“Late last night a large sink hole opened up in the middle of the road in the small town of cedar springs, here in Michigan sink holes are a rare occurrence so this happening is something very unusual” a female said into the microphone that held the label of a news station. “Luckily one of the nearby people, Anthony Wellbrant, was an experienced cave diver. He used the gear he had in his truck and used it to explore the new opening to make sure nobody fell in. We do not know what happened down there as not long ago the military set up boundaries around the sink hole and have kept everyone away from both it and Anthony.”

People formed a thick ring around the sinkhole held back by the military personnel, an old man holds a sign declaring the end of days, and the teenagers scheme on how to enter the newest attraction in their little town.

               •                    •                    •

I awaken to a dark cave, I can see perfectly fine but I am still able to tell it’s pitch black, how odd. The only odd thing in the room is one particular rock, it’s about the size of a melon and is perfectly round. Kneeling down I touch it to see if it was a rock or just round dirt. To my surprise it doesn’t seem to be either rock or dirt but some sort of dull crystal, I wonder what kind of- I freeze as a light slowly begins to emanate from it, plain white and it fills the orb until it seems like the orb is the sun itself. God it’s so bright, but it doesn’t hurt? What’s going on?

Soon enough the light calms down and it just has a white glow, but the orb is now floating at around chest height. Okay that’s cool but what just happened? I freeze as a black figure crawls out of the darkness, it has arms and legs, it crawls on all fours has an angular head and is somehow almost solid black. It seems to be furry but I’m not getting any closer to it if I can help it, that’s just plain nightmare fuel. It looks at the orb and nods toward it, what is this orb? Did it just make this thing?

“Hello?!” I hear a voice, “is anyone here? Did anyone cal in here? I’m here to help!” Oh thank god I hope he has a gun, I don’t know if this thing is friendly but I’d feel safer if I had one right about now. I watch as the creature looks back at the orb and makes a noise, ‘I protect’ and scuttles off toward the voice, wait. Did I just understand that thing? Putting my hand back on the orb I feel a connection to it. Is this…. Me? The orbs glow pulsed once as if to answer me. This, this is my body. It wasn’t a question, this was my body, if so what am I in right now? I look town and at my hands, I can see a body but I can also see what’s behind it, I wonder if anyone else can see me at all.

My thoughts are cut off by a scream from further down the cave, it must be that guy who was calling out. Well it’s not really my problem I suppose, if that, thing, gets to him or not is all based on luck and his skills. Best of luck to you dude. I close my eyes and focus, if that orb is my body, I should be able to go see from it’s perspective. I feel as if I move sideways and- agh! My head swells in pain, the dungeon, yes that’s what I am the whole cave is a dungeon, and I can feel it all, every bug, every particle of dirt, every crevice. There he is, the man from earlier, the goblins, that things a goblin? The goblin chased after him howling the whole time and the man screamed as he climbed out of the hole that was the entrance to me, to my dungeon. I pull away from the orb but it feels like it’s sticking to me. Get. Off. Of. Me!

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I’m free, I can see like a normal person, I don’t experience it all at once. I can see how that would be useful but I don’t think I can handle that yet. Can I spawn more monsters? A me he appears to show me I can make more goblins for a cost, gold? I have to pay gold for goblins? How does that work? A second menus appears, create gold with mana, wait so mana is a thing now? Does that mean I can use magic? A third menus appears with a whole host of magic items, traps, and spells that I can make. Oof those cost a lot of gold to make so doesn’t look like I’ll be doing anything with that for a while.

How much mana do I have? A display appears to show me how much I have, I compare it to the costs for gold. I can only get one gold for all the mana I have right now? It costs 3 gold to make a goblin! How am I supposed to make more monsters to protect myself? Wait, if these are my only defense, what about guns, please don’t tell me people can just clear me and break my core with just some guns. I focus onto my goblin. ‘Goblin, a simple beginner monster, is able to fight a normal human one on one but is dangerous in groups. All monsters created by the dungeon are impervious to conventional weapons, only weapons created by the dungeon can be used to fell a monster besides the use of hand to hand combat.’

Huh, so I should be safe for now unless they send in a bunch of martial artists. The, uh, goblin returned and he had something with him. It seems the man dropped a flashlight on his way out, what could I do with that? I mean I don’t really need it to see and it seems neither does my goblin but- uh hey! What are you- the goblin pushed the flashlight into my orb, it just went in, lol the orb was made of water. What was that about? Ding! ‘Flashlight assimilated, you may now use the basic functions of a flashlight to create various things in your dungeon. You may also equip your monsters with flashlights or have them drop one upon defeat, both options cost mana.’

So I can create things with it? Interesting and how much mana would I need to do that? Oh it costs both gold and mana? Well depending on what I want to do anyway, creating basic lights along my cave costed only mana and creating a spotlight costs gold and a bit of mana. I’ll figure out what to do with that stuff later. I mean I don’t even have much mana to begin with, whoa! My mana shot up. It’s double what it was earlier, was that from the flashlight? Interesting, so assimilating items gains me mana, how else can I get more mana? The goblin reappeared with some rope that looks like it was cut, maybe he just cut it and let it drop to be safe so my goblin wouldn’t follow him? Could my goblin even leave my dungeon?

While I thought about all that my goblin gave me the rope and my mana shot up again, enough for me to buy three gold and use that to get another goblin. They were nearly identical but there were some small differences, if I looked closely my first goblin had red eyes and my second had blue eyes. I feel something change, voices, they’re faint but I can hear them. It’s a team of people, how long has it been since the last guy came in? It was only a few minutes right? I don’t want to but I need to know what’s going on, so I jump back into the orb. Ignoring the pain I notice a full group of 4 armed military personnel exploring my dungeon, well I don’t know if guns can hurt me but they can’t hurt my goblins, let do this like a real dungeon.