“Oh, I have no trouble breathing, Dominic.” Her voice was deep and breathy. “Nor should you worry about your position in my realm. It fits your personality. I always assess a person’s spirit before calling them to this world to ensure they are sealed to a dungeon befitting them.”
“Really? What makes you think I’d be best matched with an Infernal Dungeon? I was a Paladin of the Golden Seraph, after all.”
“You may have been on the side of the light, but you carry in yourself a great darkness. You were spurned at your previous occupation, and already plot the downfall of your enemies.”
“That’s true,” I said. I wasn’t sure how she could know this since I hadn’t told anyone my plans to destroy the rival marketing companies that had cost me my job. This VR terminal was one hell of a machine if it could sense that much.
“You desire the power to enforce your will upon others for the greater good,” the goddess continued.
“People don’t know exactly what they need.” I made a mental shrug.
“You are cunning beyond measure,” Lilith said.
“Yeah, you’re right about that. Sounds like I’m your man, Lilith.”
“The Infernal Dungeon should be your home.”
“Your game, your rules.” Well, I had to start somewhere; it might as well be hell.
“Excellent. And on the matter of choice, you need not worry. There will be many, many decisions to be made as an Infernal Dungeon core. You are actually my first in a very, very long time. The other realms have many dungeons, but you shall be the lone Infernal Dungeon.”
“I’ll have you all to myself then?” I doubted I’d actually be the only player operating a dungeon in the Infernal Realms since that would lead to balancing problems on the developer end, but I was happy to go with it for now.
“Yes, but I am only capable of setting you on the right path. After that, you shall be on your own. The Others have forbidden me from creating another dungeon core. My last cores proved far too troublesome for the other realms.”
“I can’t guarantee I won’t be trouble.”
“Oh, I am more than aware of the chaos you shall bring to the realm.”
“Tell me more about being a dungeon core.”
“You shall be the very heart of a dungeon. You will have control over what monsters lie within, the layout of the various floors, and the rewards adventurers seek inside your perilous depths. A dungeon core needs these soldiers of fortune to live. When the heroes and heroines command the arcane forces, they leave residual essences behind. These essences make the land and the creatures that inhabit it stronger.”
“Do they make a dungeon stronger?”
“Not by themselves. A dungeon must slay these adventurers to earn what is called Soul Essence. Please me in your brutality, and you will be appropriately rewarded. Impale, eviscerate, and decapitate.” The goddess let out a little moan as a forked tongue flashed across her lips.
“I see,” I said as I tried to dismiss my sudden attraction to her sadism. “So, I’m basically a dungeon master.”
Lilith tilted her head as if she didn’t understand. “You are a dungeon core.”
“Right.”
“But you are something else, too. You are my Viceroy. As thanks for bringing you to this world, I have a special task for you.”
“Go on.”
“I want you to become the most widely renowned dungeon in all the realms,” she continued. “You must capture the attention of the strongest guild. Entropy.”
“Entropy? They couldn’t think of something less obvious?”
“It has been their moniker for millennia,” she said.
“Long time. Why are you interested in this guild? Do they have some kind of diabolical plan to take over the realms? Or are they threatening to destroy all the dungeons?”
“That is for you to find out. It will take some time, perhaps years, for you to become sufficiently infamous for Entropy to visit your dungeon.”
"I like the sound of that. Not the years part, of course. I’m a pretty impatient guy.”
Even if it did take me months to master this game world, I wouldn’t mind. The level of sensory detail so far was astounding, so I expected the developers would include some tactile experience in the sealing. I hoped it wouldn’t be too painful since some of these games could really take things a step too far.
And painful it was.
I screamed as my entire being was ripped apart from the inside out. A loud slurp pounded against my eardrums, and I felt like the last drop of water being sucked down a drain. My spirit cried out in agony for what felt like days upon end, and then everything vanished inside a split second.
When I’d been a disembodied spirit, I’d still had some semblance of human-like senses, but now I had a strange feeling of omnipresence. I was everywhere at once, yet completely displaced. I had no sense of self, no understanding of my surroundings.
“Do you hear me, Dominic?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“What do you sense?”
I wanted to tell the goddess I couldn’t feel a damned thing. My entire mind felt imprisoned, incarcerated within a cell of complete nothingness.
Absence. An abyss.
Then something flickered inside the darkness, and I focused upon that center of light. No bigger than the head of a pin, but it expanded when my consciousness targeted it. Soon, I was feeling what I’d become. My faces were rock-hard, my edges sharp enough to slice through skin. The more I studied my surface, the more I learned of my nature.
I was a tiny jewel, formed of the same crimson material as Lilith’s throne room.
“This is you,” Lilith explained. “You are now a dungeon core.”
“I feel weird.”
“You have undergone an incredible transformation. It is normal to feel like you want to escape. But you cannot.”
“You’re saying I can’t log out?”
“Log out? Oh, I realize now what
