Esteemed Journal,

  What pose should be struck in a moment of triumph? Should one throw their arms wide and bask in metaphorical spotlight? Should there be fireworks? Trumpets? A choir of angels doing jazz hands?

  Or is it better to go small—restrained, aloof, the sort of victory stance that whispers I planned this all along even when, quite evidently, you didn’t?

  Lionel J’Khall chose a smirk.

  Not because it was dignified. Not because it was tasteful. But because he knew, deep in his petty little heart, that it would annoy her the most.

  And really, what is triumph without a little spite to season it?

  ***

  Having twice promised Mira that, yes, the next time they met, drinks were on him and that, of course, they’d all be invited to the opening party—complete with entertainment, snacks, and possibly blood-sports—Lionel was, at last, alone with the greatest investment of his life.

  Alone, that is, if you didn’t count the furious barrage of messages slamming into his inbox like a battering ram made of exclamation marks. He ignored them.

  And so, pacing the room with the dedication of a man who knew full well he had poked the dragon in the eye and was now living in the consequences, he carefully sidestepped a half-faded warning sign that read:

  "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE CORE.”

  It smelled faintly of soup and regret. It was also damp.

  Around him, the walls leaned in ways walls shouldn’t. The rusted railings looked as though they'd give up if so much as glanced at sternly. Somewhere in the distance, a pipe hissed like it had given up on delivering steam entirely and now just wanted attention.

  A Dungeon of my own, Lionel thought, basking in the steady drip-drip of a gasket that’d failed its duties. Not just a broom closet with mood lighting or a haunted cave full of leftover slime. A real, proper Dungeon…

  He stopped in front of the admin panel—a chunk of foggy glass and tarnished bronze, etched with the kind of runes that had once been cutting-edge and now mostly flickered between ‘functional’ and ‘whimsical’. It chirped in greeting.

  The screen glowed, having detected the Dungeon Right tucked neatly in his pocket.

  Welcome, Authorized Owner.

  Core Designation: B-213-Zeta

  Dungeon Type: Urban Collapse / Biohazard Survival

  Current Tier: Dormant Class-A

  Threat Curve: Gradual Escalation

  AI Sentiment: Lonely :(

  “Class-A?” Lionel frowned at the glowing text.

  How old was this place, really?

  Even centuries ago, slapping a ‘Class’ label on a dungeon would have been considered a quaint, bureaucratic relic, like hand-delivered memos or powdered wigs. These days, classification was done via algorithm, personality quiz, and at least three kinds of audience retention metrics.

  “I figured this thing would be delisted when I found it with those imps,” he continued, half to himself and half to the panel. “Some junk lot from the post-fusion crash. A failed product line, some Dungeon that never reached its quarterly hauntings…” He leaned closer to the display, squinting. “But that’s not what you are, is it?”

  Class-A…

  That meant this place had once been important. Special, even, back in the halcyon days when people still used classifications and thought synergy was important instead of an excuse to fire half the staff.

  He stepped back, his gaze sweeping the room.

  Walls that’d once been carved with glyphs of power and purpose were now decorated with claw marks, faded spray paint, and the tattered remains of a motivational poster that read: “One should never—” and then stopped, as if it had given up halfway through the lie.

  Overhead, flickering halogen strips buzzed in open warfare with a network of arcane lanterns, each seemingly trying to outdo the other in a race to provide the most inefficient lighting possible.

  In the corner, an animatronic mannequin—wearing a hazmat suit and the kind of optimism usually found in retail workers on their first day—endlessly greeted a cockroach with:

  “WELCOME TO B-213-ZETA, PLEASE FILL OUT THIS FORM.”

  The cockroach, to its credit, was doing its best.

  “What happened to this place?” Lionel whispered, as if uncertain he wanted an actual response. “Even if brutalist survival horror has gone out of fashion, it wouldn’t have back then. So why…?”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He never got to finish the thought.

  Because at that moment, something snapped.

  A sharp, splintering crack rang out like a bone deciding it had had enough, and Lionel spun toward the Core—breath held, eyes piercing into the blue glow.

  It stared back.

  Not in the metaphorical, poetic, “all-seeing destiny-orb” sort of way. No, it looked at him. There was a sentience behind those pulsing lights.

  It was aware of him.

  The chilling realization had barely managed to tiptoe in and hang up its coat as another shift occurred.

  There was a sound. A groan. The universal sound of all things in pain.

  Lionel staggered back, fingers twitching toward the elevator’s Emergency Summon when his overlay flickered.

  A message blinked into view. Glitched. Paused. Then resolved, shaky but clear:

  [Help...me.]

  Lionel froze; gaze locked to a core that pulsed faintly in its tangle of mana lines. A soft, eerie heartbeat. The sort of glow that suggested someone had left the apocalypse on standby.

  His own pulse, meanwhile, was trying for a land speed record.

  It could—

  Talk?

  Now, Lionel was well aware of Wild Dungeons—the Delver’s temptation and frequent bane.

