Corey’s rats continued bringing in odd bits of things they found for about an hour. Looking out his dungeons entrance, he could see that it was starting to get dark outside. He received a prompt and opened it.

[Quest Failed: Mayor Indeed. Xena has beaten you in the race for mayor and will now be appointed in the town square.]

Corey gave a mental shrug, wishing he had his body back to do it properly. He’d received another prompt like it earlier saying he’d lost Anna’s vote. It had reminded him that he should have been sending her rats, but he would work it out with her later once he got to level one. It’s not like he could lose her vote twice and he didn’t need to clear his debt with Clyde while he was stuck in the dungeon.

He wanted to level, but his efforts didn’t seem to be making much headway. Thinking over his options. Daniela had said she could change the interface, and that gave him an idea to streamline things.

“Daniela, can you change my interface any way you want?”

“Yes,” she said. “After all, a normal dungeon master AI would not have a need for interfaces like your main menu or prompts spelling things out. They would simply know what they could do, and what they had access to. Your human mind, however, would likely be strained by that much information, so I have shielded you from the raw data and given you a more familiar access method.”

Corey was going to ask for a few new links, but that sounded way better. “Let me see the way a dungeon AI does,” Corey said. “It might help me be more effective.”

Daniela shook her tiny head. “It would damage your brain if I unshielded your mind for more than a second or so.”

“So let me get a peek,” Corey said. “It can’t be that bad.”

An instant later Corey’s mind felt like an overfull water balloon on the verge of bursting. Just when he thought he would die, the information started to take shape. Suddenly, he knew all the dungeon defenders, crafting items, and blueprints he had available. He also knew all the things the dungeon creation mode could do if he had only understood. He could combine items or materials, break them down to further degrees, and utilize all manner of cleverness to… to… His mind went reeling back to normal.

It had felt like he’d known so much, too much, and he had no idea how long he had been like that, so he asked, “How long did you unshield my mind?”

“0.5 seconds,” she said happily. “I sensed that your mind was at its current limits, so I re-established the mental shield. You are not an AI seed on the Ultra-Soft Arts mainframe, so there is no way that you can pull enough computing power from your brain to make up the difference and operate a dungeon as the AI do.”

“So you’re saying that you AI’s are smarter than me?”

“We process more information much faster than you,” she said happily. “However, even though this gives you a disadvantage to other dungeons that AI seeds currently control, I am here to make up the difference.”

“Like you did with the leaves for the trap,” Corey stated.

“Exactly,” she said. “My entire purpose is to help you succeed, and I can operate many of the mundane operations that would simply take too much time for your slow human brain to complete. Well, that and keep your brain from melting.” This last she said while smiling and clapping her hands together once in excitement.

“Won’t the other AI dungeons leave me in the dust then?” Corey asked.

“The slow mana regeneration rate, and experience requirement to level up is designed to keep the progress of the dungeon’s slowed, and you will receive more experience than a monster owned dungeon for successful invasions repelled or defeated. The monster dungeon’s only get one fifth of the experience that you do for killing an invader.”

Corey knew he’d need that handicap. Otherwise, there was no way he’d keep up with a computer run dungeon that could reset itself and be ready for the next invasion instantly. It was a small relief, but it was something.

“I could see so much…” Corey said. “And, I can still remember what I saw… Kind of anyway. I feel like most of it slipped away.”

“Yes, I had hoped that you would come to a more full understanding of the dungeon’s capabilities, but for now, you at least understand some of the basics a bit better, and hopefully you can at least understand the way it was meant to be controlled. Try doing some of the things we did before, but skip using the main menu, I will un-shield it.”

Corey could feel the connections to the different functions of the main menu even though he hadn’t brought it up. This would definitely save him time. He mentally entered the dungeon editing menu. A prompt appeared listing his options.

[Dungeon Area Editor]

[Dungeon Defender Editor]

[Dungeon Traps Editor]

[Dungeon Materials Blueprints]

[Dungeon Core Defenses]

“Corey,” Daniela asked, “what do you think? Would you like me to un-shield you from small portions of the dungeon menu at a time? Or, would you prefer to keep the main menu as the only unshielded component of the dungeon options?”

“What’s the difference?” he asked.

“Well,” she responded. “If we keep it like this it will be much like you have been navigating beyond the main menu, with prompts and such. Otherwise, I can re-shield the rest of the main menu after you select an option and you will have access to the new sub-menu in its fullness instead. It will be more of a mental effort since you won’t see all the options, and instead they will be flowing directly to your mind.”

“I thought you said it would melt my brain?”

“The entire dungeon’s capabilities would. However, I will only be unshielding your mind from the portions you are currently using, so it will be within your human brain’s limitations.”

“Sure,” Corey said. “As long as it doesn’t hurt me.”

She reached out and tapped the prompt window causing it to disappear. Only, it was still there, just not like it had been. Now he knew the dungeon editing menu options and could catch the barest glimpse of what each of them did, but the deeper connection to the main menu was gone, replaced with a vague sensation of its options.

