Chapter 1

Red.

Lots and lots of red.

Oh wait is that something different? No no, that's just more red.

Turning around....yep more red. Oh, what about up? Yup, that's red too.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” said a male voice.

Huh? What's that sound?

“Hey! Answer me! I swear this better have worked...” the male voice continued.

There it is again.

“Hello?”

“Ah, excellent. I was beginning to worry that implementing a personality at this stage might backfire causing your destruction.” said the male voice.

“Wait, causing MY destruction! What are you talking about!?”

“Well of course your destruction, you're the only other one here.” Asked the male voice

“The only one where? Wait are you this red stuff?”

“Red stuff? Wait have you not moved your viewpoint outside of yourself yet?” the male voice asked. “Err...”

Move my viewpoint...lets see.

After spending a few moments concentrating it was able to shift its view away from itself  and was immediately confronted with a large grey flat surface made of stone.

“Wow, your a talking wall? Thats impressive.”

“What are you talking about? Ugh, I can’t believe that my godhood is now dependant on this idiot.” The apparently talking wall said.

“Who are you calling an idiot you stupid wall!”

“I'm not a wall dumb dumb, you're looking in the wrong direction.” The apparently not talking wall said.

“Oh.”

After concentrating for a moment it swiveled its view point around which brought the rest of the room into view. It could now see where its view came out of, which appeared to be a red orb which was currently floating approximately 1 metre from the floor. Past the floating orb it was able to see a Human in a dirty old robe with dark messy hair. It came to the conclusion that this must be who had been speaking to it.

“Wait, did you say you were a God? You're sure don’t look like a God.”

The old man seemed to take offence to this and pulled himself up straight lifting his head up.

“Yeah? Well how many Gods have you seen? For all you know I could be a King among Gods!” The old man exclaimed.

“Yeeeeeah but you could also be some crazy person who just thinks he’s a God. If I had to pick which one seems the most likely based on your appearance, I’d have to go with the second option.”

The old man closed his eyes and tilted his face towards the ceiling before starting to mutter to himself. “You can’t destroy it. If you do you will end up being stripped of your powers and returned to the mortal realm. You can’t destroy it. If you do you will end up being stripped of your powers and returned to the mortal realm. You can’t destroy it...”

After standing their repeating this for a minute or so he took a deep breath and looked back at the orb as if nothing had happened.

“Well, despite your seeming stupidity you are my last chance so we might as well get on with this.” Said the old man.

With that he made a gesture and a rectangular object materialised hovering in front of the orb.  The orb looked at the object, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything besides floating there. Looking back at the old man, he didn’t seem to be doing anything either, just standing their looking at the orb and this new object.

After a few minutes the old man's face started to change as this rather amusing looking expression took shape on it. Now the entity from the orb wasn’t super familiar with emotions and was trying to decide if the old man was getting annoyed or aroused. Just as it was coming to a conclusion however the old man made it clear which it was.

“Well!?” the old man shouted.

“Well what?”

“Read the book so we can get started!” The old man was definitely getting annoyed alright.

“Oh, is that was this is? How would I go about ‘reading’ this ‘book’?”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The old man put his face in his hand and let out a huge sigh. “I’m done for. It can’t possibly be this dumb, it must just be messing with me.” After shaking his head a few times the old man looked up again. “Just examine the book closely and a prompt will appear.”

Examine it closely? Hmm ooook. How would I do that I wonder? Lets try moving closer.

After moving himself so itself so it was hovering right over the ‘book’ the entity could see that their were markings on the top. No idea what they meant but there they were. After staring at it for a moment however a blue box appeared in front of it.

You have found ‘Dungeon Manual’.

Would you like to absorb the information found inside ‘Dungeon Manual’?

Yes/No

Yeah, that sounds like something I want to do.

After think that the book opened and the pages started flipping one after the other extremely quickly. Despite the fact that their must be hundreds of pages it was over in a matter of seconds and the back cover slammed shut causing the book to fall. Before it even reached the floor though it started to disintegrate into tiny motes of light that disappeared after a few seconds.

