Real John

  John came walking in and created a chair next to Jim. “What can I do for you, John?” Jim asked after a few seconds of watching John stare at the screen.

  “Oh sorry. Just wondering if this is the same Earth as I was from or just a copy of it. Can I check something?” John asked, nodding towards the computer. Jim looked at him for a second thinking about what John meant by copy of Earth. Finally deciding it wasn’t important, he got up and motioned for the oddball superhero to take his seat. When John moved over and sat down, Jim sat in the chair John had been using.

  “Ouch” John exclaimed when Jim sat down. Jim jumped out of the seat and a tentacle arm/hand formed to rub the seat of the chair. “What do you have in your pocket?” Jim patted his pockets and looked at John in confusion.

  “Just messing with you. I don’t really feel pain any more, but you definitely need to do some squats for that bony butt of yours.” John laughed while switching the browser to Twitch and logging in. “Success!” He said when he logged in and then let out a low whistle at the viewer counts. His sisters must have made bank after his death. They had even posted a commemorative video. He scrolled down and back up before Jim interrupted him.

  “Wait. You’re that John? Crazy Old John, What is the craziest thing John said today? Annoyingly disappointed John?” Jim said. “Man, your memes lasted forever. Your annoyingly disappointed face replaced side eyed disbelieving kid holding a soda.”

  “What do you mean, annoyingly disappointed face?”

  Jim pointed to the thumbnail. “When the truck was about to hit you, you made the same face you would make when one of your hardcore toons died or you got a piece of equipment you had been looking for but it had bad rolls. You even replaced some of the sleeping Shaq, wide awake Shaq memes. I can’t believe you’re that John.”

  John ignored him while he went on the trip down memory lane. Clicking on the commemorative video, he watched the video and saw that Jim was right. He looked annoyed and inconvenienced when the truck was about to hit him. Looks like his sisters never lost their sense of humor if they allowed that image to get out. He then saw his account still had thousands of followers and an idea popped into his mass of glowing bits that served as a brain.

  “Let’s get Lorem and Sparky in here. I want to make a video.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sparky appeared and John pulled out some paper and began sketching an outline.

  *****

  John, emperor of the Drake Empire, founder of the universe’s premier training facility, leader of the Drake Guild, and dungeon master of a divine dungeon was shocked by the question. The guild officer stared at him for a second before asking again, “I said, why would we want to train?”

  John stared in open disbelief. “Why wouldn’t…nevermind…” He stumbled over his response. “To survive. To earn levels. To ensure no one with greater powers will ever be able to force their will upon you.” seeing they still weren’t getting the point, he continued. “If you hide in the dungeons while we defeat the invasion and only survive, your planet will eventually end its integration period and be open to forces from the rest of the universe. Do you want someone to come in here and take over?”

  “Can’t you and your friends protect us?” One of the guild leaders asked.

  “Yes, but why would I. You are a long distance from my empire and don’t have the resources to cover the costs of defending you.” John wasn’t sure how he wanted to explain it to him. In truth, from their perspective it didn’t matter to them if they trained. This scenario was more or less the same as an instanced dungeon. When John and the others completed their mission, this copy of earth would disappear.

  Destiny was planning on allowing travelers and later players to keep a copy of their Earth if they performed exceptionally well, but John wasn’t sure what that meant. Would they end up with thousands of copies of the planet joining the universe? Knowing how Destiny and Dev worked, they would probably make it beneficial for the travellers and players to earn the right to keep their copy of Earth. Maybe it would provide resources or allow you to recruit Battlemasters. John smiled at the idea of travellers and players leading armies of Gummies into battle. That would be good training. Why did Gummy always claim to be from a planet called Dirt when he was actually from Earth? Shaking the stray thoughts out of his mind, John focused back on trying to understand why someone wouldn’t want to train.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “If you want to be rich or you want to be famous or you want to be free, you have to train. If you are weak and unskilled, you will always be under the thumb of those more powerful. I swear. Didn’t any of you neanderthals read any LitRPG’s?” One of the guild leaders said with disgust. John had no idea what a LitRPG was but he felt the guild leader was taking the right tact.

  “She is right. The system isn’t a day care. We have to be prepared to stand on our own two feet. And we have to design products that others will want or we’ll be stuck in a hunter-gather stage of development living off the credits the system gives us.” Another guild leader added.

  Suddenly one of the people standing at the edge of the room looked at his phone and shouted, “Holy Krap. Grandpa John is back and he knows John Drake. He just posted a video explaining what is going on. But he’s got tentacles now.”

  “Annoyed at the truck, John?” someone asked.

  “Yeah, and apparently he says it’s his turn to be called John.” the person with the phone looked up at John.

  “Wait, you said he has tentacles? I always figured he was a perv.” one of the others said.

