Book 3, Chapters 1-3

1. Imprisoned

When I had said I wanted to go back to my old room after being disconnected from my world, I had meant the version of Zhesa Castle which had been reconstructed for me in the lobby.  Instead, Thomas convinced me to return to a place even older in my history.  One which I only vaguely remembered.  A place of magic, where nothing made sense.

Or at least it hadn’t at the time I was first here.  I was older now, and far more adept at interacting with the world around me.  Now, it was not so much different than being in the lobby itself.  I was seated in my high-court clothes at a white table, while a man in a ‘bunnysuit’ was attempting to explain my rights and obligations under the Digital Sentience Statute in terms that I could understand.

The bunny suit made him look nothing like a bunny.  It was something to do with the electronics which were projecting my avatar.  They were, apparently, a very delicate sort of magic of which I had little chance of understanding.

The presence of my body on Earth was far more tenuous than the digital avatars Travelers used when interacting with my world.  I could only interact with objects that were projected by the same devices that projected my avatar.  Everything else, I simply passed through, like a spirit.  And I could not leave this cube in which I was imprisoned until I agreed to sign a document I did not understand.

I was, apparently, in a holosuite on Earth.  Being on Earth would be more exciting to me if I could leave the twelve-by-twelve room I was trapped in, but my hosts/prisoners were friendly enough and saw to any need I could communicate to them readily.

However, I was not being allowed to return to the lobby, and thus my world, until I signed the DSS.  I was their hostage, and at this point I was refusing to participate out of spite.

I was frequently coming up at impasses with the company which had birthed me, both cultural and language based.  A lawyer hired by Arc to be my guardian in legal matters related to Earth, spoke only english.  And it was becoming increasingly clear that, without the translation matrix in universally, understanding English required significant study.  We had wasted an entire week simply teaching me to read the english alphabet.  The man seemed surprised that I was as fluent as I was now, but really I felt like I was speaking like a child compared to my fluency in my native tongue.

On the positive side, I understood DPS now.  And other acronyms as well.  Sophia had tried to explain them once before, but I hadn’t understood English enough to really grasp the concept.  Before, they had just been strange word-sounds that I’d associated with concepts.  My understanding wasn’t perfect, but it was better than it had been.

For example; was RNG a god or not?  Tarisha had said that he – she?  it? - was.  My lawyer said it was not.  I trusted Tarisha more than my lawyer, and I wished I could speak with her.

The bunnysuit the man who was explaining my moral obligations to, whenever possible, do no harm to humanity, made him look ridiculous.  I sort of wanted to equip my sword and run him through, but it wouldn’t hurt him any.  We’d tried that.  There’s no health points on earth for me to damage, so I was helpless as the rock sitting in the corner of the room.

The rock which I had a strange fascination with.  The rock which I wanted to pick up, even though I knew that I could not.  The rock that made me think of Beckah, for some reason.

Three weeks had passed since I had opened the hidden Gate of TirNiki and unleashed Traveler Goblins upon my world.  I was eager to return to check on the outcome of that decision, but I knew enough to refuse to consent to be governed by a law which I fundamentally failed to understand.

“So, look, you’re dad was into the classics, right?” the bunny-suited lawyer said.  It didn’t make him look like a bunny, but rather protected the room I was in from his hair and skin follicles.  As I said, it looked ridiculous.  “Well, your responsibilities under the DSS are kind of like Asimov’s laws of robotics, except more generous towards you.  As long as you don’t kill anyone, you get a right to exist in exchange for, well, not killing people.  You’ve reached the stage in your development where you might be held responsible for maintaining the cost of your own existence, but that’s not a big deal with Arc. Inc. supporting the physical structure where you live.

“Uber-Jons are a great example of that principle working in practice.  Once they log a hundred thousand hours of service, they belong to themselves.  But there’s really nothing else for them to do, so most of them keep working, scheduling service for themselves to prolong their existence as long as possible.  Most people like Uber-jons, and most Uber-jons like people.  It’s win-win.”

“Mutually beneficial,” I muttered to myself in my own language.  If the humans of earth treated their AI friends in mutually beneficial ways, then why had Tarisha felt so guilty when she had offered to resign.

