“It’s illegal to store weapons and flammables in self storage units,” Dal stated.

“But it gets done?”

“More than you think. We don’t ask what you’re storing, if you do store weapons, we can’t really do anything unless we actively see you doing it. If we do catch you, then it’s time to call the police and such,” Dal continued. “I guess we can’t do that here.”

“Plus we’re technically stealing these,” Samira said.

“True.”

Samira laid the weapons out on the plastic table she retrieved from a storage room filled with party equipment. There was a shotgun; pump action, a .22 rifle, one .357 revolver, and two 9mm pistols. There were also three bows, one recurve and two compound. According to Samira, the two compound bows had plenty of spare parts and could be used for a long time. There were also various hunting knives, machetes, axes, hatchets, bats, and billhooks that came from one storage unit.

“We have tools, weapons, food, and a water source,” Samira said. “Survival is looking good.”

“We’ll need to move everything into the main warehouse,” Dal said. “This is a lot of space that two of us can’t protect. If there are some monsters out there, then we’re going to be in trouble.”

“Your boss, John, was big into fishing and outdoorsy stuff, that’s how we met him and his ever revolving cast of blonde girlfriends,” Samira said. “He’s got a bass fishing boat with a motor, a row boat, a dismantled Jeep, and an All Terrain Vehicle, like a golf cart, but beefed up with a gasoline engine. Plus a bunch of tools and about fifty gallons of gasoline.”

“He should know better,” Dal sighed. “I’d see him sometimes working on stuff in there. Can’t say much when he owns the place.”

“You could. The law’s the law.”

“I like eating ramen everyday,” Dal said and Samira grinned.

“We can triage this stuff,” Samira said. “We don’t need all of it in the warehouse nor do we need all the stuff in the warehouse in the warehouse. Food, weapons, tools, and fuel we can place inside, but the other junk, old furniture, the old clothes, and things we don’t need can be placed out here. We can jump the truck with a battery jumper I found, then move it and the vans in front of the front glass windows, maybe move some junk in front of the chainlink gates.”

Dal nodded. She was right on all counts.

“The ATV will give us a good start on exploring and seeing what lies about here,” Samira said. “We have about two hundred shells for the shotgun, a thousand for the .22, fifty for the .357, and two hundred for the 9 millimeters. There are also about a hundred arrows total, with some fletching, arrowheads, and shafts to make another one hundred.”

“The only weapons I ever held were those bolt cutters,” Dal said. “Although I was pretty high ranked in COD.”

“I’m guessing that’s a video game reference,” Samira said. “I mostly handled a .308 Ruger Bolt Action, but a .22 is a decent small game hunting weapon. You’d be surprise how fast you go through ammo. That thousand might last only a few months.”

“We can get the Dungeon to make more,” Dal said.

“Can we?”

Dal shrugged in honesty. “I dunno, actually. In the books they can make things out of mana. But right now we need mana just to keep it on life-support.”

Samira put her fists on her hips, looking down at the weapons. “You can have one round from each weapon, including the arrows, maybe it’ll be able to recreate them one day.”

Dal grinned. “Yeah. We can give it copies of stuff too, the things we don’t need. Otherwise it’ll just rot or degrade out here.”

“Easy now, we’ll need to separate this stuff first,” Samira said. “But yeah, we can’t make use of all this stuff, so eventually we’re going to have to figure out what to do with them. For now, food ,water, shelter, and safety are the most important things.”

“Keeping the dungeon alive too,” Dal said.

“Which brings me to the question of what you meant by Dungeon Lord?” Samira asked.

“It was a joke, but not really,” Dal said. He pondered for a moment. “Okay, so I was looking at the Perk lists and thinking about how some Perk combos can unlock more advanced Perks. So, there are several Perks like Magic Sense, Mana Crafting, and Core Crafting.”

“Core crafting?” Samira asked.

“It’s a Perk that allows you to create Mana Cores that can boost magical items, I think. Since this dungeon core is all mana and magic, core crafting might be a path for me to figure out where to begin healing this core.”

“That’ll be a lot of purples,” Samira said.

“Which is why I think you should be the warrior in our little group.”

“Me? The nurse? Me, who froze when confronted with a malformed goblin?”

“Actually I think the first three goblins we faced were how they’re supposed to look.”

“That’s not making it any better,” Samira said.

“We can go out hunting for redstones, slaying beasts and cleansing the area to keep us safe. We can do a lot of thinking and pondering and make some bluestones.”

