Chapter 14

23 hours, 17 minutes, 38 seconds.

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It wasn’t the beginning of a tv show, but Tiff felt like her life was about to be full of drama and suspense anyway. Every second the clock ticked down brought her one moment closer to completing her quest…whether she liked it or not.

She spent the entire day at school, anxious and jittery, expecting something to happen at every turn or at every opened door. The insecurity and paranoia she experienced the first time she opened her eyes after finding out her new Affinity came rushing back to her tenfold. Tiff was coherent but clearly distracted, to the point that Candice, sitting next to Tiff in Homeroom, waved her hand in front of Tiff’s face and declared that nobody was home. She promised to forward any deliveries at a later date, and it took Tiff a full minute to realize she was the butt of a joke.

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20 hours, 45 minutes, 12 seconds.

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Tiff stared at her quest screen all through lunch, enthralled by the ticking numbers slowly counting down. She hardly ate her food, and by the time the warning bell rang to get to class, it was only half finished. She stuffed the rest back into her bag and scurried down the hall so she wouldn’t be late.

No matter how hard Tiff tried, she couldn’t take her mind off her core and the quest at hand. Eventually she gave up pretending to ignore the System screen she hadn’t bothered to banish and let it consume her thoughts.

Where to put the core?

The library was out.

Just like the gym was out, the computer lab was out, and every other room at school was out. Tiff had already made up her mind that she couldn’t put it somewhere public, which removed 99 percent of all possible locations, but she was already at school so she wanted to double-check her options anyway. For a brief moment, she entertained the idea of sticking it in her locker inside the girls’ locker room, but she quickly ruled that out too.

As amusing as it would be to open a random locker and find a dungeon core, Tiff didn’t actually know how big the thing would be and if it would actually fit inside. Besides, the initial benefit of the room being closed to boys, and thus removing 50 percent of the population, was a false promise anyway. Men could walk into the girls’ locker room if they really wanted to; it wasn’t like there was a magic spell keeping them out.

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15 hours, 2 minutes, 49 seconds.

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Tiff waited impatiently for the bus. Victoria’s contract to guard Tiff was complete, and she needed to return to work to extend it or take on a new client. Tiff assured her in the morning that she was fine and she didn’t want Victoria losing money just so she could babysit her little sister. Tiff climbed on board with all the other chattering students and amused herself by timing exactly how long the bus ride home would take, courtesy of her built-in stopwatch.

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14 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds.

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4 o’clock on the dot, exactly 14 hours left before…something happened. Her quest would finish, Tiff was certain, but she didn’t actually know what the System would do and she wasn’t keen to find out. Tiff had waited and worried long enough; she was beside herself with anxiety, but there was a reason she hadn’t done anything yet. She didn’t want to be alone.

“You know, Munch, I could have picked you up from school,” Victoria said as she leaned on Tiff’s open doorway.

Tiff glanced up from where she flopped on the bed and quickly sat up.

“I told you, it’s fine,” Tiff denied obstinately. “You needed to go back to work. How’d it go, by the way?”

“Slow,” Victoria sighed. “Not too many people chartering Roughnecks right now.”

“But you need to get paid,” Tiff fretted.

“Relax,” Victoria chuffed. “Mom’s chill about rent and I’ve got a security blanket. Besides, it’s not like nobody was coming into the guild. I just didn’t think being an over-qualified dog-walker was the right fit for me.”

“Somebody wanted you to [Bodyguard] their dog?”

“Trust me, you get all sorts of weird types out there,” Victoria shook her head. She glanced out into the hallway before lowering her voice. “Is Amy not home?”

“Out with her friends,” Tiff replied. “Told Dad she’d be back by 7; one of her friends will give her a ride.”

“You should look into those.”

“Rides?” Tiff asked flatly, knowing exactly what Victoria was talking about.

“Friends,” her sister smirked. “They’re not so bad to have, you know.”

“I’ve got friends,” Tiff sighed, flopping back down. “We just don’t, you know, hang out.”

“Kind of the definition of friend,” Victoria shook her head, but she dropped the subject. “Alright. Let’s see it.”

Tiff stuck her hand in the air and waggled it around. Her screen manifested at her fingertip and floated above her even as her arm went limp. Victoria closed the door and walked inside.

“A little less than 14 hours,” she observed. “Have you thought about where to put it?”

“All day long,” Tiff sighed explosively. “I could hardly think about anything else.”

“So,” Victoria amended, “Have you made a decision?”

“No,” Tiff groaned. She sat up, stared at her sister, and pouted.

“I don’t have a choice, do I? It’s got to be here.”

“In your room?” Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, yeah,” Tiff shrugged. “It’s gotta be in the house, and there isn’t a better place to put it.”

“We don’t know how big it is,” Victoria said fairly. “What if it takes up your entire room?”

Tiff panicked slightly before narrowing her eyes.

“What if it’s tiny?” She countered. “What if I can cover it with a shoebox?”

“Do you have a spare shoebox?”

“Well, no, but it’s the principle.”

“Tiff, you’re stalling.”

“You’re right,” she sighed, standing up. She marched to the center of the room…and did nothing.

“Tori…what do I actually do?” Tiff asked. “How do I place my core?”

