Jake gave Baxter a few minutes to fall further asleep and then started to think about his status and the items on the menu. He noticed that his lack of a body made him much more patient than he used to be. He also started to think about what it meant to be a dungeon. Regardless of what it meant for other dungeons, he took a vow right then that he wasn’t going to be a murder pit. Some other way of existing as a dungeon must be possible. He thought about Bob and decided that despite the Being throwing him away, he liked his new circumstances. If Bob provided no instructions, he couldn’t criticize the result. So dungeon good, murder pit bad, Baxter good, and we’ll have to see about the rest of it.

‘First things first,’ Jake thought. ‘I need to make a list, a plan.’

Jake loved to make lists. He was a planner. He started planning from the very first day he could talk. His mom, a waitress at Tally Good Food Cafe in Tulsa, said “he started planning in my womb! I swear to god the child kicked in a pattern and he hasn’t changed since.” Aside from being a technical writer that he used to put food on his table, Jake also planned to be a great writer. That turned out to be harder and take longer than he’d planned. Pre-Apocalypse.

Figure out mana Figure out Qi Figure out what makes Baxter happy Figure out what it means to be a dungeon.

Then he revised the list because he didn’t like the constant use of Figure out.

Mana Qi Baxter happy What it means to be a dungeon Light How to make rooms

And he paused for a while, then called up his status menu and noticed something and added it to the list.

Dungeon points

And then because he’d read dungeon novels before he threw in,

Loot Dungeon monsters

This first crack at organizing his new life pleased him. He thought about adding ‘Write Great American novel’ as another step but decided against it. That holdover from his previous life needed to go. Well, for now. He wasn’t sure how long a quasi-divine dungeon lived, but there would be time for writing if he wanted to, time to add it to the next list.

‘Ok, what is my priority?’ Jake thought. After thinking about it, it shocked him to turn out to be number 3, Make Baxter happy, that he focused on. This puzzled him. After thinking about it for a while longer he thought that it had something to do with his lack of a body. Somehow as a disembodied intelligence, he felt the connection with Baxter deep inside himself. He knew it was strange, but that connection was important. He needed it preserved and cherished. He needed a connection to the physical world. He needed something to stimulate his attachment to the world. And Baxter, this strange talking dog, somehow connected him.

‘This pretty much changes everything,’ Jake thought. ‘I’m a dog’s servant now. Oh my God! I went to Princeton for this?!’ But once again, there was no real heat to the thought. Compared to actual feelings, the emotional warmth that he received talking to and working with the dog, they might as well have been words on a page.

‘Ok,’ Jake thought. ‘Can I connect in this way with others? How long Baxter is going to live? Is my mom still alive?’ And the fact that he’d now thought of his mother and his stepfamily made him feel ashamed. The thought of living forever with no connections scared him. This fear penetrated and he felt it even without a body, somehow, deep inside whatever his new body might be.

‘Ok, so my new list goes like this,’ he thought.

Baxter happy Light Space to run Things to chew on Things to make him happy Life as a dungeon Dungeon points Loot Monsters Me happy and connected My mom and step-family

Like every life goal list, what seemed like a nice even progression in his head, needed unsnarling by doing. Step two was all about step one. And step three was so low because of the urgency of the two other steps. And then he felt an urge well up inside him, ‘1. Need exit to surface.’

‘Woah,’ he thought. ‘I guess my new race has urges and desires that my previous race didn’t.’ Now that he thought about it, he felt full. Actually a little overfull. Full of what, he wasn’t sure of, but he felt like he needed to get something out of him. He wasn’t sure how to get rid of whatever it was at this point but, if he were still human, he’d have been running for the can to keep his ass from exploding.

He looked at his status sheet again and noticed that his mana had increased, instead of 310, it now read 310 (325). ‘Well isn’t that special,’ he thought. ‘I’m ODing on mana, I guess. Maybe dungeons don’t have a limit. Maybe they need to burn it or use it somehow. How can I use it? Wait, wait,’ he thought. “I have skills, I have spells, I might have abilities?’ As if summoned, a new screen appeared.

Thinking too much, doing too little. Looking a little bloated there, dungeon boy. Like you maybe better get rid of something or else...

Abilities:

‘Well shit,’ he thought. ‘It sounds like I need to spend some mana or else. Or else what, I don’t know, but it sounds like I won't enjoy it!’

He thought again about his list and Baxter’s light request. ‘If I can light up this room or cell we’re in, I can burn off some of this mana,’ he thought. In the stories that he’d read, the heroes would usually discover their mana by meditating on their bodies. They would somehow discover it in their chest or head or even belly button. Not much use when you don’t have a head or belly button, he thought. But this dungeon is my body and I can sense things in it? Can’t hurt to try. So meditate! Can’t feel my body, so no distractions there. But I’ve got no breath so nothing to focus on either. Every meditation technique he’d ever heard of used the breath to focus. It stumped him for a second and then Baxter gave a small whine and a little bit of a huff in his breathing.

