The instant Knaxis was gone all the overwhelming, and crushing fear disappeared. Robert went from fighting against an outside pressure pushing down on his body, to moving the way his arms and legs regularly moved. With the compulsion was gone and he came close to hurting himself in the resulting awkward jerky motion.
Looking around, about a fifth of the people he was planning to live with were getting up. The rest still lay on the ground, and many were crying to themselves or rocking back and forth.
Putting his red gemstones in his pocket, he went to look at Samantha — the girl he had fallen on top of when he was trying to get up. She was still lying on the grass and was staring at some distant spot unblinkingly. Shit was smeared down her leg from when she had been forced to stand and get the gemstone by the Knaxis thing.
“Samantha? Samantha? Are you okay?” Robert said, but Samantha didn’t say anything.
“I think she is catatonic,” Leslie said. “My last coop job working at a clinic as an assistant physical therapist. Some of the patients who came through had different mentally ill. Mostly PTSD, but we also had a few catatonic patients come in. With catatonia, well… some snap out of it quickly. Others… it can go on for years. With treatment, they often get better, but without treatment, just stay like that. Staring off into nothing or having occasional outbursts.”
“What do you think we should do?” Rob asked.
Samantha thought about it for a couple of seconds, “Get her cleaned up. Put her somewhere safe. Somewhere where Samantha can’t hurt herself. We may have to use spare some mattresses, and pad the walls of a room if it turns out she has the malignant form; otherwise, she will hurt herself.”
Leslie looked around. It became apparent that there were other people in precisely the same state as Samantha. Fortunately, not many. By now, almost everyone was standing. But four people other than Samantha was clearly staring off into nothing. “It isn’t just a problem with Sam. Other people are sick too.”
From over by the door to the cafeteria, Huang called out “Robert. Leslie. Can either of you bring your key? I want to check out the chapel to see if this ‘Species Stone’ is about.”
Leslie shouted back, “Can’t you see we are taking care of Sam over here.”
Robert put his hand on Leslie’s shoulder, “No, Huang is right,” then he called out, “give me a second, and I will be right over.”
“You have to stop letting him get his way, Robert. People like him take a foot if you give them an inch,” said Leslie quietly as Robert started walking toward the door.
People were avoiding looking at the two people lying on the ground. There was no blood. It is strange what you notice. Something would have to be done. Maybe bury them over by the trees.
Huang and his friends Brent and Oscar, were standing by the door. “Unreal, don’t you think?” Oscar said. “Alien tentacle monsters and not in a sexy way.”
“Two people are dead, and a lot of people are scared, Brent.” Said Robert, then he said. “No, forget I said that. I’m on edge, and this is totally nobody’s fault except whatever brought us here and that Knaxis thing. I think I have a clue about what is going on though.”
“What?” Brent said.
Robert hadn’t liked Brent since the day about two years ago when he’d caught the guy peering into a window of one of the TV rooms in the morning. Sometimes people would use the couches in the TV rooms to have sex when they didn’t want to kick their roommates out of a shared room. Robert hadn’t reported him to the admin, but there had been a tension between them ever since.
“Just wait. I want to see what this Species Stone does.” Robert replied.
The four of them walked through the cafeteria, and then up a short flight of stairs. There was balcony around three of the walls of the cafeteria, forming an atrium overlooking the seating below. On top of the kitchens were some offices, and just outside of the offices was the dorm chapel.
Stained glass windows flanked a solid wood door. The chapel was huge. While very few people actually went to church service, space had been constructed more with happy, hopeful yearnings
Robert pulled out his keys and unlocked the door.
The minute the door opened a feeling of peace, comfort, and serenity filled his being. In the center of the room was a pulsating Stone. A blue screen appeared in front of Robert’s eyes.
You are now entering a Human Species-Specific Safe Zone.
Only members of the human species are permitted within the area of the aura.
Default species respawn location.
Individual Processing and Quantification.
Bonuses to Life, Purify, and Ritual Magic.
Anchor.
“What the hell,” Oscar said.
Brent said, “Did you see that Huang? What do you think is going on.”
“I don’t know.” Huang flicked his finger at it. “But it goes away if you touch it.”
Actually, Robert had an idea but withheld saying anything. There were too many coincidences involved, and he could be wrong.
