Chapter 2: Ask me no questions
Junichiro attempted to look around in the deep gloom of the tiny chamber he found himself in. It appeared to be a stone lined hole in the ground with no entrance or exit. The dressed stone reminded him of every single medieval castle he’d ever seen in the movies. There was even a little moss and damp on the stones. The only illumination was the evil dark purple light given off by the floating orb. It was about the size of a bowling ball. The sprite, one the other hand gave off a gentle warm white LED illumination that didn’t seem to light up the room at all she even had cute little antennae sticking out of her head. Maybe her illumination functioned more like a drop-shadow.
The sprite cleared her throat with a fake cough and repeated. “COUGH COUGH Welcome to your dungeon, Master!”
Junichiro AKA Dave (Translator’s note – AKA means ‘also known as’) squinted through his ridiculously long and bushy wizard’s eyebrows at the petite non-loli, tiny, but adult woman who was definitely over the age of 18 in most jurisdictions, 16 in others. (Don’t ask). “Who the hell are you, bug?”
The sprite frowned and pouted. “I’m no bug! My name is 法定年齢の (Hōteinenrei), but you can call me Hotti for short, Master!” (Translator’s note – that’s a joke, get with the program)
“Stop calling me ‘Master’, bug.”
“Stop calling me bug, Master! I’m NOT a bug! I’m a dungeon sprite! And you’re the Dungeon Master!” Junichiro could hear the capital letters as the bug spoke to him. “That means that you’re my Master!”
“Yeah no, bug. That’s not going to work for me.” Junichiro peered around again, hoping for any additional enlightenment. “You appear to be a perfectly autonomous entity, and I refuse to ‘own’ anyone.”
Hotti frowned a little more deeply. “Wow. You’re really in for some major adjustments, Master.”
Junichiro blinked a couple of times. “What do you mean?”
“I’m here to explain some things, so it’s good to ask. I’m a bit like your assistant. Your really hot sprite assistant.” She preened and stuck her cute ass out at him. “You’re more than a bit fucked, Master. You pissed off the goddess by pointing out her errors.”
“Just what do you mean?” Junichiro asked.
“Well Master, you’re immortal. That doesn’t mean that you never die. Not at all. You can die like any normal person, just not of disease or age or whatever. But you can easily die if that Dungeon Core over there is ever broken.” She pointed a tiny little dainty hand, doing so exactly like a TV game show assistant, turned to the side and bent at the waist, arms moving in an exaggerated sweeping motion.
“If the Dungeon Core is broken or captured you will perish in blazing agony!” She blinked brightly. “You don’t even want to know how painful it is!”
“Then how am I immortal?” Junichiro looked at her.
“Well, once the Dungeon Core dies… after a few days a new one is born and you’re reborn with it in a completely new location exactly like this one. You start over.” She flew over and sat on the floating orb, her knees parted a bit indelicately. “If it’s captured, then you die slowly… really slowly while the orb dims out, and then later you’re born again.”
“That sounds really bad.” Junichiro poked the orb with one finger. A bit of decorative lightning lit up the chamber when he did so. It hurt a bit like a static shock from a rug. Junichiro yelped and sucked on the finger.
“Master!” Bug’s voice took on a monotone exactly like a TV announcer. “
Warning! Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under the age of consent should avoid prolonged exposure to Dungeon Core. Dungeon Core may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds. Dungeon Core contains a molten core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at. Do not bounce Dungeon Core. Discontinue use of Dungeon Core if Itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, or heart palpitations occur. If Dungeon Core begins to smoke, get away immediately; seek shelter and cover head. Dungeon Core may dissolve flesh on contact. When not in use, Dungeon Core should be returned to its special chamber and kept away from excess illumination. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Dungeon Core, the goddess &@&@(#, and the parent company Involuntary Isekai, Incorporated of any and all liability. Ingredients of Dungeon Core include an unknown glowing purple substance which fell to this planet, presumably from a Mass-Murdering Taoist Cultivator’s Dantian Sphincter. Do not taunt Dungeon Core. Dungeon Core comes with a limited but infinite lifetime(s) warranty.”
Junichiro stared at her. The sprite Hotti blinked for a few moments and then began again as if nothing at all had happened. “Aaanyway”
“You’re now an immortal and evil Dungeon Master. Your job is to grow the dungeon, fill it with creatures and survive, or get reborn over and over again in terrible agony until you do grow the dungeon.” She looked at him with pity. “Most don’t make it… They go insane and the local god or goddess disposes of them and then I get reassigned. Work with me here please… Master.”
