98
The dwarves, Milo decided as he lay in a reclining chair looking out at the pool and the paradise beyond, were crazy.
When he was a simple clocker, the dwarves had been like gods to him. He’d imagined a race of enlightened and wise men who had grown beyond the petty thrills of desire. It turned out, though, that they had instead worked to create technology so they could lean into their desires.
The realization that they were no more emotionally advanced than he was made him feel a mix of relief and disappointment.
He wasn’t sure how to feel.
Not about them, and not about his golems. It was hard for him not to think of them as his. That was also something that contained a mix of feelings. A part of him still thought of them as creations.
That part was fading, though.
Being replaced by an overwhelming feeling of protection, desire, and contentment.
Love, he imagined.
He watched Tania sitting on the edge of the pool. In front of her, and between her legs, Mila was standing in the water with her back turned while Tania slowly plaited her hair.
The two were deep in conversation, though he didn’t know about what.
Selma was still doing laps. She loved the water and kept asking if he’d get a pool for the Workshop.
How was he supposed to do that?
Tania told him he should look at some of the other pads. She hinted there was a lot he could do if only he studied more. Or, she hinted, maybe he needed an assistant.
She was referring to Fed, of course.
Thoughts of Fed’s body made him even more lost. He had so much left to do. The body wasn’t anywhere near finished. He thought he’d completed most of the internal wiring for the remote requirements, but then discovered her hands would also have additional components.
He’d considered skipping this dungeon altogether. He hadn’t wanted to waste three days.
But it was a requirement for every student. He had no choice.
Unless he wanted to go back to sweeping out the lower levels.
Maybe he could do that.
And then get his golems to do the sweeping for him?
Milo grinned at the thought of Tania sweeping and polishing the dwarven glass walls he’d seen in the lower levels.
Remembering those, he wondered if they were actually screens.
Maybe he could go and have another look at them.
“Ah,” he grunted. “Too much to do.”
He pulled out the Game Console pad. He’d tucked it into his pack, not expecting to have the chance to use it. He wasn’t sure if he could use it inside a dungeon. Tania hadn’t been sure either.
And the Prime hadn’t been helpful. Its foray into sarcasm was irritating.
Pulling up the available tabs, he went over them again. From this pad, he could monitor every dungeon. He could also tweak them.
He could make new dungeons, delete old ones, and test them by running them remotely with a simulated set of actors called players.
Tapping into the monitoring screen, he was surprised to see it was no longer blank. There were now over a dozen small squares with an image in them. Each image was moving. Like he was seeing what was happening in the other dungeons.
He clicked on one and saw Sylvia was struggling.
Her team was clearly unused to each other. Sylvia had a heavy cut on her cheek. One of her other team was nursing his arm.
“Tch,” he grunted, and noticed a little gear icon at the top corner.
He pressed it.
He blinked.
There were options.
He could see a list of enemies which would be spawning, and how long until they spawned. Clicking on the enemies, he could see their stats. How tough they would be.
The next enemies Sylvia would face was a small wave of spider golems slightly larger than Click. He pursed his lips.
He knew the Tinkers didn’t have any ability to see the games in real time. The Prime had told him their access was limited. He wasn’t sure how limited they were, though.
Maybe now was a good chance to test that.
It was a risk.
But he felt like he owed Sylvia.
He clicked on the spider golems one by one and started to play with them. He took down their speed first. And their strength. Then halved their armor rating. If he made them too easy, Sylvia might talk about it.
However, given the condition of her and her team, he felt even these weak golems would seem tough in their numbers.
He went through the other golems set to spawn in the next few days and also adjusted them so her team shouldn’t have too much trouble.
Licking his lips, he found he could also adjust if a chest spawned at the end of the level or not. He made sure one would, and lifted the level of rewards so it’d be bountiful.
It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do for her right now.
With that in mind, he had a look through some other teams. Cerena’s looked to be doing okay. But their new member, Martin, was looking a bit drained.
