Dungeon Core Online 66 Chapter 66

"So, how exactly does this work?" James had decided he was going to use the time before the adventurers returned, to upgrade his mobs, and tweak his floors a little. Initially, he had been certain this was going to be an easy task. After all, all he had to do really was apply a single mob point to each mob, and then drop down his new resource storage unit on his second floor. Oh, and add in a few new tricks for the raid party that was coming. Simple, right?

But then, Rue, in her normal fashion, had gone and thrown him for a loop. Now that he had NPCs unlocked, he was going to use them. At least, for his first floor for sure. Rue had shown him the option in his menu to activate the NPC's, it was under a tab labeled Event Activities. Clicking the tab took him to a screen that appeared to list the different floors, with his first and second floor being available, the others having a locked out icon on them. His first floor, was lit up, with the word enabled glowing. His second floor was greyed out, showing disabled. Simple game programming. The developers had really taken some short cuts on the dungeon core side of things, hadn't they.

Selecting his first floor, James saw two options available, but he could guess there were going to be more later on. While the developers were lazy, he also knew they had plenty of secrets for cores to discover. The first, NPC's, had been selected. The other option, which James was doing his best to resist selecting, said World Boss. He was definitely coming back to that one as soon as he could.

"Select the NPC, then simply add a new NPC option. Select the task you want from it, and it will be automatically summoned, and modified, to fit your floor type. Easy, right?"

"Yup, so easy a caveman, or a pixie, could do it." His dry reply made Rue spit out her hot chocolate mid drink, as her eyes narrowed. He waved at her with a tentacle, chuckling to himself.

Currently, the NPC screen had a single NPC summoned, with its job description listed as Gambling- Race- PvP, PvE. From what James could tell, the developers had put in a blanket of categories, which had a string of options underneath. Upon summoning, the AI would a.s.sume the predesigned role, adapting to the floor type of the dungeon. Probably a lot simpler for dungeons of a single type.

He couldn't help but grin as he imagined his NPCs. What would they be like on his second floor? The ones on the demonic farm seemed like human sized demons or devils. Would he have talking dinosaurs on his second floor? Sentient cavemen? His tentacle twitched with the urge to check, but he calmed himself. He didn't want to overwhelm the adventurers with too many new things at once. Plus, he needed ways to keep things interesting for them, no need to give them everything right away. Besides, from what he could tell, he was the first dungeon to unlock NPCs. Either that, or no one else who had was chatting about it on the forums. He was going to keep this one a secret for now, and reveal it during his live stream. He was all about that dungeon envy.

"If it's so easy, why haven't you done anything yet?" Rue's comment pulled him from his evil mastermind moment, drawing him back to the real world….er…game world.

"Right, well, I'm just trying to figure out what type of NPCs would work best." A part Rue hadn't mentioned, that James's trained gamer eyes immediately noticed, was there was a cap on how many NPCs he could summon. For his first floor, it looked like he had the option of 5 NPCs. He was curious if that number increased with his event research, his dungeon rank, or was set based on the floor. However, that was a question he could have answered at a later date.

"Well, whatever you do isn't going to be as cool as d.i.c.ken Racing." Rue let out a chuckle as she took a sip, her eyes glancing back down at her race track with pride. She had a point, he had no idea how he would upstage that. But, he also knew gamers liked a variety of things, and he was going to do just that.

"Hmmmm."

NPC-

Quest, Aid, Recruit, Gambling, Training

The options definitely all seemed promising. Gambling was self-explanatory, likely giving all sorts of games and options for adventurers to waste coin on, for the chance to win various unique rewards. Wait a second….

"Rue." The tone in his voice caused the pixie to jump, and the way she looked at him, he knew she knew she was in trouble.

"Yes oh mighty Glyax?" She hovered closer to him, smiling innocently as she reached out towards one of his tentacles. She was going for the distraction method. Not this time!

"How much do players have to pay for a d.i.c.ken race?"

"Depends…" Typical Rue.

"Depends on?"

"The difficulty and rewards." That made sense, it was common in games for varying prize levels to be a.s.sociated with different entry costs. Usually the most expensive option would offer an extremely unique item only obtainable through that option, though either was extremely difficult to complete, or needed to be completed multiple times.

"You don't say." He replied dryly, causing her to smirk. She had her hand lightly teasing a tentacle, sending a tickling sensation through his...o...b.. It really was distracting, but he had a mission.

"And, what happens to the money the NPC receives?"

"Uh…"

"Because in theory, it should come to me, right?" The pixie's quick glance told him he had been right in his suspicion. She had been about to siphon more coin from the adventurers. Man she was greedy.

"Well…it was my idea… so I figured-" She trailed off, her eyes glancing from James, to the racetrack, and back.

Her eyes flashed and she grinned at him, suddenly regaining her composure, as she drew even closer to James. "How about we make a deal?"

"What type of deal?" He started to narrow his eye, but doing so, with Rue's close proximity, meant his narrowed point of focus was focused on a very distracting part of the pixie, causing his blood to rush. She was definitely doing her best to break his focus, and it was working.

"For d.i.c.ken racing, we split the profits?"

"What type of-"

"-70/30" Her response cut him off, and she leaned forward towards him, smiling sweetly, knowing full d.a.m.n well what that would do.

"I get 70?"

"No silly." Her voice was soft, quiet, full of mirth and seduction. "Since I built the track with my own resources, don't you think I should get more of the benefit?" She placed a finger on his...o...b.. tracing it down. "Or do you expect me to just sit here and spend my hard earned resources on you for free?" She appeared to pout. "That wouldn't be very manly of the mighty Glyax. In fact, that would be like something oh, I don't know, X-Ray would do."

That hit a nerve, and she knew it. James dropped his tentacles to his side, in complete defeat. Not only was she toying with his durned teenage impulses and desires, but now she went in for the kill shot, attacking his ego. Xander would most definitely have instantly switched all the profit back to himself. Xander was not the type to share, he needed complete control over everything. And Rue knew James would do whatever he could to not be like that b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"d.a.m.nit, I hate you Rue." He sighed, and looked into her eyes, eyes which shown ruefully, she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Psh, you love me." She started laughing, and James had to admit it, she was probably right. He cared more for this AI than he had ever cared for someone else his age. At least, her appearance made her seem his age? Had she been developed and placed with him to fill the gap of social interaction he was lacking? He shook his head, letting the thought drop, as he turned back to Rue.

"Tell you what, I'll split it with you, 80/20, just because you did help me out with discovering that secret achievement, and you made the course yourself."

Rue let out a squeal and started to wrap him in a hug, but he stopped her.

"But, you have to promise me you'll ask me before you do these type of things again. Just so I know what's going on. Plus, you should probably share these cool secret ideas with me whenever we are nearing them. Don't ya want the dungeon to be awesome?"

Rue grinned at him, shooting him a mysterious wink. "Deal. Though you do know there are some things I'm not allowed to tell you about."

If James had two eyes, he would have winked back, because he could guess where she was getting. "Yeah, don't want to anger the all seeing G.o.d. But, it sure could be convenient if a G.o.ddess of luck were around to help me stumble in the right direction."

"That it would." Rue said with a chuckle, before flying down to her d.i.c.ken track. The pixie was full of energy from her win, and while he was hard at work upgrading his floor, she was more than welcome to have a little fun. She had earned it after all.

"Thank you Rue." He whispered to her, watching her form grow to human size as she mounted the d.i.c.ken, the NPC mounting another one, as the race began. He really had lucked out with her.