Bingly, bingle, jingle!
Jack Greencap started awake as the alarm on his tablet went off.
“That’s odd,” he spoke to his empty bedroom, “I’m sure I had the blasted thing set to do not disturb.” He rolled over and fished the tablet out of the pile of yesterday’s tights and tunic.
"Hey Jack, come meet us for breakfast! We want to pick your brain about my exam today," his friend Jema had texted him. Jack rolled the rest of the way out of bed and into a stretch, twisting back and forth. He started to hum as he made his way to his shower and began his morning.
"Beautiful Day, beautiful day," he trilled to himself as he scrubbed his short, wiry frame. Jack was lean and angular like a greyhound, with a shock of green hair that was his namesake. Despite looking like he was built for speed, Jack ambled his way through his ablutions. He donned a fresh tunic and tights and strolled down the hall towards the cafeteria.
As he walked down the hall the right hand wall opened up into a series of arches that led to a terrace. Jacks steps drifted toward the fresh air and sun and he passed through the arch of entwined branches into the sunlight. The cool breeze ruffled Jack's hair as he leaned against the railing and looked out over Xeles City. The view was spectacular from this high up. He could see the lower terraces stepping down the trunk of the enormous Great Tree that made up the center of the city. Skyways of entwined branches and spans of shimmersilk stretched between the central Great Tree and it's smaller attendant trees, the walkways looking like stretched soap bubbles covered in a riot of flowers. Ornithopters like jeweled dragonflies zipped along the high speed traffic routes above the more ponderous cargo airships and sky whales in the lower traffic lanes. Far below, between the massive tree trunks, he could just make out the edge of Lake Sura, and the sails of the hundreds of ships coming and going from the docks.
"Beautiful day," Jack sighed in contentment before resuming his slow stroll to breakfast. Back inside and down the hall, he soon arrived at the cafeteria for his dormitory. As he joined the line to the servers he looked around the cafeteria for Jema, spotting her and a few of her classmates sitting near the window. Jack quickly picked out a light fruit salad and headed over to where Martha the serving lady was dishing up the hot honeyed porridge.
"Martha my love, a dish of your fine sweet self to break my fast," Jack said with a grin and a wink, and quick as a wink Martha smacked his grin with the dishtowel she kept tucked in her waistband.
"Away with you, you young lech," Martha said as she scooped a generous ladle of porridge onto Jack's tray, "I am twice your age and three times your size and I would snap you like the twig you look like." Martha was part mountain troll and was quite formidable. Jack raised a hand up and touched his hair with an expression of mock dismay.
"You wound me my love," and then dodged away laughing from Martha's dish towel.
"I'll wound you all right," Martha shouted at Jacks retreating back as he scooted across the open area to the clusters of tables. Jack smiled to himself as he wove through the tables. Martha didn't believe he was serious, but he actually was quite smitten. Something about the thought of being squeezed in those arms made his brain go all wobbly. With a sigh and a shake of his head, Jack strode through the cafeteria to the table where Jema and her friends were sitting.
"Hello hello," Jack said as he set down his tray. Jema looked up from the book she was desperately trying to cram into her brain.
"Hi Jack," Jema said, "pull up a chair and tell me the secrets of your charm. How do I possibly pass this thing?"
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"Ahh, good old Brain Bending 101," Jack laughed. "What's the problem, its a pretty straight forward course." Jema sighed as she reached down and flipped through the large book in front of her.
"There is just so much of it, and all of it feels kind of skeevy," she said in a dubious tone. "I mean look at some of these chapter headings. Innocent Charm, Hopeful Smiles, Strategic Tears, Subtle Flirt. Do we really need to do this kind of thing to keep our cores on track? I mean, Subtle Flirt? The cores don't even have biology for that kind of thing to work on."
"They may not have the biology," Jack replied, "but they have the memory of it. At least the reincarnators do, and this course is about them." Jack ate a few berries from his tray as he though about what to say.
"Look, the kinds of people who become dungeon cores tend to be antisocial." Jack said, pointing his spoon at Jema. "Your job is to keep at least a thread of social contact going. If you leave cores alone they tend to get worse and then the local adventurers guild has to kill them to stop them from spitting out zombies or plagues or what have you." He stopped to take a spoon of the sweet honey porridge and collect his thoughts.
"You are manipulating the cores you contract with, but you aren't doing it for yourself. You are keeping them alive."
"Yeah, keeping them alive so we can milk them for mana," Jema said with a snort. She sat back in her chair and then attempted to blow an errant strand of turquoise hair out her eyes. "They may be antisocial, but they are still people."
"It's a fair trade," Jack protested. "We provide monsters and patterns and magical things for that mana. It's not like the dungeons are getting nothing out of the deal. The reincarnators get emotional support in what can be a fairly traumatizing situation and without us the naturally occurring dungeons would take years just to develop language, if they ever developed at all."
"Yeah I get that," Jema admitted, "but I can't shake the feeling that there is something not quite right about it."
Jack ate a few more berries and a slice of melon and then said, "Well when it comes to passing the Emotional Management exam it's all about keeping your dungeon alive. Focus on that as your end goal for each scenario and you won't have any trouble passing. Just imagine a mob with torches and pitchforks coming to shatter your dungeons core because it started spewing out endless spiders, or zombies, or zombie spiders. Convince your core not to do the stupid things that will get it killed."
"Thanks Jack," Jema said with a sigh. "Enjoy your day." She slipped her textbook into her bag and then picked up her tray and headed for the dirty dish drop off.
"Good luck," Jack called after her and then turned back to his breakfast.
Bingly, bingle, jingle!
“Wonder what this is abou..,” his words trailed off as his eyes widened. There at the top of his notifications was a new message, flashing in urgent red. “New dungeon fairy assignment!,” it read in glaring red letters, “Report to Gate Hall for transition.”
Gate Control - 20 minutes ago
"Incoming," shouted Gate Tech First Class Penny Pook. The monitor in front of her started to stream with words.
Soul upload complete!
Commencing top level scan....
"Please be a live one," Penny whispered to herself while crossing her fingers.
Commencing deep level scan....
Penny's breath caught in her throat and she began to shift from foot to foot.
Scan complete!
Assigning Soul to REQ-37.
"YES," Penny screamed as her hand flashed down and smacked the big red button that activated her overide injection code.
Running Genius Loci..Interrupt/[email protected]
Error! Stream breach, deploying Aeg..Interrupt/[email protected]
"Take that," Penny shouted as she smacked the big red button again to break the systems attempt to wrestle back control and then the green button next to it that ran her custom code.
override.@!\Run Dungeon Core Activation
"Call Operations," she shouted over her shoulder to the waiting messenger as she continued to monitor the code, "tell them we got a live one!"