“There you go, you little rascal!”

Imaya let the boss monster loose, watching it explore its new – and much bigger – terrarium. Swellers had tried to kill Imaya on multiple occasions in the past—honestly, she should be traumatized at the sight of them by now. So why did she find Shrinker so … cute?

Shrinker, the final boss of Randel’s Refuge, was a tiny sweller that could easily fit on Imaya’s palm. Imaya had used the portal-sweller as its base template, so Shrinker had the same red skin as the sweller that had attacked them back when the shade was controlling the Dungeon. But instead of being the size of a truck, Shrinker was … well, shrunk. Randel didn’t want any aggressive monsters down here, so Imaya had put all of Shrinker’s attribute points on mobility and defense. Shrinker wasn’t able to defend the Dungeon like a respectable boss monster would, but it would be really difficult to catch and kill the creature! Plus, it was cute. Even if technically it looked like a headless spider.

Shrinker ran a few more circles around the rocky terrain of its new home, then stopped and bounced up and down on its legs. If it had any tail, it would have been wagging now. Imaya grinned; she could almost feel Shrinker’s appreciation for her.

“I’m glad you like your new home! You’ll stay here, alright? Defend this place!”

Imaya raised the control crystal in her hand, repeating the command just in case. The unevenly cut crystal flashed once with a dull light as it issued the command—and just like that, she had assigned a new room to the boss. Reeeally convenient! Imaya no longer needed to wait to borrow the Core from Randel, and she could do whatever she wanted with the Dungeon without any of the risks involved. If someone got into this room and killed Shrinker, Randel would be the one who was summoned here to give up his Dungeon Core. Imaya would fly under the radar for those who wanted to take the Dungeon for themselves. It made her feel a little bit bad for Randel, but … well, this was his idea. Technically, the Dungeon was still his—if he made any rules, Imaya did her best to follow them.

He didn’t make many rules. As far as Imaya was concerned, this was the ideal setup for her to tinker with the Dungeon however she wished. Whatever few requests Randel had, she agreed with them anyway—such as not to create anything overly dangerous down here. Building the most difficult and deadly Dungeon would have been challenging and fun, if only Imaya wouldn’t have had to deal with the consequences. She didn’t want to be the cause of other people’s death.

Forgoing guardian monsters and instantly lethal traps had its risks, of course. Greedy and selfish people were everywhere, and a few big bosses could have deterred them from trying to take the Dungeon for themselves. In fact, Devi had argued very passionately for having guardian monsters around the control room. Randel didn’t yield though, insisting that they needed no such thing. It had been weird to watch the two of them argue. Not bicker like lovers, but actually argue.

Imaya had always figured that Devi had Randel wrapped around her finger, but she had been proven wrong. There were a few occasions recently when the couple didn’t see eye to eye, and Imaya had quickly learned that both Randel and Devi could be very stubborn if they wanted to be. She tended to feel a bit … awkward during those disputes. She was clearly a third wheel, her input secondary to theirs. Usually she just let them handle the arguments themselves—luckily, they had no trouble putting their differences aside! Whatever the couple did at night always seemed to work. Imaya felt a blush creep up her neck at that stray thought.

Anyway! She had sided with Randel about the no-monster policy. Having hordes of minions would have been cool, but even without those the Dungeon was far from defenseless. Imaya knew the power of specialization; be a typical Dungeon, have a little of everything, and most Players would just roll over every obstacle she created. That wasn’t how pro players played RPGs! A far better strategy was to focus only on one thing—and in this case, that one thing was riddles and geometry. Okay, those were actually two things. Anyway, both of them were important in hindering invaders from getting to the boss room. This room.

