I liked the sound of that. "Let's do it!"

Ari smiled. "The first thing to do is increase your influence. This will increase your essence intake, starting a cycle that ends with you being able to fight the most powerful enemies in this world. The first step is to access your dungeon menu. I know you've moved your viewpoint around, but have you tried to move it inside of your core yet?"

I realized that at the start my vision had been at the surface of the core, and I'd never thought to look inside of the core, assuming it would just be black. I tried to move my viewpoint inside of the core, but instead of my viewpoint changing my viewpoint stayed the same, but I got an additional awareness, just like when Ari tried to make the dungeon bond with me. "Whoa!"

Ari laughed. "No one ever answers, they always just try it. What you're seeing now is your dungeon menu. It gives easy access to some of your unique abilities as a dungeon core. Over time, they will become second nature, and you won't need to use the dungeon menu except for a few functions you don't use much."

There certainly was a lot in this dungeon menu.

Alex Johnson

Earth Core - G8

Essence - 50/50

Core generation - 5 per hour

Dungeon generation - 1 per hour

Dungeon bond - Arianna Brightwings End bond

Dungeon actions:

Increase influence

Absorb matter

Create item

Create mob

As I looked at it, I understood a decent amount. As Ari had guessed, I was an Earth core, although I was a little disappointed to see I was only as strong as a mushroom, barely better than a rock. I had 50 essence, but I wasn't sure if that was a lot or not. I also saw that I was generating 6 essence per hour, or one per 10 minutes. Most of that was from my core itself, although Ari had made it sound like most of my essence would eventually come from my dungeon.

I also saw an option to end the bond with Ari, which was comforting. At this point I was starting to trust her, but it was still nice to see I could end the bond at will. Still, it was a bit awkward to have it right there. I didn't want to accidentally hit it, I had enough experience to know Ari probably wouldn't take "It was an accident." as a good reason. I also saw 4 options for "dungeon actions" that sounded like the unique abilities Ari had been talking about. I understood "increase influence" and "create mob" from what Ari had already explained, but "absorb matter" and "create item" were new. Admittedly, they were pretty self explanatory. "Ari, this says my core is creating most of my essence. Didn't you say it would be coming mostly from my influence?"

Ari nodded. "Remember, right now your influence is only this little pocket, eventually it will be a massive labyrinth of tunnels. It won't take long for the essence created by your core to be almost negligible. Also, a few things about the menu. It's designed to make being a dungeon core easy, and it will act according to your desires."

"So if I wanted a line to not show up, it wouldn't?"

Ari nodded again. "Exactly." I immediately made the line about the dungeon bond disappear. Ari continued. "Also, many of the terms in the menu will have brief explanations if you focus on them and focus on getting more information."

I decided to try it with the earth core section. It pulled up a new box, again reminding me of something like a computer program on Earth.

Earth Core:

You are an earth aligned dungeon, giving you various benefits relating to earth essence. Primarily earth aligned mobs will cost 20% less to create, and primarily earth aligned loot will cost 20% less to create.

You will receive patterns for various earth aligned mobs as you grow, without finding examples, and earth aspected evolutions will be more likely to occur.

That was a good explanation, but it left me with a number of questions. "Ari, I just tried it on 'Earth core' and I have some questions. First, who made this menu?"

Ari shrugged. "No one knows for sure. The leading theory is that it was the first dungeon cores, who had to figure it all out on their own. But that was so long ago, it doesn't really matter much."

I wasn't sure about it not mattering, but I went on to my next question. "OK, well next what does it mean I'll get 'patterns for various earth aligned mobs' as I grow?"

Ari nodded. "To create a mob, you first have to know how. This information is stored in something called a pattern. As you learn more patterns, you can make different mobs. Eventually you'll also be able to make different patterns, but that's a long ways out. For now you'll just use those you find or get for being an earth core. You also will find patterns for loot, and that's easier to edit or create new patterns, but you'll still probably just use the basic ones for a while. The oldest dungeons have hundreds or thousands of different mobs they can create as their needs dictate."

