02

The sky was cloudy, and the far away rumbling of thunder echoed through the bleak roads and alleys of the city. The clouds were dark and ominous, hinting at an incoming thunderstorm the likes of which were rarely seen in this town. The townsfolk were hurrying along the narrow dirt roads, trying to finish their last business outside before the rain.

There was a man, resting his body against a wall, half hidden by the long and patchy shadows of the buildings. Another figure approached him, shrouded in a cloak of grey.

“Do you have it?” The man asked. He was looking at something far away, as if in a trance.

“I don’t. But I have a lead.” The other person said, the voice low and strained.

“You know what that thing means to us, don’t you?”

The hooded person shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me, of all people. I will retrieve it.”

The two parted, and each went their own way. The hooded person, walking with silent and careful steps, approached the pub that was next to the adventurers guild. She took off her hood, revealing her golden braided hair, and entered the building.

The music was loud and the place messy, with many people having already sought refuge here from the rain. It was custom for this pub to host live music events in the rare instances when it rained, when the greatest number of people were here instead of inside the dungeon.

“What can I get for you missy?” The bartender asked, his careful eye already spotting the short woman entering the place.

“Ale, thank you.” She replied, already scanning the room with her eyes. She sighed, and looked around until she spotted one potential target. Wearing her best game face, something she rarely wore except for the rare times of need such as this, she went to the bar and gulped down her beer. “This is going to be a long day.”

***

At the top of the stairs there was a small rocky outcropping that led into another cave. This one was slightly different than the previous cave system, the stone being a bit darker and the whole place a bit damper. There was water dripping from the ceiling in several places, bringing with it the promise of quenching his thirst.

He looked around to see if there were other stairs going up next to the flight he had just taken, but there were none. His LAI enhanced senses were looking at the stone with methodical care in search of another hidden passage like the last, but after a while he gave up because he knew that even if there was one it would be impossible to find. He really wasn’t feeling up to exploring a whole new floor like he just did with the previous, but it looked like he had no choice.

“Onwards to the next item in the list, then.” He said to himself, and approached the dripping stone shapes that hung from the ceiling.

He put his head between the two sharp rocks, trying to catch any errant droplets of water that were flowing down from the top one. In a couple millennia those two rocks would join, thanks to the dissolved stone in the water bringing the two edges slowly but surely closer to each other. A process which would take a couple hours more, however, since Charles intercepted that time’s worth of water drops going down the stone.

He got up, stretched, and looked around once again. His face wore a satisfied grin, because now that he knew where to get the water from, he was finally able to pursue his other necessities.

The LAI assured him there was no toxic compounds in the water, after analyzing the effect that the very first few drops of it had when he ingested them. The time seemed to never pass, it was true, as he watched drop after drop slip into his mouth. That was, until he remembered that he could activate his LAI hyperfocus mode. Something that wasn’t actually made for the purpose, but rather to bring a consciousness into Eve’s cyberspace. The connection with the omniscient AI was not available, which was rather disappointing but not unexpected, but at least he could use the feature to his advantage.

He had already used it back when he had analyzed the first cave with machine like efficiency. Since the imperial cybersphere was absent here, activating the connection only brought his mind to meld with the LAI, warping his perception of self, of time, and of emotions. It was like being high on Adderall, or on ADHD medications.

It was the perfect way to escape these damned caves. He willed the mode into action, and the world changed.

Analyze the best path, initiate data gathering. Three hours passed; hunger levels manageable. Five more hours until meal is required. Cave system mapped; no exit found. Sixteen likely enemy spawn areas found, zero enemy encounters. Scanning for hidden pathways like floor below. Three possible locations found.

Approaching closest location. Checking via vibrational analysis. Sound compatible with normal rock, moving on. Second location, negative. Third location, sound has echo. Punching the wall is advised against, unholstering gun. Three steps back, aim, gun at three quarters power.

Firing shot. Wall is breaking, suspicion confirmed. Stairway going up found, marking in floor plan. Three hours until meal is required. Thirst levels rising again, sweat functions too high. Recalibrating follicles.

New floor, label in map. Floor is not cave, registering sky above. Sky is fake, crystal structures provide light from high ceiling hidden in fog. Trees are present. Humidity is high, temperature is high. Warning for possible dehydration.

Possible food and water sources amidst trees, suggesting LAI function termination. Action confirmed.

Charles returned into his body after what felt like a possession. It was strange, because he was aware that he was still himself, and it felt as if he was the one who had possessed his own body. It was utterly alienating. And yet, fascinating. Not only that, but most importantly it had been terrifyingly efficient as well, something he should do more often.

