The days passed in a series of these incursions, most of which were so close together that Lacey and Colt barely had time to order basic supplies and head out into the dungeon so they could use the water cavern and collect their treasures before they returned to the control room to wait out the frustrated NPC group. There were times when the party slept inside the dungeon, setting watches. After a little too long, Lacey and Colt did the same. The dungeon automatically reset every time, so the party didn’t get any deeper each time.

They opened their treasure chests to find things that helped them along their tech trees. Lacey got a magnet and rubber bands. Whenever they got tech goals from chests, they got the bonus of discovery for it too. Not only were these incursions pushing them up in levels, they were opening up creative options that would make them even deadlier if they could ever get the time to implement anything. They were already far beyond the sticks and rocks needed to make a cooking fire, but they did not have a cooking fire in their control room.

As far as the party was concerned, they leveled up at almost half the speed of the dungeon, probably because they were ranked so high above it. The dungeon had leveled twice, while the adventurers had only leveled once each. They could summon higher mobs, but they had to do it in the limited window the adventurers allowed them between incursions. It seemed like the dungeon got far more out of the incursions than it lost, and Lacey and Colt spent some of the time speculating on why the adventurers would keep doing it.

“I think I get it,” Lacey snapped her fingers.

“Get what?” Colt asked. It had been 4 days straight of incursions with almost no time between them.

“Why they keep coming at the dungeon,” Lacey explained, looking up from yet another drawing of a monster that they wanted to create.

“We are leveling up, but they are too,” Colt tossed a piece of popcorn in the air and tried to catch it with his mouth, tilting his chair back crazily to reach it.

“But if a dungeon was made up mostly of tiered levels of monsters, this would make sense,” Lacey countered, waving her pencil in a circle. “The dungeon might respawn, but it doesn’t have time to level up its rooms or the minions in them. They would just keep striking at it until their levels outmatched the dungeon’s monsters.”

(Lacey) Perception +1

“That sounds too smart,” Colt shook his head and then tossed another piece that he missed again. “These guys can’t even get through 9th level each and every time.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know why they aren’t getting through it because they don’t remember,” Lacey posited the idea. “So they probably believe that each time they are getting a little farther, but in our dungeon their level doesn’t matter. They aren’t getting through it quicker just because they can kill mobs faster.”

“You don’t think they’re doing it just to level up?” Colt challenged, setting down the bowl of popcorn. They had stacks and stacks of supplies laid up so that they wouldn’t starve again. Whatever they ordered in the two minutes between incursions would complete just as their first meals had, so Lacey and Colt planned ahead a few times just to be safe. Once they’d figured the timing out, they’d begun starting the incursion outside their little control room to battle the boredom.

“Nah,” Lacey tapped her pencil on her chin. “They’d sleep outside if they were just using the dungeon to level up. They want to keep us from putting out new monsters.”

(Lacey) Perception +1

“Still sounds too smart for an average NPC,” Colt countered.

“Not if it’s a standard strategy that they pass on to fellow guildmates or even teach in school or something.”

“NPC school?” Colt chuckled, but he was following her thought process. “So, because they don’t remember that it’s the puzzles causing their failure and they don’t remember the actual puzzles so they just keep doing badly at them, you think they are spinning their wheels.”

“Yeah,” Lacey nodded. “It makes sense. I’d do it that way. If I had long enough to think about it.”

“We’re leveling faster than them,” Colt picked up one of her pencils and started to try to balance it on a single finger. “We could just use our two minutes to summon 15 of our highest mobs onto their first room and be done with this.”

“I don’t think they think of it that way,” Lacey replied to that idea. “They think the dungeon can’t adapt that quickly. I mean, maybe they do.”

“Not that I’d want to kill them off since we’re getting a ton of treasure, bonuses, and experience for levels from all this,” Colt fumbled the pencil and barely caught it before it hit the floor.

(Colt) Dexterity +1

“Me neither, actually,” Lacey admitted reluctantly. “Not that this process isn’t annoying as hell.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“You don’t think maybe they’re lulling us into a sense of complacency, do you?” Colt suggested.

(Colt) Intelligence +1

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lacey frowned, and tucked the brown pencil between her teeth as she scribbled with another color.

“We should set up more levels,” Colt suggested. “We could draw them and drop them fast enough in the 2-minute window. For every incursion, we’d get a new room, at least. We have the credits for it. And if we start now, then if they finally do get to a point where they can slide through our puzzles fast enough to get here, we’ll have mobs that have grown up enough to match them.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but we’ll have to do it around making sure that we have supplies,” Lacey tossed her pencil on the table and tore out a page with a simple cat on it.

(Lacey) Drawing +1

“You drew a cat?” Colt frowned at the picture. The drawing had everything one would need to take care of the pet, including a cat box, food dishes, bags of food and litter, and a cat tree with toys.

Lacey gave a sigh. “I just want a pet. Dad never let me have one and we’ve never been in an apartment that would allow them.” Lacey shoved the paper into the back of the book. “It’s a stupid idea. It’ll have to wait until we can afford the time, and these dungeon incursions don’t allow that. I should have waited and focused on monsters we can train up, like you said.”

