Bo didn’t know what kinds of monsters he’d expected to face in the casino. Those creepy orcs from the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Maybe lizard men like in the newest Spider-Man movie? Regular old Walking Dead zombies?
By the time he and his friends reached the casino’s nearest entrance, he’d imagined a monster manual’s worth of video game critters he’d killed in virtual worlds over the years, and even more from all the books he’d read. Despite his nightmarish visions of what he and his friends would face in this place, Bo still felt a dark anticipation about what they’d find.
That’s what it feels like to become a warrior. I had no idea a worthless human would find the grit you’ve shown within them. Perhaps we will do more than die horribly in this dungeon.
Bo did his best to ignore Barbie’s quip, but couldn’t help but feel some pride at the devil’s thoughts. The past twenty-four hours had changed Bo in a lot of ways, but not all of them were bad. He held onto that thought as they reached the casino.
What had once been a bank of glass and metal doors that welcomed casino patrons had transmogrified into a foreboding hole leading deeper into the face of a craggy cliff. The opening was thirty-feet tall and twice as wide, its arched perimeter jagged and lopsided. That foreboding maw narrowed as the trio moved deeper into the darkness. The sunlight that poured into the opening behind them threw their shadows out across the rocky ground until the tunnel ahead of them had dwindled to a ten-foot-wide opening blocked by a chest-high shelf.
A monster, which looked absolutely nothing like any of the creatures Bo had imagined, stood behind the shelf to guard the passage beyond.
“Welcome to Soul Slot Caverns,” the creature said in a cheerful voice. “All who carry crypt coins may enter. If you do not currently have Grail System currency, I will gladly exchange local money. At a significantly reduced rate because of, you know, the collapse of your society.”
Jenny and Slick looked at Bo, waiting for him to say or do something. The pitmaster, meanwhile, waited for Barbie to tell him something, anything, about how to handle the beast that stood before him.
The creature was eight feet tall, its long, pointed head topped by a bone-white beehive hairdo that added another couple of feet to its height. Crimson bugs the size of Bo’s open hand crawled in and around the mound of hair, their translucent mandibles clacking challenges when they got too near one another.
Beneath that distracting mess, the creature had a face that was far more horse than human. Bulging ivory eyes peered down from the top of its long, narrow skull. A vertical gash of a mouth bisected the bottom of its face and opened like a half-peeled banana to reveal a thousand needle fangs and a long, prehensile tongue that lashed the air when it took in a breath.
Long arms, an impossibly short torso, and bandy legs completed the creature’s body. Its skin, a sickly yellow dotted with clusters of warts that looked far too much like clusters of juicy grapes, was covered by an apron that was way too short for modesty.
According to the badge pinned to the skin above that apron, the creature’s name was Lydia.
Jenny pressed herself up against Bo’s right side and whispered, “I say we start blasting.”
“Agreed,” Slick said.
Examine the creature more closely. I do not believe you want to pick a fight with this thing.
“Hang tight,” Bo said to his friends and stared at Lydia.
She stared right back at him. Her pale, pupilless eyes made Bo feel sick to his stomach when he met her gaze. There was a weight to her attention that made his skin feel clammy and his thoughts run in confused circles. It didn’t help that the expression on Lydia’s face seemed to be one of concern and confusion, like Bo was the weird one here.
The sound of riffling cards tickled Bo’s ears and a new message flashed across his field of view.
GRAIL SYSTEM EVALUATION
Name: Lydia
Type: Demonic Template (Stock Human)
Core Level: 9 (1 Base + 8 Lair Bonus)
Role: Expert (Defender)
Deck Size: 20 cards
Deck Composition: Unknown
CORE LEVEL DIFFERENTIAL: FATAL
Okay, then. Bo would not be fighting something with such a high core level. Even if taking a twenty-card deck would be a major win, the pitmaster doubted he’d survive the fight.
“Do you plan to purchase crypt tokens?” Lydia asked, the pleasant tone of her voice growing brittle and frosty. “If not, we have customers just dying to get in.”
Bo didn’t see a single person behind his group, but decided that arguing with Lydia was a bad idea.
“I’ve already got crypt coins,” Bo said. “But thank you.”
Lydia looked at him more closely. Nostrils the size of half-dollars opened just below her eyes as she sniffed at him in disappointment. “What about your friends?”
“I’ll cover them,” he said.
Lydia leaned her massive head down and stared at the trio. “Your party may enter. Please be aware there is no cheating on these premises. Good luck!”
The horse-faced creature leaned back from the counter and folded her hands together. Another set of arms unfolded from somewhere on Lydia’s back and stretched out over the counter to pull up a slab of stone that Bo and his companions had not seen. Sullen orange light emerged from somewhere deep beneath the floor, highlighting the long, steep stairs leading down.
“You sure this is a good idea?” Jenny asked her friends.
