PART SIX

So... there was a tiny hiccup that cost us a few days. I want to gloss over it but it seems dishonest. SHRUG EMOJI.

When I logged out that night, I got some paper and some felt-tip pens and started sketching.

Hey! Do you work for a felt-tip pen company?

You could sponsor the rest of this book.

Message me. Reasonable rates.

Thanks to the smooth, clean, flowing lines I was able to draw with the [YOUR COMPANY NAME HERE] pens, I had a great starter 'trap'. It was simple and completely made out of wood and would be a good proof of my whole concept. If it worked, 386 would be more likely to follow my grand scheme.

I took a photo on my phone [phone company marketing teams, are you reading this?] and saved it to various apps. But when I logged in to BetterVerse, I couldn't download the image from anywhere. Not without upgrading to the unaffordable BV VIP package! Finally, I drew it on the in-game sketchpad, which took ages, and then found that I couldn't show the image to 386. Because of data protection rules! Thanks, Obama.

Eventually I just went to the new room we’d cleared and discussed the design with 386. He used his trap-making skills to follow my instructions and created a 3D wireframe that was superimposed into the space where it'd go. It was slow going, because if I wasn't talking about blades and flame-nozzles and dropping anvils on people's heads, he wasn't that engaged. So I had to take him through it step by step.

First I had him 'make' a vertical box standing against the wall. Then we attached a long ski-slope sorta thing with a bump at the part that connected to the box. It was easy to put a trigger on the floor to activate the trap. "Can we test the design in this wireframe mode or do we have to actually build it to see it in action?"

"Test mode has extremely sophisticated physics and uses cutting edge behavioural psychology."

"Does it cost mana?"

"No, as long as we abide by the tenets of fair use."

I told him what the trap should do, and he didn't say anything. Like, that was the last I heard from him that day. And I was near the end of my hour so I asked him to run it through his testing scenarios or whatever and I'd be back the next day to actually build the prototype.

Great Balls of Fire

"I have taken your design," said 386, ominously, "and perfected it."

I went to the core chamber to rub Lennie's head and tell him he was a good boy and a sweet boy, then returned to the new chamber we'd built near the entrance.

"Behold!" cried 386. "The future of painnnnnnn!"

A wireframe outline appeared. It was based on my design, but there had been some modifications. "386, what's that?"

"What?"

I pointed. "This bit here."

"Those are the blades. Obviously. They descend from above if the victim fails to score 25 points."

Right. "And what is... this feature?" I pointed to a cylinder that had been added by the side of the slopey bit.

"That heats the balls. And I changed the material for the balls from wood to BRIMSTONE. Ahahahahaha!"

I waited for him to finish. "I'm glad you had a lovely old time. Now let's revert to the version we were working on."

"That's 36 iterations ago!"

"Come on, bro, I've only got 55 minutes left. Time is money and all that."

For a while I thought he would just stop talking to me and that would be the end of it. But finally the extra bits vanished and it looked the way I'd left it. "Oh," I said. "What was that thing?" I went to the vertical box section and waved my hand there. "The bit that was here?"

"That was a glass screen that would allow players to see the target but not to bypass the playing area."

"Yes!" I said. "I forgot to include that. That's essential. 386, you're a natural!"

"Oh," he said, pleased. "Should I put it back?"

"Abso-blinking-lutely."

The Grand Opening

I peered out of the dungeon entrance like a proper kiddie-tickler. I was literally looking at a group of kids, through binoculars, getting excited. "They're coming this way. Well, not this way this way."

"They go to the city wall and throw glass bottles at it," said 386. "They are abysmal."

I watched their progress and tried to plot an intercept course. "Engage!" I said, which was my cue to start walking.

I approached them with a pensive look on my face. The kids had zero interest. With a mental sigh, I stopped and allowed my cape to flow around me. I pulled out a playing card and scratched my right cheek with it, then flicked it in a semicircle around my head, catching it between my left index finger and thumb. It was a pretty neat performance. They stopped and enjoyed the glow of my magnificence.

"Hello, mister," said the boldest one.

"Hello. I was just in that cave over there."

"It's a dungeon! Full of spiders. We pulled its legs off though." The kids - 3 boys, 2 girls - found this hilarious.

