The Dark Lord and Dungeon Farming

  Underneath the much more densely populated opposite side of the planet, the Dark Lord analyzed his dungeon’s readiness. Seeing he had reached the parameters he had set, he announced, “Lillith, It’s time. Take over the surface then raise the defenses to keep the creatures contained.”

  The dungeon expanded its territory upward, stopping short of reaching any human activity until she was within a few feet of the entire city. In bursts starting from the outer edge of the city, the dungeon took control and began building a series of walls and defenses in the city. Buildings were shifted slightly as the defenses raised.

  The humans froze and looked around in horror. Some tried to run, only to find their escape blocked by walls and towers. Others prepared to fight. Quite a few pulled out their phones and tried to farm those all important updoots with posts of pictures and videos of what was happening. Almost nobody tried to flee the city. For some reason, they were hesitant to step through the mysterious portals in the outer wall.

  An image of what they assumed was a man in black with his face hidden in the darkness of his hood was projected above the city. “Greetings citizens of Earth. Your planet has been assigned to the insectamorphs. They will invade in about one year. Your only hope is to seek shelter in a dungeon and train to become strong enough to defend yourselves from further invasion. The first training evolution will begin in three hours and will continue until all citizens have gained at least three levels. Children under thirteen are exempt from this requirement, but may participate with parental permission.”

  A modified map of the city appeared beside the dark figure. “Defenses have been constructed for you to defend yourself from the dungeon creatures. The areas marked in red will be where the creatures will spawn. Areas marked in green are designated starting points for melee combatants and teams that wish to enter the combat areas. There are six thousand four hundred forty eight designated emergency exits located along the combat areas. If your home is next to an emergency exit location, you will be required to allow humans to pass through your personal territory in order to exit. If you are unable or unwilling to allow humans to exit through your territory, you will be designated as an enemy and your territory will become a combat area able to be accessed by the dungeon creatures.”

  The map disappeared and all of the humans received a notification of having received an update to their map. “Go now and prepare yourselves to train. Work hard and you might survive.”

  The humans acted as expected. Most went to gather friends and family. Some gathered all their prized possessions and looked for somewhere to hide. The more adventurous ones began investigating the walls and were surprised to find that they were equipped with a variety of weapons in the towers and at key points. Of course, their first thought was to attempt to steal them, but having been made by the dungeon, the weapons were immovable.

  The leadership of the eight clans that ruled the city met. “It’s a dungeon. It has to leave access to its core. We need to find it.” One of the leaders stated.

  “Are we sure? What do we really know?” another pointed out. It had been realized that the rise in LitRPG popularity prior to earth being integrated was a bit too convenient to be considered a coincidence. It was generally accepted that many of the stories had been seeded to prepare humanity for integration into the system.

  A consensus was reached by clan leaders that they should at least attempt to reach the core and take control of it, so the debate switched to how to locate the core. After an embarrassingly long time, someone actually looked at their updated map and asked, “What is this arch in the central plaza?”

  With only one hour remaining until the first evolution, a scout renowned for his army of shadow creatures raised from the souls of his defeated opponents entered the dungeon. Stepping through the portal, he saw a large open area with two portals. One said, “Training.” the other said, “The Dark Lord.”.

  ****

  “I wonder if he knows it was Justin that put the hit out on him.” Brad asked as he saw his brother’s eyes go wide. Months after Grandpa John had his tragic accident, rumors that it was no accident began circulating. An investigative reporter looked into the background of the driver only to discover some obvious irregularities with both the driver and the company he worked for. The reporter had reached out to an FBI contact of hers and together they started following the breadcrumbs to discover that it was a contracted hit. The real shock was the person who had paid for the hit. Nobody could quite understand the reasoning behind the actors actions, but unfortunately Justin was found dead having committed suicide inside a New Hampshire storage facility before he could be taken in for questioning.

  “Holy krap. I hadn’t even thought about that. John wouldn’t know. Crazy that he was Isekaid. As a slime of all things. I wonder what he did while out there in the universe?.” Frank’s face morphed from surprised realization into curiosity as he spoke. “I wonder if he became a frog shaman?”

  “So…” Brad stalled as he didn’t really want to be the first to bring it up. “What do you think about what he claims? The invasion and how the dungeons are our only hope?”

  Frank scratched his white beard and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Reddit’s confirmed that the Drake and the Ogre are out there saying the same thing. Even that Dark Lord in Asia claims the same thing. I saw the vid of the Drake. He seems far too powerful to be a human operating some sort of scam. You know how hard it was to level.”

  Brad shook his head before taking a sip of his monster. “Complete waste of time trying to level. The books made it seem like it would be such a struggle to survive, but the beasts barely keep up with us in levels. And there were no invading aliens for us to have an enemy to ally arc with and find a shady character to become our sidekick. If those stories were meant to prepare us, they sure did misrepresent what our integration would be like.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Would you read a story about earth integrating into the system and nothing much changed?” Frank asked.

  Brad shrugged. The books had been so accurate about so much, but completely misrepresented the dangers involved. The closest thing to an apocalypse earth had faced since integrating was the stupidity of politicians, the greed of corporations, and the inevitable rise of superhumans of both the good and evil variety. “You know he’s heading to Denver. Should we…?”

  Frank was already nodding. “Yes. If for no other reason, we’ll get a better idea if it’s really the old man. People that …unique…don’t change that much.”

  “He has tentacles now and is part slime.” Brad pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I bet he’s still John.” Frank replied.

