“Ohhh stop it you” my floating LEL meter said “I can only take so much flattery in a day, But my name is Lela. Nice to formally make your acquaintance Pat”.

I found that just being nice, not creepy, and complimenting the women in my life got me far. I hoped complimenting Lela would smooth over the bridge and it seems to have worked. I didn't say any of this out loud to her.

“So what’s going on?” I asked and Lela responded with:

“Well. Isn’t it obvious? Your world was taken over by a deranged system AI and the AI knocked your civilization back to the stone age and turned your species into dungeon dwelling vampires. No more sun or open skies. Oh and he gave you guys classes and access to part of himself to facilitate leveling up and progressing. All of this for his entertainment”.

I took a second to let that sink in. “A system AI? Dunerons? Vampires? Levels? What the hell is this? This is a nightmare. The first prompt said something about Family units but here I am alone. Where’s my family, or even the people I worked with?”.

“No hell is a specific system located in Sothis. It is quite a ways away. I suppose that’s not what you were asking. Basically your civilization was screwed randomly. A new AI was born this morning and had to have a domain over something. This is more of a power struggle on the Galactic scale but suffice to say there’s nothing your civilization can do but survive. So let’s get on that. Survival.”

I thought just surviving was a good idea. The turn this conversation took was too much of a non sequitur for my brain to adjust too. It sounded like I really just needed to find food, water, and a place to sleep. I still did need to know about my powers though.

“How about we take a second and talk about my powers?” I asked.

“Oh fine” Lela started “Well your best power so far is me. By a large margin. I am quite fabulous and I am able to act as your personal helper and keep watch over you for danger. I should also be able to communicate with the System in a limited manner and answer questions you might have. Past that your +5 in trap finding means you’ll almost instantly highlight any low level traps, you can use your danger tags to highlight and outline traps for other people, your +4 constitution makes you significantly more robust than basically any human before the change, and Dark Vision is self explanatory but not useful right now. The system has lit the tunnels up in the immediate spawn location. Your red tape is the final piece and let me assure you that tape is quite the blessing. It can stick to objects, float in mid air, create force barriers, and become as rigid or as flaccid as you wish. It is quite the remarkable item and it’s almost limitless!”

“That sounds pretty useless considering I am alone in a dungeon. I can’t eat the tape can I?” I stupidly asked.

Lela sighed and said “No not unless you could sustain yourself out of plastic strips”.

I considered for a second and stuck the tape and tag back up to the wall. I donned my backpack and headed off in the direction the tag pointed. I figured we could walk and talk.

“What about a sword? People in dungeons use swords right?” which earned me an eye roll and terse reply “Would a plastic sword seem even slightly dangerous?”.

Not thinking about it I pulled off about a 6’ section of tape. I spiraled it around itself and made a long cylindrical shape and willed the shape to become a ridged walking stick. It was a little long but it was light and could support my weight without any effort.

Casually thinking I took my walking stick and thought what I could do with it. I remembered I could get tape to float in the air. I tried that. The red plastic walking stick floated in the air. I tried to push down on it, bend it, move it, and I couldn’t get it to budge. I grabbed onto the stick and tried to see if it would support my considerable weight and while I couldn’t hold my large mass up with my arms alone the stick didn’t budge. Cool I thought I guess I can use this stuff to make ladders at the very least. I willed the walking stick to move again and decided to continue on. It was more like a walking staff though, the staff was just as tall as I was about a couple inches in diameter.

Lela was hovering around my head just humming. Apparently content in silence although the humming was annoying. I had walked for about 100’ now and there was just a long straight hallway like cave. It wasn’t even particularly interesting. Nothing but gray walls.

All of a sudden Lela started buzzing and blinking like she was a regular LEL meter. She screamed out “Behind you” and I turned around to see a snivel nosed short green creature. It had a knife and was running at me about 10’ away. It had a short rusted looking dagger and looked quite angry. The point seemed sharp and I started to focus on the dagger. I didn’t want to get stabbed.

I got in a wide stance then something Lela said to me about the tape powers clicked. I held the walking staff out horizontal in front of me and willed it to make a barrier. The goblin ran straight into the invisible force wall and landed on its butt dazed. I hauled off and kicked the stupid creature as hard as I could and it’s face caved in around my steel toed boots. It was a little gooey but expecting more trouble I reached down and picked up the small rusted dagger right as Lela screamed about the other 2 goblins.

They seemed more apprehensive than their companion, I guess staring at the gurgling body that was once your friend did that to a goblin. Hey, I didn’t start this fight. It’s not my fault their friend would need some full facial reconstruction surgery if he lived. I assumed he wouldn’t but you never know.

One of the new pairs of goblins had an ax and the other a spear. They tried to cautiously approach as I grabbed my walking stick with my left hand and willed it to not be a barrier any more. I held it out in front of me horizontally like a bull fighter's Muleta and with my right hand I held the short dagger. I was backing up slowly.

The goblin with the spear moved towards me and the goblin with the ax followed his friend closely. These two were not going to charge in I guess thinking I had the power to stun them.

