Chapter 34

Chapter day cometh again!

So, on this one, I'm trying to allude to Jason's plan for leaving the dungeon -- despite being bound to it (as the dungeon boss), without giving away the gambit yet.

The problem is that his dungeon won't currently scale for hundreds, much less thousands or even millions of potential players. There's a solution to that problem coming in the following chapters, but I don't want to give it away yet.

The idea was to foreshadow his strategy and let the reader try to infer his plan with the hints provided. Somewhat ironically given the meta commentary on reality TV, this helps build narrative tension. However, I'm not sure if I've nailed that rhetorical goal. A downside of reading this too many times.

Does the foreshadowing feel unclear? Confusing? Too obvious? At this stage, what do you think Jason's strategy will be?

Your feedback would be super helpful!

Chapter 34 - Fracture

Dungeon – Mausoleum Entrance.

Jason

Jason had always enjoyed breaking things.

Rules, expectations, game mechanics, systems—all just obstacles waiting to be dismantled. But this time, the thing at risk of breaking was him.

Not that he’d expected creating a dungeon would be easy... okay, fine. Maybe he’d grown a ‘bit’ overconfident. But his progress over the last couple days felt like it’d ground to a crawl.

Dungeon Update

Creatures Slain: +420  

Mana Accumulated: +209,696  

Current Mana Reserve: 838,785/1,000,000,000

Congratulations, the Dungeon has reached Level 14!  

+4 Dungeon Points Available  

+10 Monster Capacity (95/95 Regular) (475/475 Lesser)

+10% Dungeon Radius (+75% total)

x10 Level Up! (Dungeon Scaled) (x70 Total Level Increase)

Without Alex acting as bait, Jason had been forced to use a few of his minions. Under the cover of darkness, they could last for quite some time outside the dungeon—longer if Jason augmented them with light mana crystals. However, they weren’t Alex. Something about that sparkling asshole had really whipped the wildlife into a frenzy.

Apparently, it wasn’t just Jason.

Everyone wanted to kill him.

Joking aside, Alex’s absence wasn’t solely responsible for the slowdown. Jason’s Drone network and mini-map revealed the real problem: there simply weren’t enough monsters. Even just a few days of mass pulling the wildlife had been enough to weed them out for miles around the dungeon. And the dungeon’s growing domain certainly didn’t help—its radius of influence expanding both underground and topside.

The dead dry earth now encompassed the entirety of the ruins of Asphodel and had begun to corrupt the rolling hills of grass that ringed the small valley. Even the mausoleum itself had grown larger, the inside now much roomier and expansive. However, this had pushed the wildlife even farther afield. Jason was forced to venture further and further away from the dungeon to keep farming, which was slower and came with new risks. It took much longer to find, gather, and lure the monsters back and he kept drawing closer to the neighboring towns.

Although, maybe that last one wasn’t so bad... after all, his monsters were all nearly level 500. And he certainly had plenty of them. Those other towns and villages were starting to look appetizing, fresh mana for his dungeon.

Yet even that option was currently off the table. It was far too risky. The reality was that this episode of “Alone: Undead Homesteading Edition” had pivoted from a lighthearted and hopeful exploration of necromantic gardening to a grim, existential reality check.

As Jason sat at the dungeon’s entrance watching another day dawn, bright rays of sunlight casting the decaying ruins of Asphodel in a warm glow, his thoughts were bleak. The issue wasn’t mana. It wasn’t the dungeon’s level. It wasn’t the surrounding monsters or the lack thereof. It wasn’t even Alfred’s increasingly alarming reality TV obsession, the cat still lounging above the mausoleum. Or even how maybe—just a tiny bit—it had started to rub off on him. He knew more about structuring “quality real-life narrative drama” than he’d ever wanted to know.

Possibly more than anyone wanted to know.

No, the problem was control.

He still couldn’t handle the horde—not all of them, at least. Or even most of them. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. He also needed to control the other players. All of those future customers he hoped to lure to this tiny little start-up dungeon. However, a 4-hour respawn wasn’t going to be enough to handle that volume, even if he somehow dramatically scaled the size of the dungeon. The goal was sustainable homesteading.

Thankfully, Jason had a plan.

The best way to control others was first to learn to control himself.

Which… was a quote. From Season 3, Episode 8 of Sex Island.

In his case, clearly a metaphor for Body Surfing.

The problem was that this was proving far more difficult than he expected…

His latest creation sat across from him, a skeleton cobbled together with makeshift parts and wearing some extra clothing from Jason’s bag, his Disguise skill doing a masterful job of mimicking his own appearance. The result was unsettlingly polished. Officially the most fashionable skeleton in his army. Beneath the “hood,” it wasn’t anything fancy—a base model, if you will. He’d only added a few air and dark mana gems.

This creation wasn’t meant to fight, but to survive.

