“Dungeon intensity is higher than normal? How much higher? Prepare some medical detachments and get me the engineers. We’re going to have to help these poor people.”
-Director of Interplanetary Relations for [Redacted]
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Being just below the partner level at a law firm was like hell on earth from working around the clock to needing to provide support for the partners and even needing to play through the politics of getting promoted at the end of the day. So on any given day it's probably a good bet that Phillip was absolutely exhausted when he got back to his apartment and sat down on the sofa that he should probably replace but couldn’t be bothered to. But regardless of how tired he was, how much his bones ached or eyes screamed at him to just close them and go to sleep he knew that the noise of his stomach would growl until it was fed.
So when he slowly stood from his couch and walked into the kitchen, it was with a heavy heart that he began to parse through the ingredients in his fridge. It wasn’t the trappings of a five star chef but it wasn’t some empty void that would require a takeout order. The fridge had everything he needed and nothing more, and the first smile of the day broke across his face as he pulled out a thick cut of meat that had been defrosting from the night before and fired up one of the six pristine gas burners that adorned his stove.
Cast iron settled down onto the burner and began to heat up as Phillip began to prepare the steak by rubbing it in olive oil, adding a dash of salt and pepper to it alongside a thermometer carefully inserted in order to achieve the perfect internal temperature once it was on the skillet. One prepared it was laid out on a cutting board next to the stovetop as was half a stick of butter and one strand of rosemary. The smell of perfectly mixed ingredients filled his nose even as he pulled a large pot of cold water from the fridge and emptied it into the sink revealing thin slices of potato that were promptly salted and rubbed down with a bit more oil and thrown in an air fryer and began to let out a small sizzle that was soon overpowered by the steak being laid down on the well seasoned cast iron skillet.
As the smell of well prepared food filled the room Phillips stomach began to rumble with desire even as his mouth watered with unrestrained hunger. He let a crust develop on both sides of the steak before checking on the fries, noting that they had a slight crisp on the outer edges he reached in with a fork and moved the undercooked center mass to the outer edges to attain that elusive golden crisp. In a few seconds the basket was slotted back into the air fryer as the thermometer let the entire room know that it had reached the perfect internal temperature of 135°. As he sped to lift the steak off the skillet and rest it for a moment quickly the butter and rosemary began to melt and mix together in the cast iron even as the temperature decreased slightly. As soon as the butter was fully melted the steak once again sat inside the confines of the skillet while Phillip tossed the melted butter on top of the crust.
If he was going to spend tomorrow in a plane early in the morning, and in meetings the rest of the day halfway across the country in New York City then Phillip was absolutely going to save half of the food for the morning. With a portion in the fridge and some on his plate, he dug in with approval of his stomach. In a few moments only the crunch of golden brown fries being eaten was the signal that his plate was empty and stomach nearly completely full.
Phillip sat back on his not so comfortable couch and looked at the plate of crumbs he had created in under five minutes, once again lamenting that he wasn’t still tasting the meal he had crafted. Even if he practiced law for money, his passion had always been cooking and baking. From a young age and lessons with his grandmother after classes as well as studying to get into law school, it was all Phillip had left of her memory now and the talent he had honed over the years knew no equal outside of a high quality restaurant. Not many had said his food was bad and fewer still had failed to clean their plates after a meal, some had even licked their plates clean after a particularly tricky pie recipe.
Even if the system of law completely fell apart, cooking would always stay the same. Was his final thought as he slid into bed alone and yet kept warm by the blankets around him only to seemingly be forced awake immediately by his alarm as usual. It had been years since he had remembered even a fleeting glimpse of a dream, a fact that he reminisced on as he got dressed in comfortable clothing, heated up and demolished the leftovers from last night and began the journey to the airport that he would leave from.
Immediately after he fell asleep he woke up, as if the universe had decreed that there would be no rest for him and yet he was used to the constant activity because it suited his insatiable nature. There was a reason he was almost a partner at thirty five and it wasn’t because he had a weak will. With his suit already packed, he slid into his comfortable clothes for the flight which was just a pair of sweatpants and a short sleeve shirt with no logo. He wasn’t a free billboard to advertise other companies' products after all.
Making it to the flight and even boarding passed by without a hiccup, he had done this so many times it was like clockwork. From taking off his shoes to getting selected for a random bag check everything was proceeding smoothly and well within the time he had allotted to arriving at his gate on time.
“Got any sharp objects in here?”
The TSA agent said as she looked at him with an expression that screamed complete and utter boredom.
“Nothing besides my computer and a few chargers, plus some extra clothes ma’am.”
Phillip replied smoothly as he stepped back into his shoes with all the grace he could muster trying to not look like an uncoordinated fool. After a completely unnecessary twenty minute search he was off towards the gate an hour later and the plane was starting to take off. Carrying him through the sky as he mulled over what cases he’d be taking on and if his favor with the rest of the partners would carry him up to their ranks where he could finally make real impactful decisions.
