Harvest Dungeon 6 Chapter 6 - It Begins

Vanessa frowned, "I am the representative of the company." she replied.

I shook my head. "That is your job. What I want to know is why are you here? You have family, probably friends too. So why this job? You can't go back to see any of them."

"That is pretty personal." Vanessa responded with a growl then sighed. "Though I can't blame you for asking. It doesn't make sense does it?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Because I am the opposite of you. I have a big family who loves me, more importantly I love them all a great deal." she told me then paused.

Everything clicked but I wanted to hear her say it.

"Usually we had just enough to get by, but life happens, my little brother got sick, my older sister got hurt. There just wasn't enough anymore. That's when the company approached me. I have always been pretty, positive, and despite our situation, pure. They made me prettier, trained me, and offered a lot of money, all paid to my family for my services here. Obviously the better I do here with you, the more they will pay my family. Though it isn't all bad. With some upgrades I will be able to keep in touch with my family. If we can make this place safe they might be able to come and visit." she added becoming more animate by the moment.

Visit? Then it hit me, we can't leave because we are linked to the core. That didn't apply to everyone else. Which was why we were worried someone would show up for the Neglism, maybe even Trellion himself. I had noticed that before the reset I had been considered the temporary master of the core. He might have had a plan for the core and not just the Neglism.

"Alright, so what else can I do as the dungeon master?" I asked.

Vanessa gave me a smile. "There are a few things. The most obvious is expanding." she told me.

I nodded. "What about the other climate crops?" I asked.

"Same answer." she said her smile getting bigger. "It's just that instead of expanding out, you expand down."

"Dungeon, of course." I said feeling stupid I hadn't picked it up on my own yet.

Vanessa giggled. "Its fine, a lot has happened in a relatively small period of time." she told me.

I nodded.

The crystal flashed then gave off a chime. A moment later and a screen appeared in front of me.

Incoming holo call, communication upgrade required. Discounted price of 50 iron offered, will you agree to upgrading communication system?

I stared at the stupidly for a moment.

"Yes!" Vanessa exclaimed excitedly.

I looked at her surprised by her enthusiasm.

"That's something I need to talk to my family and it's only a tenth of its normal price." she explained excited.

Why would they do that? However it was a chance to get it cheap, besides I had a feeling I would need it eventually, not just to make Vanessa happy.

I agreed to the payment then watched as the crystal core flashed brightly for a moment. Then a realistic holographic image appeared beside the crystal. Problem was I recognized the person in the image. While the companies evaluation of me being someone who wouldn't be missed wasn't far off, there was one person who would miss me. That person was the one shown by the holographic image. It was my cousin Candice Xavier. A bright bubbly beautiful blonde three years my senior who hated the way her mother treated me growing up. While we might be considered cousins, I had always viewed her as my elder sister.

"Candice?" I asked suddenly frightened and angry. Why was she there, were they going to use her to threaten me? Why? I hadn't gone against them.

Candice's image looked around the room then looked me and Vanessa over carefully. "This is so COOOL!" she said excitedly then danced around a bit.

What in the h.e.l.l? Then I groaned. Whether or not they were going to use her to threaten me was unclear, but Candice herself obviously didn't know anything about it.

"How did you even find this gig Jason? I mean long term immersion pod tester? Seriously?" she asked still dancing around excitedly.

I glanced over at Vanessa hoping this was closer to the truth and everything else had been a joke.

Vanessa shook her head.

I sighed, I felt it was better to believe Vanessa at the moment. If this was all just a game, well I would wake up eventually.

"Candice!" I said loudly to get my sister's attention. When she got excited she had a tendency to go a bit crazy, reeling her in could take some effort.

"Sorry." Candice said regaining her calm a lot faster than normal. "This place just looks so good. Once the testing is over I am sure it will be a popular game!"

I nodded "So how are you here?" I asked.

"You took off for three days without a word. When I went to look for you Envision Games contacted me. Let me know what you were up to. They even offered me the position of the store side company rep so you had a friendly face to interact with. Pay is much better than that a.s.sistant manager spot at the coffee shop." she explained with a smile then frowned. "Though the fact you signed up as for a year long immersion without letting me know is a bit irritating." she told me giving me her angry eyes.

How the h.e.l.l was it possible to feel guilty about something I didn't do? Yet here I was trying to formulate an apology when I wasn't even the one at fault!

"Sorry Candice, it wasn't his fault. He was a emergency replacement when our previous tester backed out. The company was supposed to send out notifications to the family but it must have gotten lost in transit." Vanessa spoke up covering for him.

Candice gave me another glare then let it go. "Nice to meet you Vanessa, I will be your counterpart from now on. I hope we can work well together from now on." she said to Vanessa all smiles.

