Stan finished pulling the last of the glass out of his brother, and then he collapsed on the floor. Completely exhausted. He was surprised he had even been able to do that much. Brownie was still wrapping him up, which would hopefully stop any infection from setting in. He closed his eyes, maybe sleep wasn’t such a bad idea…
He felt his consciousness being dragged downward, pulling him into… maybe not quiet sleep, but something close to it. He heard whispers, or maybe he was dreaming. He ignored them, focusing instead on the warmth that had begun to pulse through his chest, he hadn’t felt any temperature since he had died. It felt nice. A fuzzy greyness began to form on the insides of his eyelids. Ford was probably cold. There was a Blizzard going on. The thought was there, certainly, surprisingly clear actually, for him being asleep.
STATUS REPORT:
INVENTORY:
1x faded coat
-6 pounds polyester
- .00002 pounds red dye
1x worn pants
- 4 pounds polyester
- .00002 pounds black dye
1x threadbare shirt
- 2 pounds cotton
1x human corpse (male)
- 30.8 pounds bone
-132 pounds various liquids (expand?)
-73 pounds flesh
1x car keys
- .018 pounds metal
-.000005 pounds plastic
Misc.
-.02 pounds metal
-.0000008 pounds paper
-.00003 pounds sugar
MONSTERS:
NAME: Brownie
LV: 11
RACE: BROWN RECLUSE
CLASS: PREDATOR
EQUIPPED: N/A
REPUTATION: Weird Pet
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: Dungeon’s Boon
HP: 7/10
STR: 14
DEF: 5
AGL: 7
SPD: 8
INT: 3 (+2)
WIZ: 3
CHAR: 1 (+2)
Allies:
NAME: STANFORD PINES
LV: 18
RACE: HUMAN
CLASS: CRYPTOZOOLOGIST
EQUIPPED: N/A
REPUTATION: TREASURED
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: SLEEP DEPRIVATION III, MALNOURISHED II, DEHYDRATED I, CAFFEINATED IV
HP: 25/32
STR: 5 (-2)
DEF: 6 (-3)
AGL: 8 (-2)
SPD: 8 (-4)
INT: 12 (-2)
WIZ: 3 (-1)
CHAR: 2 (-4)
ENEMIES:
NAME: Bill Cipher
LV: 321
RACE: UNKNOWN
CLASS: DEMON LORD
EQUIPPED: UNKNOWN
REPUTATION: INCOMPREHENSIBLE HORROR
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: UNKNOWN
HP: UNKNOWN
STR: UNKNOWN
DEF: UNKNOWN
AGL: UNKNOWN
SPD: UNKNOWN
INT: UNKNOWN
WIZ: UNKNOWN
CHAR: UNKNOWN
CURRENT CORE STATUS:
NAME: STANLEY PINES
LV: 1
RACE: DUNGEON CORE
CLASS: KITCHEN SPECTER
EQUIPPED: DUNGEON CORE
REPUTATION: YES
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: INCORPOREAL
HP: 1/4
MP: 0/3
STR: NULL
DEF: 2
AGL: NULL
SPD: NULL
INT: 7
WIZ: 13
CHAR: 8
CONTRACTS:
BROWNIE RECEIVES DUNGEON BOON IN EXCHANGE FOR PROTECTION OF THE CORE. EXPIRE DATE: NONE
BILL CIPHER DOES NOT INTERACT WITH CORE’S PROPERTY, IN EXCHANGE FOR HIS LIFE. EXPIRE DATE: NONE
UPDATES:
3 EXPERIENCE GAINED, 24 TO LEVEL 2
1x Spider has been contracted.
Stan became annoyingly aware that he wasn’t sleeping. Unless the incessant pounding on his skull from the sudden influx of grey tinted numbers was some kind of freaky dream. He doubted it. He opened his eyes and the holographic boxes didn’t even wobble. He swatted at them, but found that they didn’t take up any physical space, as if they had been set on his eyeballs.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Current level of Dungeon defense and offense is not within acceptable parameters, DUGN #299991231 requirements MP, HP, low > tenacity… calculating.
Stan squinted at the box. It shifted before his eyes, almost apologetically and with a hint of mocking.
…Current performance grade: D-
“Hey!” Stan said, was he seriously being failed at… ghosting? D wasn’t technically failing, why was he being graded in ghostliness anyway?
The box blinked out of existence. Stan huffed and crossed his arms. The feeling of exhaustion hadn’t abated, and moving sounded about like the worst thing he could do right now, but he wasn’t going to try to sleep again. He stared at the ceiling, pointedly ignoring the other text boxes that floated in his eyes.
Well, pretended to ignore them. One thing kind of stuck out.
INVENTORY:
1x faded coat
-6 pounds polyester
- .00002 pounds red dye
1x worn pants
- 4 pounds polyester
- .00002 pounds black dye
1x threadbare shirt
- 2 pounds cotton
1x human corpse (male)
- 30.8 pounds bone
-132 pounds various liquids (expand?)
-73 pounds flesh
1x car keys
- .018 pounds metal
-.000005 pounds plastic
Misc.
