Welcome New Dungeon Lord, Please Wake Up

Alex was jolted awake by the robotic voice, though when he opened his eyes he saw nothing. Nothing was the best word to describe it, he woke up in an empty room made up of empty walls, an empty floor, and an empty ceiling. Lining the angles of the walls and the floor and ceiling were glowing white lines that reminded him of a digital wireframe.

In the center of this strange room was a thing. It was vaguely humanoid in shape but was imperceptible. It was like staring at a paradox or an optical illusion, a thing of contradicting sensations and information that he couldn’t comprehend or understand. At moments it seemed to blend in with the everpresent nothing, other times it was so definite that it burned into his mind.

Transform Unknown Relic Into Dungeon Core?

A text box hung above the contradiction, asking if he wanted to turn an ‘unknown relic’ into a dungeon core. Dungeon core was a strange term to use - the only reason he was familiar with it was because he had just finished a dungeon builder game not too long ago. How long ago…Alex ignored the foreboding brewing in his stomach and turned back to the text box.

There were two buttons below it, one for ‘yes,’ and one for ‘no.’ The no button was grayed and presumably inactive, while the yes button was pulsing and flashing as if desperate for his attention. A mixture of uncertainty, curiosity, and confusion caused him to do what he assumed this dream wanted him to do and he pressed ‘yes.’

Creating Dungeon Core, Please Wait…

The enigma was peeled away bit by bit as a small hole in reality seemed to form. Light with a texture that was exotic and wrong bursted out as the hole turned into a small sun the size of his hand. The light carved the empty space around him, and he realized the room he was in wasn’t empty or a room. He had woken up in a solid stone wall.

The ball of light had encased itself in a crystal made from the stone it was carving and after a few moments the entirety of the anomalous thing was devoured. The crystal of light started to pulse similar in rhythm to a heartbeat and the cavernous dome-like room was completely carved.

Dungeon Core Successfully Completed, Generating Dungeon Fairy…

Around the slightly pink, pulsing crystal, specks of light started to gather and converge into it. The specks of light unified into a humanoid figure that emerged from the crystal. Alex couldn’t see much of it, the humanoid hologram was blurred and seemed to be intentionally vague in its appearance.

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“Hello, Dungeon Lord, I am your assistant known as a dungeon fairy,” the blurry hologram said. It bowed to him and Alex started to feel like he was putting the pieces together. This didn’t feel like a dream, but it must be a dream. He was dreaming about playing the dungeon builder game.

Dungeon Heart was a game he was happy to dream about. It was one of those niche games that none of his friends liked despite his own enthusiasm for it. Dungeon cores, dungeon fairies; these terms were familiar to him because of the game. The main difference between this dream and the game was that the game started with both the dungeon core and fairy already formed.

“Dungeon Lord,” the dungeon fairy started, “Your dungeon will open up in a few minutes. Please say ‘System’ to get access to your abilities and prepare some defenses.”

Alex said “System” as his dungeon fairy suggested and a large screen appeared in front of him, copying the style and layout of Dungeon Heart. A key idea behind the game was the idea of creating systems and designing a dungeon that is able to both lure and kill adventurers without a lot of player input. An important mechanic behind this was how expensive everything was.

He only had eighty soul points, the currency of the game, in his bank account and that was hardly anything. He navigated the menus by touching the floating holographic screen and discovered the prices for abilities and spells within this dream weren’t different from the game he was familiar with.

“Dungeon Lord, you can use your mind to navigate the system.” Alex did realize that was possible, but after trying a few times he managed to get the hang of it. As this was a dream, he could do anything he wanted but for some reason he could only use his mind to navigate the menus better. The powers and abilities required him to be on the right screen to use them. He experimented a bit with the powers before building up defenses.

The pulsing wave of light from the dungeon core had carved a path from the dome-like room towards the surface. As this was a straight path he decided to use what little of the soul points in his wallet to make a few boring defenses while having enough left in case anything breaks through.

After he finished the defenses the path to the surface had almost finished. Three, two, one, and it broke through. A fresh breeze flowed down from the entrance to his dungeon, but the feeling in the air made his hair stand on end. He felt danger, antagonism, and threat from the outside world and no matter how many times he tried to will it away from the dream it stayed.

As in the game, animals started to enter his dungeon but he was fine with that. They were small animals and birds, neither were big threats to him as a human or to his dungeon. He had created a simple spike pit with spikes over it to force birds and flying enemies out of the air and into the trap. There were better ways to do them but they either were too expensive or not unlocked yet.

Alex was enjoying himself a little bit - he didn’t know why this dream had so much blood and gore, when a small bird evaded his trap. It flew just underneath the overhanging spikes and just over the spike pit in a way he didn’t think was possible. He flew past him and to his dungeon core when it started to ram its beak into it.

His body was overloaded with shock and pain similar to striking a funny bone. The pain caused a sudden awareness, both of himself and his surroundings, and a terrible thought emerged. What if this wasn’t a dream?