Worthy Core Chapter 150: Cold Outside, Hot Within (Arc 5: The Nobles)

Novel: Worthy Core Author: DaScoot Updated: Jun 03, 2026

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Now reading: Chapter 150: Cold Outside, Hot Within (Arc 5: The Nobles) from Worthy Core, a Action novel by DaScoot.

WORTHY DUNGEON

DAY 194

3 MONTHS LATER

It had been an exciting winter in Worthy Dungeon. That was not because there had been an influx of new Challengers, however, which was largely thanks to the changing of the seasons. While the south of the Rainlands was still warm by Rainlands standards, the kingdom often got renad to 'the Snowlands' once winter hit, and Worthy Dungeon was even worse off thanks to its location on the top of a remote mountain. Challengers tended to migrate like seasonal birds, and almost no one wanted to hike up a frozen mountain in the middle of winter when other dungeons like the well-known Fire Sands were just a short walk down a beach from their local community.

Internally, however, the dungeon had been very busy indeed. Experints on the monster fertility program were still on-going, although in so respects the project had hit a wall. The Rabbit Champion Patriarch had been confird fertile through alchemical testing, and Lollyp and Sincere both believed that the offspring of such a monster would appear to most to be similar to a half-Rabbit Beastkin. It would be an uncommon sight on this particular continent, but not an impossible one, and so a child wouldn't have to deal with the potential scorn of being half-monster. With that success under her belt, Xenia had then moved on to slis, in the event that Lollyp ever found options of her own for partners.

Slis had proven a little more difficult, unfortunately. If the crossbreeding system had trouble rging divine sprites with rabbits, it really did not like trying to do the sa with slis, and everything was taking at least twice as long. Like with lagomorphs, there had been a number of basic 'Holy Sli' types added to the bestiary, which were certainly potentially useful. There had even been a promisingly-nad 'Breeder Sli' created, which turned out to be a sli which produced more copies of itself at regular intervals. Lollyp insisted that this was not how sapient slis worked, sadly, and so it was shelved as a potential boss idea for if they ever got its duplication powers to work a bit faster.

There was a further difficulty in that the Church of Bounty had no fertility tests designed for use with slis. Lollyp was working on theorizing so thods she might use, but it was entirely possible that the only way to know if a sli monster was fertile would be to...'test' it on a mortal volunteer. This related to the largest stumbling block in the project overall: they still had no real ideas on how to convince a Challenger to have a child with a dungeon boss, and furthermore, none of the bosses in question were entirely convinced that they wanted to be parents given their current situation. Xenia had co up with one possible idea, but it would need running by Bountiful Mother Hamrdown before it might go anywhere. In better news, the Floor Five plan was continuing to produce results, with two more pregnancies taking place. One of the parties involved seed less than thrilled by the news, and given that they were still Challenging months later with no sign of a baby bump it appeared they had decided not to continue with it, but Xenia kept her quest credit regardless. With three out of five down and more than half a year left to go, the dungeon master was still optimistic about her chances of earning that second Divine Favor.

The dungeon had been progressing in other ways, of course. Through a solid week of effort the team had cheated with Xenia's spellsongs to advance their Insects schema to B-tier, and by taking occasional breaks from divine crossbreeding she'd managed to assemble a whole set of fire, lightning, and earth-aspected fae monster types. These had been used for the new crystal-thed Floor Seven, nad the Crystal Caverns. The new floor had been built within the stone of the mountain, away from the open abyss, and consisted of a series of chambers spiraling around a central room which mimicked a mirrored version of the forest floor located above it. Here, 'trees' of crystal and stone hung upside-down from the ceiling, providing perches from which magical fairy blasts or Fae Archers could harass those who traveled below. Additionally, adding the floor had provided Xenia with F-grade mimics, which now coated the floor disguised as gemstones. Xenia had fallen in love with the bitey little creatures almost as much as she had fairies, and the only thing keeping her from dumping all her souls on upgrading them was the desire to have a stockpile in case her next round of achievents gave her so better use for them.

