“Necromancer’s Gorge Demesne”

I was flabbergasted. I had screamed the name “George” but somehow the name given to me was a perversion of it--”gorge” was a homophone but was a type of terrain and not a name. Worse, this place--my name--was related to some necromancer. Was I a minion of this necromancer or just a resident of his lands? My inquiries were met with only silence. There was nothing I could do about this necromancer until I actually met him or her.

Instead, I stared at my status screen and screamed at it to try to change the name to what I wanted. Screaming had worked the first time, albeit imperfectly, so I kept at it. Unfortunately, there were no changes or reactions and eventually I got mentally exhausted. I decided to give up on the naming problem for now. I had so many things I needed to learn about in order to understand my situation and inform me of what to do.

Outside the introductory message that I had, I had my knowledge and memory of reading cheesy fantasy stories about dungeon cores. While these memories could be useful–suggesting paths of progression and other ideas–it would be prudent not to rely too much on them. Finally, the status screen itself was a source of both explicit and implicit information.

In my anger, I had mentally “swiped” the screen away so it disappeared from my mind’s eye. I brought it up again and looked over it with a more discerning eye:

Necromancer’s Gorge Demesne

Level 1

Mana 96/100

Demesne Traits: Outworlder

Demesne Skills: Demesne 1; Absorption 1; Landscape 1; Demesne Interface 1

Creature Data: Cave Flora 1; Cave Fauna 1; Undead 1

Demesne Points: 3

This screen was everything I had to learn about how dungeons operated in this world. Fortunately, it either gave me a modicum of direct information or alluded to other unsaid dungeon components.

Nothing stood out to me as being critically important, so I decided to simply review everything in the order they appeared. Listed first were my Traits, of which I had only one--”Outworlder.” I concentrated on the word “Outworlder” in the status screen to see if I could dig for more information. After a few moments, the information popped up in my mind's eye:

Outworlder - This demesne core has something not from this mana sphere. As a result, you have an improved chance to learn new skills. In addition, bonus experience is earned when the demesne’s monsters are defeated.

The trait was both expected and unexpected. Even though my memories were partially scrambled, I knew without a shadow of doubt that “I” was born on a planet called Earth. And Earth did not have dungeons. Therefore, it made sense that coming from that world to this world rendered me an outsider.

The unexpected part was the apparent bonuses that the trait gave. The first bonus gave me a bonus for learning new skills. I assessed that bonus as being both immediately and immensely useful. The second bonus was stranger, however. People who killed my monsters would gain bonus experience. How was that helpful to me? If anything, it would encourage people to enter my dungeon! That could be a good thing, but it could also be a really bad thing. I would have to keep this facet in mind once I started to actually build out my dungeon.

Continuing to review the status screen, I moved onto the skills. I selected each skill and brought up an individual screen for each one that had a short, useful, description.

Demesne 1 - Demesne allows the creation and manipulation of the area the demesne encompasses. Within the demesne, the demesne core is the master. All features of a demesne can be created within, including the creation of floors, special zones, objects, and monsters.

Absorption 1 - Absorption is the ability of the Demesne to absorb certain tangible and magical material. When the dungeon absorbs certain materials, it may gain the template data that can be used to create replica material. Only material within the Demesne may be absorbed.

Landscape 1 - Landscape is the ability of the dungeon to create and manipulate terrain and biome features within the Demesne.

Demesne Interface 1 - The ability of the Demesne Core to directly perceive its demesne. The Interface can also gather and present data and information on almost all aspects of the Demesne.

Each of these skills made intuitive sense insofar as each of these things covered things that a Dungeon core needs or wants to do. Dungeon Demesne did exactly what it said--it was the means by which I expanded the space around me that was under my control.

Absorption did two very important things. First, it let me empty my demesne of tangible stuff, such as stone and dirt, that filled it. Presuming that I was underground, this would be the main way for me to create empty rooms and hallways. Second, it gave me a means to replicate almost anything I absorbed, although the description implied some restrictions.