For a moment, Huang said nothing, and then he said, “The monster said we are supposed to touch the gemstone to the stone. Robert, you might as well go first.”
“Why me?” Said, Robert.
“Aren’t you supposed to be our Senior Resident Advisor,” said Huang smiling. “You lead, we follow.”
“Somehow, I don’t think the Director of Residence had any of this in mind when they wrote my job description,” Robert said with some sarcasm. “Oh well, umm no guts, no glory? Are you sure none of you want to go first, right?”
Huang and his three friends shook their heads.
Without speaking, Robert stepped forward, took the gemstone out of his pocket, and held it to the Species Stone. A blue box formed in front of his eyes. The box was exactly like the blue wall of text which appeared as soon as they’d entered the chapel.
“Well…,” Huang said.
“Have any of you ever played D&D?” Robert said.
“Yeah, back in high school. Plus Ahmed keeps trying to get me to join his group,” said Huang.
“I see something that looks a lot like a D&D character sheet. All the stats -- I assume they are my stats -- are written a blue screen like the one when we saw when we came into this room. For some reason, the thing that brought us here isn’t more advanced than an ugly HTML table. No CSS even.”
Robert stopped speaking for a few minutes while he looked closely at everything.
“I see my name and stats. It isn’t strength, dexterity, and constitution but rather attributes like Fortitude, Endurance, and Deft. Everything is quantified with a number, though I’m not sure what the number means. I mean… well, it isn’t 3D6 like D&D.”
“Maybe a standard deviation?” Huang said.
“If it is, I’m fucked,” Robert replied.
Thinking about it for a couple of seconds, Robert said, “If it helps, the sheet says I have a strength of 22. Take that with a grain of salt. Maybe we find out everyone’s strength attribute then have an arm-wrestling contest to figure out what the numbers mean.”
Oscar looked confused, “Isn’t D&D all about spells and elves. Fireball and Summon Octogenarian and stuff like that. Do you have any spells?”
Focusing on the bottom part of the characters sheet, Robert said, “I don’t know about Summon Octogenarian or Fireball, but there is a section of the screen I’m looking at, has a heading labels Magic, and as sub-categories there are… I see Fire, and I see the word Summon. They are listed separately.”
Before anybody could ask a question or more likely make a demand, he said, “It says I got 1000 experience from the gemstone. When I focus on a stat, it tells me how much it costs to improve it.”
“Well, I’m looking at magic now. All the different types of magic seem to cost 100 experience. Let me try something.”
Since he was sick of being in the dark, Robert spent the required 100 xp on light magic. The instant he did, Robert understood light differently. Not differently in terms of wavelength and photons, but separately in the sense that if he just thought a certain way…
A little ball of bright white light — about the amount of light a candle gave off — appeared in Robert’s hand.
“Holy Shit,” Brent said.
“Magic!” hissed Huang, “This place is giving us access to magic.”
Explaining what he’d done, Robert said, “I just spent 100 of my experience on the magic category Light. I think this is all it does. No, scratch that. I just thought of something.”
A thought caused the color of the light to change from white to red. Then changing again, Robert cycled through a pattern of green, blue, black, and then back once more to white. During the entire time, the light had the same intensity. Then Robert concentrated again, and the light dimmed until it was only the faintest blip in the darkness, before flaring back into the brightness of a candle flame.
“Seems kind of useless. I mean it’s cool and all, because, hey magic. But that light is kind of puny. You said you spent 100 experience to get it? Out of 1000” Huang said.
Robert looked back at his character sheet. He only had 900 experience left, and he had one point in the magic category light.
“Yes and no. The next point in the light seems to be fairly low cost. Only 5xp. I think the initial cost is a barrier to entry. Let me try getting the next level.”
Leaving the small white light floating in the air, he added another point into light magic. His understanding of the concept ‘light’ grew again, and with that increased understanding, the ball of glowing white floating in front of him expanded. It now had the luminescent of a weak incandescent flashlight.
“That’s better. Let me try again. It is still 5xp for the next point.” He added another point. The brightness of the light changed to that of a regular incandescent flashlight. He also understood that he could move the light around with his mind if Robert concentrated, so he did, and the small ball of heatless energy float around the room to his will.
Biting the bullet, Robert added another point of light and the brightness of the sphere was as bright as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. He realized that he could now keep the tiny blaze as it was or he could incorporate heat into gleam.
