A Lonely Dungeon

All readers will be familiar with the System. It is so ubiquitous that few people bother to question it, in the same way that few people bother to ask why the sky is blue. But giving the System the consideration it is due reveals many mysteries. In this paper we explore just how ubiquitous it really is. For example it is well known that Status appears in ones native language, even to the extent of being perceived as a voice by a blind person, but what of those without language? By use of [Analysis] while carefully inducing skill increases in babies who have yet to learn language and animals who will never learn it, we note physical reactions in both coinciding with skill increases that do not appear to be due to our methods of inducement. We thus conclude that in both cases skill increase messages are in some way perceived, and hence both babies and animals have access to the System. We further hypothesise that the System is accessible to any being that possesses a soul, regardless of ability to comprehend or interact with it.

- Abstract of a research paper on the System

Building up another new floor, the dungeon repeated its previous procedure. If there was anything different, it was only the care with which it lowered its still itchy core down to the new floor.

Error: Dungeon core missing. Working... Core located on fourth floor.

Incongruity detected: Dungeon has only three floors. Working... Resolving conflict... Fourth floor registered successfully. New core room established.

As with the first two new floors, the dungeon found itself blacking out for a time, and waking up with an aching core. It checked the message, fading but still visibly floating around the core room, and confirmed the fourth floor had been successfully registered.

No, there was something different compared to the first two floors. It took the dungeon a scant few second to realize what it was: It had read the text! Since when did the dungeon understand the meaning of the messages? Was the dungeon really getting more intelligent as it grew? That would be... helpful. The dungeon thought back to older messages, but couldn't remember the words. But what it couldn't remember, it could simply recreate. Summoning new monsters would be a good starting point, with its new floor and increased mana cap. 20 mana bought it a king slime, which wasn't new, but also a non-lesser wolf, which was.

New monster unlocked: Wolf

So that was the message that played when it unlocked something. Nothing particularly interesting there. For the next experiment, the dungeon tried to summon a king slime on the first floor.

Error: Attempted to summon a monster too high level for this floor.

The dungeon watched the disrupted mana with interest, but the message was again straight forward. It remembered that the slime merging experiment had triggered a longer message, and it might give another new monster too. It gathered three king slimes together.

New monster unlocked: Emperor slime

Dungeon has unlocked and placed five slime type monsters, and currently has no type. Dungeon type set to [Slime].

Incongruity detected: Monster exists on a floor that is below its minimum level. Resolving conflict... Cannot move monster to lower floor due to no further floors being available. Erasing monster...

The dungeon felt the disturbance in the mana, and like before put its own efforts into resisting.

Error: Resistance detected. Unable to erase monster. Unable to resolve conflict. Dungeon already designated as [Errant]. No further action taken.

So by forcibly summoning a monster on an illegal floor, the dungeon had been marked as 'errant'. Was that bad? Nothing seemed to have happened so far, but the capitalization didn't look like it was just for show. Apparently it had also been given the type of 'slime'. What effects did that have? There didn't seem to be anything visible from that either. The dungeon wondered who or what it was that gave it a type or designations. Was something watching everything it did and sending it these messages? Was that a sign that life existed that was not part of the dungeon? Was it something that could be communicated with? Maybe the dungeon could send a message back. The dungeon remembered the feel of the mana of the messages, and for the first time in its life, the dungeon spoke.

"Hello?" There was no response. "Is anything there?" Still nothing. That was a bit of a let down. But the text was awfully... mechanical. Maybe it could only reply to specific things? "Can you show me my available traps?"

Available traps: tripwire, spikes, pit, spiked pit, camouflaged spiked pitfall

That got a response. "Who was it who just replied to me?" But that did not. "Can you tell me about a slime dungeon? Can you tell me about an errant dungeon?" The only reply was more silence. Asking it to show traps had worked, so maybe something more along those lines. "Can you show me all of my information?"

Unnamed slime dungeon [Errant]

Floors: 4

Mana: 20/20 (regeneration 0.0006/second)

Dungeon Points: 0

Available monsters: slime, big slime, giant slime, king slime, emperor slime, giant leech, carrion crawler, dog, lesser wolf, wolf

Available traps: tripwire, spikes, pit, spiked pit, camouflaged spiked pitfall

Available loot: copper coin, silver coin, silver nugget, mythril nugget, red berry, green berry

Available skills: [Spawn], [Absorption], [Mana Finesse]

Well that worked, but didn't tell the dungeon much that it didn't already know. The dungeon successfully guessed that mana finesse was what had come from its silver coin experiments, which raised the interesting question of whether there were further skills that could be unlocked in similar ways. Mana finesse was not something the dungeon could build, unlike all of the other unlocks. If these skills give new abilities, perhaps it could get ones to send monsters outside, or generate dungeon points? Despite the idea, the dungeon had no clue how to go about unlocking such things. It occurred to the dungeon that it knew how to spend dungeon points from the moment it was born, despite not understanding the interface. It had simply never done so because it had never had any points. Now that it had grasped the concept of reading, perhaps it could explore its options that way. "Show me skills available to purchase with dungeon points."

