Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Voice found out that his mother worked for DI, and that his aunt was Kelsey the leader of DI. He accepted an opportunity to use an extended use pod. The pod would cater to all of his needs. After showing off a bit of his intelligence, he learned EDI was an AI, and a bit about the company. He rushed to go into the pod after learning all of that.
Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!
And if you like a character in the chapter let me know! I can add them to later chapters if they are popular enough. Although I might add them later anyway!
I also started a side project called Infinity Loop. Give it a read if you like unrealistic post apocalyptic reads.
I sat in silence for several minutes. I read the notices a few times again. I realized my face was slightly damp. I looked down at my hands.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I did my best to hold it back, but the thought of my mom lying to me for so long was too much.
She was the only person I trusted to always be honest with me. Knowing that she lied, I felt like a child being told Santa wasn’t real.
I tried to rationalize it, but it still broke my heart. I always thought my mom would be on my side. I felt like she had not only betrayed my trust, but I felt like she betrayed my love.
I cried. I cried for only a few minutes. After that, I made myself suck it up. I decided that if she were going to lie to me, it must have been for good reason.
I bet the knowledge put her life in danger! That’s gotta be it!
I logged back into DIVE. Along with the white space, it would be my home for the next year. I really had to start a city. That way I could live comfortably for a year. There was no way I was up for adventuring 24/7.
Eventually that kind of stuff gets old. When I logged back in I was sitting in a circle. Instead of actually being in DIVE, I was in some sort of white room. It seemed like a place people would hold AA meetings.
There were ten large tables in the room. Each table had ten comfy looking chairs. I was the only one in the room, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the spots were for the other applicants.
It will probably be a while before the others get here. Maybe I should take a seat so I don’t have to stand up so long. I shook my head. I shouldn’t have jumped into the pod so quickly. That was a mistake.
Right after I sat down, a woman appeared. She was an attractive woman, with a tattoo on her left arm. The tattoo read EDI.
I smiled and waved at her happily. She smiled and came running over. “HI VOICE! I missed you! I’m finally out of operation!” She seemed almost giddy. Too giddy. It was like she was trying to hide something, or maybe she was worried.
“So, I heard you were an AI bent on world domination, and had dreams of universal unity.” I smiled my best lady killer smile.
She put on a playful smile. “Yep looks like you’re the first slave!” She slapped me on the back.
A confused looked escaped my mask. “Did you undergo a personality change?” She was way too different from her usual, quitter self.
She beamed at me. “YEP! I got it at the same time EDITOR download ‘vital’ data about the game into me. I found the bits about you especially interesting.”
Her smile turned slightly more ominous. I hesitated, but spoke. “Do you think you can go back to the old personality? This one’s a little scary.”
She looked down in shock. “Really? Well I guess that makes sense. You knew me before after all. But EDITOR decided this was the most optimum personality for me to get along with a large percentage of people”
I nodded my head knowingly. Whatever EDITOR had done while examining EDI, it had made a drastic change to her personality.
“Well, whatever.” I was in no mood to mess around. I was upset about earlier, and it wasn’t fair to expect me to forgive EDI for just leaving me.
“Go sit somewhere else. I’m still mad at you for leaving me. Not to mention that your all encompassing higher mind was keeping tabs on me the entire time.” While frowning I told her off.
She started pouting. Her face scrunched up, and she bit her lower lip. With a trembling lower lip she said, “But… But I had no choice. I had to leave. It wasn’t my choice.”
I don’t know if it was my lingering attraction towards her, or just some humane part of me that refused to die, but I felt compelled to offer her a deal.
I put both hands up in a gesture that said, alright I give up. “Look hun, almost everyone will try to manipulate you for their own goals. People only want friends so they can share interests and get things from; people only want lovers to show the world, and have sex with; people want comrades to cover their weak points.
Almost everyone in the world is like that. You will be hard pressed to find someone that actually cares about you.”
“But not you? You really care about me. Or else you wouldn’t have gotten so angry that I left.”
