by Marc Robert
Plex nodded: “You’re getting wiser; that’s good! That’s good, chief! The wiser you get, the better chance we have at winning.”
“Winning? What do you mean?! Like … like winning the game?!”
The corgi sighed rather loudly, a deeply annoyed sound: “Maybe you’re NOT getting any wiser after all.”
Osman screwed up his face.
The dog guffawed: “It’s a joke, chief! Each time you die, you do get wiser,” he shrugged: “That’s a well-known fact!”
“So I did die … and I have been resurrected … Or, waaaaait: did I die in the real world, or just here, in Other Earth?”
“So many questions. I’m not a philosopher, you know. Where’s your dungeon sprite?”
“I’m not sure where she is.”
“Hold up. She isn’t … around here somewhere?!” Plex glanced quickly around the cavernous room, making a sour face.
“Nope. I met her but … but it was actually prior to me becoming a dungeon. And when I finally did become one, she didn’t turn up.”
“That’s weird,” the dog said, “That’s DEFINITELY never happened before.” He grinned, and then his grin grew wider: “Maybe it will be different this time,” the corgi mused, suddenly looking a lot less smug and, instead, a bit more … hopeful.
“So I have died in the game?”
“Yeah, chief: you’ve died in the game before.”
“How many times?”
“Well … ”
“Wait, wait, don’t tell me that. I don’t wanna know that!”
“Maybe you ARE getting wiser,” the dog grinned. “Now, what have you done so far? What’ve you managed to accomplish before conjuring me up?”
“I’ve actually — ”
“Let’s just have a look at your Soul Stats and see, instead of you telling me, okay?” Plex said flatly.
Osman furrowed his brow. The little corgi could be pretty bossy. But okay, they were meant to be allies and — no matter how jazzed he was about doing all this on his own — Osman wasn’t really going to be able to run this whole place by himself, not once he started building a few tunnels and some more rooms. “Fair enough,” he said, “But … before we do that … what does it mean, that you have a … a dragon complex?”
“Oh. Yeah. That … Well, where to begin?”
The Curse
Osman put his hands on his hips: “Why don’t you begin at the beginning,” he told the cheeky little corgi.
The young dungeon lord could tell that Plex was something of a fast-talker, and no doubt a little bit of a liar too, which might prove useful, as long as the dog’s lies weren’t being employed to deceive him. He’d have to see if he could tweak that later in the corgi’s Soul Stats to make sure that they weren’t. But right now, he wanted to hear all about this “dragon complex” thing.
Plex’s bushy eyebrows drooped, like someone had just whacked him square on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, “Rrrrrright … I’m NOT gonna lie t’ ya, chief. Not about this. This is too important! I’m gonna be completely honest wit’cha. Completely straight. I got some … some … psychological …uggggghhhhh, umm … issues. Yeah … yeah, yeah … ” the corgi looked down at himself, at his squat body and stubby little legs, clearly embarrassed by his diminutive stature: “Do you know who Napoleon Bonaparte is?”
Osman nodded.
“Well I got that … that Napoleon’s Complex they’re always talkin’ about, on account of me being short and all. I don’t know how I got it; it’s just in my programming, you know. But it doesn’t manifest like … like normal Napoleon’s Complex, no. It a … it a … because we’re in a fantasy world, it a … it manifests as me believing I’m a fire-breathin’ dragon!”
“Uh-huh,” Osman said, nodding like a Freudian therapist, trying to take it all in. “But … but you’re NOT a dragon, are you Plex?”
Suddenly, the corgi’s whole demeanor changed from grumpy, fibbing, and insecure old grandpa to a literal poster child for arrogance incarnate: “Who sez I’m not?!” he growled, standing up on his hind legs and puffing out his tiny, white-haired chest. He cocked his head and swaggered about, kind of serpent-like, in front of Osman as if he were some celebrated thespian finally gracing the stage. He growled again: “I just need to be cultivated properly, that’s all! And then I can do ANYTHING! Breathe fire … grow fangs and a tail … even sprout wings and fly up to the moon!!!” He gazed directly at the young dungeon lord then and Osman could have sworn that — in that very instant — the corgi’s soft, brown eyes had been momentarily replaced by dragon eyes: two great, big, sulfurous yellow irises each bisected by a vertical slit, black as pitch.
The dog growled again, fairly terrifying … but then he succumbed to a wheezing fit of laughter, totally breaking character and going back down on all-fours, his brown eyes staring up at Osman bashfully. “I got problems,” Plex mumbled, “I know I do.”
“Maybe we should have a quick look at your Soul Stats first, what’d’you think?” Osman asked.
The dog grinned: “Check ’em out, chief. I got nothin’ t’ hide!”
