“You know, we’re not actually incorporated, right?” Zack said, as Alex helped Greg erect the sign over the door outside his dungeon. “You said we’re a co-op. By definition, I don’t think those can incorporate.”
“Technically, anything can incorporate,” Chandra chuckled. She was back in her werewolf form, and had her paws propped up on the desk next to Zack’s core. She was busy sketching on a drawing tablet, and whenever Zack panned his awareness around, he could see the drawing she was working on. It looked like a group of adventurers delving into the depths of an underground labyrinth. He figured it would probably be an ad of some kind. “My art business is incorporated. It’s good for tax purposes. Personally, I think every artist should do it.”
“Huh, I didn’t know that,” Zack said. “Well, you guys know that I can just erect the sign myself, right?”
Greg and Alex paused outside the door, looking first at each other and then to Zack. “This whole time!?” Greg blurted.
“Uh, yeah? I have full control over every part of my dungeon, including the walls. Give me the sign.”
Greg dragged the sign into the lobby and dropped it onto the floor. Zack examined it for a few seconds, studying the design and make up. Chandra had designed the actual logo, and Greg got it printed on a large plastic sheet. It was little more than a tarp that the two men were struggling to erect. Like the ad Chandra was painting, it looked like something out of a fantasy world. It reminded Zack more of an inn than a dungeon, but it was something he could work with.
“Can you get me some wood? I don’t think I have actual wood as a material available to me,” Zack asked.
“Would a twig work? How much wood do you need?” Alex asked.
“I don’t think it matters, as long as it came from a tree.”
Before either men could debate where they could find a tree in wild zone, Chandra reached into a bag hanging off her chair and pulled out a yellow pencil. She set it down beside Zack’s core and returned to her writing.
“Oh, that’ll work perfectly,” Zack said, eagerly absorbing the gift.
In addition to the wood, the pencil also bequeathed Zack with knowledge of aluminum, rubber, and graphite as materials he could work with. He already had some basic knowledge of metals, but aluminum was one he hadn’t absorbed yet. He wasn’t sure if he’d use it for anything, but it was still good to have in his arsenal.
Zack shot his awareness out of his lobby and got to work. He started by sculpting the basic shape of the sign and attaching it directly above his entrance. Then, using simple extrusions, he added details, lettering, and other fine embelishments. In minutes, he had a fully sculpted sign to take the place of the plastic one. A small exertion of mana and…
“Damn,” Greg whistled, as the sign was printed directly onto the wall. “Why the hell did I bother making this plastic sheet?”
“Because you love me?” Zack offered. In an effort to seem more human, he kept a wisp centered on his awareness at all times—except when he was inside his core. It wasn’t quite the same as having a body, but it let others at least talk to him like he was a person. It gave them something to look at.
“I barely know you,” Greg pointed out.
“And yet you’re putting a lot of faith in me.”
Greg shrugged. “Fair point.”
“Since we don’t need it anymore, mind if I absorb the sign?” Zack asked, shooting back into the lobby and hovering over the plastic sheet.
Greg grimaced in dismay, but waved in concession all the same. Zack eagerly absorbed the plastic, and was surprised to find that he earned more materials. It would seem the ink involved in the printing process was distinct enough from the plastic to warrant being its own material. There were also the brass rings on the sheet’s corners that would have been used to tie it up. Zack bobbed excitedly in the air, before flitting in place.
“Chandra, how goes that website?” Alex asked, as he pushed some of the chairs out of the center of the lobby.
“Website is up, all you have to do is modify it,” Chandra said, waving her drawing stylus. “I’m working on ads right now.”
“Good, good. Greg, what sort of weapons do you have for Zack to work with?” Alex asked, turning to the orc.
Greg snorted and grabbed a duffel bag that he left outside the dungeon proper. Despite the fact they all intended to work together, it seemed that Greg still had some issues trusting Zack.
“Let’s start with some easier stuff,” Greg said, pulling three items out of the rattling bag. He set each one on the ground under Zack in turn.
The first was a relatively simple war axe. Easy to wield in one hand, great with pairing with a shield. Zack absorbed it quickly, and was unimpressed with the makeup. It was a cheap weapon, with more plastic than metal. Fortunately, having the pattern meant he could spawn it using any materials he wanted. He recreated the weapon using a wooden haft and proper steel axe head, then respawned the weapon in place of the original.
The second item was a shield, shaped like a circle. It was made of a thin sheet of steel that wouldn’t stop anything. Zack cringed as he absorbed it. “What did you do, find the cheapest gear available?”
“Yes, actually,” Greg grunted. “Look, this stuff’s expensive. I’m not exactly liquid right now. The whole reason we’re doing this is because we need cash, and we need it badly.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Zack said. He played with the shield pattern for a bit and determined he could reinforce the steel by layering an extra layer of steel on top of the first. It took him a bit more time to print than the axe, but at least it would protect the user from dire rabbit horns.
The third and final item in the lot was a pair of leather gauntlets with steel studs lining the material. They were of surprisingly high quality and make compared to the others. Zack absorbed them and remade them without any modifications, delighted by how easy it was to conjure them.
