Brad

"What a bloody cock up! This is one of the most tangled, disorganized, anti-organized, fucking throw it in a pot information structures I've ever seen! These are worse than Candy's notes! At least she has some internal consistency and categorization! This, it's a bloody damned dump! No wonder your Tapestry system needs to reset! No one's fucking sorting this crud to begin with!" The rant came from the mouth of a gnome-sized crystal golem.

It was a beautiful, though androgynous, sculpt. The crystal had been fused from sorted, refined Mana sands, colors for all known affinities blending together to create an opalescent casing with the luster of pearls. The golem, though sized to match a gnome, had been formed in the image of a Quetzalcoatl Naga, the base a finely detailed serpentine tail supporting a winged, humanoid torso with arms and a snake-like head. The scale pattern covered all but the wings, where it gave way to rainbow hued feathers, the only distinct color bands on the golem.

Archmage Reibsamak Feltz sighed. "If you find it so 'bloody' cumbersome, come up with something better, Bradford Ajput Singh! Else wise your complaints do nothing but anger me!"

Brad laid a hand on his breast and adopted an exaggerated look of remorse. "Oh, I'm sorry! Am I pissing in your Cheerios, mate?" The arm dropped as well as the feigned remorse. "Your anger is your own bloody damn problem. After all, I wouldn't be in this mess were it not for you and your apprentice!"

"SILENCE!" Feltz roared, invoking the command pattern of Brad's magical enslavement.

*** *** ***

Mental Focus +1

Congratulations! Your Mental Focus skill has advanced to the next tier!

Mental Resistance is now at level 10. +3 WPP, +1 WPR

*** *** ***

Brad ceased speaking, but started tapping his tail tip against the countertop. He would have loved to have used Morse Code or some such to continue berating the irritating old bastard, but he hadn't ever learned much of ciphers.

Feltz glared at the tapping tail for a moment before inhaling a deep breath and resuming his tinkering further down the work bench.

Counting that a win, Brad moved to the edge of the work bench counter, took hold of the side and swung his body off the edge, his tail wrapping around a support leg with a grace that he had to admit he hadn't possessed with his own body. He slithered down to the floor and headed over to what would have been called a book shelf on Earth set in the opposite corner. It took him a few minutes of searching the stacks to find a scroll box discussing the finer points of the [Tapestry Fusion] skill set, which he then took to the human-sized arm chair beside the book shelf.

There were some benefits to being trapped in this golem body, Brad was willing to concede if only in his own mind. Maintaining good posture didn't hurt, and at even a third of his human height, he had probably about double his human strength. He was still getting used to moving like a snake, but the ability to coil his lower portion into a ball made him far more stable when stationary than he had been on two legs.

Brad wasn't sure that he trusted these mages, especially Feltz, but the Casper Dibbons fellow at least seemed to have a clue about basic human decency.

Using the chair to prop up the expanded scroll box, Brad sank into researching this new world he had apparently been copied into. It was fascinating and, if not for the enslavement, he would have been quite happy here, poking into this Aethereal Force. However, Brad had never even liked to wear a tie, feeling it constricted his movements too much; the metaphysical slave collar was an intolerable yoke, leaving him with a rather sour disposition.

And the way this Grand Tapestry of Rhofhir went about things was so poorly scaled up! Aspects and Designs, assigned attribute values, and skills measures, it was as if the most asinine idiot tried throwing together a game system with the discards of Indie game designer rejects!

Brad forced himself to focus on the words in front of him, receiving a skill up notice for [Mental Resistance] in the process. The damn notices had become so common place that he didn't pay it any attention.

Dibbs returned from wherever he had gone off to, coming directly over to Brad. He perched on the arm of the chair and said, "My apologies for disturbing your reading. The Council of Magi have denied my petition for assistance with your predicament, and they have barred me from unbinding the control formations sunk into your body. If you are able to overcome the ensorcellments, then they will tentatively accept that you are Aware and worth their time. Otherwise, they are taking the stance that you're not much different from any other monstrous sapient, and therefore the control formations are necessary to ensure everyone's safety."

Brad hadn't really expected much of this magi council business by the way Feltz had treated Dibbs' abhorrence of enslaving another Aware individual. It still irritated him, but at least he hadn't been disappointed.

"What? Nothing to say?" Dibbs asked, his brow furrowing with worry.