‘Perfect timing, Baxter,’ he thought and then he focused everything he had on the dog’s breathing. His perception of the dog grew over time and he could practically feel the air rushing into the lungs, passing through the trachea, filing the bronchi, the bronchioles, even feeling the air filling the alveoli, oxygenating the blood, feeling the blood circulation throughout the dog’s body, the blood oxygen exchange with the cells. After a while, he felt something else besides blood moving through the dog, a shimmer and as he noticed it, he got another menu.

Congratu-damn-lations. May want to step up the pace a bit or else things are gonna get a little explody. Experience gained.

Ability Gained

Mana Sense

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

Ability to sense mana. Mana appears as a blue fluid or gas in its unattributed state. When attributed or associated with an element, it will appear as a gas whose color reflects its elemental characteristics. A living creature’s mana IS always attributed.

Fire (RED) Water (BLUE) Earth (BROWN) Air (YELLOW) Light (WHITE) Darkness (BLACK shadow) Life (GREEN) Death (GREY)

With his perception still in the dog, he saw the dog’s green mana, a small bit of grey, brown, blue, yellow, white, black and red. The last red bit, in particular, surprised him. A large percentage of the dog's mana flamed like fire. He wasn’t used to thinking of dogs that had fire in them. ‘Cool beans, Baxter old boy. You may be a firebreather yet!,’ he thought. But every element was inside the dog, just in different amounts.

Now that he had the ability, he looked outside the dog and noticed blue mana everywhere. A different blue than water. He wasn’t sure, having no frame of reference but it looked like a lot more mana than 325, well, now make that 350 mana.

‘Oh,’ he thought. ‘That seems to be a lot of mana. What my step-dad used to call a shit-ton of mana. That must be what the menu is talking about. Fuck!’

‘What can I do with this stuff?’ he thought. ‘It’s not enough that I can see it now, I need to do something with it. Pretty fast. What can I do?’ Lacking any other experience, he turned to his web novel/fantasy novel experience. ‘Reach out!’ he thought. ‘I need to gain a skill or ability to manipulate it and then I can do something with it. Maybe. Probably.’ With every fiber, well, crystal of his being he concentrated on the mana that he could see around him. The blue gaseous mana was streaming into the room. From where he didn’t know but it was coming in like a garden hose on full. The mana quantity increased by the second. It was coalescing on the walls, turning into a denser liquid. Circulating around the room in the open center, pooling in the corners.

Baxter began to whine in his sleep. ‘Ok, ok,’ he thought. ‘I’m a dungeon. We exist to control this stuff. It must be part of my racial heritage. Just like the need to have an entrance at the surface, I need to get out of the way and let my body or crystal or whatever do its thing. I need to relax and …’ and then his train of inspiration broke.

‘Do what?’ he thought. ‘I need to do what?’ He used his mana sense again. He could see that the mana was there, blue, ready, but he didn’t know how. ‘Ok, ok,’ he thought. ‘Reach out. Reach out with the same part of your mind that can sense the mana. Reach out and ask it to do something. Just tell it to move. Move in a circle.’

He did that. At first nothing happened. He tried desperately but nothing happened. He tried moving the whole mass, but nothing. Then he thought, ‘Too much. I’m trying to do too much. Focus on the smallest bit that you can sense and try to move that bit.’

He did. Looking in front of his point of reference, he focused on the current, then tried to see within the current, to see what composed it. To see the smallest particle and to try to control it. Finally, he located a section of the mana, not the smallest possible piece he could break it down to, but a small area that he could focus on. A small bit of drifting mana in one of the corners of the room, an eddy almost. Then he tried to reach out using only his will backed by his new perception to cause it to change, to move. He strained against it, willed it to do something, anything, move, move, he despaired. Just as it felt as if something were going to break inside him, as if he had no energy or will power or ability to focus left, it did.

Good start, but you may want to finish soon. Experience gained.

Ability Gained

Mana Manipulation

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

Ability to manipulate mana. This is one of a dungeon’s core abilities. Although a dungeon may do spells with time, it has the capability to directly interact with mana. It can use it for spell like effects, purify it of its elemental attribution, assign mana an elemental attribution and store and release mana into its environment.

‘Good! Good! Now Bore,’ he thought, imagining a hole to the surface, trying to use his new mana manipulation ability to direct the massive amount of mana in the room. Not a large hole, about the size of a fire hose. The mana in the room swirled and then the current changed direction and pointed straight up. At the rock of the ceiling, a flashing of colors occurred as he changed the mana's attributes, running through the spectrum before settling on brown. Then as if it were dissolving, the ceiling began to change. A small dimple developed about 4” in diameter, but almost before the dimple registered on his senses, it deepened and then vanished into a tube, a tunnel leading beyond his senses. The mana current began flowing towards the tube and the pent up, over-powering pressure caused by the mana began disappearing along with much of the mana in the room. Baxter shivered in his sleep, let out a little chuff of a bark and then seemed to calm down and fall deeper into his sleep.

