Milly was looking at her own blue screen when she looked up at Zach. Seeing that he was pointing at the blue screen hovering over the chair, Milly when ahead and dismissed the screen. Sitting down in the chair a small attachment to the right arm rest came up, it had the look of a cup holder but Zach soon realized that it was for something else. With a wave of Milly’s hand her grimoire appeared, unlike Zach’s which had looked like a stainless steel pipe with a gem and runes, Milly’s grimoire was elegantly wooden club the two feet long. Slowly Milly slide her grimoire into the arm rest and a pop up came up infront of Zach.

  Dismissing the screen, and took its place right afterward.

  Zach dismissed the screen and sat down on the chair. The arm rest grimoire holder came up and Zach summoned his Grimoire. Zach was slightly surprised to see that the stainless steel metal shaft that appeared in his hand had a small amount of purple gold that appeared in the etchings of runes and drawings. Grim’s gemstone had also grown and appeared to have a symbol carved into the face. Looking at it symbol it appeared to be based around an octagon, but curves, triangles, and lines intersected it making the octagon the back symbol. Zach stared at it for a moment and realized that the all the curves and lines began speak to him, as if saying it was some complex puzzle that was awaiting him.

  Zach shook his head and placed the Grimoire into the arm rest. There was a soft clicking sound and Zach saw light began form in front of him. Smiling, it was like a hologram that contained a wireframe of the village. Using common zoom commands and hand movements the map moved around. What surprised him was that there was a new structure in the village. It looked like was some kind of ancient arena, for it was a pit that held multiple stairways going down into a rectangle stone floor. On each sides of the bottom walls was a circular vault door that rolled over an opening on each side. “Grim, what the hell is this thing?”

  Grim appeared to Zach’s left, but instead of the glowing form or small flame, Grim appeared as a 16 year boy with a patch of facial hair that was growing very thinly on his chin. Zach knew it was Grim because he had the same facial features as when Grim appeared in his mana pool, except now nether of them were there. “Yeah, my evolution can give me better control over light mana that I use to project myself. So I can blend in a little bit better, I also have control over dark mana and can move things through force.” Grim looked up at the wire frame hologram and then spoke again. “Alright, this is the dungeon entrance. The doorways are actually gateways into the pocket dimension that the dungeon is in. Usually a town designates two as entrances and two as exits to avoid stopping people from getting in and out of the dungeon.”

  Zach shook his head and spoke, “Milly, I can see that the dungeon is currently open right now. Do you want to close it?”

  Milly was fighting with some blue screens when her voice spoke up, “Zach, go ahead and put the dungeon in a growth state for the next couple of weeks. I need you to work on giving the golems orders. I am going to send you some of the City Quests that Andy and I were working on.”

  Zach started looking at the dungeon for a toggle switch or something that would let him set it to grow. After his hand passed through the hologram the sixth time and he heard Grim laugh. “Alright, asshole. What the hell am I doing wrong? You would think the control scheme or inputs for the dungeon would be simple toggle switches or press commands.”

  Grim raised an eyebrow, “Well that is interesting way of doing things, why would you think that would be more helpful? Currently, we have menu options with a bunch of Yes and No choices.”

  Zach groaned at the idea of having to go through option after option trying to find the correct choice. “Grim, it’s one of your powers to monitor and manipulate the blue screens right?” Grim opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and simply nodded. “Ok, for now I want a simple blue screen with some of the key features for the dungeon in one column and the choice to turn it on or off in the other.”

  Zach pressed the On button for Dungeon Growth and it turned over. “Ah, soooo much nicer.”

  Grim scowled, “Zach, I get that by setting up this type of Menu, you can speed through your options better, but do you even know what you just did?” Zach dismissed the blue screen and watched as the dungeon’s doors slid close over the openings. “Right now the dungeon is considered young, but by putting it into a growth state its inhabitants will start to grow to higher levels, its mana will concentrate, and it could gain evolutions or different mana monsters. You give up control over the entire dungeon to make it more difficult until it is beaten.”

  “Milly wanted it to grow, so I did just that what’s the problem?” Zach said as he looked at Grim. It was obvious that he had something to say and Zach couldn’t get anything done until he had said it.

  “Listen, I know it was an order and Milly would have done it, but flicking switches without understanding what you are doing is going to make you think this is a game. But it’s not a game this is real life and people die if you don’t understand what you are doing.” Grim gave Zach a serious look after his warning.

  Zach nodded, “Ok Grim, I get it part of me wants to make all these menu items go away so I can do my job more efficiently. How about later on tonight you give me information on all the information that I just sorted through and for now we will just push binary menu options. Can you give me Milly and Andy’s quests they were working on?”

  Grim nodded and several screens came up.

  “This is crazy Grim, why in the world would they have started so many quests? It would have been much more efficient to just focus on one quest and continued on.” Zach said as he thought over what Milly and Andy’s logic was.

  Grim spoke up, “First Zach, just because you have a building doesn’t mean you have someone to work it. I am sure Milly could have summoned a hundred homes and shops by now, but who would have manned them? Who would have used their tools and crafted something? Second, what was the harm in accepting? Milly was probably burrowing time to convince villagers before making a choice; for example the healer’s longhouse has almost enough mana to summon it probably because James accepted the role and responsibility. Additionally, she is probably using most of her mana to expand the village.”

  Damn, Grim was right, the blue screens were making him think of this as a game. He would have simply built building after building completing quest after quest. Asking Grim to bring up the Golems and tasks they could perform a blue screen appeared before him.

  Zach looked at Grim and thought about his advice, “I figure Mapping the surrounding area would be the best use for Vuhn, and patrolling outside the boundary for Ruzzlar. What do you think would be the best for the village with the other two?”

  Grim smiled and said, “Assign them to Healer’s Longhouse and then touch the Wall Quest for them. Might as well build up a queue.”

  Zach began making the assignments for the Golems as Milly slammed down her fist the chair. “Andy, can you get out there and stop everyone from spending their extra 100 DP. I just received notifications that Two Headed Chickens, Mushroom Goats, and Spice Pigs are being bought. We need them to focus and buy some skills to help with the village.” Milly seemed upset from the expenditures and Zach had to agree. Andy walked over to one of the walls between the keystones and slowly it dropped downward, opening up the enclosed Mana Pylon to the village outside.

  I also have been inspired by a story called Life in the North – An Apocalyptic LitRPG. In the spare moments of the day, I write down a couple hundred words for my new Zombie Apocalypse. Seems Aliens have seeded the world with Nanites and started to thin out the herd with Zombies. However, as one man finds out the Aliens have also left advance technology for the Survivors to find and become more powerful. This truly will be a Light Novel. One to Two Sentences a paragraph and less detail in the writing. When I get up to 20 chapters… each chapter is one 1-2k words in length it is my hope to start publishing it. So what does all this mean?

  1)  This story will always be my true novel and will take first dibs on my writing.

  2)  In the next couple of days tell me what you think should be in the next couple of updates for the story. I may borrow from your inspired minds.

  3)  I expect the Zombie story to come out in the next few months.