Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Read online

  Eisa used her own Earth Mana to create her own defenders; instead of a Crystal Scorpion (which would’ve had difficulty attacking the tentacles squirming through the rocks) or even Stone Golems (which would’ve been fine, but they couldn’t withstand many hits compared to their cost) she created 30 Level 1 Goblin Gnomes for 120 Earth Mana. Why? Because she was thinking along the same lines of quantity over quality that her Minor Shock spell would accomplish. While getting close to the Mana-absorbing appendages would be dangerous, a single knife stab by her Gnomes was likely to damage the tentacles just as well as being hit by a Stone Golem’s fist or her Crystal Scorpion’s stinger.

  They immediately swarmed over the rocks and attacked the returning Horror’s appendages poking through the rocks in different areas with their rusty iron knives, slicing through them as soon as they showed themselves. Of course, each of them could only attack two or three times before their knives were eaten away, but then they threw themselves at the exposed transparent-black tentacles with their fists and teeth. That didn’t work out great for them, but they were able to destroy a little bit more before they were consumed completely.

  Fred seemed to have the same idea she had; after creating bundles of arrows out of thin air for Regnark, he started to toss out very low-powered Magestrikes whenever he saw a tentacle appear – especially toward the top of the tunnel where her Goblin Gnomes couldn’t reach. Just as she had thought and hoped, even the small amount of damage they inflicted was enough to destroy a small section of the tentacle.

  Regnark, for his part, used the bundles of ammunition Fred supplied him with to great effect. Arrows flew through the air faster than she could see, hitting the shadowy tentacles as soon as they peeked out and sending them back up a couple of feet.

  Deecy intermittently sent another Fire Wall into the middle of the rockpile whenever the appendages started to gain ground to push them back. She couldn’t do too many based on her available Fire Mana, however, and when she tried an Ice Spear Barricade, it ended up shifting some of the rocks a little too much.

  When all of her Goblin Gnomes died, Eisa started tossing the large Minor Shock orbs toward the blocked tunnel and watched as it impacted and spread out from the point of contact five feet in every direction. It didn’t always hit the nearest tentacles poking through, but it hit enough to eliminate quite a few.

  “How much more of this thing is there?” Regnark shouted to be heard over the snap of the bowstring, the clang of arrows impacting stone, the electrical *zzzt* of Eisa’s Minor Shock orbs, the crackling of Deecy’s Fire Walls, and Fred’s Magestrikes as they hissed from his hand to their targets.

  “We’re hurting it, that’s for sure. I can see that a small portion of it seems to have disappeared—” Fred answered while still throwing out Magestrikes from left to right, before he was interrupted by the rumble of falling rocks.

  Something that had likely been holding up the great pile of rocks blocking the entrance started to collapse, causing a landslide of crushed stone to slide down far and fast enough that it started to fill the large hole in the ground left behind by the Horrorlings’ meal of his boiling pool of water. The collapse also had the added benefit of destroying all of the tentacles working their way through the pile of rocks, which cleared the tunnel completely for the first time since they arrived.

  Unfortunately, it also cleared the way for the Greater Horror to enter.

  Dozens of tentacles shot forward into the largely open entrance tunnel and latched onto the sides; Eisa and the others opened fire on them to destroy as many as they could, but two more arrived for each one they destroyed. Her Minor Shocks were wiping out whole swathes of tentacles, but it wasn’t enough – there were just too many of them.

  And then the tentacles started to pull the entire Greater Horror down the tunnel. Eisa watched in horror as a massive shadow-form started to squeeze into the tunnel from aboveground and oozed its way down like some sort of large insubstantial slime. She directed her Minor Shocks to the main body of the Greater Horror and watched as everyone else put everything else they had into it, but everything they did only seemed to delay the inevitable. Huge chunks were taken out of the monster with every hit, but there didn’t seem to be an end to it.