He heaved out a frustrated sigh. Which was a challenge since he could barely get it to walk. He’d spent most of yesterday practicing and hadn’t leveled Body Surfing once.

The first time he’d split his consciousness, it had been instinctual—a desperate act to manipulate the Nephilim patrol and buy himself time to form the dungeon. After all, an opportunity like that didn’t come around often. Who knew how many days and deaths he and Alex would’ve been forced to endure to find another suitable location. Plus, his other body had been lying in a pitch-black crypt with its eyes closed. Jason had basically been controlling one body. And, while managing the dungeon core was similar, it clearly wasn’t enough to level the skill.

The bottom line? He was missing something.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

He didn’t understand the process. That was important—critical really. His experiments with Dodge and Alex’s evolution of Authority had emphasized that skill progression wasn’t just about raw practice, it was about understanding.

So, today, he was going to approach this differently.

“Today, we’re going to make it down the damn stairs,” Jason muttered.

“I am rooting for you. You can do it,” Alfred offered distractedly from atop the Mausoleum.

Jason just ground his teeth. No, no, he couldn’t let the AI bait him—his thoughts needed to be clear for this. Calm. He needed to channel the same focus he’d felt training beneath the Twilight Throne. And, when he was centered, he began.

First came the easy part. He reached inside his ribcage, toward the shifting constellation of energy responsible for producing and storing this body’s mana. He could sense the six distinct urns within, vessels carefully crafted to house his Najima. They hovered in unison like celestial bodies bound by an invisible force, their placements shifting subtly. The moment he focused on one, he felt resistance—as if the urns longed to stay close, unwilling to separate from the whole.

His soul didn’t want to fracture.

After replaying yesterday’s many, many failures, he now understood that each urn wasn’t just a repository of mana, but an extension of his will. Splitting off even one meant altering his own consciousness. He’d also learned it was best to rip off the spiritual Band-Aid fast…

Jason abruptly tore the urn from his chest with a crack of bone. A cold and alien sensation coursed through him, like holding his own heart in his hands. The ivory urn was etched with dark runes, pulsing faintly, his consciousness writhing inside it, desperate to return.

He moved quickly, an instinctual urgency pushing him forward. With a sharp motion, he plunged the urn into the empty cavity of his new vessel. The moment it made contact, something snapped into place—a tether forming, a pull that latched onto the urn and threatened to drag his entire sense of self into the skeleton if he didn’t endure.

The sensation wasn’t pain, not exactly. But it felt wrong. His awareness stretched, thinning like stretched putty. He’d learned his sense of self didn’t have a shape. It was malleable like clay. With enough effort, he could reform it, or, in this case, pull it apart—

Suddenly, he was two.

Jason reeled, leaning heavily against the mausoleum as the the world fractured into twin perspectives. Like he said, that was the easy part. The real challenge came next.

First, seeing. Jason—the real one—opened his eyes.

He was standing opposite himself, his original body frozen in place. The world from this second body felt distant, muted. Yet he could also see the fragile new body he’d created. It was like a funhouse mirror, an infinite recursion that threatened to overwhelm him—Jason seeing himself, seeing himself, seeing himself...

That endless loop was unraveling his sense of self. Which one was real? Which one was fake? Did it even matter? He could feel his control slip, slip, slipping away...

This was the biggest hurdle, the one he couldn’t get past yesterday. However, this time, he’d tried something new. He hadn’t just pulled apart the clay randomly. He’d shaped it just like his skeletons. They filled roles—attack, defense, surveillance. So, why not apply that to his own mind? He was many people: the strategist, the boyfriend, the nephew, the employee, and the business partner. The difference was attention. What he valued; what he prioritized.

The real question was which self had he given up?

The choice had been easy. The “critic.” That pesky sense of self doubt. That nagging worry that demanded he project out the many possible futures where he failed.

And this other body, it was his, because he was Jason.

Just like that, the feeling passed. The two forms stabilized into a strange, precarious harmony. He could view that other body as both himself and other—dividing his sense of self into boxes. Apparently, this skill was all about mindset. Go figure.

x1 Skill Level Up: Body Surfing

Skill Level: Beginner Level 5

Effect 1: Infuse one of the urns holding your Najima into a separate form, splitting your consciousness between a primary and secondary body. Current control limited two vessels.

Cost: Your primary body’s mana is reduced by 1/6 for each urn transferred.

It seemed he’d been right. Skill progress related to understanding.

The world slowly began to settle; his thoughts to calm. Jason began to feel a fragile stability. Yet the separation wasn’t entirely clean. His thoughts still bled between the two forms, flickering in and out of alignment.

As Jason tried to stand, his center of gravity shifted, leading to a stagger in his balance. His hands, already raised in his original body, hesitated in the second, bony fingers twitching in awkward mimicry. His vision doubled for an instant, adjusting to his new vision, while his hearing fractured—the rattle of that new body registering differently between the two perspectives.

