13

Kasumi

“…orry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Calm down, he's waking up"

People were shouting… Why were people shouting? Why was my head pounding?

“Rob? You have to wake up now.”

Five more minutes please.

“ROB, WAKE UP!"

Ah, they hadn’t been shouting before. NOW they were shouting.

I cracked open my eyelids just a little. It was blessedly dark, no light to drive a knife into my skull. This was the worst hangover I could remember, even worse than the time I played beer pong with vodka… I had lost. Even the winner had told me the next day that he knocked over his TV, which fell on his back and broke.

“We aren't done yet Rob," That was Lilith talking.

Then I remembered what was happening. We lost. That troll, Terrence, had absolutely destroyed our best fighting force all on his own. I was completely helpless in its grasp. He was smiling as he was about to finish me off. And then the snap. The sound of rope being cut, the rock fall trap. Gale had cut the rope, dropping the boulder right on top of us. I had died, again, but now I was in the bunk room, in my own bunk. I had respawned.

That was when I noticed her. Gale was sitting against the wall, knees pulled against her chest and tears streaking her face. It was strange, she had always looked like a child to me. Now though, as she bawled her eyes out, curled up so small that she would fit in an overhead carry-on compartment, she didn't look like a child.

She wasn't a child, not anymore. I had stolen that from her. Whatever her age, she had been through too much for me to think of her as a child anymore. This was fucked.

“I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice, I had to, I'm sorry." Gale was repeating over and over.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I was surprisingly solid, and my headache was already mostly faded. I walked over to Gale and knelt at her side.

Lilith spoke directly in my head so she couldn't hear, “Hurry this up, there's still something outside.”

I was grateful to Lilith then, as I woke up I could hear her. She had tried to talk Gale down, and now she made sure to speak only to me so as to spare Gale more pain. Lilith was making at least as much effort as I was to make this work.

“Hey, I'm here.” I told Gale, speaking softly like she would crumble at any moment, maybe she would, “I'm here. You saved us. The troll was going to kill us all, and you saved us.”

“I killed you.”

“Yep, and I’m still alive because you did what you had to. You did the right thing.”

Lilith spoke mentally again, “Wrap it up, movement on the surface. Two large shapes and one small. Probably trolls.”

Dammit, why couldn’t we get a moment of peace?

“I have to go for a little bit, I want you to rest. Can you do that for me?”

I looked to the side. The rest of the dungeon, save for the duo on ‘return the human' duty, were here. Gary cradled his broken arm and seemed to have trouble keeping his balance. Geoff must have been carried into the room, he was unconscious, which was good since his leg stump would probably be pretty painful. My death meant I was the best off of us, somehow.

I made eye contact with Tessa and nodded toward Gale. She got the message and nodded back. I noted the look she gave me though, she was not happy with me. That was fair.

I made my way out of the bunk room, and back into the rock fall room. It was a disaster zone.

Lilith explained the mess, “When the rock smashed you, it killed the troll too. The invasion results message popped up but you were out, so the blood and… bits and pieces, couldn’t be converted to coins.

On the upside the troll died first, probably because it was taller, so you got credit for the win. Seventy three tin…”

It wasn't quite as bloody as the first troll raid, but as I had expected, the floor had collapsed. It looked like a sink hole opened up, but instead of swallowing whatever was above it, it threw up a pile of blocks and rocks, with some chewed up... Rob… for good measure.

I wondered what happened to the crown when I died like that. Lilith had told me that I could die and respawn, just as long as no one took the crown while I was dead. What if none of me was left to take the crown from though? Was that another potential loophole?

If I dug a thousand foot pit and jumped in when an invasion started, was the dungeon safe? If it was impossible to take the crown then they shouldn't be able to destroy us right? I could even rig up something to drop a bunch of dirt into the pit on top of me. They would need to bring in mining equipment if they wanted to destroy the dungeon then.

Then I realized I was thinking of the most efficient way to dig my own grave, commit suicide, and then bury myself. Moving on and never returning to that…

The stairs were covered in rocks and, somehow, floor chunks. That wouldn’t matter though since I couldn't cross the shattered floor.

