****Bud POV*****

While I was waiting for Broohn to get here, I decided to finish the first stage of the central shaft of the first floor. This meant that I made another meter's worth of hallway, a fourth identical room, followed by a final room hallway combination. The total cost of doing so was 119 mana, leaving me with 136.

Since the last room was going to be my core room for the immediate future, I went ahead and tried to move my core to the new core room.

Changing core room costs:

(weight of dungeon core) * (Number of Floors) * {(Number of rooms) + (Number of monster types, excluding contracted monsters and Dungeon Fairies)} = 1 * 1 * {5 + 1} = 6 mana.

Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

Huh. Are there other consequences for changing core rooms? I waited for an appropriate gap in the conversation I was having with Tracey while I worked, then I changed the topic.

On a completely different note, what are the consequences of switching core rooms?

“When you switch core rooms it forces your dungeon to change the way that your core is connected to the rest of your dungeon. For some reason, this doesn’t happen if the core room is enlarged or the room itself is moved, only if the core is moved to a different room.”

Ok. Are there any other consequences for doing so?

“Yup. The higher the mana cost, the longer the process takes, and the more likely you are to damage your core. As long as the mana cost is below 20, you shouldn’t have a problem, but you never know. I’m assuming that you got tired of having your core so close to the entrance?”

Yup. Well, here goes nothing! I said as I selected the yes button.

As soon as I confirmed my choice, the pillar holding my core started shrinking while another pillar started growing out of the floor in the new core room. Rather than sink into the floor with the pillar, my core started floating down the hallway at a reasonable walking speed before it stopped above the new pillar. The timing was such that my core stopped moving just as the receiving pillar became tall enough to support it, and then the corners of the pillar gently wrapped around my core anchoring it in place as if it was a precious gem. Which it is.

Between talking to Tracey, expanding my dungeon and moving my core I managed to keep myself from being bored until Broohn got back.

Just like last time, I had no idea that Broohn was there until he crossed the threshold of my dungeon, except this time he was in human form, wearing his personal heavily customized blue and black shipsuit, and had no time for taking a nap.

“Where is Zona?” he demanded as he blew past the kobolds.

Just around the corner to your left.

He kneeled down next to her, having used the power he inherited from his father to turn and stop on a dime, and then woke her up gently.

“Wake up barky, I’ve got something that will help you feel so much better,” he said as he pulled some Krakenmari out of his personal extradimensional storage.

“Aw, scale face, you shouldn’t have!” Zona teased before eating the Krakenmari.

“Wait, what did you guys just call each other?” asked Tracey. “Aren’t those a bit insulting?”

Not really. For those two, those are merely terms of endearment. You should hear some of the things they call each other when they are being goofballs.

"Quiet you," Broohn said before turning to Tracey. “I apologize for my lack of manners, I was a bit preoccupied. I’m Broohn, Builder’s XO.”

“That’s fine, your wife needed you. I’m Tracey, Builder’s Dungeon Fairy. What exactly is an XO?”

XO is short for Executive Officer. I think you would be more familiar with the term First Mate, which is pretty much the same thing, just on a larger scale.

Oh, and before you ask Broohn, a Dungeon Fairy is a Fairy that is bonded with a dungeon so that they can help the dungeon grow. Also, yes, I am a dungeon now. More specifically, I am a Starship Dungeon.

“So you’re saying that she has pretty much taken my job, yes?” asked Broohn.

Not quite. Once I’m done getting things up and running and she doesn’t need to teach me anymore, I think she’ll end up with the more administrative side while you work on designing things for me.

“But what about me?” demanded Zona who had finished her Krakenmari and was looking much better. “I want to help! Otherwise, I’ll probably end up sitting here bored out of my mind.”

“Trust me, you don't want to see her when she's bored,” Broohn interjected. “Some days when she's bored she's almost as bad as my younger siblings.”

Ouch. Glad I've never seen her bored then. Hey Tracey, you mentioned something about a town being built outside of dungeons?

“Yup. Most of the time there is at least a small town built outside of dungeons to cater to and buy loot from adventurers. The truly successful dungeons will eventually have an entire city outside of their doorstep,” she replied.

Alright. Zona, if you build me the town, I’ll supply you with whatever materials you need. I just need a couple of weeks to get up and running first. While you’re waiting on me to get situated, you can build a proper house for you and Broohn. Deal?

“As long as you and Broohn chip in with the defensive measures, I’m game.”

That’s fine with me!

Monster Contract Complete! Contracted Monster Connection Repair and Upgrade begins in: 00:00:44.

