‘It’s time,’ he thought. ‘Yeah, it’s time I figured out the rest of this crap. For now. Baxter’s asleep and Bob’s off my back, so I’ve got time.’ At least he hoped he did.

He thought back to his list:

Baxter happy Light Space to run Things to chew on Things to make him happy Life as a dungeon Dungeon points Loot Monsters Me happy and connected My mom and step-family

OK, I can at least cross one thing off it, Light. Of course, I’ve got to add make light brighter, but since doing so would wake the dog, I can hold off on that. So that leaves, Space, which both Bob and Baxter seemed to think was important. Chew toys, things to make him happy, dungeon points, loot and monsters, are all less important.’ He wondered about his list again. Princeton! Then decided to let it go. ‘Baxter is my friend and only person, well, dog that I’ve got to talk to. Connections. It’s all about connections. Keeping him happy, keeps me happy,’ he thought.

He didn’t want to experiment around the sleeping dog, so he thought about what he could do. ‘Make the room next to this one,’ he thought. ‘Can I do that?’

He tried. He thought about a space about ½ a meter between the room he was in and the remaining rock that surrounded him and tried to remove it. He spent an enormous amount of time and energy on it but nothing happened. He tried larger and smaller volumes of rock. It made no difference.

After about an hour, he stopped and thought about it. ‘What am I doing wrong?’ he thought.

He tried his ‘Bore’ trick on the wall of the room and almost instantly a dimple formed and the rock began vanishing. He quit almost immediately because the process wasn’t noiseless. It emitted a low, grinding noise coupled with a small slapping or clapping noise. He hadn’t noticed it the first time he’d used the process because there was so much pressure on him. The overabundance of mana, trying to get the skill, all those things had pretty much kept him from noticing the noise. Besides, he hadn’t had the dungeon sense ability back then. He would have really needed to be focusing to even notice it.

He thought about what this meant. He could Bore in his room, but not in an unconnected space. Another racial imperative might have appeared, adding up to two so far:

Must have dungeon entrance at surface. Rooms must be connected.

‘Or could it be more general than that,’ he thought. ‘Instead of connected rooms, maybe it was something like, Can’t perform actions outside of dungeon bounds.’ He thought about it for a second and then decided it was the second. And then he wondered about that, dungeon bounds? ‘What does that even mean?’ he thought. ‘Is it the actual space I’ve carved out or do they extend beyond that space?’

He thought of the tube that he’d created to the surface. He could follow its entire length. He had known which direction the surface was. He had chewed through the rock and dirt and mortar on the way up.

‘Hmm, mortar,’ he thought. ‘I must have hit something man-made up there.’ He wondered if he should add a ‘Check out surface’ to his list, but needed to stay focused. He could add it later. Do it later.

He had known before he had tunneled through it what the rock was. At the time, he wasn’t paying attention, didn’t care. ‘TL:AA. Too long: Ate Anyway,’ he thought.

That meant he had an awareness of more than his room, his bounds stretched farther. He tried to sense the area he’d been trying to excavate. It was a mixture of sandstone and dirt. He could feel the individual grains that made up the stone. He swept his awareness through the area surrounding his room and discovered that he could sense out to about 100 meters. Almost all of it sandstone. The tube to the surface ended in a flat bit of limestone stones joined by mortar that stretched out past where his awareness spread. The area of limestone was about ⅔’s of a meter. The tube ended about 20 meters above the roof of his room. His perception ended at the outermost edge of the worked stone. This puzzled him.

‘Ah! Questions! Shit!” he thought. “Every time I figure something out, it raises more questions. So, no, it isn’t a case of being outside of my bounds. It seems like some skills can’t function away from my tunnels? Rooms? Body? So rule #2 stands. And that means what?’

He paused and sat there trying to figure out what he needed to figure out. Before he forgot, he added another dungeon rule, ‘3. Bounds end at atmosphere’. He wasn’t sure about this one, but it seemed to match what he’d noticed at the tube’s mouth or his dungeon’s entrance. He made a note to check on this one. Maybe he could expand his bounds someway?

He decided to try to create a little hole in the top of the room and bore a little tunnel toward where he’d been trying to excavate. He kept the hole small, about the size of a dime, and worked slowly to try to keep the noise down. He didn’t want to wake Baxter.

He was successful. The grinding, clapping noise was very faint and he kept at it until he reached about a meter from his current walls. The dog didn't move.