Imaya left Shrinker’s crevice and walked back to the central area; a round central chamber with eight hidden crevices at the sides. It didn’t look like much, but that was the boss room. The crevices served all sorts of utility functions such as housing Shrinker, keeping Randel’s paintings safe, and one of them even had a bed where Imaya could sleep if she didn’t feel like going home. She still had her own room upstairs in Randel’s building, but going up and down every day was such a hassle! If only she could have warm showers here too…

Imaya stopped as she reentered the control room, allowing herself to take in the awesome scenery. The walls around her reflected the world outside in perfect clarity, as if she was standing on the rooftop of Randel’s building. The moon shone down on her with a bright green, almost yellow color. If there were any stars in the sky, they couldn’t be seen because of the moonlight.

Normally nights like this were peaceful and quiet, but tonight Imaya saw a commotion at the edge of the projection. She couldn’t change perspectives to look down to the streets, but she saw that people were leaning out of nearby windows. Thick smoke billowed toward the dark sky.

“Burning garbage again?” Imaya said, her voice echoing oddly on the domed ceiling.

One big drawback of Randel’s building was that it stood in the poor district. Slums? Yeah, Imaya supposed she could call it slums, even if it was only the very edge of it. She always made sure to stay safely inside during the nights; public security in these parts of the city didn’t seem to exist. She hoped that this recent commotion in the streets would alert the City Watch enough to intervene, but she didn’t find it likely.

Steering her thoughts toward more fun things, Imaya turned her gaze to the projection in the middle of the control room. Even after having gazed at it so much, she found the sight breathtaking still. The perfect combination of science fiction and fantasy. Staring at the holographic reconstruction of her Dungeon, knowing that she had created all of this, was the best feeling ever.

Imaya sat down in her comfy chair and leaned back, putting her feet up on the mini fridge. She watched the large projection some more. Perhaps she could build some kind of observation deck around it? The chair and the fridge were nice, but they weren’t very science-fictiony. She would look much cooler if she were looking at the projection from above, surrounded by monitors showing statistical data. Of course her collar could project those screens anytime, but those old school pieces of technology had a certain beauty to them. Without any tangible physical apparatus, this room of projections and holograms felt too silent and empty.

Speaking of which; a few nights ago Imaya had come across the possibility of having a music player in her hideout. Perhaps tonight she could investigate it further? Clutching the control crystal, she activated her collar’s projection and chose the dedicated Dungeon tab—and got immediately sidetracked by the numbers in the upper left corner.

Dungeon Mana: 3 050 372 / 5 000 000

Dungeon Points: 27 505

The mana value stood a little lower than what she had expected, but it was nothing to worry about; Randel’s Refuge had a truly rapid mana regeneration. Imaya wasn’t quite sure whether that was normal for a Dungeon, but she had her suspicions that this was a special case. The mana regeneration of Nerilia’s natives depended on how close they were to the World Seeds—to the sources of all mana in this world. It was no surprise that cities around Seeds were popular! Even if those places had inconvenient quirks like rotating city sections, the regeneration boost was probably worth it. So, what if Dungeons behaved the same way?

Randel’s Refuge was down to 60% mana, but it had been 35% on the previous day after the latest expansions. Imaya reckoned that the only reason the Dungeon hadn’t recovered all of its mana by now was the number of miracles it was running. Miracles were a constant drain on the Dungeon’s mana supply. Some of them were necessary features, like the underground river that came from nowhere and disappeared to nowhere along with all the trash the locals dumped into it. Other features were not-so-necessary, such as the automated behavior of Devi’s sparring rooms that didn’t stop even if nobody was using them. Working on mana conservation and optimization was still on Imaya’s to-do list.

It wasn’t the Dungeon Mana that had caught her attention, however. The Dungeon Points were the second kind of resource available, and it was what Randel’s Refuge was struggling with the most. While mana was used to create and maintain things in the Dungeon, the Dungeon Points were used to create blueprints and templates for new things to be created. If Imaya wanted variety, she needed DP—and to get DP, people had to die within the Dungeon.

A non-lethal Dungeon had obvious problems acquiring those DPs, though fortunately even people dying of old age or disease counted. Imaya didn’t want people to die here, but she still felt frustrated by how slowly DP accumulated. She felt so dirty for feeling this way. The only reason she had a reasonable amount of DP to begin with was because the previous owner of this Dungeon had murdered dozens of people. Stanley had once jokingly said that she was building her empire from the souls of the dead, and it kept bothering her ever since. Stupid bard.

