When she jumped through the light of the opening in the wall, she had not expected much. She had pushed past her disbelief of the situation, but that did not mean she was comfortable with the situation. She had simply decided to go with the flow. All of this was going through her mind as she found herself in another insane situation. She was surrounded by a black space filled with stars; it was all around her as if she had been shot into space. All the stress and excitement from just a minutes ago fell away as she stared in awe at her surroundings.

She looked down and found that she stood on a narrow path of light that took a swerving walkway through the space. As she took in this new addition her body moved forward on the path. She was not moving her legs or feet, but rather began to slide forward at a rapidly increasing pace. As the first turn in the road approached, she tried to move herself in the right direction, but she had no control over her body at all. Just as sudden as the stress had vanished in re-appeared. She was going faster and faster, always going with the path of light, but the process left her more and more disorientated. Her loss of control over her body became more and more of a concern when the speed started to increase further, and she could barely keep up with the speed. She kept accelerating as the path began to merge with other paths like hers. The last thing she saw a highway-sized path of light in which the paths merged.

Shocking awake, she found herself back in her office. She half jumped half fell out of her chair and landed hard on the floor. She cried out in sudden pain having hit the floor hard and without warning. She took in the office. It was still dark and empty like it had been when she left. Her PC was still on, and her account was still logged-in. She could have thought it was all a dream, except that she was still wearing the robe she had stolen from those cultists.

She stared at the robe transfixed. In the back of her mind, she still had not accepted it was all real. Cultists, robes, and magic powers. There were simply too many implausible things to believe. Now she was confronted by the robe she had stolen. She went through the pockets and fished out the tablet and book. The book still had script in a language she did not know. The language was made up from swirling characters that were disconnected from each other. The characters were unique, some were full circles with additional lines inside whereas others were incomplete circles or even multiple smaller circles interconnected to each other. The tablet did have legible information as she took in the new screen.

--- Warlock, Level 1 ---

--- Abilities: Infernal Pact Magic ---

--- Spells: Force Blast, Hex ---

Staring at the screen for a while, she heard a sound from her PC. Standing up she went over and saw that her alarm had gone off. When working so late, she often set 10-minute alarms to keep her focussed and awake. It signalled that it had been 10 minutes since her last alarm, which was way more than 10 minutes ago. She had been in the complex for hours, if not longer. She decided to figure this out later, she just wanted to go home. She logged-out of her PC and took off the robe. She put the tablet and book in her bag and draped the robe over it. She took another calming breath and walked towards the exit of the office. Outside a scooter approached with the logo of the local pizzeria on the side. The driver took of his helmet and looked at her.

"Are you the one who ordered the pizza shawarma? For that office behind you?"

"Yeah, that's me." She replied. She had not forgotten, but it was not really her top priority after all that went down.

"Well, here it is. It is the last one of the night. You must be pretty motived to work this late. Hope you enjoy." He smiled at her and got back on his scooter, leaving soon after.

She juggled her bag, new robe, and pizza box so she could walk better and moved to the nearest subway station. It was time to go home and think about what had just happened. Luckily, she had a whole pizza to think about her next move.

Coming home was strangely normal after everything. Having thrown away the empty pizza box after eating it on the way home, she put down her bag and laid the cultists robe on the table. She sat down heavily and rested her head in her hands. She had been calming down and processing for a while. It had not really hit her though; she had sacrificed 2 people. I mean, they would have probably returned the favour but that does not make her a good person for doing so as well.

She was not especially religious or something, but she had, if it was to be believed, made a deal with a devil, and sacrificed 2 cultists to it. It was done in the name of self-preservation, but that did not really help. She was definitely going to hell now.

“Wait a minute! That sneaky fuck!”

If hell was a real thing, with devils and all. Her actions had probably doomed her, even if the contract had not. That devil had never needed to trade for her soul directly. He did not need to make her give it over, she had done that herself. Or had she? She really did not know enough about this. She could ask the devil, but that was not a great source of information. She thought about going to the church, but she did not think they would like the whole making deals with the devil kind of thing.

She pulled out the tablet again. Her information had not changed, but something else had. There were now two tabs. Information and Dungeon. The information screen seemed active for now, so she tapped the dungeon tab.

--- Tier 1 dungeons available ---

--- By clicking the button below, you will be put in the waiting area for a Tier 1 dungeon. After enough members are available, the dungeon will open, and the mission will begin. ---

Below this was a large button taking up half the screen. It was a black button with the white text writing in middle. It said: Delve. She put that tablet back, she was definitely not ready for that right now. But she had gleaned information from the tablet. She was not alone. If a team would be made, then that would mean that there are others in a similar situation. Maybe she could set-up something, trade for information. She had the book. It did not look important to her, it looked like a dairy, but she could not read it. Therefore, she could have no idea what its value truly was.

She checked her bank account. If she was going to go back into the dungeons, she was going to need to gear up. Better clothes, rope or something, food, and water. She had not checked her balance in a while, but she was not spending a lot either so it should be fine. What price could you place on survival after all. Her mind flashed back to the cultists and her sacrifice.

“Fucking hell, what happened to me. I’m not a violent person, am I?”

Trying to draw her attention away she looked at her phone. Her bank balance was larger than she expected. She had money, but this looked like more than she had seen a week ago. She opened her recent transactions and sure enough. There was a more than 2000-dollar deposit from today. It was from a company called: Delver Inc. There was a note attached.

“Congratulations on your successful delve and ascension to warlock.”

“Well fuck, add that to the pile of stuff that doesn’t make any sense.”