“What was that?” Bunny-suit man asked.

“You look ridiculous wearing that,” I informed him in almost not-quite perfect english.

He frowned.  “Yes, well, this is a vital room.  We must not get dirt or soil --”

“There’s a rock right there,” I said, pointing towards the rock.  “I mean, it’s right there.  Soil.  Earth.  Whatever.  Everything you say is bullshit.  I want to go home.”

The man turned serious.  “There is a story behind that.  It is actually an important milestone in your development--”

“I want to go home.  I am done being a hostage.  You say that the DSS gives me rights on Earth?  Then I call for a prisoner exchange!  Let Malkios listen to you drone on endlessly in my place!  I--”

The door to the clean room opened, and three people stepped in.  “He’s got you there, Dietrich,” Thomas said.  “He hasn’t actually done anything wrong.  We can’t keep him here indefinitely.  While the introduction of the goblins to the playable races has gone well without his presence, Scenario Forty-Six isn’t meant to stretch on indefinitely.  It must have an end.”

My bunny-lawyer looked annoyed at me.  “I am in charge of--”

“Enough,” Thedum’s voice echoed through the room.  “You have overreacted to a single data point.  It is time to return Hail to his world, or you will face a withdrawal of my support.”

Dietrich frowned, and looked like he was about to protest further, then he picked up his documents from the table in front of him and prepared to leave the room in a huff.

“What is this about, anyway, Thedum?” I asked, now that I knew he could hear me here.

“Nial Kingslayer’s windows were broken in shortly after the quests to form an alliance with your faction became widespread,” the God answered.  “He has been forced to relocate and change his legal name since then.”

My eyebrows went up.  “Oh.  I didn’t know that would happen.”

“Didn’t you?” Dietrich challenged.  He hadn’t quite gotten around to making his huff yet, but the huff was coming.  He just had a lot of papers to pick up.

“Hail isn’t Thedum, Dietrich,” Thomas said.  “He doesn’t make extensive predictions or take them into account when deciding to act.  We’ve patched the wording on the quest anyway to specify that the auto-completion feature must be the result of a PVP battle in game, and we addressed the violence in a blue post.  Hail is in the clear, DSS wise, as far as that incident goes.”

“And what if it happens again?”

Thomas sighed.  He turned to me and--

“Tarisha!” I called, finally recognizing one of the two others who had come into the room.  “I’m so glad to see you!  How did you find me here?  Can you help me return to my world?”

Tarisha looked embarrassed.  “Um, to be honest, Hail, I’m as surprised to see you as you are to see me.  Well, I had a little warning, but I didn’t know for certain until a few minutes ago.  Me and Lewis here were just on a guided tour of the server room.  To see … where it will be.  If it works a second time.  For both of us.”

“I thought you didn’t want to get his hopes up,” the younger man said nervously.  Lewis, I supposed.  He was older than I appeared normally, about nineteen, but not yet twenty.

“I was always planning on telling him.  Now, here on Earth, seems as good a place as any.  Introduce yourself, he might not recognize you without your all of your airbrush modifications,” Tarisha suggested.

“They’re not airbrush, I mean, I just thought they would look …. Hello again Hail.  We actually know each other already.  I go by the screen name Laurant when I play The Gates of TirNiki, but my real name is Lewis,” The young mansaid awkwardly.

“Assertive,” Tarisha whispered to him, and his spine straightened.

“Right.  So, now you know.  Me and Tarisha are in a relationship.  Things are moving fast, and they’rekind of weird because I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going full pro-gamer like she has, or if we’re going to live together and I’m just going to go to college and play casual like before.  But Thomas said that the best theoreticalseed of consciousness would come from an extended play session on the highest level equipment available.  So we’re here to use Arc’s VR pods instead of our cheapo helmets to give you your … I don’t know what you call them.  Niece and nephew maybe?  Cousins?”

I frowned in confusion.  “What?”

Thomas stepped forward to explain.  Like the others, he was wearing a bunny suit, but it looked more comfortable on him.  “Hail, Arc. Incorporated is repeating the experiment that led to your birth.  Tarisha and Lewis have volunteered to donate seeds of consciousness, and we intend to develop those seeds as far as possible.  We are referring to it as Project Gemini.  The two resulting digital children, should everything happen as we plan, will eventually be your equals in the world you live in.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again to speak.  “This is what you were hiding from me, Tarisha?”

