Collide Gamer

There were only two Category choices on the Monster Table of the Create I.D. Skill for the Siege variety of Dungeon: Dwarf and Futuristic. Since John had not been in either Dungeon in many Tiers, he could not even begin to guess which unique difficulties would greet him in either encounter. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡•𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮•𝕟𝕖𝕥

On a whim, he went with dwarves. He simply was in a high fantasy mood over a sci-fi one.

The darkness of the Gate of Light that he had stepped through to enter a lower level of the Intermediary Barrier was replaced with the moisture-covered walls of a dank canalisation system. Huge blocks of black stone combined to form a corridor that had, no doubt, been perfectly straight when it had been built. Age and outside pressures had since moved everything just slightly out of position, enough to give it an ancient look without diminishing the integrity of the structure.

There was a very obvious gold inlay that marked where John’s safe starting zone ended. A quick look around identified a staircase upwards. Moonlight, howling wind and the crisp scent of winter made clear that this was the path outside.

‘Maybe I should have taken an extra body along,’ John thought, looking at the path ahead and then the staircase. The Dungeon was giving him a choice of approach. With only one body, he could not scout out both. ‘Technically it said only me, but I decided to take that as really only me… Well, Gaia will have scaled things appropriately.’

Creatures in Instant Dungeons were scaled with the people that John brought along. The patch that had changed that had been implemented back during the tournament for the crown of Rex Germaniae. Like all scaling, it was flawed. It generally increased the power of the enemies, but could not account properly for the increase in versatility that a larger group brought.

Having the Creator Puppet around would have given John access to way higher physical power, which he was now going to have to do without.

‘Nothing wrong with a challenge,’ he thought to himself and considered his next move. ‘Underground or overground?’

The objective of a Siege Dungeon was to reach an innermost area and touch some kind object of import, typically a throne. To that end, it might as well have been called an Infiltration Dungeon, especially when he was operating alone.

Infiltration wasn’t John’s specialty, but he was surprisingly well equipped for it. He had access to the mother of all stealth game tools – short range teleportation. Actually, his wasn’t even that short range. Magus Step covered 20 metres and Skitterstep, the enchantment on his shoes that allowed him to add a second teleport whenever he did use that kind of movement, added another 2 to that. Through Skitterstep, he also had access to short-term invisibility. His elemental senses allowed him to use Magus Step to go through walls as well.

By any objective measure, if he treaded lightly, he could be a very successful thief.

‘A Dungeon at this level would account for that though.’ John rubbed his chin, still contemplating. ‘Still, what do I consider more likely, that I can batter my way into a dwarf fortress or infiltrate it?’

The answer was the latter, so he decided to step into the corridor.

The moment he was out of the safe area, wrought-iron spikes shot out of the walls, barring his way back. John didn’t even try to teleport back there. At best he would annoy Gaia and at worst he would softlock himself and need to reset the Dungeon.

Careful steps carried him forward. It was difficult not to make sound on the smooth ground. As a beginning help, the flowing of the sewage water masked his clumsier steps. The water that drifted by was entirely clear, so calling it sewage was likely inaccurate. Overflow was perhaps the better word? Scenery was definitely the right one.

John saw the first corner coming up and pressed himself against the wall. He focused on his elemental senses. There was a thrumming in the air that he could soon identify as coming from a humanoid shape. A stunty one, built like a barrel of a man. The vibrations in the air were that of a magical mechanism.

‘A golem of some kind?’ John thought and licked his lips. There was a chance here. He hadn’t used this aspect of his powers in a while, but the potential had always been there. ‘This Dungeon is balanced for me alone, so it must be possible.’

Taking a deep breath, John turned around. He faced the wall. He raised his hands to about the height of his lower ribs. Then, he pulled the trigger on Magus Step. His hands immediately pushed down on both sides of the entity he was now in front of.

Observe and Possession shot off one after the other. The Mithril Golem went from the beginnings of aggression to immediate placidity. John felt a connection to the monster of white metal. It was something between the direct control he had through regular Possession and the connections he had with his Artificial Spirits.

Important was that he had succeeded in putting the monster under his thrall. He retreated with it back behind the corner before anything else could surprise him with its presence. ‘I have 8 Possession Slots left,’ he thought. ‘So, I can get a second one, if need be, good to know.’

The Gamer put his right hand on the head of the golem, then pulled. The back of his hand glinted silver and showed dark blue swirls. It was a visual manifestation of Carn, Starforger’s Grasp, getting used. Usually the Augment was dormant on John’s arm. Right now, he had some use for its enchantments.

