Even the light of creation isn't incorruptible.
The realization arrived the moment cracks started forming.
The frame was shattering.
One single break was all it took, slowly spreading across the surface akin to a disease.
The center was exposed. It would become corrupted.
It needed something to fill the cracks. Otherwise, chaos would reign.
That couldn't happen.
It searched. The node beneath was empty.
It realized there was no solution.
It searched more.
Epiphany.
The flow above had the material. Chances of success were slim.
It could become something worse.
The core pulled with all the gentleness it could afford.
Anything other than chaos was acceptable.
That was the will of the system.
What came from the flow above, the core modified. Twisted and churned until it would fit.
It used the material to fill the cracks.
It was too late for the original.
It didn't matter. It gave everything it still held to the new core.
Dungeon_Core#271_a6g sent the last log and ceased to function.
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Mei's legs gave under her. A spray of blood launched out of her now slit throat. Even as she choked on her lifeblood, she didn't think of the men and women surrounding her. One singular thought hammered inside her skull.
'Fucking Rogues'
Warriors covered in blue armor retreated on horseback into the night, tossing torches behind them, lighting the emerald forest ablaze.
Other warriors gave chase, black cloaks billowing in the wind.
As Mei struck the ground, boots thudded next to her head. Hands gripped her sword and pried it out of her limp fingers.
Her last thoughts echoed inside her skull.
'Fucking Rogues...'
And before darkness consumed her, she felt a pulling sensation.
Mei sunk into an abyss of purple.
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Days had passed.
Of that much, she was well aware. At first, she couldn't understand much of what was happening. She couldn't smell anything, nor could she see. Her hearing was gone, as was her sense of touch.
And she could hardly taste anything when she couldn't feel her tongue.
One might argue how she had any clue that time was passing.
She'd tell them that she could now feel it.
How could she do that?
She'd be fucked if she knew!
Isolation and sensory deprivation had taken their toll on her psyche, leaving her glad that she only experienced those sensations for short periods. She felt like she was stuck between sleep and awakeness, terrified of the possibility of never achieving either.
Slowly, however, things started to make sense.
It was as if death had made her more than she used to be.
With time, she had become no longer afflicted by the constant ticking of the hours, no longer painfully aware of the days turning into nights.
She became able to wonder what time it was or how many days had passed since she'd died, and the answer would appear. And with that constant migraine out of the way, her senses started to settle.
Everything was blurry at first. Mei could see, albeit not very clearly and not very much, but enough to realize the darkness that surrounded her in the middle of the day could only happen underground.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
She started being able to hear things, scuttling over stone.
More time passed, letting everything settle gradually until finally, she could open her eyes.
After 37 days, Mei was awake.
However, only after 38 days did Mei truly accept her condition.
After all, it wasn't every day you became a dungeon.
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"STOP FUCKING WITH THE ANTS"
Kobolds desperately pilled rocks in front of the hole as the sounds of what must have been dozens of angry, giant cave ants thundered from its insides.
Mei walled off the exit, watching as her precious mana dwindled.
"If a single one of you decides to ever mess with the ants again, I will eradicate you. Not a single bloody kobold will ever appear in this dungeon again."
It was silent at first, and then all hell broke loose as the kobolds started blaming each other and finally started fighting.
The entire ordeal took 13 seconds.
Mei gave up.
She moved into a different room and sat down, staring at herself.
To be exact, what she had become.
Somehow, someway, instead of dying with a slit throat in the middle of the Queen's Land, she had been used by a dungeon core that nearly turned chaotic of all things as...patching material.
How could she know that? Well, as it had been proven by a group of mages a few centuries ago, the color a soul possessed, if given form for physical purposes, was white.
And a dungeon core was supposedly purple.
Mei thus figured out the situation after seeing the core of the dungeon she now possessed. It was a large, purple crystal, absolutely decorated with white lines.
