by Marc Robert
“Chief. This is NOT a good idea right now … ”
But the corgi’s desperate pleading receded as Osman’s drowsy mind closed in on itself, overtaken by the warm and cozy lure of slumber. He slumped over and promptly fell asleep. And it was a deep and dark sleep, deep enough that he did not see — nor hear the bling! of — the game’s next notification.
“Oh shit,” Plex said, staring up at the words:
{Your dungeon is now officially … OPEN FOR BUSINESS!}
Night Of The Living Demon!
A woman’s scream cut through the gloom, waking Osman from his slumber.
He leapt to his feet, immediately equipping his iron rod and turning in the direction of that sound.
WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!
And how long had he been out for?
His mind was all sluggish and cobwebby, gummed up by the remnants of some bad dream he had been having. Something with … tentacles; some Thing made out of the darkness itself. The dread feeling that it gave him was the same feeling that he felt when he first saw his own reflection in that puddle smiling back at him for just a tad bit too long, way back at the beginning of all this. Except for that eerie feeling, he could barely remember the dream …
Plex was barking wildly in the dark, which only aided the wispy fragments in Osman’s head to slip away unremembered.
The dungeon lord grimaced, trying to get his bearings. He held the rod like a mace, like he was about to pummel someone’s skull with it and peered across the cavernous room. Using his Night Vision, he could see a huge, hulking figure moving around in a weird sort of way:
Wrestling?
Struggling???
Something …
Something liiiiiiike … struggling to try and hold someone down!
The woman screamed again, a blood-curdling cry.
“HOY!” Osman shouted, “What’s going on over there?!”
The figure looked up at him with its smoldering eyes and death’s head face, and Osman knew then EXACTLY who it was:
That Reanimated Fire-Demon!!!
What the hell?!
What was it doing down here?
And, what’s more, how did it get inside Osman’s starter room??? He had thought that this place was completely sealed off from the outside world.
And, if it was sealed off, then how did IT get in?!
A second figure stepped from the shadows then, wearing a black hooded cloak quite similar to Osman’s own. The figure was shorter than the fire-demon, and a bit overweight — definitely humanoid. Osman couldn’t see his or her face because of the hood, but he suspected that it was this figure who had summoned the fire-demon back from the dead out on that muddy road between The Esk’lyn Wood and The White Keep.
He or she must be some kind of spellcaster! the dungeon lord thought. Maybe THAT’S how they managed to get down here …
“Osman Spar,” the figure said, all velvety-smooth: “It’s been a looooong time.”
Plex let out a little bark and Osman realized that the corgi was standing directly beside him, at his feet.
“You know this person, chief?” the dog asked, scrapping at the stone floor with the tiny white claws of his hind legs, fixing for a fight.
Osman shrugged his shoulders, not totally sure. It was exactly the same feeling that he had out there on the muddy road: the figure’s voice was INCREDIBLY FAMILIAR, yet impossible for him to place.
The corgi grrr’d …
Now that the raiders were distracted by Osman and his dog, the woman on the floor started to try and get to her feet. She was just about to lift herself into a sitting position when the hooded figure kicked her square in the belly, making sure that she stayed down.
Osman’s eyes widened …
The woman oof’d in response to the kick, taking the blow in stride. She didn’t scream again, but just lay there, clutching her stomach, curled in the fetal position.
Seeing that was TOO MUCH for the dungeon lord! He was gonna kill these raiders for treating the woman that way!!!
He squinted, trying to make out her face …
Was she …
Was she wearing some kind of … skeleton mask?!
This was all way too surreal!
But it didn’t matter: Osman was gonna save her nonetheless. This was HIS dungeon and these asshats were NOT WELCOME HERE!
In tandem with that thought, the dungeon lord felt The Hunger erupt in the pit of his being, like a volcano suddenly blowing its top, taking command of the whole of his body, a raging inferno driving him into close-quarters combat with no other thought in his head than to FEEEEED!!!
He leapt across the room toward the fire-demon, closing the space between him and the creature so fast that it barely had time to equip its ginormous flaming war-hammer or even react. Osman bellowed at the top of his lungs like some crazed berserker, raising the iron rod as if it were a baseball bat! He swung it with all his might and the bulbous head of the rod smashed into the death’s head mask that the demon wore as a face with a sickening crunch, bringing the fiery creature to its knees. It dropped its hammer, the weapon’s flame going dark just as quickly as it had ignited even as several pieces of the shattered mask skittered across the floor.
And it was in that moment that Osman realized that perhaps it was the mask itself that was the source of the demon’s power.
He could kill this Thing, if he stayed focused!
He stared down at the creature, {-11 MP} hanging in the air in that puffy yellow font above its head.