Then he tried to remove the largest amount of rock/dirt that his skill allowed him to, 4 cubic meters. The sound roared, the grinding loud and the clap even louder, but they were muffled by the meter of rock.

Baxter only rolled over and grumbled in his sleep. It was odd. He could perceive the sound at both places, at both levels. His mind somehow just processed the event in both places as if it was natural. Now that he thought about it he could perceive the sound along the dime-sized tunnel and even the exit tube. He checked out his status sheet again looking at his mana points.

It appeared that the over-mana he’d been filled with had disappeared when he created the tunnel to the surface and the excess mana in his room drained out. It also showed that he’d spent some of his available mana. It read 310(260).

‘So,’ he thought. ‘Just like spells, I guess, skills take mana. Or maybe they just require you to spend something? In humans or Baxter, I imagine that they’d need to spend stamina or maybe Qi or something. That must be the difference between a skill and an ability. An ability is something from inside of you, a skill is something you practice and get better at. I guess you might be able to develop abilities too. Ooh! I guess that means I’ll be able to take more with less mana excavating as I get better. Cool! Grand Canyon for the win!’

He did it again, and sure enough, his mana dropped 25 points. He also now had an 8 meter3 hole in the ground perpendicular to him, connected to his room by a meter long, dime-sized tunnel. He did it again, rapidly 9 more times and now had a tunnel one meter3 stretching straight away from him for 44 meters.

He stopped then because he ran out of mana. He had ten mana points left, a sleeping dog, and a tunnel that the dog couldn’t reach in the upper part of the room. ‘I could have planned this better,’ he thought.

He waited for about thirty minutes, but there was no change in his mana. Of course, just then, he got another notification:

Keep it up. A bit more planning, maybe next time?

Skill Level Gained

Excavation (Boring)

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Another meter3 of material removed Minus 5 mana to use skill

“Hey Bob? You listening? What’s a Rank of Bronze mean? How many points did I need to go up a level in skill?

He waited a while but no answers appeared. He wasn’t sure if the notice appeared then because he had finally leveled up or because he’d finally stopped his boring frenzy.

“I bet humans get help files and answers to their questions. Not cool! Not fair.” he said, but still nothing. The great help desk in the sky stayed closed for business.

The blue screen hung there in his vision, waiting for his decision. He thought about it and then said option b please and the screen disappeared. He’d decided on b because, for the same amount of mana, he could excavate more.

He waited another 30 minutes but once again his mana didn’t change. He thought back to the novels he’d read and thought about how the MCs got their mana back and they did it by meditating.

He’d never heard of a dungeon meditating before, but he didn’t know what else he could do, short of waiting to see if his mana reset on some kind of timer. He’d also tried to meditate on mana before and hadn’t got the skill. He had got the mana sense ability. No meditation ability. Maybe he hadn’t tried for long enough?

He tried again, composing his mind, focusing on the breathing dog, breath in, breath out. He kept focusing on the dog’s breath, then after a while, he added the mana sense ability and tried to simply be present, to watch the mana in his dungeon body. He noticed mana coming into existence and then pouring up the tube and out the entrance of his dungeon. It was strangely peaceful. Calming. Like watching a stream or a waterfall. Mana coming into existence, flowing out into the world. Coming. Going.

This went on for at least another hour before he got the idea to try to grab some of the mana and just play with it. He started directing it in circles, damming it, forming little pools, cloud-like formations, he tried to sketch things with it, he made a bad picture of Baxter sleeping. Finally, he had the thought, ‘I wonder what mana tastes like? Can I eat mana?’

He pictured the mana coming inside him via a mouth and lips, sucking it down an imaginary throat into his also illusionary belly and, ...

Well, aren’t you clever? Figuring out how to bite off some mana for you. Normally, that doesn’t happen ‘til dungeons gain a few levels, get a bit bigger, start producing more mana, but we’ll allow it. Experience gained.

Ability Gained

Mana Siphon

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

A dungeon usually needs more mana than it’s given. Sometimes it learns how to take it. +25 mana per half hour up to dungeon’s mana limits.

