These places of danger and opportunity would come to be named Dungeons by the original inhabitants of the New Reality. While not all Dungeons were specifically designed by the Alpha Testers, many of the largest and most well-known were. These Dungeons would often come to be known as Grand Dungeons, regardless of their difficulty rating, and often had special rewards for the first member of the creator’s species to clear it. These rewards were often disproportional to the difficulty of the dungeon, but proportional to how under-leveled the individual challenging said dungeon was at the time of entering. The perfect starting point for a newly transported level one individual. - History of a New Age, pg 29

Welcome Challenger, to a Tribulation designed by one of the greatest in the history of your people. Here you may advance with confidence into your new reality, but first you must prove you deserve to advance at all. Welcome, mortal, to the Blighted Basin.

“Bob, where am I?”

“Welcome to the Blighted Basin mistress. This place of power presents opportunity and danger to those with an adventurous soul.”

This matched with the information on the blue screen in front of her, but that wasn’t really the point. She’d been trying to catch Bob saying something interesting or new. He was more than just an announcer with a script, at least sometimes. He’d offered information without prompting and she swore she had heard him express an opinion once or twice. If it was more than just an automatic response, that offered an opportunity. Being friends with what seemed to be the supernatural, multidimensional version of a search engine’s artificial intelligence seemed like it could be advantageous. Also, it would just be really cool. Bob represented something new, something that had never existed in her old reality.

That newness was what really excited her about this opportunity. Sarah would have called her an adrenaline junky for being so excited about being sent to her possible death just because it meant experience something new. Sarah…well, best not to dwell on that. If Asher was lucky Sarah would be wandering around somewhere out there. Searching for her could wait though, for now she really should try to figure out where she actually was.

She had awoken inside a small cave, leaning against the back wall. While she had no idea where she was, it was pretty obvious the area was volcanically active. A warm, red glow shown in around a curve just past her feet and she had been doing her best to ignore the pervasive smell of rotten eggs suffusing her hideaway. Heat seemed to blanket the air, pushing down on her and left her wanting to take a nap like she often would during warm summer afternoons in college.

Next to her was her bag. She’d never liked purses much, and school hadn’t been that long ago, so one of her first purchases after getting her post-college job had been a black leather backpack and purse combo. When she checked, everything she remembered leaving inside was present. Her phone in its wallet case, a small coin purse, the paper she had been reading for her continued education, a book about the Current War between Tesla and Edison, a bottle of Tequila she had been bringing for the evening, various hygiene products, and her keys. Attached to the keys were a little cat shaped self-defense keychain and a small pepper spray cannister. Something told her she would not need those so much now that she could shoot lightning from her hands, but good to keep them in mind.

Picking up her bag and creeping toward the entrance of the cave, she stealthily stuck her head around the corner and checked for any immediate threats. The cave was made of some kind of grainy reddish-brown rock with the dark shine of obsidian noticeable in some areas. Various plant species; including a small leafed succulent that spread out as a mat on the floor, various species of moss on the walls, and something that looked vaguely like aloe vera; broke through the rock, adding a bit of life to the cave. With no obvious dangers present, she proceeded forward toward the arching mouth letting in the light. As the view beyond the cave began to form a large, six-legged skeleton was revealed to be lying across the entrance.

Whatever had left the skeleton had been large, it’s shoulder would likely have been at about the same level as her navel when standing. With the creature’s extreme length taken into account, the creature had very likely outweighed her by a fair amount. If there were more of these around, she definitely did not want to run into them. Thankfully this particular specimen seemed fairly old, nothing but white bones and a little bit of scaley skin. It seemed unlikely that any mates or pack members would come looking for it and even less likely that some predator would come back for the carcass. That would be exactly what I need. Some horrific alpha predator that mostly eats two-hundred-pound lizards showing up to gnaw on an old kill’s bones and getting me as a bonus meal.

The feet of the creature were strangely mismatched, with the first pair housing long, finger like appendages that spread themselves wide. So wide that the first and fifth of the long digits were almost parallel with each other. It looked vaguely like a spread human hand if the pinky was replaced with another thumb in the opposite direction. Wide claws tipped each digit, seemingly just as useful for digging as for fighting. The back four paws were more what she expected, all 5 toes aligned with each other and tipped with curved claws more similar to a cat’s. Or a dinosaur’s given the thing’s size. If she had to guess the front paws were meant for grabbing prey while the back would then be used for disemboweling whatever it had grabbed. Between those and the teeth, this thing is probably a predator. Not seeing many flat molars in there.

A pair of horns rose from the creatures nose similar to a rhino, while a large club tipped its tail. Probably meant for self-defense, which is not a good sign. I was really hoping this thing died to natural causes, but a club tail is way better for warning off larger predators then for killing smaller prey. Same with horns. Whatever this thing is, I don’t think it’s the top of the food chain.

“Bob, can you tell me what this is or would that be breaking some unknown rule?”