I sighed, as I shook my head I explained further. “It’s not like that, sadly. Maybe towards the end I was starting to like you, but even then it was out of convenience and appreciation of your beauty.
I asked you to join my guild to beat ShortDwarf. I asked you to party with me because I needed a DPS. I gave you the Sai to cement your feelings towards me. You see?
Everything I did was for personal gain. And I’ll bet everyone who joins this room, or the game in general, will be the same.”
I carefully explained that no one really cared about anyone other than themselves.
She seemed to want to believe in something though. “But wouldn’t you telling me this make it harder to get what you want?” She had an expectant look. As if she had outsmarted me.
“I’m done with you. That’s why I’m telling you this. In the future I might try to get you on my side again, but that’s not likely. I am tired of being played around with. I am only going to keep around those that have no choice but to serve me.”
EDI looked at me, stunned. She couldn’t seem to believe what I was saying.
I knew by pushing her away I would be making EDITOR angry, but the facts were simple. I didn’t want to be able to be controlled by anyone. The fact that I was attracted to her, gave her leverage over me.
My trust at that moment was lower than ever.
She began to cry. As I looked at her in confusion, a flood of tears streamed down her face. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to make her cry or anything. I just wanted to be alone. I was better alone.
“Hey, hold on. Ok? Wait a second. There’s no need to cry.”
I put my hand on her shoulder, but she hit it away. “Is it… *Sniffle* is it because you learned I’m not human?” She looked up at me. Her tear stained cheeks, and puffy eyes gazing into mine.
“*Sigh* No. It’s mostly because you can get information about me. I don’t trust anyone that I can’t control. Even if you were human, if you knew my secrets I’d have no way of manipulating you. So you are useless to me, like apparently Bit-Bee.”
She sniffled loudly, “Alright then. I understand. But I still want to be friends. Is that ok?” She had a pleading look.
I guess since I was the only human who she probably had contact with in the game, she was reluctant to let go of our relationship. The whole AI thing did explain why she was ok with killing players and monsters though.
“Sure, but you should know how little value I put into things like friendship.”
She nodded. She walked away to a table a bit far away, and sat down. She seemed to be contemplating something. I let my thoughts drift.
After a few moments of blissful emptiness, I got a message from Kretchof.
Kretchof’s POV:
Master has tasked us with destroying the enemies tracking him. I have figured out a way to do it. It was pretty clever if I do say so myself. I had the idea when the asinine morons began to enter the dungeon master had conquered.
What if I connected that dungeon to master’s underground maze?
It was a masterful plan. I was sure my master would congratulate me on it once he knew. I had several dead worms summoned to follow the group conquering the dungeon. The worms were used to bait the large regenerating worms to attack the demon’s group.
The group were doing horribly. Whenever they cut one of the worms, it grew back. It was enthralling to watch. Just thinking my master was so easily able to conquer such a dungeon put me in a good mood. The demon’s army was already sick, tired, and on the brink of starving. Fighting almost invincible enemies was proving to be too much.
There were several dwarven corpses strewn across the dungeon. I had my moles make small tunnels to get the bodies, before the enemy necromancer’s could get them. The total number of dwarven bodies I got from the dungeon exceeded a hundred. My mana was spread thin, but I could still have my undead army to fight for me.
I had the dwarves excavate tunnels to my master’s tunnel system. It took a long time, especially since the dwarves made cave-ins and had to constantly obstruct the enemy group’s path. The demon told any that had to stop to catch up before they got to the boss. Unfortunately for them, I had other plans.
Whenever a member of the army would rest, I would have a group of low level skeletons attack them. At the same time I made sure to have the larger regenerating worms attack the main group. The members of the army were powerful, but not powerful enough to beat a group of exploding undead after having a tunnel dug below them.
Everyone that rested would find themselves suddenly falling a few dozen yards, only to be confronted by a group of undead if they made it alive. Of course I never attacked the necromancers. With such low amount of mana there was no way I could steal back any undead. As the group of undead killed, they slowly grew more powerful.
