《Deep Delve》


 Down the rabbit hole... Chapter 1

    Kevin panted, his breath showing sharp white puffs in the cold air of the warehouse. "Pick twelve" he spoke into his headset, as he stepped onto the platform of the powered pallet jack, and paused to listen for the response. He glanced at the two pallets behind his jack, each one stacked neatly, reaching just over five feet in height, various boxes and bags carefully slotted together, creating a (hopefully) stable cube. His evaluation of his stacks was interrupted by the soft voice over his headset "Trip complete, one hundred and eighteen picks, time allotted twenty-two minutes and forty-seven seconds, trip time nineteen minutes and two seconds, efficiency one hundred nineteen point seven percent". "Thanks, Marilyn" Kevin grinned. He''d always thought the electronic voice, which represented the vast majority of his human contact throughout the day, sounded like a Marilyn.


    His breathing slowing to a more regular pace, he pressed the button that raised the pallets, the wood creaking a bit, and then twisted the handle of the pallet jack down, his eyes glancing backward watching his stacks as the jack jerked a bit as it started to move. Many were the newbies or the hasty who dropped a stack and had to restack the damn thing, and he took pride in the fact that his rarely fell. ''Engineering degree was good for something after all'' he thought, with more than a touch of bitterness. ''Or all those hours spent playing Tetris as a kid'' he concluded, making a mental effort to not dwell on his degree, and his lack of employment in that field.


    Arriving at the elevator, he hopped off his jack, and yanked the gate up, a full-blown grin on his face. The elevator was on his floor, and empty, which was an epic win in his book, as waiting for the elevators was just a time sink. Pulling into the elevator, he lowered the jack so the pallets rested on the floor, and hit the button for the ground floor. As the freight elevator slowly descended, he grabbed the roll of shrink wrap off his jack and quickly wrapped a layer of it around the top layers of the pallets. It wasn''t that he didn''t trust his stacks, but safe rather than sorry was the name of game, especially if he had the time, and being the only jack in the elevator, the space to do so. The elevator dropped all the way down to the ground floor without interruption, and as the doors opened, he raised his jack, and rolled out of the elevator, to the glorious sight and sound of... nothing.


    Kevin''s smile widened. He knew he was a bit odd, but he loved nailing one of the last trips. "Next trip." he said into his microphone. "No trips available, all trips complete," said the computer-generated voice, "Total trips complete forty-three, total trip time allotted eight hundred twenty-four minutes and twelve seconds, actual trip time six hundred seventy-one minutes and forty-eight seconds, efficiency percentage one hundred twenty-two point six". Kevin wiggled his hips and shuffled his feet in what he privately thought of as his ''Victory'' dance, despite several his coworkers having repeatedly informed him that he appeared to be having some sort of seizure whenever he performed it. His shift was basically over, as was his work week, and his average efficiency was sitting at just over one hundred and nineteen percent for the week. He carefully guided his pallets into the automated pallet wrapping machine, and then parked the jack alongside the others, plugging it in, and giving it an affectionate pat. "That''ll do girl, that''ll do," he muttered to his jack he walked over to the time clock and swiped his badge through. Walking forward, he opened the heavy, insulated door that lead to the locker room. He was already stripping off the heavy jacket and stocking cap that kept him from freezing his ass off in the subzero temperatures of the warehouse. Opening his locker, he pulled out his jacket, gloves, pants and tank bag, and replaced them with his stocking cap, gloves, work jacket, overalls, and work boots.


    ''Boots, pants, and jacket first, pants over boots is the worst'' he mentally chanted. Grabbing his helmet from the top of his locker, and his tank bag from the bench, he left the locker room and wandered down the hallway that housed the few offices in the building and then bounded out the doors to the clear, cloudless sky and the bright midday sun. Giving a head nod and a grin to Mike, the security guard, he walked around the corner of the offices to the parking lot, his tank bag and gloves under his arm as he put on his helmet. Slapping the tank bag down, he gave it a tug, making sure the magnets had found solid purchase. Pulling on his gloves, he thumbed the ignition and as the inline-four purred to life, flipped down his visor and started to sing.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert Swarenson was normally a busy man. Today, as he stared at his screen, one hand guiding his mouse as he scrolled through an email without really reading it, and the other absently straightening his tie, he realized that he was actually past the point of being a busy, tired man, and well into the initial stages of exhaustion. The past two months had been the most stressful, exhilarating and rewarding of his life. He leaned back in his chair, giving up on his email as a lost cause, and ran a hand through his hair. He was certain he had seen gray at his temples this morning, and at thirty-seven, he was equally certain that the cause was entirely stress. Robert stretched, rolling his neck to a few disconcerting cracks, and glanced at the smaller monitor on his desk, which held his calendar and showed he had one more appointment today. He reached for his water bottle and took a long drink before sighing. This was it. Not the interview, that was more of an odd curiosity than anything else. No, this was the last day before launch and his much needed two-week vacation.


    Robert was, his neat appearance to the contrary, a programmer, working for New Realities Corp, a small gaming studio that had come up with a few innovative ideas, and had quietly found a number of venture capitalists who had made their fortunes in the dot.com boom, and were willing to put up the money to have the studio produce their masterpiece. Deep Delve. Robert''s thoughts strayed. Nothing new, from a technology standpoint, as immersive VR had been available for almost a decade. Well, available for a decade, and affordable for almost everyone for the past two years. There were a lot of people who mostly understood how it worked, and those who developed the technology understood their parts of it, but only the original five-man design team really grasped the entire picture.


    But, as was said, "What is at first the work of a genius is thereafter the work of a tinsmith", to be followed by "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The general populace didn''t know how it worked and didn''t care. It was enough that it did. You lay down (sitting wasn''t recommended), put on the VR helmet, strapped it in place, and turned it on. Seconds later your vision was filled with a rather ordinary two-dimensional interface, you then selected the program to launch and entered the new reality. There, depending entirely on the skill of the programmers, everything looked, felt, sounded, smelt and tasted as real as the couch you were laying on. Through some sort of technological wizardry, the helmet was able to provide and receive information directly from the user''s mind. It was widely regarded as the most important advancement since the microchip. Already it had changed the world. Last year MIT had launched its now wildly accoladed VR classrooms, and earlier this year one of their doctoral candidates who had opted to complete his research in VR had made a truly revolutionary breakthrough in hydrodynamics.


    ''Most importantly'' Robert mused as his thoughts drifted exhaustedly ''It made Deep Delve possible''. He was pulled from his thoughts as his phone buzzed, and the receptionist he shared with the other programming leads announced: "Mr. Claypool has arrived for his interview Mr. Swarenson". Glancing reflexively at the corner of his screen, he saw that is was eight minutes till four pm. He pressed the intercom button and said "Send him in please.", as he stood, walking around the desk and preparing to greet his last, and oddest potential employee. His eyebrows rose as Glenda, the normally unflappable receptionist opened the door with an expression of... distaste? Disapproval? His curiosity as to what might have disquieted her was soon satisfied, as Mr. Claypool walked through the door.


    Robert couldn''t help the grin that started to stretch across his face as he looked over the young man walking into his modern, elegant, and undeniably corporate office. He was tall, probably about Robert''s own six foot two inches, and broad across the shoulders. What had no doubt shocked Glenda, was the armored jacket, pants, and boots he was wearing. What she thought about the sleek full-face helmet he carried in his left hand was probably best left unsaid. In short, his attire was entirely inappropriate for this most professional and corporate of environments. Either unaware or unconcerned with his choice of attire, his interviewee strode in and grasped his hand in a firm handshake. "Mr. Swarenson, I''m Kevin Claypool". ''Yep, not a corporate mentality'' Robert thought as he shook his hand and gestured to the pair of seats in front of his desk.


    Smiling, Kevin didn''t hesitate to drop his helmet in one chair and strip off his jacket before dropping it atop the helmet and sitting down with a thump. Robert walked around his desk, taking his time, and frankly taking in the man before him. Dull brown hair kept short all round spoke of practicality, which seemed at odds with having ridden a motorcycle to an interview in what he must have known would be a formal corporate setting. Light blue eyes conveyed mirth as full lips grinned, showing a smile that while white and clean, had incisors that were just a bit twisted, and slightly uneven gaps here and there, showing that while he could have benefited from an orthodontist, he''d clearly never had braces. Add in the sharp white scar over his right eye, and the dimple under and to the side of his left as he grinned broadly, and you had a man that wasn''t really handsome, but instead seemed... engaging.


    Robert took his seat, attempting, and failing to contain his grin as he motioned to Kevin''s jacket and helmet "How as your ride in?". Kevin replied "Any day on the bike is a good day", to which Robert replied, "As long as you keep it shiny side up". Kevin''s grin threatened to split his face as he leaned forward slightly, "What do you ride?", at this Robert chuckled "We can smell our own can''t we?". Reaching forward he clicked his mouse and closed his window before spinning the monitor to face Kevin, showing him his wallpaper, which was a picture of Robert standing next to his bike, overlooking what could only be the Grand Canyon. Kevin leaned further forward, his eyes widening slightly as he spoke "Is that... a Victory Vision?". Robert nodded, as he swung the monitor back around "It is indeed, and I''m looking forward to a ride this evening". Clearing his throat, Robert brought the conversation back on track.


    "So, I know the position we posted was only vaguely described," Robert stated, getting down to business. "Yeah, I was more than a little surprised at the complete lack of any real details," Kevin said. Robert straightened his tie and leaned back in his chair, letting out a bit of a sigh before saying "Well, in the normal course of events you would have received more information." Kevin nodded. "However," Robert continued "the fact of the matter is, that what you responded to was a general posting from eight years ago that HR somehow glitched back up onto the website." He paused looking for Kevin''s reaction, which seemed to be an expression of puzzlement. "Normally, your response would have just sat in the ether, as it were, lost and unnoticed." Robert took a deep breath "But, during our final round of hiring for programmers/developers, the algorithm HR uses to weed out the dross flagged your response, and sent it up the line." He sat up straight and grabbed his mouse, pulling up Kevin''s application and resume. "Had ''Up the line'' meant HR, it probably would have stopped there, but the decision was made to have these final positions interviewed and filled by the leads directly, and so you landed on my desk, and here we are."


    Kevin nodded and spoke "Alright, so I''m not even supposed to be here today" he quoted his grin still present. Robert couldn''t help but chuckle at the old quote. "Indeed, we are looking for developers who have a top-down experience set with a programming background."


    Robert glanced at his screen "Your degree in Material Engineering and... Philosophy isn''t exactly inside the criteria," he continued "and I have to ask... Philosophy?". Kevin took a breath and responded, "Yep, I always liked building things, ever since I was a kid, which is where the engineering came from, but my father was a pastor, and my mother is a psychiatrist, so I also grew up with both of my parents giving me conflicting answers to the big questions in life". Robert nodded as if this was new information. It wasn''t. He had more than just the kids resume on his screen, he had his whole life story. But Kevin didn''t need to know that. Kevin went on, giving what Robert could tell was clearly a response he''d given many times before "It was only another thirty credit hours to wrap up Philosophy along the way, so I just sort of did it." Robert winked as he said, "Get that question a lot eh?". Kevin blew out a breath still grinning "You wouldn''t believe". "Well," Robert went on "we will get to your degrees later, as it was actually your alpha testing of ''Altered Phantasy'' that triggered the algorithm.". Kevin blinked, his grin still present, but now a bit of confusion and asked "Altered Phantasy? That was almost a decade ago, I was just starting high school...". Robert nodded "Indeed, and the game went bust after less than a year, but," he raised a finger "The developer you reported to, David Reese, was one of the first programmers hired by New Realities, and he brought his all his IP along with him."


    Robert stood and walked around his desk, sitting on the edge to remove the perceived obstacle. He looked down at Kevin, who leaned back a bit and looked up at Robert, likely unaware of Robert''s deliberate change in the conversation dynamics. "I spoke to Albert Kolatosky last week, and do you know what he had to say about you?" Robert asked. Kevin blinked hard, his smile faltering for the first time. "You talked to my boss''s boss?". "I did," Robert responded, "and you may not know it, but he''s a fan of yours." Kevin''s grin started to return as he said: "I didn''t even know he knew my name." Robert nodded as he chuckled "He does indeed, he said and this is a direct quote ''Extraordinary young man, the best employee I''ve ever had'', he then mentioned something about one hundred and twenty percent every day, which I don''t really get, but he seemed to find it impressive." Kevin nodded and interjected, "Yeah, it''s kinda neat, you know what I do right?". Robert shook his head and replied, "Kevin, I only know where you work because it was part of your contact information when reached out to verify your degrees."Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Kevin considered that for a second. "Yeah, I started there straight out of high school before I enrolled... Man, I''ve been working there for almost seven years." Robert nodded, grinning and asked, "So, what work do you perform for the Evil Empire?". Kevin groaned and shook his head "Man I swear everyone hates Walmart," he continued "I work at a central distribution warehouse." Kevin shrugged, expounding "I drive a pallet jack down aisles, loading up pallets with whatever the computer tells me to, and it then gets shipped to the store. Walmart calls it a ''Logistics and Loading Expert'', but the reality is it''s just grunt work." Robert nodded, not saying anything. He knew all this already, but he wanted to see what light the kid cast on himself, and how he described himself. Kevin went on, warming to his topic "Basically you have a set amount of time to load your pallets and complete your ''trip''. You need to sit between ninety-five and one-hundred percent of the time allocated, but if you work harder, you can finish more quickly, and you get paid a bonus equal to your percentage over one hundred." Robert continued to grin and pointed a finger at Kevin "More money, eh?". Kevin gave him a double thumbs-up, and went on "Yep, Walmart pays out up to one hundred and fifteen percent, and let me tell you, a fifteen percent raise every week for working hard is pretty awesome". Robert cocked his head and asked, "So, why one hundred and twenty?". Kevin gave a shrug and replied "Work is work. You go in, you give it your all. Otherwise, why are you there?".


    Robert gave him a long, considering look "Good answer.". He then stood up and turned his back on Kevin, walking over to look out the floor to ceiling windows that showed the city below. Waiting for a second to set the mood, he said, his back still turned "David Reese basically said the same thing about you when you were alpha testing ''Altered Phantasy''". Giving a momentary pause to add gravity, Robert turned, locking eyes with Kevin and said: "And that is why, despite your complete lack of suitability on paper, you are here."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin paused, his thoughts racing. He wasn''t really sure where this was going. He''d been surprised to be contacted by New Realities about a position, but he''d also been ecstatic. Deep Delve was due to be released in two weeks, and it was the most anticipated and controversial VRMMORG in years. Mostly because no one knew anything about it. There had been some low key, basic advertising but nothing concrete, beyond the release that stated it was going to be a fantasy, sword and sorcery game. The complete silence, combined with the developers and programmers that were working on it, and crowned by the publically available financials showing just how much capital was invested, all resulted in an incredible buzz. The fact that one of the alpha testers had released a picture of his character, violating the non-disclosure agreement, and had not only been sued but was serving time in prison only added to the fervor. His mother, who rarely played games, considering them ''dangerous escapism'', had ordered a damn copy. Two weeks. No way was the game still in testing.


    Kevin cleared his throat, realizing that Robert was standing by the window looking at him, clearly expecting a response. "I''m glad to hear that David appreciated my work, and I''m super psyched that my boss''s boss not only knows my name but is happy with my work..." He continued as Robert hadn''t stepped in "But I''m not sure what I''m bringing to the table as it were, for a developer slash programmer position?". At this Robert nodded, and walked back around his desk, before leaning over hitting his intercom "Glenda, can you send in Mr. Wentz?". Kevin turned to see an impeccably dressed man enter the room. His eyebrows rose. Three-piece suit, Check. Expensive watch and briefcase, check. Kevin stood up, and with a mental shrug, threw on a grin. "Afternoon Mr. Wentz," he said as he extended a hand to shake, "it''s a confusing pleasure to meet you."


    Mr. Wentz took Kevin''s hand and gave it a quick shake, before walking around the desk to stand next to Robert. Kevin followed and remained standing. Robert gestured towards Mr. Wentz, and said: "Mr. Wentz is our lead counsel for all employment litigation, and he is here to clarify the position." At this, Mr. Wentz placed his briefcase on the desk, opened it, and withdrew a binder, and handed it wordlessly to Kevin. Kevin looked down, and read the title ''Non-Disclosure Agreement'' was the cover page, and opening the binder revealed a document that was easily two hundred pages long.


    Kevin coughed, and looked up from the binder "So... I''m not a lawyer, but this looks pretty beefy." Mr. Wentz remained silent while Robert nodded in agreement and said "Yes it is. I''m sure you aware of the conviction of Joe Rapsel?" Kevin nodded. Robert continued "Well, his NDA was about half that long." Kevin paused, blinked, and paused. ''Ok'', he thought, ''this is a bit intimidating''. Taking a deep breath, he sat down, and looked up before saying "So... serious NDA." Robert gave him a reassuring nod, "It is, and before I can tell you about the position, I have to have you sign the NDA. Mr. Wentz is here to answer any questions you might have."


    Kevin looked down at the NDA. He looked up Robert. He looked back down at the NDA. He looked at Mr. Wentz. He looked back down at the NDA. He flipped the pages like he was shuffling a deck of cards, then closed it and looked back up at Mr. Wentz. "How about a summary?" Kevin said with a grin. Mr. Wentz looked to Robert and raised an eyebrow. Robert''s grin widened and he gestured back to Kevin. Mr. Wentz took a deep breath and said in a precise, clipped British accent "Yes, a summary of two hundred and thirteen pages." Kevin wasn''t sure, but he thought that might have been dry British humor. Mr. Wentz continued "Prison young man. The essence of this document is that should you ever communicate, through any medium, be it written, spoken, interpretive dance, or in response to a seance, the vaguest of hints as to the details of the position, shall see you in prison." Ok, definitely British humor, Kevin thought. He let out a snigger at the interpretive dance bit and outright laughed at the seance. "Ok," said Kevin, his customary grin growing "any chance you have a MIB neuralizer in that briefcase? Just in case the position isn''t for me?". Mr. Wentz raised a single eyebrow, and reached into his briefcase slowly, withdrawing in one hand, what appeared to be a rather expensive pen, and in the other a pair of sunglasses. Robert started laughing and collapsed in his chair. Mr. Wentz cracked a smile and handed Kevin the pen while placing the sunglasses back in the briefcase. Kevin grinned, taking the pen "Alright Mr. W", he flipped open the NDA and started signing in the many, many placed which were highlighted, indicating his signature was needed. He''d had to sign similar documents, although not as lengthy when he''d bought his house.


    With a flourish, he signed the last page. Kevin stood and handed the pen and the binder back to Mr. Wentz, who took it, checked the signatures, nodded and handed Kevin his card, saying "A pleasure Mr. C, should you have further questions, please call." Mr. Wentz nodded to Robert and walked out of the office. Kevin looked at Robert and said, "Your lawyer is awesome." Robert replied, "That he is, I''m glad you two got off on the right foot." "So..." Kevin started, "now that I''ve sold my soul... why am I here?". Robert leaned back, and said calmly "We are offering you a position in the game." Kevin thought about that turn of phrase "In the game?" he asked. Robert stood and moved back to the window. He seemed to be a very active talker, Kevin thought. Robert responded "Deep Delve is, as advertised, a sword and sorcery fantasy VRMMROPG. We have some pretty unique elements and ideas invested into the game, and we''re very excited to see what players do in our sandbox, but we have a game element that is truly one of a kind." He paused and proudly announced, with an air of gravity "Dungeons."


    Kevin waited. Robert waited. Kevin gave in first "So... Dungeons." Robert grinned, and said, "You got it - Dungeons." Robert continued "In every game I''ve ever played, dungeons have been static. Everyone played in the same Dungeon, and while they might have gotten an update occasionally they pretty much stayed the same." Kevin nodded, having happily slaughtered his way through many a dungeon. "Well," Robert went on, "our dungeons are going to be different. For one thing, we are making the game geographical, and I''m not talking USA and EU servers, or even West Coast, East Coast, but rather locally." Kevin blinked hard ''local servers?'' he thought, as Robert continued "We have based the local servers on our preorders," He gestured out the window to the city, "for example beautiful Tampa has just over two hundred thousand preorders, in no small part thanks USF, which will be split into twenty servers." Kevin grimaced and raised a hand cautiously. Robert grinned at his behavior and nodded. "Just to be clear, each server has ten thousand players, based on physical location?" Kevin asked. Robert nodded, and quickly spoke, "Initially, players will be limited in their interactions to the local servers, but we have a system in place to allow players to move from one server to another, although the feature has to be ''unlocked'' in play." Kevin frowned and said, "Please tell me no microtransactions". Robert shook his head quickly, "No, nothing like that, in fact, we don''t have, nor will we have, any sort of cash shop." Kevin''s frown vanished, and he nodded "Thank god, pay to win is awful." Robert grimaced "Indeed it is, and we won''t have it. What we will have, and pay attention, because this is where you come in, is a unique dungeon for each server."


    Kevin sat up a little straighter "Robert, you know that I don''t have any experience with development or program-" Robert raised his hand, cutting him off. Robert walked back over and sat on the desk, looking down at him. "Kevin, I know that. We have just over twenty million preorders sold, and we''ve hired two thousand developers and programmers. Here is the deal. On each server, there is going to be a dungeon, built and controlled by a person. The idea is to have the first level set for characters level five through ten, the second level set for characters level ten through fifteen, and so on. You''re mission, should you choose to accept it," Robert paused grinning "is to build one of these dungeons using the tools we''ve created." Kevin swallowed, hard. Robert relentlessly moved forward "There is only one dungeon per server, and while there are outdoor hunting areas, they shouldn''t be anywhere near as interesting and engaging as the dungeons, and they won''t provide real loot. Here is where it gets interesting," Robert said as Kevin thought to himself ''now it gets interesting?. "Every single server is identical except the dungeon. Thus there is no incentive to play on any given server, excepting for prior friendships, save for the dungeons themselves." Robert was looking directly into Kevin''s eyes. "And here is where your qualification comes in. I''ve got two thousand dev''s of which I personally hired nearly a hundred. All of them are incredibly well qualified, with a plethora of experience. But I''m betting on you, Kevin. You and Sally''s collar."


    Kevin jerked his head back a bit, shocked. "Sally''s collar? That was just a bug I found in ''Altered Phantasy''." Robert nodded, and said "It was. You apparently listened to an npc, a little girl, who was worried about her puppy running off and nobody knowing who his owner was. And you made her a collar for her npc puppy. By doing so, you discovered that if you crafted a pet collar for the hunter class, and named it, but gave it absolutely no bonuses, going so far as to remove the base bonuses, and gave that collar to an npc, that the npc became a hunter pet." Kevin nodded, "Yeah, I remember Dave emailing me and asking me how many stray dogs I had collected over the years". Robert grinned at him and said "What Dave didn''t tell you was that no other developer or tester caught that bug. Nor did he tell you the circumstances that would have caused that bug occurred over two thousand times while the game was active."


    Kevin blinked "Really? That wasn''t even a quest or anything, it was just chatter." Robert nodded "Really. You caught over a dozen bugs in that alpha that no one else caught. Dave said in his final evaluation for you, and again I quote "Kevin catches things the rest of us miss, for two reasons that I can discern. First, he puts in the work. Every patch, every iteration, he puts in the time to check things over, again and again. While dedication like that is commendable, what makes him truly unique is his ability to see things not from a developer''s point of view, but rather from that of a new player, no matter how many times he has seen the content." Robert stopped, and with a serious expression on his face said "I memorized that. Hell, I included it a few times in our project updates. David had a way with words." Kevin started, and said reflexively "Had?". A fleeting expression of sadness passed over Robert''s face as he said: "Yes, Dave passed away almost two years ago, cancer." Kevin remained silent for a moment.