“Sounds insane,” Samira said. “We could just lay down a lot of poisons and let the critters kill themselves. We have plenty of chemicals, anti-freeze does the trick.”

“That’s terrible,” Dal said, shocked.

Samira grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t know why I said that. Anti-freeze poisoning is a terrible way to go.”

“Eventually we’ll have to go redstone hunting,” Dal said. “That is if we want to level up stuff.”

“I’ve met a lot of people who would love this, the kind of people who always want to see their numbers go up. In their bank accounts, in the amount of steps they’ve walked in a day, basically a numerical sign that they’re doing ‘good’,” Samira said. “It leads to some injuries, a lot of stress, and eventually burn out.”

“So no power leveling?” Dal asked.

“Do you even know where these supposed monsters with XP are?” Samira asked. “If they’re wild animals, then they aren’t just going to attack you, most animals are afraid of humans.”

“In our world, but this is an isekai world. Who knows, the animals might also want to level too, therefore killing an XP rich human is on the menu.”

“Christ, that’d be terrifying. That’d make us prey, rather than the top of the food chain. Three hundred thousand years of evolution swept away in one day.” Samira sighed, glancing back toward the distant dungeon storage unit. “Take care of that dungeon first, feed it the mana, then we’ll begin loading all this stuff into the warehouse.”

“Why does that sound like the time my mom said I could have the stray cat I found only if I did all the cleaning for it and paid the vet bills.”

“Because that’s the sound of a cosmic truth being laid down,” Samira said. “You’re taking on the responsibility of that Dungeon, if it kills us both, then that’s your fault. If it dies, that’s your fault. If it becomes too much of a hassle, you’re going to have to deal with it, which includes having to kill it.”

Dal looked toward the dungeon and gulped slowly.

“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Samira said. “That thing is not a toy, not a pet, it’s something that’s living, but not in a biological sense. If what you say dungeons are supposed to be, then it’s also dangerous as hell. There’s a story about a guy who raised a hippo from the time it was a baby, he bonded with it and thought they were besties, but that little shit grew up and gave less than two fucks about the bond the dude made with it. Because it was a wild ass animal and wild ass animals do what they do.”

“I get it,” Dal said.

“Do you really?” Samira asked. “Because I barely even understand what’s going on. But I’ve seen plenty of people make stupid decisions and they came to my hospital bleeding, sobbing, and begging for forgiveness. I barely have a first aid kit here and there are no hospitals.”

Dal was silent for a long moment.

“We’re going to have a difficult time surviving as it is,” Samira continued. “It might look like we have a lot of stuff and food, but that goes very fast. Things break, things spoil, and we don’t have the combined knowledge on how to fix most of this stuff. Do you know how to fix a car? A walkie talkie? Or even how to clean a gun?”

Dal shook his head.

“We need to be smart about this. We need to be careful. This might be some fantasy world you’ve read about in books, but do you have a protagonist’s plot armor? Maybe we’re those sad people who die of starvation and exposure when we’re only a few miles from safety and other people.”

“Be smart, be cautious,” Dal said.

“Be vigilant,” Samira added. She sighed again. “Go feed your dungeon. Then help me load up this stuff. There are some pallet carts in the warehouse.”

Dal nodded and rose to his feet. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

Samira nodded and smiled. “We’ll make it, whatever that is. We’re the protagonists of this story, Dal.”

***

Dal stood over the melted core, the body of the fairy had faded away, leaving behind a pile of cracked crystals. Dal used a trowel to move the shards to the pillar with the melted core. The aluminum trowel began to sizzle as the crystals touched it. He quickly dumped them on the core.

He was expecting an immediate reaction, but nothing happened. The crystals bubbled and slowly melted back into the core mass.

Dal summoned ten bluestones, holding them in both hands. He closed his eyes and turned them back into mana shards. A singular large shard lay in his hands, a total of one thousand five hundred man.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered. He placed the shard onto the core. He jerked back as lighting erupted from the crystals; a small ball of electricity burned around the melted core and the mana crystals were absorbed. He didn’t notice any changes to the core. He summoned the other ten bluestones and turned them into mana. Again there was a ball of electricity and the shards vanished.

The room ‘relaxed’ as if a great weight was lifted. Dal could feel it in the air, in the way the dungeon’s trash walls seemed to relax just a bit, and the raw painful energy coming off the core dimmed slightly.

Was this the right course of action? He wondered. Samira’s words still rang in his ears, but something inside of him told him that this was a good thing. Perhaps it was hubris and he’d bring death to all of them and the world with this stupid act of trying to rescue a core.

