After he’d completed the inner shell of Maxes, he needed to finish it out. According to his plans, he still needed to create quite a few things. His loot skill was only at Bronze, Level 2, which meant that he needed to raise it a bit before he could create a lot of the stuff on his list. For instance, drains and showerheads. They were both made out of metal - either stainless steel or aluminum or maybe a mix of metal coated with another non-rusting metal he thought. So far the only metal that he’d been able to create as loot was bronze.

He thought about what he should create first. Easy stuff first. Stuff, where the materials didn’t matter, would be created first, and then as the skill leveled up, he’d create the other items.

He figured he needed about 50 room doors and about 30 toilet stall doors. Balsa seemed fine for that. Basically, it was just a way to grant privacy, to be able to shut out the world. He looked at the space that he’d left for the room doors and thought, ‘Wait a second. I don’t want the doors to be that big. Hell, who wants a seven-meter tall door? If it were not composed of balsa wood, I doubt you could even open it. I need to create some more wall above the space. Except for gates, they should be huge, big old dungeon gates.’ At that, he felt the dungeon side of him respond. He liked the idea of some showy masterpiece, a big engorged snake’s head with the entrance buried deep in the monster’s throat. Or a wolf, even better. My boss is a dog after all.

‘Huh, who knew that we dungeons are vain,’ he thought kind of chuckling. He added in balsa wood for the missing spaces above the room doors. He didn’t need to construct a lintel because the whole section of wood had joined into one solid piece when he created the balsa in the space above the door’s opening.

He was quickly done with the doors, now he needed to create the door hinges. He figured it was fine with bronze. Even bronze should be able to take the pressure on the hinges. Plus, instead of two, he’d use four.

He thought about the hinges and door handles. He hoped his Loot Creation skill was up for it because he had no idea how the mechanism inside a door worked. It might as well have been magic to him, so hopefully, the magic he could now do would take care of it. So for each door, he’d need four hinges, which meant two hundred uses of the skill.

He created a loot pattern for the hinges. It came out looking like standard hinges; two flaps and a pin down the center of the hinge. The only thing that was different was the absence of holes for screws. After looking it over he figured out that he didn’t need screws. He figured that the whole thing would join naturally to the location where it was placed. He felt more and more proud of his abilities then. He was a building god.

Once he made the pattern, he knocked out the hinges. Then he followed with a pattern for the doorknobs and knocked them out too. By this time the skill had leveled several times.

He looked at his list again:

benches 24 bar tables 12 comfortable chairs 60 fireplaces large 9 fireplace small 37 queen beds 21 full beds 53 chests 64 baskets 37 small round table 24 toilets 30 showerheads 48 shower drains 24 room doors 50 toilet doors 30 mirrors big (6) hot water for pool 3 cold water for pools 3 steps to roof ( possible new floor) 2

‘Man,’ he thought. ‘This is like writing a novel. You start and then you have to keep adding crap to make it believable. First, it’s just a man, then it’s a man with blond hair and blue eyes. Then he gets broad shoulders and a scar from where a drunk French whore stabbed him. What the hell! I make room doors and I’ve had to fix the door gaps, make hinges, doorknobs. Don’t panic,’ he thought. ‘I’ve got time. I doubt they’ll be back here as soon as they thought they would. If I know my mother, she’ll be gathering up people like a mother hen gathers chicks. SHIT! That’s not at all encouraging.’

With that thought, he went back to making the items on the list.

But before he did that he looked over the doors. He’d basically created them in a big pile of stuff in the area where the dining room was going to go. He had one large stack of doors, another pile of hinges and yet another pile of doorknobs.

Then he looked around the Maxes level as he was starting to think about it, at all the various spaces he’d left to hold the doors. ‘Well, shit!’ he thought. ‘How the hell am I gonna assemble these?’

He didn’t want to re-absorb them. That would be a huge waste of mana. And time. And he’d need to make a new loot pattern too, instead of the three he’d had. Plus he was sure that constructing them in pieces was probably less expensive than simply creating a whole door. But, and this, this was a big one, no hands. He had no hands.

‘How the hell did I not think of that?’ he thought. Thinking back everything else he’d done had been done in place. The walls, the tunnels, the traps, the pools, he had created nothing in some other location and then moved to its ultimate resting spot.

‘Hmm,’ he thought. ‘Good one, dumbass!”

He could have created the parts individually in their final location and avoided this whole problem. It wasn’t as if he needed the space to create stuff. He just created the pattern and threw some mana at it. He’d spent about 1200 mana on building the doors. Not that much when you consider that he now had about 11,600 mana to spend daily if you included his siphon gains. But still, over 10 percent. He was glad Rex and sisters weren’t here yet. He could almost hear the sarcasm!

