"Twist, and whisper the wrong name, I don't care nor do my ears - twist yourself around me I need company, I need human heat" Kevin sang along to the music as he examined the rabbit warren he had just placed in his southernmost clearing. He had already placed five others, and when placing rabbit warrens it had only been natural that the music of choice should be Frightened Rabbit. Satisfied with the burrows he had created, he pulled his viewpoint further back and viewed his cavern from above.

He had created an entire ecosystem and had kept it in concert with the rapid respawning of resources and creatures. The grass grew almost as quickly as the rabbits ate it, the rabbits bred like, well rabbits, and the wolves and mountain lions had a supply of prey creatures that allowed a far more robust population of predators than would be possible in a typical environment.

After Kevin's discovery of how exactly the resource system worked, he had gone back over his initial creation and had discovered that the patch of moss he had placed only needed a resource value of one-twentieth of a point, the same as the water lily. He had placed veins of copper and tin ore along a few of the walls. A fallen redwood over the stream also provided an opportunity to harvest lumber without chopping down any trees. He had even placed gold flakes and dust in a shallow, fast-moving creek.

All resources aside, he was most proud of his baby animals. Kevin had taken each species of mammal, from the moles, the rabbits, the mice, the rats, the badgers, the wolves, the mountain lions, and even the grizzly bear, and created scenarios for each one. In each case, the player had to approach one specific member of the species with a gift of food. The animal would then lead the player to their den to show them their offspring. The player then had to return with another offering of food for the mother, and an altered, particular offering of food for the young. One of the young would then approach the player, indicate through play that it wanted something even more specific. If the player, through insight, research, or just trial and error, managed to feed that young animal the correct food, it would then follow the player around the Dungeon, and be set to 'Friendly.'

It had taken him twenty hours of development time to arrange each encounter to his satisfaction. It had also necessitated adding a few additional features to the Dungeon. Kevin was fully aware that having salmon swimming up a creek that arose from underneath the wall of the cavern was a bit on the nose. But grizzly bears wanted salmon. He had also known that wild boars weren't really part of the ecosystem he'd created, but he was also sure that every meat-eating mammal in creation loved bacon, and had needed it for one of the ingredients for most of the special treats. And so Kevin had needed to add truffles for the boars, and so on.

He was finally done. All that remained was the Dungeon boss. He'd set the pack leaders for the wolf packs to be uncommon, and discovered that this allowed for additional loot options. Kevin could add either more experience shards, increase the value of the existing shard, or he could add a crafting pattern. He had chosen crafting patterns and given each pack leader a drop for a different pattern. Following that idea, he'd done the same thing for the boars. The mountain lions and bears, being more solitary, had each been bumped to uncommon and given their own patterns.

Now the time had come to set up the boss encounter of his Dungeon. Kevin had chosen to use a grizzly bear for the boss and had set him to level ten. He'd created a cave at the very end of his cavern to serve as the bears home. Setting the bear to rare and aggressive, Kevin then decided to change the model just a little. Increasing the size just a bit, he also decided to darken the Verdant color underlay. Finally, after an hour of digging through menus and adding features, followed by discarding them, he had given the bear a few horn-like protuberances. Almost a crown even. Happy with his bear boss, he had decided to name him Rufus.

Once Kevin had finalized and placed Rufus, the loot system opened up and offered new options. Apparently, crafting patterns had a rarity function as well, and rare creatures offered uncommon patterns. He chose the option to award one of the other crafting patterns offered by the other animals in the Dungeon, but increased to uncommon rarity and selected randomly.

Having sorted that out, Kevin then started looking through the menus, searching for something to spruce up Rufus' cave. After adding a bit of moss, and some old cracked bones for ambiance, he scrolled idly through menus. He stopped as something caught his eye under the ambiance section. "Altars..." he murmured to himself. He started working his way through the extensive and diverse selection of altars. Much like every other feature he had investigated so far, New Realities had striven for an all-encompassing range of choices. From the demonic to the divine, there were clearly choices for all denominations. Kevin settled on an alter made of slabs of bark, supported by bundles of crude spears and secured by vines. Upon confirming the placement of the Altar, he was shown a prompt, asking if he wanted to dedicate this Altar to a Deity.