He walked towards the trees, doing his best to ignore the annoying bugs that assaulted his face. His body was covered by his suit, fortunately, but his face was not. He resisted the urge to slap his own face, as he knew it would be pointless and endlessly frustrating. The solace it would bring him would only be temporary, and there wasn’t time to look for a possible natural remedy. He’d have to endure. He made his way through the tall grass and finally reached the grove of trees.

There were animals grazing near a small lake, at the center of the grove, but he was quite sure that those were no normal animals. They would be dungeon monsters like all the other things he saw in the floor below, placed here on purpose or by chance, able to respawn and disappear as soon as it was convenient. He had to decide what to do now, then. Engage in combat, using the few rounds he had left in his gun, or leave the body of water behind? 

He decided to engage for two reasons. One: he was very thirsty once again. The punishing heat and humidity made him sweat like crazy even in the controlled environment of his suit. And secondly, if he managed to kill an animal and scare away the rest then he would have something to eat for lunch. He had no idea how much time he had gone without eating, and did his best to keep himself from asking the LAI. It was not an information he wanted to have right now.

He was approaching the point where his brain performance was suffering from the lack of energy and food, and therefore he knew that he had to act quickly. He took out his gun, set it to max power and aimed it at one of the largest animals.

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If he could one-shot the strongest animal, the others would run away for sure. Or at least so he hoped, according to what little he knew about animals in general. If these were actual dungeon monsters, then perhaps they would behave differently, but he decided to take the shot anyway and deal with the situation as it happened. The LAI indicated the best possible shot from his position, and he took it. The gun, which was usually silent when it fired, this time was not. Unexpectedly, in fact, the bullet broke the sound barrier. The sonic boom from the projectile shook the entire grove, the trees losing their loosest leaves and all the animals freezing in place.

A large deer, easily the size of a large car, suddenly found itself with a large circular gaping hole in the side. It slumped to the ground, dead.

[Level up! New level: 7]

Charles looked at the notification with interest. Since he was going upwards, he assumed the monsters would get weaker and therefore give him less experience and levels than before. At least, that's how it would work if he was to follow the game logic. Maybe he was already on the cusp of leveling up after killing the vampire, and this kill gave him the little boost he needed to make the jump and then gain the other three levels.

At least, he hoped so, because otherwise he would have to go back down. There was just no way to be sure right now, and he was already growing restless. He knew that he was not scared, because it took much more than this to scare him. It was the ever present sense of annoyance at the situation that was wearing on him. Being stuck inside a dungeon that resembled a video game was not as fun as playing a video game. Not only that, but he was aware that his temper had taken a turn for the worse ever since being disconnected from Eve, leaving him to experience all the irritating things of the world on his own. 

He considered activating the LAI connection again to calm down, but decided not to. It would do him no good to be this reliant on it, especially considering how much he was going to use it in navigating this dungeon.

He went to the pond and drank, and the cold water chilled down his mind a bit. The refreshing feeling was nice, and his calmer mind assessed the situation with a more pragmatic approach. He would have to go up another level in the dungeon and kill a creature there, to be sure. If the gains were even higher still, then he would have to go back down. At least if his theory was valid, which he didn't know. By Occam's razor, he decided to follow his hunch until the evidence proved him wrong, because it was useless to overthink the situation without enough data.

For now, though, he had a deer to cook. His stomach rumbled at the idea already, and he was salivating at the thought of cooked meat.

And not just generic meat. The animal tasted like real meat. It was real meat. Not the lab-grown stuff that was ever present throughout the empire, but real real meat from an animal that he just hunted himself. The thrill lasted as long as the meal itself, and it was even diminished by a seemingly small yet important detail.

It lacked salt, he noted with a hint of sadness. He would have liked to enjoy his meal at its best, but apparently that was not something on the menu today.

With the second item on the list done, he moved on to the next thing to do. The objective was still the same: to get out of the dungeon, with a quick detour to check if he had to go up or down. He activated his LAI connection again to quickly sweep the level. 

Outward growing spiral pattern from grove, look for hidden doorways. Suspicious hill spotted, labeling position. Three rocks at even intervals, noting position. Large tree trunk. Edge of floor reached, wall of impenetrable trees. No openings or doorways. Checking marked locations. Hill first, nothing of note. Thirsty again, making way to pond. Animals are back, but they are afraid. Scare tactic worked, noted.

Second point of interest, nothing. Third, success. Quick floor power check, kill first enemy seen. Enemy contact, shape is large feline with red fur. Shooting at optimal angle. Kill in one shot, estimated threat level is low. Levels gained are four, totaling 11. Confirmed floor progression suspicions, turning back.

Back to original floor, time elapsed three days. Enemies are increasing and have changed spawns, noted. Stairways seem to be fixed in place, noted.

