You know, I had seen a lot of strange things in this world so far, but this was the strangest of all. Not the configurations of the place we found ourselves, but its anachronisms. This was a fantasy world, a place of swords and sorcery, magic and monsters, and a room with metal grated walls, hospital beds, and floating images of… what looked like X-rays of people didn’t fit.

Rik’s eyes were opened wide, and his jaw had dropped open completely. Aghast, I identified his emotion, and then his jaw snapped shut. “This doesn’t belong here. I mean, this is a fantasy world, right? Unless this is some kind of easter egg or developer break room or something. It looks like something from a science fiction VR, not a dungeon.”

I looked more closely, the hospital bed had what looked like bloodstains on it, and half the lighting was burned out. One light fixture was swinging slowly, dangling by its wires, changing the room’s flickering lighting, and there were bloody shred marks like claws on some of the walls and electronic consoles against the sides of the room. The room had been trashed, and the entrance we had just stepped from looked like something bloody the size of a Volkswagen had clawed a hole through the wall.

This is a dungeon. It identifies as Anna’s nightmares. Usually, dungeons are formed when a creature’s core is left undisturbed for long periods or is enhanced by a powerful being like a wizard. If it gains enough tainted essence, it can eventually create an environment that draws in more essence, namely adventurers or local animals, and offer them rewards such as food or loot. It gains essence through the presence of tainted creatures, but it gains a lot more by killing creatures. Dungeons are created by the creature’s spirit, so an animal will create a relatively uncomplicated series of lairs, although eventually, they become sentient if they survive long enough.

This dungeon, however, was created by an intelligent sentient spirit, apparently a human from your world. It will attempt to defend itself intelligently, and draw from its own experiences of threatening or terrifying environments from its own experience or imagination, and is vastly more dangerous than a simple dungeon. I recommend extreme caution and taking it very slowly, as many sentient dungeons are angry or ruthless, and far more deadly than their power level suggests.

Ironically, despite their cleverness, intelligent dungeons have a much lower chance of long-term success than unintelligent ones. This is because they tend to become ‘killer dungeons’, attracting powerful adventurers to destroy their core and end the threat.

“Umm… guys? Have you ever heard of the term ‘killer dungeon’? I think this may be one.”

Mae instantly went pale, I could see it even with the fine fur, and I imagine she was very worried. Rik, on the other hand, looked even more excited. “Yes! First clear on a killer dungeon? I mean, yeah, they are called that for a good reason because they tend to cause tons of party wipes, but we are still overpowered for the dungeon. They kill lots of teams, but their rewards are usually amazing if you can survive to the end!”

You might want to let your party know that intelligent dungeons can hear and understand what you say. Its spawns might be locked while the party is inside, but it is perfectly capable of adjusting tactics and wandering monsters to create an even greater challenge if it feels threatened or insulted.

“Rik, it can hear you. We need to be extra careful, and respectful since it is deadly and we don’t want to encourage it to decide to do something especially mean to us, okay?”

“Mean like what?” Rik asked while I noticed that Cassie already had her shield and hammer ready. This may not be a threatening room, but she was going to be prepared.

“Mean like, I really don’t want to say. If it can understand us, I don’t want to give it ideas. If I suggest something, it may assume that we are prepared for the possibility and thus consider it a viable tactic. Let’s just work as we discussed, try to be ready for surprises, and try not to cross-talk too much unless we need to, okay?”

Rik grumbled a little and then nodded, and Cassie and I took our positions in the lead, heading towards what looked like a sliding metal door with large blood stains and claw marks across its surface.

As we approached the door slid sideways, hissing and catching halfway open so we were forced to file through one at a time. Cassie went first with her shield at the head, followed by me and then the rest of the team, with Rik guarding the rear. If this place was smart, it would try to hit us from behind at some point, and Rik probably could do more damage with that brick on a stick than all the rest of us combined. That and his heavy armor made him a perfect rear guard.

The door led to a short hallway, surprisingly spacious at about ten feet wide and maybe thirty long, with a similarly adulterated door at the opposite end. Like the first room, we were walking on the metal grating with pipes and cables beneath it, and another neon light fixture was swinging and flickering in the middle of the hallway.

Illuminated by the flickering light were two humanoid figures. They were crouched low, long inhuman fingers tearing at something and stuffing it into the mouth below distorted, huge craniums, and I felt a little sickened to realize it was a human corpse, dressed in a formerly white, and now hideously bloodstained, lab coat. Both of the creatures let out a low hiss and turned to face us, and their bodies looked human but distorted. Their arms were much longer than normal for a human, their legs tipped with insectile claws, and lanky musculature distended their limbs in alien ways.

