“Your overseers must really, really hate you,” she said.
“That sounds right.”
“You have a deal. Let me explain what I am looking for, and where it is likely to be found. Oh, and if you create any more monsters, ones that can actually fight, instruct them not to attack me.”
“So our deal is made.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“Great. Tomlin, chase her out of here.”
The kobold prowled forward, doing his best to snarl and look scary. Vedetta raised her arms in the air and charged toward the wall opening screaming “Argh! Argh!”
It was quite a good performance, if you ignored the fact that Tomlin had to give her a boost so she could climb back out of the dungeon.
After she was gone, I looked at the damaged wall. “Repair that wall please, Tomlin. Make sure the mud is nice and compact.”
“Dark Lord told Vedetta he would put a door there.”
“Tomlin, my dear friend, if I left a door there, I’d be leaving my dungeon at the mercy of a child who could go blabbing about it. I’m still only 60% sold on her core story, though she did know about things she shouldn’t. We’ll play along and see what we can get from her, but I don’t want to leave a bloody door to the surface in my dungeon. Not until I’m ready to open the place up to heroes, anyway.”
CHAPTER 13
After Vedetta left and Tomlin set to work blocking up the wall behind her, I decided it was time that I leveled up.
Leveling up is what every core must do if he is to pass his evaluation. If he does this, he will increase his total essence, open up more crafting categories and expand existing ones, as well as allowing more freedom in how many rooms, monsters, and traps he can have in his dungeon.
It’s pretty damn sweet.
Now, everyone knows that a core must kill things to level up. And while that’s true, there’s a grey area. There are lots and lots of grey areas in a core’s life, in fact.
Though a core has to kill things to level up, those things don’t have to be heroes. It’s just that heroes offer waaaaaaay more experience points. The fact is that a core could kill rats, moles, and other things, and he’d still earn experience.
So, why didn’t I just create monsters and then have Tomlin kill them for me, and level up that way?
For one thing, Tomlin clearly wasn’t suited to becoming some kind of dungeon butcher. He was pretty cowardly, and he had better things to do with his time.
The idea of using spawning creatures and then using Tomlin as an executioner was a nonstarter. Though a core’s creatures can hurt each other, the core will never earn experience from their deaths. It’d just be a waste. Besides, any creature spawned in my dungeon is part of my clan, and clanmates don’t kill each other.
So, that wasn’t a way of leveling up, but there was another means of doing it before heroes got here.
There was no rule against Tomlin or another dungeon creature killing other things for me. Animals that live underground and that I didn’t create. Rats, voles, mice, even worms, although the benefit gained for killing a worm is negligible. Point is, I had options. The problem was finding them.
So that was my next plan; somehow find and kill enough underground critters to level up, then use the second-level crafting stuff I’d earn so I could make some traps for this place. To create new monsters, and maybe…just maybe…get this dungeon open!
Speaking of level-ups. It was while I was considering what to do, that a few messages reached me.
Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 2!
Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 3!
Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 4!
Go, Tomlin! The overseers had told us that leveling up isn’t just useful - it gives you a high. A sort of warm glow inside you, like a runner might get after finishing a race.
Right now, Tomlin was probably soooo glad that I had ordered him to do some mining. I bet he was thanking me as he worked.
“Oh Tomlin,” I called across the dungeon. “Tomlin…I’d like to see you.”
I heard a grunt and a curse word. I figured Tomlin was just really unhappy to be interrupted in his hard work. It couldn’t have been a curse at me. So I let it slide.
When the kobold lumbered into my core room he was covered in dirt.
“Thanks for coming, Tomlin. You look like you have been busy.”
“Hole’s blocked up, Dark Lord. Also, room four excavations are complete. Tomlin is done with digging for today. Dark Lord owes him study time.”
I cast my core vision on room four and looked at his handiwork. My dungeon was really taking shape. “Ah, yes! Thanks, that looks great.”
“Four hours digging, means two hours study.”
“The agreement, yeah. I hadn’t forgotten. Like I said, we don’t have books yet, but once I have some loot or gold, I can ask Vedetta to procure some books from a shop on the surface. Right now, you can choose to bank your study time, or I can teach you things. I’m not an overseer or anything, but I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Tomlin would learn from the Dark Lord.”
I was strangely touched by that. Maybe that was stupid, but I felt weirdly proud. I mean, I was only a graduate core. The overseers always drummed it into our heads how little we knew, and I even picked up on a little patronizing air from Vedetta, even if she didn’t mean it. It was nice to think someone wanted to learn from me.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll boost your study time to four hours. We