He tried to remember if Baxter had done anything like moving something with his mind. Some of the positions he’d held his loot snacks in while chewing were almost magical, but he thought that ordinary physics was enough of an explanation for that. Hildi was in the dungeon for about four hours, so she didn’t have a chance to do anything, plus she didn’t even have a class for most of that time. Cleet and Drake, the snake snacks, had been assholes using their physical power to get whatever it was that they’d wanted, so nothing there.

He thought about dungeon novels he’d read. Trying to remember if any of them had done any creation and then had to move it around. He remembered one where a goblin city was built and then moved. Or had it been? He couldn't remember much about that novel. He remembered Hogwarts in the movies, all those staircases moving around, things flying through the air. Maybe Hogwarts was a dungeon?

All this thinking was taking up time and not getting him anywhere. He decided to go back to his old standby, the ‘not’ meditation trick. He focused on his explorer rat, crouched largely forgotten in the corner of the hallway that ran in front of the front windows, and listened to its breath.

Feeling it going, flowing out, flowing in. It happened quicker this time, rising into that space that he’d invented to help him discover new things, abilities, skills. It opened to him almost easily now. He thought about what it was he wanted to occur. Did he want to have the doors vanish and appear at their new location, to be portalled or teleported to their new homes, or to have them fly through the air? It’s got to be Hogwarts, he decided. He’d loved those movies, the staircases moving magically from floor to floor. The books changing shelves.

He focused on the topmost door, willing it to raise, to move. He pictured its flight to the nearest door opening, one of the men’s bathrooms. He imagined the stately glide, the smooth curves it would need to take, the minor jiggles as it positioned itself. Then, of course, he thought, ‘oh, the hinges’ and pictured four of the hinges rising from the piles they made in the dining room area. It was so real he could almost see it happening and … then it did and he got this notification.

Really? ... You gave us a chuckle with this one.

Ability Gained

Dungeon Object Manipulation

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

Ability to move dungeon objects to new locations within the dungeon.

“Glad I serve some purpose, he thought. ‘I’d hate for you all to be bored up there.’

His door hinges were in place on the door, so he quickly melded them with the wooden door frames. He hoped the combination of the number of hinges and the unique nature of the bonds between the metal and wood would overcome the fact that he was dealing with balsa wood and bronze but, if not, he could fix it later, he supposed. Then he joined the door to the hinges and, for the first time he had an enclosed room. Well, minus the other three doorways that were in the bathroom.

Then the doors almost exploded from their neat stack on the ground. Each door meeting with a set of four hinges, being socketed by a doorknob and then floating off through the empty hallways to be set into their frames. For some reason, he had the sound of Julie Andrews’ voice singing “My Favorite Things” and he may have had the doors pirouette and bow to each other, then circle each other before leaving to their new resting locations, but he figured nobody was here to see, so no foul.

He was only at level 6 in the Create Loot skill so he guessed that he’d need to wait on creating the dining room furniture. He needed a harder wood than Balsa for them, overwise he’d be constantly replacing them. He was thinking about using Red Oak, but couldn’t create that just yet. He thought about it and decided that sandstone would do for the fireplaces. He wasn’t 100 percent sure it was a good idea to add fireplaces to all the rooms, but he had added them to his original plans, so he was going to try.

He pictured one of the smaller fireplaces first. One of the ones that would go in the rooms. It was just a simple fire pit really. He didn’t need to worry about flues or chimneys or flues in chimneys for that matter. Smoke, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, all the other byproducts of combustion, even the ash would be cleaned up by him. Heck, he’d even be supplying the wood. He just needed a place to have the fire, although really, he probably didn’t even need that. He could burn the wood on the floors of the room if he wanted. But better to keep things human standard, he thought. People would probably be freaked out if they had a fire going in the corner of their room. Not to mention the walls are wood.

The smaller fireplaces would be about one meter on all sides. Composed of four blocks of sandstone, each about a quarter of a meter in size. He figured two rows would be enough to create enough of a feeling of an enclosure to make the humans happy. Since he was only really faking the fireplaces anyway, he decided to create a concave interior that would direct the heat, ash, and logs toward the center of the firepit. He didn’t want to have to worry about a fire burning out of control.

Thinking about it, he wasn’t sure if he should use his Create Materials skill and create the individual blocks or even the whole fireplace all at once or use the Create Loot skill and try to create a ‘small fireplace’ loot pattern.

He thought about it a bit. He needed to raise both of the skills. If he wanted glass, which he did, he needed to upgrade the Create Materials skill. But he had a ton of stuff that he needed to create still in Max's that he’d need to update the Create Loot skill for also.