A very long moment passed between them. Junichiro stared at the vaguely menacing orb and at the sprite and the room in general. She stared at him. After at least 30 seconds Junichiro sighed. “Well, Fuck.”
“This is a fantasy world, obviously… Magic? Monsters? Adventurers? Like in a game or a novel?” Junichiro asked.
Hotti turned at looked directly at you, the reader. “This is definitely not a game or a novel.” She looked back at Junichiro. “There are a lot of rules… a lot. I don’t even know all of them yet, and some of the rules I do know I can’t tell you yet.”
“Well, what can you tell me now about the rules?” Junichiro inquired as the writer began to grow tired of synonyms for ‘asked’ and ‘said’.
“Stop that!” Hotti muttered. “We only break three walls here, okay?”
Junichiro ignored her.
“Okay, so…” She took a deep breast, I mean breath and waved her arm in the air. A glowing whiteboard appeared and words began to appear on it.
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“You begin life with a one hundred experience points to spend. You can spend experience on the dungeon, or on yourself. If you spend it on the dungeon, you can expand it or you can summon creatures, buy traps, and that kind of thing. Later, when you have a lot of points you can also summon companions. Companions are different than creatures. Don’t worry about that right now. I can act as your purchase catalog. If you spend points on yourself you can improve your body, learn spells, and acquire equipment.”
“Once you spend the points, they’re gone and you don’t get them back.”
“You can win against the goddess and adventurers. If you can make the dungeon big enough, with enough monsters in it, you win.”
“And if I win?” Junichiro asked. “What then?”
“Well master, if you win you get to stop making dungeons and you get some wishes to have a whole new life in a new world being whoever you want to be and doing whatever you want to do.”
“Can I return to my past life?”
“Sorry, Master.” She smiled with pity again. “You got squashed into sausage.”
He nodded. “But that doesn’t mean much, does it?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
Junichiro looked off into space intently. “Well, since my consciousness transmigrated bodies, there’s clearly a higher dimensional order of existence that transcends life and death. And since that ‘goddess’ entity exists outside some set of confines of space and time, this could be nothing more than a simulation. Regardless though, if enough elasticity exists in the basis of physical existence to allow such gross deviations from physics, I have to assume that she could just rewrite things as she pleases.”
Hotti frowned at him. “Look, Master. That’s above my pay grade. You’d have to take that up with management. None of that’s in my rule book. Can we please get back to the rules?”
“Right.”
She smiled brightly at him. “You only get experience points for a few things. You can get it for killing or sacrificing adventurers, or maybe villagers. You can feed captured equipment into the Dungeon Core and convert it into experience. You can also be given quests or objectives, and if you complete them, you get experience.”
“Just like in a game?”
“Stop that, Master.”
“Okay, what else?”
“The dungeon generates mana for you, your creatures, and your companions to use. The bigger and deeper that the dungeon is, the more mana and experience. Some creatures like goblins are entirely physical without any magical component to them.”
“Goblins? Really?” Dave sighed to himself.
“Master…”
“Yeah, go on.”
“Some creatures are partially magical like trolls or will o’wisps. And some are completely magical, like sprites.” You can’t summon those kinds of magical creatures until your dungeon has enough mana flowing through it.
She continued. “Traps and doors and stuff are just like the creatures. Some are completely physical, some are partly magical, some are only magical. Like a mimic…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake… a mimic?” Dave threw his hands in the air. “What is this, a goddamned $(@#( game?”
Hotti went completely pale and drifted back away from him in shock. “Absolutely not, Master! ‘$(@#(‘ and all associated works are wholly owned by Hasbro through it’s subsidiary, the company which must not be named. Any likeness is unintentional or for purposes of legitimate parody as protected by law.”
Junichiro’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, go on.”
She shook her head in alarm. “If a creature dies it cannot be revived, you will have to summon new ones. If a companion died, they can be revived through magic spells if you have them, or by spending experience to bring them back. Companions will retain all their memories.”
“You can also get experience if you can stop an adventurer’s quest or if you can convert an enemy to your side.”
Junichiro looked at the floating whiteboard for a moment, deep in thought.
“One more thing, Master.” Hotti said. “Right now, you and the creatures can only speak ‘dungeon’ language. They will obey your spoken commands even if they cannot talk. But outsiders don’t speak it, and you can’t understand their language unless you upgrade a skill.”