    Robert took a breath and went on "So, you''re my final pick. I''m betting that you can build the dungeon that draws everyone to your server. I''m betting that you''re willing to put in the hours, to look at your dungeon from a player''s point of view. You''re my secret weapon." He grinned as he wrapped up his speech. Kevin shook himself and stood up. It was his turn to pace a bit. Robert appeared to be willing to let him. "Ok," Kevin said, "The game opens in two weeks, so I have two weeks to design a dungeon for ten thousand players?" Robert shook his head, "That''s your inner player talking" he grinned at Kevin "and while I need that, here is the dev mindset - the dungeon is instanced, unless you create a world event, and you can set the number of players allowed in each instance from one to a thousand." He paused and glanced at Kevin with a cautious expression "Erm, no more than a thousand though. Hardware becomes a limitation at that point." Kevin nodded. ''Small group dungeon then, I can deal with that'' he thought. Robert said "So here is the dirty part. We''ve invested all of our capital into creating the resources for the game. When you see it you''ll understand just how breathtaking the scope of it is" he paused, and licked his lips, "they got the Glenfiddich Twenty One just right. But," He shook himself "For all that, we''re running on fumes. Those twenty million preorders represent our funds for hiring our dungeon developers." Kevin blinked and said "So, ten thousand orders, at fifty bucks a pop is fifty thousand doll-" Robert raised his hand, cutting him off again. "Distribution costs. It''s going to wind up being thirty-three thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars. Even." Kevin nodded slowly, and said, "Ok, I''m not a professional but that seems... a little low?" Robert grimaced and said "Most of those Dev''s, if hired on a salary basis, command between one hundred to two hundred grand a year. However, the thirty thousand is basically a signing bonus." Here Robert paused and gave Kevin a wink "Can you guess where the salary comes from?" Kevin said hesitantly "Subscriptions?". Robert gave him a thumbs up "Exactly. Now, the subscription model for MMO''s has sort of fallen by wayside, but we are banking on people being willing to pay for our content. The dungeon gets one dollar for every subscription on their server." Kevin nodded, catching the drift, and said: "So, you start with the thirty thousand, and if you can keep your server''s subscription base, you can make ten thousand dollars a month." Robert responded, "But wait, there is more!" Kevin chuckled. Robert went on "If you attract more players to your server, you make more money - and yes, the simple metric for determining if they are on ''your'' server is by if you hold the majority of their dungeon delves."


    Kevin gave a slow thoughtful nod, his thoughts racing, and said: "So, the dungeons have limited resources, so you aren''t going to see servers going all Monty Haul, so that won''t be a factor." Kevin snorted to himself and went on "Everyone hates underwater dungeons so no one is going to build those." Kevin paused thinking carefully, then asked: "What happens to the servers where the dungeon just sucks, for whatever reason?". Robert replied in a serious tone "The dungeon gets fired if they haven''t had at least a thousand subscriptions for two months running. Then we close the server, hire someone new, give them two weeks to design a dungeon, then we open the server and announce it."


    Kevin considered the idea from all angles. Robert was patiently waiting for him. "So, the catch is I have to basically start now?" Kevin asked. Robert nodded, saying "Yep. I warned your boss''s boss that I might be making you an offer you can''t refuse, so you aren''t burning a bridge there." Robert took a breath and said "There is one more thing. That NDA you signed. No one is ever allowed to know that you are the dungeon. As it stands, the two thousand and change dungeons know what we are doing, and about thirty of us here at New Realities." Kevin took a deep breath. He let it out. He repeated the process. Several times. "Ok, I can see that, and I can see why," he said. One more deep breath. "Alright, I''m in. Let''s do this." Robert reached out and they shook hands. "Glenda will set you up with HR for the financials - remember, no one knows what we are hiring you to do, it''s safest to assume that I''m the only person you can talk to about this, unless" and Kevin was a little disturbed by Robert''s sudden smirk "you really want to meet Mr. W. on the wrong side of a courtroom." Kevin shuddered. He could well imagine how dangerous Mr. Wentz would be in a courtroom. "No, I''m good, thanks." Kevin hadn''t, until this point, realized that Robert''s grin might be just a little vicious. Robert handed him a card, saying "My email and number - text if it''s after midnight." Kevin nodded, and with nothing left to say walked out the door.

 Chapter Two

    ''I''m going to be a dungeon!''


    Kevin indulged in his victory shuffle as the elevator descended from New Realities offices. ''Thirty grand as a signing bonus!'' he thought gleefully. Walmart hadn''t been bad to him in the grand scheme of things, and he''d pulled in almost forty-eight thousand dollars last year, but if he could keep even half his servers initial subscribers, it would be a raise. If he kept all of them, it would come close to tripling his income. ''Also,'' Kevin thought as the floor clicked down to the garage ''I''ll be doing something more with my life than being a stock boy''.


    His inability to gain employment in his chosen field was a source of friction between himself and his friends, his mother, and even his coworkers. Kevin knew he had a chip on his shoulder about it, but he couldn''t seem to let it go. He''d gone in for a real, sensible degree. More, he''d done well, academically. Kevin had graduated with distinction, in the top ten out of over a hundred in the engineering program. And while the University of South Florida wasn''t an Ivy League school, it was still a solid school. But still, he''d been unable to find a job in his field. Part of it, Kevin knew, was because he wasn''t willing to relocate. He''d constrained his search to the Tampa Area, although he''d recently extended his search as far south as Port Charlotte, north to Ocala, and east to Apopka. All to no avail. But now things were finally looking up.


    The sun was going down as Kevin rolled into his driveway dropping into neutral as he smashed a thumb on the garage door opener. As the door smoothly rose, he felt his previously exultant mood dip. Instead of a pristine concrete square, his half of the garage was somewhat occupied by Julie''s beat-up old Explorer, and what might best be described as an avalanche of laundry that spilled from the washer/dryer area into his parking spot. Kevin eased his bike into the garage, parking at an angle so as to avoid the laundry and the SUV. He blew out a sigh as he took off his helmet, hanging it up on his gear stand. ''I will not be pissed off'' he mentally chanted ''being pissed off does not help''. He pulled off the rest of his gear and hung it on the stand before walking around the laundry and heading into the house, trying to retain his good mood.


    Julie was a slob. No two ways about it, the girl was just a mess. But, she paid her rent and her share of the utilities more or less on time, and they''d been friends since his first year of college when they''d been partnered together in English Comp. Despite her petite figure, she was also a human garbage disposal and could be counted on to keep the fridge clean of any leftovers, even if she had to be exhorted and cajoled to wash the dishes. Kevin paused as he entered the living room. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He counted down from ten. It didn''t help. He counted down from fifty. Still no success.


    He opened his eyes back up and took in the disaster that had formerly been his living room. Red solo cups were piled on the coffee table, the end tables, the tv stand, and had gathered into small drifts on the floor. There had to have been over a hundred of them, and it was clear that not all of them were empty. Half a dozen empty bottles stood on the coffee table, primarily rum and vodka. He could see a small pool of what he desperately hoped was rum pooled on the floor and was once again profoundly grateful for the decision to go with tile over carpet. But the source of his irritation lay on the couch. And the loveseat. And one of the easy chairs.


    "Jesus fucking christ" Kevin muttered as he picked his way around the mess. He navigated around to the couch to the walkway into the kitchen, sparing it only a brief glance to confirm that it had not escaped the alcohol-induced apocalypse. He took his time to evaluate the situation. Yep. There were three people passed out in his living room, completely bereft of clothing. Despite the pillow over his head, Kevin was able to recognize Dave. He wasn''t proud of the fact that he could pick Dave''s twig and berries out of a lineup, but the sad truth was over the past six years he''d seen his friend naked on a far too frequent basis. The two girls he didn''t recognize at all.


    He closed his eyes again and started counting down from one hundred, this time adding a mantra to each count ''Julie is my friend, we don''t murder our friends''. Feeling calmed a bit, he turned away from the living room and carefully walked down the hallway to his bedroom. He had gotten an amazing, life-changing job, and he wasn''t going to let one of Julie''s drunken parties turned Caligula fuck his calm. He had his credentials, courtesy of the packet Glenda had given him, and after he called his boss to let him know he had accepted another job offer, he was going to get to work on his dungeon. Then he opened his bedroom door.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie''s head jerked and her eyes opened as some sort of dinosaur roared in her ear. She reflexively snapped her eyes shut and covered her ears, her head pounding from the noise, the bright light that stabbed into her skull, and the hangover that only came from a party that had gotten out of hand.


    "Too loud.." she whimpered as she tried to bury her head into the pillow. Weird pillow. Smelled like Kevin. She paused her attempts to hide from the world. Cracking her eyes open ever so slightly, wary of the death rays from the day-star, she saw unending blue. Which was weird. She had pink sheets, and white sheets, and sunshine yellow sheets, but she didn''t have blue sheets. Kevin had blue sheets. He was such a mudge. Three sets of sheets, all the same color. The roaring voice suddenly clicked in her mind, and she sat up staring at vaguely human blob that slowly resolved itself into the familiar form of her best friend.


    "Kevin?" Julie asked as she tried to fight through the hangover. It was too much. She fell back and covered her face with the pillow. The roaring had stopped. That was good. She heard movement, the rustle of fabric across the room, and then from a distance, running water. Soon after, she felt the world move a bit, and the pillow was lifted from her face. Julie gave a distressed mewl, fearing the return of the day-star, but Kevin had apparently pulled his curtains, and the room was blessedly dim. She cautiously opened her eyes, to find Kevin sitting next to her, holding a glass of what she presumed was water and a couple of orange tablets that were likely the ibuprofen he favored.


    "You''re gonna need this" Kevin said in a soft voice as he encouraged her to take a sip of water, and then take the pills. Julie drank the rest of the glass and then fell back. An indeterminate amount of time later, she felt as if life might yet be worth living, and opened her eyes again. She sat up and swung around to put her feet on the floor. She scanned the room and saw Kevin sitting at his desk, quietly typing on his keyboard. His desk. She looked around the room again. Kevin''s room. She looked down at the bed. Kevin''s bed. At this point, she realized she was naked. As casually as possible she reached out to the bed, hunting for a sheet. Kevin glanced up and grinned at her. "You''re gonna need to find it first because it isn''t in my room." Julie sighed. She had fucked up. They had one overarching rule, one understanding, that as roommates was inviolate. Bedrooms were off-limits, save for invitations. Kevin had never broken that rule. Sadly this wasn''t the first time she had done so. Still, he didn''t seem quite as upset as he should have been. Maybe she could just tease her way out of this one.


    She stood up feet together before slowly stretching her arms up above her, getting in a good stretch, and giving Kevin a bit of a show at the same time. She smiled down at him, noticing that as always, he didn''t ogle her tits, let alone focus his gaze lower. He just sort of waited for her to stretch, and then glanced over at his bed. She followed his gaze and saw to her horror the used condom that lay on the side of the other pillow, its contents staining the sheets below. "Fuck" she muttered. "It would seem so" Kevin replied.


    Kevin stood up, turning off his monitor. "So, I''m going to grab Thai food," he walked to the bedroom door and went on without turning around "and when I get home, we''ll eat, and talk about it". Julie sat down on the bed with a thump. She heard the garage door open, and then Kevin''s bike startup. She fell back on Kevin''s bed and sighed. Kevin was pissed. He had this thing where his room was some sort of sacred space. She looked around. He had decorated his room sparsely. His degrees were framed and hung on the wall. Opposite that he had framed an old video game poster for "Altered Phantasy", and beyond that, he just had his desk, couch, and dresser.


    Considering this was the master bedroom, he had a ton of empty space, and she''d made a few arguments over the years that he really should let her have it. Still, it was his space. Kevin was more than a bit introverted, and while he was funny and engaging, Julie knew that he had a set amount of energy for social interactions and once it was empty he needed to be in his space to let it recharge. She privately thought that Kev was probably a little bit autistic, which made his ability to put up with her antics amazing.


    "No use putting it off," she muttered as she stood up and reached over, grabbing the condom. She walked down the hallway and opened her bedroom door. Julie stopped. She blinked. She grinned. Well, now she knew why she ended up in Kev''s bed. She walked over to her bed, dropped the condom in her trash can, and lowered her head down towards her other best friend Melody''s ear. "Oh, My Gawd" she shouted, jumping back as Mel predictably shot up, panicking. Melody grabbed her head, groaned and then glared at her. "Why do you hate me?" Melody grumbled, "And why are you naked?" she asked. Julie just smiled and waited. Melody took the hint and looked around, recognizing her best friends bedroom. She didn''t recognize the man lying in bed next to her as he clutched a pillow over his head. "I see you made a friend" Julie teased as Melody fished her panties and a t-shirt off the floor. "Hey lover boy," Julie said loudly, raising a groan from the still prone man "rise and shine, you''re in my bed and I gotta clean up." Julie grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from her dresser, and quickly left to the bathroom, intent on a shower and not really wanting to get a full frontal of Mel''s new guy.


    Twenty minutes later Julie was out of the shower and feeling almost human. Melody had retreated to the kitchen and was sitting despondently in one of the chairs, nursing a glass of water. Julie grabbed one for herself, and plunked down in the chair across from Mel, giving the kitchen a considering gaze. No wonder Kev had gone out to get dinner. He rarely ate out, and Julie would be the first to admit that he was a dazzling cook. She wasn''t sure where he''d picked it up, as he''d often joked that his mother could burn water, and his father fed his flock spiritually, after having given them all literal food poisoning one thanksgiving. Somehow though, Kev was awesome at it.


    She focused on Melody, and with a deep breath confided in her friend "I fucked up." Melody glanced around the kitchen, and then into the living room. "I''ll help clean up... I think that''s Dave? He''s good to help too" she volunteered. "Yeah, that''ll be a start, but it isn''t the mess," said Julie. "I woke up in Kev''s bed." Melody''s eyes widened. She knew the rules, she spent more time here than at her parents'' house, where she still technically lived. "Dude... how pissed is he?" Melody asked. Julie took a drink of water, and looked down at the table as she said: "Um, I didn''t just sleep in his bed, based on the used condom on his pillow, I''m pretty sure I fucked someone in his bed". Melody choked on her water spraying a bit onto the table. "Dude!" Melody said. "I know," Julie sighed "I really fucked up." "No," Melody replied "you went way beyond fucking up, that''s just ... I don''t know...". "Yeah," Julie nodded "I''m not sure how he''s going to take this, I mean he''s remarkably cool about the parties, and the occasional naked people," she glanced in the living room seeing that Dave had woken up at their voices and was clearly struggling towards coherence "and the general hot mess that is my life, but I crossed a line." Melody nodded back "You''re in it for sure, but if we get everyone clothed and the mess picked up it might help soothe the savage beast." Julie nodded, and resolutely stood up, grabbing the ridiculously empty garbage can as she started stacking empty cups together. "Dave!", she yelled behind her towards the living room, "get your clothes on, wake up those two and start cleaning up!"


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Kevin grimaced as he pulled back into his garage. He hadn''t gone directly to Thai Palace, needing some time and space to clear his head. He''d wound up just riding north on 301 for an hour and change, trying to get his head in a better place. After an hour of the soothing hum of the engine, the reassuring freedom of the open road, the cooling night air, and the peace that he had found only the bike, his thoughts had turned towards his dungeon. He found himself starting to plan it out, but he couldn''t really get very far without seeing the tools he had available. So, he turned around and headed back to grab dinner, then get home and start working.


    But now, as he pulled into the garage and saw the pile of laundry, his mood darkened again. Stripping his gear, he grabbed two bags of Thai food from his tank bag and stalked into the house. Surprisingly, his living room was devoid of not only empty cups and liquor bottles but also naked guests. Continuing on to the kitchen, he was further surprised to find it had been cleaned as well. Taking the containers out of the bags, he yelled: "Julie, dinner is here!". He snagged a pair of glasses of water and sat down. As he was opening the containers, having given up long ago trying to read the hieroglyphics Thai Palace used to label what was in which, Julie and Melody wandered into the kitchen.


    "Hey Mel," Kevin said as he nodded to table "grab a glass and sit down, I brought plenty". Melody shot him a grin and did exactly that, sitting down to his right, before snagging a box of white rice and attacking it. Julie sat down across from him, started fiddling with a box of what turned out to be chicken curry, as Kevin asked: "Dave take off?". Julie nodded as she replied, "Yeah, he helped clean up first, but he has to work tonight." Kevin considered Dave a friend, although he was more Julie''s than his. Still, they got along pretty well, bonding over their shared misery of having degrees they weren''t using, Dave''s being in History and Education. Dave hadn''t been able to secure a teaching position yet and worked overnights as a security guard while he did the occasional tour as a substitute while he waited for one of the high schools to snag him for a permanent position.


    "So Mel, what''s the good word in your world?" Kevin asked. Melody swallowed, pausing her brutal campaign of white rice annihilation and responded "Deep Delve baby," she grinned at him "two more weeks and I''m gonna fucking disappear. I''ve had my vacation time approved, so you bitches ain''t gonna see me for a week!". Kevin couldn''t help but laugh. Melody was the perfect example of ''Tiny, but fierce''. She stood at just under five feet and weighed less than a hundred pounds. He knew this because she often complained that she was half an inch too tall to be able to get a handicapped sticker and thus awesome parking and that a stiff breeze would blow her away. She also cursed and drank like a sailor, with a fervor that entirely belied her pixie-like appearance. She was also the most hardcore gamer of all his friends.


    "Fuck yeah, up high!" He said, reaching out to give her a high five. Melody slapped his hand and then returned to her decimated box of rice. "You still in Kev?" Melody asked, between bites. Kevin pushed another container of rice over to her, knowing she wasn''t going to be satisfied with just one, as he nodded "Yep. I''m not taking a vacation for it, but I''ve got my copy pre-ordered." Having located his shrimp curry, which was inevitably in the last box, he dove into his dinner, enjoying the heat of the curry. Dinner was consumed in silence at this point, as hangovers and long days conspired to make feeding empty stomachs the priority.


    As dinner wrapped up, Melody stood up, trashed her empty boxes and with a grin and a "Smell ya later bitches", walked out the front door, leaving Julie and Kevin alone. "So..." Julie said, "This is awkward". Kevin sat back and looked at her. He had found, over the years, that the most effective strategy when dealing with Julie was to let her say her piece. "Yeah, awkward," she sighed as she continued "look, I know bedrooms are off-limits, and I know being drunk isn''t a good excuse," she rambled on, "and I know having sex in your bed was really disrespectful, and I''m sorry" she finished miserably. Kevin took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and counted down from fifty. Julie watched, and waited - she knew this was how Kevin handled unpleasant or stressful conversations. Opening his eyes, Kevin arranged his thoughts before speaking. "It was very disrespectful. I''d like to think that, within my limitations, I''m a pretty understanding friend and roommate. I try not to give you too much grief about the messes, the parties, the naked strangers in my house." He paused before continuing "And I know we''ve had our own complications."


    Here Julie blushed and looked down at the table. When she had first met Kevin, he had developed a bit of a crush on her. He was pretty cool about it, he let her know he found her attractive, and he''d like to explore being more than friends, but he didn''t get creepy or pine after her. He''d dated another girl, and she hadn''t thought about it much. She ended up moving in with him once he finished renovating the condemned house he had purchased his freshman year, and things had been smooth for about six months. Then, at one of the frequent parties she held, they''d both gotten tipsy, and wound up in bed together. That probably wouldn''t have been too bad, except she had just gotten out of a relationship, and she had ended up crying while they were having sex. That had well and truly messed up Kevin from an emotional standpoint. It nearly ended their friendship.


    Kevin had eventually moved past it, but it still haunted them a bit. He didn''t really date anymore. He would occasionally hook up with someone, but it always understood that it was a one-night thing. Julie dated and hooked up as well, and Kevin was cool, he joked with her and never showed any sign of jealousy. Julie knew he was more than a little fucked up from that experience. But he seemed reached the point where he just couldn''t bring himself to care. Years of living with Julie had destroyed any sort of idealization he had about women, and aside from the occasional urge to fuck, he didn''t appear to have any special use for the fairer sex beyond their worth as human beings. Still, Julie fucking someone in his bed clearly bothered him. As these thoughts progressed through her mind, Julie sat quietly at the table.


    This reminded her too much of the conversation they''d had two weeks after ''The Incident''. She''d spent those two weeks begging and occasionally screaming at him to talk to her, while effectively being ignored. She understood Kevin better now, and knew he was thinking, and weighing his words. Finally, he went on "This isn''t the first time you''ve ended up in my bedroom, although the condom and pool of cum on my bed is a new one." Julie winced. Kevin had a habit of using the truth and directness as a weapon when he was angry. "I know if you were sober, it wouldn''t have happened. I''ve never given you shit about your lifestyle or your choices, but I''m going to say this - I think you have a drinking problem."


    Julie started to speak but Kevin raised his hand, cutting her off. "I''m going to put a lock on my bedroom door because while I do trust you, it is clear I can''t trust ''Drunk Julie'' to respect me and my space." Julie closed her mouth when audible click, her eyes brimming with tears. Kevin stood up and looked her dead in the eyes "You''re my friend, and I care about you. I think you need help. I''m not qualified to give it, and I''m to close be of any use. I''ve taken a job offer, and I''ll be working from home now. I''m starting tonight. We''ll talk tomorrow." With that, he walked to his bedroom, pulled his VR helmet on, and lay down on his couch. He needed to not dwell on that conversation, and getting started on his dungeon seemed like the perfect remedy.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie watched her best friend head to his room, then she put her head down on the table crying. Kevin had always had an open-door policy. Whenever he was home, the front door was unlocked, and friends knew they could stop in and be welcome. Likewise, he never locked his bedroom door, and she had always been able to knock on his door and poke her head in to talk to him. Now it felt like he was locking her out of his life. She didn''t really feel like she had a drinking problem. Sure, she drank, maybe more than most, but she was a realtor, and her job was stressful. She was young for her job, and while she made a living, she wasn''t terribly successful yet, which led to more than a few months where she barely made her rent and bills.


    So when she did well, she celebrated. Last night had just been a bit much. She''d closed a house in Clearwater yesterday, and not only had it been the largest commission yet, but it was also for a couple that had purchased their first house through her four years ago. That was huge, as repeat customers were the sign of a truly good realtor. Her boss had praised her, as had her coworkers, and with no showings this weekend, she had partied much harder than normal last night. She sniffled a bit as she wiped her eyes. She didn''t remember much past playing guitar hero for shots, and alarmingly she didn''t remember who she had taken to Kevin''s bed. At least she knew they''d used protection. She winced. Kevin''s comment about the puddle of cum on his bed was crude and direct and just awfully... true. She''d lived with Kevin for six years now, and he''d been nothing but a good friend to her.


    Being a realtor, she knew that she paid a pittance in rent. She''d never asked him, but it was probably a quarter of the mortgage, if that. He regularly fed her, to the extent that she shopped for groceries maybe once a month. He cleaned up far more of her messes than she did his, seldom complained, and when he did it was always gentle and reasonable. In return, she introduced him to people, and drug him out of his introverted cave to be social. It wasn''t, she thought, an equitable arrangement. And now he''d gotten a new job. He''d probably come home, eager to share it with her, and found not only the house a disaster, but her having violated his sanctuary. Standing from the table, Julie shuffled to the garage to start the huge pile of laundry she''d left on the floor.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert was sitting on a picnic table at a rest area on I-10 heading west from Tallahassee. He had his helmet next to him and was sipping from a cold bottle of water as he watched the sunset. His plan was to throw up his tent behind this pavilion and catch some sleep before he meandered on. His eventual goal was Joshua Tree, although he knew he''d have to overnight in Texas somewhere. He sighed as his phone buzzed in his pocket, lamenting the fact that even on vacation he couldn''t really escape it. With Deep Delve launching in two weeks, Robert didn''t dare go completely incommunicado, as anything that came up at this stage was effectively an emergency. Glancing at the screen, he grinned. This was a message he could live with. Kevin had logged into the Deep Delve Development Environment Tool for the first time.


    Robert was glad to see him logging in, but a little surprised that it had taken him this long. He had thought that Kevin would log in as soon as he''d gotten home, but it was a couple of hours later. Or so he assumed. Maybe the kid had plans for the evening that he hadn''t wanted to break. He knew Kevin didn''t have a girlfriend, although he did have a roommate who was a woman, however, the PI Robert had hired had reported there weren''t any signs of a romantic relationship between the two. Shoving his phone back in his pocket, he grabbed his helmet and walked back to his bike, already looking forward to spending a night out under the stars.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin waited as the VR headset initialized. It took only a few seconds to do so, having been calibrated for his use when he bought it. That process had taken nearly an hour and was mostly spent with the helmet on, waiting in the darkness as it mapped out his brain or whatever dark sorcery it utilized. Soon enough, the 2d menu sprang into his vision, and he scrolled down to find a new icon labeled "D.D.D.T.". Selecting it with a wave of his hand, the words "Deep Delve Development Tool initializing" flashed across his vision. Then everything went black. And then he was flying.


    The wind rushed across his face and he could taste the salt in the air as he saw the ocean pass beneath him, his shadow barely a speck on the gentle waves. Kevin had played a few superhero games and had flown before in VR, but this was just a whole other level. He looked down his arms, which were faithfully reproduced, and he could see each individual hair moving with the wind passing by as he flew. "This is AMAZING" he yelled as he flew towards a dark shape on the horizon, that quickly grew to reveal land. He didn''t have any control of his flight or his direction. He could move his arms and legs, and sort of flip around, which he did, revealing a mostly cloudless sky of deep blue, the kind of sky he''d only ever seen in Montana and Idaho.