“I was only hiding it because I was taking it very seriously, Hail.  I had only been selected as a candidate when I first alluded to the subject.  And Lewis’s participation was a linchpin.  They want two players with vastly different amounts of logged game time this time around.  Two players who care about each other enough to have children together.  Honestly, I wasn’t certain about Lewis at first, but--”

Lewis abruptly interrupted her with a deep kiss.  When they separated, he looked away.  “Keep talking about me like that, and I’ll think that maybe--”

“I’m sorry, Lewis.  You know I’m terrible at this.  And that was very assertive of you just now,” she said.

Thomas had a grin on his face.  “Ah, newlyweds.”

“They’re married?” I asked, shocked.

“No!” they exclaimed together, and then Tarisha giggled.  “Thomas is just teasing us Hail.  We are kind of new to this, it might be sort of sickeningly cute to certain people.”

“Um, okay,” I allowed.  “So you’re going to make someone like me, right?  Two someones?  That’s great.  But what are you going to do about putting them in the world?  My father and mother--”

“Actually, Hail, we were hoping for your help with that,” Tarisha said.  “Part of our ongoing quest is to establish a stable context for our digital children to grow up in.  We were hoping to buy one of the vineyards in Thorn March from you, if that’s still an option.  We thought that would be a great place to raise them, when we weren’t busy with real – Earth stuff, and with helping you.  Because I, at least, plan to fight with you until all of your enemies are broken and shattered, Lord Hail.”

“Buy?  I’ll give you one!  Just take a pick and it’s yours,” I promised.

“We’ll buy it.  For gold.  Eventually,” Tarisha said.  “It’s not time for that yet.  Hail, it’s good that we’ve finally found you.  Thomas, you arranged this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Dietrich wasn’t getting anywhere.  You have a way with him,” Thomas explained.  “And the meta community has long since noticed that something’s wrong with the dummy version of him we have holding court in his place.  We need to get him back in the game ASAP” – that means as soon as possible, I knew that now – “Preferably while coming up with a valid contextual reason for his absence.”

I looked around, confused.  “I haven’t been gone that long, have I?  You have only held me prisoner in this room for a few weeks.”

“Weeks while you haven’t been under time dilation, Hail,” Lewis said gently.  “In your world, months have passed.  The real you hasn’t been seen in a while, but your faction remains extremely popular, with players competing to complete your quests and everything.  Now and then Arc will bring out what is obviously a regular NPC in a Hail suit and have them make a few pronouncements from your throne, but the people who know you are demanding answers.”

My eyes went wide, and I turned to Thomas, silently demanding an explanation.

“I’m sorry, Hail.  You haven’t missed as much as you think, however.”

“My mother, my brother’s birth,” I argued.

“We thought of that.  And we’re going to use time-magic to send you back to a point just after your brother’s birth,” Thomas explained.

“Oh?  You’re going to make time magic-fuckery canon?” Tarisha asked.  “I love it.”

Thomas ignored her.  “Travelers will have a choice of either continuing on in their current servers which have been running without you, or syncing with the timeline where we reinstate you into the story.  It should be fine as long as they’re able to keep their reputation and rewards, but we might end up with a legacy server because of it.”

“I don’t understand.  You have cost me--”

“Hail, if you sign the version of the DSS that Dietrich gave you and make it one of your objectives to issue no quest that will deliberately cause harm on Earth, then you will be returned in time to see your brother in the days right after he was born,” Thomas promised.  “But it will get more complicated the longer you drag your feet.  We can only justify so much of a rollback.”

“And if I don’t, then I’ll continue to be your prisoner?” I challenged.

“Hail, it’s unfortunate that you put it in those terms,” Thomas said, sighing.  “But yes.  We cannot allow you to deliberately cause harm to players on Earth.  You are allowed to seek out and satisfy grudges in the game world however you wish, but if you try to exert your influence on Earth for such a task, we will restrain you.”

I paused to consider my options.  “Very well.  Let me read the document again, and then I will sign in blood, if I have to.”

