Are Dungeons Sapient?

A favourite debate topic of old, while it is undeniable that Dungeons are alive and able to design traps and puzzles, many scholars refused to class them as little more than animals, claiming their traps are instinctual. The evidence is clearer for their intelligence if you look at the great Dungeons. Dungeons that have been around for millennia show attempts at communication, with varied strange glyphs over doors and arrows pointing out complex patterns that no animal could visualize. The evidence is even more clear with system challenges and quests obtained in newer dungeons. Is it not obvious they read more like the quests given through authority skills than the dull system-wide messages? They were written and each contain a portion of personality. There is no doubt that the dungeon itself wrote said messages.

Is it not obvious? Why then, with such overwhelming evidence of writing is this still debated?

An excerpt from the thesis “Dungeons are more intelligent than many of my peers”

After an unknown period of time the core awoke feeling more solid, his thoughts less scattered. Pulling his consciousness away from its resting place he turned, focusing on the tutorial messages. I have to be done by now, right? He thought staring at the final task of the tutorial.

Tutorial 10/10

Note: congratulations on the completion of the basic Dungeon Core package. I hope you chose something you can be proud of when advancing. While there is one last task for you, this tutorial has to be finished before you can start it. Have you noticed how bland your status looks? The Dungeon Core system is highly customizable and I strongly suggest you change the default around to something you would like to stare at more often. Move stuff around! Additionally, with the first system rank up you should be given access to the tiered chatroom, the most basic of communication systems designed around being able to interact with your peers. Ask for help-solve stuff together, have fun! -OG

The final Tutorial box seemed slightly different than its predecessors. Studying it to try and figure out what was different he noticed it seemed...less formal. More friendly.

Checking the corner, he also saw it looked almost like a second window was overlaid underneath this one. I guess my Title added more than just advice on the rank up.

As soon as he closed the tutorial box his status ticked the requirement for system rank up and flipped sideways past his storage to a new panel that slowly formed.

As it formed the whole status felt stronger somehow and when it finished there was a small but strong link that didn’t seem to be there before connecting his core to...somewhere else.

This panel was split into a section on the bottom with an empty bar that gave a sense of control. Here he could project his thoughts and send them over the link. A sliver on the side that could be pulled out showed several names – Later, 9323, Immortal Spring of Certainty, Amy, Xero, Abe.

Some were strong and sharp while others had a muted and dim form. However, the busiest section of the pane was the center. Nearly constant lines popped in and pushed a reel of information up. Each line started with one of the names and as the text reached the top of the panel it faded back out into nothing.

Abe: I’m telling you, Straight up. Zero pit stops. I bet I can break through the surface in 3 floors.

Xero: 😄

Abe: Won’t find me wasting time digging around like a chump. I'm going straight to the surface.

Unnamed Core: Hello?

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: Well hello what's this.

Xero: Why haven’t you set your name?

Amy: How haven’t you set your name? I thought it was a requirement to advance.

Abe: I’ll name you. Listen from now on your name is “Abe’s little bro” write that down.

Xero: 😄

Amy: You’ll scare him off this chat for life Abe. Just... pick something it doesn’t matter, you can always change it later but you can’t go around as Unnamed forever.

That...felt slightly weird to the core. Your name is how people recognize you...you shouldn't change it on a whim.

After his recent specialization in Earth, the Core really did not feel like flitting around on whims. Straightforward and honest. That's how the Core’s sentimentalities felt as his rank up made him feel more mature. More adult.

A small part of him wondered how much his personality was shaped by his choice and if it was similar to mind control, but the feeling died slowly. He felt more like his current mindset was who he was meant to be and his newborn personality was someone else’s than he did like his current thoughts were being pushed into thinking this way.

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: What about Abyssal Shadow of the Darkest Knight? As soon as you figure it out you can unlock darkness mana and run with it. Just spend the time theming up your whole dungeon, you would be so cooool. *Ahem* You simply must try it.

9323: Alright I’m bored, there's only so much digging I can handle before I want to crack my core and escape this hellhole of a life. What are you guys talking about?

Xero: Newbie.

9323: Really? Alright, where you at, what's your name.

Unnamed Core: I’m not sure yet.

9323: Oh Mr ”I’m not sure about anything”, stop stealing my personality I’m the only unsurist allowed in this chat.

Abe: Shut up 9 unsurist isn’t a word and you know it. Don’t bully noobies he’s obviously a bit slow as he hasn’t set his name yet but that's no reason to not become his friend.

9323: Do not shorten my noble name little “Ab”

Abe: This is the 4th time you’ve changed your name today. Noble it is anything but.

9324: Oh does it bother you when I do this.

9/3: The Meaning in my name is astound I assure you.

Leaving the chat and the bickering cores, the Unnamed Core pulled his attention away and attempted to focus on the outside of his gem. He looked...quite a bit bigger than he had initially, maybe 30% wider but he hadn’t really measured before.