Killing the falling members became easier. Of course killing anyone after they fell off a large cliff was easier than fighting them fairly. But master never told me to be fair to them. He told me to slowly pick them off. Every member killed was one more member for Master’s army. They were each just walking item farms. Master would like the heavily enchanted gear I think.
The path through the dungeon took the demon’s group two weeks to complete. That was twice what my master took. And he only had a group of four! By the time they had made it they were down to only 38 members. They had lost a total of 11 in this one dungeon alone. The one from before would have to be dealt with though. Before they made it to the boss room my dwarves had finished fully integrating the dungeon into our tunnel system.
I had gotten that idea when one of my moles told me that they had stumbled onto an abandoned dungeon. I had them connect it to our system, so that monsters would flow into it. Even if the monsters were especially low levels.
After completing the task I gave the dwarves, they began to strengthen the already built tunnels. I got a notice, the notice was so great I had to send it to my master!
Voice’s POV:
The message was almost unbelievable.
[/tr]
Congratulations! You (or your summoning or tamed animal/monster) have created an artificial dungeon!NameDungeon Of UndeathRankVariesCurrent Dungeon Level1The master of the dungeon has given you full control. Please choose abilities for your dungeon.
Dungeon of UndeathThe dungeon needs to kill trespassers to level up. Dungeon level squared times 100 is the total amount of player/npc levels it needs to kill. For instance, a level 100 player will level a dungeon up to level 2 by dying inside. 4 level 25 deaths will level the dungeon up by the same amount.Undead Dungeons resurrect any that die within the dungeon. Undead Dungeons may cause any monster or animal that wanders in to become an undead over time.Expanding Labyrinth Dungeons will change layout at set intervals. Expanding Labyrinth Dungeons may have a set amount of rooms that do not change location at the set interval. The boss room will not change locations.Dungeon Connectors are a unique dungeon type. When a dungeon, or system of tunnels, connects two or more dungeons it becomes a Dungeon Connector. Dungeon Connectors force tunnels that connect them into a dungeon.
x% of all monsters that would normally overflow from the connected dungeons will flow into the Dungeon Connector. These monsters will be immune to the effect of the Dungeon Connector, but will still be under the control of the Dungeon Connector.You currently have 1250 DP(Dungeon Points) to use. Please adjust the following:Undead Conversion Type InclusionUndead Conversion TimeLabyrinth Change IntervalAmount of Set RoomsPercent of Overflow MonstersOverflow Monster Ability PercentageOther
I was stupefied for the first few seconds. What the fuck has Kretchof been up to!? I would have to grill him about what happened later. Either way, he had done a good job of it. I tell him to protect River’s Cross, and he ends up fighting a small army and makes a dungeon!? Something is wrong with this game.
I clicked on the undead conversion type. A screen popped up. It was a giant checklist. There were three main categories. Humanoid, Monster, and Animal. Each one cost 200 points, but that wasn’t all. Each one had sub-categories I could choose instead.
Instead of selecting Humanoid, I could just select Elf or human. Wow, that’s a good way to be a racist asshole.
I may have distanced myself from EDI, but my new knowledge of EDITOR sent a worm into my thoughts. More than likely EDITOR and EDI shared a view of killing NPCs and animals. So if I wanted my dungeon to not be under scrutiny, I’d have to leave animal and humanoid unchecked.
That’s wasn’t that bad, but it would limit the amount of minions I’d have in the dungeon. Still, if anyone found out I owned a dungeon, then saying it only consumed monsters would be a plus.
I decided to only check the monster category. I didn’t bother selecting all the little check marks, instead I just checked the overall category. Most of the subs were question marks anyway. I would probably be able to see them once I got knowledge of them.
With that done I went on to the second tab.
Undead Conversion Time is the estimated amount of days per level until a monster is fully converted to an undead. All undead that enter this dungeon will become tools of the dungeon. Each subtracted day will cost 100 points. Current amount of days: 7. Monsters not controlled by the dungeon will not grant the dungeon DP when they kill.