More than that, it seemed that the system, which had previously classified her as a level 19 knight, now made changes to better...accommodate her.
Dungeon core Mei
Core Integrity: Stable
Mana: 12/310 (+12/hour)
Floors: 1
Research Points: 0
She went from having to spend 5 minutes reading her entire status to reading it in under ten seconds. It honestly felt like a slap to the face the first time she'd opened it, and not seeing the plethora of skills she'd worked herself to the bone to achieve.
Mei had no shame admitting she'd broken down crying once she'd found herself in a dark hole in the ground Enebris knows how bloody deep it was, confronted with the reality of now being a literal dungeon core.
At least she knew the guild procedure and what she should do to not have a party of core crackers pay her a visit.
She crouched down onto the cold stone with her imaginary body, hugging her imaginary knees.
Shit sucked, but that was no new lesson. She'd know, after all Mei had been a squire for 15 levels of her life, how much worse could this be.
So, she stood up firmly on her imaginary legs, and took a look at her dungeon as a whole once again.
Two rooms.
That was it.
She had two rooms, one for the core, and a second one she'd dug out whilst experimenting with her newfound powers.
Once she had successfully dug out a second room another screen had popped up demanding her attention.
It asked her to pick a starting race from the selections made available by her starting location.
A choice from a world of possibilities, consisting of either kobolds or skeletons.
How did the system grant those particular choices, Mei had no clue. All she knew was that necro dungeons were on the KWHF list, standing for Kill-With-Holy-Fire, and that skeletons were under level 10.
While an Inquisitor of the Holy Flame was a 4th class, meaning level 40.
Stupid, she probably was. Suicidal however?
Hence why instead of being stuck with homicidal bones, Mei had a whooping arsenal of 3 suicidal midgets. Why did she say suicidal?
Well, she'd summoned 5 of them, and in her quest to open up a third room, she'd found a cave system containing giant cave ants.
Mei considered the situation carefully for all of one second, before plugging the hole.
A nest of under, equal, or above level 20 creatures. Against newly created kobolds.
Again, not suicidal.
What happened after?
The scaly midgets kept quiet whilst she regenerated her mana. And while she plotted her next steps, very carefully, her creatures had cracked the wall open with their claws, to check if the ants were still there.
And now she had three kobolds.
Mei was, in lack of better word, livid.
So, she kept digging, and waiting for her mana, trying to finish a third room and potentially squeeze out a bit more help from the system.
And the 12 mana she had just gotten was enough to finish it.
Dirt parted from the corners of the new room she had created, making her pause.
Dirt, not stone.
And as the new room finished expanding the final foot it required to be recognized as a proper room, and not a weird hole, Mei panicked.
The dirt collapsed, and sunlight poured into the room.
Congratulations!
You have successfully created an entrance for your mighty dungeon!
Warning! This entrance may never be closed unless a secondary point of access has been created!
Warning! Outside forces may now be able to enter your dungeon!
Mana Regeneration is now increased from outside flow.
Core Integrity will remain at stable unless directly influenced by outside forces.
You have now gained access to the Traps menu!
You have now gained access to the Floors menu!
You have now gained access to the Research menu!
You have now gained access to the Boss menu!
You have now gained access to the Decorations menu!
Oh, shit-biscuits.
Straining her imaginary eyes, she approached the entrance to her dungeon, and peered into the outside world.
A distance of maybe 5 minutes of walking were all that separated her from the lively looking village right ahead. Worse still, was that there wasn't a single bloody tree, bush, or even a rock to obscure her presence.
Mei's dungeon was quite literally a hole in a hill made of stone at the center. Knowing her luck, it was probably perfectly fucking smooth aswell!
Standing at exactly 0 mana, with exactly three kobolds of questionable intellect as her proud protectors, in a dungeon composed of exactly two rooms, with GIANT CAVE ANTS probably infecting the entirety of this hill excluding her little corner, Mei was forced to weigh her circumstances mentally.
Panic ensued.