Best Friends and Taco Bell

  The Siegemaster quickly set his fledgling dungeon to 75% absorption and 25% expansion. He wanted the core to get a couple levels before he started expanding it. The gigantic ogre smiled as he began pulling his ammunition from his bandolier. The dungeon core greedily began absorbing the energy from the enchanted rocks.

  The rules had prevented him from bringing essence crystals to jump start the growth of the dungeon, but did nothing to restrict personal weapons. His personal weapons were rocks that had absorbed an immense amount of elemental essence inside his bandolier. Of course, this would leave him weaponless until he gathered more rocks and gave them time to absorb essence. However, the ogre had grown up training with John and the Battlemaster. He was confident he would be fine.

  Self defense was the least of the siegemasters worries. His mission required him to save and train as many people as possible. The winner would be determined by a calculation more or less based on the essence value of the humans under his protection when the threat was eliminated. The problem for the twenty foot tall ogre on a planet of humans that had never seen an ogre was that if they knew what he was, they would probably assume he would eat them.

  Apparently, Ogres were rarely portrayed as benevolent in the literature of this planet. To be honest, that was a pretty accurate description of ogres and a fairly accurate description of the Siegemaster if you happened to not be on friendly terms with the Empire.

  As the Siegemaster gathered some ore to take back to his dungeon, he thought of how he should try to make a good first impression with the inhabitants of this planet. John was human, but the ogre was socially experienced enough to know that John was not normal.

  The Battlemaster was actually from this planet and apparently had been human at one point, but that thought was more terrifying than helpful. If the inhabitants of this planet were like Gummy, the system would have made this an extermination mission instead of a rescue mission.

  Annoyed with so much thinking, Siegemaster decided he’d just walk up and say, “Hi” when it was time to meet the humans. It was like momma always said, “Life is like a box of rocks. You never know what you are going to get until you bite into it.”

  *****

  John set his dungeon to 50% absorption and 50% expansion. He wanted to balance his dungeon's growth with its expansion to find resources to absorb. Getting to a high enough level to access the dungeon market was important, but wouldn’t do much good if he had no reserves when he got there.

  After all the years with Destiny and the other dungeons, it was weird to deal with a dungeon too young to have a personality. The little guy will grow up soon enough, John was looking forward to meeting him. Time to explore. John’s starting position was in a large cavern. As he explored, he gathered rocks, fungus, and any small creatures he could zap with lightning.

  After a little while, he couldn’t think of what the other two were doing. Baby Ogre was probably building a trebuchet for his dungeon to absorb and looking for his first opportunity to splat something. Gummy…who knew what that maniac would do. John froze as he remembered this was the planet the universe's most annoying slime had originated from. Shaking his head, he didn’t really want to think about the implications of that.

  *****

  Gummy set his dungeon to 95% absorption and 5% expansion. He’d be able to gather plenty of resources for the dungeon, so there was no need to expand until he had a solid plan and idea of where they might find resources. He gave his little baby dungeon a kiss and hid it in a pile of rocks. “Don’t worry. Daddy will be back shortly.”

  Pulling himself along with his tentacles he quickly gathered everything that had higher levels of essence for his dungeon to absorb. When he reached the far end of his cavern, he heard what sounded like a human being tortured. Curious he went to see what was going on, he should have nearly one year before the invasion.

  Moving quickly towards the sound, he began to sense something wrong. Something powerful, something evil, and something that most definitely shouldn’t be on this planet. Going into stealth he observed a human with a book floating behind him. The human carried a pickaxe. He must be mining.

  Getting a better feel for the book, he realized the artifact must be forcing the human to gather resources for it to absorb. However, the human moved naturally. He didn’t show any signs indicating a puppet being controlled. The book was a very powerful artifact. Making a puppet appear natural probably wouldn’t be all that difficult.

  “Jim, we need to go. Something is coming.” the book said.

  “I set the dvr. You aren’t going to miss anything.” the human responded as he continued on his way.

