Christmas Core, page 11
A 12-foot wide metal Slinky slammed into the hardwood floor of the Workshop, which was heavy enough to shake the floor, sending everyone over as they lost balance. The coiled metal toy extended itself in the direction of the remaining fighters, who attempted to use a few special skills that Elmer had seen before to cut through the toy, but it wasn’t enough; a few metal shards were cut away, but the weight of the rest was enough to slam them into the floor, squishing them and practically cutting them in half.
Looking around, Elmer saw that all of the Adventurers except for Lance and the women were dead. As they picked themselves up from where they had fallen, Santa Claus seemed to notice the same thing – and knew exactly what they were going to do. As befitted cowards like this particularly nasty Adventurer, Lance took off back toward the entrance of the dungeon, leaving the women behind in confusion.
A metal race car hit the floor at Santa’s feet, approximately the size of a Power Wheel, followed by a red wagon that was four times as large as the one he used to own when Elmer was a kid, as well as a bicycle that was a little bit bigger than a Harley. As soon as they were all down, they started to rock back and forth, as if some giant invisible kid was revving them up in anticipation of flinging them forward.
Which is exactly what happened. They took off like they were rocket-powered, running over or pushing out of the way a few corpses of Adventurers before slamming full-force into the women staring at Lance’s retreating form. As if they had been hit by actual cars on the highway, the result of the impact wasn’t pretty, and none of them survived more than a few seconds after being hit.
The red wagon and bike were damaged horrifically in the process, as they had taken the brunt of the impacts, and were basically heaps of metal after the crash. The race car, however, barely clipped one of the women on its way past, so it was able to continue onward.
It still had another target.
Being a race car, it was fast. Elmer watched it shoot through the tunnel, catching up to Lance as he was running the snow in the third cave. The fighter heard it coming and held out his shield as if to block it, but the toy wasn’t going to be denied its purpose. Approximately 5 feet before it reached Lance, it hit a bump in the snow that caused it to lift into the air. As the fighter had been crouched to block the car down below, his head was sticking out above the barrier; unfortunately for him, he couldn’t adjust fast enough to block the airborne toy, and it crashed right into his head, the front portion of the race car sharp enough that it cut through his neck, decapitating him instantly.
As his body fell to the floor, Elmer felt his mind start to work again; it had been frozen in a state similar to if he was holding his breath, and with the death of the last of the hostile Adventurers, it felt like taking a deep breath.
He had done it. He had survived.
Chapter 14
Of course, the deaths of 30 Adventurers in Elmer’s dungeon didn’t just save him from being shattered and his Core shards used as some sort of powerful magical component. It also served to give him a lot of Life Force – enough to raise his Core Level a few times, in fact.
He felt the necessary Life Force collected in his Dungeon Core condense and harden, enlarging his outer shell quite a bit while also expanding upon what he could access. At the end of the transformation, he looked to see what had changed.
Dungeon Soul:
Elmer Robbins
Dungeon Helper:
Keebles
Dungeon Theme:
Holiday
Core Level:
7 (325 LF to next Level)
Current Life Force (LF):
114
Reach:
400 Units
Dungeon Mana:
250/350
Mana Conversion Rate:
7.0 per minute
Minions:
60/100
Defensive Obstacles:
11/17
“That Santa Claus of yours is amazing, Elmer. But don’t get complacent,” Keebles warned. “These were very low-Level Adventurers without too much experience in dungeons, and it showed. Against an experienced group of even middling-Level Adventurers, they would likely be able to handle your Boss without too much trouble.”
That was a sobering thought. Santa Claus seemed almost indestructible and all-powerful, but if these were some of the weakest Adventurers, he supposed that made sense.
*Thanks for the warning, Keebles. For now, I’m just glad that we survived. I’ll make sure to keep improving my defenses, because I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of that guy. Next time, he’ll probably bring— huh? *
Something caught his attention as he was speaking, though it wasn’t coming from his dungeon. Instead, it was seeming to come from inside of his Core.
* El… mer? Is… that… you? El… mer? *
He recognized the voice immediately.
* Mary? Yes, it’s me, Mary! Where are you? Can you hear me? *
He looked internally at his Dungeon Core and saw that the barrier keeping her soul trapped inside of the barrier had weakened momentarily, but it appeared to be only temporary. He attempted to mentally batter his way through, but it resisted all of his efforts. Sadly, he didn’t hear any more from Mary despite his attempts to contact her again, and he railed a little in frustration.
