You know when you wake up and you can sort of feel your whole-body creak and groan from laying in one place for too long? Well I can't. Also, I’m in some sort of dark place. It’s so quiet. It’s so quiet it feels like I’m yelling. Maybe I am. Can I? I don’t seem to have a body. Have I finally died? Is this the end? A dark so dark its bright and a quiet so quiet its deafening. I think I’d rather go back to my dusty old body.

"Well you seem rather calm for such a situation."

Uhhh... I think i may be going insane. I thought i had better mental fortitude than that.

"You're not going insane. You've died and I grabbed your soul out of the void. It's where all souls go."

Ok. Plausible. Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, so mighty voice, since it seems you can read my mind, tell me, why am I here?

"I need you to perform a task for me. You'll have a new, younger body."

A task? What am I Hercules? I’d rather not. Dude had serious anger problems. Like, really bad. Like, I’m going to accidentally kill my family bad.

"I don’t have time to spend much more time here. Im a god. I have a world to oversee. My task is that you experiment with monsters. Combines them, break them, figure out how they work and make them bigger, badder, stronger."

Oh. Honestly, that seems kind of cool is a morbid fucked up way. But why do you want that? And why me out of the hundreds of thousands that died?

"I have quite a few races inhabiting my world. You'd call it a fantasy swords and magic kind of world. They've effectively culled the monster population and enslaved all the dungeons in some way or another. I’m a rather peaceful god, comparatively, so I don’t want them to start massive wars against each other. There is bad blood between some major and minor races that extend thousands of years back and I’d rather deal with mass genocide. It's incredibly draining. And the reason why I chose you is because you meet my requirements. You accepted death happily but you still held a fascination with life. You led a decent life and, most specifically, enjoyed books and games about fantasy and things along that line. You were an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons and were a competent DM. I understand that it’s a rather strange set of requirements, but i needed someone with the acceptance of the unknown and the creativity you possess. Your god was more than happy to give me your soul as he's one of the laxer ones."

Stolen story; please report.

Wow. That’s alot. Like alot alot. And it makes me excited. Like, giddy with anticipation. So, what exactly am I reincarnating as?

"A dungeon. It's the easiest way for you to complete your task. Dungeons are a specially existence. Every fantasy world has them. There's an overarching system that hooks them up and helps the operate. The old gods set it before they faded."

Oh. Do I get a body? Also, these lore bits are really nice. I’m learning alot.

"Dungeons do have a thing called Astral Projection. It usually comes once they meet the requirements, but you already meet those. Dungeons start off automated and as they get more life-force, they grow their dungeon and upgrade their cores. Eventually, the reach the minimum requirement of intelligence to start using things like that. Only the oldest dungeons use it though."

That's pretty interesting. I’ll be able to make a pretty decent dungeon off the bat if everyone expects it to be dumb. is the system overly complex?

"It’s not. Its rather simple. I take it you accept this?"

I do. I always thought it'd be interesting to do something like this and that void you talked about just doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.

"Good. One last thing. My world is huge. Many times bigger than yours. The population is about triple yours as well. However, because magic exists, it progresses slowly. I’m going to put you in a forest near the middle. For some reason, no nation has laid claim to this area, therefore it still has some low-level monsters."

Oh neat. I’ll be able to use these monsters to accelerate my growth, right?

....

....

Uhhh, hello? God person?

....

"Cough, cough. I apologize. The mages of my world did something very, very stupid. It cost me alot of power to fix that mistake."

Oh, what happened?

"The world is currently set up as Pangea as you would call it. I thought it would do some good to separate them. The Mage Association, as they call themselves noticed. They got hundreds of thousands of mages to weave a magic spell to forcefully hold it in place. It really messed with me and it rapidly reduced the magical energy around the world. My world lives off Mana, or magical energy and that could have led to worldwide devastation. Think of a nuclear winter of your world. Now imagine that, but it'll forcefully suck the life force of everything once the mana runs out. It would effectively kill my world. I stopped it but the residual mana with be much lower. They'll have a much harder time casting spells."

Wow. That’s insane. like, holy shit. Are you ok?

"I’ll be ok. Ill teleport you down there but then I need to rest. I was going to keep in touch but it seems that won’t be possible for a little while. I’m sure you'll do well. Once I’m strong enough again ill contact you."

Alright man. It’s all good. Rest well. I’ll do my best.

*chuckles* "Thank you. I hope you do. Goodbye."

Byeeeeeee.

And with a flash, I’m outta there. That god seemed pretty chill. I hope I wasn’t overly familiar with him. I always had that problem. Also, I’m falling. Like real fast. Oh damn. I can see his world, I think. He just shot me at it. Its huge and beautiful. Oh, I had an idea. I guess I’ll tell him when I see him again. Anyway, I look like a smooth, rainbow rock. Really out here representing, aren’t I? I hope no guy dungeons get any ideas. And we've breached atmosphere. Y'know, I can’t wrap my head around why I’m so calm, but it may be the fact that everything feels dulled. Side effect of being a dungeon core? I should really keep a list.

Anyway, we're gonna have touch down soon. a see a couple towns and some cities. Medieval but fantastical. Its really cool. Aaannddd splat. That’s one small step for dungeons, one giant leap for dungeon-kind. Anyway. Time to dig down. I don’t feel safe up here.