Suddenly the goblin with the ax threw his ax and the goblin with the spear ran forward. I activated the barrier again but it was too late for the ax. The ax flew right by my head before I had time to react and I got lucky for my first time in the dungeon. The ax clattered against the wall and bounced down the dungeon hall. The spear bounced harmlessly off the wall of force I was using as a shield. I reached over and grabbed the spear with my left hand since the walking stick was floating horizontally now. The goblin's strength was no match for me as I yanked the spear out of his grip and the goblin off his balance. The goblin that at one point in time had the ax was circling around trying to squeeze between the wall and my barrier staff. He had more than enough room. To free up my right hand I threw the dagger I had taken from the first goblin at him. The goblin saw the dagger incoming and tried to jump back but he was just too close.

The dagger struck true! Although it hit flat. It did manage to startle the goblin and Lela made an angry growl and flew over trying to grab for the dagger before the goblin got it. The goblin knocked her away and came at me again. This time armed.

By now I had yanked the spear over and positioned it in my right hand. I had control over my staff again holding it out in front of me and my spear resting on top of the staff like it was a shield and I was in the Spartan 300 movie. I quickly jabbed out at the goblin trying to flank around me and hit him in the shoulder. Bringing my spear back quickly I was able to turn and create a barrier again when the second goblin tried to rush me. I kicked out at that goblin but he backed off quickly seeing that there was no way to forcefully get to me. The goblin trying to flank around screamed in pain and backed up. I guess it hurt being stabbed. Go figure.

Bloodied and with only a dagger, the two remaining goblins began to back away. I advanced. They slowly retreated. I stepped over their fallen and by now completely dead friend. Except he wasn’t dead.

The goblin on the ground with a ruined face screeched and tried to bite my lower ankle with his shark-like teeth. This did absolutely nothing other than startle me as I had on thick leather and padded work boots. The goblin sank his teeth into the boots and the goblin with the knife ran forward trying to catch me off guard. It didn’t. The goblin with the knife ran straight into my spear impaling his small body and I stomped down on the goblin trying to bite my ankle with my other leg. Another sickening crunch sounded out as that goblins head lost all structural stability and everything inside smooshed out. The goblin impaled on my spear fell over bleeding out of a horrendous chest wound.

The last goblin tried to run but his short legs wouldn’t take him far. I ran after him. Ok, it was more of a jogging pace but I did stab him quickly in the back multiple times with the spear he once had. He collapsed after the third strike and I finished him off mercilessly with a stab to the back of the head. The fight was over and Lela was getting back up off the ground and flying toward me.

Lela “I have an idea. There might be more goblins. Go ahead and make a barrier in front of that last goblin going from wall to wall and then make one down the passage a bit. This way we can rest and loot the bodies in peace”.

“Sounds like a great idea”. I did exactly that. First I collected the dagger and ax. They went into my inventory. The spear was short for me but I had an idea how to fix that issue. I set it aside for now.

The three goblins had 2 copper coins a piece and the last one I killed while he was running away had a piece of hard tack. As soon as I looted their bodies they began to slowly disappear. I wasn’t planning on eating the wiry little bastards but it would have been a nice option.

Looting out of the way Lela flew over and excitedly said “Check your system notifications!”. I did. Apparently since I was in a fight the popups were delayed. Quite convenient actually.

“Congratulations! You have gained the weapon throwing skill. Level this up enough and you might be able to hit what you’re aiming at.”

“Congratulations! You have gained the spear skill. Yes it is a skill to poke things with a long stick.”

“Congratulations! You have the shield skill. Being able to block incoming attacks is probably going to save your life, if it hasn’t already!”

“Congratulations! You have leveled up. As a lvl 2 Dungeon Inspector you gain:

The ability to create the danger tags you will use as signs. No more need to carry around paper! A +2 in a skill of your choice and a +2 in strength and constitution! Sure-footed ability - 10% less likely to skip while wearing sturdy footwear!”

The messages seemed a little over the top in the enthusiasm category. I tore off a piece of tape and set it horizontally to act as a seat. I sat down on it and leaned back against the wall of the dungeon. This was becoming too much excitement for an old overweight man like me. My heart was pounding so I reached into the side pouch of my backpack and pulled out the large container of aspirin and water bottle. Taking 2 aspirins and a swig of water I just sat there listening to Lela hum.

I grabbed the spear and looked at it. It was only about 4’6” which was awkwardly short for a 6’3” guy. I had an idea though and began to wrap some of the danger tape around the spear in a spiral pattern making sure to overlap the tape by a good bit. When I got to the bottom I continued wrapping the tape around itself until I got to about a 6’3” long spear.

I felt proud of my spear. Then it dawned on me I could have done almost the exact same thing with the pocket knife I had in my bag and my trusty walking staff. Considering it a bit of a missed opportunity I went into my inventory, moved the endless danger tags to the hot bar, and summoned one of the new danger tags.

The tag was a thin, flexible, but still ridgid plastic tag with a metal eyelet at the top of the tag for hanging. It was certainly nicer than the paper sheets I had in my backpack. I tried cutting the danger tag and it was really durable. I laid a strip of tape over the danger tag and tried to cut it again. Again it was almost impossible for me to cut the tap or tag when I wasn’t just willing the things to break or be cut. The shield skill gave me an idea and I summoned some more tags and tape.

After about 10 minutes of crafting I had used the red danger tape and tags to make a fairly large but light riot shield like contraption. I found that I could still use the shield to make a barrier and It seemed sturdy enough to block some incoming damage even if I didn’t use the shield as a barrier. Happy with the contraption I strapped it on my arm, grabbed my spear, took down the danger tape on either side of me, and headed down the corridor again with Lela following.