Brad folded his arms over his chest and stabbed the tip of his tail in Feltz's direction, then drew a finger over the odd reptilian lips of this golem's body.

Dibbs' frown turned from concerned to one of concentration, then his body sagged. Brad felt a shiver of disgust roll through him as the control formation relaxed.

"Bloody fucking hell! I truly despise that amoral ass hat you call a mentor!" Brad grumped.

Feltz snickered from his seat at the work bench.

"Sod off," Brad said before turning back to the scroll box before him with a disdainful sniff.

"You're taking this a lot better than I expected," Dibbs commented.

Brad did not look up. "You bloody savages still permit slavery on your world. I didn't expect your supposed Wise Guys would see much difference between buying a slave and making one from stolen memories. At the least, it's only me and not my friends with me."

*~*~*

Jason

As the time of the negotiations neared the next morning, Jason still didn't know whether he would say anything about their parandrian visitors. However, the decision was taken from him before he could register an opinion. A parandrous doe and a stag with a pair of three point antlers had joined the approaching City Counsel representatives.

"Greetings, Liaison for the Studio of Capricious Dreams," the doe said as soon as they were in easy conversation range. "I am Taz'Maylan of the Gharanguru tribe. I have informed the officials of the Free City of Lotrot of my tribe's response to the trespassers of the prior night. As I have said to the city officials so I say to you: Should more such trespasses occur, our response will remain the same. After taking counsel from our elders, my tribe has decided that, however regrettable, the sacred cycles of the dungeon are a necessary lesson for your Design Lead. In the interests of goodwill, though, we offer patterns that we believe the Design Lead Lena Marie Weston shall find useful."

At this point, the doe stepped forward and set down an overflowing basket.

Seir Wejerlan spoke up. "If possible, may we inspect the bodies of the so-called trespassers?"

Jason at least had an answer for that. He shook his head and assumed a regretful expression. "Lena and Candy are trying to find a way to control the absorption of … objects by the dungeon, but so far they have no counter to what they are interpreting from the Tapestry as the gifting intent. The bodies were broken down within half an hour."

"Then their crystals would be appreciated," Seir Wejerlan said.

Jason put on his poker face. "Is that a claim of responsibility for the intruders?"

Talon Commander Muglibaum and Va'Melnroe took a step to the side to better face Seir Wejerlan. "Oh, please do answer that," the Talon Commander said.

The elf drew himself up, projecting offended dignity. "Of course not! The Rimward Mages Association might be able to use the crystals from their corpses to trace the criminals, and discover if there are any individuals behind them who would tarnish the word of the Lotrot City Council."

Zarabelkami snorted. "Sure, and they have no use for the kind of mana crystal that an Aware would leave behind."

"That has nothing to do with tracing their origins," Wejerlan insisted.

"I am not sure if they left behind crystals," Jason said. He deliberately did not mention the dungeon's new ability to create elves and gidataurs or the class designs.

The parandrous doe said, "Our purpose for this morning has been fulfilled and we take our leave." She and her companion turned and walked off, disappearing behind a rolling hill in short order.

Jason asked Rob to take the basket back to the Entrance Hall and invited the delegates to sit while they went back to working out just what kind of use they would allow the folks of Lotrot to make of the Studio of Capricious Dreams.

*~*~*

Five more bodies were brought into the Studio for recycling over the next three nights, unlocking gnomes, gnelves, and arassi, along with forest elves. In addition to a variety of mage related class designs such as Thaumaturge, Sorcerer, and Witch, they also gained class designs for Ranger, Baker, Tailor, Scholar, Tinker, and Warrior.

As far as Lena and Candy could determine, they had no way to prevent the absorption of gifted patterns, whether or not the dungeon had the pattern already, even if they stopped allocating MPR to research.

The parandrians left a daily basket of gathered goods in the Entrance Hall for the benefit of the dungeon, often at the same time they left the intruders' bodies. The gift baskets contained all sorts of plants, insects, corpses of small creatures and mineral samples. One of the baskets had smoked fish, freshwater oysters, and water plants.

Just as "Dirt" led to unlocking "Vital Soil", with the addition of the water focused basket, "Vital Water" unlocked. Upgrading the water in the Entrance level took a minuscule amount of mana, and the first creatures summoned into the dungeon were fish and water bugs.