    He flipped back over as he started to slow and descend towards the rapidly approaching ground. He jerked his head to the side as a seagull flew by, its raucous call echoed by a hundred of its fellows scattered about the area, lazing on the air currents. His feet touched down onto a rocky beach. ''God'' he thought, ''everything is so real.'' Kevin turned back to the ocean, took two hesitant steps, and then crouched down, dipping his hand in the water. It was cool, and it swirled around his hand as the tiny waves lapped at the beach. He lifted his hand and stared in awe as tiny droplets rolled off the back of his hand and dripped to the ground. "Fuck me," he breathed. "They have a license to print fucking money. This is incredible."


    He stood up and walked away from the ocean, up the beach as it became more sand and fewer pebbles, and then crested a dune, to see what appeared to be acres of grass. In the distance were snow-capped mountains, surrounded by gradual hills. A silvery river snaked down from the mountains, and through hills, before following the grasslands to empty into the ocean a few hundred yards away. He walked down the dune into the grass, his hands trailing by his sides, letting them catch the stalks and pass them through his fingers as he ambled through the tall grass. He wandered through the grass for a few minutes, sticking to the dips rather than climb the small humps.


    As he rounded the corner of a small hillock, his attention was captured by what was, to all appearances, a horse grazing in the tall grass. It noticed him at the same time and raised its head casting a curious glance at him. Kevin slowly walked towards the horse, which seemed curious, and reciprocated, walking towards him as well. They stopped a few feet away from each other. The horse was a paint, its coat white with gold and chestnut splotches. Large brown eyes, liquid and shining with curiosity regarded Kevin. Kevin completed the final step between the two as he slowly reached out and stroked the paint''s muzzle. ''It''s so soft'' he thought to himself as he carefully took another step and started to stroke the horse''s neck. The horse nickered appreciatively and leaned a bit into the petting as Kevin marveled at the sensation. He could feel every hair, the stiffer hair of the mane, and softer hair of the main coat. He could feel the dust as well, and even a bit of dampness where the mane had fallen and a bit of sweat had gathered. The horse lowered its head, seemingly accepting that Kevin wasn''t a threat, and began grazing again.


    Kevin continued to pet him, and after a few minutes, he noticed an almost imperceptible light on the edge of his vision. It was blinking slowly. As he focused on it, it snapped into clarity, showing a tab of sorts. Dusting his hands off, he paused, reveling in that action. His hands had actually gotten dusty, and, he squinted, yes, he''d even gotten a few hairs on his hands. "Unbelievable" he whispered as he made a swiping motion at the tab. The horse seemed a bit startled at his action, raising his head, and stepping away from Kevin, but then settled back down to graze. ''Well, that didn''t work'' Kevin thought. He concentrated on seeing the tab and it expanded out, a light green screen, slightly transparent filled the top right quadrant of his vision. "Welcome to Deep Delve''s Developer''s Tools!" read the screen, and below it were two options, the one on the right indicated "Start Dungeon Mode" the other "Continue in Explorer Mode".

 Chapter Three

    Taking a deep breath, Kevin focused on the two options in front of him. As much as he would love to wander around in Explorer Mode, the hard truth was that he was being paid to create a dungeon. "Dungeon Mode," he stated confidently, only to gasp as his view pulled back to what might have been a couple of thousand feet up. Kevin clamped his eyes shut, fighting vertigo from the sudden perspective change.


    Opening his eyes, Kevin took in the vista below. He could now clearly see the river that wound down from the mountains and through the hills before spilling into the sea. It appeared that mountain range rose from the ocean, and curled around plains as they faded to the forest on the far side of the river, before marching off into the distance. It was breathtaking in both its beauty and its scope. Kevin could see what appeared to be a cluster of buildings nestled up against the edge of the mountains where they met the sea, creating a protected cove or a bay of some sort.


    Several minutes may have passed while Kevin drank it all in. He''d played many a VR game, but nothing came close to this in terms of scope. Finally, he started paying attention to the various light green bars that sat unobtrusively on the right-hand edge of his vision. As he focused on them, an interface swam into focus in front of him, which trumpeted in an excessively large and somehow... cheerful font "Welcome Dungeon Neophyte!".


    Chuckling, Kevin mentally swiped the prompt away. ''Gotta love a game with snark,'' he thought to himself, as a new window opened, with a lengthier message.


    ''Welcome to the Dungeon Creation Tool! You are one of the rare few, chosen to entertain, challenge, and guide the many adventurers who will make their way into our world. The team that has developed Deep Delve has spent a decade and the better part of a Trillion (with a T) dollars developing these tools. And now it falls to you, mighty Dungeon Developer, to ensure that this venture was not in vain.''


    The world below Kevin suddenly illuminated as a grid was overlayed upon it. Slightly above his vision, a helpful scale appeared, indicating that one square was thirty feet to a side or nine hundred square feet in total. Now that he had a scale of measurement, he was able to see that the village seemed to consist of buildings that occupied between three and ten grids. As he panned his vision, getting an idea of where things were, Kevin was able to determine that the mouth of the river was a bit over a mile from the village, and the forest at its closest at the base of the mountains was just over two. A flashing prompt in the corner of his vision indicated "Select Grid for Dungeon Entrance."


    Kevin considered his options. Clearly, players were going to start in the village. Equally clearly, he could install his Dungeon in the village proper. He had played many games where you began your adventure, clearing the cellar of the local inn from a vicious rat infestation, finding glory, copper coins, and in some of the mature games, the affections of the local barmaid. While it was tempting to follow that tried and true route, he felt that with the Dungeon being the primary focus of the game, that it wouldn''t set the right tone to have the entrance in the village.


    He kicked back, as he considered the world below him, not feeling at all like some sort of Pagan God, deciding where to visit his capricious wrath or bounty in accordance with his whims. "Alright," Kevin muttered as he considered the area "I have to assume there are going to be critters - Robert said there would be wildlife to get players to level five before they head into my Dungeon." ''The plains are out,'' he thought ''both too close and too far, best leave that as the critter area as was likely intended.''


    Kevin glanced at the water and grimaced. Somewhere, somehow, someone was putting in an underwater Dungeon. He just knew it. "Wonder if I can take odds at the underwater Dungeons being the first ones to get closed down due to no delvers.." he said absentmindedly as his eyes traced the mountains up from the shore. While the peaks further inland were tall enough to have a treeline and snowcaps, the range that rose up from the ocean was merely covered with trees up to their modest peaks. Were it not for the jagged and rough nature, you might mistake the closest ones for rolling hills. It reminded him strongly of eastern Washington and western Idaho, and Kevin paused for a moment as he wondered if there would be seasons in the game.


    Shaking his head and focusing back on his task, he decided that since the mountains were here, and most Dungeons required a lot of space, he would place his entrance about a third of a mile from the village, at the base one particularly steep peak. The mountain, while crowned with trees, revealed sheer rock and crags quite frequently as it ascended. A prompt appeared asking, "Place Dungeon Entrance here?" with a "Yes/No" option at the bottom of the window. Focusing on the option for yes, he was once again subject to vertigo as his perspective changed.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie groaned as she sank down into the overstuffed lazy-boy chair. It had taken the better part of three hours to finish the laundry, clean her room, and do a deep scrub down on the kitchen and the living room. She grudgingly acknowledged it would likely have taken much less time without the hangover she was sporting.


    She wasn''t in the greatest of moods. In addition to the verbal and emotional lashing Kevin had delivered, her phone had revealed two missed messages from her friend Jake. The first message had been a fairly normal post-party message, checking up on her and making sure she didn''t need any help on the cleanup. Jake was an excellent guest when it came to that as she knew from experience. While he rarely stayed the night, he was always willing to come back over and help clean up the mess.


    No, that wasn''t the problem. The problem was that Jake had a crush on her, and had carried that torch for a couple of years now. He managed to stay out of the creep zone, but he made enough of an effort to make sure she knew about his continued interest to make it a little uncomfortable sometimes. And she had taken him to Kevin''s bed and fucked him. The second message made that clear. Jake had asked her if everything was alright and wanted to make sure they were still cool. He''d also asked her out again.


    Julie leaned back and kicked the chairs'' footrest up. She did not need a lovesick Jake right now. Usually, she could take this kind of thing to Kevin, and he often had some insight into the male mind that could steer things the right way. Deciding to just yank the bandaid off, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed up Jake. Hearing his cheerful voice, filled with hope, she ground her teeth and got on with the business of crushing his dreams on the cruel rocks of reality.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody slammed open her parent''s front door, yelling into the house as she did, "Mom, I''m home!". She kicked off her shoes and slung her backpack off as she darted up the stairs to her room. Nudging her door open with a hip, she turned into her room, dumping her backpack in the chair by the door, the only purpose of which was to serve as a catchall. Grinning, Melody shimmied out of her clothes as she half staggered, half danced into her bathroom. A couple hours of work after a night of drunken partying and fucking had left her a bit ripe. ''Still,'' she thought as she gave herself a brief once over in the mirror as the shower heated up, ''I don''t have any bruises or hickeys.''


    Melody still lived with her parents, which was both a badge of shame and one of honor. On the shameful side, she had a degree in motorcycle repair and made more than enough money in the shop to afford her own place. Hell, the shop was where she had met Kevin. On the flip side, her father was in the final stages of ALS and required round the clock care, which she provided five nights and two days a week. Her Mom picked up the five days and two nights, allowing Melody to work part-time, and have a little bit of social life.


    She smiled as she hopped in the shower. While she missed her dad being around and active, she''d known the ALS burden was coming, and she made the best of it. She had Kevin and Julie living a few houses down, and she could generally relax with them a couple of times a week. Julie was a blast, wild and carefree, she reminded Melody that there were still good times to be had, and she could still have fun despite her responsibilities. Kevin was more of a rock, no matter how bad the storm you could count him to stand firm and provide shelter. Or something. She wasn''t great at metaphors.


    Throwing on some gym shorts and a tank top, she flopped onto her bed, knowing she had to grab a couple hours before her shift with Dad started. Her mind was stubborn, though, and kept racing. She''d known Kevin a few months longer than she''d known Julie. He''d come in the week after she started at the shop, looking for some shims and bitching about how shim under bucket valves were bullshit. He had ordered the shims, and a few weeks later, when he came in, he started talking about the house he was buying. As fate would have it, it was the totally trashed house down the block. Things had grown from there.


    Melody rolled over, giving her pillow a punch to soften it up. She loved her best friends, but their interpersonal relationship was super fucked up. Bleh. Deep Delve. She snuggled down. She''d hired a caretaker for two weeks so she could binge the game. Her Mom thought she was nuts for spending that much money to "Stay at home on a couch during her vacation", but Melody was beyond excited. "Gonna be fucking awesome bitches..." she muttered as she finally drifted off to sleep.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin stared at the cutaway of the mountain. The interface was showing him a multilevel map of the mountain, allowing him to view, and based off the grid overlaying the whole thing, manipulate the entire space. Or most of it. It looked like he could use up to thirty grids, which apparently were cubes in this display, both up and down, which equated to almost one thousand feet vertically. It appeared he was constrained by the external dimensions of the mountains in regards to horizontal expansion, which seemed to be limited to about a ten cube diameter at the top.


    Hesitantly he looked at his Dungeon Entrance and selected the nearest cube leading straight into the mountain. A new menu opened, prompting him to either "Clear Space" or "Leave current conditions." He chose "Clear Space" and was now presented with a thirty square foot cube of empty space. Selecting the cube, a row of options appeared on his right: Structure, substance, color, details, flora, and fauna all appeared, each one having an indicator of a submenu. Selecting structure, he gasped as a list of options began expanding across his screen. Kevin pulled back, closing the menus. "I''m going to need to give this some thought," he muttered to himself. ''Also, I need some sleep, it''s been a long damn day,'' he thought. Mentally pulling up the menu options, he hit log off and, after a few seconds, was greeted with blessed darkness and silence. Pulling his headset off, he flopped over onto his bed, his last thought ''Sleep now, build later.''


    Waking up, Kevin stretched, his thoughts jumbled. His mind wasn''t quite awake yet, but his body was used to running on autopilot, and he headed to his bathroom for a shit, shave, and a shower. About halfway through the shower, his mind caught up with his body, and he paused, shampoo dripping from his hair. "New job," he said quietly, not even audible over the showerhead of tormented souls. Upon speaking, he paused, briefly considering. Until yesterday, he was getting by. He made his mortgage payment, paid his bills on time, and didn''t carry any other debt. He didn''t, however, have much of a cushion, financially speaking. Hence the showerhead of tormented souls. The house was in great shape after his renovations, but he still hadn''t replaced the water softener system, which performed poorly, and resulted in a significant mineral buildup. Which in this particular instance resulted in a showerhead that didn''t release it''s pressure evenly and created a sound not entirely unlike that of someone screaming as they were flayed alive. With the money from the new job, he could finish the few things he hadn''t been able to during the renovation. No more soaking his showerhead in CLR every two months.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    His mind went through a mental checklist of the remaining items on his renovation list. Kevin had initially planned to buy the house and then flip it. Then he discovered just how much rent he was going to pay now that he was out of his parents'' house, and he had chosen to live in it instead. The original plan remained, though. Kevin had enjoyed the renovation work, bringing the home back from being a complete dump, to being one of the more elegant houses on the block. This new job could have the mortgage paid off within the year. He just had to build a Dungeon that people would want to visit. Something unique but accessible. Challenging but not punishing. He needed more information about the Deep Delve world. Toweling off, he slipped into a pair of shorts and grabbed his phone. Robert told him to act as if he was the only he could talk to about building the Dungeon, hadn''t he? Grinning, Kevin dialed Robert''s number.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert was doing his level best to absolutely destroy a Country Fried Steak Skillet at the Huddle House. Vacation meant, amongst other freedoms, the freedom to eat whatever the hell he wanted. And this morning, he wanted carbs and grease. He had paused to slather some more apple butter on a slice of toast when his phone rang. "Damn it," he said quietly as he set his toast down and started digging in the jacket next to him for his phone. "I''m on vacation, who the hell is calling -" he cut off as he saw Kevin''s name. Sighing, he hit the green button, "What''s up, Kevin?" Kevin''s voice, unnaturally cheerful for a man who wasn''t on vacation, replied: "Hey Robert, I was working up my Dungeon, and I realized that I have absolutely no information about Deep Delve, as like a world ya know?".


    Robert grabbed his toast and took a bite before responding. "You got the packet from Glenda, right?" he replied with only a touch of sarcasm. While he hated being interrupted in the middle of his vacation, it was hard to be pissed at someone so friendly, and his breakfast had proven to be truly delicious. The sound of paper shuffling came through the phone before Kevin came back. "Erm, no, I don''t have anything except tax forms and an employee handbook that I''m gonna use as a doorstop." Robert groaned. "Not hard copy you Luddite, she ought to have included credentials for you to log in to the document repository." More silence. More paper shuffling. Then Kevin came back, "Sorry, Robert, but there aren''t any papers relating to ... well ... anything about the job really, just tax stuff and what looks like eighty pages telling me how not to sexually harass someone."


    Robert couldn''t help it, he laughed. "Ok, but you need to keep in mind that interrupting me during a motorcycle trip can be construed as sexual harassment." He could hear the change in Kevin''s tone, and could easily imagine the young man grinning as Kevin replied: "It''s not harassment, I''m just planning to steal your Victory away and have a torrid affair with it." Robert nodded to the waitress, who was refilling his water glass before continuing, "So, bike love aside, I can have Glenda get you access on Monday, but in the meantime, what do you need to know?" Kevin''s voice hesitantly answered, "Kinda... everything? Races, creatures, history, just a general overview." Robert sighed and signaled for the check as he crammed the last bite of toast into his mouth. "This is going to take a while."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin listened as Robert began, "Alright, so first things first, the premise behind the game. The various races of the world, which are Humans, elves, dwarves, and the animal aspect races, where you have your catgirls and dog men." Kevin coughed a bit, trying to conceal a chuckle as Robert continued on with a sigh. "Yes, well, there are a lot of people who like to play animal aspect ratios. The studio doesn''t judge. I do, but the studio doesn''t. Moving on. All the players, regardless of race, are refugees fleeing the main continent, and have been shipwrecked on these fair shores."


    Kevin raised an eyebrow. The shipwrecked bit wasn''t a new trope, but the refugee thing hadn''t been done that terribly often. "So, what exactly went wrong on the main continent that all these people had to flee?" he asked. "Well, that goes into the dungeon aspect of the game," Robert replied, "you''ll eventually learn that the entire economy is based off delving dungeons. And back home, the dungeons went insane and started spitting out monsters that were ravaging the countryside, all the while the monsters inside jumped to impossibly high levels." Robert was really getting into his subject, Kevin noted, as he enthusiastically went on. "So, with the economy tanked, the countryside no longer safe and the dungeons wreaking havoc, the leaders of the various races banded together and loaded all their non-combatants into whatever ships they had, and sent them across the ocean in search of a safe place."


    "So," Kevin said, "everyone is homeless, starting over, with the looming threat of what is left behind?". "Exactly right," Robert said happily, "we have a ten minute cinematic that you get after character creation, you gonna fuckin'' love it." Kevin grinned, thinking how psyched Mel was going to be. "Yeah, I can think of at least one of my friends who is gonna watch it over and over, she''s absolutely nuts for that shit." Robert replied, "Yeah, it''s fucking awesome. Anyways, everyone washes up on shore by the village, and after they get their shit together, they have to Delve the Dungeon."


    Kevin gave an unseen nod, "Ok, so historically speaking, what were the dungeons on the mainland like?". Robert replied, "Everything, man, there were elemental themed dungeons, werewolf dungeons, spider dungeons, you name it." Kevin gave a slow nod. "Ok," he said, "So wide open on the critters I stick in it - you pretty much implied that delving was the basis for the economy. I''m looking for a bit more on that." "Alright," said Robert "here is the skinny. Monsters drop experience shards or crystals. You need to use these crystals to level up, to craft items, etc." Kevin tilted his head. While not a unique concept, it wasn''t wildly popular. Robert continued on, "Now what is important to know is the fact that Dungeons are inherently magical, as evidenced by the instancing, and the respawning of monsters. We don''t try to hide it or handwave it, we explain it as part of the game lore." Robert took an audible breath and continued, "Outdoors, plants and animals follow a normal cycle of growth. Cattle take ten months to go from conception to birth. Grain takes a season to grow and be harvested." Kevin waited as Robert went on, "Obviously Dungeons respawn, and are instanced. Now here is the kicker. Those crystals? You can also use them to accelerate the growth of crops and livestock. Hell, you can use them to accelerate the gestation period of humans too, if you are of a mind to."


    "Ok..." Kevin thought as Robert was clearly waiting for a response. "So crystals are everything." Robert replied, "Yep, the entire economy. As you can imagine, they make it possible for an entire society to exist on a relatively small piece of land, due to being able to accelerate food production." Kevin gave another imperceptible nod. This was different. "Alright, I''m wrapping my head around this, so my Dungeon is gonna be the end all be all for fucking everything on my server," he said. "Now you''re getting it!" said Robert. "Fuck me," Kevin muttered as he considered the scope of the Dungeon''s importance. Robert laughed and replied, "Pretty sure that falls under that eighty pages of sexual harassment you''re using as a doorstop." Kevin gave a chuckle of his own. "So, that should get you started, if you''ve got anything else, think real hard on if can''t wait till you get the info on Monday," Robert said, "I''ve got a good seven hundred miles planned for today, so go build your Dungeon and let me enjoy it." Kevin replied, "Shiny side up, brother, enjoy the ride" and disconnected the call. Time to get to work.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie woke up feeling hopeful. It was a brand new day, she wasn''t hungover her house was clean, and hopefully, Kev would be in a better mood and maybe willing to talk to her. Hopping out of bed, she headed for the bathroom for her morning ritual. Twenty minutes later, freshly scrubbed and feeling optimistic, she knocked on Kevin''s door twice, before turning the doorknob and sticking her head around the door. Kevin was sitting at his desk with a slab of grid paper, sketching something out. "Come in, pull up a seat," he called to her. Julie happily bounced into the room, glad that he hadn''t thus far put a lock on his door, and sat on crosslegged on his beds eyeballing her friend trying to get a sense of his mood. Kevin set his pencil and... was that a protractor??? down on the desk and swiveled his chair to face her.


    She took a deep breath and stared straight into Kevin''s eyes as she said, "I''m incredibly sorry about yesterday. I fucked up, and it won''t happen again. Can we be cool again?" Kevin blew out a breath and shot her a grin as he replied, "I can''t stay mad at you, even if you drive me nuts sometimes. Just don''t let it happen again, right?" Julie nodded rapidly as she bounded up off the bad and tackled him, knocking over his chair as she delivered something between a hug and an unsportsmanlike conduct tackle. "Dude!" Kevin half laughed, half groaned from underneath her, "I''m gonna start slipping Xanax in your damn cereal." Julie disengaged herself and hopped back up on the bed. "Nah, you love me too much for that," she responded with a grin. Kevin''s only response was a grunt as he righted his chair and sat back down.


    "So," she went on when it was clear she wasn''t getting more than a grunt, "I vaguely remember you saying you got a new job! Are you done with the Evil Empire?". Kevin dropped his head into his hands and gave her another groan. "Awww, come on! I''ve been waiting forever for you to get a new gig! Mel is gonna be off the chain!" she went on. Julie knew that while Kev had been good at his Wal-Mart job, and had been comfortable, he wasn''t really happy there. Kevin lifted his head, his expression set in mock horror "Dude," he said, "You can''t tell Mel yet, she''ll ...I don''t know. But it''ll be way over the top and more than I need right now." She grinned at her then threw her hands up in quotation marks, "Tiny, but fierce!". Kevin gave her a grin and double thumbs-up, "Damn straight."


    "Tell me!" Julie demanded as she bounced on the bed, unable to sit still. It looked like Kevin was really going to forgive her, and she wanted to share the happiness of his new job, whatever it was. Kevin frowned and said haltingly, "Well, first, you gotta understand that I''m under a serious NDA. I mean, like fucking DARPA serious." She blinked. She looked at Kev. He looked serious. "Dude," she said slowly, "are we like, building new nuclear silos or some shit?" Kevin laughed at her, shaking his head, "No, nothing like that," he continued, becoming serious, "I am, in fact, working for New Realities." Julie gasped and stood up as she exclaimed, "Dude, no way! Deep Delve?" Kevin nodded his head, looking solemn and said, "Yep. I can''t tell you exactly what they have me doing, as that would be breaking the NDA, but I can tell you that if it works out, I''ll be making a good chunk more than I was as a pallet jockey". She considered him for a moment before saying, "Yeah, Mel is gonna flip her shit." Kevin just sighed and shook his head.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    A few blocks away, Melody rolled over and kept sleeping, unaware of the bombshell that been dropped so very close by.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin shooed Julie out of his room, claiming he needed to get to work. Which was entirely truthful, if not the entire truth. He needed to keep a good headspace. Looking down at his graph paper, he tore off the sheet and balled it up before tossing it in his wastebasket. He needed something... special. Something inspiring. He had been working on a layout for a dungeon and had designed about a dozen tunnels or passages before he got frustrated. He knew in his heart that fucking everyone was going to have some sort of tunnel or passageway system. And he needed to not be everyone. He turned on his monitor and fired up Google. He typed in "cavern" and switched it to images. Scrolling down, he paused when he saw an image of a waterfall and a forest. Clicking on it, he read about a cavern that was found in Vietnam that had a river, trees, and even a microclimate. He sat back in his chair and thought for a minute. What were the limitations of the developers'' tools? Could he carve out a huge cavern, leaving it open at the top? "Fuck it," he said to himself as he turned to his graph paper and sketched out the limitations of the mountain, "might as well try."


    Four hours later, he sat back and considered his graph paper. He had done the math and had decided he needed to cut his mountain down to size, in order to enlarge the opening at the top of the cavern. Hopefully, the tools would allow him to do so. His plan was to have an opening across the top of about three thousand feet wide. He planned for it to be about three hundred feet deep, which would allow for some of the trees to appear over the edge of the cavern, as he had decided to use Redwoods. He had some pretty good memories of riding his bike out west and visiting the Redwood national forest. So, three thousand feet at the top, and double that at the bottom. Should make for an interesting Dungeon concept. He had mapped an underground river that would appear as a short waterfall, and then meander the width of the cavern. He wasn''t quite sure what he wanted to do for critters just yet, but he was leaning towards animals, maybe super-sized and super aggressive. "But," he sighed as stuffed the map in a desk drawer and stood up to move over to his couch and VR helmet. "Now I have to figure out how to make it happen in game with the tools," he finished his thought aloud as he lay down on the couch and fired up the headset.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody woke up with a start. She blinked blearily. Huh. Weird dream. Kev dream. Those were always weird. They were riding their bikes, except they were their bikes. She shook herself and sat up. Glancing at her phone, she saw a text from Julie waiting. "Kev got new job, u gonna flip." Melody shot out of bed and scrambled for pants. Shoving her pants on and grabbing a t-shirt, she yanked off her tank top and stuffed her head through the t-shirt as she hurtled down the stairs, where she paused only to slip on her sneakers before bolting out the door and flat out running to Kevin and Julie''s.