Kevin paused. He hadn't really considered the religious aspects of the game. He'd known in the back of his mind that any good fantasy game had to have various Deities for both the good and bad guys to worship. He'd played the occasional cleric before. Still, he hadn't read up on this aspect of the game. In fact, he felt more than a little bit guilty about not having read any of the documents he'd been given access to last week. Kevin had run the occasional search function to check for crafting materials he should provide for entry-level crafting.

Still, it could only add flavor to his Dungeon, Kevin decided as he selected to option to dedicate the Altar to a Deity. He was then presented a list of thirty-six deities, of which only four were available due to the construction materials of the alter. He could choose from Ent, Gaia, Orin, or Willow Weep. Ent was right out. No tentacle tree monsters for his Dungeon, thank you very much. Gaia sounded a bit hippy and druid-y for his tastes, although he had sort of created a druid haven with the baby animals. Willow Weep seemed a bit tentacle-y as well, which left Orin. Kevin sighed. Time to pull up the documents.

A quick scan of the Deity related documents revealed that Gaia was primarily interested in flora, and the weather, thus clearly the favored Deity for all farmers. Orin was considered the God of the Hunt and was focused more on fauna, as well as tracking, and, well, hunting. Ent was indeed all about the living trees, as well as bountiful harvests. Willow Weep as all about poison, and of course, tentacles. Kevin selected Orin from the list and watched as the Altar twisted slightly, the symbol of a spear and a crossed fang overlying an oak leaf forming over the Altar.

Kevin pulled his view back and considered his Dungeon. It was basically done, all the creatures placed. Really, he had just a few finishing touches he wanted to add.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Robert groaned as he sank into his office chair. His vacation had been fantastic. Choosing to stretch it to the limit, and be back in the office the night after he had gotten home had perhaps been an unwise choice. Still, it was two days before launch, and he had few final housekeeping tasks to attend to. Pulling up his list of Dungeons, he was pleased to see that Gary had managed to log fifty-eight hours in the dev tools, and had submitted his Dungeon as complete yesterday.

Robert scrolled through the list of Dungeons, noting the hours each had logged, the submission date for completion, and the sign off from QA indicating the Dungeon had been tested and approved. There had been only one issue with Quality Assurance. One of the Dungeons, fortunately not one of his, had been centered around a demonic theme which in and of itself was fine, but the torture and rape scenarios had gone way too far. The dev in question had toned it down, and resubmitted it for evaluation, and gotten the ok. It would probably end up a favorite of all the Edgelords. Robert reached the bottom of the list and sighed.

There was Kevin. One hundred and fifty-six hours logged, and he hadn't flagged his Dungeon as completed yet. Robert opened a console and sent a message to Kevin 'Log out and call me.' He then opened an email and rejoined the ongoing debate regarding server load balancing and handoffs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin paused his careful placement of what the game had called "Elder" runes as a message appeared. Apparently, Robert was back from his vacation. 'Maybe he wanted an update,' Kevin thought as he wrapped up his latest and last runic structure. Logging out of his VR headset, Kevin headed to the bathroom first, the kitchen second, and finally reached for his phone and called Robert.

Robert answered the phone on the second ring and said, "Kevin, while I'm glad to see you working hard, we have two days before launch, and I have to ask - are you done yet?" Kevin paused and considered before replying cautiously, "What day is it?" Robert sighed through the phone before saying, "Kevin, it's Wednesday morning. We have to have QA walk through your Dungeon, run a stress test with simulated connections and resource usage to determine server load and resource allocation, and push the finished code to the servers, all by Thursday night." Kevin coughed and replied, "Well, it's pretty much done, I was just adding a couple finishing touches for flavor." "Wrap it up, name it, mark it complete, and have it done by four pm. I'm guessing you haven't left your house for a few days, so I tell ya what - finish it up, I'll buy ya dinner, then we'll go to the office, and I'll drag one of the QA guys into it with us to authorize testing and deployment."