Dungeon point store locked due to dungeons designation as [Errant]

Ah, so that was what the errant designation did. Unaware that the mythril nugget was the original problem, the dungeon regretted its decision to forcibly create its slimes now when it could have simply created new floors. But what was done was done. Limited once more by its mana cap, and unwilling to risk further damage to its core, the dungeon decided to spend more time experimenting with mana manipulation. Moving its attention back to the core room, it created a set of copper coins on top of each other on the pedestal that was acting as its experimental work bench.

New loot unlocked: Copper nugget

And then flooded it with mana, to no effect whatsoever. Unlike silver, copper seemed completely transparent to mana, and did not interact with it at all. But the dungeon did have something else that definitely did respond to its mana; its own stone. Placing a chunk of that on the pedestal, the dungeon found that it resisted the flux of mana, unlike the copper which was transparent to it or the silver which hungrily absorbed it. The dungeon pushed as hard as it could, until the stone creaked and... shrunk?

New material unlocked: Compressed dungeon stone

Incongruity detected: Material unlocked prior to unlock of materials category. Resolving conflict. Unlocking materials category. Unlocking basic materials.

New material unlocked: Dungeon stone

The dungeon basked in satisfaction at another successful experiment, but pushing harder against the already compressed stone achieved nothing further. Further experiments were paused by a sudden feeling of loss. Nothing critical, but the dungeon suddenly felt slightly less than it was a moment ago. It felt similar to the time it had collapsed a room onto some leeches in an attempt to farm dungeon points. Had a monster died?

Looking around inside itself, the dungeon found the third floors king slime was missing. Did whatever was trying to erase it before come back to finish the job while the dungeon wasn't paying attention? If so, why now? It hadn't been paying any attention to the third floor for a while. The dungeon scanned its other floors, and the area of surface it controlled, but did not find anything untoward. It switched its attention to the emperor slime, which was still very much alive. But, inspecting it carefully, it seemed a bit... sluggish. Ordering it to move around, it was definitely less responsive than its smaller brethren. What was wrong with it? The dungeon considered that it could view information about itself, and its monsters were more or less a part of it, so maybe... "Show me information about the emperor slime."

Unnamed emperor slime

HP: 45/50

mana: 0/10

Active status effects: starving

Starving? But dungeon monsters didn't need to eat. They just lived off the dungeons ambient mana. But this slime had zero mana remaining, and was slowly starving to death. Was this what happened to the king slime? Had it been slowly starving all this time? But the king slimes on this floor were fine. The dungeon pushed some mana towards the emperor slime, and watched its mana tick upwards. That solved the immediate problem, but it wouldn't be sustainable. It would need to increase the ambient mana. But if the fourth floor king slimes were safe... The dungeon looked at each floor again, and felt a bit of an idiot. With each new floor, the ambient mana increased. Perhaps this was why it wasn't supposed to summon powerful monsters on low floors. Then there was one easy way to resolve this problem. The dungeon settled down to dig.

Error: Dungeon core missing. Working... Core located on fifth floor.

Incongruity detected: Dungeon has only four floors. Working... Resolving conflict... Fifth floor registered successfully. New core room established.

The dungeon confirmed that the mana density had increased, and had the emperor slime move down to the new floor. Its slow mana drain ceased, and started to tick back upwards. The dungeon had already noticed how it could think more clearly the more floors it produced. It thought that strange, and that if anything it should be core reinforcement that helped. Perhaps the increased mana density explained this too, giving the core more fuel to work with. Then why did moving the core to deeper floors not also increase mana regeneration? Having the intelligence to start asking questions but not enough to answer them was frustrating. Then perhaps the next project should be to create a few empty floors to increase its cognitive capacity further. Leaving the fifth floor occupied by nothing other than the single slime, the dungeon began to dig once more.

Error: Dungeon core missing. Working... Core located on sixth floor.

Incongruity detected: Dungeon has only five floors. Working... Resolving conflict... Unable to register sixth floor as fifth floor is cycling insufficient mana. Unable to resolve conflict.

Error: No rule exists for this situation. Taking no further action.

As its consciousness fled, the dungeon suspected that it had made a rather serious mistake.