“We’re almost there. Just a little further,” said Lucas. He was walking 5-10 feet in front of the slaves pulling the wagon. The rest of the slaves were walking near the wagon. Sarah was walking almost next to Lucas.

“I don’t know where you think we are going,” said Sarah, “the village has fields for another couple miles south of here.”

“You’ll see,” said Lucas cryptically. “All I will say is that you and the other villagers have walked by where we are going for years and have never discovered its secret.”

“Well, you have to be talking about the Cave at this point. But it has been blocked off by the shield protecting the building across the river for as long as anyone can remember,” replied Sarah.

Surprised, Lucas quietly said, “What if the shield wasn’t a concern anymore?”

Sarah contemplated for a moment and then said, “Then we would have a lot of people who are going to want to loot that old building or locate a village there. Which would explain your secrecy.”

Coming up on the cave, there was a clear line on the ground for how far the shield had extended. On the outside was a packed dirt trail lined with a narrow width of trimmed grass. On the other, the ground looked like a small slice of meadow from the wilderness.

“We’re here. I want everyone to follow me; we are probably going to have to brace the wagon to prevent it from running away down the path we are going to take more than we are going to have to pull it.”

Dan’el replied, “Master, we will not be able to brace the wagon enough to prevent it from running away down a slope. We will need to take several trips to lighten the load first.”

“Alright, Dan’el. I am going to detail Kalliope and Finley to guard the wagon. We can bring the food in first,” said Lucas.

As Lucas headed towards the point where the shield had stood for generations, Sarah became rattled. “You can’t go through there,” exclaimed Sarah. “The shield will Kill you.”

“And yet, “said Lucas as he hopped over the boundary. Nothing happened. No flash of light, no sounds nothing.

“The shield has contracted before. Maybe the boundary has changed,” questioned Sarah.

“Sarah, the boundary has not changed. The shield is just off now,” and then softly so only Sarah could hear, he added, “I’ve been inside.”

The wagon came to a stop against the hard-flat surface of the cave. The cave walls looked unnatural. Almost smooth. If Lucas hadn’t known that it hadn’t been here before he was frozen, Lucas would have sworn it was built with the base. And made of stone-colored concrete no less.

The slaves made quick work of splitting up the food and cooking supplies and loading them into the various bags that they brought with them. Slowly, Lucas led them down into the cave.

As they entered the cave, Lucas cast “Lantern!” From the looks on some of the faces, the slaves did not realize that Lucas was a magic-user. It was obvious that a pathway had been built here next to the portion of the river that flowed inside the cave, leading down. As they passed the first curve, they quickly came upon a door that led away from the river. Walking over to the keypad, Lucas typed in the code that Rose had given him.

“What are you doing?” asked Rose. “None of this old technology is going to work. There’s no electricity.”

“But what if…” said Lucas, as the door began to open, “there was.”

Opening the door, there was a flat area where everything could be unloaded. “Alright, get everything down here, and then we will shut the door behind us. Unload what you need to off the wagon and bring it down. Once the wagon is light enough, bring that down. I don’t want it to be obvious that there is a path here. Take as many trips as you need, but as few as possible.”

As the slaves hopped to it, Sarah stayed with Lucas. “How? Why?” questioned Sarah.

“I woke up here surrounded by monsters. I cleared out the monsters and helped the surprisingly functional AI reclaim the base.”

“You have to destroy it. Hades will come. He always comes to destroy functional technology of this level,” replied Sarah.

“Sarah, how long do you think the electricity in the building has been functional for?”

“It can’t have been longer than a year. Hades is pretty quick about destroying any technology.”

“According to the AI, the electricity in this base has been functional for over 200 years. Hades is not coming,” replied Lucas.

Sighing a deep sigh of relief, Sarah asked, “What is this place for?”

“My mission was to be part of the reserves. Part of an elite,” said Lucas as he stretched it a little bit “group of men and women who were tasked with being the resistance just in case we lost a war. By all accounts, we lost. As the last surviving member of the reserves, it falls to me to carry on with the mission set to me.”

I kind of resent that you completely ignored me in that statement, said Rose, her voice coming from a speaker she set into the wall.

“Ahh a Ghost!” screamed Sarah.

I am not a ghost. I am the AI controlling this base. The base that is now known as ‘The Commons.’ You can call me Rose.

It took Lucas a good hour to get everyone calmed down from Sarah’s scare. In that time, everything from the wagon, including the wagon, made its way down past the door into The Commons since most of the slaves didn’t care about Rose’s voice, figuring they would let their master take care of it. Once everything was down, Lucas gathered everyone together.

