“You got to be kidding me.” Jacob held onto his knees, trying to catch his breath. In front of him is a more steep incline, and he takes the time to look back at the trail behind him. The forest trees rest in perfect verticality despite gripping chaotic rocky hills and sediment, Unlike someone who can barely stand after a half-hour of hiking in the wilderness. As he placed his hand on a nearby tree to help with his sudden vertigo, Jacob pondered how he got here in the first place.
He groggily got up in the mourning at the behest of his desk alarm. Most of the time, he would get up immediately to start the day, but soon he blinked the blur from his eyes and cleared the fog in his mind. He rechecked the time contemplating sleeping in today, and soon decided to get up anyway. He is already awake, plus he needs to be someplace else just for this day. He does his routine; Eat breakfast, shower, brush his hair/teeth, and get dressed for a road trip. Before locking up his apartment, he picked up the keys he left near the silver DS and got his duffel bag, which he had already packed with all the essentials.
He soon got into his blue minivan, tossed his bag in the trunk unceremoniously, then dropped in front to start the ignition. The engine sputters to life with a continuous hum but has a noticeable lag at the start. ‘Might need to change the oil… again.’ Jacob sighed, knowing that he might have to stretch it long enough to ride back. Soon he trepidatiously pressed down the pedal and drove down the near-empty parking lot. The drive was uneventful, yet as time went on, his heart rate quickened due to remembering the reason for this impromptu sightsee. Time becomes blurred as he subconsciously turns out of the freeway’s exit and heads to one of the local government-funded and protected forests that stretched miles down the mountain range. Jacob was familiar with the preserve, which still awed him even today. ‘If only most people are just as thoughtful for the rest of the land,’ Jacob wondered as he turned to the gravel road into public parking.
He soon turned the keys, then the engine wimpard out. Jacob looked in the rearview mirror, looking at the reflection of the bag in contemplation, then resolutely opened the door leading to the photosynthesized breeze. And took a long deep breath… ‘God, that is refreshing’ As he held it for half a minute and then exhaled, he turned towards the trunk, opened the door, and grabbed his gear. Then he looked into the van, double-checking if he missed anything. Like a backhand from the past, he spots a piece of white paper with too many lines to read. It sits in the sunlight on the car dash. Jacob looked at the termination paper on the console and turned away with a frown, his feet marching towards the dirt trail. All that overtime without a wink of sleep, Jacob was thanked with a corporate black leather boot.
It was not surprising when he got canned from his previous employment. One day he got called by HR, and the next, he got handed the pink slip by his ass of a boss. Jacob knew it was total BS to replace him with someone cheap and gullible for his position. He already took precautions for when the crap hit the fan. Of course, they spin a tale of a lack of professionalism and work ethic when it is farther from the truth. The evidence: He chatted about non-work-related topics like “the pokemans” during Break Time. So when they said to pack everything he owns, he packed “Everything.” Including the programs he made for their essential work and the access codes to the data banks. Never mess with IT and backup everything crucial.
He smiles, knowing his phone would blow up if he was in a place with cell service, but he was in nature, away from any telephone poll for miles. This thought process gave him a boost of energy for the incline. His path keeps going until he finds the perfect rest stop. A river with calm rolling water. The ideal place to sit under life-giving shade from a nearby tree, which is one of many that dot the hills near the river’s edge. He unceremoniously flopped onto the ground after tossing off his travel pack. “Aaahhhhhhh. Finally, something other than the sun and poison ivy. I need to work out more often.” Jacob then took out a water bottle to relieve his dehydrated body and took some travel bars to snack on.
‘This is nothing like what the games depicted. Red would be a freak of nature if he walked across Kanto, day and night, without rest. I can’t even walk a trail without collapsing a mile in.’ Jacob pondered the stamina of videogame characters while watching the river, wishing he had a 3DS with Pokemon X to pass the time. Of all things he forgot, it’s the game console. Even after graduating high school and college in IT development, through horrible job after job, he never lost touch with pokemon. They were always there, waiting for an adventure.