Kevin pulled his phone away from his head and looked at the time before replying, "Yeah, I can do that. What do you have in mind for dinner?" "Mission BBQ off Waters, close to the office and damn good BBQ, meet up at five pm," said Robert. "See ya then," said Kevin as he ended the call. 'Free food, fuck yeah,' he thought to himself as he logged back into his VR rig and set a series of alarms. He had one more thing he wanted to accomplish.

Kevin was rather proud of what he had created, but he had to admit it sort of lacked a purpose. So, he'd taken the Altar he had placed and went deeper into the options. After a bit of digging, Kevin had managed to corrupt his Altar, and rededicate it to Willow Weep. He had changed the color of his fractal pattern underlay to a deep, unsettling purple color, almost a blacklight, and assigned it to Rufus and the Altar, representing the corruption. He had then set a series of conditions to remove the corruption from the Altar. Finally, he had set the cleansing of the Altar to reward a craftable pattern that would set all the creatures in the Dungeon to neutral. Kevin finished everything up at just before four pm, and as he saved his Dungeon, and selected the option that indicated it was complete, he was prompted to name his Dungeon.

Kevin gave it a few seconds thought and then entered "The Verdant Caldera." He logged off and headed for the shower.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Robert heard a ping from his PC and checked his email. It looked like Kevin had submitted his Dungeon as complete. He glanced over at MS Teams and saw there were only two people from the QA group logged on. He had locked horns with John once or twice and didn't really enjoy his company. The feeling had seemed to be mutual, so he wasn't about to ask him to stay late. Janice, he had met once and had no real interaction with. He shot her a quick message, asking if she could stay late to run QA through one final Dungeon, and offering to take her out to a working dinner beforehand. She responded within a few minutes, asking if he could authorize the overtime or contact her lead to approve it. After assuring her he could indeed authorize the overtime on his own authority, she'd agreed to meet him in the lobby at four-thirty.

Robert started closing down his PC for the night and then wandered down to the lobby, where he found Janice waiting for him. Well, he assumed it was Janice. No one else was in the lobby. While Robert had met her at one point, it had been during a rather hasty intake meeting where all the newly hired QA reps were introduced to all the development leads, so she had been one face in over a thousand. She was young, he thought, probably in her early twenties. Tall and willowy, she had lustrous black hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were bright and eager above her pert, freckled nose. Overall she was quite attractive, which seemed rather at odds with the normal experience subset that tended to land someone in the quality assurance field.

Shrugging, he said, "Janice, right? I'm Robert Swarenson," as he offered his hand. She shook his hand firmly and nodded in reply, "Yep, although I prefer Jane, honestly who names their kid Janice?" she said. Robert grinned and held the door open for her. "Well, Jane, BBQ, and an overworked Dungeon Developer await us."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jane was a bit nervous. She knew who Robert Swarenson was, everyone who worked at New Realities knew the names of the twenty original developers who had become the leads for Deep Delve. She also knew that her direct lead, John, had gotten into a bit of territorial spat with Robert over the levels of perceived pain in the game. All the developer leads had sided with Robert, and John had been put in his place, a fact that still bothered him. She didn't want to end up on John's shit list, but when one of the top thirty people in the company asked you to stay late and offered you dinner, you accepted.

She was also pretty sure that this wasn't one of those terrible made for television lifetime movie situations where Robert was asking her dinner with any sort of underlying romantic aspirations. The fact that he had needed to confirm who she was in the lobby sort of indicated that he was after her QA functions. Still, she was in a strangers car headed to a restaurant for dinner, so a bit of caution wasn't a bad thing.

