These iridescent shapes. They are reality filtered through the holy prisms. How does this serve the gods? --30.1 Seconds Post-Integration.
His next shift was more of the same. Work, walk, ping a checkpoint, work. He helped some customers, aided a couple of departments, then continued to work overtime, happy in the thought he had a job which earned him an honest keep.
On his fourteenth hour of work, he clocked out, went back to his dorm, and rested.
He received his pay -- seventeen credits, including his overtime -- and slept soundly.
The following day, his routine was much the same. Work, walk, ping a checkpoint, work... Until, that is, an odd sight. "SIMP? What's that? That crevice, for lack of a better word..."
"That is a crack in the dungeon's body. It is called the Dungeon Interior. In time, the crack will heal naturally. Do not concern yourself with it. Inside, is dangerous, unpredictable, and should you enter, you might end up trapped. All you need to do is set up some safety cones to ward off wary co-workers and shoppers from suffering an ill-fate should they decide to enter," SIMP explained.
"Dungeon interior, eh? What's that like? Is it like crawlspaces but for the dungeon?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
"In a certain sense, yes, it is similar to a house's crawlspaces. Autonomous drones use the space to maneuver quickly around the Tower's edifice. That's the essential functions. There are more advanced functions, aspects which will require your participation, eventually, but that is a far-off point. For the time being, you do not need to involve yourself with these alcoves."
Happy, for once, that something in the Tower did not require his immediate intervention, least some trouble spring up, Clark found a maintenance closet. He found what he was looking for -- a few brightly orange colored safety cones -- and placed said cones just before the crack in the dungeon's wall.
"Is that it?" Clark asked.
"That's it. You may now continue your work."
As always, his Core Metric Bar floated in the center of his vision. [1.02], it read. He had to work himself to the bone to restore his flagged Metrics after his late lunch with the older Lifer. he heeded SIMP's advice and kept himself back to his work. He was determined about not letting the Metric fall into Below Base territory, not again.
Working his tail off, his Metric Bar rose to [1.05]. By now, he found himself with more breathing room. That surge of rushing himself, of overperforming, wasn't as prominent in his psyche. He walked a little easier, even. With some of his psychological tension erased, he was better prepared when another crevice to the dungeon interior opened on floor nineteen.
"Another crack? How many are there, SIMP?" he asked, no longer caring about when SIMP could contact him.
"I do not know. At any time, there might be thousands of crevices. Or only a dozen. They emerge and heal at random based on the health of the Tower."
"Wait, health of the tower? What determines that?" he wondered. Clark left the crevice be and resumed his labor of approaching the Exotic Meats departmental checkpoint.
"Many factors. Growth of products within the dungeon interior, for one, and the rate at which those products are grown and harvested. Then there is how much of a mana tax the store demands from the customers, how much the store offers for compensation if the tax is zero, which is what it has been for the past decade, and more obtuse factors besides."
Another explanation, more confusion. Product growth? He asked but received an answer which only confused him more. Which did not lead to SIMP offering a more concrete answer.
Finished with all the checkpoints on floor nineteen, he was halfway up the stairs to the twentieth floor when another crevice. "SIMP: another crevice. I am getting curious, now. What if something strange is inside of them causing them to appear?"
"That is quite the leap, Clark. I highly doubt something inside the dungeon is causing them to appear. If you would like to take a quick peek to confirm, then you may. I would advise you to not journey too deeply inside one and not for long, however," SIMP warned him, speaking seriously. "Keep in mind, lad, that if you spend too long in a crevice, you are not doing your job. So, your Metrics will drop."
"Crap... hadn't thought of that. Only a quick peek, then."
Clark approached the crack in the dungeon wall. Up close, it looked bigger than it had when he was passing by while walking the line-path. For a fully grown man, it would have been a tight pass regardless, but being only a teenager, Clark slid his body in without much hassle.
Inside, the crevice was not the rough rocked terrain he half-expected, like a cave. The floor was smooth stone. He inched his way through the dark of the passage until he entered a small enclosing perhaps a few meters from the way he had come. Light from strange fungi illuminated the space, which made him question all the more why the space also filled with black ichor.
SIMP answered his question before he had a chance to ask: "That black ichor looks familiar, no?" they asked him rhetorically. "That is the early forms of plague rot. Honestly, I did not imagine the plague would have spread this deep into the dungeon's body."
"That's bad indeed... you said the plague's origins were the result of mismanagement by the store leadership. Or something like that, yeah?"
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"Yes. But the plague likely has more than one origination. That's not the concern right now. What is, is figuring out how to cleanse this corruption with you unable to use natural magic..."
Clark had never heard that term before. "Natural magic? I'm not following."
"Natural magic is the original magic of the land. Hard as it is to believe, not all magic comes from Augustford's shelves or the Green Guild's blessing. Magical energy is a natural byproduct of the world, granted to us from the Gods. Once, long ago, before Augustford cornered a monopoly on magical incantations, anyone with the proper training used magic. Today, that is, sadly, not the case. Only magic which comes from a bottle, tincture, or other such single-use medium allows the commoner to use magic. As my dungeon-champion, however, you will need to use natural magic -- eventually. For the time being, you will need to settle for using the canned magic from the store," SIMP explained to him with great patience. He found it hard to believe people were able to use magic without buying an item. Then again, he was also too young to even copulate and start a family, so what did he truly understand about the world, let alone its history?
Standing in the small chamber which the crevice passage led to, he asked SIMP what he should do.