* Mary! I’m going to get you out of there and we can be together again! *
He wasn’t sure if she could hear him, but the fact that he had heard her voice meant that he was getting stronger. It also gave him encouragement that he was on the right track, and that we would eventually be able to eventually break down the barrier entirely in the future.
“I’m sorry you weren’t able to free her yet, Elmer,” his Elven Helper said apologetically. “But you’re getting closer.”
* I know; it’s just frustrating. *
“It’s only a matter of time – but you have to stay in one piece to get there,” Keebles added. “Speaking of that, what are you going to do with your new Core Level?”
After turning away from the current futility of trying to batter down the barrier keeping him from his wife’s soul, he considered what he wanted to do. While he had originally thought about adding another Christmas-themed cave, he saw that his maximum Minions had increased more than he expected. A quick answer from Keebles let him know that every 5 Core Levels there was an increase to jump in the maximum, so instead of just 10 more per Core Level, it was now 20. With an extra 40 Minion Cost available to him, he was beginning to think of a different direction.
* Tell me something, Keebles. Have you ever heard of St. Valentine’s Day? *
The End
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Christmas Core!
I had been kicking around the idea of a holiday-themed dungeon for a while, but when in late November and early December I had four different people mention how fun it would be to have some sort of Christmas Dungeon Core, I knew I had to finally do it! There are a ton more Christmas objects that I didn’t include (though I might in the future), because I wanted to keep it a little more focused than just shoving every single thing I could think of in a single novella. Additional mini-bosses like Rudolph or Frosty, the Grinch or Krampus (I almost went with Krampus rather than Santa for the boss, but decided against it), and other figures from various media sources like Scrooge and the three ghosts or Kevin McCallister from Home Alone (the movie is very similar to a Dungeon Core already) could be possible, along with any number of individual Minions.
Regardless, hopefully you enjoyed Christmas Core!
Again, thank you for reading, and I implore you to consider leaving a review – I love 5-star ones! Reviews make it more likely that others will pick up a good book and read it!
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Books by Jonathan Brooks
Glendaria Awakens Trilogy
Dungeon Player (Audiobook available)
Dungeon Crisis (Audiobook available)
Dungeon Guild (Audiobook available)
Glendaria Awakens Trilogy Compilation w/bonus material (Audiobook available)
Uniworld Online Trilogy (2nd Edition)
The Song Maiden (Audiobook available)
The Song Mistress (Audiobook available)
The Song Matron (Audiobook available)
Uniworld Online Trilogy Compilation (Audiobook available)
Station Cores Series
The Station Core (Audiobook available)
The Quizard Mountains (Audiobook available)
The Guardian Guild (Audiobook available)
The Kingdom Rises (Audiobook available)
The Other Core (Audiobook available)
Station Cores Compilation Complete: Books 1-5 (Audiobook available)
Spirit Cores Series
Core of Fear (Audiobook available)
Children of Fear (Audiobook available)
Carnival of Fear (Audiobook available)
Community of Fear
Dungeon World Series
Dungeon World (Audiobook available)
Dungeon World 2 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon World 3 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon World 4 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon World 5 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon World Box Set: Books 1-5 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon Crafting Series
The Crafter’s Dungeon (Audiobook available)
The Crafter’s Defense (Audiobook available)
The Crafter’s Dilemma (Audiobook available)
The Crafter’s Darkness (Audiobook available)
The Crafter’s Dominion (Audiobook available)
The Crafter’s Dynasty (Audiobook available)
Dungeon Crafting Series: Books 1 – 3 (Audiobook available)
Dungeon Crafting Series: Books 4 – 6 (Audiobook coming soon)
The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Series
The Dungeon Fairy (Audiobook available)
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices (Audiobook available)
The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives (Audiobook available)
The Dungeon Fairy: Four Days (Audiobook available)
The Dungeon Fairy: Box Set Books 1-4
Serious Probabilities Series
Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds (Audiobook available)
Dungeon of Chance: Double or Nothing (Audiobook available)
Dungeon of Chance: All-in (eBook coming January 2022)
The Body’s Dungeon (with Jeffrey “Falcon” Logue)
Bio Dungeon: Symbiote (Audiobook available)
Bio Dungeon: Parasyte (Audiobook available)
Bio Dungeon: Hemostasis (Audiobook available)
Tales of Dungeons Anthology
Tales of Dungeons Vol. 2
Tales of Dungeons Vol. 3
Tales of Dungeons All Hallows 2020
Dimensional Dungeon Cores
Core Establishment (Audiobook available)
Holiday Dungeon Core
Christmas Core
Brooks, Jonathan, Christmas Core