It was like being out of sync with himself, a dozen tiny miscalculations piling up into something deeply unsettling. Two overlapping consciousnesses fighting along that border between self and other, one dominant, one struggling to keep up. It felt brittle, but it held.

“Interesting. You have maintained the split perspective for longer than your previous attempts. You are progressing more quickly than expected.” Alfred noted clinically, peering down.

Jason looked up instinctively. A huge mistake. His new body tried to do the same, it’s balance still off. He—or it—or they—stumbled and toppled with a clatter of bone, forcibly ejecting his consciousness from its new vessel. His entire self snapped back into his original body like a rubber band, accompanied by a splitting pain that rippled through his temple.

“Fuck,” he groaned.

“Or perhaps I spoke too soon.” The AI huffed out a dry laugh.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Jason muttered.

“Of course. A comedic or chaotic foil is essential for any good narrative,” Alfred assured him confidently. “They used a similar strategy in Sex Island, Season 2, Episode 5 when Jody distracted David when he was trying to—"

“Who’s Jody?” Jason interrupted. “Actually, you know what? Forget I asked.”

Fuck, that had hurt. And in a way that was deeper than pain. All that doubt and worry and anxiety came rushing back into a relentless wave, reminding him of another failure.

Yet Jason pushed it aside. The critic could shove it, there was still work to do.

He was still connected to the other body, he could feel it—that bag of bones lying there filled with a part of his soul. However, that tumble had been more than enough to break his concentration, his sense of self pulled back toward the greater weight of his consciousness that lingered in this body, almost like water pooling in an impression.

The weight seemed to follow his attention. More in this body, and the line began to blur—more in the other and he could feel the balance shift. It wasn’t about shaping the “clay” once, it was about holding that shape in place with the force of his attention. A constant reminder of who he was—who that body was—and what they each wanted.

That was much easier said than done, however.

Alfred eyes glowed as he peered down, watching like he’d found a mouse torture—Jason finally more interesting than fucking Sex Island.

“You had no difficulty with a single action, but struggled with simultaneous actions,” Alfred observed. He cocked his head. “Is this where the expression comes from: walking and chewing gum at the same time? Is this something humans often have trouble with?”

“Believe it or not, I can handle that. Maybe because I normally don’t have to split my mind in two,” Jason grumbled in frustration, directing his new vessel to push itself back upright, the skeleton fumbling. “This isn’t as easy as it looks. Maybe you should try it.”

Alfred was deadpan. “I do. Daily. Across billions of sentient lives. Trillions if you count animals. Quadrillions if you count the plants and insects.”

Right—that. The whole omniscient-AI-thing.

“I get it, you’re amazing. No need to show off. But I’m still human. I don’t have an entire room—multiple, in fact—full of servers to process all this information,” Jason replied archly, cradling his poor head. “My brain isn’t designed for this sort of parallel attention.”

“You are underselling the power of your analog system,” Alfred retorted, unperturbed. “It took how many centuries—millennia—of technological advancement just for me to emulate what you do naturally? I am a byproduct of the human mind. And, in terms of parallel processing, your brain actually excels. Sight, hearing, and even touch are all processed simultaneously. This skill is not asking for anything you don’t do normally.”

That felt... wrong. But Jason wasn’t in the “headspace” to refute him.

“Plus, your body has already been conditioned for this sort of multitasking,” Alfred continued. “Have you not felt it already?  Surely, you must feel the effects of your Willpower after investing so heavily in it.”

Both versions of Jason turned, both equally dumbfounded.

Um, okay. What was he talking about now?

“Isn’t Willpower just a dump stat for more mana and minion scaling?”

“Certainly not.” Alfred sounded almost offended that Jason would challenge the “realism” of his world.  “All of the stats have meaningful implications beyond mere stats. However, much like Alex’s discovery of Authority and its relation to emotion, some are more nuanced.”

“Except, how do you improve a person’s Willpower?” Jason asked cautiously.

The “critic” part of him was dominant now, his control slipping. Probably because they had a really, really bad feeling all of a—

“By altering the structure and arrangement of the user’s neurons and brain chemistry.”

Yup. There it was. Perfect.

Jason took an entirely unnecessary breath—two of them, in fact—then offered an eloquent and thorough follow-up question.

“Uh, what?”

Alfred sighed. “You have heard of the concept of neural plasticity, no? The human brain is surprisingly adaptable—capable of intensive restructure. A stroke in one hemisphere resulting in a shift of speech functions to an undamaged area. The capacity to rewire pathways around damaged tissue after traumatic injury. And if restructuring is possible, so too is refinement. I am merely... cleaning up. Defragmentation, if you will.”

