Luceris was sprawled in his workshop, hair tied up haphazardly with a strip of ribbon he'd stolen from some poor maid's uniform, scribbling mana code on a glowing slab of flame stone. His golden eyes sparkled in the dim light, lips curling into a grin that spelled doom for anyone within fifty meters.
"Majesty," Caelum said stiffly, standing guard at the door. "What exactly are you… programming?"
Luceris tapped the stone with his stylus, humming a sinister little tune. "Entertainment."
Sylas frowned suspiciously. "When you say 'entertainment,' do you mean fun for everyone… or 'fun for you while everyone else suffers'?"
Luceris gasped dramatically. "Sylas! I would never! …Okay, maybe eighty percent me, twenty percent everyone else."
On the table, an array of flame stones buzzed with unstable mana as lines of script etched themselves in glowing blue circuits. The air smelled faintly of burnt ozone and fried dwarven beard oil.
Luceris smirked. "Behold! The DemonPhone's newest crown jewel: the Escape Room Game!"
Luceris stood proudly as his unwilling test subjects gathered: Sylas, Caelum, Enia, the ever-grumpy Vampire Lord Veylar, and Luceris's butler, who had the patience of a saint and the facial expressions of a man who regretted every life choice that led him here.
"It's simple," Luceris explained. "There are forty levels. Each level is a room. You must escape. Every five levels, the difficulty increases. Fail, and you die!"
"Die?!" Caelum snapped, eyes widening.
Luceris waved him off. "Relax. Virtual death. Painful enough to be memorable, harmless enough to make you cry yourself to sleep afterward. It's perfect."
Enia's golden eyes glittered. "Sounds like fun."
"Of course you think so," Sylas muttered darkly.
Veylar scoffed, folding his arms. "Childish games. I'm a Vampire Lord. What could possibly—"
Luceris threw him a phone with the game preloaded. "Then prove you're not a fake vampire who screams when a bunny jumps out."
Veylar scowled. "…Fine."
All five testers logged in. The screen lit up:
Welcome to the Escape Room. Level 1: Find the Key.
The room on-screen was small and empty, save for a glowing key on a pedestal in the center.
Sylas blinked. "…That's it?"
"Pick up the key," Caelum muttered, guiding his little pixelated avatar forward.
The moment he touched it, the floor collapsed, dropping his character into a pit of spikes.
[YOU DIED.]
Caelum twitched. "…What."
Luceris clapped delightedly. "Ah, yes! I forgot to mention: everything is a trap."
Veylar's pixel avatar strutted forward arrogantly. He avoided the obvious key and checked the walls. After thirty seconds, he pried open a brick to find a hidden key. The door opened.
Veylar smirked. "Pathetic."
Five seconds later, a piano fell from the ceiling and flattened his avatar.
[YOU DIED.]
Luceris nearly fell off his chair laughing. "Ohhh, the fake vampire got Looney Tuned!"
Veylar's glare could have melted stone.
By the fifth level, everyone had died at least once. Enia, surprisingly, had the best record. Her cunning merchant brain was suspicious of everything, which meant she survived the longest.
Sylas was too earnest—he died to obvious traps.Caelum was too rigid—he died overthinking.Veylar was too arrogant—he died loudly and with curses.The butler… died silently, which was even funnier.
The first boss appeared: a giant chicken with glowing red eyes.
Enia burst out laughing. "A chicken? That's the boss?"
Luceris put a hand to his chest, wounded. "Excuse you. That's not just any chicken. That's the Hell Chicken of Doom."
The chicken squawked and unleashed a fireball. All five testers' avatars turned to ash in one shot.
[YOU DIED.]
Sylas shouted, "THIS ISN'T BALANCED!"
Luceris kicked his legs happily. "Oh, but it's entertaining."
By level 10, the group was swearing at their screens.
Sylas had just been crushed by a rolling boulder.
Caelum drowned in a room that filled with water.
Veylar got eaten by a man-eating wardrobe.
The butler's avatar was killed by slipping on a banana peel.
Enia, somehow, was still alive—only to be incinerated by a sudden floor of lava.
Enia tossed the phone down with a grin. "This is addictive."
Luceris looked smug. "I told you. The worse it is, the better it is."
Between rounds of watching his aides suffer, Luceris worked on upgrading features.
He refined the camera app, stabilizing the crystal lens so photos no longer looked like drunken demon scribbles.
He added a notes app, so players could jot down solutions or scream "WHY IS THERE A BANANA TRAP" in text.
He adjusted the game so it had slightly fewer instant-kills. (Only slightly.)
At the halfway mark, difficulty spiked.
The room was pitch black. The only light came from the players' own glowing avatars. In the dark, something breathed heavily.
Sylas whispered, "…Is this supposed to be scary?"
The screen suddenly flashed with the face of a grotesque demon. Every single tester screamed—except the butler, who just sighed.
[YOU DIED.]
Luceris rolled on the floor laughing. "Worth it. Every line of mana code was worth it."
Veylar threw his phone down. "This game is cursed."
Luceris smirked. "No, you're just bad at it."
By level 30, the testers were plotting murder.
The level required two players to work together to push a lever on opposite ends of the room. Enia and Caelum paired up.
"On three," Caelum said. "One, two—"
Enia pulled early, triggering the trap and dropping Caelum's avatar into acid.
[YOU DIED.]
Enia smirked. "Oops. My finger slipped."
Caelum ground his teeth. "You did that on purpose."
Luceris cackled like a hyena. "Yes, betrayal mechanics! Beautiful!"
After five hours of rage, cursing, betrayal, and banana peels, the group reached the final level.
A massive demonic figure appeared on the screen, cloaked in darkness, golden eyes glowing.
Sylas froze. "…Majesty. Is that… you?"
The screen text read:Final Boss: Demon King Luceris.
Luceris smirked smugly. "Of course. Who else would they worship and fear?"
The boss Luceris was ridiculously overpowered. He could fold space, drown avatars in tidal waves, and throw sarcastic insults that reduced HP.
Within two minutes, all five testers were slaughtered.
[YOU DIED. GAME OVER.]
The throne room echoed with silence.
Then Caelum exploded. "THIS IS UNBEATABLE!"
Sylas slammed his phone down. "You made yourself the final boss!"
Enia just laughed, shaking her head. "You're insane. I love it."
Veylar snarled, "What's the point of a game that can't be won?!"
Luceris leaned back, eyes glinting with mischief. "Oh, it can be won. But only by someone who thinks like me. Which, tragically for you, is impossible."
Five days later, after refining the mana code and ensuring his sadistic traps worked smoothly, Luceris copied and pasted the game code onto one thousand flame stone slabs. Each glowed ominously, radiating promise and doom.
He tossed them at Enia. "Sell these. Market it as 'The Greatest Test of Wit and Survival.' Or better yet—'Lose Your Sanity in Forty Levels.' People eat that up."
Enia tucked one under her arm, grinning like the shark she was. "Oh, Majesty. I'm going to make you richer than the Imperial Family itself."
Luceris smirked, spinning a grape between his fingers. "And more entertained, which is far more important."
The butler muttered under his breath, "May the gods save the humans."
Luceris heard and grinned. "Oh no, dear butler. They'll need more than gods. They'll need extra lives."