"You will need some magic items. Long overdo for you to have some, frankly. So, once your shift is done, move on over to a Guild kiosk."
The day ended not long after the crevice's discovery. When he clocked out, he went straight to a Guild kiosk, as SIMP instructed. He needed help finding one, though. The Green Guild had exclusive control over the manufacture and sale of magical items, and their kiosks, although all throughout the world, were only located in the finer spots of any location. Clark, then, had to have SIMP build him a trail to the closest such kiosk.
SIMP's golden breadcrumb trail brought him to a front located in the connecting space on the first floor of the tower. Fearful, initially, of needing to walk down all the way he had come, his fears were unfounded once he heard the elevator's beep upon his pressing of the first-floor button.
Like all Guild kiosks, the storefront before him was tinged every shade of green imaginable, making it look more like a rainbow than a solid color. Cooler though the interior might have been than the outside, the color scheme leaned to the darker hues. Clark was surprised at the amount of sparkle inside the kiosk. Bins, shelves, and display cases showed tinctures filled with star-filled solutions, potion bottles both ovular and rectangular in formation, as well as consumables which came packaging ranging from zipped pouches to share-sized tubs. It was a stunning sight. It reminded him of being in a mineral cave with mighty crystal stalagmites.
"Good day, shop keep," Clark said as he approached the desk. "Might you have any corruption cleanse in stock? Oh, I see from your sign that you do and are having a sale. Perfect!"
The shop keep had an indistinct body type Clark couldn't place. Dressed in a spacious flowing cloak, whether by motion or magic, it cascaded over his body like a waterfall keeping in perpetual motion. "Aye. We do, young man. Our cheapest available cleanse is the focus of today's sale. Ten credits is the price for two bottles of Mister Wash. If you're looking for something stronger, we are offering a limited time discount on Senior Clean. Being a premium product, even after the sale, a single bottle will set you back fifty credits."
Clark took a moment to muse on his purchase options. Ultimately, he felt he would not be the one who made the decision on what to buy, which hampered his thinking. Confirming his suspicion, SIMP offered their intake. "Take advantage of the regular sale. A full tub of Senior Clean is way beyond what we need. Buy four bottles of Mister Wash."
He placed the order and placed his satchel on the table after he inserted his System Device Link into the register to pay. The total came to twenty credits total. He used ten of his Store Coupons while the rest came from his bank account. Payment finished, he de-linked his toggle and waited for the clerk to finish wrapping up his purchase and placing it within his bag.
"Thank you for your purchase. Please come again!" the man-or-woman spoke. He nodded his appreciation on his way out.
While on his way out of the store, he took the path which led away from the elevator which spirited people off to the dormitories. SIMP asked where he was going. "We're going back to the crevice," he answered.
"You are not clocked in... you will not be compensated for your labors."
"Sure. But if I do clock-in, then I will not be working, will I? Which means I won't have to deal with my Core Metrics being a pain. The way I see it, I should only do crevice cleansing activities, when and where they become a necessity, only when my Metrics are super high. Then, I will be able to focus on the crevice, get paid, and not have to worry about falling into the negatives."
"That is a wise course of action, Clark. You are taking your responsibilities as dungeon champion seriously, I see," SIMP told him with an air of pride in her tone.
"I did sign up for this sort of thing, yeah? Besides it all, I am curious about these places. And I have never used magic before, so I might need some help... assuming the instructions on the bottles are vague."
Clark came upon the crevice ten minutes after he left the store. He squeezed his way back through the crack and came upon the inner-chamber, roughly hewn stone under his feet. 'Like walking on popped corn,' he thought of the strange material, so different from the material which the wall-slash crack had been made of. He wondered why that was but dismissed the notion. He was no architect, after all.
"So, do I just... pour the bottles over the corruption?" he asked SIMP.
"That's correct. It is more effective if you have a scrubbing wand. With corruption pustules this small, though, I would not worry about scrubbing, let alone backtracking to find a wand. Just pour it over the corruption and be done with it." SIMP instructed him on the exact rate which he should pour and how attentive he should be to the amount he had left in each bottle. One decent pour allowed him to completely remove a pustule with still near a fourth of the bottle left. An hour of measured pouring later and all of the plague pustules had been cleansed.
"I did good, yeah?" Clark asked.
"You did good," SIMP confirmed. "Everything is clean. Because of your actions, here, this part of the dungeon will be much healthier; because it is now in good health, it will be able to help the surroundings stay healthy. Please make a habit of trying to cleanse the pustules you see while on your journey. I will not ask you to cleanse every pustule you see, but should you have the time and the means to do so, please do make an active effort in cleansing plague."
It sounded like a lot of work. Work he didn't have time for... cleansing one corruption crevice was one thing, cleansing them regularly? That was something else wholly, in his book.
Regardless, he was the dungeon champion. And this was his job, so to speak. So, he couldn't complain. "Will do, SIMP. For now, I am ready to call it a night. Well... there was that corruption on that other level. Maybe I should cleanse that one?"
"My sensors have registered that crevice was already having closed. You should return to your dorm for now," SIMP corrected him.
That other crevice already closing surprised him. 'I guess in the future, I will need to make a quick decision on what crevices I cleanse and when I cleanse them. I wonder... will I even have the time to cleanse the average pustule if I want to wait until after my shift? I guess that will just have to be left to chance. Unless I wanted to risk being dinged on my Metrics... gods, why is there no good option!'
How was 'the back' of Your Store?
