Dear Diary,

  When one is dealing with semi-omnipotent Dungeons and System-overseen scenarios, being unceremoniously dumped at the bottom of a nearly-submerged kitchen feels less like an unfortunate accident and more like somebody is having a very specific grudge.

  At least, that was Annabell Smith’s immediate impression as she was rudely ejected from a drainage pipe that had, up until now, been happily slurping up water like a toddler with a juice box. As of that moment, however, it had lost interest in such duties, which meant that all the water which had previously been going down was now staying very much up.

  And there was rather a lot of it.

  Also, it was dark. Very dark. The kind of dark that suggests all the other, lesser darknesses had called in sick for the day.

  Still clinging to her bag of loot, cheeks puffed out as if that might somehow convince her lungs to hold on to their precious oxygen a little longer, Annabell gave a series of uncoordinated kicks. A few frantic dog-paddles later, and she broke the surface, gasping and flailing in a place that barely knew any sounds at all.

  The apartment—once a place of chaos, adventure, and occasional rodent-related screaming—had become eerily silent in her absence.

  She took in the scene, which mostly consisted of floating, lifeless rats and the distinct scent of…something unpleasant. Rotten eggs? Annabell wasn’t sure where it was coming from, though the slow, ominous bubbling of something gaseous rising to the surface nearby seemed like a strong contender.

  Must have been air.

  Because no one would be reckless enough to leave the stove on, right? Letting gas accumulate as the flames were oh-so-conveniently extinguished by the flood that had turned the entire place into an aquatic playground…

  Right?

  "Awfully dark, isn't it, Wallace?" Annabell wheezed, clinging to a nearby, indistinguishable piece of floating furniture. “Can’t even see where to go like this…”

  And then, like the best and worst of ideas, a metaphorical light bulb flickered on over her head.

  "Right! I do have just the thing for this," she declared with the kind of confidence that, in an ideal world, would have been reserved for people making good decisions.

  With one arm wrapped around her makeshift raft, in an airspace that—technically speaking—wasn’t really air anymore, she began rummaging through her bag of Boss Goodies.

  From within the same bag that had previously produced a misplaced bottle, she now pulled out a lighter.

  "Just give me a second, Wallace, and I'll find us a way right out of here."

  Somewhere, in the vast and ineffable workings of the universe, Fate—who had been reclining comfortably with a nice cup of tea—suddenly inhaled in surprise and nearly choked.

  ***

  Meanwhile—

  In the metaphysical offices of the dungeon—a space where reality took frequent coffee breaks—a certain Dungeon Core was in the middle of a rather heated argument with the System.

  Did, or did not, teleporting several dozen undead crocodiles after a particularly pesky Gremlin count as a tier two or a tier three restricted action?

  Technically, yes, the undead crocodiles were far too large to fit through the established drainpipes, which had thus far been this particular instance’s preferred method of surprise delivery. Practically, however, it would only take a small amount of narrative convenience (the most potent magic of all) to say:

  "Oh look, the crocodiles are in this flooded room, too. Oh no."

  The logistics? Unimportant. Magic was mysterious. Narratives were flexible. And if the audience didn’t see it happen, then obviously it just happened.

  Was it a little cheap? Perhaps. Was it, creatively speaking, on thin ice? Certainly—especially considering that flooding two rooms in a row was already toeing the line between "thematic consistency" and "the writer fell asleep on the water effect button."

  Nevertheless, the Dungeon Core was just about to launch into an eloquent and entirely self-serving argument about how undead crocodiles were a perfectly reasonable thematic representation of “Water Is Scary”—

  When the entire conversation was violently, thunderously, and kaboomingly cut short.

  Not just any kaboom, mind you. This was the kind of kaboom that made lesser kabooms rethink their career choices and consider a quieter life in accounting. This was the kind of kaboom that rattled figurative tea cups in distant celestial offices.

  This was a KA-BOOM! The kind that rendered the entire point moot, largely because the instance they’d been discussing was now a smoldering hole where an instance used to be.

  ***

  Simultaneously—

  In a place that had always looked like a battlefield but now had the bloodstains to sell the aesthetic, an undead horde stood around in directionless apathy.

  They had come here with a goal. But that goal had jumped down a hole.

  A hole that was currently blocked by two plus-sized zombies who had, in a rare moment of undead initiative, decided to go down at the same time.

  This had, to put it lightly, not gone down well with some of the more fundamental principles of the universe—specifically the ones concerning sizeable things and small spaces, and the bit that stated, in no uncertain terms, that two rotting corpses cannot, in fact, coexist in the same physical location at the same time, no matter how much they push.

  And so, for the past twenty minutes or so, the rest of the horde had been loitering in Annabel’s apartment in a manner that could only be described as lackadaisical menace.