I realized she'd mentioned patterns once before, but I'd mostly forgotten. To be fair, I'd gotten a lot of new info in the last little bit. Still, her explanation made sense. After all, I currently had no idea how to make any sort of mobs, so it was logical that I'd need to learn how somehow. "OK, next, 'earth aspected evolutions'?"

Ari thought for a moment. "OK, this one's a bit longer of an explanation. You remember how anything that kills something in your dungeon gets some of the essence?"

I sent a pulse of affirmation along the bond. This really was handy.

"Well, that applies to your dungeon mobs too. And if a mob survives long enough, it might build up a significant amount of essence, enough to make it a more powerful enemy. But unlike adventurers, who just become stronger, mobs that reach this point begin to have a chance of evolving. This means they become a stronger version of the same mob. For example, a skeleton mob might grow spikes on its arms and back, or an earth golem might gain an ability to regrow limbs using surrounding earth. This is good, because an evolved mob is less expensive to create than it should be for its strength."

That definitely sounded like something I wanted to happen a lot. I made a mental note to give my mobs ways to escape if the fight wasn't going well. Then there would hypothetically be more evolutions. "OK, so what about the dungeon action options for 'absorb matter' and 'create item'?"

Ari nodded. "Those are two of your abilities as a dungeon core. Absorb matter is relatively simple. Anything in your influence is under your control, and you can break it down. This is how you will carve out rooms and tunnels to make your dungeon. This is also one of the main ways you will get patterns to make items. Which brings us to your second question. As you absorb things, you learn to recreate the same things. Both as loot, assigned to drop when a mob dies, or just whenever you need it for some reason. For example, you will probably eventually arm some of your mobs with weapons and armour. Again, right now you won't have any patterns, but eventually you'll be able to make lots of different things."

Her explanation made sense, but gave me another question. "If I can just absorb anything in my dungeon, why don't I just absorb the weapons and armor of any adventurers who try to attack me?"

Ari shook her head. "You can't absorb anything too close to an adventurer. Their souls mess with your control, preventing you from absorbing anything they're holding, and from creating anything too close to them. Especially mobs. The adventurers cause a lot of interference with your ability to create new mobs."

That also made sense. If I could just add more mobs in the middle of an enemy group, or right next to weakened adventurers, it would be almost impossible for the adventurers to win. Well, that was pretty much all of my urgent questions, so now all that was left was to actually do something! "OK, how do I expand my influence?"

"Just select the option and mentally push your influence to expand. It will use up your essence to expand. I'd recommend starting down that tunnel."

It sounded pretty easy, so I decided to just throw in the towel. I selected 'increase influence' and started to push on the tunnel, like I'd pushed on the rock. It felt like pushing on the wall of one of those inflatable bounce-houses, as I slowly pushed my way down the tunnel. I only pushed in one place, but the area I could see spread out like a bubble, slowly making a tube about the width of the tunnel.

I continued down the tunnel for about 10 feet, before the bounce-house wall became a brick wall. I glanced at my dungeon menu. Empty. This was going to be a long process. On the bright side, my essence was now increasing faster.

Alex Johnson

Earth Core - G8

Essence - 0/50

Core generation - 5 per hour

Dungeon generation - 3 per hour

Dungeon actions:

Increase influence

Absorb matter

Create item

Create mob

"I did it!" It wasn't much, but I was glad I could now see a bit more. It hadn't taken long to get bored in the small room I was in.

Ari grinned. "Great! How far down the tunnel did you get?"

"Probably about 10 feet."

Ari laughed, the sound of dancing wind chimes rang again, filling the small room. I wasn't quite sure what I'd said that was so funny. "Alex, dear, how tall do you think I am?"

Immediately I knew this was dangerous territory. Possibly my first life-threatening moment as a dungeon core. Guessing a woman's size was never a risk-free action, but at least I usually had a reference point. As she asked, I realized I had literally no point of reference here. I didn't even know what measuring system she used. I figured I'd guess a pretty average size and hope I wasn't too far off. Vagueness was also my friend here. "A bit over 5 feet?"

Ari then smiled a smile that would've chilled me to the bones, had I had any. "And how much do I weigh?"

