Stor felt all of his blood grow cold as the majestic sound of an otherworldly beast flowed through his entire body. These forests and mountains were old, some legends say that they were as old as the world. He wasn’t sure about that, but they certainly were strange, dangerous places.
He forced himself to calm down, but his body was oddly erratic and numb. He became very aware of how alone he was, of how fragile he was. If he died here, he doubted anybody would find his body before the hungry and vicious animals and monsters found him. He needed to make it back to the village before something terrible happened to him. Maybe check with a herbalist or priest.
Another day without a catch. This was his second day without finding anything; over his entire life he could count these sorts of days on one hand. Bad luck. Or maybe an omen. He really hoped that this was all just poor luck. Though, what made that sound was probably a forest king. That really was a bad omen.
----------------------------------------
It was stressful watching the dungeon fairy slowly cause stone to mold itself into the right shapes. While his spike idea was good, he hadn’t accounted for how long it would take to create it. In the game, everything took similar amounts of time, here though more complicated or bigger creations took much longer than he anticipated.
His internal clock became his demon, tormenting him as he tried his best to distract himself from getting bored or having a mental breakdown. Every spike he made was painstakingly sculpted.
“Please create the walls and pits first before you finish these spike barricades,” he said, defeated.
“As you wish, Dungeon Master.” At least, this way, some of the defenses will be created quickly.
Watching the dungeon fairy work wasn’t going to make anything go faster, so he returned to his mission to find the entrance. The problem was that this cave was far too strange, its tunnels far too level and its twisting and turning far too unintuitive. He closely observed the rocks to see if they were withered bricks or carved with chisels, but they weren’t. Maybe these things were common here, he didn’t know.
He could only assume that magic existed and used that to fill the gaps of reasoning. He kept searching, kept filling in the map as he was forced to push himself through solid stone over and over again. Slowly, this labyrinth was mapped out and he eventually managed to find the entrance to the overworld.
It was strange, the entrance was on the complete other side of the cave system from the core. But everything about this cave was strange, which probably meant that it wasn’t strange. Probably.
He sat in front of the entrance and looked through it. There was some sort of membrane separating the cave from the outside world, like the watery film of a bubble that wavered and distorted the light that passed through it. He could still see the world beyond it.
There were large trees that reminded him of oak. Blue skies decorated with long, majestic clouds, and sunlight. Jacob stared at them, because he knew that he might never feel the wind on his skin or lay in the sun on a nice day. The strange separation made this wonderful view seem worlds away. Jacob slowly floated towards the barrier and pressed his hand against it. The barrier knocked him back with a painful shock.
In the game, the player rarely got to see the world beyond the dungeon. There were no mechanics to explore it. Some part of this second chance made him a dungeon master, the ruler of a dungeon. At this point, he felt like the dungeon was closer to a prison.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He looked down at himself, at the shadow that replaced his flesh and blood. Maybe, if he managed to reach the end of the game, or this world's version of the game, then he could regain his body. Enjoy life. Maybe resurrect him and his family.
Who knew if that would happen. Even if his family couldn’t be revived or healed, hopefully there was a chance for him to still be able to live. At the end of Dungeon Heart, a cutscene showed the overworld in ruin if the player beats the game. Perhaps he will be able to walk outside these walls.
In the meantime, he might transform one of his lower floors into his own personal garden. In the game, there was a lot of flexibility and ‘creativity’ that a person could express. One step at a time though, he needed to gain at least a few animals to help protect the dungeon first. After that, he needed to get some plants and build out a basic ecosystem. After he gains a second floor, that will be when the fun begins.
He looked back at the map to try and make sense of the winding caves and to create strategies, but this maze was far too big to devour with one bite. He could only slowly create traps and fill these tunnels with defenses and hazards.
There was nothing for him at the entrance; even if there was he didn’t have the soul points to do anything with it. He had no choice but to retreat and monitor the dungeon fairy…
If he had good luck. As he was turning, he saw something strange outside the dungeon. Animals were there, looking through the entrance and almost at him — though some part of him knew that they couldn’t see him.
What puzzled him most of all was that they just…stood there, staring. He knew animals enough to know that without some sort of training, keeping a wild animal still was near impossible. And these were wild animals, many of them similar to ones from earth with odd differences. Now that he thought about it, the rats were the same.
“Dungeon Fairy, you need to hurry up. We got guests,” he said over the telepathic link they shared.
More animals slowly assembled, and Jacob rushed back. Having multiple passages of spikes was too much, he was going to have to replace the rest with walls. Thankfully, the majority of one of the barricades was complete, so he didn’t feel much of anything when he scrapped the others and replaced them with walls.
“Focus on these walls!” Jacob shouted, feeling the invisible timer of the next attack ticking down.
The dungeon fairy stopped finishing the spikes and went to complete the walls, but in that instant he felt something. It was almost like an instinct or another sense, something that he wasn’t sure he ever had before this moment. He knew that the attack was coming in a few moments.
The Dungeon is Under Attack
He stopped focusing on the dungeon fairy and rushed towards the entrance. He reached in time to see the entire party of invading animals and potential monsters. Instead of their just being rats, there was much more variety.
Most of the animals were small to medium, but there was a deer with a strange antler that looked like onyx or obsidian. The other animals looked like badgers, squirrels, some more rats, and what looked like weasels.
“Dungeon Fairy, are you done with those walls?” asked Jacob, unable to hide his worry and distress as he followed the attackers.
Like the rats before, these animals had a strange supernatural sense for navigating the madness of tunnels. His fear and dread increased with each fork they passed and tunnel they passed through. His hands began to become erratic as he tried to get rid of the anxiety that was eating him up inside.
Finally, the animals reached the caverns where the spikes were. None of them were interested, instead continuing on. One of the tunnels was sealed, and by the time they reached the next one, the wall had been closed off enough where none of the creatures were able to get through.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Now, it was time for his novel spike defenses to be tested.