Where am I? Who am I? What am I?
Oh that’s right, I’m a Dungeon Heart! Hm, this feeling... feels like time has passed without me noticing. About...eight-nine months? How can this be? What was I doing…
Oh! That bright light! Wait, what is this? An imp? No, two imps! Hurray! It worked! If time passed without my knowledge, then...they must have been worried sick!
“Haha, welcome new friend! Welcome to my Dungeon! It is I, the greatest Dungeon Heart the world has ever seen!”
“And then he stumbled on the carpet, threw the plate with food up in the air, and fell right on his nose!”
“Hahaha! So that’s why it’s so crooked!”
“Exactly!!”
The two imps rolled on the floor with laughter. Between them, they had dug a small hole, and filled it with squirming bugs. In the corner of the room, a pile of dead bugs had somehow formed.
Pretty sure those weren’t there before. Looking closer, those bugs looks dried out, but also somewhat squashed. Seeing this...I’m not even sure what to think.
After the imps recovered, they each grabbed a fistful of bugs, shoving it into their mouths. The imp, ah wait. Got two of them now. Let’s call the original Prime from now on. Anyway, Prime chewed his bugs fully and swallowed them afterwards, but the new imp only lightly bit on them, releasing the juice. Having sucked them dry, he spat the hard shells out and threw them into the pile behind him.
Okay...so they haven’t exactly been worried sick about my sudden absence. Hm, the growth of the Dungeon have been surprisingly low. No new expansions have been dug out either. Would have thought more imps meant more work, but apparently not…
“Oi! You two! Prime! I’m back!!”
“Wah!” Prime threw his bugs up in the air and fell backwards. “You’re back! What took you so long?”
The second imp continued to slowly eat bugs, one by one, completely unaffected by my arrival.
“Not sure. That light came out, and then...nothing happened. Have a faint memory of lots and lots of text, but also that the text was unrelated to me… It’s very odd. Let’s drop that subject for now. I’m back, and what do I see? Nothing has been dug out?”
“Um,” Prime scratched his head, “this is the new imp! I was just entertaining him until you came back. Who could have guessed you would be gone for months?”
“So, you did nothing except talking for month after month?”
“Hey, we had a lot of things to talk about! We also slept and ate, ate and slept… Well, guess we didn’t do much. Anyways, he’s my old buddy from school. You know that gang I talked about? He’s one of the members!”
“Right. So, new guy, introduce yourself.”
“You are supposed to name him, actually.”
“Oh. Imp Two for now, then.”
“Hmph, what’s so great about this Heart? He’s just like everyone else, giving us a number and only shouting about work,” the new imp said.
“Wasn’t finished... As I was just about to say before you so rudely interrupted me: or simply ‘new guy’, ‘newcomer’, ‘you there’...”
“Yeah, much better…” the new imp rolled with his eyes.
Prime frowned towards the ceiling.
“Fine, I’ll think of something else. So, he got any skills? What about his grades?”
“Eh, about the same as mine,” Prime looked away and spoke in a lower voice, “except a bit worse.”
“Oh?” Have a bad feeling about this…
“Wanna see them?”
“No. Please spare me from the despair…” Let me keep some hope intact about our future!
“Fine. You can watch them later if you wish. So, now that you’re back, got any orders for us? We are both very eager to work!”
“Pssh.” The new guy, or whatever, blew out some air in response. Not sure how to take that, but I’ll let it slide for now.
“Hm. Not sure. Hoping you could say. Anyways, what’s up with his clothes? Why is he wearing so much fur clothing?”
“Oh, that? Haha, you noticed…” Prime looked over at the new guy, forming a ‘hand shield’ at the side of the mouth, and spoke in a whisper: “Told you he would notice!”
“What’s he gonna do?” Imp Two said with a shrug and threw a big beetle into the mouth. “We are his only workers. He gotta treat us right, or we just strike.”