“Well, that’s better. At least we can see. How many points is that.” Said Huang.
“Five points,” Robert said. “The next point says it costs 10 experience. And since I don’t want to spend all my experience in light. Let’s look at what else there is.”
Robert switched to his skills list. It was strange seeing all of his life listed out like this. He was extremely embarrassed by the 11 he had in Football compared with the 41 he’d scored understanding plots of Television Police procedurals. Obviously, he’d spent far too long watching Law and Order on TV. And the Wire. And NCIS. And Castle. And… Ugh… He vowed that he would never mention this skill to anyone.
Then when he focused on the category heading an entirely new page opened up.
Under that category was a ton of role-playing game skills. An inner sense told him that the list he was looking at was were all common skills that fit well with his species. When thought about what skills might not be suitable to his species an entirely new the appeared with thousands and thousands of abilities and talents on a vast bullet point list. Quickly he switched back to the list of fundamental skills.
“I’m looking at a skills tab. Lots and lots of medieval fantasy skills. More than I’ve ever seen in one place. Supposedly these are the common ones for our species. The list I see seem to only be a subsection of possible knowledge because when I look at the entire list, there are thousands and thousands of things listed.”
Robert looked a little longer. “Although I have a skill called Computer Science on my characters sheet, I don’t see it listed anywhere on the Dungeon list. Not even on the list of thousands of skills. And computer science seems to be greyed out. Same goes for a bunch of my other skills like Earth: Mythology and Language: English.”
“Huang, you’re in Computer Engineering, right? I would be interested in finding out how that translates. To the skill list. I don’t see electrical engineering anywhere, yet cell phones still work. Same goes for pistol or rifle skills. There are sword and knife skills, though.”
Looking over the skill list, Robert wished that he could reorganize it by function. Just thinking it and the blue screen changed. The index was now better organized. It wasn’t perfect, but at least things were together.
He saw one skill that he wanted to experiment with, “Let me try something.”
The weapon skills had all different prices. From 190 experience for Weapon: Sword to 80 experience for Dodge. Going for one of the cheaper ones, Robert spent 55 experience on Weapon: Unarmed.
A feeling rushed through Robert’s body, and suddenly he knew what to do in a fistfight. Making his best Keanu Reeves impression, Robert said, “I know Kung Fu. Well not really, but I can punch straight some of the time.”
Examining his character sheet instead of the single point in Unarmed, he had 10 points. “It cost me 55 experience points, but now I have a ten in Weapon: Unarmed. I don’t know why it didn’t start at one. Maybe the fact that I spent three months taking Karate, or that I used to get into fistfights with my cousin, helped”
Rob looked over the character sheet a bit more. “I can pretty much adjust everything. I can make myself stronger and faster and maybe even smarter. Increasing my strength 1 point costs like 170 experience points though.”
Robert fiddled with the character sheet a little more. “There is an entire another page that lets me adjust my body. Wow, I can give myself fur, or claws. I can spend experience to make myself older or younger. I can make my eyes see in the dark or even make my penis bigger or smaller. If I want to, I could spend 1000 experience point and make myself a woman?”
“You want to make yourself a woman, Robert? You queer or something?” Brent said.
“Screw you,” Robert replied.
Huang said, “That’s enough. Move aside, I want to try.”
Robert said, “No. I don’t know if the experience from the gem goes away if I take my hand off this rock. I’m not letting go until I spend my entire amount. Plus we should probably write down a list of skills and magic so that everyone else can make an informed choice.”
Huang thought about that. “Actually, that makes sense. Might as well plan our builds rather than just assign points helter-skelter. You occasionally do luck into good ideas.”
Robert said. “I think Reverend Bob keeps a notebook and some pens in the drawer where he keeps the collection plate. I don’t have the key so you might as well break the drawer open.”
Brent went over to the case and opened it, “Nobody bothered to lock it.” Then he pulled out a cash box, opened it. There must have been $200 in the box. Brent laughed, “Reverend Bob isn’t big on security.” Lastly, Brent pulled out a notebook and said, “so who’ll take notes?”
“You’re holding the notebook, you write,” Huang said.
Brent said, “Damn,” and then sat down in one of the pews, and said, “go on, start with the list.”
