Riley and Alexos had a long list of tasks ahead of them. They spent the next several hours after Mrs. Nathstein left continuing to extend the reach of the Dungeon. Riley wanted to have the dungeon encompass her dorm room just so they could cover all angles, but the process was slow because Alexos had to alter the normal mana the dungeon used to blend in and not trigger the security system. After they covered Riley’s dorm room were they able to get a better look at the security system.
“I know I was the one to warn you about the security here, but even I didn’t know that it was this extensive,” Riley said as they recreated the runes as a separate spell inside the desk drawer.
“The complexity of this rune is sucking up a large amount of Dungeon mana,” Alexos said. “Halting creation of rune.”
“Probably for the best,” Riley said. “At least we know what is pinning us down and aren’t tripping the alarms with every move we make.”
“Affirmative,” Alexos replied. “The Magic is understood and can be avoided now.”
“Still,” Riley mentally sighed. “This situation sucks. Tearing apart any of these walls to get out triggers it, which I already knew, but if our Dungeon extends itself off campus and passes through the security system, we will be detected and they will realize that a Dungeon popped up on campus after 100 years of extinction.”
“Also,” Alexos interjected. “Dungeon core cannot be moved easily. I cannot maintain disguise and move our core at the same time.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Riley answered back after a moment. “That really limits our methods of escape though. The sigils are so complex that trying to remove the magic will also trigger the alert.”
After a moment of silence, Alexos suddenly spoke up.
“Dungeon Core needs mana.”
“I thought you said that we were good for a few months?”
“We will be, but if we cannot get out of this room soon, we will need a source of mana nearby that we can absorb without tripping the sensors.”
“I think I have an idea for that.”
“Explain.”
“Well,” Riley said while thinking. “Thanks to the better vision we have as a Dungeon, I am noticing that those glyphs that have trapped us are giving off A LOT of mana in the wall cavity between our room and the next, so if extending in that direction doesn’t set them off, we should be able to use our jailer’s own security system as food as long as we don’t try to tear apart our prison.”
“Implementing required changes,” Alexos immediately answered. Riley could see the edge of their disguised dungeon reach out into the walls of the dorm room, and touch the mana. Riley held Alexos back a bit at this point, she sensed confusion at first but then understanding when Riley started demonstrating her intent by absorbing only mana that was leaking out of the complicated system and not draining the system dry.
“This method should be enough to power the Dungeon Core until we can find a way to escape,” Alexos concluded after a few minutes of siphoning mana.
“We should extend our dungeon into the rest of the dormitory,” Riley suggested. “We can’t leave, but we might as well figure out how much of the security system we can leech mana off of to keep ourselves in good condition.”
“Affirmative, extending dungeon now,” Alexos answered.
Riley allowed Alexos to have full control over the Dungeon’s forward momentum while she looked around. While the process was slowed down by the need to be stealthy, the edge of the Dungeon almost immediately extended out into the hallway which gave Riley a clear view of the area surrounding the Dorm they were in.
The hallway was a sight Riley had seen many times before, whether going to her classes or returning to her room, but the way she was seeing it now was from a very different perspective. As the Dungeon inched forward into encompassing more and more of the building, she could see from angles that would have been impossible for a human.
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Riley had fun with this experience, until a nearby door opened. A classmate of Riley’s, Norman, had just walked out into the hall. She watched him go to knock on her room’s door.
“Hey, Riley,” Norman called into the room. “You were supposed to send me the files from our project to finish our presentation. Hello?”
Riley would have liked to answer him if she could, but the other version of her was the only one with a real body now, and she was a long way away from here. That made Riley think about the fact that because of this dungeon core, she was nothing but a copy of a person. That feeling unsettled her for a while, as she continued to watch Norman try to open the door to her room. He was making so much noise that Kaitlynn, a friend of Riley’s and the occupant of the dorm next to hers, opened her door and walked out.
“Do you realize how bad this looks, Norman?” Kaitlynn asked him as she walked out into the hallway, brushing her amber hair out of her eyes.