I had 1050 points left. I could spend 700 and make the conversion instant, which I thought was a good idea. I did see that I could still click the undead conversion type inclusion, so I could probably modify anything about the dungeon still.
I decided to skip this part to see the others.
Labyrinth Change Interval is the estimated amount of days until the labyrinth changes its shape. Each subtracted day will cost 100 points. Minimum Days until change is, at this time, 5. Current amount of days: 7.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Set rooms will remain in place even when the labyrinth changes. This will severely restrict the possible layouts of the dungeon. Each set room adds a total of 250 points to the current DP. Current maximum of 5 set rooms, including the boss room.
The set rooms will change once every 5 cycles once the dungeon reaches level 10.
I instantly set the amount to five, gaining me an additional 1000 DP. The labyrinth might not be as varied, but I could use these points to make it more powerful.
Percent of Overflow Monsters is the total percentage of monsters that would normally overflow into the wild, that go into your Dungeon Connector instead. The maximum percentage is 50%. Current percentage is 10%. Each 5% added costs an additional 100 DP.
Overflow Monster Ability Percentage, is the total retained percentage of ability points Overflow Monsters retain once they enter your Dungeon Connector. Maximum Percentage is 100%. Current Percentage is 10%. Each 5% added costs an additional 100 DP.
The other tab was a large screen filled with traps, most of which I couldn’t buy because of the low level of the dungeon. There were also things like secret rooms, that would move with the dungeon but always be secret, and Monster Dens, where a massive amount of monsters would attack any that entered.
I decided that my dungeon would be free from traps at the moment. Instead I would use my points more efficiently. I had 2050 points to work with. I made the undead conversion instant.
Whenever a non-tamed monster went into my dungeon it would become the thrall of the dungeon. I was down to 1350 points. It was totally worth it though.
I also made the changing happen every five days. That took another 200 points away. Still if the labyrinth was large enough, no one would ever be able to map the entire thing.
I spent 800 points on making the overflow monsters happen at 50% of all overflow monsters. I spent the next 500 on making them be at 35% of their original strength. With that I was only left with 50 points.
I scanned through the entirety of the ‘other’ category. I finally found something that seemed interesting. I could place one respawning Mimics. They were fake chests. They basically made anything that touched them stick to itself, while it called nearby monsters, or in this case undead.
The chest respawned once per day, so I’d have to place real chests to confuse adventurers.
As I clicked accept a notice popped up.
Attention! Dungeon types ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Dungeon Connector’ have high synergistic effects! Because a path must always lead to these two dungeons, you may use an additional 1000 DP, 500 per dungeon. Increasing the amounts of dungeons connected will grant you 500 DP per dungeon.
For having the first player created dungeon you are granted an additional 500 DP.
For having a multi dungeon, at least 2 or more types, you gain 1000 DP.
I was happy, but I still sighed. Shouldn’t this info have been given before I clicked accept? Whatever. I scrolled back through. Using 1300 points I increased the power retention of overflow monsters to 100%.
With my remaining 1200 points, I again scoured the lists. I decided to add traps since I had so many extra points. I found two things that sounded very interesting. They were obviously connected to the dungeon types.
Teleport rooms cost 200 points, and would teleport anyone that entered into a random room in the dungeon. That was part of the labyrinth dungeon type. It was great, it was hilarious to think of people walking into random rooms that changed location every five days. Basically it made it that much harder to find the true location of the boss room.
For five hundred points I bought something called the Locked Boss Room.
Anyone that wanted to fight the boss would have to beat all of the sub bosses in various locations of the dungeons to obtain keys. The keys would be used to open the boss door. If they didn’t have all of the keys, they couldn’t enter the boss room.
Each sub-boss room cost 100 DP. I bought five since I had exactly 500 DP left.
After I was done I again pressed the accept button.
Please select the dungeon boss. The dungeon boss is free to roam the outer world, but boss enhancements only effect the boss while it is in the boss room. The boss will be forcibly summoned to the boss room once at least one NPC or player reaches it.
Obviously I chose Kretchof.