The notification swirled away accompanied by that little “gust of wind” sound effect and the dungeon lord nodded to himself, quickly scrying the fire-demon’s Soul Stats, eager to find out all that he could about his opponent as well as perhaps discover a clue or two as to how this creature and its new master had found their way into his dungeon:
Name: Bala’bash
Race: Fire-Demon (Revenant)
Mana: 39 / 50 (MP)
Class: Warrior
Level: 3
Rank: Novice
Alignment: Chaotic
Primary Skill: Bludgeon Weapons
(1) War-Hammer
Innate Abilities:
(1) Hulking Strength
Items:
Death’s Head Mask (cursed) (1)
Suit Of Demon Armor (magma breastplate + accessories) (1)
Ginormous War-Hammer (“Ash’agash”)
Mana Core (1)
Like with Plex, the first thing Osman noticed was that the fire-demon had no Health Points, only MP. That was odd! Maybe the creature was an extension of the hooded figure’s soul, just like Plex was an extension of Osman’s own soul?
But, if that were the case, then that would make this figure some sort of other … dungeon lord?!
The thought of that scared the hell out of Osman! Not to mention the fact that he still didn’t know who the hooded figure was exactly! He wasn’t even certain if the figure was male or female. It was as if the person’s voice had been scrambled in some way, which was definitely possible, he or she being some type of magic-user and all.
Osman knew that if he wanted to discover the figure’s true identity, he was going to have to scry their soul, which meant waiting for the current Stat Check Pause to expire and then training his Soul Scrying ability on the hooded figure immediately upon expiry.
In the meantime, the dungeon lord eyed the demon and thought about how pathetic a foe the creature had turned out to be. He considered snuffing out its miserable un-life right then and there, just as soon as the Stat Check Pause was over, with one final whack from his iron rod. Would only be fair, he thought, this being the creature that STOLE MY GODDAMN LIFE and all!
(Where was all this pent-up … ANGER coming from? The Hunger, maybe?)
It took every ounce of Osman’s willpower to check his craving for revenge, at least for the moment … for there was something — some nagging thing — that he felt like he was overlooking here.
Not confirmation that th
e demon had truly been summoned back from the dead, which was confirmed by the fact that “Revenant” was listed next to “Fire-Demon” in its stats.
Nor the fact that its creepy death’s head mask was indeed the source of its power, at least in its current — reanimated — form. Osman knew that his guess about that had been correct when he saw “cursed” listed next to the mask in the creature’s inventory.
But so then what was it …
… what was he NOT seeing?
He thought and thought — and thought some more — and then it struck him: like a boulder dropped on his head!
The fire-demon had MORE THAN HALF of its mana still intact!!!
That made the dungeon lord salivate like some kind of starved animal, and birthed tons of dark thoughts in his brain.
What more could he do with this Thing?
What SHOULD he do with it?
He looked across the room at that mystery figure standing paused, and then his eyes came to rest upon the woman at the figure’s feet. She was still curled in the fetal position on the cold stone floor. Osman could see her better now, with everything paused. She was wearing very little clothes: a dirty cotton loin cloth across her bare hips and a minuscule chainmail bralet that barely covered her large, round breasts. She did look familiar! Osman thought for a moment that it might be Kendall and his heart began to race. But he couldn’t quite tell for sure, because of that goddamn skeleton mask that she was wearing.
He vowed to himself that — as soon as the Stat Check Pause ended — he was going to sprint across the room and fling that mask away and see just who that woman was for certain. That’s what he was going to do, all else be damned!
But then that raging inferno of an infinity symbol flashed in his mind and The Hunger he felt right then and there, in that moment, almost tore him apart from the inside out. He screamed in agony just as the Pause ended, and then stowed his iron rod in his inventory and descended upon the fire-demon like some ravenous vampire swooping down upon its prey.
Osman took the creature’s magma-helmed head between his trembling hands and hissed low in his throat, totally overcome by The Hunger, a dark energy coiling in his chest and then whipping free, channeling down both his trembling arms. This crackling black current created some kind of mana-circuit between himself and the demon and, via this infernal pathway, Osman began sucking out the Thing’s soul.
He threw back his head in ecstasy and his mouth opened wide — more like the maw of a red dragon, or Pennywise the clown — than any human mouth!
Brrr-br!
{You have acquired your second spell … SOUL SUCK}
Osman felt SO GOOD, the demon’s mana flowing through him then …
{+39 MP} appeared above the dungeon lord’s head in that gleaming green font as the hulking creature literally withered to death between his hands, the raging red fire of its body growing all cold and dark, its craggy suit of armor clattering to the floor, gray ash and embers spilling out from the insides.
“Holy hell: you did it, chief!” Plex exclaimed.