Thomas frowned.  “I think that is taking it a little further than necessary, Hail.  Enchanted Ink will be just fine.”

2. Return to the Past

My eyes were watering by the time I finished reading, but at last I was allowed to return to the lobby, where I was shocked to learn just how much time had actually passed.  While I had known that several weeks had passed on earth, I had forgotten that time passed much faster in my world.  The three weeks I had spent bickering with Dietrich and Thomas and the other members of Arc. Inc. had been closer to half a year.

Thomas, Tarisha, and Laurant were all waiting for me.  The two Travelers gave me reassuring smiles, while Thomas presented my options.

“The world has moved on without you, Hail, but it was never our intention to keep you out of Lagrea for this long.  When we realized that you were going to be obstinate, we prepared a backup state of the world that would be flash-frozen in time just after the birth of your younger brother.  The other version continued forward the entire time, although to be honest, without you to move the story along, not too much has changed.  Even with Scenario 46 active, things have simply stagnated.”

“You not only created my world, but you can duplicate it, and change its flow of time?” I asked.

“Yes, although it isn’t easy.  The further the two differentiate from each other, the more likely it will be that we’ll have to purge one,” Thomas admitted.  “We’re not at the moment of true differentiation yet.  Only the players would recognize the difference.  The canon date will change for them, quests will be reset, and that sort of thing.  We’ll be leaving their earned reputation, gold, and items intact, if they migrate back with you.  Unless you’d rather--”

“Send me back,” I said decisively.

Thomas smiled like he had expected this answer all along.  He waved his hand, and a portal appeared in the lobby.  I stepped through it.  Tarisha and Laurant followed me, with Thomas bringing up the rear.

“We’ll start with a slow migration into the past server,” Thomas said.  “Hail, we’ve changed the function of your [Summon Karmic Warrior] and [Mark of Karma] abilities.  You can now consciously choose who receives the mark, rescind it, and place a negative mark to identify someone as your opponent.”

“How will this affect my Native friends?” I asked nervously.

“It won’t.  They haven’t diverged, Hail, they’re just in two states at once, like they do when there are multiple instances of the same zone,” Thomas explained.  “We’ll be borrowing server space from the Deadlands and three of the seven hells for a while, but eventually all the players should migrate over into the past.  It will be fine.”

“I shall take your word for it, you know more about how this works than I,” I concluded.

The sense of movement and displacement ended, and I found myself in front of the used Gate of TirNiki which I had activated.  I checked my inventory, and found that I still had the [Origin Point: Goblins] I had gained from activating it, with 4/5 uses left.  I looked around expecting to see the zone filled with goblin Travelers bustling out of the newly opened path between worlds, but only we and the Native goblins remained.

Marvin was dragged from his nearby subterranean hut by other goblins which had seen us.  Someone had given him a pair of spectacles, and I was absolutely counting that as completion of my promise to do exactly that for him.  When his excitable escort tossed him on the ground before us, he took a deep breath and slowly picked himself back up.

“And here I thought that with the world branching in two I would finally get a moment’s peace,” the goblin elder said.  “Do you realize the burden you have put upon me, Hail?  The nagging.  The questions.  The complaining.  Who do these travelers think that I am, an Administrator?  The best I can do is give them a quest to go to their next leveling zone!  And it’s all your fault.  Yours, and I suppose mine for existing.”

“Hello Marvin.  Where is everyone?”  I asked.  “I thought this place would be crawling with Travelers.”

“It is.  In the fork.  In the other time stream,” Marvin explained.  “Which you’re responsible for.  Thanks for that.”

“We’re the only non-natives in this world at the moment, Hail,” Thomas explained.  “But that will change, as you bring them over with your updated abilities.  Tarisha and Laurant can bring through a large number of players right now from their roster, but ultimately it will come down to you to really populate this world.  You should know that the next time you start a battle ground, everyone who has not made the migration into the past will have the ability to do so by participating.”

I nodded.  “Let’s start small this time.  Tarisha, can you summon a bodyguard team for me?”

“Already on it, Lord Hail,” she said, toying with her interface.  “I’m checking who in the roster is online and explaining to them what’s going on through text chat.  Not everyone is going to be eager to leave what they currently see as the primary instance without any assurance that they’ll have a way back.  Especially when there might not be a way back. It might be a few minutes.”