Woo boy! You skinned in by a hair. I swear two minutes more and we’d of had exploded dungeon and dog stretched all over the place. Good job on surviving. Keep up the good work. Experience gained.

Skill Gained

Excavation (Digging)

Elemental Sphere: Earth

Rank: Bronze

Level: 1

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

SP: 25 per 4 cubic meters removed.

Ability to remove matter, to tunnel, to create space, to process solid matter, to render it into another state of being.

‘Damn!’ he thought. He was glad that he didn’t have a body because he would have crapped his pants. ‘Damn!’ he thought again. ‘That was too close.’ He wasn’t sure why Bob had tossed him into such a dangerous predicament and not given him more instructions, more information about it, but he thought he ought to take it as a learning point. The apocalypse had happened and it wasn’t safe for anyone. Including quasi-divine dungeons and their dog.

Using his mana sense he looked around the room. Already the blue mist of mana was clearing out, vanishing. The pressure he’d somehow felt dissipated and the room looked almost the same as it did before the addition of his mana sense. No blue fog in the air, no mana condensing on the walls. There still was a faint shimmer of blue in the air, but it vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Only to reappear in another area and vanish from there as well. Somehow, mana was being generated by him or within him. It felt strange calling a room his body.

He also noticed that he could sense the tube leading to the surface, not to mention the large dog sleeping in the center of the room.

Just to make it official. Experience gained.

Ability Gained

Dungeon Sense

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

A dungeon needs to know what’s happening inside it, well him if you want to be. You’ve gained the ability to sense everything that is happening within your bounds.

He wondered about the hole to the surface and the sudden influx of what had to be an enormous amount of mana the area around the surface had received. He wondered if it had caused any changes or mutations or had any effect on the place where the tunnel exited, but decided that he’d worry about that later. For now, he had his list!

‘Make light!’ he thought. ‘That was the original step one on the list, let’s do this.’ He thought about how he’d acquired the skill, Excavation. All he’d done was focus his mana sense on the mana and the location that he’d wanted the hole to appear and then try to will the action he wanted to occur. He wondered briefly if humans could do this or if it was something only dungeons could do. He focused again on the mana in the room, trying to sense it. It was harder to do now that there wasn’t such massive quantities present, but he now had the ability.

‘Ok,’ he thought. ‘Let’s do this. Let’s think about what it is we want to appear. Not bright lights, at least not yet, but dim, like fireflies. A dim, yellow glow, that’s what we want. And I want it only in a certain area.’ He focused on an area of the wall. A circle about ⅙ of a meter wide. He tried to see it glowing with a dim yellow light. He thought of light, its characteristics. He thought of mana, the attribute of light mana that he’d seen in the dog, and then tried to combine the two. He focused his entire being on the circle, willing the unattributed mana to change into light mana. Willing the circle to glow. Minutes went by, but he worked at it. No body to throw him off with a grumbling stomach or a bead of sweat falling into his eyes, pure determination. Finally, the circle began to glow.

Tired of the dark, are you? Dungeon sense not enough for you? Oh, that’s right, you got to take care of the dog. Funny isn’t it, survive the apocalypse, become a dungeon and you still gotta walk the dog. You are going to walk him aren’t you? I’m thinking a 3.25 meter X 3.25 meter’ room ain’t gonna cut it! Experience gained.

Skill Gained

Light

Elemental Sphere: Light

Rank: Bronze

Level: 1

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na except creatures of darkness

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

SP: 25 per area lit (.5 meter3).

Ability to create light within a clearly defined area within the dungeon bounds.

He figured that the message meant that Bob wanted him to grow. He wasn’t sure why he wanted him to grow, but hidden in that message was a clear order to make the dungeon bigger. He didn’t want to piss off Bob. When Bob’s happy, everybody’s happy, he hoped. And making Baxter and Bob happy was his new life’s work.

“Light,” said Baxter. “Thank you!”

“Your welcome boy! I’m still working on the rest of it. Is the light bright enough for you?”

“Brighter!” said Baxter. “Bob said ‘Make Room!’”

“Bob talks to you?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” said Baxter. “Boring. Too many words.”

“Well, let’s not tell Bob he’s boring, alright?” Jake said. Privately wondering what Bob had said and hoped he wasn’t listening when Baxter called him boring.

“Make run room?” said Baxter.

“I’ll work on it,” said Jake. “And I’ll make the lights brighter.”

“Ok,” said Baxter and went back to sleep. This time Jake could sense that the dog was sleeping, could actually “see” the dog sleeping and “hear” the dog’s breathing too. While the senses he used were not their human equivalents, they provided much the same information. Only more of it.