《A Lonely Dungeon》Epilogue: No longer just a dungeon
Advertisement
Our mission is a success. The outside world is gone, utterly destroyed by the last war between the races. Here, in our ark, in our unity, we live on still. The combination of the magic of the elves, technology of the dwarfs, ingenuity of the humans and the perseverance of the demons has given rise to something far greater than any of its individual parts. We have survived the world's end. Next comes the hard part; the world's beginning. We will create a united world, one without division, whose inhabitants will live on freely without the threat of war.
- From the diary of a member of the ark project
"Umm... System? Show me my status?"
There was no response. System assisted summoning was down and Skills were unusable. That was... a problem for another day, frankly. Erryn had just spent a week fighting for its life and was not about to go diving straight into another predicament. The links between cores seemed stable despite the... loss? Temporary misplacement? Whatever of [Mana Mastery]. Erryn could afford to take a break. So Erryn rested.
The smog cover broke apart, exposing the surface to the sun for the first time in decades. It made very little difference. There was still no life on the surface, so the sunlight simply lit up the brown and greys more brightly. However, it also shone down on the seas and lakes. Clouds formed. Wind blew. It rained, the patter of raindrops adding some sound to the previously silent surface.
Erryn stirred, and surveyed the damage. Vines and plants were growing uncontrolled in the dungeon, but at normal biologically sensible speeds. They would need to be left unattended for a long time before causing damage. Mana vision and mana control still worked, Erryn having mastered them properly and not simply relied on the Skill. Complex summoning or relocations were off the table for now, and [Inventory] could not be accessed, the status of everything stored within unknown. Neither did [Analysis] work. Enchanting was still fine, Erryn having never relied on that Skill to begin with.
More interestingly, the mountain void was a void no longer. The System crash had removed the interference that had blocked Erryn from entering or even perceiving that section of mountain. Erryn moved in, interested in what had been hidden there so well. There was a well disguised entrance hidden in the rock, leading to a tunnel whose walls shifted from stone to steel only a few metres in. That led deeper into the mountain, to solid and heavy doors that nevertheless posed no obstacle to Erryn. The interior seemed somewhat like a military barracks, but the design was something Erryn had never seen before. There were rooms that were obviously used for residence, but never more than four beds to a room unlike soldier barracks that slept dozens. The bedrooms came in different varieties too, with vastly different decorations and even bed sizes. There were mess halls, kitchens and store rooms, but no weapons, and no visible defences. Although quite obviously that did not mean that there were no defences at all.
Advertisement
The store rooms contained not only seeds, but also eggs and young animals in time suspending preservation enchantments. Tellingly, there were no runes involved. They were also of a higher quality than the preservation enchantment made available by [Rune Crafting], which would have torn apart something as complex as an animal. Furthermore, they were all still living, apparently protected from the life eating hex bomb. There was enough here to repopulate the world with plant and animal life.
Erryn found documents and books. They couldn't be read with [Analysis] or [Inventory] but that no longer mattered. Erryn smiled inwardly at the difficulty it had reading its first book, as it conjured up a tiny and perfectly controlled speck of air affinity, blowing pages over one by one. Even without the fingers and thumbs of the golems, reading was now a simple task. Erryn learnt that the war between Jetosu and Soutso was not the first time the surface of the world had been destroyed, that there was an earlier world where multiple sentient races had walked. After they had destroyed themselves this ark project had rebuilt the world. They used samples of the original plants and animals, but not of the sentient races. Having watched the races war among themselves for centuries, they decided that the only path to peace was to have only a single sentient race. They had combined traits from elves, dwarfs, humans and demons to create something new, and set them loose upon the world. They'd even gone so far as to ensure no difference in the colour of skin, hair or eyes.
They had created the System. A magi-technological marvel that could monitor and manipulate the entire world. Much of Erryn's assumption was correct; the purpose of the System was to stymie progress, to prevent the new population of the world from building weapons of sufficient scale to threaten the world's existence. This new population was released onto the surface with no understanding of science or of mana, or even the truth of where they had come from, and the System offered easy access to abilities and personal power. What reason would they have to begin research from scratch? Dungeons were effectively a part of the system, artificial constructs that crammed in sentient souls, existing to provide a common enemy for the new humanity to unite against and to provide a controlled supply of resources that were deemed too dangerous to permit humanity to manufacture on their own.
