I spent most of my life trying to get by with whatever happiness I could, that included alcohol, food, and porn.
My death was unpleasant and humiliating. However, death is something we all need to go through. A bit like a proctology exam; necessary but never anything one wants to go through while it's happening.
However, death was supposed to be the end of it. Either way, the pain, suffering, and failures were supposed to be over. I was supposed to wink out, or perhaps take a trip to a lovely afterlife!
No, I ended up as a small stone, strapped to a table, while a pimple-faced teenager rubbed my facets and told me how 'lovely' I was. Last time I checked, birth wasn't supposed to be as embarrassing as death!
Life as a dungeon core isn't all bad. I like watching lizard love triangles and snooping on militaristic dwarves; though there is that issue where I'm trying to free myself from the entanglements of the Gods....ok, yeah that last one is a bit of a problem.
My Opinion: 282 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a dungeon core story where the dungeon travels around instead of staying in one location. This solves a story bottleneck that a lot of dungeon core stories hit, that they’re stuck in one location with a finite number of locals to interact with. It does create other potential storytelling problems, like having readers invest in characters that may not be seen again or not spending enough time with a group to flesh them out. Still, I think the author does a good job.
There's also sub plots about gods and goddesses and their domains of worship, also stuff with a human kingdom. But beyond that, it is still a dungeon core story where a sentient core creates a dungeon with traps and challenges. Then rewards adventurers that pass levels or kills those that don’t. All while trying to maintain a balance between drawing in adventurers but not killing so many that people seek to destroy the dungeon.
Overall, good stuff. The game mechanics are seen throughout the story with lots of notifications. I like that space manipulation is the dungeon’s special ability. Even though the groups of adventurers that come to the dungeon rotate as it travels, there’s still time put into fleshing out each race/group so that they feel distinct and interesting.
Score: 7.6 out of 10