Other than that, his uneven surface had started to bulge out. Not quite a perfect sphere yet, his crystalline surface had lost most of its flat sheets and uneven shape, bulging outwards slightly and smoothing over all the sharp edges. Additionally, his shape looked more uniform. His blue internal structure felt more orderly and rigid.

Everyone’s making out that this name, or lack thereof, is more of an issue than it should be. Let’s see. I’m a Dungeon Core and I picked an Earth element. How about EarthenCore? He pondered a bit then tossed the idea. I don’t know how many Dungeon Cores pick Earth, but it still feels generic. I want something functional, changing often would be annoying.

He was becoming increasingly more aware that he was spending too much time picking. They really are going to think I’m slow.

Glancing around he grasped at concepts. “Basalt, Rock, small cave” ack fine maybe I am being indecisive. He focused on the burning edit button and quickly dumped his new name into the panel. “Indecisive Earth” can’t say it’s the best but it’s a lot better than any of the recommendations I was given he thought while confirming it.

While he was here, he looked around for a customization option for a minute before he tried willing the status to change colours to something nicer to look at. Slowly, colour bled into his status a shade of deep blue covering the panel.

Focusing on the shade he tinted it back and forth until he found a colour that looked and felt nice. Then, focusing on the transparency he changed it to a slightly more muted feeling – the panel blurring the background slightly behind it.

Satisfied with his changes he checked everything briefly to notice several stats had changed and vowing to come back to really pore over them he switched back to the chat panel.

Indecisive Earth Level 1 0/22 exp to next level. System Access Level 1 0/2 requirements met to advance. -3+ Floors -Level 9+ Stats Current Elevation 0 At Birth Epoch. Mana Regeneration 1.1 unit/min Mana Storage 22.0/22.0 units Physical Storage 0/220 units Titles Indecisive, Earth Mana Specialization

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: My Fleet of Undying Minions have been altered once again I do wish I could show you how marvellous these Critters are.

Abe: Do they explode when they die? I’ve made mine volatile to the point they explode if something smashes them hard enough. 10/10 would recommend m8.

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: No listen I’ve focused on letting my minions flow back together if they are cut. I’m calling them Eternal Spirits of Swiftness. Took me ages to figure out they can stay together if I make them spin constantly and leave a small pocket of pure mana in the center held together by the spinning surroundings instead of keeping them all Air mana. Once I make these once I’ll never have to remake them again they shall live forever.

Abe: Be cool if they exploded though. Listen if they die you can just remake them... plus I bet they die if you hit that pocket so they aren't really undying. You can’t make claims like that you haven’t even had an adventurer yet.

Indecisive Earth: So what exactly are you designing your monsters for?

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: Isn’t it obvious? They are my Undying Legion. Once I get some adventurers in me they shall spread my name far and wide as a dungeon of impossible obstacles.

Abe: Hey you chose a name. Not quite as good as “Abe’s little Bro” but I like it. Swol.

Amy: Do you need help Designing your dungeon? I’ve been here for the longest and have some tips I’ve picked up from some dungeons that have moved on. You can ask me for help if you ever get stuck.

Abe: What's there to teach, Eat all the stone around you until you get a space large enough to shove a few exploding slugs and wait till the mana level rises. Play around with your free mana then dig upwards and repeat.

Xero: 👆

9 lives: We don’t all just make a big empty cave. What if Indecisive Earth wants to put more than a smidgen of thought into it?

Immortal Spring Of Certainty: As tall as possible. That's the way- make several shafts and pocket them with interconnecting holes. I’ll walk you through the process to make my Spirits and you can fill the shafts with them.

Indecisive Earth: I actually picked Earth as my specialization...Air’s going to be difficult.

Xero: Denied- 😄

Xero: I’m half Air and Half-Earth if it matters.

Abe: I still don’t understand bruh. What could possibly lead you to give up fire?

Xero: Trust. I have a plan.

Amy: Indecisive Earth, as off track as they are getting I’m here to help. You can ask me anything and if I know anything I can help.

Indecisive Earth: I’ll keep it in mind.

Xero: 😩 tfw you run out of storage space and can’t dig anymore.

9 lives: That’s...that’s a thing? Oh man, I think I’m running out and I only have one floor.

Amy: Compression helps Xero. So does finding a cave to dump waste in but if you’re running out of space you probably haven’t found any main caves. Compression really helps though. So actually, does leveling up. You got plenty of options- also 9 Lives you want to fill in a bit of that “giant empty cave” until you have enough levels it's hard to split floors like that.

Xero: Expand...Get bored… design a monster for fun...Expand some more. I’ve been following the stupid loop I’m telling you there’s no cave nearby and I’m level 9 now. I guess I can try compressing waste but I can’t see how to compress stone… it’s really dense already.

Amy: Increasing the amount of mana in it will definitely help you keep it stable. Trust me you can save at least 10% if not 50 if you try.

Indecisive Earth slowly tabbed out of the chat and back to his status. Leaving his attention at the chat he could almost feel the direction it was going. Small flickers at the side of his vision appeared every time someone messaged it seeming to fly in from somewhere else and slide into his status.

