Jungle Rocks Dungeon, foot of Mount Gursway, 15th day of Sol, 1661

Fancy asked, “So, did you want to make this call?”

*Let’s get my first level underway. One thing I like about my new form is the multitasking abilities. I should be able to do both.*

Jessica was able to imagine her whole space and put her floor plan in place. Now she had an idea of scale, she enlarged the plan a bit, put in the new Core Room and kicked off the work.

*Why isn’t my Area of Influence moving as well?*

“Jessica, it won’t move until your Core moves. You should be seeing the projection of where it will be, though.”

*OK, makes sense. Right, that’s chugging away. Wow, the process is a mana hog.*

“You can compensate to a point by harvesting the jungle on the surface. The area you are building your Dungeon in will automatically be converted, so you will increase your knowledge of rocks, stones, dirt, etc, but you will have to manually harvest anything outside of the dungeon structure, but really, you’re not in a hurry, so just let that run its course and leave the harvested mana for an emergency.”

*Do you have a mana phone?*

Fancy blushed and pulled out a miniature version of a currently popular model. “Yes.”

Jessica metaphysically bit her tongue, refusing to use the ‘cute’ word.

*Well, this is Mum’s private line.* She gave Fancy a long string of numbers and letters.

Fancy took a deep breath in and then made the call.

“Yes? I don’t recognise this caller, so this had better be important.”

“H…h...hello Queen Camilla. My name is Fancy and I’m your daughter Jessica’s Dungeon Assistant. She asked that I contact you.”

“You’d better not be shitting me, or I’ll have you flayed alive, then flayed dead.”

“N…n…no, ma’am.”

“Right, then there will be a code word she can give you.”

“Jessica, there’s a code word?”

*Apple Blossom.*

“Umm, Your Majesty? She says, ‘apple blossom’.”

With a sigh, Camilla relaxed. She said, “Can you put her on, please?”

“Umm, sorry, but I can’t. She’s not a high enough level to generate an avatar or use the appropriate magic, so for the moment it will have to go through me. Sorry.”

“Does she know what happened with her brother and sister?”

“All three of them are in the same area, all are safe, and all should have started their dungeon by now.”

“So where, exactly are they?”

“At the base of Mount Gursway, in the south of the Grumb Continent. Jessica is in the jungle and both her siblings above her on the slopes of the mountain.”

“I have to ask; does she think that this will be reversible?”

“Your mother wants to know if you think this is reversible?”

*No. The spell work was complete. But anyway, at least this fixes the succession woes. None of us three would have deferred to the other, and while it would have been fun – if crowded - for the three of us to sit on the same throne, together, I think the Council will be happier with Margarete.*

Fancy repeated this.

“Does she know who was responsible?”

“Do you know who was responsible?”

Fancy had learned from the last time and started repeating Jessica as she went.

*Well, Sara noticed Drengle riding on the carriage seat with the driver as we were returning from dinner and the next thing we remember, we were chained up in that mage tower. Fortunately, he did the whole ‘I’m an evil villain and now you’re going to have to listen while I tell you my marvellous evil scheme’ thingy – I was sort of surprised that real people actually do that. When he took his vow, he changed a word so he was required to do the best thing for himself, not us. Apparently, he was fulfilling a bounty put out by the Borchuffs, 150,000 gold pieces each. Don’t know if this was all true, but he certainly believed it. Isn’t this what he is saying?*

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“He didn’t survive the explosion.”

Once Fancy had repeated this, Jessica sounded puzzled. *No, he was still alive when the breaching team arrived.*

“Hmmm. Sounds like I’m going to need to have a chat with some people. The Borechuffs wouldn’t go the bounty route. This has all of the signs of something the Bandorffs or the Mulchastors would do.

“Sorry, darling, got sidetracked. Oh, sorry, just putting everything together. Would you welcome Aunty Bess into your Domain? I want to send Aunty Bess down there get all the details so she can do a proper investigation, but I can’t assume here. I’m hoping you still want to work with us?”

“Of, course, Mum. Oh, she can give me ideas for traps! Thanks, Mum!”

The Queen laughed.

“Once the three of you are established, we should bring most of the Clan down and do a grand opening or something.”

“That would be so cool, Mum! I know, I’ll create a special Dungeon for Sam – it will be our little secret.”

“OK, I’ll bite, what will be in it.”

“Well, the first level will be nothing but animated smelly boy’s socks and the place will smell like a school change room. The second level will be all spiders, with millipede guides dressed in clown outfits to hold your hand and guide you past the traps!”

Once Fancy had finished the translation, there was silence on the other end of the phone, then the Queen dissolved into peels of laughter. “You’d do it, too! I can see you actually doing that! Oh, my, that’s classic!”