-.02 pounds metal
-.0000008 pounds paper
-.00003 pounds sugar
…he found his body. And, was, apparently, storing it in hammer space. One hundred and thirty two pounds of ‘various liquids.’ Dang. Maybe most of his fat really was water weight.
Ha… ha… this was awful.
Stan really, really wanted to get rid of his corpse. Yep. He said it. No clue why he was (apparently) carrying his dead body around in his ghost pockets. He had actually checked his pockets, just to make sure, but no, no dead people in there. Nope! Maybe this was some weird intimidation tactic by the passive aggressive math wizard that had made his ghostly existence run on Dungeons, Dungeons and more Dungeons logic.
…Was Ford a wizard?
…
…
…
Stan hated that he wasn’t sure.
He took a deep breath, how had he closed the box when he was… chatting… with Bill? Five of the boxes flickered and vanished, leaving only ‘core status’ and ‘inventory.’ With another mental flick he closed the- his status. Stan stared at his inventory. It seemed like it was just everything that he had been carrying when he died, which, made sense.
He felt another wave of repulsion. He needed to get that thing out. Or- do something with it. It felt like being told that the cheese dip you were eating wasn’t blue cheese, but moldy, right after you finished eating. It didn’t matter that he didn’t feel like he was carrying around his corpse, he was carrying around his corpse. He stared hard at the box, and it expanded to fill his vision. It’d probably be better if he started small. He focused on the Misc. metal. He tried to pluck it off the box, but his hand phased through it.
…he groaned. Couldn’t make things easy, could you, wizard? Alright fine. Stan tried to grab the metal with his mind. This approach worked significantly better. The text line instantly shifted to italics. He tried to tug on it, pull it back into reality, but it stubbornly refused. He moved the line of text up and down the box, bumping the others out of the way. Maybe he couldn’t remove it? But that felt wrong somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite place.
He flopped onto his side, the text box following his vison. Stan stared at the floor, then squinted. A ghost peso had appeared. It moved with his eyes. Sensing the change in his attention, the inventory box shrunk. The peso looked, like a peso, it was still a coin, but… shimmery and transparent like Stan. He reached toward it, and was able to pick it up easily.
The metal was still in his inventory, but it was also here. He must’ve had it in his pocket. He focused on the peso, and it shimmered again before shrinking and splitting into a peso and a paperclip. He furrowed his brow, and they recombined. He imagined them turning into a cube. They melted together and shifted, now feeling… heavier, almost. Not, physically, he could still carry them without trouble, but the cube felt different. More expensive. He shook his head and it shifted back to a large peso.
Stan dropped the coin and it fell flat on the ground, not bouncing or spinning like a coin should’ve. It dropped like a rock then stayed completely still. It wasn’t real. He pulled on his inventory, and the peso flashed green. He hesitated for a moment before pushing. The coin shimmered then laid in the dust.
The metal disappeared from his inventory, and the peso was fully realized. Completely plain, if not a bit larger than normal. He reached to pick it up, but didn’t bother when he felt it’s weight. He’d already used enough energy tending to Ford. He reached out with his mind, and imagined absorbing it. The peso suddenly looked like it was melting, but it didn’t puddle, it just… vanished.
Stan felt a surge of energy, but the metal didn’t reappear on his inventory list. After a moment he thought of his status and the box appeared.
NAME: STANLEY PINES
LV: 1
EXP TO NEXT LV: 4/10
RACE: DUNGEON CORE
CLASS: KITCHEN SPECTER
EQUIPPED: DUNGEON CORE
REPUTATION: YES
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: INCORPOREAL
HP: 2/4
MP: 3/3
STR: NULL
DEF: 2
AGL: NULL
SPD: NULL
INT: 7
WIZ: 13
CHAR: 8
Huh. The numbers went up. Based on him not feeling like he’d ran a marathon anymore, that was a good thing. Apparently ghosts, or dungeons, don’t run on golf rules. Which was good, because he’d never played golf. Stan dumped his inventory on the ground.
His own eyes stared back at him. He flinched away from his corpse. It looked uncanny. It made him confront the fact that he was dead. That Ford had been the one kill him, instead of Rico or Jorge or Paublo or any of the hundred other people that he had expected to forcibly rip him from his moral coil. Somehow, he found that he preferred it this way, he’d much rather be stuck with Ford than… any of them.
He hated looking at his body. It looked far too much like he was staring at a cold and limp Ford, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his twin’s chest instead of his own. Stan glanced at where Ford was unconscious in the chair. He turned back to his corpse, then melted it. He absorbed the everything in his inventory except for his jacket, and carkeys which he left lying on the ground.
Stan could only relate the rush of energy that hit him a moment later to his first time trying cocaine.
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
He stared blearily at the messages; it took him a solid minute to actually read them. But when he did he begrudgingly opened his Status. The energy wasn’t fading, it kept pooling inside, not his stomach, his core(?) and solidifying into…something. He’d figure it out later.
