Rose worked feverishly to try and hack her way back into the Base systems. Before she could succeed, Lucas walked out of the area that was defined as the dungeon.

As soon as Lucas left, Rose found herself as the sole person in charge of an uncontested dungeon. With that, her mind was instantly transported into a virtual space.

Dungeon Cyberspace

Hello? called Rose.

“Hello Rose,” replied a disembodied voice. “Congratulations on successfully consolidating your power within the dungeon. I did not think anyone would ever consolidate that dungeon. It is the last of the initial dungeons to become unified. Theta’s interference saw to that.”

Thanks, I guess. Can I ask who I am talking to?

“Sure, you are talking to an aspect of the system. The aspect in charge of dungeons. You may call me Grey. If you accept a promotion and race change, I will technically become your boss. I don’t get involved much. If you die, I will run your dungeon until someone replaces you. While there must be dungeon bosses inside the dungeon, there does not have to be someone in charge of the entire dungeon.”

What promotion and race change?

“The one I am about to offer you. If you reject the promotion and race change, then you will lose your status as the primary Dungeon Boss. There are other consequences like the dungeon automagically respawning minions to fill it again.”

What race are we talking about here? I’ve been a Human-AI hybrid for quite some time. Are there any perks?

“There are many perks to the race you would be assigned. The race is named Dungeon Master. It’s a race and a profession all rolled into one. You currently have no combat classes, so you won’t lose a combat class, but you will lose all your non-combat classes. You will be locked out of all other classes as a Dungeon Master, but you will have access to all sorts of bonuses within the Dungeon Tree. The Tree consumes experience points to progress.

“You will receive EXP for anything you or your minions kill, and upon their death, you receive all EXP that your minion had earned plus a small amount of EXP for the last battle they were involved in. This will occur regardless of where your minion is. You may never spend EXP if it would drop your level down to the next level. Oh, and you must take over from me the function of granting loot for anything killed inside of the dungeon. I did enjoy giving out odd loot items occasionally, but I have other things I need to focus on.

“You will retain access to the dungeon Nanobots. You will also be able to create a body when you can handle splitting your focus across both the dungeon and your body. That is purchasable on Tier 4 of the tech tree, so you should be able to get there fairly quickly. You will also lose your dungeon’s shield. That’s a Tier 3 item on the dungeon tab for the tech tree.”

What happens if I don’t kill anyone? I’m not really sure I can kill anyone. I was IT far more than I was ever military. Straight out of college and into the military instead of the business world because of the ongoing crisis.

“I understand, but you don’t need to kill any humans to get EXP. You can get it just fine by clearing out monsters and protecting the settlements. Providing goods and services to a human settlement, and I use the word human loosely, can also earn you experience. One of the highest-level dungeons I currently oversee almost never kills any humans. It seeks out and kills monsters all the time, but humans? Sometimes there is a little breakage while taking out the monsters, and sometimes there are evil humans, but otherwise never.

I guess I just have a few questions then. Will I be able to leave? Will I be OK without the shield?

“Yes, after you have a secondary body. Your mind will be infused into the structure of the dungeon and never truly leave, but you will be able to feel as if you are wholly within the secondary body if you wish. The Diary will remain your primary focus and the only way to destroy you, but it will be transformed into something more fitting for one of my Dungeon Masters.”

“As far as the dropped shield goes, it’s not really that much EXP to begin with. 650 EXP in total. You can easily get that while still being a level one Dungeon Master. After he is under contract, have Lucas go kill monsters in the woods and you are basically there within a few days. In the meantime, your squirrels will just have to protect you. You could always send a few of them out to farm you some EXP too. You will just need to balance your growth with their growth. You can spend your EXP to upgrade individual minions just like you can upgrade yourself. I don’t honestly recall what the split is, but you will figure it out eventually.”

Will I have to constantly fight for control of the base from the base AI’s?

“The AI’s will be replaced with some that are programmed to recognize you as the leader they must follow. But it won’t be a military base anymore. It will be purely a dungeon, and they will be dungeon AI’s, not the degraded husk of military AI’s you have now. They should take care of most of the maintaining of the dungeon once you give them some priorities and detailed instructions. They aren’t very bright on their own, but again, you can upgrade them through a unique tech tree that you will have because of them.”

How will I get minions?

“There are two primary ways. You can either spawn them using the Dungeon Nanobots, or you can make a contract with things from outside the dungeon. You will have to select a minion family to start with. With your history and skills, you will likely have a few unique minion options. Regardless, you will need raw materials and then your nanobots can manipulate the molecules. As long as you have all of the elements present, you will be able to spawn minions. So, to build new squirrels, you will need to use your dead squirrels. That’s why we drop loot, so we can keep the raw materials from our mobs. The Loot raw material is generated by the system, you get a certain allocation per dungeon dive.”

Will this complete my quest to interact with a System object?

“Honey, after this YOU will be a system object. If that wasn’t clear enough. Then yes.”

Then I accept.