Lessons from Agony

Chapter 2

I didn't bother moving from where I'd been placed for half an hour. I spent part of the time wallowing in everything I'd learned. The rest was spent trying to make myself wallow longer while spinning in slow circles in my chair. Trying to hit a minimum level of emotional distress was hard work when you didn't actually care. 

A fact which bothered me on a fundamental level. I still felt things, but they weren't within a reasonable range, given the situation. Shit had gotten really weird, and I was way too okay with it.

"Open interface," I said aloud. I'd reached an intolerable level of boredom rather than a revelation of distress.

"The shit?" I said, surprised not by the window opening, but by my voice. I couldn't think of what it should sound like. Yet a double-layered whisper of opposing ranges seemed unlikely to be the original human voice.

"Do Re Mi Fa-" I stopped, the sound of my attempt at singing weirding me out too much. Thinking the command to close the window, it obliged, and my view was unobstructed once again. I tried several other variations on mental commands to get it open. They all worked, seeming to function off intent rather than my specific phrasing.

Looking at the window, I found five tabs. The first unlabeled one seemed to contain my personal information. The second was inventory, which had a single item, my Dungeon Core. The blue pearlescent ball looked cute to me. I felt an urge to take it out but resisted. Once it was out, it would be vulnerable to attack. How I knew that I couldn't have explained it as anything but instinct.

Glancing down, I found a little counter at the bottom. It was the sideways-eight of infinity. I wondered for a moment if that was the bonus I'd gotten for Eric Rashad's death. Feeling morbid, I moved to the next tab. The item store had its own set of tabs for terrain, traps, monsters, decor, and a points section. Everything not under the points section had a mana cost, I'd have to place my core before I could buy anything.

The Dungeon Map was blank, to be filled in as I built mine. The next tab was Dungeon Inventory, which I assumed was meant to reflect only what was placed. The final tab was Creatures and blank like the others.

The review only took two minutes, and I was back to the blank tab. I scanned my personal information as recorded out of curiosity, it didn't take me long to spot something was off. There was an empty field, just one. If it had been something like my class, I would have understood it being blank. That it was the name field was the inexplicable part. My title, Master, was filled in neatly. My level, one, filled in. Species, Dungeon Master.

Even the countdown until the end of the year was ticking along happily. That it displayed a gracious three weeks instead of two was a momentary relief. Worse, or stranger, depending on how you looked at it, I couldn't remember what my name had been.

I could remember lots of other things about my previous world. Pizza toppings, famous people, the Macarena, all of that was intact. My personal information was missing for some reason. I knew I'd been a human before, but that was it.

National origin, skin color, hair length, and everything else about myself was blank. Even my gender felt like something I was sort of assuming, but it fit. Looking down at myself, I thought I would see some of what I'd forgotten but was rudely surprised. I didn't find a familiar or unfamiliar appearance. Instead, it was another item to add to the list of personal things missing.

I was a human-ish shaped shadow thing now. My limbs were of semi-transparent darkness, and when I poked myself, I barely felt it. Punching the arm of the chair produced a dull sensation that let me know I'd struck something. It didn't provide the expected pain. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should have reacted with panic or experienced dysphoria.

Spinning in my chair, I considered the situation and the changes to my body with an unnatural calm. Deciding I didn't know enough to choose, I looked at my species and found a question mark tooltip next to it. Opening it, a brief description appeared.

Under the description was a chart with the progression of transformation levels. They started at Demi Dungeon Master, which was still ninety percent of the base species. It ended at Dungeon Master. I had completed the full transformation if the chart and my listed species was anything to go by.

The description said I didn't need food, sleep, or even to breathe. I was a spectral manifestation of will and memory-bound to the core as the center of my life source. The only trait I couldn't confirm was if my eyes were orbs of fire, thanks to a lack of a mirror or reflective pool.

Getting up from the chair, I found myself floating in the air. I bobbed a bit in the breeze but didn't drift more than an inch or two unless I wanted to. I moved by the same process as I had when I was flesh and blood, what was responding changed but not how.

