[Short Story] Dungeon To The Moon

“Why?!”, a man raves as he walks down a busy road. “I did the training! I did the work! I qualify! They aren’t even canceling the moon mission. They just aren’t allowing ME to go on it!”

Despite how busy the road is, the man is making good time. Though that has more to do with the fact people are avoiding him.

“Obsessed? Of course I am!”, the gesticulates widely, arms thrown in up the air. A nearby lady backs up even further.

“We’re all obsessed! Something happened up there that we can’t explain! Even the damn amateur telescope community knows about it! They can see that black spot and the metallic domes just as much as we can.

“Just because I’m a bit more outspoken? I’m not even one of the alien cult rubes. Not that it couldn’t be aliens, but those things showed up without something putting them there. Clearly, that points to either a pre-existing situation or something extra-dimensional.”

He seems to have calmed down a little at this point and the crowd starts to close up on him again.

“I WILL GET TO THE MOON! I was into it before all this nonsense! I have been training for this since high school!”

Yeah, the crowd quickly backs up again with that.

This finally draws the attention of the man, “Are you all looking down on me?!”

Now, this isn’t the first crazed person the crowd had seen, not even the first that day. Being the city next to the nation’s main space organization, especially after what happened on the moon, they regularly deal with the “moon crazed”. Though this man differed from the normal sorts. He was dressed in a nice suit and generally well put together. This only made them even more skittish.

A guy in rags raving about the moon happened all the time. That was normal. For someone who otherwise looked normal? That was different, and different was dangerous, unpredictable.

“You are all fools! Disrespect me? First my under qualified boss judges me and now even you rubes?! I will not take this!”

Yeah, the cops have been called by this point. Though at this point the man stops, his pupils dilate and a soft glow emanates from them. And the crowd backs up even further.

“I can see what you all think! I can SEE! Things are. Things will be. Different. I can see. Something. Out there.”

And the man focuses on something. A few in the crowd look where he is, but there isn’t anything. Well, some of them judge the moon would probably rise from that direction, but it isn’t up yet.

“Yes. I can see. I will. The moon. My goal, life, dream, future.” And the man begins to stumble away from whatever he is seeing. Which unfortunately for him, meant directly into traffic and right into the path of a truck.

This event started small, but would later take on an entirely new meaning. The man would become known as the first to awaken and many would praise their deities, fate, and luck that he didn’t survive. Because by that point they recognized what he was heading towards.

Instead, for the first few years, The Shield would be recognized as the first to awaken and the first super hero. Oh, how this world’s fate might have changed if the first to awaken had instead been a super villain. Not just that, but one of the mad scientist types? And certainly not one of the stable genius types.

Of course, this isn’t the end of that man’s journey. Rather, the power that had surged through his body, mind, and soul was very much not finished with him. So when the body and mind sides of the equation got reduced to non-working pieces, the power simply kept hold of the soul as it receded back into the quantum foam that separated time, space, universes, and the concept of existing.

-----

In a hill on a planet that most in the know would classify as a time-stuck medieval system-bound fantasy world, a number of ley lines momentarily synchronize and pull a stream of trans-Mana power out from pure possibility. Or as the locals would recognize it, they formed a Mana well. 

Which in nine out of ten times creates a temporary decade long outflow of pure Mana. One of those events that is equally good and bad. You get a mana crystal mine, wondrous herbs, and mages come from miles around to make use of the excess power. You also get beasts turning into monsters, higher-level monsters, and a general increase in chaos.

This was one of those one in ten instances. Where that first Mana crystal seed to form at the confluence of power manages to capture a soul, in this case his soul, and changes from a normal Mana crystal into a Dungeon Core.

-----

‘What is this?’

{

New Dungeon Detected

Initiating Basics

}

The newly housed soul freezes up as a bunch of knowledge gets imprinted into their mind.

‘A dungeon? I now know what that means, somehow? But, I shouldn’t have any memories. My soul should be a clean slate, with only some past tendencies to guide me.

‘I remember. The moon. But what? Why? I know what a moon is, but that isn’t what I REMEMBER. But I don’t remember remember.’

The new core falls into an inactive state as the implanted knowledge settles. On top of the hill, a group of elves dance around runes freshly carved into the ground. They had detected the confluence and noted the lack of a Mana well.

Their ritual soon ended, the results expected. Though confirmation is required. Now they just had to go and report it and days pass.

Down below, the core cycles back up, their mind returning to full consciousness. ‘Dig down?’

The core sits there as around it rooms begin to automatically carve themselves out. Not that the core couldn’t stop the process or take control of it. The core just doesn’t care.

‘Oh moon up above, whatever be thy name? Are you just the moon or Luna? I don’t have a name anymore, though I don’t regret it.’

Weeks pass as the core ignores their dungeon and focuses on what makes them, them. Which honestly, was probably the smartest choice they could make. On this world, the most common failure point for dungeons is when they get too clever.

The first floor should really just be a series of rock rooms with whatever starter monster the dungeon began with. Which for this core was the alco’pr, more commonly known as sub-gnolls. They fit in the same category as goblins and kobolds. And unlike hyenas and actual gnolls, the mini monsters laugh for no particular reason. Though once the dungeon breached the surface, many adventurers noted that these particular sub-gnolls had a particularly mad laugh.

‘Down is boring’

It wasn’t even a full sentence, but it changed things. The change wasn’t too unique, it wouldn’t be the first dungeon turned tower. Sometimes a dungeon just ends up over something it doesn’t want to dig into. Or just because.

