Charlie

Charlie looked around. His dungeon was a mess. Remnants of Arroane’s power were evident everywhere. The cracks in the wall. The torn and decayed pieces of tendrils. Even the rock hands and pillars Charlie had created had made a mess. Tiny shards of rock littered the room.

He sighed. If every fight inside his dungeon went like this, cleaning up was going to be a real hassle. He wished there was an easier way to fix it. Charlie paused, and his nose wrinkled at the smell of magic.

Arroane clapped his hands together, distracting Charlie. “Alright, where were we?” Arroane asked, turning away from the trail of cracks he’d sent shooting forth from his palm towards the dungeon’s exit.

Orb floated toward him. “Hey man, you can’t just send some ominous crack rummaging through the dungeon and pretend everything’s normal. What was that all about?” he asked.

Charlie had to admit he was curious, too.

“It was a signal to some associates of mine. They’ll start…packing things up so we can return to base. You’ll see when we leave the dungeon. Speaking of, I—” Arroane paused. He was staring past them, at the hallway leading deeper into the dungeon. “What exactly is that?” he asked.

Charlie and his companions turned to look.

A tiny, floating purple light bounced from wall to wall, making its way through the hallway. Charlie turned his head. “Is that Boop?” he asked. Charlie had sent Boop to the dungeon to hang out with Koi Levi as soon as they’d entered the Rawlin Estate. At the time, he’d been worried about Boop’s tendency to wander aimlessly and get into trouble. The purple dungeon core had been floating around the throne room ever since. It seemed Boop had decided it was time to make another appearance.

Orb hovered towards the hallway. “Hey Charlie, are you seeing this?” he asked.

Charlie squinted. What was Orb talking about? He watched as Boop floated over to a crack in the hallway way and bounced against it. The crack glowed purple where Boop met with it. A moment later, the spot that Boop had touched repaired itself. In fact, now that Charlie knew what to look for, he could spot a trail of Boop’s work. The cracks were still there, but Boop had slowly made a dent in them. Repairing the dungeon piece by piece.

Boop by boop.

“Charlie, your dungeon integrity is actually increasing. Albeit slowly. It seems Boop is somehow repairing the dungeon itself, a little at a time,” Parent informed him.

Koi Levi was listening to their conversation from his position in the throne room. “It’s true, noble little one. Despite my best efforts, the decaying effects of Arroane’s hex reached the throne room as well. The throne itself was undamaged, but the supporting pillars sustained damage. I’ve been trying to stabilize them since the fight ended. The dungeon core was watching me, and all of a sudden, it started bouncing all over the room. Everything it touched repaired itself. The room is nearly back to normal now.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Wait, really? Boop did all that? I didn’t know that was possible!” he said.

Vetica quirked a brow. Merlin raised a finger. “Wait a minute, didn’t you say you could inspect the abilities of dungeon cores, Parent? Maybe you could analyze Boop for us and see what’s going on?” he asked.

Parent was quiet for a moment. “Analysis complete. It seems Boop has a natural affinity for restoration. This is likely why Charlie received the Rapid Regeneration attribute when he first integrated Boop. That attribute sped up his dungeon recovery outside of fights. It’s different from what Boop is doing now. The dungeon is still settling from your recent battle. Rapid Regeneration still hasn’t kicked in. Boop is simply repairing the dungeon on his own.”

Charlie tilted his head. “Wait, so like, he’s just fixing it with his own power?” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, in Arcadeya, the System notified me I could assign functions to cores, but I had to wait until we left the dungeon there to do it. Now that we’re inside my dungeon, could we assign a function to Boop?”

“It should be possible. I have limited information on available functions. What did you have in mind?”

Charlie looked around at his friends. Merlin and Vetica each nodded encouragement. “Well, if Boop is capable of this, what if we found a job that let him repair the dungeon all the time? Koi Levi is good at helping me control the dungeon too, but if Boop could help with repairs, Koi Levi could focus on offense! Is there any function like that?” Charlie asked.

“I’ll send the request through. You should receive a notification momentarily.”

Notice

The dungeon core, Boop, has no assigned function. The user has requested a restorative function.

One restorative function is available. The following function is available.

Function

Maintenance Core - a dungeon core responsible for the repair and restoration of the dungeon.

Would you like to assign the Maintenance Core function to the dungeon core, Boop?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

(Warning - this decision is permanent)

Charlie nodded. “Yes!” he said excitedly.

Confirmed. The dungeon core, Boop, has been assigned the Maintenance Core function.

Boop paused his work for a moment and glowed. A moment later, he was back at it.

Boop. Boop. Boop.

He was repairing the room and cleansing it of cracks, one boop at a time. It was kind of cool to watch. It hadn’t just been the fact that having a dedicated repairer was helpful. Koi Levi had said something that had interested Charlie. Something that the function description confirmed for him. “So, now if a room I work on gets destroyed, Boop can return it to the way I set it up, right?” he asked.

Orb spun in the air so fast Charlie thought the dungeon core might smoke. “I wasn’t sure if this whole janitor core was a good idea, but if that’s true, it’s a big deal!”

Merlin looked around. “I don’t get it. What are you two talking about?” he asked.

