Dungeon Configure: Book One Dark Exchange

by Troy Neenan

  The question was would getting the metal and magic converting upgrades balance out the cost?

  David doubted that he was going to run into much steel out in the Australian outback. The real selling point in this would have to be the car.

  Since he became what he was now, the dungeon had been keeping the Beast and the tools that had been inside it as emergency cash, not wanting to convert it just in case something happened. David had five hundred points of steel in his storage bin, and though it would be like cutting his own arm off, he would destroy them if he had to.

  He took out the beer can and the metal armour from the junk bin. All he wanted was a cup of coffee, but he knew that he would be cursing and crying later if he jumped the gun. Anyway, he had enough junk to play around with.

  David went through the routine of making a cappuccino. Done, he took a sip and it was like pure awesomeness was travelling down his throat. Suddenly he was 12 DP richer.

  His points now up to 492 DP points, David purchased Metal converter I.

  After blacking out a second time, and suffering a mild concussion from banging his head on the desk, the security office had a new piece of equipment in it.

  The machine was half a head taller than David was. It was big, fat, and if the dungeon's avatar had a ring he possibly would have married it. Spray painted on a background of blues and whites was the word Metal. No catchy gimmick just a simple and elegant message.

  He leaned in and gave the vending machine a hug and a sloppy kiss. “You big beauty,” he laughed. After playing around with the junk file, the dungeon managed to load up the machine with all of the metal that he had managed to procure.

  The image of the can appeared next to the top button, along with 40 DP right there where the price should have been. It seemed that machine measured how much DP you were going to get from each individual item, which was really convenient. The calculations were already done and the pictures seemed clear enough, it just didn't tell you much else about the products.

  For all David knew whatever came out of this machine was going to have a strong metallic taste, or worse, it was only going to spew out Mountain Dew. 40 DP for an empty beer can? He didn't know the calculation that went into that but he wasn't going to say no to it. He just hoped that it didn't taste like arse.

  There came a satisfying thump from slot below and the dungeon's avatar admired his latest prize.

  It was a can of what appeared to be beer. There wasn't much else about it, no colourful labels, no telling what type of brand it was, all the can said was beer in big block lettering. It brought a tear to David's eye.

  The substance tasted like stale gorilla piss but the dungeon savoured every drop. It was beer alright, though he didn't recognise the taste. It was more of a bitter than a lager, but David had never been the type to care about the beer sub-groups. As long as it wasn't any of that light or dry shit, he didn't care about where it came from.

  Having shaken the can for every single drop, David closed his eyes and allowed himself to breathe in from the afterglow.

  Tibetan monks trained for entire life times to obtain the serenity that David felt at that moment. The dungeon felt at peace for the first time in years. Even before all of this mess had started, human David had always felt rushed, his mind scattered in a thousand places, and his world chaotic at the best of times.

  A smile dared to spread itself across his face. Was this joy he felt? Damn, he had really needed that drink. He knew that it was all in his head that the beer had just been a symbolic representation of the dungeon telling him that what he had just partaken in was addictive and pleasant, but he didn't care.

  For the first time since he had gotten to be the dungeon master, David slowed down and allowed himself to not give a fuck about anything. It allowed him to think far more rationally.

  This job or whatever this was could just be a blessing in disguise. Yes, he was alone. Yes, he was trapped. Yes, he was no longer able to enjoy the luxuries that even people in third world countries could achieve. But that was today. He thought about the positives. For one thing he could turn empty aluminium cans into beer. People would call that an awesome super power. He could also turn shit and dirt into quality coffee. Name one superhero who could pull that power out of their arse.

  He thought about what he had achieved so far. He had killed Barney the killer dinosaur, he had tricked and killed an evil fairy, and he had an insect army under his command. True, he couldn't get Wi-Fi and that sucked, but he had lived without the internet before.

  David looked at his monitors. “Ha,” he laughed and went over to the screens. Since he had been here he had never had the need to use the fifth the monitor. The fourth one he had on the dungeon wiki, but the fifth one had just been a bit of a spare.

  He physically moved said monitor to the side. Either the alcohol content of this particular beer was seventy proof, or his forced detox program had softened him up. Either way, he began to use a paint-like program to give the monitor a smiley face.

  “Done. I shall call you... Mac.” David raised his arms to the computer monitor as if welcoming a newborn to the world. “Mac, I am your supervisor. Your job will be to do absolutely nothing; I will then be forced to work harder to cover for your arse.”

  Speaking in a squeaky voice, David, pretending to be Mac said, “That sounds fantastic, Boss. How about you get yourself another beer?”

  “Good idea, Mac.” David moved the armour and swords over to the metal file. He then hastened over to the machine; he stooped down to have a look at the display. Something seemed a bit off.

  “What is it Boss?” David/Mac asked.

  “The armour. One set is going to give me like eighty points,” David said.

  “That doesn't compute, Boss. You got like forty from like... Fifty grams of aluminium. The suit has to weigh, what? Forty, fifty kilograms?”