I heard a noise from the door. It was too dark to see, but I could tell by the sound that it was trolls, hooting rhythmically. They sounded like apes.

“Construction interface." Lilith said.

Right, I kept forgetting that. I activated the interface and time stopped.

I was able to view outside of the main dungeon while in the interface. It had been a while since I tested it, but I had been able to move my point of view anywhere within a sphere slightly larger than the clearing. I suspected that sphere would either grow with levels or expand based on the rooms I built, but more testing would be needed.

For the moment, I moved my view outside to the doorway to see my guests. Two large trolls just like Lilith had said. They stood just outside the door.

Lilith whispered in my mind even though no one could hear us here, “The small one is in the shadows, by the trees to the east.”

I wasn’t sure how she knew which direction was which, I sure didn’t.

“Which way is east?”

There was a pause before she answered, it sounded like she was struggling not to say something rude, “Straight ahead.”

It took a moment but I found the troll. It really was small, even shorter than me, and skinny. I wasn’t aware trolls could be that small. When Terrence had been… born I guess, he was almost immediately as big as the other trolls. Terry was supposedly a child, but he was only a little smaller than Tessa. This troll was somewhere between goblin and human sized.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a great look. They were outside of my current range, and in shadow. Instead I returned to the trolls by the door, and had a look at them. They looked… familiar.

Trolls were trolls, one was just as large and imposing as another, but these tugged at my memory. I couldn’t examine them with my identify power while in the interface, so I just had to get a good look. Why were they so familiar?

Lilith's voice sounded unsure when she spoke, “Is that… Tessa?”

That was it, the troll at the door was Tessa. How? I rushed back into the bunk room, an entirely unnecessary measure in this timeless world. Tessa was there, she sat next to Gale who leaned into the troll openly weeping.

They weren't quite the same. I zipped back and forth between the two trolls comparing them. I didn't have an eye for troll features, but there were some differences, enough that I had convinced myself it wasn't the same troll, but perhaps another family member.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The color wasn't quite the same, which was difficult to discern as they were under very different light sources. Tessa was slightly more wrinkled, maybe older, and the ugly hair tufts were different, Tessa had fewer tufts of hair-fur. The resemblance was uncanny though.

This didn't matter.

I consulted Lilith on possible solutions, “We need to drive them off. Any ideas?”

“Well first, fix the dungeon.”

Right, no invaders were inside yet, I could reset the rock fall room.

She continued thinking aloud as I worked, “The system won’t let you dig a hole or something below them. That counts as a trap and you have traps, but there are all sorts of conflicts when affecting living creatures, it's why the interface locks during invasions.

You cant lock the door, you have to have an open entryway.

Moving the entrance would work but it would cost, and they could just find it again.

You probably just need to upgrade the dungeon, you have money now. Build some of those traps Gale drew up.”

I did have some money from the herbs, probably enough for some impressive renovations. I would have to figure out something else to do for springing the traps though. I couldn't put Gale through something like this again.

I spent some of my infinite time making changes to the dungeon.

In the rock fall room I changed the rope cut to a trip wire system. Fortunately I did have some idea on what issues one could run into when trying to release a large heavy load with a small force.

The most reliable solution I could come up with without being able to test it was a multi stage trigger. The end result was significantly more expensive than just cutting the rope, but it SHOULD work. I hoped.

The trip wire would release a weight attached to a rope, when the weight reached the end of its own rope it would jerk to a stop yanking on another release. The last release from the tripwire was secured to a huge swinging axe that would, hopefully, cut the rope that Gale had been cutting.

Next was the bunk room. I didn't want invasions to go here if possible. With some trial and error I discovered a solution to several of our problems.

I could make locks, real locks operated by keys. I put the biggest, most solid lock I could on the bunk room door. That sent a bunch of errors about impossible routes. The key needed to be available to invaders.