I didn't even know a voice could be so sweet and yet so menacing at the same time! If before I'd been walking on thin ice, now I was dancing the can-can on a rope bridge made of toilet paper. In the rain. Above a volcano. As I panicked and tried to think of something to say, Ari laughed. "Just kidding. I'm about average height for a dungeon fairy, coming in at about 6 inches tall. And I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh." She smiled again, this one her normal one. "So you probably made it about a foot. Still quite good!"

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

The burst of relief as I escaped certain death definitely softened the disappointment of discovering my entire dungeon would fit in my garbage can back home. Still, it meant I had a long ways to go. That made me think of something. "Ari, you said the oldest cores have hundreds or thousands of different mob options. How long can a dungeon core survive?"

Ari blinked. "Until they are killed. Dungeon cores don't age. Some powerful cores have gotten tired of defending themselves and just closed off their dungeons and eventually disappeared from the knowledge of everyone, every other core is either still alive or has been destroyed."

That was … unexpected. I wasn't sure how I felt being told I was semi-immortal. It was obviously cool, but I couldn't quite wrap my head around it. I decided to leave considering that until later. "So, … now what?"

Ari shrugged. "Now we wait until your essence regenerates. Building a dungeon isn't a quick process. Fortunately we both have ways to counter boredom. As a dungeon fairy I can hibernate and effectively skip some time, and you can do something very similar. But for now there's one more thing you can do. Absorb matter doesn't require any essence. And, it takes practice to do it quickly, just like training a muscle. So select absorb matter and try to absorb one of the tiny pebbles in this room."

I wasn't quite sure what she meant, but everything thus far had been pretty simple, so I decided to just have a go at it. I selected absorb matter and focused on what I'd thought was a large rock, but that turned out to be a tiny pebble. As I focused on it being absorbed, it suddenly shattered. But not like a rock normally shattered, this rock seemed to just collapse in on itself in dozens or hundreds of places, then once all that was left were those specks, they broke into tiny specks of light that floated around for a few seconds before disappearing. It was actually super beautiful, it almost reminded me of a fireworks show.

Pattern acquired!

Granite pebble

Cool! My first pattern! As I absorbed the pebble, I was a bit distracted by the light show, but I suddenly understood everything about that pebble. Everything it went through as it was being created. Every tiny flaw in the crystal structure of the granite. Every impact it had received that left the slightest chip. Every tiny crack and chip on its surface, or inside of it. I knew the different flows and swoops in the colors. In fact, there was so much info that I immediately started to get a headache. Then, I felt it packaged up and stored away. Now I knew basic stuff about the rock, but not too much. But I knew that when I made the rock it would definitely be exactly like the one I had absorbed. "I did it." I figured she'd already know, due to the rock disappearing, but I figured she was giving me time to work through the massive info dump from absorbing it.

Ari grinned. "Great job! Now you could recreate that same rock. I'm guessing you got notified that you gained a pattern, probably called something like Granite pebble if I guess correctly?"

I noticed the very distinct way she said "granite pebble", which somehow matched the way it had looked in the notification. "Yeah. Ari, why does the name look like that? You even said it weird."

Ari nodded. "That's right, I haven't explained loot rarity yet. Every item has a rarity. The pebble is Bland rarity, so in notifications it will show up like that. The rarities are Bland, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Unique. You’ll probably never see a Unique item, and anything above Rare is probably going to be a good while before you see any. Most of the loot you give out will be in the bottom three levels."

I had a question. "Why don't I just always give the best item I have for loot? Wouldn't that get the most adventurers in my dungeon?"

Ari shook her head. "I'm going to give you a minute to see if you can find any errors in that logic yourself before I answer."

I thought about it. If I dropped powerful items, that would make coming in more appealing. I tried to think about an example I knew to figure out what might happen. I thought of the California gold rush. A massive influx of people all trying to get a limited resource. A mass influx of people who then colonized the area. It would probably mean I would have large cities grow close to me, which didn't seem like a problem.