“No, this is absolutely not a good idea,” Slick said.
“But we’re doing it anyway,” Bo added, putting all the conviction he could muster into the words. He needed his friends to understand that this wasn’t just about finding refrigerators or even securing food for their camp. This was about kicking monsters like Lydia back to wherever they came from, taking their loot, and getting strong enough to do it all over again to the next batch of creatures they found.
“We’re doing it anyway,” Jenny and Slick said together. The way they straightened their shoulders and jutted their chins out told Bo they got the message. They were here to see what was what, and maybe kick some monster booty.
Somehow.
The pitmaster wanted to thrust his hand out into the space between them. Have one of those Avengers assemble moments. But it felt too corny, so he just walked down the stairs instead.
The sights and sounds of the casino had always called to Bo. All the flashing lights and excited shouts had lit a fuse inside him. It was hard to explain, but casinos gave him a vicarious thrill. When the gamblers around him hit it big, he was excited for them. When they lost their last dimes, his heart ached and a pit of worry yawned in his belly. Over the years, he’d wondered about that feeling and had finally decided it was because all the gamblers were in the struggle against the House together. Every player chased the same dream, and when any of them hit a lucky streak, all of them felt the same could happen to them if they just wanted it bad enough. Every win chipped away at the casino’s edge, every jackpot brought them all closer together.
It was a silly way to look at things. Bo knew that in his heart.
But it didn’t change how he felt.
Just as no amount of logic or reasoning could change what he felt at that moment.
The lights and sounds did not fill Bo with that rush of excitement or tease him with the thrill of possibility.
For the first time in a casino, Bo felt something new.
Dread.
Because the clanging bells, flashing lights, and shouts of excitement excluded him. He knew, way down deep in his heart, that he didn’t belong here.
No human did.
WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST DUNGEON!
Soul Slot Caverns
Recommended Party Size: 4
Recommended Average Core Level: 1
Victory Conditions: Claim the dungeon core.
Reward: 1 uncommon magic item card; 1d6-1 Expert skill cards; 1d4 assorted Champion Cards, 100 crypt coins
Your party does not meet the recommended size or average core level. Proceed at your own risk.
There are currently 0 Healing Squads available to retrieve your cores before soul death.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
No adventurers have defeated this dungeon.
You may turn back in the next one hundred seconds. If you choose to continue, the only exit is through the dungeon core chamber and its guardians.
PLEASE EXIT THE DUNGEON NOW IF YOU WISH TO RETREAT. LIKE A COWARD.
Do not let the system talk to you like that. You’re a champion. Tear this place apart with your bare hands—
Bo ignored the rest of the devil’s tirade. He was getting better at shutting out the internal voice, which was a small blessing. And while he didn’t like being called a coward, Bo also knew the system was simply trying to goad him into battling the dungeon. Rather than rush headlong into danger, though, the pitmaster stopped and turned to face his friends on the steps above him. The slab was still raised, but the message made it clear their exit would vanish if they didn’t turn back soon. His friends needed to know the danger ahead of them.
“We have to make a choice,” Bo said. “In the next minute and a half, that door behind us closes. Our only way out will be through the dungeon core chamber.”
“What the heck is that?” Jenny asked.
“Probably the boss monster,” Bo answered.
“Maybe we should turn back,” Slick said. “I didn’t know we wouldn’t be able to retreat if things went bad.”
“Hey,” Jenny replied, her voice low and calm. “We’re locked and loaded, Slick. We came here to get supplies and deal with monsters. Because if we don’t clear this place out, the creepy crawlies might come to our camp looking for food. Food with names like Gertrude and Hank. You need to get that fact drilled into that thick skull of yours. Be cool. Because the alternative is to be dead. Got it?”
Jenny’s harsh words were like a slap to Slick. His eyes bulged for a second, and his jaw clenched as he grunted in surprise. He took a long, deep breath and glared at Jenny like he wanted to take a swing at her pretty face.
Then, in the second before Bo planned to step between them, Slick nodded. He was still wrestling with his fear, that was plain on his face, but the man no longer looked like a frightened horse about to bolt from a burning barn.
“Be cool,” he repeated. “Sorry, it’s just…I don’t know. This place is bad.”
He means evil. Humans really have a hard time recognizing true evil when they see it. Oh, sure, you all prattle on about how this or that is evil, how other people are evil, how your political rivals are evil…blah blah blah. But when you’re faced with real, soul-crushing evil, you lose whatever sense of self-preservation you hairless monkeys have mustered over the millennia of your brief existence.
Bo didn’t want to talk to himself and look like a lunatic to his friends, so he came up with another way to tell Barbie to shut up. He called to mind the beautiful moment when his propane cylinder booby trap had gone supernova and turned the invading devils into dismembered chunks of scorched meat.
You are a jerk.