The last skill I had was Demesne Interface. I had not started with this skill, but gained it only upon triggering the name change. So the skill was definitely related to interacting directly with my status screen and notifications. I think it was also through this skill that I was experiencing such strange vision. Unfortunately, while the description said I could see data and information, it did not tell me how to view said information. I felt like I was sitting at a computer with an operating system I had never used before.

In fact, all of the skill descriptions are unusually vague about how they work. Worse, no further options are presented either, such as sub-skills, sub-menus, or other screens. For example, Demesne lists a number of dungeon components like “floor,” “special zone” and “monster.” I tried to focus on each of the terms just as I had done on the words of the skill while viewing the status screen. Nothing came up.

I went back to my Status Screen and tried the next obvious route. “Help?” I made a mental nudge for help in a similar way as I had brought up the Status Screen. Nothing happened. A dozen variations later without success I gave up. There was no “Help” screen.

Okay--what else could I glean from the Status Screen?

Each of the skills had a number after them. Each of those numbers was the same: “1.” When I got the Demesne Interface skill, the notification also gave the same number. I had played many computer, role playing, and board games in my life to be confident as to what the numbers represented. Each number represented the level of the corresponding skill. That clearly implied that I could improve these skills over time.

Since nothing told me how to level any of these skills. My limited experience of being a dungeon core suggested a methodology, however. I had gained a new skill from screaming at the world, after all. My Outworlder trait probably helped with that, too. Regardless, it made sense that things worked in a similar fashion when it came to increasing skill levels. As such, if I expended energy on things or activities related to the skills, they would likely level up. For example, if I expanded my dungeon’s area enough, the Demesne skill would probably level up to 2 eventually.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I wanted to test my theory out, but held off. I still had more information from the Status Screen to review.

Next up, I reviewed each of the “Creatures” I had been given. Disappointingly, I was given no choice as to my starting creatures and had been automatically assigned three types. I worked my way through each.

Cave Flora 1 - Ability to create various flora of a cave biome.

Cave Fauna 1 - Ability to create various fauna of a cave biome.

Undead 1 - Ability to create basic undead monsters

Argh! The lack of descriptions or specifics was incredibly frustrating. The creature templates were so vague as to be functionally useless--how was I supposed to know what was included in each of the three templates? I knew only the basics about what creatures and plants lived in caves and all I knew about undead came from games.

I forced myself to calm down and reassess my criticism.

It was possible that the lack of specifics on plants and animals was not to my detriment, but actually for my benefit. Suppose that a template gave a list of things in one of the templates--”Cave Flora 1 - Ability to create spiders and bats,” for example. That might mean that I could only create those two exact types of animals or would make me think I was restricted to those two. Worse, I still wouldn’t have the knowledge to know what kinds of spiders or bats I could create. The vagueness of the templates gave me a lot of room to maneuver and try different things.

I decided to test my theory. Before I had woken up as a Demesne Core, I had been a middle-aged family man who worked as a low-level corporate drone. I had personal interests in games of all types and was quite the geek. I knew enough about undead to easily come up with some simple examples from pop culture. There were two obvious choices for a starting undead monster: skeletons and zombies. Personally, I was never a fan of zombie movies and television shows so I decided I would make my first monster as a skeleton.

I began the mental process of imagining a skeleton warrior and how it would be materialized into existence. I could sense an energy flowing out through me and intuited that I was going about creating the monster in the right way. Still, it takes a little bit of time for me to fully understand the nuances of the creation process. Eventually, I sensed that the process had completed and knew I had created my new monster.

My dungeon senses showed a simple skeleton standing in the corner of the room I was in. The bones were a natural white color and were held together to keep the skeleton standing by some unknown force. Instead of empty eye sockets, the skeleton had two small glowing balls of red light. It also lacked any armor or clothing but in one hand held a large club that was also made of bone.

I easily recognized the skeleton’s form and shape to be humanoid. I was curious if it confirmed that the human species also existed on this world. It would make sense that the skeleton would follow a native of this planet, but it was also possible the design was pulled from my own memories.

