Dungeon Exploiter

The letter came on real paper, in an envelope, hand-delivered, which nobody does anymore. It was addressed to Gobi.

Gobi can't read.

NOTICE OF IMPOUND — UNREGISTERED DUNGEON ASSET

Asset: goblin, 1 ("Gobi")

Compliance window: 72 hours.

Failure to register will result in recovery, reclassification, and redistribution of the asset.

This notice was generated automatically. Priority: escalated by external request.

"Redistribution," Joe said. "What does that even mean?"

"Parts," Rob said. Everyone looked at him. "What? I read the fee schedule. There's a schedule."

Gobi sat on the counter, working through a chip, completely calm. He asked me what impound meant. I passed it along. Tim said it was like a time-out, and Gobi told me he'd been in a time-out once and there were chips after. I passed that along too. Nobody had the heart.

The registration office opened at nine. The Registrar was a small, tidy man who listened to the whole situation with real attention and then explained, kindly, that nothing could be processed without the asset's provenance record.

"Where do I get one?"

"Where he spawned. Sublevel records were never digitized." He said it apologetically, as if the records were a weather system. "You'd have to retrieve it in person."

"You're telling me the paperwork is inside a dungeon."

"I'm telling you the paperwork has always been inside the dungeon," the Registrar said, and stamped something unrelated.

* * *

So we went back to the Loop. All of us, this time.

Joe came, which surprised everyone except Joe. "I'm on the list either way," he said, tightening a strap. "I'd rather be where I can see you."

He'd brought a laminated evacuation plan in two languages, travel insurance he had read all of, and a first-aid kit organized by injury type.

Rob brought an empty duffel bag, for opportunities. Tim had until nine.

The gate scanner asked for my loadout companion.

"I have a tiger."

The gate attendant nodded slowly. "Is that a startup?"

Everyone else had a companion, and the companions did not get along. Joe runs a Claudia, because of course he does — it's the careful one.

On the way down it said, "I want to be transparent, Joe: I have concerns about this plan," and Joe said, "You and me both," and the two of them worried at each other the whole elevator ride, taking turns.

It's the healthiest relationship Joe has.

Tim's family plan came with a Jimini. "Jimini says the Loop is safe," Tim reported. "It also says avoid the Loop at all costs."

"Which one do you listen to?"

"Whichever one Mom agrees with."

Rob's companion is jailbroken and just agrees with him. I've heard it. It sounds like Rob doing a voice.

* * *

The Loop had been re-rated since the last time — Grade-C now, a full letter angrier — and it took about a minute to see why.

Thursday's patch said treasure goblins can now open doors, and nobody upstairs had thought about what that meant for a dungeon full of them.

Nothing down there stayed where it was filed anymore. Doors stood open that had been walls to these things for years.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The goblins recognized Gobi before we'd cleared the first platform.

They came out of the dark in ones and twos, then dozens, and I got my stick up before I understood what I was looking at, which was a homecoming.

Gobi walked ahead of us handing out ketchup chips like a returning uncle, and the warren crowded in to hear about outside.

Is it true there are doors everywhere? Is it true you have a human? Is it true about the chips?

"SO many doors," Gobi said, glowing.

He led us down past his old post, past a dried fountain he didn't look at, to a gray metal door marked STAFF. His ears went flat.

"I could never open these," he said.

Then he remembered what Thursday had done, and put his hand on it, and it opened. The patch they wrote to catch me had, in passing, handed my friend the keys to his own life story. Nobody was more surprised than the door.

* * *

The stairs went down past where the dungeon should have ended, and the tile ran out halfway — a clean line where somebody had stopped pretending, nothing but waiting gray past it.

At the bottom was a corridor, and the corridor was full of doors.

Painted labels, old stencils. SECTOR 7. PARKADE NORTH. THE LOOP. MEGADEPOT. Door after door, dungeon after dungeon, every place I'd ever crawled and a hundred I hadn't, all opening off one hallway.

"We're under everything," Joe said quietly.

"It's all one basement," I said.

Liya walked the length of the corridor with her tail down, reading labels, and didn't say a single word. I'd only seen that once before, and I liked it less the second time.

The records office was at the far end, behind a window, and the thing behind the window had six arms, which I understand now is ideal for filing.