“Why are you asking me?” Victoria chuckled. “I’m not a [Dungeon Master]. Ask your System.”

Tiff glanced at Victoria warily before screwing her eyes shut tight.

“System…how to place core?”

“What is this?” Victoria laughed, “A Google search?”

Tiff ignored her. Her eyes sprang open, and in front of her, a bright blue silhouette appeared. It was like a placeable object from any number of crafting video games, and Tiff would will it around her room with a simple thought.

“Hey, hey, Tori, do you see?” Tiff asked excitedly, pointing at the translucent diamond. It was about a foot tall, maybe half that wide, with eight faces: an octahedron. Victoria shook her head.

“Nope. Did you actually put it somewhere?”

“No,” Tiff said, partially deflated. “It’s like there’s a build mode.”

“Great,” Victoria nodded. “At least that shows you how big it is?”

“Yeah,” Tiff nodded. She walked it up to Victoria and measured it against her leg. “It comes up to about here.”

“Great,” Victoria laughed. “The most accurate of measuring sticks: my shin.”

“Yeah, but, well…now we know how big it is!” Tiff said hotly.

“So where are you gonna put it?”

Tiff looked around her room.

The obvious choice was under the bed. But that got quickly ruled out because, despite being much taller than it was wide, Tiff couldn’t rotate the thing sideways. It had to stand vertically. No matter what she tried, sticking it under the bed simply caused the blue silhouette to turn red, meaning it couldn’t be placed due to an object in the way.

The second choice was the closet, but that was quickly ruled out, perhaps temporarily, because it was small and crammed full of junk. Not just all of her shirts and dresses hanging up, but old shoes on a rack and many boxes full of junk Tiff was probably never going to use again but didn’t want to throw away. There were hardly any places Tiff could stuff the core without it turning red, and chances were if she wanted to put it in her closet, she’d need to clean the entire thing out first.

Less optimally, the next choice was behind her dresser. Before Awakening to her Class, Tiff never had anything dirty to hide behind the dresser, and she didn’t really want to put her core behind it either. That would be just as awkward to explain. Besides, sticking her core there would require moving the dresser away from the wall, and then there’d be an entire gap for everything else to fall into, like socks or loose change, so that was ruled out.

Tiff’s options were growing thin, as that left on top of the bookcase, which was quite tall and would be very visible, out in the middle of the room where anybody could trip over it, or under her desk. But if she put it there, she’d be playing footsies with her core whenever she sat down to do her homework.

“Tori,” Tiff whined, “There aren’t any good options.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Victoria laughed. Tiff stared at her big sister as a devious idea struck like a bolt of lightning.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Help me clean my room?”

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12 hours, 22 minutes, 49 seconds.

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“You know,” Victoria said wryly, looking at the mound of junk piled in the middle of Tiff’s floor. “If anybody else had asked for something like this, I’d have called them lazy and flipped them the bird.”

“You mean if Amy asked,” Tiff said triumphantly. It took a while, but they finally reorganized her closet so she could place the core on the floor next to the shoe rack. She still had plenty of space to hang her clothes, and now the boxes made a nice, neat tower.

“Yes,” Victoria said with a nod. “That sounds exactly like something Amy would do.”

“Well…speaking of Amy, she should be home in less than half an hour if she doesn’t want to get in trouble with Dad…so….”

“Is it time?” Victoria asked. Tiff nodded firmly.

“It’s time.”

She’d stalled long enough. Tiff angled the silhouette of her supposed dungeon core nearly in the corner where it could sit like a forgotten figurine or a discarded trinket, never to be seen again…and willed her quest to complete.

At first, things barely changed. The silhouette quickly dissolved in sparkles, and the blue turned green as the core became real. A dim pulse emanated from the depths of the core, filling her closet with a soft green light that ramped into a steady glow. It floated several inches above the carpet, completely unaffected by gravity…and that was it.

“Not gonna lie, I’m underwhelmed,” Victoria judged with a smirk. “Congrats, Tiff, you have a nite-lite in your closet now.”

“Wow,” was all Tiff could say. She’d built herself up so much…all for nothing. Until she reached forward and touched it.

“Ahhh!” She cried out, stumbling backward and falling on her butt.

“Tiff!” Victoria cried, rushing to her sister’s side.

But Tiff wasn’t injured, and she wasn’t paying attention to Victoria as she fussed over her. A whole slew of System screens popped up, which was what surprised her.

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[Quest Complete! Reward Available.]

[New Quest Available!]

[New Quest Available!]

[New Quest Available!]

[Dungeon Territory: Online.]

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Okay, so maybe 5 screens wasn’t the biggest number in the world, but Tiff was plenty overwhelmed by the deluge of information…starting with her completed quest.

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[Class Quest: Place Your Core (Limited)]

Place your dungeon core.

Find a location to place your dungeon core to establish your territory. If no location is selected within 48 hours, your core will be automatically placed at your current location. Restrictions to core mobility still apply.

Reward: Territory Administration Suite

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Tiff barely dared to look at the screen, let alone acknowledge it or claim her reward. She briefly shooed it away into the corner of her room while she looked at her three new quests.

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[Class Quest: Establish Your Domain]

Secure your Territory.

0/1 Core Guardian appointed.

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