by Marc Robert
Wasn’t the 50 MP he had gained enough to keep this new craving at bay, even just for a little while?
But then he remembered his plan … to lean into The Hunger and let himself be guided by it, rather than boxed in by rational thinking all the time.
And so while {Silvertongue} did sound super-cool and all, he should at least have a look at {Imbue}. It was obvious that that’s what The Hunger wanted him to do, and so he would do it.
Osman set his mind to thinking about the very meaning of the word “imbue” itself, to try and figure out what exactly the spell’s function might be from that …
To infuse, invest, or permeate — those were the three basic definitions of the word, which WAS quite interesting, especially when you thought about it from a dungeon’s perspective. Osman was going to have to do a hefty amount of creating if he wanted to survive, more creating than he could actually even contemplate currently, and certainly more than he ever would have had to do as a paladin. And so maybe, just maybe {Imbue} was meant to get him started with all that?
It was quite appealing, really: that he was to be a Lord Of Creation as much as a Lord Of Destruction.
Perhaps THAT was the very basis of his new “Chaotic” alignment?
Neither pure good, nor pure evil.
Neither solely a creator, nor solely a destroyer.
Neither wholly man, nor wholly monster.
But infinitely in flux — a seething ball of chaos itself — seeking balance …
That was the lot of a dungeon core, and that was Osman’s lot now, a Chaotic arbiter for all those who passed through his tunnels and chambers.
Was there really anything more regal or god-like than that?
No …
Hells no!!!
And so, like any good god, why not start with … a bit of creation?
Osman eyed that tiny mushroom patch, the only sustenance he had found in this whole entire cavernous tomb — his ONLY source of food so far — and it dawned on him now why The Hunger had been so freaked out. It could be that he had almost just offed himself by selecting the {Silvertongue} spell!
How could he be so stupid sometimes …
{Imbue} would most likely enable him to generate a whole new crop of mushrooms, which he could use to expand, and progress, and SURVIVE!!!
What was {Silvertongue} when compared to that, really?!
Osman shook his head, suddenly super-thankful for the warning that The Hunger had given him. Then he reached out and tapped {Imbue}, trying to suppress a grin. He had outsmarted Death once more (or so it seemed!), and he was starting to get just a little bit cocky.
He knew now that he had been ABSOLUTELY RIGHT in thinking that he should trust The Hunger and let it guide him in lieu of that dungeon sprite or some other guiding spirit or learn’d advisor. He was alone down here and had to figure out how to make all this work by himself. The adrenaline rush of finally realizing that was …
… EXTRAORDINARY!
Osman felt high on life for the first time in a very, VERY long time!!!
{You have acquired your first spell … IMBUE} the words coalesced before him and hung there in gleaming green, then burst into a shower of coins in tandem with that glorious cha-ching! sound effect, just like when he had gotten the mana bump from eating the first red cap.
He felt great!
He felt better than great: he felt …
… FANTASTIC!
Finally, he was the master of his own destiny!!!
Brrr-br!
{You have leveled up. You are now … LEVEL 2}
The young dungeon lord was suddenly quite proud of himself for all that he had accomplished in such a short period of time.
He was just about to check his Soul Stats, eager to see everything he had gained duly recorded there, when suddenly he heard the sound of FIREWORKS EXPLODING accompanied by a RAUCOUS, SURROUND-SOUND CHEER as if made by thousands upon thousands of rabid sports fans all gathered together in some stadium or arena.
{Congratulations, you have successfully activated your … LIST OF ALL POSSIBLE MINIONS}
Osman’s eyes not only widened …
… they became great, big spinning pinwheels! (As the game was wont to do to players’ facial expressions every now and again, whenever they experienced some overwhelming level of emotion.)
List! Of!! ALL!!! Possible!!!! … Miiiiiniooooooons!!!!!
Osman nearly sang that last word out loud, he was SO goddamn excited! He couldn’t wait to review the list, and immediately started to do so …
:-)
Monster Menu
This new menu hung in the air directly before Osman’s eyes.
Its brightly-glowing, gold letters illuminated the cavernous room, at least a little, making the young dungeon lord feel a little bit more at ease (although he didn’t quite realize that yet, at least not consciously). The new menu had replaced the previous notification, which had informed him that he had just successfully activated his {List Of All Possible Minions} and so, of course, this menu was just that … a list.
Some would even say it was: THE LIST!
(The ONLY list that mattered!)
And so Osman scanned through it eagerly, ready to unlock the true power of his dungeon at last.
However: there were only …
… five options?!
