《Dungeon Builder》


 Chapter 1

    I''m hungry.


    I role over to turn on the light. Wait, I can''t turn over. What is going on?


    I can''t see or hear anything, not even the beating of my heart.


    Wait! What is going on?


    What do I remember?  I can''t remeber my name, I think I had a body.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    I can feel warmth, but I''m still hungry. It is dark.


    I have a concept of self and language.


    Somthing just bumped into me, what is it?


    I lash out, I''m not sure how. This thing is an earthworm. It''s dead, I don''t feel as hungry any more. But I didn''t eat the earthworm, I just killed it.  What is the meaning of this?


    I can feel a little further than I did before. I am in dirt, full of creepy crawly earthworms and other insects you would expect in a forest.  So, I''m out in the woods somewhere and buried. I''m losing track of time, I also feel wet, am I sweating?

 Chapter 2: What am I?

    So, I''m dead and this is Hell.


    That must be it, there is no other explanation.


    There is no sensory input, just the black.


    No Internet, No movies, No music, No friends, No books. Just the hunger.


    There''s no sound of my own heart beating.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    There''s no smell of my own farts.


    There''s no itch I can scratch.


    There is no biology.


    This sensory deprivations is enough to drive a human mind crazy.


    Wait, if you can ask yourself "Am I crazy?" Then you have enought self-awarenes, you are sane enough.


    I am not human anymore, then what am I?


    I am hunger. I am gluttony. I am death. I am Kali, bringer of change. I am Shiva the Destroyer.


    I am sloth, because I am boared out of my mind. "Shiva the Destroyer" Where did that ambition come from?


    Oh, I am hunger.

 Chapter 3: I am a hole in the ground.

    I focus on the "sweat" I''m giving off, it flows down my body. Down? External force, would be gravity.


    Gravity, is one of the fundamental forces of physics.


    I feel warmth of the of the decomposing leaf litter and the soil I''m in. Decomposition, is chemistry. Phyiscs and Chemistry, my train of thougt, leads me to atomic theory of matter.  Atomic theory of matter and the quote, "I am Shiva the Destroyer" leads to my goal, an atomic bomb.


    The "sweat" I''m giving off seem to be some sort of acid, it''s reacting under me and giving off more heat. The warmth make me feel fuller, I try to find the balance of making acid and "eating." The more I try to "eat" I feel my surrounding feel colder.


    Now, lets concentrate on the worm. How did I kill it again? It just ran into me. As I concentrate on the worm, my world turn upside down. I''m now the worm. What happened, I''m still the core and the worm at the same time. What stange magic is this? Magic, do I have to give up my goal?


    The worm has mobility, and I can use it to map out my surrounding. As the worm, I can smell another worm. I move closer to it and hunt it down. When the first worm me touches the second worm, I''m now both worms.  With the two worms I hunt down other worms and snails, my consciousness expands into more animals.  Using the worms to to work the leaf litter around me, the acid I''m producing reacts better, I''m able aborb more energy at my core. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    After a while the leaf ltter above me collapses and I can now see sky. Sunlight, breaking though the canopy above me, lights up the hole I''m in. Using the snail''s eyes, I can look at my self for the first time, I look like quatz crystal.  The sunlight fades as the sun sets, I now have a measure of time, I now have days.


    As days pass, the hole attacts flies and spider. When they touch me, I''m able to add them to my mymenagerie. As a spider, I collect more and larger creatures. The flies map out the local surroundings, I seem to be in a temperate forest. It reminds me of the woods of North America.


    As I''m moving my insect army around, a rain storm starts. My hold starts to fill up with water. It''s cold and diluting the acid around me. It''s making me feel weaker. I don''t like it. Then a flash.


    When I wake, I realize, I passed out from the lightning stoke. I didn''t even hear the thunder. The tree I''m next to is on fire, it later splits and falls over. The falling trees takes out it''s neighbor, more sunlight falls into the clearing. I have access to more direct sunlight, I can feed more. I look at my self again, I think the energy from the ligthning stoke has made me grow.


    I''m able to think of more possibilities, I can change the chemicals being produced by the snails.  They were just leaving behind a benign slime trail, but now I can change the composition.  I can have the ants dig deeper and wider, I have the urge to add metals into my "diet".  Adding mosquitos to my army, I can infect veretebrates into my consciousness. I''m now a pathogen.

