Chapter 415

In the end, James made a difficult decision, but it was one he knew he needed to. While normally he held off on upgrading his mobs and such the day he made the floor, this time around, that rule was broken. Because, in the end, James was weak. He just couldn’t pick only two of those damned orbs. He needed a third.

And luckily for him, the Jormun-grander had just that upgrade option. Dragon Balls… was the title, which James found both immature, and fitting, could actually be pumped multiple times. At the first level, it unlocked on extra of the mini bosses on the floor. Meaning it upped his count from 2, to three. At the max level, which would require 10 upgrade points, he’d be able to put 7 on the floor. As tempting as that was though, he highly doubted he could blow the points for that. After all, the boss had other interesting upgrade options to choose from as well.

Interestingly, the mini-bosses, as he placed them on the map, had their own upgrade options. Which, wasn’t super surprising, since he could upgrade B.L.U. What was surprising about it, really, was how he could do it. He had two options when it came to upgrading them. Each had its own set of upgrade point pools, from which he could spend the upgrade he had for the mini bosses, individually, across all of them. Or, there was a joint upgrade option for the mini-bosses, which would burn the upgrade point, but apply a blanket upgrade across them all. In that way, the game would allow the dungeon core to choose between unique upgrade paths for the orbs, or a clone type upgrade path, making the orbs, to some degree, pretty similar to each other.

While James had broken his norm by upgrading the Jormun-grander, he did resist upgrading the orbs. And instead, James utilized his time to layout the floor best he could with his mobs, his orbs, and of course, his boss. With regards to the boss, the game did at least, give him the option on where to start the boss. However, there wasn’t a stationary or zone option for it. Once the floor came to life, once players activated an instance, the boss would begin moving.

With that in mind, James threw the boss right in the center of the labyrinth. By the way the floor was laid out, it was like a massive maze that the players would have to move through, in order to reach the far end of it, and head to the next floor. However, while there was only a single entrance and exit to the maze, the center had a massive connecting area that connected and branched off to every part of the labyrinth. This heart of the maze was where the Jormun-grander would begin. And from that spot, it was up to really, RNG, to determine the path the boss took.

Meanwhile, as the maze spread out in a massive expanse, James selected three of the large, chamber like rooms, roughly equidistant from each other and the center of the maze. It was like a strange, circular pattern, swirling round and round in geometric complexity, contained within a square, shifting, labyrinth. With these swirling patterns, the chambers created, swirling out from the center of the maze, seemed to create square like connectors, if you were to draw lines to them. Of course, being a maze, there were no actual straight paths from one to the other, and only from above, could James see the complexity of it.

There were four of those chambers to choose from, and James selected three. The next outer ring of the swirling complexity of patterns, actually seemed to form a pentagon, or pentagram, James figured, depending on how you connected the lines. Further out, even more complex designs. Now that James looked over the massive expanse from above, with a view only a Dungeon Core could possibly have…until of course, maps were created of it, he could tell the developers had pulled multiple different symbolic features to put into the labyrinth, all in the sake of complexity, and in Steve’s words ‘style.’

He’d also digressed down the path of his memories, mentioning something about “Witch-Tok” that James had no idea of, and a reawakening of spiritualism and symbology a couple decades ago. James only half listened to the developer, as he finished setting up his sixth floor with the mobs. Technically, the next step would come with decorating the floor, as well as setting up the loot. However, James was tired. He was tired not only from all the work he’d been putting into the game during his sixth-floor design, but tired from what had happened in the real world to him. His interactions with Cyb3ru5, and everything that had entailed, had left him weary in a way he’d not expected.

And looking at his clock, showing they were in the final 24 hours already of DCO, with the players having been removed from DCO who knew how long ago, James decided, those tasks were for a future James. For now, James just wanted to sleep and relax. His mind needed to recharge, he needed to refresh. And he’d be lying if he wasn’t a little excited, for once, to wake up. As much as he loved DCO. As much as he loved Rue and wanted to spend all the time he could with here, he couldn’t help but want to log out this time. Because, he knew, his package from his parents was supposed to arrive in the morning, and curiosity, had him more than a little anxious and excited, to see what they’d sent him.

So, with his sixth-floor populated, James sent Steve away, and took Rue back to the hot springs for a little relaxing, and a nice meal. After which, he expressed to her exactly what he was going to do, and why he was going to do it. He asked her to keep an eye on things, and wake him if needed, but otherwise, after apologizing, rather profusely actually, given their time together had been cut short this immersion already because of the Cyb3ru5 situation, James activated force sleep… from the couch of one of the painguin buildings. Because Rue had refused to let him sleep in the tent with her.

With a chuckle at that, knowing she’d forgive him when he next logged in, he closed his eyes. A moment later, darkness pulled him from his body, pulled him from a digital yet real feeling couch, to sweet, sweet oblivion. An oblivion, that lasted for a blink, before his eyes were opening, and the warm immersion pod gel was sliding away from him. James was back in the real world. At least, he was pretty certain. However, last he checked…he should have been alone in his house. And he most certainly wasn’t.