Orb floated over. “Well, truth is, Charlie and I saw this dungeon crumble all the way pretty much in our very first fight. So, we’ve always kind of worried that if we spent a bunch of time working on stuff here, it might all go to waste if his dungeon integrity hit zero. But now, Boop can put the dungeon back the way it was. So that’s not as big of an issue. Of course, if we have people, minions, or valuables in here, dungeon destruction is still a problem, but this sorts out a major drawback of dungeon integrity. We don’t have to worry about starting construction efforts over from zero anymore.”

Merlin perked up. “I see. That is a good point, actually. I’d never thought of it like that.”

Charlie and Orb watched Boop as he drifted across the room. His movements seemed almost random, and it certainly wasn’t the most efficient way to work, but it was oddly satisfying to watch.

“This reminds me of Earth. There was this DVD screensaver logo that just bounced around a screen, right? Well, people would sit around and watch it for hours, just waiting for it to hit the corner. It was awesome. Boop looks just like that now,” Orb said.

Arroane laughed. “My master used to make references like that all the time. How nostalgic.”

Vetica cleared her throat, getting their attention. “The fact that a single dungeon core taking on a function can have that much of an impact is a big deal. We should prioritize gathering more cores in the future. Or whenever we have the time, at least. That being said, we still have questions we need answers to. We should ask them while we have Arroane here,” she said.

Charlie pried his eyes off the ever-entertaining Boop and turned toward Arroane. “Vetica’s right. Not long ago, we heard the cult was getting close to resurrecting Cendra. Is that true?” he asked.

Arroane sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. They’ve nearly acquired all the physical components necessary for the resurrection. At this point, it’s only a matter of time until they’re ready. In fact, they’ve already set a date. Three months from tomorrow. That’s when it will happen. That’s when they’ll attempt to resurrect Cendra and bring the world to ruin.”

Merlin tugged at the collar of his robe. “Well, that’s not what I wanted to hear. Where exactly are they planning on holding the ritual? That was the reason we set this trap in the first place. We didn’t have any idea of where to start looking.”

“I don’t know,” Arroane said.

Charlie’s eyes widened. “But if you don’t know, how are we going to put a stop to them? That’s not good.”

Arroane held a hand up. “As of right now, only the cult’s leader knows. The rest of the higher-ranked members will only find out two weeks before the ritual is set to take place. For now, we’re supposed to continue fulfilling our duties. The cultist working abroad will be returning to Aysela in the meantime. They’re consolidating their forces from all over the world, but their plan is to keep the final location a secret as long as possible,” he said.

“Two weeks?” Vetica picked at her lips. “That won’t give us much time to plan at all.”

“Plus, what the heck are we supposed to do in the meantime? I mean, the worlds on the verge of ending and we’re just supposed to wait while the bad guys run out the clock?” Orb plummeted from the air and landed on the ground. “Big oof.”

“No,” Arroane said. He uncrossed his legs and stood. “We’ll make good use of this time. I’ll continue my efforts from within, sabotaging what I can, and gathering information. The three of you and your beast allies should spend the time training as much as possible. Master the skills you’ve honed during your journeys, prepare yourselves, and push past your limits. When the day comes to face Cendra’s forces, you’ll be grateful to know you’ve used every moment to ready yourselves for it. That being said, we should get moving.”

“Squeak!” Mousifer looked up at Arroane from Charlie’s shoulder.

Arroane raised a brow.

“He asked where we’re going!” Charlie said.

“To my camp. We’ll discuss more there. Also, I assume you had your pets collect the men that were trapped in the dungeon, did you not?” he asked.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah! They’re being kept as hostages in the scaler nest now. Do you want them back?” he asked.

“If you’d like me to deal with them, I will. Otherwise, I don’t really care what happens to them as long as you don’t set them free,” Arroane said.

Charlie had a feeling about what ‘take care of them’ meant. Even if they were cultist, he didn’t think he should turn them over to Arroane. He’d figure that out later. He turned to King Scalea. “Make sure those bad guys are tied up tight for me, okay? I don’t want them running around the dungeon,” he said it so that only the scaler king could hear him.

“Arca!” King Scalea barked. Two of the komodons and a handful of scalers suddenly bolted out of the room. They were clearly heading for the scaler nest where the cultists were restrained. Charlie knew it was unlikely they’d try anything in a room full of hundreds of scalers, but it didn’t hurt to double check.

“Alright, let’s get going then!” Charlie said. Bleedy stood up and stretched briefly. Then he picked Charlie up and put him on his back. Arroane led the way, and they started moving towards the dungeon’s exit. Charlie wondered how everything would play out, but for now, he was glad to have found a new ally. A powerful one at that. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Boop one last time. The purple dungeon core was still hard at work. Charlie smiled.

Up ahead, Vetica hurried to fall in line with Arroane. She seemed almost shy about something. “There’s something I wanted to ask you about,” she said. She looked over her shoulder and then whispered something else to him.

Charlie looked up at Merlin. The conman shrugged. Oh well, Charlie would ask Vetica about it later.

He turned and looked at King Scalea and the other scalers. “You guys rest up. Thanks for all your hard work,” Charlie said, waving a hand.

“Arh!” they yelled as one.

It was time to head to Arroane’s camp and see what was what. From there, they could figure out the next steps.