Three stupid imps crossed the desert, bearing treasure, and ill intent.

The first among them was stout and fat, with lobster-red skin. Its horns were short, its wings stubby, and its thin tail dragged along the cracked earth. Over one broad shoulder was a large burlap sack, heavy with its burden, and the imp gnashed teeth like bricks in irritation.

But it dared not put down the sack.

The second imp was tall, half-again as tall as the first, with skin the color of a dead ocean. Nearly all of its height was neck, and with its large eyes and larger nose it brought to mind a vulture as it scanned the desert horizon.

Searching. Judging. Hating.

The third imp was the smallest. Nearly the size of a pigeon, or large rat. Of the imps, its body was the most classically proportioned; a slightly stooped pose, but with wings that could support its weight, and horns and tail that in no way hindered it. It was also the pettiest of the three, if there could be such a thing amongst imps. A voice like a rusty tea kettle leaked from it as it trudged and whined, as the first imp refused to carry it, and it would outpace the group if it flew.

But it didn't fly off to seek mischief. It had orders it wouldn't defy.

The three imps marched across the flat, cracked earth of the desert, their steps leaving footprints in the thin layer of salt which seemed to cling to everything. The massive desert had once been a shallow sea, and here and there were signs of a bygone era of life and wonder. Shells of ancient nautili, bones of massive dolphins, these tableus of former life now created a different sort of beauty in death. A beauty the imps ignored, immune to its splendor. They marched on, until the second imp spotted something it deemed worthwhile on the horizon. They changed course slightly, and marched towards the speck of something different.

Rising up from the flat earth, on a plateau formed from the ancient crust of a rocky seabed, sat the ruins of an old navel fortress. Built before the sea had become a desert, the hot sun and dry, windless climate had baked the fortress stones harder instead of wearing them away, and its walls would have formed a pentagonal star if they had not been damaged, to the delight of the imps. A broken pentagram. Such an auspicious find at the beginning of their journey was a dark omen.

They climbed their way up the bedrock outcrop to the fort, the smallest imp cackling at being able to fly while the other two labored, and entered the fort through a hole in one of the walls. The hole wasn’t a natural degradation, having been blown inward by some extreme force; it was likely the fort had fallen in battle, once upon a time.

Inside they found more than they expected. The many crevices and hollows formed by the abandoned fort had allowed places for life to take root. Cactuses and stubborn grasses clung to any place with even a hint of soil. Soil that had been formed over decades from the carcasses of dying animals that had wandered in to find shelter, and whatever dirt and dust was caught off the rare breeze. The imps nodded in satisfaction and entered the fort proper, seeking the deepest, darkest chamber they could find. Several different options presented themselves: an old office filled with dust, a kitchen where all the utensils had long ago rusted away, a barracks with the crumbling frames of bunk beds, but the best room for their purposes turned out to be an old storage room. Most of the supplies had long since degraded to uselessness, but several weapons racks were still in decent condition, likely enchanted, and glass jars filled with preserves remained untouched if rendered inedible due to age. The room was filled with interesting things.

And one leopard gecko. Angry and quite alive, it hunkered it’s cat-sized body over a small nest of eggs and hissed to warn away the dreadful intruders.

The imps looked at each other and laughed, before the first and biggest of them moved forward, and with a single kick, caved in the lizard’s skull. Then it leaned over and grabbed the lizard's body, lifting it up by the tail, before opening its mouth wider than would seem possible and devouring the lizard whole, slurping it down like a misshapen noodle. The smallest imp tried to approach the eggs, thinking to also grab itself a snack, but the big one slapped it back. A cascade of squeaked insults poured forth from the small imp, to which the big one simply responded, “Materials.” The eggs, the jars, the weapons, the fort, all of it would be fuel.

They had a job to do.

The big imp took the bag from its shoulder, and the other two crowded around to finally see the treasure the large one had been lugging around. It opened the bag and lights shone forth, momentarily blinding the tallest imp with its oversized eyes. The smallest would have laughed, but it was too distracted by the contents of the bag. All three peered into it, transfixed by something even they acknowledged as beautiful.

A king’s ransom of jewels sparkled inside the bag; dozens of gems in all the colors of the rainbow and beyond, some clear as crystal and multifaceted, some simply polished stones, but that wasn’t what attracted the imps. No, gems were just rocks to them. What attracted the imps was the light that came from within the stones. All of the stones pulsed with it, or twinkled, or glimmered, some fast, some slow, but truly it was a difficult sight to describe. The light that shone forth from the stones was more than mere photons.

Souls.

