Aster Loka
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Chapter 36
🕑 Added 2021-12-20 18:06:00 +0000 UTCThey drove another hour before Levi found a dungeon near enough the road for his ping to reach.
“This way,” Levi pointed, and Gordon pulled off the highway. It took a few false starts where roads headed the wrong direction before they pulled off at a parking lot behind a warehouse and got out.
Fifteen minutes later, they finally located it.
Destruction Dungeon: Level 1
"Will you still be able to get anything out of it?" Gordon asked. “You being level 5 and all now.”
"Of course. I'll need to be around level fifteen or twenty before level 1 dungeons become basically useless. I do wish I had a way to get word out so they could get leveled before I reach them, but I can't imagine who would listen to a crazy guy ranting about the apocalypse."
Gordon's brow furrowed as he considered. "The thing is, your claims come with verifiable information. If you'd told me 'there's an apocalypse coming, I'm a time traveler, and there are dungeons' without having your little gremlin there and a shimmer of air that goes into a different dimension space, then I'd have driven you to a shrink myself."
"But who would listen?"
Gordon snorted. "You really have been gone a long time. People may be skeptical, but do you know how many tens of thousands are desperately yearning for something like this? For a game to suddenly become real, or aliens to invade, or anything like that to be proven real? You won't need to scream it, just post it online anywhere and the people who want to find it will find it."
Levi nodded slowly. "Yeah, that is how the world was at this time, isn't it?"
"Yep. I don't know what platform people are using these days, but it wouldn't be hard to find out. You could probably do it right from your phone."
Levi patted his phone, protected in a belt pocket. "We'll have to go over how to set it up once we finish this dungeon," he said. "You can talk me through it on the way."
"You don't slow down, do you?"
Levi shook his head. "Can't. I have too much to do and nowhere near enough time to do it in."
He wondered how best to present his appeal to the world. His first try had been... less than exemplary. Blurting everything out to a random gang of thugs... what had he been thinking? Of course that wasn't going to do anything but get him laughed at.
He had better resources now. He had the manablade, he had much more impressive equipment, and he had the beginnings of stability. He couldn't deny his mind and emotions had been... in turmoil, to put it gently, ever since he'd died and not-died. Reappearing in the past may have given him a second chance to change the fate of humanity, but it had done nothing to erase his trauma.
True, he was used to fighting and bleeding, but he was not used to dying. That wasn't the sort of thing you usually got a second chance to try, and...
No. No. That was the past, that was nothing. He shoved it aside and stepped into the dungeon. They could work out the appeal to the internet after.
This one was full of corrosive water, streams running haphazardly down hallways, spilling down walls, and pooling in depressions. The pitted stone gleamed, polished smooth between the rivulets. Levi had to pick his way carefully across the ground, the uneven terrain and potential of danger seriously heightened.
It made him feel even more at home here, if that were possible. This was more like what he was used to, dungeons doing their all to annihilate any intruders. Of course, the rooms were strangely empty, which rather detracted from the illusion. No hordes of ogres, no clouds of scarabs trying to eat your eyes, not even a swarm of gremlins to trip you up and knock you into the corrosive streams.
"Did this dungeon decide it didn't need anything but traps?" Levi wondered aloud as they reached the third room without meeting any opposition. He’d hoped to teach Gordon some proper swordsman stances and attacks so he'd stop swinging his blade around like he was trying to clear undergrowth in a jungle, but without any enemies his plan wasn’t going to be much use.
Skarm and Two were having a grand time, chattering away with each other in quiet squeaks as they jumped back and forth across the dangerous streams of corrosive.
"You mentioned dungeons being intelligent, are they able to understand us?" Gordon asked softly.
"No, no. No dungeon has ever reacted in any way to the discussion of the delvers attempting to surpass its challenges. They're intelligent in the same way a... I don't know, a shark or a bear is intelligent. It can learn and adapt, but it doesn't have any sapience. Not sure it even has sentience. It's more like an artificial construct than anything."
"So, like an AI?"
"Sure."
"Can they be hacked?"
Levi shrugged. "If so, I've never heard about it."
"I bet they can be. If they're a learning but unalive construct, there has to be a way to subvert their programming."
"You're basing that on an awful lot of assumptions. We don't actually know if dungeons are alive or not, just what they do."
"Can they be killed?" Gordon pressed, not wanting to drop the topic.
"Destroyed, yes. Shattering the core collapses the space in which they exist, forcibly ejecting anyone inside and closing the door forever. People used to do it for the boost to leveling, before dungeons were declared a precious protected resource."
"Are you shitting me? Dungeons... that want to kill humanity, are to be protected?"
Levi gestured around. "We’re here, aren’t we? They're our only weapon against the demons."
"Aren't they the same thing?"
Levi laughed bitterly. "Not in the least. Demons destroy dungeons whenever possible. Dungeons are the one way humans have of gaining system energy to level without fighting demons directly. Between attacks, they're our only training grounds. You can't go out and slaughter earth native wildlife for levels, it has to be system integrated beings. Demons count, dungeon creatures count, and that's about it."
"So your gremlins aren't baby demons?"
"No. Gremlins are destructive creatures, but if you saw a demon you'd know not to mistake the two. Even the weakest imp could wipe us all out in our current state in seconds."
"Even you?"
Levi gave a short nod, eyes haunted. "The weakest imps in the first wave can burn through a city in a matter of hours. They're slow, but their magic power is high. They can turn into living flame, only for limited amounts of time, but it's enough to flash roast anyone nearby without at least 300 stamina or specialized armor. And they can throw fireballs with just as much damage potential. If one showed up here, I'd order us all to run without hesitation. No city where a demon portal appeared has survived more than a day or two at most, but they do have a limited number of troops. That's your only hope, at this level: to outrun them and wait for them to get bored and start fighting among themselves or chase after someone else."
"Infighting? Can we exploit that?"
Levi shook his head. "It's been tried. The best we can tell, there are countless factions among the demons who will take advantage of the conflict against Earth to do some quiet backstabbing for whatever reasons demons have to kill each other. But it's always small in scope, and never has a major impact on their strategies."
They stepped into another room, this one with a deep pit filling almost the entirety of the space.
"Detour, or trap?" Levi peered down into the darkness masking the distant floor. A week ago, he'd have jumped in without pause, trusting his armor to protect him. Now... he did not have any such faith. And he vividly remembered his early pitfall, breaking his leg on a simple fall because he didn't have enough stamina to absorb the impact.
Skarm pointed at the pit, then at Two, pointy teeth bared in a smirk.
Two drew his dagger, chin raised defiantly, and stepped forward.
"No, no," Levi caught him and held him back. "Skarm, if anyone needs to jump in there, it's you. After all, you're under level compared to Two here."
The gremlin narrowed his eyes, while Two laughed his high squeaky laugh, delighted with the turnabout.
"But no one is jumping down there. I don't trust it. We'll have to find a way over or around."
