[Do you wish the claim the dungeon?]
He hesitated for only a moment before making a decision.
Yes.
He felt pressure well up in his arm. It spread from the orb as power rushed inside him.
Even though he could feel the pressure, it was more of a numbness than heat rushing. It felt as if his arm had fallen asleep… pins and needles. The orb’s glow pulsed once, then twice, and each beat shoved a little more force through his palm and into his forearm. Ray clenched his jaw and held on anyway. His ribs still hurt when he breathed and his arm was still half cooked, but this wasn’t a boss swinging at him. This would all be worth it in the end.
The pillar beneath the orb hummed, stone vibrating under his boots. Lines etched into the floor lit up in thin blue threads and ran outward from the base in branching patterns that reminded him of roots, not because they looked like roots, but because they travelled with purpose, splitting and reconnecting as if the whole dungeon was wired around this one glowing core.
Ray swallowed and stared at the orb. “Alright. Do your thing.”
A pause hit, long enough to make his pulse spike.
[Claim in progress…]
The pressure surged.
For a heartbeat he thought it would rip his arm off at the elbow. The force shoved higher, past his forearm and into his shoulder, then slid through his chest in a slow, invasive wave. Ray’s vision tightened. The room dimmed around the edges. He thought he could feel a presence in the dungeon. Like it was a living being but he couldn’t be sure.
The orb flared brighter and the pillar’s glow deepened into a steady, cold blue that filled the chamber in a clean light. The thrum under the stone shifted. It was still there, still alive, but the rhythm changed into something calmer. He saw numbers appear in his vision… text he couldn’t read, almost like computer code. When it finished ticking by, he knew it was complete.
[Dungeon claimed.]
Ray sucked in a breath and realised he was shaking. His body was filled with a power he couldn’t control. It was heavy, something that sat behind his eyes and made his thoughts feel alien, as if he was no longer a human… no longer Ray. He could hear whispers, see lines in the dungeon… hidden areas.
“Arkus,” he said, voice rough. “You there?”
A single beat of silence, then the air in front of him flickered.
[Present.]
Ray let out a small huff. “I’ve got what you wanted. Now what do I need to do.”
[Place your hand back on the orb.]
Ray paused. When had he moved away from the orb… Come to think of it… had the room changed? He was still standing in the centre but all the crab and lobster corpses were gone. That sucked… his loot was gone. He walked back to the orb and placed his hand on it.
Messages immediately flooded his screen.
Greetings Dungeon Claimant. You are now the proud owner of dungeon designation: Lobster King. Please choose from the following options:
- Manage Dungeon
- Transfer Dungeon
Ray could immediately see the two options available to him. There were a few others grayed out, such as destroy dungeon, convert dungeon and access world-root.
[Please select transfer dungeon.]
“Wait a sec,” Ray said. “I just want to understand what I’m giving up to empower you first.”
Ray selected Manage Dungeon. His consciousness immediately left his body. He found himself floating in a void, the only thing to be seen was a full map of the dungeon he had just cleared. There were markers for monster positioning, behaviour and even locations of chests he had missed in hidden rooms and crevasses.
A mentally moved towards the map and a list of options appeared before him. The ability to add new beasts, change dungeon type, even the type of loot that would drop in the dungeon… though he couldn’t control specifics. Unfortunately he couldn’t really do anything. Every time he tried…
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Invalid Dungeon Points… 0/1,000.
Had anyone known about Dungeon Orbs? Were people controlling dungeons throughout Arkus without the population knowing about it? What about the Rat Dungeon that had overflowed. Was that controlled by some psycho?
He let his consciousness drift back into his own body. As his eyes opened, he was greeted with a message from Arkus Gaia.
[Please transfer dungeon.]
Ray now had a fair understanding of what he was giving up. He was about to give an unknown being of cosmic power the ability to fully access and control the dungeon. It could essentially do anything with it.
“What will you do when I transfer?” Ray asked.
[Gain power… Fight opposing System.]
That was good enough for Ray for the time being. Ray certainly couldn’t do much in his current state. He was far too weak to pose a threat or even be able to take the fight back to this other bullshit system. Ray would get his revenge… eventually. He placed his hand back on the orb and this time selected Transfer Dungeon. Immediately, another list appeared… though there was only a single name listed.
