The Training Begins

  The siegemaster liked the enthusiasm of the mechdrivers, but he wasn’t too sure about their tactics. At the request of the guild, he had the dungeon adjust to an appropriate size for them to use their vehicles and mechs. It became obvious quickly that their planning was limited to “Hey, there’s something over there.’ and their only strategy was “Let’s go kill it.” Everybody was DPS and no one was a tank, support, crowd control, or healer.

  He blamed this on their ridiculously easy integration and reliance on their killing machines. He had to admit the machines looked like a lot of fun. Large cannons shooting massive explosive projectiles. Whirling blades instead of hands for their walking mechs with the addition of chest and shoulder mounted projectile weapons. The vehicles had ranged weapons as their primaries, but they all included some sort of ram, stationary blades, or short range scatter guns mounted all over the chassis.

  “What are you going to do when you face an opponent that is too fast for your range attacks to hit and too tough for your other weapons to deal with?” He asked the leader of the guilds premier team.

  The leader scoffed, “Fat chance of running into something like that. We’ve got state of the art targeting systems on these puppies. If we can see it, we can hit it.’

  “What if it’s too fast for you to see?” Siegemaster asked.

  “Nothing is that fast. We can rotate 360 degrees in less than a second.” The leader replied.

  “Okay. I’ll show you. Don’t worry, I’ll fix the vehicles when we’re done. Just remember the insectomorphs won’t be as fast as me, but there will be thousands of them. Get in position and we’ll start on Delilah’s signal.” The siegemaster then stepped to the far end of the dungeon level.

  The crews looked around trying to figure out where the gigantic ogre had gone. “Get in your vehicles and get ready. He is at the far end of the training area.” One of the gunners looked through their sites and confirmed that he could see the ogre standing fifteen kilometers away.

  “I feel I should warn you that you will all be dead before you start moving if he decides to attack from range, but I suspect he is more interested in making a point.” Delilah’s innocent voice came from the glowing ball representing her presence. “So it may take him a full second to destroy your vehicles.”

  The crew laughed and the leader said, “Load up boys. Let’s show these two what we can do.” A few moments later the commander told Delilah they were ready. She counted down from three and then told them to begin. Metal screeched and parts flew. Guns were ripped off of mounts and tops were ripped off of vehicles. The commander's cigar was stolen and less than a second later all the vehicles were completely destroyed and the siegemaster took a couple puffs off of his newly acquired loot while the two mechs in the team fell over with their weapons completely destroyed and their arms ripped off.

  The siegemaster discovered he didn’t really like the smoke and swallowed the cigar. “Do you understand now?Get out so I can fix your vehicles.”

  “What have you done? These cost a fortune and it will take months to replace.” The commander screamed.

  “Get out. I’ll fix.” The ogre said. When the crew just sat there strapped into their seats, he decided to speed things up a bit as he sliced their harnesses with essences blades and set them to the side. Once he had everyone removed, he cast his repair skill on the vehicle and its pieces flew back together reassembling into even better condition than new.

  “Can…Can the insectomorphs do that?” one of the drivers asked.

  The siegemaster shook his head. “No. They will have some that are as fast as me, but none of those will be as strong as me. The ones that are stronger than me won’t be nearly as fast and they will be big targets. I’ve trained with the Battlemaster and John since I was a baby, so even their strongest won’t have much of a chance against me one on one. However, remember they will come in the thousands even if they will not risk their best to conquer one little planet. They won’t hesitate to throw everything into battle. They put the hive before all else. Losses in combat mean nothing as long as the queen survives.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “How are we supposed to fight against something like that?” a gunner asked.

  The siegemaster went around and fixed all their vehicles while he explained, “Train. Get stronger. Get faster. Get better equipment. Get a hell of a lot smarter. Battles are often won before the first attack is made. But above all else, learn to work with the dungeon.”

  “Master, we are approaching a small village.” Delilah said.

  “Alert the guild master and let him handle the initial greeting. I’ve got to teach these knuckleheads some basic strategy.” the ogre growled as he motioned everybody to gather around him. Using projections, he began talking the team through the basics.

