Ai looked up at the massive swaying pillar – she didn’t understand what it was but was able to piece together that it killed /ate Sora.

Ai trembled in fear. She was as quite as a mouse – no even quieter. This was her first time seeing a desert worm which is a surprising fact given that the amount she cries one would have expected that it would have eaten her up before.

***

Sora sat crossed legged on a pink platform in a meditative position. Currently, he was inside the stomach worm – not a very nice place to be. Since the monster ate a lot of sand – 99% of its stomach was filled with sand.

Sora was reflecting on his actions – saving Ai was something he did involuntarily. He regretted that decision now.

[I save the brat and I get killed – brilliant.] Sora cursed himself silently.

[What did I even hope to accomplish saving her?] Sora asked this superficial question to himself. He knew exactly very well what he had hoped for by saving her – to appear cool and win her over. Having said that, he did react involuntarily; saving Ai without thinking about the consequences. It were as if being the nice hero was ingrained in his DNA – something which Sora refused to believe.

[Stupid! Stupid! Stupid me!] Sora thought as he picked up a shoe lying next to him and began beating his head with it.

Sora took a deep breath – he was beginning to come to terms with the situation.

He quickly examined his surroundings. It was like a long circular corridor filled with sand dunes. The ceiling was pink and arced. There were strange luminescent tentacles hanging from the ceiling which lit up the stomach – Sora was thankful for that otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to see properly in the dark.

As he looked around, he could see that this monster had eaten many things – many strange things – there was a ship stuck in the sand dune, there many dead eaten skeletons scattered everywhere and there were even some stone buildings – fully intact.

As Sora looked around, he noticed one of the tentacles sifting through the sand and latching itself on to a cactus. Just like Sora’s slime – the tentacle began depleting the cactus of all its nutrients. Unlike Sora Slime, the tentacles were much faster at absorbing nutrients. Furthermore, it seemed that the tentacles were somewhat sentient after one discovered food the others would rush to extend themselves to the meal. They had an effective length of fifteen meters so not every tentacle was able to reach the meal however those which were able to reach the meal fought amongst themselves for it.

Sora found that very weird – aren’t they part of the same monster? As Sora moved slowly away from his spot he avoided the attention of tentacles – it seemed as if they were receptive to vibrations and lacked any other receptive senses. As long as he didn’t make any sudden movements or step on any tentacles he should be fine.

As Sora moved further inwards – it became stranger; the volume of sand increased and the tentacles reduced however the tentacles were now replaced with floating jellyfish. Hundreds – no may be thousands – of glowing floating jelly fish.

Sora stared at the scene for a moment, his predicament reminded him of Pinocchio when eaten by the whale or of Link in Jabu Jabu’s belly. Sora thought about it carefully – the experience was definitely more akin to Jabu Jabu’s belly. Now that he thought about it even the tentacles were really similar to those found in Jabu Jabu’s belly.

Sora sighed – this game was such a rip off. Beyond that, Sora was fairly excited now by the situation, if this game was anything like Jabu Jabu’s belly then it is quite possible that this could be a dungeon.

Sora was on the right track – this in fact was a dungeon. It must be stated that not every desert worm / monster contain within them a dungeon. Rather it could be said that this dungeon took the form of this monster. Therefore, it has been known as the Great Desert Worm Dungeon. If this had been a dragon, then it would be known as the Great Dragon Dungeon and so on. It is pretty clear that the naming sense in this world is not all that great however that is not what is interesting about this dungeon. What makes it interesting is that it is a monster dungeon by classification.

There are basically four types of dungeons in this world – building type dungeon, open space type dungeon, mnster type dungeon (the one Sora is in), and lastly dimensional type dungeon.

The first building type dungeons can be sub classified into Castles, Temples, Caves and Towers – in order of difficulty. These are typical dungeons many of which were artificially created thousands of years ago by a forgotten race to protect their treasures. These type of dungeons are scattered all over the continent and nearly all have been discovered.

The second type, Open Space, is a bit more difficult to find as compared to Building Type since a person wouldn’t know they are in a dungeon. Open Space type of dungeons tend to normally be an area of difficult terrain with no visible boundaries example an infinitely large version of Lost Woods (Zelda OoT reference). Some historians have even referred to the Great Arid Desert as a dungeon of sorts but because of its vast size no treasure found till date this theory stands disputed.

The third type of dungeons is the monster dungeon. Unlike other dungeons, this dungeon is actually alive and takes the form of a monster. Finding a monster dungeon is considered extremely difficult as it requires one to be eaten by a monster. There are a few strong who can with complete confidence allow themselves to be eaten however the vast majority would avoid such a process to find a dungeon. Amongst all dungeon categories in this world, the monster dungeons are amongst the most difficult dungeons that one can find in Ruler of the Rules. The difficulty lies in the fact that there are only and only two ways proceed in a monster dungeon succeed or die. In all other dungeons there exists some possibility to exit the dungeon or to live in them however monster dungeons are different. As the core labyrinth represents the stomach if an adventurer (or resident) fails to clear it within a specific time period they are certain to die. Furthermore, people from outside are also unable to help as killing the monster / opening the stomach will collapse the dimensional space in the monster hence killing those inside it.

Even though the monster dungeon is the most difficult in terms of rewards there is one that even exceeds it – the Dimensional Dungeon. This is the rarest of rarest dungeon and of unknown difficulty – the Dimensional Dungeon or the dimensional rift as most call it. Where do they appear? where do they lead? What is their difficulty? All of this is unknown. However, the only currently open dimensional rift is located in the Wastelands of the continent – it has been christened as the First Gate.

For now, our protagonist knows none of the above and as always has no clue what he has stepped into now - or does he?