If I could eat or sleep, I declare I could no more. Not without my companion. My task seems almost empty, pointless, without them. There is light at the end, I know. In this moment, it all seems empty, their nest, that blinding spot in the everness that is this tower... --65.7 Seconds Post-Integration.
Speckles of light, data; gray screens, dark screens, multi-colored screens -- all were camera feeds; ethereal ropes of sparkling light and darkness, networks they did and did not have access to; then there were the Guests, who were of sound, sometimes images, twinkling in and out of existence.
This was part of SIMP's reality. They called it 'the virtuality.' It was the monument Augustford erected within the dungeon to enforce their will.
SIMP had another part of their reality. The part which belonged exclusively to them and the dungeon.
To discover this deeper element to their reality, SIMP had to delve deeper. Into the 'shadows' of the virtuality. There, was where the dungeon's virtuality dwelt. Doing such a dive, all of the light specks, colored screens, and ropes, vanished. What replaced it was an echo-map of the tower dungeon... a small part of the tower dungeon, anyway.
The echo-map SIMP saw came from discreet pulses of magic. Each pulse they emanated at will and only when they needed 'eyes on the ground.' Such pulses bounced off life forms -- such as shoppers and Augustford Associates -- and created a map showing SIMP the contours of the shopping spaces, the aisles, the backrooms, the air ducts and maintenance passages. All of the echo-map was colored in an ocean blue filter. giving their impression of reality an animated appearance. Because of the echo-map side-effect of 'filtering' reality, SIMP could not discern details about what they saw. Fashions, cleanliness, and the rest were information they would need their dungeon champion in order to view as, without the champion, it all looked plain, and blue. For it was only through their champion's eyes -- or his System Link HUD, more accurately -- that they could see anything of exact detail.
Right now, SIMP was on patrol.
Clark and his team slept. Because they never slept, SIMP had to find outlets for their boredom.
A proper outlet was tending to their Spiritual Consciousness duties.
SIMP's responsibilities as a Dungeon's Spiritual Consciousness were varied and many. From attending to the spiritual 'tax' to cleansing corruptions, there was little which happened in the dungeon tower they did not know about.
Collecting the 'tax' happened automatically. When a customer entered the dungeon-store, the tiny sum of magical energy was taken away automatically. Augustford's technology helped a lot in this regard, though they kept (nearly) the entire tax for themselves, leaving to they only a miniscule fraction of a sum, a pittance's fragment of what they were owed. This angered SIMP more than anything. Tens-of-thousands of customers entered the dungeon-store at any given moment. Multiplied by a year over, that sum added up. Magic they badly needed as they were presently engaged in fruitlessly attempting to force open a dwarven relic.
Corruptions and their cleansing made SIMP less frustrated. Plus, they were easy to pinpoint; splotches of black and red infested the echo-map wherever corruptions, monster pustules, popped up. Cleansing them via the tower's energy leylines was as easy as generating a mapping echo-burst, except a cleansing burst required more energy. As such, SIMP could not cleanse 'at-will' as they could the miniature mapping bursts. Leyline bursts required an immense magical sum before firing it toward a location; usually, such bursts arrived at the corruption quickly, efficiently traveling the many bends and complexities of the tower's infrastructure. Sometimes, they did not. It was in those slow moments that corruptions could spread and lead to new corruptions. Should the corruptions spread too quickly and go too long without a cleansing burst, they inevitably led to the creation of Monsters.
Monsters in SIMP's reality, were perhaps the easiest to locate.
In their echo-map, monsters appeared as roving red gashes within their ocean-blue framework. Easy enough to spot. Or numbers, irrational, if they focused too closely. A monster's very presence sent warning waves careening through the echo-map, assuming such a presence was mapped within their sphere of information. Otherwise, a monster's appearance would only generate within them a sense of unease.
Unease... in the last couple of months SIMP experienced nothing but unease. Even now, on the ten-thousandth floor, monsters of terrible size and power ran rampant. SIMP had no inlets to the ten-thousandth floor. Still, they felt the emotive radiation which emanated from that part of the tower. In a word or two? Sublime doom: that was the only way they could describe the feeling which slowly wafted down from that area... which still begged the question on how so many monsters had generated without them having an inkling of it, but that was a question yet to be answered.