  *****

  A massive explosion from the training area got John’s attention. Sparky projected an image of what was going on. Lorem and Jim were there. Lorem was making a complex weave and compressing it into a ball. He was several layers deep when he lost control and the massive amount of essence exploded again. Curious, John turned up the sound.

  “You got farther that time.” Jim said.

  “I don’t understand why I don’t have a spell to do it. Surely someone would have tried it and figured it out.” Lorem replied.

  “Maybe crystals capable of becoming dungeons aren’t that rare and easier to find than make one?” Jim suggested.

  Lorem seemed to think about that. “So why aren’t we finding more here. This planet has had an unusually mild integration. Maybe there just aren’t as many here as would normally be found. It’s almost like the planet was designed for a mission like John’s.”

  Realizing what they were attempting and that they may have stumbled onto a fact that John hadn’t considered which would greatly impact his plans, he had Sparky open a portal to the training room. Stepping through he said, “Sparky give us a supply of whatever you have that has a repeating three dimensional essence structure arranged into a lattice. Gemstones, quartz, salt, sugar, or anything else you have.”

  Jim put his hands behind his back like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Lorem began casting a ball of light as he said, “I just can’t figure out why it isn’t stable. All I want is a damn long lasting light source. Why does it keep exploding?”

  “You two are terrible actors.” John said as piles of material began appearing. “Dungeon cores have a crystal lattice that the spells are tied into. The lattice stabilizes the spellweaving inside of the core. How confident are you that you are correctly copying the weave?”

  Lorem scoffed, “I contain some of the greatest spells ever created. This weave is child’s play. I just have not figured out how to maintain the stability.”

  John looked at him and thought for a few seconds, “The stability is caused by the lack of the lattice. You are creating the weave and trying to compress it. You need to start with the lattice and add a small weave with a growth pattern programmed to add complexity as it grows.”

  Picking up quartz, he shaped it and removed imperfections in the lattice. “Show me the weave you are using.” Lorem began casting. After a few seconds, John said, “Stop. We’ll try with just that.” He snatched the weave from a sputtering Lorem offended by the manhandling of his spell.

  The book observed as John adjusted the weave. In its center, he added what appeared to be a segment designed to absorb essence. He added some strange nodes that appeared to be designed to allow connections. Lorem greedily recorded the new weaves as John worked.

  “Now the tricky part is probably getting the weaves to pair with the physical core.” John mumbled. Sparky projected an image of the lattice structure of the quartz core. John moved his weave into the projection and began making adjustments. He carefully adjusted the weave to mirror and complement the quartz lattice as he slowly began connecting the weave to it.

  After a few minutes John appeared satisfied with his work. He then began pouring essence into the now shining orb. Seconds later he smiled and held the object up. “Identify it.”

  Jim did and said, “Juvenile Dungeon Core.”

  The core disappeared and John turned to the pair, “Sparky will get it ready for you in the hatchery.”

  “You’re going to let us have it?” Lorem asked. John shrugged. “Can I make more?” Lorem enquired hopefully.

  “I hope you make a lot more. They will make our job much easier if we can find some decent dungeon masters.” John answered as he projected the core again. Highlighting the section he had added at the heart of the core, he said, “This can be improved. See if you can find a more efficient series of connections to the lattice for essence storage and increase the throughput for the absorption, distribution, utilization, and output sections.” He highlighted each as he mentioned them.

  Sparky appeared and presented another projection. “I believe this was my initial structure.” The glowing ball said. “I was a divine quality juvenile. Its structure should provide inspiration for your improvements.” Jim chuckled as both Lorem and John circled the projection observing it from all directions.

  Rachel’s voice rang out in the training room. She had taken on the job of making initial contact with humans, correctly assuming she would make a better first impression over John or Jim and his obviously evil book. “I’ve got a few people that would like to meet you John.”

  “Are they wanting to meet Jim and Lorem?” John asked.

  “No. They haven’t heard about the terrible singer and his planet destroying book yet.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right out.”

  *****

  The scout watched the assault team enter the training area of the dungeon. After a few seconds of indecision, he shrugged and walked into the portal to The Dark Lord. Stepping through he saw a large growing crystal ball on a pedestal in the center of the room. He couldn't hold in a laugh as he glanced at the projections of the assault team making its way through a labyrinth.

  “Greetings human, I am The Dark Lord. How may I be of assistance?” A deep voice said and the scout turned to see the speaker sitting in front of what looked like a console with multiple screens.

  “Greetings Dark Lord. I am Yohan…” the scout froze when he saw the dark lord’s head and shoulders drop. “Were you expecting someone else, dark lord?”

  “What? No. We’ve just got too many John’s running around already. You’re just going to make everything even more confusing.” the dark lord shook his head before waving the concern away.

  “I apologize Dark Lord, but you….I mean I misspoke. My name is Yo-Han. My apologies.”

  “Oh, thank freaking me. No worries Yohan. How may I assist you?”

  The scout suddenly realized he had a problem. He had no idea what he wanted. “My apologies, lord. I was just curious where the other portal went and thought I’d check it out while the clan’s assault term searched for the dungeon core.”

  “Ahhh…figured that’s what they were doing. They aren’t going to be able to take over, though. If anybody else suggests it, inform them it’s too dangerous.”

  The scout looked at the lord skeptically then back and forth from him to the core. “My apologies sir, but it’s just sitting there. That doesn’t seem that difficult to obtain.”

  The lord chuckled and stood up to walk towards Yohan. “You’re forgetting I’m here and I’ve also got these.” He waved his arm and one of the walls went transparent.

  The scout quickly stepped back as he exclaimed in horror, “beol ggul o so ri.”