Dungeon Points weren’t technically the same as essence, though there was definitely some correlation. Some people said the essence was their soul, some people said that it was only the personalized mana they held. Whatever it was, the white mist that left the body upon death usually evaporated in the air—with some notable exceptions. If a Player was nearby, their collar absorbed the essence. If a World Seed was nearby, then it absorbed the essence instead of the Player. And if Soul Eater killed something, then the XP went to Randel for some unfair reason.

A Dungeon worked alongside these rules. Whether the essence went to a Player or to the Word Seed, the Dungeon received some DPs as well. The only exception was killing with Randel’s cheater dagger—at least according to the animal experiments they had done. Animals were worth so little DP that it was hard to observe any change. According to Randel, it netted significantly more DP if a Player died down here. Though he had refused to say how he knew such things, he claimed that the majority of their current DP was because of dead Players. That included Simon, Pell, and Tamara.

So … this Dungeon had a bloody history. Imaya tried not to think about it too much. She always thought carefully about what to spend DP on, handling it almost reverently. She knew it was unlikely that they would gain much more, which made it all the more shocking to see now that the DP value had increased by several hundred. After some quick mental calculations, she guessed that it would mean three or four dead people. Could it be a coincidence that so many died at once? She supposed it could be … but then she looked around her and saw the smoke outside.

“Oh no,” Imaya whispered, her face paling. Now she really wished that the illusion on the walls showed more about the city below instead of the night sky! She jumped to her feet and moved closer to the Dungeon’s holographic display. Rooms and corridors stacked on top of each other; the image was super dense on the top but got sparser the deeper the Dungeon went. Imaya concentrated with her control crystal in hand, wishing the display to zoom in on the top section—the Undercity, as Imaya called it. The blue lines making up the walls became more intricate, showing every building and structure within.

Dungeon Mana: 3 085 777 / 5 000 000

Dungeon Points: 27 620

Another increase in DP. Imaya scrolled quickly through the control options that her collar’s interface provided, selecting and turning on the life-sense of the Dungeon. She could have done it mentally too, but she found that for certain tasks it was faster to just use the interface instead of trusting the collar’s mind-reading capabilities. The feature that she turned on showed a glowing dot on the map for every living being.

The entire Undercity glowed with tiny dots, especially the perimeters where the locals currently lived. It wasn’t super useful, because there was no way to tell who was who, but this was the best Imaya could do at the moment. She rotated the map to check the entrances of the Dungeon one by one, noting that more and more dots came to life at almost each of them. Was that normal during the night, at this hour? She had no idea. Many of the dots were moving rather fast, coming deeper inside. Some of them alone, some of them in a group. Maybe they were running from the fire outside?

Imaya paced nervously in front of the map. Should she upgrade the Dungeon to see better? There were possible upgrade paths that could have helped her—but she planned to take those later, once the bigger issues of the Dungeon were solved. Well, now she was regretting not spending more DP on surveillance.

What other options did she have? Go outside and check in person? Maybe she could find Tora and ask him first. Where was Randel? Shouldn’t he be here to handle this trouble? But maybe there was no trouble, just an ordinary fire outside? Yes, just an accident. And people were escaping to the Dungeon, and some of them died from their burns here. Imaya could almost believe that was the case, until she saw a group of glowing dots approach a single dot hiding in the bakery near the entrance. The single dot suddenly blinked out.

Quest received: Defending the Refuge

“Nooo,” Imaya whimpered. Still, in spite of her growing anxiety, she switched to the Quests tab on her interface to check the new entry.

Defending the Refuge

Description: Fortram’s underground gangs watched your growth with envy, and now they have finally decided to take action. A joint alliance of the Black Moon, the Quick Foxes, the Ravagers, the Middle Fingers, and the Serpents descended on your Dungeon in an attempt to take it.

