7.7 - An Impatient System
Theo felt oddly relieved that nobody had a solution for the negative dungeon by the time he went to bed. He got to enjoy a pleasant dinner in his manor and the company of his friends without worrying about that situation. He had the unfortunate pleasure of being taken to that dungeon Tresk had delved in the Dreamwalk, though. It was just as horrible as he had remembered from sifting through her thoughts. The landscape made no sense, and it was filled with strange monsters he had never seen before.
One interesting thing to note about the Negative Dungeon was just how random the monsters were. Not only did they not follow a theme, but individual monsters could have great variations between them. Theo took a rabbit-type monster from Tresk’s memory as an example. One version could fight against her, while the other could barely move. Even between those different differences, there was even more variation.
"This is pure randomness," Theo said, looking around and unable to link any two things together. "It's like the negative level confused the system and now it doesn't know what to generate."
“Right?” Tresk asked as she punted a rabbit. “I’d be laughing if it wasn’t so horrifying.”
High above lingered the form of Frank. It was more impressive than anything else within the Dreamwalk version of the Negative Dungeon. It sailed through unseen clouds, emitting a sonorous song. When it angled itself too close to the ground and emitted a massive blast of wind that nearly shook both Theo and Tresk from their feet. He couldn't say whether the monster was based on something in the real world, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to find out.
Tresk held her hand down, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. "I want to test something," she said.
Before Theo could command her to do otherwise, she had tossed the improvised explosive high into the air. It sailed far away from their position, perhaps driven by some imagination on her part. While the Dreamwalk had been picky lately, it was happy to simulate what would happen if Tresk threw a nuke at the giant whale. This time Theo was actually blown from his feet, tumbling onto the ground from the shockwave alone. The wide-open landscape gave no breaks to the force of the explosion.
"More warning next time," Theo said, dusting himself off as he stood.
But the whale didn't seem damaged at all. From his sense that spread through the Dreamwalk, Theo could tell that the monster had taken exactly no damage. He realized now that Tresk's assessment of the level ranges within the dungeon was wrong. This thing was likely far above level 100, and he would be surprised if it was anything less than level 1000.