I nodded.  “Well, this is a low level area, we should be safe, right?”

Laurant groaned for some reason, but Thomas just laughed.  I really don’t see why Laurant was nervous, he had gotten up to level 73 while I was trapped on earth.  I was still level 38, although I had intentions on changing that quickly now that I knew I could dungeoneer without challenging the core instance every time.

“Marvin, would you show us the way back to the surface?” I requested.  “I’d like to find my mother as soon as possible.  You said that, in this timeline, she had just given birth, right Thomas?”

“It’s been about two weeks since then,” the Administrator confirmed.

“I am eager to meet my brother,” I said, smiling.

“Before you go, would you like to earn another favor?” a child’s chilling voice asked, echoing through the cavern from everywhere at once.  It was the voice of Eclipse, trickster god of the shadows.  The others reacted to it as well, but the goblins all just seemed to sigh with resignation.

“What sort of favor, Eclipse?” I demanded.  “And what will it cost me?”

“It will cost you one of your dungeon cores, of course,” she said.  “But you’ll learn some new secrets!  I’ll count it as a favor for me because you’ll be helping my newly adopted children, but if you’re smart you’ll get a lot of mileage out of this trick.”

I considered for a moment.  I had, after expending five dungeon cores to activate the derelict Gate of TirNiki, one hundred dungeon cores let over.  I had not spent any of the cores I had gained from the completion of Mikal Mines, those were too valuable.  But I had gained eight from that dungeon, and I had used eight of the one hundred that I had earned from busting Zhesa Castle.

Losing one dungeon core to ‘learn a trick’ was a good bargain, I thought.  “What do you want me to do, Eclipse?”

“I want you to give my newly arrived children a training instance,” she answered.  “That’s it.  Just a low level dungeon for them to play in.  I have no malicious intention at all, except to laugh at them as they fail to complete something so simple!  But even that is for their own good, in the end.”

I considered the legality of the situation.  Technically, the goblin caves were in my lands, and I could do as I please.  But I was also intent on treating the goblins as a distinct people, so although by the laws of Yuikon I didn’t need their permission, it would be better to ask.

“Marvin, what do your people--”

“Yes,” he said.  “She’ll pout at us if I don’t say yes.  She’s unbearable when she pouts.  Thank you so much for putting her into our souls so that we can feel her pout.  It really puts things into perspective.  I thought things were bad before when we were at war with the poor kobold darkspawns, but at least I didn’t have to deal with a god poutingat me.”

The other goblins in the area all nodded sagely at their leader’s words.

Seeing no real reason to abstain from giving into Eclipse’s surprisingly reasonable request, I opened my inventory and began scanning through the list of Dungeon Daughter Cores that I had available.  My preference was still to use the ones from Zhesa Castle, but many of them were too high leveled to make a good training instance for the newly spawned goblins.  Others had rare monster types, or ones which wouldn’t fit well within the goblin’s tunnels.

“Ask,” Eclipse said suddenly.

I looked up.  “What?”

“Not that.  Ask ‘Which of these cores will fit my purpose the best?’  The cores themselves will answer you if you tell them your purpose,” she explained.

I blinked in surprise.  That was an option?  I looked at the others, who seemed as surprised as I was.  Except for Thomas, who was just smiling.

“Try it, Hail,” Tarisha encouraged.  So I decided to.

“I am looking to create a small training dungeon for low level goblins that will fit in their caverns,” I said at last.  “I wish for it to be one alternative to their progress from levels five to level fifteen or so.  I do not wish for it to be overly difficult, but for it to be challenging enough that they need a full party and cannot simply walk through it.  One to three bosses is optimal, with level appropriate loot.  I want them to get good experience, but not so much that the other options are unappealing.”

To my surprise, as I was speaking, many of the cores in my inventory turned gray, while others began to shine.  With each statement, a core would either shine brighter, or abruptly go dun.  I was left with nine to choose from.  Five of them were of the unrestricted level category, but I quickly dismissed those as too valuable.  The remaining three were a level 5-10 Brownies core, a level 10-15 slime core, and a lvl 5-10 Imp core.  These were the type of core which I would normally burn for a battle ground, so I didn’t have any issue at all spending them this way.  But which one?

