"So...uh...I know it's probably not my-"
'Why the stuff?'
"...Uh...Yeah. That."
I mentally smirked. I’d honestly hoped she’d ask. Partly out of ego, admittedly, but it was also reassuring that, after only about an hour, Faryea was feeling up to putting forward the question.
Why don't you give me your best guess first, and I'll give you my answer after.
"...Well. There's...uh...I thought it was the four base elements at first. Candle for fire, the bucket for water, metal for earth...But, there isn't an equivalent for wind...Um...The ladder is a ladder...And you can use rope for a lot of things. But I have no idea what the chess set's for..." she answered tentatively, with all the grace and certainty of an inattentive student attempting to answer a teacher’s question on the fly. Having been that student more than once, I graciously declined to needle her.
Mmm, not quite. The candle, the rope and the ladder are functional. I’ve already put the candles to use with my first set of upgrades-
“So, you ARE making a summoning circle, I knew-”
I’m installing them along the entrance staircase because it’s pitch black.
“…Oh. That’s…uh…” she trailed off with a frown.
Dull? Uninspired?
“…I was going to say ‘fine’…” she finished unconvincingly.
Hmmph. The water and the metal, on the other hand, are building blocks. As far as I can tell, while I’m capable of fabricating just about anything, I need something to start with. I want to see how far water and metal get me. I have a couple ideas on how to use them, but I suspect I'll need to put more thought into them before I see anything appear.
"...That doesn't explain the chess set," she answered. I paused,
…I would’ve thought that’d be self-evident. What do you think it’s for?
"Well, I’ve heard of golems made to look like che-”
It’s for playing Chess.
“…Wha-Why? You’re a dungeon. Why would you want to play chess?”
Because I’m easily bored and, while I’d prefer cards, I’d have to play through you. Which rather defeats the purpose since you’re also my only likely opponent. Assuming you're up for it.
"...Wh- 'Bored'?" she asked, with a sort of baffled curiosity. Not quite the question I'd been expecting.
…Yes…?
“How can you get bored when you don’t have stats? When you can’t get statused?”
This time, it was my turn to rendered silent by utter confused.
Wh-How-What do you mean, ‘How can I be-’, what, boredom’s a status effect!?
> Quote:Boredom
>
> A negative status effect caused by repetitive, unengaging actions or long periods of inaction in general. Applies a penalty to experience gain that increases over time.
I boggled at the menu prompt I was met with. It seemed patently ridiculously. Boredom was…well, boredom. It was just a thing. The idea that it was a literal status effect in this place…
“Yeah…I…Uh…Yeah,” she mumbled, likely as confused as I was. What a stupid way for the world to work. The very idea was…
…
I paused as I turned the idea over in my head, forcing myself to play devil’s advocate. ‘Confusion’ was often a status effect. So was ‘Berserk’. By that token, why not ‘Boredom’. Its effect was sensible enough (at least by RPG logic). If you were bored, you probably weren’t going to learn as well. Continuing on from that, if you looked at a monster that was immune to such statuses, like a machine being immune to mental status, wouldn’t you assume them incapable of feeling the respective emotion?
As much as I expected my experience with RPGs to help me, it’d also instilled a lot of preconceptions. I still needed to know more about the system I’d been dropped in, among other things.
I’m, uh, I'm not exactly well-versed with this whole...system...Maybe I'm completely wrong and this is completely opposed to the reality of things...But I’m going to take a wild punt and propose the possibility that the potential for boredom exists in all beings, even those that can’t suffer from status effects.
“Wild wh-?”
Guess. Wild guess, more or less. I think I can assure you that…Well…Regardless of how else this transition has affected me, I’m pretty sure boredom is still on the table.
Faryea furrowed her brow, deep in thought. Briefly pausing to make sure she wasn't about to suddenly bring something else up, I covertly exited the conversation. Which mostly just meant turning my attention elsewhere Perhaps it was a little rude, but there was something terribly uncomfortable about her baffled expression. It left an unpleasantly guilty aftertaste. Besides I had my own unanswered questions to mull over.
During the conversation, something had struck me. Not wanting to get sidetracked, not wanting to accidentally vocalise it, I’d carefully pushed the thought aside, but now that I was thinking about the less immediate curiosities of this place…
‘If it wasn’t for fun, why would they even make chess in the first place?’
In my mind’s eye, the catalogued chess set was frozen in the typical pre-game state. It’d been carved of two types of wood, one a deep red and the other a light tan, and had a distinctly hand-made quality to it. Beyond that, it was indistinguishable from its counterpart from home, as far as I could tell, which seemed all the stranger the more I thought about it.
As much as I wanted to avoid going mad with boredom, there were other distractions I could’ve asked for. I didn’t even particularly like chess. Its deliberate pace never sat well with me and my amazing knack for overlooking problems staring me right in the face did my winrate no favours. I’d asked for it, along with backgammon, mostly because it was old. I hadn’t put that much thought into it beyond ‘I’ll probably find those here unlike, say, Monopoly’ (not that I’d have asked for that blight upon family gatherings).
The question I’d overlooked was ‘Why would chess exist here, anyway?’
