“That was different,” Aura said to Nate as they watched the two crumple to the floor, their hands sliding off the Dungeon Core at last.

  “You’re not kidding. I wasn’t expecting any of that to happen. I was just hoping that having them touch it would allow them to see the camera screens or something. I’m not exactly sure. I was just hoping for something that would let them be part of the secret. This is beyond expectations.”

  Working together, they dragged both girls out of the Core room while they were still unconscious. Then sealed the room back up, causing the room to go dark once more and the lights to dim throughout the rest of the dungeon.

  “What’s the plan now? I assume this changes things?”

  He nodded. “I had originally intended on asking for their help in designing the traps for this dungeon. Now that they are actually an official part of our team though…” Nate nibbled at the side of his lip thoughtfully. “We need to introduce them to the various dungeons and have them take over a couple of the more established ones for us. Help lighten the load some. Maybe give them some time to get used to everything before we introduce the new dungeons to them.”

  “With a full group, we could start taking on some of the harder dungeons.” Aura pointed out.

  Not all of the dungeons they had created belonged to weaker invaders. Unfortunately, with how the dungeons worked, there was little that they could do against those creatures until their Dungeon Cores became a sufficiently high level. That meant that those dungeons had few traps and were geared toward keeping their inhabitants inside for as long as possible.

  They were rarely deadly, outside of a few careless occasions. However, the energy they gave from just their presence inside the dungeon gradually built up over time. It was a long play, but eventually, there would be enough to level up the Dungeon Core, strengthening the dungeon. At that point, they would also gain access to the second level, which would increase the pace some.

  It was all about the long game.

  “Let’s give it a few weeks, minimum. If nothing else, the cultivators in this section of the country are supposed to be stronger than where we came from. There are more of the stronger dimensional zones spread out in this part of the uh, well… country.” He finished lamely.

  There wasn’t a lot of information on the stronger dimensional zones from the internet, or if there was, he hadn’t found the right website. An internet without a decent search engine was worse than using an old-school phonebook to find a decent plumber. There were always dozens of options listed, and you knew there were hundreds more that hadn’t made it into the book for whatever reason.

  Angie groaned and rolled over, her hand going to her head. “What happened?”

  “Quit yelling,” Lindsay mumbled. “My head is pounding. I think Aura tried to eat it.”

  “I’ve heard that humans aren’t actually all that tasty.” Aura sent to them with a toothy grin.

  Both girls groaned and held their heads.

  It took several minutes for them to recover. The cool stone on their heads helped to wick away the headaches the process had caused them.

  “What is this thing on my arm, Nate?” Lindsay asked when she was finally able to open her eyes without wincing.

  “I have one too. What is it?”

  “Flip the screen on it open and try it out.” He replied with a small grin. “I’ll explain as we go along.”

  ***

  “Wait-” Angie interrupted his explanation. “You’re saying that you haven’t only been visiting these dungeons at night, but am the one creating them?”

  “And you’ve been using traps to keep them all in line?” Lindsay added.

  The two shared a look as they came to understand something else.

  “The community outside the dungeon? That was your doing as well, wasn’t it? You’re the reason the beasts stopped attacking the city.” Angie said, sure that they had gotten it right.

  He nodded, a small smile curling the edges of his lips. “We got lucky with that one. A timer we had been waiting to run out finally did.”

  The explanation continued from there and a while later, the two were eager to try their hands at making some traps. Unfortunately for them, they had the same limitations as Aura and could only work on items in the dungeon that they were currently in.

  That meant that any traps they made would be for this dungeon. A place filled with mostly non-hostile beings. Only the kobolds were actually beings that they wanted to eliminate. The golems and dwarves were only hostile if someone else attacked them first. With any luck, they could be prevented from entering the portal once they gained access to the second floor.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It would be best if they could do all of this with as little harm to the two races as possible.

  The dwarves and golems were different from the blighted elves who had dispositions more similar to humans than of their more peaceful brethren.

  Under his and Aura’s guidance, they pulled up their camera screens and quickly located some kobolds. A small group of them had just come through the portal and had begun stalking their way through the tunnels.

  “Can we place traps in the portal room?” Lindsay asked, playing with the menu to the side of the screen.

  “No, it’s the one room we’re not allowed to put any traps in. Besides, in this case, we wouldn’t want to anyway, since the kobolds aren’t the only ones coming through it.”

  “That means we can only really trap a few sections of this dungeon, then,” Angie muttered thoughtfully. “We can’t use the first section either, as the kobolds will see their companions getting hurt and run away.”

  “In situations like this, it’s typically better to trap the dungeon exit, and only have one or two somewhat easy traps in the other rooms. The goal is to whittle down their numbers and injure them. Let the last trap room be the one that actually finishes them off.” Aura instructed them.