Prime laughed a bit awkwardly. “Well,” Prime pondered for a moment about what to say, “he felt a bit cold in here, so he kinda killed a few of the animals by dropping rocks on them in their sleep. Afterwards, he skinned them with his teeth and nails. He’s actually quite good at making clothes!”
“How, how unexpected.” I’m speechless. “Wait, he killed my precious animals? That’s why they are so few?” Damn.
“Well, you know how it is. When the Heart is out, the imps do whatever they feel like.”
“Pretty sure I never heard of that before. And that is also the last I will ever hear of it, got it?”
A moment of silence. My words kinda ended that conversation, so guess I should restart it.
“So, what did you to talk about? Anything important I should know? As in, related to the Dungeon?”
“Oh? You want us to repeat it all?” Prime asked, his whole face beaming with joy.
“Been a few months since I heard your voice, so yeah, sure. Spill it.”
“Okay! First, we talked about our old school days and such… Haha, like the time when we were both kicked out from flying class and went to the library to scribble bad words in the magical spell books!”
“We also drew funny faces on the portraits there!” Imp Two chimed in. “Had to scrub it off afterwards though…”
“So you read the spell books? Excellent! You know any good spells?”
“Nah. We just wrote the words to mess with the other students that did. Didn’t pay much attention to the actual text… Still, we got the basic stuff! Don’t worry!”
Better than nothing...and have this feeling I could really end up with an imp having literally nothing to offer one day… “Go on.”
Prime began to speak in more detail. Imp Two – that name kinda got stuck, but I will probably change it later if he turns out to be useful – occasionally added some extra details or comments.
Four hours passed like this. I had hoped they would simply give me a quick run down of the topics, but...nope. Word by word, like they had rehearsed this a thousand times already. Worst thing is, they probably only spoke casually the whole time. Funny how Prime’s memory only works when it’s useless.
“Okay, stop! Let’s skip all the school stuff and just give me some basic topics. What else did you two talk about? How did he react when he saw your, you know, your thing?”
“What do you mean? What thing?” Imp Two asked.
“The, the giant mushroom on his head?”
“Oh, that. Yeah, it’s alright, I guess.” That’s it? That’s the reaction? What the? Imp Two! What’s wrong with you!
“Fine, forget the mushroom. What else?”
“The weather?” Prime said. “Amazing sunrises we have seen, or even the sunsets. We even had a competition to describe the most different kinds of snowflakes we have seen. I won, by the way. Terrible raining days that forced us to stay inside, or storms that almost picked us up from the ground. You’d be surprised by just how much one can talk about the weather.”
I don’t know any of these words. Well, kinda recognize them, but can’t place them in my memory. “What’s a sunrise? And all those other things?”
“Wat,” Imp Two said, stunned, staring right up at the ceiling. “Is this Heart...retarded?” Excuse me? What did you just say about me, you little shrimp? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals… Wait, what am I thinking? What’s a Navy Seal?
“No, no. He’s just new to this whole ‘existing’ thing. He will learn in time. Hey, that’s why I’m here!” Maybe you should get started with that then…
“School, which I don’t care about. Weather, which you never did explain to me. What else?”
“Favorite foods, favorite bugs, favorite pickaxe, favorite dirt to dig through, favorite stone, favorite metal, favorite…” Prime rambled on and on. I cut off my audio at this point, accepting that I would not gain any useful knowledge from them, and moved my vision to the rest of the Dungeon.
While the two imps had feasted without restraint, the bug population still exploded and reached up to the ceilings – in all the rooms! Well, except this one. Prime had filled the tunnel with dirt to block out the bug swarm. The snakes and moles ate until their stomachs almost burst, but that barely caused a dent in the bug population. The badgers showed signs of extreme stress, having lost hair and acted with a twitchy behavior. No one wants to live with bugs crawling all over them, not even the brave badgers. No new special interest species had arrived, only a couple different bugs. Speaking of the bugs, is it just me, or is it quite odd how these non-digger bugs can dig down to the Dungeon? Like take this grasshopper – how the hell did he get here?! Forget it, who knows how it all works.