“Let’s go,” Bo said. “No sense hanging around.”
The party descended the stairs, and the sound of the slab closing behind them grated the air like a buzz saw blade in slow motion. Every second that sound lasted felt like an eternity. But Bo didn’t want it to stop. Because once it did, they were locked up tight until they found the dungeon core and took it.
Don’t forget killing the core’s guardian. That’s the best part.
“What happened to this place?” Jenny asked.
Looking out over the staircase’s wooden rail, Bo was struck by how much the gaming floor looked like it had the last time he’d visited. Glowing slot machines stood in long, unbroken ranks. The spaces between those rows were dotted with triads of machines arranged in triangles, or quartets in squares. The gambling devices rattled and hummed in mesmerizing rhythms, holding the people seated before them in thrall.
Of course, the casino was also very different, despite those similarities. Braziers filled with burning coals had replaced the neon and LED light fixtures. Stone slabs carved with incredibly intricate designs had replaced the colorful carpets. There was something off about the gamblers, too, but at this distance Bo couldn’t put his finger on it.
When the trio reached the gaming floor, the sense of wrongness grew stronger. Bo could now see that what he’d thought were slot machines were something quite different. Instead of plastic and fiberboard cabinets, he saw crudely hewn stone. There were no flashing screens, but dense rows of strange shapes that generated strobing patterns of light. Every time a spray of color flashed across his eyes, Bo felt the urge to sit down and play.
“Don’t look at the lights,” he warned his friends, and took his own advice by staring down at the stone floor. If he kept his eyes below waist level, he couldn’t see any of the lights on machines that were close enough to play.
“This place is messing with my head,” Slick said. “Which way to the dungeon core? I’m ready to get out.”
A dungeon’s core normally lies behind its most impressive defenses. Because this dungeon was created by an overlay, the core is most likely locked up in a vault or other secure storage facility.
“The count room,” Bo said. “It’s the most secure room in the place.”
“Then let’s get in there and kick some tail,” Jenny replied. “I’m with Slick. Staying down here is making my skin crawl.”
Bo took a few minutes to orient himself. If they’d come in through the southernmost entrance, and he was pretty sure that was true, then the count room would be a hundred yards up on their right. He’d seen the cash carts go through a security door there a couple of years ago. If the casino’s layout had stayed roughly the same when it turned into a dungeon, that is.
That you are still alive tells me you have phenomenal luck, human. I have every faith you will not get us killed, because you know that will result in your spirit spending an eternity performing the most depraved acts for your new master.
Bo could have gone all day without that reminder.
“It’s this way,” he said. “I’m pretty sure, anyway.”
Bo guided his friends to the wall of the smoky chamber. In its normal days, the gaming floor was a massive L shape. The end of the casino they’d come in on had onced housed a poker room. The rest of the floor was all slot machines with a few craps tables and digital roulette thrown in to keep things spicy. Different restaurants and convenience shops dotted the interior wall of the casino, along with restrooms and drink stations. All the latter had been closed during the pandemic, though, which had always struck Bo as more cost-conscious than driven by safety.
The buffet was on the north leg of the L, and the hotel towers and pool area were at the farthest end in that direction. Those towers were at least a mile away, as near as Bo could figure. A very long mile, populated by the strangest gamblers he’d ever seen.
The creatures sitting at the machines might have been human once, but they could no longer lay claim to the name. They perched on wooden posts before the machines, their hands pressed flat to stone slabs beneath a bronze sheet covered in shifting, glowing symbols. The players’ eyes jerked and darted, snatching at patterns that Bo couldn’t fathom. From time to time, one of them would howl in victory or hoot in dismay.
And every time the symbols stopped, the players mashed their hands down on the stone and squealed in pain to start the whole process over again. To Bo, the players seemed smaller, diminished somehow, every time the cycle began anew.
The game requires crypt coins. They must sacrifice some of their very soul to generate those. This is a truly efficient way to harvest souls. I wish my people had thought of it. So much simpler than going to war in strange lands populated by barbarians. You humans are truly evil geniuses.
That explained the withered husks clinging to some of the machines. They’d gambled the last of themselves, leaving nothing behind but the cold cage that had once housed their spirits.
And those didn’t hang around for long. Bo watched as a man-shaped shadow in a tuxedo-shirt uniform gathered the fallen and spirited them away.
Neither the shadow nor the gamblers took any notice of Bo and his friends. It was as if they didn’t care that humans were in their midst. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe that’s what they wanted.
“Didn’t have to change much about this place, did they?” Jenny asked, anger spilling out of her like venom from a snake’s fang.
“This is a lot worse than some slot machines,” Slick whispered.
“Nah,” she replied. “This is just faster than the way most gamblers end. Trust me.”