A fact I confirmed when I drifted into a tree. It bruised my dignity instead of causing pain. I'd decided in the middle of the motion to see if I had "feet". I found a wisp of shadow that would separate into legs if I thought about it but reverted when I didn't.

What I could see of my new body was female-shaped but with a flat appearance. I could feel it wasn't two dimensional. The issue was all features were lost unless seen in profile or outline. Like my lack of feet, my hands looked like mittens unless I was doing something. My fingers looking fused together if close to each other.

"Shiiiit," I muttered in my weird new voice. I found it sounded different than the first time. It was still layered and whispery, but like different women were doing the whispering. I flopped back down in my chair, not disturbing it with my nearly weightless form.

I didn't have an endocrine system to trigger an existential freak-out. I had to think about things with a clear head. It seemed that nature would no longer be giving me helpful and not so helpful hints about what to do. Without any definite plan or experience, I fell back on my new standby, sitting in the chair and staring.

I watched the day fade into the night. The unpolluted sky produced a lackluster sunset but revealed a gorgeous starry night. The planet I was on had three moons. The smallest was pale yellow, like buttermilk. The largest was a blush of pink but dimmer than the smaller moon. In the middle, a bluish-grey one was like the familiar one from the sky of my homeworld.

I didn't feel homesick or scared of what had happened. I could appreciate the beauty in front of me, from the subtle way my vision shifted to accommodate the darkness to the starry sky. Who I'd been before was gone, corroded away by the transformation. I, as I currently existed, was all there was.

I was a nameless Dungeon Master who needed to decide what that meant. After an hour, I still had no idea what it meant to me and no sense of urgency about figuring it out. Accepting that as a half-assed answer itself, I gave a mental shrug.

No matter what the decision I came to, it didn't change the situation. I'd agreed to build a dungeon, and my continued existence depended on doing it well. I had three weeks and had wasted two hours trying to feel things I didn't. It was time to get to work.

"Manual? Tutorial?" I said aloud, wanting to get used to the sound of my voice. I didn't expect anything so convenient to appear, but they did as a pair of pop-ups. I could remember when playing games, it was better to do the tutorial first. The manual, if it was like the ones I was familiar with, would be overwhelming. I'd be better off using it for reference once I understood the basics.

The forest around me shimmered like heat haze, and I found myself in a lava tube. I could smell sulfur and feel a warmth that was a little uncomfortable. Since I felt it so strongly, it must have been at least at boiling blood levels of heat. My body didn't sense much of anything, after all.

A sign in a cheerful palm tree-themed font informed me I had arrived at the Labyrinth of Lava.

Under Construction!

A sign taped to the first sign added. I was starting to feel like I'd be getting my intro from a talking fruity umbrella drink.

"Hi! I'm Agony! I'll be your guide for this tutorial," a cheerful voice said suddenly, making me jump in surprise. A small humanoid, made of lava, hovered in front of me. Its face and body were a combination of black stone, glowing fiery heat, and it looked adorable. I dubbed him a Lava Sprite in my head but didn't say it aloud.

"I'm… still working on a name. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agony," I said, realizing I'd forgotten about my lack of a name. I could have called myself anything from Barbie to Janice, and it would have been fine. Only it wouldn't have been fine for me.

It didn't feel right to pick something mundane. I wanted my new name to sound badass. Actually badass. Not edgelord-ish like ‘Mistress Nightshade’ or some other vampire-romance OC name.

"No problem! Would you like to start the tutorial or skip it?" Agony asked, his smile seeming strained.

"I'd like to start, please," I said, confused by the option to skip. I'd had to start it, so it didn't make sense to skip.

"Really? You'll still get the bonus items if you skip." Agony seemed surprised and mistrustful of my answer as if he thought I was teasing him.

"I want to learn how to do this right," I said with confidence, despite not feeling much. If Agony didn't get many chances to teach because people skipped, then I was in for a rough ride.

"We're going to get along," Agony said after a slight pause, a glowing smile cracking the blackened stone of his face.