He had taken in the cat, but it had become a hassle. Eventually his mother had re-homed the cat to people who loved him and treated him well. He never was allowed a pet after that, not even a goldfish.

“Your fairy died to protect you,” Dal said to the core. That was one thing he could see in the series of images that had burned through his mind when he touched the dead being. “They died to try to keep you whole as those laughing assholes tore apart our worlds. They cut you in half, didn’t they? When they were slicing up all the worlds, they broke you apart and your fairy tried their best to keep you whole. I’ll do my best too, in their honor.”

Dal closed his eyes, hoping for some kind of response. Was the core sentient? Did it know what was happening to it? Did it know that Dal was trying to help it?

A hiss filled the room and Dal looked up to see a giant spider hanging above him. It dropped down upon him, it’s massive frame pinning him down.

***

Samira heard the scream coming from the dungeon. She automatically snatched up the shotgun and raced to the storage unit. The garage doors were open and she raced inward, running through empty room upon empty room, as Dal had said; the core room was located slightly downward and dug into the hills behind the self storage business.

Dal’s scream had turned into yelling now. He stood against the far wall, smashing what looked to be a dog sized spider against the wall. The spider was screeching back too, its remaining three legs trying to claw and stab him.

“Drop it and fall back!” Samira screamed.

Dal didn’t look back or hesitate. He shoved the spider against the wall once more and threw himself back, scrabbling along the floor to safety.

Samira fired a single round into the spider as it tried to get up. The buckshot tore the creature in half, spreading ichor against the trash walls.

Titan Spider Core Guard: Killed

100 mana

1 Titan Talon

10 yards of spider silk

“’Are you okay!” Samira shouted, the shotgun still pointed at the dead spider.

“Aw, fuck,” Dal said. “That spider scratched me up pretty good.”

“Was it poisonous? Did it bite you?”

“No.”

“Get out of the way,” Samira said as she leveled the shotgun onto the melted core. “This little fucker is going bye-bye.”

“Wait,” Dal said.

“Wait? Fuck that. This little shit was out of mana when we killed those goblins, but the moment you feed it some mana it tries to kill you? Just think of this as a three thousand mana teaching moment.”

“It’s just running on instincts,” Dal said.

“Which is to kill anyone in the core room,” Samira stated.

“Yeah, but-“

“But nothing. We kill it and we can laugh about it later on. Remember how we tried to tame a broken dungeon core and you nearly got shredded by a giant ass spider? Ha. Ha. Ha.”

The robotic laugh made Dal flinch.

“It was only able to make one guard,” Dal said. “The rest went into healing itself. It was scared and trying to protect itself.”

“Well, that guard was far stronger than all of those goblins we faced this morning,” Samira said. “Obviously it used a lot of the mana you gave it to make a stronger killing machine.”

“It was still deformed,” Dal said. He gestured to the titan spider that hadn’t yet vanished.

Samira could see that it had only three arms, the others were small crooked appendages. The eight eyes were all milky white and it just looked sad and wrong upon further inspection. A pitiful killing machine.

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t bite the hand feeding you,” Samira said.

“It’s hurt, scared, and not all here,” Dal said. “In time, maybe it’ll realize what we’re trying to do for it.”

“You can go and save the next stray dungeon,” Samira said. “This one bites, that means it has to be put down.”

“No,” Dal said firmly. He rose to his feet and limped toward the pedestal. Samira immediately lowered the shotgun.

“Are you crazy? Look at you, you’re bleeding and who knows what cooties that deformed spider had on it. Or what’s in this room that was just this morning filled with melted goblins?”

“Don’t kill it,” Dal said.

Samira gave a loud sigh, flicking on the safety of the shotgun. “Let’s get out of here, you’re bleeding and look like shit.” She grabbed his arm and led him out, casting a glare at the melted core.

***

“Nothing a little time and bandages can’t fix,” Samira said.

Dal sat shirtless in the open garage door of the warehouse. Samira had a decent first aide kit in her belongings, along with what they found in other units, and the mostly expired stuff in the breakroom.

The deformed spider had left a lot of long shallow cuts along his back, rendering his nice button down shirt into nothing but shreds. He sighed as Samira handed him a bright yellow t-shirt with the words World’s Best Dad written on it.

“Got anything else?” he asked.

“Of course, but this one is both mocking and suited for you,” Samira said.

Dal grimaced and pulled the shirt on, wincing at the twinge of pain from his cuts.

“You’re still adamant about keeping that thing alive?” Samira asked. She reloaded the shotgun.