Finally, he decided to go the Create Loot route. He made a pattern he named Small Fireplace. And then created it using the skill. It took some mana. Actually it took a lot of mana, 178 mana points. He hadn’t spent that much mana at once ever he thought. Well, except for the cubic meter cubes of iron and sandstone he’d created. But even that was less mana than this fire pit cost. He looked over the fire pit and saw that it wasn’t as simple as he’d actually thought it was. Instead of a simple fire pit with a concave base in the center, it seemed to be covered in runes, at least he guessed that what they were.

They were basically ideographs like the ones on Hildi’s arm or his gem, but simpler. Maybe not simpler, but less complex looking. Strings of individual glyphs or runes that all represented elements or concepts: fire, air, constrict, start, douse, jet, heat, warmth, light, blink, hesitate, absorb, remove. All arranged in rows or patterns that somehow constrained or brought them into purposeful alignment, to have function. He wasn’t sure how he knew what the glyphs or runes meant, but he was positive that he was identifying their meanings. Of course, then he received a notification.

Just in case you want to be creative. And you want to be creative, don’t you?

Skill Gained

Runescripting

Elemental Sphere: All

Range: Within dungeon bounds

Damage: na

Cool Down: na

Duration: Permanent

Skill to read and craft runes and glyphs. As the skill grows, the complexity of the effects achievable will also grow.

‘Interesting,’ he thought. 'That second sentence is probably another hint from the Bobs about my purpose.’

Looking at the fireplace, the first thing that he noticed aside from the runes, is that it was all one unit. Despite the faux cracks and mortar between the blocks, the stone itself was one piece. Given enough strength, a man could pick it up and haul it off. He wondered if that was somehow part and parcel with the skill, a rule that said, ‘loot must be removable’ or something, but didn’t have any way of testing that right now.

The second thing that he noticed is that on the front, there existed a smooth oval-shaped bulge that slightly rose from the lip of the fireplace. It was about 10 centimeters along its longest axis. It shimmered periodically with a golden sheen. The sheen would start from the left and race toward the right, covering the entire oval before it vanished. It didn’t light up, more seemed to change the surface coloring before it vanished back to the color of the sandstone rock.

He attempted to prod the oval with his newly discovered manipulation ability, but nothing seemed to happen. He timed it and the sheen started and finished in about two seconds. He tried prodding the oval when the sheen was on the oval and when it wasn’t. Neither seemed to make any difference.

He thought about this some more. He moved his perception around all four of the sides, examined the runes to see if they needed any finishing touches, even lifted the fireplace and examined the bottom surface. The runes all looked complete, the pattern was too complicated for him to understand right now but seemed complete. There were no obvious gaps or broken lines anywhere.

‘It’s a fireplace, well, a fire pit,’ he thought. ‘I mean you wouldn’t need anything very complicated. I mean, you just put in wood, and, well, I’m a dumbass.’

He created a pile of firewood, moved it into the fire pit, then prodded the oval. The wood burst into flames, more effectively than would happen in a gas fireplace, then began burning cheerfully.

He prodded the oval again, the flames vanished. The wood showed evidence of being burnt, but it might have been on fire a couple of weeks prior, for all the heat that it showed. Prodded it again, fire. Prodded again, no fire. Once again, the wood looked slightly more burnt, but there was no smoke, no embers, just some ash on the wood itself, and that was it.

He prodded the oval and the fire began to burn again. He watched it for a bit and saw a twig on one of the pieces of firewood get consumed, turn to ash and fall to the base of the fire pit, where it vanished. ‘Wow!’ he thought. ‘A self-cleaning fire pit.’

Then he followed the smoke upwards and noticed that it simply disappeared about a meter to a meter and a half above the fire. ‘Wow!’ he thought. ‘I don’t even need to clean the air, it does it for me. Sweet!’

He could tell that it was still producing heat, his dungeon sense was up to figuring that out, but other than light, heat was the only product that the fire pit produced. He made a mental note to really study the runes on this firepit. The capabilities of it were amazing.

‘Ok,’ he thought. ‘I have to say that this fire pit is worth the mana! I won’t have to worry about these fire pits at all. No cleaning, no worrying about Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, smoke.” And with that, he quickly created and placed the 36 more small fireplaces in their rooms. Then he started to create the nine larger fireplaces and place them in their locations, little pit areas where people could stop, rest and hold conversations.

He’d used up almost all his daily mana by now. Somehow the time he’d been spending on gaining and exploring his new abilities had stretched into hours. He wasn’t sure about how long he’d been in that meditative state, but he figured it was at least a couple of hours. Then there was the time spent on the dancing doors. It didn’t matter though. He needed to gain all the mana he could get back from the siphon ability. Until he did, he was essentially stuck twiddling his thumbs. If he still had thumbs.

