Samwise

  Samwise couldn’t believe this was happening. It was supposed to be a throwaway quest, easy silvers for newbie bronze-rank adventurers like him and Kenny. More experienced adventurers had cleared out the kobold village; all he and Kenny had been asked to do was clean up some of the broken runaways. An easy extermination quest for weak-ass mobs. It should have been a cakewalk. A fucking joke and easy money. Easy XP.

  But Kenny was fucking dead! DEAD!

  Samwise hatefully glared at the kobolds in the shadows of the room, cowering before him, and felt only rage. That little prick who’d hit him from behind, knocking him down the stairs and into Kenny wasn’t there. But Samwise would find him. Would haul him out of whatever crack he was hiding in, in this crap dungeon. If he couldn’t do it on his own, he’d go back to town, tell the guild, and talk some properly dangerous bastards into coming back here with him and getting justice for Kenny.

  Kenny. They’d been friends for years, since their early teens. Had decided to be adventures together, had trained together. Now he was fucking gone! “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. No one was supposed to die!”

  The arm holding Samwise’s dirk trembled, his grip so tight that his knuckles must have been white. Chest heaving, he took a step forward, bent on glorious revenge and spilling a lot of blood.

  ~

  Kai frantically searched for something to do to save the kobolds. He lamented, “I wish I was smarter!” Not knowing the easy answer was so frustrating. He tried to use the system to throw traps at the adventurer, but the system wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t know why. Too unfair in this instance? He silently cursed.

  An old kobold picked up the fallen spear and brandished it. He looked noble and defiant but utterly weak against a giant.

  The adventurer swung. He did so casually, with complete contempt for a being a fraction of his size and strength. It was like swinging a bat at an old cat too aged to even get out of the way. Blood sprayed onto the floor. The old kobold crumpled to the ground.

  Kai ran a clawed hand over his head, freaking out. What to do? The dungeon had so few options as of yet. Nothing was offensive, either. He couldn’t press a button and make guns pop up out of the ceiling or just delete the adventurer.

  A mother screamed in fright, echoed by others in the huddle. She turned her back, hunching over a babe in her arms. The warrior chopped down. More blood sprayed. She screamed again, this time in agony, arching her back as she cried out.

  Kai scrambled through the menu yet again for an idea. There had to be something here! He pounded the screen in frustration. He was so useless! Even if he ran out there and tried to help, what could he possibly do? He’d just get cut down too.

  He watched the warrior toying with his prey, fury on his features, probably wanting to watch them suffer as much as possible after losing his partner. The sight made Kai’s heart ache. Kai might be safe in Admin, but if he couldn’t find a way to save them, the entire tribe was about to die while he just sat there and watched. It made him feel cowardly and guilty.

  His eyes landed on menu items at the bottom. Creatures. Minions. Why had this caught his attention? These sections were useless right now. Creatures listed his two slimes. They couldn’t help. Minions. There wouldn’t be anything listed there because he hadn’t recruited anyone yet. At a loss, he clicked the menu item anyway.

  Kai stopped, and his breath caught.

  Kobolds (19)

  They were grayed-out at the bottom of the Minions screen. Did that mean he could make them minions? Would it help? Would it give him more options? Hope returned. He had to try. He touched the entry and prepared to drag it to the top of the screen to add them — but paused.

  Minions. What did that mean? He’d read the help notes when adding the slimes to the system, and tried to recall them quickly now. Official dungeon Creatures were something like natural features, wild animals, because they were limited beings without much sentience, if any. He recalled minions as having some kind of agency. While creatures could be made part of the dungeon without asking, minions had to give consent.

  He pictured a digital window showing up for each kobold, the desperate people on the run for their lives, whatever home they’d had gone now, only trying to survive, to protect their children. He imagined the message they’d get:

  The Dungeon Master has offered you a place as minions.

  Do you accept? Y/N

  They were refugees with no real choice. Of course, they’d say yes. They’d sell themselves in desperate hope it would save them. Some might balk and refuse, choosing to die rather than submit. Could he live with that?

  On the screen, Spear weakly picked himself off the floor behind the adventurer. He was haggard and could barely stand upright. He clutched his chest with one arm and limped to the side toward his spear.

  The warrior noticed. He turned to face Spear. But he didn’t move from his spot. He gestured with the torch. “Go ahead. Pick it up.”

  Kai felt the pressure to act, twisting his gut. Minions. The name bugged him. “What’s a minion? A servant? Someone unimportant? A slave? Cannon fodder?” It made him think back to his old life when he’d been a nobody, just another drone at an office. A wage slave. Even working in a small office, for a fairly small company, it was no different than being part of some international behemoth. Nobody up the ladder had cared about him. He had been a tool that the owners used to make more money. The people in charge had never bothered to get to know him as a person. They’d never invited him out for drinks and would never have wanted him to invite them over for dinner or something. He’d existed to do a job and been paid at the lowest rate possible so that the owners could make the most profit possible. He’d been an unimportant, replaceable minion. The same was true of most people these days, wasn’t it?