    Pausing to catch her breath, she then swung open the door with a mighty roar of "Where my bitches at!" She closed the door behind her as she headed down the hallway to Julie''s room, figuring she could get the lay of the land from her first. Plus Kev might still be a bit sore about the cum puddle on his bed. Julie had her door open and was grinning at Melody as she rushed into her room and flung herself on the bed. As Julie closed the door and turned around, Melody said: "So, what is the good word on our boy?" Julie sat down next to her on the bed and said with a serious look, "I can tell you, but you have to promise not to flip your shit." Melody nodded and replied, "My shit shall remain unflipped. What gig did he land that he''s finally gonna quit working for Satan?" Julie grinned and reached out to take ahold of her friend''s hands. Melody quirked an eyebrow, and waited for her to deliver the news. Julie grinned and said, "New Realities. He can''t say what he''s doing because of an NDA, but it has something to do with Deep Delve." Melody looked her friend in the eyes, looking for any sign of joking or duplicity. Finding none, she took a deep breath, then let it out. She then took another. Then she flipped her shit. "Are you fucking kidding me, Kev is working on Deep Delve?!?!" she yelled with sufficient volume to cause Julie to wince. Yanking her hands back, she sprang out the door and started pounding on Kevin''s door. It really wasn''t her fault, she reflected as she pounded away, how could Julie tell her this news and expect her to not  flip her shit?

 Chapter Four

    As it turned out, the Developers'' tools were more than willing to let Kevin molest the geography of his dungeon in any fashion he cared to. Chopping the top of the mountain was quick and easy. Hollowing out the mountain to create a giant cavern took a bit more finesse, but a large part of that was just getting used to the tools. Luckily, someone had helpfully included the trusty ''Undo'' feature.


    After he was done, Kevin wound up with a cavern that was one thousand feet tall at the center, where a three hundred-foot circle opened to the sky. It spanned a bit over three thousand feet across, and the sides sloped down very gradually, before plunging to the ground, allowing for over a hundred feet of clearance at the edges.


    Now he just had to fill all that space. Kevin mentally rubbed his hands together, gleefully. ''Giant Sequoias...'' he was pleasantly surprised to find that the entry for the tree in question popped up as he thought of it. "That is going to save some time," Kevin muttered to himself, as he selected the tree. Upon selection, a familiar grid structure appeared over the cavern floor and walls. With a shrug, Kevin selected the grid more or less in the middle of the cavern. The ghostly image of a redwood appeared in that space, and several sliders and menu options appeared next to it, allowing him to customize his new tree. With a grin, he moved the slider for height to the top, watching the tree stretch over three hundred feet up. Kevin then slid the width slider over, expanding the tree to thirty feet in diameter. He grinned. This was going to be awesome.


    "Are you fucking kidding me?" Kevin said as he started going through the menus to the side of the spectral tree. There were dozens of options to turn the majestic redwood into a plant monster. Backing out of that menu, he concentrated and pulled up a menu labeled ''Themes.'' "Ok," he muttered as an array of choices appeared, "cosmetic themes, yes, good. Tentacle horror, bad." Kevin picked an option from the middle of the list ''Fractal Pattern - Underlay'', and watched in awe as his translucent redwood appeared to gain a solid appearance. A pattern of cracks grew beneath the bark, spilling out an ethereal purple light. The effect was incredible, and Kevin just watched as the dim light spread up and around the entire tree. He could almost make out a pattern to it. Kevin turned his attention to the familiar color panel on his right, and moved it from the purple spectrum, over to the green area. "God, this is so much easier," he grumbled, remember the good old days, about two years ago, when he had to rely on his accuracy with a mouse to select the point in the spectrum he wanted. After a bit of revision, he selected a color that the system labeled as ''Verdant'' and was to Kevin the perfect color of summer grass or an oak leaf in July. Of course, when expressed in an eerie dispersed glow, it was a little less friendly, but seemed to him to be equally healthy. Happy with his design, he planted his fully grown, verdant fractal pattern underlay redwood. As it appeared, in all it''s majesty, the system prompted ''Would you like to save this creation for future use?'' Grinning, Kevin selected yes, and went to work, planting his redwood forest.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie sighed as Melody tore off to Kevin''s room. Her friend was an irrepressible ball of energy. She''d often wondered if being so short had compacted her natural energy reserves, and resulted in Melody boiling over, like a kettle left on the stove too long. Julie stood, followed her friend to Kevin''s door and said, loudly, "He''s probably wearing his VR rig and can''t hear anything." Melody paused, considering, then dropped her hands to her sides and looked up at Julie. "But... dude. Deep Delve!" she said, her volume having fallen to a more reasonable level.


    Julie nodded, understandingly, and grabbed Melody''s hand, guiding her to the kitchen as she said, "Yeah, I know, Deep Delve. We probably would have had a celebration and everything if I hadn''t well, you know," she finished with a sigh. "Been a total dumpster whore?" Melody said brightly as she dropped into the kitchen chair with more force than her sub-one hundred pounds should have been able to generate. Julie grimaced, "I probably wouldn''t say that," she muttered, "but, yes, if Kevin hadn''t have come home to an unpleasant situation." She pasted on a grin, and continued "Anyways, you know how Kev is, all work and not enough play, so we should just plan to do something nice for him when he surfaces."


    Melody''s widening smile unnerved Julie, and she began to wonder at the wisdom of suggesting any sort of celebration in front of her. While Melody was an irradiating little ball of sunshine most of the time, she was absolutely fanatical about her VRMMORPGs. Her normal level of energy went from an eleven (on a scale of one to ten) to a thirteen. Ordinary mortals couldn''t support the level of enthusiastic devotion Melody displayed towards her favorite game, which for the past six months had been Deep Delve.


    "Yes...." Melody said, melodramatically. "We should have pre-launch/new job Deep Delve Party!" she finished gleefully, pumping her fist in the air. "No, no no no," Julie half begged, "I promised Kev I would dial it back down on the partying." This was not, she thought, an actual lie. Kevin had pointed out that she might have a problem with drinking. And parties and drinking sort of went hand in hand, so in a way, Kev had really asked her not to let Melody throw a gigantic over the top party, right? Right, she decided. "We should do something special for him, but low key ya know?" Julie said. Melody appeared to be giving the idea serious consideration. At the very least, she seemed to have stopped vibrating. "Ok," Melody said, "No party. We''ll figure something out, though, because the end of his Wal-Mart enslavement must be celebrated!" Julie gave an internal sigh of release. Crisis averted.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert twisted the throttle as he powered out of a long sweeping curve. When the Vision had been released back in ''08, he, like all his riding buddies, had been totally turned off by its appearance. The huge fairing, the sweeping lines, all seemed more akin to a spaceship, as opposed to an American V-Twin touring bike. Victory had positioned it to compete with the Harley Davidson Electraglide, as a fully dressed touring bike, and while on paper they both checked a lot of the same boxes, the Vision''s styling had just been so far from normal, that he''d dismissed it out of hand. Fast forward nine years, and he had been in the market for a new bike. His Ultraglide had racked up a bit over two hundred thousand miles and was getting to the point where he was going to start to need to do real maintenance on it. Steering head, pulleys, new fork seals... And he had kinda gotten that "I want a new bike" itch. When he rolled up to the Polaris dealership, he''d intended to test ride a Chieftan. But their demo model was being taken for a spin, and the sales manager had tossed him the keys to a ''17 Victory Vision in a glorious dark blue metallic flake and told him to come back in an hour, and the Chieftan should be back.


    Robert had set aside the afternoon for bike shopping, and with nothing to lose, he had hopped onto the blue behemoth. Five miles and twenty minutes later, he hadn''t been able to wipe the shit-eating grin off his face. Everything on the bike just fucking worked. The floorboards were long, and the whole cockpit was roomy enough that he could stretch his legs out fully on the floorboards, which was impossible on any other bike he''d ridden. The bike was as heavy as expected, but once you got moving, it handled like a much lighter bike. He''d made it back to the dealership an hour late, and with a hundred and twenty miles on the bike. The salesman had just grinned at him and held out an evaluation on the trade-in value for his Ultraglide, and said: "How you wanna pay for it?"


    It turned out that the salesman, Rick, had developed a tactic for selling the Victory Vision. "I wait till someone comes in looking to test ride something else, then throw them on the Vision. Works every time." He''d went on, "Everyone hates the way they look, but if you ride one, you''ll buy one." And he wasn''t wrong. That was eighteen years ago, and today, with over three hundred thousand miles on the clock, his Vision still made him grin.


    ''God,'' Robert thought, ''I needed this.'' The race to bring Deep Delve to market had started about a year ago, when it became clear that the capital raised wasn''t quite going to go the distance. The studio had spent what had seemed at the time to be a ridiculous amount of money mapping sensations for the game. It was a well-understood methodology for creating VR immersive elements. You strapped on the VR helmet and ran a program designed to simply read the neural responses to stimuli. The limitations were the vast amount of additional processing power required, which necessitated being connected to a server rack worth of hardware, and was thus not particularly portable, nor easily powered without ready access to 220v outlets. So, as an example, mapping the stimuli from skydiving was a non-trivial exercise, and had cost the company almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per jump to attain the data for. It took ten jumps in various weather and temperature conditions. Granted, this was one of the more expensive options. Mapping the stimuli of a walk through a grainfield at noon in July was considerably less expensive.


    Everything said and done, the studio''s goal of having the most complete and immersive library of VR experiences succeeded, but the cost was ruinous. Over five hundred billion dollars were spent on that portion of the development, nearly eighty percent of the funds raised. The remaining capital was spent on the VR engine to take advantage of the library and hiring tens of thousands of graphics design majors who graduated into a market place that didn''t have employment for them. The idea of evolving dungeons was faithful to the concept of the game; however, the studio had initially intended to use in house designers. Then the money ran out. And the panic set in.


    Robert had been with the studio since its inception. He didn''t have a pension or a 401k. Everything was tied up in Deep Delve. And so, when the clock was running down, and the cupboard was bare, he had suggested contracting out the dungeon design, allowing developers and programmers to build their dungeons and retain a small portion of the subscriber revenue as payment. It turned out to be the only idea that was affordable. He''d gone a step further and suggested the company look for underutilized talents, maybe hire a few struggling fantasy fiction writers with a background playing MMORPG''s (which all of them seemed to have), but cooler, more traditional heads prevailed. Towards the end of the project, just as the last of the pre-orders were finalized and the developers were contracted, HR had experienced a glitch, and Kevin''s application had floated in.


    Robert had taken advantage of having an open slot left. He''d first hired a private investigator out of his own pocket, paying the man a thousand dollars for a little background on the kid. It was easy work, the man had claimed, checking into an unsuspecting kid. He''d come back clean as a whistle. Robert hadn''t expected anything else, but with the argument he planned to make, he also wasn''t taking any chances.


    He knew that Deep Delve was going to be, initially, wildly successful. The library and engine assured that. The novelty of true to life sensations wouldn''t get old too quickly. That being said, if the studio wanted true subscriber retention (which they did, as while they made thirty dollars and change on the initial sale, the twenty dollars a month subscription fee is where the money really started to come in), they needed more than just a VR sandbox where you could look however you wanted. So, the key to the whole thing was the dungeons. And Robert just knew that most of the developers the studio had contracted were going to fuck that up. They would stick to the same old formula and produce crypts with skeletons and caves with trolls and kobolds. And while that was fine for attracting and keeping the hardcore gamers, he knew they had to have genuinely innovative and unique dungeons for people who weren''t gamers to play in.


    Forty percent. Forty percent of the presales had been made to individuals who had never played a VRMMORPG before. That, Robert knew, was fucking unprecedented. If they could keep those people engaged and subscribing, the game would explode, and alongside it his stock options. This was it. If everything played out well, he would be independently wealthy. And it wasn''t going to be the bored, broke, underemployed developers they had scrounged up to work on commission for a signing bonus that delivered that dream. It was going to be Kevin Claypool.


    As he entered another sweeper, Robert smiled, leaned the bike over, and throttled out.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody twisted her wrist and winced as she heard the chatter of the valve train. She hit the kill switch and looked over at the RUB (Rich Urban Biker), who was anxiously watching her as she gave his bike a once over. "Dude," she said with a sigh, "you''ve got twenty-eight thousand miles on the clock - have you ever checked your valve lash?" The RUB, whose name she didn''t recall at that moment, looked at her blankly and stuttered out, "I didn''t think Harley''s needed that?". Melody grimaced. ''This,'' she thought to herself ''was what happened when your marketing worked too well.'' "Yeah," she said. "Most Harley''s have hydraulic lifters, but the V-rod is a higher compression higher-revving engine that was developed in conjunction with Porsche and, as a result, has shim under bucket valves that do need to be checked and adjusted, about every fifteen thousand miles." To give him credit where it was due, the RUB ran his hand along the gas tank and asked: "Can we fix it?" Melody nodded and gave him a thumbs up and a smile "Yeah, it''s still running alright, so chances are good they are just a bit loose." She grabbed an order pad and scribbled down her best guess, which was usually pretty good. "Figure about five hours to take everything down and put it back together," she said, "shims are like a dollar each, so parts aren''t going to be shit, it''s really just the labor to get in there and measure the clearances, and swap the shims to get the clearances right again."


    The RUB, whose name she now remembered as Eric, looked relieved and asked the inevitable question, "When can you get to her?". Melody looked around the shop. The rule of thumb in the shop was that whoever inspected and diagnosed the bike was the one who did the work and billed on it. She had a chain and sprocket job for a kid who didn''t seem to understand the concept of cleaning and lubing his chain, and a belt replacement on a Road King that probably wasn''t even necessary, but the owner was a ''do it by the maintenance schedule'' kinda guy. "I got a couple of hours worth of work on bikes that came in earlier," she said, "but I can get started on it this afternoon, and have it done for you to pick up tomorrow after twelve."


    Eric (she needed to work on remembering names, damnit), nodded gratefully, and signed the work order she threw together. "Call me if something comes up and it won''t be ready" he said. Melody grinned and replied, "Will do, but I doubt I''ll need to, the two of you will be riding off into the sunset tomorrow night!" He flashed her a thumbs up and scooted out of the shop, phone in hand, probably trying to get an uber. Melody sighed. Not all RUB''s are assholes, she reminded herself, some of them just aren''t mechanically inclined, but still loved to ride. She could respect that. Cracking her neck she walked over the CBR600R that needed it''s fourth fucking chain and sprocket set in ten thousand miles, and set to work, taking joy in knowing that she was going to charge that little shit another three hundred dollars for something he could have prevented with twenty minutes, and a twenty-dollar can of chain lube.


    As she worked, Melody let her mind drift. Deep Delve. Man, it was like a touchstone, like a mantra. Deep Delve. And it was finally coming. She''d read that it was confirmed that the studio had spent half a fucking trillion dollars on the engine, getting the game to feel like reality, but better. She had stopped playing her last VRMMORPG almost eight months ago, and she was fucking jonesing for a fix. But with her Dad having gotten worse, and the shop, she just hadn''t had the time to keep up with a hardcore, elite gaming guild. She had invested a lot of hope into the idea that Deep Delve was going to be revolutionary, and give her an escape that didn''t require the time investment that all the VRMMORPG grind fests required.


    And they had hired Kev. It was nice for someone else to recognize his awesomeness. He was a bit of a mudge, sure, but in the grand calculation of things, Kevin came out on the sunnyside of awesome. And working at Wal-Mart was killing him. He never said, but Melody was certain that his soul was slowly withering in the dark depths of the refrigerated hell that he spent so much time in. She dropped the rusted sprocket set in a bucket as she broke out the new ones. She had convinced the kid to use aluminum this time, so at least when his chain rusted out, she wouldn''t have to pull the sprockets off again. Deep Delve.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin pulled back, mentally at least, and looked down on his creation. It was, he thought, fucking unreal. He had created a redwood forest, with a smattering of laurel, maple, and oak trees growing in a pair of clearings he''d deliberately left open. Several patches of huckleberry and blackberry bushes could be found amongst the giant trunks. Keeping in mind that redwoods liked it damp, Kevin had placed a waterfall along the eastern edge, where it plummetted eight hundred feet down into a deep pool, which then flowed into a pair of streams that meandered through the cavern. One of the streams ending at the western wall, another ending at the southern, where it created a shallow pool before disappearing underground. He had been quite liberal with applying the ''Verdant'' template he had created, and the result was spectacular. When he turned off the Sun (and at that moment, he truly felt godlike), the cavern was illuminated by a vibrant green glow that spread through the mist the waterfall created.


    The options Kevin had discovered as he laid everything out were overwhelming. He had temperature selections for the water, as well as PH balance and mineral levels. Once he had added the waterfall and streams, he had started to add moss and some aquatic plants (he had sort of fixated on the water feature for a few hours), and the system listed options that were compatible with the mineral content and temperature he had chosen. It was as he added finalized the flora of his cavern that Kevin discovered the next piece of his dungeon puzzle.


    Resouces. Apparently, the first level of a dungeon was limited to 1,000 resource points, in keeping with the idea that it was intended for players leveling from level five to level ten. Further investigation of the system showed that harvestable plants, which included mosses, berries, and even trees, counted against that total. Apparently, one resource point per resource collected from the source, so while a patch of moss or a water lily only counted as one point, a blackberry bush counted as ten, and an oak tree counted as two hundred. Kevin had received an error when he had tried to assign a redwood as a resource, leading him to believe it contained more than one thousand units of wood. Which to be fair, it probably did. This further lead him to the ''Dungeon Denizens'' menu.


    "Fuck, Robert wasn''t kidding around when he said they had fucking everything," Kevin breathed as the menu expanded. Kobolds, goblins, gnolls, undead of every flavor. It was a veritable variety of villains, an avalanche of adversity, a bounty of bad guys, a... Kevin stopped alliterating at this point. "Ok," he said to himself, "Deep breath. What goes in a giant redwood forest?" The answer was simple. Animals. He could stick some bears, or wolves in there. He focused on the menu, and the monsters disappeared, to be replaced with an alphabetic list of animals. Narrowing his eyes, he scrolled down the list rapidly until he paused at the menu option for ''Badger.'' The menu expanded out, listing a few dozen species. Overwhelmed, Kevin chose the first option on the list ''Emerican Badger'' and was rewarded with the image of a three-foot-long badger. It had cute white markings on its face, was simply an adorable badger. He placed it on the ground in the curl of a redwood root and waited for a system prompt. He had learned that he could rely on the system to ask him additional pertinent questions when he added features.


    ''You have added an English Badger (female) to your dungeon'' the system prompted. ''Would you like to set this creature as aggressive, or neutral? (Note that aggressive creatures cost full resource points based on their level, and dispense full experience shard rewards, whereas neutral creatures resource cost are halved, and can be set to dispense half experience shard rewards or no rewards).'' Kevin paused, considering a moment. He needed more information. Putting the Badger to the side (he had learned he could do that while building the forest), he focused on the menu and concentrated while muttering "Resources." And the system responded.


    ''Resources - Each dungeon is allocated resources based on the maximum level of the intended player completing it. Initial dungeon levels are set from level five to level ten, allocating 1,000 resource points. Points may be spent on harvestable resources, and on creatures and their rewards. A base-level creature for this dungeon, if neutral, is .1 points. An aggressive creature is .2 points. This value was determined by allocating one resource point to a group of beings that a group of players might face. As the default group size for the dungeon is five, a five-player group would meet a party of five creatures, worth one resource point. As the level of the creatures increase, so does the resource point cost. A level ten neutral creature is .5 resource points, where a level ten aggressive creature will cost one full resource point. As an additional note, resources are by default common. They can be upgraded to uncommon or rare at the current depth of this dungeon. Uncommon resources cost twice the number of resource points to place. However, they can be modified concerning the rewards they offer. Rare resources cost quadruple the number of resource points and offer further options in terms of rewards. The dungeon cannot be finalized without the inclusion of at least one rare, aggressive creature.''


    "Well then," Kevin said, "floor bosses are a thing." He glanced over at his Badger and brought it back into focus. He moved his focus over to the Badger menu and looked at the options. Sure enough, there were options for its loot, as well as its name and its size and its level. The menu also contained the now familiar menu for customizing the Badger''s appearance. ''First things first,'' Kevin thought as he applied the ''Verdant'' template to the Badger. He was delighted as the pattern of the Badger''s fur changed, and the tips of some of the hairs began to glow slightly. "Now that," he said, "is one adorable Badger." He then frowned. He wasn''t exactly going for adorable, was he? This was a dungeon, not a vacation spot. With a sigh, he set his Badger to the side and prepared to exit Deep Delve. The helpful clock that kept track of how long you were logged into the game indicated he''d been working for a bit over fourteen hours, and while he couldn''t feel it, he was absolutely certain that he needed to piss like a racehorse.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie was a little bit worried. She wasn''t quite sure when exactly Kevin had started working, but it was Sunday morning now, and she''d not heard from him. She sighed, wishing he had opted to turn on the external communications option on his VR rig. She doubted that whatever he was doing disabled it, and it would have let her message him to see what he was doing, and more importantly if he wanted to grab breakfast. As she was folding her laundry, she heard the telltale scream of the showerhead of tormented souls and knew that Kev had emerged from his VR rig. She walked to his room, nudged open the door and called in, "Dude, you wanna grab some breakfast? Denny''s down the block, my treat!" A few seconds passed, then she heard the showerhead of tormented souls end its wailing lamentation. Kev''s voice rang out from the shower, "Say again? " "Breakfast at Denny''s, on me," Julie yelled into his room. "Sure thing, I''ll be out in five," Kevin replied.


    Julie walked back to her room and grabbed her phone. She knew Mel had done a night shift with her Dad, and could probably use a pick me up meal as well. She shot a message to her friend, inviting her out to Denny''s with her and Kev, then grabbed her purse gave herself a quick once over in the six-foot-tall mirror she had mounted on the outside of her closet door. Good enough for Denny''s, she decided. She went to the garage and backed her beat-up old Ford Explorer out into the driveway. Her recent commission check was going to pay her rent and bills for the next month and get her into a newer, nicer car. It was shallow, but appearances matter, and it was hard to sell a three hundred thousand dollar house when she drove a one thousand dollar car. People judged. She knew that being young and, quite frankly, beautiful certainly helped her in that regard. But still. If she arrived at a showing in a car that didn''t have a sun-beaten paint job and sounded less like it needed a new exhaust, it would be just that much easier to be taken seriously.


    As she ruminated on the many ways her career would be improved by a shinier car, Kevin emerged from the house, looking like about a dollar fifty. He looked worn down, and Julie knew that he had worked through the night. She reached over and threw open the passenger door, the latch for which had ceased opening from the outside long before she had bought it. Kevin slid in, closed the door, buckled up, and leaned back in the seat. "Dude," he said. Julie nodded sagely and replied, "Dude." As she pulled out of the driveway, she asked Kevin, "So, pulled an all-nighter, eh?" "Yeah," Kevin replied, squinting against the morning sunlight. "I can''t tell ya what I''m doing, but I can say that it''s gonna eat a pretty huge chunk of my time for the next two weeks." "But big money, right?" Julie asked as they rolled to the intersection and waited for the light to change. "I don''t think I told you yet, but I got a thirty thousand dollar signing bonus," Kevin said a bit more cheerfully. "Dude!" Julie replied, "That''s awesome!" Kevin shot her a grin. "Yes," he said, "yes, it is."


    They arrived at Denny''s about four minutes later. It was just outside the subdivision they called home and was a favored hangout for both the residents and USF students who lived nearby. Julie dragged a staggering Kevin into a booth and nodded to the waitress who walked by, asking for a pair of cokes to start. "So," she began, "I also have good news on the job front." Kevin opened his eyes and quirked an eyebrow. Julie went on, "The reason for the party the other night, was that I closed a house for someone I had sold to a few years ago, making it not only my first-time repeat buyer but also the largest commission I''ve ever earned." Kevin reached over the table to deliver a high-five. "That''s great, just one more step towards your inevitable real estate domination." Julie grinned at him, "Yep, and while it isn''t thirty grand, it is ten, which means I can pay my bills for a couple of months, and finally replace the beast with something a bit more upscale."


