The next few hours were a whirlwind of Duke getting the right people to the right places to get things arranged for the following evening’s festivities. The more he thought about it, the more concerned he was that he would miss them due to what he knew was happening tonight. It weighed heavily upon him as he took Aurelia aside to talk to her about it in his rooms at the Inn.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Mostly. I’m not sure I have a choice at this point. On one side I have a pair of entities that I don’t understand but have been shown to be vindictive, jealous, and petty. On the other, I have another entity that has seemed benevolent to me and willing to work with me towards some common goal. Mind you, I have no idea what their endgame for me is at all. Either way, I am still a pawn in whatever cosmic game they are playing. With the latter choice, I feel that I have more agency, more ability to direct my own life.”
“Is there no way to forego all of the entities and just be yourself without their interference?”
“For now, no. If the first two entities would step away and leave me alone, that would do it, but I know that they won’t. And if I break away from them, I need the Overmind to provide protection or they could just erase me completely. Perhaps there will come a day where I can gather enough power to stand on my own against all entities, but that’s still pretty far off. If I even live that long. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I do know that no matter what, I want to be with you tonight over everything else.”
“That is the best answer you have given all night.”
***
After hours of restlessness, exhaustion won out and Duke fell asleep, dreading what the morning would bring him. He did not make it to morning. Hours before dawn, he was awoken to a soul-searing pain that raced through his entire body. Every muscle locked up simultaneously as vertigo and nausea overwhelmed him. His body tried to reflexively vomit, but not even those muscles could move. He screamed silently as he realized that he was not breathing and not even his heart was beating. He tried to fly out of bed, but he got no response from his Abilities at all.
An eternity later, he launched himself out of the bed, striking the far wall with enough force to break ribs as the wall was made out of dungeon material and did not give at all. He slumped to the floor, senseless as his mind exploded with notifications. He tried to read them but could not focus on anything as the room spun out of control around him. This time, he vomited. Strangely, the black goo that spewed out of his lips left him feeling better with each successive heave.
Control slowly returned to his body and his head steadied from its vertigo spin. He tried to activate CLEANSE but nothing happened. He delved into his notifications to see if there was any hint there. His heart dropped as he read.
***
Twin System connection severed. All System functionality unavailable. Abilities offline. Characteristics reduced to original values. Titles disabled. Skills unavailable.
***
Duke stared at the notification, his mind panicking as he realized the ramifications of what he was reading. He was back to being a normal human with no Abilities, no Skills, no extraordinary characteristics. Nothing. What he did have was a slew of successive notifications.
***
Overmind usurpation of System complete. Initiating functionality restoration. Characteristics restored. Abilities restored. Skills restored. Titles partially restored. Commencing race change
***
Duke felt a flash of fear as he saw the message about his race changing. He held his hand up to his face and could see nothing different about it but something deep inside him felt different. He didn’t have time to consider it before more notifications flooded his mind.
***
Race modification complete. New race – Dungeon Born
Title modification complete. Title Status:
Redeemer of Souls – Title lost due to action outside of System control
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Dungeon Master – Title upgraded to align with new Class
Core Strength – Title updated to include Psyche
Godslayer – Title lost due to action outside of System control
Class assignment complete. New Class – Dungeon Emperor
Ability modification complete. Redundant Ability, Tongues removed. Dungeon Sense upgraded to Master rank. Class Ability Dungeon Manipulation added. Rank and Level from removed Ability substituted.
Essential modifications complete. Re-engaging communication functionality.
***
Duke snapped out of his notifications, activating CLEANSE before the smell vile black tarry substance he had vomited could make him vomit yet again. He immediately felt himself being lifted and carried back to his bed. His eyes snapped open only to be greeted by the concerned look on his blonde goddess. He opened his mouth to speak but then held his tongue as Aurelia laid him in bed leaning up against her. He relaxed as she gently stroked his hair. For the moment, nothing else really mattered.
He awoke sometime later, still snuggled up in Aurelia’s embrace. It was the most pleasant sensation until she shoved him a bit more strongly and slid out from under him. “Get up, Duke. You lived through whatever it was, and my left tit is numb from your head.” Duke stirred and started to rise. “Oh, that’s what it took to get you up? I’ve been trying to get you up for fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry. I went through some stuff last night.”