“Okay under attributes, there is:
Strength Will Chutzpah Fortitude Logic Charm Endurance Wit Empathy Agility Retention Deception Deft Recall Manipulation Speed Creativity Compatibility Muscle Memory Clarity Spontaneity Senses Perception Politic
“Under Magic they have:
Analyze Enchanting Mind Anima Fire Nature Anti-Magic Force Purify Arcane Foresight Ritual Body Frost Scry Charm Gravity Sense Congruity Life Sound Dark Light Space Death Lightning Summoning Earth Luck Time Empathy Magnetism Water
“And the basic skills it lists for humans are:
Acting Astrology Move quietly Bargain Astronomy Pick Pocketing Begging Augury Shadowing Comedy bookkeeping Spot Hidden Diplomacy Card counting Spot Trap Etiquette Cartography Stalking Gambling Chess Armor: Chain Haggle Cryptography Armor: Leather Hygiene Dentistry Armor: Plate Hypnotism Embezzling Armor: Shield Intimidate Evaluate Block Leadership Geology Brawling Painting Healing Dodge Poker Lip Reading Military: Strategy Public Speaking Magic Theory Military: Tactics Seduce Mathematics Stun Alchemy Mechanics Taunt Armor Smithing Mediation weapon: ballista basket weaving Music Theory Weapon: Bow Blacksmithing Navigation Weapon: Catapult Boat Building Numismatics Weapon: crossbow bookbinding Oenology Weapon: Dagger Bowyer pharmacology Weapon: Mace Brewing Poison Weapon: Spear Build Trap Rune History Weapon: Sword Carpentry Rune Lore Weapon: Unarmed Chandlery Runes Wrestling Cooking Scribe Art: Dungeon drawing Speculation Art: local Enchanting Surgery Art: Quatrill Fishing Surveying Art: Temmoria Fletcher Treat Sickness Art: Urbanth Gem Cutting acrobatics Fauna: Local glass blowing Contortionist Fauna: World Gold Smithing Courtesan Flora: Local Haberdasher Croupier Flora: World Jeweler Dance Geography: Local Leatherworking Dice Geography: World Mason Diving History: Dungeon Metalworking Gymnastics Knowledge: Quatrill Metallurgy hunting Knowledge: Adventurer paper making Instrument: Drums Knowledge: Dungeon pottery Instrument: Flute Knowledge: local Preserving Instrument: Harp Knowledge: Merchant sculpture Instrument: Horn Knowledge: Mythology Tailor Instrument: Lute Knowledge: Nobility Tanning Juggle Knowledge: Temmoria Weapon Smithing Lovemaking Knowledge: Urbanth Animal Husbandry Meditation Law: Local Animal Training Palm Object Literature: Dungeon Beekeeping Riding: Horse Literature: local Butchering Sailing Literature: Quatrill Farming Skiing Literature: Temmoria Herbalism Swim Literature: Urbanth Herding Tracking Politics: Dungeon Horticulture Tumbling Politics: Local Mining Camouflage Speak: Quatrill Orientation Disarm Speak: Temmorian Prospecting Disarm Trap Speak: Urbanth Ride: Horse Disguise Survivalist: Dungeon Skinning Distract Theology: Dungeon Veterinarian Hide Theology: Local Architecture Lock Picking Theology: World
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When he had read the last subject off of the list, Robert said, “You might as well go out and show everyone what we’ve figured out. Maybe gather up the Resident Advisors and find people who have played D&D or are into World of Warcraft or Elder Scroll or games like that. Explain things to them. Have them copy out the list maybe. I’m going to be a bit longer here making my build.”
It took Robert about half an hour to list out the entire contents. Not only was Brent a tool, but he also wasn’t a good secretary either. While he was doing this, Robert was thinking through what exactly he wanted to take for skills. In MMORPGs, he’d always played a mage. Now was his chance to live the dream. He would try for the same kind of build. On the other hand, there were so many things that needed to be done to get things working again.
Huang was about to leave, then a thought occurred to Robert, “I’m going to waste a few experience points and pick up either Knowledge: Dungeon or Geography: Local. And maybe some Magic Theory. The more we know, the better we can make decisions for the group.”
“Better you than me, wasting those points. Though are you sure you don’t want to talk someone clueless into wasting their points? I’m sure someone in Anthropology would go ape shit over the chance.” Huang said.
“It might as well be me. The more knowledge I have the better I can plan. I doubt anyone out there has more of a clue what’s going on, and I’m sure some people have considerably less. A lot of this reminds me of those dungeon-based light novels online.”