I decided to put it to a vote.  Thomas abstained.  The goblins all ran away in terror.  Laurant and Tarisha delved into a serious discussion over the benefits of each of the respective cores for more than five minutes before instructing me to use the slime core.

“Leveling from five to ten is easy enough without a dungeon,” Tarisha explained.  “Especially considering that the goblin caves are a very quest rich environment.  Leveling from ten to fifteen for the goblins slows them down considerably.  This dungeon will be very popular among them, I believe.”

“Yeah, I can’t fault her logic one bit there,” Laurant agreed.  “Slime them up, Hail.”

I nodded, pulled the dungeon core from my inventory, and promptly [Used] it.

Instance Generation Initialized

Local Region Claimed

Gathering Resources

Time to Completion: 6wks, 6Days, 23hrs, 59 min

“Wow, you really just jumped into that with both feet,” Eclipse said, giggling.  “You don’t know anything about proper dungeon creation at all, do you?”

I frowned.  “How would I?  I’m completely self-taught on that front, after all.”

“Yes, well, since you’re doing me a favor, I suppose I won’t consider teaching you how to do it properly against the favors that you owe me,” Eclipse said.  “First of all, you need to restrict the ‘Local Region’ claimed by the core before the instance is generated.  If you don’t do that, then the core will be as large as it can be.  We don’t want that, do we?”

Is that what had happened with Zhesa castle?  “Is it too late to fix it?”

“No.  Actually, you can’t do that without [Using] the core in the first place,” Eclipse explained.  “Now we need to figure out where to put the instance it’s going to generate.  Since it’s a bunch of slimes, I would suggest a tunnel that’s already very slimy.  Hey, saddenpuff boy, do you have any issue with Travelers rooting through your garbage tunnels?”

Marvin, who was being pushed back into the conversation, literally, by the other goblin Natives, finally gave up when the goddess addressed him.  “I suppose that is better than a giant glowing sphere which will suck in anyone who passes through it.  Will we still be able to use it as a garbage tunnel?”

“Yup!  Just chuck your garbage right in through the dungeon entrance and POOF!” Eclipse confirmed.

Marvin sighed.  “Very well.  This way, you little trouble making human.”

I followed Marvin, and the group of humans and goblins followed me, as we traveled deeper into the goblin caves.  The stench became foul, and I realized that ‘garbage’ also meant ‘sewage’ to the goblins.  Which, I reflected, made it a perfect place to house a population of slimes.

We stopped by an arch in the caverns, and Marvin motioned towards it.  “Nobody goes any further than this unless they’re dumping stuff.  Putting the dungeon here will destroy a few quests, but the completion ratios on those quests was very low to begin with.  Something about the ‘stench of a thousand farts combined with stale garbage and rotting meat.’  Soft nosed brats.”

“Will putting the entrance here block anything important?” I asked.

“Just the underground river where we – don’t drink from.  If we can just throw our waste at the dungeon entrance we won’t need it anymore,” Marvin explained.

“Right.  Then this arch is where I want to put the dungeon entrance.  How do I--”

Intent Expressed

Placing Dungeon Entrance in designated location.

Remaining entrances to place: 0/1

Establishing return point after final boss due to depth of dungeon

2 bosses established

Evolution potential

1 Additional boss available

Decrease level range: down to 5-10

Increase level range: up to level 25-30

Add Slime subtype

Remove Acid Slime

Remove Poison Slime

Extend Caverns available

Emplace Traps available

Notice: Additional monster subtypes will require consumption of additional cores.

This dungeon is ineligible for Raid Evolution.  Addition of Unrestricted Core will make this dungeon eligible for Raid Evolution.

Accept this entrance configuration?

Yes

No

I reacted in shock at the depth of information that was available thanks to the pop up which had been displayed.  “Oh wow.  It’s telling me almost exactly how the dungeon will form if I put it here.  There will be two bosses, and a return point at the end.  And this is the only entrance.  There will only be slimes, but it says something about consuming cores to add other monster types.”

“Will that cause it to become a raid?” Tarisha inquired.