“Yeah,” Dal said.

“Pistol or melee weapon?” Samira asked.

Dal gave her a questioning look.

“That little shit is dangerous, so you’re never going into that place unarmed. We’ll figure a way to block the door too, so that it doesn’t let any stray goblins out to stab us in our sleep.”

Dal sighed. “You’re right.”

“Of course, with age comes experience, kiddo.”

***

“We can set up the solar panels up in the morning,” Samira said as she stirred a pot of ramen over a grill. They had found a propane grill and four twenty pound tanks. There had also been five regular charcoal grills too, with only fifty pounds of charcoal between them.

Dal opened a can of peas and another can of spinach. He grimaced at the two vegetables, but Samira was adamant they not just eat the vending machine foods. Dal had figured out how to jimmy open the vending machines and they had access to lukewarm soda and old chips and candy bars.

“We should save some of this stuff for the dungeon,” Dal said.

“I’m not cooking for the dungeon,” Samira stated.

“I meant the can food and other foodstuff. We saw it can make copies of stuff, that’s what the trash walls all were made of.”

“I’m not liking the idea of reducing our food supplies. It may look like a lot, but everything goes by faster than you think.”

“I understand,” Dal said.

Samira sighed. “You remind me of my brother too much,” she said. “He was always eager to do things and ran around chasing thoughts and ideas, even stupid ones.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead,” Samira said. She winced.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I am,” Samira said. “He passed a long time ago. A stupid accident.”

“Still, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“The point I was trying to make was that, he just let people trample over him. You showed some backbone in the dungeon,” Samira said. “I was all set to kill that thing, but you stood up for it. My brother never managed to get that far before he passed. He was always the victim, always the guy who got used, left behind, like a puppy that just tried to be your friend, but instead got kicked.”

“So I’m just a victim?” Dal asked.

“You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Samira said, pulling the pot of ramen off the grill and adding the spinach and peas. “You’re not a bad guy, but you’ve got to work on your backbone. Stick to your principals. You think that dungeon will work out? I’m not entirely sure, but you want to do it, so do it. You lack a malicious bone in your body.”

“You barely know me,” Dal said.

“Age and experience,” Samira said. “You really get to know people when you deal with them at their weakest and most raw moments. When they’re sick, hurt, or dying, you really see people for who they are and you can spot those traits when they’re healthy and hale.”

Dal didn’t say anything, instead separating the ramen into two bowls.

“We got lucky on finding those solar panels,” Dal said after a while.

Samira gave him a sad smile. “We sure did,” she said. “At least we can keep the rechargeable stuff working, if we take the batteries out of those emergency lights and from the vans, we could keep some things running. It’s only two one hundred and fifty watt panels, but it’ll help things.”

“There’s a lot of building material and battery power tools,” Dal said. “We can secure some of the windows and maybe reinforce some of the doors.”

“You can do wood working?” Samira asked.

“My dad loved doing it,” Dal said. “He used to come home from work and immediately try to make something in his garage.” Dal grinned and frowned. “I guess that was the only time I got to spend with him.”

“We can do with more lights,” Samira said, setting the hot pot of vegetables onto a silicon mat. She dished out the vegetables into their bowls and set it aside. “You’d be surprised by how a little bit of light can ease your worries.”

Dal looked out the garage doors. The west was brightening with brilliant colors as the sun began to set. They would have to close up soon as the first official day ended. But things were looking slightly better, weren’t they?

They ate in companionable silence as the darkness grew around them. The LED camping lantern holding it at bay.

***

“Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit,” Dal chanted as he fumbled for the machete he had been given.

The feathered creature was like a chicken from hell. It stood three feet tall and had metallic feathers covering its body. Its beak was massive and the talons on its feet were equally impressive.

“What the hell is that?” Samira cried as she shoved aside the dishes she had been washing.

“Some kind of insane chicken!” Dal cried, waving the blade before him.

Samira grabbed the shotgun and leveled it. A moment later another screech filled the air, then another, and another.

“Oh, shit,” Samira said. “Get the door!” She fired the shotgun, racked another round and fired again as a second hellish chicken came into view.

Dal rushed to the dangling chain that would roll the garage door back down and began yanking on it. Samira was cursing and fired a third shot, Dal wincing as he heard buckshot zipping past.

“Sorry!” she cried, her eyes bulging in horror at the near miss.

Dal kept yanking the chain, wondering what idiot had figured it would be nice to have the night air waft into the warehouse and that with the doors raised up high, they could see the sunset better? Oh, yeah, that was him. The garage door slowly descended, taking its sweet ass time.