I thought about it some more. When massive amounts of something hit the markets back home, that item would devalue. This would mean I would be devaluing my most valuable loot. That was a problem. Then I thought of something else. Many resources on Earth were controlled by one or more groups of people who would look very poorly on someone who started devaluing the product. "Anyone else who produced that item would be rather unhappy that I was giving out so many of them so easily, and probably react violently before I was ready to defend myself."

Ari's eyebrows went up. "I hadn't even thought of that one, but it's quite possible."

If she hadn't thought of it, that meant there were others. I thought for a few more seconds, and thought of another. "If I'm putting out enough value, people might start to fight over me, and I would be possibly in a good bit of danger through this."

Ari nodded her head, but moved her hand in a so-so motion. "True, but you already have a very high value just due to being a core. So you can't really avoid that one."

That was unfortunate, but it just meant I'd have to get ready to defend myself. I tried to think of another reason, and then I realized something. I'd been thinking about the impact it would have on earth, I was somewhere totally different now. As soon as I started looking at the differences, I saw a big problem. "By having extra valuable loot, I'd pull in stronger adventurers. The problem with this is I'd probably never be able to kill one. Which means I wouldn't get any essence. That sounds undesirable, based on what you told me."

Ari nodded. "Exactly, and for two reasons. First, as I explained, you get a lot of essence from deaths in your dungeon. Second, essence you collect from your influence doesn't add to your tier after you reach F9. This is why dungeons don't just hide in the ground until they are stronger. Once you reach F9 there isn't much point in waiting longer to break the surface and start fighting adventurers. This combines to prevent you from growing very much at all. I know of a dungeon core that revealed too soon its ability to create phoenix feathers. It's been centuries, probably millenia at this point, and the dungeon core still hasn't reached the E tier."

That definitely didn't sound like something I wanted. I decided I should definitely keep the loot drops even with the fight to get them. I decided that since I had the pattern, I might as well try "create item". Just as I was about to select it, Ari started talking again. "Now you should probably learn how to create an item. For something simple like a rock it takes practically no essence, so you'll be able to practice without wasting much essence. When you select create item, you'll be able to make minor changes. The changes can't be too large, but things like changing size or shape are totally doable. Greater changes are harder, but you can do them a bit at a time as you absorb it to get a new pattern closer to what you want. Usually though, you wind up with enough patterns that things you want are pretty close to a pattern you already have."

I selected "create item", happy to know it wouldn't take much essence. As I selected the action, I saw a list of all of my patterns. It was depressingly small.

Create:

Granite pebble

Still, I guess only one option made it easy to find what I wanted. That gave me a question. "Ari, how do dungeons with hundreds or thousands of patterns ever find the ones they want? Should I be avoiding filling my lists with useless patterns?" I didn't know if I could even do that, but I also wanted to plan ahead if it meant saving myself from scrolling through lists of thousands of items to find the one I wanted.

Ari smiled. "Eventually you'll get better at using the menu and you'll be able to sort the list mentally and remove things that don't match what you're looking for. It will become natural, and eventually you won't even use the list as long as you know what you're looking for."

That was good, I liked the idea of not looking through long lists every time I needed to make something. I also paused for a moment, grateful that Ari wasn't bugged by my incessant questions. "Also, thanks for answering all of my questions. I guess I really didn't know much of anything."

Ari laughed, smiling again. She was a very happy person. Or, well, a very happy fairy. "No problem, that's why I'm here! Also, we've long passed the stuff most people would have known, and you've shown you're a fast learner, so we're probably about normal at this point anyway. Most cores have a much harder time understanding the dungeon menu. "

That was good to know. I'd rather catch up to normal as soon as possible. In fact, I had a sinking feeling in my non-existent stomach that I wouldn't have very long at all before I had to start keeping the balance. As far as the dungeon menu went, it seemed pretty natural to me, but if I'd never used a computer I could see how it would be unfamiliar and probably a bit hard to grasp. As I selected the Granite pebble pattern, I saw something that reminded me of a 3-d modeling program. I could still see the room like normal, but I could also see a semi-transparent rock, completely identical to the one I'd just absorbed. I could also sense a table with some information about the rock.