He scrolls through his phone with the current web novels he downloaded for his trip, seeing what he prefers before returning to the trail and back to his campsite. ‘Another Dungeon Core novel? Eh, I’m not expecting another “There is no Epic Loot.” Let’s hope it’s not a flop.’ He chooses and gets up to grab his bag to start traveling again. “Thank you, river. It’s time to part ways.”
Jacob never expected a retort to his farewell. But on this day, of this time, at this exact location, he will get the response of his entire existence. Down the western side of the river, Jacob caught sight of an ominous pink glow. He thought he imagined it when the light glistened off his water bottle. He looked more closely to see that the pink light was illuminating stronger, but from his position, he couldn’t witness the origin of that light. “What the Hell? Is that some water mirage, or am I hallucinating from exhaustion?” He froze when another glow appeared in the opposite direction. Now with its radiant twin, The eastern river path glittered with equal luminosity. Instead of pink like the West, it glowed light blue. And Jacob stood on a hill near the southern embankment, like a slacked jawed idiot.
‘Is this some sort of government experiment?’ Jacob questions the very bizarre situation he’s in and gets interrupted by an earsplitting shriek. From the West was a cry crossed between a coyote howl and an orca whale call, causing the pink glow to grow brighter. Then, another cry responds from the east that sounds like a crocodile hiss, and the blue light grows in kind. “What The Fuck Is THAT!?” Jacob is in panic mode, and now his mind is short-circuiting from running a million options in a second. With that, he makes his last mistake. He tries to see what’s going on.
He heads to the bank to see clearly, and the glow gets almost blindingly bright from not being blocked by trees and hills. Jacob had to blink to keep the light glare out and see if he actually hallucinated or not. He sees what could be the two perpetrators of the ominous lights. Two creatures, one bipedal Godzilla-like thing with white armor plates and pink outlines, and the other was a quadrupedal dinosaur-like beast with blue scales and steel crests on its body.
‘Holy Shit, Is This Real?’ That is all Jacob could think about. If one of the most iconic characters in another person’s favorite fiction was found to be in front of them, they would feel the same. This time around, it’s the two Legendary Pokemon of Sinnoh, Palkia and Dialga. “Okay, this has to be a dream.” he pinched himself and got a shock back. “Not a dream, just GREAT!” He sees that the duo didn’t notice his presence yet, and they both glare at each other with barely contained fury. Jacob knows that the brothers disagree on things and tend to duke it out from time to time. But why here of all places? It then suddenly dawns on Jacob. Wait. If they are fighting, they are going to- they both roared again and let loose their signature attacks.
Jacob could have run. He could have gotten behind something. But his legs locked up due to fear, and a part of his brain told him that if he ran, the shock wave would kill him anyway, and no cover would stop an attack that sheared space and shattered time. He futilely braced himself from the rapidly expanding blue and pink lights as they blinded and overtaken him.
Oh, Fuck. ohshitohshitohshitIcantseeitfuckinghurtspleasegodIdontwanttodie-
Jacob’s body was torn to thousands of points in space and disintegrated due to rapid aging. The final space-time distortion shattered his soul, and he left a trace on Earth nevermore.
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I want to sleep. My mind is pounding, and I can’t feel anything, so I want to sleep it off until I’m okay. Or I would if the alarm would just shut up. It occurs every half a minute, but a loud and melodic bell chime would try to coax me from my slumber. After enough time, I stirred awake in groggy defeat, hoping to silence my noisy protester of blissful rest. I tried looking around, but my surroundings were too dark to see that pesky desk clock. Hell, I can’t even see my pillow, bed, or even my room. Just an inky black.
“What? Where is the light? I can’t see my hands, no, I can’t feel my hands.” I tried moving my fingers. Nothing. I try to move my legs. Nada. It’s odd. Instead of a feeling of paralysis, it’s like I forgot what a foot or an arm is the moment I think to move them. I started to panic. I attempted to move something. Anything. I even tried to goddamn blink, but to no avail. I want to scream, but I only get silence for my effort. I tried to look for anything in desperation. The darkness mocks my attempt. It’s suffocating. I want out. I want to see. I want to feel. Please, Someone, Anyone, HELP ME!