After setting up the foundation of the new world, the ark project members had simply died off of old age, largely remaining within this facility. They were after all of the old races, and had no part in this new world. They built it to replace themselves, not to be a part of it. All they had done outside was to restock the supplies of seeds and animals, in case something went wrong and they needed to restart. Erryn commended their foresight. The fatal mistake they had made in their assumptions was obvious, in Erryn's opinion: They thought that just because everyone looked alike that there would be no division. They seriously overestimated their creation.
Advertisement
Likewise, Erryn was of the opinion that they had also made a mistake in their execution. This little secret society had obviously held free will in a high regard. They structured the System to discourage external progress, but did nothing to physically prevent it. As such, the animosity between empires led to them devoting vast budgets to searching for ways to rise above their enemy, eventually culminating in development of the hex bomb. The System obviously had the capability of perception manipulation, and Erryn itself had used mind manipulation so it should be capable of that too. Giving complete free will to their creations was too much of a risk, and one that they hadn't needed to take.
Erryn looked upon the rooms full of machinery, enchantments embedded into tiny flakes of orichalcum with a fidelity well beyond anything Erryn was capable of. This was the physical form of the System, and Erryn held the instruction manual. And the reset button. Erryn smiled to itself again. It would do better; it would create a world that truly knew peace. A world in which war was not only not an option, but was not even a word in their language.
The previously created humanity was a failure, and was not needed for what Erryn had planned. It would restore the original races of this world. Or perhaps they were the races that a previous ark project had created after yet another older world ending event. Who knew? But Erryn could only work with what it had available. This was actually more than just the elves, dwarfs, humans and demons that survived till the end; there was material here from all of the old races. Fairies, beastkin and more had been eradicated before the final war. The last four survived largely because at that point should an alliance form between any two against one other, the fourth would join in to protect the target, lest the alliance finish them off next. It had been stability of a sort, up until the final four-way war.
Erryn marched in a few golems, who began poking at buttons on the machinery.
System commencing hard reset.
System boot in progress...
Entity 'Erryn' registered as administrator.
Blades of grass pushed up through the soil. More plant life followed them. Soon animals would be released to breed. It would be a long time yet before the world was ready to support sentient races once more, but at least it was now a question of when and not if.
Erryn thought back to the dungeon rules it was born with. Even there, nothing physically stopped it from breaking them. It simply knew when one was broken, and had a strong instinct to fix it. In this new world, it would not be instinct. It would be Law, written into the very souls of the people and impossible for them to disobey. Impossible to even consider disobeying. They would be Erryn's people. And Erryn would be... Not a god. A protector, there to protect these self-destructive children from themselves. A mother then. Erryn would be the mother of these people.
It... no, she smiled to herself as she began reconfiguring the System. An intelligence completely alien to the humans, an artificially created predator born to lure and kill, had decided to serve as their protector instead. But Erryn had never met one of the races she had decided to recreate. She had never met anyone. An intelligence that was alien to start with had spent its whole life alone, trapped in a world devastated by war and forced to deal with the aftermath. And as she set up new rules within the System to strip her children of their free will, and even to hide from them the fact that their freedom had been taken, she thought only of what a nice and loving thing she was doing for them.
No longer just a dungeon, but in Erryn's eyes the mother and protector of all intelligent life. To the eyes of those of the ark project, were they still here, the ultimate authoritarian dictator. And thus the world began its next cycle. How long this one would last until it reached the inevitable next period of destruction, only time would tell.
Advertisement
Awakened Soul, Book One: The Deep Hollows
Dying is supposed to be the last thing you do. For Raymond Baines, it was only the begining. Barely escaping the afterlife with his soul mostly intact and now reincarnated as a very unimpressive monster, he'll have to work hard to survive the nightmarish underground labyrinth he now finds himself in. Along the way he'll have to grow and evolve himself while avoiding the true terrors that lurk in the deep darkness of the world, embarking on a journey that will lead him to places untouched by mortals in millennia to discover the terrifying secret behind his new home. But maybe some secrets were meant to stay buried...
8 191Lament of the Slave
The world is not always as beautiful and forgiving as one would imagine, and Korra Grey, a young florist, who is abducted by a creature of the children's books, finds herself in another world quickly learning that life can be even crueler than she thought.After more than a year of pain and suffering in the madman's cellar, she gets what she sought the most, freedom. Though changed by cruelty she suffered. Either she learns to live with the mutations or finds a way to reverse them while she struggles to find her own place in a world utterly unknown to her, hunted not only by the nightmares of her past.