Granite pebble

Time to create: 0.1 seconds

Essence to create: 0.08 essence (0.1 × .8)

Just before I asked Ari about the essence required I realized it was probably because of the bonus from being an earth core. Still, I had one other question. "Time to create?"

Ari nodded. I realized she was really good at determining what I was talking about with just a few words. "Creating items takes longer than absorbing them. Large items, complicated items, and rarer items tend to take longer to create. As you practice and grow stronger, the time required for a certain item will decrease."

"Thanks. Also, I'll try to ask better questions, it's probably pretty hard to figure out what I'm talking about sometimes."

Ari smiled. "Not really, if I try I can see what you're looking at because of the bond."

"Ari," I said, still slightly cautious, "what all can you do with the bond?"

Ari grew more serious, probably feeling a bit how important this question was to me. "I can currently talk to you like we have been, which occasionally gives me insights into your emotions if you let them slip through the link. I can see your dungeon menu and what you're currently looking at, and I can see anything in your influence, just like you, although doing so for long periods gives fairies a headache. Also, your dungeon mobs will not attack me by default, considering me part of your dungeon. Finally, I can end the bond at will, just as you can. I'll get additional abilities as our bond strengthens, but I'll tell you about those as we get close to my having them, how does that sound?"

That sounded fine to me, and none of her abilities sounded like anything I opposed. "That sounds fine, thanks. I just get a bit nervous when agreeing to things I don't know everything about."

Ari smiled and nodded. "Totally understandable."

With that short detour over, I looked back at the rock that had just been waiting for me. I knew I could make it show up with just a mental push, but I wanted to try the editing thing Ari had talked about. As I focused on the rock, I imagined it being larger. It quickly grew to the size I imagined. I wondered how far I could push this editing ability. I stretched the stone, making it longer, but not wider. It again followed my wishes. I noticed that as I increased the size of the rock, both the time required and the essence required increased.

I continued messing with the rock. I shifted the different areas of rock around, moving the different colors around. Being a geologist, I tried to create a different kind of rock by adjusting the rock, but it didn't like that. Every time I got too far, it would reset to the original rock. Eventually I gave up on that and decided to see how much I could change the shape of the rock. I stretched it and started making strange shapes. I got a star and a circle, cube and a cone. Then I decided to try something fun. I started by making it about 6 inches tall, about 3 inches across, and approximately cylindrical. Then I started chopping chunks off. Fortunately, if I chopped a chunk off that was in error, I could just add it back. This made sculpting far easier. Eventually it was perfect. Or as perfect as I was probably going to get, I wasn't much of an artist. It was a good bit more complex than a rock, so I wasn't surprised when it took a lot longer to make and took a good bit more essence. Still, I was happy with it.

Ari jumped a bit as she came face to face with … herself! I had crafted a pretty good copy of her. It wasn't perfect, but the ability to undo any mistakes and the ability to superimpose the image on her were both very helpful. I found myself a bit nervous as I wondered how she'd respond. She'd seemed pretty cheerful thus far, but I had only known her for … I realized I had no idea how long we'd been talking. Without any points of reference, I was having a hard time judging things like time. My internal clock, as it were, was very off. I decided to keep closer track using my essence regeneration.

Ari jumped off of my core and went over and hovered by the statue I'd made. She grinned. "Not bad, although it's certainly not perfect, it's unusually good for a first try. Again, you seem to get the hang of dungeon abilities far faster than most cores."

My tiny bit of knowledge in 3-d modeling had probably helped a lot here. Turns out using a 3-d printer in high school for a little while was actually a useful life skill. Assuming you got turned into a dungeon core. As Ari further examined the statue, I decided to clean up the room. It was currently littered with random pebbles and larger rocks, so I started using "absorb matter" to get rid of them. As I absorbed one of the rocks near the wall, it revealed a little cubby in the wall and something rolled out. "Hey Ari? What's that?"

Ari looked over at the object, and her eyes bulged. If they were any bigger, they'd have jumped out and hovered there on their own. "No way! You found … a dungeon seed!"