Zack tried to explain to Alex what he meant, but it was just too difficult for him to put into words. Zack just didn't know how to convey something that he instinctively understood. As he tried and failed for a third time to explain that he was a dungeon core, he likened the experience to trying explain how to breathe to a fish. The fish understood that in order to breathe, it had to be underwater. It had no concept of breathing dry air, and couldn’t even begin to fathom what such an experience might entail.
“You have to kill stuff in order to level up, that’s just the way it’s always worked,” Alex insisted for the millionth time. “You fight and kill monsters and doing so earns you experience which levels you up. That’s just how it happens!”
Zack could tell from his friend’s frustrated gesticulating that they weren’t getting anywhere. Both of them had very different understandings of the proess, and neither of them were going to convince the other. The only way Zack could make Alex understand how stuff worked was by showing it to him. In order to show him, though, Zack would need to fully establish his dungeon.
It was a simple enough process. At a thought, Zack could bring up the message that asked him if he wanted to start in his current location. The only problem was that his current location wasn’t good for his needs. He would need a suitable place to take root and grow—a dungeon seed sprouting into a beautiful, deadly tree. The only problem was that he was immobile. A piece of crystal couldn’t just get up and walk around—although he could probably get Thumper to carry him if he absolutely had to.
“Look, I promise I’ll explain everything better later. Right now, I have some things I need to take care of,” Zack said, stifling another one of Alex’s outbursts.
Alex frowned and lowered his arms. At some point during the argument, he changed into some loose fitting sweats. His laptop was set up on the kitchen counter, too, though he hadn’t turned it on. The dire TV was still exactly where Zack had left it, neither of them giving it the time of day.
“What do you mean you have stuff to take care of? You’re a rock,” Alex pointed out. “If anything, I’m the one who has stuff to take care of. You got me fired.”
“Meh, small potatoes,” Zack said, brushing off Alex’s concerns.
“Small po—Zack, if I can’t afford rent, I end up on the streets. You understand that, right?”
“Yes, Alex. I haven’t been gone so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to rent an apartment,” Zack said incredulously. “I’m saying that it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter that I’m going to lose my home!?”
“Yes.”
Alex’s face turned red, his knuckles tightening with sharp pops. “What the hell, man?”
Zack wait a few seconds in silence, until he was positive that all of Alex’s blood was rushing to his face, before he spoke again. “I can give you a place to stay for free, but I need your help to get it set up.”
All at once, the colour drained from Alex’s face. “What?”
“That’s right! Free housing, all you gotta do is help me!”
Alex blinked twice, pointed a finger at Zack, then lowered it. He ran his hands over his face, paced back and forth across the apartment, then paused as he nearly walked into the dire TV. “How?”
“I’m a dungeon core, remember? I have to go make my dungeon so I can do my job.”
“I… I still don’t get it,” Alex mumbled. “I don’t understand what any of that means.”
“And I could sit here and explain everything to you again and again until you die of old age and I go catatonic from lack of mana. If that sounds good to you, I could just dump my reserves right now and put myself back to sleep…”
“No!” Alex blurted, practically diving to his knees. “No, Zack, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… It’s been a trying couple of days, okay?”
Zack stared silently at his friend, and felt a twinge of guilt. He probably could have asked for the favour without dangling such a carrot in front of Alex’s face, but there was such a risk that he’d say no.
“I get it, man. Trust me. I got turned into a rock and fell asleep for years. I’m functionally dead. So yeah, I get how stressed and freaked out you might be right now.”
Alex chewed on his lower lip and relaxed his posture, kneeling before the coffee table and Zack atop it. “I need a job, man. You can’t get by in this world without a job.”
“And we’ll get you one, but right now I need your help getting back on my figurative feet. Help me do this, and I promise I’ll help you get some cash, okay?”
Alex blinked slowly, before ultimately nodded. “Alright. Fine. You win.”
“I always do.”
Alex rolled his eyes and got up again. “So, how does this dungeon thing even work?”
“I could bore you with all the details, but honestly it would probably be a lot faster if we covered stuff as it came up. Right now, I just need a suitable place to set up shop,” Zack explained. “Someplace with abundant aether, preferrably.”
“Aether? Isn’t that stuff super dangerous?”
“For you guys. Not for me.”
Alex pursed his lips in thought, before shuffling across the apartment over to his laptop. “You know, I think I know of a place,” he said. He flipped the computer open and powered it on, his fingers dancing across the keyboard before he finally settled on something. “Here we go. Northville mall.”
Before Zack could ask for more details, Alex carried his laptop over and set it down in front of him. “Northville mall was abandoned following the Aetheric Boom. It was deemed too dangerous for human activity and has since become a breeding ground for monsters and hostile magic.” Zack read the article over, his curiosity piqued. It certainly ticked a lot of his boxes.
Filled with aether? Check.
An established location that Zack can take over? Check.
Out of the way from civilization? It was a bit of a downside but likely one Zack could work around, eventually.
“That sounds perfect,” Zack said excitedly. “When can we head there?”