Chess was Indian in origin, as far as I recalled. The thirty two pieces originally represented the types of troops from that place and period, before time, revisions to the rules and the dissemination to other cultures rendered that mostly forgotten. Identifying each piece, I was reassured that, yes, it was still what I expected…And yet, also not what I expected. Did this world have an equivalent to the Middle East that the game emerged from? Why would the game have developed as it did when magic existed and was likely a major part of warfare.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
I pondered the idea for some time, but couldn’t make it sound any more plausible in my head. Either that was one incredible coincidence, or there was something sketchy about this place.
On one hand, I wanted to learn more about this place. About what exactly I should be expecting. While Faryea’s boss might’ve reassured me that I’d be left in relative peace,
On the other hand…
Was there any real point worrying about it now?
For the moment, I was stuck where I was, with no company beyond Faryea, who didn’t seem especially informed about anything, really (‘No offense’). As much as I would’ve liked to pick the brain of someone more knowledgeable, that was little more than wishful thinking right now. Reluctantly, I tried to push the idea out of my mind for the time being.
And so, I returned to busying myself with building.
That was my intention at least. Unfortunately, as I returned my attention to the entrance hall once more, it was only fractionally more complete than the last time I checked about twenty minutes ago.
> Quote:Entrance Hall - Alcoves & Candles
> Time Remaning: 000:05:27:38
000:05:27:37
000:05:27:36
I glared at the timer, daring it to slow or stutter, before dismissing it. Only a smidge more than one twelfth of the way done. I stewed for a minute or two, indulging in what was functionally petty grumbling, before I grew impatient with my impatience and addressed the Manual again. After my first attempt assured me I could instantly complete the construction of an object or room by spending 'Divine Essence', I'd thrown the menu window aside in violent disgust (though I didn't know what it exactly was, I could guess). My second had frustrated me with what felt like a series of deliberate misinterpretations regarding a set of spells that would enhance the statistics of a golem.
This time would be different.
I forced myself to calm down and approach the problem systematically. After a series of false starts and
> Quote:Direct Fabrication
>
> At any point in time, a Dungeon Core may select a specific construct or room improvement and take direct control of its construction, using the 'Assume Control comman. With the use of intense focus, the dungeon is able to make specific modifications and potentiallly even speed up an otherwise slower process.
My own variation on the command came to mind, along with the urge to giggle.
Assuming direct control.
For a few short minutes, the entrance room became my world. I could feel the automated mana slowly boring a hole in the wall that'd eventually become the next indent. A weak, wispy haze, attacking the wall with all the ferocity of a sloth eating porridge. Even not entirely knowing what I was looking at, I knew in my bones (figuratively) that this was agonisingly slow. Like watching an octogenarian gingerly chopstick their way through a two paragraph word document.
Even if I hadn't asked for this, I wouldn't have abided by it.
Making an indent was easy-ish. Making an indent identical to all the others was also easy-ish, though admittedly, it took a moment for me to wrap my head around it, to look back at the indents already created and copy them to memory. Doing so with exactly regular spacing should've been just as effortless, but I managed to make it difficult for myself by trying to judge the distance on the fly, rather than marking the points beforehand like a smart individual. Thankfully, it seemed I was just as capable at filling the gaps as I was at making them. Duplicating the candles and slotting them into place was about as difficult as if I'd been using the actual cut and paste computer function.
End
I took a moment to admire my handiwork.
It'd look better in stonework, I thought to myself. I'd smoothed the walls down with my earlier, mana-fueled adjustments adjustments. Enough that, in poor light, one might almost think they were plaster. Still, the weak candlelight didn't look quite right against it. I would've preferred a more classical castle look to the place. I made a mental note¹ to ask Faryea to bring something I might use for such a facade the next time she was out.
Still, that was the entrance lit. Ostensibly six hours of work, complete in twenty minutes.
I was also mostly spent. Despite no longer having a physical form to actually succumb to fatigue, I still felt like I'd just endured a three hours study session. Worse still, all the little ways I usually would do to help alleviate the feeling, like rubbing my eyes or stretching my legs or taking a shower, seemed lost to me.
So…Uh…About ear-Well...Since we ha-I don’t suppose you’d be up for a game of chess?
An entire awkward pause and a half ensued.
“...Uh...suuuurrreeee...I guess...?”
And that was how the next three hours vanished.
Though I was pretty certain I was the better player, neither of us were particularly good at the game. Faryea played with all the confidence and nuance of someone not even certain in their knowledge of the rules, and I'd never graduated past the point of using Chess as an excuse to skip Sports day. Still, it was...nice. Though quiet to start with, things gradually thawed out as we played, and we both got comfortable enough to do more than slide pieces and dictate moves respectively. While it didn't get any more laidback than 'cordial', I was quite sure neither of were taking the game particularly competitively by the time we reached the second game.
Though I kept it to the back of my mind, there was a sort of melancholy to it as well. It felt almost like a reversal of the times I used to play my father, back when I was quite young.
It was about halfway into our fourth game that Faryea posed the question I’d been really hoping to avoid.
“So…Uh…When are you going to add the monsters?”
…Yeaaaahhhh…About that…