  Ignoring the bit about tentacles, John shrugged, “I guess I’ll be known as Drake, then. Gummy can use the name.”

  *****

  Siegemaster watched the dungeon core sink into the finely manicured lawn. “Can you absorb and improve our vehicles and mechs the same as you can the city?” one of the guild officers asked.

  “Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to leave the dungeon unless they were won as loot.” Siegemaster said.

  “Can we get dungeon creatures to work in our factories?’ Another asked.

  Siegemaster almost said “Yes” before realizing what the man was thinking. “You would have to reimburse the dungeon for the essence cost of maintaining them. They won’t be free labor.” That, to no surprise of the ogre, disappointed the man.

  “If you are just going to turn your dungeon into a war machine and roll around gathering as many people as possible before the invasion, what is going to protect us from being taken over by a larger guild? Some of the big ones are notorious for making offers that people can’t refuse. We are just a local guild, some of them have branches in multiple cities. All of them much larger than ours.” the guild leader asked.

  The ogre hadn’t thought about that. He knew the dungeon and himself would be able to protect themselves, but what protected the communities in the dungeon from each other. He felt the dungeon poke him with some information and reviewed it. “We can assign a floor boss to protect your section of the dungeon. Working with them, they can set access and enforce regulations with their minions. They would not be able to leave your section, so no starting wars inside my dungeon. Remember the mission is to save as many people as possible and advance their skills and abilities as much as possible.”

  The Siegemaster was a little out of his element and thanked the dungeon for the quick thinking. He was more used to working as part of an elite formation of motivated warriors experienced in using their dungeons in combat. This meeting was turning into one of the most frustrating things he had ever had to deal with. Give him something to smash, and he’d smash it. However, when his avatar had told his mama about the new project he was testing, she had sat him down and explained to him that he couldn’t just smash people until they did what he wanted no matter how much they deserved it. Destiny and Mama had made him study a lot of crystals about team building and leadership. Now he wished he had paid more attention to them.

  There was a disturbance in the back of the room and several people started looking at their communication devices. “Hey, Siegemaster. Is your son here also?” Confused, the ogre shook his head. “John the Battlemaster says to say hello to Baby Ogre if we see him. Do you know him?”

  *****

  Jim hit record and pointed the cam on the laptop at the illuminated door in the dark room. There were three knocks on the door. A rasping voice said, “Little pigs, Little pigs, let me in.”

  “Not by the hair on my chinny, chin, chin.” Jim said in a falsetto voice.

  The rasping voice responded, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll let myself in.” Several metal spikes shot through the door and tore a large hole. Jim moved closer to the hole for a close up. A metallic looking head stuck through the hole and said, “Here’s Johnny.” The head moved closer to the cam as it backed up to show more of the slime squeeze through the door and form into the shape of a human wearing a red and white nurses outfit. Lorem adjusted his lighting to show all of John in the nurses outfit.

  The nurse held up an old school microphone and tapped it twice. “May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please? Will the real Grandpa John please stand up,” Lorem set off an explosion of light and Jim turned the laptop and its cam to the side and made sure the new body John had formed was in the frame.

  John looked up from where he was squatting and lifted his arms, “I’m Grandpa John, yes I’m the real Johnny. All you other Emperor Johns are just imitating.”

  Lorem’s deep voice rang out, “John, we’re ready to record your announcement.”

  “Okay, Lorem. I’ll be there in a second.” Lorem lit the entire room and Jim centered the cam on a gaming chair that now sat in the center of the room. John walked into frame singing under his breath, “Guess whose back, back again.” He sat down at the chair and headphones appeared on his head.“

  He lifted his head and looked directly at the cam, “Listen up all you annoying little min/maxers. I’m back and it’s time to have some fun. I assume you’ve all grown up and have more important things going on in your life besides haggling over dessert trades in your junior high lunch room, so I’ll get right to the point.”

  John went on to explain the situation and encouraged everybody to try and find one of their dungeons to join in preparation. He spent a little time explaining how training could improve stats and how a dungeon could be used to level skills and gain xp. He had Sparky join him and summon some dungeon creatures before they teleported to Rachel’s little dungeon village to show how the dungeon could recreate their homes and create areas for agriculture and material gathering.

  When he was rapping things up, he said, “So if you see the Siegemaster, tell him I said, Wazzzup Baby Ogre and if you meet the emperor, tell him I’m John this time, he needs to choose a new name. But don’t piss him off. He’s like a combination of Chuck Norris and Gandalf…well mostly Chuck Norris. He gets grumpy when you interrupt his training.”

  John then turned and walked back into the village singing, “I’m that reeeeeal, real John with a real, real song. I still feel twenty even though I’m real, real old. I’m the reeeeeal John…”

  Lorem’s deep voice said, “And … cut.” Sparky faded the village into darkness as Jim kept the cam centered on John’s back walking away.