“It’s your life. Me, I don’t want some mind-controlling squid face to ever do that to me again. Not if I can help it. Better I kill it before it kills me.” Huang said.
“Yeah. I’d probably do that too if I were in your place. Now, fuck off, and let me figure some stuff out.”
“Death magic sounds cool. Maybe I’ll be a Death Knight or Necromancer.” Brent said.
“Whatever floats your boat Brent,” Huang said.
Huang and his two friends left the chapel, and Robert began contemplating his build. He had already spent 125 experience bringing Light Magic to five. The light from the spell he’d cast was still hanging in the air above him, lighting up the room. He barely noticed it. Light magic was good enough for now. He could see where he was going and maybe even do double duty as a heat lamp. But going forward he needed to know a lot more about Magic and what they might run into in the Dungeon.
It was painful, but he spent 195 experience in both Knowledge: Dungeon which gave him a ten in that skill. Suddenly he knew a lot of general knowledge about dungeons. That they were filled with monsters, traps, and treasure. That dungeon was controlled by a core. That this dungeon was called the Night’s Falsehood Dungeon. That Night’s Falsehood might be over 10,000 years old. That while some intelligent species within the dungeon spoke their own languages, that the most commonly spoken language, the language of trade and diplomacy was Quatrill. He knew that the weakest monster in this labyrinth before humans stumbled onto the scene were goblins. And lastly, the Core gave new species about two weeks to acclimatize themselves before opening the space up to adventures and monsters.
Robert debated picking up Quatrill but decided against it for now. Goblins, the knowledge he’d just learned, didn’t speak in more than grunts and their own simplified pidgin. Besides until humans could show that they were stronger, by either suppressing, conquering, or passing the goblins by, actually speaking them was pointless.
Woo-hoo 10 points of Knowledge: Dungeon.
Instead of picking up Knowledge: Local, Robert then spent another 195 points Magic Theory. A prompt appeared asking him if he wanted to accept the cost, and when he selected yes, his score in this area went up to 10, and he knew a little more about casting spells and vaguely what each category of spell casting did.
Unfortunately, now he only had 430 points left. He needed to be smart about this. His instinct told him to get a weapon skill. Something easily accessible. But he really wanted to be a spell caster. It was a hard decision. But in the end, the fact that their most likely next adversary would either be goblins or low-level adventures made a choice for him.
Robert put 190 experience in Lightning and 190 points in Enchanting. It cost 35 points to bring his light magic up to 8. Leaving him with only 15 points. Now for the test.
Robert took his hand off of the Species Stone. His character sheet disappeared from his head. Without touching the stone, Robert couldn’t figure out a way to bring the information back up again.
Touching the stone again brought back the blue screen with his Character Sheet. And he saw that his 15 experience was still there.
The next test he made was focusing on the ‘Remove’ category. A prompt appeared and asked him, ‘How much?’ Robert entered 15. Two small gems appeared in his hand, and he almost dropped them. A blue gemstone and a green one. On his character sheet, it now listed that he now had 0 experience points.
Touching the green gem to the Species stone, his experience points went up to 10. Then he used the blue gem, and his experience went up to 15.
Finally, it came to the last experiment he could think of for now. Reaching into his pocket, Robert pulled out one of the two red gems that he had stolen from psycho squid boy. Robert noticed that the red gemstone was significantly larger than either the blue or the green stones. Then he pressed the red gem to the ’Species Stone.’ On his character sheet, he saw his that his experience points had just jumped up to 1015.
He almost let out a small cheer. Instead, he quickly took out the other gemstone he’d stolen and brought it into contact with the Species Stone. The number 2015 was now listed under experience points.
From his knowledge of magical theory, he knew that he could use Runes and Enchanting to do incredible things. People with both skills and at least one magic ability could imbue their magic ability into objects. Since he had Light and Lightning, if he picked up Runes, he would be able to make stones that glowed like lightbulbs as long as someone put mana into them. Or he could make rocks that shocked people when they touched them.
Enchanting imbued the power into an object, runes directed that power. More importantly, he was pretty sure that even with just lightning as weak as it was, he could deliver a steady stream of electricity to anything, which would make charging cellphones and iPads a thing now. With Enchanting and Runes, he could conceivably create objects that would allow anyone to do this. Furthermore, the more points he put into Lightning magic, the more volts and amps he could supply.