“I didn’t mean we couldn’t have some fun too,” Colt gave her a smile, but made no move to take the cat. “I don’t suppose you could work up a deck of cards, some dice, or some games?”

“When would we have time?” Lacey shrugged and started another drawing on grid paper that would include a battle arena like they had for the beetles, only rigged up so that some of their newer monsters could level up on the newer, higher-leveled beetles.

“All work and no play makes Lace a snarly person,” Colt warned her, his smile warm and relaxed in a way that always amazed Lacey. As uptight and driven as she’d always been, Colt was the opposite.

“All play and no work makes Colt and Lace dead in a place like this,” Lacey tartly refuted his laid-back suggestions.

(Lacey) Comedy +1

(Colt) Comedy +1

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Colt challenged her. “We could die, sure, but this is a game world. We’d just go home like the adventurers did. We take a break for a few days and then come back and start over again.”

“It just doesn’t feel like it could be that easy, Colt,” Lacey shook her head. “The system is clear that we’d lose this dungeon. We’ve worked so hard on it. It’s good, I know it is. Maybe we could start over and do better, but it feels like a cheat.”

“System,” Colt called to it. “What happens to us if this dungeon is completely wiped, and we die here?”

“Dungeon masters would be respawned after a time-out period,” it said.

“See? No biggie,” Colt tried to reassure her, but it felt off.

“And where would we respawn?” Lacey asked it.

“You would respawn in the nearest level one zone as adventurers,” the system answered.

“Wait, we’d be players instead of owning a dungeon,” Colt walked to the pedestal to read the help page more carefully. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Sounds right to me,” Lacey clucked her tongue and bent over her drawing with more fervor. She let him read as she drew.

“You’re right,” Colt was frowning at the display. “In order to be dungeon masters again, we’d have to take over the dungeon again. That sucks.”

“Agreed,” Lacey nodded.

“I just thought we’d head home like Helluna said she did,” Colt flicked aside screens. The good part of all the downtime during excursions was that there was plenty of time to read. “Then we’d come back and rebuild, and we’d be even better the second time around. It just seems kind of harsh is all.”

“Colt, you okay?” Lacey asked after a few moments of silence where Colt seemed lost in thought.

“Of course,” he smiled, but he didn’t sound okay. She knew him better than that.

“What’s got you spooked?” Lacey poked, still intent on her schematic as well.

“I just thought I’d be able to go home once in a while is all,” he admitted softly, almost as if saying it quietly would make it less awful. “You think Mom’s worried?”

“I don’t know, Colt,” Lacey stopped scribbling to watch his face. “I’m thinking maybe … I don’t know Colt.” She was looking for something to soothe him but came up empty.

“System,” Colt called out to it again. “Can I go home?”

“Home vouchers can be bought or earned in quest treasure chests,” the system replied, and they both raised eyebrows at that.

“They’ve got to be outrageously expensive, right?” Lacey set down her drawing to go stand with him at the pedestal, where the system had brought up the store that hadn’t been available before because of the tutorial training wheels. If they thought of something that existed in the system and asked about it, it would be revealed whether it was inside or outside of the tutorial guidelines.

“Not really, but we don’t have access until we complete the stupid tutorial,” Colt complained, and it was so uncharacteristic that Lacey was moved.

“How much more do we need to do that?”

“We have exactly 39 more tasks, most of which are nearly impossible as long as the bozos are trying to clear the dungeon,” Colt brought up the list. “That’s down from over a hundred that we started with.”

“If they keep this up too long, we’ll drop them into the maze on the first level with wandering mobs fresh out of the battle arena I’m designing,” Lacey patted him on the shoulder casually, but her heart hurt for him. There hadn’t been a weekend in a long time that they’d missed dinner at his mom’s.

“If they wipe, they’ll try something new,” Colt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll be okay. I just miss them is all.”

“I’d try dying with you if you want,” Lacey offered, though it hurt to even think of losing the dungeon. Sure, they could be regular players and have fun, but the dungeon felt more like home to her than any she’d had growing up. A part of her just felt like this was it for her. This was the dream come true on crack.

“Me being homesick isn’t a good enough reason to give up on this,” Colt put a heavy hand on her shoulder, and she could see the resolve form in his eyes. “It isn’t just your dream come true, Lace. It’s mine too. Always has been, even if I didn’t know it. I’ll get home soon enough. Until then, let’s build the most kicking ass dungeon they’ve ever seen.”

“We already have a pretty good start,” Lacey grinned at him.

“Good?” Colt demanded. “It’s more than good. It’s holding off cascading incursions of a team that started out over 3 times our level. I’d say we’re the badasses of dungeoneers.”

“What level are our idiots at?” Lacey gave Colt a side-eyed look, but she let it go.

“I think they’re fighting off the cats just before the fourth puzzle trap room,” Colt answered her.