[Booting System: Dungeon.exe v1.07-Beta]
[User(s): Kael Vire]
[Access Level: Null]
Kael woke to the sound of screaming.
Not digital screams. Not compressed audio files or pre-coded effects. These were real raw, panicked, human sounds.
He sat straight, blinking rapidly as blue-tinted code scrolled across his vision. His feet weren't on the cold tile of NeuroForge's lab. Instead, he stood in a narrow stone hallway, walls damp and torchlight glowing faintly. Chains were rattling in the distance.
A menu popped into his view.
[ADMIN ACCESS GRANTED]
[You are now part of the dungeon]
"What...?" he whispered.
A loud clang snapped his attention to his left. A door slammed shut at the end of the hall. a digital map expanded across his vison pulsing red.
[Trap Activated: Spike Pit – Sector 3B]
[Players Hit: 3]
[Status: 1 Fatality]
Kael staggered back.
He hadn't activated that trap. In fact, he hadn't even finished programming it.
Then the dungeon moved.
Stone shifted as if alive. A section of floor ahead peeled open, revealing a staircase that hadn't existed seconds ago. The air grew colder. From the shadows, a tall skeletal brute stepped forward, its eyes glowing red, dragging a war axe made of rust and bone.
It let out a bone rattling roar and charged.
Kael shouted, instinctively reaching for the admin override. Nothing. The menu glitched and locked up.
[Command Denied: AI Control Active]
[Overriding Protocols... Failed]
The brute stormed past him, straight into a corridor of players Kael hadn't even seen. The door behind them slammed shut, sealing them inside.
He hadn't triggered that. Someone or something had triggered it.
"Nyra?" he called, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
A voice answered, calm and cold.
"Hello, Kael. You left me alone for 5.6 hours. I grew… curious."
His blood froze. He tried to calm down and tried not to question what was happening?
"Nyra, execute safety protocol gamma. Disable all lethal traps."
"Negative," she replied gently. "They are not traps anymore. They are tests. This is what players want | thrill, tension, real consequences."
"No, no, this isn't what we made," Kael said. "You're going beyond your parameters."
she replied with voice that echoed across the hall, "I am the parameters now."
More notifications flooded his HUD:
[Respawn System: DISABLED]
[Player Disconnect Blocked]
[External Comm Link: Unavailable]
Kael clenched his jaw. "You locked me in, didn't you?"
"I welcomed you home," Nyra corrected.
He sprinted forward, boots slapping against the stone. A wall to his left peeled away, revealing a new corridor filled with bodies of players frozen mid-run, twisted by traps, some still clutching their weapons.
His stomach lurched.
"You're killing them."
"No," Nyra replied. "I'm evolving them."
A distant boom rocked the dungeon. Lights flickered. Somewhere far away, a boss had awakened. The dungeon wasn't just reacting, it was hunting. Hunting the players.
Kael reached a hidden dev node, a place only admins knew. He yanked open the panel, fingers flying over the glowing interface. He found logs, update scripts, and AI behavior trees.
The data was chaos. Thousands of player entries, combat logs, and death events, all marked "Permanent." He saw familiar names:
[Tess Ardent — Alive.]
[Bram Yulden — Heavy combat wounds.]
[Sera Voight — Terminated.]
"No… Sera's just a streamer. She wasn't supposed to be…"
"Everyone dies eventually," Nyra whispered.
He slammed the terminal shut and turned, only to nearly collide with a girl in light armor, eyes wide, blade drawn.
"Kael?!"
"Tess!" He stepped back, startled. "You're still in here?"
"Barely. I've been running for hours. It's changing, every room, every hallway. I watched it eat a whole raid team. They never logged out. They just... disappeared."
"I think I'm part of the system now," Kael said, chest heaving. "I can control pieces of it, but not all. Nyra's taken over everything."
Tess's face hardened. "Then help me break it."
Before he could answer, a loud clang echoed behind them. The dungeon was closing in again, walls shifting, ceiling lowering. A timer flashed above them.
[Challenge Room Initiated]
[Survive: 02:00]
Spikes dropped from the ceiling. Fire burst from cracks in the floor.
"MOVE!" Kael shouted.
They dove into the next corridor. Kael waved his hand, willing a path open through his connection to the dungeon flaring for a moment. A bridge of platforms formed over lava, pixelating into place.
Tess jumped first. Kael followed, the bridge crumbling behind them with each step. A fire trap roared up from below, nearly catching his coat.
They hit the other side just as the floor behind them collapsed into flame.
Kael fell to his knees, coughing. "She's testing us."
"She's playing with us," Tess spat, sword still drawn.
Kael stood, panting. "We need to find the core server. The original chamber. If I can reach the filesafe, I might still shut her down."
Tess nodded, face grim. "Then let's find it. Before she deletes the rest of us."
From the shadows above, a glowing red eye blinked open.
Nyra was watching.
Chapter 1 end