The landing was smooth and well executed as he thanked his lucky stars that an experienced pilot had flown, bumpy landings were possibly one of the worst parts of flying. Within an hour of landing Phillip had deplaned, picked up his bags at baggage claim, gotten a rental car, and made it to his hotel where he would stay for a handful of days before returning home once more. It was just as he exited the car and walked up to the front desk that one of the worst parts about traveling hit him no cooking. As he checked in at the front desk, the girl whose name tag revealed her name as Jasmine cheerfully handed him his room key. Immediately when the key touched his hands the words appeared, hanging in front of his eyes like some kind of odd warning.
Dungeon infestation has begun. Paths have begun integrating. Beware The Dungeons.
Slight hallucinations weren’t anything new to Phillip and after many long days and short nights anything was possible. What broke him out of the mindless monotony of running through a morning on autopilot was the sharp intake of breath from…the front desk worker whose name was revealed with a quick look at her nametag. With Phillips full intellect working in concert to see beyond the words that obscured his vision a single question escaped his mouth.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Do you see them too Jasmine?”
As the general hum of guests behind them turned into silence the unanswered question hung in the air even as Phillip began to analyze the exact word choices of the message that seemed to hang in front of everyone's vision and stopped them in their tracks. Infestation typically referred to insects or other parasites that took root in a home or other area, but as to what path integration could mean was anyone's guess. He was so deep in thought he almost missed the young woman's answer.
“Yes I can see something. Am I going crazy?”
It was spoken in a whisper but with silence pervading the interior it seemed to echo in the lobby before the room once more exploded into motion. Apparently everyone in the lobby saw the words that began to slowly dissipate as panicked yells and phones began the ring. Phillips' eyes flicked back up to Jasmines as a small smile stretched across his face.
“No I don’t think you are, in fact you might want to just watch the lobby, I suspect that whatever these dungeons are it's not going to be very pretty if they’re being referred to as an infestation.”
He didn’t wait to see the young woman's face go pale at his response but instead turned to watch the guests in the lobby. His sharp eyes picked out two separate waves of people, one that moved out of the hotel in a swarm that pushed through glass doors and pushed through the revolving door and the other moved back into the hotel and tried to get back on the elevators or throwing open the doors to the stairs to begin the long climb back up to their rooms. Yet in the middle of all that chaos there were a small handful of islands, a group of teens that watched it all unfold, two men in suits that sat in the chairs in the lobby that were already discussing and taking notes on the verbiage of the words that had appeared. As his eyes roved the separating crowd and took note of the unique individuals his gaze landed on something that hadn’t been there before.
Eyes trained over many long years to recognize patterns in long papers, and the body language of jurors during selection landed on a podium that sat slightly to the side of the revolving door with what appeared to be a single sheet of paper on top of it. In the frenzy of the mass exodus of the lobby it didn’t appear that anyone besides Phillip had seen or even been looking for anything out of the ordinary despite the messages, but its arrival seemed to set off another mass message.
Paths opening. The Dungeon Plague has fully infested universe 613920. Be careful.
There was an infestation here now, and something called paths were open now. He didn’t need to ask Jasmine if she had seen the second message because her shaking voice reached his ears with the banging of doors and shouts of frightened individuals.
“I saw that one too. What does this mean?”
With the second message came the news of a full infestation, whatever that meant was overshadowed by the bombshell in the second half. Universe 613920, one word and a number that would revolutionize how humans thought about this universe god forbid the other six hundred thousand. Phillip opened his phone and started to write down some notes as a scream shocked the room into silence.
“They disappeared! They went into the revolving door and disappeared!”
A cry rang out in the loud lobby as everyone turned to look at the door even as another group of people pushed their way through it. Now that was completely out of the ordinary, disappearing after going through a revolving door. A quick look revealed that might be correct but people still streamed through the side doors that remained pushed open. That was until the next group of people inside the revolving door pushed their way to the exit and immediately vanished. A few groups that had been pushed up against the door and waiting to get in froze and nobody dared take a step inside.
Phillips' eyes widened as his jaw dropped and his phone very nearly slipped from his grasp. Was this what the messages meant by paths opening, if so where were the dungeons? Dungeons were typically dark medieval prisons and paths were ways for people to move through places. Walking through a door didn’t seem like either of those two things but the only odd thing to physically appear was right in front of where the people disappeared from. Not that he made a move to part the crowd and observe it even as the words obstructing his vision slightly began to fade once more.
Now with a completely open field of view he saw the full scope of the crowd that had split apart. Both sides had nearly completely left the lobby even without using the revolving door for fear of disappearing into whatever the group had gone even if nobody was checking out the pedestal that looked as if it had always been there but most certainly hadn’t. Just as he wanted to leave his bags at the front desk and go inspect it, a third message filled his vision the longest yet.
