Saga of the Soul Dungeon

"Man is not the only creature with a mind. Various monsters, even without intellect, have a certain animal cunning. What then makes man enlightened? What raises him above the beasts?

It is his own spark of the divine. He may choose between order and chaos, to seek balance or extremity. His nature is not fixed, but in fact molds to the demands of his own intent. That which he wills of himself, if he pursues it unrelentingly, he will be. Monsters and animals are made. They are fixed. A man makes himself."

-Hatere, Arch-Priest of the Order of Divine Intent

"Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved."

-Thomas Fuller

I wasn’t sure what it said about me that the moment after I opened the dungeon was the least busy I had been for days. Honestly, I think it probably said more about how difficult it was to design a dungeon to work properly. And about how much I had to learn.

I would reflect on that later. For now I watched my first guests with fascination. Even the humans were fascinating to me, but I was truly enthralled to see someone who was not human. Even just watching them all walk was bringing back memories. I hadn’t experienced that for months now. I could feel, but it wasn’t the same without skin.

Looking at my new guests was bringing various sensations. I felt a sense of loss. I missed my old sense of touch, being able to reach out and touch and grab something. I missed experiencing the world in such a visceral way. I experienced much more now, but when I had been but flesh and blood the little I felt was… deeper.

The new visitors actually inspired me to make a golem of sorts. Not a true one, it needed my constant attention to function. It actually turned out well, though I am pretty sure I freaked them out a bit. However, all I felt was empty. I had no more feedback from this than I had for anything else. It was just more stone.

And it had taken a lot of my attention to get it to work right, though I had been amused by the whole bathroom experience. I had finally named what I did when I split my mind. Each mind became a shard, as in a smaller part of a crystal. I had a dozen of them, and it had taken seven working together to make the golem function. Simulating a human being using a statue had been exceptionally hard. Creating a mobile statue was fairly easy because of my ability to create anything that I imagined and the constant feedback as I moved something. So some small detailed changes were quite easy to create. However, creating the image I had in mind and moving it while I kept it perfectly natural even while it was in motion required unusual concentration and coordination. I wouldn’t have managed to make it look natural if I didn’t already have a fairly complete pattern for a man. I had borrowed the man’s exact shape, but that was unlikely to cause problems. I had recorded the motions, so I could make the dungeon play it out with my manipulation skills automatically.

Hopefully I made it look effortless. Human beings were really complicated with all the musculature, tendons, and skin twisting. I had saved myself from needing to imitate the proper motion of cloth by simply creating cloth. And even with all the attention I placed on the statue I had cheated on needing to balance it properly by keeping it attached to the floor. I was almost certain it would have fallen over otherwise.

At least now I could make sure that any people entering the dungeon knew exactly where and what the bathrooms were. I was not going to be happy if someone failed to use them. I had also taken a certain amount of relish in forcing the issue of washing their hands. It was literally for their own good, so I had been able to seal the bathroom until they washed up. I had actually encoded it as a puzzle, with a little hint to the solution. Once someone started the puzzle by removing their clothes and sitting or peeing into the toilet, the door would shut and they could only get out with the proper solution. Since I could not make dangerous traps in a safe area, it would let them out or others in if there was an emergency.

I was not a biological being anymore, but despite that, when people failed to wash their hands it made some part of me crawl. I wasn’t in any danger from disease. At least I didn’t think so, but I was going to make sure they washed their hands. And eventually when I had soap that would be added too. Even if I could utterly eradicate any dirt and bacteria they left behind. Besides, I was fairly certain that I had absorbed some parasite bits from their waste.

I never said that all my concerns were logical. My brain, or whatever was actually running the show these days, still had hangups. They didn’t go away just because I left one world and was transplanted into an alien body.

I wondered what a psychologist would say about my situation. I knew there were people who ended up locked inside their bodies. They might only be able to move their eyes, and use that to communicate. As I thought that I tried to cheer myself up. There were people on Earth who would gladly trade places with me. And there was magic here, I could potentially do almost anything.

So what if my body was a dungeon now? I felt things that mankind had never felt before. I felt the flex of earthquakes ripple through me. I felt the gentle change in temperature as the cold surface met stone and the stone warmed as I went deeper. Someday I would reach out to feel the fiery power that made all my hydrothermal springs spew out heat into my depths.