“Um… Well, we can’t,” Alex admitted, shutting the laptop again. “It’s in a wild area—a place that was claimed by monsters and magic. Unless we can get an escort, we can’t really go there.”
“Are you trying to tell me that people will stop us from entering this place?”
“Well, no, but…” Alex started, rubbing the back of his head nervously. He looked from Zack on the table, to the dire TV, and let out a long sigh. “Alright, fine. If we get eaten by monsters, I want it on the record that I told you so, okay?”
“We’re not going to be eaten by monsters. It’ll be fine!” Zack insisted, as Alex slipped into his bedroom again.
When he reemerged, Alex was once more in jeans and a t-shirt, but his clothes were also covered by leather armor. He wore a cheap cuirass, pair of bracers, and greaves to protect his shins. His sword was strapped to his belt, and he casually scooped Zack up in his hand.
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“This is a terrible idea,” Alex warned him a second time.
***
“This was a TERRIBLE idea!” Alex roared, as a whiplike vine snagged his shin and dragged him to the ground. He desperately hacked at offending tentacle, vainly trying to cut himself free. A monster that looked like a walking flower had him in its grasp, its fang-filled petals open and eager to chow down on his flesh.
Zack, once more dangling from a thread around Alex’s neck, couldn’t do a whole lot to help his friend in the fight. He could, however, analyze the creature.
[Carnage Carnation]
[Level 2 Monster, Flora]
[A plant that has awoken due to consumption of aether. Despite its magical nature, it is still a plant and vulnerable to fire.]
[Slay this monster to learn its pattern.]
“Alex, kill it with FIRE!” Zack ordered, as his friend clumsily tried to hack away at the plant’s encroaching face.
“But—”
“Does this look like the time to argue!?”
Alex flinched at Zack’s words, but didn’t argue further. He dropped the sword that was failing to cut down his flowery foe, and lifted the now empty hand to its face. He took a deep breath, and Zack watched as the bright blue mana within his friend’s chest rolled up his arm, where it turned red and angry. Then, a puff of flames exploded from his fingertips.
It was barely more than a flash, and it didn’t even touch the Carnage Carnation, but it had the desired effect. The flower monster let out a squeal of surprise, its hold weakening on Alex’s leg as it started shuffling away.
“Didn’t like that, did you?” Alex shouted, repeating the spell with both hands. "Fear me! I am man, and I wield FIRE!"
Zack watched the flow of mana from his friend as he cast his spell—aether in the shape of flames. “Dude, you know you’re not actually hitting it, right?” he pointed out. “Put some pressure in that sucker!”
“I don’t have any ranged spells! All I can do is push my mana out and make it fire,” Alex reminded him.
If Zack had eyes, they would have rolled in the most dramatic fashion. Again, he wanted to argue with Alex that it wasn’t how any of this stuff worked, but he at least recognized that now was not the time.
“If you can’t kill this thing, it’s going to kill you,” Zack reminded him. “Either burn it down or get chopping!”
As Zack spoke, the Carnation seemed to recognize it wasn’t in nearly as much danger as it first suspected. Its courage renewed, it started reaching out for Alex with vines again. Alex was able to fend off one vine with a burst of magic, but it wasn’t enough to harm the plant. Zack’s words must have hit a chord, because Alex dove for his sword just as a vine snaked out and knocked it away.
If Alex couldn’t do something soon, he would be completely at the monster’s mercy. Zack wracked his non-existent brain, trying to come up with words that could inspire his friend into action. Then, an idea struck him.
“Man, that’s all you got? No wonder you get called an NPC all the time,” Zack chuckled. It was a phrase he remembered hearing in his dreams—which he now recognized were not actually dreams, but that didn't matter.
“What!?” Alex blurted, his attention momentarily shifting from the plant to the rock around his neck.
“Yeah, man, you really suck at this. Why even have magic at all if you can’t use it properly?” He needed to spur Alex on, and if there was one thing he could do to inspire someone, it was generate spite.
“Dude, that’s—”
“Just hurry up and get eaten. I’ll summon Thumper and make my own way out to the mall.”
Zack could see the mana bubbling within Alex as he finally struck the right nerve. With clenched teeth and furious snarl, Alex pointed both his hands at the Carnation and channeled his mana. Once again, the blue energy flowed up Alex’s arms, turning into furious red aether as it reached his palms. This time, rather than simply letting it out in a simple puff of fire, Alex pumped more and more aether into the spell. The pressure built in his arms, until finally he let it loose.
As twin balls of fire burst from Alex’s hands, Zack saw two things immediately happen. The first was that the flow of mana in Alex’s body changed ever so slightly. The lines of energy that connected every fiber of his being grew bright and more defined, as the mana flowed more freely to his muscles and organs.
The second, something that Zack would have missed entirely had he not been looking for it, was that something new connected to Alex. It was faint, nearly invisible, but it was like a wire of mana connected to his brain. As Zack observed them, he realized that there were three other threads, exactly like the new one. They were loose and didn’t connect to each other very well, but they all ended in the same place.