“Everyone, Rose. Rose, Everyone. Rose is a refugee from before the war with the Domains. While this is technically a dungeon, Rose is allied to me, and thus to you.”

“Ah. So, this is the dungeon you cleared solo,” said Sarah.

It is. But it wasn’t easy; I wasn’t in control of the dungeon yet. So Lucas had to clear all the mobs and defeat all the bosses to put me in control. Now I am firmly in control of this dungeon. But there is no loot because I don’t have any mobs yet.

One of the slaves spoke up, “Are you wanting us to be her Mob’s Master?”

“No, I want you to be her friends. We brought her the metal she asked me to bring her, so I am pretty sure she can make a few actual mobs. And the front door on this place is basically impossible to get through. The door we came through is probably not possible to get through without the passcode either,” said Lucas

I want to build The Commons into a place where people can live in peace and harmony. I want to cleanse this land of monsters that periodically attack the people of Esfield, and I want to make it safe to travel the roads. I want to free all of those who are enslaved because they could not feed themselves or their family. Those are my goals. I don’t know about most Dungeon Masters, but I was at one point an ordinary human, before the fall. I just want to do everything in my power to protect people.

“With that in mind. All the slaves are hereby free. I will feed you for the next two weeks, provided you work and help hunt. There is space for you to build homes. Those of you who wish to stay at the end of the two weeks are welcome to keep their home. We will be using the standard currency to pay for things in the meantime. Since nobody has any coin yet, the two weeks will give you time to earn coin by selling things to either myself or Rose.

“Anyone who stays here, Rose will protect, but my next mission is to open up the Mt. Tippyton mine. Rose needs metal to create minions. Once they die, she can restore them after that provided they are not hauled away. Rose also needs EXP so she can get the shield back online to prevent others from attacking the dungeon. Oh. And you can all have your last names back. I don’t want them,” and with that, Lucas ended his speech.

For a moment, the room was speechless. The first person to snap out of it was Dan’el. He walked over to Lucas, kneeled and said, “My name is Dan’el Samson. I pledge my allegiance to Lord Lucas. What would you have me do.”

Thinking a moment, Lucas said, “Dan’el, please act as my steward. I cannot sit here and give orders; I have too much to do. I will give you a general list of things I wish done, and you can hand out tasks.”

“Your will be done Sire,” replied Dan’el causing Lucas to sigh.

Before Dan’el could back away, Kalliope came forward. My name is Kalliope Sampson. I have been trained as a guard, and you have accepted my Husband. Please accept me as well. As a friend, you may call me Kalli.”

“I accept you, Kalli, be my shield.”

Edith came forward next, “I am but a humble cook. My name is Edith Rosser. I wish to serve you and yours. If you will have me, I will be happy to serve the food here. While my husband may still be a slave in the Capital, I hope to earn enough to buy him out and bring him here.”

“I accept you, Edith, feed my troops.” Turning, Lucas told Sarah, “Sarah, make a note, buy out Edith’s husband and get him over here. Edith can owe me.”

“Thank you, Sire!” replied Edith as Lucas sighed again.

“My name is Finley Press. I have been trained as a guard. Please let me build a home here. I never wanted to be a guard, but that is all I have been trained for.”

“I accept you, Finley, we will find something for you to do. I need a Charcoal maker. I have a lot of wood that needs cut down. It may reveal our position, though.”

“Let me wield your axe then Sire,” replied Finley.

“I’m not going to get you to stop calling me Sire or Lord am I?” questioned Lucas.

Nearly in Unison, almost all of the people present said “No.”

Laughing, Lucas continued, “Ok, OK. I get it.”

One by one, the slaves came up, gave Lucas their name, and pledged allegiance to him.

“My name is Mason Crane…”

“My name is Brandy Glass...”

“My name is Ralph Tabard...”

“My name is Alan Baker...”

“My name is Ellen Coffyn...”

“My name is Martha Thorp...”

“My name is Peter Swan...”

Until we came to the last former slave, “My name is Catherine, I was born into slavery and have been a slave my whole life, and I have no last name. Please accept me anyway.”

“Catherine, why do you think you need a last name to join us? You do not. Pick any last name you desire, and you may use it.”

Turning to face the speaker, Catherine asked, “Rose, may I share your last name. I always wanted a big sister.”

You may. Since Lucas doesn’t know it either, this will be news to him too. My name is Rose Cox.

Turning back to Lucas, Catherine said, “My name is Catherine Cox. I wish to join you.”