  “Yeah, it's weird.” David slapped his face. “Crying out loud. Look at what I've become. I'm talking to a fucking doodle on the computer.” Feeling like he was losing his mind, David transmuted the armour and smiled when the thump came, signalling that he had gotten a new drink. “Gin?” David had never drunk the stuff straight before. But it was better than raw sewage so...

  Ten minutes later, David found himself slumped over his computer desk, feeling both happy and miserable at the same time.

  “You're drrrunk, Dave,” Mac said.

  “I'm a dungeon,” David protested, “How can a dungeon get shit faced?”

  “Good point. Hey, I just got a thought while we were drinking down the Beast's front bumper.”

  “Hey, me too.” Who knew that chrome metal tasted like bathtub champagne? David definitely didn't. The new vending machine rocked. He did wonder why they didn't make more beer vending machines but reasoned that the Japanese probably cornered the market. They were always shoving weird shit in vending machines? Couldn't they just do home delivery like a normal person?

  David purchased the treasure making upgrade and grinned. Now he could make gold coins. Hell, he could swim in a bathtub filled with gold. Just like Scrooge McDuck. It wouldn't so much clean him as act as a gold coffin, but hey. He could die rich.

  For some stupid reason, David's hand refused to obey him and it took two hands to work the mouse. He laughed, “I am so pissed right now.”

  He pulled up a battery from his storage. He had been keeping them for the bug zapper but when the lamp had become obsolete, David had just held onto the batteries for a rainy day. Today was that day.

  Drunk, he bought the treasure manipulation tool and taped two wires to both ends of the battery. He couldn't do what he needed to do within the creator so he placed his sparky thing within his first room. It then became a process of David using two ants to bring the two wires together to make a circuit, an activity made more difficult as he couldn't stop giggling.

  There was a spark and two ants suddenly died.

  You have discovered electricity.

  “Hey Mac, I in
vented electrosity. I'm like a... Genius or something.”

  Now why hadn't that prompt appeared when the bug zapper was on? David palm slapped himself, “Stupid. The only thing I ever killed with it was evil Tinkerbelle. I don't even know why I keep it around anymore.” David sent the item over to his junk folder.

  He tried again, using his insects to create a circuit. David kept his finger on the mouse button, ready to collect the elusive spark. If he wasn't so intoxicated at the moment, he may have turned the bug zapper on and have a few mosquitoes fly to their doom instead of trying to turn a handful of ants into electricians.

  David's face was so close to the screen that his eyeballs could have been glued to the monitor. “Come on. Give me a spark.”

  This time the spark lasted longer and when he clicked the collect button a prompt came up.

  In order to obtain electricity as your new food source, you must go through a configuration change. Do you want to change your configuration? Yes or no?

  “Yikes.” David immediately clicked on no. He had no desire to lose another two years. If he had a generator producing millions of volts of electricity then yeah, but right now all he had was a dead car battery and a handful of double As. “Hey, that was close. I nearly spent another two years as a vegetable. Now why did I say that? Well, it doesn't matter.”

  New quest.

  Volts and amps? What's the difference?

  You have identified that you could collect electricity as a food source. Research and build an electric generator.

  Reward. Shortens time for new configuration. Power to your dungeon. New dungeon type: Power station.

  “Now where the fuck do I get a generator from? I can't get out of here. I'm a dungeon. I'm a building. Hello.” It wasn't like he had the internet or had or somebody that could do research for him.

  Chapter Twelve

  For the past five hundred years the spirit of the Zellio'zeri Crat had gotten into a comfortable routine. She would stand in one place and do absolutely nothing. As she was a tree this routine wasn't particularly difficult. Trees were notorious for their ability to not do anything physically labour intensive, which they paid for later when they turned into a foot rest.

  It had taken some work but Zellio'zeri had managed to make her empire self-sustaining, creating an entire ecosystem designed to capture, store, and replenish energy. Every animal and plant on her little world was designed to benefit her.

  So imagine the tree's surprise when an odd looking window appeared before her.

  Dear Dungeon.

  You have been chosen at random to a duel with another dungeon. Do you wish to accept?

  The tree was incredulous. If she was so shocked that her branches swayed, and she was ashamed to admit that her trunk may have creaked. She hadn't even known that she could read.

  Trees saw a book in the same way that a human saw a wagon made out of the bodies of half eaten children. A library much like a furniture department store was the stuff of horror movies.

  Being an incredibly old dungeon, Zellio'zeri was no stranger when it came to wars with her own kind. A couple of million years ago she had fought against an upstart from another continent, who had sent his pig-nosed barbarians to her shore. At the time, a more naive tree had been unprepared and the battle had lasted until a meteor had killed nearly all life on the planet.

  The two were under a truce at the moment, the truce being that Zellio'zeri now controlled the entire planet and the other dungeon was hiding in a mountain where she couldn't kill him.

  What was curious was that that war had been a truly barbaric affair, more of a surprise attack that had quickly escalated. This was far more formal.

  A written declaration of war with another dungeon? It was... Odd. At least to Zellio'zeri it was a tad unorthodox.

  For months Zellio'zeri fretted upon the notion of fighting an unknown dungeon. While the previous war had consisted of her domain being bent over a barrel and getting mercilessly pounded, the end result had been in her favour. When the meteor had hit, most of the other dungeon’s resources had been inside her domain, which gave her one hell of a restart.