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The mana reserves had filled up nicely. Can maybe make something nice again. The other imp guy – not even sure if it’s a guy or not, but don’t think he cares what I call him, I sure don’t care whether he cares or not – seemed to have some skill in making clothes. He did, after all, skin a badger with his teeth. Gotta admit, I’m impressed. I may not have any teeth, but for some reason, I’m still impressed.
“Hey, Imp Two, new guy, yes you. Wanna try creating some beetle necklaces or other clothing?”
“Heart, you must first bind him to your Dungeon Heart, otherwise he won’t get access to all the special things in the Dungeon. For example, a tourist imp can’t just go around and dig walls as he likes, or he will be marked as an enemy. While we don’t have any active defenses right now, it’s a good habit to have. It’s a way to swear allegiance to you, and prevents...most disloyal acts.”
“You never did that, did you?”
“I’m different; I’m your Prime! You accepted me a long time ago, remember? Anyway, we tried to do that before, but while you were...unavailable, nothing worked. So, let’s all go there now.”
“I don’t know...this Heart feels a bit lame. Maybe I can get another offer somewhere else? A better offer...”
Prime stopped, glaring at Imp Two. “We both know...this is your only chance.”
Imp Two widened his eyes, but said nothing, only following quietly behind. Yeah, think you got it all backwards. I’m the one being kind accepting you!
As they slowly walked, wading through the squirming bugs, each step making a squishing and cracking sound, I began to ponder. “Hey, if it’s been like eight months, how come nothing happened? Remember when you said we were in a hurry and all that? I feel like we just lost all urgency.”
“Nah, we could have been wiped out by now. We’re just lucky. You really need to stop pushing fate,” Prime said with a casual handwave.
“Hey, wait! Is this Dungeon in a dangerous area? I, I don’t want to...die. Not in a Dungeon like this! No offense, oh great Dungeon Heart,” Imp Two said.
Yeah, I’m sure you meant nothing with those words. Actually, is my Dungeon really so lame? Look at all this life! Sure, we don’t have a single proper tool, no portal, no furniture – ah, we got a mirror – only two non-mindless, okay, I get it, it kinda sucks.
“We don’t have any way to scout our surroundings yet, so we don’t know. Judging by the amount of bugs, we must be fairly close to the surface,” Prime said, with one of his rare moments of not being so stupid.
The two finally reached the room with my physical Heart. “Now what? Must I do something?”
“Not really. Just accept him when he touches your Heart.”
Imp Two walked forward, placing his hand on my Heart. Ah, this feeling! I can feel his entire being. What’s this flickering light inside his body? What happens if I blow it out? No, bad, bad idea! That might be his spark of life. Phew, almost killed him there. So, to join me, the vic-sacri-subject, yeah, subject sounds good, must surrender his whole being? “Sure, I accept your request of becoming my eternal slave.”
A white glow radiated from the Heart, engulfing Imp Two. After it receded, a strange feeling appeared in my mind, like a second, no, now that I’m here, I can sense a third consciousness. So, they have a small connection to me? Or rather, I have a connection to them?
“What? What did he say there at the end? Slave? He said slave, didn’t he?” Imp Two looked back and forth between Prime and the Heart. “Argh! You, you tricked me!” He punched out towards the Heart. Ah, stop! Holy shit!
Two centimeters from the Heart, his tiny fist stopped, twitching in the air. “Argh! Let me go! Release me!”
“Okay...what’s his problem? What kind of imp did you bring me?” Jesus Christ – I have no idea who that is – this new imp makes Prime look like an angel sent from Heaven. Heaven? What’s that?
Prime scratched his head, something of a tick of his whenever he got nervous. “Gotta blame you on this one. You turned him into a slave, instead of worker.”
“There’s a difference? You aren’t my slave?”
“No, I can resign. He can’t. Also, he can’t join the Union.” Wait, is that Union thing real or not? Seriously, I can’t tell.