LIST OF ALL POSSIBLE MINIONS:
{Corgi w/ A Dragon Complex}
{Rainbow Blanket Octopus}
{A Pantyless Succubus}
{Giant Armadillo w/ Bioluminescent “Death Ray” Powers}
{Tentacled Monster Cats}
Okay. This is not … this is NOT AT ALL what Osman was expecting! Frankly, he didn’t know what he had expected, but …
… it WASN’T this!
What happened to good old goblins or kobolds? Cave trolls?? Elemental wisps or slimes??? Monsters like that. Monsters that he knew and understood. Monsters he could imagine finding in a Level 1 dungeon …
What the heck was a {Rainbow Blanket Octopus}, anyway?!
Or a corgi with …
… a dragon complex?!
How was something like that even gonna be able to protect him? Or defend the dungeon against raiders when they came???
Osman shook his head.
How was he supposed to be able to work with minions like this?!
They probably couldn’t even tell him how or why he had ended up down here. Or what the hell he was REALLY supposed to be doing. Not that it was their job to tell him that but: “Ugh!” he shook his head a second time.
But then he paused and took a deep breath.
There had to be a good reason …
If this was what Other Earth had given him, then there HAD to be a reason for it. He just needed to figure out what that reason was, and then use it to his advantage.
Yeah, he just needed to think of —
FUUUUUCK!
The other shoe just dropped:
All the options were grayed out now, except for one.
Yup …
You guessed it …
… the freakin’ corgi!
Osman gritted his teeth.
Fine!
… fine …
This actually made it a lot easier anyway. Much easier. He didn’t have to think about all those other weird options right now. He just needed to concentrate on one, single catastrophe at a time!
He focused his mind’s eye, which was still all saucer-wide in the wake of examining those tiny, crystalline dots spattered across the mushroom cap, and tried to summon the {Corgi w/ A Dragon Complex} into physical being. It was better just to do it now and get it over with, Osman thought, so that he could see just exactly what he had to work with, rather than dwelling on his impossibly miserable luck. Which would only make him broody. And maybe a little bit spiteful, too. (Although just who he would be spiteful towards wasn’t quite clear … The AI, maybe?)
A whirling funnel of whitish smoke coalesced at Osman’s feet, whirling round and round and roun
d like a little tornado before … suddenly imploding! This implosion was accompanied by a sound effect that sounded eerily familiar: the crumpling up and throwing away of “digital trash” on an old Mac computer. Osman knew that sound well from all the nights that he had spent over at Bock’s house.
Juan “Bock” Bockhurst had been Osman’s closest (and best) friend until the whole Halloween Horror Bash thing that went down between him and Kendall last year. Osman and Bock hadn’t spoken a word to each other since that night, and Osman sorely regretted it. He often thought about Bock and what he was up to, driving around in his beat-up, old Honda Accord or slaving away in that hoarder’s paradise of a workshop he had built for himself in his mother’s root cellar.
Bock had dropped out of Wellsborn High in 11th grade, not because Chad Stenson and his droogies had been bullying the shit out of him since, like, middle school; no, not because of that at all … but to attend one of those new Simulah Corp. vocational academies that the gaming company had been setting up all over the country. “I need to do something REAL with my life, Os,” he said, “not all these pop quizzes and group art projects, but something exceptional! Something stellar!”
Bock was a TOTAL computer nut and collected (hoarded) all kinds of old and broken-down iMacs, and Mac Minis, and MacBook Pros, which he refurbished and re-tooled to run his own homemade VR-RPGs on. He had been tinkering with that kind of stuff since he was like eleven or twelve years old, so it made sense that he had left high school to study computer programming at Simulah U. as soon as he could.
He could probably figure out a quick and easy way to rescue Osman from his current predicament, that’s for sure. Hell, Bock probably knew tons of ways to trap people inside Other Earth, so there was no doubt he’d be able to reverse engineer it.
Osman wished that his old friend was here now. He wished that what had happened between them last Halloween hadn’t happened at all, that he could erase it and start their friendship anew. And he sure as hell wished that he and Bock hadn’t both gotten the hots for Kendall Raines at exactly the same time!
That was what had ruined everything!!!
And it left a bitter taste in Osman’s mouth …
Or, maybe that bitter taste was the result of his failure to summon the minion. It was hard to say! But he wasn’t about to give up, not yet.
The young dungeon lord focused his mind’s eye again and, again, he tried to call the {Corgi w/ A Dragon Complex} into being.
That whirling funnel of whitish smoke began to coalesce at his feet, roiling and swirling — looking quite a lot like how the Tasmanian Devil used to look in one of those old Looney Tunes cartoons, rampaging all around like a spinning top — except now, instead of yielding some snaggle-toothed little devil, the miniature tornado of smoke promptly imploded again.
Osman chomped his teeth together, super-frustrated!