Then the chime sang out again. A pinhole of light emerged from the black sea. It glowed brighter until the veil of darkness cracked under its baleful presence. The cracks web out until my vision is filled with fissures of radiance. The void finally gives with an audible snap, and glorious light fills my eyes. Now I can see where I am. After the light adjusts, I seem to be in a room with rough stone walls and a slabbed floor that hasn’t been swept in a long time. The stonework is seen through a blue light emitted from an unknown source. It’s not bright, but not dim either, and it has that weird refracting look to it, like the reflection of disturbed pond water.
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The occasional withered tapestry and banner lined the wall. Its depictions and reliquaries are too damaged to be legible.
“Okay, weird room aside. Let’s find an exit to this place to see where I am.” I tried moving, but I couldn’t move from my position again. “What? No! Come on! What is this?” I look to see what is wrong with my legs. Luckily I can move my head to look around. With this, I looked down at my legs and found out instantly what was wrong with them. I don’t have legs. I also am missing a torso, along with everything else. What now took their place was a stone pillar jutting from the ground under me.
“UMMM, okay. That’s not normal.” After the first panic in the darkness, I lost most of my ‘Oh shit, oh god, oh fuck!’ energy and cautiously looked around my surroundings to find answers. With that, I now settle into IT mode. “Let’s see, I now have no body, but I’m still alive and conscious. That’s creepy, but whatever.” I summarized. After a few minutes of stupefaction from that reveal, it quickly loses its shock value. I accepted that this was a fact and moved on. “I’m in the middle of a room with no clear exit, and It looks abandoned. Probably from medieval times, the stone walls, weird tapestries, and banners could be an indication.” I am no Archeologist, but this place holds some significance due to the decore of the room around me. Not everyone could afford such woven silks at that time, so only people or places of importance could retain such luxuries. “If this place is important in some way, how did I get here?” I try to remember what I did yesterday, but like my motor functions, I draw a blank. After a few attempts, I try to calm my anxiety by putting a pin on the amnesia thing. I then look to the ground again. “There are small fragments of shattered stone on the floor around me. Looks recent due to the unsettled dust. Is that what came off of me? Could I have been covered in stone?” I mentally shiver from the thought of my previous episode and move to something else quickly. “God, it’s shed everywhere. If I still had hands to clean my Core, that would be great.”
It dawned on me as I was about to think about something else, like a brick knocking against my brain. Clean My WHAT? My Core. How do I know that? I just do. As if someone asked me if gravity exists and proceeded to call them a fool for thinking otherwise. “I have a Core? Wait, have I heard that before?” At that moment, all anxiety washed away, and what was left was excitement. It all just clicked perfectly. I am a Dungeon Core.
“Oh my GOODNESS! This is cool! And it makes sense! The movement, the darkness, and the room. What is left is that weird bell. Reminds me of that System notification I used to get.” After I said the magic words, a silver-blue box appeared before my ‘face’ and jumpscares me. “Shit! Oh, huh. Ask and shall receive.” Looking at the text written in English, I found what could be described as a download page.
/run cherub.exe
/initializing
/complete
/start cherub 3.15
Welcome Core ID 460,563.00!
The last core logged in XXXX years.
Would you like to run startup.exe?
[Y/N]
“Um, yes?” I answered with trepidation when the box responded with a familiar bell chime and got replaced with another that had a string of code to fly through the screen with blazing speed. After a few seconds, it spits out another text box.
Welcome to the Personal Core Input System! You have been chosen to represent Judgment through trials and challenges. Through this divine right given by the Spark of Life, anyone who passes through must go into tribulation to grow, learn, and Level Up. Please use the tools and discretion necessary to facilitate this with utmost priority.
Ego sum statera, propugnaculum et ferrum.
May the Elders guide your will.
It was jarring, to say the least. The text box in front of me had just thrown some terms at me without care. I desperately try to stay in the loop. “Wait, wait. Slow down! Can you at least explain how I got here? What is the Spark of Life? Who are the Elders?” It seems to ignore my questioning, and another box appears.
Strong Affinity Detected
Core has a potent initial affinity. Please confirm an Affinity Placement Test to continue.
