We took the stairs to the basement.

I wasn't surprised to find that the control room for this Dungeon Pocket was underground in the center of town. It made sense that it'd be in the center, and underground was maybe easier to protect? The lack of any security made me feel nervous.

"You don't have any guards?" I watched the Bandit open the handless door at the base of the stairs.

"It'd take a Tier Five to break in here." Hogo motioned for us to go through the door. "Tier Three is the highest that we let through the portal."

"I thought Therus was coming." I walked through the door into the hallway. Kara was grumbling behind me. She didn't like that I was going first, but I didn't care. If there were any traps at this point, it would just be a lot of extra work on Hogo's part since he'd had more than enough opportunities to harm us.

"I have a controller who can adjust the breaker on each individual gate. It's costly, but considering how much I stand to make today, it'll keep this place running for months." The older man moved around me and started walking down the hallway.

It was barely lit and looked like an almost seamless piece of metal. The floor was made of the same stuff as the walls and ceiling. It was also so polished that it was very slick. There was no way I'd be able to run in this hall, and I had my doubts that Jenne, Ren, or Aelin would even have been able to walk down here.

At the end of the hall was a large black door. All Hogo had to do was touch it, and it opened. The Bandit grinned. "Only two people can get in here." He pointed his thumb at the door. "Pretty neat?"

"My concern is how you got this place." I looked at the partially open door, but it was blocking my view of the inside. "You don't strike me as someone who could have built this on your own."

The bald man's face contorted, and I wasn't sure what emotion was about to come out, so I quickly amended what I'd said.

"I mean, you're not a magical class, and this obviously took a lot of mana to pull off."

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The silver man's features softened. "You got me there." He shrugged. "A creepy Rhastan in a black robe showed me how to work it." He threw the door open. "I had to get the best programmer in the world, but she built a computer that makes the whole thing work!"

The first thing I noticed about the room was all the screens, then the globe-sized purple crystal hovering in the middle of the room. Lastly were the two people already in the room.

The oldest was a green woman in her early forties. She had her short brown hair tied back with a string. She was wearing a regular Mundane jumpsuit, but her presence told me that she was definitely an Adventurer.

The other was what looked like a teenage Minotaur boy. He was wearing the same drab tan jumpsuit. His white horns were just starting to grow longer than a finger, and they contrasted against his black fur and red eyes.

"This is Ella." Hogo waved at the woman, who just glared at him. "And this is Trok." He gestured at the Minotaur. "Trok might not look like much, but he's the brightest kid I've ever seen."

"And you're the dumbest." Ella glared at him. "What have I told you about bringing people here?"

"But these are FRIENDS." He waved at only me.

The green woman sighed. "That's what you've said about every group you've brought in here."

"Someone has to get the crystals to keep this place running!" Hogo smiled as he looked at me. "What do you think?"

I walked up to the crystal that was bigger than anything I'd ever seen. "How does it work?'

"Well…" Our host took a crystal out of his CB. "Basically, this place takes the crystals you give it…" He touched the crystal to the globe. The globe pulsed and the crystal disappeared. "Like that." He motioned to the screen that was in front of Ella. "That was a level two wolf." He pointed at the gray beast on the screen. "I just dropped it on the second floor." He motioned at another screen. "And that floor just got a little bigger."

"So you're stocking the monsters on the floor?" I looked back at the screen that Ella was typing in front of.

"We can modify their territory too." Hogo pointed at what the green woman was doing. "This way we can create a safe zone where there aren't any monsters!"

"That's…" I wasn't sure if it was amazing or terrifying. I looked at Hogo. "What happens if someone kills that monster?"

The silver man nodded at the sphere. "That's why it needs energy. Not only does it take energy to create the monsters, but it takes energy just to run. We don't even have all the Tier Zero floors finished." He looked at me with a gaze usually reserved to be used by only small children when they begged. "This is why I need bigger crystals! I need to finish more levels! So do you think your father will help me?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.