  Occasionally, one of them would point out (mostly via gurgling) an interesting mosaic of dirty socks. Another might sigh wistfully over a half-eaten snack on the counter, whose food label contained ingredients best left unexamined.

  All in all, they were entirely unaware of what was happening beneath their feet.

  Flooding apartments? Not their concern. A dead rat king? Old news.

  The subtle-yet-concerning shift in the floor beneath them, heralding the rapid expansion of space as the universe prepared itself for what could technically be described as a not-quite-nuclear-but-certainly-enthusiastic explosion?

  By the time any of them realized that yes, this was probably something to be concerned about, they had already been reduced to an assortment of stains, debris, and what might generously be described as a fine mist of poor life choices.

  ***

  At the same time—

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  Out on the streets of a city that was steadily leaning into its new undead Dungeon chic aesthetic—picture cracked pavements, weathered walls, a tasteful sprinkling of bloodstains, and a burnt-out trash container providing that essential post-apocalyptic je ne sais quoi—the sun had finally set.

  This left everything in that perfect, gloomy twilight beloved by horror stories and, as it happened, also by pyrotechnics, chain reactions, and sudden, highly energetic explosions.

  Of course, even in broad daylight, a sudden, apartment-erasing detonation tended to leave a mark. But when you added in a bit of dungeon physics, a touch of narrative inevitability, and a liberal sprinkling of Gremlin interference, well—

  Let’s just say, if you were anywhere near this particular explosion, you’d very much wish you weren’t.

  In fact, if you were in the same district, you’d soon be rethinking your choice of trousers. And if you were in the same city, you might one day regret overhearing the survivors’ accounts, which—when told properly—would likely involve a great deal of wild hand gestures and at least three different local variations of the phrase “bloody hell.”

  Perhaps one such account would go a little something like this:

  Everything was calm. Everything was quiet.

  And then it wasn’t.

  A deafening roar split the air as a certain Gremlin’s former apartment complex enthusiastically divested itself of its north-facing wall.

  Some chunks of masonry took a leisurely upward trajectory, before gravity remembered its job and reeled them back in. Others opted for a more direct approach, careening straight down into the street to be sent bouncing like skipping shrapnel. A few, showing remarkable ambition, went for horizontal travel, embedding themselves in neighboring buildings with all the grace of a hailstorm of thrown bricks (which, technically, they were).

  Naturally, everything hit something, because destruction—especially Gremlin-influenced destruction—operated under a strict No Empty Spaces policy.

  Any windows that had somehow survived up until this point shattered in a grand symphony of “we really should have replaced those with plywood”. A rapidly expanding ball of fire, feeling somewhat theatrical, whooshed outward and politely but firmly removed any surviving plant life from the premises. Several undead, who had already been having a perfectly rotten evening, were suddenly having a much shorter one.

  All in all, it was an extremely poor time to be standing on the street.

  And for the one responsible for it all? Well, first some exposition from our sponsors—

  ***

  For as long as the Underfold had existed alongside the System, the Nexus, and an endless sprawl of Dungeons in which the ambitious, the foolish, and the terminally overconfident could test their mortality, certain abilities have been… well, let’s say: prone to updates.

  A common misconception among Delvers is that the so-called omnipotent System is exactly that—omnipotent. Infallible. A perfect, unerring overseer of reality.

  This is, of course, utter nonsense.

  Throughout the ages, countless abilities have had their fine print quietly adjusted, reworded, reinterpreted, and—on one particularly unfortunate occasion—accidentally translated into a dialect of Abyssal known only to three eldritch entities and a very confused linguistics professor.

  However, no abilities have been revised quite so frequently as those falling under the delightful, unpredictable, and catastrophically abusable umbrella of Chaos.

  Or, as the less academically inclined like to call it, RNG.

  Now, it stands to reason that if your entire schtick involves occasionally bringing your surroundings down on your own head, then it would only be fair that you get some sort of survival clause against said surroundings.

  And, indeed, this was once widely accepted wisdom—right up until a subset of particularly enthusiastic Delvers realized they could become explosively lucky (in the most literal sense) while resting comfortably in the arms of near-certain survival.

  The System, upon realizing it had accidentally created a class of dice-rolling suicide bombers who weren’t even dying properly, promptly issued a hotfix.

  And then another.

  And then several more, because it turns out that the sort of people who invest in explosive chaos magic tend to find loopholes for a living.

  Eventually, in what historians would later refer to as The Great Anti-Boom Update, the System took the easy way out and simply adjusted all abilities that had a tendency to blow up in their user’s face—which, when one really looked at the statistics, was an alarmingly high percentage of them.

  The result was that, in the interest of fairness, balance, and making sure Delvers only mostly blew themselves up, the System’s internal mechanics became an ever-shifting labyrinth of last-minute patches and dubious legal wording.