Instead, he needed stuff he could use in an emergency. So instead he spent 1100 experience points to bring his Lightning Magic and Enchanting up to 20. He thought about bringing his Unarmed combat skill up to 20 but decided against it for now.
One thing he noticed was that from 10 points to 11 points or from 11 points to 12 points was precisely the same for increasing both magic and skills. The small differences he’d seen when he’d looked at weapon skills must have been because he already knew some unarmed combat but didn’t have a clue what to do with a sword.
To check this hypothesis, Robert looked at what it would cost to pick up cooking. Fifteen experience points would bring his cooking skill to ten. Which made sense since, he was pretty damned good at boiling hot dogs, microwaving burritos, and was a master of the ancient and noble arts of ramen noodles and grilled cheese.
Next, Robert spent 380 experience points and picked up 10 points in Runes and the magic Analyze.
Analyze was a no brainer. Analyze was the magic of examining things. It was like a scientific tool that anybody who had the magic carried around with them all the time. With the skill, he could look at things and glean information like cellular structures, temperatures, light conditions, types of magic used, that kind of thing. The higher the skill level, the more potent the talent. More importantly, he could also peer at someone or something and puzzle out their statistics. Or look at a magic item and puzzle out what it did. At level 10, the skill was slow and provided minimal information. But Robert knew that any information was useful information and that Identify was a core skill.
Which left Robert with 535 experience points to spend. It cost 260 experience to bring Runes up to 15. Then another 190 points picking up ten points of Water Magic. The reason for this was that the plumbing was off in the dorms, and Robert liked being clean. He could have picked up ten points in Purify instead. Purify removed impurities, so if he took off his shirt and cast purify on it, he would end up with a clean shirt. If he cast the magic on his sweaty pits, it would be like he washed there.
The big reason he didn’t take Purify was that as a side benefit Purification magic would destroy the undead. While as a side benefit, Water magic could be drunk. There were no skeletons or zombies around, but he was thirsty.
Seventy-five points more points in Light, bringing that up to ten and he had 70 experience points left for a rainy day. He wasn’t a powerhouse. He couldn’t yet wade into combat and decimate his enemies. But he could help make life just a tiny bit better for the people he’d been marooned in this dungeon with.
An enormous feeling of loss filled Robert as he left the Chapel. As he’d been working on his character, he’d almost forgotten the sense of profound peace and health that had filled him in the designated safe zone. He hadn’t felt hungry, or thirsty, and he felt cleaner from merely having spent time in the room. The smell of urine was gone, and his bathrobe felt like it had just come out of the laundry machine.
In the future, he could see the chapel being a popular place to hang out. Far more than in the past when it was being used for its intended purpose.
Almost every head turned towards Robert as he stepped out of the dorm. He couldn’t see Huang anywhere, even with the light shining over his head brightening up the courtyard. He mentally directed it to sit on top of the flagpole. Then he walked towards his friends Leslie, Susan, Akiko, and Ahmed.
People were staring at him. Well, they were staring at the light more than anything, and people were either whispering and exclaim in shock. He also saw that the bodies of the two hockey players had disappeared.
“How are things going?” Robert asked.
Leslie and Ahmed both started to speak at the same time. Leslie said, “I’m stuck between asking you how you managed that light and telling you that I’m not sure what to do with these poor catatonic people. They need to be looked after, and I don’t know who can do it. A few of us have been talking to them and trying to coax them out of their stupor,” Leslie said.
While Ahmed said, “Holy shit, is that magic? You have the light spell? What about magic missiles, or Bigby’s Ever Fondling Digits? How many hit points do you get? Robert, you simply just gotta show me how to do magic. I’ll even let you borrow some of my Virgins after I die. I think I’m about to cream myself here.”
Susan, who was standing next to Ahmed, punched Ahmed in the arm.
Robert said, “Just a second Ahmed.” Then he turned to Leslie, “I have an idea about that. We should move them to the chapel. It is amazing in there. There is this aura of calm and serenity that must be magical. And it is a safe zone. I’ve learned that safe zones are sacrosanct in this dungeon.”
“You’ve learned?” Leslie said. “How have you learned?”
“Didn’t Huang, Brent, and Oscar say anything, when they came back? And what happened to the two corpses” Robert asked.