Osman stared down at the dog, his eyes blazing with a hollow, monstrous light, which made the corgi yelp and cover his face with his paws.
The little minion really didn’t want to be the one who got eaten next!
“Chief!” he shouted, “Get a hold of yourself. We still got raiders down here!!!”
Dungeon Type
Osman eyed the panicked corgi, then looked up at the gleaming green notification still hovering just above his own head:
{+39 MP}
He watched as the notification burst into a shower of coins accompanied by that glorious cha-ching! sound effect that he so loved to hear and a big grin spread across his face. The monstrous light faded from his eyes and he became more grounded in himself again.
He crouched down and touched the vacated {Demon Armor}, which lay discarded on the floor. Bliiiiimmmp! It was added to his inventory, causing his grin to grow even wider. Osman knew that if this Dungeon Seed module continued to operate like Simulah’s other games, then he wouldn’t be able to safely don the armor quite yet; not until he gained some mastery over it, but it was a good start just to have it in his possession for now.
And then his eyes came to rest upon that {Ginormous War-Hammer}. He wanted that as well, of course! It was a bludgeon weapon, after all. He reached out and touched its bone-white handle and — again — he heard that uplifting bliiiiimmmp! sound, confirming that the hammer had been added to his list of items. As with the armor, he would need to train with it a bit first and acquire the skill to wield it before he could safely use the weapon during combat, but that shouldn’t be too complicated.
Not a bad haul, the dungeon lord thought, not bad at all!
He was just about to turn his attention back to that hooded figure when a second notification manifested before him:
{Congratulations, you have consumed the soul of your first raider! You may now choose your … DUNGEON’S TYPE}
Oh oh, what’s this?! Osman wondered excitedly. He assumed that he would just continue on with his plan to save the voluptuous young woman now that his Hunger had been temporarily sated. But it looked like he was gonna get WAY MORE than a mana bump and a few precious items out of killing the fire-demon!
The congratulatory message swirled away, replaced by three words:
{Brawler}
{Glutton}
{Lecher}
Hmm … interesting choices, Osman thought, although none of them sounded particularly “good,” at least not in the “lawful” sense of the word “good.” However, maybe he needed to lean into his new Chaotic alignment in the same way that he had decided to lean into The Hunger. He was an infernal now, a monster — at least in part — and perhaps monstering up his Soul Stats a little more would go a long way toward ensuring his own survival.
And, if he was determined to play it that way, then which Dungeon Type would be the best one for him to choose?
Which one could he really see himself … mastering?
On the face of it, {Brawler} sounded way too Warrior class for him and, for that reason, Osman almost dismissed it out of hand. However, when he went to swipe it away — just as the tip of his index finger hovered over the word — some additional information popped up in the form of a pictogram:
An incredibly muscular young man wearing only boxing trunks with arrows indicating his face, chest, and trunks.
The arrow pointing to his face read: “Matt Damon Smile”
The one indicating his chest: “Impeccable Pecs”
And the arrow aimed at his trunks: “Well-Endowed Member”
How obvious, Osman thought, obvious and actually … strangely appealing! (Maybe THIS was his inner monster yearning to get out!!!)
He eyed the pictogram and seriously considered taking on the mantle of this dashing brute who looked to be able to One-Punch-Man his way to almost any victory as well as bed a dozen feral monster girls in a single night without breaking so much as a sweat. It was a pretty attractive prospect, actually!
Osman lowered his finger, foregoing his initial impulse to dismiss this option out of hand, and decided to at least view the other two possibilities first before making his final choice.
He ran the tip of his finger over the word {Glutton} and, within a millisecond, a similar pictogram popped up for that option as well. This one depicted:
A bear of a man wearing an embroidered fur robe with a high collar and a golden belt tied loosely around his waist, arrows indicating his mouth, gullet, and groin.
The arrow pointing to his mouth read: “Jovial Laugh”
The one indicating his gullet: “Insatiable Maw”
And the arrow aimed at his groin: “The Burden Of Plenty”
The figure reminded Osman of The Fat King from Game Of Thrones — Robert Baratheon; but also, at the same time, the ruddy-cheeked Ghost Of Christmas Present from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Both characters had their pros and cons, of course: fearless warrior/shi
t king (Baratheon); jolly giant/fleeting disposition (The Ghost). But it was this latter characteristic that gave the dungeon lord the most pause …
The Ghost Of Christmas Present lived only for the here-and-now, only in the here-and-now, which was also more or less how Good King Robert had driven The Seven Kingdoms to the brink of ruin. Osman was super-wary of becoming that kind of ruler! But, on the other hand, there was something to be said for being an extravagantly jubilant and merry king, drunk on wine and banging fair maidens to your heart’s content.