The floor was currently using a temporary, unsouled boss, as no new candidates had passed the various applicant tests. There had actually been two candidates to gain the recomndation of the Church, but neither had passed Xenia's own brief examination. One, a female elvish Mage, had been rejected for being too arrogant for Xenia to see herself working with for a few centuries, while the other, a male drider Rogue, had turned out to be primarily motivated by the rumors he had heard about the dungeon bosses here occasionally engaging in carnal relations with Challengers. Xenia had nothing against that, indeed a certain level of licentiousness was almost a requirent at this point. The problem occurred when the Rogue had suggested a few ideas for new challenges or boss fights which sounded decidedly lacking in the consent departnt, and Xenia quickly decided she really did not want to engage with that option any further.

There had been other new faces as well, of course. While the overall traffic of the dungeon wasn't increasing, the quality was, with more Experts arriving or being trained up from local regulars over ti. Floors Four and Six had both been cleared multiple tis at this point, indeed two or three tis a week most of the ti, although this wasn't always done successfully. Three Challengers alone had died to the endless drops in Floor Six - with Sincere needing to fly down later so he could recover their equipnt - and four more had died to Taly's hand directly. Trush had also had his first few combat encounters, killing individuals twice, and once slaying three Challengers of a group of five in a particularly brutal ambush.

The most notable deaths however had been to a full party of minor Rainlander nobility. They had apparently co up with the bright idea of having themselves intentionally cursed with bad luck before their arrival, and cleared the dungeon's first six floors twice despite only being Advanced-class at best. This gave them quite a bit of overconfidence, and so on their third run they decided to stop and take a dip in the Floor Four river, enjoying how warm it was compared to the natural river outside. No amount of luck in the world could counteract the stupidity of taking a swim with a school of feisty water elentals, and all five of them had gone under the surface, never to be seen again. Word of exactly how they had died never leaked out, but news of a 'cheating' party disappearing entirely seed to be a strong discouragent towards others trying the sa trick.

Other old faces had remained. The Miserables had been using Slinz's curse to their advantage much more responsibly, and had positively shot up through the Advanced levels at a record pace. Their success had required them to leave town the week before however, as Grassbrook still lacked the facilities and staff needed to train Challengers in Expert classes. The Church of Bounty had begun to set down more permanent roots, with an official Church-specific chapel being quickly established, and funding was currently underway for a larger project in the expectation of a boom in population once the weather ward up. Elance made visits to trade and speak with the dungeon every few weeks, while Paladin Sable and Priestess Lilly visited slightly more often to take advantage of the Floor Five facilities - sotis with each other, and sotis with certain floor bosses, if matters could be arranged.

The Domain party had also remained, although they played things quite cautiously and began focusing their efforts on Grassbrook itself as much as the dungeon. They would check the dungeon once every ten days or so, making sure that the dungeon hadn't suddenly slipped in a new secret floor at so point, but for the most part they spent their ti listening to adventurer gossip and reporting the interesting bits back ho. Forr Field Agent - now Administrator - Alizz had quickly caught on to their allegiances, and even the local garrison officer Commander Paulados eventually caught wind of their presence, but both parties decided that it was better to have foreign agents that they knew about and could watch, as opposed to forcing the Domain to use more cleverly-hidden spies.

As for Grassbrook itself, construction had significantly slowed down during the winter months, but so expansion had continued to occur and like with the Church, funding for more projects was still underway. In particular, a small housing district had finally been completed, allowing long-term residents a place to stay without having to choose between the expensive, highly-demanded rooms at the Lucky Bastard, or the low-privacy housing at the Challenger Association bunkhouse. The growing town had even just recently thrown a small celebration in the na of the winter solstice, one which had been mirrored within the dungeon to a much smaller degree by Taly. Trush and Lollyp also had put on a few celebrations over the months from their own native cultures, although they had failed to convince Xenia to do the sa. In her words, "I've been on so many worlds with so many holidays, if I actually celebrated the things that's all I'd ever be doing." Lollyp failed to see the issue with that, but the dungeon master stood firm in her Scrooge-like ways.

Despite the growing harshness of the weather conditions, there were a number of individuals closing in on Grassbrook who would soon be of significant interest to the dungeon. Today, however, the dungeon's interest was more in soone it was sending out, for today Sincere was heading deeper into the mountain with the results of his own personal project. After an hour of trudging through dark yet well-marked tunnels, the demon finally found the light at the end of the tunnel. He gave the light a wave, calling out to it as he approached. "Good afternoon...Cinder? If I'm not mistaken."