“Huang showed up, grabbed a few people, and then they all went back into the building. The corpses turned into glowing colors and then disappeared an hour ago. It was as if someone had beamed them up,” Sarah said, looking ferocious in her Kendo gear.
“And none of Huang’s group said anything? Nothing at all?” Robert said.
“No. Should they have?”
“I asked them to let everyone know what is going on.”
By now a group of well… everyone had gathered around Robert.
Darnell asked, “What is going on?” And a chorus of people said “Yeah,” “Come on, Rob, share.”
Looking at the group, Robert raised his hand for silence. It didn’t work like in the movies, and people kept on asking him to tell them what was going on. Finally, Robert said, “If you let me speak, I will try to tell you. Raise your hand if you play role-playing games? Things like World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons, Shadow Run, Skyrim. That kind of thing.”
As to be expected from a school that specialized in engineering, science, and mathematics, a lot of people raised their hand. Well over half the people standing around. But almost everyone looked confused as to why he was bringing up video games.
“I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. Imagine you’re playing World of Warcraft. You get a group together to run an instance. Say the Scarlett Monastery, Ice Crown Citadel, or the Deadmines. You enter the instance and make your way through the dungeon fighting whatever monsters get in the way. Go gather loot and beat bosses until you have conquered the dungeon. Do you get what I'm saying so far.”
People were nodding all around Robert, so he took a deep breath. “Well, I hate to say this, but it looks like we have become the monsters.”
“WHAT!” Cries of outrage rose around them.
“When they find the entrance to this cave, they will start coming down here looking for treasure and experience. They will have Warriors, Magic-Users, Priests, Rogues, all the standard raiding party. Our function is to try to kill them before they kill us. If we kill them, we get experience points, learn skills, practice magic. If they kill us, they get treasures and improve in their chosen classes. The only differences are that they can leave the dungeon, and we re-spawn in the Chapel after we have been killed, while they die forever.”
Robert let that sink in before he said.
“But not only that. This is a big dungeon. Supposedly it is over a hundred floors, though I don’t know the exact number. I was only able to pick up really general info.”
“Right now, we are among the weakest creatures in the dungeon. But we have some advantages. When we die, we reappear in the chapel. This probably starts after we use the red gemstone that thing forced us to take. But that red gem also gives us access to magic, lets us learn skills, and make ourselves more powerful. \
“I should mention that we can do anything we can think of to defend ourselves. When you enter a dungeon, there are traps, false trails, hidden rooms that kind of thing. We have to build those kinds of things to defend ourselves. \
Looking around and Robert saw that most of the people around him weren’t convinced. The leap between imagining being in a fantasy adventure and actually being in a fantasy adventure was a vast and terrifying jump. These people had seen just people they'd known die. They could also see the promise implied by Robert’s magic light. And lastly, they remembered an ugly naked squid faced monster. And most importantly, they were stuck inside a cave who knows where when by all reason they should have been on a University campus in Southern Ontario.
“Look. I don’t want to die. Even if I die and come back again, I don’t want to die again.” Robert said. “From what I know, in about two weeks, the entrance to our cave will open up. It will still be hidden on the first floor of The Night’s Falsehood dungeon. But it will not take that long to find. When that happens, things will start coming into this cave. Most of those things will be trying to kill us. Some of them will be trying to eat us."
“Those red gems give us at least a fighting chance. That stone links us to the system. Until you are linked, you can die. Once you touch the gemstone to the big rock that is in the chapel, you will get a character sheet, and you become functionally immoral. In front of your face, a character sheet like in D&D and World of Warcraft appears that only you can see.”
People were listening, focused, and Robert continued. “Like all character sheets, this is a summary of who you are. It lists your strengths and weaknesses in vague categories like strength and intelligence that you can improve. The sheet also quantifies everything you already know. For example, it told me that I have a 22 in strength and a 35 in Driving.”
“Ummm… I still don’t know the exact method the system uses to quantify things, so don’t ask me. Nor do I understand why it is the same price to raise easy skills with experience as it is to raise hard ones. ”
“When. I was fiddling with my character sheet I took light magic mostly because I figured the batteries to my flashlight would run out.” Robert pointed to the glowing ball of light that was floating above the flag pole. “That is the result of 10 points in Light Magic. One point looks like this.” Robert caused a second small pinpoint of light to appear beside him.