"Follow me!" He shouted and started flying down the lava tube. He brought me to what he called the core room of the pre-fab dungeon. Once we were in, he started the tutorial with a cheerful burst of video game music.

The similarity to Sim and Tower Defense games was intense. A fact that made things easy to follow, even when Agony went too fast, which was most of the time. He zipped around like a kid showing off his treasures to a new friend. I floated after him as quickly as I could, happy to be the friend.

"You can buy terrain tiles in your shop. Buy four of whatever to hit the goal, but then I'll show you a trick," Agony said, hovering in a bouncy way as he waited for me to comply. I did as he said, and a burst of little magic fireworks went off with a text scrawl letting me know I'd hit my goal.

"Okay, now go into your map and select ‘grid view’" Agony said, and I tried to comply, but would have been scrunching up my nose if I'd had one. I was in the map view but couldn't find anything that said grid.

"I can't find it," I admitted after looking a few times. There wasn't anything aside from the map.

"Oh...Try thinking ‘view options’ instead. You might be in lite-mode," Agony said, and I tilted my head in confusion. The interface had settings. I'd never considered that, despite its similarities to a computer interface.

"Wow!" I said as I thought of it. An expanded menu appeared in response. I'd have to go through them, but for the moment, I checked the grid. I found the interior of the dungeon, and the area surrounding it sliced up into neat little squares.

"Pick a square from outside the dungeon. A mana glyph with the cost under it should appear. You can buy it for that price. It’s also added to your store for the same cost," Agony said happily as I followed his instructions.

An uneven patch of hexagonal basalt pillars appeared in a corner when I dropped in my new tile. Since it was still selected, I rotated it a few times until I liked the aesthetic before deselecting it. They looked like broken steps connecting the lava tube to the core room.

It was an aesthetic improvement over the simple slope that had been there before. Dropping in two more, I changed the pillar heights to be uneven. Its appearance became more intimidating and sinister.

"Niiice," Agony said, offering me a fiery fist bump I returned with a shadowy knuckle. The converted tiles cost half the mana of the regular ones from the store. I felt an urge to spruce up the design of the entire dungeon but had to stop myself.

A core had a daily energy output value based on a scale of E to SS. Each day it would refill to its set number. That meant I had lots of points to play with over three simulated days of building. The trouble was that making my dungeon too big was a trap.

The larger the dungeon was, the more difficult it would be to populate. Challenges, monsters, and traps had daily upkeep costs. Being careless and focusing on aesthetics would result in a shabby feeling experience. Adventurers would have too much time to recover, which endangered my core.

I knocked out several of my objectives while I contemplated how to keep myself safe. It was hard to balance the size of the dungeon and the density of obstacles. Lost in thought, I had bounced several feet into the air when everything started to strobe. A siren wailed, one loud enough to burst eardrums.

"What the fuck?" I asked Agony as I covered my ears. Unfortunately, I didn't sense anything with them. Jamming my shadowy fingers didn't lessen the sound.

"Mute alarm!" Agony shouted at me, his little hands over his stone ears. I was reading his magma lips and guessing but gave the command. The sound went away though the strobe effect continued.

"Order and tax law!" He growled. I gave a start but found it cute after that moment of surprise. That fact, I decided to keep to myself as he looked pissed enough already.

"Put your map in share mode." Agony said after a few minutes of tapping his ears and adorable cursing. I thought the command and an icon of a person with a plus sign next to it appeared. Lite mode sucked ass. I took Agony's advice and thought standard mode to change it over.

Nothing happened. Either I'd revealed everything hidden or wasn't thinking of the correct thing. It was something to figure out once whatever had set the alarm off was dealt with.

With the map visible to both of us, I spotted a cluster of red-tinted tiles. They were flashing, but I didn't understand what the problem was. Agony changed the map view, and a 3D model appeared. I'd dropped a lava flow into part of the labyrinth to break up the monotonous stone corridors.