Two more birds came into view, their giant yellow eyes reflecting the LED lantern and the secondary lights Dal had set up. They stared at the lights, seemingly mesmerized and then shrieked as they charged toward Samira. She fired twice in quick succession, but missed the second bird. Buckshot scattered across the asphalt and Dal cursed in terror. The bird made it into the warehouse.

In its haste to get to Samira, it hadn’t noticed Dal. He released the chain and charged the bird with his machete. It was more blunt force than sharp blade that caused the creature to stagger. Its talons slipped on the concrete floor and it stumbled. Dal kicked it and then swung down, the blade cleaving into its neck and parted the head from the body.

Iron Bird: Killed

50 mana

10 iron feathers

Dal turned to Samira to find her hastily loading the shotgun again. The cries the birds were gone, replaced by the smell of cordite and dead animals.

“I guess the creatures come to us,” Dal said, shakily. He staggered toward the garage doors and managed to shut it.

“I got four,” Samira said. “Two hundred mana, thirty feathers, and two restones. I guess I triggered the Hunter Perk.” She sat down in a plastic chair and looked at the carnage before them.

The bloodied creatures lay on the concrete, their twisted faces staring at them. Dal took out a flashlight and shone it upon them, he touched a feather.

“Its feathers are like iron,” he said. “Guess the name wasn’t lying.”

“Then the goblins really must have been high,” Samira laughed.

Dal joined her and poked the bird with his machete. The blade slid off the feathers. He pushed again and found purchase under the feathers with the point of the machete.

“That machete would have done nothing to them,” Samira said. “It’s more a slashing and chopping weapon, this is more piercing weapon work. But the neck and head are bald as my uncle.”

“A carrion eater,” Dal said.

Samira grunted. “Yeah, like vultures. Don’t wanna get dead juices in their feathers, so they’re bald. Guess its not breakfast.”

Dal stared down at it. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Dungeon,” Samira groaned.

“Yeah, maybe it can, y’know, eat them.”

“Then the next time you feed it mana, it’ll send some iron birds at you.”

“We can collect the feathers off a few.”

Samira nodded. “We got loot from them, but nothing says we can’t take the feathers and talons, might be useful later on.”

“Sounds like we have tomorrow’s plans.”

“Tomorrow?” Samira asked. “I’m not letting some carrion creatures fester inside this warehouse. We harvest them, we dump them into the dungeon, and then we clean up the blood.” Samir arose to her feet, slinging the loaded shotgun over her back. “Have you ever plucked a chicken?”

“I have,” Dal said.

“Oh?” Samira asked surprised.

“My grandpa kept chickens and he thought it would toughen me up to process them.”

“Only gave you nightmares instead?”

“Yeah,” Dal said with a chuckle. “My mom was pissed, but my grandfather insisted it made me a man.”

“Gotta love toxic masculinity,” Samira said as she pulled a plastic chair next to a bloodied creature. She still had her dishwashing gloves on and gingerly pulled on a feather. It came loose after a stronger tug. “Let me find some pliers.”

***

Samira stood guard as Dal opened the dungeon storage unit. He pulled the pallet cart loaded with the five, now mostly featherless, birds into the room. In the enclosed room, the reek of blood and death was strong.

“How far into it?” Samira asked, she faced away from the dungeon, her headlamp and the flashlight duct taped to the shotgun, sweeping the eerily dark storage units.

“In this room will probably be fine,” Dal said. “Its all apart of the dungeon.”

“Well, get on with it. We need to clean up the cart and get the stink of death out of the warehouse. I’m sure these bird’s buddies aren’t shy about eating their own.”

“Vultures don’t even eat their own kind,” Dal said as he used a shovel to push off an iron bird corpse. “But I suppose they’d be drawn by the smell of death.”

“Isekai world,” Samira said. “Stop using old world logic on creatures. Cannibalism might be the way every creature here swings.”

Dal couldn’t disagree with that, so he dumped the remaining corpses onto the floor. There was a crackle and hiss as the birds’ colors began to invert. As with the dead goblins and spider, the birds vanished in a crackle of sparks.

“What the!” Dal staggered back as the pallet cart began to crackle with energy.

“Oh, hell. Its stealing our damn pallet cart!” Samira cursed.

They watched as the cart vanished.

“Well now we know it can consume inorganic things,” Dal said after a moment. “I wonder if it can remake it.”

“Let’s leave that pondering for another day, Dungeon Lord,” Samira said. Dal nodded and quickly shut the storage unit.