“As far as I can tell, everyone’s gemstone gives out 1000 experience points. And you can spend those points on pretty much anything on a vast list. That light cost 190 of those points.”
“Now let me show you something else if everyone would stand well back behind me.”
Muttering in anger, shock, curiosity or even excitement but mostly still in shock, the group backed up behind Robert. When they were about 15 feet away from the flag pole, Robert said. “I’ve never done this before, so I’m gonna try to be careful. It may be slow.”
He let a small blast of electricity shoot through his hand. About 1 point of magic worth. Nothing visible happened. Then he upped the strength a little more. Then a little more. Then a little more until at around seven points worth, and only for a second, a visible arc of electricity connect himself to the flag pole.
“Yes folks, I can shoot lightning,” Robert said, “And I intend to try and blast every monster or adventurer who comes to try and kill me with as much lightning as I can.”
“Keep in mind that there are other skills and magics too.”
“Akiko, I want you to seriously consider getting Space Magic. At its lower levels, it lets you know where you are, and it eventually leads to teleportation. I’m hoping that if you can get it high enough you can move our cave somewhere safer, and if you get it really really high, maybe even bring us home.”
“There is nature magic if you want to grow trees and talk to ducks. But more importantly, nature magic will let us raise crops quickly so we can actually eat when the stuff in the kitchen runs out. There are skills like enchanting, which if I can get high enough and get my lighting high enough might let us turn the power in the dorm back on.”
“If you want, you can go in there and learn how to use a sword, wear armor and taunt your enemies. You can learn herbology and alchemy. Someone with Enchanting and enough Water Magic could make the water pipes, and more importantly, the showers turn on again.”
Robert looked around at the faces that we’re gathered around him. He saw a glimmer of hope and more importantly, excitement on some people. Mostly on the faces of the people he knew were gamers. A lot of the downcast look and hopelessness was gone.
“I know this isn’t ideal. Guys, if it came right down to it, I’d rather be back in Canada taking classes, complaining about the cafeteria food, and studying for midterms. But we are stuck here, and we might as well set it up so that nobody can take advantage of us.”
“At the very least, let's move this conversation into the chapel. It is safe in there. Adventurers can’t come in, and other monsters won’t kill us in there. We still have time, but I think you guys need to be confronted by the reality of what is going on, and looking at a big glowing red stone might help with that. There is a purification aura there, which will clean us off, and a healthy aura of that hopefully will help those poor catatonic people feel better.”\
Robert was about to start walking, when Wendy, a second-year actuary major and one of Leslie’s friends, said, “How do you know all this.”
Robert said, “Part of what I spent my experience points on was taking a skill called Dungeon Lore, and a skill called Magic Theory. Those skills taught me the basics. If it helps, when I opened my character sheet, I discovered I had an 11 in football. Some of you have played football with me on the green, and you’ve hung around me when we watched an NFL or CFL game on TV. Last year for our fantasy football league, I used a random number generator to make my picks. Whatever system this world uses to quantify things, I now know about as much about this dungeon, and the magic of this world, as I do about football. Let that sink in.”
Robert looked around at the group. “Look we’re all scared and confused. Trust me, I get it. I am too. But I think if we work together as a community, make some smart choices in the next few days, we can make this work. We just need to get skills and magic that compliments each other and that work off of our strengths.”
“We also need to accept that while some of us will want to go out there and fight. But I also know that a lot of people will want to stay back and be safe. I get that. We just need to work together, and do the sort of things that each and every one of us is good at.”
People nodded. Robert hadn’t precisely given an inspiring speech. That wasn't his fault as he had had never learned how to do the rousing thing. He was more of a convey information kind of person. Hopefully, people could come to grip with their situation now that they had a bit more information.
Just then, Leslie spoke. “What about Neil and Fiorello? What about Fatima and the other Leslie? They never got a gemstone. How can they be entered into this system if they don’t have a stone? Or will they just die the first time these monsters or adventurers come rampaging through our homes?”
“Son of a Bitch. I forgot about Neil and Fio. I am truly a son of a bitch.” Robert said.
Robert spoke up again and said, “Look, I honestly don’t know. Maybe there is a way for him to get experience. Maybe we can contact that the squid monster who gave us the stones in the first place and have him send a gemstone for them as well. We will think of something.”