The fact that the one on the left was wearing the shredded remains of a lab coat implied that these were once human, their skins gray and whorled with cracked patterns. At first, I had assumed that they had no eyes until I realized that their heads were covered by pulsating… creatures. They looked like armored pillbugs, latched with thousands of legs, with long, fanglike appendages right above the human mouths filled with jagged teeth of the creatures they were riding, and they extended over the skulls and down to the spines on the backs of the creature’s necks, where another series of spindly appendages and tentacles seemed to be buried at the tops of their spine.

I know that both the creatures and the corpse were probably created by the dungeon, but it was still somewhat sickening. I had little doubt that these monsters would be even more pleased to be dining on real flesh instead of whatever props the dungeon had created, and they seemed to agree, bending their seven-foot bodies over at the waist and charging at us!

Cassie slapped her hammer against her shield, a loud banging noise that attracted the attention of both of the charging creatures, and then braced her shield for impact. There was plenty of room for Rik’s sword this time, and Mae had already vanished. Taking my example from Mae, I tried to hide against one of the walls, and when I looked down, I realized that my skin color was shifting to match that of the walls and floor grating!

It was not detailed like the kind of camouflage patterns an octopus could produce, but both my skin and the feathers on the backs of my calves were shifting to the same beige and grey as the floors and wall, in a splotchy color that would be hard to detect with little blotches of red that could be mistaken for bloodstains at a distance. This was great! I was no Predator, but adding a thread of essence into my stealth skill was hugely useful.

Unlike the earlier tunnel, Cassie could not block the entire width of the hallway and force them to attack one at a time, but they both seemed to be focused on her, at least for now. Cassie seemed to grow, her body expanding with her shield to fill the hallway. And I was startled by the sudden transformation.

She swung her hammer towards the creatures, and one of them pulled back, the sledgehammer end missing it completely, or so it seemed. Its knee, however, below the swing, exploded in gore sideways in the same direction of the strike, and I heard a clank as its low claw swing skidded across her shield.

The other monster tried to attack her much higher head, but its claw seemed to pass both through her shield and her head entirely, without causing any damage. Three arrows seemed to sprout almost simultaneously, one in its jaw and two in its chest, and both Rik and I realized at the same time that Cassie’s greater height was an illusion, probably Mae’s work.

The arrows seemed to have only a minor effect on the creature, despite their vicious placement, and it tried to stomp forward into Cassie while the one on the floor was swinging at her with its other claw. I slid forward, and it didn’t seem to particularly notice me as I spun around, trying to strike its torso with my tail, firmly imagining the thread of frost mana in my soulspace as well as the command [push].

I managed to hit it, and I felt something crack under my tailstrike. The hit barely shifted it, but as I watched half of its torso seemed to turn white and start growing frosty and blurred. A moment later Rik’s giant sword swung through Cassie’s upper body illusion, over her shield, and down directly onto the creature. It tried to move out of the way but appeared to be frozen to the floor, and Rik’s strike smashed down through the thing on its head, creating a shower of some sort of green ichor.

His sword cleaved deeply enough that it struck the white parts, and they shattered, sending bits of disgusting-looking ice across the floor.

Cassie stepped forward to slam her shield into the remaining creature, but her illusion vanished as her foot skidded out from under her, apparently slipping on one of the pieces of ice. She skidded to a halt on the floor, with a tremendous clangor of metal, but her shield was on top of her and managed to stop a frenzy of clawed blows from the creature while she curled underneath it.

Rik stepped forward, swinging the giant chunk of sharpened metal again, but the creature noticed his movements and managed to dive back out of the way of the clumsy swing, its insectile legs giving it a better purchase on the icy shards. “Haste!” I hissed at him, and he looked startled for a moment before nodding. “Oh right!” he murmured.

I tried to strike the other one’s legs with my tail, again pushing ice through my tail, but even without eyes, it seemed to see, nimbly pulling its leg out of the way of my strike and stepping heavily on the shield under which Cassie sheltered. She tried to get her hammer out from under the shield, but with the weight of the monster pressing down on her, she couldn’t do more than feebly wiggle the thing out. Her aura flashed, but it seemed to have no effect.

“These things are not level 2!” Rik growled, to which Cassie replied, “No shit! Get this thing off of me!” practically shrieking the words. Another arrow sprouted from its shoulder, not seeming to slow it down at all, while a second arrow bounced off the scales of its insectile headgear and a third went whistling past its head when it suddenly jerked sideways. It appeared piercing attacks had very little effect on the things, and I almost felt sorry for Shiana, if she could understand she would probably be cursing up a storm at yet another monster that virtually ignored her attacks.

I turned on [observe] while I tried to maneuver in for another attack, but had to stay away when a claw swiped close enough that I had to duck to avoid it.