I almost gave up the idea, but Lilith stopped me. Boss keys were apparently a thing. You could give one to a special kind of minion which I hadn't unlocked yet, OR, you could put them in a chest somewhere accessible in the dungeon.

I removed the room under the rock fall, the cave in had been expensive to fix, so I would like to avoid that in the future. Then I made another, full sized room, off of the stairwell in a different direction. Inside the new room I put a regular chest which held the boss key.

At that point all the errors were cleared up and I could confirm, but I wasn't done yet.

In the key room I set up Gale’s cable trap. I tried to set up a pressure plate trigger, but I got a new type of error complaining about trap power being too high. Rather than remove the trap I tried to modify it so it wouldn’t count as a trap like with the rock fall.

Eventually I managed to set up a trigger that worked off the chest opening, that would set off a mechanism to push the large boulder weight that pulled the cable through the room.

The whole thing was a bit convoluted, and I had my doubts it would work… but I had to do something, and this was the best I could come up with.

Before confirming I changed the minion room assignments. The new lineup was Geoff, Gary, and Gregory in the rock fall room, myself in the boss room.

That was when I realized I would be locking the minions outside with the invaders.

With a mental sigh I added another room on the safe side of the locked door. Then I reassigned the minions to the bunk room and changed the new room to the boss room. NOW everyone should be safe.

The final price ended up being pretty steep. I was left with one silver and fifteen copper. More than half of my fortune, and I had only made traps that might or might not work.

When the confirmation went through I snapped back to my body, standing in the rock fall room. I weighed my options for a moment, and decided I should have a look up above with my own eyes.

If the invasion started I would be teleported to the boss room and thus be safe. It might be useful to get a look before that happened.

I made my way across the room and to the stairs. About halfway across the room I felt a tug on my leg and heard a small click. Ahh hell, I forgot about the tripwire and tripped my own trap.

I knew what was supposed to be happening, so I quickly looked to the action, preparing myself to jump into the interface, and stop time again at a moment’s notice.

The first trigger worked as expected, releasing the weight. The final trigger released and the axe swung. I might have over done the axe because it didn't even slow at the rope. The rope cut and the rock fell. I stopped time before it smashed me again.

I quickly reset the trap and made note to make some adjustments later. The trigger worked for now but it was flawed, and it took a few seconds which might be a problem.

When I restarted time I made sure to avoid the wire. The stairs seemed longer than I remembered, but that was probably just the eerie hooting sounds that the trolls had kept up making me nervous.

I stepped up to the landing in front of the door and looked out. The trolls noticed me, and went silent. Both of the trolls by the door smoothly stepped back and held their arms out to the sides.

What were they doing? It looked like they were trying to appear unthreatening. Slowly, and without making any sudden moves the two trolls backed up to the edge of the clearing near where the smaller troll stood in the trees, unmoving.

The small troll remained in the shadows out of the area I could influence, and called out something.

I couldn't understand her, but Lilith translated, “She's saying, come out, I just want to talk… this feels weird, be careful.”

This was probably the troll chief that Gabriel had described, but that meant she would be the boss of the BW dungeon. Lilith was right, this felt weird.

I didn't really have much choice, so I crept out into the clearing. I made my way as close as I dared, which was actually fairly close. I had seen the trolls move and fight, they were much faster than me, but I had the home field advantage. I might not be able to drop them in a hole or something, but I could put junk in the way to slow any pursuit while I ran back to the dungeon.

I managed to get close enough to examine the two larger trolls, bodyguards.

Name: Tessa

Classification: Dungeon BW Monster

Race: Troll

Level: 6

Name: Tony

Classification: Dungeon BW Monster

Race: Troll

Level: 8

I had to read it multiple times. The one on the left really was Tessa. But how? Tessa was in the dungeon, were there more Tessas?

The girl chief spoke again and Lilith translated in real time, “There you are, finally we meet. I expected someone… shorter. How did you get to be running a goblin dungeon?”

Goblin dungeon? She must not know about the trolls, maybe she didn't know about the zombieness either.

I spoke back, assuming her own crown would translate, “Well, that is a bit of a long story. And… I expected a troll chief to be taller, so I guess we are even.”