8 1046Hiraeth: Promise of the World
On a rainy night, a young woman is transported to the enchanting world of Sol'h'meyr. Thrilled to be freed from the shackles of monetary survival and societal expectations on Earth, she embraces her newfound existence and magical powers bestowed. But the rose-tinted fantasy life she always dreamed of turns out to be a stark reality that poses to kill her if she doesn't adapt and let go of her past. Essairyn battles both cripping nostalgia and imminent danger in her journey from the Spirit and Demon Forest to the human realm of As'pyze. Disillusionment leading to anger has erupted into violence across the deceptively peaceful land. New friends and allies gather by her side, but tragedy and betrayal lurk closer than she realizes. Hiraeth is the idyllic beginning tainted with dark shadows in the epic fantasy series, Singularity Cycle. [ – Now Completed with upcoming minor revisions before second book – ] + complex character relationships and growth + realistic quirky magic system + unique mythical creatures + deeply developed world lore + evocative writing style + cute sassy fox sidekick - Original Book Cover Art by Chryiss Rewritten final version of formerly named Canaan series and first book, My World to Live. After a long wait and major changes, the first book in the series is retitled Hiraeth: Promise of the World. Thank you to all readers that joined me since I began posting this story two years ago. Your support is what motivated me to never give up my dreams. [ Major Tags: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Tragedy, Female Lead, Grimdark, High Fantasy, Magic, Mythos, Portal Fantasy, Isekai, Progression, Reincarnation, Secret Identity, Strong Lead, Epic Fantasy, Spirits, Demons, Monsters, Fairies, Dragons, Kingdom, Parallel Dimension, Mage, Knight, Royalty, Philosophy, Friendship, Slow Burn, Mythical. + Major Tags not in Book 1 but later in Series: Supernatual, Science Fiction, Ruling Class, School Life, Time Travel, War and Military, Vampires, Dimensional Travel. Minor Tags: Comedy, Horror, Artificial Intelligence, Cyberpunk, Dungeon, Dystopia, Loop, Steampunk, Virtual Reality, Villainous Lead. ] Additional Notes: The series, Singularity Cycle, is a passion project dating back to 2016. The original version of the first book was published on RR in 2019 and has since seen multiple revisions based on reader feedback with this one as the final and official fourth version before the second book. While the entire series story has undergone major changes in the last year, all books have been planned since the beginning of writing. It is also my second wish to eventually make this story into a webcomic, either by myself or with a team if possible. Thank you for taking this journey with me, and enjoy reading! ( You can alternatively read books in the series as standalone fictions, but they connect to one another though a running theme and mystery that evolves and progresses with the main character. ) Alternate Blurb for the Singularity Cycle series: Essairyn had never felt truly alive on Earth. It felt like something was missing ever since she was born, but even after nearly 20 years of mundane living, she could never pinpoint what this or the emptiness in her heart was. Suddenly, she awakens in a grandiose, primordial forest and encounters mythical creatures beyond her restless imagination in a parallel world called Sol'h'meyr. She befriends, in particular, a sassy fox-spirit named Akari who reincarnated after three millennia. Essairyn is gifted with abnormal magic, and Akari is being chased by those of her dark past. Together, they set out on an adventure in a world more dangerous than its beautiful facade could hide. Finding new friends along a path riddled with tragedy, Essairyn must learn who to trust as deceit and betrayal lie behind kindly faces. Life in this deceptively promising world slowly spirals down a path of no return. This is not a game, but cruel reality. Her simple adventure became the modest beginnings in a chain of disruptions that tore even the dimensional fabric of time and space. No one, not even Essairyn, was who she thought they were. And not even the fickle gods could change the time-worn destiny of the universes... A single promise shook eternity’s existence.
8 142Kichiro's Rampage
Meet Kichiro, the son of a samurai. A social outcast, he leaves his home with nothing but a musket and a sword, determined to carve himself a niche in a chaotic world of dragons and leviathans. This fiction incorporates LitRPG elements, but it's not set in a VR. It's set in a fantastical world based loosely on East Asia in the 16th and 17th Century, when the Ming Dynasty was on its last legs, with the addition of magic and monsters. I totally stole the stat tables from Exterminatus, the author of Everybody Loves Large Chests, so let me credit him for that. I'm new to writing so please don't hesitate to criticise, and reviews would be greatly appreciated.
8 163Miss Haruhi Fujioka? (Reader x Haruhi) (Lesbian Story)
The host club is your favourite thing in the world! Why is that? Because Haruhi is there!!! You can't help but love him. You get so nervous around him. But what happens when you take it too far and find out his well-kept secret?
8 73TMNT 2012 one shots
one shots and fluff between characters (not all of it is shipping unless there is an "x"). not accepting requests.
8 79