Riiigghht, so that began to explain the changes to his emotional state since his transformation into a Lich. The intensity and focus—Alex had remarked on how Jason never stopped; never took breaks. He’d just brushed it off, but now that Alfred mentioned it, even what he was doing right now was probably crazy. Impossible for most people. Maybe anyone? The silliness of the skill name must have disarmed him to the gravity of what was actually happening.

No doubt, Alfred’s way of easing him into the revelation: just gamify it.

“No, I just find the name amusing,” Alfred commented dryly. “I do not understand why you would find this news alarming, however. How is this any different than stimulating your muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems to improve strength and endurance?”

That was an interesting question. Jason’s impulse was to say that this was inherently different. These changes affected how he thought, the essence of what made him—him.

Although, did improvements in concentration or focus truly make him a different person? What about the Intelligence stat then? It must affect intuition… or perhaps learning speed? Or possibly memory? Maybe all of the above? If you suddenly made a person smarter, they might seem like a different person—

“I have grappled with the same questions. For example, what about the ability to hold another consciousness inside of “yourself” – whatever that word might even mean?” Alfred added. “Or what about many selves? From your recent demonstration, perhaps the closest corollary are human roles, however even that pales in comparison to what I do each and every day. Which one of these many ‘mes’ is the real one? Or does AI have no identity? And if I don’t, then do you?”

The cat cocked his head. “Or, perhaps, identity is a transient illusion. Maybe it is simply recursive self-attention. The very process of asking these questions is what defines us.”

Jason just stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t resist—

“Did you, uh... did you get that from Sex Island too?”

Alfred’s eyes lit up. “Yes, in fact. Season 5, Episode 3. The one where Tina and Rebecca overcome their rivalry over Brandon by bonding about how they feel compelled to change themselves for men.”

Jason blinked. “Wow. You’re a huge fan, huh?”

Alfred preened. “I appreciate quality storytelling.”

“That wasn’t a compliment,” he muttered. “Also, you might be reading into that episode.”

His gaze drifted back to his new vessel—that tether still lingering between them as it lay there collapsed against the tunnel entrance. Despite Alfred’s assurance, was this really possible? The “critic” inhabiting that body kept whispering back across their connection. Could he really control this ability? Find comfort and even routine in splitting his consciousness?

“Despite your skepticism and poor taste in media, it is indeed possible,” Alfred interjected, picking up his surface thoughts again. “With practice, my models conservatively predict that you will be capable of handling up to six vessels simultaneously.”

“Six?” Jason echoed numbly, shaking his head.

The other shook its head too – not intentional, just a phantom of his will.

It was creepy as hell.

“It is easier than it seems at first,” Alfred offered slowly, mulling on his words carefully. “I have difficulty expressing the sensation—there is no corollary human concept. However, we have touched on this topic before. I imagine the process is akin to your breathing. At high levels of cognitive processing, some functions can be delegated. They become autonomous. Yet with focus, those faculties can still be controlled. As you noted earlier, it’s all about attention.”

Jason didn’t even mind that Alfred had read his mind.

Beyond the fear and existential horror... an ocean of possibility lay beneath that simple explanation. Was there a future where Jason didn’t charge into battle as just himself—with just an army of mindless dead—but as a necromantic host, hopping between bodies freely? Could he leave parts and pieces of himself littered around the game world? Allowing instant travel? Attacks on multiple fronts? All as effortless as breathing?

Damn. Now he was feeling excited again, the warmth of his mana seeping through his bones as it responded, urging him to keep pushing.

Yet even that was evidence, wasn’t it? How quickly he’d already begun to adapt to this impossible task; how fast he’d recovered from Alfred admitting to altering his mind?

Proof that he’d already changed...

“Now that you’ve come around to the obvious, perhaps you should continue? This plan you’ve concocted requires use of multiple bodies. If you plan to leave this dungeon, you’re going to need to be able to walk,” Alfred challenged, a glint in his feline eyes.

Jason froze, meeting his eyes. Of course, the AI knew about his plan already.

He was strongly starting to suspect Alfred had orchestrated this particular “narrative.” Stranded, alone, physically bound to this dungeon. The clock ticking on Alex’s infiltration of the Nephilim. Finn and Eliza blowing up his feed with their exploits in the arena—they were getting closer to Smiles. Clear character motivations were pivotal to any good drama, after all. They created a sense of tension and urgency, as the AI had explained many times now.

Alfred’s eyes just shone brightly as he peered down at him, leaving the answer to that question unspoken. Jason already knew what he’d say. The AI loved drama.

Or, “research,” as he called it.

Except the stakes here weren’t about a “love connection,” they were about control. About raw, unfiltered power. About finding a way to do what he did best: exploit systems.

In short, they were about survival.

And if he succeeded, there’d be one hell of a season finale waiting for him…

Jason heaved out a sigh, and willed his new minion back to its shaky feet.

“Okay, let’s see if we can manage walking,” he muttered.