    It was at this point that their conversation was interrupted twofold, first by the arrival of their drinks, and second by the arrival of their Melody, who crashed into an unsuspecting Kevin like a tiny tiger pouncing onto a larger, unwary water buffalo.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    "Wassup bitches!" Melody yelled in what she knew was not an indoor voice. She gave up trying to nudge Kevin over, as he didn''t seem to be taking the hint today, and just crawled over him to take the inside seat of the booth. "I''ll have a coke as well," she informed the surprised waitress before she turned her attention back to Kevin, who seemed to have recovered from her pouncing. "So," she said grinning, as Kevin straightened his shirt. "Word on the street is you''re bailing on Satan and saddling up with New Realities." Kevin gave her a glance that seemed oddly wary and nodded. Melody grinned wider, and said, "Don''t worry, I flipped my shit earlier when Julie told me - you were logged into your VR rig and dead to the world." Kevin quirked an eyebrow - she wished she knew how he managed that, at best she could just sort of scrunch, and she wasn''t going all Edward d''Eath over it. "So Julie wouldn''t tell me shit or let me throw a party for you, or anything, so I''m just all hyped up and can''t blow my load, so tell me what they have ya doing!" She finished, bouncing in her seat a bit.


    Kevin dropped the eyebrow and replied with a god awful serious look on his face, said, "NDA." "Dude, really?" Melody asked. Her best friend got a gig working on Deep Delve, which was going to be like, her whole life, and he couldn''t say what he was doing? That sucked. She pouted. "Can''t say a damn thing, eh?" Melody said. Kevin nodded. Melody sighed. Everyone knew about that court case where the Alpha tester ended up in prison. New Realities was not fucking around with their NDA''s and their intellectual property. Kevin grinned and elbowed her gently in the shoulder as he said: "All I can tell you is that when you play it, you are gonna fucking flip your shit on a truly epic scale."

 Chapter Five

    Kevin woke up slowly, the deep-seated and apparently long-neglected needs of his bladder having finally made its concerns known through the dark realms of Morpheous. Scratching his jawline, he considered his need to shave and resolved to engage in the three S''s before tackling anything else. After breakfast at Denny''s, Kevin had begged off any further adventures, citing his need for sleep. Melody had the energy to burn, and she had volunteered herself to help Julie start looking for a newer car.


    After attending to his immediate bodily needs, he wandered out to the kitchen and glanced in the fridge. Fuck. "Grocery shopping," Kevin muttered to himself as he sat down at the table and pulled out his phone, starting to make a list. He paused two minutes later as he was finalizing the list. ''I''m going to be in my VR rig for the next twelve days,'' he thought to himself, his mind finally firing on all cylinders. He deleted the list and started again. Protein bars, meal replacement shakes, and water was what he needed. After a few more moments of thought, he added some frozen Pizza''s to the list, not wanting to leave Julie to starve while he was embedded in his Dungeon. A quick trip to the Wal-Mart app and he had his order in place, and five minutes later, he was pulling out of the garage, having clipped his panniers into place and made sure his Rok straps were clicked in.


    As Kevin shifted up into neutral and coasted into online pickup spot number two, he couldn''t help but let his grin widen. He fucking loved this part. Opening his Wal-Mart app, he identified that he was in pickup spot two and ready for his order. He took off his helmet, hanging it from his mirror, and unlocked his panniers as a blue vested Wal-Mart employee arrived, pushing the cart that contained his order. "Uh, 47056?" the young woman asked hesitantly as she looked in the cart, and then at Kevin''s unassuming 919. Kevin nodded happily, waving her over and showing her his confirmation on his phone. "How..." she said slowly, as Kevin started loading his panniers with forty-eight meal replacement shakes and four cartons of protein bars. "Balance is the key," he said over his shoulder to her. "Gotta keep the weight balanced evenly between the bags, which is why I just order even numbers so I can pack em both the same way." He placed four frozen pizzas in the top clamshell of each pannier and locked them down. Kevin grinned to himself. Perfect fit.


    He turned back to the cart and grabbed one of the two forty bottle packages of water. He dropped it across the rear seat, overhanging the panniers, and then snagged the second one, stacking it on top of the first. Keeping one hand on the two cases of water (they always like to slide off, as the bike was on its side stand, and the angle was just steep enough), he grabbed a rok strap, threw it over, and started tightening it down. He repeated the process on the other side, and then turned back to see the woman - Becky her name tag identified, pulling out her phone and taking a picture of the Honda in all its heavily laden glory. He waited for her to snap the photo, then wordlessly moved to the center of the frame and gave her"The Fonz." Clicking another picture, Becky grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Kevin pulled on his helmet and gloves, then fired up the 919, dropping Becky the wave as he rolled past.


    Once home, Kevin unloaded his groceries, sending a text to Julie letting her know that there were frozen pizzas to be had and that he was going to disappear into his VR rig for the foreseeable future. It was time to start really playing around with the creature system. There were just too many options available for there not be some cool and unexpected things that could be done, and Kevin wanted his Dungeon to be not only a place for people to grind but also a place of wonder.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert throttled through another curve, coming up over the hill and seeing the Ouachita river to his right, and signage for 270 flashing by. He tapped the rear brake, bleeding off a little speed before he dove into the next corner, his head moving up and down in time to the music blasting out of the speakers. As he straightened up, a yellow sign alongside the road caught his attention. Depicting a wiggling arrow, it said, ''Winding Road Next 72 Miles.'' His grin broadened, and he moved his left thumb over, pushing next on the audio controls until he heard the riffs from ''Returning to the Fold'' start to thunder out of the speakers. Pushing the repeat track button, he wiggled in his seat and got into the zone.


    Twenty miles later, he pulled into a scenic overlook and shut down the Vision. Robert stretched, grabbed a bottle of water out of the cooler he kept on the back seat, and wandered over to picnic table that looked over a picturesque valley, seemingly untouched by man. "Fucking beautiful," he said to no one in particular. He had needed this. The only downside, he reflected as he downed half the water bottle in a go, was that he didn''t have anyone to share the view and ride with. There were a couple of people at New Realities who rode, but none of them were serious tourers. ''I wonder if Kevin tours,'' he mused to himself. The P.I. he had hired to investigate the kid had looked for past indiscretions and current behaviors. He hadn''t dug into the kid''s vacation habits. Idly curious, he fished out his phone and fired up the Developer Login tracking application he''d cobbled together a few weeks ago.


    Robert had known that he wasn''t hiring the best and the brightest when he''d been interviewing the dungeon developers. The best and the brightest were already firmly ensconced at the big studios. No, he was interviewing the newbies, and the guys who hadn''t had the talent or the drive to push their way to the top. In short, he had chosen the best of the bottom of the barrel. He''d done his due diligence; however, Robert truly believed in Reagan''s adage of ''Trust, but verify.'' So, he''d put together an app to track the developers he''d hired. He opted to sort by time logged in, shortest to longest and frowned. The developers had all had the tools for about a week now, except for Kevin, who, as a last-minute addition, had only received them three days - no, four days ago. Kevin should be the first on the list.


    Gary Largkin was the top of the list of underperformers with only twelve hours logged into the tools. Robert grimaced. Gary''s father had died last week, and as an only child and his father a widower, Gary was responsible for making all the necessary arrangements. It was frustrating to know he hadn''t invested much time in his Dungeon so far, even if the circumstances were understandable. Below Gary was Edward Kelly, and then Raymond Phillips, and then... he scanned the list.


    Robert whistled. Kevin had logged thirty-eight hours in the past three and a half days. Switching the app to sort by completed, he pulled up the hours logged information. So far, eight of the Dungeons were flagged as complete, with the highest number of hours logged at fifty-four and the lowest at forty-one. Robert closed the app and slipped his phone back into his jacket. As he stared out over the valley, he engaged in a bit of mental math. The eight Dungeons that had been completed were those created by the most experienced developers he had hired. It was to be expected that they would have an edge and be able to deliver the finished product the most quickly.


    Shaking his head, Robert stood up from the picnic table and stretched before heading back to his Vision. The dice were cast, and all that remained was to see how they fell. He felt reasonably confident that the finished Dungeons would be alright. Probably not exceptional, but solid grind fests with ample monsters. The first month, maybe even longer, was going to be all about the players experiencing the engine, and the library of stimuli. He grimaced as he thought about some of the things New Realities had done in order to gather those stimuli. Robert put on his helmet and then his gloves before turning the key and thumbing the ignition. Rolling out of the overlook and back onto the road, he twisted his wrist and let Deep Delve fall into the mental rearview.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie was doing her best to be cool, but she was totally loving this Charger. Melody was riding in the passenger seat while the owner, a gentleman in his seventies who had suffered a stroke several years and while having recovered, no longer trusted his reflexes enough to drive, answered a steady stream of questions from her. A deep dark blue, the car was eight years old, but only had fourteen thousand miles on it. It had spent its entire life in a garage, and according to the owner, had never even been driven in the rain. He was moving out to Arizona to be closer to his grandchildren, and because the dry heat would be kinder to his arthritis.


    At seven thousand dollars, it was definitely in her budget, and aside from being the R/T model was loaded with every option that she could imagine. She and Melody had already looked up the year and model, checking for any recalls, and looking for any trends in terms of high mileage issues. Julie pulled into the owner''s driveway and hopped out of the car. Glancing at Melody, who was helping the owner out, she received a thumbs up, meaning that Mel hadn''t noticed anything wrong during the test drive. Julie skipped around the car and leveled her devastating smile at the owner and said, "Any chance of cash discount?"


    Twenty minutes later, Melody was following her in the Beast while Julie happily drove her new car home. She had paid sixty-five hundred dollars for the car, and she couldn''t be happier. ''Pulling up in this,'' she thought, ''is going to help a few of the stuffier clients take me seriously.'' As she drove, she made a mental list of the high-end properties she''d shown unsuccessfully. Her boss was rather generous in that he rotated the properties through the agents each week, which allowed even the younger crowd to have a crack at high commissions. Julie didn''t have a roster of wealthy clients yet, but she was a damn good saleswoman, and there were a couple of properties and clients she felt she had just been a percentage point away from closing.


    Pulling into her garage carefully, she smiled as she got out of the care and looked it over. Maybe it wouldn''t make a huge difference in her sales. But damn, it looked good, and she loved the way it drove. Bouncing into the house, she rendezvoused with Mel in the kitchen, the Beast having been consigned to curbside parking. Melody was already in a chair, rocking back and forth as she grinned. "I''m in love!" Julie said, melodramatically placing a hand to her forehead and falling into the chair across from Melody.


    Melody laughed and pantomimed, clutching her chest in shock. "Oh lawd, her hearts been stolen!" She replied in a truly terrible southern drawl. Julie grinned. "So, car sorted, dinner?" Melody shrugged and said, "I have the night shift with my Dad tonight, so I have about an hour." Nodding, Julie wandered over to the fridge and opened it. She blinked. She closed the fridge. She looked at Melody, who raised her eyebrows. She opened it again, this time flinging the door wide to show Melody its contents. Cartons of Ensure were stacked up like tiny, tasteless bricks on the lower two shelves. "Guess Kev isn''t planning on eating real food for a while," said Melody slowly. Julie closed the fridge and opened the freezer above it. There, neatly stacked, were eight frozen pizzas and a yellow post-it note which read, "Can''t cook, must work, don''t starve, love Kevin."


    Taking the note out of the freezer, she dropped it in front of Melody as she turned to the stove and set it to preheat. Melody gave a bark of laughter and said: "I love that boy, even when he''s super focused on something, he still remembers to feed us."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin was deep into the development tools menu system. You could do almost anything you could imagine with the tools. In point of fact, he hadn''t yet discovered something he wanted to do and couldn''t. He had decided that his cavern, being open to the sky, needed some avian residents. He was initially hesitant to add birds, fearing that they would subtract from his resource total while not adding anything of real value. Digging deeper into the menus, he discovered that he could label creatures as ''Ambient,'' which apparently meant that while they could be killed, they didn''t provide any rewards for doing so. This revelation resulted in him shelving the monster creation and distribution in favor of populating his forest cavern with its non-combatant residents. He''d logged out of the game and dug deep into the ecology of the coastal redwoods.


    Two hours later, he was back in and ready to get creative. Insects, reptiles, fish, birds, and rodents had all been generously added to his little ecosystem. In doing so, Kevin had discovered more resources to add. Bird eggs took only one one-hundredth of a resource point each, and a school of trout took only one-twentieth. He had decided to differentiate the various grades of creatures by darkening or lightening the ''Verdant'' pattern he used. Ambient creatures were the lightest, giving off the very lightest shade of mint, then neutral who shone with a brighter emerald, and finally aggressive, which retained the original hue.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    As he was looking through the menus, considering what ores he could have available to be mined, the alarm he had set began to flash, alerting him that the sixteen-hour threshold he had set for himself had once again been reached. Kevin initiated the logout procedure and felt the customary wave of exhaustion roll over him. He had read the studies conducted over the years and knew full well that anything more than sixteen hours a day wasn''t sustainable in the long term for VR immersion. It was advised to take a break every four hours to attend to bodily functions that shouldn''t be suppressed for too long.


    Hurrying to his bathroom, Kevin noted with exasperation that the studies had all been accurate, and having to piss this badly every time he logged out wasn''t only unhealthy; it was also fucking annoying. Washing his hands, he also considered his empty and angry stomach, which didn''t take kindly to sixteen hours without food. Walking directly to the fridge, he powered down two meal replacement shakes before power chugging two bottles of water, with the dual purpose of hydrating and washing the chalky shakes down. Walking back to his room, he stopped as he noticed a yellow post-it stuck to his door.


    "Kevin, set your rig to allow messages, dude." Slapping a palm to his forehead, Kevin sighed. He had forgotten that every app needed to have its permissions set. He walked into his room, grabbed a pen, and appended the post-it note to include; "My bad, fixed it," and then moved the post-it over to Julies'' bedroom door. Having sorted out his roommate''s communication issue, he set the alarm on his phone and laid down for an eight-hour nap.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    It had been three days since Julie had gotten her car, and she was ready to declare it her lucky charm. She''d closed another property, a duplex that had been sitting on the market for a year and a half, just eating time and energy whenever it was shown. Julie had been able to convince a property management company that owned a few other units in the area to expand their business and purchase the property.


    She had already shared the good news with Melody and had sent a message to Kevin, who had replied from inside his rig with a thumbs up and a smiley face. Pulling into the garage, Julie considered if it was worth blowing off a little steam this weekend. The commission on the duplex sale was almost four thousand dollars, which gave her some significant padding in her checking account. Then again, Kevin would probably give her one of those meaning-laden glances that made her feel like a twelve-year-old who had been caught eating an entire carton of rocky road. Assuming he noticed.


    Julie knocked on Kevin''s door, and after a minute of no response, poked her head in. Sure enough, he was on his couch hooked up to his VR Rig, presumably slaving away for New Realities, doing whatever it was they had hired him to do. She frowned as she considered sending him a message to ask him to surface for a bit. She hadn''t talked to him in four days; he hadn''t even seen the new car. Closing the door, she decided she''d give it till the weekend. Then if he hadn''t surfaced, she''d drag him out to be social, if only with her and Mel.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody grimaced as she grabbed yet another handful of GoJo and went back to scrubbing her hands. She wore gloves when working on a bike, but the sad truth was that the shop just generated filth. Brake dust, road grime, and various other sources of black gunk ended up coating pretty much everything. ''At least,'' she thought to herself, ''I''m not too concerned about my nails.'' Max was a tomboy and proud of it. She knew she was cute, and there were a few guys that would be happy to lock her down. But family came first, and Dad was a time commitment that didn''t leave her with much left for a social life.


    She clocked out and headed to her bike, pumped for the weekend. Julie had been busy all week, and Kevin was interred in his VR rig, so she hadn''t seen her friends all week. It was time to loosen up and kickback. Stuffing her helmet on, she thumbed her ignition and considered her route home. Publix for subs, a liquor store next to Publix for beer, and then straight to Julie and Kev''s. Melody was absolutely certain she had clothes there so that she could eat, shower, then drink while hanging out. It was a solid plan.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert relaxed in his hammock, light clouds racing across the sky as afternoon settled over Joshua Tree National Park. He''d arrived just before noon, and had stopped on the way in for some beer and a fresh case of water. Despite the hundred and two degree temperature, Robert was feeling good as the shade from his rain tarp kept the sun off, and the stiff breeze wicked away any sweat. ''This,'' he reflected ''is heaven - an ice-cold beer, and no other humans for miles.''


    He was pulled from his reverie by the buzz of his cellphone. He leisurely pulled it out of the hammocks pocket and glanced at the screen. Two PM. Which made it five pm back in Florida, and thus time to check and see how the Dungeons were doing for the week.


    Thumbing open his app, he habitually sorted by least number of hours and sighed. Gary was still trailing the pack, although he had put another eight hours in. Maybe he''d gotten his father''s affairs in order. Scrolling down, Robert searched for Kevin''s name. Scrolling further, and further, he finally reached the bottom of the list, where Kevin''s name stood proudly. ''Damn,'' he muttered, as he did the mental math. At one hundred and one hours, Kevin had logged in sixty-one hours in the past five days.


    Closing the app, Robert opened Outlook and created an appointment to reach out to Gary Monday morning. Hopefully, Gary would have logged a few more hours over the weekend. Robert hoped all of his Dungeon developers would succeed, although the hastily constructed models suggested that at least five percent of the dungeons were likely to fail after the first few months. The models predicted that the Dungeons most likely to succeed would be themed, heavily combat oriented scenarios. The hyper-competitive MMORPG raiding types would flock to those. The next most likely Dungeons were those that provided thematic resources, most likely elemental themes. However, the water element was unlikely to succeed, and instead, the model predicted that any Dungeon that specialized in Ice would be visited instead.


    Finally, the model suggested that there would be successful Dungeons that simply excelled in having an engaging design. Robert slipped his phone back in the hammock pocket and took a sip of his beer, a grin spreading across his face. Over a hundred hours spent building a Dungeon with only one thousand resource points to spend? He just knew that Kevin was going to bring something unique to the game.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    "Two ravens in the old oak tree," Kevin sang along to himself "one for you and one for me, bluebirds in the late December, I see signs now all the time." He had piped music into the developer tools environment. Kevin was giving his Dungeon a once over before diving back into the menu system for creature behavior. He had decided not to use badgers as an aggressive enemy and instead had opted for small packs of wolves, a few mountain lions, and a rather angry grizzly bear.


    The depth and range of options available in the creation of the Dungeon were simply staggering. If you went deep enough, you could accomplish almost anything. Kevin''s most recent discovery was that he could not only set the creatures to respawn; he could also set a time frame for between two and twenty-four hours. And so he had set up his ambient creatures to reappear after two hours, his neutral creatures after eight hours, and his aggressive creatures after the full twenty-four hours.


    He had further discovered that you could set ''Safe Zones'' in your Dungeon, to allow a party to rest while being safe from aggressive creatures. Kevin had set up two of them, one on the southern end of the cavern where one of the streams pooled and disappeared down under the rock. The other was much deeper in and was located on the far side of the waterfall. He knew that if he were exploring the cavern, he would want to be able to take his time.


    Now, he was diving deeper into the menu system for creature behavior. It appeared that there was a sort of "If, then" system in place, allowing him to trigger certain behaviors. Kevin turned his attention to the Badger burrow he''d placed near the entrance to the Dungeon. He scrolled the options and set the neutral creature to flee if attacked. He didn''t want his adorable Badger to be murdered by the adventurers after all. He knew their type. There were plenty of MMORPG players who attacked the neutral creatures in games, despite there being little reward to be gained.


    Not in Kevin''s Dungeon. He proceeded to set each of his ambient and neutral creatures to flee if attacked. Further consideration of the menu showed a "Follow" option. ''I wonder,'' Kevin thought as he looked through the list of actions that could be used to trigger the "Follow" option. He selected his Badger and then set the options to cause the cutie to follow when given a fish.


    ''I wonder if there is a way to set him to friendly... is friendly an option?'' Kevin mused to himself as he continued his delve into the developers'' tools.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Julie shuffled back and forth as she danced to whatever Spotify was playing, all while running a brush through her hair while she carefully operated the blow dryer. It was Friday night, and while she wasn''t going to have a huge party, she knew Mel was going to show up soon, and Dave might pop by as well. All that remained was to drag grumpy bear Kev out of his self imposed hibernation.


    After sorting out her hair, and applying a touch of makeup, she heard the front door slam, and Melody''s battle cry of "What up my bitches!" echo through the house. Grinning, she grabbed her phone and quickly sent a message to Kevin; "Company, time to get out of your hole." Julie''s bedroom door was thrown open, and her space invaded by a dirty, smelly Melody. "Ugh, Mel, shower!" Julie pantomimed, waving fumes away while holding her nose. "Yeah, I fucking know, right?" said Melody as she stomped through Julie''s room and yanking open the bottom right dresser drawer, which she had claimed as hers years ago. "Getting fuckin'' hot, I swear I''d dropkick a toddler if it would get me A/C in the shop." Julie mouthed ''Dropkick a toddler,'' to herself as Melody pulled out some clothes and headed for the bathroom, yelling over her shoulder, "Wake Kevin up! I brought Publix subs and beer!"


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody hummed to herself as she fired up The Shower Head of Tormented Souls, stripping off her work clothes before climbing into the gloriously preheated shower. Grabbing a bottle of whatever Julie was using for body wash these days, she started lathering up. "Fucking hell Julie, Vanilla?" she muttered as she scrubbed off the work funk, shamelessly having stolen her friends'' loofah. Melody believed that Julie wore way too much Vanilla. She used vanilla deodorant, shampoo, laundry detergent, and perfume. Usually, there were lighter scents in the old body wash department, but apparently, her friend had gone full-on candy factory this month.


    Toweling off, Melody was glad she kept a hygiene shelf in Julie''s bathroom closet. At least she didn''t have to borrow her deodorant. Pulling on her gym shorts and a t-shirt, she walked out of the bathroom and pounded on Kevin''s door. "I''m gonna eat my sub, and then yours if you don''t get out here," she yelled through the door. There was a muffled yell in response, which she couldn''t make out, but it was enough of an acknowledgment. Melody skipped to the kitchen, where she found Julie tearing into her Mojo Pork sub, clearly having located the unattended subs from their clever hiding spot in the middle of the counter.


    Grabbing her Italian footlong, and a beer, she sat down across for Julie as she opened the beer, took a drink, then tore off the paper covering her delicious food. "How''s he doing?" she said, after swallowing a huge bite. Julie chewed, swallowed, and replied: "Well, assuming your cunning lure of Publix works, this will be the first time I''ve seen him since last weekend." Melody paused her brutal assault on her sub. "He''s been in his rig like 24/7, eh?" she asked. Julie nodded before taking a sip of her beer. "Yeah, unless he wandered into the garage in the middle of the night, I don''t even think he knows I have a new car," she responded.


    Melody nodded at that. She''d been friends with Kevin for long enough to know that he had a crazy strong work ethic, and he tended to focus to an almost obsessive degree on his hobbies. Combining these two traits clearly resulted in an extra antisocial Kevin. Well, it was her self appointed duty to drag him out into the world.


    Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of their subject matter. Kevin, she thought, looked like shit. "Dude, you look like shit," she said. Kevin had dark circles under his eyes, and although he was freshly showered, he hadn''t shaved, resulting in a short, dense beard covering his face and neck. "Also, you have a fuckin'' neckbeard," she went on, grinning at his barely audible growls. "I banged out sixty-two hours in the past five days," he muttered as he grabbed the remaining sub from the counter, along with a beer, and slumped down into the chair between her and Julie.


    Melody nodded, and went on, "Yeah, you look like a ten dollar crack whore," she said sagely. Kevin winced and replied, "That''s a little harsh," he said before he started to grin and pointed at his face "I still have my teeth!" Melody reached over for a high five, which was duly delivered. "So, New Realities cracks that whip pretty hard?" Kevin shrugged and tore into his Rueben. "Let''s just say I''m keeping busy and making myself useful," he said.


    Melody took a drink and considered. She kind of wanted to press him a bit about what he was doing. Sixty fucking hours in a week was some pretty hardcore work, especially in a VR rig, and if she knew Kev, he wasn''t taking a break every four hours. "You pausing every four hours to shit, piss or jerk off?" she asked. Kevin shook his head while grinning, "Nope, and let me tell ya, after sixteen hours, I''m pissing like a fire hydrant." Melody gave him a sidelong glance as she resumed her attack on what was left of her sub. "You gonna be able to slow it down after launch?" she asked.


