55)

The dinner party had broken up by the time we returned to the core. Iris left the dishes to soak overnight in the sink and was preparing for bed when Kelvin passed her the note saying everything had been taken care of. She read it and then glanced down towards the floor. "I'm guessing this is one of those subjects I don’t get explanations for, so I won’t bother to ask.”

Over the next few days, my wife was busy putting together a selection of traps while I worked on more of a planned out dungeon run that I could set up during an upcoming long holy day weekend where Molly would be unavailable due to the demands of the place she worked at which needed her to work on her days off.

She made it clear to Iris that there would be no adventuring without their healer.

Molly claimed that the mandatory work would be to her advantage since it would give her a different holy day off from work near the end of the year. It also suited me well since I would have enough time to do a complete reworking of the dungeon.

Alelan sniffed a few times at my miniature model in disapproval but otherwise kept her opinions to herself. "Whenever you ask for my opinion on this sort of thing, you get grumpy when I give it, so I’m not going to say a word.”

In my defense, in the entire time we have been together, I asked once. Once. Then I would outlast all of her sighs, sideways looks, and sniffs. But she was correct, she never said a word.

Meanwhile, she was doing something that involved looking at internets in different languages to show me that we could both read them inside of the core. She also corrected me in that it was “a” internet with many web pages. Thus began the mockery over my honest mistake that would go on for the rest of our lives…

Oh. We’re immortal spirits now. I’m going to have to endure her bringing this up forever.

And what do spiders have to do with these computers? It must be an acronym, the people here really seem to like those. Maybe World Entertainment Box?

But the point was, she could use this translation ability with computers somehow since she could literally speak their language. She said she was working on a class change to something called a Hacker which sounded like a particularly brutal combat class to me.

“No Tark, it’s more of a prankster class, only on the internet. Singular. And trust me. People here nearly live on it between their phones and computers. If I want people to both fear and praise me, a faceless name going after the otherwise untouchable overlords is what is going to make me divine. You just keep working on your dungeon and your adventurers and leave the heavy lifting to me.”

Stolen novel; please report.

I guess I must have looked a little hurt since she started looking around at anything other than me. I reached out for her hand. “Let’s go for walk dear. I think we both need a break from working on separate things.”

So for my new design. I wanted something that would be an easy introduction to people who were completely new to dungeons while keeping the lower levels more of a challenge for those who needed more to level up.

And while I was getting close to a new level, thanks to Clement granting a reward for defeating a Dark one, I wanted to do this now rather than keep doing the same old thing for what might be a wait of several weeks to level up.

So for the first floor, The Gauntlet, I had a wide room with statues set in alcoves of every creature I had available and a pedestal in the middle of the room with a button that needed to be pressed to unlock a stone door on the other side of the room. While a randomized encounter suitable for the group would be released from one or more of the hollow bases beneath each statue.

And by randomized, I meant I would choose one or two dozen different pre-made arrangements of opponents.,

I left some narrow alcoves between each statue with a weapon made out of stone in each one, just for the people who didn’t think to bring their own. But whoever came in here would have to fight something to get the door to become unlocked by some chains in the wall that could be pulled by kobolds to pull the two deadbolts free.

Normally I had to leave an open path to my core, but a door that was possible to open counted, even if actually opening it would take forever.

I also set five disks of linoleum in the floor around the pedestal to suggest that only five adventurers could come in at a time to keep groups from dragging along dead weight to level up. Such power leveling didn’t acutely teach the tag alongs anything.

I didn't actually have the power to stop a larger group from running the dungeon, but since the door wasn't going to unlock unless I told the kobolds it was time to pull the chains, I did effectively have that power. Of course, a group of six could just break down the door, but that would be something I wanted to see. Creative thinking, and defying authority, that's what you want in a champion of a world.

Since the walls of the entry chamber looked a little bare, I gave each of the named kobolds a full sized duplicate of the first room inside of the core and an endless supply of tiles in their choice of colors to decorate the place.

Mandarin's ended up a very colorful but messy mix of patches, which I liked but was too cheerful for the first room. I felt something a little more somber was called for to give fair warning that a dungeon was a dangerous place.

Not as somber as Envoy's entirely black presentation, which was entirely made of black tiles set into the wall with a black epoxy. Which I wasn't even aware was something we had.

Kelvin's recreation of a forest scene complete with lurking squirrels won the contest though. I assured the other two that their offering would make an appearance on other, lower levels.

To get to the next level, a set of stairs would go down to a resting room outside of my reach, and then had a long hall leading to the next level.

Which had a door waiting for them which shared the name of the level. The salt mine.

My beloved wife had corrected my mistake about the two burglars not being miners, as in people who work in a mine, instead of minors, children who had now yet reached their majority which on Earth was at the age of eighteen. Although for some reason they had to wait until the age of twenty one to legally drink brews and spirits which were considered to some degree to be evil.

Or basically more inexplicable Earth strangeness.

So if Alelan is going to mock me for thinking there was a mine around here, then I shall defy her mockery by making my own.