The fire elental gives the man a cheerful nod. "That's ! You're getting better at that! So how's things? Tell there's progress...those mana crystals you've been having the dungeon make for us have been helping a lot, but they only take the edge off, you know? We could probably survive off those for ages, but I can barely throw more than one or two fireballs a day anymore."

Deciding not to ask what it is she was needing to throw fireballs at, Sincere moves on to the good news. "Progress has reached an end, actually - for the ritual you require is now complete. Of course, we won't know for certain until we try, but I'm feeling quite confident. Just to confirm however, has your family grown any since we last spoke?"

Cinder shakes her flickering head. "No, we're a bit worried that if we try exploring any deeper we'd get totally lost and never make our way back. We did find one small thing...but Scorch wanted to be the one to tell you about it. Should we head on in, then? I bet everyone's gonna be super-excited!"

"By all ans, let's." The pair continue onward into the presumptuously-nad Elental Kingdom, which...largely consisted of a half-collapsed forr boss arena, creating a large cavern within the earth. The earth elentals had shaped out various hos for their compatriots to dwell within, and torches provided by Worthy Dungeon helped light up the walls, but there was remarkably little else indicating that the place housed a community beyond the presence of the elentals themselves. It wasn't that elentals didn't get bored, exactly, but rather that when active they tended to have the attention spans of a small fish. A few minor amusents along with their own made-up gas kept them endlessly distracted, easily whiling away the long months within the old dungeon. Others would go into hibernation, cultivating their personal brand of mana to increase their strength, but in this location that largely only worked for the earth elentals.

Everyone was imdiately brought to attention by Sincere's arrival though, and the man was soon crowded by several dozen elentals of both types. Scorch eventually made his voice heard and took charge of greeting their guest, shushing his compatriots. "Sincere, buddy, our majestic non-liege! Today's the day, huh? You're gonna rock our worlds?"

"That's...one way of putting it, I suppose. Cinder here told you had sothing for , though?"

Scorch gives the man a wink, or at least Sincere thinks he does, given his lack of eyes. "Sothing we thought might make a good paynt for your services - but services first, right? Let's make sure this is sothing worth getting all excited about!"

"Fair enough, fair enough. Now, everyone please back away, I'll need so ti and space to set up the ritual circle. We'll then need to take this one person at a ti, but I do not believe it should take long, and we should be able to manage everyone today - with the help of a few mana potions." The demon looks around with a smile on his face. "Now...who would like to beco the mountain's first magma elental?"

DUNGEON UPDATE SUMMARY FOLLOWS

Spoiler

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CONSOLIDATED INTRUSION SCORE SUMMARY, DAYS 117-194:

ANIMALS SLAIN: 20 (13 BUNNIES, 7 BIRDS)

MORTALS SLAIN: 20 (5 HUMANS, 2 ORCS, 4 DWARVES, 3 ELVES, 1 KOBOLD, 3 GNOLLS, 2 DRIDERS)

MORTALS ESCAPED: 241

NEW CONSTRUCT PATTERN QUALITIES ACQUIRED/UPGRADED:

LAGOMORPHS: B

AVIANS: D

INSECTS: B

CLOTHING: B

TAL ARMOR: B

LEATHER ARMOR: B

SHIELDS: B

WOOD CONSTRUCTS: C

TAL CONSTRUCTS: C

FOOD AND DRINK: B

SPELL SCROLLS & MAGIC TOS: C-

PRINTED GOODS: C-

FUR CONSTRUCTS: C

ROPE CONSTRUCTS: C

UNDEAD (MORTAL): B

UNDEAD (ANIMAL): D

TORCHES: C

CURRENCY (RAINLANDS): B-

CURRENCY (VALLEYLANDS): C-

FEATHER ACCESSORIES: D-

BONE ACCESSORIES: B-

TAL ACCESSORIES: B-

ARROWS/DARTS: B-

RANGED WEAPONS: B

KNIVES: B

SWORDS: B-

SPEARS: C-

STAFFS: C

WANDS: C

AXES: B-

HAMRS/MACES: D

POTIONS: B

POISONS: B-

LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED:

MORTAL SOULS: 20

KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED:

