DCO- Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 45

James opted for a floor style listed as, Art Deco Hotel for his floor type. It was one of the more niche floor types, having to scroll through options that first started as industrial, then buildings, then style, then and then type. He wasn’t the end all be all of expert when it came to dungeon types, but he’d played enough games to know some ‘dungeons’ weren’t dungeons in the rocky underground sense, but could be haunted houses, abandoned buildings, and so forth. In that same realm, there was the Hotel. He’d picked the Art Deco One purely on a whim, because he liked the aesthetic.

He then spent all of his Resources, which had crept over 11,000, to create the dungeon layout. The way the floor was built, for every 1,000 resources he added to the floor, he could choose a specialized room to add to the basic layout or add an extra floor of his choice. In the end, his… hotel had a total of six floors, with all but the first having specialized rooms added to them. The rooms themselves weren’t basic hotel rooms. Instead, they included options such as ballroom, restaurant, casino, dance hall, and so forth. For each floor, other than the first, those specialized rooms could also encompass the entire floor, replacing the empty space that would normally be basic hotel rooms in real life. In a since, his hotel didn’t really have room for lodging, and instead was a small variety of offerings.

“How very Eagles of you.” Steve said as James finished constructing the seventh floor. “Or, is this more of a hotel for Has Beens?”

James ignored Steve, and looked over his masterpiece. Of course there would be a ton of cosmetic changes he would be implementing. Already his mind was running with the possible options. Because this was potentially the final floor he ever created, he had no qualms about dumping as many dungeon tokens into resources as possible, if needed, to make it perfect. After, of course, he made sure he got a suitable floor boss. This was an odd floor after all, meaning it would have to be Jenkins related. If… of course, that was even a possibility.

The first floor of his hotel served as the lobby, though it was grand by all proper senses of the word. Size wise, it lobby, an expanse of black and white marble, with hanging chandeliers from arched ceilings, had to be at least as long as two football fields, and equally as wide. In the center of it, a marble table reception desk of black and gold. There was a wall behind that desk, and two doors that led to the next part of the first floor. Additionally, two staircases took up part of the room, spiraling upwards in a grandiose manner, leading to the second floor some fifty feet above. As with everything else about the floor, the size was grand, which the steps themselves each a good three feet in height, and the width of the staircase itself likely twenty feet. This was a hotel, but one seemed more suited for giants than humans.

Past the doors on of the lobby, players would find themselves in a courtyard, with an elegant fountain in the middle, pulled straight from some Greek mythology. Flowers fille the air with sweet scents, and vines twirled themselves around marble columns. The other rooms on the first floor, one to the right, and one to the left, were a dining hall, and a ballroom. The latter was a room equally as large as the lobby had been, with mirrors on half the walls, and ‘windows’ of amber gilded in gold on the others. The floor consisted of concentric blacks, golds, and blues, while various candelabra’s hanging from the ceiling above filled the room with flickering flamelight.

The dining hall seemed sized to feed a hundred or more people at a given time, with elegant marble tables, surrounded by chairs that were a rich velvety green, with gold trimmed arms and legs. On the walls of the rooms were long tables, with various heating elements and cookware atop them, as if the room were set to serve food in the manner of a buffet. James was pretty certain he could spend resources to fill those with actual food and drink options, that could either buff, or hinder, adventurers.

Past the elegant first floor, James turned his focus briefly to the higher floors of the hotel. For the second floor of the hotel, he’d gone with the fitness center option. The second floor, and all the others, rested above the lobby and courtyard of the hotel, meaning each floor was roughly four football fields in length, and two in width. Arguably, not as large by any means as his fifth or sixth floor individual, but the square footage definitely added up, and besides, gave it more of ‘dungeon inside of a dungeon’ feel. Instead of various dungeon rooms horizontally across the floor, well, this floor had them vertically.

Fitness center had been a vague option, but he liked what he saw. There was a giant pool in the very center of the floor, with a depth of probably forty feet. It made the Olympic sized pools he’d seen on Television look tame. And, who knew, he’d probably be able to fill the pool with things… maybe even sharks. Because sharks, in pools, seemed liked a great idea.

All around the pool there were stacks of weights, though the smallest, he saw, was listed as weighing a hundred pounds. Definitely not a gym area meant for humans. Past the various free weights, that ranged from weighted plates, barbells, dumbbells, and so forth, there were areas with ropes for working out, punching bags larger than Hornz, and most interestingly… a few bowling alley lanes. Though the pins for the bowling alley were the size of humans, and the balls themselves were easily the size of a badger, if James was going to keep comparing things to the size of Z’s summons.

Moving on, was the third floor of his hotel. This floor was listed as a Spa, and it fit the bill, at least, from what he imagined such a thing would be. It was filled with a giant hot spring like bath, covered in ornate motif’s, and elegant marble tiles, baths, sinks, and sauna’s. The room was a rich blend of blue and gold, with warm lighting above, and a slight haze that smelled of rose and lavender. James wondered if he’d be able to adjust the scent on the floor, and more than that, add an effect to it. Perhaps a poison effect? Or some sort of slow effect that would sap a player’s strength.