    Kevin raised an eyebrow at her. Damn that eyebrow. He was like fuckin'' Vetinari with that shit. After swallowing, he responded, "I can''t discuss the project I''m working on for New Realities due to an NDA; however, I feel that I will be able to start working a normal forty-hour week before the VR immersion does any permanent damage." She gave him a thumbs-up, unwilling to relent her ongoing battle with her meal.


    As Julie started expounding on her new car, Melody took a drink and smiled. A bit of Kev and Julie was just what she needed to switch gears for the weekend.

 Chapter Six

    "Twist, and whisper the wrong name, I don''t care nor do my ears - twist yourself around me I need company, I need human heat" Kevin sang along to the music as he examined the rabbit warren he had just placed in his southernmost clearing. He had already placed five others, and when placing rabbit warrens it had only been natural that the music of choice should be Frightened Rabbit. Satisfied with the burrows he had created, he pulled his viewpoint further back and viewed his cavern from above.


    He had created an entire ecosystem and had kept it in concert with the rapid respawning of resources and creatures. The grass grew almost as quickly as the rabbits ate it, the rabbits bred like, well rabbits, and the wolves and mountain lions had a supply of prey creatures that allowed a far more robust population of predators than would be possible in a typical environment.


    After Kevin''s discovery of how exactly the resource system worked, he had gone back over his initial creation and had discovered that the patch of moss he had placed only needed a resource value of one-twentieth of a point, the same as the water lily. He had placed veins of copper and tin ore along a few of the walls. A fallen redwood over the stream also provided an opportunity to harvest lumber without chopping down any trees. He had even placed gold flakes and dust in a shallow, fast-moving creek.


    All resources aside, he was most proud of his baby animals. Kevin had taken each species of mammal, from the moles, the rabbits, the mice, the rats, the badgers, the wolves, the mountain lions, and even the grizzly bear, and created scenarios for each one. In each case, the player had to approach one specific member of the species with a gift of food. The animal would then lead the player to their den to show them their offspring. The player then had to return with another offering of food for the mother, and an altered, particular offering of food for the young. One of the young would then approach the player, indicate through play that it wanted something even more specific. If the player, through insight, research, or just trial and error, managed to feed that young animal the correct food, it would then follow the player around the Dungeon, and be set to ''Friendly.''


    It had taken him twenty hours of development time to arrange each encounter to his satisfaction. It had also necessitated adding a few additional features to the Dungeon. Kevin was fully aware that having salmon swimming up a creek that arose from underneath the wall of the cavern was a bit on the nose. But grizzly bears wanted salmon. He had also known that wild boars weren''t really part of the ecosystem he''d created, but he was also sure that every meat-eating mammal in creation loved bacon, and had needed it for one of the ingredients for most of the special treats. And so Kevin had needed to add truffles for the boars, and so on.


    He was finally done. All that remained was the Dungeon boss. He''d set the pack leaders for the wolf packs to be uncommon, and discovered that this allowed for additional loot options. Kevin could add either more experience shards, increase the value of the existing shard, or he could add a crafting pattern. He had chosen crafting patterns and given each pack leader a drop for a different pattern. Following that idea, he''d done the same thing for the boars. The mountain lions and bears, being more solitary, had each been bumped to uncommon and given their own patterns.


    Now the time had come to set up the boss encounter of his Dungeon. Kevin had chosen to use a grizzly bear for the boss and had set him to level ten. He''d created a cave at the very end of his cavern to serve as the bears home. Setting the bear to rare and aggressive, Kevin then decided to change the model just a little. Increasing the size just a bit, he also decided to darken the Verdant color underlay. Finally, after an hour of digging through menus and adding features, followed by discarding them, he had given the bear a few horn-like protuberances. Almost a crown even. Happy with his bear boss, he had decided to name him Rufus.


    Once Kevin had finalized and placed Rufus, the loot system opened up and offered new options. Apparently, crafting patterns had a rarity function as well, and rare creatures offered uncommon patterns. He chose the option to award one of the other crafting patterns offered by the other animals in the Dungeon, but increased to uncommon rarity and selected randomly.


    Having sorted that out, Kevin then started looking through the menus, searching for something to spruce up Rufus'' cave. After adding a bit of moss, and some old cracked bones for ambiance, he scrolled idly through menus. He stopped as something caught his eye under the ambiance section. "Altars..." he murmured to himself. He started working his way through the extensive and diverse selection of altars. Much like every other feature he had investigated so far, New Realities had striven for an all-encompassing range of choices. From the demonic to the divine, there were clearly choices for all denominations. Kevin settled on an alter made of slabs of bark, supported by bundles of crude spears and secured by vines. Upon confirming the placement of the Altar, he was shown a prompt, asking if he wanted to dedicate this Altar to a Deity.


    Kevin paused. He hadn''t really considered the religious aspects of the game. He''d known in the back of his mind that any good fantasy game had to have various Deities for both the good and bad guys to worship. He''d played the occasional cleric before. Still, he hadn''t read up on this aspect of the game. In fact, he felt more than a little bit guilty about not having read any of the documents he''d been given access to last week. Kevin had run the occasional search function to check for crafting materials he should provide for entry-level crafting.


    Still, it could only add flavor to his Dungeon, Kevin decided as he selected to option to dedicate the Altar to a Deity. He was then presented a list of thirty-six deities, of which only four were available due to the construction materials of the alter. He could choose from Ent, Gaia, Orin, or Willow Weep. Ent was right out. No tentacle tree monsters for his Dungeon, thank you very much. Gaia sounded a bit hippy and druid-y for his tastes, although he had sort of created a druid haven with the baby animals. Willow Weep seemed a bit tentacle-y as well, which left Orin. Kevin sighed. Time to pull up the documents.


    A quick scan of the Deity related documents revealed that Gaia was primarily interested in flora, and the weather, thus clearly the favored Deity for all farmers. Orin was considered the God of the Hunt and was focused more on fauna, as well as tracking, and, well, hunting. Ent was indeed all about the living trees, as well as bountiful harvests. Willow Weep as all about poison, and of course, tentacles. Kevin selected Orin from the list and watched as the Altar twisted slightly, the symbol of a spear and a crossed fang overlying an oak leaf forming over the Altar.


    Kevin pulled his view back and considered his Dungeon. It was basically done, all the creatures placed. Really, he had just a few finishing touches he wanted to add.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert groaned as he sank into his office chair. His vacation had been fantastic. Choosing to stretch it to the limit, and be back in the office the night after he had gotten home had perhaps been an unwise choice. Still, it was two days before launch, and he had few final housekeeping tasks to attend to. Pulling up his list of Dungeons, he was pleased to see that Gary had managed to log fifty-eight hours in the dev tools, and had submitted his Dungeon as complete yesterday.


    Robert scrolled through the list of Dungeons, noting the hours each had logged, the submission date for completion, and the sign off from QA indicating the Dungeon had been tested and approved. There had been only one issue with Quality Assurance. One of the Dungeons, fortunately not one of his, had been centered around a demonic theme which in and of itself was fine, but the torture and rape scenarios had gone way too far. The dev in question had toned it down, and resubmitted it for evaluation, and gotten the ok. It would probably end up a favorite of all the Edgelords. Robert reached the bottom of the list and sighed.


    There was Kevin. One hundred and fifty-six hours logged, and he hadn''t flagged his Dungeon as completed yet. Robert opened a console and sent a message to Kevin ''Log out and call me.'' He then opened an email and rejoined the ongoing debate regarding server load balancing and handoffs.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin paused his careful placement of what the game had called "Elder" runes as a message appeared. Apparently, Robert was back from his vacation. ''Maybe he wanted an update,'' Kevin thought as he wrapped up his latest and last runic structure. Logging out of his VR headset, Kevin headed to the bathroom first, the kitchen second, and finally reached for his phone and called Robert.


    Robert answered the phone on the second ring and said, "Kevin, while I''m glad to see you working hard, we have two days before launch, and I have to ask - are you done yet?" Kevin paused and considered before replying cautiously, "What day is it?" Robert sighed through the phone before saying, "Kevin, it''s Wednesday morning. We have to have QA walk through your Dungeon, run a stress test with simulated connections and resource usage to determine server load and resource allocation, and push the finished code to the servers, all by Thursday night." Kevin coughed and replied, "Well, it''s pretty much done, I was just adding a couple finishing touches for flavor." "Wrap it up, name it, mark it complete, and have it done by four pm. I''m guessing you haven''t left your house for a few days, so I tell ya what - finish it up, I''ll buy ya dinner, then we''ll go to the office, and I''ll drag one of the QA guys into it with us to authorize testing and deployment."


    Kevin pulled his phone away from his head and looked at the time before replying, "Yeah, I can do that. What do you have in mind for dinner?" "Mission BBQ off Waters, close to the office and damn good BBQ, meet up at five pm," said Robert. "See ya then," said Kevin as he ended the call. ''Free food, fuck yeah,'' he thought to himself as he logged back into his VR rig and set a series of alarms. He had one more thing he wanted to accomplish.


    Kevin was rather proud of what he had created, but he had to admit it sort of lacked a purpose. So, he''d taken the Altar he had placed and went deeper into the options. After a bit of digging, Kevin had managed to corrupt his Altar, and rededicate it to Willow Weep. He had changed the color of his fractal pattern underlay to a deep, unsettling purple color, almost a blacklight, and assigned it to Rufus and the Altar, representing the corruption. He had then set a series of conditions to remove the corruption from the Altar. Finally, he had set the cleansing of the Altar to reward a craftable pattern that would set all the creatures in the Dungeon to neutral. Kevin finished everything up at just before four pm, and as he saved his Dungeon, and selected the option that indicated it was complete, he was prompted to name his Dungeon.


    Kevin gave it a few seconds thought and then entered "The Verdant Caldera." He logged off and headed for the shower.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert heard a ping from his PC and checked his email. It looked like Kevin had submitted his Dungeon as complete. He glanced over at MS Teams and saw there were only two people from the QA group logged on. He had locked horns with John once or twice and didn''t really enjoy his company. The feeling had seemed to be mutual, so he wasn''t about to ask him to stay late. Janice, he had met once and had no real interaction with. He shot her a quick message, asking if she could stay late to run QA through one final Dungeon, and offering to take her out to a working dinner beforehand. She responded within a few minutes, asking if he could authorize the overtime or contact her lead to approve it. After assuring her he could indeed authorize the overtime on his own authority, she''d agreed to meet him in the lobby at four-thirty.


    Robert started closing down his PC for the night and then wandered down to the lobby, where he found Janice waiting for him. Well, he assumed it was Janice. No one else was in the lobby. While Robert had met her at one point, it had been during a rather hasty intake meeting where all the newly hired QA reps were introduced to all the development leads, so she had been one face in over a thousand. She was young, he thought, probably in her early twenties. Tall and willowy, she had lustrous black hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were bright and eager above her pert, freckled nose. Overall she was quite attractive, which seemed rather at odds with the normal experience subset that tended to land someone in the quality assurance field.


    Shrugging, he said, "Janice, right? I''m Robert Swarenson," as he offered his hand. She shook his hand firmly and nodded in reply, "Yep, although I prefer Jane, honestly who names their kid Janice?" she said. Robert grinned and held the door open for her. "Well, Jane, BBQ, and an overworked Dungeon Developer await us."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Jane was a bit nervous. She knew who Robert Swarenson was, everyone who worked at New Realities knew the names of the twenty original developers who had become the leads for Deep Delve. She also knew that her direct lead, John, had gotten into a bit of territorial spat with Robert over the levels of perceived pain in the game. All the developer leads had sided with Robert, and John had been put in his place, a fact that still bothered him. She didn''t want to end up on John''s shit list, but when one of the top thirty people in the company asked you to stay late and offered you dinner, you accepted.


    She was also pretty sure that this wasn''t one of those terrible made for television lifetime movie situations where Robert was asking her dinner with any sort of underlying romantic aspirations. The fact that he had needed to confirm who she was in the lobby sort of indicated that he was after her QA functions. Still, she was in a strangers car headed to a restaurant for dinner, so a bit of caution wasn''t a bad thing.


    As they pulled off Waters into the parking lot, she paused her internal reflections to note that they had arrived at their destination. "Mission? This is great, I love their ribs!" she exclaimed as she unbuckled and slid out of the car. A grinning Robert replied, "Yeah, I''m all about their pulled pork myself." He continued as they walked to the doors, "The developer we are meeting with has logged over a hundred and fifty hours in the past twelve days, so this might be the first real meal he has had in two weeks." Jane blinked as Robert opened the door for her. "That''s a lot of hours to be logged into a VR headset," she said slowly. "Table for four please," Robert said to the hostess, and replied to Jane as they were lead to a booth, "Yeah, he got the nod a bit later than everyone else, but I think he''s going to have something really special." He sat and then said to the hostess, "I''ll have a water and a coke, we have another joining us, and we''ll order then," he said before turning to Jane and gesturing for her to order. "Bud long neck," she said, "and a water as well, no ice." Both she and Robert glanced at the Menus and were interrupted just a minute later by the hostess returning with their drinks, and tall young man, with gorgeous blue eyes and a motorcycle jacket, matching helmet in hand.


    Robert smiled and stood up, shaking the young man''s hand. "Kevin, good to see you in the land of the living!" he said jovially as he continued "this is Jane, I''m keeping her late to run QA on your Dungeon, so I figured the least I could do was offer her dinner as well." The now named Kevin turned to her and gave her a grin, "Hey Jane, a pleasure to meet you," as he extended his free hand to shake hers. Jane gave him a smile in return. Although he looked a little tired, he seemed to be in good spirits. "So!" Kevin said, "Never been here, what''s good?"This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Conversation seemed pretty easy, at least between Robert and Kevin. Jane gathered that they hadn''t known each other before Robert had hired Kevin just under two weeks ago, but the two of them seemed to share an easy camaraderie and a love of motorcycles. The discussion turned to Robert''s vacation, and he was soon showing them photographs he had taken from various places along his ride. Jane was a little intimidated. Robert had just packed up some camping gear on his motorcycle, and then ridden around the country, camping out in the national parks, or grabbing a hotel if he didn''t feel like riding any further that day.


    Kevin was either buttering up his boss, or a like-minded soul. Based on how genuine he seemed, she was leaning towards the later. Kevin also took his vacations as opportunities to take off on his motorcycle, although he hadn''t had much vacation time up to this point. Jane had asked where he had worked before New Realities and received an enlightening and amusing education in regards to the inner workings of the Wal-Mart distribution and logistics system.


    Once dinner was served and eaten, Kevin had followed them back to New Realities, and they had ascended to the QA floor, where Jane was amused to play the guide, as Robert clearly hadn''t ever set foot here. She guided them to the lounge and the dozen zero gravity reclining chairs and the VR headsets that were wired in above them.


    "This, gentlemen," she said with a smile, "is where the magic happens!" Kevin gave her a grin as she guided him to a chair and adjusted the headset for him. Robert sat down in a chair as well, clearly used to this setup, and pulled down a headset. Jane followed suit, and a few minutes later, she emerged from the darkness into a wonderland.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin was a bit nervous. This was the first time anyone was going to see his Dungeon. Also, he wasn''t quite sure what the procedure was. He sort of assumed that Robert would have everything in hand, but Robert had needed Jane to guide them to this setup, so he wasn''t really sure. Jane seemed nice if a little quiet. He hoped she wouldn''t find anything wrong with his Dungeon.


    A couple of minutes passed, then he felt a bit of vertigo, and found himself suddenly standing just inside the entrance of his Dungeon, with Robert and Jane standing next to him. "Woah," he said as he looked them and himself over. "Kinda trippy." Robert shook his head and looked at him with an exasperated sigh before saying, "Let me guess, you haven''t ever logged into your Dungeon in explorer mode?"


    "Uh... no?" said Kevin sheepishly. He hadn''t even considered it. "You, my friend, are an idiot," said Robert. "You didn''t read any of the documentation, did you?" Kevin replied slowly, "Well, I skimmed some of it, and ran some searches for stuff I needed," he trailed off. Robert sighed and then tapped Jane on the shoulder, drawing her attention from the canopy overhead. "You with us, Jane?" Robert asked.


    Jane nodded slowly. Robert looked up as well, then turned to face Kevin. "So," Robert said, "just follow along while Jane and I run through it." Kevin nodded and stood silently as Jane and Robert started exploring.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    ''Kid may not be willing to read, but damn...'' thought Robert as he looked around the Dungeon. The air was moist as if a fog had just rolled out. Which made sense, given the kid''s choice to populate his Dungeon with redwoods. Speaking of choices, the circle of sunlight far overhead indicated that Kevin had created an open-air Dungeon. None of his other developers had done anything like that, choosing caves, tunnels, or in one case, a ruined castle. There was also the faint green light that suffused the cavern. He could almost make out a pattern as he squinted at the nearest redwood. He took a few steps forward, then started to circle the tree. Robert started as a bird took off from the ground, carrying a few small twigs in its beak.


    Stopping and taking a longer look, Robert could see a few squirrels, more birds, a couple lizards, and even heard the buzzing of insects. He knew that there was no such thing as a ''package'' for the Dungeon developers. Kevin had needed to have added each one of these creatures individually. He circled the tree slowly, noting the other plants on the ground. He was examining a fern, fascinated with how the pattern and the lightly almost seemed to be a perfect match for each other when he heard Jane make what could only be described as a squeal of excitement.


    Walking around and past two other trees, Robert found Jane trying to interact with a cautious, but not aggressive Badger. Looking the animal over, Robert did have to admit that the light green fractal pattern did result in taking what would generally be a cute Badger and pushing it well into the realm of adorable. Jane certainly seemed to be fascinated. She was down on her knees, trying to coax the critter over to her. "You need food," said Kevin unexpectedly. Jane and Robert both turned to look at him. He was leaning against a tree, slowly fingering a fern leaf as he looked around, seemingly in wonder at what he had created. "Food?" asked Jane quietly. "Yeah," Kevin replied, "She wants a trout." Robert squinted at him, "She?" he asked. "Yup," Kevin replied as he stopped leaning against the tree and took a few steps to the side, gesturing away from the tree. "There are trout in one of the streams if you bring her a trout, she''ll take it to her babies and show them to you," he said in an offhanded manner.


    "Well, why don''t you show us the stream then?" said Robert. Kevin nodded and lead them north. After just a few minutes of walking, Robert could hear a quiet roar, and as they came over a slight rise, he was greeted by the sight of a waterfall. It came from somewhere far overhead and fell into a pool of crystal clear water. Robert heard Jane draw in a sharp breath of amazement as he wandered down to the pool. It had moss on the boulders around the edge, and water lilies as well. He watched silently as a trout snapped out of the water, seeking the water bug that had danced on the surface only a second ago. Jane walked past him and sat down on one of the boulders as Kevin wandered up behind them, still holding the fern.


    Jane looked up at the waterfall and then looked across the pond. Robert followed her gaze and watched a dragonfly dance amongst the cattails. The entire scene was beautiful, illuminated in shades of gentle green and flickering sunlight as it filtered through the canopy. Robert walked over to Jane and reached down, pulling up a bit of the moss that coated the boulder next to her. He received a notification that he had harvested a resource. Jane absently patted the stone and said: "Have a seat." Robert sat down next to her and just watched her expression as she drank it in. "You will make an instance of this available to me," she said dreamily, "and I will spend my breaks and lunches here." Robert grinned.


    "So," he said as he turned to Kevin. "Trout?" Kevin nodded and pointed to the pool as he said: "Catch the trout. I assume there is some sort of fishing skill..." Robert gave a long audible sigh. "Kevin, I know I dropped this on you suddenly, and I can appreciate the hours you''ve logged into this project, but would it have killed you to read the source material?" Kevin raised an eyebrow. Robert reflected that the kid seemed oddly good at that. Kevin then replied, "You gave me access to over twenty thousand pages of documents. I''m a fast reader, but I wouldn''t have gotten any work done if I had read all that." Robert rubbed his temples slowly as he said: "The very first document is labeled ''Read me first - a mandatory beginners guide to Deep Delve.''" Kevin looked startled, then sheepish and muttered, "Oh."


    Robert grinned, and then gave the mental command for developers tools, and equipped a fishing rod. "Luckily," Robert said, "I have read the manual." He cast his lure into the pool and was immediately rewarded with a bite. A minute later, he had a rather lovely rainbow trout sitting on the ground next to him. Dismissing the fishing rod, he gestured to Jane and said: "We have your trout, shall we go back to the Badger?" Jane nodded eagerly and picked up the trout. "Hmm," she said, "that is neat - it isn''t scaley or slimy like you''d expect a fish to be." Robert gave a nod and replied, "testing showed that textures and smells were a huge turnoff for some of the crafting and gathering professions, so we turned a lot of that down." "Neat," replied Jane happily and headed back towards where she had found the Badger. Robert followed, as did Kevin.


    Mere minutes later, the group had once again located the Badger, and Jane knelt to the ground, proudly presenting the trout. After sniffing the trout, then sniffing Jane, the Badger had accepted the offering and waddled around a tree, showing them the way to her den, which was nestled in the roots. Seven small adorable Badger cubs were playing just outside the den who seemed torn between scampering over to their mother and the delicious trout and avoiding the excited squeal that came from Jane. Hunger for trout overcame caution, and Jane was able to pet the Badger and her cubs while they feasted on the trout.


    "So," Robert said with a smile as he watched Jane, "you built a petting zoo." Kevin had picked up another plant at some point and was rolling one of the leaves between his fingers. "Not really," he said absently as he held the leaf up to his nose and sniffed. Robert raised an eyebrow. Kevin looked at him and down at the leaf and then gave him an embarrassed grin. "Its mint, I still can''t believe how crazy real this is..." he trailed off as he watched a sparrow snag an insect out of the air above them. He seemed to gather himself for a moment and then replied, "But no, it isn''t a petting zoo, this is just the first step." Jane looked up at him from where she was sitting, having wrangled the Badger between her outspread legs and delivering a good, solid petting. "The first step?" she inquired with a tone of hope. Kevin nodded and continued "Yeah, first you gotta make momma friendly, which for her" he gestured at the Badger, "means a trout, then you gotta get one of the babies friendly, which for them means a honey glazed trout filet," he went on squinting as he tried to remember. "And finally, for these little guys, you need a honey glazed trout filet seasoned with lavender and mint."


    Robert blinked. "And what," he said, "happens if you finish all those steps?" Kevin looked at Jane, who seemed to be waiting for the answer with bated breath, then replied, "One of the babies will follow you around, of course. You''ll need to keep feeding them the treats they like, though." Robert grinned at him and pointed a finger at Kevin as he said: "Sally''s collar, right?" Kevin nodded happily and said, "I kind of figured that with Sally''s collar landing me this opportunity, I should do something to memorialize that..." Kevin trailed off as he looked away. Kevin took a deep breath and turned back to Robert and pointed towards the tree the Badger had made her den under. "If you translate the runes, it says ''In Loving Memory of David Reese, the light of his Inspiration shines on through us.''"


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Jane was beyond excited. It sounded like Kevin had put together some sort of hidden quest to adopt an adorable Badger cub. She was a bit confused about the memorial, though. "Who," she asked carefully, "is David Reese?" Robert looked down at her as she scratched the Badger behind its ears and said, "David Reese was one of the original developers at New Realities. We hired him after a game he''d worked on named "Altered Phantasy" folded. Kevin here," he gave a nod to Kevin and continued, "was part of the beta test. He sent his reports to David." Robert took a breath and continued, "In a roundabout way, David is why Kevin was hired. Kevin was only in high school back then, but he really impressed David, and when David joined New Realities, he brought his IP with him, which included the reports Kevin had made, as well as David''s thoughts on them."


    Kevin nodded and stepped in to continue the story, "I had discovered a bug, where if you created a collar meant for a hunter pet, removed all the bonuses from it, including the base stats, and named it with the name of an NPC pet and it''s owner, you would turn the NPC''s pet into an actual pet for the player character." Robert nodded and picked it up again, "It was called Sally''s collar, after the little girl NPC who wanted a collar for her puppy. Just a bit of random NPC chatter, for ambiance, but Kevin here found a bug because of it."


    Jane cast a look between the both of them. "So," she said, feeling a little confused and a little bit like she was intruding on something personal, "somehow this resulted in you being hired as a Dungeon Dev?" Robert nodded and answered, "Yeah, through a series of bizarre glitches, his application and resume for an unrelated and unavailable position landed on my desk. I recognized David''s name and dug a bit deeper, then I decided to take a chance and hire him." Jane gave a slow nod and asked, "A chance?" This time Kevin answered, "I have a degree in Materials Engineering and Philosophy. Aside from that beta test, I have no experience in game design or development."


