Chapter 1

Ryan

Ryan had a terrible decision to make.

Alright, it wasn’t terrible per se, but it definitely wasn’t something he’d expected to face. The battle three months ago against the Gold One necromancer, Viktor, paled in comparison to his current challenge.

“Are you still obsessing over this?” Erin, his celestial fairy, fluttered her wings lazily, woken from sleep by the string of his panicked thoughts through their telepathic bond. Though she was usually able to sleep through anything, Ryan’s distressed mental state had clearly pulled her from her dreams, which were likely of Blake.

“You have no idea how important this is.” This decision, this task in front of him, was the last stepping stone before he could move on to populating his dungeon with mobs once again. With this task, the third floor of his dungeon would be complete.

“Seriously, Ryan? As much as I love you, you’re an idiot at times.” The fairy looked around the room, as if she were searching for something. They were in his recently relocated, bigger and better core room. As was appropriate for dungeons – according to Erin – he had placed it behind the chamber that was to be his third-floor boss room.

Ryan’s ascension to Gold Seven had caused his core to grow in size, and Erin had started to grow along with it. As such, he’d needed to upgrade their living spaces. It had been getting a tad cramped.

The new core room was also better furnished than his previous iterations. Instead of being just a spherical room with some silk cloth on the floor, Ryan had taken the knowledge gleaned from the countless books he had absorbed to create not only a bed for Erin to sleep on, but also a little fireplace for the fairy, and even a table.

Of course, she still spent most of her time perched atop his crystalline orb-like body so she could view the goings-on in his dungeon. But hey, at least he had tried to make the place livable for her – something he was quite proud of, considering he literally specialized in undead things.

“You just can’t see the importance of my vision, Rin.” Ryan scanned the entire floor, trying for the hundredth time to reach a conclusion. He had spent over two and a half months working on his third floor. It was to be his masterpiece, the pinnacle of his creative abilities so far. Tales of his dungeon design would be spread across the world, drawing in even more adventurers. It was going to be brilliant.

The only thing holding him up – the final, most difficult part of this entire creative process – was deciding what colors he should use to decorate on his third-floor. Based upon what he’d read, colors could make or break a space. He needed to decorate his floor in a way that screamed terrifying, yet sophisticated, dungeon. Just because his existence and growth depended upon adventurers dying within his dungeon, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be classy about it.

“What are your two options again?” The fairy yawned as she flew up to his core, watching his rapid scanning of the dungeon floor.

“I was thinking of either using black and gold fabrics, to represent darkness and light.” He paused at the entryway to the third floor. It was a massive open room with a spiraling staircase in the center. That staircase connected to a door in the first room of his second floor, and also to an underground path that ran from his second-floor boss room all the way back beneath the second-floor entrance. It was cumbersome, but Ryan liked having all his floors begin in the exact same spot: directly underneath the very first room on his first level. That way, adventurers would be able to bypass his earlier floors as long as they had the appropriate keys.

“And the other option?” Erin asked.

“Well, it seems there is an association between the God of Death and the colors purple and silver, so I was thinking—"

“Go with the first option.” Erin cut him off before he could even finish. Right. She was a celestial fairy; she was essentially anti-anything regarding the God of Death. Heck, when he had chosen darkness as his affinity, she nearly had a mental breakdown.

“But—"

“We’re a team. And if you can’t decide your color choice, well, then my vote wins, right?” She smiled sweetly at him. “So, choose gold and black, then hurry up and finish decorating. The adventurers will be getting antsy outside, and you still have to build your mobs and populate your entire dungeon again.”

She had a very good point. Other than creating his third-floor boss mobs during his fight against Viktor, Ryan had yet to even really give his new mob types a good look. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t been productive while developing his third floor. In fact, he had completed a few more sets in his bone collection, and even stumbled across some new ones he’d never seen before. Even if Gold tier didn’t offer him new mob types, those skeletons alone would be quite useful. Not to mention it seemed skeletal fight club was once again proving fruitful.

“Fiiine.” Ryan hated the decision being made on a whim. He had been pondering this choice for so long, it almost felt like a waste to simply let the fairy bully him into choosing the colors. Then again, he had been contemplating deciding it on a coin flip, but that thought alone had been quite stressful.

With the color palette finally chosen, he prepared himself to once again go to work. His floor was created, his color scheme decided. Now he just needed to apply the decorations to all the rooms of his new floor and then, finally, he would get to bring his dungeon to life. Er, unlife. And it was about time, too. As Erin had mentioned, the Bone Dungeon – Ryan’s dungeon – had been gone far too long. It was almost time to finally let adventurers back in.

*****

???

She stood hesitantly in front of a throne made of countless skulls from countless races, some of which appeared to be of demonic lineage. The Throne of Chaos, crafted by chaos mages in a time past, mages of power and skill that far exceeded what she and all her followers were capable of. A pity, because if she had even a fraction of the power they wielded, she and her kind wouldn’t have to live in the shadows fearing the Church of Light.

Those days, though, were soon going to end.

“Tell me, daughter, have you completed your task?” The voice was deep and powerful, and came from the figure sitting atop the Throne of Chaos. His visage masked, as always, by a demonic skull. All she could see within were the red flames of his eyes. No one truly knew who the Exalted One was, only that he wielded immense powers and had access to knowledge and items that no mortal should.

He had reached out to her over a decade ago, recruiting her and her followers for his plans – a plot so devious, so devilish, that she would have been foolish to turn him down. After all, he wielded power akin to the ancients; the true powers of chaos; the powers of demons and devils. He was the closest thing to the God of Chaos she and her brethren would likely ever meet, and so his word became their law.

“I have. We have successfully developed enough seeds for every dungeon in the land, as you requested.”

The Seeds of Chaos, they were called. A creation introduced to the cult by the Exalted One, they literally looked like fist-sized seeds. Within them, though, they had the power to corrupt any dungeon. The seeds drove a dungeon mad, and twisted it to serve the God of Chaos. At least, that was what the Exalted One claimed.

And she had no reason to distrust him. Their first test of the seeds had been a massive success, leading to the creation of a dungeon now referred to as the Dungeon of Ashes. Even now, only high-level adventurers dared set foot inside that dungeon, and of those, few, if any, ever returned.

“Good. Have your brethren begin spreading them to the dungeons I have tasked you with. My other followers will ensure the seeds are planted as well.” She only knew of two other followers of the Exalted One: the necromancer, Viktor, who had been killed by the Bone Dungeon; and the man who stood beside the Throne of Chaos. He was clad in armor the color of blood, his visage concealed by a helm shaped like a demon’s head, complete with curling horns on either side. His massive spiked shield and wicked blood-red sword declared his class as a physical one.

“As you wish, Father.” She bowed towards the Exalted One, pulling her eyes away from the man beside him. That man was no longer human; she could sense as much from him. Whatever the Exalted One had done to him had made him much stronger than even she was ­– and that was saying something, considering she was a Platinum-level high priestess of Chaos.

As she rose from her bow and turned to leave, she couldn’t help but shiver. No matter what was going on, one thing was certain: the land would soon be engulfed in chaos.