Corey went out the north gate and circled around to the west side until he found the crack the rats had been using. From there he tracked the rat sign into the woods. Every time he heard rustling he hid behind trees until a rat came down the path to pass him. By the time he’d traveled past three of them, he’d gained two stealth levels, bringing him to 3/75 in the novice rank.
As he peeked around the tree, he saw that the rat sign disappeared into the cliffside of the largest mountain of the valley that was directly west of the town. He crept closer and saw that it was actually a cave set inside the mountain covered in vines, with many small bushes and ferns growing against its base.
The dungeon was very close to the town, which seemed surprising. It couldn’t have been more than fifty feet from the city wall, though the town had been built pretty close to the large mountain, so Corey guessed it made sense. The entrance to the valley was on the east, with the city nestled about as far west into the valley as it could be.
Corey crept closer, estimating he would have another minute before the next rat passed by.
The cave looked pretty dark. If he hadn’t seen the rat sign, he likely never would have found it. This made him wish he’d been more prepared. Knowing magic to create light, or even having a torch would be nice, but it couldn’t be helped. Brushing some vines to either side, he took a step inside the cave.
His eyes adjusted, and he could easily see the cave walls, ceiling, and floor. It reminded him of the lava tubes he’d hiked with his scout troop years ago, only this one had stalactites and stalagmites, ending only a few yards from the entrance. There was also something glowing on the back wall.
Corey looked closer at the wall to his right and saw that there also seemed to be a soft ambient light coming from all the stone within the cave. It was just enough to allow him to see everything. He was still drawn to the brighter glow coming from the back of the cave. It looked like it was coming from a small recess in the wall.
“I guess I should investigate.” Corey said aloud.
The dungeon must have taken that as its cue, because about forty rats scurried out to attack him from every side. It was almost as though they had materialized, but then he saw one coming out of a crack in the wall and realized the place was full of nooks and crannies for them to hide in.
He grabbed his rat-smashing beat-stick in one hand, and his small knife in the other. One of the rats lunged at him, and he knocked it aside like he was playing golf. It was a good hit, and the rat smashed into the cave wall and fell lifeless to the ground. There were more though, and after that initial hit, they all swarmed him at once. He kicked, batted, slashed, and spun to get them off his back.
One refused to let go and climbed up to bite him on the neck while others bit at his hands, legs, and feet. He fell to the ground and rolled back and forth kicking and swiping at them with his weapons. After a minute, he found himself back on his feet, unarmed, and smacking at his legs and hair only to find that all the rats were now all lying dead all around him.
Corey retrieved his weapons and looked up to see that his health bar was at 40/50, and he let out a nervous laugh. “I guess they are level zero, after all.” Corey still shuddered and did not want to face the rat swarm again. He had no idea how long it would take for the dungeon to create new rats, but if it was like other games, it would at least be a few minutes.
He looked to the glow in the back wall, and then down, to make sure he wouldn’t step on any of the rats as he made his way toward it. However, the rats were disappearing, fading into nothing and leaving behind little crystals the size of a piece of rice. Picking one up, he saw that it was a level zero mana crystal.
[Tiny Flawed Mana Crystal: Level 0. This is among the weakest of Mana Crystals. It can be used by Enchanters to Empower existing equipment or objects. Talk to an Enchanting Trainer to learn more.]
“Neat,” Corey said.
The rats had also dropped grain, other bits of trash, or a copper coin in their place. Corey took the three copper coins and all the little crystals, sticking them in his coin pouch. He left the rest of the useless junk.
He had a bunch of notifications, so he brought them up one at a time.
[Skill Gained: Small Blades, Novice, 1/75.]
[Skill Gained: Duel-Wield, Novice, 1/75.]
[You have Gained 21 Experience. Current Level: 1; 46/100 Experience.]
[Skill Increased: Duel-Wield, Novice, 4/75.]
[Skill Increased: Blunt Weapons, Novice, 6/75.]
[Skill Increased: Small Blades, Novice, 3/75.]