  Deecy was the first to run out of Mana, since she didn’t have a lot to begin with – even with using the Water Mana-based Barricades instead of Fire Walls. She stepped back and let the others fight on, as Eisa could see she was dangerously low on both her Mana levels and wouldn’t even be able to transform into her Giant form – even if that was a bad idea against this enemy.

  Both Eisa and the Dire Wolf had learned their lessons when they saw what that smaller Horrorling did to Fred.

  She was still a bit ticked off at him for how he had handled that situation, especially when he threw himself in harm’s way to “protect” her. Eisa was perfectly capable of handling herself and she showed it when she saved him from death at the…tentacles…of those horrifying monsters. Fred had apologized, fortunately, but that didn’t mean she forgot the way he yelled at her.

  But that was neither here nor there – they had to stop this thing from getting inside, otherwise it was almost guaranteed that they wouldn’t survive. She started to worry when she looked at her available Power and realized she only had three more Minor Shocks she could throw out before she was tapped out. She had a little bit of Earth Mana still, but she couldn’t think of anything that might help for more than a few seconds at most.

  “I’m out!” she called out as soon as she launched her last Minor Shock orb and watched it eliminate a large portion of the Greater Horror…but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Eisa stepped back and joined Deecy, ready to run back to the other room if it looked like everything was lost.

  Even the hundreds of arrows that were made for Regnark couldn’t last forever, and the supply was soon exhausted. While Fred continued to frantically toss out Magestrikes (he has to be getting low on Power by now, too), the big fur-clad man grabbed the massive double-bladed longsword he had dropped when he had pulled out his bow and charged ahead. Fortunately, the Greater Horror wasn’t actively attacking, as it seemed to be concentrating on just getting inside; as a result, Regnark was able to hack, slash, and generally cut apart in some sort of enraged frenzy the rightmost part of the monster as it started to emerge from the tunnel.

  Eisa turned out to be right about Fred, as he threw out his last Magestrike and pulled out his longsword again. “Fred, don’t you dare!” she shouted, catching his attention before he could rush in and attack.

  “But—”

  Before he could finish or even rush to help, three tentacles lashed out at Regnark in an abrupt attack. The big man managed to slice two of them apart, but the third wrapped around his torso and jerked him off his feet into the air, causing him to drop his sword in the process. A silent scream was written all over his face as his eyes and mouth opened wide in painful surprise; frozen into immobility, all the blood seemed to drain from his skin, leaving him looking pale and sick.

  “No!” Fred shouted, as he leapt forward in some sort of super jump with his longsword held high above his head. At the arc of his leap, he swung his sword at the tentacle holding Regnark and cut it in half, causing the part holding the big man to disappear and drop him to the ground with a big *thunk*. Fred landed and stood over Regnark’s barely moving body and sliced at anything that got near.

  Eisa rushed forward to help, but before she could transform into her Earth Elemental Form and grab the massive warhammer she had brought with her, she watched a tentacle snake down from below and grab Fred by the ankle. Her love immediately froze in place and she watched as another shadowy appendage shot forward from behind him – and then it stopped an inch from his back.

  Weak sunlight shone down from the entrance tunnel, piercing straight through the Greater Horror and causing it to dissolve within seconds. The tentacle that was holding Fred disappeared along with it and he fell to the ground, breathing heav
y; Regnark struggled to his knees and Eisa saw that his face looked…haggard. He looked almost like he had been drinking hard for days and hadn’t gotten any sleep for weeks – along with starving himself at the same time. His face definitely looked thinner than it had before and though it was hard to tell underneath all of his furs, it was quite possible that he had lost some weight as well. But he was alive.

  In fact, by some miracle, they all were.

  Chapter 18

  The one good thing that came from the Greater Horror attacking his dungeon’s entrance tunnel – if anything – was that they didn’t have to move much in order to exit. And exit they did, as soon as Fred and the others had recovered enough to start moving. There was no way they were going to spend another night out there on the Plains of Grass if they could help it, and the only way to ensure they weren’t attacked by the Horrors again was to vacate the area as soon as possible.