The dungeon’s first floor squared off and some outlying rooms were detached. This, of course, caused a momentary frenzy, as the people above used a number of methods to analyze what lay below the dungeon. Of course, this was just the dungeon deciding to go up, but what if there has been some ancient ruins or special ore vein below? That would be worth money!

It wasn’t until the fifth floor that the dungeon turned their attention to the outside world.

‘I can see the moon. But a tower? That will never actually reach the moon.

‘I WILL reach the moon.’

The dungeon turned its attention to the area around it. A tower might never be high enough to reach the moon, but that does not mean a tower can’t be on the moon.

First order of business was to free itself from the planet. There was a way, but not intended for a dungeon as young as him. But! That was only if you take things to the full extent. A floating island in the sky needs something for high-level adventurers to covet for them to visit.

But what if, instead, it was simply a tower on a hill that only floated a tiny distance above the ground? So small a distance that some might not even realize what happened?

The dungeon shifted and stopped growing more floors, instead focusing on iterating over the existing floors. This also wasn’t a unique thing. All dungeons would eventually feel like they have enough floors and turn to increasing the difficulty of existing floors. Admittedly, five floors is a bit early, but there have been single floor dungeons in the past.

The dungeon ignored this, instead focusing on a bit of creative foundation work. He dug out a small bit of rock across the entire bottom of his territory in preparation. Then it was just a matter of saving up power and he became a floating island dungeon. Technically.

No one noticed this. Though the dungeon’s relatively slow growth did stand out. Still not unique, but things were starting to pile up.

‘Now, how am I going to go orbital? Dungeons don’t exactly have propulsion options. Though that isn’t strictly true, is it? I’ve got various traps which could in theory work. In fact, what if I focused on improving the flame vent?’

The adventurers noticed the change right away. What had been a relatively balanced dungeon suddenly focusing on fire? Well, if anything, it began to explain the slow growth. In that, the adventurers assumed the dungeon had been growing slowly to either change focus to fire or that it had always been focused on fire and so regular growth cost more. Though they were leery about how powerful the flame vents got.

‘Almost! Now how to power things? Is this Mana stuff available out in the void of space? How can I find out?’

He couldn’t. Not that powerful beings hadn’t gone to space in the past. Rather, no one was going to recite the content of some arch mage’s travel journal while delving. In the end, the core could only assume that it wouldn’t have passive power to rely on.

‘Now, how to store Mana? Or I guess, how do I get a bunch of Mana crystals?’

A bit of a tricky question for a dungeon as Mana crystals are one of the few things they can’t actually duplicate. When a dungeon tries to, the energy instead gets syphoned right back into the core.

Not that you can’t take Mana crystals into a dungeon. Once the crystal is formed, it acts like any other item and a dungeon can pull power from them no problem. So, how to gather them? Why, by breaking the rules of course!

A dungeon wasn’t supposed to ask for specific things. Not supposed to beg. And the system enforced those “suggestions”. ‘Screw the rules and the system! So what if I can’t ask for Mana crystals?’

Anyway, it wasn’t long before an adventurer got famous for finding a way to get around some of the flame traps in the dungeon. It wouldn’t work on all of them. However, if you found one of the traps on a corner, you can short circuit the trap by jamming a Mana crystal into a bit of the trap that was exposed.

Now, Mana crystals aren’t cheap. In fact, large crystals are super expensive. Except, prices go in the opposite direction just as quickly as they shrink. And a pebble of Mana crystal? Pocket change, literally. It would be used to make change, so people were more than willing to drop Mana crystals in disarming the traps.

This allowed the dungeon to quickly amass a collection of them. There was just one last step. The dungeon needs to kick everyone out to make the last changes. Good thing there are already things in place for that. After all, sometimes a dungeon needs to make big changes.

So the dungeon waits until night and then kicks everyone out.

From there, it was just a matter of moving all the flame jet traps to the bottom of the island. This also wasn’t exactly a legal placement, but another loophole allows it. Because sometimes, when you’re reorganizing a dungeon, you just need somewhere to stow features until you’re ready. So until the dungeon opened up again, it was perfectly fine.

The sun dawned just in time for the dungeon to be ready. Adventurers had gathered at the bottom of the hill, waiting to see if the dungeon would be opening up, only for the ground to shake. Some more experienced delvers got everyone to back way up, expecting the dungeon to be altering the terrain or some such.

Then a great light burst forth from the ground with a horrendous roar. The hill began to rise before falling away, leaving just the tower. Which without the hill began to accelerate to amazing speeds.

The dungeon rose ever upwards, its nature of being a floating island dungeon offsetting its mass allowing for even greater speeds than the dungeon expected. It quickly rose towards the upper edges of the atmosphere. The system did not like this.

{

Warning: Dungeon is detected to be on course to leave atmosphere 

Penalties will apply if actions are not taken to reverse this course

}

The dungeon, of course, ignored these warnings. And the penalties? Well, good thing he had prepared for space to lack Mana as the system somehow turned off the dungeon’s Mana regeneration.

Then the dungeon was out of the atmosphere. It wasn’t quite the void of space yet, but soaring so high felt amazing, soul fulfilling. And there was the moon.

The dungeon had to adjust its flight path some, but it had calculated things already. And with nothing to mark the passing of time or distance, the dungeon lost track of time until the moon was right in front of it. A quick flip and the thrusters began to slow the dungeon down.

Slower. Slower. Until it gently kissed the lunar regolith. The dungeon had made it to the moon.

‘Huh, now what?’