Corey dismissed the prompts and checked his combat log he saw that he’d killed 42 rats, each giving him 0.5 experience.
Corey shuddered, closing the combat log.
Not wanting to wait around and see if they did respawn, he hurried over to the glowing indentation in the back of the cave. As he approached the small recess, he saw that there was a glowing little gem nestled inside. It was multifaceted and shaped like a twelve-sided gaming die, about as large as a quarter is round, and each side was in the shape of a pentagon. It looked blue in color, but that could have been the blue light it was emitting.
He reached out to grab it.
However, as soon as he took hold of the gem, his hand was overcome with a terrible burning pain and he was given a prompt. He released the gem on reflex and the prompt disappeared.
“What the heck! Is this some kind of a joke?” Corey said to the empty cave, looking around to see if anyone was there, ready to laugh at him.
There was nobody, so he shook his hand in the air to try and help with the dull pain that was fading. It had felt like he’d put his hand into scalding water, but it had done no damage to him, and his hand looked fine.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
The rat bites had felt more like pinches, as the pain threshold of the game had been lowered from what he would truly feel. This, however, was so intense he couldn’t believe it was allowed. He needed to do this to prove to his dad that gaming wasn’t a waste of his time.
“Heck with it,” he said, forcing himself to try again. He grabbed the gem and again was hit with the searing pain, but gritted his teeth and opened the prompt that had reappeared at his touch.
[System Message: Would you like to take ownership of this Dungeon?]
[Yes] or [No]
He quickly selected yes. However, rather than feeling relief from the pain in his hand, instead his entire body flared in the worst pain he had ever suffered in his entire life. It felt as though his entire body had caught fire from the inside out. Then, everything went black.
Corey woke up. Or, he thought he had woken up… Only, now his thoughts were jumbled.
Where am I?
Why can’t I feel my body?
What is this place?
His vision started returning and he saw that he was in a dark cavern of some sort.
Then, he remembered the game. His mind raced through the past few hours. I was trying to become mayor. Corey tried to shake his head to clear it, only, his head wouldn’t move, which freaked him out even further. What happened? No, he remembered, I failed at becoming mayor… Then I went to Anna to unlock a secret-
His memory came crashing back. The core!
Corey tried looking around and was even more freaked out when he could see the entire dungeon from every angle all at once. It was super freaky, which made him instinctively try to open his main menu. It was a mental command, so it should have immediately appeared just as it normally did. This time, however, a new menu came up instead.
[Core Stats]
[DANIELA]
[MCU’s]
[Dungeon Builder]
He’d pulled back from the new way he saw the dungeon, bringing his vision to a more normal perspective looking from inside the little nook he was currently sitting in and toward the entrance of the cave.
He still had an awareness of the entire dungeon, but no longer had that crazy viewpoint that was hard to describe. It had been almost like having eyes in every point of the cave, which was very disorienting, but the part that bothered him the most was that he didn’t see himself anywhere in the cave. It was just an empty cave with the gem in the nook he was sitting in. Am I the gem? he asked aloud. It came out in the same strange disembodied voice of the character selection screen.
Looking over the menu, he didn’t see the regular log out option. Instead, he tried again, focusing to get the main menu with a mental effort. Nothing happened. The same menu remained.
“Think,” Corey said in the same disembodied voice. “I can’t get to the regular menu… No, there has to be a way. The game designers probably didn’t mean to scare me, and I’m sure it’s simple. I just need to calm down and figure it out.”
He mentally selected Core Stats to see what came up.
[Dungeon Core Level: 0.]
[Dungeon Core Experience: 157/250.]
[Mana Pool: 25.]
[Monster Control Units: 25.]
[Maximum Area of Dungeon: 250 Square Feet.]
[Current Area of Dungeon: 248/250 Square Feet.]
Corey went back to the main menu and selected DANIELA, hoping that Daniela was the Game Moderator, or GM for short. The GM’s could change basically anything within the game, and were meant to help players get out of glitches, fix game bugs, and catch and punish people abusing game bugs or exploits. They could even ban you from the game if you broke the rules and found a way to cheat, or if you were harassing people in game to the point of breaking the user agreements.
