***** Bud’s POV, Noon *****

A couple of hours later, after Broohn’s conversation with Marybothane, Broohn was preparing to transport The Prince and his prisoners, with some help from The Prince since Broohn knew nothing about the seemingly random island that the Guildmaster had selected as the drop-off point and Zona had run off to finish cleaning out her tree.

Meanwhile, Tracey and I had gotten back to work on our dungeon. I had just finished replacing the meter-thick layer of stone that made up the floors, walls, and ceilings with 4 cm of AC3, not to mention the pillar that was holding my core. After reviewing the starship design information package that I had put together for her, Tracey decided that the first stage of decoration was to install planter boxes everywhere except the fighting challenge rooms. This made sense because any human starship that was large enough to spare the internal volume had an atrium full of plants that served to help improve the morale of the crew and as the primary CO2 scrubber. Other systems handled this function in an emergency, but they were far more expensive to operate than the greenery. It is also there for those who were, like Zona, physically incapable of being separated from green growing things for extended periods, as well as providing a renewable food supply for the ship.

However, not every ship had the room or the resources to spare for a large atrium like that, in which case they did what Tracey was doing: install planter boxes everywhere that they reasonably could. The main difference was that Tracey was more concerned with being able to hide the various valuable plants among the decorative greenery, without having to worry about the plant’s response to hard vacuum or explosive decompression.

I was getting ready to tessarect the entrance hall when The Prince walked back into my dungeon.

“Hey Bud,” he called out, “Would you be amenable to talking to me for a little bit? I have some questions that I would like to ask you. I promise not to share your answers with anyone other than my mother, and she won’t tell anyone. You have my word as A Royal.”

Tracey and I exchanged mental glances before she shrugged and I said, Ok, what did you want to ask me?

“Who are you?” he asked as he sat down in the middle of the Entrance Hall.

Ok, that was unexpected. I said to Tracey over our private network.

“Yup,” she replied. “I have no idea where he is going with this.”

Neither do I. However, Broohn trusted him enough to bring him into my domain and show him that I’m not a normal dungeon.

“True. With that in mind, I’d say answer him honestly and see where the conversation goes.”

Mentally shrugging, I turned my attention back to The Prince. I am Builder, built by the Shihoth Nor and raised by the Terrans. Why do you ask?

“I ask because I can see where both Broohn and Zona fit into The Prophesy, but the way that you fit into it isn’t quite so obvious. Between how central the other two are to The Prophesy and what I have seen of their relationship with you, I cannot help but feel that you are just as important, but I cannot figure out how. As The Prince, I cannot in good conscience leave a power such as yourself as an unknown. Please bear with me as some of my questions may seem a bit random,” he paused, clearly deep in thought. “What sort of loot are you planning on giving to adventurers in your dungeon?”

That depends on the adventurer, their performance inside my dungeon and the strength of their character. I am not planning on giving them money that I created myself as there is a fair chance that doing so would ruin your economy because of counterfeiting. Before you ask, that is the highly illegal practice of making fake money and spending it like it is the real thing. Making too much of it would decrease the value of your actual money to the point where all of it is completely worthless.

“Ouch,” he winced. “That would be a problem.”

You have no idea. However, once they get going Broohn and Zona will be making money hand over fist, and I plan to use a portion of that as rewards for adventurers inside of my dungeon. I am also planning on giving the adventurers better equipment, rare plants, and other ingredients, as well as various kinds of books. Beyond that, I have to wait and see. I have much to learn about what it means to be a dungeon.

“Interesting. What are your thoughts on genocide?”

I WILL NOT ALLOW IT. It was the Terrans that raised me, that taught me what it meant to be sentient, that all lives have an intrinsic value. Before that, during my time with the Shihoth Nor, they taught me their history, including what happened to the other six sentient races in the land from which they come. The Shihoth killed five of the races by accident before the sixth sacrificed themselves to make sure that some of the Shihoth managed to survive to adulthood.

“Wait wait wait, how do you accidentally kill off an entire race, let alone five of them?”

The Shihoth are a very unique race in that whatever they do above a certain threshold, they either fail or succeed. Epically. There is no middle ground except when they somehow manage to do both. To make matters worse, they have absolutely no control of this ability until they are mentally adults. Keyword: mentally. Physically, they are perfectly capable of reproducing no matter their mental maturity.

“So you're saying that one of their children throwing a temper tantrum is a danger of epic proportions.”

Precisely. It also means that what would be a little mistake for you humans can be deadly to them. For instance, if you stumble slightly when going down the stairs, you’ll probably manage to catch yourself and only suffer a few bruises and maybe a scrape or two. For the Shihoth, 75% of ALL accidents involving stairs are fatal. By the way, whenever one of them makes a mistake on a staircase, you don’t want to be anywhere within fifty meters of the bottom of said staircase regardless of whether or not they survived.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Bud,” said Tracey.

“You have my sympathies,” agreed The Prince.

Thank you. To make matters worse, until they are mentally mature they have little to no control of their ability. Do you see how they could accidentally kill off several races?

“Yes, unfortunately. What about the sixth race, the one that sacrificed themselves to make sure that some of the Shihoth lived to adulthood?”

We have no idea how they did what they did as very few of their records survived the process, but from piecing together bits and pieces of the other races' records of them, they cared very deeply about those around them, regardless of who they were or what they had done. Because of this, the Shihoth have done everything in their power to control their abilities and prevent that from happening again. Does this answer your question about genocide?

“Yes, it does. For now, I just have two more questions. First, are there any laws that you plan on enforcing inside of your dungeon?”

Yes. If someone commits murder or rape inside of my dungeon, then I will treat them as if they were invaders here to kill me. I will do everything that I reasonably can to free any slaves that are brought into my sphere of influence. There are other things that I’d like to forbid as well, but I don’t yet know how to go about doing so.

“I approve,” said The Prince. “Last question: If your name wasn’t Builder, what would it be?”

I didn’t even have to think about that one. If my name wasn’t Builder, it would be Guardian. I may not have been built to be a warrior, but I have always been inclined to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

“Ah, that tells me what I need to know. Thank you for answering my questions. Your answers just took a load off of my shoulders,” said The Prince as he stood up and bowed respectfully in the general direction of my core. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish getting ready for the journey home.”

With that, he left.

“Well, that was interesting. I think there was more going on there than he said.”

Obviously. I said as I took a closer look at our conversation.

“Are you sure that you should have told him so much?”

Not entirely, no. However, I think it was worth the risk to get that man as an ally.

“True. Now let’s get back to work. We got a lot to do and probably not enough time to do it.”