“I smelled. Almost enough to make me leave the room but then you woke up enough to CLEANSE it so I stuck around and took care of you.”
“You would have left me like that?”
“No, but anybody else would have. That stuff was absolutely vile. What was it?”
“I have no idea but there were a lot of changes last night.”
“Did the Overmind take over? Is it done? What are the consequences?” Her rapid-fire questions didn’t allow Duke to respond right away. He simply sat there with his arms crossed, waiting for her to pause. When she realized, she brought her hand to her mouth. “Sorry. Just worried.”
Duke stood up and stretched. “I haven’t checked out my character sheet, but there are some changes. Some make sense, but others I still have to figure out. I did lose some things too.”
“Like what?”
“First off, don’t ever die on me again. I can’t bring you back. That is gone. But I also have something that I never had before on this world. I have a Class.”
“Really? I’ll try not to die on you again. Maybe you need to kill the big bad guy faster next time. Just kidding. But what Class do you have now? Is it something cool?”
“The Class is called Dungeon Emperor, but I don’t know what it really means. It did give me an Ability called Dungeon Manipulation.”
“What does that do?”
Duke focused on the Ability and caused a section of the floor to sink and form a hot tub. “It means I can do things like this. It’s only at Initiate but I can only imagine the things I could do when it is at Master rank. I haven’t tested it on dungeon creatures yet, but I hope it doesn’t mean that I am completely cut off from dungeon experience because that would suck.” He paused in thought. “I wonder…”
A table rose from the floor with a red and white checkered tablecloth. Two chairs formed at the table as well. In a matter of moments, a low candle and a pizza on a small stand appeared. Duke took a slice and placed it on a plate, handing it to Aurelia. Before she could even take a bite, he had served himself one as well.
She took a look at the strange food item and watched as Duke folded his slice in half and took a bite. She mimicked his approach as he moaned in pleasure. “Oh yes, that’s exactly how I remember it. Oh so good.”
“What is this delicious food?”
“That, my love, is a slice of Mama Lombardi’s pizza. Nothing better than that.”
She giggled as grease dripped down her hand, tickling her. “It’s sooo good. I could eat this forever!”
“We might just be able to do that. I love this new Ability!”
“It’s really good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is a rather large bathtub calling my name. You have a lot of things to do so go get to them. I’m going to relax for a while. You can leave the pizza.”
Duke kissed her and TELEPORTED down to the common room. Calen was waiting for him at the bar. “Good morning, Master Duke.”
“Master Duke?”
“We don’t think you would be comfortable with us calling you Emperor Duke, so we felt this would be the closest you would allow us to get.”
“We?”
“The dungeon community of Teldin.”
“Ok, please explain.”
“When a dungeon reaches a specified level of maturity, it is added to the community of dungeons for that particular world. Right now, there are only two dungeons that qualify on Teldin but you have seeds for five more and the other two will eventually get there. The Crimson Stag Inn and the Lake Front Dungeon discussed it and we came up with Master Duke as potentially the only title that you would accept. Were we wrong?”
“No, you were not wrong about calling me Emperor Duke and I suppose I can live with Master Duke. Makes me feel like Batman. I might start calling you Alfred though.”
“I would greatly prefer to keep my name. Calen is a far stronger name.”
“Ok, I get it. Keep it as Calen for now, Alfred. Kidding. Calen it is.”
Duke looked around the common room to see that it was completely empty. “What time is it, Calen?”
“It is that time where it’s either very late at night or early in the morning depending on whether you are a carousing adventurer or a farmer. Are you a farmer, Master Duke?”
“No, not particularly. Although that sounds like something I might do when I retire. Super-powered individual retires and becomes a humble farmer – Sounds like a book I read somewhere. Whatever the case, that’s a long way off.”
“Indeed, Master Bruce. Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you very much, Calen.” Duke accepted the steaming cup of coffee and thought about what he needed to accomplish today when he remembered something, or more to the point, someone he had forgotten. Oh shit! I left Lady Hargwaetch in Havenreach overnight. How many hours had that been? Oh, she is going to be full-on panicked.
Duke finished off his cup of coffee and thanked Calen once again before TELEPORTING to the dungeon city to start his search for his soon-to-be-confused Minister.