“We’re going to have such fun!”

  Those were the last words the mad dungeon intelligence yelled after us as we fled the burning elevator. We found ourselves in a thoroughly modern corporate lobby. Polished granite floors, walls made out of… some kind of composite. A high ceiling, and one large glass wall that gave us a perfect view of what was outside.

  I looked around for a reception desk, but the room was empty. The elevator behind us continued to burn. Smoke started escaping from the crack in the door.

  “The only way to go is forward,” I said.

  “We can’t go out there!” Kyle protested. “It’s full of monsters!”

  “Also,” Cloridan objected. “I don’t see a way through this glass wall without breaking it.”

  I blinked, realising that my friends didn’t recognise a modern door when they saw one. It was Borys who spoke up first.

  “That’s the door there,” he said, pointing. “Don’t go near it, it will open automatically, and I think we want to take some time to study the situation before we leave.”

  “We might not have that much time,” I said, glancing back at the elevator. Judging from the smoke, the fire was only getting more intense. Everything in this place was arranged by the intelligence. The fire was a spur to get us to leave, so the only question was how much time it was going to give us.

  “We can’t go out there, though, we’ll get swarmed!” Felicia said. She clung nervously to Kyle’s arm.

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re imagining,” I told her. “I’ve got an idea of what’s going on here.”

  Outside the glass doors was… well, I never played that Cyberpunk game, but I saw pictures, and this would have fit right in. A dystopian cityscape, filled with neon and dirty concrete. It was both more developed and seedier than any city I’d seen in real life. I suppose there might have been some small part of Tokyo or Hong Kong that looked like this, but the business trips I’d taken to Tokyo had only shown me much nicer areas than this.

  Inhabiting it were… Well, [Identification] wasn’t stopped by clear glass.

  There were other types as well.

  None of them posed any great threat. Probably. If “Skilled” meant what I thought it did then it could change things. The real problem though, was how many of them there were. The only time I’d seen so many monsters was during the double dungeon break, back in Talnier. If they swarmed us…

  “I think it’ll be fine,” I said. “Let me try something. [Phantasmal Emissary]”

  I summoned a phantasmal version of me out on the street. Keeping track of both sets of perceptions was tricky, but I wasn’t trying for anything fancy. All that the illusionary version of me had to do was stand there.

  “Why aren’t they attacking her?” Felicia asked. “Do they see her?”

  “They do,” Cloridan said. “Look they’re walking around her.”

  And indeed they were. Time for the next test. I gave one of the passers-by a shove.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” the mook yelled. Then it turned away from me and kept going. I reported what it had said to the others.

  “Most monsters with skills can talk,” Kyle told me. “You’ve seen that for yourself.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s what is going on here,” I said. I had my Emissary shove another businessman.

  “Hey! I’m walking here!” Just like before, he walked away once he’d delivered his line.

  A classic. I shoved another one.

  “Are you blind!”

  Another.

  “Hey! I’m walking here!”

  There we go.

  It turned out that the businessmen at least—I couldn’t be bothered to test the other types right now— had five different lines that they delivered at random.

  “Is that different from how monsters normally are?” Felicia asked. “I mean, we can’t understand them normally, anyway.”

  “It is different,” I said. “Monsters are intelligent. Not very intelligent, and overwhelmed by aggression, but the intelligence is there. These guys… they’re scripted.”

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  I looked over at Borys. “Are we thinking the same thing?” I asked.

  “A sandbox game,” he agreed.

  “What’s that?” Kyle asked.

  “Let’s answer that outside,” I said, looking back at the elevator. It was starting to glow.

  “Let’s,” Borys agreed. “It should be safe as long as we don’t interact with anyone.”

  I cancelled my spell and we all walked out of the glass doors. Out on the street, I tried to explain what was going on to my companions.

  “These monsters aren’t intelligent,” I said. “Or maybe they are and are just being controlled like slaves… that’s an unpleasant thought. In any case, they won’t behave like regular monsters.”

  That statement was self-evidently true based on the behaviour of the monsters around us. We formed a close-knit knot on the sidewalk that all the monsters diverted around without comment. My friends weren’t quite prepared to trust in what they saw, or what I said, but as long as they didn’t attack it would be fine.

  Now that I saw them up close, the monsters were remarkably human-like. They were clearly not human, though. Grey skin, misshapen jaws and flattened noses. They kept their mouths closed, but I got the impression that their teeth weren’t within human norms.

  The businessmen looked incongruous in their smart suits. The gangers had their uniform of leather jackets and tattoos that looked more like tribal warpaint. The prostitutes… well I couldn’t see anyone here paying for sex and then murdering them.

  I resumed my lecture. “Each one of these monsters is following a script. Most of them are just meant to wander around, adding character. Some of them will be waiting to interact with us. There will be monsters we can trade with, monsters that give us missions to complete.”

  “Be especially careful of the Cop Mooks,” Borys added. “That Linked property probably means that if you attack one, all the linked ones know about it and will come after you.”

  “Cops will probably come after you if they see you killing monsters, or committing any crimes,” I said.

