The Dungeon Next Door (Dungeon Core Slice of Life)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

What do dungeons do in times of peace?

Hundreds of years after the Pact of Three, the world is enjoying a time of extended peace between Dungeons, Dark Lords, and the Mortal Races. In a remote valley, two dungeons - Kandra and Calith - spawn, but they belong to different factions of Dungeon Cores. Factions that have an ancient enmity. Before the Pact of Three, they would have sought to destroy each other.

Now, however, Dungeons compete in other ways.

Kandra and Calith have no great evils to defeat and no world ending problems to solve. Instead, what they have is a competition to prove which one of them is the best - and with the Guild assessor on his way to grade them, they are going to have to work hard and fast to impress adventurers, get good ratings, create interesting bosses, and try to provide balanced encounters. Working through the Dungeon Mesh, they'll have access to the vast knowledge of their factions to aid them - but the only way to win is to give the assessor something he's never seen before.

It doesn't help that both find the other one equal parts frustrating and fascinating.The Dungeon Next Door is a Dungeon Core Slice of Life that contains light LitRPG and cultivation elements, magitech devices, killer squirrels, dungeons reading their reviews, and so much more.[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: SylviaLillith

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.9/ 5.0
Followers: 85
Views: 17,286

Chapters(13 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(3)

IxtaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Good first chapter! I'm very interested in the concept and am looking forward to the next dungeon being introduced so their competition can begin. The story shows a lot of promise and I didn't notice any grammar mistakes. As a newborn dungeon, Calith doesn't have a lot of character yet, but I expect that will change quickly.
Update: A few more chapters in, and I have to say that I'm enjoying this even more than I thought I would. The way the story bounces between Calith and Kandra's pov each chapter isn't something I think everyone could pull off, but it creates an interesting dynamic that is focused on contrast. Our two MC's develop very different personalities and make different choices when put into similar situations. Side characters stand in as representatives of their groups, allowing readers to compare their actions to their words and start forming our own opinions on how presentation and expectations may differ from reality. This is highlighted in the teaching process, where our MCs are given very different sets of information and what might have benefitted one is only told to the other. Readers with both sets of information can put together pieces that the characters can't yet, which lets us understand the mistakes they're making without making them seem dumb.
TeaGeekRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I am really loving this dungeon core story! I’m usually not one for cultivation elements, but it is done fluidly here. The characters - even one-off side characters - manage to feel like individuals with behaviors and stances or goals particular to each. I found myself really eager to get interactions between the two main characters.
I’m also instantly fond of the worldbuilding and the style of what dungeons are and what they are like. I’ve seen one or two stories where dungeons can communicate with each other, but this has a version I haven’t seen before - sort of like an intranet of sorts and I like it. Personally not keen on the style of the rating system… feels really similar to Yelp in a not so good way. Would honestly prefer just a numeric system like 2/10 rather than stars, but maybe that’s just my bias from working in customer service :p
The only downside for me is the chapters could definitely use a re-read before posting. The grammar isn’t bad at all, but there are little mistakes in the text peppered here and there that could certainly be ironed out with just a double check or running it past a friend or acquaintance to edit.
The OxRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is shaping up to be an innovative story in the dungeon core genre, with no indication yet that it might fall into some of the traps some core stories do ( like fairy advisors and/or creating a human body and abandoning the dungeon).
In classic core stories the dungeon is almost completely without contact with other sentient minds. The delvers are enemies or food and the monsters they make are more slaves or extensions of themselves than companions.
in this story Calith and Kandra not only are instantly contacted and swept up into their respective dungeon factions, they also quickly become aware of each other as a neighbor/rival right next door. This opens all kinds of possibilities between the two, and it's clear the author will be carefully splitting perspective between them as dual protagonists.
The story it most reminds me of is Dungeon Core Chat Room, which also has near constant communication between dungeon cores and in fact an entire core society and culture. The part that remains to be seen is if the interpersonal politics of dungeon core society makes for a good story, because it seems clear from the chapters so far that this will be a big part of the plot.
I'm eager to see more.