“Greetings, dungeon.” A voice spoke into the dungeon mine space.


    The loops quickly analyzed the frequency patterns to determine if the speaker was known. “Greetings, Yrryth.” The loops replied.


    “Please spawn wooden shields.” Yrryth requested.


    “Confusion.” The loops said.


    “You spawned shields before. Bandits built strong defenses from shield parts. Yrryth want’s to build defenses to keep intruders out of the underworld.” Yrryth said.


    “Curiosity, shields?” The loops wondered. The System supplied a response.


    Treasure: Ironwood Shield. Description: A mid-sized shield constructed mainly of ironwood with leather grips. Very durable.


    So, the “shield” was one type of treasure. The loops discussed Yrryth’s request to spawn treasure again. Memories were quickly found where Violet had asked the dungeon to stop spawning treasure. A group scanned further ahead on those memory branches and pointed out that Violet had asked the dungeon to stop spawning treasure and to start spawning creatures for defense from “bandits”. Another group brought up memories about Violet asking the dungeon to spawn creatures and to stop spawning creatures. The dissatisfied loops pulled in these memories in order to discuss Violet’s inconsistencies.


    A few groups formed to discuss possible processes for selecting the correct action with regard to spawning creatures and treasure. The discussions suffered from a lack of important metrics to measure. The loops had altered their actions when Violet told them that ‘creature death’ was dangerous, but creature death was also a factor in the request to stop spawning creatures. One of the groups decided that the original request to stop spawning treasure was based on the concept of “defense” and this new request from Yrryth was also based on “defense”. The discussion continued for a while, but the tracking loops continued to place Yrryth’s location in the default speaking location.


    Eventually, a compromised was selected where treasure spawning would be active for only a set time period. After spawning was shut off again, the loops would analyze the results so they could inform future decisions.


    “Query: sufficient spawn time for shields?” The loops asked.


    “Yrryth need maybe one hundred shields.” Yrryth said.


    This detail was unexpected. The loops reviewed memories of spawning treasure and of spawning creatures but found nothing related to spawning specific counts of things. A subgroup suggested that the process appeared straightforward.


    “Desire: Spawn 100 treasure (Ironwood shield).” The loops prompted the System.


    Mental energy drained into the dungeon spawning instincts for a few moments. When the loops felt that the spawning was “done”, they requested confirmation. “Query: shield spawn success?” They asked Yrryth.


    There was a delay before Yrryth’s response. “Yrryth see only a few shields. The shields are scattered. Yrryth is dissatisfied.” Yrryth said. “Please spawn the shields in the underworld cavern under the main worldlet.” Yrryth requested.


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    The loops discussed the possibility of fulfilling this request. The loops were mostly certain about which locations were in the main worldlet underworld, but it wasn’t clear if spawning a specific number of items had succeeded. “Unknown process.” The loops reported. “Potential failure.” They warned.


    “Never mind.” Yrryth said. The tracking loops reported that Yrryth moved away from the speaking location.


    The loops continued to discuss treasure spawning and creature spawning. The loops attempted to spawn specific treasure a few more times. Since the treasure spawning had no clear side effects, the loops attempted to spawn one hundred creatures. A spike in ‘creature death’ had the majority of loops pushing to halt all experiments until a greater understanding was reached. A subgroup of the minority argued that greater understanding would be reached more quickly through experimentation. The discussion was interrupted by the return of Violet.


    “Why did you spawn those creatures?” He said.


    “Experiment.” The loops said. The dissatisfied group hypothesized that Violet would cease playing hide-and-seek due to his disagreement with spawning creatures.


    “What did you learn from the experiment?” Violet asked.


    The dissatisfied group lost a few members as loops reviewed memories of the spawning and discussion in order to report. “Unknown. Spawn treasure, no effect. Contradiction: spawn creatures defense, spawn creatures death.” The loops reported the main findings from the experiment. “Correlation unclear.” They said.


    “I think I can help.” Violet said. “There are multiple causes for creature death. Some of the creatures are predatory and will hunt and kill other creatures for food. Dungeon creatures can survive on your mana instead of food, but their instincts still drive them to eat. This is normal, and I say it is not a problem you should worry about too much.” He said.


    “Query: too much?” The loops asked.


    “I don’t know exactly how much you should worry. A small, consistent amount of creature death is probably a sign that everything is normal.” Violet said. The dissatisfied group protested this comment and broadcast contradictions. Violet continued without hearing them. “Another cause of creature death is the worldlet each one spawns into. For example, the dark worldlet has very little ground, so most spawned creatures fall off and die. Ah, that might be confusing, but a better example is the blizzards worldlet–there is no mana in the air in there, for some reason, and the vine fruit don’t spawn anything. If any creature goes into the blizzard worldlet, they will likely die. I would die if I went in there.” He said.


    “Confusion.” The loops said.


    “The blizzard worldlet confuses me too.” Violet said. “I can’t explain why it is the way it is. Now that I think about it some more, that wasn’t a great example either. Ok, the lava worldlet is too hot for most creatures. The vine in that worldlet has mutated to be made of ice, but the area near the vines is too cold for some creatures, so there are two ways creatures can die in that worldlet if they are not a good fit. Anyway, creature death from being incompatible with the worldlet is not good. When you learn to control your creature spawning better, you will be able avoid most of that, I think.” He said.


    The loops were shocked by this comment. A group formed that expressed dissatisfaction with the loops themselves. That group reviewed memories of high creature death and connected it with Violet’s requests to stop spawning creatures. The loops dissatisfied with the loops suggested that the loops were the root cause of all creature death.


    “The most dangerous cause of creature death is the actions of intruders, like the bandits.” Violet continued, apparently unaware of the new discussions. “They, um, kill dungeon creatures for experience and for useful materials taken from the dead creature’s body. That part isn’t… well, I guess I should let you make up your own mind about how bad that is. Um. Sorry, I’m not explaining this well.” He said. The dissatisfied loops agreed with Violet’s last statement.


    With the influx of new information from Violet, the loops had much to discuss, but there was a question from the loops that focused on discussing the nature of loops. “Query: dungeon purpose?” They asked.