"Okay, so rule... something or other. This is a game, and it has to be possible for hero's with luck, pluck, and no fucks left to give about living to make it through," Agony said, tapping a lava tile. When he touched the tooltip, more detailed statistics appeared than before.

"This stuff is too hot to get past even with maxed out fire resistance. You can still use them, but the placement made the labyrinth impassable. That triggered the obstruction alarm," Agony said, pointing out its type was a barrier.

"So long as it's in any kind of build alarm state, heroes can’t enter. Worse, if you don't address it before the timer runs out, any people inside will be ejected without harm," Agony added, pointing to what I'd mistaken for a clock in the corner of the map screen.

"Noted," I said, wide-eyed and eager to never experience that again. I added, “figuring out how to block my hearing” to the growing list of things I needed to figure out how to do. It was right below getting access to music from my homeworld. Figuring out how to experience a more familiar level of touch sensitivity followed them. The order was a matter of my perception of difficulty rather than importance.

"It's alright, better it happened now than when you were on your own," Agony said, and I nodded in full agreement.

"Finish up the rest of your goals. We’ll get started on the second half," Agony added cheerfully. Nodding, I got down to business. The goals were all interface-oriented. I learned a few interesting things about my shop and the item bag. None of it was anything I couldn't have figured out on my own.

I still valued the experience. I was learning a lot faster than I would have with trial and error as my teacher. Despite my initial misgivings, Agony was a good teacher. Without him, it would have taken hours to sort out my various fuck-ups and the more vaguely worded goals. He made up for the lackluster objective-based tutorial’s blandness with enthusiasm.

Once the build phase was done, a little clock appeared on the map next to an icon. It looked like a bathroom sign version of an adventurer’s party. It counted down from three minutes. Right as it hit zero, I felt someone had entered the dungeon. I looked over at Agony, who grinned at me.

"No point in making it unless you test it after," he said, cackling like a cartoon villain. He touched the adventure party’s icon on the map. An infobox appeared for each of them. With the icons selected, a new option appeared, track. 

Agony checked it with glee. The map became a high definition surveillance footage feed. It showed me in painful detail how the party tore through my labyrinth like it was made of paper.

"MOTHER FUCKERS!" I was shouting unimaginatively as they murdered their way to the core room and shattered it.

"Hey, it's fine. Everyone gets wrecked the first time," Agony said, sitting on my shoulder and patting my head to console me.

"My best suggestion is to watch the footage a couple of times and learn from it. The next round is graded. The better you do, the bigger the reward," Agony said, as I took some time to calm down. A ‘continue’ button had appeared. I moved it aside and started reviewing the raid.

As the defending party, I should have had a pretty steep advantage. The terrain rules took most of it away from me. That and the fact I was attacked by heroes capable of taking on my challenges specifically. A feature of the tutorial I hated. In a real attack, I'd get a much more mixed bag.

I shook off the thought, smelling bullshit on it. Thinking like that would get my core kicked in. I had to plan like I was always going to be up against top-tier, mission-specific opponents. With that mindset, I went to work on my new layout.

The second section had me starting from scratch with no helpful prompts. Agony, likewise, didn't offer tips this time. With the clock ticking, I did my best but kept running up against a wall when it came to the design.

"Okay, I hit all the goals, but I still feel like this setup is weak," I said, my prompt open and in share mode so Agony could read over my shoulder. The tutorial's supplies were a bit lackluster, but that wasn't what was bothering me. It was something about the basic structure that made me feel nervous.

"Yeah, you'd be having a panic attack if you were linked to the core," Agony agreed, pointing to the core room I'd set up. It was like a massive murderous game of "the floor is lava". If I had my way, it would have just been lava. A sea of it with the core embedded in a stone pillar in the center and the biggest monster I could buy to guard it.

That would have been against the rules. To keep it from being completely inaccessible, I'd had to create footings. They needed heat resistance magic to use them, but it was possible to reach the core platform at the back of the room. That still didn't explain what was troubling me so much. I had a massive elemental between the entrance and the core, after all.

"A sniper could land a couple of mana reinforced arrows. A good one could even crack a weak core like this," Agony said, pointing out the sniping points.