  *****

  “So tell me, scout. Do you happen to have a legendary class?” the Dark Lord asked.

  “Nope. I’m a shadow scout. Picked up a skill that lets me summon shadow warriors.” Yohan answered.

  The Dark Lord laughed, “Keep your secrets then, Jinwoo.”

  “Yohan, Lord.” the scout corrected getting a chuckle from the imposing dungeon master.

  “Fine. But you’ll want to get back to the surface so you can get a few levels for your shadows. The evolution will start with low level goblins that most of your shadows can handle no problem. In a few hours, you’ll want to switch to a support role keeping an eye on the other melee fighters and help them out when they get in trouble. I can open a portal for you to one of the melee gathering points if you like?”

  “Are the casualties going to be high?” Yohan asked.

  “Oh, no. Lilith is high enough level that right before anyone dies, they will be offered a contract that will require them to stay in the dungeon until they pay off the essence debt owed to the dungeon. How quickly they pay off the debt will depend on how hard they train. Lilith will set the debt as low as she is allowed.” the dark lord answered.

  Yohan looked at him curiously for a second. “You really are trying to help us.”

  “No.” The Dark Lord said. “I enjoy torturing weaklings for fun. If you find any kittens, I will buy them off you so I can pull out their whiskers when I get bored.”

  Yohan chuckled. “You aren’t fooling me.”

  “Begone pest.” the Dark Lord said as he sent Yohan flying through a portal. The Dark Lord chuckled as he watched the projection of Yohan almost getting attacked by a melee team when he was suddenly spit out of the portal. “This planet has some potential, Lilith.”

  “Yes, master. Shall I begin the countdown?”

  *****

  “Hey, Sparky. What will our dungeon be able to do?” Jim asked while he watched Lorem testing a few modifications to their dungeon creating templates.

  “I’ll assign them as a subordinate dungeon to me, so it will be able to purchase copies of a limited number of my assets from me for a steep discount and you will also be able to access the Dungeon Market and customize it however you want.” Sparky answered. “Personally, I’d recommend a variety of vehicular forms and quick expansion and terraforming once you cover the basics of instanced dungeons, dungeon servitude contracts, and a design to protect your core. This will give you the flexibility to fight as a vehicle and quickly switch to a defensive mode to claim terrain and prepare a battlefield to your liking. I’ve purchased a few of Destiny’s custom dungeon planning guides if you would like to review one.”

  “That sounds good. I sure as hell am not going to be much help to Lorem while he’s making cores.” Jim said and a book appeared on the ground in front of him. He started flipping through the book while Lorem worked.

  “Jim, May I ask you a question?” Sparky said.

  “Sure.” Jim said, looking up at the glowing ball.

  “Why can’t I refer to you as your real name or tell John who you are? How do you have that much control over the system?” Sparky asked.

  “That’s need to know, Sparkles. Don’t worry. I’m on their side. For now.” Jim explained.

  “And how long will that last Jim?” Sparky asked.

  “On this planet, I’m on their side. I’ll keep the book from causing too much trouble either. Let’s leave it at that.” Jim said.

  *****

  The meeting was winding down, when Drake got an alert that a large force had entered his dungeon. “It appears that someone has found my dungeon, I must go. I will be back in a few minutes.”

  “Hold on Drake. I’ve got some questions. How will food…” a guild leader started to ask.

  Drake chuckled. “You don’t want to delay me. I am not going to save the dungeon. I am going to prevent the dungeon from having to harm your people.” With a loud pop of air rushing in to fill the space that the emperor had just left, Drake disappeared.

  “I told you it wasn’t a good idea.” one of the other guild leaders said.

  *****

  “Where the hell did you come from?” the archer asked Yohan.

  “I was speaking to the Dark Lord in his core room.” Yohn explained. “We’ll start with low leveled goblins, but it will get tougher after a while. Weaker fighters will need to pull back to the defensive positions before it gets too tough for them. They’ll be able to gain essence from the walls.”

  As Yohan began summoning his shadow creatures a countdown appeared overhead. “Tanks on me.” a large warrior called out.