Greg continued feeding Zack with strange items for the better part of an hour. Everything from diverse weapons to armour and shields. Finally, the bag grew light as its contents vanished. Greg extracted the last three items in the duffel bag and set them down on the ground.
“Okay, we have three different kinds of health potions here,” Greg explained, pointing to each in turn. “This one is a lesser healing potion. You have to drink it for it to have any real effect.”
Zack absorbed the healing potion, and was surprised when he got a pop up window for his trouble.
[Recipe Learned]
[Lesser Healing Potion: Level 1]
[This potion will restore 10 points of Health when ingested, and 5 points of Health when applied to the skin.]
[Cost to create: 10 Mana]
Zack mentally cringed. He had a feeling that making potions was going to be different than making items, but the mana cost involved still felt uncomfortable. Even at 10 mana it was nothing to sneeze at. He could only make this potion a handful of times before he ran out of mana and had to wait for his aetheric harvesters to refuel him.
He tried the next potion in the row and was even more frustrated. The minor healing potion cost a whopping 25 mana! He wouldn’t be able to make more than one of them at a time.
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The final potion was the pod that Greg described earlier. It reminded Zack of a something one might use for laundry detergent, only its contents were a shining red color. The potion, however, differed from the others.
[Recipe Learned]
[Lesser Topical Healing Potion: Level 1]
[This potion will restore 10 points of Health when applied to the skin, and 5 points of Health when ingested.]
[Cost to create: 10 Mana]
Zack was unsurprised that the potion cost the same as the others, but was more surprised by the effect. He didn’t think that ingesting the potion would have any effect at all, yet the recipe clearly said that it did.
As he was pondering this, he received another pop up for his trouble.
[Level up! You are now Level 6]
[Status]
[Name: Zack]
[Core type: Dungeon]
[Level: 6]
[Integrity: 100%]
[Mana: 14/60]
[Upkeep requirements]
[Influence: 30 mana per hour]
[Monsters: 0 mana per hour]
[Aether intake]
[Influence: 25 aether per hour]
[Ambient: 35 aether per hour (+25 aether per hour from harvesters)]
[Recovery: 7 per hour]
[Warning: Maximum Aether intake exceeds upkeep requirements. Risk of mana overflow increased.]
“Zack? You in there, buddy?” Alex’s words brought Zack’s attention back to the world around him.
Zack bobbed his wisp in place as a sign that his focus was back. “Sorry, I leveled up. Was checking on some things.”
“What kind of things?” Greg asked.
Zack considered how to explain balancing his aetheric intake and upkeep requirements to the others, but ultimately decided it would be easier to just explain his limitations. “How many potions I can make at any given time. It turns out, their mana costs exceed how much aether I can casually absorb while maintaining my dungeon. That means I can’t print them on command like I can with weapons.”
Greg nodded. “We expected as much, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Alex agreed.
“Well, what if you don’t print them on command?” Chandra offered, looking up from her drawing tablet. “What if instead you had a stock of potions that you periodically refreshed, and whenever you have the mana to spare you add a new potion to the stock?”
All eyes turned to Chandra, with Zack directing his wisp to hover a few inches her way to indicate his attention. “That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Zack agreed. “I could even use off-hours to restock potions with a reduced concern about my mana, since nobody will be in here to syphon extra aether from my harvesters.”
“Nobody’s syphoning your aether,” Alex said frowning.
“Oh, right, forgot to explain that. Um, the monster spawners draw on the ambient aether rather than my mana. It makes it so I don’t have to manually respawn every single mob, but it does drain my recovery rate. If people are actively running my dungeon, it’s going to chew through how much mana I can recover. Fortunately, my ambient recovery is high enough that even with that loss of aether, I should be okay.”
“Not to mention you can feed off the aether spent inside your dungeon,” Alex reminded him.
“Right, that too. Every time someone casts a spell inside me, I get to convert their spent aether back into mana.”
Greg visibly cringed as Zack reminded the others that the dungeon was technically his body, but the others didn’t seem to mind. Alex tapped his chin and paced around the room, deep in thought.
“I think we’re almost ready to open for business,” he finally said, turning to face the others. “There’s just a few more things we need before we can really get things going.”
“And what, fearless leader, would that be?” Zack asked.
Again, Greg and Alex shot Zack an uncomfortable look.
“Sorry, I thought it was funny,” Zack said, turning his wisp pink to denote embarrassment.
“We still need a kiosk to acquire weapons and gear,” Alex pointed out.
“I’ve been giving that some thought, actually,” Greg said. “I think we need to separate the lobby from the gearing room. Think about how laser tag is run. You don’t just put on your equipment right in the lobby. You pay your money, you wait your turn, and then you’re led into a room where you gear up.”
Alex pursed his lips and tapped his chin some more. “That’s a really good point,” he mumbled. “Zack, is that something you can manage?”
Zack mulled it over for a moment. He didn’t disagree with the others, it would be a good idea to keep the equipment room separated from the main lobby—if only for safety reasons. “I can probably shift my rooms around, though I doubt my mobs will be happy with me for doing so… but maybe I don’t need to?”
“How so?”