Lena had unlocked steel by experimenting with blending char and iron. Her experiments, even after steel as a spawnable material was unlocked, kept yielding pig iron until Rob explained that steel was between a little less than 1 and 2% carbon, with wrought iron being under 0.8% carbon while her 10/90 mix of carbon and iron exceeded the solubility of carbon in iron. Cast iron, apparently was between 2 and 3.5% carbon in iron, with higher carbon concentrations making for pig iron. That conversation quickly derailed into the making of stainless steels and other types of steel alloys along with carbon fiber reinforced matrices, with the end result being that Rob took over making weapons for their party (Carbon fiber as a material stalled in Research at 49% and had not moved).

Jason asked for spears and knives. Aaron thought that while swords were cool, he would be better off with a club and a bow. After the trees had been grown, planked wood became an environmental option, and Aaron was able to use his experience making a long bow to hunt with his uncle to get a workable hunting weapon. He had to collaborate with Rob to get steel tipped arrows figured out, during which they discovered that parts of animals could be summoned, such as feathers and bones. That unlocked bone as an environmental material, too.

On the morning following the forth night of body dumps, Muglibaum relented, agreeing to send five candidates to stay in the dungeon for seven days. The matter of the crafting halls had yet to be picked up again.

Neither Kargerran nor Vi were among the candidates that arrived the next morning. Corporal Baline and four unknowns showed up with full packs.

Jason and Rob were waiting just outside the cave. Both of them had taken to using spears that were as tall as they were with a leaf shaped blade at the end and a perpendicular bar under the blade, something they called a boar guard. Their knives rested in belt scabbards that Lena had fashioned for them from copper reinforced cotton cording. Lena had also used her free time to make them all several different outfits. Over their shirts and pants, the guys wore breast plates, gauntlets and grieves, not yet having figured out how to make armor for their thighs that didn't muck up their maneuverability.

Baline twisted to the side a little to eye them up and down. "Do you even know what you're doing with those weapons?"

Jason shrugged. "We were trained with guns, so no, not really. Even at that, Rob and I worked in Support, not Combat. That's why we figured spears were better than swords, give ourselves a little more distance if needs be."

"What are guns?" one of the unknown individuals, a lupine, asked.

"Are you familiar with artillery?" Rob asked.

"Ballista and trebuchet? Yeah," the lupine said.

Jason and Rob shook their heads. Jason said, "If you're not familiar with artillery that uses explosives, I'm not sure we can explain guns without a lot of background. Let's introduce ourselves before side tracking. I'm Jason Kline and this is Roberto Garcias. Corporal Baline has been here before."

"Corporal Tremshur," the lupine said.

"Corporal Ignemrot," an arassas to the lupine's left said.

"Corporal Fallan," the next arassas introduced himself.

"Corporal Custer," the last arassas said.

Baline said, "We are here for the orientation exercise. Do you want us to set up camp out here?"

Jason said, "No need for that. Lena's providing you with an entire floor. Right this way." He led the way into the Studio, trusting Rob to take up the rear.

Only Tremshur and Custer looked more interested than wary as they followed Jason into the dungeon.

Lena had moved the level portal to the shooting range into the Entrance Hall. She had sculpted the new portal to resemble the profile of two marines facing each other, ceremonial swords raised to create an archway, much as she had seen at the wedding of one of her parent's favorite home designers. She had scaled up the sculpture so that even Va'Melnroe could pass through without needing to duck his head.

In preparation for their guests, Lena had also created five separate suites near the entrance to the level. Jason and Rob used the first suite to show the amenities of them all, from beds to en suite bathing rooms, complete with private showers and toilets made to accommodate individuals with tails. Wall length silver backed mirrors made a grand impression on the corporals. The plumbing interested the corporals, but not as much as the writing desks stocked with paper and pens. The wardrobes and armor stands also received some appreciative comments.

Jason and Rob gave the corporals time to pick out rooms and get settled in before returning to the tour of the dungeon.

"Lena and Candy spent some time coming up with a way for you to simulate territory management," Jason said as he led the corporals to another room opposite the sleeping rooms. This room was 6 m square, with a large sand table taking up the center. The walls and floors were paneled in a pale wood and glowing crystal lined the walls where they met the ceiling, provide a natural toned light to the room.

Jason and Rob had set their spears to the side in a weapons rack by the level portal, which freed their hands to gesture at the sand table in the middle of the room. "This is their brain child."

"Is the table alive then?" Ignemrot asked.