“How’s that for an NPC!”
Alex’s triumphant crowing was enough to drag Zack’s attention away from the threads, and the moment he realized he’d looked away, it was too late. They were already gone again.
“In your face, Zack! I did it, I killed the stupid freaking flower!” Alex cheered, pumping a fist.
Sure enough, he was right. The Carnage Carnation lay dead on the floor, its leafy body black with char. It seemed that Alex’s spell had been enough to do the job. Zack wondered if Alex even realized that he learned a new spell and leveled up, or if he assumed defeating the monster was what did it. Did he even realize he was level four now?
As Alex collected his sword, he checked his tattoo. The angle gave Zack a good view of the mark, and he remained unimpressed with what he saw: the haphazard mark still only showed a partially filled mana bar.
“I knew you could do it,” Zack finally said. “You just needed a little push in the right direction.”
“You said you were going to leave me for dead,” Alex pointed out.
“I say a lot of things. Raspberry sugarplums and rusty spoons. See?”
Alex rubbed his face in exasperation as he sheathed his sword again. Shaking his head, he knelt over the dead monster’s carcass and poked at its body. “I wonder if there’s anything in here worth selling? Usually monsters have useful parts or something.”
Zack used his analysis ability again to peruse the plant.
[Carnage Carnation]
[Level 2 Monster, Flora, Deceased]
[A plant that has awoken due to consumption of Aether. Despite its magical nature, it is still a plant and vulnerable to fire.]
[Would you like to learn this monster’s pattern? Yes or no?]
Zack quietly selected yes, and felt his mind flood with new understanding of the creation. Learning the monster’s pattern even bestowed on him another level. He didn’t bother mentioning to Alex that he was now a level three dungeon core that still didn’t have a dungeon. His friend earned this victory and deserved to revel in it.
“The leaves have curative properties and the petals have toxins,” Zack explained, going over the materials in his pattern. He didn't think he could isolate the materials yet—he would need to fully absorb the creature to do that. “If alchemists are a thing, they’ll probably want to buy those parts off you.”
“Alchemists are definitely a thing,” Alex confirmed as he carefully carved up the monster. Not having the proper tools to dismantle the creature, he resorted to using his sword to chop off the leaves and the petals. They weren’t too far from where he parked his car—the plant growth around the mall was simply too thick for him to drive the whole way—so he ran back over and stuffed his spoils into reusable fabric shopping bag. When he took what he wanted, Zack gladly absorbed the rest. The sack immediately grew damp with fluids, and Alex carelessly tossed it back into his trunk, before turning once more to face the mall.
They were close enough now that both Alex and Zack could make it out. What had once been a long two-story structure filled with stores looked more like the ruins of a lost civilization. In a way, that’s exactly what it was—a relic of a bygone age. Part of the mall was caved in, and strange plant creatures could be seen shambling about inside.
Zack could practically taste the aether hanging in the air, and quickly slurped up as much of the stuff as he could hold. His mana sat comfortably at its maximum, and he wished he could take some more with him. Alas, there would be time aplenty for him to experiment with magic later.
“Thanks for, um, snapping me out of it,” Alex muttered quickly, tightening his grip on his sword.
“Whuh?” Zack asked.
Alex shrugged and started making his way through the brush, chopping away the overgrown plants with large sweeps of his sword. The blade was dulled from poor upkeep and his recent fight, but it would do the job well enough for now.
“I know this is probably all new and weird to you, but to me this is… Well, kind of normal,” Alex finally admitted. “I’ve just gotten used to the idea that I could never really learn magic properly, because I couldn’t afford to go back to school. It’s really easy to forget that magic isn’t this inaccessible thing for the elites—that anyone with an inkling of skill and an eagerness to learn can pick it up.”
“You talk like you did some learning,” Zack pointed out.
“Everyone did in the early days,” Alex chuckled. He froze as a dire fox—horn and all—dove out of the brush, but relaxed as it ran off again. “Back before the universities lobbied laws around magic, everyone was learning how to do stuff. Some of us picked it up easier than others. Fire came to me easily, but not much else.”
“Let me guess, the universities swooped in, decided what was and wasn’t allowed, and then everyone else just went with it?”
“Pretty much. It’s not like people didn’t try, but man, you can’t just go off and fight monsters whenever you feel like it. What we’re doing right now? It’s super illegal.”
Zack resisted the urge to point out that Alex didn’t need to fight the monster to level up, but decided against it. They were nearing the mall entrance, and Zack could practically feel the hum of aether all around him. It would take him a lot of work to get the place properly set up as his dungeon, and Alex’s woes could wait until that was done and settled.
“Here, this is close enough,” Zack said, as Alex paused in front of the entrance. The glass doors had long ago been smashed, though whether by monsters, looters, or the Boom itself Zack couldn’t tell.
Zack turned his gaze inwards, towards a question that had been nagging at him since he chose his core type.
[Would you like to designate this Shopping Mall (Abandoned) as your dungeon? Yes or no?]
“Yes.”