  “No. I’m serious Jim. Something powerful is coming.” The book sounded as if it was pleading. “We need to go now.”

  Gummy was curious. So he grabbed the book with his tentacles and asked, “What is that doing here?” He examined it quickly. It was ancient and powerful. He felt it try to absorb his essence, but Gummy mentally slapped its attempt away. Next the book tried to invade his mind. Gummy laughed when he felt the book recoil in horror.

  “You’re as bad as him.” The book said.

  “I’m going to guess that you can’t absorb him, Lorem?” The human asked.

  “No, Jim. I can’t. He’s too powerful.” Lorem replied.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Jim looked at his pickaxe and then back at Gummy before dropping his pick and shrugging. “In that case, I’m Jim. Nice to meet you…I hope.”

  Gummy was a little surprised at the reaction and observed the human’s essence for a trap or spell trigger before reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m John. Nice to meet you Jim. Mind if I take a look around inside your mind to make sure the book hasn’t taken control of you?”

  “Would I be able to stop you if I tried?” Jim asked.

  Gummy laughed. “No. Not in the slightest.” Gummy’s face then twisted in confusion. His eyes widened and then refocused. Jim felt the same sense of having something wiggling through his mind and he quickly tried to bind it like he had the book, but this time the invader just kept rooting around. At one point, he had the distinct feeling of popcorn being eaten while some of his memories randomly appeared.

  Focusing inside on his thoughts he found the metallic looking John sitting on a couch in a living room set up observing a memory of Jim winning a state championship in eighth grade and Jim relived the feeling of disappointment at having lost concentration during the third lap and running slower then he knew he could have.

  Annoyed, Jim pushed like he had when he had kicked the book out after binding it as his familiar. To Jim’s surprise, it worked. He opened his eyes in time to see John refocus his eyes on him.

  “You definitely aren’t being controlled by the book, but man, you have a lot going on in there.” John said. He looked at Jim for a second before singing in a strange metallic voice, “Pump up the jam, pump it up, While your feet are stomping”

  “And the jam is pumpin'. Look ahead, the crowd is jumping.” Jim answered.

  “Awa, a place to stay. Get your booty on the floor tonight. Make my day.” They sang together. The two looked at each other and smiled. Lorem looked between the two and realized he had been relocated to one of the hells. Whichever the worst one was.

  “Did we just…” Jim asked.

  “Become best friends?” John finished. Lorem watched in growing horror as the two shook hands and bumped fists.

  “Come along. I’ve got to pick up my dungeon core and then we can go to your place. I just got here, so I don't have a place of my own yet.” John said as he released the book and walked away.

  Jim grabbed his pickaxe and followed John. Lorem floated frozen in horror until he felt Jim jerk on his familiar leash. “Come on Lorem. He isn’t going to hurt us.”

  “How can you….” Lorem knew rationality would get him nowhere with these two, so he asked the next question that came to his mind. “You have a dungeon?”

  “A little baby one, book. Do not try to absorb him or I’ll hurt you in ways you can’t imagine.” John answered.

  “That’s Lorem Ipsum. He’s a very bad book, but I’m trying to train him.” Jim added.

  “Nice to meet you Lorem Ipsum. I’m serious about not absorbing the dungeon. And don’t absorb any people or animals unless Jim tells you. I’ve got to save as many of them as I can.”

  “What are you here to save us from?” JIm asked.

  “Giant insect hives from space. They should be here in a year or so.” John answered as he began digging into some rocks and pulled out a shining crystal. “This little baby will protect you though. Isn’t he precious?” John rocked the crystal in his arms like a baby then kissed it.

  “Hmmm…I knew something was off about our integration. Things seemed too easy.” Jim said. “So you and your dungeon are going to save us all.”

  John shook his head. “No. I probably won’t be able to save them all, but with the others' help, we’ll save as many as we can. You haven’t found any essence veins around here have you?”

  “Hah. I wish. One of the mining corporations found one, but when the guilds and clans took over, they agreed the essence shouldn’t be mined until we know if it will hurt the planet.” Jim explained.