Apparently, Daniela was not a GM, because no dialogue box opened.
Instead, a swirling mass of energy spun like a miniature water spout until it formed, mid-air, into the entirely blue, ghostly shape, of a small woman with long hair in a flowing blue dress.
She seemed to be made entirely of the blue energy that matched the color of light coming off his core.
She only stood six inches tall, but he felt intimidated all the same, realizing it was probably because he was much smaller and seemed to be helpless in his little gem. She wasn’t floating in the air, and didn’t have wings, but somehow she was still midair, standing as though it were perfectly normal.
She took a few steps toward him, or his dungeon core self anyway. Her footsteps were like ripples on the top of a pond, but made of blue light since there was only air underneath her.
“Hello!” she said, preforming a playful twirl on one foot and ending in a curtsey. “I am the Dungeon Assisting Neural-Integrated Experiential-Learning-Algorithm. You can call me Daniela for short. I am here to assist you and ensure that you will stay and level up your dungeon. I can help you with any information you need regarding your new role as a dungeon master.”
Corey was finally able to fight down the panic. It was just a game. This was all part of the game. “Can you tell me how to get out of this core?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, I am not programmed to assist you in that way. I can, however, teach you to re-create your previous Avatar once you reach level one.”
“Why can’t I do it now?” Corey asked.
Daniela responded cheerily, “Your core is currently at level zero, and only has 157/250 experience. Upon reaching 250/250 experience, you will be able to level up the core to level one. You will also need to have your current maximum mana, but it regenerates, so it would simply be a matter of time. Mana is required to reinforce the core with the experience you have gained.”
“But, why do I need to have the dungeon at level one? Why can’t I do it at level zero? I had my avatar already until you stole it!”
“I’m sorry,” Daniela said lowering her head and looking like he’d slapped her. “You cannot create a level one avatar with a level zero core. There are other advantages to leveling as well, but we can focus on those when the time comes.”
Corey felt bad for yelling at the little dungeon thing, so he continued in a lower voice, “But, I need to log out for dinner soon.”
“Unfortunately,” Daniela said, “I can’t help you with that. It is my job to help you reach dungeon level 50.”
Corey let out a sigh and looked over the menu options again. He clicked on the other two options, but found that they were no help.
After mentally selecting MCU’s, he was given a bunch of monster control unit information, which seemed to imply that he had a maximum number of monsters he could create, but each monster had its own calculations.
[Current Maximum Monster Control Units (MCU’s): 25]
[Current MCU Usage; 0/25]
[Available Level Zero Monsters: Rat, Beetle, Ant]
[Mana Cost Per Each: Rat, 0.5; Mantis, 0.2; Ant, 0.1]
[MCU Cost Per Each; Rat, 0.5; Mantis, 0.2; Ant, 0.1]
The menu was worthless. He assumed this would be important later, but right now he needed to figure out how to log out. What would happen if his dad pulled the plug on the machine when he didn’t log off for dinner?
Will I even be able to get a message from my dad like before? he thought. His chat options had completely disappeared from the menu along with the log out option.
After selecting dungeon builder, he was given a bunch of options to change the shape and design of his dungeon. It was a long list, with options to change the layout, set traps, position monster spawns, and set spawn rates. He scrolled down the list, skimming the options.
There were no preset traps designed yet, but there was a creation sub menu that seemed to allow him to create his own out of collected materials. There was also an option to create custom monsters from available ones.
“How do I get to the main menu?” he asked, hoping there was a trick to it that Daniela could show him.
“You have been navigating the main menu,” she responded cheerily.
“I mean the one I had before. This one doesn’t have the log out, help, chat or character sheet options.”
“You have been lucky enough to conquer a dungeon. You will have this very special menu until you unlock further options. You will unlock the character sheet option once you unlock your avatar at dungeon level one.”
“And what about the log out and help options?” Corey asked. He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but he had to try.
“Those options will be available to you at dungeon level 50.” She said, in the same cheery voice.