PART TWENTY-TWO

MPD: 101

My Bloody Valentine

"I call this room The Dungeon Simulator," I announced. "The concept is that you come in here to do dungeony things."

Charles stepped forward until he was not exactly IN my personal space but was definitely tickling it. "People come into the dungeon... to pretend to be in a dungeon?"

"Yes."

He gave me a strange look. In a subdued kind of voice he pointed at the first game. "Does that say what I think it does?"

I looked behind me. "Untitled Ghost Game? Yes. I think this is going to be a winner. Damocles, you're the archer. Come have a bash."

"No!" said Valentine. "I called shotgun."

"When?" I said.

"Before." So they'd met in real life and discussed it. My heart sank a little. Just a little, though. I was getting used to the idea that she had all these men in her life. Good for her.

She stood in front of the simple carnival booth we'd designed. A crossbow was attached to the top of the wood. It had a limited firing arc and there were walls to the sides in case of extremely unlucky ricochets. Ahead were some dark trees (painted wooden cutouts) giving the impression of a dungeon forest (a more common location than you might think) and there were some moving targets and pop-ups to shoot at. Pretty simple stuff. The joy came in the execution.

She gripped the crossbow and stepped on the floor trigger.

Ghosts appeared! White with luminous blue outlines. She shot at them as they flew across the scene or peeked out from behind a tree. Sometimes there was a little girl with a red riding hood and a basket full of apples. The game included a couple of pop culture surprises, such as Slimer from Ghostbusters, but they didn't appear while Valentine was playing.

The crossbow had two bolts and when you'd fired them both you had to replace it on the stand and it would reload.

When she finished shooting a sign lit up that said:

Rating: Level 4

"You'd have done better if you hadn't headshotted Little Red Riding Hood. What do you think?" I said.

She looked at the whole setup. "It's so polished. It's annoying to have to reload but it's realistic and it makes a satisfying noise. It all feels right."

"That's 386. I just come up with the ideas. He adds the bells and whistles."

"That's not right," said 386 in my ear. "Tell them about the clunks."

"Just so you know," I said, "I can hear the dungeon. 386, can you give me a piece of wood about this big? Okay but much thinner." 386 took away his first try and summoned me a piece of wood the size of a clipboard. "Can you put the subtitles on here?"

"On the wood?"

"Why not?"

"Huh. Why not, indeed."

The chat history appeared on the wood. It was just like a [generic tablet computer - remember, all these sentences are available for sponsorship. Call me.] I handed it to Adam and his bros gathered round and read it, absolutely incredulous.

Charles said, "You talk to... to the dungeon?"

Ben pointed. "What's this about clunks?"

"Ah!" I said, getting animated. "I was watching a compilation of all-time classic commercials. There was a good one from a car company. One of the German ones, I think. There was a guy whose only job was to make the doors sound good when you close them. Getting the right clunk. You played the pinball. Maybe you didn't notice but every noise it makes is a heightened version of what's really happening."

Charles was giving me that strange look again.

Damocles was frowning. He tapped the crossbow. "So this is a theme park. There are kids. I saw them earlier. What if someone rips the crossbow off and shoots another guest?"

"Try it," I said.

"What happened to you break it, you buy it?" he said. I did that absolution gesture that priests do. He grinned, raised his eyebrows as if surprised at what he was about to do, then tore the weapon from its housing. It turned to dust. "Whoa," he mumbled.

I checked the time. "I'll show you one more but then I need to talk to 386 about his defenses. We need to redo the layout and stuff." I took them past the next game, which was an improved speed ball. "This is for the melee guys. Basic punching thing. I want to have one where you get punched and you try to block the attacks with a shield. And I've got loads of ideas for mages but you'd need to actually know spells to play the game. What I want is for anyone to be able to do it. You know, feel what it feels like to launch a fireball at a skeleton. All right, here's the last stop on the tour. I call it Super Spider Smash. It's like the game in the kid's room, but, uh... as you can see, this one's bigger."

