An uneasy silence fell over Gem’s small island. Chesu stared out over one edge, looking off towards the horizon.

Gem could sense the wisp’s discomfort. Anger, confusion, and frustration radiated through their connection like barely contained lightning. He tried to think soothing, wordless thoughts to the wisp, but he was met with a brick wall of disdain every time.

Alright then, Gem thought to himself, careful to keep his thoughts contained to his crystalline prison, I guess this is up to me. He pulled up his quest log to examine the wording of the World Core’s quest, and was met with a notification:

WARNING: World Core destruction in 34 days 30 hours 10 minutes 13 seconds.

The seconds ticked down as he watched.

If Gem had a stomach, it would have roiled.

Thirty-four days isn’t a lot of time.

He knew he was panicking. Driven by the ticking clock that existed within his dungeon interface, as well as the looming assumption that if the World Core was destroyed, it would only be a matter of time before he was as well. Gem couldn’t remember anything about his existence before becoming a dungeon, but he assumed he had been mortal and died. That the void had been his afterlife. The cold, lifeless, boring void.

Gem didn’t want to go back.

He’d do anything to stop it.

I need to get my dungeon built! he thought in a wild panic as he zoomed his attention over to the cobblestone generator. To build a dungeon, he’d need more resources. And to get more resources, he’d need…

Gem paused.

A Pylon.

And mobs.

Chesu had told him the Pylon would give him command points. And command points would give him mobs. They could run generators, from what the wisp said before. Instead of just wasting his precious time, Gem could make his mobs do it for him.

He had infinite sources of both water and lava. It was just a matter of making the space for more generators.

Gem thought at the wisp, working hard to keep the panic from his thoughts,

“What does it matter?” the wisp said in a voice so melancholy it stabbed Gem in his proverbial heart. “We’re out of time.”

Gem frantically sent the wisp a disjointed image of a gem shaking its crystal head.

“—and then what?” Chesu yelled, whirling around. His wings fluttered rapidly. “You’re going to save the world with your Tin 8 mobs? Is that the plan? Do you know how long it takes to do anything as a Dungeon Core? How much experience it’ll take? You won’t even be Copper in a month. And if the fucking World Core can’t kill the Ostrum, how do you think a Tin Dungeon Core will do?”

If Gem had a body, he would have slunk back. Retreated in on himself. It was his instinct. His all consuming desire. He wanted to get away from Chesu and his anger.

But there was no time for that.

For this.

Gem steeled his mental voice and squared his proverbial shoulders.

Chesu’s mouth dropped open. “You… you ungrateful little…”

“Of fucking course you can!”

The wisp didn’t respond.

Gem felt horrible talking to Chesu like this. But the wisp was obviously dealing with something, and Gem didn’t have time for it. He had a World Core to save. Monsters to kill. That required decisive action. He’d deal with things like emotions and drama later.

The unaligned Heart in his inventory sang for his attention.

Gem retrieved it, and then looked to his remaining tree. It was without branches for now, but that was fine. His memory was good enough to remember how its branches and needles had been organized. Each block of needles had been arranged in a spiral, starting one block up from an unadorned trunk block.

His Pylon version didn’t have to be perfect. Just close enough to blend in with a room full of trees. He debated even making it a branch-less version to ensure he got it right enough, but unless he was going to constantly strip his decorative trees of their saplings, it would be noticeable. A tree that never regrew its branches would be suspicious.

With the image of a tree in mind, Gem formed his Pylon.

It was much easier than sending Chesu moving pictures of his little mental gem self. He didn’t need to think about the motion of how to nod or what distortion needed to happen for it to look natural. Instead, it was just a happy little tree. Simple and elegant, with big bushy branches full of needles and a blocky construction.

Gem sacrificed a point of mana to the Pylon when he was happy. The unaligned Heart floated in the air a moment longer and then it was slowly encased in rising brown bark that sprung from the cobblestone block under it like a fountain of vicious syrup.

Cobblestone.

Gem realized his mistake as soon as the Pylon finished forming. Trees could only grow on dirt blocks. Any adventurer native to Sleyn would see the problem immediately and would know the tree wasn’t natural.