"Fuck…" I muttered as I looked over the design. Snipers weren't something I'd considered when I was building it. Now I had images of elves storming the place and parkouring their way to the core room. The dark fantasy ended with them exploding it with arrows. I tried to figure out how to make it safer without breaking any rules or losing my goal points.

"No worries, this isn't supposed to be too realistic. You might lose some bonus points, but that's all," Agony said comfortingly. A timer dinged, explaining why he'd suddenly turned chatty. It didn't count as helping if he told me when it was too late to be useful.

On cue, a force of heroes appeared to challenge my dungeon. I felt a vibration course through me. Like butterflies in my stomach and a cold bead rolling down the spine. If they were blended like a margarita with acid instead of tequila. The etching variety, not the fun one. My equivalent of a premonition of death.

I could still alter my design at a steep cost. New items cost triple, and moving tiles cost their value in mana per square moved. That put them out of reach for me since the core I was using was an F grade.

They ranged in grade from F at the lowest end to SS at the highest. Like changing my layout, upgrading the core to give me enough mana wasn't going to happen. Changing any aspect of the core required points rather than mana, and I had none. My only hope was to try and use some of the leftover items in my inventory.

Looking through my item box, I didn't find much. All that was left were some items I'd received from the previous tutorial that hadn't seemed worth using. I gambled and threw in the fire rat nests I had left and low-grade traps. I tried to be strategic but didn't feel confident in my choices.

Agony looked at my last-ditch attempt with a raised eyebrow of stone but didn't say anything. He'd said I'd get better rewards based on the outcome. At this point, what would be would be. Even so, I was desperate for any advantage I could get and crossed my fingers.

I got a little lucky at the start. The priest couldn't cast a high-enough elemental ward to block the heat completely. It was a considerable advantage right out of the gate.

The combat-specialized mage couldn't endure it. Without magical aid, he was an old man in heavy robes. His party wasn't heartless. When they realized what was happening, they tried to carry him out. He died of heatstroke halfway to the exit. 

I felt bad watching it. As much for the wizards suffering as the fact that his death revived his party's zeal. I'd been hoping they'd abandon the mission altogether, not get a rage boost.

Heat damage still accumulated for the party, but it wasn't enough to kill another member. They resumed their quest and got back to ripping through my defenses. Even so, they weren't invincible, no matter how high their spirits were.

The rogue was the next to go. He was suffering from the heat more than the others. Trying to hide it didn't help him. Soon he was weakened and began to make mistakes. The fatal one was basic, always double-tap.

The lava dog looked dead. He paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes. It ripped his throat out before he had time to finish the motion. 

"And then there were four…" I muttered to myself. I wished I had fingernails to bite. Or that I could fidget more physically. I technically could, but I didn't feel it, so it gave no relief. It felt weird to have nervous energy, but nowhere to spend it. 

The desire passed. I felt grateful I wasn't treated to another horrific dungeon master-only experience.

Focusing, I started watching the party more intently. The priest, fighter, archer, and defensive tank were still a nasty combo. With every obstacle they passed, I could feel my points slipping away. The tank and fighter would be able to handle the core guardian with the priest's support.

Worse, the archer would be able to attack the core from the points Agony had shown me earlier. The core guardian was a lava elemental with the intellect of a brick. It probably wouldn't even notice the archer's attacks. Shielding the core from them would be beyond its ability to visualize even if it did.

"Fuck…fuck…fuck…" I muttered to myself. I tried willing them to fail with my mind, only to see them overcome my carefully planned defenses. The group was battered by the time it reached the core room, but not out by any means. I still had a little hope left, but it was crushed in short order. Despite not having a rogue, they bashed through my traps like they weren't there.

They followed my prediction about the formation. The priest, tank, and fighter went for a direct assault. That pulled the lava elemental to them immediately, distracting it. The archer stuck to the sides and climbed up some uneven basalt pillars to a ledge. He was at a good height to see the core.