 Chapter 4: Goblins

    I''m still trying to figure what I''m "eating."  Am I just absorbing heat, or did the lightning strike give me electrons.


    I have the ants break about the fallen tree. I have the ants bring me bits of the tree, mixing the I acid I''m producing, I experiment until I get a crude celluoid. At the same time, I have the ants dig a pit on the other side of the stump. When they are done, I have them line the pit with tree pulp, I then send in the snails, producing the same acid as I did. Now I have a water tight bucket.  When theres another rain storm, the bucket fills up with water.


    Mosquitos are attracted to the standing water, one lands on me. Controling the mosquitos, I concentrate myself on the labrum, as they bite the animals in the forest, I try contolling mammals and birds.


    I can fly! Looking out of the song bird I infected, I finally get above the tree tops. I can see my situation better.


    The core is in a cove of trees at the bottom of a narrow valley. The mountain valley, is small with steep moutain walls. The trees remind me of aspens. The mountain walls are covered with conifers. My cove looks sick, the trees in the area do not look heathy at all. There is a noticeable temperature change in the area, a cold spot.


    I fly higher, I can see the horizon. I am on a globe.


    Pain, I''m hit by a hawk. I lose connection to the bird I was in.


    My bucket of water, also attracts rabbits. Infecting one, I learn I don''t have to have the mosquitos land on me again to infect the next rabbit. I can use a rabbit as a resevoir of infection.  It takes mesome time to take control of the whole warren.  As I control additonal warrens, I have the rabbits start farming, digging up plants they don''t eat, leaving dropping near plants they like to eat.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    As the conentration of rabbits attracts predators, wolves. Since the wolves have a larger range, I havesome of them patrol the mountain side, with a few send further out into the next valley.


    Getting control of additional birds, I see deer, then the next valley over, a stream and a small goblin village.


    I get a shock of fear from all of my animals. A shadow passes over the cove, looking up I see a flying lizard? A dragon.


    The dragon unleashes a breath of fire into the cove. The sickly aspens burst into flames, as I greedily absorb the heat, a claw comes down.


    I have no defenses, I feel pain at my core, I''m shattered.


    Pain floods, my senses, the animals flee the fire and the dragon. Wait, a shard is in the dragon''s paw? I''m in it''s blood stream. I start to absorb the dragon''s body heat, and grow.  The dragon''s heart beat moves me, I crash into the blood vessal wall and break up, but I aborb more heat. The dragon roars in pain, and flies away.


    Worst tower defense game ever!


    As the dragon flies away, I lose contact with the sliver of me in the dragon. I wonder if I can gain control of the dragon, like I did the wolves.  Wait, I''ve lost control of some of the animals, I hurt.


    After the fire dies down, I have the wolves dig me up and spread the peices across the valley and the next.  I still feel fuzzy, but I am able to send a group of rabbits and mosquitos into the goblin valley to infect them.


    When I gain control of a goblin, I can hear it''s voice.


    <Goblin> "Oh Lord, what is thy will?"


    <Me> "First, don''t call me Lord. But I would like to know more about the goblins here."


    <Goblin> "We are one of several tribes in this mountain range. We move from valley to valley, to hunt and gather food."


    <Me> "Do you make anything?"


    <Goblin> "Make? No, we just take, what we need form the land and other tribes."


    <Me> "I guess, we are going to change that. I''m gong to have the tribe make some tools and dig tunnels for me. Do you have a black smith?"


    <Goblin> "No, Lor-, Master, our tribe is poor in skills. We do no have a blacksmith."


    <Me> "That shouldn''t be a problem. Since we can talk, I think I can teach you to set up a forge. We''ll need workng surface, I thinking about a meter square to start."


    <Goblin> "Master, what is a meter?"


    All the wolves in the area cry out in pain.


    :

 Chapter 5: Dragon Fall

    BA-dump!


    The heartbeat of the dragon pushes me up the arm. Each part of me, a shard,asborb more of the dragon''s body heat.


    Ba-dump!


    Some of the shards are killed by the dragon''s immune cells.


    Ba-dump!


    I''ve not been in an animal this big before, and magical one at that. I think I''m not going to have time to control the dragon, before it''s immune system kills me.


    Ba-dump!


    Valves, I''m in the heart, I release acid. I''m a heart attack.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Ba-dump!


    I''m in the lungs. I cause more hemorrhages. I am a hemorrhagic fever. The dragon coughs up some blood, I can see outside. We are flying east, very fast, the moutain are receeding in the distance.