  “But we don’t have to kill any monsters if they don’t come after us,” Felicia said.

  “Oh, we will have to,” I said grimly. “Somewhere in here is a mook that knows how to get to the next level. To find him, or get him to tell us where it is, we’re going to have to do some sort of mission. That mission—or those missions— will involve a lot of killing. Depend on it.”

  “Can’t we just find our way by following the mana?” Kyle asked.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But… from what I’ve seen, the mana is more controlled than what you normally see. And there are all these buildings in the way. The first order of business might be to get to the top of one of these buildings and note the lay of the land.”

  “How big do you think this level is?” Borys asked.

  “There’s no actual limit on how big a level can be,” I said. “It takes mana and time to claim the volume, and you need to have the physical space to hold it, but this is the First Dungeon.”

  “It’s had all the time in the world,” Borys said thoughtfully. “And with spatial manipulation, a lot more space than you would think.”

  “Exactly,” I said glumly. “The big spaces in Dorsay’s dungeon were about five kay across, so we’re looking at at least that. Maybe ten, twenty times that.”

  “So where do we start?” Cloridan asked.

  “I guess… we start wandering. Start by looking for a building that will let us in. Look for a store that’s selling useful things. Look for anything that stands out. And… look for a good place to mug someone.”

  Gangers had a much more aggressive reaction to being shoved.

  “You talking to me? You talking to me?”

  The ganger shoved me— or my Emissary, rather — but as long as I kept backing away, he kept following me, without attacking. This was about optimal as far as I was concerned, so I kept backing away until we were both in a nearby alley.

  Presumably, this alley had been designed for mugging people. It didn’t seem to have any other purpose. There weren’t any doors that led out to it. There was a dumpster about halfway down, but it didn’t look like it had been moved, or used, for years.

  “You think you can take me?” the ganger yelled when Kyle stepped out from behind the dumpster. It was interesting that it noticed him, and also determined he was a threat. This fight was over, though.

  “Yeah, we do,” I said and cast [Blind]. That was the end of his scripted lines, but it took a little longer for him to die.

  I hung back and let Borys rifle through his pockets. I felt a little queasy about mugging what looked like a semi-civilised person.

  He’s just a monster, I told myself. Less than that even, he’s just acting out a script.

  “What’s he got?” I asked, trying not to let my disquiet show.

  “His clothes are not even armour,” Borys said. “He’s got… a gun, a phone…and this.”

  He handed the last item to me, while he inspected the gun.

  Isn’t that a kettle of worms, I thought to myself as I examined the device in my hand. It was…

  Even if I hadn’t had [Identification] I would have been able to tell what this was. It had Credstick printed on the side. Not in English, but as soon as I saw the symbols I knew it indicated that this was a stick that held something called ‘creds’.

  “It’s money,” I told the others. There was a panel on the front that opened easily, a little like a flip phone. There were buttons for numbers, another one marked ‘all’ and two more marked ‘give’ and ‘take’.

  “The money is a number on the device,” I explained. “Instead of giving someone coins, you transfer the numbers across to another credstick.”

  “Is that something from your world?” Felicia asked.

  “Not… like this,” I said.

  “Same here,” Borys said. “This isn’t a gun.”

  “It isn’t? I asked. I let [Identification] answer my own question.

  “That’s a lot of damage for a Poor item,” I said. Borys nodded.

  “We’re lucky he didn’t get a chance to fire it,” he said. “We’ll have to see how it interacts with skills. But look.”

  He pointed at the thing’s muzzle, while carefully pointing it away from everyone. I quickly saw what he meant.

  “It’s too small,” I said. “I don’t know much about guns but the bullets are bigger than that.”

  “Right,” Borys said. “Everyone stand clear.”

  Realising what he was about to do, we all stood away from the dumpster he was pointing the thing at. Once everyone was ready, he pulled the trigger.

  Instead of a crack, like there was in the movies, there was a very intense hiss. There was no smoke or fire, but a slim metal rod was suddenly embedded in the side of the dumpster.

  “I think it uses magic to fire,” Borys said. “He wasn’t carrying any reloads, and there doesn’t seem to be a mechanism to reload it either.”

  I checked it over with [Sense Mana]. There didn’t seem to be a way to put more magic into it. Whatever it was made with was what it had.

  “Perhaps reloading is a feature that comes with more expensive models,” I said. “What’s left?”

  “The phone,” Borys said and held it up so we could all see. It was the standard glass oblong that we knew and loved. There was a case on it, so I couldn’t tell if it was infringing.

  “You seem to know what it is,” Felicia said. “Is it good?”

  “It might be when we get a few more,” Borys said. “I bet it only works in the dungeon, though.”

  “See if there’s anyone you can call,” I suggested.

  Borys shrugged and activated it. “I doubt it,” he said. “It might have a mapping app though? Or—”

  “Or me! Your friendly neighbourhood dungeon!” The familiar voice and face filled the small screen as soon as it was turned on.

  “Oh great,” I said. “A cursed item.”