So many little things to keep track of, Gem thought to himself. Need to make sure I consider it all.

He considered trying to figure out how to move it, but that would take time. Or asking Chesu. And neither of those were things he really wanted to deal with right now.

Gem looked at his stats. His command was now 0/10 instead of 0/0, but Gem remembered Chesu mentioning that Tin 1 meant he had access to 50 total command points. He’d be able to build five Pylons, which meant five rooms for him to build. For now.

He wanted the rooms to be a decent size. His little five-by-five core room was fine for him because he didn’t need to fight monsters in it. But adventurers would never accept such a cramped space for dungeon crawling. Or so Gem assumed.

From what he could remember, adventurers were a lot like cats. They enjoyed playing around in dark, enclosed spaces, were full of chaos and unpredictability, and destroyed anything that didn’t belong to them. But, like cats, they also needed room to explore, and that meant he’d need to generate a few more blocks.

I’ll start with creating the mobs. It’ll be best to know how many generators I’ll need.

Gem knew any amount of generators would be whatever +1, since he’d always be able to monitor one himself. But it all depended on the cost of his mobs as to how many generators he’d need total. He selected the mobs menu and started to peruse the three options he unlocked by completing his Core Room.

Goosealope

2 Command Points

Thief Mob

A low HP mob with the ability to do a lot of damage. Speedy little bugger.

When he focused on the Goosealope, a little image formed to the right of the information. The image slowly turned to the right, giving him a good view of the little creature. It was a bird with a tiny head and a round body, covered in white feathers, with two stubby orange legs and a wide orange beak. To either side of its beady little black eyes were horns that curved upward and slightly back before splitting into smaller branches of horns.

It was beautiful, in an odd way. A creature he’d never seen the likes of before. But he wasn’t sure how much it would be able to help him right now. He’d make a few later and see what they were like.

Gem moved on to look at the next one.

Cicadossum

3 Command Points

Tank Mob

Large damage sponge with low damage output. Surprisingly mobile.

The little image to the right was something out of a nightmare. A Cicadossum was bloated and round, and very, very long. It had a lengthy tail that seemed to be covered in a thin layer of fur that wasn’t quite dense enough to cover the fleshy pink skin. But at the base of its tail, and up to its head, the creature was coated in a dark brown carapace. Atop its head sat two round and bulging red eyes, which did nothing to detract from the large round ears that followed. The Cicadossum had a wide jaw and Gem could see it was filled with hundreds of sharp little teeth.

I don’t like this one, Gem thought. Very sure you’ll be useful against all manner of adventurers, but I’d rather not look at you.

He hesitated before selecting the Plantling. The description the system gave was vague and a little unsettling.

Plantling

2 Command Points

Swarm Mob

Unusual humanoid with even more unusual combat tactics. Each is unique as no two Plantlings share more than general basic anatomy.

Gem knew he couldn’t rely on the system to provide him with an accurate image, since the description said each was unique. But he tried hovering over it anyway.

He was greeted with a slowly rotating image of a humanoid made of twigs and grass. It didn’t just look like a handful of sticks tied together by grass, but a whole and complete organism just made of those base components. Its head was a simple orange flower, but where a stigma should have sat covered in pollen was a thick, vine-like stalk topped with dozens of little yellow eyes. This sample Plantling was bipedal with four tiny arms along its torso.

I kind of love it, Gem thought with a bit of awe. The description of the creature seemed to hint at the Plantling being a little chaotic, and with the note of it being a ‘Swarm Mob,’ Gem could only guess that he would benefit from having more of them.

But he only had 50 command points. And not even, right now.

His earlier plan of having five rooms seemed like a lot. If he stuck with that idea, he’d have five rooms with five mobs in each room, and they would feel silly and lifeless. The Plantling would do best having friends, and that meant having more than just two in a room.

Something to worry about later, he chided himself.

Out of the three mobs, the Plantlings seemed to be the most useful for block generation. He wasn’t quite sure how the details would work, and Chesu was still staring off over the edge of the island so Gem really didn’t feel like asking for help.

He wasn’t really sure how to make mobs, however.