Shel opened the menu and selected the slowly blinking text that said Continue in the Tutorial tab.

There was a clink sound and then she heard the same voice from before.

“Now that you have found some Dungeon Points and resources you can begin to effect a change upon the world around you. The first step you should consider is taking ownership of the location of your dungeon crystal.” A colorful flag being erected was displayed with a fanfare sound of trumpets playing. Once the flag reached the top of the pole a pulse of magic pinged out from the base and there was an echoing gong sound that sounded almost like thunder rolling across a valley. The ground around the flag changed to a dark green color in a large circle.

“Once you have established ownership of a location you may begin Terra-forming it to your desires.” the narrator continued. “This process is how you create a dungeon that will attract prey to help you grow stronger.” An image showing the silhouette’s of several people walking down a dim tunnel was displayed. One of the people dropped into a hole in the floor of the tunnel and sparkles came out with a tinkling sound.

Touch your crystal and take ownership of the area, Return to this tutorial once this has been accomplished.

The music completed the melody it was playing and the image of the tunnel faded.

‘Prey? That sounds ominous.’ Shel thought to herself, ‘I am not very comfortable with that idea.’

Whatever that really meant she knew she was going to take any steps required to hold her daughters again, and if that meant what the tutorial seemed to imply, then she would do it, but she would also try and see what other options existed.

Shel looked at the huge pile of trash, somewhere in there was a crystal? She did not remember any crystal, was it back where she started? Great, a huge pile of trash and she had no idea where to start. ‘It says my crystal, if I am the dungeon and the crystal is mine, is it like my nose? Is it a part of me?’ She closed her eyes and considered the problem, ‘if I want to touch my nose I know where it is, how did I learn how to feel my nose? Or my fingers?’ She remembered her mother teaching her, head, shoulders knees and toes. So she learned where her parts were from her mother, this was not going to help her in this case. Maybe she could try and feel any part that she had never felt before? Shel took a deep breath and stretched out her awareness of herself. She could feel the chill air of the cavern pressing against her skin, it was cool but she did not feel cold. She mentally tallied all of her fingers and toes, knees, back, ears, and nose. Her feet and elbows too, she was mentally working along her shoulders when she realized that she could feel an extension of her breastbone, it was pulling gently, like a sticker with a weight was attached. She turned and felt the pull shift slightly. She opened her eyes and tried to look at the spot under her top, it was right below the hollow of her throat, she crossed her eyes trying to see under he own chin, pulling her head back like a turtle. If anyone was observing her this would be super embarrassing, She felt like a dog chasing her own tail. She could not see it because she could not look down far enough. Still she could feel the pull as she turned around trying to see it. Shel turned until the pull was drawing her straight forward into the pile, she triggered Absorb Area and tunneled her way back into the heap. After a few minutes she broke back into one of the tunnels she had previously created. She was able to follow it until it ended. When she reached the end of the tunnel the gentle pull directed her down to the floor where she saw a rock. She noticed she had seen this rock before, she had examined it right at the beginning, before she had started absorbing anything. It still looked like a plain boring rock, but it did seem to call to her somehow.

“If this is it, it’s the Ugliest Crystal Ever” she said.

She picked it up and opened up her menu system using a mental poke. The menu opened and had an additional tab, Dungeon Options, She looked at the list, there were only a few options, one was Claim Territory. Shel poked the button, there was a ding and a blue light spread out from where she was standing. Shel suddenly had a top down view of the trash pile, she was hovering above the pile and could see an area covered with a translucent blue circle. As she followed the edge of the circle with her eyes she could see that it was expanding to track where she was looking, there was an OK button along the bottom of her view, waiting for her to press it. She mentally narrowed the circle down to just a few feet around her and pressed OK.

“Ding”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

3 Dungeon Points Awarded

The view jumped back to her normal sight, and she realized she could feel the entire area she had just claimed. It felt like a handful of gravel laying on her skin, but on skin she had never felt before. She could feel where everything was touching the floor, like it was her skin, but not connected to her directly. That was a freaky feeling, this was going to take a while to get used to, if this was going to be her new normal.

A rising tinkling tone sounded.

Congratulations you have completed this stage of the tutorial.

Please return to the Tutorial screen to continue the Tutorial.

Shel popped open the tutorial tab again.

A triumphant marching tune started up, the screen showed a shadowy army marching across a misty field. The narrator started his voice over again.

“You have conquered territory for the benefit of your dungeon, congratulations. This could be the beginning of a glorious campaign of domination and subjugation. As territory is added to your rule you will gain additional Mana generation per cycle depending on the type and density of the territory you have claimed. Expanded area will also allow you to grow the Dungeon labyrinth. All of these tunnels and rooms take up space, but they are the tools you use to lure in prey species for harvesting.”

The image changed to a top down shot of a complicated maze that was visibly growing in an organic way outwards from the center.

“Each time a Dungeon levels up it can claim additional territory, the dungeon normally begins its territory growth in a sphere around the Dungeon Crystal, Until the surface is reached.”

The images changed into a time lapse photo set that showed a tunnel carving its way up to the surface of a mountain eventually generating a cave entrance. The cave then became more and more refined until it had a set of fancy gates, and plinths of carved stone flanking the doors.

“Once the dungeon breaches the surface it normally only claims territory down into the earth.” the Narrator continued.

The images then showed the tunnels spreading out like a root system underground.

The music reached the end of the stanza and stopped.

Build a room inside the territory you have claimed, Return to this tutorial once this has been accomplished.

The tutorial faded.

Shel opened the menu and looked around for a room option. After quite a bit of poking around she finally found a build menu. Many of the options were grayed out. Only one room item was available, Core Room. She selected it and had a birds eye view again, the room looked like an elevator sized room with a centrally located pillar. Why was it so small? She tried to mentally grab the corners and stretch it like a computer window, it did expand slightly but with a bonk sound it collapsed back into the small size. She tried to move it around the floor but it stubbornly remained in the center of the space she was looking at. Shel started to get frustrated.

‘This stupid thing is not letting me do this, how am I supposed to get the girls back if I cannot even make the first room?’ Shel grumbled in her head.

She closed the menu and stomped around for a minute, it was a weird feeling to stomp on her own floor or skin. She moved outside of her claimed territory so she could stomp angrily without giving herself bruises. As she reached the edge of the claimed area the crystal in her hand stopped and would not allow her to pull her hand outside of the claimed area. It felt like the crystal was a large stick turned sideways in a narrow door frame. She could slide it all around the edge, up and down but it was firmly contained by the border of the claimed area. She could feel it pulling on the edges like an itchy scab, if she pulled too hard it kind of hurt and seemed to stretch slightly and then stop. She swapped hands and determined that it was the rock that was stuck not her. She realized the silly thing simply would not leave the claimed territory. As she was considering this she starting thinking about the Core Room, it was also stuck inside the territory. Shel made a fist and bonked herself gently in the forehead, the room was small and would not move around because she had claimed a tiny space. She had been too tentative while claiming the territory because she was not sure what she was doing. If she was going to cuddle Kenzie or Arla again she needed to be bolder. And even worse she had gotten needlessly angry, that was not helpful, too tentative on one hand and too reactive on the other. As the anger faded she did begin to realize that she felt somewhat better, she had not had a good temper tantrum like that since she was a teenager.