Cal grabbed one of the parallelograms out of Box A and held it aloft. “I want to activate the Apothos in this item. Activate! I activate you!” He swung it around, but nothing was happening.

Dave slowly got to his feet and limped over. “What’s this now?”

Cal gave Dave the orange and brown tchotchke. “These things have a mix of Apothos. It might help us with the Dungeon Meld.”

All eight of Dave’s eyes glowed, matching the radiance of his core gem. “Oh, right. I seem to recall these things. We always wondered about the energy inside, but I see now. They’re like batteries. I think I can access the energy.”

“But what are they, Dave?” Gwen asked sharply. She had her goggles on, and she was flying the blimp, helping the breakroom cores fight the metal-mouthed bats.

Cal nodded. “I had the same question. Why the odd shape? Why the little blade and the wrist strap?”

Dave grinned shyly. “Back in the day, the TAP reports came in sealed envelopes. You had to cut them open just so. Why anyone would mass produce them for the outside world is beyond me. And the sealed envelopes were just stupid. But yes, the shape was odd, the plastic hard, and all in all, we thought they were basically useless. Turns out we were wrong. Cast the spell, again, Cal. I think it will work this time.”

A second later, Cal received the message.

<<<>>>

Basic Dungeon Meld activated. Weavelord has accepted your request. Have fun building dungeons and saving the world! Uh. You don’t have a lot of time, so get to it, buddy.

<<<>>>

It was a relief to see the message, and then Cal went through the agony of connecting his Funk Soul to Dave’s dungeon core. It was like standing in a tornado of knives while someone screamed Aldaleeran opera at you. It was like hanging upside-down while trying to juggle torches. Cal was in his body, yes, but he was also in the core gem floating above Dave’s desk.

It took a second. Cal didn’t puke. It was a huge victory.

After recovering from the Meld, Cal tried to access Dave’s Guardian Matrix.

However, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Cal found himself holding a little baby girl, in a mansion, with servants and healers and a full staff around. There was a whole collection of people, and that included the woman on a bed, smiling and crying at Cal.

But it wasn’t Cal. It was Dave’s memory, and that little baby girl in his hands, so tiny and helpless? That was Gwenivere Marie Copperblade.

Cal felt the overwhelming love, and then the fear. Fear that something would happen to little Gwennie. Fear that she would rob him of his dreams. All that love and fear was such a soup inside Dave, who wasn’t a Spidercrat at the time. He was a simple short human, with lots of long hair and a dashing beard that his wife loved to touch and kiss.

Such a full life he’d had. But what was that life, the lives of his family, the wealth they had, the house, compared to whole worlds dying because of greedy dungeoneers? Heroic guardians like Magnus Elvis Maverick, that legendary wereguy dungeon core, were keeping worlds safe. He was a true guardian of the Tree of Souls.

At the same time, even when Dave was living his dream of being a dungeon core, studying hard at the Shadowcroft Academy, a part of him would always regret leaving his wife and daughter. Some nights, it threatened to break him.

Dave’s voice brought him back to the present.

Cal sent back.

There was a long pause.

Cal didn’t know what to say, but then Gwen let out a gasp. “Shrimpie got that last bat, but barely. The hallway and the stairs are clear for now.” Gwen lifted her goggles and set them on her forehead. “Hey, boss man, don’t know what you’re doing, but get to it.”

“Sorry,” both Cal and Dave said at the same time.

Gwen hissed, “Cal is my boss, Dave. You just yelled at us a lot and made us fill out those dumb TAP reports.”

“As if you ever filled those out,” Dave shot back. “Cal did all the writing. I couldn’t have read your chicken scratch. Your penmanship was always so horrible.”

“Whatever! Cal! Triple I! Now!”

Cal then accessed Dave’s matrix and broadcast it out.

<<< ۝ >>>

David Sterling Copperblade

Guardian Core Matrix

Base Race: Arachtuary

Current Evolution: Spidercrat

Cultivator Class: Iron Trunk Cultivator; B-Class, Rank 10

Primary Elemental Affinities: Aer/Ignis/Toxicus

Racial Skills

* Silkweaving

* Asbestos Web

* Venomous Spray

* Drippy Talons

Way of the CPA

* Belittle

* Tax Evasion

Way of the Web Dwellers

* Flying Inferno Spiders

* Office Dweebers

* Web Cannons

* Arachna Chess

* Spidertaurs

* By The Bookworm

Way of the Spellweaver

* Napalm Webs

* Abacus Trap

* Tiger Pits

* Apothos Entangle

<<< ۝ >>>

Cal was surprised to see that Dave had hit B-Class. Then again, it was probably all of the Apothos flowing into the office.

Gwen was the first to comment. “Three primary Apothos affinities? That makes sense. Ignis and Aer explains why he’s so full hot air. His Toxicus allows him to foster a toxic work environment. All of that tracks.”

Cal frowned at her. “Be nice!”

Kronke pointed. “Oh, By the Bookworm is the giant worm. Kronke think it more like caterpillar than worm.”

Dave sent.

Cal thought about mentioning the boxes marked for incineration but thought against it. They had enough to deal with. “Let’s talk out loud so everyone can hear us.”