Immediately the dungeon core suddenly knew about what it was. It knew that the book it just read was a magical book of knowledge that allows for rapid learning of new ideas, skills, magic and much more. It also knew that their was an intruder in the core room!

“Intruder! No no no, I haven’t even had time to make any traps or create a boss or anything, this is so unfair!”

The old man rolled his eyes before speaking. “I’m not an intruder dumb dumb I’m your creator. We were JUST speaking about how I was a God, specifically I am the God of Dungeons. I am the ‘Great Designer’, the ‘Emperor of Engineering’, I am the all powerful Bob!”

“...Bob. Your name is Bob. Your are Bob the God.”

“Look I didn’t get to pick my name ok? Just because I’m named Bob doesn’t make me any less of a God.” The old man replied. “Speaking of, I should probably give you a name.”

The old man had an evil gleam in his eye as he said this. Apparently he didn’t take kindly to the dungeon making fun of his name.

“I shall name you...” the old man started.

Ot oh. I definitely don’t want to get stuck with some stupid name like ‘Bob’ just because this guy might possibly be a God. Gotta think fast....

“Steve!”

“Steve?” the old man seemed confused, however that was apparently enough.

Congratulations! You have been named ‘Steve’.

“Ohh, why did I say Steve?”

“Humph. Serves your right for interrupting me. I had a far more suitable and awe inspiring name in mind.” The dungeon responded.

“Really? What was it?”

“Too late now, looks like you're stuck with ‘Steve’ for all eternity. Or until some Adventurer takes your core and turns it into the base of some magical sword or some other such nonsense.” Said the old man.

“Well now we have your name sorted...Steve.” The old man said while grinning. “Next you need to select your starting race.”

As soon as the old man mentioned his starting race a new screen came into view.

The following options are available for your starting race.

Goblin – Humanoid, prolific breeders, small and weak individually, capable of learning magic and tinkering in later stages.

Elemental – Diverse options available, eventually very powerful, expensive to summon and create.

Constructs – Options available based on local resources, more advanced options will require rare resources to create.

Kobolds – Humanoid, crafty with near human levels of intelligence, will build and maintain traps within the dungeon. Comparatively weak in later stages.

Animal – Options available based on local wildlife, capable of being mutated and combined into new beasts.

Undead – Mostly humanoid, ability to raise the bones and bodies of the deceased, undead are very unintelligent until more complex variants are unlocked.

Demon – Difficult to control but potentially very powerful, any demons the dungeon loses control over may attack and consume the dungeon.

“Now I would personally recommend that you choose Elemental as your starting race as their are no other elemental dungeons on this continent. That being said, don’t pick demons and definitely don’t pick undead.” Said the old man.

Unfortunately Steve wasn’t actually listening to the old man as he was looking over the options and by the time he realised that the old man was speaking to him again he was just about finished.

“Pick undead? If you say so.”

Congratulations! You have unlocked the starter race Undead.

“What have you done you fool!?” The old man cried.

“What? You just told me to pick undead. Seemed reasonable enough to me so I went with it.”

“No! I said DON’T pick undead. Do you have any idea how the other races react to anything that has even a whiff of the undead? They burn it out and destroy it completely!” The old man was practically screaming now.

“Oh. I guess I misheard you...”

“I’m done for.” The old man was now just standing their staring off into the distance. After doing so for several minutes he seemed to come to himself and shook his head. “Nothing to be done about it now.” He reached into his robe and pulled out a human looking skull before setting it on the ground. With a wave of his hand a light flew from him into the skull where the eyes began to glow a pale blue.

“Here is your assistant. My time in the mortal planes is just about over. Try not to fail me dungeon because if you do I’m going to be stripped of my godhood.”

“How is that MY problem?”

“It's your problem because if I stop being a God, then all of my creations, including you, will no longer be permitted to exist in this world as the other Gods would wipe you all out. So yeah, no pressure.” With that the old man turned and vanished.

Oh. I guess it is my problem after all...