay take over all of their bookkeeping once he learned everything he needed from her teaching.

  Not that he asked to do it, because it added to his responsibilities, but he could tell that she didn’t care for it. She was more of a brisk saleswoman, which was why she primarily ran the store for any customers who came in person, her dark-brown hair the same shade as his own in a ponytail that showed she was ready to do some business. His little sister, 7 years younger than him at age 10, helped with stocking their few shelves, cleaning, and any miscellaneous duties, though that usually only took a half-hour each day. The rest of Nina’s time was taken up with “boring” studies and playing with her cat, Spark – who was a mean little ball of fur to anyone other than his sister.

  In fact, Clay still had a small scratch on the back of his leg from when the black and red-patched cat had practically attacked him the other day. Apparently, the nasty ball of fur had been affronted at his passing in front of a window in their family’s small 2-bedroom apartment above the store, blocking the sunlight warming Spark as he sunned himself on the floor.

  After placing the Perkins order into his handcart out behind the store, Clay went back inside to tell his mother goodbye. They had gotten through the accounting in record time that morning, as there hadn’t been many sales or receipts of new product the day before; now all he had to do was make his singular delivery for the day, re-organize a section of the cellar shelves located beneath the store, and then…he’d have some free time. It was a rarity, unfortunately, but that rarity rendered even more special those times he could spare to be a very late-blooming 17-year-old and pursue a few romantic prospects he’d just recently become interested in. Hmmm…I might even see Shara Perkins today—

  As he was walking out the back, preparing to grab the handles on the handcart, the ground shook so hard that he tripped and fell right into the side of the cart, spilling its contents of mainly groceries all over the dirt, breaking a glass jar of pickled beets that Jered Perkins absolutely loved. Oh, no – I don’t think we have any more of those until next week—

  The ground shook again, though less violently than the first time, and Clay could hear screaming coming from the direction of town. All thoughts of the tipped-over handcart shot right out of his head as he picked himself up and ran back inside, stumbling a little at another minor quake. “Mother! What’s going on?” he shouted as soon as he ran in, but there was no need: She was at the front of the store standing at the window looking out into the town proper. It took Clay a moment to realize that she was standing on the remnants of the windo
w, which had likely broken from the first quake.

  “Are you ok? These aftershocks are brutal—” he complained, nearly tripping over a bunch of uncoiled rope that had fallen off a shelf, but Clay’s mother wasn’t listening to him.

  “Go get your sister – we need to evacuate,” she cut him off with a stern tone to her voice that he’d never heard before.

  “What? Why—?” he asked, before his voice was stolen away from him in shock. Out the window, in the distance, Clay could see something moving in the early morning light. For him to see it above the rooftops of the nearby buildings, it had to be extremely tall – and it was.

  Giant Ogress ★★★★★★★★★★★

  World Threat Level: Low

  “Wh-what is that?” he finally managed to squeeze out of a throat that had seemed to close up. This was the first time he’d ever seen the Star-rating of anything before, though he knew it was a normal part of being a Hero who delved through dungeons. Everyone in the world could see the rating appear over any monster’s head, apparently, but it was rare for a non-Hero to actually see it happen because they weren’t allowed to venture into a dungeon.

  “It’s a World Threat, Clay. There hasn’t been one around here in at least 50 years,” she said softly, her voice nearly drowned out by the sound of the enormous monster stomping down, creating another minor quake. It was a pale-green and sickly pink-colored figure at least 250 feet tall, with enormously muscled arms connected to a portly body, though Clay didn’t think it was all fat. He couldn’t see its legs, but he suspected they were as heavily muscled as the rest of its body, which when he looked again, he realized that it was a her. A Giant Ogress? And its World Threat Level is Low?!

  The humongous wooden club in her right hand appeared capable of flattening half of the town of Renton in one smash, the validity of which was only punctuated the next moment when he saw the Giant swing the club as if trying to hit something. It slammed into the ground to the sound of breaking trees in the Hideaway Forest south of town, and moments later another violent quake shook the entire house.

  He held onto his mother as she stumbled and nearly fell into all of the broken glass from the window. “Hurry! Get your sister from upstairs!” she yelled at him and pushed him toward the back of the store where the staircase leading to their apartment was located. He watched her in shock as she started grabbing the extremely expensive storage bags from their secured inventory and shoved in supplies by the handfuls. “GET MOVING!” she screamed again, panic newly evident in her voice.

  His feet seemed to carry him autonomously toward the stairs, but he stopped halfway up – Nina was already coming down with wide eyes framed by two strands of her dark-brown hair hanging limply across her face. “C-Clay? I saw—”

  “I know, Nina; Mother is getting stuff together so that we can evacuate,” he replied, leading her downstairs. Now that he had something to focus on – namely, helping his sister – Clay’s mind was finally starting to function again. He grabbed one of the storage bags from his mother and passed it to Nina, then taking one for himself as he started to stuff it full of supplies, groceries, and anything else he thought might be useful. The storage bags weren’t bottomless, but they were the same bags that Heroes created to supplement their inventories, which meant that they could hold dozens of different items. And these were actually of the lowest quality; there were some expensive bags out there that could hold thousands of items, perhaps even tens of thousands.