There was a haunted look in the woman’s eyes. It was the first time Bo had ever seen that expression on her face. It made him sad, deep down, as if he’d just learned that the sun was getting a little dimmer every day.
That sadness was like water on the grease fire of his anger. It made his turbulent emotions messier and more dangerous. Barbie was right. This place was evil.
“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s find the core. We can snatch it and then look for food after.”
“You don’t think Lydia’s running this show?” Slick asked as they made their way through the long rows of gambling altars.
“The big boss is never in the first room of a dungeon,” Bo said. “You’ve played video games before.”
“This isn’t a—” then Slick shook his head. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe it’s not a game, but you’ve got magic cards. I guess the world runs on game logic now.”
“Or we’ve all gone nuts,” Jenny said with a grin.
The party had walked half a mile when they saw a spectacle that demanded their attention. A long line of the degenerate gambling creatures had formed. They snapped and snarled at one another, long arms swiping at hunched backs, rotted teeth bared in impotent snarls. More of the tuxedo-shirt shadows glided up and down the line, their misty appendages slapping the gamblers into line.
“What are they waiting for?” Slick asked.
Bo couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He’d seen a scene pretty much like this one every time he’d come to the casino in the afternoon. Instead of gambling monsters, though, the lines he’d seen were senior citizens queuing up for the one thing most gamblers craved.
“The buffet,” Bo said.
“I really hope we aren’t on the menu,” Jenny said.
Bo thought about that as they walked alongside the line. The shadowy creatures noticed the trio, but did nothing to stop them. The cold glances from those dark faces made the humans shiver, but there was no threat. This place didn’t need to attack outsiders. The machines captured enough of them to satisfy the place’s needs.
They reached the head of the line a hundred yards after they encountered its tail. The ghoulish gamblers glared at the party, eyes narrowed with hatred, hands curled into clubbing fists. Their emotions were clear. Cut the line and get beaten down.
Chop them to pieces. Make them the buffet!
Bo knew that was a dumb idea. Starting a fight with all these degenerates would not go well for him and his team. But he was curious about what, exactly, they were waiting for. It was hard to make out many details because of the smoke that filled that long, low-ceilinged chamber. But when they neared the front of the line, the guttering red light of a massive fire showed Bo all he needed to see.
Bloated, pig-faced humanoids stood around the blazing fire and tended to a smoker larger than any Bo had ever seen. The massive rolls of fat that covered their meaty frames glistened with sweat, and the pitmaster did his very best not to look closely at their naked forms. While the attendants disgusted him, what they were tending to was much more attractive.
“Would you look at that,” Bo whispered in admiration.
“I want it,” Jenny added.
“Oh, yeah,” Slick chimed in. “Daddy likey.”
For the first time since laying eyes on Lydia, the trio weren’t worried. They didn’t fear the monsters that surrounded them. They didn’t wonder how they’d ever escape this cavernous hellhole.
They were united in their unwholesome desire for that smoker. And as Bo stared at the thing, he found he wanted it even more than at first glance.
GRAIL SYSTEM SCAN
Oroborus Smoker
Any meat placed upon this smoker will continually regenerate, producing up to one hundred pounds per hour of perfectly slow-roasted pork, beef, poultry, or humanoid. A fire must be kept burning beneath the smoker at all times. If this fire ever goes out, the Oroborus Smoker will be displeased.
Serves as a community focus while the fires burn.
Maintenance Cost: 100 crypt coins per day
GRAIL SYSTEM SCAN COMPLETE!
This thing would solve their food problems forever. Well, provided they could come up with one hundred crypt coins per day. Looking at all the fantasy slot machines in this place, that might not be an obstacle, either. Maybe after they dealt with the boss monster they could come back and crack open a few machines.
“This way,” Bo said, and lead his party away from the buffet line. He stopped near one of the cavernous casino’s walls, away from any of the gamblers or shadowy attendants. Just because those monstrosities didn’t pay Bo any attention didn’t mean they weren’t spying for the dungeon’s boss.
“How do we get that sweet piece of kit out of here?” Jenny asked.
“Get the dungeon core,” Bo answered. “And I bet it’s right over there.”
He nodded his head toward the opposite side of the casino floor, where a wide, gloomy archway penetrated the stone wall. A pair of tuxedo-shirted attendants floated outside the opening, their glowing eyes flickering back and forth as they searched for possible threats.
“Well,” Jenny said quietly. “That sucks. No way we get in there without a fight.”
“And as soon as one starts over there, I bet we get the hog brothers piling on,” Bo said with a frown. “Carnivore’s Cleaver can deal with a couple of guards, but more than that will be a problem.”
Slick’s eyes sparkled with mischievous guile, and a wide grin split his face.
“What we need, my friends,” he said, “is a distraction.”
“And you’ve got one?” Jenny asked.
“No, ma’am, I do not,” Slick said, his grin growing even wider. “But you do.”