‘Well alright,’ he thought. “Now I can get to it.” And so he did. A combination of Siphoning and Boring made the hole grow bigger. This time he tried to expand underneath the first section he’d removed, then underneath that one, growing the hole downward. Finally, he tried to remove the last .25 meter3 of rock that remained, leveling out the floor so it would match his room’s floor’s level. He noticed that the mana cost of the last Bore left him with more mana. ‘So, skills are scalable,’ he thought. ‘Good to know. If I don’t use them to their limits, I don’t spend as much mana.’ That boring process had taken him an hour and a half. Baxter was still sleeping, so he moved over next to the starting section and repeated: siphon, bore, siphon, bore, siphon, bore, siphon, bore. He kept doing that until Baxter finally woke up after sleeping for about five and a half hours.

“Hello,” Baxter said, sleepily.

“Hey Buddy,” Jake replied.

“I’m awake,” Baxter said.

“Yes you are,” Jake said. He wasn’t sure where the conversation was going.

“Want run,” said Baxter.

“I’m working on it,” said Jake.

“Room bigger? Room smaller.” asked Baxter.

Looking with his senses, Jake noticed that Baxter was now about 4 meters long, not including his tail. He would stand, Jake guessed from the length of his legs, a little less than two meters at his shoulders. Bob had supersized him sometime during the day. He didn’t remember the dog being that big. He tried to think about how to explain the digging’s progress or lack of to the dog.

“Behind the East wall, I’ve been making a tunnel for you,” Jake said. Noting in passing that he now seemed to have a perfect sense of direction. “Right now it’s about as long as you are.”

“OK,” said Baxter. “Can’t see?’

“Boring holes, making tunnels makes noise. A lot of noise. I left a wall so I wouldn’t disturb you. So you could sleep,” Jake said.

“Want see?” said Baxter.

“Well,” said Jake, “Digging takes mana. And I don’t have a lot of mana. So digging is slow. I dig, then I need to rest, dig and rest.” He figured resting was easier for a dog to understand, then siphoning. He wasn’t sure if the dog understood mana either.

“How long?” asked Baxter.

“How long a tunnel do you want?” asked Jake back.

“Long, long,” said Baxter.

‘Well, that’s helpful,’ thought Jake. “How long is long?” he asked.

“It long,” said Baxter and nodded his head sagely.

Jake briefly wondered if the dog was fucking with him.

“Hungry, thirsty,” said Baxter. “No move. Only sleep.”

“I’m pretty sure that you don’t need to eat or even drink now, Ok?” said Jake. “I’ll try to figure out a way to get you something to eat and drink though, Ok buddy?”

“Ok,” said Baxter. “What do?”

Jake thought about it and then said, “Sorry buddy, the only thing you can do. Sleep.”

Baxter sighed, then placed his much larger head on his frankly, enormous paws and with a sigh, fell back asleep.

Jake focused on the now sleeping dog again. His former golden coat was now more of a reddish color, a deep red with brown and black highlights. It made him blend in with the shadowy room. His coat looked a lot thicker too. His head had become more blocky like a pit bulls rather than the golden retriever mix that he used to be. His paws looked funny too. Not like they used to, but more hand-like, with nails that seemed metallic. They actually glistened in the poor, yellow light of the room. Jake wondered about that. He took another look at the dog’s mana and noticed that the three largest concentrations were: green, red and brown. Black came in a distant, but still respectable, fourth.

He decided that when the dog next woke up he’d have him do some digging. It looked like those paw-hands were capable of doing some serious damage, even to stone. He was also wondering about the fire mana. Could the dog be a fire-breather? A dog with metal claws and teeth that could breathe fire? And hide in the shadows? Baxter might be a total badass!

Jake got back into it. Siphon, Bore. The tunneling kept on.

After about 3 and a half hours, Jake got hit with another notification.

Way to go. Way to plan before you dig.

Skill Level Gained

Excavation (Boreing)

Rank: Bronze

Level 3

Choose:

Another meter3 of material removed Minus 5 mana to use skill

Once again, Jake said, “Option b, please,” and the box vanished. When he checked his status sheet he discovered the cost of Boring had dropped to 15 per four meters3 .

About an hour and a half later, Baxter whined and raised his head. “Not sleepy,” he said. “Want do!”

Jake took that to mean that Baxter was bored and wanted something to do. Jake had expanded the tunnel by a fair bit. Well, when he looked at it, not really. He’d only been able to expand the tunnel to about 8 meters due east. That was not bad when you considered that he’d just started tunneling about 10 and a half hours ago, but not miraculous or anything. But it was all he was capable of doing right now, so ‘it is what it is.’

‘Hey Baxter, can you dig through the east wall?”

“Which wall?” asked Baxter.

“The east wall?” said Jake.

“What?” asked Baxter.

