Excerpt from the Cow River Crossing Dictionary.

Dungeon n. A spontaneously occurring intelligent crystalline life form originating from high concentrations of mana crystals. For further information see ~ types in Encyclopaedia Multiverca.

Cable faced another late night at his gaming rig, with the necessity to get up and go to work the next morning. This is never a good combination, as the day at work is bound to have at least something go wrong without a decent night’s sleep.

If lucky, something minor goes wrong. The kind of thing where your workmates give you a trophy for making the funniest dumbest mistake they ever saw (like putting your lunch in the path of a test beam while working on a big project – only to discover your crispy chicken is really crispy when checking your results).

If unlucky, something on the monumental scale goes wrong – enough to send them screaming and crying as the run in terror, fearing for their lives (like putting a chunk of nuclear fuel in the path of said test beam). Working with sensitive military grade laser weaponry does that.

None the less, Cable enjoyed both his work and his gaming. The gaming fed his addiction and also his ideas for research. It is amazing what can be thought of in game worlds, particularly when there are a few billion minds connected to them and no worries of dying.

So the clock ticked well past midnight, into the wee hours of the morning – only seeing Cable to bed when a the cracks of dawn sound, piercing shafts of light into sensitive retinas. All to soon, the alarm to get back to the daily grind sounds, forcing him out of bed to stop incessant cacophony.

After a quick morning ablution, Cable hit the road in his old Scubaroo. While it may not be the fastest, most comfortable, or largest type of vehicle on the road, it housed enough to get from A to B in with efficiency, relative comfort, and room to take some larger items should they need to be transported. The old girl faithfully started up every time, unlike her master.

There weren’t any meetings with truck-san, nor were there any organisations out to get him. He still died though, by falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into a fixed base street light pole. Dying instantly from blunt trauma and electric shock, he left an ugly picture for his family and emergency services.

There is no life reboot in this world.

So he came to the land of Dystopia, a land of magic, heroes, rogue gods, dragons, dastards and dungeons. Nobody noticed his descent into a mana crystal vein ten klicks from the nearest village.

Systems coming online, please wait... 0%

Loading basic I/O system... 0%

Loading subsystems... 0%

Loading mana_absorb.pit ... 0%

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[OK]

Loading mana_regen.dll ... 0%

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[OK]

Loading mana_conversion.lib ... 0%

Loading mana_conversion.lib ... 100%

[OK]

Loading diagnostics.stat ... 0%

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[OK]

Loading repair.hp ... 0%

Loading repair.hp ... 100%

[OK]

Loading area.dat ... 0%

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[Error]: nil value

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[Error]: nil value

Loading upgrade.evo ... 0%

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[Error]: requirements not met

Loading subsystems complete

[Warning]: errors present

Loading basic I/O system complete

[OK]

Loading OS files:

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[Warning]: blank file

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[FAIL]: System stalled

Watchdog Enabled

Self-diagnostics enabled

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[OK]

Searching for alternative files: *.os

Located Cable.os

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[OK]

Activating systems ... 0%

Activating systems ... 100%

Systems online.

[Warning]: Two .os files are present. Conflicts may occur.

Welcome to Dystopia, new Dungeon.