  “Small amounts will be fine, but if you start digging out the main veins, the planet will start growing weaker. You’ll stop seeing gains from absorbing essence and it will be harder to advance. Clans and guilds? I take it that the governments fell during the integration.” John asked.

  “No, they fell later after they banned combat classes and skills and then only licensed the corporations to have most of the crafter classes.” Jim explained.

  John smirked. “Idiots. Hey, is Chuck Norris still around?”

  “No. He bugged off not long after integration. Rumors have it that he and some of the other usual suspects weren’t really from Earth.” Jim answered.

  John shook his head. “Too bad. He would have been useful.”

  “What others came with you?” Jim asked.

  “Baby Ogre and the adventurer formerly known as John. He’s got to use the name for a long time. It’s only fair I get to use it this time. You’ll like him. He’s like a cross between Chuck Norris, Robinhood, Julius Cesar, Merlin, Gandalf, and Bruce Lee. Spends all his time training, but he’s a good guy. Baby Ogre throws rocks that explode. Don’t worry he won’t try and eat you unless you piss him off and no, he won’t turn to stone when the sun comes up.”

  Lorem being a book of immense power recovered from his shock and listened to the conversation, but there wasn’t a lot of it he understood other than one point. “This planet has been assigned to the insectamorphs?”

  “Yep.” John said. “Might explain why you're here. The bureau probably figured you couldn’t do much damage to the hive minds. Or maybe they hoped you would.”

  “So this planet is called earth and you are from here?” Lorem asked.

  “Yes, but I was hit by a truck while being interviewed for a news show…I wonder what happened to that reporter. I was smashed without seeing if she was safe. Anyway, my friends and I saved the universe from the tyranny of the great sects and now we’ve been sent here to save this planet.” John answered. “Hey, you haven’t found any dungeon cores have you?”

  “No.” Jim said as the three of them exited the cave system.

  John paused and looked around. “Keep your eyes open. They will be about the size of a marble at Level 0. We can train them and use them to round people up and defend them.”

  “My cabin is on the other side of this ravine. It will only take about an hour to get there.” Jim said.

  “Any cities nearby?” John asked.

  “There’s a village a few hours walk away to the south.” Jim said.

  “You told me it was north.” Lorem said.

  “And you’re an evil book that wants to absorb the whole planet.” Jim replied.

  “Hey. You know what we should do.” John asked.

  “What?” Jim asked, a little concerned that John was going to suggest that they absorb the village into his dungeon.

  “Build bunk beds!” John excitedly said.

  “Absolutely not.” Jim firmly stated.

  “Ahhh…Come on. It will be fun.” John said.

  “You’re not sleeping anywhere near me. You’ve got tentacles.” Jim explained very seriously.

  “What? I’m not going to probe you.” John said defensively.

  “That’s exactly what the aliens said the last time.” Jim said.

  John looked horrified. “I’m so sorry, Jim. I didn’t know.”

  When they arrived at Jim’s homestead, the sun was setting and JIm got John and the dungeon settled into the barn while he and Lorem went off to the cabin. Once they were inside, Lorem flew around to hover in front of Jim.

  “What are we going to do?” Lorem asked.

  “About John? He seems like a decent fellow. I say we go along with him for a while and see how things play out. Have you got any spells that will work?” Jim asked.

  “Nothing that will do any damage to him, but I might be able to slow him down enough to escape.” Lorem answered.

  “When we go mining tomorrow, we can start setting it up. You’ll have to invert the weave and camouflage it. I think he has pretty high essence vision.”

  Lorem thought for a second before asking the other thing on his mind, “Did you really…”

  “What?”

  “The aliens. Did they?” Lorem asked.

  “No. Of course not.” Jim answered. “I had eaten Taco Bell for dinner. I gave them a big surprise when they tried.”

  “Good.” Lorem said and then he completely processed what Jim had said. “That is disgusting. What is wrong with you?”