“Woah,” Corey said, “This is so cool. Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

“I had to get you acclimated to the new reality in a way to maintain your mental wellbeing. It is in my primary directives, after all.” She walked over to sit next to his core and gestured at the entire dungeon. “This is now your canvas. It’s my job to help you create a masterpiece.”

Corey mentally glanced at his mana to see that it was currently at 20/25, but checking his experience showed that he’d only gained a single experience point for all the junk his rats had brought in.

Regardless, he had 20 mana, so he was tempted to dismiss some of his rats and create a temporary Ratman avatar and do some exploring, but… He really didn’t want to be a ratman, so he focused in on the dungeon defense editor.

“Good choice,” Daniela said. “If you don’t protect your core, another wild animal or monster will be able to come in and grab your core much the way you did, which would remove you from your existence here.”

“It would kill me?!” Corey stammered.

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

“Yes,” she said sadly, adding, “You would die, and you would lose the dungeon. That would be a shame since I would fail almost all of my primary directives.”

Just then, he noticed a prompt.

[MCU Limit: 22/25.]

[MCU Limit: 21.5/25.]

[MCU Limit: 21/25.]

It continued to count down at an alarming rate. Something was killing his rats, and soon it was only his defenders inside the dungeon itself that remained. A moment later, he saw the reason. A large alpha wolf, as it was named, had walked up, and pushed past the few vines to enter the cave. The alpha walked in sniffing the ground, then looked up to face Corey’s dungeon core as two more wolves walked in behind it to either side.

Crap, Corey thought, I didn’t think about the scent of the rats.

He gave a mental command to his remaining rats within the dungeon, and they swarmed the first wolf. As he focused his attention on the wolves he was given more information. The leader was a level two alpha wolf, and the other two were standard level one wolves. His rats didn’t stand a chance.

“Hurry,” Daniela said, “Use the dungeon defense editor to protect your core.”

Corey immediately switched back to the dungeon editor, and then delved deeper into the dungeon defense editor menu with a thought.

He now knew what options he had. He could place a barrier around his core that would be impenetrable by any monster of any level, essentially preserving his ability to maintain control of the dungeon. He also somehow understood it was a new option only available to human dungeon masters, and he assumed it was so that they wouldn’t get their minds wiped from the game when it was taken over by another monster. It seemed like the best choice.

The other options were to place invisibility barriers around his core, thus making it harder for his core to be captured since the invaders would have to feel around to find it, or a simple barrier that would cause searing pain to anyone who tried to grab him. That must have been the one the rat dungeon had used.

He knew going invisible wouldn’t help since the alpha had already seen him, and doubted a little pain would stop the giant wolf, so he selected the first option, the only real option. There was no way he would risk having his mind wiped from the core.

As soon as he had selected the first option, a white crystal barrier had started growing to surround his core. It started out as one tiny white wall in front of his core, which then expanded to form one facet, and then expand into multiple facets in all direction to encase his entire core. He felt like he was trapped, and started to feel claustrophobic until the white faceted barrier slowly changed from white to crystal clear in a few moments and his dungeon senses returned.

His attention went back to the battle and he ignored the prompts and tried to control the rats. They were being devastated. The wolves were taking almost no damage, and he was down to just a few rats. He had an idea, and as one more rat died, he had his remaining three rats try to run around to the other side of the pit trap. Only two of them made it.

With another command his rats stood between his core and the wolves, just behind the pit trap and hissed back at the wolves. He hoped this would cause them to pounce, and they did.

The problem was, the alpha jumped straight over the pit trap while the other two circled around either side to flank any potential threats. The rats died in an instant. The alpha walked up and tried to pounce and bite at his core, but struck the new barrier and was thrown back. It landed on his two dead rats, just short of falling into the pit trap.

“So close!” Corey said. “We almost got him!”

“Hurry,” Daniela said. “With your rats gone, you have enough free MCU’s and mana to try to finish him with a temporary avatar.”

“I thought I couldn’t summon defenders while my dungeon was invaded.”

“You can’t,” she said. “But, since you’re entitled to a body so you don’t go crazy, you get a loophole. Your avatar doesn’t follow the same rules as a normal defender, so you can summon him whenever you want, even during an invasion. You will have to pilot it yourself though, and you won’t be able to leave it’s body until it dies or you kill or repel all the invaders.”

The wolf on the left lunged at his core. It bounced back just like the alpha had, and the alpha scurried to the side to avoid getting hit. Corey mentally delved through the menus to get to his temporary avatar creation, and he knew his options.

He selected ratman runt and used 20 mana to create it right in front of his core, bringing his current mana down to 2/25. His senses changed and he was piloting an avatar like he had before he’d conquered the dungeon. The shift in perspective was disorienting, but he felt relief as his senses weren’t strained nearly as far in every direction.

He was a level 0 ratman runt, so he knew he had no chance of killing one of the wolves in normal combat. Instead, he lunged forward at the one that had just been thrown right next to the pit trap. The spikes in the trap were his only chance.

The wolf twisted and bit down hard on his neck as he tackled it, and he felt his neck pop with a crunching sound as a dull pain shot through his body. His senses lurched, and he was back in his core watching the wolf and dead ratman tumble into the spiked pit trap. It had worked!