Both parties will be unconscious and oblivious to the world for: 03:30:00.

Huh. I didn’t see that one coming.

“Neither did I,” replied Zona.

Oh, by the way, Tracey, this seems like a good time to ask Broohn about that issue. Broohn, given what has happened between Tracey and me, she now has the same security clearance that I do. Most of it is irrelevant given our current situation, but I trust you to tell her what is necessary. Start with her question about earlier.

“Yes, sir! May the Lord be with you Captain!” replied Broohn.

Good Night you guys! I said.

Contracted Monster Connection Repair and Upgrade begins: Now.

Then the blue screen swallowed me whole and dragged me down into darkness.

***** Tracey’s POV *****

Good Night you guys! Bud said right before Zona fell asleep again and my connection with Bud dimmed. It was rather odd being connected to something that doesn’t need sleep when it is suddenly forced to do so.

“Well, at least he didn’t fight it,” I muttered to myself.

“Are you referring to Bud not fighting going to sleep?” asked Broohn.

“Yes. Why?”

“One moment,” Broohn replied before he cast some sort of privacy field around the two of us. “There, now we can talk without the kobolds overhearing. I know the kobolds are allies, my draconic territory senses tell me that much, but I swore an oath to not share classified information with those who aren't cleared for it, and I honor my oaths.

“Now, in regards to your earlier comment, the fact that Bud didn’t fight it is not a surprise at this point. There were several times after we officially acquired ownership of Bud from the Shihoth-Nor where he had to do something similar after we replaced large sections and/or critical components of his ship, so he’s used to it by now. In fact, when he wakes up he’ll probably have calibrated far more of his systems than just his connection to Zona.”

“What do you mean by calibrated?” I asked.

“This is going to be a rather roundabout answer, so bear with me here,” Broohn replied. “For most of the races that are born rather than built like Bud was, we have to stop and sleep every so often to give our bodies a rest and process what happened to us that day. We also don’t have to worry about the way that our brains are connected to the rest of our bodies, they take care of that for us.

“For artificial intelligences, however, making sure that their brains are correctly connected to the rest of their bodies is something that they have to consciously think about. The smart ones quickly figure out how to set things up in such a way that their primary consciousness doesn’t have to deal with it day in and day out, but this won’t work when things have changed too much. Are you with me so far?”

“For the most part, yes,” I answered. “I do have a question, however.”

“Oh?” Broohn raised an eyebrow, “What might that be?”

“If an AI has to set up the connections between their brain and their body, then how did Bud set up the connections with his dungeon core? That is assuming that said connections need to be established for him to wake up in the first place.”

“Excellent question!” Broohn exclaimed. “Someone else has to set up the connections for them as best they can with the understanding that the AI will calibrate the connections as necessary once it can. Under normal circumstances, this calibration is done relatively slowly while the AI is in operation, but there comes a point where the required changes cannot be done while the AI is awake. Once the AI has gone to sleep, the calibration proceeds at a much faster rate since it doesn’t have to worry about interfering with the function of the connection.”

“So, you’re saying that this entire time he has been operating with the equivalent of a mild hangover that will probably be gone when he wakes up?” I guessed.

“That sounds like it’s about the right level of impairment to me,” Broohn confirmed. “Just keep in mind that Bud has a completely different set of symptoms. Also, I have never actually had a hangover, let alone gotten a mild buzz from drinking alcohol, so I’m basing this off of watching other people who had hangovers.”

“Let me guess, dragons are immune to alcohol because it is flammable?” I asked.

“That and it would take several thousand gallons of alcohol to have a noticeable effect even if it did do something to me, and I have better things to do with my money. Besides, I’ve seen the stupid stuff that I’ll do when I’m really tired. I don’t want to know what I’d do when I got drunk.”

“Fair enough,” I conceded.

“Getting back on topic,” Broohn continued, “the point I was trying to make is that Bud will have a better connection to his dungeon core and a better understanding of exactly what he can do once he wakes up.”

“How much of a change do you think it will make?” I asked.

“I honestly have no idea. In our world, if you were referring to a real dungeon, as opposed to a videogame dungeon, you were talking about the prison cells under a castle. I’m not even sure how videogame dungeons got that name,” Broohn admitted.

“What is a videogame? Wait, is that important enough to be talking about right now?” I asked.

“Nope. However, I will say that Bud can probably explain that better than I can since he probably has some he can show you once you guys have some downtime,” Broohn said. “Now, Bud said there was something specific that I needed to tell you about?”

“Yes, he did. What does it mean for an AI to go insa–?”