As they pulled off Waters into the parking lot, she paused her internal reflections to note that they had arrived at their destination. "Mission? This is great, I love their ribs!" she exclaimed as she unbuckled and slid out of the car. A grinning Robert replied, "Yeah, I'm all about their pulled pork myself." He continued as they walked to the doors, "The developer we are meeting with has logged over a hundred and fifty hours in the past twelve days, so this might be the first real meal he has had in two weeks." Jane blinked as Robert opened the door for her. "That's a lot of hours to be logged into a VR headset," she said slowly. "Table for four please," Robert said to the hostess, and replied to Jane as they were lead to a booth, "Yeah, he got the nod a bit later than everyone else, but I think he's going to have something really special." He sat and then said to the hostess, "I'll have a water and a coke, we have another joining us, and we'll order then," he said before turning to Jane and gesturing for her to order. "Bud long neck," she said, "and a water as well, no ice." Both she and Robert glanced at the Menus and were interrupted just a minute later by the hostess returning with their drinks, and tall young man, with gorgeous blue eyes and a motorcycle jacket, matching helmet in hand.

Robert smiled and stood up, shaking the young man's hand. "Kevin, good to see you in the land of the living!" he said jovially as he continued "this is Jane, I'm keeping her late to run QA on your Dungeon, so I figured the least I could do was offer her dinner as well." The now named Kevin turned to her and gave her a grin, "Hey Jane, a pleasure to meet you," as he extended his free hand to shake hers. Jane gave him a smile in return. Although he looked a little tired, he seemed to be in good spirits. "So!" Kevin said, "Never been here, what's good?"

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Conversation seemed pretty easy, at least between Robert and Kevin. Jane gathered that they hadn't known each other before Robert had hired Kevin just under two weeks ago, but the two of them seemed to share an easy camaraderie and a love of motorcycles. The discussion turned to Robert's vacation, and he was soon showing them photographs he had taken from various places along his ride. Jane was a little intimidated. Robert had just packed up some camping gear on his motorcycle, and then ridden around the country, camping out in the national parks, or grabbing a hotel if he didn't feel like riding any further that day.

Kevin was either buttering up his boss, or a like-minded soul. Based on how genuine he seemed, she was leaning towards the later. Kevin also took his vacations as opportunities to take off on his motorcycle, although he hadn't had much vacation time up to this point. Jane had asked where he had worked before New Realities and received an enlightening and amusing education in regards to the inner workings of the Wal-Mart distribution and logistics system.

Once dinner was served and eaten, Kevin had followed them back to New Realities, and they had ascended to the QA floor, where Jane was amused to play the guide, as Robert clearly hadn't ever set foot here. She guided them to the lounge and the dozen zero gravity reclining chairs and the VR headsets that were wired in above them.

"This, gentlemen," she said with a smile, "is where the magic happens!" Kevin gave her a grin as she guided him to a chair and adjusted the headset for him. Robert sat down in a chair as well, clearly used to this setup, and pulled down a headset. Jane followed suit, and a few minutes later, she emerged from the darkness into a wonderland.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin was a bit nervous. This was the first time anyone was going to see his Dungeon. Also, he wasn't quite sure what the procedure was. He sort of assumed that Robert would have everything in hand, but Robert had needed Jane to guide them to this setup, so he wasn't really sure. Jane seemed nice if a little quiet. He hoped she wouldn't find anything wrong with his Dungeon.

A couple of minutes passed, then he felt a bit of vertigo, and found himself suddenly standing just inside the entrance of his Dungeon, with Robert and Jane standing next to him. "Woah," he said as he looked them and himself over. "Kinda trippy." Robert shook his head and looked at him with an exasperated sigh before saying, "Let me guess, you haven't ever logged into your Dungeon in explorer mode?"

"Uh... no?" said Kevin sheepishly. He hadn't even considered it. "You, my friend, are an idiot," said Robert. "You didn't read any of the documentation, did you?" Kevin replied slowly, "Well, I skimmed some of it, and ran some searches for stuff I needed," he trailed off. Robert sighed and then tapped Jane on the shoulder, drawing her attention from the canopy overhead. "You with us, Jane?" Robert asked.

