Setting up the Dungeons

  Siegemaster analyzed the essence in the small city. Back corner …near all the largest homes…some things never change. “We’ll want to set the dungeon up in that corner by those large estates.”

  “Not in my backyard. Come with me, I’ll show you where to set up for the demonstration.” The guild leader led the ogre to an obviously much poorer section of the city. The ogre rolled his eyes.

  When they arrived, he pulled out the dungeon core and set it to 75% expansion. “You’ll receive a …” everybody stepped back, “system notification that you are entering a dungeon. Hi buddy. We are just demonstrating how we can add a small section of the city to the dungeon.” A small glowing ball had appeared floating next to the ogre.

  “Go ahead and make the repairs.” the ogre said. Standing water in the road began disappearing. Sewage was removed from the ditches and alleyways. The ogre quickly threw a set of leather armor to a naked man whose clothes had been mistaken for garbage. “Sorry about that.”

  Dust was removed from windows and paint began to glow like it was fresh. The entire section of the city looked like it was brand new instead of a run down forgotten corner of the city. The guild leader walked forward and began touching the walls of a building. He tapped on the wall before looking back at the ogre.

  “The permanent features have been replaced with dungeon materials. Take a good swing at it…It’s almost indestructible for people at your level.” The ogre said. The guild leader punched it half heartedly and then shook his hand. He pulled out a wooden club and proceeded to break it on the wall.

  “And when the dungeon removes itself?” The guild leader asked.

  “It will revert to the original material. Brand new and flawless, but not as durable without being dungeon material.” The ogre explained.

  “Why did you suggest the elite sector?” the guild leader asked.

  Siegemaster looked at the leader skeptically. “It’s over an essence vein. The area has stronger essence flow. We don’t have to put the entrance there. That’s just where we’ll drop the core to let it start working.”

  The guild leader used his fingernail to put a small dent in the wall’s paint. He then walked around and looked in buildings as the street began to fill with people. He just waved them away when they asked what was going on. “I don’t see any negative side effects. Will putting it in a subspace be any different than just expanding the dungeon over it?”

  The glowing ball disappeared as the dungeon core switched back to 100% absorption. “No difference, other than the dungeon can move it around inside of the defenses. The essence can be kept at a higher level and you’ll have access to the training areas.” Siegemaster explained.

  “Ok. We’ll join you.” the guild leader said as he held out his hand. Siegemaster shook it with the complex series of moves gummy had taught him. The guild leader looked at him confused when Siegemaster finished the dancing spin with a double snap over his head. Must be a different part of the world than where Gummy is from.

  *****

  The book doesn’t look all that evil. Just dirty and stained.” Rachel said as she eyed the floating Lorem.

  “It had a skull and glowing red eyes earlier.” Larry explained.

  “Lorem. Say hello to Rachel.” Jim said.

  A skull appeared on the book’s cover. Its mouth opened what appeared to be a gateway to the abyss. “Hello, Rachel.” a deep ominous voice said. Rachel looked at it for a second before a small flame appeared on her finger and she jabbed it at the book. The book slid back.

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  “Can I eat her?” Lorem asked.

  “No, you can’t.” Jim said.

  “But she attacked me!”

  “She was only checking to see if Jim could really control you.” John said. He formed a long flexible arm and hand over Jim’s shoulder. “Nice to meet you Rachel. I’m John. The real John. If you meet another guy calling himself John, tell him it’s my turn to use my real name.”

  Rachel looked questioningly at the hand before reaching out to shake it. “Nice to meet you Real John.”

  “John’s fine.”

  “No he isn’t. He’s mean.” Lorem said.

  “I’m here to help them, you just want to absorb all their essence, book. If you want to see the real meanie, go find a mirror.” John said.

  “Will you two idiots stop babbling and tell Rachel what you can do for her.” Jim said, shaking his head. “Sorry Rachel. Those two get on my nerves when they start squawking at each other.”

  “That’s okay, Jim. I’m sure they are just irritable from having to listen to your singing.” Rachel said. Lorem started laughing and John nodded his head vigorously. “Okay. You have a dungeon. I understood that, but what can it do?”