Yeah. Not happening again. “I’m not confirming anything unless you tell me what an ‘Affinity’ is.” I was expecting a standstill, but surprisingly it seemed to respond to my protest after a few seconds passed.
…
... Affinity is the compatibility of dungeon monsters and the environment the Core can replicate by a mixture of factors. Including environment, creation of Core, and previous vita. It is then compared to a routine chart with which affinity/s the Core is more synchronous towards.
I finally have some context. After asking The System about a few more things, who was obviously thrown off by my constant queries, I got most of the gist. Apparently, not all cores are created equal, and not any core can just start placing Ice Golems in an active volcano. How can a core know what to put in their dungeon? That’s where the affinity chart comes in. The System really did give me the TLDR version. This thing is a complex algorithm. The chart could know if the core is better with Fire Elementals than Goblins with a 12% difference if the Core prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla. I’m a mint chip kind of guy, which gives a 3.4% difference towards Fey, as I only ask essential questions here. The System avoids inquiries about the Elders, my origin, or The Spark of Life. Probably these are too confidential for me to know, or it’s so obvious that The System thinks I live under a rock. If it’s the latter, then the joke’s on it. I technically did a few minutes ago. Another minute passed until the box appeared with a more vexed bell chime.
If Core ID 460,563.00 is satisfied with the answers provided, please confirm to start the Affinity Placement Test.
I’m not really that pleased, but what can you do? I’ll get more answers if I move forward and find out what creatures I get, I can only hope it’s not Slimes. “Sure, Confirm.” I finally agreed to take the test. It better not be some questionnaire or something dumb. The Box disappeared, and another took its place with a big ‘Please Wait’ on its surface. My attention drifted as the screen didn’t change for seven minutes. “I wish I have something to pass the time, Like my Switch with Pokemon Sword. That would be fun.” I reminisce about past experiences and feel a bit of malacology. I left that world. I can’t go back. There are things I can’t experience again, and I have to accept the situation for what it is. Before I could think more, the screen made a loud buzzing sound, and the edges of the screen stuttered and warped. It’s like the System was bugging out.
//searcgh prfor me?ories f%rrr eva^/dfgtgeluuuuu
?error has occurred, booting hotfix.exe
//s%^chhhhhhhh ppr&%$$#!
?hotfix.exe failed to execute
//override command: AffiTest
Please Wait.
“The Hell just happened?” I exclaimed. It is not every day to see a corrupted script. So the Affinity Test must have crashed. Hard. “What could have caused such a thing?” Unless the input was just outside its programming, an algorithm like this would just stick to what it knows and create an output. I sat there in befuddlement trying to figure out what the problem was, that is until it changed again.
WhatD!dYo#^?!?
The internal system has found a discrepancy with the User’s Affinity.
Current Affinity Sub-Types:
[Beasts, Oozes, Elementals, Golems, Undead, Fey, Constructs, Monstrosities, Draconid, Extraterrestrial, Extraplanar, Humanoid, Celestial, Mythological, Fiendish, XXXXX]
Due to subcategory oversaturation, there are no current categories the User can operate under.
Contacting Administration for solution..
Failed to contact.
“Oh, It’s me.”
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Author's note: Hey guys! sorry for the constant blue boxes. In later chapters they will dwindle a bit until I find a better solution. I don't want this to be "Blue Screen Sim 2022" as much as you do. I'm aware LEL.
Other than that is a shoutout to the coauthor and editor! (Dinomight2). He gave me the idea to do writing as an outlet. He also found an obscure story on Fanfic.net that this takes Heavy inspiration from. I'll send the link if I find it.
-From definenty not a Lich about to cast finger of death. Viraltech.
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Crap Suggestion of the Day: "There's no Epic loot here, Only Puns"
If you don't know what it is, What are you? How dare you pick this and not know the glory of PUNS!? JK. It's a Dungeon Core novel that has a unique, cohesive, and deep world building that I ever seen. All of that under constant Punny jokes, Fun characters, Great writing, and Mushrooms. lots and lots of Mushrooms. Help me, they spread to my home and are holding me hostage, I fear for my family's safety.
READ IT!!!!