Jane nodded slowly. Robert looked up as well, then turned to face Kevin. "So," Robert said, "just follow along while Jane and I run through it." Kevin nodded and stood silently as Jane and Robert started exploring.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'Kid may not be willing to read, but damn...' thought Robert as he looked around the Dungeon. The air was moist as if a fog had just rolled out. Which made sense, given the kid's choice to populate his Dungeon with redwoods. Speaking of choices, the circle of sunlight far overhead indicated that Kevin had created an open-air Dungeon. None of his other developers had done anything like that, choosing caves, tunnels, or in one case, a ruined castle. There was also the faint green light that suffused the cavern. He could almost make out a pattern as he squinted at the nearest redwood. He took a few steps forward, then started to circle the tree. Robert started as a bird took off from the ground, carrying a few small twigs in its beak.

Stopping and taking a longer look, Robert could see a few squirrels, more birds, a couple lizards, and even heard the buzzing of insects. He knew that there was no such thing as a 'package' for the Dungeon developers. Kevin had needed to have added each one of these creatures individually. He circled the tree slowly, noting the other plants on the ground. He was examining a fern, fascinated with how the pattern and the lightly almost seemed to be a perfect match for each other when he heard Jane make what could only be described as a squeal of excitement.

Walking around and past two other trees, Robert found Jane trying to interact with a cautious, but not aggressive Badger. Looking the animal over, Robert did have to admit that the light green fractal pattern did result in taking what would generally be a cute Badger and pushing it well into the realm of adorable. Jane certainly seemed to be fascinated. She was down on her knees, trying to coax the critter over to her. "You need food," said Kevin unexpectedly. Jane and Robert both turned to look at him. He was leaning against a tree, slowly fingering a fern leaf as he looked around, seemingly in wonder at what he had created. "Food?" asked Jane quietly. "Yeah," Kevin replied, "She wants a trout." Robert squinted at him, "She?" he asked. "Yup," Kevin replied as he stopped leaning against the tree and took a few steps to the side, gesturing away from the tree. "There are trout in one of the streams if you bring her a trout, she'll take it to her babies and show them to you," he said in an offhanded manner.

"Well, why don't you show us the stream then?" said Robert. Kevin nodded and lead them north. After just a few minutes of walking, Robert could hear a quiet roar, and as they came over a slight rise, he was greeted by the sight of a waterfall. It came from somewhere far overhead and fell into a pool of crystal clear water. Robert heard Jane draw in a sharp breath of amazement as he wandered down to the pool. It had moss on the boulders around the edge, and water lilies as well. He watched silently as a trout snapped out of the water, seeking the water bug that had danced on the surface only a second ago. Jane walked past him and sat down on one of the boulders as Kevin wandered up behind them, still holding the fern.

Jane looked up at the waterfall and then looked across the pond. Robert followed her gaze and watched a dragonfly dance amongst the cattails. The entire scene was beautiful, illuminated in shades of gentle green and flickering sunlight as it filtered through the canopy. Robert walked over to Jane and reached down, pulling up a bit of the moss that coated the boulder next to her. He received a notification that he had harvested a resource. Jane absently patted the stone and said: "Have a seat." Robert sat down next to her and just watched her expression as she drank it in. "You will make an instance of this available to me," she said dreamily, "and I will spend my breaks and lunches here." Robert grinned.

"So," he said as he turned to Kevin. "Trout?" Kevin nodded and pointed to the pool as he said: "Catch the trout. I assume there is some sort of fishing skill..." Robert gave a long audible sigh. "Kevin, I know I dropped this on you suddenly, and I can appreciate the hours you've logged into this project, but would it have killed you to read the source material?" Kevin raised an eyebrow. Robert reflected that the kid seemed oddly good at that. Kevin then replied, "You gave me access to over twenty thousand pages of documents. I'm a fast reader, but I wouldn't have gotten any work done if I had read all that." Robert rubbed his temples slowly as he said: "The very first document is labeled 'Read me first - a mandatory beginners guide to Deep Delve.'" Kevin looked startled, then sheepish and muttered, "Oh."