    Jane looked around at the redwood forest, pausing as she watched a lizard dig up a snail, a swallow snack on an insect, and then down at the Badger enjoying its ear scratches. She looked up at Robert and smiled as she said: "Looks like it is going to pay off." Robert nodded as he took a good look around himself. Kevin seemed content to investigate another plant. She couldn''t believe he had done all this, with no experience. So far, her QA duties had her slogging through tunnels and caves with undead and elemental creatures and kobolds and goblins and more undead. Undead seemed to be a really popular option. She had gone through and approved ten Dungeons so far. Nothing came close to this.


    "So," she said as she looked down at the Badger. "If I go through all the steps, and get one of these little guys following me around, do I get to keep him when I leave the Dungeon?" she asked. Kevin blinked. He looked at Robert, who shrugged. Kevin hesitated and replied, "I don''t know? I mean, I set the flags for the friendly and follow flags to be permanent as long as the prerequisite for having fed it the treats were met..." he trailed off. Robert sighed and gave Kevin a look that spoke of long suffering and dealing with people who didn''t read the fucking manual.


    Jane carefully stood up, making sure not to disturb the Badger or the Cubs. She dusted off her pants and looked at Kevin determinedly and said, "Alright then, chop-chop! Show me the way to the honey, the lavender, and the mint!"


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin led Jane and Robert deeper into the Dungeon. It seemed that in explorer mode, the creatures wouldn''t interact with you unless you interacted with them. Jane had been ecstatic when she discovered that he had put in a Mother and babies option for most of the animals. Robert was quiet throughout the tour, although he seemed to be enjoying himself.


    After wandering through the bear territory, Kevin showed them the bee''s nest, and they collected the honey. A few sprigs of mint and lavender were gathered on the way back, and soon enough, they arrived at the Badger den. Kevin suffered a bit more embarrassment as he discovered that you could only build a fire in the game inside safe zones, and the group then backtracked to one of the two safe zones he had established. A quick campfire was built, trout was filleted, then cooked with a lavender-infused honey glaze, dusted with mint and then duly presented to one of the Badger cubs by Jane, who then exclaimed that she was able to name it. Jane took off for the Dungeon exit holding her Badger cub, while Kevin and Robert were left to wait.


    "So," Kevin began, "What do you think?" He was more than a little nervous. He knew he''d gone for something unconventional. Robert was also a bit hard to read. Kevin needed this. He wanted this. This was his ticket out of the frozen Wal-Mart hell he''d been stuck in. Even if it wasn''t an engineering gig, he''d really enjoyed putting the Dungeon together, and he could see himself doing this for a living with a smile.


    Robert replied after a few minutes of what Kevin thought was careful consideration. "I think you have a gold mine," he said slowly as he glanced around the forest. "No," Kevin replied quickly, "I have some gold flake and powder in a creek that can be panned, but I didn''t want to spend a bunch of resource points on a vein of gold ore." Robert sighed and slowly, with deliberation, reached over smacked him in the back of the head. "No, you have a gold mine," Robert repeated. "You don''t have the grind fest that other Dungeons do, and I''d say you probably have less than half the experience shards available." He paused, considering, then continued, "But you have that balanced out with resources." He looked Kevin in the eyes and held his gaze as he said: "The hardcore elite guilds aren''t going to subscribe to your Dungeon," he said with a tone of finality, "but I can almost guarantee you that every casual player and crafter will."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Jane stepped out of the Dungeon, cradling the newly named ''Snuffles'' in her arms. To her delight, the furry little guy didn''t disappear. She spun around in the cave entrance, laughing happily. This. Was. Awesome! She stepped back into the cave and was surprised when a system message appeared, stating, "Warning! Your animal companion is lower than the recommended level for this area, take caution."


    She looked at the bundle of fluff in her arms, and thought ''Identify.'' She was pleased when she a status screen pop up. Jane hurried to tell Robert and Kevin the good news. Arriving back at the Badger den, she found Robert and Kevin grinning at each other. She added her own smile and offered up Snuffles for inspection and said, "Not only is he permanent, when I came back up the system recognized him as my animal companion and gave him a status sheet." Robert dropped his smile and appeared flummoxed. "That''s... well, unintended?" He frowned a bit. "Not sure where that sits in terms of game balance..." he muttered. Kevin said, "I can always take the permanent tags ou-" "Don''t you dare!" Jane exclaimed. "All these Dungeons with their stupid monsters and traps and undead and creepy organ music," she ranted. "Don''t you dare take out the only thing I''ve found that is remotely worthwhile!"


    Robert paused, thoughtfully, and Kevin seemed taken aback at her passion. Jane took a deep breath. Calm. Zen. She went on, "Look, it''s a level one Badger cub. It doesn''t have any real fighting capabilities. Even if you got it up to equal level, it''s still one fifth the challenge rating of a player character." Jane was determined to be as persuasive as possible on this, "Even if you have the mountain lion or the bear, it''s still only rated at one third." At this point, she was almost pleading, but damn it, she needed this. "And the player has to gather twice the experience necessary to level up if they want their pet to stay even with them," she finished. Robert raised a hand, stopping her from going any further. "Yeah, I get it. I''m just thinking about game balance." He shrugged. "I''ll flag it as something new, but we won''t pull it or change it till we see how it plays out," he said. "Good," Jane said, snuggle Snuffles closer. Kevin glanced at Robert and said quietly, "Goldmine?" Robert nodded.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert followed Kevin along with Jane as they proceeded through the areas of the Dungeon they hadn''t yet seen. Kevin explained his little ecosystem and how things respawned. Jane mostly just marveled at the sights. She was especially appreciative when Kevin showed her how it looked in the moonlight, or how the sunrise would hit the waterfall and throw rainbows.


    When Kevin lead them in Rufus'' cave, Robert paused the group and asked, "Rufus?" Kevin grinned and replied, "When I was a kid, I had my teddy bear, like every kid does, right? And my Teddy''s name was Rufus." Robert laughed and shook his head. The kid was just so genuine. As they walked to the back of Rufus'' cave, he saw the Altar. "And what," Robert said, pointing at the Altar, "is that?" Kevin seemed only too happy to explain and said: "Well, I figured this was a very nature-inspired place, so I built an Altar to Orin, the God of the Hunt, but then I figured I needed more, like a reason for people to be here right?" Kevin paused, and Robert nodded for him to continue, while Jane listened raptly. "So, I had the Altar corrupted by Willow Weep, the Evil God of Poison and Tentacle plants, and had poor Rufus corrupted as well, which is why he has that crown of horns and a different color scheme." Kevin paused for breath, and Robert waited for him to continue. "So, you off poor Rufus, and then you gather up all the plants and animal parts that are shown carved into the Altar, and when you place them on it, you can rededicate it to Orin." Kevin finished happily.


    Robert scrutinized the Altar. There were indeed carvings of about a dozen plants, as well as half a dozen animals. "So," he said as he considered the Altar and Rufus, "What happens when you cleanse the Altar and rededicate it?" Kevin responded, "You receive Orin''s Token, which sets all the animals in the Dungeon to Neutral towards you." Robert paused. ''That,'' he thought to himself, ''was new.'' "Well," Robert said, "I can''t think of anything that would stop us from going ahead with the stress testing." He looked over at Jane, who, he had noticed, hadn''t let Snuffles out of her arms. "Jane," he said with a smile, "what do you think?" Jane grinned happily and scratched a seemingly content Snuffles behind the ears and proclaimed enthusiastically, "I hereby declare as the only Quality Assurance agent in the building, that this Dungeon is approved for implementation!"


    Robert laughed and initiated the logout procedure.

 Chapter Seven

    Janice stretched as she logged out of the VR system. After a long month of running QA on Dungeons, she had talked herself out of playing Deep Delve. New Realities had given her a great opportunity, but the massive draw of the studio, it''s vast and unprecedented library of recorded sensations had stripped away her desire to play a VRMMPORG. It was just too real.


    But Kevin''s Dungeon had ignited a tiny spark of hope in her. After ~three~ undead themed Dungeons, with half-decayed zombies and all the sights and smells inherent to them, and a slime themed Dungeon set in an all too realistic sewer system, Janice had been ready to write it off. But the open air, the smell of the forest, and the adorable animals of the Verdant Caldera had been so different.


    She sighed as she watched Robert and Kevin sit up and remove their headsets. "So," she said as Robert rolled his head to the side and cracked his neck. "How long until I can get Snuffles back?" she asked. Robert grinned at her and replied, "You know the drill, each account is locked, geographically, to their server for the first month." She turned her gaze towards Kevin, who was doing the slow blink that commonly indicated someone had spent too many hours in a VR rig. "What are the chances you live near Temple Terrace?" she asked him with a smile. "Not so much near," Kevin muttered as he rolled his shoulders and absentmindedly returned, "as smack dab in the middle, I''m off 113th."


    Janice grinned triumphantly at Robert before redirecting her smile to Kevin. "I''m off Gillette, so we are practically neighbors," she said and then continued, "which means I''ll be reunited with Snuffles soon!" she declared victoriously. Robert coughed, drawing her attention. "Sadly," he said, not looking sad at all, "Dungeon Developers and any QA personnel who have reviewed the Dungeon are shuffled over to an adjacent server for reasons that ought to be obvious." Janice groaned and slumped back into her chair. "I''d forgotten about that," she muttered, "kind of gave up the idea of playing after the nasty Dungeons I''ve QA''d."


    Robert grinned and stood up, straightening his tie, and said: "Hey, you only have to wait thirty-one days until you can migrate over to Kevin''s Dungeon." Kevin raised his hand, drawing Janice''s attention. She heard Robert sigh and then say "Kevin? You know you''re not in college anymore, I''m not your professor, I''m your boss, you can just ask me a question," he said, a note of humorous exasperation in his voice. Janice grinned at that. Kevin did seem a bit nerdy, despite his height and being in pretty good shape. Kevin responded, "Yeah, I''m guessing that bit was in the guide as well?" he asked, grinning widely. "Yes, and while it is a bit like closing the barn door after the horses are out, please kindly R.T.F.M. when you get home," Robert responded as he tiredly massaged his temples. "Will do boss," said Kevin with a wide smile.


    Janice gave an internal snort. She was sure that these two were going to end up getting drunk and doing the whole "I love you, man!", "No, I love YOU, man!" comedy skit together at some point. She decided to step in and asked Kevin, "So what are you doing for the next Dungeon?" Kevin took an expression not entirely unlike that of a deer facing down headlights from twenty yards away. "Erm, next Dungeon?" he asked hesitantly. "I''m just going to do another level of the Verdant Caldera..." He trailed off as Robert groaned and sat back down, this time squeezing the bridge of his nose. "Read The Fucking Manual," Robert muttered before looking up at Kevin. "Kevin, every month you are required to have produced, submitted, and been subject to the approval of QA," he nodded towards Janice, "a new Dungeon, to be located in the newest areas of the continent."


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Kevin blinked. He then leaned forward, elbows on knees, and rested his temples on his palms, fingers in his hair. He took a slow deep breath, and then looked up at Robert. "A new dungeon every month?" he asked as calmly as he could, although a slight tremor in his voice gave away his anxiety. Robert sat down in the chair next to him and said, "Yes, and while I won''t go into how badly you need to start reading paperwork, let me give you a few numbers." Kevin nodded his mind racing - he''d managed to complete the Verdant Caldera in just over one hundred and sixty hours, now that he knew the system a little better, he could probab- His line of thought was cut off as Robert started reading something off his cellphone. "Eighty-six hours, seventy-nine hours, and seventy-eight hours," Robert said. Kevin just stared at him. "Those," said Robert in a gentle tone of voice, "are the Dungeons under my purview with the most time invested, excluding yours."


    Kevin took a deep breath. Eighty-six. That was his nearest competitor time in terms of time invested. He let the breath out and then took another. Robert continued, "While I can''t discuss the details of their Dungeons, I can tell you that they also likely spent twenty to thirty hours reading the manual, which no doubt saved them a bit of time during the design." At this statement, Kevin''s heart sank. ''Fuck,'' he thought to himself, ''all that time I spent fucking around in the menu system could have been saved.'' Before he could continue his internal rant, he was surprised by Robert laying a hand gently on his shoulder, drawing him out of his reverie. "And while I can''t discuss the details, I can assure you that the Dungeon you built will be successful. I''m going to go so far as to say wildly so." Robert smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder gently then said, "I''m sure that you aren''t going to attract the hardcore raiding guilds or the power levelers. But what you are going to attract," Robert went on his smile widening into a grin "is every Animal Crossing and Pokemon player over the age of eighteen." Robert lowered his voice and said, "Trust me, Kevin, you''re going to succeed."


    Kevin slowly nodded. Robert was right. A hundred and sixty hours was just forty hours a week. "Sorry," he said with an embarrassed grin at Robert and then Janice. "I''m exhausted and worn down from the past two weeks, and I got a little panicky there," he said. Robert switched from a shoulder squeeze to a pat on the back, and then hauled himself up. "Get some sleep, and you''ll feel better. Take tomorrow off or something, go for a ride." Kevin nodded as he stood up and stretched for a long second. Janice, at some point, had also stood up and was fiddling with her car keys. He raised an eyebrow at her as he shrugged into his jacket and picked up his helmet. "Do you want a ride home?" she asked a bit hesitantly, "you do seem really worn down, are you safe to ride?" she finished.


    He considered it for a few seconds. He was worn down. He was probably ok to ride, but a colleague offering a ride home when they lived in the same neighborhood wasn''t a renouncement of his motorcyclist lifestyle. Kevin knew that he took the whole bike-life thing a bit too far sometimes. He''d made being a motorcyclist a cornerstone of his self-identity. Still, he was tired, she did live close by, and most importantly, Janice had liked his Dungeon. He nodded, both to himself and to Janice and said: "Yeah, that is probably a good idea, I can get a ride back tomorrow to pick up bikey." Janice grabbed her purse and motioned him to follow her back through the maze of cubicles to the elevators. As the elevator door closed, he saw Robert shoot them a thumbs up.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Robert watched the elevator door close and grinned to himself. ''The Verdant Caldera,'' he thought to himself as the other set of elevator doors opened, and he headed up towards his office, ''is going to be a real money maker.'' He considered the various animal pet options Kevin had created and wondered just how exactly they were going to conflict with the various summons and charms in the game. As he reached his office, he sank into his chair and fired up his PC. Robert decided to dump this on the game balance team''s lap. He opened outlook and wrote an email to the team, advising them of what Kevin had created, the current system the game engine had applied to the creation, and informed them that removing what the Dungeon Developer had built was not an option and that they ought to either leave it as is or implement a workaround.


    He then leaned back into his chair. "Two more days," he said to himself quietly. He knew that launch day was going to be a nightmare. Hopefully, nothing catastrophic would go wrong, but no one expected a perfectly smooth launch. No, what he wasn''t looking forward to was the week after launch. After everyone had been given a bit of time to revel in the game. Once the more intelligent players started to ask questions. Questions like, "How exactly did New Realities capture the sensation of being bitten by a wolf?" And then, while those questions were being asked, players would eventually end up in the Dungeons, and the questions would become more pointed. Sensations like having your hand cut off by an axe, or stepping into a foot deep pool of lava were going to be questioned.


    Robert frowned as his thoughts raced through familiar paths. He knew that he bore some responsibility. He has been the one to suggest the Saudis. He had offered up the idea that being as the Saudis routinely cut people''s hands off for theft, why not pay to slap a VR rig on the criminal, and offer them up the sensation recording as well, in case they ever wanted to use it as a deterrent. The Saudis had been very accommodating and had offered to allow New Realities to record all the sensations from their various legal punishments, in exchange for the sensation recordings being copied to them. Flogging, stoning, hanging, and eye-gouging had all been recorded. Beheading had been a bit of a challenge, but they had managed it.


    He grimaced as he thought back to the time he had spent over there. Robert knew tonight would be whiskey night, but his mind demanded he reflect on the events. He''d been very grateful to return to Florida after a few weeks of recording the various punishments the Saudis inflicted on their criminals. The library of sensations he''d returned with had started a debate between the developers and their own legal team that had raged for months. "Fucking Lieverman," he muttered as he opened a bottle of water. Eli Leiverman, one of his fellow development leads, had taken his idea of enlisting the aid of the Saudis and ran with it. He''d gone to a few countries on the pacific rim and in Africa. He had returned as the debate was ending, and introduced a host of new recordings into the sensation library.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    It turned out that bribing a tyrant in an impoverished nation to slowly lower someone into lava while wearing a VR rig cost less than having the equipment flown there. And Eli had been very busy. Robert sighed. The legal team had assured the developers that Eli had been very careful to include legal documentation for each sensation that included affidavits from the governments that provided the subjects for the VR recordings, that declared the crimes and punishments of the criminals. Robert had led the faction of developers that wanted to significantly reduce the severity of the painful sensations included in Deep Delve. He had ultimately won, although there were still two developer leads that would argue to have the sensations present at fifty percent of the recorded intensity. Robert thought the agreed-upon ten percent was more than enough. They needed players to want to keep playing the game, not to be put off by pain. The ten percent was just enough to provide an incentive not to charge into danger deliberately.


    Robert stood up and sighed as he grabbed as his coat. Tonight was going to be one those nights. And he couldn''t say he didn''t deserve it.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    "And another thing! We need to be able to have our pets have babies!" said a loud and excited voice as Julie''s front door banged open. Shaking the suds off her hands and then wiping them on the dishtowel, she walked around the doorway to the living and stopped in shock. It was not, as she had thought, Mel coming over with Erica or Nicole. No, it was Kevin, coming home with someone she had never met before. Julie knew all of Kevin''s friends because, with two exceptions, she had introduced him to them. Kevin gave her a tired and grin and then shushed the unidentified girl by placing a finger to her lips and saying, "Sssshhh.... civilians are present!"


    Julie knew she was a people person. She''d always been quick to pick up on social cues, which was one of the reasons she''d ended up being a successful real estate agent. So, she instantly realized that this must be one of the people Kevin was working with at New Realities. Smiling, she stepped forward and offered a hand to the girl as she said, "Hi, I''m Julie, Kevin''s bestie and roommate!" To which the girl responded, "I''m Jane, I work with Kevin," she glanced up at Kevin, who appeared to be suffering some sort of system glitch and shook Julie''s hand then continued, "well, kinda anyways."


    At this point, Kevin''s mind apparently re-engaged, and he said: "You''re doing dishes?" in a tone of voice that suggested that the apocalypse had indeed begun, and a check for winged porcine in the sky above wouldn''t be amiss. Julie huffed. "Yes, I''m doing dishes, they''ve piled up and haven''t been done in two weeks!" she exclaimed. Jane seemed a bit uncomfortable at the direction this was taking. Kevin responded, "I haven''t cooked or eaten anything that didn''t come in a carton or wrapper in two weeks." Julie paused and then said, "But you walked by them!" Kevin grinned and replied, "Dude, are you complaining about having to wash the dishes you dirtied to cook the pizza I bought you so that you wouldn''t starve yourself to death while I was living on protein shakes and energy bars?" "Damn right, I am!" Julie said with a grin and punched him in the shoulder, "it''s clearly your fault for buying me the frozen pizzas in the first place! Jane understands, right?"


    Jane raised her hands and said, "I''m Switzerland here, although," she punched Kevin in the other shoulder and continued, "protein shakes and energy bars? No wonder you''re wrecked." Julie nodded her agreement. Kevin shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. "Ok, yeah, I didn''t take great care of myself over the past couple weeks," he admitted, then said, "but I made my deadline, and I have way more time to finish my next project." Jane patted him on the same shoulder she''d punched a few seconds ago and said, "Yeah, take it easier on the next one. If you want to ride in with me tomorrow, just shoot me a text before eight." Jane then pulled a sharpie from her pocket, uncapped it with her teeth, and grabbed Kevin''s hand, writing her number on the back of it. She then waved goodbye and walked back out the front door, closing it behind her.


    "So..." Julie said with a wide grin, "what were you getting up to that has left you needing a ride this morning?" Kevin groaned and walked over to the couch, pausing to glare at her as he threw himself down onto it. "Nothing," he grumbled as he squirmed around, getting comfortable. She gave an internal huff and walked over to the couch, sitting at the end, picking up his feet and placing them in her lap. She then started unbuckling his boots. Kevin lifted his legs to let her tug them off. "You have been burning the candle at both ends," she said as she set his boots down under the end table. Kevin made a sort of half grunted acknowledgment sound. Julie wriggled out from under his feet and said, "You can take a quick nap, but Melody is going to come over in a while, so expect to be awoken." Receiving a grunt that she chose to view as an indication that he had not only heard her but was enthusiastic about her plans for the evening, Julie returned to the kitchen.


    It was nice to see Kevin bringing someone home, or in this case, being brought to his own home as it were, even if it was a coworker. Ever since he had gotten the new job at New Realities, her life had suffered a tragic lack of Kevin. Hopefully, with him being done with this project, whatever it was, and having more time for the next, she''d get more Kev time. Finishing the last of the dishes, she went further and wiped down the counters and the kitchen table. She looked around the kitchen and nodded to herself. Good enough. Melody was due to be over with a sack full of burgers in another hour or so.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody had just finished tucking in the clean sheets around her dad when the doorbell rang. "I''ll be back in a minute dad," she said and squeezed his hand, "that should be the nurse I''ve got coming in to help out while I''m on vacation." Her father gave her a smile, and shakily squeezed her hand. She hurried to the door, wiping away a tear. She knew that her dad was ok with her going on vacation, even if it was just her playing a game for a week, but she still felt guilty about having someone else take care of him. Shaking it off, she plastered on a smile and answered the door. A thin young man dressed in scrubs with a backpack at his feet offered her his hand and said, "Hello, I''m Jackson, the at-home health care provided you hired from care.com." Melody shook his hand and then took the paperwork he offered with the other. "Hi Jackson, I''m Melody, come on in, and I''ll introduce you to David, my dad," she said as she stepped aside and gestured for him to come in.


    Jackson looked just like his photograph on the website. Thin face, pale skin but no freckles, brown eyes and short-cropped blonde hair. She walked him into her dad''s room. "Dad," she said as she took his hand, "this is Jackson, he''s going to be covering for me while I get my Deep Delve on." Jackson stepped around the bed and shook his other hand, saying "Nice to meet you, David, I know I''m a poor substitute for Melody, but we''ll figure it out together," he said with a smile. Melody restrained a sniffle as her dad gave Jackson an awkward handshake and smile. Her dad squeezed her hand, let it go, and gave her a shaky thumbs-up. She smiled at her dad, then hurriedly left the room before she started crying. Melody headed into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet for a few minutes as she cried. She hated crying. "Get ahold of yourself," she muttered as she pinched herself. Melody stood up and looked herself in the eyes in the bathroom mirror. "You aren''t going away. You aren''t even leaving the house. You''ll still be here if he really needs you."


    Stepping out of the bathroom, she almost ran into Jackson, who appeared to be waiting for her. She sighed. It was times like this she really wished she could lift an eyebrow like Kev. Jackson gave her a small smile and gestured through the doorway to the kitchen. Melody stepped around him and led him into the room, where they both sat down, and she smoothed out the paperwork she had inadvertently crumpled earlier. Jackson watched as she read the paperwork and initialed and signed in the designated places. When she handed it back, he checked the initials and signatures, nodded to her, and placed it into his backpack. "So," he began hesitantly, "Deep Delve?" he asked. Melody nodded, trying to shake off the guilt she was feeling and said, "Yep, I''m taking my vacation, and I''ll be logged in, like, all sixteen hours a day." She paused, and said, "Unless dad needs me - if he needs me, send me a message through the console." Jackson smiled at her and nodded before saying, "Based on his medical records, I don''t think anything is going to come up." He paused, looking uncertain then went on, "Look, I can tell you''re a bit down about this, but trust me, he''ll be in good hands, and you''re all of thirty feet away if he needs you. He wants you to have a good time and enjoy your vacation." Melody nodded at him, and the conversation may have gotten uncomfortable had her mom not pulled into the driveway. Grateful for the distraction, Melody stood up and said: "Let me introduce you to my mom, Renee, she''ll be trading off with you."


    After introducing Jackson to her mom, Melody went upstairs and took a shower, changed clothes, and started considering where she should grab burgers from. She''d promised Julie they would hangout tonight, as they both knew she was going to deep down the rabbit hole of Deep Delve for the next week. Wayback Burgers was close. Plus, they had a truly awesome Reuben, which Kev would love, and their mushroom and swiss was great. Decision made, she headed downstairs, determined to force herself out her funk.