Focusing on those flickers he customized them slightly into a pulse at the upper side of his consciousness just to see if he could, before relaxing and letting them fall back into flickers. I don’t think I care enough about what they are saying to get a pulse every time they talk.

First checking his stats, he saw mana and physical storage had increased by...a factor of 2.2? What? Checking he noticed it was the same amount of space as experience to get to the next level.

Does that mean the experience is like a volume I’m filling? Also, what are these units? They all just say “unit”. Is there a value that makes more sense? I know all sorts of useful units now.

First, he tried changing the units displayed. Storage is space, right? Change to m3 he thought hard staring at each stat.

…None of them made the slightest sign of changing.

In my storage, the rock was displayed in grams. Change to those grams he thought focusing on the unit and number. The mana storage icon didn’t even budge again but this time his physical storage seemed to reluctantly flicker before becoming a huge value. 4764094g “basalt”.

That...seemed kind of gross. He wasn’t yet positive why his storage had increased by a weird value, but it might be better than whatever this was, considering it directly related to his experience somehow...and this value was only for basalt not all stuff he could store.

Letting the storage flip back to its weird unknown unit he finally decided he didn’t really care about exactly how much his storage could fit just how full it was. Concentrating slightly “Physical Storage” flipped to a percentage. This action was accepted by his status with a lot less effort.

Checking his “Mana Regen” and “Storage” he decided to leave them as-is for now – he noticed they had an extra decimal point...Do I have more control over mana now?

Taking a break from his status review he quickly started expanding his influence into the stone around him. There did actually seem to be a difference...it looked the same in his vision, but his control seemed immensely better and he watched his mana smoothly tick down in 0.1 increments instead of every few seconds flipping down by 1.

It also seemed to be slightly stronger than before though by how much he couldn’t say. Just that his expansion speed had increased significantly and when he pulled a small amount of mana out even though his status said it had gone down by 0.1 it still felt denser than a 10th of what he had considered “1 Mana” before. Too many mysteries with this status.

Satisfied with his experiment he went back to his status. Nearly done... I don’t think I care about my elevation...My tutorial said I can’t move until I reach the surface anyways.

He quickly hid that section and checked his advancement section. 3 floors and 9 levels. I’m done trying to figure out why they aren’t nice numbers.

I guess I’m ready. The great expansion commences!

Pushing outwards faster and faster he tried to expand as fast as possible while keeping an eye on his mana – reaching outwards grew harder the further from his crack he grew so he started to “dig” by storing rock in tubes radiating out of the minuscule cave.

Each tube was easily surrounded by his influence and he found the wider he grew the further out from each tube he could extend.

Experimenting he tried to fill in one of the tubes he had extended and claimed. Attempting to push the stone back it grew into the tube muting his senses slightly. His influence was still saturating the stone where he had advanced, but it felt dimmer and less responsive as if his sight took a second longer to peer at the end of it.

Next, he tried to dig at the furthest reaches of his influence – instead of starting at the already open cavern – and it grew...slowly. So slowly and with such a delay before it started that it would have been faster just to expand all the way to that point all over again.

Next, he tried to pull his influence back. Not that there was a specific reason “not to expand just to see if he could” but he wanted to cover all his bases. Pulling his influence back felt weird. Kind of like purposefully cutting off a limb, the rock disappeared from his sight with a strong sense of loss and, after proving that he could, Indecisive Earth immediately stopped. Not doing that anymore if I can help it.

He dug mindlessly for a bit – stopping every few minutes to wait for his mana to regenerate and then continuing. As he stopped for the 4th time he noticed that his regeneration had increased by a small amount again. He had also gained several experience points and his temporary title had also disappeared.

Indecisive Earth Level 1 3/22 exp to next level. System Access Level 1 0/2 requirements met to advance. -3+ Floors -Level 9+ Stats Mana Regeneration 1.2 unit/min Mana Storage 22.0/22.0 units Physical Storage 13% units Titles Earth Mana Specialization

Mana is up to 1.2 now. When I first levelled up it was at 1.1. What's this based on? It can't be level I just increased and I haven't levelled yet. Is it size? All I’ve been doing for the past couple of hours is expanding.

Checking the Group Chat he sent off a quick question.

Indecisive Earth: Hey does anyone know how and what increases mana regen?

Amy: Mix of things. It goes up when you grow and when you make a lot of monsters- good to have you back by the way how has your elemental magic been working out for you?

Indecisive Earth: …

Xero: lol.

Indecisive Earth: It slipped my mind and I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Amy: Have you just been digging? It’s slightly harder to get going but you should try using Earth mana to expand instead of attributeless. It’s hard to dig with the other 3 base elements but you really should have an advantage using earth. I’ve been using it even though my specialization is water.

The core felt slightly foolish for spending so much time experimenting with influence and not trying elemental magic when it was the whole big choice of his rank up. Guess I know what’s next.