A dungeon is characterized by being an area with a high concentration of environmental magic, with a dungeon core as a generator and catalyst of magic, underground structures (almost always composed of huge expansions or gaps with dungeon crystals, and these extensions are connected to each other by a network of tunnels), and a series of living beings spawned by the dungeon, highly aggressive and very different from what one would expect to find in any other ecosystem.

Philosophers and scholars in this part of the world have classified dungeons, depending on various characteristics and factors, into 15 categories: porcelain, obsidian, copper, bronze, iron, steel, sapphire, emerald, ruby, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, orichalcum, and adamantite.

Porcelain category dungeons have the following characteristics: the presence of a single expansion, without additional dungeon crystals, and no more than a dozen ordinary or level 1 creatures, almost always without core. At this stage the dungeons grow or develop at a great speed, they are also quite vulnerable. It is believed that only one in 10 dungeons can survive this stage of its development.

Fragment of the collection “Encyclopedias of the Dungeons” by the philosopher and naturalist Ephesus.

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It was barely aware of himself, instinctively creating a series of creatures based on the information it had available. It knew that, by instinct, the creatures would not leave the cave. It knew that they would establish a territory within the cave and fight each other or the invaders, nurturing and strengthening it in some way. It created all the creatures that were possible. It was afraid, although It barely recognized what it was. It knew he didn't like feeling afraid, but there was nothing else it could do to calm that strange feeling.

When the fear subsided a little, it instinctively performed another skill it knew he had; possessed one of the creatures it created. This creature flew, was black, and had a huge colorful beak. The cave its creatures were in was not very big; 15 meters on the longest side, five meters on the widest side, no more than four meters at its highest point, quite wet and full of detritus. There were several entrances to the cave, and it seemed obvious that before the cave was even smaller, and a part of it had been inhabited by other creatures, presumably bats.

Although less than an hour had passed since it created several creatures, only four were left alive, including the flying creature. Less than half of the creatures it had originally created. Even though its creatures provided him with energy in some way just by existing, and that energy was collected by their death, there was still not a large amount of energy collected.

Over the next few hours, it learned three important things. It learned the first thing when a snake (for the dungeon was a long, thin creature with elongated pupils and forked tongue) entered its cave and was attacked by the black bird. The black bird attacked the snake with ferocity and violence unbecoming of a toucan. The invading snake gave energy to the dungeon at died. The first thing it learned was that if creatures from outside died within its domain, it also received energy. The second thing it learned was that the more foreign creatures of different types it killed within itself, the more “information” it would have to create new types of creatures, information it previously did not have available. The third lesson was learned when it sent its toucan to explore beyond its domain, even though its toucan killed several insects and an amphibian in the vicinity of its territory, it did not get any energy, nor did it obtain energy when a feline pounced on its possessed creature.

It would take a couple more days and another dead creature to understand that in those first few hours, it could have learned two other very important things if it had paid attention. First, it could obtain information to design new creatures if creatures killed outside their dungeon boundaries were transported inside. The second lesson, somewhat more mundane, was that when it possessed one of its creatures it had access to information and sensations that it did not have when it did not possess any of the engendered creatures, very soon it came to the conclusion that perceiving the pain of the injuries suffered by its creatures was as unpleasant as the feeling of fear it always suffered.

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This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

It had been in existence for three days, or as it called them, three cycles of light and darkness. It was a dungeon that slowly but steadily gained energy. It is always afraid, but there were other feelings that It knew how to recognize. Right now, it feels curious. The dungeon is curious about of three creatures it spawned.

It had observed that most of its creatures were aggressive towards each other, even if there were creatures of the same or similar types. That didn’t matter to it, after all, that’s why it fathered them; to protect it and to kill each other to harvest energy. These creatures did not behave much differently than any of the creatures it had previously spawned. But it had observed, through a relatively large reptile, how these three creatures cooperated to flee and scare away a giant insect that was chasing them.

These creatures seemed quite fragile; no more than 30 centimeters tall, with scaly and hard skin, two arms and two legs long and thin, their abdomen was also slightly elongated, and their head was a little larger and more voluminous compared to the proportion of the rest of the body, but not much. These creatures could move using their four limbs, or their two hind limbs.