  Regnark looked horrible, but an application of Eisa’s Earth’s Renewal special ability cleared away most of the negative effects that had been caused in him from the touch of the Greater Horror’s tentacle. It wasn’t until Fred had a chance to talk to him after he had been healed up a little that he realized why the big man looked so…drained.

  Because Regnark didn’t necessarily have Mana inside of him to consume, the tentacle ate whatever else it could find. In his case – and what Fred had to assume would be the case of any other human snatched by one of its appendages – that meant the Essence that Regnark had stored up inside of him.

  Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface

  Name: Regnark McConald

  Class: Berserker-Marksman

  Rating: C-1st

  Essence Needed to Rate-up: 31245

  Total Essence: 15885504

  Available Essence to Distribute: 0

  Body: 20 (2391134/2621440)

  Brawn: 19 (0/52428802621440)

  Mind: 12 (0/20480)

  Speed: 17 (0/1310720)

  Vitality: 4000/4000

  Stamina: 125/3800

  Power: 38/60

  Base Physical Attack: 50

  Base Physical Defense: 48

  Power Regen Rate: 1.2/min

  Class Traits (Berserker)

  Your Vitality is greatly increased by your Body stat

  Your Stamina is greatly increased by your Brawn stat

  Your Base Physical Attack and Defense are multiplied by 2.5 of your Body and Brawn stats

  You are able to convert Stamina to temporarily increase your Base Physical Attack, though you suffer a penalty to your Base Physical Defense

  Class Traits (Marksman)

  You have access to the Speed stat, which increases your movement speed and dodge ability

  Your ability to move stealthily is increased by your Speed stat

  Your long-range attacks are greatly increased by your Speed stat

  Class Abilities (Berserker)

  Rage 8 – 0/2187000

  Whirlwind 6 – 0/243000

  Flattening Strike 6 – 0/243000

  Relentless Assault 5 – 0/81000

  Armor Cleave 7 – 0/729000

  Intimidating Shout 5 – 0/81000

  Overwhelming Blow 6 – 0/243000

  Aggressive Aura 8 – 0/2187000

  Unflinching Stance 7 – 0/729000

  Class Abilities (Marksman)

  Pinpoint Accuracy 7 – 0/729000

  Multi-arrow Shot 5 – 0/81000

  Penetrating Arrow 6 – 0/243000

  Quick-shot 5 – 0/81000

  Raining Volley 5 – 0/81000

  Dodge Boost 8 – 0/2187000

  Taught Abilities

  Magestrike 1 – 0/1000

  Barrier 1 – 0/1000

  Magelight 1 – 0/1000

  Flamestrike 1 – 0/1000

  Froststrike 1 – 0/1000

  Minor Shock 1 – 0/1000

  Focused Irritation 1 – 0/1000

  Heal Minor Wounds 1 – 0/1000

  Minor Protection 1 – 0/1000

  Remove Blindness 1 – 0/1000

  Lightscythe 1 – 0/1000

  Disarm Trap 1 – 0/1000

  Concealment 1 – 0/1000

  All of his extra, undistributed Essence was gobbled up quickly, followed by his Body stat; when Fred looked at his Status sheet, he could see that he had dropped from 20 points in Body to 19, though there was still a lot invested in it toward 20 again. In addition – as if that wasn’t bad enough, the loss of Essence had dropped him down from a C-3rd-Rated Adventurer to a C-1st-Rated one – Fred estimated that he had lost almost 400,000 total Essence. Even to Regnark that was a significant chunk; if it had been Fred or Eisa getting their Essence gobbled up, Eisa would’ve been completely drained in a quarter of the time the big man had been held and Fred would’ve only lasted another couple of seconds himself before he didn’t have any Essence left at all.

  Fortunately, as bad as that was, it seemed like Regnark was going to make a full recovery – even if he had lost a massive amount of Essence in the process. As a side effect, too, there wasn’t any Mana being given off by him and subsequently absorbed by the dungeon anymore, which was a bummer because Fred had lost a few hundred Unconverted Mana when he had been grabbed by a tentacle again. That was ok, though, because they were leaving.