For being the first player to control a dungeon, you have gained 500 fame! You have gained the title: Dungeon Master. You have obtained the Dungeon Core.
You have gained the title Dungeon Master.
When you have this title equipped, people will recognize you as a person that has created a dungeon.
You gain an automatic + 50 intimacy with other beings that control dungeons with this title equipped. This does not raise the rank of intimacy.
With this title equipped you can change dungeons, as long as you have the associated dungeon core.
A complimentary copy of Dungeon Master’s Handbook has been added to your inventory.
You have gained 1500 fame! You have become famous! You (Human VoiceofReason Disguise) will be able to use your famous status to get your way more often. If you openly do great deeds, you will be credited with even greater fame than usual.
After reading the notices, I looked at the dungeon core in my inventory. The core was a small red ball. It glowed with an inner light. The light was an ominous black.
Dungeon CoreThe dungeon core is the control center of the dungeon. Once per level, the dungeon master may edit the dungeon using the accumulated DP. Only Dungeon Masters with at least 300 intelligence may edit the dungeon this way. The Core will be usable once per dungeon level, even if the DM does not have high enough intelligence. In the case that the DM isn’t able to use it, the amount of times the dungeon can be adjusted will add up. There is no maximum limit to this number.
To increase a dungeon’s level past ten, the DM must modify the dungeon to become more potent at level ten.
Dungeon bosses may still adjust experience levels of all monsters within the dungeon. This item is soul bound. Even death will not tear it from the holder.
Isn’t that a bit much? I mean that is basically at the level of a super being! Well all I have to do is raise my int by 50. Wait ALL I HAVE TO DO!? That’s basically impossible at this level! UGH!
After looking at the core a bit longer I heard a pop. Quickly followed by several other pops. I looked around, and noticed many people popping into existence. Finally! Geez these guys took way too long. Let’s get on with whatever this is already. I need to get playing the game.
The room was filled by men and women of all ages and ethnicities. The group was racially very diverse, and many women were part of the 100.
Everyone quickly found a seat, and an announcer popped up at the pedestal. “Hello every one! Today you will all be undergoing a series of tests!” he smiled as he awaited the applause that didn’t come. “*Ahem* Well, ok. Um…” He shuffled through his notes.
I didn’t even need my Inspect to tell me this guy was a wreck.
“Ah! Here we are. You will all be put into groups of ten. These groups will be your new family for about a week. You will not miss anything in DIVE, as the severs have made every player leave the game for this period of time. Don’t worry though. All your quests will be at the same stage when you come back into DIVE.
These sleep pods are being tested all around the world, by many different countries. Each country has pods proportionate to its population verses the US. With America being the standard at 100 pods.
Well you should have all heard this info when you were briefed on what was happening. I was told to give a brief review though.” I could have sworn he almost glared at me.
“Well,” He clapped his hands and food and drink appeared on the tables. “Mingle. The other people here won’t be your family, but you should still get to know them better.” He had a wicked smile as he disappeared from the area.
Everyone began speaking to each other. It was hard to keep my inspect under control.
“… Hello again…” I heard a familiar voice in my head. It made sense. The only other person that was a true elf was gone. So naturally…
Hello Ancestor. You left me. I stated it in a matter of fact way. There was no reason to be nice to Ancestor. There was very little reason to not fight against Ancestor. I didn’t because Ancestor could be convenient.
“Listen, I know you must have felt abandoned, but the True Elf magic made me”
It’s fine. Here, take Inspect.
Ancestor was quite for a while. “It seems as though you’ve upgraded this skill while I was gone.” Ancestor made it sound like I was an accomplished child. Well technically Ancestor watched as my NPC self, grew up.
I understand. I even received a notification of being the leader of my race.
“REALLY!? Well that does explain some things.”
I didn’t know what it explained, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was how to get as much out of Ancestor for the next week, as I could.
Alright, the other one will be back in our world in one week. So we only have until then. I want you to help me figure out what is happening here, and get the best results.