Milo tweaked their next encounters to hopefully give Martin a bit of a rest by making those fights easier.
He also tinkered with their chest.
He helped out a few other teams, including one he didn’t normally get along with. Just in case the Tinkers could see what he was doing. He didn’t think they could. But if they did, it would be hard to pin it on any one team.
With that in mind, he didn’t make any changes to his own.
Satisfied he’d done more than enough, Milo sat back and browsed the other tabs, trying to understand what he could do with it.
From what he could see, the dungeons were a complex web of linked processes.
First, a map would be built. Then points of interest tagged.
These could then be linked and a story formed.
A narrative. The narrative was triggered by events.
These events could be as simple as the death of an enemy or as complex as the collection of multiple objects being fetched to a specific point.
The mechanics of the narrative were familiar to him already. Pretty much every dungeon he’d done had a variation on at least one of them.
One of the tabs was called Administrator, and he found he had access to it.
From there, he saw a list of hundreds of names.
Some were simple.
Like Madric or Hadriv. Names which didn’t seem human. Dwarven names, he thought with awe.
Each name was red.
But there were two which were not.
One, called Guest.
And one called Milo.
He figured Guest was the Tinkers.
Clicking on it, he saw their access was limited to creating basic level maps and running them. They could see only maps they had made or those which were flagged as publicly available.
Milo recognized some of the map names and was surprised to see one or two he’d been in were designed by dwarves.
There were some switches, too.
He could limit Guest access if he wanted to.
Quite literally, he could cut them off from the dungeon portal entirely.
It was nice to know he had that much power. It was also quite frightening. He smiled down at the pad, feeling a mischievous need to mess with the mages. But he held back.
Now wasn’t the time.
“Milo?”
He looked up at Tania. Beside her, Mila was wrapped up in his coat again.
“Hmm?”
“We’re gonna go for a walk, alright?”
“A walk?” He looked around. “Where to?”
“Upstairs. Bluto’s gonna let us out. Right, big guy?”
Bluto let out a low brassy tone.
Selma walked over, still drying her hair with a towel. “What’s up?”
Tania turned to her. “Wanna stretch your legs?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“I was thinking we could go knock out the bosses anyway. It’d give us something to do.”
“I thought they won’t attack you,” Milo said, frowning.
“They will if they know what’s good for them,” Tania said, holding up a fist. “I want their dungeons stones.”
“I’ll get my rifle.”
“No need,” she said, reaching down and patting his cheek, at the same time giving him a view straight down her cleavage. “You sit here and relax. Bluto will bring ya a drink.”
“Are you sure?”
“Relax, Milo,” she said. “Think of it as a holiday. There ain’t nothing up there which can rattle our gears.”
“Alright,” he said. “Be careful, though.”
“We will.”
He gave Mila a dry smile. “And try not to ruin my coat. I might need it one day.”
“I won’t,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “I promise!”
When they were gone, he went back to playing with the pad.
He toyed with the mapmaking tab, making a small square plot and then thinking about spawning a creature in it. He looked down through the list of creatures.
They were broken up into groups.
So many groups.
When Bluto returned, the big golem was carrying a tray which looked comically small inside its large clumsy-looking fingers. On top of it was a delicate little glass with a clear fluid in it. And ice.
Resting on top was a thin slice of cucumber.
The golem bent low so he could take the glass.
“Thanks, Bluto,” Milo said, and took a sip without bothering himself with the logistics of how such a monstrous construct could make such a delicate drink. “This is nice.”
The golem made a proud beep, then turned and plodded away.
Shaking his head, Milo read some of the enemy lists.
Goblins. Ogres. Wolves.
All the usual things.
Elves.
He raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t recall seeing any elves.
Dropping down the menu, he read them carefully.
Sweet Elf.
Cute Elf.
Sexy Elf.
Submissive Elf.
And so on.
All the way down to Desperate Lusty Elf Yum Yum.
He read that again.
Took a sip of his perfect gin and tonic.
“Dwarves,” he muttered. “Blasted perverts.”