Monsters as they saw in the moment, ran rampant throughout the tower. Hordes of erratic red smears spread over the tower's immensity. Thankfully, few of the smears were concentrated in any one area. More of them than not had spread out, with the ten-thousandth floor being the obvious exemption. Monsters weren't what SIMP was looking for, however; rather, they were in search of what they and their Champion, Clark, were always in search for -- the dungeon core.
That was the grand mystery. Where had the dungeon core gone? Every dungeon, big or small, had a dungeon core. A dungeon without a core was like a dungeon without walls. Simply unthinkable.
When they got right down to it, the dungeon core had to still be within the tower. A dungeon without its core would melt, it would cease to be. the dungeon remained, as did the tower, and the store. Augustford certainly did not have the core. If they did, SIMP's role would've likely been minimized to a point of such irrelevance, their very existence would be called into question. As they still felt it fit to cause them and their champion trouble, the company lacking the core was the only silver lining.
"Where are you, Core... where could you be in this wide, wide tower?" Speaking to oneself was an unseemly habit. Throughout the evenings, when they had no one of note to talk to, it was impossible not to muse with themselves. It helped to pass the time.
Unfortunately, talking to oneself did little to help in accomplishing tasks.
SIMP had just put themselves into an auto-search function, an action which saw them lazily scrolling through the store, guided by spiritual pulsations, and echo-mapping the place, when they noticed something unusual. Parts of their echoes weren't returning to them.
Unusual!
"Surely a mistake." SIMP drifted closer to the zones in question and emanated several echo-mapping bursts.
Nothing.
The section their echoes could not map remained non-existent in their vision, as diffuse areas of gray. Around these gray zones, the territory mapped normally. What was going on?
Additional echo-bursts did nothing to alleviate the issue. "Guess that settles it. I will need to look through the local camera and monitor feeds."
SIMP returned to the non-space of virtuality, where their whole visage was of data points and networks associated with Augustford's technology. They quickly found the unmappable zone. They looked through the cameras feed and found nothing unusual -- customers inappropriately disciplining their kids, said children running rampant prior to being disciplined, and the haggle of thieves stealing petty products. Same old, same old.
That couldn't have been all. It just... couldn't be. There was something amiss about that zone and they needed their eyes on the ground.
SIMP was about to ring-up Clark when they thought better of it. "He works hard already. I can't interrupt his sleep with a demand like this. I can wait."
And so, SIMP did wait. They waited through the night. They waited all while bored to tears and frustrated as well. They searched up and down for a solution to their unmappable zone yet found none by the time Clark awoke.
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"Morning, SIMP!" Clark yawned from his own dimension. Moments later, his HUD connected to SIMP's network within Augustford space; Clark's HUD appeared in plain rectangle made of golden lights, which made it easy for them to find anything associated with him as their Dungeon Champion.
"Morning, Clark." SIMP told him. "After your responsibilities for today, I have a mission for you as my dungeon champion. It is a simple job."
"Gods. I already have so much to do. Plus, I wanted a bit longer of extra personal time tonight... if you catch my drift."
'Drift' they caught. SIMP knew, as a young man, Clark needed, once in a while, an extra bit of 'hands on time' with himself for stress relief.
"My task won't interrupt with that, you silly boy!" SIMP said, giggling manly at the absurdity of the situation. "There is a part of the store resistant to my efforts to map it, and I need to know why. When you're done with your day, I need you to check it out real quick. Understood?"
Clark considered for a moment then asked them to repeat themselves.
"Come off it, boy!" SIMP chastised the lad. "You're still sorry with the morning sleep! Splash some cold water on your face and ready yourself for work!"
Clark did as he was told and got ready for the day without further incident. While he did so, SIMP repeated themselves on what they wanted him to do.
"I get it. That's all I have to do, really? Just map the area out?" he asked, a tone of mild annoyance lingered in his voice.
