Introduction to Dungeons
Published by the Bureau of Dungeon Delving, written by Marc Anae and Erick Boolgg, Year 1033 a.c
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Dungeons,
They have captured the storytellers and seekers of the unknown for centuries. These enigmatic locations beckon adventurers to take them on and attain their treasures. But what are they, and what draws us to the irresistible allure of the dungeons ?
This booklet will serve as a guide for you, to unravel the layers of dungeon delving.
Dungeons Entrance: From a modest hole in the ground, passing by the dark cavern, or a fortress carved inside of a peak, or again a subterranean ruin that housed a bygone society. A dungeon is a mysterious place, a trial with puzzles and guardians to beat. Ensuring the Delvers to be worthy of the rewards. Or course rewards become more abundant, the more dangerous it becomes.
And the fewer people there are, Parties are recommended to be less or equal to 6.
Grades:
Hole, Cave, Crypt, Ruin, and Demi-Planes.
Risks: Ranging from physical and environmental hazards, wildlife and vermin, monsters, traps, mutations, psychological stress, supernatural phenomena… The list goes on.
Another aspect of dungeon risks is the legal consequences. It is widely outlawed to explore undiscovered dungeons situated in empire territory. Refer first to your local chapter of the adventuring guild, or a similarly capable government facility, then apply for a raid permit that reflects the grade of the dungeon.
Violating these rules incurs penalties, typically fines coupled with imprisonment; however, in instances of murder, the consequences may extend to death.
These rules serve as a deterrent for plunderers, they do not take effect in dungeons outside of state influence.
flip, flip, flip…
Merits: Many Dungeon Pioneers obtain great honor, with a chosen few granted the status of Legends, the likes of Gorric Dragonbane, Olaf the All-seeing, and Morbelle the Bonefire.
Obtaining boons of strength that slay the beasts, learning magic that revolutionizes the world and destroys the competition. Artifacts and enchanted weapons that disregard the current theory of magical
creations. Elixirs that grant immense lifespans and grow back your limbs, rivaling sometimes those of the ancient races.
Some of the relics obtained are even said to attract fate, and luck, as if reason bends around those who triumph in the dungeons.
Becoming a great man is a synonym for vanquishing a dungeon.
And to become a great man is to be dauntless and indomitable in his lifetime, it is to gain everything you wanted and more.
flip, flip, flip, flip, flip…
The rest of the book is filled with other youth-attracting words, many detailed maps of known dungeons, as well as interviews of dungeon veterans on their experience of adventure
It concludes with two lines:
To delve and triumph,
For Glory and Gold.
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The shadowed figure closes the book, putting it back onto the organic shelf where it found it.
B-6-3
It wanders the shadows of the Innommable library, turning and twisting in its angles, walking and descending its stairs, and upside down its corridors.
Seeking the pages of yet another peculiar tome. The elusive silhouette then stopped, On one of the crystal shelves sat a lonesome book.
This one is far older, grimmyer, and the spine almost loose, It has seen better days.
Time has not spared the cover but the title remains readable.
Hidden deathtrap
Unpublished manuscript, written by Christopher Auric former member of the Delving Peril prevention group, Year 1066 a.c
The shadowy figure turns to the first page, the manuscript is filled with savage handwriting. Splotches of ink stain the pages, and the words are unfiltered expressing the inner thoughts of the author.
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This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Dungeons,
The lowest grades of shit,
the kind of feces you wouldn't give even to a pig lest it would kill the poor beast. The shit that clog the street and choke the air,
YOUR air.
There exists such a thing as a “magical hole" giving you recompenses if you complete it ?
Without a consequence ?
THERE. IS. NOT.
We are being fooled.
Dungeons are nature's freaks, nothing that exists in them is a blessing, it is a wound in reality, it is a tumor that we all milk so willingly.
The reality is, the self-proclaimed “experts” are fuckin ignorant, we’ve gathered more data on the sea, space, and the damn parallel realms than we do those shitholes
flip, flip…
More than one hundred, PER MONTH. One hundred.
That’s how many Dungeons appeared in the Lausarius empire and its surrounding kingdoms, more than 55% more than in the previous ten years.
And that’s only in the empire.
The southern kingdom of Meraikai counted more than six thousand unconquered across the great desert,
The Erytheia council state enumerated almost five thousand dungeons across the Drakemort wild mountain range in 1016,
Even the previously rarely touched Barthelemy archipelago tallied a few hundred over their isles… that doesn’t even cover undiscovered and unregistered or the underwater dungeons.
Each brings more unbalance.
The numbers have continuously increased in the last one thousand years, not only for the dungeons.
The number of the new breeds of humans too started multiplying everywhere across the world. Those who touched too deeply and yet managed to spread their genes.
Human bodies, souls of the damned, new humans spliced into unrecognizable shapes.
A diagram details the transitions between Humans and Heteromorphic races*
Many of the creatures shown have a powerful disgustingness to them, few are horrible enough to wonder if they ever had been human in the first place.
flip…
Casualty rates have gotten lower, but the number of “disappearance” and "lost” is at an all high.
The current Bureau of Delving has reports of more than ten thousand so-called “dungeon slipping” in the last decade.
People just disappear sometimes, well-equipped delvers never to come back.
Who in hell, keeps creating these traps, and why,
Many speculate the three Honorable and six Iniquities, the greater spirits, or other unfathomable existences...
For years numerous societies have examined the subject, and each breakthrough met with a systematic purge. The destruction of the accumulated knowledge. The eradication of the organizations,
governments, and groups.
All the research was for the purpose of discovering the greater truth, all pointing toward one piece of evidence.
The dungeons are some sort of super project conducted on humanity.
For what reason remains unclear.
The pages are blank from this point on,
flip…flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip...
The pages are blank, the shadow turns the pages of the book, discovering a little last letter stuck in the pages.
On it, the last of those small yellowed pages, the last lines written with a shaky hand.
…..
I eat anymore. I eat no more.
It's been days since I had normal food and water, and it's only a question of time now before the “feeding tube” comes again.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-zqxOdWUAA-Ok0?format=jpg&name=large]
I regret being born
The light filters through the cracks of the walls, I have retreated to the corner of my cell now. Not much time was left for me, I knew it, for even my night's dreams have the abominable golden light burning my soul.
The archons of the small plan to leave me to stew, I have one last thing to write down.
There is not much time left, the evidence predicts one final upheaval in the coming.
Kill yourself now, or prepare for the descent of the inverted tower.
The final dungeon to the end.
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The rest of the page is covered in scratches of ink and old blood.
There is a drawing
The vivid depiction of a cloud of vermin engulfing the sky, misbegotten giants, and freakish monsters trampling the earth beneath. A horde erupting from underground, an impure light casting a gloom silhouette onto the world.
The shadowed figure having finished reading closes the book, it puts the letter back inside, ever so gently to not further damage the ancient publication.
At once it heard a distant roar, followed by a close trumpeting.
The shadow turned around, and in the glutinous corner, something was peaking at it. The tick-like head of one librarian was glaring at it, its eyes like two olive pits.
Swiftly, the shadow uses a tendril to rip off the foot of the organic shelf, destabilizing the structure. An ear-breaking smash was heard that day, the shadow escaped in silence as the shelf fell onto another shelf, breaking another shelf, and another shelf…
Roars and trumpets of outrage echoed in the halls of infinite bookcases.
It didn’t take it to heart, vanishing in the chaos, it wandered back to the infinite halls of the bookstore.