“Locals refer to these as Certilia mistress. These large creatures are vaguely reptilian in nature, are obligate carnivores, and are notable for their six legs. They are known for being accomplished diggers. I am afraid that at this time to you are not authorized to receive more information.”

“That’s ok Bob, I expected that. Thanks for telling me what you could.”

Beyond the skeleton, a gentle decline lead down toward a faint orange glow. The exact source of the glow was difficult to make out as a large cloud of what appeared to be ash interrupted her vision. A few dozen feet to her right a stream of molten rock was sluggishly working its way down toward the distant glow, giving a hint to the likely source. That alarmed her. The presence of a glowing lava flow, even one only a few inches wide like this one, should have meant that the surroundings were unbearable hot. Flesh melting from bones hot. Instead, while it certainly wasn’t comfortable, the heat here was livable. Obviously some kind of magic at play. The question is, why? Do the lava flows serve a specific purpose? Maybe some kind of barrier to prevent me from just freely walking wherever I want? Or a hiding place for more creatures? Hard to say, but for now I am just going to avoid approaching. No point taking on more danger than I already have to.

While the ground around her was dry and cracked, it was not totally devoid of life. More succulents could be observed dotting the landscape, including a variety of large cacti, while various ferns and shrubs also broke their way through the dark soil. It appeared that while a large amount of ash meant the soil was very good for providing the nutrients and various elemental compounds plants wanted, the area did not receive much rain. This limited the local plant life to small and water efficient plants, which seemed to thrive thanks to their lack of competition.

Hopefully the plants indicated some kind of herbivore in the area. She found it hard to believe that a large predator like that Certilia could subsist without some form of large herbivore to hunt, but she supposed it was possible that they fed on smaller insectivores. There were plenty of insects flying around that could easily form the foundation of a local food chain. The most obvious, and second most plentiful behind the flies, were some sort of large dragonfly-esque creatures that seemed to be hunting the other bugs in the area. Even smaller members of their own species were not off the menu, though they seemed to prefer hunting some sort of strange orange and black butterfly that occasionally made appearances.

Stepping slightly outside the cave, Asher cautiously took a look behind her hiding spot. The view was almost exactly the same, cracked ground and succulents leading up to more clouds of ash. In fact, the cloud of ash entirely surrounded her little clearing, spinning around her like the eye of hurricane. The ground continued to slope upward behind her cave, and she estimated that all told the ground dropped maybe ten feet from one side of the maybe seventy-foot clearing to the other. Not an uncomfortable angle of decline, but definitely noticeable.

Deciding that for now her safest move was to keep observing and see if anything changed, she returned to the mouth of the cave. She could sit still, at least for a little while. Probably. Her vigil lasted maybe ten minutes as she occasionally peaked her head out to look around the clearing, noticing nothing the entire time. Thankfully her boredom was relieved in the following minutes when she noticed an issue with a particular cactus far uphill. The plant in question had constantly caught her eye when looking that direction, as it had a beautiful pink and white flower blooming on one of its little nubs. The splash of color had been a strong contrast with the grey of the ash just beyond it and one of the few things worth noting in her surroundings. Now, though, that spark of color was gone. The wall of ash had overtaken the plant in between her cautious observations.

Thinking back, this wasn’t just some ebb of the ash cloud. At least not a minor one. She attempted to pick out other landmarks she had remembered from her first look outside and realized the cloud had been slowly advancing on her position this entire time. That meant it was time to make a decision. She could continue to camp at her cave, or she could move on. If things continued as they were the ash would overtake her cave and she doubted her ability to find her way back to this location, making the decision to leave permanent. On the other hand, if she stayed here could she really survive? She had seen no sign of anything more substantial than bugs that she could eat and the options for water were even fewer. Maybe she could get some from one of the surrounding cacti, but she was fairly sure that would be a bad idea. From what she understood, most cacti were not safe to drink from. A natural defense of sorts against potential thieves in the form of poisoned water.

So those were her options, a safe base that she couldn’t leave. Where she had to hope what she needed would wander in from elsewhere, and rely on Evolution Points or rain for water. All made even worse by the possibility of being trapped inside for an unknown amount of time by a cloud of ash. Or walk out into the unknown and hope for the best. While the possibility of finding food was no higher if she left, it was infinitely more likely that she would find a river or stream by exploring then having one just appear in the vicinity of her cave. At least by the old universe’s rules, who knew with magic thrown in. It was a tough decision, and neither sounding particularly promising in her mind if she was totally honest with herself.

In the end, it wasn’t rationalization that made her decision for her. Her gut told her to move on and she trusted it. There was something incredibly uncomfortable about binding herself to this cave, like she was locking herself up in a cage. The idea of being stuck in such a small space for gods knew how long was awful, especially when she had the opportunity to be the first human to ever explore this place. One of the first to explore this entire world! No, she couldn’t stay here. It just wasn’t who she was. Besides, while the cave might have felt safe here was no proof that was actually the case.