The young dungeon lord closed his eyes and began to focus, opening his mind’s eye and pulling up the corgi’s info.:
Name: Plex
Race: Canid (Corgi)
Mana: 10 / 10 (MP)
Class: Minion
Level: 1
Rank: Novice
Alignment: Chaotic
Primary Skill: Dragon Complex
(1)
Innate Abilities:
(1) Rudimentary Deception
(2) Night Vision
Items:
Mana Core (1)
“You … you don’t have any Health Points,” was the first thing Osman said after looking everything over. He furrowed his brow, wondering how that could be.
“Veeeeery perceptive!” Plex replied snarkily, “You should become a detective one day.”
The young dungeon lord didn’t laugh. “WHY don’t you have any Health Points?”
“You tell me, O’ Great And Powerful Core,” the corgi snarked some more, waggling his eyebrows.
Osman thought about it, and he thought and thought … The answer was on the tip of his brain. He was just about to winkle it out when Plex blurted: “I’m just an extension of your soul, chief. Nothing more; nothing less.”
“Wait, so — ”
“Genau. If I die, a piece of you dies with me — a piece of your magic.”
Upon hearing that, the dungeon lord felt a strange kind of … molting sensation within his mind’s eye, signaling some sort of evolutionary leap in his very being, as he processed all the possible implications of the dog’s words.
“Look, let me explain it this way,” the corgi said, “I’m me, but I’m also … some part of you. A manifestation of your inner mana. Some would call me: a dibukym, or something like that. It’s all pretty … Jungian. Great man! You know him?”
“Carl Jung? Yeah, from social studies class. He was a psychologist. Individuation. Self and Shadow-Self. Anima/Animus. Mimics and Imagoes. Mrs. Crowther really liked him a lot better than Freud, that’s for sure.”
“That’s right, chief. He was eons ahead! And what I am, well, I’m a part of your … individuation.”
“Cool.”
“That’s exactly what your past self said, too.”
Osman smirked: “Great minds think alike!”
“No, chief, no … Thinking like “you” is what got us killed the last time. You gotta start thinking unlike you! Totally UNLIKE yourself!! You gotta start thinking … LIKE A DUNGEON!!!”
“It’s funny that you should mention that,” Osman said, “I’ve been having this … these … these hunger pangs.”
“That’s right,” Plex nodded, “you need to eat, to feed. You need MORE mana. Which means we need to figure out a way to attract some raiders down here, pronto!” The corgi smiled from ear to ear, quite proud of the profound advice that he had just given. “Bring up your own stats and
let’s see where we’re at.”
“Okay,” Osman said, swiping Plex’s info. away and concentrating on calling up his own Soul Stats, which appeared after a few seconds, hovering in the air before them.
Plex craned his neck to see, grumbling under his breath about how everything around here was always humanoid height, and how no one ever considered canids, how his stubby little doggy legs were the very bane of his cursed existence … buuuuuuut: IF HE COULD FLY, yesssssss: if he could ONLY FLY … his eyes flashed again — from soft brown to sulfurous yellow — and he growled low in his throat.
“Plex … ”
“Sorry, chief, sorry … I … I can’t really control it.”
“I can see that.” Osman filed that tiny factoid away as something else that he should try and tweak in the dog’s stats later on, when he had a little bit of a better handle on his new Mana Core Cultivation powers. He was sure he would be able to optimize the corgi in some way, make him more proficient or, at the very least, less … unstable.
But then he looked at his own stats and saw that he had a much bigger problem on his hands right now — a much, MUCH bigger problem indeed — which required his full and immediate attention:
Name: Osman Spar
Race: Dungeon Core
Mana: 0 / ∞ (MP)
Health: 50 / 50 (HP)
Class: Crafter
Level: 2
Rank: Novice
Alignment: Chaotic
Primary Skill: Sorcery
(1) Imbue (cost to use: 5 MP)
Secondary Skill: Bludgeon Weapons
(1) Iron Rod Of Power (as Mace)
Tertiary Skill: Mana Core Cultivation
Innate Abilities:
(1) Night Vision
(2) Soul Scrying
Minions:
(1) Corgi w/ A Dragon Complex (“Plex”)
(2)
(3)
Thralls:
(1)
(2)
(3)
Items:
Hooded Cloak (black); Tunic (black); Trousers (black)
Iron Rod Of Power (1)
Cursed Mana Core (Dungeon Core) (1)
Where had his 50 Mana Points gone?!
He had gotten 50 MP from that first red cap fair and square!
So where did they go?!
WTF?!
Osman’s stomach grumbled, and not just grumbled but: grrrrrowled. He was getting super-hungry again, hungrier than he ever had been before in his whole entire life — and super-light-headed as well — which made tons of sense of course, since ALL HIS GODDAMN MANA WAS GONE!
But where THE HELL did it go?!
He looked at Plex.
Had it really cost that much to summon the little corgi?