“Even huh?… I don't know about that. I owe you for Terrence, I still don't know how you managed to make a new troll for my scouts, but I appreciate the help either way. That being said… this is my territory, those goblins are mine. You stole my goblins.”

I scoffed, “You sent your trolls to raze the village.”

“Yes, they needed a demonstration. I had to show them who was in charge so they would fall in line. I’m still not sure whether you need the same.”

So this was her offering… what? For me to become her subordinate? Obviously I wasn't going to do that, but I couldn't refuse outright unless I wanted war right then and there. I wasn't sure how much strength she could bring to bear, but clearly it was more than my own.

So far I had seen a raid of six trolls out at once. I hadn't done the math but they had a cumulative level far higher than any dungeon wave I could manage. That was also ignoring the fact that she stood here now. The troll dungeon was a ways off, so she had managed to figure out how to leave the dungeon herself. I'd had a few hints that it was possible, but here was proof.

I took a small step forward, I really wanted to examine her for the information window.

She noticed my movement, but misunderstood my intent, “Oh? You want to fight here and now? Brave, aren’t you. I don't know how strong you are, but I assure you, those six you killed before were nothing. I’m not even in the same league as them.”

The not-Tessa and Tony stepped back, and knelt while the troll chief stepped closer and out of the shadow.

Name: Kasumi

Classification: Dungeon BW Monster

Race: Troll

Level: 16

Kasumi, level sixteen. That was terrifying. Terrence had easily mopped the floor with our best three fighters, and he was only level four.

If I knew more about how the dungeon numbers worked maybe I could work out what Tier this BW dungeon was based on all the information I had, but that didn't matter, it was higher than mine. I had to disengage so we could come up with a new plan. Starting a fight with Kasumi would be suicide.

And that name, Kasumi… that broke the monster naming convention. Trolls always had T names, but not Kasumi.

“Well? Are we settling this now or not?” Kasumi said through the crowns’ translation.

I took a step back, not so confident in my ability to escape anymore.

“ahh… maybe later… what… What do you say we start over. I'm Rob, Nice to meet you.”

She looked confused, and asked her own crown to repeat what I had said before answering, “Rob… I’m Tina… nice to meet you… What sort of monster are you Rob?”

Tina? What was going on? I double checked the identify window, and her name was still listed as Kasumi. I was missing something important. And my own name, Rob, seemed to confuse her.

Maybe I was on to something with the T versus K thing, and she couldn't think of how I was an R name. I was still in my own territory, so I froze time to think.

I recruited another mind, “What is the deal with monster names, all the goblins are G names and all the Trolls are T names. Is that a coincidence?”

“I… don’t know… it can’t be a coincidence though. Twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, twenty times is fucking creepy.”

That’s what I thought. This Kasumi had secrets, and I needed to come up with a R named monster that was believable.

It took a long time. Lilith wasn't much help, and I wasn't very satisfied with what I came up with either. I really just couldn't think of many R named monsters, let alone humanoid ones, but I finally settled on the best thing I could come up with and restarted time.

“Ah right, you probably haven’t heard of us. I'm a redcap…. Its kind of like a goblin…”

“I know what redcaps are,” Kasumi snapped.

OH thank god, they existed here. It was a stretch, but maybe I could make her think I was protecting the goblins out of some kind of comradery.

“You don't look like a redcap… why are you so tall? And where is your red cap?

I actually had those excuses planned out, so I didn’t hesitate, “I'm a special variant… extra tall, extra strong. Had to take off the hat for the crown, you know how it is.”

“Riiight…” She drew out the word like she was trying to find something wrong with it, “Well… This is my forest… If you want to live here, you have to pay me tribute. I don’t think I have to tell you what happens to you goblins when you make me angry…”

I swallowed hard. I had to play up my fear, but not very much because I really was terrified of this little monster, “Ok, What sort of tribute?”

She grinned wickedly, “More goblins, the invasion rewards are great, and… my trolls are hungry.”