“So regardless of whether I stay small or grow larger, stay up here or knock on that dungeons' borders, or if I stay defenseless or grow an army, the Ouroboros will still come for my Dungeon?” Ponders 418.
“Yes.” responds Guide.
“Well then screw it. If I’m going to try and consume me regardless of what I do, then I ain’t going down without one hell of a fight. I will fight because my life depends on it. I will not go quietly into that gentle night. No sir. I will kick, claw, and scream until I fall or am victorious. And if I do fall, I hope I teach Ouroboros true fear so it never tries to pull this shit again.” Exclaims 418. “But, by the way you talk about that dungeon, it sounds like no force I can muster will be enough.”
“How will you teach it anything, it's nowhere near as sapient nor as sentient as you are. But yes, any force - as a dungeon - you could muster would prove insufficient. Ouroboros is a very old dungeon that has consumed many other dungeons and has much at its disposal, be it forces, resources or just plain size. Given enough time, it is possible you could create a force to repel its forces, but the amount of time we have is too uncertain.”
“ Yeah, that's about what I figured. Wait, any force as a dungeon? That means the forces created by the dungeon, right?” 418 says with a tone that sounds like they had an idea.
“Yes, that is correct. By the way you’re talking it sounds like you have a plan?”
“Just about. Hey Guide, does this world have a concept similar to adventurers?”
“Adventurers? You mean those people who work for the adventurers guild in exchange for monetary compensation? The ones who hunt wild monsters and help keep unruly dungeons in check? The ones whose headquarters are on the central continent of Ul’tarow?”
“Bing bong! That is exactly correct. Except for that last part because that seems a little specific to this world. But that is beside the point, my plan is to create a dungeon paradise so that they will come here and by being here come to defend us from the forces of Ouroboros when they attack the Dungeon.”
“A paradise?”
“Yes, a paradise. A single place where adventures can get resources from a variety of locations instead of traveling across the continents. And a town near this paradise that is in the dungeon. Because you know some idiot is going to try to build a town around this dungeon saying ‘This dungeon needs a town around' cause no dungeon is complete without a town.’ So I'm gonna cut out that line of thought before it even begins. Though I'm not going to let them live here for free because ‘there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.’ Doing that will make it easier for them to accept this.”
“Why would making them pay to live here make them more likely to accept it?”
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“The concept of ulterior motives. Most humans are greedy and look at charity with skepticism and doubt. This is true especially if the charity is good natured and real. So making them think that I am doing this for money will assuage their fear. Also we need money to run a town.”
“Yeah, that is true. But are you sure you want to take on this task? It seems rather difficult.”
“Don’t say that to an Architect. I would not be here if I did not think I could do this.” 418 replied in a way that seemed to bemuse themselves.
Suddenly a series of memories come flooding back. They - no she- remembers that she worked in a large architectural firm. She worked her way up from the bottom of the company to one of the top of the company. Her name was… well that part was still missing but, 418 was shocked by this turn of events “I have said that before. Why didn’t I remember it until now? I thought I had lost those memories.”
“When a soul is reincarnated in this world, memories are typically moved to the deeper mind that requires them to have some sort of trigger to return to the mind. This is done to not overload a newborn mind with information, but in your case since your mind is not a mortal mind… ”
“I had most of my memories of my past life”
“Exactly. Although some memories will be sealed. In particular memories that are related from previous identities are almost always sealed.”
“Why did they seal those memories to begin with?”
“I wouldn't know. Perhaps the only beings who would are the gods”
“The gods?”
“Ethil, Parcel, and Loteria. The gods who watch over this land. It is said they know all things that happen in this world. However they are not known to watch the world below the heavens too often, only when something catches their interest. But, if you do meet them I’m sure they could tell you what happened.”
“Guess I'll add that to the to-do list. Also, I am adding learning materialization to it as well because it would be helpful to help fool people into thinking I'm not the dungeon itself, because I’ll be there with them. Also I will probably need to think of an alias, something gender neutral for now because you wouldn’t believe how common gender bending is in literature. But back on topic, if I want adventures here they half to know where here is. Guide how does the Adventures guild track the location of a dungeon?”
“By tracking the unique signal proceed by a dungeon's entrance.”
“And what is the requirement for building an entrance?”
“The requirements for an entrance are for there to be at least 3 rooms in the dungeon besides the core and 1 of those rooms need to be bigger than 400 sq. ft.”
“Great. Well then, now it’s time for the big remodeling project to begin”
----------------------------------------
418's to-do list
Build the dungeon town and think of a name for it
Gain the ability to use materialize
Make an alias
Gather up forces
Improve the town
Improve my own defenses
Defeat Ouroboros
Meet the gods to learn my reason for being reincarnated into this world and the parts of my memory was sealed