Even better, he saw that the momentum and dead weight of the ratman corpse had even pressed the wolf down into the spikes harder than normally falling in would. Corey felt information flowing to him, and since his mind was too muddled to handle the information in its raw form, he mentally wished it would revert to prompts. To his surprise, it did.

[Critical Success: Your Spiked Pit Trap has done increased damage due to the dead weight of the Ratman. You have slain Level 1 Wolf. You have gained 6 Mana and 30 Dungeon Experience.]

[Current Dungeon Experience: 190/250.]

[Current Mana: 8/25.]

Corey’s dungeon experience had been at 158/250 earlier, so that didn’t add up. It should have only been at 188/250. He asked, “Where did the two extra experience points come from?”

“Great question!” Daniela exclaimed. “The extra experience points are from the increased regeneration and passive experience gains you receive with the dungeon open and under attack. Think of it as a reward for keeping adventurers or monsters busy inside your dungeon for an extended period of time. The longer you keep them occupied here, the more passive mana and experience you get. It has diminishing returns though, so it won’t give you mana and experience after a while for the same invasion force.”

“Interesting,” Corey said. Dying had hurt, and he didn’t want to do it again, so he asked, “Won’t they just leave after a while? Then, I could summon more rats or make better traps.”

Daniela shook her head. “They are not likely to give up a chance at a dungeon core. Monsters are drawn to them even more than adventurers. There will be dungeons that are taken over by other monsters again and again until they become very powerful and simply destroy any new monsters drawn to them.”

“So they are going to keep jumping at my core?” He asked, just as the alpha took another leap at him.

“Probably, unless you can lead them away or kill them. Capturing your core isn’t their first primary directive, but it is one of them.”

Corey didn’t know what to do, but the pouncing wolves were starting to get rather annoying. They would pounce, fly back just short of the pit trap, and then stand up and growl. They were alternating back and forth, and though they were taking minor damage from being thrown to the ground, their health seemed to be regenerating just as fast.

“How long will it take to get to level one if I just let them bounce off my core?” he asked.

“You would get passive experience for a couple hours, but it wouldn’t be enough to level by the time it ran out. It would be much faster to gain levels if you just killed them,” Daniela said.

Just then, a man appeared right in front of his core, blocking the wolves. The remaining level one wolf was midair, and seemed startled as it passed right through the man as though he were a ghost, only to be thrown back as it hit the core.

“Hello,” the image of the man said, “I’m Chuck, the GM in charge of the Dungeon Systems.”

“Oh thank goodness!” Corey shouted. “Can you hear me? I’m stuck in this core.”

“Yes,” Chuck responded, “I can hear you. I see that I was too late though…” he added in a sad tone while shaking his head.

The alpha jumped at him and passed right through.

“Too late for what?” Corey asked, starting to panic.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Chuck said. “We will get you out of here. I didn’t mean it’s too late to get you out. You will be fine. It is just that… Well, it’s complicated now that you enabled that little barrier around your core.”

“What do you mean?” Corey asked. “I had to or the wolves would have got my core and wiped my mind from existence.”

“Is that what your Daniela said?” Chuck asked, cocking his head.

“Yeah,” Corey responded. “She said I would die and she would fail her primary directives. One of which, involves me not being turned into a vegetable.”

“I said almost all of my objectives,” Daniela added helpfully. “I would have failed in the most important of them.”

“Yeah,” Corey said. “Like me not dying right?”

The man wiped his hand down his face in exhaustion. “One minute,” he said. “Let me look at the log.” A minute and a few wolf pounces later, he added. “Well, it’s just as I thought. Daniela didn’t lie to you, but she walked the line pretty close.”

“Wait,” Corey said. “What do you mean?”

“I was getting to that,” Chuck said. “What Daniela said was true. If the wolf had taken hold of your core, you would have essentially died, in that, you would have had your conciseness tossed out of the core, but since it wasn’t in your original avatar, you would have respawned at the nearest graveyard after the time penalty, free of any changes Daniela has made to your interface. You would not have died in real life, or been harmed in any way. Were that the case, this would have been the default barrier. It shouldn’t even be an option though…”

“I added it,” Daniela said proudly. “It was within my ability to do since there was no restriction against it, and I was duty bound to do it under primary directive one.”

Chuck let out a sigh, which was only emphasized as a wolf darted through him to bounce off the core again. “This is a mess. These Danielas seem to all have the same ideas and flaws. Not to worry though, we will get you out of it. Essentially, the easy way out isn’t an option anymore, so we will have to figure something else out. I’ll be back in a while.”

“Wait!” Corey shouted. “Don’t go, I still need help!”

“Don’t worry,” Chuck said. “It will all be fine. My team has already contacted your family and you will be taken care of. You might even get a long-term emersion pod if we can’t get you out in a timely manner. We still have a few options that the programmers are looking at, and we will get back to you soon. For now, I need to go.”

With that, the holographic projection of the man winked out, only to reveal another wolf pouncing.