  “You mentioned assigning a theme to each dungeon which has some effect on the type of trap you can make,” Angie said, looking up at Nate, who nodded. “What theme did you choose for this dungeon?”

  “I never chose one, as I kept everything I did to this dungeon to a minimum. What theme do you think fits this dungeon?”

  The two young women took a few minutes to examine the dungeon through the camera screens before answering.

  “It would be nice to do something with poison gases. I feel like that would be thematically accurate for a mine,” Lindsay complained.

  Nate had already explained the limitations of the dungeon to them. In that, it couldn’t create anything living, which in this case included poisons, germs, and moving skeletons. In a way, the dungeon was a perfectly sterile environment, at least in the beginning. Any germs and other nastiness were brought in by the invaders and cultivators.

  Angie chuckled and shook her head. “Maybe some using water pressure? What was it called when they did that with mining?”

  “Hydraulic mining?” Nate guessed. “That might work as a theme. The hydraulic part, I mean, not just the water, but the overall nature of hydraulics. With it, you would be able to increase pressure on a lot of different things.” He nodded slowly, liking the idea. “Yeah, let’s go with that as the theme.”

  Nate hadn’t seen any jet cutters being used in that world. However, he also hadn’t been spending much time in the industrial sectors.

  That meant that he might have to guide them a little on how to create and use them.

  The matter of the theme settled, Lindsay and Angie selected three rooms, one of which was the exit/entrance of the dungeon. From there, they introduced a few thin grates into the floor of the rooms. The tightly spaced grates would allow water to pass through to a larger container below. The dungeon would quickly suck the water up, but the container and grates would give it some extra time while keeping the rooms dry.

  Inside the room, swiveling nozzles were placed against the ceiling with thick encased tubes that passed the water from the dungeon to the trap.

  With just that, the water pressure was already fairly high, then he mentioned to them the water pumps he had been using in the water dungeon. Once they included those in the mix, the pressure went through the roof and became able to cut into the floor of the dungeon. The pumps weren’t exactly the right kind, so they would need to have the Dungeon Core research the individual changes later.

  Until then though, they would work and work well.

  From there, it was a simple matter of deciding on where the traps should be aimed, and how they would be triggered. Once they figured those two things out, they could decide if this dungeon would be a proverbial one-trap pony. Or if they could figure out other ways in which to incorporate the theme into traps.

  It was their first time working with the dungeon system, but under his and Aura’s guidance, they were able to figure everything out rather quickly. The entire thing was rather intuitive. After all, he had been able to figure it out on his own, without a manual. There were a few details that could trip you, but those usually came into play later on. The initial design and work phase was rather normal, with few overall items that could trip you up.

  Then again, it had been long enough for him that he could be misremembering a lot of things.

  For the trap in the third room from the exit, Lindsay set it up in a rather interesting way, he thought. She had the trigger mechanism about a third of the way into the room. The jet nozzle was angled toward the door while hanging down from the ceiling from a ten-foot hose. She had made the hose slightly thinner than normal, giving it some freedom of movement.

  As soon as a kobold, or really anyone else, stepped on the trigger mechanism, the initial burst of pressurized water would hit them. Then the nozzle would begin sending it flipping all about wildly in an unpredictable manner.

  Lindsay ran several tests, tweaking the system each time before she was finally happy with how it performed. Initially, the hose had been too weak, and a section of it burst. After that, Nate showed her how to modify sections of it and reinforced the outer layer with a wrapping of mesh metal. Strong enough to prevent it from bursting, but still thin enough that it wouldn’t affect the hoses’ mobility.

  Angie handled the first room, and as it was a complete dungeon room instead of a tunnel, or a mix of the two, she had a lot of control over it. She was able to modify the room to include slits, using them to hide the nozzles. Each wall had ten slits with a horizontal one at the end that connected them all. While the ceiling and floor had forty in a checkered grid pattern.

  The four walls each had one movable jet nozzle installed, while the ceiling and floor had two of the same.

  Getting them to move and track the enemy properly was a lot harder. It was actually impossible, at least without linking it directly to the Dungeon Core, which is what she had to do in the end. The first level Core wasn’t capable of much, but it could handle moving the traps in that one room.

  It took them hours to set everything up, and by the time they were done, each of them was ready to eat.

  “Wait,” Lindsay shouted excitedly when Nate began pulling out the sandwiches he had prepared for them earlier. “Here on the menu! It says ‘Storage’. Is that what you have been using this entire time?”

  He nodded and finished taking out the food. “I have no idea how large either of your storages will be, but yes. Aura’s is pretty big, but it possesses limitations that mine does not.” He shrugged and grinned. “I guess we can all learn these things together.”

  https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern

  https://joshuakernbooks.com/