“Every one of the slaves has chosen to join us, Rose. I think this is cause for celebration,” said Lucas. Turning to Sarah, “Will you join us here too? I can continue to pay you, or you can find another place here if you’d rather. It will definitely be safer than following me into the mine.”

“My name is Sarah Miller, I choose to live here and be the connection between Esfield and The Commons,” said Sarah quickly

“Rose will show you all of our new villagers to sub-level 7, where they can start to set up a temporary camp? Tomorrow you can start directing them to build a village on sub-level 8. How much is left that is reusable?” asked Lucas.

Since it is so late in the day, I’d actually suggest going up to Level 0 when we make it inside. I have refitted several of the conference rooms as barracks. Everybody already has a bed there. One of my other tiny bots has brought MRE’s to the bedrooms. I can’t lay them out for you, yet, but there is food ready for you.

Dan’el, I do not have a separate room for you and Kalli, but you are welcome to camp out in one of the other areas of Level 0 if you don’t mind not having a bed.

“We have been separated before, we will be separated again, one more night will not hurt us,” replied Dan’el.

As everyone started to head off, following Rose’s directions, Lucas spoke up, “Sarah, I’d like to speak to you a moment here, with Rose.”

Nervous, Sarah waited until the others were out of earshot range. “Anything specific you wanted to talk about.”

“Yes and No. I want to explain your true purpose. Rose needs you far more than I do.”

I do?

“Yes, you do, I have to be gone. Rose had to endure two hundred years by herself, alone, and I do not want to leave her alone again. Besides your job being ambassador to Esfield for our little community, you are also Rose’s official keeper. When you leave, I want you to make sure one of the others knows to bug her every now and then. She is a Dungeon Master, after all. She has a lot of cool powers and can make a lot of fun things. For the foreseeable future, I will continue paying you the wages we agreed on if you will act in that capacity for me.

“How do you know I will be suitable,” asked Sarah.

“You forget, I can see your attribute distribution. With your 11 in Intellect and your 15 in Charisma, you should be able to keep her on her toes. It’s not like you are a dullard or anything. You and I may not be smarter than her, but we don’t need to be as long as we can keep up. Honestly, you are probably more suitable to keep up with her than I am.”

I swear she’s not said Rose quickly. The tone was one that told Lucas if Rose had a face, she’d be blushing.

“You say that now Rose, but you need more than just me. I need to leave for three different locations. Some are miles from here. Even with a horse, it will take me days to get to all the locations, let alone get there and do whatever it is I am supposed to do. I don’t want to leave you alone. I can’t leave you alone,” ended Lucas in a whisper

Turning to head upstairs, Lucas told Sarah. “I’m handing you 100 gold and 500 copper. Rose is a System Object, so use that to break the gold into silver or copper if you need to. Use it to get an economy going down here. Work with Dan’el, but I am going to ask you to hold the gold for now. Rose will help you if you get into any trouble or need to know what to do next. We need to get the roof cleared of burnt trees. Once that is done, the next priority is clearing some area for fields on this side of the river. Do not clear any area until after Rose has a couple of functional minions. Have the Carpenter tell Rose what he needs for his work, bring her the materials and she should be able to get it made in the Nanoforge.”

“The what Forge?” questioned Sarah.

“The Nanoforge. It’s a machine that can build anything when it has both blueprints and materials. I’m hoping Rose can come up with blueprints for a basic set of carpenter tools, or whatever Mason needs, and he can provide the materials.”

I will show it to you when we have time later. Does anyone mind if I take this metal? I have… use for it. I would like to build my first several true minions. I will need to use the Nanoforge to construct the first of each type, but then I can use my Dungeon abilities to copy it with my Dungeon Nanobots, or even repair it from a collapsed pile of metal.

“Go play Rose. I’d like to keep Alarm Clock bot if that’s OK.”

I was planning on that anyway. He’s small enough you can carry him, and he is useful as a booster for communication. And, well, he’s quite a good alarm clock.

“I’m sorry,” interjected Sarah, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Maybe it would be easier to show her.

Lucas pulled the Alarm Clock bot out of his bag. As the bot moved around, Sarah gasped, “What a marvelous clockwork creation! Will all of your mobs be like this?”

Basically yes. But it’s not clockwork. It’s a semi-autonomous Robot. Say Hello, Alarmy. The robot scowled at the sky but then waved at Sarah.

“That is really quite interesting. I would love to see you build one.”

While I have the metal that I could clone a few right now, I’m not going to because I need fighting bots to protect The Commons first.

Sadly, Sarah nodded and accepted the answer. “Come on Sarah,” Lucas said. “It’s time to go to sleep. It may have taken us all day to get here, but now we are finally getting started.