Robert grinned, and then gave the mental command for developers tools, and equipped a fishing rod. "Luckily," Robert said, "I have read the manual." He cast his lure into the pool and was immediately rewarded with a bite. A minute later, he had a rather lovely rainbow trout sitting on the ground next to him. Dismissing the fishing rod, he gestured to Jane and said: "We have your trout, shall we go back to the Badger?" Jane nodded eagerly and picked up the trout. "Hmm," she said, "that is neat - it isn't scaley or slimy like you'd expect a fish to be." Robert gave a nod and replied, "testing showed that textures and smells were a huge turnoff for some of the crafting and gathering professions, so we turned a lot of that down." "Neat," replied Jane happily and headed back towards where she had found the Badger. Robert followed, as did Kevin.

Mere minutes later, the group had once again located the Badger, and Jane knelt to the ground, proudly presenting the trout. After sniffing the trout, then sniffing Jane, the Badger had accepted the offering and waddled around a tree, showing them the way to her den, which was nestled in the roots. Seven small adorable Badger cubs were playing just outside the den who seemed torn between scampering over to their mother and the delicious trout and avoiding the excited squeal that came from Jane. Hunger for trout overcame caution, and Jane was able to pet the Badger and her cubs while they feasted on the trout.

"So," Robert said with a smile as he watched Jane, "you built a petting zoo." Kevin had picked up another plant at some point and was rolling one of the leaves between his fingers. "Not really," he said absently as he held the leaf up to his nose and sniffed. Robert raised an eyebrow. Kevin looked at him and down at the leaf and then gave him an embarrassed grin. "Its mint, I still can't believe how crazy real this is..." he trailed off as he watched a sparrow snag an insect out of the air above them. He seemed to gather himself for a moment and then replied, "But no, it isn't a petting zoo, this is just the first step." Jane looked up at him from where she was sitting, having wrangled the Badger between her outspread legs and delivering a good, solid petting. "The first step?" she inquired with a tone of hope. Kevin nodded and continued "Yeah, first you gotta make momma friendly, which for her" he gestured at the Badger, "means a trout, then you gotta get one of the babies friendly, which for them means a honey glazed trout filet," he went on squinting as he tried to remember. "And finally, for these little guys, you need a honey glazed trout filet seasoned with lavender and mint."

Robert blinked. "And what," he said, "happens if you finish all those steps?" Kevin looked at Jane, who seemed to be waiting for the answer with bated breath, then replied, "One of the babies will follow you around, of course. You'll need to keep feeding them the treats they like, though." Robert grinned at him and pointed a finger at Kevin as he said: "Sally's collar, right?" Kevin nodded happily and said, "I kind of figured that with Sally's collar landing me this opportunity, I should do something to memorialize that..." Kevin trailed off as he looked away. Kevin took a deep breath and turned back to Robert and pointed towards the tree the Badger had made her den under. "If you translate the runes, it says 'In Loving Memory of David Reese, the light of his Inspiration shines on through us.'"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jane was beyond excited. It sounded like Kevin had put together some sort of hidden quest to adopt an adorable Badger cub. She was a bit confused about the memorial, though. "Who," she asked carefully, "is David Reese?" Robert looked down at her as she scratched the Badger behind its ears and said, "David Reese was one of the original developers at New Realities. We hired him after a game he'd worked on named "Altered Phantasy" folded. Kevin here," he gave a nod to Kevin and continued, "was part of the beta test. He sent his reports to David." Robert took a breath and continued, "In a roundabout way, David is why Kevin was hired. Kevin was only in high school back then, but he really impressed David, and when David joined New Realities, he brought his IP with him, which included the reports Kevin had made, as well as David's thoughts on them."

Kevin nodded and stepped in to continue the story, "I had discovered a bug, where if you created a collar meant for a hunter pet, removed all the bonuses from it, including the base stats, and named it with the name of an NPC pet and it's owner, you would turn the NPC's pet into an actual pet for the player character." Robert nodded and picked it up again, "It was called Sally's collar, after the little girl NPC who wanted a collar for her puppy. Just a bit of random NPC chatter, for ambiance, but Kevin here found a bug because of it."