  John explained with projected visuals of what a fully functional dungeon could do. He was a little shocked to find out how long it had been since the planet integrated. Their levels were extremely low, but then again, it had been a surprisingly peaceful integration with no tutorial. Talk about setting a planet up for failure.

  When John started talking about truncated octahedron’s efficient use of storage and flexibility in shuffling tiles while maximizing surface area, Rachel began waiving her hands. “Don’t need that much info. If you add the village to your dungeon and we don’t like it, can you put it back?”

  “Sure. You’lll lose the advantages of being part of the dungeon, but he can recreate it with the same materials it was originally created with for minimal additional essence usage.” John explained.

  “And you say in a few levels we’ll be immortal inside of the dungeon?” Rachel asked.

  “Yep. If you die, you’ll have to stay in the dungeon until your essence debt is repaid, but yes. You are effectively immortal. We used this to our advantage to take on larger factions.” John answered.

  “And your dungeon will be able to move around.” Rachel asked.

  “Yes. When we reach the appropriate levels, it can exchange essence for plans and materials to make a variety of vehicles or we can make a custom one.” John nodded.

  “All right. I’ll recommend we go with your plan. I’ll let them vote on it.” Rachel said as she motioned for Larry to open the gates.

  *****

  “I don’t want to hear a word from a single one of you knuckleheads. A man with a stick just whooped all your butts.” the heavily armored man with a large battleaxe strapped to his back marched straight up to John. “What clan or guild are you with?”

  “Drake guild.” John answered.

  “Never heard of them. Where are you from and what are your terms? And how the heck did you get so strong?”

  “We have no guild headquarters on this world. I trained for thousands of years and that is how I became so strong. I have no terms. I only wished to speak with the leadership as quickly as possible.” John explained. The man looked at him skeptically. “Your planet will be invaded by powerful insectoid races in a little over one year. My associates and my mission is to use our dungeons to save as many people as possible and assist them to become as strong as possible.”

  “Are those insects going to be as strong as you?” The man asked.

  “Not even close, but they will come with insurmountable numbers and will be controlled by hive queens. They will kill all life on the planet before terraforming it to meet their needs. My companions and I will be able to defeat the invasion… given time, but without you joining our dungeons, not very many of you will survive.”

  John gave them a few seconds for that information to sink in before turning to the man wearing plain robes that was standing at the corner of the nearest vehicle. “So what do you think…guild leader? And don’t worry. I have a repair skill and can make your vehicles as good as new in a few seconds.”

  John placed his hand on the vehicle and its large barrel straightened out from where John had tied it into a knot. Oil stopped leaking from beneath it and the wheels straightened back out.

  The man nodded and motioned for John to follow him. “I’ll call for the other guild leaders and set up a meeting so that you only have to explain it once.”

  *****

  Lorem and Jim sat in his cabin inside the dungeon. Jim was humming while browsing the internet. Lorem was slowly increasing his essence absorption hoping no one would notice.

  “You know Lorem, this could be a lot of fun.” Jim said.

  “Ummm hummm.” Lorem said while contemplating if absorbing Jim’s laptop would be worth it. “Hey. How do you have internet connectivity in here?”

  “Don’t know. Just do.” Jim said not really caring about how it worked. A surprising amount of pre-system stuff used essence without people understanding it. The last generation of science is now taken about as seriously as the stories of magic from the old times. Just a bunch of made up excuses for things people didn’t really understand. Like magnets.

  “Do you think your world had enough essence at some point in its history for magic to work prior to the system?” Lorem asked.

  “Possibly. Nobody ever convinced me with how the pyramids were built.” Jim answered. “But back to having fun. John makes it sound like this dungeon is going to be a blast. Training to level spells and monsters to fight to get levels. Your spells will level won’t they?”

  “Yeah, but it takes forever for the high level spells to go up. After we try a few things out, I’ll have a better idea how quickly we can progress.” Lorem explained.

  Jim kept searching the social media sights and finally found what he was looking for. A large city on the coast had several people talking about a dungeon appearing and a big meeting of all the guilds. Sounds like one of John’s friends got lucky with their starting position.

  “Hey book. You’re getting a little greedy. Go to the training area and cast some spells.” John’s voice rang out and Lorem looked up to see a glowing ball somehow looking at him disapprovingly.”

  “Little snitch.” Lorem said as he floated past the glowing ball.