The first time it looks at the creatures, it judges that they would be quite fragile and would not last long. Another of its creatures, with 6 legs and two large antennae, very similar to a leaf, approached one of these small and fragile creatures. This leaf-like creature was usually a hunter who uses ambush, but for some unknown reason, it decided that it could try its luck at trying to hunt one of these creatures without using its usual tactics. The bipedal creature, instead of accepting the challenge, decided to flee as quickly as possible from its pursuer, taking care not to disturb any other creatures.

Eventually, the creature entered the territory of one of its peers and both growled until they realized the common predator they faced. They grabbed loose stones and began to throw them at the aggressor. The third bipedal creature joined the conflict and proceeded to throw objects, taking care to stay at a prudent distance from the predator. The giant insect, approximately the size of any of the fragile creatures, decided that the ordeal suffered was not worth it and decided to retreat to its territory within the dungeon, to wait for its next unsuspecting prey.

It watched confused as the three creatures began to cooperate with each other and to do something strange with a piece of wood that was in the possession of one of the creatures. It now realizes that those three creatures do not have claws, nor very long teeth. It didn’t have much hope for them, but it would continue to watch them. They were the first creatures that seemed to cooperate with each other instead of killing each other.

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Esperanza was very confused. She was in some tall building when an earthquake started, then many heartbreaking screams, intense pain, worse than anything she would have felt before, then darkness and a strange peace, and then... then waking up in this strange state of consciousness.

She knew she was conscious, but I couldn’t feel anything; she couldn’t see, hear, orient herself, or do anything at all. In these rare conditions it was not surprising that confusion gave way to fear. Fear for the uncertainty of her situation, and above all, for an instinctive fear that appeared without apparent explanation. A fear similar to the one she would feel if she passed by a poorly lit and uncrowded street in Mexico City on any given night. She didn’t know what to do, and the fear only grew when she realized that she could not do anything that she would have been able to do under normal conditions; like screaming and running.

She was in utter despair. Suddenly, instinctively, she “visualized a menu of selections of animals and plants” that looked vaguely familiar to her. She barely thought when she selected some known figures: a beetle, two scorpions, an eagle of some kind, a snake, a cactus, a mouse, two lizards, a very small bird, and a mammal she couldn’t identify. She attempted to select another thorny plant, but her attempt failed and she “could visualize” the absence of energy, and as this was being recharged at a very slow rate.

It was very strange what was happening to her. She still did not understand the situation she was in. In some way that she couldn’t explain, she knew what she did, or at least what she thought she did. She seemed to have "begotten" guardians of some kind. Her fear diminished a little when she was aware that these creatures were present in her vicinity.

She could not identify how much time she spent trying to understand her situation. To begin with, she lost track of time when she tried to calm down. Although she was unable to see or feel in the conventional way, she felt a constant flow of energy with quite a few fluctuations. It took her a while to realize that she was able to “visualize” the energy she had available, and that creatures she could "summon" with the mere fact of thinking it. If only she could interpret it with something she knew or could conventionally understand. The thought was barely fading from her mind when she visualized some sort of video game menu.

In her lifetime she had not been a fan of computer games or consoles; she had played them, but rather sporadically. Despite everything, she managed to understand the mental image that she appreciated: at the top of her there was a bar that was filling up, it was obvious that that was the energy she had available. It was energy she could expend to generate creatures. There was a menu at the bottom in which was the silhouette of the creatures, and their energy cost in numbers. She was sure they weren’t there at first. 

She tried to clear her mind and everything she visualized within it disappeared. After imagining herself sighing, because it was another of the many things she could not do without a physical body, she focused again and visualized the “screen of actions” again. She again looked at the energy bar as it continued to recharge, and saw the menu of creatures available to “summon or create.” She understood that she could summon another creature, if she wanted to. On the left side of the video game menu, she saw the creatures she had summoned, or at least the ones left alive, and the phrase “avatar available” appeared as if by magic. To the right of the action screen, she also saw the expand and drill down options. She ignored these last options, because she still did not fully understand and accept the situation in which she found herself. Although an idea arose in her mind, and this idea did not like a bit.