“Riley hasn’t been seen since yesterday,” Norman said. “We were supposed to finish our presentation today and have everything ready for tomorrow’s class.”
“Still,” Kaitlynn said dryly. “A guy shouldn’t be trying to force open the door to a woman’s room like you are right now.”
Norman blushed a bit at this and stopped. Riley was glad that the two of them couldn’t hear her because she chuckled a bit at that. After Kaitlynn pulled out her smartphone and tried to call the other Riley, only to get no response, the two of them parted ways and returned to their rooms.
Riley decided at that point that she had enough moping around. She may have been an accidental duplicate, but everything from this point on was all her memories and experiences, not something the other Riley had.
“Alexos,” Riley called out. “During my study of Dungeons, I saw reference to some of the older Dungeons creating what is known as Avatars. Are you able to do that?”
Alexos paused at Riley’s suggestion. Riley could feel Alexos searching for something, but she didn’t know what.
“Affirmative,” Alexos replied after several minutes of contemplation. “Avatar creation is available to all Dungeons, even a newly born one. The process to make one is not something Alexos would have found naturally if you did not mention it.”
“How soon can we make one, and what can we do with it?” Riley asked. “I would very much like to have a body again, not to be rude.”
“Avatar would be a drain on the Mana that the Dungeon currently has access to,” Alexos answered. “The extra leakage that has been found through the Dormitory building should be enough for the creation of an Avatar body that can remain active for a few hours at best. The Avatar cannot leave the boundaries of the Dungeon for more than a few minutes without degrading.”
“Those are all restrictions that I can work with,” Riley said back enthusiastically. “I would like to make an Avatar now for the future.”
“Alexos does not follow this train of thought,” Alexos answered.
“Having an Avatar would mean that we can actually answer the door when someone knocks like Norman did just now and make sure that he doesn’t call security to escalate the matter, as well as keeping people in our room away from our Core,” Riley answered.
Riley really didn’t want to rely on luck again like with what happened with Mrs. Nathstein.
“Having an Avatar sounds rather beneficial, doesn’t it?” Riley asked Alexos.
“Affirmative,” Alexos answered. “Performing Avatar creation now. Altering process to hide the Avatar from the security system.”
Riley watched as Alexos formed a near perfect replica of her old body in the middle of the dorm room. Her red hair and lean build were both there, Riley assumed pulled from her own memories.
“Avatar building complete,” Alexos said.
“Not yet,” Riley interjected. “This is a perfect recreation of Riley, but Riley still exists. When we use this Avatar, we don’t want to be confused with the other me. We need to make some changes.”
With that, Riley took a mental hand to the Avatar and changed some things. She reworked some facial features to be distinct from her old self, changed the eyes from brown to one blue and one red, then put some blue highlights to complement the red hair. Finally, she made a few more changes and then mentally turned to Alexos. “All done!”
“Unacceptable,” Alexos stated bluntly. “Final set of changes Riley made to Avatar will consume far higher quantity of mana than is tolerable. Reversing now.”
“Don’t you dare,” Riley mentally tried to hold back Alexos from changing the Avatar back. “Just let me have this.”
“The mission of the Avatar in the currently projected mission is to aid our stealth,” Alexos cryptically replied while struggling against Riley. “The changes Alexos is reversing would make the Avatar stand out in a crowd.”
“Oh, it isn’t that bad,” Riley tried to play it off like it was no big deal.
“The Avatar having a chest and thighs that are bigger than any person in the memories Riley has shared with Alexos tells a different story,” Alexos replied, almost sounding mad.
“I can’t help it that my previous body was flat as a washboard!” Riley yelled out.
Eventually, Riley and Alexos compromised and made the Avatar somewhere between the two extremes. They saved the Avatar’s design to the Dungeon Core’s equivalent to a database, and then despawned the Avatar. They weren’t in a position to use it yet.
“Alexos has a question. If the Avatar is supposed to be different than Riley, what is the name that the Avatar will go by?”
“Hmm,” Riley thought about that question, then had a solution.
“Her name will be Rioros.”