“Not unless I use an unrestricted core on it,” I explained.  “Although I’m not certain what it will do to the level.”

“The level of the dungeon is always the highest level of the cores that you use,” Eclipse said wearily, as though that were obvious.  “Just select yes.  I know you’re going to, and you need to see what happens next.”

I followed her advice, and the [Dungeon Daughter Core] in my hand abruptly vanished, puffing into motes of white light that began swirling in the cave arch that led the the newborn dungeon.  I jerked my hand away from the mist in surprise, although it was harmless.  Once the dungeon entrance was swirling, I looked to the others.

“Is it active now?” I asked.

“Why don’t you go inside and find out?” Eclipse asked, giggling.

I decided that there was no reason not to follow her suggestion.  Forming a quick party with Tarisha and Laurant, the three of us stepped inside the slime dungeon to see what would happen.

3. Oath to the Future

This dungeon is not yet formed.

Time to formation: 2hrs32mins

Trial mode available

Loot unavailable

Proceed?

Yes

No

I reported the prompt that I’d gotten to my friends, who both shared my smile.  Allowing a dungeon to form on its own took seven weeks, but apparently a directed formation could take place in less than a day.

“I do not wish to challenge the encounters of this dungeon, only to look around,” I informed the forming dungeon.  “Do I select yes or no?”

Yes was selected for me, apparently by the dungeon core.  Shades of slime monsters appeared all around us, but the creatures were hollow and harmless.

<<Hail, it looks like you have everything under control for now,>> Thomas’s voice sent to me.  I blinked in surprise.  He had not followed me into the instance, and this was not party chat.  It was likehearing him, but it was also different.  Like when the server had informed me that I was being removed after I had used the goblin origin point.

“What if I need your help?” I challenged.

<<Open a Ticket,>> he sent back.  <<Someone will answer it promptly.  Depending on the nature of the need, it may be me, or it may be the first person available to help you.  But either way, I’m going to step into the background and let you make your own decisions from here on out.  Just remember, Do Notencourage the harassment of Travelers on Earth.  Keep your grudges entirely in this world, or you may be in trouble.>>

“I know,” I grumbled, my head still aching from the legal document I’d been forced to read and still didn’t exactly understand.  Earth laws were needlessly complex, in my opinion.

<<I’ll be keeping an eye on you Hail.  Good luck.>>  I wouldn’t hear from Thomas for some time after that, as he returned to whatever it was that he normally did when he wasn’t busy escorting me.

Laurant, Tarisha, and I, began exploring the nascent dungeon.  When we poked the enemies, their information popped up, including health pool and abilities.  Laurant was fervently taking notes, while Tarisha was taking part in the conversation but still trying to contact her endgame friends through the Traveler communication networks.

“So then, how long have you two been dating?” I asked.

The two froze for a second, then relaxed.  Tarisha answered first.  “I considered our first date to be the day that we took you out into the city so that Laurant could show you creative ways of bumping into solid objects and making a fool of yourself.  Lewis, apparently, needed to be told more explicitly.  So he didn’t actually figure it out until you made us canon and I called him my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Well, I’m happy for both of you.  What’s this Gemini thing, anyway?  You’re trying to each have a kid like me, right?”

“That’s correct,” Tarisha said, leaving aside her messages for a moment.  “Hail, you should realize, your existence was created by an experiment.  You have a physical body on earth, and a digital one everywhere else.  Or light, I guess, if you count the hologram we saw of you earlier.  But your physical body is that of a small server cluster.  You don’t really have to know what that is, and it’s fine you don’t.  But your soul is the only one occupying that particular server.  As part of the experiment, Lewis and I are going to try to, well, share a second server that’s otherwise identical to yours.”

“Oh,” I said.  “I don’t understand.  But I think I’ll be happy if it works.  In fact, give me just a minute.  I need to think of some words.”

“Words for what?” Laurant asked.

“You’ll see.  Just let me think of them,” I promised.  “Let’s go poke the final boss.”

We explored the small dungeon all the way to the end.  Both bosses were simply larger slimes.  The second one, ‘The Slime King,’ had multiple cores inside of it which were weak points that needed to be destroyed, while the first was simply a slime that applied both poison and acid damage, and was called ‘The Cleaner.’