“Do you know right from left?” asked Jake.

Baxter looked around, his eyes shifting. “No,” he finally answered. “Can learn?”

Jake looked at the big dog, the extremely big dog, and then looked at his front paws. One paw, the left one, had a black marking on it, almost like a glove, the other red paw did have some black strands of hair in it, like camouflage. “Your front black paw is your left paw, the other paw is your right.”

“Black paw. Red paw,” said Baxter.

“Well, yes, but right and left are understandable by other people,” said Jake.

“What people?” asked Baxter.

“Other people that you might meet,” Jake answered.

Baxter looked around the little room, clearly looking for the other people that Jake mentioned. Then from his prone position, he raised first his black paw, then his left paw. Point made, he lay his head back down.

It was pretty obvious at least to Jake that Baxter was not going to adopt the standard terminology. Although he wasn’t sure that the dog didn’t understand it, he thought that maybe the dog just didn’t want to use it. Once again, he wasn’t sure if the dog was screwing with him or not.

“Do you know east, west, north, and south?” asked Jake.

“Yes,” said Baxter. “Head. Tail. Black paw. Red paw?”

“Well, except if you were to turn around, head and tail would be switched, right?” asked Jake.

He could see the dog thinking about it and decided that he’d better finish the lesson before Baxter came up with another reason to mess with him. “East is always east. West is west. North is north and south is south. The wall to the right of the light is east,” hurried Jake.

“Wall east,” asked Baxter.

“The direction east is the direction of the wall,” said Jake. “West is always the opposite, and when you face east, north is always left.’’

“North. Black paw?” asked Baxter.

“Yes,” said Jake. “When you’re facing east.”

“Head knows East,” said Baxter. “East,” he said, motioning with his head in front of him.

“You always know which direction you’re looking at?” asked Jake.

“Yes,” answered Baxter. “Head knows. Always. Bob says.”

“Bob says?” asked Jake.

“Pictures bad. Bob talk. Good,” said Baxter. “Too much.”

‘Interesting,’ thought Jake. ‘I guess dogs and monsters don’t get menus, they get voices. At least talking dogs do. Can I teach Baxter to read?’

“Well, that makes it easier,” said Jake. “Try to dig in the east wall.” And then before Baxter could say it, he said, “Head.”

Baxter stood up. Once he was on his feet, the room seemed to grow smaller. He seemed to almost fill it when he was standing. He reached out his giant paw and with one nail tried to scratch at the wall. It penetrated the wall and left a long, deep-looking scratch on the sandstone surface. Sandstone is not the hardest of rocks, but Jake was still impressed. He was more impressed when Baxter put his whole paw on the surface and began scooping out chunks of the stone.

He was going to town on the wall. In less than a minute, he had carved a hole about ⅔ s of a meter in it. Shortly thereafter he’d hit the space behind it and he was through the wall and on the other side.

“Dark. But see?” said Baxter.

“Bob made some changes to you while you were asleep.”

‘Oh,” he said. “Darkvision.”

“You have Darkvision?” asked Jake.

“Bob says,” answered Baxter.

“Do you have a special digging ability?” asked Jake.

“Dig,” answered Baxter.

“Do you spend mana to use it?” Jake asked.

“No. Make tired,” answered Baxter.

‘Wow,’ thought Jake. ‘He is a boss. I pity the adventurer that tries to shut a door on him! What is his stamina?’

“Want dig!” said Baxter.

“Ok,” said Jake. “Go for it! Dig all you want. Dig east, Ok?”

“Ok,” said Baxter, and then he disappeared into the wall, only his wagging tail and hindquarters still sticking out. Jake could hear him wuffling and growling and the sound that his digging skill made as he dug his tunnel. Jake had a couple of blue heelers named Charlotte and Emily when he was a kid that used to dig holes in the backyard like nobody’s business. This was a whole different world.

As the dog moved away from him, Jake remained aware of where and what the dog was doing. The tunnel that he was making was somehow added to Jake’s sense of self, his body. The remnants that he was throwing out were nowhere near the volume that he had created. Like Jake’s Bore skill, most of the rock and dirt vanished. It also looked as if he compacted the rock and dirt that he tunneled through at the surface as if to make sure that there would be no cave-ins. Once, Jake noticed this, he looked at his own tunnel and noticed that the surface was different from the native sandstone. It was much harder. It must have been a result of his Bore ability. Nice,’ he thought, ‘Ok, let’s get back to it.’