  As kids, we all have dreams and passions. We imagine growing up and having fun and interesting lives. Maybe we’ll be professional soccer or basketball players, scoring and winning championships to great acclaim and hero worship. Maybe we’ll take our love of drawing and become animators or get a bunch of online supporters so we can create new pictures every day and share them with people who love them. Maybe we’ll take our love of investigating the mysteries of the universe into a lab or out in the field and be the coolest scientists ever. We’ll do something that matters, and people will appreciate us. We’ll be in charge of our fate and future.

  But it’s rarely true. With each passing year, capitalism grew more out of control. Inequality rose and caused greater pain. You couldn’t open a little mom-and-pop store or restaurant anymore because the corporate giants were buying up everything around them, taking those opportunities away. Whether you were in an office or a factory or a chain restaurant, as workers, you were just another line on a balance sheet, an employee number, something barely tolerated until you could be replaced by a machine or computer with a new piece of software. You weren’t part of the team; you were something to be used.

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  We didn’t matter anymore. We weren’t people anymore, just tools. Minions.

  It was great for those few on top: the slave owners, the executives, and the wealthy investors. Every year, they got richer and more powerful while everyone else received less. Kai had been placed in that same position, the one in charge of the dungeon, and the system was giving him a chance to make tools out of people so he could enrich himself.

  Kai had been given not just the keys to a kingdom but the kingdom itself. He was solely in control here. He could do anything he wanted with his dungeon. He could act like a god, manipulating people into his sphere of power and then using them however he wanted. He could have the kind of elite existence most people could only dream of. The dungeon system even wanted it. It labelled people in the dungeon as minions. Those creatures would exist to serve and obey Kai. As the dungeon grew, he could build a personal army, a harem, a bureaucracy dedicated only to his every whim and wish. He could breed a legion of kobolds to throw at adventurers who came into the dungeon. He could have servants bring him every meal, cook and clean for him, massage his feet twice a day, and address him as lord or king.

  The path was already laid out for him. All he had to do was walk down it.

  Kai brought the kobold icon back to the grayed-out area and released it. He stared at it for a long second before shaking his head. He refused to be part of the problem, no matter how tempting it was. “It’s wrong. I hated being a pawn. I won’t do the same to them.” He looked up and around in all directions as if speaking to the dungeon itself or whatever power was behind it. He shouted out, “I won’t make them slaves. I won’t tell them that they don’t matter, the way I was always treated. They don’t deserve that. You hear me?!”

  On the wall screen, Spear lifted his spear with one hand and pointed it at the human warrior. Ever-so-slowly, his long chin rose, the proud little mini-dragon defiant in his last moments, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for others. Whatever he felt on the inside, he looked fearless as he met the taller human’s eyes, flickering torchlight reflecting in both of their orbs. His chest rose and fell with a shudder; perhaps the kick had broken ribs. He was doomed. But he challenged the adventurer anyway, telling him, “Come.”

  Kai watched the scene playing out and felt a pang of empathy in his chest. It was quickly followed by an upswell of emotion that must have been inspiration because he whispered, “I wish I could be like that.”

  The human warrior stared at the kobold warrior. Was there any respect there? Compassion? His face betrayed nothing except anger. He stepped forward and lifted his dirk high. The steel glowed in the light. He lunged and chopped down.

  Spear tried to block, but the blade effortlessly cut the thin wooden haft of the kobold-made spear in twain. It was really only a sharpened branch, like something you’d use to cook hotdogs over a fire. The force swept the remnant of the weapon out of Spear’s hand like a broken child’s toy, leaving him unarmed.

  Kai looked down at the console again. He tried to click on the Minions menu to change it. Nothing happened. He rapidly clicked again and again. His own anger rising, he snapped at the system, “Stupid— You’re some kind of magical, legendary dungeon, aren’t you? Help me! Help them! They’re not minions! They’re people! Let them be…residents. Let them live here, dammit!” He kicked the console.

  The console flickered.

  Kai went still. Had he broken something?

  The console fuzzed, the words becoming unreadable. When it cleared, the title Minions morphed into Residents.

  Kai’s lips split into a grateful smile. Excitedly, he exclaimed, “Yes!” He dragged the kobold tribe icon into the coloured area and released it. He looked up at the screen.

  The group of kobolds had been huddling in the corner, screaming, weeping, and wailing. The wounded mother bled heavily. Only Spear stood defiant. Yet he did so while looking down at his empty hand while the adventurer looked down on him.

  Then the sounds in the room rippled with uncertainty. Voices trailed off. The dungeon room became almost quiet but for the weeping of the children and babes. In the huddled group of kobolds, eyes with slitted pupils stared off into the distance at something. Questioning and amazed murmurs arose.

  It was enough that it caught the adventurer’s attention. His frown turned from one of anger to one of confusion. He looked away from Spear and over at the group.

  One of them lifted a finger and tentatively touched the air in front of them. Their expression was one of disbelief.