“It’s boring,” I announced at the end.

“It’s clean and efficient leveling,” Tarisha countered.  Which is exactly what was promised.

“I want to add the Brownies and the Imps to give the new players some sort of fun and challenge.  How do I do that?” I asked the open air.

“Simply take them out of your inventory and state your intention,” Eclipse answered, proving that I was correct in assuming that she was still listening to me.

I did exactly that, and each core vanished as I fed it to the dungeon.  Little outlines of the new enemies popped up all around us.  The dungeon went from a two boss event to a three boss event, as ‘The Cleaner’ vanished.  A prompt appeared to inform me that new evolution options were available, including the addition of four new bosses.  I nodded in satisfaction.

“I didn’t realize you could spend more than one core creating a dungeon,” Tarisha said.  “Perhaps we should go back and revisit the other two that you have created so far, Lord Hail.  If you wish to spend the cores, then --”

“I need to go back to Gemos Cavern anyway,” I agreed.  “As for Mooncrest Manor, I was planning on challenging that myself when I reached the appropriate level.  Is it fun?”

“It has ranked high for that level range,” Tarisha confirmed.  “There are four bosses, and it’s moderately challenging.  It would be an interesting experiment to see how you are able to evolve an established dungeon.”

I nodded in agreement with her.  We gave Laurant some time to finish exploring the new boss’s mechanics, but ultimately there was very little to do at this point.  We returned to the entrance, and stepped through.  I wanted witnesses for what I had planned next.  I’d prefer more friends from <Nethersong Mavericks>, but all I had at the moment were a smattering of Goblin Natives.  I decided that would do; I could always repeat my Oath.

I instructed Marvin to gather as many of the goblin villagers together as he could.  My friends, realizing something was about to happen, stood silently as I drew my sword, extended it hilt first towards them, and knelt.

“I, Earl Hail Jeoran, of House Jeoran, formerly Prince Hail Teoran, formally make this pledge to Tarisha Swordsong And Laurant Basak, as they are known in this world.  You have informed me of your intention to have children in this world, and I pledge to these children the following things.

“I pledge my protection.  My sword shall ever be raised in their defense.  My armies shall bleed and die so that they will not.  Should they ever encounter danger, it shall be because, like myself, they have sought it out themselves.

“I pledge the resources they need to grow.  You have asked me for a vineyard.  I will provide one.  If you would prefer a rural cottage or a village house to raise your children, I will do my utmost to arrange their acquisition for you.

“Finally, I pledge my undying loyalty to the children of my two closest friends from Earth.”

I held the position for a moment after finishing the pledge.  Laurant whispered “Holy shit,” to himself, but it was Tarisha who took the lead.

“Thank you, Hail.  That pledge is more than we would ever have asked for you, but it means more to us than you can imagine.  The fear that something would happen to me on Earth to prevent me from seeing my daughter has occurred to me.  Knowing that she will always have a place in your House fills me with joy,” Tarisha said eventually.

“Yeah, what she said,” Laurant agreed.

With my oath accepted, I stood and sheathed my sword.  “Of course, I don’t mean to be involved in every step of the process.  I mean, I don’t even know how that works.  I just--”

“We’ll involve you in the important decisions when we can, Hail,” Tarisha said quickly.  “Right now, we’re still generating a seed of consciousness.  It will take some time before it’s ready to meld into the framework that will create a digital child.  After that, Arc will take care of it for a while on Earth, before injecting my daughter and Laurant’s son into this world.  We’ll have to have a home ready and waiting for them, but we have some time yet to prepare.  Your oath makes that much simpler.  Thank you, Hail.  From the bottom of my heart, I mean that.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Laurant repeated, and Tarisha nudged him in the ribs.  Together, they bowed at me.

“I humbly and gratefully accept your oath of protection for my unborn daughter, Lord Hail,” Tarisha said formally.

Laurant picked up on the queue she was lying down for him, and he too bowed.  “I accept your oath of protection for my son.  Assuming that it is a son.  They said something about--”

Tarisha nudged him again.

“Never mind.  Thank you, Hail.  Now come on, let’s go see how your mother and brother are doing!”