Start of Section 1,
‘Jessica’s Dungeon’
Jungle, foot of Mount Gursway
After some indeterminant time, Jessica’s consciousness rose up through the mists of her being. She slowly became aware of her surrounds, a strangely illuminated cave.
She panicked when she realised that she couldn’t move, especially when she realised that she couldn’t breathe, but as no other effects seem to manifest, she settled down and tried to figure out what was happening.
With no ability to measure anything, she had no references to figure out time or space. She could have laid there for a moment or a millennia and she could have been in a tiny or huge cave. Somehow, she managed to detach her point of view and was able to explore. With trepidation, she turned around to examine herself. The source of the strange yellow light in the room was now apparent. She was a (large? tiny?) topaz, a rich, honey colour and one of the strangest shapes she had ever seen. She was a squat, pillar with a pointed top, sort of like a pencil? But her shape wasn’t square or hexagonal, but looked like it had been built up by a dozen different flat shapes stuck together, resulting in a beautiful, complex shape.
The only thing she had to measure anything by, was her crystal, so she would do all measurements in ‘me’s’, the height of her crystal. The room looked to be about a thousand me high and wide and about two thousand me long. It was a natural looking limestone cave with a set of stalactites marching down each side, with their matching stalagmites below.
She mumbled to herself “Stalactites hold on tight to the roof, stalagmites grow from the ground and might make it to the ceiling.”
The floor of the cave seemed gently sloping, with a set of pools descending from one end to the other. Each pool was surrounded by a rimstone and a large flowstone on one end wall indicated where water entered. A quartz pillar in the centre of the room held her crystal.
Her crystal?
Wait, was she a dungeon now?
Shock and panic closed her mind down and she went unconscious.
*-*-*
After some indeterminant time, Jessica’s consciousness rose up through the mists of her being. She slowly became aware of her surrounds, a strangely illuminated cave.
Wait, no, she’d already been through this. Right, she was a Dungeon Core. A random thought drifted through her mind, with her now regretting that her plans for her birthday party this weekend were now off.
A popping sound attracted her attention and a small (?) humanoid figure appeared in the room. She was dark skinned, had brown eyes, long brown hair, white teeth (were those elongated canines?), a round face and prominent lips. She was dressed in tight-fitting leather armour, calf length boots and had a rapier sheathed at her waist and a bow and quiver across her back. A small backpack rounded out her outfit.
“Greetings, Dungeon Core! I am Fancy and have been assigned to guide you through this early part of your growth…”
The pixie looked around, puzzled. “Umm, can you understand me? The spell is supposed to only call one of us once the Core reaches a reasonable level of intelligence.”
*Well, I’m glad that your spell considers that I have a reasonable level of intelligence. I now feel that I have a purpose in life since your spell has given me it’s approval. Why, at this rate you might even consider me worthy of licking your boots clean or of breathing in the air that you recently exhaled.*
Fancy’s eyes widened in fear. Things were obviously not going to plan. “Umm, do you have a name?”
*Yes.*
After a pause, Fancy continued, ‘Could I know it?”
*I suppose you have enough intelligence to.*
After another pause, Fancy started to giggle, then laugh, then roll around on the ground (getting a little wet), laughing.
Jessica got more and more puzzled by the strange behaviour of (if she wasn’t mistaken) a Fairy.
“Sorry, sorry, you just reminded me a lot of my dad.”
*Should I be offended?*
Fancy laughed again, “No, not in this case. Just that both of you have a similar sense of humour. Let’s try again. ‘My name in Fancy, please tell me your name?’
*Jessica Fortier.*
“…”
*I think I broke her.*
“…”
*Yep, she’s broken. I wonder if I can get another one? Is there a way to return faulty Fairies? Maybe a warrantee?*
“OK, shit”
*Well, I’m glad that I’m not forced to follow your instructions, otherwise we’d be buried in little topazes about now. I suppose that’s what I’d shit.*
Shaking her head, Fancy had tried to get back in control of the conversation. “I think that you need to start at the beginning.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Who are you? Why should I trust you? What’s in it for me? Why is the sky green?”
“Fair enough. Wait, why is the sky green? The sky’s not green!”
Jessica laughed. “Well, that proved you were listening, anyway.”
Fancy gave a snort. “Fair enough. Firstly, I am Fancy Darkwing, a recent graduate of the Petal School of Dungeon Assistants. I have been assigned by this continents’ Dungeon Assistants Guild, or DAG to be your initial contact and Assistant. My mentor will be in contact with us in 6 months and you can apply through them to change Assistants if you find me not suitable. Once you reach level 15 you will begin the process of finding your ‘forever assistant’. If you haven’t decided that I would be suitable, a different candidate will be assigned to you each level until you find one. If you haven’t found one by level 25, you will be assigned one.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Secondly, there is no real reason to trust me, except that the only way I will grow in level from this point on is by helping you to do the same. So, it is in my best interest to do what I can to assist you.
“Thirdly, as for what is in it for you, the better I understand you, the faster we can grow. This is pure self-interest for both of us. There is a simple magical contract available that will at least enable you to know I’m telling the truth. Do you know what a Magical Contract is?”
Silence reigned for a few moments until Jessica finally spoke.
*I need the answer to a couple of questions, then I will cooperate. OK? Yes, I know what Magical Contracts are.*
“I will try to answer you what I can. Is it OK if I touch your crystal, so you can get a prompt to establish the bond? You can select ‘temporary’ if you are still nervous about me. Examine the option and you will see that this will help us work together and allow us to know of the other person is lying. Once you reach the point of trusting me, you can affirm the connection, linking us until you are level 15.”