    "I''m back bitches, and I''m packin'' hot meat!" Melody yelled as she threw open Kevin and Julie''s door. Her eyes fell on Kevin as he shot up from the couch, eyes wild and hair a bedhead mess. "Dude," she said as she swung the door shut behind her. "You look like shit, but I got a Rueben for you," she finished. Kevin appeared to have regained his senses, and he stumbled to his feet and towards the kitchen, and Melody darted down the hallway to Julie''s room. She went to open Julie''s door and crashed into her friend as Julie pulled open the door and tried to rush out. "Dude!" she said as she held up the burger bag in supplication, "I come bearing hot meat!" Julie grabbed the bag and headed towards the kitchen as she said, "Yeah, I heard ya when you kicked down the door. I''m guessing Kevin is awake?" "He was headed to the kitchen," Melody replied with a smile.


    Bounding into the kitchen after Julie, Melody found Kev sitting at the table, his head cradled in his hands and a bottle of water in front of him. She grabbed a bottle of water off the counter for herself and slammed down in the seat next to him. "Rueben?" Kevin said hopefully, still face down to the table. Julie shuffled out the sandwiches, and Melody tore into her mushroom and swiss as Kevin slowly unwrapped and began to eat his rueben. "So," she said as she swallowed a huge bite of sandwich, "I''m fucking done for the week, the nurse showed up, I gotta cover my dad tomorrow during the day and then it''s fucking Deep Delve time!" Kevin muttered something that sounded like "Just in time" into his sandwich. "Just in time for what?" Melody asked excitedly. Kevin gave her the Vetinari eyebrow and said, "NDA." She grinned at him and asked, "So you''re gonna play, right?" Kevin nodded and replied, "Yeah, I''m gonna play, but due to my employment at New Realities and a few other restrictions, I won''t be on the same server as you for the first month."


    Melody pouted and said, "Well, that kinda sucks. How bout you, Julie, gonna keep poor lonely little old me company in Deep Delve?" Julie pointed her sandwich at Melody and said, "Lonely? There are going to be like ten million people playing!" Before she could respond, Kevin grunted out "ten k," from around his rueben. "Huh?" she asked, nudging him with her foot. Well, kicking really. It was his fault for sitting so far away that her legs couldn''t easily reach. He paused to rub his leg and deploy his sad Kev look before replying, "Each server is set to accommodate ten thousand players from a geographical region." He took a drink of water and continued, "They told me that before I signed the NDA." Melody nodded. She hadn''t known that, and having done a metric shit ton of research, she was pretty sure that New Realities hadn''t released that information. But if they told Kevin before he signed, it was fair game. "Anything you can tell me that I don''t know?" she asked hopefully. Kevin swallowed the last bite of his reuben and finished off his water. "The opening cinematic is apparently ten minutes long, and I''ve been assured it is absolutely going to cause everyone to flip their shit." Melody grinned as Kevin stood up and headed towards his bedroom. She fucking loved cinematics.

 Chapter Eight.

    They say it''s always happy hour somewhere. For twelve million of the twenty million Deep Delve preorders, happy hour landed at nine in the evening on a Friday night. A bit earlier in California, but as the studio was headquartered in Florida, they lived on east coast time. All across the country, men and women eagerly selected the Deep Delve icon as it appeared in their virtual environment. And so it began.


    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


    Melody gasped, as her perspective was suddenly shifted from her VR lounge. She was hovering, maybe twenty feet up in an evergreen forest. She quickly glanced down and raised her arms, then realized that while she could feel the breeze that rustled through the pines, she didn''t appear to have a visible body. She heard the sound of laughing children behind her and turned. Melody wasn''t terribly familiar with Norse history and Mythology. Still, like every other human on the planet, she''d played her share of Skyrim, and she recognized what appeared to be a Norse village. She could see a forge, a sawmill, and she could smell a tannery. The village appeared to be built around a sunken longhouse, which was surrounded by a raw timber wall.


    The children that had caught her attention appeared to be playing a game, possibly hide and go seek. A boy, dressed in rough linen and barefoot was speaking in an unfamiliar language with his eyes covered. Melody watched as the rest of the children scattered. She watched, bemused as one of the children hid just beneath her and to the left. On closer inspection, she was surprised to see that the kid had a freaking tail! And, she noticed, what appeared to be slightly high set furry ears.


    As the seeker reached the end of his countdown, uncovered his eyes, and dashed out into the pines, she took the time to examine the other children that were still visible. It appeared that a few of them had some sort of animal characteristic. Her attention was diverted as the kid beneath her shrieked. Looking down, she was at first alarmed as a large man, wearing leather garments, and with a bow slung over his back and a long knife at his hip, had picked up the kid and was grabbing at them. The shrieks turned to laughter as the man adjusted his grip and held the kid upside down by their feet, and started tickling their sides with his free hand.


    A few seconds later, the game had clearly been ended by unspoken consensus as the rest of the kids swarmed the man, clearly interested in the deer he''d dropped a few yards away before pouncing on his unsuspecting victim. He gestured to a fallen branch, and the kids picked it up, threading it through the leather thongs he''d used to tie the deer''s legs together. It took three of them on each end, but they hoisted the deer, and with one kid on his shoulders and one on each hip, he walked, or rather, staggered into the village.


    Melody felt a gust of wind on her face and blinked as a whirlwind of pine needles spun up from the ground, obscuring her vision, before disappearing, revealing an entirely new scene. It was late evening, the sunsetting to her right. She was standing on the wall of what looked to be a prototypical medieval city. The wall was a dark grey weathered stone, perhaps thirty feet tall. She was looking down a broad thoroughfare that appeared to be decorated for some sort of festival. Brightly colored banners hung from poles that jutted from second-story windows and were linked together with rope or string, from which hung fantastically colored balls of light.


    The buildings were made of the same stone, with steeply pitched roofs that were covered with brightly colored tiles. The street below was crowded with people, and laughter and loud voices drifted up. Melody gasped as a Dragon made entirely of flame rose up above the crowd. It was ten feet from wing tip to wing tip, and twenty feet from snout to tail. It burned like the sun, bright yellow at the center, with glorious reds and oranges on the edges. The crowd below fell silent, then cheered as the dragon roared and dove back straight down into the crowd, completely enveloping a young woman in flame.


    The crowd pressed and gathered up towards the woman as the flames died, revealing a black haired beauty with cinnamon skin. Wearing a modest cotton dress in a light yellow, trimmed with orange, she bowed to the crowd and then blew out a swarm of flaming butterflies, each of which landed on one of the children, who delightedly stroked them before they burst into brilliant sparkles. Melody saw more than a few of the people in the crowd toss what looked like slightly glowing grains of rice onto a cloak the woman had on the ground next to her.


    The woman in yellow gestured, and this time a brilliant phoenix rose and swept over the crowd. Melody let out a yelp as the flames engulfed her as it passed over and through her, and then she realized her perspective had shifted once again.


    Melody blinked. She was staring at a wall of brown. No, strike that. She was staring at a wall of bark. Turning around slowly, she realized that she had been facing what had to be the largest tree she had ever seen. Assuming the scale was correct, it had to be fifty feet across. Her scale came from the people below her on the bridges that ran from tree to tree. She laughed in delight as she realized that the trees supported massive platforms, upon which had been built a town.


    Melody blinked as she felt the air move around her, and jerked back slightly as a winged form flew past her. She wasn''t a bird watcher, but that had to have been an eagle or a hawk she mused. She watched the bird dive down suddenly, and then land on the shoulder of a man who was standing on one of the wood and rope bridges, conversing with a cat-tailed woman. On closer examination, she saw the slightly elongated and pointed ears that just had to mean he was an elf. The pair seemed to have reached the end of their conversation, as the elf reached up tickled the bird, who took flight off his shoulder. A quick hug was exchanged between the elf and the woman, and Melody gasped as they threw themselves off the bridge, before shifting into hawks themselves and flying off. She heard a shockingly loud screech from just above her and instinctively covered her face with an arm as another eagle flew through the space she occupied.


    When she opened her eyes, she wasn''t surprised to see that her view had shifted again. A warm breeze cut through the air. She was looking over what had to be a desert oasis, as she could see the rolling sands stretching endlessly to her left, while in front of her were lush palm trees lining a boulevard that led towards a dark lake that reflected the moons and stars above with fantastic clarity. ''Wait,'' she thought, ''moons?''.


    Melody turned her gaze towards the heavens and grinned ecstatically. She could see two moons, one about the same size as the moon on earth and slightly tinted blue, the other much smaller, and slightly tinted amber. Looking back down, she took in the oasis. It was surrounded by a low wall, only ten or so feet tall. The buildings behind the wall were at least thirty feet tall, some taller, and like the wall appeared to be constructed of adobe. She spotted a figure in flowing robes peek out from around a house towards the boulevard, then accelerate across the street, a spear in hand. Just as the figure reached the house on the other side, it planted the butt of the spear and vaulted up, grasping the edge of a second-story window.


    A pair of hands reached out and grabbed the figure''s arms and hauled it inside. Scant seconds later, two figures appeared on the roof of the house and walked over to the edge before settling down, leaning against each other. She could now see that the robed figure was a teenaged human girl. The other figure was a teenage boy, although his furred ears and tail hinted that he wasn''t human. They sat on the edge of the roof, hands entwined as they looked out over the desert, talking quietly. Melody heard an odd noise from down the boulevard and saw a caravan slowly heading towards the wall, heavily laden camels and horses being led by robed men and women. The breeze stiffened, and she saw the couple on the roof look towards her, then hurriedly standup, and stealthily descend back into the house.


    She sighed. She would have liked to have seen a bit more here. Turning, she wasn''t terribly surprised to see a dust devil approaching her rapidly. Closing her eyes, she waited for the shift.


    Melody yelped as she felt the cold raindrops sprinkle down onto her. She was looking over a graveyard. It wasn''t huge, and while there were enough headstones to make its identification reasonably simple, it was mostly dominated by ornately carved mausoleums. Surrounding the graveyard was a low wall, only a few feet high, and fields of wheat. It was probably midday, although the clouds and sprinkles made it hard to tell.


    She peered out over the fields, wondering what she was meant to see here. As she turned, she spotted a sided wagon in the field, an elven woman standing on the seat, watching as others slowly scythed down the wheat. Melody paused and focused on the harvesters. ''No fucking way..'' she muttered. They were skeletons. They wore clothing, but their eyes burned a pale yellow, and they moved with the distinctive gait of animated bones bound by magic, rather than flesh and blood. She watched, awestruck, as the elf directed her skeletal work crew. The wagon was nearly full, and as it was topped off, the elven woman gestured, and four of the skeletons grabbed the traces and began hauling the wagon off the field, while she directed the other eight towards the graveyard.


    The group approached the mausoleum just below Melody and stopped before entering. With a closer, clearer view, Melody could see as the elf carefully inspected each skeleton, giving an occasional "tsk" and casting some sort of spell that repaired damaged bones and, in one case, a torn shirt. The elf then addressed each skeleton in turn, kissing two of her fingers, making a sign in the air, then placing them on the foreheads of the skeletons. Once she had finished, the skeletons bowed as one and shuffled into the mausoleum. The elf then strode back towards the wagon, as a sudden deluge of rain encompassed Melody, blocking her sight, and making her shiver.


    She opened her eyes and squinted as the bright sunlight reflected off the ocean in front of her. Melody smiled. She loved the ocean. Below her was what appeared to be the stern of a galleon. She heard the call of seagulls and the below of voices below. As she turned, she realized she was just above the crow''s nest of the ship, and that it was pulling into port. Short, broad-chested men swarmed about the rigging, hauling in the sails. As she took in the sights, Melody realized that not all the figures were men. It seemed that rough spun shorts were the clothing of choice for the ship''s crew, but a number of them sported chest bands that served to cover and restrain ample breasts. The crew seemed to be compromised entirely of dwarves, although she noted a few tails and tufted ears that served to confirm that humans weren''t the only ones represented in the animal aspect races.


    She turned her attention to the port and smiled. Turquoise waters lapped at the sandy shore, deepening as they left land to a light cerulean and then to the deep azure of the sea. Solid basalt buildings grew from the earth, a spot of darkness against the brilliant green of the jungles that grew around it. Tall peaks behind the town suggested a rather volcanic history.


    Melody was pulled away from her inspection by the joyous shouts of the crew as the ship was lashed to the massive basalt moorings of the dock that jutted into the ocean. Kegs were hoisted from the hold, and the crew immediately set to celebrating their arrival. She noticed that each crew member had a lidded mug that they carried clipped to their belts. After three mugs each, and a great deal of toasting, the crew started pulling crates from the hold of the ship and piling them on the docks.


    She caught a flash out of the corner of her eye and looked to see a lighthouse. Melody closed her eyes, anticipating the flash of light that heralded another change in locale.


    Melody let out a gasp as she was assaulted by a bone-chilling cold. Opening her eyes, she saw her breath escape in a puff of vapor. ''Fuck me, that is cold,'' she muttered. For once, she didn''t need to turn to see what the game had to show her. A group of children dressed in furs were tobogganing down a steep slope. This was clearly a favored pastime as the snow was packed into a half-pipe, and the track itself was iced. A larger person, likely an adult, was standing at the top of the run, gesturing with a carved wooden staff, which launched a spray of snow over the children as they speed down, shrieking in excitement.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    As the kids reached the bottom of the run, Melody could see a small group of buildings, each with smoke rising from a chimney. Beyond, she could see nothing but thick forest and snow-covered mountain peaks. The children had drug the sled back up the slope, and instead of bringing it to the run, instead chose to launch a surprise snowball assault on their snow wielding supervisor. Their musical laughter changed to squeals as they were engulfed in a burst of snow as the staff-wielding adult returned the favor. Melody grinned as she watched, then let out a squeal of her own as the kids tackled their snow machine, causing the staff to point straight up and engulfing her.


    Melody blinked. ''Ok,'' she thought, ''as awesome as this is, I''m getting tired of getting shit in my eyes,'' she grumped. She''d gotten Lasik for a reason, that being that she hated putting in contacts even more than she''d hated wearing glasses that always turned opaque by the end of the day in the shop.


    Looking around, she realized she was now far above the ground, able to see what seemed to be an entire continent. It was shaped a bit like a kidney bean, with a string of islands tailing off the southern end. She could see forests, hills, mountains, grasslands, rivers, and here and there a few cities that must have been massive.


    She started as a disembodied voice spoke. "Behold, the world of Althardel," it stated grandly, "home to our people for generations beyond remembrance." The voice went on, "since the beginning of recorded history, our lands have been nurtured by the ley lines that run through and across the globe." An intricate tapestry of glowing lines, burning every hue imaginable suddenly lay over the continent and ocean before her. "As the lines converge, the unimaginable power is brought forth and spilled out into areas that are saturated with magic, guiding and turning all things contained therein towards the nature of the converging lines."


    Melody let out a gasp as she felt herself being pulled down rapidly, flying at incredible speed, the wind whipping through her hair as she descended towards land, and a pair of glowing lines, one red, one yellow. She screamed in glee as she rocketed down through a cloud. "Fuck yeah, bitches! Super Mel!" she screamed as she rocketed towards the ground. She was hurtling down towards a smoldering volcano. A large stone wall formed a ring around a gash in the earth on the side of the volcano, and Melody yelled in triumph as she stuck the superhero landing.


    Looking around, Melody saw a number of creatures scurrying in and out of the cave entrance. Some of them appeared to be nothing more than flame given human form. Others seemed to be scaled humanoids with tails and talons. "And so," the voice startled her out of her investigation, "we have our Dungeons. Found wherever the ley lines overlap, these places are the focus of incredible magical power. Creatures are born from this power, and carry a shard of it within themselves, which allows for incredibly rapid growth and development."


    She watched as time accelerated, and the planet spun through two day and night cycles. The ground in front of her blossomed, and a sunflower grew in front of her. Well, a sunflower that launched flaming seeds that exploded on impact when a lizard man tried to harvest it. The narrator continued, "Every Dungeon found is walled off. The energy that spills out from it leaches its associated essence as it spreads, and the walls mark where the energy ceases to alter the life within the boundary, and instead only encourages rapid growth and development."


    "History has forgotten who first consumed an essence shard from a creature and discovered that it allowed us to grow as well. That knowledge spread so rapidly that all societies seem to have made that discovery at once." The voice continued, and Melody watched as a human with a sling killed a fiery squirrel that was on the wall, and after dressing it, found a small oblong shard, white with a slight red tinge. He squeezed it, gave it a sniff, then a tentative lick, then with a shrug, he swallowed it. Seconds later, he stiffened and looked at his hands in shock. He waved his hands in front of him for a second, then grinned broadly as an aura of flame surrounded them.


    "We know that before we discovered the miraculous properties of essence shards, we were weak. We walled off the Dungeons to keep those unfamiliar with the area from coming too close. We didn''t settle near them as the wildlife grew too large and powerful." The voice sounded sorrowful as it described their past. The tone changed towards that of triumph as it went on, "Then we learned how to make use of the gifts the Dungeons provided us."


    The world blinked, and Melody found herself in the middle of a village. Possibly the first one she''d been shown, judging by the Norse architecture. Melody was standing outside a building, the exposed pillars and roof peak and beams carved with fanciful creatures. A woman rapidly approached the building, laboring under the weight of a young girl, who was clutching her arm and crying. The door to the building and a man exited, alerted by the cries of the child. He nodded to the woman and smiled at the child, who was lowered before him and exposed the injury, an ugly greenstick fracture of the upper arm. Kneeling, the man traced figures in the air with a wooden wand. A glow of green light surrounded the little girl, and when it faded seconds later, her arm was whole and unblemished. The girl''s mother smiled gratefully at him and produced a handful of essence shards from a pouch at her belt, pressing them into his hand thankfully. The little girl smiled at him, gave him a careful hug, and scampered off, her mother chasing her shouting with exasperation.


    "We grew in our skills and became more than we were. Our children learned to hunt creatures that grew outside the Dungeons, even the youngest of adults became more skilled than those who hadn''t been blessed with the knowledge of the essence shards." The narrator went on, "Everywhere a Dungeon was found, we utilized. We discovered just how quickly creatures appeared in the Dungeons, and while the Dungeons could be dangerous, especially the deeper you delve, the rewards were undeniable."


    Scenes flashed by Melody rapidly. She saw a woman forging a knife so sharp it cut through stone. She saw a man weave magic over a field and have it sprout a crop of corn in minutes. A dwarf channeled magic through a staff and conjured a stiff wind to move his becalmed ship. An elf mediated in front of a boulder larger than her for a second, then struck it with her bare fist, reducing it naught but pebbles and gravel. A girl with mouse ears and whiskers in a tavern spun a dagger across her fingers, increasing the speed till it was a blur, then threw it at a painted target on a foot thick slab of wood so quickly that her hands were a blur. Melody thought she''d missed the mark until she realized there was a small dagger-shaped hole that went all the way through it, and the dagger was buried deeply in the pillar behind it. On and on it went incredible feats of speed, muscle, skill, and magic.


    Then the scene paused, and Melody found herself back at the Dungeon she''d initially been shown. Now instead of a forest, there was a town around it. "We don''t know what went wrong," the narration continued slowly, with a hint of despair. "Our brightest scholars, our wisest priests, our most potent sorcerers, indeed everyone was baffled." Melody watched as humanoid fire elementals poured out of the Dungeon, and flowed over the walls before attacking the shocked townspeople and setting the buildings on fire. "Everywhere, the Dungeons boiled over. Powerful creatures that resided only in the deepest depths, some of them completely unknown and terribly powerful emerged, slaughtering our people and destroying our cities."


    Melody was once again subjected to a kaleidoscope of scenes. She watched as cities burned, were frozen, were swallowed up by the earth entirely. She saw thousands of people die. Then the image paused. A horde of tents were set up on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of ships bobbed up and down on the waves. A group of men and women of all the races she''d seen and a few animal aspects she hadn''t were gathered around a huge table that supported an aged map. "Our remaining leaders gathered those who were either away or survived the madness of the Dungeons. They engaged powerful rituals, scrying to seek out groups of survivors and desperately looking for a place where the Dungeons hadn''t gone mad." The narrator''s grief was tangible. "They failed. There was no place of safety, no refuge. Even this barren mountain at the sea wasn''t proof against the tides of madness."


    Melody was pulled up and over the encampment, and she could see the distant hills seething with movement. She was able to discern creatures, terrible in visage and power, moving inexorably towards her. The voice went on, "So, facing destruction, they decided. They would take their ships, which had by virtue of being at sea mostly escaped destruction, and they would send their people across the ocean." Melody blinked as time accelerated, and she watched the camp disperse, men and women ushering teens and children onto the ships. It was clear that the monsters would arrive before the camp was emptied.


    Melody sniffled. Her headset must have gotten dusty. She watched as men and women kissed their children and boarded them onto the ships. Then they turned and ran back to the far edge of the camp, where the tide of monsters approached. "They knew they hadn''t the time. They hadn''t the ships. Facing the horde of madness, they knew they couldn''t win," the narrator said, and then his tone changed. "But they didn''t know despair. They came together to halt the tide and allow the sons of daughters of Althardel to escape."


    Melody could only watch in awestruck horror as the survivors met the monsters. She saw the cinnamon skinned flame mage tossing enormous fireballs and lancing beams of plasma so hot they vaporized rock. She watched as a gigantic spiked wolf-like creature made it through to her and skewered her on its tail. Melody gasped as the mage, clearly in agony, spewed blood from her mouth as she wrenched out the final words of an incantation, igniting her own blood and raising a pillar of flame a hundred feet wide and two hundred feet fall, that left nothing but ash behind.


    The shapeshifters from the elven tree city kissed their daughter goodbye, then shifted. The flew up above the horde, adroitly dodging the few flying creatures. Then they dove as one. Shifting just before they landed, a pair of oversized grizzly bears roared their defiance as they charged into a mass of twisted wolves, laying waste to hundreds before they were buried under sheer numbers.


    The toboggan tender stood resolute before an avalanche of monsters. He conjured walls of ice that funneled the monsters into a pair of warriors wielding gleaming swords. He engulfed some of them entirely in ice. Spikes of ice brought down dozens of beasts, and he called a field of absolute zero air to slow the creatures down, carefully sculpting it around the warriors. One warrior fell. Then the other. Tears ran down his face, but still, he stood resolute against the horde. Finally, a twisted creature the size of a Buick was able to strike against him, severing him at the waist. With a final shout, his breath expanded, and every creature within fifty yards slowed, and those within the area a second later froze. Momentum caused a few to keep moving, and they fell to the ground, shattering.


    Sailors fled their vessels, leaving only a few crewmen on board as they surged up the causeway to reinforce the frontlines. The leaders rolled up the map and stuffed it into a case. It was handed to a teenage boy who rushed down to the ships, which were slowly departing, one by one as they filled. With one more brief inspection of the evacuation, the leaders strode towards the collapsing battlefront. They hit the line like a sledgehammer. One turned into a hundred-foot long dragon. Another became a lightning elemental. Another stripped off his robes, and clad only in a loincloth launched himself at an ogre the size of an office building, moving so quickly that he ran up the front of the creature, and then struck it so swiftly and strongly between the eyes that its head simply exploded in gore. The line stiffened as these titans laid waste to the horde before them. Not for nothing were the kings, emperors, presidents, and potentates considered to be the strongest and most powerful of their people.


    "They stood together, as never before, to halt the onslaught and give our children time to escape. Every monster slain was another child saved, and another moment gained for the ships to escape." Melody''s perspective changed, and she found herself pressed against the railing at the stern of a ship, watching the cliff above slowly inch away, as the titanic battle above raged on. Time accelerated, and the ship moved away rapidly as the flashes of light from the cliff grew further away and less frequent. Finally, there was a massive burst of light, so bright that her eyes hurt. She raised her hands to shield her eyes, closing them wasn''t enough. When the light dimmed, she saw the tide of monsters flow down the cliff to the water''s edge, and she heard the howls of rage and victory from the horde.


    "And so dies the light," the narrator said sadly, "Those that gathered on the cliffs of grief represented a fraction of a percent of our population. Those that escaped on these ships represent a further fraction of that percent. The greatest amongst us fought to their last to save us. We are all that remains. We''ve nothing but an ancient map, a copy of a copy of a copy, the original regarded as an eccentric curiosity, the work of a half-mad seaman. He was said to have arrived on our shores centuries ago. May you find safe harbor, a place where the Dungeons haven''t gone mad."


    The narrator continued, "Look ahead." Melody turned and looked aft. The horizon was dark, and storm clouds loomed. "The journey is perilous and uncertain. Those who reach the new land must become strong. There will be Dungeons there. Explore them, conquer them. No longer can any of our people remain weak. All must strive to reach their ultimate potential. Be they a farmer, scribe, or smith, no longer can we afford to have civilians. Everyone must become a combatant. Delve deeply that we might never taste such disaster again."


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 Chapter Nine

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    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


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