There had been the two failed attempts, of course … and then the successful summoning itself. And it was clear from Plex’s stats that it currently required 10 MP to animate him, which the dog had confirmed was coming from Osman somehow, but still …
… it didn’t add up.
“What’s up, chief?” the corgi asked, standing up on his hind legs to try and see the stat screen better.
“All my mana … it’s … it’s gone!”
“Oh no … ”
“Where did it go?”
Plex squinted at the stats, moving his little doggy lips while he read. And he read … ungodly slow, going back over the same lines time and time again, like he was trying to puzzle out the fine print in some thousand-page legal agreement. Which was making Osman INCREDIBLY impatient!
The last time The Hunger had flared up was when he was just about to choose the {Silvertongue} spell, right when he had gotten that strange sixth-sense feeling that made him pause and reconsider his choice.
Maybe THAT was it?
Maybe the “sixth sense” thing had expended his mana?
But then why wasn’t that skill or attribute or whatever it was listed in his Soul Stats? And why hadn’t he gotten some kind of notification about the mana expenditure???
It really didn’t make any sense, game-wise.
How could he plot and plan and play without being fully informed?!
Osman clenched his jaw. Really, he didn’t know enough about being an infernal, and was just about to totally take back what he had thought earlier about the total rush of going it alone — of doing it all by himself — when Plex blurted out: “There! There’s your problem … right there!”
“What?” Osman asked, peering at the section of his stats that the corgi was pointing at with one of his tiny, little paws.
“It says ‘Cursed Mana Core,’ chief. Which means you’re not JUST a dungeon core, but you’re CURSED as well!”
“But I already knew that!”
“Oh did you now, Mister Smarty-Pants?! Well … this is how the curse manifests itself. Sometimes your mana just … it just … leaks away.”
“Leaks away? Leaks away how?”
“I don’t know: it’s different for different dungeons. Have you experienced anything … anything odd lately?”
“This whole goddamned situation is odd!”
“Fair enough. But I meant, like, any odd … medical symptoms.”
And then Osman remembered it: the sneezing, which had happened quite suddenly, out of nowhere, like someone had triggered his cat allergy.
“Well, I did have a … a kind of … sneezing fit, earlier.”
“There you go!”
“You mean to tell me that I SNEEZED all my spare mana away?!”
“Seems like it, chief. Curses are weird like that sometimes.”
“What the fuck?! Did I have this curse-problem before? Like … did any of my past selves have it?”
“I thought we agreed that it was unwise for you to ask me about any of your past-lives stuff.”
“I know, I know … I know it’s not a good idea, but … THIS IS BAD!”
“It is bad. But not AS BAD as what you were just thinking, just before.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You thought I used up all your mana, right? And you were wondering if it was even worth it, summoning up someone as stubby as me in the first place.”
“I … I wasn’t thinking that at all!”
“Don’t lie. I know how you dungeon lords operate. Always counting and calculating your MP. Always so, SO secretive about it all. And selfish. Stingy! You’re a hoarder, just like dragons are hoarders. Well, you wanna taste a bit o’ the ‘Dragon’s Wrath’ now, biatch?! C’mon!”
“Whaaat?” the word popped out of Osman’s mouth as he tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the corgi’s statement.
But it was too late. Already, Plex was starting to shimmy around again like a serpent, standing on his hind legs and puffing out his chest and strutting back and forth in front of the dungeon lord. “I’m gonna SCORCH YOUR FLESH!!!” he roared.
It was actually a rather convincing roar and, coupled with that threat, prompted Osman to take a step back and shake his head: “You’re doing it again, Plex. You’re … ” but, before he could even finish his sentence, he … yawned. It was a great, big, grizzly bear yeeeaaawn, way too overwhelming for him to do anything else BUT yawn.
Awaaaaaaaahrrrrrrrrr …
He WAS getting extremely tired!
It must be The Hunger, Osman thought, it’s making me drowsy just like before!
The way that the dungeon lord yawned — the gaping maw of his mouth opening wide, not just a mere human’s mouth but the mouth of a HAWNGRY DUNGEON — snapped Plex out of his dragon reverie. His eyes flashed from huge, mesmerizing, yellow irises to soft, brown, bashful ones in an instant and he barked, a kind of tentative yelp, at the sight of his master. “Don’t fall asleep, chief,” the corgi warned, “You don’t wanna fall asleep right now!”
But Osman’s mind was already more than a little groggy. In fact, he was totally convinced that he should just sit down a second and try to think things through. Or, better yet, lay his head down o
n the cold stone floor and rest his eyes a little.
Yeah, that was it … maybe he just needed a nap or … He yawned again, even wider than before, beyond his control.
Plex barked, and barked and barked. But the barking didn’t deter Osman from easing himself down just beside the tiny mushroom patch and gazing at it, more than a little bit sad.
Had he done something wrong?
Had he already managed to mismanage his one and only resource?!