  Another followed suit. Then more did.

  The adventurer’s frown deepened for several long seconds. Slowly, his confusion changed to suspicion, swiftly followed by alarm, and he whipped his head around to look at Spear. After all, as an adventurer, he must regularly use these weird, magical menus and have seen plenty of others do so as well. He must have recognized the gestures and looks on their faces, but it had taken a moment to click because he probably just hadn’t expected to ever see so-called monsters acting that way. He took an involuntary step back from Spear.

  Spear, frowning like he couldn’t believe this was happening, gingerly touched an invisible button in the air in front of him.

  Kai felt a rush of hope. He looked down at the console, where Kobolds (19) was now lit up. He touched the icon. Options appeared. He grinned wider. He hovered a hand over one option and looked up before he pressed down. “Let’s even the odds a bit, you bully.” He pressed.

  The kobolds gasped in surprise and awe. In the hands of the eleven adults appeared quality stone weapons: hand axes, stone-tipped spears, and small bows with quivers of arrows. Everything was professionally made, and if it wasn’t some fancy steel weapon made by humans in some city, they were decidedly deadly and far higher quality than the spear that had been destroyed.

  The adventurer looked around in shock. “How the fuck—?” He raised his dirk in defence.

  Kai ran his down the list of kobolds on the console. He touched one, and Spear became highlighted on the screen. Kai touched a button next to the kobold:

  Designate Champion

  Spear staggered suddenly under the weight of crude armour that now covered his body. It was only a chest plate and shoulder pauldrons, but they were metal. A weight tugged his arm down. He caught himself and looked down to find a brand new spear in his hand, this one with a properly hewn shaft and a chipped stone spearhead that looked very sharp.

  The adventurer noticed, turning a tad pale. “Shit. What the hell is going on here?”

  A wonderful smile slid onto Spear’s face. It revealed a lot of teeth. He turned it on the human. Then he grabbed his spear with both hands. He taunted his adversary, saying, “Let’s try again.”

  The other kobolds took account of their new weapons. They turned glares on the adventurer. Someone growled.

  Kai laughed out loud. “Yeah, baby! Come on!”

  The adventurer started to panic. But in his inexperience, he stood rooted when he should have acted.

  The kobolds placed babies down in the corner of the room. They pushed toddlers behind them, then stood in front to protect the young. They raised their weapons. But they were armed with more than paleolithic tools now; they were also armed with hope. Hope spread like a wildfire.

  The human warrior cursed and finally broke out of his trace to act.

  But Spear was already calling out, “Kill!”

  The adventurer tried to swing his dirk at the crowd of kobolds, but, seeing the arrows aimed at his face, he ducked. The arm holding the torch had his buckler strapped to it, and it protected his head from the projectiles. But one hit him in the side with enough force to hurt. He snarled and tried to attack again, straightening and lifting his weapon.

  Spear lunged and stabbed the human in the side. The stone tip just pierced the leather armour the human wore. It was no life-threatening injury, but it was enough for the young man to wince and flinch away.

  The other kobolds rushed him, swinging axes and jabbing with spears. They attacked his legs with more raw emotion than skill, and the creatures were small and weak, but there were ten of them and they could still do some damage.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” The adventurer whipped his blade back and forth in front of him but had to duck and cover again as more arrows came at him. One pierced a bicep. “Gah!” He kicked out, sending several kobolds flying.

  Spear was relentless, and while the others attacked the adventurer’s front, Spear kept coming in from the side, punching small holes in the human’s armour and flesh.

  They drove the adventurer back.

  The human cursed, kicked, and swung his dirk. Kobolds went down. Some didn’t get up.

  Kobolds (18)

  Kai hammered a fist on the system console. “No!” One had died.

  But with each wound inflicted on an already beleaguered people who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain, they advanced relentlessly, without thought to their own lives, let alone injury. It was kill or be killed.

  An old kobold went down, head struck from his thin neck.

  Kobolds (17)

  Kai cried out like he’d been struck. “Dammit!” He leaned forward, spellbound by the battle.

  A stone-headed axe bashed into the side of the adventurer’s knee, buckling it.

  The adventurer nearly fell to his knees, throwing his arms up to balance himself.

  Two arrows hit him in the chest. Neither pierced his armour, but they must have hurt because he yelped and took yet another step back. Perhaps realizing that being surrounded in the middle of the room was to his disadvantage, he backed up faster. If he could get into the hall, then they’d all have to come at him head-on.

  The kobolds noticed him retreating and must have understood his strategy. After all, as a small species, outnumbering and swarming their enemies was probably a key part of kobold strategy. They wouldn’t be able to do it as well if the adventurer was in the hall. So they sought to press him even harder.

  Unfortunately, they were just too weak. The warrior cut a kobold down and bashed another in the face with his buckler.

  Kobolds (16)

  Despairing at the death, Kai screamed at the adventurer on the wall screen, “Fuck you!”

  The warrior knew he was about to get himself into a better position. He smiled, and there was no mercy there.