  He’d handled these bags before, but they were too expensive to mess with on a normal basis – even if they would’ve made his deliveries much easier. Now, though, their value was in how much they could hold for him and his family and not in how much they could sell them for. I just wish Father was here, as he could use the bag he carries with him to fit even more. Unfortunately (or fortunately, considering what was happening right outside town), his father was on another trip, so the 3 bags they currently had on hand would have to do.

  When they were all full, which took a grand total of just over a minute of scrambling and another few falls when the ground shook again, they raced outside of the store, joining dozens of other people from the town fleeing towards the north. As they got outside, Clay could hear multiple explosions coming from where the Giant Ogress was slowly making her way towards Renton, which caused everyone to yell out in surprise and duck down as if to avoid them.

  What was that?

  “Keep moving! We have some of our Support members directing the evacuees to a secure location a dozen miles up the road!” he suddenly heard a strong male voice yell out ahead of them. A man was standing there in a full set of some sort of metal armor, covering his body from head to toe with only his face exposed, with a massive battle axe attached to his back without any visible means that Clay could see. Next to him was a woman in brown leathers holding a bow in her left hand as naturally as an extension of her arm, who was watching the Ogress in the distance with intense focus.

  “Meltar – it’s getting too close to the town. We need to hurry this evacuation up,” the woman said loudly enough to the armored man that Clay could hear it from where he was in the crowd. The man nodded, but didn’t immediately do anything other than turn towards the World Threat that continued to advance towards the town.

  “You’re right, Shock – we need to slow it down even more before the others arrive,” the man finally said. The next moment, the battle axe was in his hand and the man and woman took off like a shot, racing across town in the space of a couple of seconds. Clay couldn’t see where they went after a few moments as they disappeared out of sight, but he knew they would be fighting the gigantic monster ravaging the forest…somehow.

  That was what Heroes did, after all.

  There was a deafening bellow of garbled pain that Clay figured came from the Ogress; he looked back as he ran, and saw above the rooftops that the Threat had taken some serious damage to her belly, with a large patch of her skin and flesh almost melted away. However, instead of slowing her down, the Ogress only seemed to be enraged as she picked up and slammed her club down from side to side, destroying hundreds of trees in the process.

  Another minute saw them running down the road towards Chespine, the closest town to Renton. The energy of many in the town was beginning to flag already from the sudden evacuation, and Clay stopped to help Ms. Wenderlynn, an elderly widow who normally ordered from their store in the middle of the month, up from where she had tripped over the uneven road. A sound made him look down the road they were traveling, and he was amazed to see a massive group of people, armed and armored in a multitude of different materials and designs practically flying down the road, their feet barely touching the ground as they ran. They passed the evacuees without saying anything, practically blowing them over with the wind of their passage, and Clay started to think that their town just might be saved with so many Heroes appearing.

  “Clay, where’s Nina?” his mother said from next to him in a panic.

  “What? She’s right—” he began to say, when he saw her bag sitting on the side of the road. Looking back towards Renton, he could barely make out her small figure running towards town, her mimicry of her mother’s ponytail bouncing as she ran. Oh, no…

  “I see her. I’ll go get her before she gets hurt,” Clay said to his mother, knowing that he could run much faster, as she had hurt her right knee a couple of years ago. My parents are falling apart, he couldn’t help but think as he pulled his bag off his back.

  “No! It’s too dangerous!” she cried, though she didn’t expressly forbid him. He could tell that she was worried for his sister, but knew that she wouldn’t be able to catch up to her in time before…something bad happened. “Why did she run away?” Clay’s sister had never been one to be disobedient before, other than for small things that really didn’t matter; this, however, was quite different.

  “It’s that stupid cat; I better go get her before she gets herself killed!” Clay said, giving his bag to his mother and tak
ing off down the road.

  “Be careful, Son!” she shouted after him, even as he pumped his fists and ran for everything he was worth.

  I’ll try, Mother, I’ll try.

  Chapter 2

  Nina was faster than he gave her credit for, but he was always faster still. Plus, Clay had longer legs than his little sister, and his strides ate up the distance between where he left his Mother and the rest of the evacuees on the road and the town of Renton. He couldn’t see her after she disappeared behind the first building – which just so happened to be the home of the Perkins family, in fact. He knew where she was going, however, so he took a shortcut to arrive to the west of the store, keeping his eye on the battle now raging against the World Threat, the Giant Ogress. The Heroes who had passed them on the road at full speed were now laying into the massive monster, and he had to admit that the sheer power they presented was a bit intimidating.

  He had seen hundreds or possibly thousands of Heroes passing through Renton on their way to other towns and cities throughout the land, but none of them had used their abilities that came with their Classes in town – other than the occasional Fast-travel ability, like what they had used to zoom by the evacuees on the road. They didn’t have that kind of swiftness in combat, he was told, though the Scout-based Classes did move faster than most people – or so he had observed. Use of any other type of ability was forbidden and strictly enforced by the Hero Guilds, who took abuse of abilities very seriously. Clay had heard about Heroes being executed for using harmful abilities in a non-dungeon setting, though most minor violations came with heavy financial penalties, instead.

  But what he saw now scared him a little. With their previous restraint from using their abilities now lifted so that they could combat the World Threat, which he had heard about but never actually seen before; there was no holding back. Magical spells he had no name for zipped through the air, slamming into different parts of the Ogress’ flesh; arrows that seemed to be lit up with some sort of inner fire impacted and exploded on the monster’s skin; and the sounds of screams and heavy impacts could be heard down below, though they were currently out of sight, still being inside the Forest.