Behind a thick piece of glass was a 15 by 15 foot grid with 5 rows and columns of squares. Each square had a hole. Instead of a one-foot monster popping out, these ones were three feet tall, and instead of hitting it with a mallet you simply pressed a button on a waist-height 5x5 grid two metres away from the glass. There was a safety rope making sure people didn't get too close to the glass.

"Adam, you're up."

Valentine complained. "I'm going first."

"You had a turn," I said. "Adam. Let's see what you're made of."

He squinted at the control panel and looked at the holes. "What's the glass for?"

"Press the button on the floor to start," I said.

He grinned nervously and did so. A spider popped out of the top-right hole. Adam slapped the equivalent button and an enormous wooden block shot from the ceiling and smashed into the hole. It sounded like it had smashed the spider to smithereens, but of course it hadn't actually hit anything - 386 had worked out how to add the fake sound effect. Nevertheless, Adam's eyes bulged and he was so stunned he missed the next monster. It was basically a reaction time game, pretty simple, but the enormity of it was like nothing else. The wooden blocks were nine feet long, and they were heavy and moved fast, and the noise they made when they slammed into the platform was tumultuous. It seemed that the entire dungeon shook with every impact; it was staggeringly gratifying.

Adam read his final score with a drunk smile on his face. He rolled his fingers over the control panel and just sort of stayed where he was.

Damocles said, "What's the rope for?"

I shrugged. "Just in case some wood comes flying off. It shouldn't, but there's no point taking risks. And giving the impression that we've thought about safety is good."

He said, "The rope isn't going to stop me if I want to get close."

"The game shuts off if you cross the line." I slapped my hands together. "That's it. Now I have to leave you."

"No, no, no," said Adam, coming out of his reverie. "This place is the business. If you keep going like this it's going to be one of the Wonders of the World. It's mind-blowing. Nick says you need help to make it happen. So we're here. Tell us what you need."

Ben and Damocles were nodding. Charles was scanning the room with that unfathomable look on his face. Valentine looked a bit smug.

I put my thumb on the top of my nose and considered his offer. "It would be amazing if you came here as often as possible. You being here gives the dungeon mana. You're high-level so if you came a couple of hours a week that'd really give us a leg up. Let us expand quicker."

Charles gave me what I thought at the time was a dirty look. "You get mana from us? And you use it to build these games?"

"Yes."

"Is that why you put the good games in the corners? To make people spend longer here?"

I'd gone back to disliking him but that was impressive. "Right."

He started biting his nails and looking around. Suddenly his whole posture changed. "You need help. What's your number? I've got some things you should see."

Valentine looked worried for the first time that day. "Send them to me and I'll pass them on."

"Fine," said Charles, giving her a different kind of sharp side-eye. "I'll be here every day unless I get a good quest. Does it matter how long we stay?"

"Yes. An hour is twice as good as 30 minutes. Hey but look," I said, remembering something I was worried about. "I don't really want this getting out. Not yet. If you all brought all your friends we'd get loads of mana and that'd be great but for now we're keeping things on the DL."

I waited for them to ask why, but they didn't.

Damocles spoke next. "If we're going to come every day can we make requests?"

I scratched my head. "Maybe?"

"You won't be able to add an hour of new content every day. I'm not saying we'd get bored but... can the dungeon create books?"

"Huh," I said. "You mean like you could come and read Animal Farm or whatever? That's interesting. I think the problem there would be -"

"He already said yes," said Ben, pointing to the tablet.

That was the first time 386 had 'spoken' to anyone except through me, and I didn't like it. I felt jealous. What if he found a way to talk to people when I wasn't around? It would be great for him and terrible for me. What an unpleasant brain I have!

386Flix and Chill

The beefcakes cleared off (after promising not to kill any skeletons) leaving me with Valentine. That surprised me a bit, but I shrugged it off. It didn't mean anything. I took her to the dungeon core and we settled into the cinema room. It was her first time there and she was a big fan. She stole my footstool, which was just rude.