The lights were souls, freshly formed from the void, untainted by memories of a previous life. Innocent. Any of the imps would have done all in their power to have one, would have sacrificed any limb permanently, would have performed any terrible deed for just one of the stones, and for a bag full near to bursting? Unspeakable things.

Yet not one of them considered taking a stone for their own purposes. The consequences for doing so had been explained in no uncertain terms at the start of their task. Succeed, and they would be rewarded beyond what most mere imps could dare hope. Not as much as a bag full of untainted souls perhaps, but the consequences for failure? Or worse, betrayal?

Unthinkable things. Even for them.

The imps continued to stare for long minutes, enjoying what might be their first and only sight of a literal bag of souls, but eventually the largest and first of them nudged the smallest. Then again, harder, when it ignored him. The smallest screeched a complaint, but the other two simply glared at it, and it grudgingly went about its work. It was the largest imp’s task to carry the burden, the tallest imp’s task to find fertile soil, and the smallest imp’s task to plant the seeds.

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It reached down into the large sack with difficulty, its tiny hand pausing in hesitation for a second at the variety of choices, but eventually selecting a black lump of a stone. It was a piece of adamantite ore, black as the space between stars, but with the odd glimmer of light across its surface, glimmers of light that pulsed with the soul contained within. Like a heartbeat. The other imps sneered, but had to grudgingly admit it was a good choice. Adamantium was a favorite of the demons of the hells; few metals could withstand hellfire. Picking this stone was similar to picking the pentagonal fortress. A backhanded insult to creation.

The imp took the stone and approached the gecko nest, obviously the best place to plant the new seed. It lowered the stone into the nest, gently, gently… and then smashed it into one of the eggs, the thin shell cracking and releasing its gooey contents. The newest ‘egg’ sat amidst its ‘brethren’ in a puddle of ‘gold’.

All three imps laughed and laughed. A third insult to life, the universe, and everything. A marvelous jest. One only they could truly understand, let alone appreciate.

They marched onward, their task just begun.

For days they traveled across the desert on no set path, meandering from landmark to landmark with the second's guidance. The smallest planted the soulstones at each new location; in the bleached skull of a great whale, under the roots of a flowering thousand-year old cactus, in a giant scorpion’s den. They even managed to find the husk of a stranded pirate ship, it’s stolen cargo of spices and incense long since rotted to dust inside the enchanted hull.

And one by one, the dozens of stones found new homes. Day by day, until only one stone remained in the bag. Their task was almost complete, and it was at the edge of the massive desert they had traversed where they found a final, suitable location.

Before them, the desert was abruptly halted by a thick line of salt pines, the uniquely adapted trees holding the encroaching desert back like a line of determined soldiers. The trees extended across the horizon in either direction, the demarcation between desert and forest straight as an edge save for a single outcrop of dirt and stone that extended out into the desert like an island peninsula. Mostly composed of stone, what few pines managed to grow upon it were scraggy and stunted, the tough rock depriving them of both soil and salt. It was to this destination that the imps set their sights.

It was a decent climb to the top of the outcrop, the smallest imp again laughing at its companions as they were forced to ascend the manual way. As they reached the top, the largest imp grabbed the smallest out of the air and squeezed, before irritatedly shoving it into the burlap sack where the final soulstone waited.

"Last. Finish!" said the largest.

The smallest coughed, sucking in a lungful of air before squeaking, "Yeah, yeah! I got it, I got it!"

It grabbed the last stone, a simple lump of fragile graphite with swirling gray shadows that lent it a somewhat sinister appearance, and headed for the true peak of the hill. The ground was pure stone here, and flat, the only feature of note being a jagged crevice that split the stone floor for twenty paces, opening wide to a dark abyss somewhere within the hill. The smallest found the point where the crack was at its most narrow, and gently, carefully, wedged the fragile graphite safely into the crack.

The result was immediate. A rectangular, blue screen materialized in front of the three imps:

Quest: Seed the salt desert hex with dungeon cores.

100/100 cores planted.

Quest complete: return to assigned Pride for reward distribution.

The imps gazed upon the desecration with dark glee before bursting into hysterics that some might have confused with celebratory dancing. The blue box before them took what had been an epic journey of magic, mysticism, and destiny... and summed it up with all the enthusiasm of a shopping list. The replacement of the old magics with this new... system, was de~li~cious to the imps. There was no distinction between good and evil with the system, only function mattered. It hadn't cared how they got the job done, only that they had, and now the world itself was rewarding beings of pure evil for scattering seeds of chaos. Banal, indiscriminate, inflexible, and incomplete; the potential for abuse was palpable, and the imps practically drooled at the implications for future acts of evil. Why, they might even be able to-

Quest: Seed the new salt desert hex with dungeon cores.