"Not even mapping the area out. Just investigating. I don't have any the full picture. I need your gaze to help get the full picture. All you will have to do is walk -- that's it."
"Promise?" Clark's tone was heavy with teenage petulance but there wasn't anything SIMP could do to remedy that. 'The boy must've woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So help me!'
"Clark. I promise. All you have to do is scout. That's it."
Again, thinking on their request as if there was anything to think about, Clark reluctantly agreed.
His work that day dribbled by with all the stamina of a senior citizen on sleeping tea. Walking, doing this work, helping that customer, occasionally needing help. It was rote and didn't take Clark anywhere near the unmapped zone. Annoyed, bored, frustrated, and it all, there was nothing SIMP could do to hurry the process along. The worst of it was that once his minimum shift ended, he still had his Betterment class. It wasn't until hours after his shift ended when Clark, fresh from his post-class break, got himself down to the unmapped zone.
Clark, by now, had a different tired in his face. Not the tired of the morning, where one is barely able to break through the wonders of dreams, but the tired of the evening, where all one wants to do is dream of the splendor of sleep. SIMP decided some extra encouragement was needed. "Clark. Thank you for keeping your word and investigating this area for me. I know you are tired and want to sleep... and have that personal time. Tasks such as these are important to your role as my Champion, though, so I cannot overlook them."
"...'kay..." was all he said.
Frustrated with their Champion as they were, SIMP knew nothing good would come from lecturing him. Instead, they kept their vision glued to the golden feed which was Clark's sight. They saw everything he saw. And what did it amount to? Not much. The sector they had spent so much time obsessing over, looked no different through Clark's eyes than it had in through the security camera feeds.
"There is something here I am not seeing..." That much was obvious, but what?
SIMP conducted more highly powered echo-bursts while Clark walked up and down the unmappable area. With Clark as a conductor, of sorts, they saw less pushback from the store. Their echoes did return, but only by faintly, which resulted in no mapping getting done.
A faint trace. What did that mean? SIMP was hard-pressed to say. In all their time as the dungeon's spiritual consciousness, 'faded returns' on echoes wasn't something they usually handled. But they searched their memories for the times when it happened -- what did it mean then? Typically, SIMP thought, as if any of their current situation was 'typical,' it meant that plague rot was in such heavy abundance the resonance of their magics couldn't penetrate the walls.
Clearly, that was not the case, here.
SIMP's golden monitor showed no signs of plague rot, Clark saw no sign of plague rot.
"Okay, SIMP..." Clark sighed. "Can I leave now? I have been walking aimlessly for over an hour, now. I want to get back to my dorm."
If SIMP had eyes to roll, they would have rolled them. "Not right now. Almost!"
A mental itch told them something was not as it appeared. "If the surface looks clean," SIMP told themselves. "Then what about underneath?"
Quickly, they checked for nearby crevices leading into the dungeon-interior. One was found on the next floor up.
To Clark, they asked if he could investigate further.
"In the Interior? ...fine! What a pain..."
SIMP directed Clark to the crevice. He entered after taking a quick pit-stop back in his dorm to re-stock on dandies. And some energy tea. He mumbled the whole time he was in his dorm getting ready. Somewhere in themselves, SIMP wondered if Clark had always been so angst-ridden and they simply never noticed or if his attitude was a recently acquisition because of stress. His behavior did remind them of someone, but who they couldn't say.
Once in the Interior, SIMP used echo-bursts to map out the path Clark needed to walk.
"Everything looks normal," Clark said. "Or as about as normal as the Interior ever looks. Least there's no Slimes this time. Gods..."
"We haven't yet arrived where I am interested in, Clark. Stay collected."
"Yeah, yeah..."
Clark's progress was slow but that was fine. Slow and steady was best in their book as it gave them plenty of time to analyze.
"There it is!" SIMP found it -- subtle, but there. A thin, black layer of Rot.
"That? How can you tell? It's so transcalent..." Clark crouched down to investigate. "And watery," he said after touching the Rot.