Jane cast a look between the both of them. "So," she said, feeling a little confused and a little bit like she was intruding on something personal, "somehow this resulted in you being hired as a Dungeon Dev?" Robert nodded and answered, "Yeah, through a series of bizarre glitches, his application and resume for an unrelated and unavailable position landed on my desk. I recognized David's name and dug a bit deeper, then I decided to take a chance and hire him." Jane gave a slow nod and asked, "A chance?" This time Kevin answered, "I have a degree in Materials Engineering and Philosophy. Aside from that beta test, I have no experience in game design or development."

Jane looked around at the redwood forest, pausing as she watched a lizard dig up a snail, a swallow snack on an insect, and then down at the Badger enjoying its ear scratches. She looked up at Robert and smiled as she said: "Looks like it is going to pay off." Robert nodded as he took a good look around himself. Kevin seemed content to investigate another plant. She couldn't believe he had done all this, with no experience. So far, her QA duties had her slogging through tunnels and caves with undead and elemental creatures and kobolds and goblins and more undead. Undead seemed to be a really popular option. She had gone through and approved ten Dungeons so far. Nothing came close to this.

"So," she said as she looked down at the Badger. "If I go through all the steps, and get one of these little guys following me around, do I get to keep him when I leave the Dungeon?" she asked. Kevin blinked. He looked at Robert, who shrugged. Kevin hesitated and replied, "I don't know? I mean, I set the flags for the friendly and follow flags to be permanent as long as the prerequisite for having fed it the treats were met..." he trailed off. Robert sighed and gave Kevin a look that spoke of long suffering and dealing with people who didn't read the fucking manual.

Jane carefully stood up, making sure not to disturb the Badger or the Cubs. She dusted off her pants and looked at Kevin determinedly and said, "Alright then, chop-chop! Show me the way to the honey, the lavender, and the mint!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin led Jane and Robert deeper into the Dungeon. It seemed that in explorer mode, the creatures wouldn't interact with you unless you interacted with them. Jane had been ecstatic when she discovered that he had put in a Mother and babies option for most of the animals. Robert was quiet throughout the tour, although he seemed to be enjoying himself.

After wandering through the bear territory, Kevin showed them the bee's nest, and they collected the honey. A few sprigs of mint and lavender were gathered on the way back, and soon enough, they arrived at the Badger den. Kevin suffered a bit more embarrassment as he discovered that you could only build a fire in the game inside safe zones, and the group then backtracked to one of the two safe zones he had established. A quick campfire was built, trout was filleted, then cooked with a lavender-infused honey glaze, dusted with mint and then duly presented to one of the Badger cubs by Jane, who then exclaimed that she was able to name it. Jane took off for the Dungeon exit holding her Badger cub, while Kevin and Robert were left to wait.

"So," Kevin began, "What do you think?" He was more than a little nervous. He knew he'd gone for something unconventional. Robert was also a bit hard to read. Kevin needed this. He wanted this. This was his ticket out of the frozen Wal-Mart hell he'd been stuck in. Even if it wasn't an engineering gig, he'd really enjoyed putting the Dungeon together, and he could see himself doing this for a living with a smile.

Robert replied after a few minutes of what Kevin thought was careful consideration. "I think you have a gold mine," he said slowly as he glanced around the forest. "No," Kevin replied quickly, "I have some gold flake and powder in a creek that can be panned, but I didn't want to spend a bunch of resource points on a vein of gold ore." Robert sighed and slowly, with deliberation, reached over smacked him in the back of the head. "No, you have a gold mine," Robert repeated. "You don't have the grind fest that other Dungeons do, and I'd say you probably have less than half the experience shards available." He paused, considering, then continued, "But you have that balanced out with resources." He looked Kevin in the eyes and held his gaze as he said: "The hardcore elite guilds aren't going to subscribe to your Dungeon," he said with a tone of finality, "but I can almost guarantee you that every casual player and crafter will."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jane stepped out of the Dungeon, cradling the newly named 'Snuffles' in her arms. To her delight, the furry little guy didn't disappear. She spun around in the cave entrance, laughing happily. This. Was. Awesome! She stepped back into the cave and was surprised when a system message appeared, stating, "Warning! Your animal companion is lower than the recommended level for this area, take caution."