"Yes, yes," I said, and let out a huge sigh. Miracle of miracles! That intrigued them. "I suppose the dungeon has toddled off. It's just a cave now. There's a game in it, but I'm not very good. Perhaps if I had more dexterity, or luck."

"No such thing as Luck," said one. The NPCs capitalise all the in-game terminology. It's pretty inane.

"Would that it were so simple," I said, and that confused them mightily. "Ah, well. Don't play the game. You can't win. Toodle-pip." Now I was the one affecting a British accent! The BetterVerse did that to you. Something about all the swords and knights and maidens fair.

Anyway, the interaction had the desired effect, for once I was out of sight they changed course and headed into dungeon 386.

Congratulations, You're Our [First] Customer

It will be obvious to the top-of-the-class readers that I wasn't present for some of the scenes in this story. In this case, 386 told me what happened. Basically...

"Hey, that corridor is gone. The wizard was telling the truth. Ain't no dungeon no more."

"So it's just this room? What the dickens?"

The kids entered the new room. It was just wide enough for the trap slash game I'd created, now fully formed out of sturdy wood. My pride and joy. My baby.

"What's this crab?"

Reader, she didn't say crab.

"Looks like... looks like a... I dunno."

One smack-faced brat tried to clamber onto it, but was warned off by his mates. "Might still be a dungeon. If it's a dungeon, this is a trap."

"If it's a trap, where do the blades come out? Where does the fire come from?"

GOOD QUESTIONS, whinged 386 when he was recounting the story.

It wasn't too long before one of the kids stood on the trigger plate. "Argh!" she said, and jumped away.

"Nothing happened," said another. "Let me do it."

"No," said the girl. "I was here first." She stood back on the trigger plate. By now the other 4 were interested and were crowding around.

"There, look," said another. "There's balls."

"Oh," said the player. I'll call her Player 1, because although I later learned her name, she’s only tangentially important to the story, and because I’m planning a Ready Player One joke a few chapters from now. She bravely picked a ball out of the hole that was around waist-height for her. She held it, tested it. "Seems like a wooden ball. Do you think it could explode or something?"

THAT WOULD BE IDEAL, nobody said.

"I think you're supposed to roll it up the slope."

"What for?"

"There's holes. Look, that one says 50. 50 what? Points? Just try it."

Player 1 rolled the ball, but massively underestimated how hard she should go. It rolled gently back into her hand.

"Fail," said a boy.

P1 tried again, harder. The ball rolled up, hit the bump, and jumped into one of the rings. "Only 10 points," she said.

"No, that hole is 20 points. See? Where it says 10 is for the ring below."

"It's confusing."

"Yeah, but I get it. How many balls are there?"

"Um... another 8, looks like."

"See how many points you get and then it's my turn."

The girl took her shots. While she did, the others watched and speculated. "Do you think that wizard made this? He looked pretty COOL."

"Did you see his robes? He looked like a WANDERING SOLVER OF MYSTERIES." The other kids laughed.

"He probably likes to DRINK ITALIAN WINE AND READ FRENCH POETRY." The kids laughed even harder.

"Stop," said P1, in stitches, "you're making me mess up my shots."

P1 had her go, then stepped away. Player 2 stepped onto the trigger plate and all the balls that had fallen into the scoring holes rolled down to the outlet. "Ooh," he said.

The kids stayed for another 25 minutes, and were so into their competition that they didn't even check if the dungeon core was still there.

***

Once they'd ducked off, I jumped up from my DIGNIFIED HIDING PLACE and ran into the core chamber. "Well, how did it go? Well?"

Lennie was wiggling his butt and chomping his jaws together like he wanted to bark. 386 was less happy. "It was dreadful! They played with your stupid trap! And they talked and talked and I had to listen. This trainer won't teach them this, and that parent won't let them do that. Boo hoo hoo. Endless drivel. And the only fun part was when they SAID NICE THINGS ABOUT YOU."

"Yes, yes, yes. But did it work?"

"Kids count as level 1. Five kids in my dungeon for half an hour. I received 2.5 MP. I'd get more mana if they threw their bottles at me."

“What do you mean?”

“I could absorb the glass and turn it into mana. In theory. Probably I’d just store it.”

I gasped and put my hand on the core as though I was grabbing a friend's arm. "Oh! You've just given me a great idea!"