Dungeon perspective

Was that, Jordan? Back so soon? Well I have changed things a little bit but I would welcome you to try my new trial room.

“Hello dungeon, yes I am back but it has been a while,” Jordan said while looking around, unsure as to where to speak exactly.

Wait, you can hear me?

“Yes, due to being endowed with mana, thank you for that by the way, I am now something called an adventurer. The system I have says since I’m the first I get some bonuses including being able to talk to you anywhere in the dungeon, uh, I’m you? I don’t know that just feels weird to say.” Jordan rubbed the back of his neck.

Oh well then welcome, please if you make it to my core do not touch it, and feel free to kill the monsters in here, they do respawn. I won’t stop them from killing you tho if you do intend to go for the kill, so best of luck to you.

‘You seem to have forgotten the trial part of your trial room’ the system dinged at me. Oh crap I quickly focus on the room. Can I even make changes with people in the dungeon?

‘You may make changes outside of a twenty foot radius of anyone in the dungeon, any changes made between adventurers and the entrance are limited as to not trap or trick adventurers into an untimely death due to underhanded methods.’ The system informed me.

Killjoy, anyway what can I do for trials?

‘Trial options are as follows:

* Clear room without touching the mud, small reward.

* Clear room in under two minutes, medium reward

* Clear room in an unorthodox method unused previously, large reward.

Reward for option three will continue to get larger the more times it has been achieved my adventurers in the dungeon due to the number of options being reduced.’

Okay so can I add all three trials as options for people to pick from?

‘Affirmative’

Let’s do that then, keep all goblins in the room before my core room so the trial room is first. If he decides to go for the kill we’ll respond in kind, otherwise I want to encourage more people to come. The more people that come, the more stuff I can absorb and the more I can grow.

‘Trials added’

• • •

Jordan’s viewpoint

It’ll only kill if I try to kill? Does it care about its monsters or not? That’s kind of confusing. Stepping forward I see the tunnel open into a large room with mud everywhere. There’s a few different things I can see that look almost like the obstacle courses from Paris island, oh this is going to be fun.

‘Ding’ a menu appeared but it was a different color that his blue one, this one was white.

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‘You may now attempt the dungeons first room trial. Trial options are as follows:

* Clear room without touching the mud

* Clear room in under two minutes

* Clear room in an unorthodox method unaided previously by any adventurer

Rewards for each challenge differ based on difficulty level.’

“I get a choose your own adventure parkour room? Hell yeah!” I say excited for the challenge. “We’ll let’s see, it looks like I’m supposed to just walk to the beam and simply walk across to the other side. But it can’t be that easy, I’ll give the second option a try.”

The menu disappeared and was replaced by a white timer that started counting down from two minutes. No time to even curse the time loss I gotta move! I ran and almost twisted my ankle on a pitfall trap. I stepped on the edge so luckily I didn’t fall in but I did still trigger it, so it’s not that simple. I don’t have any way to detect it so I have to pray my luck holds up.

Finishing the clearing without hitting anymore traps was lucky, now the balance beam portion, I step on and begin to walk across. This isn’t so bad, I’ve done worse at- my thoughts at cut off by a sudden volley of arrows. Having gone through some vigorous tests back at camp I know I can take arrows to a certain extent, I mean even bulles didn’t seem to do much but bruise at simple .22 caliber. So this shouldn’t- ow!

Getting pelted by the arrows hurt worse than I thought it would, trying my best I reach blindly and manage to snag one midair. It’s blunt. What? But I can even handle bullets how can this hurt me?

Im almost at the end of the bridge and see I have only thirty five seconds left. I speed up a bit doing my best to ignore the arrows when suddenly a new trap activates.

“A fucking log trap? Really?”

• • •

Dungeon viewpoint

I watch as the log trap swings toward him, I hope he falls. My smirk slips into disbelief as Jordan doesn’t suck under the log, he fucking jumps on top of it and uses it as a way to quickly finish the course and got to the next tunnel.

‘As the adventurer Jordan finished the room in under two minutes and simultaneously finished it in an unorthodox manner, he will be rewarded both the medium and large rewards. Calculating, rewards will be given upon reaching the core due to unusual circumstances.’

Speaking of him reaching the core room, he said something about being able to speak to me anywhere in the dungeon as some sort of perk. Does that mean other people can speak to me somehow?

‘Yes, any adventurer may speak to you if they reach the core room. They may use it as a way to request certain rewards, or to simply converse with the dungeon. However if somebody who is not an adventurer makes it to the core room they may become an adventurer, the class of which depends on the effort that person put in to reaching the core room themselves.’

So how did Jordan become an adventurer? He never reached my core.

‘Because you played favorites’

I was stunned, was I just called out by my own menu? What a jerk, sure I took a liking to this human, but that doesn’t mean I broke the rules.

The menu responded with three dots.

Okay, okay, maybe I did but so what? Now we can have some fun, look! I point toward the next room where Jordan was greeted by the forms of Ruby and Sapphire. My greater goblin, man he needs a name, I guess I can give him one after the battle based on how he does. My greater goblin slowly walks his way out of the shadows, lumbering more likes he may be bipedal but he is by no means graceful. It looks like a gorilla that forgot about arm day, and somehow that made him a little creepier to look at.

Hey Jordan, now would be a good time to decide on if you want a fight to the death or not, once they start I won’t stop them.

“Yeah let’s not.” He chortled, “let’s make this a fight to the defeat. I don’t intend on killing anyone unless it’s the only way to level up.”

Is it the only way he can level up? I asked my menu.

‘Adventurers may gain experience by killing monsters, finishing trials, completing dungeons, or simply staying in a dungeon if in good standing with said dungeon.’

Okay good, looks like you don’t need to kill to level up.

“Great! Let’s go gobbos, time to fuck around and find out.” Jordan said with a grin.

Ruby and Sapphire ran toward Jordan who held up his fists on either side of his face, his left foot forward, slightly slouched. Somehow I know this, this is MCMAP. It’s the martial arts you can learn in the marines, I wonder what belt he is, must be pretty decent if he’s confident in taking on all of my goblins bare handed.

Ruby got to him first but he ducked under her claws and put his forearm to her stomach redirecting her toward Sapphire. She didn’t have enough time to react, Ruby smashed into her sister, pushing them both against the wall, knocking out poor Sapphire before she could even do anything. Ruby took a look at her sister before lunging back at Jordan.

No killing ruby, he said he won’t kill either, it looks like Sapphire is just asleep.

Ruby’s snarl lessened but Jordan knocked her claws down and punched her in the throat. Ruby started to gag, holding her throat on the ground. Great, she’s out but not dead. All that’s left is my greater.

Jordan ran up to greater and as my goblin took a swing Jordan ducked underneath it putting his right leg behind greatest legs and pushing with his shoulder and elbow into greater’s chest, he threw him to the ground. Greater just laid there stunned and getting put down so easily. He stood up looked at Jordan and held his hand out toward my core, gesturing a sort of surrender.

“Nice fight guys, sorry if I hurt anyone too bad.” Jordan waved as he entered my core room.