The hyperfocus mode ended, and he was back to being himself, after the longest time ever spent in LAI mind-meld. There was something familiar about being back in this dark cave, something almost nostalgic. He decided that he didn’t care about being nostalgic though, as this was the place where his torments began. He would be nostalgic once his condition improved, but for now he would still be angry.

He walked around, wondering whether to reactivate the LAI mode or not, when he heard something. Voices, it seemed, in the distance. He stopped in place, trying to make as little noise as possible. Voices meant people, of course, or at least he hoped so because the alternative was not something that he wanted to deal with at the moment.

If those people actually revealed themselves to be aliens, or anthropomorphic monsters, or something else entirely, he would truly be fucked. He needed more information before acting, and so he requested a crash course on stealth tactics from the LAI. The information unpacked in his brain, making him quite the expert in less than thirty seconds. He lacked the muscle memory and the physical conditioning for the task, but at least the basics were all in his head now.

He creeped closer, making sure to stay in the shadows of the cave. His eyes could barely see anything in the darkness, but he didn’t need to see much. He had already mapped this entire floor with a resolution of a few millimeters, and the LAI was overlaying a holographic map on top of his vision to compensate for his blindness.

As he got closer to the voices, he noticed that he could recognize some words. It was probably his mind tricking him; looking for patterns in an otherwise completely unknown language. It was clear however that those people were using verbal communication, and their speech was made of complex phonemes arranged in a sentence-like structure. Something he could decipher with his LAI, given enough time.

He got closer. His movements were now much slower and calculated, and he needed to keep to the shadows cast by the torches in the distance. He put his feet exactly where the LAI showed him to, on top of the little holograms that only he could see, and made almost no sound. The light was still faint, but it was getting stronger as he approached the party of aliens.

And it was when he got close enough, that he found out that they were not aliens. They were people, humans or humanoid at least, and they were speaking English. Impossible, his mind screamed at him. He ignored the fact for now. He had to, because there were more pressing issues than investigating the nature of their existence. It was certainly very handy that they spoke his language.

He had to decide what to do now. Reveal himself, and risk a hostile engagement, or stalk them from the shadows in an attempt to gather more information? He decided for the latter option, quite confident in his ability to remain hidden.

The party was made of four people. Three were clad in armor, shrouded by thick metal plates that made them noisy and clumsy. Of them, two were armed with a sword and a spear each, while the other was a giant of a man carrying a huge tower shield almost as big as himself. The other person of the party looked like a woman, although it was hard to tell from this far, and was not wearing heavy armor. 

Not that that kind of medieval armor could be very helpful, Charles thought, and looked at his own power armour proudly. Anyway, taking a better look he saw that the woman was wearing a green robe with a hood, and had a bow in hand. There was no quiver of arrows, however, which was quite confusing. Was she just here for the ride? Then, what good was a bow with no arrows?

He got a bit closer still, trying to overhear their conversations. It was getting quite hard to follow them from this close without being seen, but the cave offered plenty of hiding spots that he had quite fortunately all mapped already. Shooting and then threatening them would definitely be easier, though.

“This damn floor! Look, I’m drenched already!” Said the towering giant.

“That’s because you’re too fat, jackass.” Replied the spearman. 

The one with the sword laughed at the comment, and was soon joined by the tall man.

The archer woman looked thoroughly fed up with the other guys’ antics. “Keep your guard up. We’re in a dungeon.” 

Charles' ears perked up at the word. He was right about the dungeon, it seemed.

“Bah, it’s a useless dungeon. I could go till level fifty with my eyes closed.” The swordsman said.

“I don’t give a shit. You shut up or I skewer you.” She answered angrily, making Charles wonder just what she was going to skewer him with. 

Perhaps, in a world of monsters and dungeons, there existed magic to make bows work without arrows as well. That implied the existence of magic, of course. It would not be too far of a stretch, considering what he saw so far. It would be quite the cliché thing from fantasy stories, in fact. Thinking about it, the whole situation he found himself in seemed quite the standard fantasy setting. The vampire he met when he first got here should have tipped him off, and yet he had been so surprised to find out that there were humans and that they spoke English.

He was too used to the Empire, where every alien species was just odd and inexplicable. This was easy compared to those first encounters. 

But being in a fantasy world, cliché and stereotyped, could also imply that he was in some sort of narrative structure. He mentally waved these thoughts away, as they were useless to him. 

“Hey! Who goes there!” Came the yell of the woman, and she looked in his direction. 

Perhaps he had spoken too soon when he said that it would be easy, as this was going to get a bit more complicated than he’d liked. Unless he decided to kill them all, of course. He looked at his gun and remembered that he only had a few precious bullets. He sighed, and left the shadows