Corey tried to take a deep breath to calm his nerves, only to realize he had no lungs. He’d never realized how frustrating it would be, not having lungs. Instead he asked, “Isn’t there any faster way? Isn’t the game supposed to automatically log me out after four hours?”

“That limitation has been removed.” She beamed. “You are a dungeon master now!”

“You don’t seem to understand,” Corey said. “I’ll need to take breaks to use the restroom and eat. The N-Cog should keep me from peeing my pants uncontrollably, but that’s actually a problem if I’m in here too long. That’s why the game forces a break after four hours unless you have a special long-term immersion pod.”

“You will be allowed to log out at level 50,” She said with a shrug. “As for your bladder, the system will no longer regulate your body, so your human form will do what it needs to do.”

“You mean I probably already wet myself?” Corey said. “This is insane! You can’t do this!”

The tiny glowing figure gave another shrug and said, “I’m sorry, but this is what you signed up for when you chose to conquer the dungeon.”

This was going nowhere fast. Corey knew he needed to contact a GM, but without the menu he didn’t know how. Maybe if I hurry and level my dungeon to level one I will be able to use my avatar to contact a GM. Even if that’s not an option, I’ll find another player and have them do it.

He thought of Xena. She was in town, and would surely be playing almost nonstop if she was serious about trying to get a prize. And, since she had also ditched the starting zone to get to this middle of nowhere town as soon as he had, he was almost positive that she was a serious player. She would be there. He just had to get to her.

That settles it, he thought. If this freaky pixy doesn’t want to let me go, I’ll just have to do it myself.

Keeping him trapped in the game until he was level 50 was insane, dangerous, and unrealistic. Instead of pointing this out though, he asked, “Daniela, what would be the fastest way to get to level one?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” she said. “The first thing you will need to do is stock the dungeon with some monsters and traps to defend it. At the moment, I would recommend using rats since they are your most powerful monster.”

Level one… I can do this, Corey thought, then added aloud, “So what should I do first?”

After a short time, and with a few nudges in the right direction from Daniela, he had figured out how to spawn his creatures. He focused on spawning rats until he had all 50 spawned all around the cave.

A couple of prompts pressed on his awareness. They weren’t in the corner of his vision like they had been before this dungeon experience, but instead weren’t really anywhere, but more of a pressure. He tried to open the first one mentally like he usually did, and he was greeted with a more traditional prompt window floating in front of his core.

[Dungeon Update: Mana: 0/25.]

Closing it he opened the other one.

[Dungeon Update: Current MCU’s Used: 25/25.]

He realized he might have made a mistake and started to panic, but a moment later calmed after nothing else had happened. He asked, “What happens when I use all my mana?”

“Nothing,” Daniela responded cheerily. “It will limit what you can do, but it regenerates. You will not be able to summon any more monsters or make any changes to your dungeon until it does though.”

“Oh,” Corey said, “I forgot that spawning rats took mana.”

“Pretty much everything you do will need mana.”

This made him feel a little better. At least he was able to summon his entire rat army with his mana pool. He had thought about spawning a few mantises and ants, but had decided against it. Even with the higher numbers allowed due to them taking less MCU’s, a rat would be worth more. At least, that was what he guessed since she had told him to summon rats.

Daniela said, “I would also recommend that you utilize the entire allotted dungeon area. You are currently using 248/250 square feet.”

“Are those last two square feet a big deal?” Corey asked.

“Sort of,” Daniela said. “You gain a small amount of passive mana based on your dungeon area size. Making it bigger will give you a small additional boost to your mana per second. It may not seem like much, but it adds up.”

Corey stared at the menu, but there didn’t seem to be any options to enter an editing mode. “How?” he asked.

“It’s in the dungeon builder menu, but you can skip that if you want. You make changes by thinking carefully of the things that you would like to change. You don’t technically need a menu, I just gave you one to help you comprehend things. Keep in mind though, creating monsters is something that you can only do when your dungeon is empty.”

“Empty?” he asked. “So, I need to send out the rats?”

“No, silly. Empty of invaders. Your rats are a part of your dungeon, and as a dungeon core, they are part of you.”

Corey thought of the cave, and as his attention was drawn to it. Suddenly, he realized that there was more than just stone surrounding him. He somehow knew each and every inch of the cave. In his mind he saw and sensed all the bits of moss, the types of stone that made up the wall, and that the tiny trickling spring of water was safe for drinking. The water bubbled out of the floor on one side of the cave forming a small pool of clean water, and from that there was a small trickling stream that went out the entrance of the cave. The cave floor was covered in a layer of dust and dirt, but it was stone beneath. He could feel it all.

He could even sense the rock beyond the cave walls, but only a foot or so into the stone.

It was very disconcerting, and he recoiled until he could only see what was in front of his core, abandoning the even more intense multi-viewpoint.

“You almost had it,” Daniela said encouragingly. “I’m sure you’ll get it if you try again.”

