It is a father’s role, to teach his children to overcome. Strictly archetypically speaking, that is.

I leap to the side, as the great maw of the undead dragon strikes into the ground, shaking the world as his skull crashes into the rock, displacing a flurry of snow, sending it flying up high into the air in an obscuring wall.

  A father’s role in the natural world of the dungeon is to secure, to hunt, to scavenge, to fight and it is the responsibility of their children to observe them and to learn their ways. Because one day, it will be their turn and others will be counting on them to fulfill that role. The role of the tyrant. Of the dominator. Of the protector.

  A yellow eye shines out from behind the falling snow, piercing through the veil like the light of a tower shining over an endless ocean. My boots crash against the rock as I fly back, spinning once and lowering myself down into a slide to maintain my balance, as I slip over the ice. It lunges and I leap again, as a giant, lizard claw smashes down into the position I was just in, shattering the mountain.

My cape envelops me, wrapping around my side as I fly backwards, looking at the giant dragon that turns after me, its neck cracking as the old, rotting bones shift to turn my way. He roars, shaking the world and I fly back, swallowed by the snow-storm that separates us once more.

The blade of my lance slices into the ground as I slide back and stop myself as I hurtle towards the ledge again and my eyes shine as I stare out into the nebulous fog surrounding me. As I gaze out in the void where I hear the voice of the patriarch crying out in anguish, testing, probing.

Rising up, I grip my lance, the metal of my gauntlets clanking.

It's a rite of passage, you know?

  The giant’s silhouette lumbers out of the fog towards me, its heavy breath pushing aside the frozen winds, creating a sphere of nothing around its head. Yet he breathes for no reason, other than perhaps pure muscle memory. I see the rotting flaps on the sides of his neck push open, as the air that he intakes simply seeps out of the rotting gapes in his meat, never making it to his lungs. Assuming he has any left to begin with.

It’s a rite of passage, that a child should one day surpass its father and by doing so, destroy him. Sometimes metaphorically. Sometimes for real.

The tip of my lance strikes against the stones as I lower my arm and loosen my posture, getting ready to meet him head-on.

A child who doesn’t surpass their father is a failure.

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Our eyes meet.

A father who doesn’t give his child something to surpass is a failure.

  It’s that simple. Both of those things. You need to strive to be better than what came before you. I won’t hear anything else. I won’t accept anything else and if you don’t, you aren’t going to make it down in the dungeon as far as I see it. It’s just what it is. The dungeon isn’t love and compassion and softness and warm hugs. It’s blood and viscera and death. Is that a metaphor? Sure. Why not?

He roars and I lunge with my spear extended outwards, as we careen towards each other.

You need to strive to leave a mark in this world so high, that those children who come after you yearn with a fire in their hearts to erase it and to replace it with their own. The relationship between a father and child shouldn’t be adversarial, but it should be one of striving competition.

Because the day will come -

The wind whistles as my lance slices through it, as the pelting snowstorm envelops us both, as if we were falling, both of us being swallowed into a great whirlpool of the black-water.

Because the day will come, when you need to be strong enough to do whatever it is you need to do -

The wind stops together with time, as I fly past his head on the left. As my gaze turns to the right to meet that of his giant lizard eye which focuses on me and me alone.

  And if you aren’t strong enough, if you aren’t ready, because you never tried to climb, because you never tried to ascend, because you wasted the time that was given to you and you didn’t accept the lessons you were offered either through your father’s presence or his absence and failures of being -

I press my arm further, pressing the lance deeper into the rotting heart of the dragon.

- You won’t be ready to do what needs to be done when the time comes.

  The dragon’s great, undead body shivers and lurches, as something black pours out of the freshly gaping hole in his breast, as a thick, oily, liquid spurts out and covers my lance, covers my arm. You won’t be able to fulfill that man’s wish, if you’re too weak to stand on your own two legs. And if his wish is something you don’t care about, because he was never a real part of your life, or even an undesirable one -

I narrow my eyes as I tear the lance back out. The great dragon falls down onto his side, a strange, old breath leaving his mouth.

Then you will only have failed yourself, because you weren’t strong enough to do it on your own. Because you proved him right by not trying, by letting yourself become a failure, you fulfilled the self-fulfilling prophecy instead of breaking it. The choice was always yours, never his.

So no matter what, trying is the only way forward. Struggling is the only way forward. I look at the dragon’s, cold, dead eyes that stare up towards the ceiling above us. Snow falls down into them, as if to bury him.

  Struggling is the only way, because then you’ll either fulfill your father’s wishes, or you’ll fulfill your own if you don’t care about the former. There’s no other possible result. It will always be one of those two in the end. So if you aren’t trying, you’re actively making the world you inhabit a worse place.

I look at the giant’s body, wondering why I’m not getting any experience for beating him. My eyes trace his scales along their length, until I see the shimmer of blue, weaving its way through his rotting flesh. Corrupting the corrupted. The mold is draining his magical energies.

I look around the mountain-cap. It’s already here. It’s already made its way to floor seventy. It’s not just down on floor ninety-eight. It’s everywhere. It’s all around us. I rub my head, scratching my brain that isn’t there because it itches. I told you, the seal is broken.

  If you aren’t working to become better, even if only for yourself, then you’re just as bad as a tyrant. As a dominator. People will need you one day, and you won’t be there, ready and strong enough, if you don’t start now. Right now. If you don’t, if you don’t try, then will you be able to sleep at night? Knowing that you let those hopeful faces down? Those eyes that pierced the darkness and chose you and you alone to bring them light? To bring them salvation? Will you let those eyes down, even if you see them in a mirror?

If so, you disgust me.

I grip my lance tighter.

  Turning away, walking away from the undead dragon as I hurry down the other side of the mountain, as I hear the voices ringing out from not far below myself, I realize the hero-party never fought the undead-dragon, because they skipped the entire mountain. They chose to go through the tunnels, rather than over it and I won’t forgive them for it.

They disgust me too.