Dungeon at the End of the Universe

Hello and welcome back to Game-show! The only game-show in spaaaaace! Today we’ll be determining who gets to go on and become a great adventurer for the ages! So, without further ado, let’s look at the contestants.

First, a college dropout turned hardened criminal, we have DeGloglo!

Second, is it a baby or is it a reincarnated individual? Well, it’s just a baby!

And third, an elderly person right on their death bed! Literally!

Which of them can survive and which will go on to make history? Find out tonight, on… Game-show!

…

Hold on just a second. That can’t be right. Did those two buffoons truly decide for another random selection to teleport? Did they think that just because it worked the first time it would always work?

Oh, I really do hate to interfere, but too much his too much. Just goes to show you can never trust a featherless biped, even a former one.

I just have to… do a twist here… a flick there… and crush this here. And voila, new contestants have been selected. With none the wiser that history was ever different.

Truly, the Narrator’s job is always most difficult.

But none of this is truly important, so if you will, please Ignore That.

What is much more important is the new intruder I’ve been telling you about. Let’s see here. Yes, they should be arriving right about now.

At last, it had arrived. Only at the edge of the solar system, of course. It wouldn’t do to be immediately detected by whatever had Universe energy as soon as they entered the solar system.

For now, it was content to observe, so observe it did.

The fledgling deity, so young yet so old, phased out of reality in that partial way that gods often do. And then is observed.

The first thing to come to its attention was the planet that had initially drawn it here. Just as they suspected, it was slowly awakening to the powers of mana. Perhaps it could accelerate it all, the interloping deity already began making plans.

But, just in case, it continued to observe some more. It couldn’t have been coincidence that those strange energy fluctuations came from here.

And as time passed, its patience was rewarded.

From the moon that until now looked completely ordinary, beams of light shot out onto the planet. And in those beams, the deity sensed it. It sensed the Wyld on them and it shivered.

How fortuitous that it decided to be cautious, they thought. If this is indeed a Universal takeover, it’s best not to get involved.

And yet, something didn’t let the deity just go. Something was nagging at its brain. For it had felt something strange in those beams of light. Not just the Wyld, but something more.

So it continued to observe. Which brought with it the next puzzle piece.

From the, now not at all normal, moon another strange phenomenon descended. This time it weren’t spears of light, but more like meteors rushing down towards the planet.

The deity zoomed it. Those were not meteors at all. No, they were small Dungeon Cores, just barely formed.

Now, the deity was truly confused. After all, as far ass it knew, and it knew correctly, the Wyld did not have control over Dungeons. In fact, most people agreed that the Wyld and Dungeons were on completely opposite sides of the existential spectrum.

One last chance at observation was given, this time a detailed scan of planet’s surface. There, lo and behold, it found another Dungeon Core that had been there before this recent meteor shower. But it also noticed another weird thing. The Dungeon was behaving in a distinctly un-Dungeon-like way.

Finally, it was convinced. Something strange was going on here, and even if it may not be as profitable as a true newly awakened world, this deity would figure out what.

They began to build their divine palace, carving out a hidden layer of reality to transform into the divine realms. Which is exactly when it noticed the last strange thing, while also the most worrying thing.

For ever since it had gained its divinity become a deity, one thing had been drilled into their head. DO. NOT. MESS. WITH. TIME.

So, to see the rivers of time not only in flux, but in a giant storm, worried it greatly.

Thing were going good, great, fantastic even! Despite the slight hiccup with my Level-Up and our forgetting of my unfortunate Aspect situation, things were going swimmingly.

Faellen was training up another batch of young Sipalians (still on System version 0.1), so I decided to focus more on the mana terraforming of Lapis.

Is it called terraforming if I’m not changing the landscape at all and instead focusing on the mana layer around the planet? Maybe I should call it manaforming, but I digress.

I’d launched another three Dungeon Seeds, which made me realize I can’t be launching them too often. While my reserves may be great, the Ability still uses a lot of mana and Essence.

Anyway, I made sure the three of them would wall in as perfect a triangle as I could make it around the original island Dungeon.

Speaking of that Dungeon, I’d worked a bit more on it. For one thing I had expanded it a bit more, so it now covered a not insignificant part of the island. All underground, of course.

Then I was inspired by a bunch of the traps Faellen was using to train its adventurers. The result was looking closer and closer to a proper Dungeon, the only thing missing were the monsters.

And I think I’ve figured out a way to do that too. It’s not the best or most clean method, but it works.

To be honest, I find it quite unsightly, but a Dungeon does what a Dungeon must.

The simplest way I’ve found is to rip apart a bunch of animals and then stitch their parts together Frankenstein style. Then you just keep injecting mana into it while hoping at least some body part survived it, so that it can then regrow from there into the new monstrous shape I gave it.

Yes, probably not the best way to go about doing things, but it’s not like this was part of my Tutorial and I can’t just decide to make one whenever I want…

…

I’m a complete idiot.