Objective: Keep your control over Randel’s Refuge.

Rewards: 12 000 Dungeon Points for Randel’s Refuge, 1500 credits to your Player Allowance

Imaya slumped down to the ground, clutching her head. Why? Why now?! Everything had been going so well! Alright, sure, she had caught wind that some people were snooping around in the Refuge. Since anyone could enter, that much was to be expected. But a joint alliance of Fortram’s gangs?! What was Imaya supposed to do against that? Randel had his own gang of sorts, the Painters, but they were just a bunch of randoms without leadership. There was no way they could stand a chance in an outright war like this.

Imaya could hide here for a while. It would take time for the invaders to crack the riddles, and by that time Randel and Devi would surely arrive here to help. Maybe they were already out there, killing the bad guys… Imaya shuddered at the thought. Would she kill her first person tonight? It would count as self defense, right? But maybe with her Player gear, she could just incapacitate them or something. She was stronger than an average thug and she just had to scare them away. She wasn’t sure who would be more scared, however. She was all alone.

She missed Teva’ryn. It was only this afternoon that he had left, but she missed him already. He had always had her back. Why couldn’t he stay just a day longer?! But, of course, that wish was selfish. They barely knew anything about each other. Imaya had deluded herself by thinking that they had anything more than polite companionship. She had to just forget him already. This wasn’t the first time she had gotten her hopes up for nothing, and it wouldn’t be the last.

She sniffed, trying to steel herself. She wasn’t completely alone. She still had Devi and Randel as friends, though she didn’t see them as close friends. If they found out that the Dungeon was under attack, their first thought wouldn’t be let’s find Imaya and make sure she is alright. They would be too busy killing the bad guys to think about her. Which was … understandable, in a way. Imaya still wished she had someone to have her back, someone she could rely on—but she reaped what she had sown. She blamed her introverted side for this, staying inside all day to tinker with the Dungeon.

“Stop it, stupid,” Imaya said to herself, rubbing her eyes. People were dying out here, and she was feeling sorry about herself for being alone. She was a Player! And an adult woman, no matter how strange that sounded. She could handle this.

Dungeon Mana: 3 195 012 / 5 000 000

Dungeon Points: 28 940

She pushed herself up from the floor, getting to her feet. Trying not to overthink what she was about to do, she walked to the side of the control room. Although the illusion on the walls concealed the small crevices that led to the side-rooms, Imaya already knew by heart where her own room lay. She barely looked around as she stepped inside, zeroing in on her Player gear that lay beside the small bed.

A war hammer, a buckler, and her armor. Unlike Randel, she didn’t have enough Player Allowance to buy a complete set; only the body armor was Player gear. She had ordinary leather boots and gloves, as well as a metal helmet with an open front that left her vision mostly clear, similar to the helmets that the city guards wore. She looked silly in it, but she could endure this much if it meant protecting her head from—ugh, from bad things happening to it.

Imaya donned the body armor first: her Stable Chest of Momentum. It was a dark green bulletproof vest with some metallic plates to cover her shoulders and upper arms, the first part of a tank armor set. The Stable part in the item’s name improved her poise and stability at the cost of reduced movement speed—basically, it took her a tiny bit more effort to move her legs. The strain on her legs was only noticeable after extended periods of usage, and even then, Imaya believed that it was a good way to make her legs stronger.

Stability aside, it was actually the Momentum part that convinced Imaya to purchase the item. Moving around charged the armor with energy, granting her magical defense and empowering her attacks. The faster and farther she moved, the more energy she built up—and by using her new Ability, Reckless Dash, she could move really fast and far. Imaya guessed that if she spammed Reckless Dash in quick succession, her armor would be able to stop even Devi’s energy blade—though she didn’t dare to actually test it, of course.