  What it ultimately settled for was something along the lines of: what better way to keep things “fair” than to only hand out the truly abusable skills to those least likely to read the fine print in the first place?

  (Long story short: the people getting the good stuff were also the kind of people who tended to skim past the terms of service and blindly click Accept.)

  Which brings us to Gremlins.

  The System had long since determined that, if left entirely to their own devices, Gremlins would go extinct before the weekend was even over. So, in an act of what might technically be described as mercy (and more accurately be described as an attempt to save paperwork), certain permissions were granted to their kind.

  For instance, accidental detonations has a remarkably low chance of killing them.

  The problem, of course, is defining accidental. And killing.

  For those few brave (and deeply unlucky) souls who have attempted to take these issues up with the System’s defense lawyers, the results have been… less than fruitful.

  But that is a problem for another time.

  Because right now, a very specific water-filled apartment requires our attention—

  ***

  Annabell should have seized to exist the moment she flicked that lighter.

  By all known laws of physics, chemistry, and common sense (a field in which she had never shown particular academic interest), that tiny, defiant click should have been her last recorded act in this world.

  But the thing was, someone Up There—perhaps a guardian angel, perhaps a particularly sentimental cosmic auditor—was looking out for her.

  The lighter was wet.

  The spark did not appear.

  The universe, in an uncharacteristically charitable mood, had extended a warning. A sign. A gentle, fatherly “Don’t.”

  So naturally, Annabell tried again.

  And when the second flick also failed, she—being the sort of person who viewed the phrase trial and error as an enthusiastic lifestyle choice—tried for a third time.

  At which point, her guardian angel sighed, recognized the inevitable, and clocked out early.

  This time, there was a spark.

  And there was also everything else.

  The air, which had previously been content just existing as air, suddenly remembered it was actually a volatile gas mixture and ignited with the enthusiasm of a bonfire that had just been handed a crate of fireworks and told to make an impression.

  It did not so much explode as erupt.

  The shockwave hit like a celestial battering ram, obliterating walls, pulverizing the ceiling, and sending a thoroughly horrified quantity of water in every possible direction—including, but not limited to, up.

  The immediate surface of the water vanished, replaced with boiling steam, rapidly expanding gases, and the sort of temperatures that make physicists stare into the middle distance and reconsider their life choices.

  And Annabell?

  Her lips had formed a perfect, circular ‘O’.

  It was, by all accounts, the kind of situation where even the most lenient of divine prosecutors would struggle to justify why this particular Gremlin should be allowed to continue existing.

  Because while this technically fell under accidental detonation, it also fell squarely within the “Come on, man, be reasonable” category.

  But the thing about Gremlins—the very reason the System’s internal risk assessment team had long since given up on dealing with them—is that it never paid to be reasonable around a Gremlin.

  Rat-King’s Brooch (Rarity: SSS+)

  Part of the Royal Collection, known to grant temporary invulnerability in the face of certain death.

  (Also known to sell for a “retire in a private dimension and never work again” amount, even on the legal market.)

  Really, treasure this one. You’ll probably never see one again. Ever.

  One-Time Use!

  Had Annabell read any of this text when she clipped the rad, skull-encrusted accessory onto her pink, bunny-eared hoodie?

  Of course not.

  Which also meant she had absolutely no idea that a literal fortune had just gone pop against her chest—the kind of fortune that made experienced Delvers howl to the heavens about unfair loot distribution, the kind that had entire dungeon syndicates engaging in cutthroat bidding wars, the kind that would have left kings asking if they could perhaps renegotiate their tax policies.

  Instead, Annabell was far too busy being caught up in the minor inconvenience of trying not to die.

  She was flung here, she was knocked there, walls exploded, ceilings vanished, floors expressed their dissatisfaction with existing, and through it all, Annabell was not even cackling a little bit.

  That was how bad things had gotten.

  At least for the Dungeon Core that had just realized what kind of nonsense it was up against.

  And for a horde of zombies, who had been fully content with minding their own business until their night was quite rudely ruined.

  And for the System itself, which was painfully aware that it would have to somehow reward our Gremlin protagonist for her suicidal tendencies.

  Really, there was no fairness to life.

  ***

  As the pings of countless notifications—potential level ups, skills gained, and achievements—flashed across her vision, Annabell lay sprawled in the wreckage of what had once been a perfectly respectable sidewalk.

  Water was gushing over her from a fire hydrant that had decided to make a dramatic exit from its career in fire safety.

  One of her cat-paw gloves had gone rogue, now floating solemnly in the ankle-deep remains of a dungeon instance that, for legal purposes, could now be classified as “nonexistent.”

  And yet, even in the wake of all that destruction, even after surviving what should have been an unfortunate obituary, the true horror of the night was still looming just above her head.

  But Annabell—understandably—would need a moment to gather herself before she could face that one.