The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (free e books to read .txt) 📗

– though they were originally created from her Dungeon Force – they were essentially alive and relatively permanent the moment they were fully formed.  Her Dungeon Force helped to keep them stable at the point they were at and helped to regrow them if they were removed, but they mimicked living plants, nonetheless.

The same couldn’t be said for her creatures.  While they appeared and acted alive, they were solely temporary constructs made from Dungeon Force.  Therefore, the Life traps wouldn’t work on enhancing them like they would with any other living thing; this was one of the reasons that Life-based traps weren’t very popular, because there was very little benefit to the Dungeon Core for using them.

What they were used for was enhancing Raiders that delved through a dungeon.  That might seem counterintuitive, but they were usually used in conjunction with other types of traps.  Need a little boost in your Physical attributes to make a long jump to a faraway platform?  Life-based traps can provide that for a limited time.  Need some more Fire Resistance so that you can make it through a hallway filled with flames?  A Life-based trap could help with that, too.

The point of those little boosts was to convince the Raiders to progress further, to give them a false sense of their own abilities that they might not otherwise have.  In most cases, the duration of these boosts were just barely long enough for the delving individuals to succeed in navigating their way through the next trap; hesitate, and the boost would disappear before they succeeded in their endeavor.  It was a sneaky way to potentially gain easy Raider deaths while still being entirely legitimate.

You’ve seen my concentrated Enchantment Traps with their intensity, right?

“Of course.  What does that have to do with—oh.  Oooohhhh…I never thought about that.  We weren’t ever taught that they could be used in such a way.”  Shale went from looking extremely confused to filled with wonder in less than 2 seconds.

Let’s just say that I went above and beyond with my training, and my research into this was fairly extensive.  It was the only thing I could think of that might not already have a counter.

“Smart.  Very smart – and very, very sneaky.  Who would believe that becoming stronger would be a bad thing?”

That was a bit of an understatement.  Typically, Life traps that were used in conjunction with other types of traps were set to a low intensity; they increased the Physical attributes, Resistance, or even Magical ability of the Raiders delving through by very small increments.  For one, it could get expensive Dungeon Force-wise to place them if the duration lasted for more than a few seconds (especially if Cores didn’t specialize in Life-based traps, which very few did); secondly, it probably wasn’t smart to power-up a Raider too much in your dungeon, even if it were only for a few seconds.  It was hard to estimate what those delving through a dungeon would do with such a boost.

There was a little-known side-effect of these boosts, however.  It was one which was not generally made known to Dungeon Assistants or Cores because it was against the rules; no one guarded against it for the same reason Shale stated before: Life-based Resistance lessened the healing-spell effectiveness of Healers.  Causing Raiders to have to be prepared to resist Life-based anything was highly unfair; therefore, the practice of using it as a weapon was, if not buried, then not taught at all at DAPS.  You could work it out, though, if you really studied what Life-based traps actually did, instead of passing it off as relatively useless like most of the other Assistants that passed through the school.

“That’s right.  We’re going to give them a boost so powerful that they’ll be able to practically lift a mountain…right before their body explodes from the drastic stresses and changes it’ll go through.”

“I like the way you think, Tacca.  I think those teachers of ours could learn a thing or two from you.”

If a Dungeon Core could blush, she’d be pure red.

Chapter 19

The placement of her new traps was quite easy.  They were contained in a field not unlike her Enchantment-based traps, so they were essentially invisible to most Raiders; those with the ability to detect and even disarm traps could probably sense them, and those two Bonded Hill Dwarves would certainly be able to see them, but otherwise they should be virtually undetectable.  Their basic nature was amazingly simple, as well, as they mimicked the size, shape, and general feel of her powerful Enchantment traps in her primary defensive room near her Core.

Strength Boost Life Trap

The Strength Boost Life Trap can be placed on any surface and is triggered by proximity.  Any living being passing through the activation range will experience a boost in their Physical attributes – determined by the strength of the trap – for a limited duration of time.  Beneficiaries blessed by the Strength Boost Life Trap cannot retrigger additional Strength Boost Life Traps until the duration has expired.  All traps can be disabled with high enough Disarm Trap skills.

 

Cost: 1300 DF (-60% Life Specialization)

Replacement Cost: 325 (-75% off current cost/Life Specialization)

Creation Time: 6.5 Hours

Disarm Trap Resistance: 21

Activation Range: 1.0ft X 1.0ft X 1.0ft

Trigger Proximity: 0.2 ft

Physical Attributes Increase: 2000.0%

Duration: 5.0 seconds

Resistance Category: Life

Special Effects: Causes a temporary increase in the physical size and strength of the beneficiaries’ muscles

It cost more to place than even her most powerful Enchantment-based traps, which meant she had to be a little more careful while expending that much DF.  She gradually started replacing some of the least-powerful defenses inside of the room, which consisted primarily of her Projectile and Explosive-based traps, taking nearly a day between each one when she had enough Dungeon Force.  Even having one or two inside the room made her feel so