SKILLS: LUNAR ARCANIST (EXPERT), BACKSTABBER ROGUE (EXPERT), HEXCALLER (EXPERT), HEXER (ADVANCED), PRIEST OF FLA (ADVANCED), PRIESTESS OF GLORY (ADVANCED), ROYAL SQUIRE (ADVANCED), STONECRACKER (EXPERT), MINEWAYS DEFENDER (ADVANCED), BLADE LADY (ADVANCED), NOBLE ETIQUETTE (EXPERT), CARPENTRY (ADVANCED), TRADING (ADVANCED), CURSECRAFT (AMATEUR), HUNTING (ADVANCED)

CUSTOM MONSTERS VIA CROSSBREEDING:

RABBIT CHAMPIONS - PALADIN, CONJURER, PATRIARCH, PRIEST - B - DIVINE SPRITE/LAGOMORPHS

DIVINE HARE - C - DIVINE SPRITE/LAGOMORPHS

LAGOBEAST OF JUDGNT - C - DIVINE SPRITE/LAGOMORPHS

FUZZY SPRITE - D - DIVINE SPRITE/LAGOMORPHS

BREEDER SLI - B- - DIVINE SPRITE/SLIS, NON-SAPIENT

DIVINE SLI - C - DIVINE SPRITE/SLIS, NON-SAPIENT

JELLY SPRITE - C- - DIVINE SPRITE/SLIS, NON-SAPIENT

LIGHT SLI - C - DIVINE SPRITE/SLIS, NON-SAPIENT

FAE KNIGHT - LIGHTNING, FIRE, EARTH - C- - LIGHTNING, FIRE, EARTH SPRITES/INSECTS

FAE ARCHER - EARTH - C - EARTH SPRITES/INSECTS

PIXIES - LIGHTNING, FIRE, EARTH - C - LIGHTNING, FIRE, EARTH SPRITES/INSECTS

DEVAS - C- - FIRE SPRITES/INSECTS

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: DEATHBRINGER 5

YOU HAVE SLAIN FIFTY MORTALS. ADDITIONAL FLOOR UNLOCKED.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: ARACHNOPHOBIA

YOU HAVE SLAIN YOUR FIRST DRIDER. MANA SPELL EFFECTIVENESS ON DRIDERS INCREASED BY 25%.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: LAST LAUGH 2

YOU HAVE SLAIN FIVE GNOLLS. MANA SPELL EFFECTIVENESS ON GNOLLS INCREASED BY 40%.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: NO WAY OUT (NOT) 6

TWO HUNDRED MORTALS HAVE ESCAPED FROM YOUR DUNGEON ALIVE. VOLUNTARY-USE ERGENCY PORTAL ACCESSORIES UNLOCKED.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: REPEAT CUSTOR 3

AT LEAST ONE MORTAL HAS SURVIVED TEN DUNGEON INTRUSIONS. DUNGEON LOOT IS IMPROVED 40% WHEN COLLECTED BY MORTALS WHO HAVE VISITED THE DUNGEON AT LEAST EIGHT TIS PREVIOUSLY.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: REPEAT CUSTOR 4

AT LEAST ONE MORTAL HAS SURVIVED TWENTY DUNGEON INTRUSIONS. DUNGEON LOOT IS IMPROVED 50% WHEN COLLECTED BY MORTALS WHO HAVE VISITED THE DUNGEON AT LEAST FIFTEEN TIS PREVIOUSLY.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: SHALESS 2

YOU HAVE SLAIN TEN UNCLOTHED MORTALS. EQUIPNT-STEALING TRAPS UNLOCKED AT A MODERATE SUCCESS RATE. UNCLOTHED MORTALS TAKE 10% LESS DAMAGE.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: FIRE AND ICE 3

YOU HAVE LEARNED AT LEAST TEN OFFENSIVE MAGIC SPELLS. MAGIC PROJECTILE TRAP COST DECREASED BY 50%. TRAP LEVEL INCREASED BY ONE.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: SHIELD FORMATION 2

YOU HAVE LEARNED AT LEAST FIVE DEFENSIVE MAGIC SPELLS. 'ACCESSIBILITY' DIFFICULTY ALLOWANCES INCREASED BY ONE LEVEL.

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ACHIEVENT UNLOCKED: FOUL, CRUEL, AND BAD-TEMPERED RODENTS 2

YOU HAVE SLAIN AT LEAST FIVE MORTALS WITH LAGOMORPH MONSTERS. LAGOMORPHS DEAL 10% MORE DAMAGE.