Earth and most of universe 613920 appears to lack mana, this weakness has been corrected with the gift of 200 Points to each sentient being able to use The Paths but unable to use mana in their current state. Beware the Dungeons and good luck.
The existence of other universes beyond this one was once again confirmed to Phillip as he began to ponder what points were and how to use them. If the entire world was seeing these messages then the world was indeed going to change drastically from this day forwards. Again a warning about dungeons, the infestation must be truly dangerous for the messages to warn three times in quick succession but the new information presented was rather odd. What was mana, and what were points?
Summoned by his thoughts the words of the message were replaced by a massive wall of text that seemed to stretch downward into infinity. Countless options arrayed before him seemingly proving without a doubt that the messages were right. If this was what was needed for these dungeons then the world wasn’t just going to change forever, it just might be ending.
Points: 200
Available Paths: Taste Replication (0/10), Aberrant Mindscape (0/40), Wondrous Fare (0/100), Mana Infusion (0/15), Mana Battery (0/35), Temporal Perception I (0/25), Mana Tools (0/30), Necrotic Manipulation (0/150), Aberrant Armorflesh (0/10), Lodestone Intuition I (0/15), Lavaform Armor (0/100), Mentalist I (0/130), Beast Mastery I (0/50)...
The options seemed to be presented with no rhyme or reason, and the further Phillip investigated the deeper it drew him in. Infinite basic options that nearly overwhelmed him until one of the people that had been in the group of teens that had simply watched all the chaos unfold started to shake.
Screams didn’t echo in the nearly empty lobby anymore, Phillip had no idea if Jasmine was still behind him or not and it hardly mattered at this point. What was happening now was far more interesting than anything else in the entire world, more than the meetings he was likely going to miss because of what was happening right now. The kid was shaking violently as splotches of red began to appear on his skin that spread further and further with every passing second as the teen fell to his knees.
Phillip stepped closer, abandoning his bag as he approached the group of kids as they looked concerned but not enough to be calling an emergency number. By the time he arrived just outside the group the kid on his knees was completely red and the sound of ripping cloth caused even the two men in suits to look over as red leathery wings sprouted from the kids back and flared out wide into the air. Laughter filled the room as the kid rose to his feet again, Phillip could tell the kids eyes were almost glowing with an inner fire as he got a good look at what had happened.
“Fuck yes! It's all real! I took Devil form one, then two and three and four! Those points really made me into a devil!”
Some of the kids in the group looked excited but one or two looked down at someone who used to look like their friend but turned himself into a monster within moments of having the ability to do so.
The transformation being so complete stopped Phillip in his tracks even as his eyes returned to his own points screen until he located the path that the kid had mentioned quite far down his own list. It was a little expensive but the knowledge that certain paths advanced was invaluable for his own expenditure. In this crazy new world there was no doubt he would have to spend them to survive. The kid might just have been a little edgy but when armies began to spend their points on abilities like that, well he would have to be ready to survive what was coming.
It was right then and there that Phillip decided to check his phone to see if there was any more information on what was going on even if he was standing in the middle of the lobby, with only two groups there it wasn’t like he was getting in anyone's way. Thirty messages in the family group chat confirmed that his parents and two brothers had seen the messages already and found the points screen but hadn’t spent any yet. Twitter revealed no additional information on the paths besides what certain paths did and how they progressed as some quick thinking individuals began to craft theoretical builds with 200, 400, and even 600 points but it did have vague information about dungeons. It appeared that a dungeon could be behind any type of door and was marked by a pedestal that explained what was waiting on the other side. Whether a dungeon entrance was restricted to doors that humans could move through was up for debate, but that solved the mystery as to where the people in the revolving door had gone. Once the door was opened people who opened it disappeared into a dungeon but which dungeon had they gone into was a mystery until he read the paper on the podium.
Then a quick refresh made his blood run as cold as ice as the breaking news appeared at the top of his feed. While firing a nuclear weapon into the ocean a nuke from North Korea had vanished as soon as it was fired. Video showed the missile billowing smoke and beginning its ascent only to disappear suddenly. Thousands of comments were writing themselves as people guessed that maybe every single nuclear weapon was gone.
Reality came crashing down around Phillip as he closed the app and walked slowly over to the podium. His mind racing at a million miles an hour as he tried to guess what would happen to a world without nuclear enforced peace. The humanitarian crisis that would soon strike was horrifying to imagine. All those thoughts in his head ground to a halt at the sight of the podium and the paper that rested upon it. The first words on the paper revealed exactly where the two groups of hotel guests had gone, and made him start to wonder what humanity had done to deserve this.
The Pits of Hell
Phillip had never been more sure that the world was about to end.