  Thinking that it would be rude to turn the battle down, the tree accepted the challenge.

  If the tree had eyes they would have bulged out, as she felt her consciousness become split. Her mind was hurled into the darkness, a world between worlds, and a plane of existence where time and space were not so restrictive.

  Before she could have a chance to regret her choice, Zellio'zeri found herself walking in a world of smoke and darkness. Wait. Walking?

  The dungeon who had challenged her was not what she had expected. In his prime her previous foe had been a mighty force with an army and fleet at his back, this whelp however, was damaged and snivelling. He was young, barely a newborn, yet he had the nerve to declare war upon her? The spirit of nature?

  Then, this young dungeon told her his story.

  Sitting at the table, Zellio'zeri listened to David's origins and his current predicament. She was honestly surprised at the tale. A native inhabitant of a virgin world turning into a dungeon and then becoming capable of roaming the world outside of his domain. It was preposterous and absurd, yet...

  The spirit of the tree examined her new appendages. She was bombarded with sensations that she had never before experienced. Back in her body her perception was vast. She could feel the trees and plants grow, she had no physical eyes but she could sense everything. Her domain stretched across an entire planet, yet she was still able to sense a lone caterpillar munching on a leaf a continent away.

  Now, she saw and heard the world as one of her own creatures might.

  She bent her fingers and let out a sigh. Such simple motions but they were so expressive and intoxicating. She opened her legs and shivered in excitement as her dress stroked her newly acquired sex. How did these creatures stand such sensations?

  When David had told her about how he had tricked a dungeon fairy into killing itself, she laughed.

  Being a tree, Zellio'zeri had never laughed before. It had been like a bubbling explosion that pushed out of her chest and up through her mouth, at first she thought that she was unwell or that David had launched some insidious spell upon her, but it felt so good.

  “I think. I think that I was being controlled. Like I had to learn about brains and... metal. Is that normal?” David asked.

  Zellio'zeri willed herself to be calm and in control, “I'm afraid that your questions are wasted on me, David. I have no knowledge of your predicament. I will ask, why did you not take this... fairy up on her offer? Don't be wrong, I am delighted that you saw through such a parasite’s ruse, but power is not something our kind dismisses so easily.”

  David shrugged, “I knew that she was using me. I've been around salesmen before. Hell, I've done some sales when I was first starting out. I um, guess I didn't like what she was selling.”

  “You could sense deception,” Zellio'zeri approved. How many of her kind had become mere puppets to creatures who wanted power for themselves, caring nothing for nature and balance? She dared not think about it.

  Zellio'zeri’s eyes turned sharp and David flinched as he felt the challenging glare of Mother Nature fall upon him. “Now you seek to war with me little cave. Be glad, I will remember you fondly after I choke the life from your dead body.”

  “Ooookaaay,” David trailed off. “I'm not going to fight you physically. This is more of a game.”

  “Game? The only game is survival, David. It is the only game the forest knows.”

  David pointed at the game board, “The idea of the game is to create a monster using cards. We will then possess said monster and try to kill each other. The winner will not only successfully summon the monster without expanding energy, but win an ante card from the loser.”

  The tree/woman stroked her sharp chin and David was really trying hard not to leer at her cleavage. That damn dress of hers seemed to be held there by God trying to fuck with him.
/>   “Interesting. A free monster from an alien world is hard to come by. How do we create said monster?”

  David pointed to the two decks of cards that appeared before the pair, “These decks contain every creature, power, ability, and material that we have.”

  Zellio'zeri smiled; she had far more cards than her opponent. She puffed out her chest as if she won some kind of minor victory. She noticed the other dungeon staring at her chest; he had been stealing glances at her bust since their meeting. Was she deformed?

  David coughed and continued, “First, we randomly draw six cards from our individual decks.” he pulled free six cards and Zellio'zeri mimicked his behaviour.

  The tree admired the art of her cards. There was the image of a brlee, the seed of an urkron, an herb, a butterfly, a river, and a staff that one of her shamans used for ceremonies. She did not know what kind of monster that she could make with such items but they did look nice. Perhaps she could teach her sentients to make such things. All they seemed to want to do was mate and whack each other with sticks.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now we select one of our opponent’s cards. This will be the ante. Here, pick one.” he held up his hand.

  Zellio'zeri peered at the cards but could determine none of their secrets, “You have them facing away from me. How do I know what to pick?”

  “You don't. You could pick a mountain of gold or pocket lint.”

  So that was how he wanted to play, huh? Very well. Zellio'zeri chose a card at random. It appeared to be a black wheel of some kind. The wheel was made of a material called rubber, though how she knew this or what its purpose was, was beyond her. She elected to remain silent, it was proof that while David was still young, his world was unknown.

  Her opponent reached out his hands but hesitated from taking the first card. His eyes were locked onto Zellio'zeri human face. He watched her carefully as his finger pointed to each of her cards.

  What was he doing? Zellio'zeri was surprised to find that her opponent's eyes held a hint of a wolf that was stalking its prey. It was only until he struck that she realised her error.