"Just need popcorn," she said, squirming happily.

"One day," I said. BetterVerse did have food and the NPCs experienced it like we experienced real-life food, but players didn't really eat it as it didn't have taste or smell. The powers-that-be were worried that adding those senses to the game would totally mess up people's brains, and that sounded about right to me, to be honest. Make it too intense and everyone would turn into Marcel Proust. "Right, 386. How are we doing for resources?"

"We're up. Up on everything. I've got all the units we designed out on the floor and I've still got just under 200 mana in reserve."

"That's great but it's still so low. How much is a tentacle?"

"Tentacles come in two modes. You can summon one that is basically just a living trap. They tend to be stuck in place or have limited mobility. A static tentacle is 400 mana."

"400!" I cried, aghast.

"And there's a more advanced version. It can move around."

Valentine was following the conversation. "A tentacle that can move around?"

386 chuckled. He'd warmed up to her - possibly because she was currently worth 100 mana a day. He wrote [Pleased Chuckle] as an entry on the chat. "They can sort of squish themselves around. But even better is if you have a floor tile like the Super Spider Smash trap where the tentacle could pop up out of any hole. That's 400 mana plus a daily mana cost. You get the 400 back when the tentacle dies, but you lose the upkeep cost."

"The economics of this aren't great," I said. "Even with the beefcakes it's going to take ages to get you properly defended."

"Beefcakes?" said Valentine.

I might have blushed. Not sure. 386 rescued me. "The economics of being a dungeon rely heavily on killing heroes. Their death releases huge amounts of delicious, nourishing mana. Ah, there's nothing better than blood-soaked mana. Gives it a rich, complex, ferrous aftertaste. Just like mother used to make."

I thought I could hear him drooling. "386, we can't defend you with 200 mana. I'll tell you my concept and you can start thinking about it. Whip up a few prototypes. Run some simulations. Then when we have enough mana you can build the whole death star. Before then, we just have to hope for the best."

Valentine coughed. "Um."

"Yes?"

"The locals... the bakers, you called them? They don't come after 8pm, right?"

"They only come between 8am and 8pm," confirmed 386.

"And we're the only players so far. Me and the boys normally log in between 5 and 7. You seem to favor 8 ish. So from 10pm..." She looked uncertain, but spat it out anyway. To the screen she said, "Couldn't you just dissolve all the stuff that's in the dungeon and turn it into traps and monsters? Then put it back into theme park mode when guests start arriving?" I had been doing so well internalising the whole 'girl has a flotilla of hunks in tow so get over her' thing. But this was just like the first time we met. I was seeing inside someone's mind and I was liking it. "What?" she said, and for a second I thought the color deepened on her cheeks. Must have been a trick of the light.

"That's genius," I mumbled. There was literally no downside that I could see. "It won't keep him safe during the day but through the night... yeah. And that's when there's the most risk. 386, it's genius, right? What are we missing?"

"Nothing. I thought you wanted me open at night in case Hourlies came."

"We'll do Nicki's plan - I mean, Nick's plan." I stumbled on my words. The boy band had called her Nick. Was Valentine really a dude? A bro? An hombre? It didn't matter - I'd never meet her in person. My mind was just running riot and making me daydream all kinds of romantic scenarios based on nothing.

"Nicki," she said. "I like it when you call me Nicki."

Now THAT kind of thing didn't help. 386 whispered to me - keeping it off the chat. "Keep it together, 3B."

I snapped out of it. "Right. Nicki's cracked the case. I'm excited. We might already have enough mana to do what I want. Basic version of. Here's my plan."

I told them.

Now it was Nicki mumbling, "That's genius."

"That's cheating," said 386. "That's despicable. That shouldn't be allowed." He added a new line on the chat that said: [Maniacal Laughter] followed by: [Maniacal Laughter Intensifies]. "I love it."