“Wonderful.” He leaned his head against a wall and slowly tapped hiss forehead against it in frustration. “Is that all?”
“No there’s more, Master. But it doesn’t matter so early in the dungeon. Right now you need to focus on deciding how to spend your points and how to get started as my beloved new Dungeon Master!”
Suddenly a translucent blue rectangle popped into existence in the middle of the room floating in the air. There was writing on it which said. “INITIAL QUEST: Use monsters to expand the dungeon to the surface. 10 experience. No further experience until this quest is completed.” After a long moment it vanished.
…
A long time passed in silence as Junichiro contemplated his new reality.
“Why isn’t it getting stuffy in here, Hotti? There’s no air coming in.”
“Oh you’re not breathing, Master. You’re actually a kind of undead.”
“Perfect.”
…
Time passed. Junichiro had been slumped against a wall for some time, contemplating his fate in the gloom of the tiny room. A million thoughts about his great and fun life as Dave floated through his mind and he found himself kicking and cursing more than once. But, no amount of yelling seemed to change anything at all. He was stuck in a small square cube of a room, like a prison cell with a palm sized porno fairy and a menacing orb of evil.
He rose to his feet. “Okay, bug.”
“Hotti”
“Okay. So you said that I have 100 experience to spend, right?”
She agreed perkily, oppai bouncing.
“What creatures can I summon to start with?” He looked at her.
“Oh, a few!” She chirped. “You can summon Kobolds, Goblins, flying leeches, stuff like that.”
“Is that all?”
She frowned. “Well, there’s also vermin like various rodents of unusual size. Rats, bats, mice, voles, moles… But those are all disgusting, Master.”
“How big exactly is a mole of unusual size?”
“A mole, Master? They’re disgusting.” She stared at him, wondering what he was thinking.
“How big?”
“A MOUS, Mole of Unusual Size is about the size of a normal dog. Quite large.”
“And what can they dig through?” He ran his withered old man hand over his face.
“They’re supposed to attack adventurers from burrows, Master.”
Junichiro insisted. “What can they dig through?”
“Well… they’re dungeon monsters, Master. They can dig through most things… rocks, stones, dirt. You know, stuff.”
He looked at the ceiling. “And will they die without water, air, and food?”
“Yes, of course Master.”
“And how far down are we, underground?” Junichiro looked at the stone ceiling above his head and pointed.
“Master we’re not far below the surface… maybe 10 cubits?”
“A cubit?” He turned from looking at the ceiling. “What the fuck?”
“Ease of translation.” She replied. “It’s about the length of your forearm to your fingers.”
“About eighteen feet or a little over five meters?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I have no idea, Master.”
“How many points for a MOUS?” He asked.
“A MOUS is one point, Master. But why would you want one?”
“I want five.”
“Oh YUCK!” Hotti yelped. “They’re so gross! And they poop everywhere!”
…
As soon as Junichiro mentioned buying the MOUS using Hotti as the agent, five very large mole creatures with curled horns popped into existence from the Dungeon Core. It sparked and lightning leapt in the room and when he looked next there they were, five moles of unusual size. They sat back on their haunches and stared at Junichiro. One of them made a small ‘eep’ noise. Hotti flew away from them to the farthest corner of the room away from the MOUS.
Junichiro did have to admit that she had a point. Even though they had just come into existence and hadn’t eaten anything, one of them noisily voided its bowels on the floor. It was a bit stinky.
“Can you understand me?” Junichiro asked the assembled MOUS. Their heads bobbed up and down and they all made a similar ‘eep’ noise.
“Good!” Junichiro nodded at them. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Climb up that corner over there and dig up to the surface.” He pointed at a corner of the tiny chamber. “Make the hole to the surface too small for a person, or a creature I guess… except you… well, make the hole as small as possible, and make it twisty. Pile the dirt up on the surface, not down here… and spread the dirt around up there.”
He wondered if they really did understand. But without any further delay, all five immediately went to work doing exactly as he told them. Soon all five had disappeared into a hole in the ceiling. They took turns coming back out and gathering excess dirt that dropped down and carried it back up into the hole.
And before too long, a smell of fresh air wafted into the room and a little after that, all five MOUS dropped back down out of the hole.
The room lit up with a blue glow and a glowing rectangle said “Congratulations on connecting your dungeon to the surface. You are awarded 10 xp!”
“Yay!” yelled Hotti. “The dungeon has started!”
…