"We need to get you further down. Follow my instructions."
Nearly ninety minutes later, Clark had descended down several access passages, where he made use of the gravitational anomalies present in the Interior to quickly traverse large distances. Now that his aura had grown by a modest amount, they saw as he made much easier interactions with the natural magics of the tower.
Having descended beyond the walls where the unmappable section laid in wait, SIMP-through-Clark saw more plague rot.
Clark whistled at how much Rot there were -- "It's like frosting on a cake. Gross."
"Keep going. You can't stop now."
The deeper Clark went, the more plague rot SIMP saw through his eyes. 'Like frosting' was not a bad analogy; at certain places in the passage, the plague rot was so thick, Clark had to chip away at the Rot by tossing spouts of purifying dandy.
"Keep going, I need--" SIMP started.
"No! I'm done! It's nearly two in the morning, SIMP! I need to get some fecking rest, alright?!" Clark snapped.
"I understand... thank you for your help. We can resume another time."
Clark grumbled. He made the return trip to his dorm in silence.
"I pushed him too hard," SIMP chastised themselves, now. " I should've ended this hunt an hour earlier, minimum. I can't push him so hard. He's already under a lot of pressure from Qoon and his studies."
Knowing they had pushed Clark and needed to modulate their expectations, for the next while, did not help with the irritating sense of progress impeded. SIMP knew that look in Clark. It would be days before he felt ready to resume exploring.
Days...
Slow, tedious days filled with waiting and biding their time as Clark and friends worked. Studied. Helped them, sure, but slowly.
"Gods... there's nothing I can do about it. Who's being the angsty one, now? I just have to be patient... yes, patient."
And patient they were. For a whole month, they were patient, as, once every few days, Clark rewarded their patience with an Interior dive to chart more of the clogging Rot.
Little by little, the full extent of the Rot was charted. By the end of the month, SIMP still did not have a complete understanding of the Rot, much less where its origination point came from, but they knew enough to say the plague which infested the Interior behind the walls of the unmappable zone was a phenomenon in and of itself.
Throughout this period, SIMP was not the only member of the team to focus on their personal projects.
Theo continued his stealth training. Their mentor, the 'urban stalker,' taught him intermediate sleights of hand and how to take advantage of a chaotic situation. Purse snatching, essentially -- or 'purse returning,' as Theo was not of the thief's persuasion. For readiness, though, he learned it all.
Hera's public pressure campaign continued unabated. The protest movement gained allies from pagan groups to a general mélange of anti-corporate protestors, each of which had a myriad of bones to pick with the store. In hushed tones, Hera talked to Clark and Theo about conducting additional sorties into secure Augustford Interior spaces, once her intelligence found word of such places.
And Clark spent the month doing the same as he had the previous month -- he read, he attended class. He worked. He felt like a normal boy.
What did change was the sudden appearance of gifts. What had once been a single, albeit large unannounced gift of a Mobile Office Cube, was now many smaller unannounced gifts which were left before his dorm. This time, gift tags came with each gift, which was more than he could've said about the Cube, which had been left for him without even a modicum of signage concerning who sent it.
The new gifts were small. Things like Store Coupons and redeemable codes good for Culinary Points or other such amenities.
"Am I fooling myself?" Clark asked SIMP after discovering a small pile of boxes before his dorm's door. "But it feels like Qoon is buttering me up?"
"You would be correct. As we've already discussed, they see you as an asset." SIMP answered but felt cranky about it. Not only did the Dwarven pod continue its stupor against them, but it felt like Clark needed to constantly be reassured of basic social interactions. They wanted to grab him by his shirt and yell, "Of course they're trying to bribe you! You're the dungeon champion! Having you as their lackey would serve their ends well, remember?!"
Tempting as it might have been to shake Clark, SIMP lacked the arms to do so. They endured his great needing of direction, attributing it to his youth and inexperience with delicate social conspiracies.
With progress aplenty yet no destination any closer, the month closed out. And all of the team kept to waiting.
Cyberspace at Work: Good or Bad?