“Well, part of my abilities as a dungeon core is I can… adjust space a little bit. Make things bigger on the inside, so to speak.”
“Like Doctor Who?” Chandra asked.
“Yeah, like Doctor Who. It’s not easy, though, and the mana cost is kind of insane. I think with my aetheric intake, though, I can probably take the risk…”
“No,” Alex said, quickly shutting down the idea. “Don’t over extend yourself. We need you running at more aether than net-zero to keep up with weapon and potion demand. It’s not worth the cost.”
“Fair,” Zack conceded. “The other option is I shift my rooms around. That will take me a few hours. I have the space in my influence, I just have to move things.”
“Take all the time you need to make it good,” Alex said.
Zack bobbed in place, then made his wisp wink out of existence. He hadn’t left the room yet, but it was a visual shorthand for the others to know he was no longer participating in their conversation. He would still be able to hear them—his core was in the same room as them, after all—but he could at least focus on his work without worrying about answering them every few seconds.
And he was thankful they let him work, too. While Alex and Chandra worked on the website and got their ads ready, Greg drove back into town to get some more supplies they might need. That gave Zack the privacy necessary to modify his dungeon to his heart’s content.
He started by dismissing all the monsters in his dungeon and disabling the spawners. They need to be moved with the rooms, but for now they could simply be disabled. Zack was thankful that he’d been steadily extending his influence deeper and deeper into the mall while the others were preparing to open him for business, because it gave him plenty more room to work with.
Sure, there were more walls and ceilings that needed to be repaired, but with the mana and materials now at his disposal these were trivial tasks. When he was done, the damaged portions of his influence looked better than new.
Moving his rooms proved to be more difficult than he would have liked. In the case of his boss room, he couldn’t simply unlabel it as a boss room. That would require completely deconstructing it and rebuilding it from scratch, something that would take far longer than he wanted. Instead, he removed the walls cutting it off from the rest of the dungeon, then shifted it along. The process set the ground to shaking, earning cries of surprise from Chandra and Alex. The other monsters inhabiting the abandoned mall were equally frightened by the sudden earthquake.
One such monster made the mistake of slithering into Zack’s influence. It looked like a glob of snot with eyes floating in its gelatinous mass. A quick flick of the spawner set Thumper on the creature, killing it quickly. Zack absorbed it and Thumper both, and was delighted to see that he got the pattern. It was a slime, a basic creature. He didn’t have a use for it at that exact moment, but he could probably find a way to integrate it later.
After he shifted the meadow and boss room, creating enough space for the readying room, he re-erected the walls and doorways to properly block off the dungeon. His mobs respawned automatically, and he turned his awareness away to begin work on the readying room.
“I don’t like that term,” Zack mumbled to himself, making sure not to vibrate his mana lest the others hear him. “Hmm… Armoury, maybe?”
The room’s construction was relatively simple. He built the walls out of wood, to give it a rustic, fantasy appearance. Using iron as its base material, he quickly sculpted an approximation of an anvil. He even added a hammer, tongs, and forge to the mix. Of course, none of them would actually be necessary. The idea was that Greg would help would-be adventurers pick the right tools for their skills, and then Zack would simply print the objects in question.
An idea popped into Zack’s head. If he could use the spawners to make mobs, could he not theoretically use them to make items too? He put that idea into motion, setting spawner crystals into the forge. They added an eerie green-blue glow to the coals as he linked them to his influence with a thread of mana. Then, he assigned each spawner a weapon. Swords and axes were simple affairs, each one costing two points of mana to make given the materials he assigned them.
As a test, he gave one of the spawners a flick, and a sword magically appeared in the forge. “Score!” he laughed, despawning the weapon. “But how do I keep items from leaving my influence? I don’t want to accidentally become an arms dealer…”
As if on cue, the Akashic System answered.
[Query: How to keep dungeon-created items from leaving your dungeon?]
[Option 1: Erect a safe zone.]
[Option 2: Assign a lifetime.]
[Option 3: Assign a charge limit.]
Zack didn’t even bother reading all three options, as they seemed relatively self-explanatory. A safe zone would define an area where his dungeon-crafted items and monsters could exist. Anything taken outside his safe zone would immediately despawn. Lifetime, on the other hand, defined how long the item would last. Similarly, charge limit defined how many times an item could be used.
It was simple to assign his spawned weapons a lifetime of two hours. That should be more than enough time for someone running his dungeon to finish the meadow. They could even take the sword outside of his dungeon, and it would despawn automatically.
He repeated the process with spawners for armour, and included wooden racks for them to rest on. When he was done, he had a satisfying armoury to work with. As a final touch, he added a shelf near the anvil where he would store his healing potions.
At last happy with his work, he reopened his dungeon to allow the others to give their opinions.
Alex let out a sharp whistle. “Greg is going to need a uniform if he’s going to work this room,” he chuckled.
Chandra grinned toothily. “I like it. It sells our whole fantasy dungeon theme.”
“If that’s your seal of approval, I think we’re ready to start accepting customers,” Zack said, conjuring a wisp for the others to talk to.”
Alex’s grin matched Chandra’s for predatory glee. “Then it’s time for Dungeon Inc to open for business!”