With those ideas swirling in his head, he looked over the next floor, building the picture of the dungeon floor properly in his mind, trying to best orient himself with what he’d just built, before he began summoning mobs, and planning out the floor. In his mind, with each floor, he’d been toying with either giving its floor its own unique sets of mobs, if possible, or select combinations of mobs. Perhaps the first floor could have one type of mob, the second two, the third three, and so forth, till it all culminated in an epic boss fight on the sixth. He would definitely need to summon his mobs before he could make those decisions, but it excited him to no end.

The floor above the third was a Theater. And not a movie theater. Instead, it mimicked the theaters that he assumed were popular over a hundred years ago. With red velvet seats, with golden arms in the shape of lion heads, the theater had a somewhat sloped structure to it. At the very far end of it, which would be the back of the courtyard, aka the back of the hotel if he treated the lobby as the entryway and front of the hotel, was a massive stage, with an elegant, heavy curtain draped from the vaulted ceiling all the way down. All along the walls, which were covered in somewhat gaudy wallpaper depicting various scenes which he assumed were from ancient plays, were large seating areas that offered an overhead view of the stage itself. Furthest away from the stage, there was actually an additional row of seating above the initial row. The seats, probably eight feet in width, with aisles between them equally as large, would likely offer a strange environment for players to battle in. Something that James was looking forward to, honestly. This floor, of all the one’s he’d created, felt like it could offer the largest variety of fights for the players, if they ever got to fully enjoy it… before well, the end of the world.

Pushing that aside, James moved to the fifth floor. The casino. Filled with loud noises, flashing lights, and pretty much every sort of gambling machine, table, and venture he could think of, the floor was a giant gaming hall. Lined with a green velvet floor, somewhat darker in lighting than the other floors, it was a gambler’s paradise. It reminded him of the images he’d seen of historic Las Vegas during a documentary on life in the late 1900s, though again, on a scale for giants, and not humans. Even still, he had no doubt the machines themselves, and the game tables, which had cards that were easily larger than a human’s hand, could be played. Meaning, players could gamble now not only outside of his dungeon, in the dungeon town casino, but within it. The entrepreneurs who’d rushed to make a casino for income might not appreciate his dungeon taking some of their revenue, but hey, they could take up the complaint with management, er, the devs, for giving James the option to create a casino within his dungeon.

Finally, James reached the sixth floor. All of the floors were connected by staircases like the ones on the first, though they did a good job of hiding what each floor above and below was consisted of, thanks to, well, he figured dungeon magic. Meaning, until players reached a certain step, nothing from the floor above, or below, could be seen, or heard. It made each floor, at least the first time around, a surprise. It also meant players wouldn’t be able to know if say, something terrifying was happening on a floor they weren’t on, until they stepped into it.

The sixth floor, technically, wasn’t really a floor. Because it was the top of his hotel, he’d been given the option of making it covered, or not. He’d opted for not, and marveled at the Rooftop Bar before him. The bar itself took up the back end, spanning the entire width of the floor with an oak countertop, behind which was row upon row of bottles and glasses, a collection of liquor, spirits, and who knew what else. Was everything on their actual liquor? Were some dungeon specific drinks? He had no idea, and he knew he’d investigate later. He could practically hear Steve salivating at the mass of liquor, even though the developer had the ability already to summon whatever drink he wanted, on a whim.

Besides the bar proper, the rest of the floor was set up with various seating areas, as well as a dance floor tiled in black and cold checkered patterns, and a gorgeous grand piano. The all black piano, outlined with gold trim, and keys that gleamed a perfect white, was a masterpiece in and of itself. He could imagine the setting already, and wondered if the piano would play while adventures were on the floor. There was a microphone beside it, and James could envision an epic boss battle, accompanied by a musical performance. He made a mental note to look into it. Because truly, that would create a battle worth remembering.

Other than those objects of interest, the most notable aspect of the rooftop bar, was the surroundings. The hotel existed in a plane of pure darkness, that seemed to twinkle with stars in all directions. It was like the hotel floated in the cosmos, drifting through time and space. It was eerie, and yet he couldn’t help but look on in awe. A lump formed in his throat, as he thought of what was coming. How many people would get to experience this floor, before the end? It was as if the gods themselves were taunting him. Granting him a floor like this, something so grand, something with so much potential, knowing full well that if he succeeded, if he stopped the government… that the floor itself, his dungeon, DCO, would cease to exist.

If he failed though… well… he figured this could serve as a consolation prize… albeit a bitter, dark one. If the government got its way, well, the seventh floor, it seemed, would offer the perfect way to try and forget about everyone’s woes. A grand hotel they could all check into, and never… leave.

James shook the dark thoughts from his mind once more, slapped himself on the cheeks with both his hands, and looked back at his companions, both of whom had silently been taking in everything beside him as they toured the dungeon.

“Right then,” James said aloud, his words drifting off into the empty expanse of the space around them. “It’s time to summon some mobs.”