  A far cry from the well-behaved adventures you found listed on the Dungeoneering Guild’s pamphlets, Wild Dungeons leaned deep into the hostile and unpredictable end of the spectrum.

  Things that, when left too long without oversight, grew teeth. Sometimes literally. Sometimes in the form of sprouted brambles; or by flooding themselves with poison gas; or by turning their floor tiles into interpretive land mines. The sort of places that took the phrase no trespassing very seriously, and then added an exclamation mark, a skull, and possibly some screaming.

  And those were just your standard, run of the mill feral type of Wild Dungeon. There were also the sentient ones, a whole different breed of worry.

  Not merely hostile terrain or angry architecture, these were places that hunted. Places that thought. Places that smiled without mouths and waited patiently while the unsuspecting walked right into them like gift-wrapped meat.

  But even those, even the most dangerously clever of them, weren’t exactly “chatty”.

  A dungeon that could talk?

  That was something else entirely.

  “Help you?” Lionel echoed cautiously, in the same tone a man might use when asked to hold a suspiciously ticking package.

  He was still inching away, movements slow and deliberate.

  And then, across his overlay, more words crackled into view—like a ghost shouting through a modem.

  [Help me. She… she is coming.]

  The words carried weight. Not the weight of poor font choices, but the kind of weight that comes from emotion, from panic... The sort of fear that makes even supernatural architectures clutch their metaphysical pearls.

  [Save me. Please, save me from her.]

  Lionel hesitated, his instinct to flee now wrestling with his sense of curiosity.

  A talking dungeon wasn’t just rare, it was unheard of.

  Unless, of course, it was a siren’s call to make him lower his guard…

  “Her?” he repeated, glancing around as shadows loomed slightly larger than they had a moment ago. “Who is—”

  She—he was going to ask.

  But then he heard it.

  A low, buzzing whine.

  It wasn’t the heroic hum of a magical resonance field, nor the gentle purr of something expensive and self-cleaning. No, this was the angry drone of something small with a lot of intent. Like… a very determined mosquito with a megaphone?

  Lionel’s eyes flickered back to the Core.

  If I help it take care of whatever this “Her” is, he wondered, will this place cooperate and become mine?

  That thought was certainly enticing.

  Some of the greatest Dungeons ever broadcasted were sentient ones, and if this one had the intelligence to communicate…

  He could feel a sting of greed cloud his judgement.

  I might end up writing a book. Doing interviews. I can turn this into a whole brand: “Dungeon Whisperer: Lionel vs. The Unknown.”

  It was risky, yes, but it would be worth it.

  All he had to do was—

  That earlier buzzing? It had now grown into a fever pitch, slicing through the walls like a scalpel seeking that special squishy place that would hurt the most. And to accompany it:

  What sounded like a terrified whimper escaped the Core.

  Before Lionel could question what was going on—before he could even fully decide on trusting this place—it all happened at once.

  THRAK-SHAA!

  The ceiling exploded—collapsing in a mournful deluge of dust, plaster, and rebar.

  Through the haze, what emerged was not a mosquito. It wasn’t even some eldritch, oversized bug, befitting of that piercing whine.

  What emerged was her.

  Not with the grace of a shadowy menace, or the ominous dread of some terrible ancient horror.

  She arrived on a scooter.

  A mobility scooter.

  To be precise, a screaming, wheezing, turbo-modified scooter operated by a creature that looked like someone had crossbred a sugar-craved toddler with a pipe bomb and a learner’s permit.

  She, too, screamed as they surge through the air, in the glee-drenched manner of someone who’d once read the words do not and thought, why not.

  Lionel could only stare, mouth ajar and brain momentarily exiting the premises as that howling missile of chaos and flapping chin straps cannoned into the chamber.

  And then—just as the Core let out one last digital sob, the sort of sound ancient systems make before they collapse into unpaid error logs—Lionel’s stomach sank.

  Because missiles of chaos never just arrived. No. They miscalculated trajectories.

  This one, bright-eyed and delighted, was seemingly an expert.

  As if guided by some malevolent, cosmic GPS system, she zeroed in on the one spot in the entire chamber where she could do the absolute most damage.

  Like a candy-coated sledgehammer through a crystal ball, the scooter crashed straight into the Dungeon Core.

  There was a sound.

  Not merely the sound of impact, or destruction, or even of magical systems collapsing into arcane spaghetti. No.

  It was the sound of dreams shattering. The sound of every poor decision Lionel had ever made, and some he would make in the future, catching up with him at once.

  It was the sound of the universe whispering: lol.

  His overlay blinked, once. Then thrice. And finally produced:

  [Destruction Progress: 100%]

  [Dungeon Core Defeated Beyond Repair]

  [Time Spent as B-213-ZETA’s Master: 4 Minutes 22 Seconds]

  Lionel did not scream. He did not cry. He merely stared, incapable of producing a single sound.

  What, in all that was good and holy, did he just witness?