Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

The guards stared at the dust-covered Thomas and the hole he'd dug through the wall. Thomas glanced over his shoulder at the short tunnel and smiled, "What? I thought I'd found something in there. Turns out I did."

He looked up at the darkening sky and smiled to himself, "Workday is over. I'm going to get some sleep. Let Yorik know that I'm heading into the dungeon tomorrow. I also plan to stay inside of it for forty-eight hours straight."

Several of the guards gave Thomas odd looks at his declaration. Going into the dungeon for the day was one thing, but staying overnight? No one had done that in their whole group. The dungeon wasn't safe so sleep inside of. The only safe spot was the first room on the floor. Monsters could spawn or respawn in any other room, after a time. Trying to sleep in any room but the safe room would be a good way to get surprise attacked. If sleep wasn't planned then was he going to stay awake for the full forty-eight hours?

Thomas did, in fact, intend to stay awake for the full forty-eight hours. Maybe take a nap if necessary but it wouldn't be the first time he'd stayed awake for an extended amount of time. His personal best was one hundred and one hours, or just over four full days. Two wouldn't be much of an issue and would give him a lot of time to not only create and experiment with gear for his escape but to also allow him to gain some experience to increase his odds. Depending on how much he could get done and how successful his experiments were, he just might be able to break out after getting some rest.

Thomas cleaned up his workspace and stored away the special items and materials he planned to take down into the dungeon. He was on the fence about moving on to running into the dungeon before checking out the new ore, he just felt that he had to hurry. It had been nearly a month since he'd seen Snowlily. His plan, weak as it was, had been successful so far. The guards barely paid him any attention and his trips into the dungeon were completely unsupervised. He'd even confirmed that the growth of the pirates was slower than his own because they needed to team up to take on tougher opponents that he could solo with his gear.

With everything cleaned up and a few extra goodies sneakily dropped into his storage space, it was time for him to get some sleep in preparation for the next two days.

The next morning he enjoyed a well-made breakfast from Mr. Pancake before being led back to the entrance of the dungeon by his guards. He'd been strictly warned by Yorik that if he didn't come out within the forty-eight-hour limit that Snowlily would pay. Thomas didn't take kindly to the threat to Snowlily and planned to make sure all of the pirates paid for it, soon. When they arrived at the dungeon entrance, Thomas immediately used the teleportation circle to head to the third floor where the experience rich trolls were located.

Thomas quickly left the saferoom while drawing out his Spell Cannon and loading in the Fire Arrow shell. Mana flowed from his hand causing the amplification and compression rings to whir to life and emit soft lights. As he stepped into the first room the trolls barely managed to roar before three sounds of popping echoed out of the Spell Cannon and blew their heads clear off. As their bodies dropped and disintegrated, he conjured up some thin wires made of metal from his fingertips and snatched up the mana crystals to store them away.

Without stopping he moved onto the next room and repeated the process of shooting the Trolls to death and collecting their mana crystals. Right now he wasn't down here for fun. It was all about efficiency and getting as much experience as he could as fast as he could. The Spell Cannon was the most efficient way he could dispose of the trolls using one of their weaknesses. He was glad he'd designed the shells for the Spell Cannon to not only run off their internal supply of mana but also mana provided by him. He didn't have to stop one-shotting the Trolls until he ran low on mana. That wouldn't be for quite a while.

Room after room was cleared with brutal efficiency. He barely stopped moving as he just randomly wandered through the hallways of the dungeon. The only time he wasted was walking and occasionally backtracking when he reached a dead end. Otherwise, every time he stepped into a room Trolls died and he gained more experience. He was focused, lethal, and eventually ran low on mana and needed to stop to check over his gains. He was looking forward to the results of his three-hour-long slaughterfest of the Trolls.