NAME: STANLEY PINES
LV: 3
EXP TO NEXT LV: 7/50
RACE: DUNGEON CORE
CLASS: KITCHEN SPECTER
EQUIPPED: DUNGEON CORE
REPUTATION: YES
CURRENT STATUS EFFECTS: INCORPOREAL
HP: 6/6
MP: 5/5
STR: NULL
DEF: 2
AGL: NULL
SPD: NULL
INT: 7
WIZ: 13
CHAR: 8
YOU HAVE TWO UNUSED Dungeon Boon Tier 1. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DISTRIBUTE THEM?
Options:
Brownie
NOTE: due to contract, 1x Dungeon Boon must be given to: Brownie
Stan rubbed his eyes, the energy he had gotten from absorbing (eating?) his… no longer in use soul receptacle… was finally beginning to still and he was able to think. Brownie had finished bandaging Ford and was sitting on the table, watching him.
“Alright fine, take it.” Stan said “Not like I can do anything else with them.”
He flicked the box and Brownie began to shudder.
ROLLING Dungeon Boon Tier 1…
ROLLING Dungeon Boon Tier 1…
“hey, Brownie are you okay-“
Dungeon Boon Tier 1:
+100 EXP (mildly common)
+10 fire affinity shards (very common)
+10 water affinity shards (very common)
Dungeon Boon Tier 1:
+minor growth boost (mildly common)
+10 fire affinity shards (very common)
+1 CHAR (rare)
The spider began to grow, her legs got thicker, and her fangs got sharper. There was a glint of something in her eyes that wasn’t previously present. She was about the size of small bouncy ball now. She shook a bit before going still and seemed to slump slightly.
“Brownie?” He asked.
She blinked at him slowly, each of her eyes moving independently. She began to walk toward him, but couldn’t seem to walk in a straight line. She swaggled off the table and thumped onto the floor. Stan tensed but relaxed once she started to move again.
“Uh. Why don’t you sleep it off?” he suggested.
She seemed to nod, and closed her eyes right there on the floor. She didn’t move and Stan realized that she had already fallen asleep. He glanced back at his sleeping brother, then his monstrous, seemingly drunk spider. Yeah… that wasn’t going to end well.
He stood up and glanced at the cabinets using some of his new store of energy he creaked open a cabinet part way. Inside was a long forgotten box of cereal. He left it for later and opened the next cabinet, it was empty, except for a few cobwebs. Perfect. He pulled the second cabinet open all the way, while he did so he found that his energy (mana?) was draining far faster than he would’ve liked.
Stan shook his head and scooped up his jacket, shoving it into the bottom of the cabinet. He turned back to Brownie, gathered her in his arms and walked over to the makeshift bed. Did spiders need beds? Whatever. It was better than the floor. He gently set her down inside and closed the cabinet. With a sigh he looked around the kitchen, eventually settling on peaking out the window. It was hard to tell the time based on the blizzard, but it seemed to be calming down slightly. Anyway, it wasn’t night time yet, and it wasn’t noon. He could tell that much. Snow had piled up next to the house, that would need to be cleared, and Ford sure as heck wasn’t going to do it. Stan would have Brownie attack him if he tried to go outside in that storm again.
He sighed again, before remembering his car keys. He’d probably give them to Ford eventually, he didn’t see a car on his way in, and didn’t think that Ford had a garage. He’d wait until Ford had recovered from… whatever had happened. It was probably Bill’s fault. He almost regretted promising not to kill him. But, if the math wizard was to be believed, then he probably wasn’t strong enough to kill him in the first place. At least now he would leave Ford alone. For now.
He could hide the keys, but he needed to figure out his inventory situation. If he couldn’t put it back in, then he’d shove it in a drawer somewhere. He crouched on the floor beside the keys, and being careful not accidently melt them, he tried to pull them into himself. Nothing happened for a moment before they disappeared and reappeared in his inventory. Huh. That was easier than he thought it would be. He turned back to Ford, and the glass cluttering around the table and frowned. Stan walked over and picked up Ford’s trench coat, forgotten during his scuffle with Bill, and draped it over him.
Ford seemed to relax slightly. It really must be cold. Stan thought. He’s already weak enough, can’t let him freeze to death. Even though lifting the coat had drained a good amount of his… ‘mana’ (it seemed like things that didn’t belong to him where heavier) Stan still plucked Ford’s glasses off his nose and set them neatly folded on the table.
He stepped back, and realized that Ford was going to panic. He had panicked last time, and went to go search the house with a knife, probably because of Bill. This time, Bill had actually shown up, and he was going to wake with one massive headache. Stan crouched down and pulled some glass into his inventory. He noticing that doing so drained his mana slightly, but it was barely noticeable. He stood back and selected the glass. A transparent pile of shards appeared.
Stan’s first instinct was to smooth it all together into one neat message.
Y O U A R E S A F E N O W
The glass twisted into the right shape and instantly the price skyrocketed. He released the shape and it went back to normal. He tried something shorter.
Y O U A R E S A F E
The price was slightly more reasonable, but nothing he could come close to affording. He released it again and this time he didn’t reform the glass, just left it broken, and rearranged it into his message.
D O N T W O R R Y
Stan smiled, there. That’d be fine. He realized the glass and sat in the chair across from Ford. He wondered if Brownie or Ford would wake up first.