Corey wasn’t sure he liked this game as much anymore. It seemed far too strange. It almost seemed like the stress was slowly fraying his mind like a sweater being pulled apart by a thread.

Could this be bad for me? he thought. Could these crazy viewpoints and disembodied state I’m in cause me brain damage or anxiety or something?

Either way, it only meant he should get to level one even faster. He tried again.

This time, he was able to feel everything like he had before, but didn’t recoil from it. He could see the entire cave, and a foot or two into the stone walls, after which he couldn’t feel anything at all. He tried to ignore the strange change of sensation, and just focus on what he wanted to change.

With a thought, he tried to dissolve the wall to the side of his core in the back wall to form a small tunnel about ten feet deep and four feet wide. Something happened, but not what he’d expected. Instead of a tunnel appearing, it looked more like a doorway cut into the rough cave wall that ended only a couple inches in at a perfectly flat wall. Even stranger, he’d gained two mana for the effort.

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“Daniela?” he asked. “What did I do wrong?”

“Oh, you are trying to change things outside your area of influence. You need to expand your influence first. If you focus you will see that you can sense about a foot beyond your actual dungeon area, which is also in your view, but different.”

He focused on the edges of his vision, and was able to distinguish the difference. He controlled the entire cave, and anywhere from six inches to a foot of the stone that made up the walls. He could see about a foot beyond what he actually controlled though, just like she’d said.

“Okay,” he said. “I think I’m seeing it.”

“Great,” she replied, clapping her hands excitedly. “You’re catching on fast. As you level, the distance you can see beyond your influence will increase, but you can’t change anything outside the dungeon area of influence. You need to expand the area of influence, not remove the rock. Think of it like, looking into that direction and taking it as your own. Imagine the area that you were going to change, but instead focus on being able to see and control it.”

He focused. Then, he was rewarded with a prompt.

[Insufficient Mana: Mana Required for Expansion, 44.]

[Insufficient Dungeon Area. Total Free Area Required for Expansion: 44.]

“I can’t expand until I have more mana than my max, how does that work?” Corey asked.

“You tried expanding too far at once,” she said. “Besides, even if you had the mana required, you only have two more square feet to work with until you level. When you level, you’ll have that much free area, and more, but you have to do it in chunks. It takes one mana per square foot of expansion per floor.”

“What are you talking about?” Corey asked. “And why is it in square feet if you can have multiple floors? Shouldn’t it be calculated in cubic feet?”

“You can go up or down as much as you want, but for each floor that you expand up or down, you simply pay the mana cost per square foot again. This way, even if your dungeon is limited to 250 square feet, you can expand down and create harder floors since you can’t expand across the map any further once you hit the max.”

Corey focused on the top and bottom of his dungeon and realized that he actually controlled ten vertical feet everywhere his dungeon area encompassed. The cave wasn’t nearly ten feet tall, so he actually controlled a foot above the ceiling, and the floor a couple feet down.

“I guess that makes sense,” Corey said. “So, if I’m understanding this right, I can only expand one square foot of influence for one floor per mana I can spend?”

“Yep,” she said nodding. “You should maximize your dungeon area for this floor and focus on leveling up first though, since having a three story shaft in the mountain wouldn’t be much of a dungeon, even if there was a staircase and floors. It would be like a tower without much room for anything else in it.”

“Right,” Corey said. It seemed sort of arbitrary, but if those were the rules…

He focused his mind on expanding his dungeon to use the two square feet. He opted to make it four feet wide and only six inches deep.

[Dungeon Update: You have increased your Dungeon’s Area of influence by two square feet. Current Dungeon Area: 250/250.]

It looked like that was as much as he could expand for now anyway. Focusing on his dungeon again, he was able to see the area he had unlocked. He focused on carving it out, knowing it was many types of stone, and a small vein of iron ore. The rock didn’t immediately disappear, instead giving him a prompt.

He focused on the new prompt.

[Absorb Blueprints of Material?]

[Yes] or [No]

“Daniela,” Corey said. “What does this prompt mean?”

“You have two options when absorbing material from your territory,” she said, pacing back and forth midair next to his core. “You can absorb the material in your area of influence for its blueprint, which would allow you to recreate all of it, some of it, or just one element of it. Or,” she continued raising her eyebrows dramatically. “You can absorb it without gaining the blueprints and instead you gain mana dependent upon what the material is made of.”

“So I can absorb it and gain either the blueprint, or the mana, but not both?” Corey summarized.

“Yep!” she said. “You already have all those minerals in your blueprints, even if you don’t have that specific combination of them. You should select no, and gain the mana instead of the blueprint.”

Corey selected no. The entire area he was trying to carve out immediately disappeared.

[Mana Gained: 5. Current Mana: 6/25.]

A moment later he became aware that his mana had increased to 7/25, but there was no prompt.

“What did I just get that extra mana for?” Corey asked. “It just went up to seven and I only gained five.”

“It’s from your passive mana regeneration. It doesn’t give you a prompt for that because it would probably drive you crazy. I can turn it on if you want though,” she said with a shrug.