Gwen stood with her arms crossed “Yeah, Dave. No secrets.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Hegle was feeding Hurricane some emergency oats out of her hand. “Ye used Tax Evasion against me, Mr. Copperblade, ye did. It let you evade my attacks by shifting yerself out of the way.”

Gwen smirked. “He’s evasive in all sorts of ways. Avoid taxes, avoid parental responsibility, avoid intimacy.”

Cal could’ve countered by saying that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. Dave had his Tax Evasion, but she had her Evasive Dodge. Both did similar things. Instead, he asked, “Tell us about your Belittle ability.”

Dave’s guardian form blushed. “I tried not to use that in business. I can say things, to, uh, Belittle my opponents. It makes their attacks 10% less effective and increases their depression by 10%.”

“I know where you practiced that, Dad,” Gwen muttered under her breath.

It made the Spidercrat sigh.

Kronke looked concerned. “Dysfunctional family dynamics make Kronke sad.”

Helga cleared her throat. “Aye, let’s stick to our survival. Weavelord, what other magic items do ye have?”

Dave took in a breath. “I have my Armored Tie, which provides me with a suit as well as swatting attacks out of the air. My Tortoiseshell Glasses improves my armor class, while my Spectacles of Awareness give me 360-degree vision. I’m impossible to surprise me, and it’s how I saw through your illusions, Cal.”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Anything else?”

Dave shrugged and grinned. “I have a few other surprises, but nothing major.”

Helga raised her chin. “Now that we know of yer abilities, let’s see about our defenses. Can we reset the dungeon to how it was before? Now that we know the issues with yer abacus trap, we can adjust the thickness of the wall.”

“Metal plate,” Gwen said. “With that room full of filing cabinets, we have a ton of metal to work with. Resetting the dungeon would be the way to go. It wasn’t half-bad. The rec room traps were terrible, though. The chessboard? On point.”

“Compliments from my estranged daughter?” Dave chuckled. “And here I thought you’d hate me forever.” He paused. “I’d rather we were all alive for you to do just that. Unfortunately, while I have enough Apothos for the Dungeon Meld, I’m nowhere near the strength I was. This Node doesn’t have the energy it did when I was under the Vanilla Master’s control.”

“Can you stack the parallelograms using your Apothos Entangle?” Cal asked.

Dave thought for a minute. “It was that ability that allowed me to access the energy in the first place, but it’s not something I can use multiple times. Actually, using a bit of your Apothos, Cal, should allow us to tweak the rooms and give them some structure. Minions are going to be an issue, though. Without my minions and webs, what kind of dungeon can we have?”

Cal knew immediately. “We do an office building dungeon. We use all the stuff up in the offices above, and all the items in storage, and we create each room with a different theme. Kronke has his new Aer abilities. We could put him in the room with the paper marked for incineration. A cyclone of paper would blind raiders while he cuts them apart with the Pink Reaper. The central cave, with all the weapons, armor, and artifacts from past audits would be perfect for another Helga Rage Room. We re-recreate what we did in Mimi’s dungeon.”

“What about the inner sanctum?” Dave asked.

Cal was far from done. Suddenly, he had all these ideas, and he never had ideas. He wasn’t feeling like himself. “A cubicle labyrinth. Working together, Daphne and Karl could do water attacks, freeze them, make things slippery, that kind of thing, and if we kept the playfield at an angle, they might slip to the bottom.” He shook his head. “No, we couldn’t. I wouldn’t want water to damage the files down here. The Department’s archives has such critical information.”

Gwen tapped her chin. “Hey, Dave, can you manage the playfield from your pinball machine?”

“I could. As long as it’s simple.”

Gwen grinned. “We have an ice field, with the cubicle walls, at an angle. Karl and Daphne work in tandem, cold and water attacks.”

“Nae just water damage,” Helga put in. “Daphne can do Corrosivus damage as well. But remember—any damage we do, we’ll be doing to our former teammates.”

“I would imagine the AT1 will send minions,” Cal said. “But yes, at some point, there’s a good chance we’ll have to fight Inke, Amorfo, Cardi, and Barb directly. If they’ve gone rogue. If they haven’t? If they’re under the mind-control magic of the Vanilla Master, then we can get Kronke close to them, and he can use his Smell of Freedom ability to break the magic.”

Gwen was too excited, and she talked over him. “The real treasure in this dungeon has to be all that Electronic Abacus equipment. I should be able to do something with them. Now that we have a power source.”

Cal snapped his fingers. “Yes! The parallelograms. And I would imagine that Dave can use his Apothos Entangle to tie the batteries to your gadgets.”

Gwen rubbed her chin. “You know, I might be able to add legs to the filing cabinets.”

“We’d have to move the files first,” Cal said. “I don’t want to destroy such important paperwork.”

“Nerd!” Gwen hissed in disgust.

Helga petted her goat. “I’d like to see this cave. I have some ideas on how to improve my rage room. Would I be close to Kronke’s paper cyclone room?”