“Who cares about those! I’m not getting paid now! How can I support my family as a slave!”
“Ah, but I’m sure, since it was Prime’s lack of education skill that caused this whole mess, that he will share his wage with you. Aren’t I right, Prime?” A wage? What’s this? First I’m hearing about it. Thought it was just food and lodging for work.
“You, you…” Prime stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. Hearing a cough, he turned to face Imp Two, who glared at him this time. “Hehe, of course I will share my meager pay with you. It was, after all, my own fault that I didn’t spend more time trying to hammer in this basic knowledge into the Heart’s tiny mind. Who could have guessed the Heart would require such special teachings to learn. I admit, my teachings have been lacking. I simply assumed the Heart’s intelligence was on a level similar to my own – don’t say anything – but clearly, I must lower my expectations and try to simplify the material so even the Heart can understand it.”
Phew. That’s the best you got, huh? What do you mean, don’t say anything? Clearly our levels of intelligence is widely different. I’m a ‘thing’ with no restricting body! How can his flesh compare to my...existence? Oh well, I got a free slave worker out of this mess, so I can’t complain.
“Excellent! With that sorted out, let’s get to work! You, Imp Two! Start digging until I order you to stop! While you two were talking earlier, I surveyed the Dungeon and created a few more blueprints for you to follow. I’m sending them now. Prime, for now, you can also join him. Once a room is done, start planting mushrooms and transporting bugs if needed. After that, you can create nests. Everything understood?”
“Yes, Heart!” Prime and Imp Two said at the same time. Imp Two brandished his pickaxe and got to work. After cutting his way in, Prime joined in and dug to the side to speed up the square room digging process.
Excellent, excellent! I placed my floating hand in a steeple position, but soon realized I only had one hand, so that didn’t work out. Not sure why I felt the need to do that in the first place, but I digress. The imps have worked hard. After all, they were well rested – very well rested. They dug out several new rooms, and the badgers finally got some breathing space as the bug swarm relocated to the new farms.
Time to create that thing for the new imp: needle and thread! The gathered mana rent was sufficient to create two needles. A small for fine stitching, and a larger one to puncture through hard hides. I could afford enough thread to last him a while too.
“Imp Two! Enough digging! You may rest for five minutes! Prime, you keep doing what you do.”
Imp Two immediately fell to the ground. His slave instinct forced him to push through his body’s limits and focus only on my orders. Better be careful with that. This reminds me of that experiment with the bugs when I first started to learn how to find their souls. Guess this slave thing is similar to complete soul domination, but less work for me since he offered himself.
Feeling generous, I sent a stream of mana to Imp Two, curing his fatigue.
“Better? Or what? Want a snickers? Well, you’re not getting any! Now, for your first proper task: create bug necklaces, preferably using beetles, since I have a faint memory of something about ‘the beetles’ being popular. Build up a storage of them. Use that pile you created during my absence. Two hundred necklaces should do it, for now. Use your artistic sense to determine what kind of bugs and the amount on each string. What are you still lying on the ground for?! GET UP AND GET TO WORK!!”
Startled, Imp Two flew up on his feet and rushed down the tunnels.
I followed with my hand. “Here, Imp Two. Take this gift. A set of needle and thread you can use to craft with.”
Imp Two accepted the gift, but stood there frozen on the spot for several seconds, simply staring at the items in his hands. A smile slowly formed on his face. “Oh, thank you, Heart! What a nice quality needle…” Imp Two said, holding the slightly bent and somewhat rusty needle over his face to see it better. Hey, I had to cut some costs!
If it weren’t for the fact he was now my slave, I would have suspected that was sarcasm. Though, the needles were, in my opinion, high quality, made of metal and everything! Hey, could have been bone!
Now, with two working imps, things started to flow on quite nicely. Prime busied himself with setting up the much-needed farms. Imp Two worked hard on the necklaces, occasionally trying them on – not sure if I like that, but I'll ignore it for now. What a wonderful life being a Heart is!