    Ba-dump!


    The dragon''s immun system is causing a high attrition rate. It''s going to be a race to see who kills who first.


    Ba-dump!


    I''m in the brain. I release more acid to get past the blood-brain barrier.


    Ba-dump!


    I''m a stroke.


    Ba-dump!


    The dragon crashes into the ground near a town.


    I''m a hole in the ground again.


    Knight - "Sire, it''s been days, but we still do not know why the dragon died here.  Could it be a curse of some sort?"


    King - "Who would dare curse a dragon? Who would be powerful enough? Where is the Mage?"


    Knight - "The Mage is hold up in his tower. He doen''t answer any of our questions."


    King - "We need to know what caused this catastrophe. Send word to the guild masters, send scouts to look for anything strange going on. Send diplomats, to gain right passage through out the kingdoms."

 Chapter 5: Bronze Age

    It''s been ten days since Dragon Day, D +10. I still don''t know how to define a meter. The current definition, of the distance light travels in a vacuum in a second divided by about 300 million, is not helpful. The original definition of one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator on Earth, also not helpful. How do I explain a second to a goblin? Am I over thinking this? The British Empire spanned the world before the metric system was created. The Romans didn''t even use Arabic numbers. I''m going to let it go now.


    Thime for a reassement. I don''t know when the next Dragon event is going to be. Fear is making me hasty, I hope I don''t overlook anything. Being shattered is making me fuzzy headed. I have the Goblin chief dig me out and move parts of me through out the three valleys. I don''t have all the eggs in one basket. Being spread out, I not creating one sickly cove of trees to be singled out and attacked, I''m a distributed neural net.  Having a part of me taken away by the dragon, has taught me I have a range, I''m just not sure how far away that is.


    I want a dragon proof bunker. The Goblin chief wants for food and security for his tribe. The goblins seem to be a bronze-age nomadic tribe. The tribe has some bronze tools that they either stole for traded for. There might be goblin bronze smiths in other tribes.  The amount of work we can do is limited by the energy we can input inot the system. The work output for now is muscle power. So, step oe is to get more calories into the goblins.


    I have the gobins build animal pens for rabbits and deer. Then I have the wolves chase each food animals into each pen.  Rabbits and deer don''t make good drafting animals, so they become the primary source of food for the tribe. When the goblins slaughter the deer, I have them give a portion to the wolves.


    D+20, the goblins have rabbit and deer skins to trade with the next tribe. I have the Goblin chief try to invite a smith to come. To my suprise, another whole tribe of goblins enter the valley. Within the new tribe are smiths, miners, and shamans. I promote the Goblin chief to Goblin King. The Gobling King instists that the Dragon event is a once in a life time occurance. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "Master is powerful. You drove away one dragon already, you will do so again."


    He''s such a flatterer. I''m still not sure, new goal, layered air defense system.


    D+30, it take a bit of time to combine the two tribes. I have the shamans be my new research team. We use the acids and bases created by the snails. Deer and rabbit fat is rendered to make soap and glycerin. Glycerin and nitric acid, makes dynamite. A new chemical lever, for the miners to use. There are blasts in the hills every day. If there is an accident, I use that time to teach the Goblin shamansphysiology. They learn to bind wounds and first aid. Making them use soap, the hygiene and the health of the tribe increases.


    We spend the whole winter mining and smelting bronze. Casting air heads, axes, spears, shields, and swords. Do I want steel?Yes, but we haven''t found a source of iron ore yet. And I think we need hotter fires to forge. With bronze axes, the goblins are felling trees at an accelerated rate, I don''t want a mud slide to take out the village.  Bronze aged army, I''m thinking Greek phalanx. Instead of the heavy breast bronze breast plate, I have the Golins make a bronze version of the Roman Lorica Segmatata. Why? I just think it looks cooler. Helmet, classic World War 2 German helmet, I''m mixing all of the military history I can remeber. I''m afraid I''m remebering things wrong.


    Spending the time to prepare, I have the Goblins cast a tube of bronze. The first gun will be smooth bore, but I''m going to have them skip the whole muzzle loading step. With a heavy breach block, reinforced chamber, the bronze gun will be a crew weapon on a wagon.  With high explosives, we are skipping the black powder step also.  A mobile field piece reminds me of a late Napoleon gun from the US Civil War.


    In the Spring, we have a fighting force of ten goblins heavy infantry, with a gun crew to back them up.