  As soon as they emerged from out of the dungeon to the relatively dim dawn’s light, through the destroyed entrance tunnel, they could all see the devastation that had been wrought around Fred’s territory – and beyond. Fred had already seen that the grass had been flattened in every direction, but now he could see there were large gouges in the ground all around his entrance where the dirt was thrown up in the air; quite obviously, it was due to so many large Earth-based defenders hitting the ground when they were taken down by the void creatures. Even though his territory extended out for hundreds of feet in every direction, the destruction hadn’t been contained within that boundary; the battle had extended to the north, south, and to the west as the Earth defenders were likely pulled into a fight they originally didn’t have a plan to engage.

  But now there wasn’t a single thing to see anywhere on the horizon, stretching all the way from the forest behind them – where Fred could see the obvious pathway of destroyed grass where the Earth defenders had trampled everything – to the Deadlands in the west. The night filled with intense titanic fighting was over and there wasn’t a single corpse, body, or speck of Mana left on the field of battle.

  “I have to say, I didn’t think we’d survive the night,” Regnark said as he gazed on the sheer destruction of the land around Fred’s dungeon. “But now that we have, I never want to cross these Plains ever again – and especially not at night.”

  Fred thoroughly agreed with him; it was one thing to fight something that could harm him physically, it was a whole other thing to go up against something that could almost literally suck his life out from him. The whole existence of the void creatures was frightening, actually, and he didn’t even like thinking about what would’ve happened if one of those things got ahold of one of his friends again.

  Unfortunately, Eisa didn’t have enough Earth Mana at the moment to create even a single Crystal Scorpion – let alone two – so they were relegated to walking the rest of the distance toward the Deadlands. With the dawn light brightening as they assembled outside the dungeon entrance, Fred reached into his dungeon and pulled out the remaining Mana holding the rooms intact and let his dungeon go unsupported. The damage around the area was so extensive that the room immediately collapsed and the ground above them dropped down, creating a fairly large hole in the ground.

  The others looked shocked and stared at him in fright. “Could that have happened…” was all that Eisa was able to get out before Fred realized why they were looking like that.

  “Oh, I’m sorry; I forgot to warn you I was removing my Mana from inside the dungeon. No, that wouldn’t have happened while we were in it…though with all that was happening up here, it was certainly a possibility that it w
ouldn’t hold,” he told them with a smile, his relief that everything had held showing on his face.

  Regnark grunted. “That’s not very reassuring, but at least the roof didn’t fall right on top of us,” the big man said, before turning away.

  “Actually, it was quite close to a full dungeon collapse. My best guess was that if there was another direct hit to the spot right above that last room, it would’ve caused a cascading failure that would’ve buried us alive.”

  “That was my thought as well, but please don’t share that with anyone else,” Fred Communicated back to the Dire Wolf.

  “Oh, was I not supposed to do that?”

  Fred looked at Eisa and saw her face go even paler than it had been after his dungeon collapsed. “She’s just kidding…anyway, it’s about time we got out of here. Like Regnark said, there’s no way I’m spending another night out here.”

  They were hot on his heels as he took off at a brisk walk, eliminating his territory at the same time. As his territory faded from his awareness, Fred looked toward the west…and to the Deadlands awaiting them.

  * * *

  Thankfully enough, there was nothing of note as they crossed through the remaining distance between his former temporary dungeon and the Deadlands. While it would’ve likely taken a couple of hours to get there by Scorpion-back, it took almost five by foot. That was okay with everyone, though, as it gave them time to recoup their Power and Stamina along the way. While it wasn’t nearly enough to fill up anyone’s Mana, it still allowed for the ambient Mana around to give Eisa and Deecy enough to defend themselves with if something came up. In fact, a couple of hours into their walk, Eisa could’ve created some Crystal Scorpions, but Regnark advised that the more time they had to recover before they reached their destination, the better. While there was no threat on the Plains of Grass – at that time of day, at least – that didn’t necessarily apply to the Deadlands.