I focused on the skeleton and found that I could inspect it.

Skeleton Fighter (Undead)

Level 2

I also checked my own status and saw I had 74 mana now. The skeleton had cost me a whopping twenty mana. How was I expected to make a decent dungeon with such high monster costs? Also, the description box of the skeleton was severely lacking in information, only stating it was level 2. That was weird itself, since usually starting monsters were level one, not two. Maybe the wooden club upgraded its threat level by one? I was bereft of enough information to understand even my most basic of monsters.

I pondered the reasons for such a bare bones System. As a gamer, I could understand the rationale. For almost any game there were players–”Min-maxers”--who sought to exploit the game’s mechanics competitively or even just for fun. Eventually, they could often find ways to completely break a game, such as infinite resources or unkillable units.

Now take a similar system of game-like mechanics and install it into a real world with real people (and dungeons!). They all had the advantage of time. Given enough time and information about the rules of the System, they could try to find ways to exploit it. The more information that can be learned, the more likely an exploit or an optimal choice can be discovered. At that point, the System becomes less about choices and merely a formality. Human recorded history stretched over five thousand years. If the people of this world had that much time to poke at the System, they probably knew quite a lot about it.

So how would the System’s designer prevent such abuse? You could have the System utilize a “black box” method. Keep as much of the details and numbers hidden so it is harder to calculate specific marginal advantages. Another option would be to make as many things as possible have some degree of variability. For example, maybe each level 1 skeleton I create has slightly different values. These slight differences wouldn’t change things generally, but could be decisive occasionally. In this way, results couldn’t be perfectly predicted.

There was a third option I suddenly thought of. Maybe my Dungeon Interface skill was just too low of a level to get more information.

Theoretical “System-etics” aside, I needed to continue my tests with monsters. I concentrated and began to push mana through my core in order to create a zombie, the second type of basic monster that I knew of. Suddenly, I felt a mental blockage, as if I hit a wall and couldn’t proceed further.

Cannot create additional monsters.

I stared at the notification for a bit. The prompt explained why I couldn’t create a zombie, but didn’t give a specific reason as to why I was blocked. I supposed it made sense there would be a population limit for a dungeon and since I had done absolutely zero expansion, I might literally be at my limit.

So new Monsters were off the table for now. I would have to experiment on my existing skeleton for now. I focused on the skeleton fighter standing in the corner and tried to will it to be removed or deleted from my dungeon. After a few moments of concentration, I feel the mental pressure release and see the skeleton dissolve into little specks of mana that dissipated into the air and walls.

Absorption 2 obtained.

That was unexpected! Checking my status I was also surprised to see my mana went up by one as well. This meant that I could recycle a small portion of my used mana back into my well. Perhaps the system wanted to encourage me to experiment a little by making mistakes a little less punishing in terms of resource cost.

With the skeleton deleted and my monster count back to zero, it was time to try once again to create a zombie. I did the same method I used for making the skeleton but this time focused on the concept of a zombie. However, I still encountered the same mental block as before.

Cannot create additional monster templates.

If I could make a sound, then the room would have been filled with an audible groan. Did making the skeleton lock me out from making any other type of monster or creature? There must be some rules regarding monsters that I was not yet privy to.

At this point, the combination of lack of information and stilting restrictions was vexing me to the point of total frustration. I then remembered something: the very first message said “Your dungeon companion may provide additional information to guide you through your first year.”

There was supposed to be someone here to help me! I wanted to kick myself for forgetting this critical tidbit. But also, why hadn’t this companion reached out to me to say hello? That was odd.

I guess I just had to take the initiative–I mentally called out Hello?

Hello?!

Companion–I need you!

Silence.

I called out over and over again, in whatever combination of words that I could think of. If my status screen required a certain trigger, I desperately guess that I needed to summon my companion in the same way. After several dozen attempts at triggering the arrival of my helper, I gave up.

A sense of doom came over me as realization set in.

I really was going to have to do this all by myself.