Her Warhammer of Inertia and Parry Buckler were lower quality items, but they were powerful in their own way. The buckler helped Imaya to block and parry incoming attacks – even projectiles – with perfect precision. The war hammer was a simple-looking weapon, with a flat head that ended in a vicious spike. It had an enchantment on it that was supposed to make it unstoppable, but Imaya was quite sure that her low-tier weapon wasn’t actually unstoppable. Still, she liked it. Everyone was swinging around swords and daggers, which in her opinion were highly overrated and also predictable.

Imaya had a dagger too, however. An ordinary one, strapped to her thigh in case she lost the hammer. It might have been unnecessary, but she remembered all too vividly the day she had fought the sweller swarm in the Dungeon. A simple dagger could make all the difference, and there was no reason not to have a backup weapon.

She had to take off her glasses to put on her helmet, which was unfortunate. This world had no contact lenses as far as she knew, so she had to rely on her Arcane Sight in combat. Not that she wouldn’t rely on it anyway. Apart from granting her perfect eyesight, Arcane Sight allowed her to see through illusions and spot the mana flow in both people and the environment. Even better, after reaching level 5 it became able to project her collar’s UI into her eyes without having to turn on her collar!

Arcane Sight, level 5

Description: Enhance your vision. Efficiency increases by level.

Cost: 1 mana point per 10 seconds

Imaya couldn’t wait so see what she would get once the Ability reached the maximum Ability level of 10. Thermal vision? X-ray vision? The possibilities were exciting. She activated the Ability as she put on her helmet, arranging the UI elements quickly with her mind. All menu windows closed, an empty box for debuffs and a mostly-empty box of buffs neatly put to the bottom corners of her vision. Her stamina and mana bars went to the upper left corner, under the health bar. She still didn’t have any health points of course, but the collar was able to show on a 3D model how injured her body was—and the health bar bar was a converted version of that. Even her fatigue was represented on it in the form of a grayed-out, reserved section.

Being able to see her resources without having to open her collar’s menu was huge in Imaya’s opinion. Managing her mana and stamina was vital for her build, and the added overlay on her vision made it much easier! Speaking of which, she had to turn off her Arcane Sight to preserve mana. And then, she was done.

Imaya stood in the small room, looking for something else she could do in order to prepare. There was nothing. She had no potions, no magical relics, no different sets of equipment she could choose from depending on the mission. She was as ready as she would ever get.

“I’m ready,” she spoke out loud, trying to convince herself. Thinking about Player stuff had helped in pushing back her anxiety, but now that she was done she could feel it returning. Suddenly, having no guardian creatures seemed like a terrible idea. If only she had a scary monster that she could bring into battle…

“No,” Imaya said. “I’m doing this now. I’m ready.”

She strode out of her room and took in the illusory walls of the control room. If anything, the fires outside Randel’s building seemed to have worsened. Imaya approached a section of the illusion, behind which a pair of vertical portal disks stood. As she grabbed a chalk from beside the disk, she thought about how to go about this. Obviously, she couldn’t open a portal straight into a hotspot; portals remained open for a minute, and anyone would be able to enter them from the other direction. The last thing she wanted to do was to lead the bad guys straight into the heart of the Dungeon! No, she would need to be extra careful. She usually used a proxy room to enter and leave the control room, but tonight she would use two proxies.

“I’m not stalling,” she muttered as she began to draw. “I’m just cautious.”

The portal opened up all too soon, wide and big with swirling colors. Imaya hesitated, turning back to look at the Dungeon’s map in the middle of the room. This was her last chance to change her mind. She could just wait here as the last line of defense, keeping the control crystal safe. She could ignore the deaths.

But Imaya was a Player. Not the strongest Player, or the bravest, or the most talented. But she was chosen as a Player, and that had to mean something. She had once told Randel that this was their story, that they could end up anywhere in this world. She had been naive and hopeful back then, back before her companions died one by one. Yet she was here, still alive. She wasn’t a nobody. She was the architect of this Dungeon, providing shelter for people who lost their homes and—and now it looked like she would fight for their safety. Like a true hero.

With sweaty hands and a heart that hammered all too wildly in her chest, Imaya stepped through the portal and dared to hope again.