An Unbound Soul

For people who haven’t read A Lonely Dungeon, but who want a quick primer on the world of An Unbound Soul, this is the chapter for you. This doesn’t cover everything, (e.g. in A Lonely Dungeon, Erryn does plenty of materials research, a lot of which Peter rediscovers over time in this,) but it’s not necessary knowledge.

In its early years, this world—whose name has long since been lost—had a wide array of sapient life living on its surface. The different races greatly mistrusted each other and warred endlessly, leading to many species being wiped out of existence. By the end, only humans, dwarfs, elves and demons remained. An uneasy truce held for a few decades, but each of the four remaining races used that time to develop new superweapons, each believing themselves to be superior, and that nothing could stand against their new technology. (Aside from the demons, who believed—not completely without cause—that nothing could stand up to their fists.)

War broke out again, but a peaceful faction of each species broke away and set up a communal habitat in a mountain on the northern part of the world’s single continent. The elvish ‘weapon’ was a new soul-magic affinity spell that robbed targets of free will, turning entire cities of the other races into mindless footsoldiers for the elvish army. But soul magic has a cost; it damages the soul of the user. The elves believed their protections adequate. They were wrong. A mad elven mage fed on the souls of his victims, growing until his power was sufficient to extinguish the world.

In the northern mountain, the coalition of the four races was protected by the shielding built from their combined technology. The rest of the world was not so lucky, and all surface life was wiped out of existence. Using saved samples, this coalition began the ark project. They restored the planet’s biome, but not the sapient races. Incorrectly believing the endless wars of their world to have been triggered by the differences between races, they developed a single, new race, combining features of all the original races. This race was completely homogenised, with every member having the same skin, hair and eye colour. Every member of the world spoke the same language.

As a further step to protect the world, they wanted some way to prevent the development of new superweapons. To do so, they built the System, a vast supercomputer occupying the heart of their mountain. It granted apparently supernatural powers to the world’s residents, that grew with training. It was designed to disincentivise scientific research, and to grant individuals great personal power, while preventing nations from developing weapons that could cause damage on a global level. They believed this would ensure that even in the unlikely event that war broke out, this would prevent it turning into an existential threat for the world’s new population.

Once again, they were wrong.

Their mission accomplished, the ark project members allowed themselves to die off of old age, leaving the world to their new creations. As the new people spread across the world, they divided into countries. It didn’t matter that everyone looked alike; simply being born in the ‘wrong’ place was more than enough reason to look down on each other. War broke out between countries, but the System did its job. High ranked fighters slaughtered armies, but the land was left whole and fertile, and the world endured.

Over time, two kingdoms came out on top, growing into the empires of Jetosu and Soutso, absorbing or subjugating all other countries, but neither ever managed to win over the other. The stalemate continued for some time, while each empire sought any means of advantage over the other. Soutso was the one that first began covert research of magic, outside of the fixed set of spells provided by the System classes. It took them time, but in the end, they found what they were looking for. Soul magic.

They built a new spell—the hex bomb. Devouring the soul of the caster, and growing in power the more souls that were sacrificed to it, it had practically unlimited range, the destructive power to erase cities, and the ability to pierce through any System manufactured defence. They believed they could erase all Jetosu resistance in a single volley.

As ever, they were wrong.

It turned out that some of their mages didn’t appreciate being ordered to sacrifice themselves. Some turned the magic back onto Soutso, crippling both sides as war broke out anew.

Jetosu gained victory in the resulting conflict, stealing the secrets of the hex-bomb and casting it themselves. As a last act of desperation, unwilling to condemn the world to what they considered the oppression of the Jetosu empire, the last loyal mages of Soutso cast their spell one more time. And this time, the sacrifice they offered to it was all the life of the world.

Once more, the world was plunged into lifelessness. And so it would have remained, except for the System still ticking away in the background. One feature of the System—to impose limits on resources available to the new races—was the creation of dungeons. Anyone could fight their way into a dungeon and leave with valuable materials, but the materials available were carefully curated and controlled. No-one would find an ingot of uranium or plutonium in a dungeon chest. The quantity of dungeons was linked to the population, to tread a careful line between abundance and scarcity. Following the final hex bomb, the world was left with neither people nor dungeons. The System divided zero by zero and came up with one. A single dungeon was created.

In the middle of Jetosu, the dungeon Erryn was brought into existence. Attempting to fulfil her System designed purpose, she built her first floor, summoned monsters and placed her loot. But it was pointless; no adventurers came to delve her. Trapped by her programming, she did what she could to attempt to attract adventurers, assimilating the surface in the hopes of finding anything alive.

Obviously, she failed. But she did find the ruins of civilization. She grew and learnt, her budding intelligence blooming into full sapience, and fought against the System to grow further. She created more monsters, some of which gained sapience of their own, such as the slime Blobby and the wolf Zepher. She discovered the taint left behind by the hex bombs and purged it, eventually being plunged into a desperate fight for survival against the corrupted soul remanents of the final bomb. She emerged victorious, but the fight crashed the System, unlocking access to the mountain complex of the ark project. Erryn assimilated it, and hence learnt the history of the world and her own creation.

Making the decision to restore what had been lost, Erryn recreated the original races. But unlike the members of the ark project, she didn’t age. She decided to stay and watch over the new world and its new occupants. Those she considered her children.

To prevent them from ever falling into war again, she established the Law, a continent-spanning soul magic construct that prevented those under its effects from even thinking about banned topics. The new races were incapable of war, murder, theft, or even something as simple as a malicious lie.

Of course, the problem with using soul magic is that it has a cost; it damages the soul of the user.