Dungeon Core Online 38 Chapter 38

"And that-" Just as James finished placing his final trap on his second floor, his immediate vision suddenly went dark.

"Guess who." A voice accompanied his newfound blindness, and James couldn't help but smile. It had been four very long, very quiet hours.

"Rue." At his exclamation the pixie uncovered his eye and hovered in front of him, beaming.

"Did you miss me?" She looked no worse for wear, and James had to wonder just what had been done to her. Rue definitely didn't seem too upset.

"Actually, I got a lot done while you were gone, it was nice." He didn't get to mess with his pixie too much. As much as he cared for her and enjoyed her presence, he wasn't going to let her know.

"Oh, well then." Rue's smile faded, and she looked around slowly, taking in the various screens he had up, glancing at the precarious debris trap they were next to.

"I guess you don't need me then." Her wings dropped down to her sides, and it looked like she was on the verge of tears. Suddenly, James felt like dick.

"No, Rue. Don't cry." He longed to reach out to her, to embrace her, and wipe away her tears. But he didn't have any-

"What the." Two glowing tentacles stretched out from his orb, and tentatively he tried to move them, flailing them about as he would his arms.

"I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going." Rue's face was suddenly back to smirking, all signs of her tears gone. In fact, she was laughing, and James realized she had been doing her puppy dog act just to mess with him. Touché pixie, touché.

"Really, that's all you have to say right now?" James stopped waving them around frantically, and brought them closer to his eye to observe. He was doing his best to fight images of himself as a beholder from taking shape in his mind. If he could randomly grow tentacles now, who knew what else might happen.

The pixie shrugged, before breaking out into more laughter. "What? Did you really expect something else from me?" I could have made a mention about you getting longer at the sight of me." She let the comment hang in the air as she drifted closer to him, gently reaching out towards one of his tentacles. As her hand touched the glowing limb, James felt himself shudder. He could feel with these tentacles.

"It feels so-"

"Don't" James cut her off before she could continue, and the pixie smiled ruefully as she hovered away, crossing her arm. "I'm starting to feel like I'm in one of those cheesy smut games." James called them cheesy, but he had played more than one in secret during immersion. He was a teenager in high school after all.

"Aw, I'm sure we both know people actually enjoy those games." She waved her hand and a drink appeared in front of her, but as she looked at it, her grin faltered. "Ah man."

"What is it Rue?" James floated over to her, and as he looked at her drink, he saw a dark liquid, with steam rising from it.

"They switched my alcohol with hot chocolate, and they didn't even default it to have marshmallows." The pixie let out a sigh as she waved her hand, and a few mini marshmallows appeared floating in her drink.

"So, is that all they did? Cut you off from your liquor?" Tentacles aside, she had brought him back to his initial concern for his AI. He didn't like how the mysterious voice acted, and he was loathe to think they did something to his only ally in this game.

"Yeah, they gave me a talking to, sobered me up, and apparently have put a stop to my drinking." She took a sip from her drink, and grinned. "Though, I really do enjoy hot chocolate too."

"Well, I'm glad you're alright Rue. I was worried about you." James looked at his pixie, who was staring at him strangely, before her face broke into a huge smile.

"Aww. My dungeon core is going soft on me." She snorted at her own joke, and James simply shook his orb. Yup, she definitely seemed like his old pixie.

"So," James waved his tentacles at the monitors "want to see what I've been up to?" James had a few hours left before he was going to bed, and he was excited to show off his improvements to Rue. He was also watching his research tick down. Boss mob rank 5 was almost complete. He had to wonder what that tier would unlock.

"Sure, you show me yours, I'll show you mine?" Rue was laughing again, and James stared hard at her.

"What-" James was cut off by Rue waving her hand, a screen appearing before her. With a grin, she typed something into the screen, before closing it.

"I didn't get to mention, before I was so rudely removed." She floated over to James, her hand tracing lazily along his tentacle. "But, if you haven't noticed, the developers unlocked a few special features specifically for dungeon cores with that hot fix."

"Such as?" James was doing his best to keep his voice under control. Going from having no sensation of touch, to suddenly having two sensitive tentacles, was a bit overwhelming. He was pretty sure Rue was well aware of that.

"Well, for one, the ability to grow tentacles to allow you to better interact with your interfaces." So, that explained why he was able to grow tentacles suddenly. "And for another, the ability for AIs to unlock a special chat for dungeon cores who have reached Tier 2."

"What type of chat?" James figured she had just enabled it, but he was curious how to access it, and what exactly it was.

"Well, a special dungeon core chat, for all the dungeon cores, of course." She waved her hand, and two screens appeared. The first appeared to be a massive chat room, with a room occupants list on the top right. Currently, there were about 30 users in, and James saw the newest message was an auto generated one, welcoming him to chat. The second screen looked like a typical forum page, with threads, all related to dungeon cores listed on the page.

"Hey Rue," James was already working on entering a message into the chat room, responding to the welcomes he was already receiving.

"Yes Glyax."

"Make sure to pull me away from this when there are 8 hours left in the first day. I have a feeling I'm about to get distracted with these new chats." And with that, he dove in, pulling up all the forum topics, doing his best to select all the titles that appeared interesting. What type of knowledge was being shared? What type of information could he gain from his fellow dungeon cores? Knowledge was power after all, and the developers had just given him access to a lot of knowledge. Now he just needed to figure out how best to turn it into power that he could use.

Chapter end