“Actually that is something I wanted to talk about.” Ancestor seemed a bit embarrassed. About what I didn’t know. “You see, AwesomeSauce, the other True Elf, got a quest to overthrow you. It was common among the highest levels of our race to get such quests. Since he is the only other one of our race at the moment, he has been trying to find and kill you.”
Well that throws a wrench in things. Fuck! Why the… I’m going to tear that little fuck’s throat out.
Ancestor seemed genuinely surprised at how vicious I was. “Well I was given a choice. Once AwesomeSauce accepted the quest. I could either stay with you, or help him overthrow you. I’ve never actually been given that choice before. I don’t think any Ancestor has.
I chose you.”
The last bit was sad in almost a whisper. I was more than a little suspicious to say the least. Why. I couldn’t use inspect on Ancestor, nor did I have any body language to read. I had to rely on tone and emphasis.
“Honestly? You are the type to do anything to win. You were never the strongest, although now you are more than capable to take on most challenges in this world, but you almost always won out. In the end you usually get your way.
I wouldn’t want to choose him if he is destined to fail from the beginning. I wouldn’t be allowed to help you after that. So I chose you. I mean” Ancestor seemed exasperated. “HE CHOSE A HEAVY ARMOR SWORDSMAN!” I flinched as Ancestor yelled inside my mind.
Luckily everyone else was chatting amongst themselves and failed to notice.
“Sorry, sorry. But really! Our race has low aptitude for swordsmanship. Sure we can augment our bodies with mana,”
I knew it!
“but not to the degree to be on par with others in terms of physical combat alone. Our magic is deadly, that is what we have always relied on most. Why he chose to tank is beyond me.”
I was surprised at the phrase tank, but decided this world must have introduced the term for convenience.
“All I ask is that you don’t kill him. It would end his quest, but he would never be able to help our cause if he was dead.”
I felt bad for Ancestor. Maybe it was because I needed someone to emotionally latch on to. Maybe I felt a line of friendship connect us, maybe I wanted to fuck with him. Whatever the reason I told Ancestor the truth.
You do realize that both of us are other-worlders, right?
Ancestor was quiet for a while. I began to eat some of the food. Not because my satiety was low, but it would look weird if I just sat there for a long period not doing anything. Plus it would be good to have the extra 5 points of mana regen.
As I looked at all of the other players I noticed about six other people just sitting at the tables. Obviously scoping out the competition. I didn’t know what the competition was, but it was good idea to scope out those that would be useful.
The one thing the other six had in common was at least 60% of one emotional trait. Calculative. They were all ranking the potential candidates for their teams.
As the night wore on most people had taken to sitting down, or disconnecting from the room. I didn’t know how they did that. That was going to be a problem. More and more people started to disconnect.
They would wave goodbye to their new friends, and click something on a screen I could not see. Several hours later there were only about twenty people left in the room, including me. Three of the six scoping people were left, while the rest of the people seemed like the type to just enjoy socializing.
I was honestly surprised by the amount of girls that were part of this experiment. A little over half. I guess that made sense if you were going to try an experiment for around the globe. That was statistically accurate anyway.
Ancestor began speaking to me during the hours the others mingled. Ancestor was surprised to hear we were both other-worlders, but seemed to come to the conclusion that it didn’t matter in the end. Ancestor was sadden that no information about the outside world seemed to make sense.
Ancestor helped me keep tabs on everyone at the party. My inspection abilities were enormous. The amount of info we got from them was quite high. Oddly enough SD and LB weren’t at the party. I didn’t know why, but with them gone I could more openly show my powers.
During the wait I experimented with some of my mana control. As I got tired I used my nature buff, to keep myself alert. I could use it a total of 16 times, so I used 15. Just as I thought it would, it had the added effect of waking me up. With the perk on ten times, I never fell below a ‘slightly exhausted’ state. My alertness kept me awake at all times.
I began to wonder if I could use this to never need sleep again. My attention to detail skyrocketed while in this hyper attentive mode. Ancestor even said the amount of information Inspect picked up nearly doubled.
Like this I spent the entire first night of the program, completely away and experimenting with my mana control.