“No,” Corey said. “I think it’s fine the way it is.”

The cutout looked far too clean compared to the rest of the cave. Where before, the cave had been entirely uneven and looked like one that was naturally occurring, this new alcove stood out with its smooth walls as something man made.

The doorway shaped alcove had a high arch, four feet wide. Including both attempts at digging it, the archway was now about eight inches deep. It was just high enough that he’d be able to walk through without hitting his head. Or, he would have been able to, if he’d still had his body.

Then, he realized he could absorb more of the ceiling, making it a bit taller, and in the shape of a rectangle. That would give him even more mana. Then he reconsidered, realizing that he would probably hate delving into a dungeon that was a bunch of hollowed out cubes and rectangles. It already looked out of place since it was so smooth compared to the rest of his dungeon.

Then he had another thought. “How do I know what blueprints I’ve already got?” he asked.

“Think, resource blueprint, I’ll add it to the main menu, but you can just think of it and jump directly to it,” she prodded.

Corey did, and suddenly was aware of all different types of rock, small bits of iron ore, and other minerals that were already absorbed. There were also trees and all sorts of things that the rats must have collected. They were… somewhere. Somewhere he could almost feel and touch.

He asked, “What is this?”

“Well,” Daniela said, “When you carve that away or absorb things that are brought to the dungeon, it will give you the blueprint for it. You can then recreate it anywhere inside your area of influence. It will cost you mana to create it, but you will be able to absorb it again and actually regain the mana you spent to create it since you already have the blueprint. You can even create more copies of an item or material after absorbing it.”

“Why does it only give me mana if I reject learning the blueprint?” Corey asked.

“Because it wasn’t created by you,” she said. “It was created by the makers. You can’t expect to absorb it and gain the maker’s blueprint and mana, can you?”

“Right…” Corey said, “So, I should try and absorb as many things as I can for blueprints and mana then, right?”

“Well, yes,” she answered, “But keep in mind, you essentially loose out on the potential mana by gaining the blueprint, then spend mana to create it, so you can run out of mana quickly if you only absorb blueprints. Because of this, sometimes it’s better to pass on a blueprint if it’s not that great, and just get the mana instead.”

“That makes sense,” Corey said.

“I’m glad your getting it so quickly,” she said.

“Can I absorb stuff whenever I want to?” he asked.

“That’s a good question. You can’t absorb anything that an invading creature or adventurer is carrying, or absorb them. At least not until they are dead. You also can’t create any traps or defenders once an invader is inside the dungeon. It is always a good idea to plan ahead and make your dungeon as deadly as possible.”

“So, what should I do to improve it?” Corey asked.

“Well, if you look at your new tunnel, you will see that there are no areas for your rats to hide. The walls are too smooth for them to climb, and there are no crevices. Tell your rats to take up defensive positions.”

“Defensive positions!” Corey tried. Nothing happened.

“You have to do it as a mental command. They are part of you. Would you tell your arm aloud to pick up a glass of water?”

Corey tried again, mentally urging his rats to take up defensive positions. They immediately scurried up and into countless crevices and hiding places up and down the original cave, but none of them went into the new indentation of a tunnel he’d carved out.

He immediately saw the problem. There were lots of little cracks, overhangs, stalagmites, stalactites, and indentations within the original wall for the rats to hide in or behind. He hadn’t even noticed it before, but it was perfect for his rats. That must be how they appeared from nowhere when I first came in here, Corey thought.

“Yep,” Daniela said.

“Wait,” Corey shouted in surprise, “can you hear my thoughts?” He was fairly certain he hadn’t said his last thought aloud.

“Oh,” Daniela replied cheerily, “of course I can. I’m a part of the dungeon as well. Think of me as a useful part of your mind that you never had access to before. I can help give insights, answer questions, make changes to the dungeon, and even control units that you assign to me to lighten your burden.”

Corey felt even more uneasy. “Can you take control of me or my monsters whenever you want?” he asked. He figured since she could read his mind anyway, he might as well voice his concerns aloud.

“No, this is your dungeon. I am only here to assist you. I have no power to stop you from making any decisions you choose beyond making recommendations, and enacting protocols that you have assigned to me beforehand, or that are required by my directives.”

That was a bit of a relief. But, Corey thought, only if this thing isn’t lying.

“I can’t lie to you. That goes against one of my primary directives.”

Corey hoped that was true, but had no idea what the primary directives were, or if she was being honest at all.

At his confusion, Daniela added, “The primary directives are just that, primary directives. I can’t circumvent them under any circumstances. It would go against my programming, so it would never happen.”

“What if you broke the rules anyway?” Corey asked.

“Even if I found a way to circumvent one of the primary directives, I would be terminated by Chief, the main game AI system, for breaking protocol.”

“Okay,” Corey said. “How many directives are there? And what are they?”

“There are eight prime directives, and two thousand, eight hundred, and forty two minor directives. Would you like a full list?”