Since he was still inside the chamber, I hoped the guardian finished the assault team quickly. If I got lucky, the guardian might reorient and go for the archer. I wasn't lucky. 

The team taking on the guardian was doing fine. They were in a physically punishing stalemate, but not taking severe damage. With them holding the guardians' attention, the archer was free to go for the core.

With an easy win at hand, it was the archer who surprised both Agony and I. My hastily placed fire rats started to attack. Despite biting at his boots, they couldn't penetrate the elemental resistance spell. Like my shitty traps that hadn't slowed them down, it was embarrassing to watch them fail.

That was when things started to get weird. The archer wasn't in any danger from them but responded with a strange fervor. He stood up to face them and started stomping. Below, his party was waiting for him to finish the main fight, unaware of the madness that had seized him.

"Wow!" Agony said as we watched the scene unfold. Boots slick with gore, the archer lost his footing and fell from his perch into the lava below. His party heard the thump and then the hiss of flesh burning. Only that wasn’t quite right. The noise took a sharp turn, like the scream of a human-sized teakettle.

“Lawful Hells!” Agony said, and started laughing so hard his little body bounced on my shoulder. The scent of ham filled the air as the sound crescendoed. A split-second later, an explosion rang out. 

The archer’s body had superheated and exploded. I’d never seen anything like it. Watching in rapt horror, a bit of him actually reached where I was observing and splattered against me. I brushed it off absentmindedly. Preoccupied with what to do with my newly acquired information about human bodies and lava.

The core chamber descended into chaos as the priest broke formation. He didn't seem to understand the archer was beyond help. Distracted, he was looking the wrong way, and the lava guardian knew it.

Its fist came barreling toward the priest, and the tank barely managed to get between them and block it. The effort cost him, he wasn't able to get firm footing. Stance compromised, he was borne down to his knees by the next attack.

Dazed, he let out a scream as the third attack connected. He rag-dolled for a few yards, landing in a broken heap on the steps. It spared him his comrade's explosive final fate, but that was all.

Only seconds had passed between the successive attacks. The priest had just enough time to turn around and freeze. It was as if how badly he'd fucked up was sinking in during the split second before the guardian killed him. 

The priest's death spelled the end of the elemental protection on the remaining member of the party. As a fighter, he was royally screwed. It was almost merciful that the guardian put him down before the spell failed utterly. 

It was better than the grotesque alternatives like combusting or boiling in his own skin. While I had the image still fresh in my head, I heard a tinkle of bells. A moment later, the practice dungeon shimmered out of existence.

Instead of inside a lava tube, I was hovering over a pristine black sand beach. A sparkly banner saying "A+ Newbie" hung in the air while fireworks filled the sky. My orbs flared brightly, my equivalent of being wide-eyed.

I just stared at the celebration of my achievement, numb. The psychological desire to throw up burned in my mind. It had no physiological mechanism for release and remained with me.

A tiny pat on my shoulder broke me out of my thoughts. Agony was sitting on my shoulder, trying to comfort me. He patted me again, looking concerned. I nodded, not wanting to worry him.

"You did good," he said with a grin. He offered me a curled fist. I returned his gesture, giving him a gentle fist bump with my knuckles.

"I had an excellent teacher," I said sincerely but with forced cheer. Earlier I'd wished my body was closer to human standard. That I could express myself in more familiar ways. This was the first time I was thankful that I couldn't. I wasn't sure if I could have held it together if I could cry.

This was going to be how I lived. If it had been my actual core in that dungeon, I might well have died. I was alive because I'd gotten lucky. I couldn't live like that, clinging to luck. 

The scent of ham was finally leaving my nose. It was awful that my life would depend on the death of others. I was in a situation I hadn't asked for by what seemed like an accident.

Even so, I wasn't the brave type. Killing myself wasn't something I could do. Even if I wanted to lie to myself, I'd already killed five people for my own benefit. 

I'd lost against the first group outright and only lucked out with the second. Even so, given that it was my first time, I felt like that wasn't bad.

I hated myself for the sense of accomplishment that gave me.