*Fine.*
Fancy walked across to Jessica and touched her crystal.
In Jessica’s mind the magical contracts appeared, and she quickly read through them, confirming that it was exactly as Fancy had stated. Checking the conditions, she felt confident in skipping the temporary contract and agreed to the next level up.
“Umm, you realised that you’re offering me a contract until level 15?”
*Yep. I read through all the contracts and I’m fine with that one. In fact, it’s a bit biassed towards me. If I ever write one for you, make sure you get it checked by a professional as I am a reasonable expert at them, and likely to do you out of your inheritance, birth-right, first-born, whatever.*
Fancy sighed, “Of course you are. Right, what do you want to know?”
*What’s the date? Where are we located? Were there two other dungeons formed nearby?*
“The date is the 15th day of Sol, in the year 1661 of the reign of Emperor Nigel the 6th. We are near Mount Gursway, located in unclaimed territory, in the south of the Grumb Continent. Why do you want to know about any other dungeons?”
*The 15th, right. Then, my brother, sister and I were kidnapped two days ago. All three of us were magically changed, so I suspect they may be dungeons as well. I would love it if we were near each other, as I would love to reconnect to them, and we would all love to spend a few millennia gossiping and playing practical jokes on each other.*
“So, your old minds were obviously not wiped as part of the procedure?”
*We couldn’t stop the conversion, but we were able to change the glyphs at the last moment to stop the wipe and ensure the full backlash hit our kidnapper.*
“Right. Yes, two more new dungeons are in this area. One north-west of you and the other north-east.”
*Would you be able to get a message to those two Assistants so things can go smoothly? They will be Monty Fortier and Sara Fortier. Will we be able to communicate at a later stage?*
“Yes, that will be possible if all parties agree – once your areas of influence touch. In fact, there would be some interesting possibilities, as dungeons can trade with each other. Is it all right if I leave for a little while, so I can contact the other Assistants?”
*Sure. Is there anything I can do in the meantime, or do you need me to wait?*
Fancy thought for a minute then said, “Think ‘Basic Status’.”
Jessica did so, and a status screen came up:
Jessica Fortier (Basic Status)
Dungeon Name:
(untitled)
Mana Recharge per min:
Alignment:
(unaligned)
Base/Current Recharge:
5/5
Level:
0
Recharge from rooms:
0
Used/Current DP:
0/0
Recharge from creatures:
0
DP Points Next Level:
100
Mana:
100/186
Extras from harvests:
0
“Great!”
*You can see that?*
“Oh, sorry. Anything that you do not say ‘private’ on the end of, I can see. Try ‘Basic Status private’ if you want. So, whenever you want to surprise me, do it that way. Can you bring up your Dungeon Status page now?”
Jessica thought ‘Dungeon Status Private’.
Jessica Fortier (Dungeon Status - Private)
Dungeon Radius (m)
0.5
Dungeon rooms:
1
Max Radius: (m)
1
Current Delvers DP/Hour
0
Dungeon Area: (sq km)
-
DP’s per month
-
Dungeon Influence: (sq km)
-
Maximum Dungeon Level
1
Skills:
(none)
Magics:
(none)
Fancy waited a few moments, then said, “Could you bring up your ‘Dungeon Status’ now? I need to quickly check something.”
Jessica thought that Fancy may actually be telling her the truth. She brought her Dungeon Stats up again, but this time without the ‘Private’.
“OK. Your stats are really good. Try not to let your mana drop below 10, preferably 20. ‘DPs’ are Dungeon Points, they are like Experience Points, but for Dungeons.
“There’s a couple of things you can do while waiting for me to come back. Everything depends, though, on you first naming your Dungeon. It is possible to change it later, but difficult, and it will cost you in mana. Do you have any ideas?”
*So, near Mount Gursway. At the base, or on the slopes? In the jungle?*
“At the base, in the jungle.”
*Jungle Rocks.*
Fancy sighed and put on an obviously fake smile, saying, “What a great name! We’ll be the envy of every other dungeon on the continent!”
Jessica replied, *We’ll talk it over after the first level is complete.*
“Good. Set the name – you just need to focus on it to be prompted – then your mana will start to regenerate past 100. Once your named, you’ll be able to start to expand your influence. It has to be circular…”
*Don’t you mean spherical?*
“Yes, but new dungeons usually have trouble with the idea of a sphere. Circle is usually hard enough, not to mention getting them to understand that the formula for calculating the volume of a sphere is… well, let us just say that it is not simple. After a while they can appreciate that the bigger the sphere, the longer it will take to ‘fill’ it.
*Fair enough. Not many would know the volume is 4 times pi times the radius cubed, divided by 3.*
Fancy gave Jessica a dirty look, then continued, “So, you need to ‘push’ out your area of influence, but again, don’t let your mana drop too low. You will start to feel lightheaded if you push too far. Were your old mana points 86?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Your starting maximum mana points is 186. It should be 100. The difference would usually be your old mana points if you’d started life as something other than a Dungeon Core. It still won’t generate pass 100 until you set a dungeon name, though. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
It took Jessica a while to get the hang of it and even longer to learn how to change the speed so that she claimed territory to match her mana regeneration rate, but a half hour later it was working fine. It was fascinating to ‘see’ the surrounding area and she was able to study the landforms and geology as she went.