Chapter 3
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Max felt adrift for a while, flickering in and out of consciousness, while the whole time only seeing nothing. It was neither dark nor light, nor was it any sort of color. There was just nothing, that was all he was able to describe it as. He knew he was dead, and while he did not know why he knew this, he could not dismiss the thought. His last memories were vivid, replaying the scene of panic and pleasure. While he could do without the panic part, the pleasure side of it was mighty tasty. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he thought he could hear some voices coming through the void. He tried to listen carefully to make out what the words said, which were nothing more than whispers.

"Sorry.......... Untimely........ Our Fault.......... Compensation ........... Enjoy."

The same blurb repeated over and over again, but all he got were fragments. There was nothing he could make sense of, and every time it repeated it got quieter and softer. Eventually, it was lost in the void, nothing but a passing memory that he would soon forget. After a while, the memory of his death stopped replaying too, but it had already gone on long enough. He could easily remember everything about the scene without issue by now. Thus, he continued to drift, with nothing happening at all. Time felt meaningless, and he had no idea how long he had been here. Whether it was minutes or centuries was anyone's guess. The large void of nothingness gave no indicator to time, as it was quiet and bleak.

Thump! Thump!

All of a sudden, a steady sound like a heartbeat started filling the area around him. Startled by this, he was unprepared when he felt his form being pulled in a certain direction. As he was pulled, not only did the sound get louder, but it got faster too. Looking towards where he was being dragged, he saw a light, getting brighter and more radiant with each passing second. As he became blinded by the combination of the sound and light, he started to lose consciousness once more. The last thing he noticed was not the rapid beating nor the scalding light, but instead, the sound of something shattering.

 


 

What had to have been much later, Max finally regained his senses. Groggily, he looked around to see where he was. The view left him confused, as while it was no longer nothingness, the perspective was weird. He was able to see in three dimensions, all around where he was. But all he could see was dirt and air. In a sphere, he could see nothing but dirt and air no matter how hard he tried. Past that was darkness, stretching on endlessly. His entire world was now that sphere, but that was not the weirdest part. He could see down into the dirt, past where any light could have gotten. He may not have been big on the sciences, but he found it impossible for a person to be able to see where there was no light.

But what if he was not human anymore. A light source was definitely necessary for a human to see, but he was seeing without any obvious light source and through solid dirt. And if he was able to look all around him, why not look at himself. After all, that would solve the current confusion. Everything would be answered if he just focused on himself and got a good, solid look.

It did not. In fact, more questions were raised instead of answered as his sight landed upon his form. He couldn't even call it a body. After all, what he was right now was a dust-covered, pale pink gem half-buried in the dirt.it did not even make sense to him. How could he be a gem? And if so, how could he see? 'Well now, doesn't this just fuck up the status quo.'

Name

Max

Race

Dungeon Core

Strength

N/A

Health

3/3

Dexterity

N/A

Mana

10/10

Endurance

1

Core size

5 mm

Intelligence

1

Bound Creatures

0

Wisdom

1

Area of Influence

10 cm

Charisma

10

Rank

1

Luck

5

Dungeon Points

0

Mana/min

0.1

Health/min

0.1

As he thought that, a table popped into his view. If he had a body he could move, he would have jumped back in astonishment. After all, how does one explain info screens popping up suddenly in their sightlines? Regaining his wits, he turned his attention towards the floating screen. It was semi-transparent, allowing him to still see the dirt that sat behind it. Reading it, some of the earlier questions he had, yet threw a few more his way. Apparently, he was no longer human, but instead, a Dungeon Core, and his stats were abysmal.

For years, he had played some tabletop games with friends, so he was familiar with the info to a degree. His favorite game was when the four people that made up the party were all bards, and it was just a hilarity of a time. Their goal was not to kill a single monster in a campaign where you had to deal with a dragon who was terrorizing the countryside. Their initiative role was not to see who attacked first, but who got the first opportunity to seduce the enemies they had encountered. The only time when they all worked together was when they finally got to the final boss of the campaign. As one, they worked to service the dragon to satisfaction. Apparently, their DM had enjoyed their antics so much, he made the reason why the dragon was running rampant turn from anger at being awoken to being too horny to fall back asleep. Surprisingly enough, only one of them died. Though it was due to the pressure of the ejaculate, sending the poor bard flying into the rock wall. They all laughed at that and even commissioned an artist to carve out a small tombstone with the character's name and cause of death to leave on the guy's porch for him to find as he went out to work. From what Max could remember, he still had it and treasured it. They had been planning to start up another campaign in the coming weeks too.

Turning his mind back to the more pressing matters, he had no idea what the standard starting stats for a dungeon core should be. Was it normal for there to be one in most of the stats? At least his charisma was high, but what good would that do him? It wasn't like he could go out to the bar and hit on people anymore. Nor could he go to parties, or drink, or do anything he used to be able to. That, and from what he could tell he was broke and a cripple. After all, he wasn't able to move or talk, so he was kind of stuck being covered in dust and being stuck in the dirt wherever he was. If only he could see farther, he might be able to have some idea about where he was in the grand scheme of things. After all, was he in the middle of a cave? A forest? A town?

Figuring it was worth a shot, he tried to push his line of sight into the darkness. As he did, he felt something draining in him, but he couldn't tell what. Before he could stop to take a look at his status, he felt the well he had been pulling from run dry. The effect was instantaneous, as while he had felt like he was making some progress, everything stopped dead as if he hit a wall. Realizing that he should check what happened, he took another look at his status.

Name

Max

Race

Dungeon Core

Strength

N/A

Health

3/3

Dexterity

N/A

Mana

0/10

Endurance

1

Core size

5 mm

Intelligence

1

Bound Creatures

0

Wisdom

1

Area of Influence

10.1 cm

Charisma

10

Rank

1

Luck

5

Dungeon Points

0

Mana/min

0.1

Health/min

0.1

'Huh, that drain had to have been my mana. But really, one millimeter for ten mana, that seems like a terrible trade.' he thought to himself. However, as he pondered what all that meant, it was not like he had anything better to do at the moment. He didn't even know how to do anything else, so for now he just planned on expending his mana for sight. Better to do something than nothing while trying to figure out all of what happened and how he ended up here.

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