The sound of “digital trash” being crumpled up and thrown away capped off his failed attempt and the would-be dungeon lord stood in silence, trying not to lose his shit. He wondered if all this unsuccessful summoning was sapping away his Mana Points. But he didn’t want to check, not yet. He wanted to try one more time and — if he knew for sure that he was losing big chunks of mana each and every time he tried it — it would eff up his concentration.
He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “Third times a charm,” he heard his mother’s soothing voice at the back of his mind. She was always saying things like that: pithy little phrases. But gods, he hoped this time it turned out to be true.
Osman focused his mind’s eye and focused again on summoning the corgi. However, this time, instead of concentrating on the golden letters of the words that made up the menu selection that hung in the air before him, he actually pictured an actual corgi in his mind: a cheeky fellow with short, bristly, tannish-brown hair and a white underbelly and stubby little legs, barking up a storm at nothing in particular. Working at Pet Emporium, he had seen his fair share of corgis come through, so it wasn’t too difficult to picture.
The little tornado of whitish smoke formed again at his feet for a third time and began whirling, and whirling and whirling and whirling, its velocity growing more and more rapid with each passing millisecond. The faster it got; the bigger it got and Osman’s eyes widened right along with it: THIS … this hadn’t happened before! He waaaaas making progress!!! And so he kept concentrating on that yapping little furball in his mind’s eye, deftly willing the dog into existence.
And then …
… then, suddenly …
… the corgi was there!!!
It stepped out of the whirling dervish of smoke at Osman’s feet and smirked up at him, the smoke fading.
“Hey, chief,” the corgi said, “Back again, huh?”
Osman tilted his head: “What?!”
“Oh. Rrrrrright … sorry! Sorry, sorry … I didn’t mean to make it weird right out of the gate,” the corgi apologized: “I’m Plex. Nice to meet you! … for the first time … yeah, yeah: meeting you for the first time and all, right now …” he nodded his tiny, short-haired head reassuringly, his tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth.
This was not quite the Boy And His Dog scenario that Osman had envisioned.
But okay …
… okay …
At least the summoning had worked this time and his first minion was here now, and so now maybe he could get some real answers as to what the hell was actually going on.
“What the hell’s going on?!” Osman blurted. “How … how did I end up down here?!”
“Oh chief, buddy, are you … in a bad place? I can tell that you’re in a bad place right now. Lay it on me. I can help!” More tail wagging. More tongue lolling. And yet another reassuring smile right out of some multi-million-dollar toothpaste commercial, which did not resemble the corgi’s previous sly smirk at all.
Osman eyed the little dog quizzically. His behavior had just done a total one-eighty, right? Osman had seen that; it wasn’t just his mind playing tricks on him. He had seen it!
Plex continued smiling, holding that reassuring smile on his face for an unusually long period of time, his front teeth impossibly white, so bright and white that even in the darkness they glinted a little.
“All right,” Osman said, “Cut the crap. I heard what you said when you came out of the smoke. I saw you smirking. How do you know me?”
“Chief … ”
“Look: I summoned you and so I can un-summon you! Now I want some answers … truthful ones!”
Plex cocked his head to one side, holding that fake smile a few seconds longer, hoping — praying — that his Rudimentary Deception would take effect.
But …
… no luck!
“Okay, okay … ” the little dog finally relented, dropping that bright, white reassuring smile and going back to that much more smug expression — the one that Osman had initially seen on the corgi’s face just as he had emerged from the whirling dervish — just before he smirked up at Osman in total recognition. “I screwed up, chief. I’m supposed to pretend like I don’t know ya, but … I know ya! It’s against my programming, but I do.”
“How do you know me?”
“Oh jeez, that could take a lifetime to explain. Do you REALLY want to go into all that right now?”
“Yes!”
The corgi shook his head, really regretting how stupid he had been to let on about knowing the young dungeon lord right from the get-go. But, then again — on the other paw — how was he ever gonna get what he really wanted if he didn’t diverge from his own protocols?
“Okay, chief. Better sit down. This one’s a whopper … ”
“I prefer to stand.”
“Right … okay,” the corgi said, his eyebrows drooping, “But I can get into real trouble for telling you all this, so mum’s the word, all right?”
“Real trouble with who?!”
“One thing at a time, chief, c’mon. I’m an old dog. Cut me some slack.”
; “Okay. Fine. Let’s start with how you know me.”
“You probably don’t remember, but we’ve met before … back in the real world … in the … in the pet shop where you work. I … ”
“Bullshit!” Osman cut the corgi off mid-sentence: “You said: ‘Back again, huh?’ Like … like I’ve come back to THIS place; like I’ve been here before, or’ve been resurrected, or some shit like that.”