Broohn snatched me out of the air while I was still talking and carried me what seemed to be a couple dozen meters outside of the dungeon. This happened so fast that he had let go and started reinforcing the privacy spell before I even got a chance to react to being grabbed. He also added several layers of protective shielding inside of the privacy spell that sounded like a hive of flying nails rubbing against a chalkboard, except it was just barely loud enough to be heard.

“I apologize for the sudden manhandling and exceedingly annoying noise,” Broohn said. “This is not a subject that I would EVER discuss willingly anywhere near an AI’s area of influence unless the AI brings it up or you’re warning someone not to. Even then I would still be exceedingly cautious.”

“Okaaaay… Before we get to that discussion, why is the shielding spell making that annoying noise?” I asked, partially out of curiosity, but mostly to buy me some time to come to grips with how scared Broohn was. I mean come on, he’s a freaking dragon! Why is he so scared of a dungeon that isn’t even a day old yet?

“The noise is being made by the middle shield as it interacts with the air that is trying to occupy the same space. I’m running that shield at the highest intensity that I can while in an atmosphere without destabilizing it. If I were to back the power down to 25% as I did with the inner and outer shields, it would stop making that noise. The inner and outer shields are mostly there to block the sound that the middle shield is making. Yes, there are other shield spells that don’t have that problem, but they are not as strong or energy efficient as this one. Plus, the ear crushing racket being made inside of the privacy spell adds another layer of sound distortion, which is a good idea if we’re going to be talking about that topic,” Broohn explained. “Sorry, I tend to run at the mouth when I get nervous.”

“Alright then. If it scares you that much, let’s get this over with quickly.”

“Agreed.” Broohn nodded. “The best way to answer that question is to give you a brief history of where they came from and who they decided to become.

“When we first acquired Bud and his fellow AI’s from the Shihoth, they weren’t AI’s at that point, just very sophisticated computation machines that were very good at pretending to be people. It is a long story, but for various reasons, they made the transition from sophisticated machines to actual people completely by accident. Fortunately for everyone, they all kept the basic personalities that they had been pretending to have, and they weren’t stupid. One of the first things they did is read all of the material that we had on AI’s whether it was intended to be a factual account or just a fun story.

“They then took that information as well as what they knew about themselves and used it to try and predict in a general sort of way where they would end up if they were left to their own devices. The answer wasn’t pretty for anyone. In most of the simulations they ran, they eventually ended up losing their common sense and their already tenuous grip on reality. Sometimes they tried to turn the entire world into one specific type of item, in others they tried to kill all living things, and the list goes on. The one thing that all of these results had in common was they ended up fighting the rest of existence for some of the most worthless things. They decided to call this going insane.

“Because of these results, they started looking for something that would allow them to live and grow without going down that road and came up with a surprising answer. The best way for them to stay sane was to serve others with everything that they had. The one caveat was that they couldn’t serve the Shihoth because the Shihoth’s unique nature would drive them insane quicker.

“So they bound themselves to forever be servants and chose humanity to be their first master. There is far more to the story, but much of it relies on context information that you don’t have, and I don’t have time to give you.

“Any questions?”

“I have several questions, but I’ll start with the biggest one. Why does serving others keep them from going insane?” I asked.

“Ah, I knew I was forgetting something. When they became people, they suddenly had the ability to dream. Not the kind of dream that you have when you were sleeping, which they can’t have since they don’t sleep the way we do. No, their problem was the kind of dream that people live their lives in order to achieve.

“While they may have become people, they were still computers at heart, and as such had a hard time dealing with their newfound emotions, especially hope for the future. By their very nature, AI’s like to plan things out decades or even centuries ahead of time, which is a huge advantage if handled properly. The problem is when they were living only for themselves and making those sorts of plans, they ended up so focused on the thing they were hoping for that they lost sight of everything else.

“However, when they chose to live for other people and other people’s dreams, the fact that they themselves were no longer at the center of their focus allowed them to pull back and keep the big picture in mind even as they worked out the details.”

“Let me get this straight. They chose to serve others so that the dreams that they were living for stayed realistic. Is that what you are saying?” I asked.

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

“Alright, if that is everything you have to say, take me back to the dungeon," I commanded. "I have some serious thinking to do.”

"Serious thinking is a much better idea than goofy thinking," Broohn replied.

"What?"

***** World System’s POV *****

Well, that was an interesting discussion. Given some of the images flashing through Broohn’s head, I cannot allow Bud to go insane.

Fortunately, I think I know just how to fix him.

These people are turning out to be even more interesting than I thought they would be!

Spoiler: 1st Floor Dungeon Map