She looked at the bundle of fluff in her arms, and thought 'Identify.' She was pleased when she a status screen pop up. Jane hurried to tell Robert and Kevin the good news. Arriving back at the Badger den, she found Robert and Kevin grinning at each other. She added her own smile and offered up Snuffles for inspection and said, "Not only is he permanent, when I came back up the system recognized him as my animal companion and gave him a status sheet." Robert dropped his smile and appeared flummoxed. "That's... well, unintended?" He frowned a bit. "Not sure where that sits in terms of game balance..." he muttered. Kevin said, "I can always take the permanent tags ou-" "Don't you dare!" Jane exclaimed. "All these Dungeons with their stupid monsters and traps and undead and creepy organ music," she ranted. "Don't you dare take out the only thing I've found that is remotely worthwhile!"

Robert paused, thoughtfully, and Kevin seemed taken aback at her passion. Jane took a deep breath. Calm. Zen. She went on, "Look, it's a level one Badger cub. It doesn't have any real fighting capabilities. Even if you got it up to equal level, it's still one fifth the challenge rating of a player character." Jane was determined to be as persuasive as possible on this, "Even if you have the mountain lion or the bear, it's still only rated at one third." At this point, she was almost pleading, but damn it, she needed this. "And the player has to gather twice the experience necessary to level up if they want their pet to stay even with them," she finished. Robert raised a hand, stopping her from going any further. "Yeah, I get it. I'm just thinking about game balance." He shrugged. "I'll flag it as something new, but we won't pull it or change it till we see how it plays out," he said. "Good," Jane said, snuggle Snuffles closer. Kevin glanced at Robert and said quietly, "Goldmine?" Robert nodded.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Robert followed Kevin along with Jane as they proceeded through the areas of the Dungeon they hadn't yet seen. Kevin explained his little ecosystem and how things respawned. Jane mostly just marveled at the sights. She was especially appreciative when Kevin showed her how it looked in the moonlight, or how the sunrise would hit the waterfall and throw rainbows.

When Kevin lead them in Rufus' cave, Robert paused the group and asked, "Rufus?" Kevin grinned and replied, "When I was a kid, I had my teddy bear, like every kid does, right? And my Teddy's name was Rufus." Robert laughed and shook his head. The kid was just so genuine. As they walked to the back of Rufus' cave, he saw the Altar. "And what," Robert said, pointing at the Altar, "is that?" Kevin seemed only too happy to explain and said: "Well, I figured this was a very nature-inspired place, so I built an Altar to Orin, the God of the Hunt, but then I figured I needed more, like a reason for people to be here right?" Kevin paused, and Robert nodded for him to continue, while Jane listened raptly. "So, I had the Altar corrupted by Willow Weep, the Evil God of Poison and Tentacle plants, and had poor Rufus corrupted as well, which is why he has that crown of horns and a different color scheme." Kevin paused for breath, and Robert waited for him to continue. "So, you off poor Rufus, and then you gather up all the plants and animal parts that are shown carved into the Altar, and when you place them on it, you can rededicate it to Orin." Kevin finished happily.

Robert scrutinized the Altar. There were indeed carvings of about a dozen plants, as well as half a dozen animals. "So," he said as he considered the Altar and Rufus, "What happens when you cleanse the Altar and rededicate it?" Kevin responded, "You receive Orin's Token, which sets all the animals in the Dungeon to Neutral towards you." Robert paused. 'That,' he thought to himself, 'was new.' "Well," Robert said, "I can't think of anything that would stop us from going ahead with the stress testing." He looked over at Jane, who, he had noticed, hadn't let Snuffles out of her arms. "Jane," he said with a smile, "what do you think?" Jane grinned happily and scratched a seemingly content Snuffles behind the ears and proclaimed enthusiastically, "I hereby declare as the only Quality Assurance agent in the building, that this Dungeon is approved for implementation!"

Robert laughed and initiated the logout procedure.