Jessica filled Fancy in that Samantha, her 9-year-old sister and now the Crown Princess, had just discovered how smelly boys become when they hit puberty and wanted nothing to do with it. Plus, she absolutely hated anything with too many legs, and while spiders had a lot of legs, millipedes had lots and lots and lots of legs. Oh, and how she’d never really liked clowns.

“Honestly now, are you three, OK?”

Fancy repeated the message and Jessica replied. *I can only speak for myself, but I’m strangely OK. I think the conversion spell changed my way of thinking a bit, plus all this stuff is strangely fascinating and cool. I’m looking forward to talking to Monty and Sara again, but that has to wait until we expand our Dungeons enough to butt heads. I’m a bit concerned about Sara, as she was always the most social of the three of us, but there’s not a lot we can do at this stage except grow. I’m just doing the rough build of my first level as we speak. The multi-tasking abilities of this form are absolutely amazing! There’s also all the stuff after that I haven’t given much thought to, yet. It’s so much fun designing a Dungeon!*

“Well, maybe I need to put a care package together for my favourite set of triplets.”

Fancy seemed excited at that, but Jessica wasn’t so sure.

*Mum, I think you need to be careful on a couple of levels here.*

“What do you mean, Jess?”

*Mum, I would hate for any of us three to find out at a later point that we’ve been limited because we failed to grow strong enough foundations in our early development. Nor do I want to doubt myself later about whether I succeeded or if you and Dad succeeded through me. Lastly, you may have noticed that I am, only on occasion, slightly competitive.*

Fancy, who had only known Jessica for less than a day had trouble keeping a straight face when passing this on. The Queen had no success, laughing herself silly for a good few minutes.

“Thanks, Darling. I haven’t laughed this hard since you swapped out all of your brother Kev’s boots with bouncy-versions.”

Jessica thought, ‘Good times’.

*I think it might eat at us if we started thinking that you were giving advantages. There are some changes to my Psych I’m still poking at, sort of like a missing tooth. It’s left me better able to cope, but the survival instinct is much stronger. The triplet bond is still there, still just as strong, but I don’t know - my sense of self is stronger? More independent? I would have trouble if the person in charge of the area was to start favouring another dungeon over me. I can see why long-term, dungeons have trouble playing nice with other dungeons.*

The Queen sighed. “And there is no way around that. The three of you are so diverse, that what would be a joke gift to one of you could be unfair advantage to either - or both - of the others. And yes, I am aware that even Sara has her competitive moments.”

Fancy interjected, “Queen Camilla, please forgive me for interjecting, but I would like to confirm that this all lines up with what I know from my studies about Dungeon Psychology.”

The Queen was quiet for a moment.

“Yes, Jess, you’re right. We will need to be careful, for love’s sake, with dealing with you all. Oh, Gods!”

“Are you alright, Queen Camilla?”

Queen Camilla was touched by the honesty she felt in Fancy’s voice. “Yes, Fancy. I just realised what sort of a splash the three Dungeons will make medium to long-term. I think our Family need to build a Dungeon-Town for the three of them.”

Jessica squeed and immediately was embarrassed.

Fancy tapped Jessica’s Core and whispered, “We both need some more squee-ing in our lives.”

Jessica metaphorically cleared her throat and said, *Anyway, got a dungeon to build, talk to you later, Mum.*

Fancy repeated this to Queen Camilla.

“Fancy, just before you go, need to confirm a couple of things.”

It soon became apparent to Jessica that her Mum now had a map of Mount Gursway in front of her and were getting some more precise details from Fancy. Hmm, the valley between the other two sounds like it could be a good place for the Dungeon Town.

Dungeon Town. Hmm. No, too good an opportunity to pass up.

“Your mother sends her regards and so does your father. Any last messages?”

*Yes. One. Fancy, I could make things for the town, couldn’t I? Get them to give me resources and make real, permanent signs and stuff, couldn’t I?*

Fancy thought for a moment, then privately responded to Jessica using telepathy. *I’d limit what you do like that. There are longer-term issues if you do too-much, but small stuff like that would be fine.*

*Tell Mum I’ll make all the town’s initial signs, on the condition I can make two versions of each to start with. Whatever the new Town Mayor wants for the real name and a fake set to start with. This will let us pretend that it’s been agreed that the town will be called ‘Jessicaville’.*

Fancy repeated what Jessica said, having a lot of trouble keeping a straight face. After a moment, Queen Camilla lost it, then Fancy and Jessica followed. Eventually, Queen Camilla said, “Thank you, Fancy, for calling me. This is a great weight off my mind. Fancy, keep this number in case you have an emergency. Could you give my details to the other two Assistants?”

“I’ll hold off for a few hours, giving your details to Monty’s Assistant, if you don’t mind? I suspect that the initial Assistant will not prove to be a good match. We’ll know shortly if they are to be swapped.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“No, at the moment it’s fine. Our supervisor is dealing with it. Just a bit of a personality clash.”

“Hmm, I’ll probably want to meet with the supervisor at some point, but OK. Bye for now.”