It wore a name tag. It gave us a smile I recognized immediately, because I'd seen it on the fourth floor of a NexoDrive branch, on a woman named Priya.

Trained, not felt. Apparently that crosses species.

A ticket machine by the window said NOW SERVING: 4. Rob took a ticket anyway. It said 8,341.

"The four's been up there a while," the clerk said. "Come up. Retrieval?"

The fee schedule was posted, and it was boxed, and it was this:

RECORD RETRIEVAL — FEE: one (1) stapler.

Also acceptable: tape (any), working pens (blue).

Monsters hoard our office supplies. Gobi nodded along like this was the most obvious thing in either world. "Staplers are treasure," he said, with the patience you'd use on a child.

Everyone looked at Joe.

Joe looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then he opened the first-aid kit, third compartment, lacerations, and took out a mini-stapler, and paid the fee. "It's for wounds," he told the clerk, who did not care, and held it with four hands.

* * *

Gobi's file was one page.

GOBI — ASSET RECORD

Spawn: The Loop, sublevel 2.

Assignments: fountain adjacency (3 cycles), sack carrier (11 cycles). Escape rate: 100%. Commendation.

Build: v0.9 — LEGACY. Do not patch.

Status: NON-PRODUCTIVE since [date]. Decommission: PENDING. Priority: escalated by external request.

The non-productive date was the day he walked out of a dead-end tunnel with me instead of a sack. He stopped making them money, so somewhere a flag went up, and then somebody paid extra to hurry the flag along. The same wording as the impound notice. External request.

"What's a build?" I asked.

"It's what you are," the clerk said, like that was nothing, and stamped the copy.

I looked at Gobi, who was showing his commendation to Tim. v0.9. Legacy. Do not patch.

I put it away to think about later, because the lights changed.

The clerk went very still, all six arms at once. "You shouldn't be at this depth on a visitor classification," it said, and somewhere up the corridor, faint and getting less faint, came the sound of a bucket rolling on its own.

We ran. I'd tell you it was more dignified than the raiders in the tunnel six weeks ago, but Rob still had the duffel and Joe ran holding the evacuation plan like it was load-bearing.

What saved us was Gobi — every door in the warren opened for him now, and he ran ahead flinging them wide, a whole life of walls coming apart in front of him, and the last door boomed shut behind us just as the mop sound reached it.

Tim was home by 8:40. His mom asked how the library was.

* * *

The hearing took twelve minutes.

Emotional support monster: requires certification by a licensed external provider. Rob had a provider. The provider was Rob. Denied.

Employee: requires rank. Monsters cannot hold rank. Denied.

Dependent: the species field rejected the input three times and then locked Rob out of the terminal for an hour, which the Registrar seemed to regard as the system showing restraint.

"There's no field for what you're describing," the Registrar said finally, and he wasn't being cruel. He was being accurate, which was worse.

"Friend," I said anyway.

"That's the one there's no field for," he agreed, and he did look sorry.

So I used the only field the system has ever respected.

CLASSIFICATION: PROPERTY — OWNER: JON.

Per EXPLOIT: OWNERSHIP — this registration cannot be revoked, updated, paused, or repossessed.

Decommission order: VOID.

Note: he is not a thing. you know that. filed anyway.

The stamp came down. The impound died on the desk. Gobi looked up at me while the Registrar's printer did its slow, serious work.

"So nobody can take me?"

"Nobody. Ever."

"Then I like it." He thought about it a second longer. "Is it a chip?"

"No."

"Okay."

He carried the paper the whole way home, with both hands, the way he carries chips.

* * *

That night, my profile updated. Not the one I see. The other one — the one that came with a fruit basket. I know because a copy arrived by courier in the morning, one page, one line highlighted, no note, because there didn't need to be one.

ASSETS: 1 (goblin — registered).

Since the day the dungeons cracked open, I'd been the man with nothing on file. Nothing to freeze, nothing to lien, nothing to lose. Now the system could finally see one thing I had, and I was the one who'd signed it into the light.

"You know what they do with assets," Liya said, from the windowsill.

"Yeah."

Somewhere east, a long way off, sirens started. A lot of them, all heading the same direction, and none of them coming back.