Vanessa smiled back. "I am sure we will Candice, so what are you calling for, and introduction?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh no. There was an update to the alerts about a Trellion. Seems he is the guy I am replacing, I heard he had given you some trouble. Anyways, the report is that he isn't a threat anymore. He and another group teleported into your region but were wiped out. We are currently investigating the cause and if it will have any effect on you and your farm." Candice reported shifting into her professional mannerisms and tone.

Seriously? Obviously the surprised showed on my face.

Candice chuckled. "Until the investigation has been completed it is recommended that you continue operations as normal." she told me.

I nodded. "Got it." I replied. I still had no idea how to think about Candice being drawn into this. I knew she hated her old job, she was seriously overworked and underpaid. Yet I didn't like the idea that the company had access to her. Seemed like a carrot and a stick mixed into one.

My worry over Candice didn't let me think about the information she pa.s.sed on.

"Alright, we can talk again later, I still have some training I need to finish." Candice told me then disappeared.

Obviously she was still mad at me.

"Don't worry about her. The company doesn't have much of a presence in your world. They won't hurt her. It would cause to many issues." Vanessa tried to rea.s.sure me.

I wasn't in the mood for that.

"What could have taken our Trellion?" I asked.

Vanessa shook her, "No idea, this area was supposed to be pretty safe. We didn't find any dangerous beasts or monsters in the area, though there are several different ruins that you can explore later. Maybe there was something hiding in one of those?" she told me.

I frowned, that didn't sound promising.

I opened the menu and selected the dungeon expansion option.

Expand Surface: one side, 3 tiles - 12 silver(at price)

Expand Surface: two sides, 7 tiles - 25 silver(slight discount)

Expand Surface: four sides 16 tiles - 50 silver(large discount)

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Open subterranean level: 1 level - 4 silver

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Activate spatial expansion: 1 to 2 - 8 silver

Activate spatial expansion: 1 to 3 - 24 silver

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"The dashes are upgrades that you aren't able to access even if you have the money." Vanessa told me as she leaned over my shoulder to see the screen.

"Why?" I asked.

"The dungeon runs off of the ambient mana it draws in. The expansions that are available are the ones it can support with its current ability. Upgrades to the cores ability to draw in and process ambient mana will increase the options for you.

"Sounds like that is fairly limiting." I commented.

Vanessa nodded. "There is a limit to how much that kind of upgrade can improve. For later levels we will have to explore other options to powering the dungeon.

I nodded. "Alright, most of this is pretty straightforward, but what is the spatial expansion?" I asked.

"It applied spatial magic to the floor giving you more s.p.a.ce. Each floor can only match the surface level. With the 1 to 2 expansion your three by three on the surface becomes a six by six without using any more than the actual three by three you have access to. Unfortunately it doesn't work on the surface level but it can stack with the next level. Kind of like a pyramid. The surface is the peak and each level down gets wider." she explained.

"You mean if I get the 1 to 2 and open the third floor I would have a twelve by twelve grid to work with?" I asked.

Vanessa nodded. "As long as you buy the 1 to 2 for both floors, yes. You also get more guardian and minion slots when you open a new floor. So I would recommend the subterranean level and the 1 to 2 spatial expansion. Then you can add defensive measures with the guardians and minions or just set up the tiles for farming."

I frowned. The money from the Neglism was going to disappear really quickly. Unfortunately I had nothing better to do and the expansions she suggested made sense. I would get a lot more s.p.a.ce to work for the same amount of money as the smallest surface expansion.

With that thought I bought the recommended expansions.

Notifications confirming my purchases appeared then a new screen appeared.

Access dungeon configuration?

I clicked on yes then I saw an outline version of the two floors one above the other. There was two blocks on the surface level that were interconnected. I could guess that they were the shack and bathroom. The toolshed, bins, and well were all on their own box not connected to any other.

Besides those the other tiles were all blank.

I was getting a feel for what Vanessa meant by dungeon. I had heard the terminology in some fantasy novels before. Also with safety as something I needed to consider I wondered if I could move the house to the lower level. I reached out and touched the symbols then tried to drag it and drop it on the lower floor. It worked as easily as I could have hoped. With that done I noticed the purpose of the screen was to allow me to place the access points between floors. I selected the previous location of the restroom shack and a corner of the lower floor. Even though they weren't the same corner it didn't see to care. With the house, restroom, and floor access set the dungeon configuration screen closed on its own.

I pulled my menu up again only to see that the guardian and minion options had disappeared to be replaced by dungeon configuration.

I might be a farmer, but it seemed I really was a dungeon master too. A slow smile spread across my face unknown to me, but Vanessa noticed it. She smiled too then leaned back to get comfortable. Relief apparent in her expression.