--------- Dungeon Rat Nest Room ---------

The dungeon straightened his back and raised his head. What was that? He remembered being groggy in his life before, waking up from his alarm after too little sleep. He'd drag his feet across the floor as he nearly sleepwalked to the hot pot... was that what it was called? It was still hot from the day before, and still mostly unconscious, pour himself a cup. It was still steaming, and tasted burned and gross, but it still did the trick. It woke him up. At least awake enough to know he drank something bad, he remembered he'd often then open the... thing that made food cold, and grabbed... a drink of some kind. That would always wake him up good and proper, and faster than the hot... what was it? It was hot bean water. He remembered it had something to do with beans. And it was hot. But it didn't have beans in it. He didn't remember ever seeing any beans in it, but it was definitely beans.

He vaguely remembered calling it 'dirty bean water', but how could you have such a simple thing work so well? He'd have to look into making some of his own. As of right now though, he didn't need any. He just felt a big jolt as if he had just had some. Maybe some of both of the concoctions? Maybe he should do both, actually. He'd remember it for later, he told himself. What was the cold one called? He could only think of the word 'monster', but that clearly wasn't right. He had monsters working upstairs, you didn't drink them. That was dumb.

'Enough time for thinking! I got stuff to do!', he yelled with the voice he didn't have, as he made his way out of the hidden room and into the octagon-shaped room he hadn't done anything yet. The zombie stationed in the Hidden Research Room and Core Room saw one of the unknown canid's ears twitch slightly.

As the dungeon got into his newest true room, he looked around. 'There really isn't that much room in here, is there? I'll have to put you in the hallway, then, won't I?' He easily spawned a thwomp that glared with its huge red eyes into the small room in front of it. Part of the monster was obscured by the doorway's width, but it was good enough. 'I got something fun for you to do, okay? Just wait, though. Here, check this out.' He started to do part of what he planned, but hesitated for a second. 'Actually, just thwomp it up and down over there. Whatever dirt you smoosh, that should be gone. Make sure you make a hole under yourself so people can walk on your spikes to get into the hall.'

The thwomp barely moved, not really having any space to.

'While you do that, I'll do this!' The dungeon spawned two more zombies, and another copy of his cell phone. He started to reach down to touch it, but stopped, hearing something. Not very well, but it was definitely audible. If there were other noises, he probably wouldn't have noticed, but that's how sound worked anyway. He stood there, listening. It was the chanters outside. 'How are those guys so loud their song is coming this deep inside? Okay, well if I can't understand your words, then I'll put on another song I also can't understand! And here I was going to just blast you out with Pump It.'

He did reach down to touch his new phone, but instead of trying to move it, he said something. 'Put the Ketchup Song on this, on repeat!'

Nothing happened.

The dungeon stood there for a moment, crouched down, holding his index finger to his phone, which did nothing. 'Put Just Dance Ketchup MP4 on there? And make it constantly play it over and over again, never stopping?'

The downloaded Youtube video appeared on the cell phone's small screen, playing the video while the music was clearly audible. 'Yes! Now that's better than what else I was listening to. You two', he said, glancing his eyes from one zombie to the other, 'Oh, wait. Let's put this on the wall.'

He didn't even ask the zombies to do it, but scratched a shallow rectangular hole into the wall himself. 'Okay one of you pick that up, and put it here.'

A zombie picked up the noisy device, and put it into the wall's new socket.

'Okay everyone, new room! You all have jobs! Listen before doing anything, though!'

The thwomp had gotten a little bit of a hole above and below it, but it stopped moving due to its new command.

'Okay, zombies, when someone comes in here', the dungeon remembered that he'd never seen someone come in alone, 'actually, when a party comes in here, wait until the song starts. Like don't do anything until the... okay, so the dancers in the video show you what to do. Do what they do, when they're doing it. But only when the song starts after people are in here. Don't even bother doing anything until they...'

The dungeon remembered his first zombie getting killed when it wasn't prepared for fighting, and especially not prepared or armed or armored or allowed to defend itself.

'Okay, you can defend yourself if you're attacked. Hurt whoever hurts you, as much as they do it. Like, if they kill one of you, then you can kill their whole party. If they just hit you once, then you can only hit them once. Eh, I'll teach you guys stuff like this later. ANYWAY! Um... what was I... oh, right. Okay, so, you guys do the dance the dancers are doing like I said. Thwomp, that's where you come in. If the party and the zombies all dance together for a full song, then get out of their way and let them go through.'

The thwomp showed its toothy, angry, threatening smile, and continued making its holes so it would later be able to obey its move command.

The dungeon started to walk away, but instead decided to start dancing along with the music. 'Zombies, you guys can dance when I'm dancing, too! Don't make me do this alone. It's more fun with others, you know?'

The cold puppets didn't answer, but did start dancing when the dungeon did. He stopped, and so did the zombies, freezing themselves into position.

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The dungeon turned around. 'Hey thwomp, if people don't realize they should run over you then just wait for one more full song to play. After that, come back up and block stuff. You know what to do after that.'

The dungeon turned back to the video, seeing the lyrics and dance move images continue to appear, but he already lost his place. He tried anyway, and the small corpses in front of him synchronized with the dancing better than he did.