Infested scientist (Dead)

Threat: Deadly

This is the dead body of what used to be a scientist. It is immune to critical hits, and will not slow down unless destroyed or removed from its headbug. It is animated, and its body has been improved to make a more dangerous and effective host for its parasite

Headbug (parasite, abomination)

Threat: dangerous

These creatures infest living hosts, taking over their nervous systems and destroying their brains. They are very stealthy and will usually wait for a potential host to fall asleep before attacking, although they are also very fast and capable of a more direct approach. They are heavily armored, and will sometimes survive their host’s death and attempt to attack or escape.

They are considered higher than animal intelligence and can display cleverness and basic combat tactics, including learning from tactics used against them.

“Rik!” I yelled, hoping he would understand the reference, “Headcrabs!”

Rik nodded and spoke [Haste]. His body started to glow and blur slightly, and with a slash of such speed that the monster couldn’t hope to dodge, his large blade smashed through the insectile helmet and head of the creature, cutting the head in half sideways with another splash of ichor and chunks of debris. Blue coop sprayed, and the creature collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“I don’t understand,” Cassie said as she got back to her feet, looking in disgust at the creature with half a head. “I mean, my ability should have at least hurt it, even if it was a boss. It seemed like it didn’t do anything.”

“It wasn’t undead,” I explained. “It was dead, but animated by that living thing on its head, it was kind of using it like a marionette to move around and attack.” I was poking around the creature’s bodies to see if there was anything worth looting before Rik got to them. The carapaces displayed an interesting potential for use as armor, at least for a creature my size, and so I started the disgusting task of peeling what was left of them from the creatures.

Cassie nodded slowly, “Yes, I suppose, kind of like that fungus that infests things and makes them move too. Those are immune to holy auras too since they are technically fungus and not undead. Those things were both registered as level six minibosses. The dungeon is definitely at the higher edge of our abilities and doesn’t seem to be particularly weak to any of our attacks. This is going to be a very long slog, and I don’t see any real loot, it might wait till the end.”

I nodded and glanced at her as I found another of those gems inside the skull that Rik had sliced the top off of. “Well, one of them did drop this.” I showed it on the palm of my hand. It was greenish and considerably clearer than the brown ones I had gotten from the skeletons, and [observe] called it an ‘active animation core’ where the skeleton rocks had been ‘animation cores’.

Mae leaned forward eagerly, although Cassie and Rik both looked mystified. “That’s a monster core. Some people use them to create potions, or powders for consumption to learn whatever aspect is attached to them. Others use it for enchanting or creating servants. Usually, only necromancers, enchanters, and artificers can collect them, but I guess you qualify. You should hang onto that, it’s very high quality and could be worth a small fortune.”

There were some other ingredients, specifically ‘human bones’ and ‘infested human skin’ I could have collected, but yuck. I was not going to make armor or boots from infested human skin, even if they were highly useful, and I waved at the bodies for Rik to do his thing. I did turn to Cassie and start to apologize, though.

Cassie seemed to know what I was going to say from the expression on my face. “Don't worry about it. Bad footing always happens in fights, and you helped kill that first one quickly in a way it did not expect. I am taught to be sure of my own footing, and it was entirely my own mistake. Especially since I have sure-footed like all dwarves do, I just panicked a little and got a little bit grossed out, and tried to bounce off the chunk instead of staying planted.”

I nodded a little and saw all four of them close their eyes as Rik’s touch dissolved the corpses, pillars of light surrounding them as they leveled up. They were all smiling, even Shiana, and the greenish color I had noted on Cassie’s face at the grossness disappeared.

You are currently at 147% of your evolution quintessence. I strongly recommend assigning it before you have another fight like that, or you risk overloading your system with quintessence and causing yourself serious damage.

I looked at Rik, and said, “I noticed something about this fight, where it seems to have come from. You also knew what I meant when I said head crabs. Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

Rik nodded, “Yes, this looks an awful lot like the VR game Rad-Life. I am betting whatever developer built it was getting fired or something, loved the game, and decided to include it as a big screw-you easter egg before he had to hit the door. The bodies only produced a couple of silver despite being both mini-bosses, so I am betting some kind of super out-of-theme loot reward at the end. It might even be some kind of uniques, and if they are, and they don’t fit us, we could sell them for disgusting maximum loot, baby!”

Okay, that was exactly not what I was thinking at all. Not even remotely, Maybe he was right about the game, but to me, it meant that whatever soul was running this show was probably from Earth. If it was closer to his particular game than the one I was thinking about, then it was likely whatever soul it was from closer to his time than mine. Perhaps one of those recodes he had been talking about? Well, whatever it was, this was very worrisome. It was probably easier not to argue about it, though. Was it someone like me? Dragged here from their own world and stuck in a body that… well… I had no idea what kind of body controlled a dungeon.