99/100 cores planted.

Quest incomplete: plant all dungeon cores to receive rewards.

What?

The count ticked back down, and the imps blinked at the altered screen in confusion. The biggest poking it after a second to see if that would fix it.

*hisss*

Three pairs of demonic eyes swiveled and locked onto the ominous sound, which came from the crevice. Right at the edge of the crack, right where the smallest planted the stone, was a leopard gecko.

No wait. Not a leopard gecko. A geckobold. It must have crawled out of the hill through the crack, it wasn't like there was anywhere else it could have hid. Unlike its lesser cousins, its powerful hindlegs allowed it to stand mostly upright, and opposable thumbs allowed its hands to hold all manner of objects, like food, sticks, or even crude weapons.

But currently, they held the dungeon core. The geckobold's large eyes stared at the soulstone covetously, entranced by the swirling shadows.

"...GET IT!" yelled the largest.

All three imps scrambled after the geckobold, which hiss-squawked in surprise and tried to make a run for the wider part of the crevice. The largest reached it first and tried to body-check it, but the geckobold was thrice again as large as its lizard cousins, and the gecko-man only stumbled while the largest imp went bouncing off.

The geckobold steadied itself, then glanced back at the imps in confusion... and then malice. Everyone involved had stupidly forgotten that a geckolbold was not a measly gecko. Facts reasserted themselves; the geckobold was taller than the tallest, bigger than the largest, and while the wicked gleam in its eyes couldn't compare to a demon's, the imps realized they might have bitten off more than they could chew. The geckobold lunged, the imps screamed, scrambled, and suddenly chaos ruled as three imps tried to dodge the snapping jaws of a pissed-off lizard-man.

For several minutes they danced around the angry lizard-man, barely managing to keep it at bay. What the imps lacked in physical stature, they made up for with numbers and cunning. Thrown stones, cheap shots, and even a small fireball no bigger than a marble were their tools of choice, and they pulled every trick they had to try and reclaim the soulstone. Unfortunately, it was these same tricks that caused the first mistep. The largest attempted to throw sand into the geckobold's eyes, only to find that it had a second pair of eyelids: a reptilian adaptation to the harsh wind and sand of the desert.

Its mistake was immediately punished, the geckobold capitalizing on the opening and lunging at its face. The largest managed to catch the snapping jaws with its sturdy arms, but was shoved onto its back with the geckobold straddling it. At first, their strength seemed even, and the other two imps took the opportunity to approach from the flanks, but then the geckobold unexpectedly dropped the priceless soulstone and began raking the imp with its clawed hands. Bloody gouges were dug into the imp and it screamed at the other two imps to do something! Both the tallest and smallest were already conjuring small fireballs, and the yelling almost broke their concentration disastrously. Nevertheless, they managed to form and throw the small fireballs using the power of concentrated panic.

The marble sized fireballs flew true, and struck the geckobold on both sides with vicious pops of superheated flesh. One hit near the belly and blew a hole that spilled guts. The other struck the geckobold in the side of the neck, the extreme cauterization unable to stop the spurt of blood that followed. Its eyes went wide as it gurgle-squawked in brief terror, right before the largest imp took advantage of the geckobold's loss of strength and twisted its head, snapping its neck in one final, unnecessary act of violence. The geckobold was dead.

The silence after violence lasted a mere moment before the imps howled their victory. If before they were ecstatic, now they were manic, running and flying in circles as they celebrated. Their quest was done, a bloody end, and now they could collect. They kicked the lizard man's corpse over, eager to find and replant the soul stone.

Only to find the fragile rock broken in two, its shadowy light gone, soul extinguished, and only useless graphite shards remaining.

The sight filled them with dread, killing the celebratory mood faster than you could a child in its crib. Hurriedly, the smallest gathered the two halves before trying to gently reassemble the stone. It was just a rock, right? No lungs to damage or blood to spill. Put it together and it should be fine, right?

No use. The light did not come back, even when carefully pressed together and wedged into the crevice. Grim-faced, they looked up at the blue screen.

The glowing 99/100 mocked them. It cared not for their struggles and efforts. Their triumphs or tribulations. Only results mattered. Stark silence enveloped them, the disappointing suddenness of their failure ever so briefly bringing them into a grudging, miserable fellowship. Only one, single unifying thought managed to rise through the pale mood of the solemn funeral.

...

...

...

"Fuck the system."