He still had about six hours to go before he’d have enough mana to complete the large fire pits. At his mana siphon rate of about 150 mana points an hour, he guessed he’d have enough mana to finish the large fire pits by 9 o’clock.

He thought about what he could do in the meantime. “Baxter,” he said.

“Yes,” the dog replied.

“How are you buddy,” he said.

“Baxter good. Human’s slow.” Jake looked at the date function Hildi had pointed out. It was still the 14th, Tenebris. They wouldn’t be leaving probably for at least two more days.

“I frazzled,” the dog said. Jake could feel that the dog was laughing.

“Good one, buddy,” he said. “How're things going?” he asked.

“Good,” the dog responded. “With Hildi. Get stuff.” Jake figured that that meant that they were still going around the neighborhoods getting people’s stuff for the last time.

“How’s my family doing?” he asked.

“Family good. Fern frazzled,” the dog responded.

“Any chance that they are coming earlier?” Jake asked.

“No,” said the dog, bluntly.

Jake wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved by that. He’d like his family safe, but still had no real place to get the people situated. He started wondering if the third floor might be the way to go, at least for the beginning.

“Not go again,” the dog finally said.

“What do you mean,” asked Jake.

“Temple dog. Belong temple,” he replied. “Not go again.”

“Ok, buddy,” Jake said. “I won’t ask you to.” That was a little surprising to Jake. He wasn’t sure if it was the effect of classes or just Baxter’s unwillingness to do without his Scooby snacks, yet the dog sounded sure of his resolution. But at the same time, he definitely missed the dog. He missed Hildi too. Probably not as deeply, at least not yet, but he wanted them both back.

“Anything new you want to share,” he asked.

There was a pause, then the dog said, “Not like Withers.”

Jake didn’t know what the dog meant by this. He assumed it was a person’s name, but didn’t know for sure. “Is Withers a person?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the dog. “Old person. Not good.”

‘Hmm!’ thought Jake. ‘Looks like someone’s gotten on my dog’s bad side.’

“Well,” he said. “Don’t kill him unless you have to, Ok boy?”

After he said that, he decided that this was another thing he needed to talk with Hildi about. ‘Add it to the list,’ he thought.

“Ok,” said the dog, somewhat reluctantly.

“You can talk to me if you want too, Ok?” said Jake. “I’m here for you.”

“Ok,” said the dog. “Miss you. Miss snacks! Frazzled!” and then the feeling of connection seemed to vanish.

Evidently frazzled was the dog's new favorite word. Jake wasn’t sure how to feel about the dog not liking the man. He wasn’t sure what Withers had done to upset Baxter. But he figured that the dogs usually had good people sense. He’d probably need to watch the old man. It was most likely just a crotchety old man. Nothing really to worry about. But he would bear watching.

He waited for his mana to replenish. He didn’t like saying regenerate, because it wasn’t really an ability of his body, he was essentially borrowing mana from what he produced. Although, that was somehow an ability of his body, so maybe he could say regenerate. Anyway, slowly the time passed and the large fireplaces were built and positioned.

Then he started on the next item on his list, the baskets. He’d just decided to create laundry baskets or holders for each room. He wasn’t sure how people did laundry anymore. Did they have a spell? Like Clean? Or did they have magical washing machines in their homes or did they just find some running water? If they had a spell, then the basket was kind of pointless, but everybody could use a basket, couldn’t they? Anyway, he envisioned a kind of rattan basket, flat on the bottom, sides rising at an angle outward with a big woven rattan strap or handle to carry it with.

He made the plan and it looked like what he’d envisioned. A basket. He checked the plan out thoroughly to make sure there were no runes involved. He figured that the rune scripts on the fire pits were what caused them to be so mana intensive, so expensive. He just wanted a basket. He created the first one and was pleased with the amount of mana spent, one mana point. He made the other 36 and moved them into place.

He loved moving things. It was his new favorite thing about being a dungeon. Sure monsters were cool and killing assholes was better, but the sheer coolness factor of something popping into existence and then silently moving into a new location was just great. I mean if he could have done this as a human, he doubted he’d have ever left the house.

He wondered if he could weaponize the ability. Make lead cannonballs and shoot them through the air at people? ‘Another thing to put on the list,’ he thought. Not the ‘talk to Hildi and Baxter list’ but another one, ‘Cool things to do with dungeon powers.’ So far it only had one item on it, but he’d just started it.

‘And, let’s add that ‘killing assholes was better’ to the other list,’ he thought. ‘Definitely need to talk with Hildi about that one.’