Who do you wish to transfer the dungeon to.
- Arkus Gaia System
Ray selected it.
Please confirm you wish to transfer to a System Entity. This change can not be undone.
Ray mentally selected Yes.
All at once, he felt the pressure in his body recede. A cool sensation flowed out of him, making him feel like it was a spring afternoon with a comfortable coastal breeze.
[Agreement confirmed… Thank You]
“Alright. Now that you have your end of the bargain. It’s my turn.”
[Confirmed. UI establishment unlocked. To gain full access, please continue to transfer cores of power.]
Immediately Ray brought his system windows up. He was now able to move things around and customise an overlay. He could turn off annoying messages that constantly popped up mid fight, such as those of bleeding and poison. He could make the text smaller… but most of all, he now had a tiny reticule of HP and Mana in his vision, allowing him to get a quick read, instead of having to fiddle through his menus constantly.
Ray didn’t go straight for the corridor. He circled the chamber once, slow and careful, keeping his steps off the deepest grooves while his ribs complained at every twist. The pillar held steady in the centre, orb dimmer now, blue threads still alive under the stone, branching away from the base and vanishing into the floor. The thrum was quieter, lower in his feet, steady enough to ignore if he wasn’t paying attention. Ray kept paying attention anyway. Just because things were quiet doesn’t mean there wasn’t danger.
The HP and Mana reticule sat in the corner of his vision, small, clean, and impossible to lie to. Ray swallowed and forced his breathing into a controlled rhythm, because shallow breaths kept him upright and deep breaths made his ribs feel ready to split. He nudged the overlay higher with a few small gestures until it sat where it wouldn’t block sight-lines. He lowered the brightness a touch. He muted every non-essential notice he could find, then left the critical triggers alone. He wanted warnings. He wanted the core prompts. He wanted anything that would stop him from dying while he was busy being stubborn.
He tested the overlay properly. A blink brought it forward. A second blink tucked it away. A small menu slid into place and he adjusted thresholds until they matched his reality. Red line for health. Red line for mana. He didn’t need a lecture when the numbers dropped, he needed a visible line that told him he was almost out of time. When he finished, a tight knot in his chest loosened a fraction. It wasn’t strength. It wasn’t a level. It was friction removed from survival.
Ray pushed a thread of intent through Identify and kept it light. The skill still flickered between useful and weird, and he didn’t want a joke right now. He scanned the pillar, the floor channels, the room edges, the places where the crab court had stood. The chamber looked scrubbed clean. No shell fragments. No ichor. No smashed bodies. No baton. The dungeon had wiped the room so thoroughly it felt personal, as if it was erasing evidence that Ray had ever won in here. His jaw tightened. If the dungeon could clean, it could store. If it could store, then the loot hadn’t vanished. It had been moved.
He followed the faint blue threads to the nearest wall and found a node where several lines converged into a small stone plate set flush with the ground. Ray crouched slowly, ribs biting, and pressed his palm to it. The plate held a steady vibration, familiar now, the same hum as the pillar. For a moment nothing happened, then a small block of text flickered into view.
[Reclamation access available.]
“There you are,” Ray muttered, and his voice sounded too loud in the empty chamber. He kept his other hand near a dagger and pressed harder. The stone clicked, firm and mechanical, and a section of the wall beside it eased open by a hand’s width. Cold air flowed out, clean and sharp. The gap widened into a narrow niche lined with smooth shelves and carved recesses. It looked deliberate. It looked organised. Ray hated that a dungeon had better storage habits than half the people he’d camped with.
The first shelf held stacks of shell, sorted by type and size. Rustshell plates, stoneclaw joints, skitterback pincers. Ray dragged them out slowly and laid them along the chamber wall in neat rows, building order out of stubbornness. The baton sat deeper in the niche, set on a back shelf as if the dungeon had placed it there with care. Ray stared at it and felt his stomach turn. He didn’t touch it yet. He didn’t want that thing in his hand while Arkus was asleep. He finished pulling out the shells and any loose drops first, packing what mattered, bundling the rest, working through the ache in his arm without letting it turn into clumsiness.