The video screen really was pitifully small. He knew that movie theatres had a projector room that made videos super huge, but he didn't have... he didn't even know where that thought came from. He thought of something else, making his dancing even worse. He remembered sitting on a couch, watching something with... an older male, who he didn't remember the identity of. Whatever they were watching, he was younger and didn't understand most of it. But there were... machine people? Dead machine people? Anyway, they were all standing in holes in a wall where it was dark, and one of them came out, and did something. The other ones didn't.

He stopped dancing. 'You guys dig out some cav... no, they're... whatever, just dig some holes in the wall so you guys can hide in them. Ones where you can stand up in them. Though, who wants to dance with a gross naked guy's dead body?'

He breathed out again, not feeling his lungs remotely empty, even after all this. Two copies of the dirty, stained, ruined pants the man had appeared on the ground. 'One for each of you. Put those on.'

The zombies stopped clawing at different flat parts of the surrounding walls to do as they were told. He enjoyed listening to the music, but he did have a lot of energy, and dancing didn't decrease it at all. It didn't increase it either.

Going into the room he just passed through, he could still hear the music playing, though not half as well. In the Termite Room, he looked around until he found the one place that termites came from. They were extremely small, and all looked the same, but it was another monster. How were these supposed to be useful? If he made them bigger, then they could be. Depending on what he combined them with...

He breathed out, spawning another Termite Nest Unstable Support Beam. With this, he felt his lungs decrease in volume, though not by much.

[Spawner activated: Termite Colony]

[Option Available]

[Select Lineage]

'I already know what I want! Rats! Combine termites and rats with this spawner.'

[Spawner of insufficient size. Select lineage.]

'What the f-', he didn't finish the word. 'Okay, so, don't make this spawner a trap, for one. Just a piece of wood with a termite nest in it.'

[Special Construction discovered: Termite Nest Support Beam]

He touched it, trying to move part of it to his Research Room for later Research purposes, and got a message he should have expected.

[Special Construction added to Research Queue.]

As he got the new mental note, the entire wooden beam he just created disappeared.

He angrily stomped with a determined walk suited for a runway to his Research Room, and saw the piece of wood fallen over, no longer obeying physics. It was now resting directly on top of what he decided to call his Forge Seed. Good thing it wasn't lit. Not that he had any fire... he'd seriously have to get some from somewhere. He knew it could be made with just some sticks, but he didn't know how. Or, he thought to himself, maybe he did know, but he forgot? Well, people forget things a lot anyway. It didn't matter; he'd deal with it later.

'Okay, well if you're going to be that way, system, then let's go all the way, shall we? Let's make another one!'

He breathed out a little more, now noticing his breath had decreased. For his efforts, another Termite Nest Unstable Support Beam appeared, since he couldn't make a copy of what he actually wanted. Not yet.

[Spawner activated: Termite Colony]

[Option Available]

[Select Lineage]

'Shut up, system! I'm busy! No lineage. Move the part of this thing with the termite nest in it over here, onto the floor.'

Nothing happened.

'Okay, then pull all the termites of every kind out of that, so it isn't a nest anymore, and put them on the floor here, in a pile!'

There was a small pile of something unmoving and white, like large grains of off-color rice.

Looking closer, the dungeon could see that a vast majority of them were eggs. Most of the rest of them were small termites, two of them were much bigger, and a small number of them were almost the size of the two big ones, but their heads were enormous compared to the rest of their bodies. The big ones were bigger in every way, but it was their heads that really stood out. For the two really big ones, one was mostly butt, and the other didn't really look very interesting.

The dungeon started touching everything in the pile.

[Resource discovered: Termite Larva]

[Resource discovered: Termite Supermajor]

[Resource discovered: Termite King]

[Special Resource discovered: Termite Queen]

Just as before, the dungeon didn't have to say it, and was thinking he needed to Research each of those things, as quickly as he could, and he was thinking it very loudly.

[Resources added to Research Queue.]

'Since I don't need this other stuff, just...' He stopped himself. He could just turn it all back into mana, but why? He instead thought about putting the eggs he didn't need in a treasure chest for no reason at all, mostly just to screw with anyone that opened it. But what to do with the workers? Those he could just dump somewhere, or do something else with. He left everything in his Storage Room for the time being. It wasn't like he had a treasure chest anywhere yet, at least not one he wanted anyone to find since it would just kill them. He could make another one, but without anything in it. Then shove the eggs in there. He had decided.

He went back through his maze, and tried to climb over the dirt railing of the spiral staircase, but his hand went through it. Instead, he just kept walking into the field that was starting to show just how wide open it was actually going to be. He breathed out more, no longer feeling like a whoopee cushion at optimal embarrassment, and in front of him appeared a well-made treasure chest made out of the worst wood possible.

The dungeon rolled his eyes.

He tried opening it, but failed. There were zombies around, all digging at the ground, removing it to make the tower shape he had desired. Calling one of them over, he had it open the chest. 'Okay, so there are some termite eggs or larva or something in the Storage Room, sitting in a pile on the floor in front of the forge. Go grab those and put them in here, then close the lid again. Then go back to building the tower.'

He saw the zombie start walking away, but he stopped it.

'I really do need another zombie. Ignore my previous task. I'll get someone else to do it.'

The zombie went back to clawing at the ground, digging lower than the doorway the dungeon just came through. This was by design, since you'd never want to come out at the bottom of a tower. More like a floor up or two. That way the grassy field the dungeon planned would be below, with the chest right in the middle, clearly visible by everyone, but still annoying to get to.