I had no heart pumping blood, but I had endless water running through veins and chasms and trickling through solid stone.

I had things to miss from my old world. Most people would. However, my grief had been blunted shortly after arriving. I would take it as a blessing. A gift that my emotions had been suspended so my mind could sort everything out as it needed to and I could move on. I would always love my parents and my siblings. I was dedicated to staying as good a person as I could because of them. They would want me to survive, even if that meant killing in my own defense, but I would keep what principles I could.

I had no career that I missed and loved. I had considered so many options, but none of them had truly appealed. I had considered being a doctor, a lawyer, and others. Not because I was truly interested, but because those were the professions that were expected for someone smart. I had majored in biology just to give myself time to think, and even then I took many other classes, trying to experience new things. If I wanted new experiences and a chance to create, I could hardly choose a better option than this world.

Even as my mind continued to turn, I watched my guests.

And what interesting people they were. They were interesting enough that several shards always had their attention focused on them. Especially the one that was human-ish. His skin was light brown with traces of green veins and reminded me of beech bark. Skin was not quite the right word, either. It overlapped faintly, with slightly raised edges that reminded me of something between scales and bark. And there was more than just skin color and texture to suggest they were something alien to me. Their hair was green, the green of lush tropical plants. And just as their skin was not skin, it was not right to call their hair merely hair. There was less hair than you would expect on a human head, but each strand branched out from the main stalk into small subsidiary branches, so it was more accurate to say it had tiny ferns sprouting on their head. They had no beard, or even a sign of stubble or other body hair. Their lips, like the visible veins and hair, were green, though this was a deep forest green. The eyes were a startling contrast. They were a vibrant amethyst.

And there were other notable differences about them. They were articulated just like human beings, but their elbows and knees had an extra addition. Each had a thorn that curved inward and sprouted from the lower part of the extremity. When the limbs were fully extended the thorn dug into a hollow of flesh and disappeared beneath an almost shield like protrusion of shaggy bark.

All of them were wrapped in fur, but the plant-man had their clothing wrapped around them to accommodate the difficulties that would naturally arise from the thorns catching on everything. They were, from my first impression, what a plant person from a moderately temperate environment would look like. My ability to feel through their clothing somewhat left no doubt they were male.

The others were less striking, but still interesting. Being wrapped in white firs made each of them have a barbarian splendor.

There were humans, two men and a woman. Each of them, and the plant guy, radiated more heat than I thought was natural. There were sources of mana that I couldn’t see clearly in the layers of fur. I was guessing those were some form of magical heaters. One of the men was enormous, and his bulk was enhanced by being wrapped in both clothes and fur.

After they had gone a short distance into the tunnels all of them stopped and took turns unwrapping the furs while the others kept watch. Honestly, they were all in fantastic shape. If they were from Earth I would have described the large man and the woman as Nordic. Blond hair and a well built tall body for both of them. Though their features were a little rounder than I would have expected from Earth. The last man was shorter and thinner, nearly wiry, though muscle was packed onto his frame. He was dark haired and seemed to come from an entirely different background. He had large ears, a pointed nose, and was almost constantly in motion. Even when he was standing still, it looked like he was ready to burst into movement at a moments notice.

I enjoyed watching them, seeing how they were familiar and strange at the same time. I could feel how the plant-man had tapped into my own senses. I watched them as they warily crept through the tunnel and never let their guard down. I wasn’t sure if they were aware this was a safe zone or not.

Of course, I had tried putting things in the safe zone to see what was restricted. And quite a few things weren’t. I could leave toxic materials lying around. I could place down boiling hot springs. Swift dangerous currents filled with rocks that would carry someone down into the sewers which were not a safe zone, yep that worked. So did massive chasms and extremely sharp crystal outgrowths. I may not be able to use monsters or many conventional traps, but I could have the environment itself be obviously dangerous. I had removed all of these, of course.

So I guessed they were right to be wary, even if I wanted to laugh each time they warily circled around a new bathroom. I guess experienced dungeon divers learned not to take anything for granted. That was good, it would serve them well in my dungeon too. Even if I, unlike what other dungeons might do, fully intended to make sure that my safe zones were truly safe.