The niche held more than materials. There were small containers tucked into recesses, a couple of minor chests, and a slate with faint etched symbols that pulsed when his fingers brushed it. A map projection flickered in his vision for a heartbeat, then vanished. Ray’s eyes narrowed. He remembered the void view from Manage Dungeon, remembered the hidden rooms, the crevasses, the missed chests. He didn’t have admin sight anymore. He had memory and a new UI that kept his resources visible while he moved. He tightened his pack straps and left the baton on its shelf. He could come back for it when he had the spare energy to hate it properly.
He moved through the corridors with his head down and his steps measured, following the faintest shifts in vibration where the blue floor threads ran close to walls and vanished under stone. The first hidden cache was a seam that looked like nothing until he stood at the right angle. He tested it with a dagger tip, then levered gently. Stone scraped, a panel gave, and a crawlspace opened up just wide enough to squeeze into. Ray swore under his breath and went in anyway. Cold stone pressed his shoulders. Dust scratched at his throat. Inside, two small chests waited along with a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He took everything, backed out, and sat against the corridor wall until his breathing settled again.
The second cache was worse. Narrower gap, deeper squeeze, a sharp edge in the rock that caught his arm and sent pain flaring through the bruised muscle. Ray forced the pain down and kept going, because stopping would only make it harder. The chest inside was heavier than it looked. He dragged it out inch by inch, then opened it on the corridor floor with a dagger point rather than fingers. Consumables, small oddities, a couple of items that made him pause. He didn’t linger. He packed fast, checked the reticule again, and kept moving. The mana number still sat there, stubborn and thin. The health number felt worse when he could see it constantly.
He used a potion after the third cache. The decision wasn’t dramatic. His hand was starting to shake when he tried to steady the dagger. His breathing was turning shallow in a way that made his vision blur at the edges. A potion took the sharpness out of the pain and gave him back a little control over his body. That was the point. He watched the HP number climb and forced himself to accept the cost. Consumables existed for moments like this. Saving them for a perfect day was how you died on an imperfect one.
By the time he returned to his recess, he had a proper pile of loot and materials. He sorted it into clean groups without thinking too hard. Food and drink in one stack. Bandages and consumables in another. Anything unknown in its own pile where it couldn’t surprise him at three in the morning. He glanced at the crabstone idol and felt a tired irritation rise in his throat. A dungeon that tried to kill him had also handed him a stone crab heater and seasoning. The universe had a cruel sense of humour. Ray wasn’t ready to laugh at it properly yet, but the fact he could feel the urge at all was progress.
He cooked again because his body needed warmth and his head needed something simple to focus on. He kept the heat steady, fed the idol just enough mana to hold the shell plate at a workable temperature, and ate slowly until his hands stopped trembling. The food sat heavy in a good way. His shoulders dropped a fraction. He leaned back, watched the reticule, and let the slow tick of regeneration do its miserable work.
“Arkus,” he said quietly, and waited.
No answer.
Ray didn’t push harder. The silence felt occupied rather than empty. He didn’t want Arkus waking halfway through processing and deciding to chat while Ray was on the verge of collapse. He packed what he needed, tightened straps, set his daggers where he could draw them without lifting his injured arm too high, and made one last trip back to the chamber. He looked at the baton on its shelf and left it there with a quiet, petty satisfaction. If it woke up, it could wake up alone.
Ray returned to the pillar, placed his hand briefly against the stone near the base, and felt the hum answer him through his palm, steady and slow. The blue threads under the floor didn’t brighten. They didn’t flare. They just kept running with quiet purpose, carrying something deeper through the dungeon’s bones. Ray pulled his hand away and nodded once. That was enough. He’d done his job. Arkus could do whatever it did in the dark.
He moved back through the corridors towards the entrance at a steady pace, stopping once to tighten his bandage and once more to check the overlay again, because he didn’t trust anything that mattered to behave the first time. The shimmer of the boundary came into view and Ray slowed without meaning to, eyes narrowing on the thin line of light that marked the divide between the crab hole and the mountain outside.
He took a breath, careful with his ribs, then stepped forward and crossed the threshold. The light around him vanished.