Jason shook his head. "No, my apologies, that's an idiom of our home world. This is the solution they came up with. With this table you can plan out the changes you would like to see on this floor. They won't begin without all five of you being here in this room, and while they're ongoing you — or anyone, really — won't be able to move about the floor until after the changes have finished taking place. That's a safety precaution. We don't want to risk anyone being stuck in a situation like a morphing dungeon."

Jason moved over to a side table with a bunch of miniature pieces spread out. He returned to the sand table with three miniature wall pieces and two miniature stone targets which he handed over to the corporals to inspect. "These will represent standard changes you can make to the set up. If you want different pieces, let Lena know. These are scaled so that 1 cm on the design table represents 1 m in the actual floor."

Tremshur asked, "Are these made of the materials they represent?"

Jason paused to ask that over the G.C. and Lena decided to pop in on them. She started talking, blithely ignoring the raised scales and fur of the corporals.

"They can be, or you can designate some slight changes. The stone won't turn to metal, but you can switch it from concrete to granite to shale with a stated intent. We're a little more limited on the wood at this time as we only have access to press board and some fruit and nut tree varieties. Metals take longer to spawn and don't change out as easily as minerals, so if there are metal pieces you'd like, their mini will be a literal representation."

She went on to detail the intricacies of using the sand table, her enthusiasm drawing in the corporals.

Jason moved over to Rob and they watched the corporals enjoying the opportunity to play with the miniatures. For his part, Jason watched the way the corporals interacted with each other, using their distraction with the table to see how they conducted themselves.

Baline was an ass, attempting to take over the table from the start. Tremshur and Ignemrot asserted themselves with a comfortable ease. Baline took their limit setting in stride, which made Jason wonder if Baline was just socially clueless. Custer kept his mouth shut and watched, acting like the junior among his seniors. Fallan didn't make an issue of his irritation with Baline, but he didn't hide it either.

After a few minutes, the corporals seemed satisfied with their set up.

"Would you like to see it on the floor?" Lena asked.

Tremshur said, "It would a pleasure."

"Jason, Rob, would you do the honors, please?" Lena asked, gesturing to one of the walls.

Jason moved to one side of the wall and Rob to the other. They each lifted a panel of the wood that was slightly darker than its neighbors, which raised a section of the paneling to reveal a thick glass window beginning at waist height and extending to the ceiling. The guys used a brace built into the window frame to hold the panel up, and then they pulled down another pair of braces a third of the way in from their sides.

On the other side of the window, a massive room lined with stone stood revealed. The corporals came over to the window, watching as the simple formation they had planned on the sand table took shape in the room beyond. Baline, Custer, and Fallan actually shook, just a shiver really, as they watched, giving off the sense of creeped-out fascination. Tremshur and Ignemrot, on the other hand, seemed more spell bound with wonder.

Tremshur was the first out the door (a pocket door hidden in the paneling) to check out the changes on the military floor. Baline, sweating from under his scales, was the second, with Ignemrot, Fallan and Custer following. They spent nearly half an hour inspecting the floor, then went back to see what more elaborate set ups they could create with the sand table.

*~*~*

The Studio crew left the corporals to their play for a few hours. Jason and Rob returned to the living floor and got out of their armor, then Jason headed into the kitchen and started cooking up lunch while Rob settled in to working on making new armor.

Despite no longer needing to eat, none of the Studio crew wanted to give up that enjoyment. With the discovery that they could summon up feathers and bones, Aaron had quickly moved on to summoning up the meat of never-living rabbits to share with Buttercup, much to the dire cat's delight. Her adoration for Aaron had her following him around all over the place. So far, Candy was the only one of the Studio crew that Buttercup still actively avoided, placing Aaron between herself and the young woman.

A plant called farmer's vine produced a potato-like vegetable, and more vining plants provided peas and beans. The breath's bane garlic had quickly become a favorite flavor, and after reading the descriptions in the Resources menu, they were experimenting with a number of local herb grasses and bushes. The pucker berry bush's leaves turned out to be analogous to rosemary in flavor if not texture.

Jason set up the meal to cook in individual cruets in the baking oven, making enough for each of the corporals to have two servings, then he took a shower and sat down near Rob.

He barely settled into his seat, a copy of Lena's Dungeon Masters' Primer in hand when an alert came over the G.C.

«Hostileinvaders entering from portal number 1»