***** Broohn’s POV 2:00 PM, 10 days later*****

“Hey Bud, everything looks good so far, but I’m getting hungry. I’m going to go take a lunch break, then I’ll check over the puzzle rooms next,” I called.

Great! Any suggestions for improvement before I call the Guildmaster and ask for an inspection team?

“You forgot to add bathrooms.”

How did I forget the bathrooms?

“I have no idea. Oh, and vending machines would be a nice touch. I’m thinking food and drink to start, but maybe you could add some weapons and armor or something? Nothing too radical of course, but definitely something better than the average adventurer has.”

“Wait, what are vending machines?” asked Tracey.

“Mechanical devices that will accept coinage and return both correct change and the selected item from their inventory. Usually, they sell prepackaged snack food or drinks, but in certain places, they have different versions that can sell pizza or writing supplies or certain kinds of keys to name a few.”

“Interesting. We should find an alchemist who can make potions and such for us,” suggested Tracy. “Adventurers are notorious for being an alchemist’s best friend.”

“Why? I can understand some of the magic users wanting mana or stamina potions, those are amazingly useful as long as you’re careful to avoid becoming addicted. Especially the potions that can triple your maximum value for a couple of hours. For a price of course. But everything else?” I snorted. “Yeah, no. Everything else that I’ve ever seen called ‘alchemy’ back home was garbage. And don’t even think about touching the so-called ‘health potions.’ Most of those are lethal or nasty enough to make you wish they were lethal.”

“Huh. That’s funny,” Tracy replied. “That’s pretty much the opposite of what I would say about our local alchemists. The mana potions are ok, the stamina potions make you crash so hard when they wear off that you’ll never recover, the healing potions are freaking amazing, and everything else is more likely to work than not. Well, if you’re buying it from a reputable and certified alchemist that is.”

That is something we’ll have to look for in the future. In the meantime, I’ll get started on the vending machines, you go enjoy your lunch.

“Oh, I will,” I said as I walked through the Entrance Hall in human form, only to pause in the middle of the front door as a pair of astral projections of dragon’s heads took shape in front of me.

The one on the right was similar to my own, but there were no stars and the glow was brighter. The one on the left was also similar to my own, except the stars were brighter and in different places, and it wasn’t glowing.

“Momma!” I yelled as I ran up and hugged the starless head on the right.

“It is good to see you, my son,” she replied.

“Aren’t you a little old to be calling her ‘Momma’?” asked the other head who was apparently feeling a bit ornery at the moment.

“Daddy-doodle-Woodle-poodle!” I yelled as I hugged the other head.

“You walked into that one dear,” laughed Mother.

“Yes, yes I did,” conceded Father. “Your mother is right though, it is good to see you, my son.”

“Group hug!” yelled Zona as she hugged all three of us with vines because of course she did.

At this point, my smart wrist bag went off with an aggressively-cheerful version of Bud’s conference call request ringtone, which I answered immediately.

Starface! Moonhide! It’s good to see you! I’d come out there and join the group hug, but I’m a bit lacking in hugging ability.

“It’s good to see you too Bud!” said Father.

“How are things going with you guys?” asked Mother.

“Everything is going great so far,” I replied. “It took a little bit of adjustment at first, but we’re fairly settled in now. I’m honestly surprised that you two dropped in to check on us, even if it is only via astral projection.”

“You may only be copies of the originals, but all three of you are still my children and my friends,” replied Father. “Of course we came to check up on you!”

“You of all people should know how much we care about those that have been entrusted to our care. It’s a large part of why we ended up becoming who we are today,” added Mother.

“My heart knew that, but my head had forgotten,” I admitted.

“Oh, before I forget, there’s someone that I should introduce you to,” interjected Zona. “Tracy, come on over here.”

"Tracy, this is my Father, the Lord of the Amazon and Dragon of the Stars," I said, pointing to the head on the left. Then I turned to the other head saying, "And this is The Moonlit Shadow, my mother."

“Hi, I’m Tracy, Bud’s Dungeon Fairy. He’s told me so much about you two.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. I'd shake your hand, but there's a size problem and a 'no hands at the moment' problem. Wait, what does a fairy have to do with a primitive jail and why would Bud be building one?” asked Father.

That’s a bit of a long story. How much longer can you keep those projections up?

“I’d say another half hour or so total. How about you just give us as much of the story as you think we have time for, and we’ll have to call that good enough,” said Father.

Sounds good to me. So,–

“Wait, before we get into that, how did you find them?” asked Tracey. “If there are two different universes like this something tells me that there are countless others. Finding the right one would presumably be a considerable challenge.”

“You’re not wrong on that one. Like I said, they are still my children and my friends,” Father replied. “A dragon can always find that which is theirs. It may take them a while, but they will find it in the end and woe betide those who stole it from them.”

“Ah. In that case, pity the fools who decided it was a good idea to steal from a dragon.”

Oh, you have no idea. Remind me to tell you the story of the time Broohn’s little sister got kidnapped at some point. Anyway, here’s what happened:

It took us most of the remaining time to bring them up to speed with all three of us jumping in to add relevant details, but we did manage to tell them the entire story before they had to go.

“Well, I think that just about concludes our visit. It may be a while before we can check in again,” lamented Father.

Next time you come, could you try and find a way to set up a data connection for me? I would like to share my sanity update with my original self and the rest of the AI’s.

“We can’t promise anything other than that we will try,” said Mother. “Good-bye my children, I’ll see you again.”

“Group hug!” yelled Zona as she once again wrapped us up in vines, where we stayed until the astral projections fizzled out a moment later.

“Well, that was unexpected,” said Zona as she retracted her vines.

“Yup. Too bad they couldn’t stay longer.” I agreed.

Then I got an odd feeling from my outermost set of detection wards, almost as if something insubstantial was coming towards us at a high rate of speed.

“Incoming!” I yelled, causing Zona and Tracy to run away to their respective safe havens.

Meanwhile, I switched to my dragon self and put my helmet on to protect my most important weak spots. I was sorely tempted to don all of my armor, but I could tell that I wouldn’t have time for it to boot up properly before the whatever-it-is arrived. I would have faded into the background, but whatever this was seemed to be aimed smack in front of Bud’s dungeon. I’m a dragon, and Bud is one of the two most important things that are mine, the other one being Zona. There is no way that I was letting some random spell impact in front of him without doing my best to protect him from its effects.

With that sorted, I sat on my haunches and tried to figure out what it was.

Hmm… It almost feels like a teleport spell, except it’s only going about 320 kilometers an hour (200 mph). The apparent velocity of teleport spells is usually measured in multiples of the speed of light, or at the very least fractions of the speed of light. As such, they're normally detected after they've delivered their payload or when they run into anti-teleportation wards.

Then it crossed my inner set of identification wards, which confirmed that this was, in fact, a very slow teleportation spell. So slow that none of my teleportation wards could do anything about it since it didn’t have enough apparent velocity to trigger them.

It arrived less than half a second after it crossed my inner detection wards, dumping a group of 100 some odd armed and/or armored individuals in front of me.

Then, before I could react, they attacked, and all of my defense plans fell apart.