“Just a secret passageway away,” Gwen said. “And yeah, fine, Cal. We empty out the filing cabinets. But we fill them with stuff that’s just as heavy. I want those bad boys heavy. Real flippin’ heavy.”

“Language, Gwen,” Dave admonished. Then shook his head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Curse all you want.”

“Whatever, Dad. I mean, Dave. Yeah. Whatever.” She thought for a minute. “I really like the chessboard room. But instead of minions, we have traps in the floor. We could do some vile things there, with the Electronic Abacus equipment. I wish Perkle was with us.”

“I hope he turns up.” Cal felt bad for the little guy.

Gwen didn’t comment. She was too caught up in the excitement of planning the dungeon. “Do we put Fullgeers in the electronics storage room? Yeah, I think so. He has that sour milk goo trap, the burning coffee attack, and the telescoping arms with the sawblades for some unknowable reason. You know, we could put him in the tile room. Hey, Dad—I mean Dave—what was that weird circular tiled room used for?”

“Another bit of old, bad technology,” Dave replied. “It was called climate conditioning, or air temperature adjustment, or sometimes simply…air conditioning. It stank. It never worked. Or worked too well. There was a fire elemental that froze to death because someone adjusted the settings. We just use magic now. But that room was for the vents.”

“And the drain,” Gwen said. “Not sure we can use it, but maybe. Maybe.”

Cal could see her mind going a mile-a-minute.

Kronke grinned. “Me glad to see Gwen happy. We team now. With Dave. We gonna win. Don’t worry, if we win, Kronke not murder you all, even if Pinkerton say it good idea.”

Cal knew they were going to have to deal with Kronke’s murderous weapon at some point.

Helga shook her head, a grim look on her face. “We need some minions. And those Dweebers don’t give me much hope.”

The few surviving nerdy driders frowned at her.

Helga looked even more disgusted and weary. “An office dungeon is nae a bad idea. We would have a theme, and we’d need a better name for the master of such a place.”

Gwen laughed. “An office dungeon isn’t too far off from being an oxymoron. I can’t tell you how many times I sat in my friggin’ desk, in the friggin’ cubicle farm, feeling I was being tortured.”

“Could we call the master of this dungeon the pain manager?” Helga said to herself. “Nay, that would be one who manages pain. Nae one who causes.

Dave thought for a second. “I’ve been called a torture boss before.”

Gwen grimaced. “The torture boss is a bit on the nose. Pain manager isn’t bad, if you don’t think about it too much, and we don’t have time to think about it much.”

Dave glanced around at his. His face was less swollen. Most of his eyes twinkled. “Such a dungeon couldn’t be made quickly. We’ll need days, if not weeks.”

“We have hours,” Cal said. “And we do need minions.”

They heard squealing and chirping and thunking as the rabid staplers and dust bunnies came pouring out of the secret archive. They were soon ankle-deep in the dust bunnies. A few rabid staplers were bouncing up and down around Kronke.

The troll picked up one of the staplers, and it clamped down on the skin between his thumb and index finger. He grinned as he swung the stapler back and forth. “It like me!”

Gwen laughed. “Looks like we have our minions. Murder staplers and dust bunnies.”

Dave gave Cal a long look.

Dave gave him a nod.

Cal wasn’t sure. He had an even more important question for his boss.

Dave’s eyes fell to the floor.

Cal inhaled.

Gwen waved her hand in front of his face. “Hello! Cal! Happy playtime with Dave is over. We have work to do. You’ve been using that dumb Conference Call ability again, haven’t you? Kinda rude, Cal. Kinda rude.”

Cal stepped back. “It’s not my Conference Call skill. It’s an aspect of Dungeon Meld. Rude or not, it is an effective way to communicate.”

Gwen wasn’t convinced. “Wait a second. Didn’t you find something about the Mind’s Eye? And there are the Quatros that are unaccounted for.”

Cal nodded. “Right. Almost forgot. I don’t think the Quatros are a part of this. They’re dungeon cores, right? And they’re always together. Maybe Quisling is the tenth core, but I don’t think so. As for the Mind’s Eye, I did find the file folder. Anything on them, Dave?”

Dave frowned as he cleaned his pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Poppycock! All that Mind’s Eye stuff. They aren’t secret assassins working for the Council of Dungeons. I know that for a fact!”

“Oh, do you?” Gwen asked, a quizzical smile on her face. “You’re as much a part of the Deep Dungeon State as anyone. I bet you hate Emmerich “The Warning” Bellsman.”

The Troll Paladin sighed. “Kronke no like The Warning Bell. Conspiracy theories that lack any evidence make Kronke sad.”

Dave returned his glasses to his many-eyed face. “Think what you want, but the Mind’s Eye are more connected to the dungeoneering guilds than they are to the Council or the Department. As for the Warning Bell, please, I cannot begin to voice the disgust I have—”

Cal cut him off. “Let’s leave conspiracy theories out of this. Here’s our situation. The Vanilla Master wants to win back this Node, and we have to stop him.>

One of the dust bunnies leapt up and snuggled into Cal’s neck. It smelled musty but was so soft. Basically adorable.

Cute minions weren’t going to help them.

Luckily, Gwen was going to create monstrosities the world had never seen before.