A basement, really? Not much of a dungeon if you ask me. I notice a few mice and spiders crawling around, catching other insects. What’s really got me worried is the light at the top of my stairs, right at the border of what I can sense.

• • • • •

So I’m dead, that much I know. I can’t remember how I died or even how old I was when I died. Somehow I still have knowledge but I don’t know how I learned it or from who. I don’t remember if I had a family or any friends either. Oh well, not much to miss if I can’t even remember if I had anything.

The angel that was talking to me mentioned something about a world that had its god abandon them. They asked me to be some sort of savior but I really didn’t like the sound of being a hero. Being tied to politics, doing things for everyone without getting anything in return. It sounds like a lot of work.

Then the angel said I could always just control the world. Not quite like that I suppose but it was the same gist. I could be a dungeon, and as I level up my influence expands. Apparently dungeons can’t normally have sentients as residents unless it was a special circumstance. They would change it fundamentally for me to allow the whole world to eventually become part of my dungeon! I would be able to make rules that cannot be broken, but only when I’m big enough.

Now I’m not evil or anything but I do like the idea of having rules that can’t be broken by anyone. No killing, no assaulting, no stealing- well maybe stealing would be ok, can’t leave some stupid loopholes for people to lawyer around. And if someone does find a loophole I’d like the normal people to steal back what was lawyered away. Eh I’ll figure it out as I go.

The angel smiled at me, it seems like she knew what I was thinking, well I didn’t even have a body. I didn’t have a mouth so does that mean everything I think is out loud?

The angel nodded at me and everything flashed white. Next thing I saw was a dark a musky basement. I felt around for a bit and hit something that seemed special. It was a gem, stuffed in a crate inside some cloth. When I focused on it some sort of tag popped up above it that read “Dungeon Core”. Ok so that’s important, if memory serves well which it hasn’t so far, that’s like my heart.

Oh crap! A mouse already found the core?! I’m starting to panic, I don’t know how to do anything yet! How do I tell things to keep me safe? CAN I tell thing to protect me? I don’t know how any of this works!

The mouse stared at the gem for a few seconds without moving, and then covered it with more cloth. So the mice are on my side? Well if I go with that as a base, the mice are attacking most other bugs but they seem to ignore the spiders, if not actively work along with them. So I have mice and spiders. This seems familiar, I think I read a story about someone becoming a dungeon before! Except they had rats and spiders to start, seems I’m not quite as lucky and only get mice, not rats.

With each critter killed I feel a power welling inside of me and I try to find a way to quantify whatever it is, suddenly a little bar labeled ‘Mana’ appears that just forever seems to be in the upper left of wherever I look. Well I’m starting to figure things out at least.

I focus on a mouse and tell it to kill the nearest roach, and to my surprise it does. Only it seems like it costed a bit of my mana. So I should probably just let them do their own thing for now, the bugs don’t seem to get me a whole lot in comparison to what I had to spend to direct one mouse.

Now to the biggest problem, the door. I can feel a lot of things which somehow translates into a weird sort of sight for me, think of sonar but it stays there for a second before refreshing. Like everything in it is in stop motion. I feel the whole basement but when I go up the stairs I feel a door and can sense via the mice? Wait I can sense things the mice can feel? Since when? Whatever new sense unlocked, uh sort of. There’s light coming out from under the door, which to me means there’s some sort of thing living up there, and I am definitely not ready for anything to try to take me on yet.

I focus on where I see the rats coming from, a little hole in the wall. ‘Mouse den’ it reads, I find it would’ve been more entertaining if it said mouse house but if this is what the system says- holy- did I just change the name? I can do that? Ok well it’s officially mouse house now, and I can upgrade it! I focus on it and try to mentally click on it and some form of two factor authentication pops up as it says ‘upgrade mouse house to level 2?’ And I notice there’s a portion of my mama bar, a large portion of it, blinking. Is that how much it’ll cost? Eh worth it, and I mentally click it again.

Nothing happened, at least that I can see anyway. A new mouse popped out and I focused on it, ‘lvl2 mouse’ hey that’s pretty cool! I’d do it again but I guess I don’t have enough mama for that. I guess I’ll start searching for the spider lair then to upgrade that instead. I noticed that before I upgraded the mice the bugs got fairly close to my core but never managed to touch it, but now it seems they’re being pushed further away from my core. Is my core attracting them? Well now for a little risky play I suppose, no pain no gain right?

Mouse! Come here! I need you to take my core and place it in the middle of the room! Once there everyone will need to defend it like crazy! I mean I’ve died once, it can’t hurt that bad can it? Can I even feel pain as a dungeon? Let’s hope I don’t have to find out. The mouse seemed to do a triple take at my order but heeded it anyway. When the boss says just It says how high. I guess that’s how it goes here anyway.

Once my core got out of the covers it’s like all the little critters went crazy! My mice took the front line and the spider got behind them, way to go webs! They tossed small nets over the mice to slow down the bugs. Seems to work pretty well. Time to check for the spider lair, I searched around and found it up in a corner. A quick glance at my mama showed it was almost full again! Wow! This strategy gets me a ton of mana!- ouch!!

Imagine a migraine, now it’s a full body migraine, now multiply it by ten, that’s what a small centipede biting my core feels like. I turned my attention to the battle taking place in the middle of the basement, dungeon? Me? No that just feels weird, just the middle of the basement is fine. The mice were squeaking and the spiders hissing back at the cockroaches. Four mice intercepted the centipede as soon as I looked over and before I knew it the was no more centipede, seems like they aren’t just killing, but eating them too.

I quickly upgrade the spider lair and the rate the spiders ‘spawn’ seemed to double. Now the critters? Invaders? I’ll just label them vermin for now. Just something to be exterminated. The vermin can’t seem to move forward anymore making it much easier for my mice to finish them off.

Now that that’s handled I can- oh. That’s not good. The door to upstairs just opened.