Starforger’s Hand allowed him to pull out and physically interact with the magical matrixes of items. It was a rarely used ability. Hailey managed something similar with her ability to dis- and reassemble items and she made much better use of it. Lorelei could see these things innately.

All of that was a matter of speciality. John was not a crafter. He was, however, quite learned on the matter of golems, Artificial Spirits and Metracanas. Previous Class Challenges had demanded he learn as much about their magical matrices as he could. Knowledge that now served him to identify what the arcs of blue light before him were useful for.

Compared to his familiars, the golem’s programming was borderline crude. It had a patrol, attack, and alarm function. Anything beyond that was just filler code to allow it to have some response in unexpected situations.

John did not manipulate any of the code before him. He only scanned it to understand the tools in his toolbox. Another Attribute of Carn was the Ranged Reprogram, which allowed him to mess with golems or other non-sapient magical constructs from up to 100 metres away. It wasn’t stealthy and its effectiveness was greatly decreased by range, but if he knew what security gaps to exploit, he might be able to make swift, small adjustments in a hurry.

‘Now, the real question is if the golem is identified as friend or foe by the other monsters.’

The Mithril Golem was sent ahead, with John not so close behind. A new enemy approached quickly, a singular patrolling golem that did not react to the presence of its dominated kin at all.

‘Perfect,’ John thought and moved into position. Once he was certain there was no second enemy obstructing his plan, he sprung it. His puppet golem grabbed the monster of the dungeon and kept it locked down, while John moved close to use Ranged Reprogram to disable the alarm protocol.

Dismantling the creature afterwards was easy. John had an exact copy of it to keep it occupied while he used Mana Chains and Arc Lances to destroy it. Once that was done, he had another choice of pathing.

There was a sloped corridor that led upwards and the canalisation that continued on ahead. This time, John decided to take the path upwards. He wanted to see what he was dealing with in more detail.

A couple more dispatched golems later, he was at a window. There was no glass separating the inside from the outside. In typical dwarven fashion, the vantage points were located between pillars carved right from the stone. Looking outward to the landscape presented John with the lay of the land.

It was a mountaintop. Four large spires surrounded a massive one. All of them had been adjusted with dwarven architecture. Sides of the mountains had been molded into towers and balconies. Lights shone from within the mountain, dotting the sides of the black rocks with the gentle orange of torch flame.

It was a pretty sight.

‘My goal is no doubt up there,’ John thought and beheld the central spire. He was in one of the surrounding ones. Between him and that central mountain was about a kilometre of craggy, ice-covered land. Dwarven patrols and outposts littered the space. He could try to make a mad dash for it, but he wouldn’t. He was in no rush. His other two bodies were currently busy sorting through schedules, a task that would take quite a while longer.

‘Methodical suits me much better,’ John thought and retreated back underground. Now that he knew what direction he had to head in, he adjusted the three-dimensional map he was always building in his mind accordingly. ‘I remember when I had insufficient brainpower and had to take paper with me to make these maps.’

Navigation was soon made even easier as John realized the water flow always went away from the central mountain. Gaia did have some environmental story telling skills, he had to give her that.

By the time he reached the main mountain, his Mithril Golem had been worn down by the constant clashes with its kin. ‘Time to upgrade to a new model.’ John thought, discarding his current golem the moment he came across the next one. The Possession process was uncomplicated and so was the advance from that point.

It was not that the Dungeon did not try to make it difficult, it very much did. Lonely patrols were gradually replaced with two or three monsters working in tandem to create ever more trickier puzzles of dead angles and distractions. The issue with the Dungeon was that John was very good at it. Because the Dungeon’s fundamental design was to be beatable, his skillset definitionally had to be enough to get through, as long as he applied it properly.

The greatest difficulty spike was when actual dwarves started appearing on the field. They would suss out the possessed Mithril Golems when they saw them, which made everything a bit trickier. Fundamentally, as long as John did not let the alarm bells ring, this remained a room to room puzzle though.

‘Divide and infiltrate,’ he thought.

After about thirty minutes of abusing Possession and Magus Step, he reached the throne room.

It was a long hall with a huge crystal seat at the end of it. Worrisome were the two gargantuan golems flanking it. Since this was a Siege Dungeon, though, he did not have to fight them. A chain of 5 Magus Steps was all it took for him to put a hand on the throne. A window popped up a moment later, marking the Dungeon as cleared.

The space around him unravelled, leaving him back in the darkness behind the Gate of Light. He stepped towards that rectangle of glowing white and stepped on through back into the Intermediary Barrier, stretching as he went.

“That was a fun excursion,” he said to himself.