Worthy Core

Xenia kneels down, poking at the pearl-like jewel sitting on a pedestal, if a bit of rock eight inches high can be called a pedestal. "So this is the actual me, huh? This body I'm walking around with is like, just in my head or whatever? Wouldn't be the first time I've gone a bit nuts."

Guide's, or Guy's, floating emerald-green status box drifts into her field of view.

"Yeah. Speaking of hearing stuff - " Xenia turns her attention to the box. "Don't you have a voice mode or something? Swords are for bleeding, not for reading!"

The woman taps her head, causing a mix of black and platinum-blonde-dyed hair to shake in front of her eyes. "Right, right, point remains though. Like, fine, gimme the text shit if you got a stat block or something to dump on me, but I ain't gonna pause to fuckin' read shit every twenty seconds if we're just having a normal conversation, you know?"

A new section appears on the floating screen, a smaller box taking up the bottom quarter or so with an image of tiny holes in a circular pattern, like a kind of two-dimensional speaker. "Grgng. Gng. Can - Can you hear me?" At first the voice sounds like it's coming from a vent clogged with twenty years of dust, but it eventually clears up into a rather understandable, if gender-less sound. Xenia claps.

"Bit of a rough start there, Guy, but not bad! You need a cough drop or something?"

The voice grinds a bit more before responding. "Sorry, I literally did not have a voice box until I tried that. Had to borrow some functionality from - well, never mind that. Can we get down to business, now? Ideally you should have killed something already."

The newly appointed dungeon core rolls her virtual eyes. "Geeze Guy, I stabbed people for a living for my last gig and you're still coming off a bit bloodthirsty, you know? But sure, now that I ain't gotta read any boring shit, hit me - how's this murderhole work?"

The box sputters. "I didn't mean - okay, allow me to start off with the 'why' rather than the 'how', shall I? Perhaps that will clarify things somewhat." Xenia shrugs, and Guy continues. "You have been transported to a world where the gods greatly value their Paragons and Champions. They provide gifts of power, experience and magic to those of great skill and who have proven themselves, allowing them to reach supernatural levels. A weaponsmith is blessed by the God of Forges to create weapons that can crack castle walls, a singer is granted the ability to literally mesmerize with their songs by the Goddess of Music, and so on. Nothing's for free - this is only granted to those who have already achieved great progress on their own, you understand."

"Soooo what, you want me to put on rock concerts in here for the musicians to do like, battle of the bands or something with? Actually that might be kinda cool." Guy's display shakes itself from side to side, in a rough approximation of a head.

"Dungeons serve a more niche purpose. A fair number of deities have a focus in combat prowess to one extent or another. There's three different Gods of War, a God of Physical Perfection, more Gods of Magic than you can shake a stick at, and so on. To prove themselves to these gods, mortals - whether particularly personally religious or not - must prove themselves in combat with monsters, other mortals, or whatever else they may find. Starting a few hundred years ago however, this came to cause...a bit of a problem."

Xenia walks around the cavern, already a bit bored and kicking at dust. "What, like, religious wars?"

"Well, no, that's pretty much always a given. Rather it was more one of, shall we say, ecological preservation. The mortals drove most of the monster species to extinction or close to it, and whenever a god created a new monster species in a new region, mortals would just move in and repeat the process. Meaning the only way for combat-focused mortals to prove themselves was to attack other mortals, and at that point the population of the world itself begins to come into question."

The woman taps her foot. "So what does this make me, then? A monster nature reserve? I was never much for hippy shit, y'know?"

Guy continues. "You...could look at it like that, I suppose. A dungeon exists to create a place where monsters exist but mortals can't - at least not in the sense of moving in and hunting the creatures out. The dungeon system was created to give the would-be champions a place to prove their skills, gain experience, earn blessings from their patron deities and so on, with a source of monsters that would never run out."

"Okay..." Xenia waves her hands at the dark stone walls around her, which are more visible due to some sort of magic than any actual light. "So why the hell am I just a dirty little hole?" She pauses for a moment, her eyes apparently staring at nothing before snapping back to Guy. "Mind out of the gutter!"

Guy's screen rotates in place, as if checking to see if there was someone else in the cave with them. "...Really not sure what you mean, but to answer the question, the gods felt it was best to not just simply design some massive, thousand-floor gauntlets of death and then leave it to the mortals for a millennia or two. They have better things to do than work on dungeon updates themselves, but they know that even the best-designed dungeon will simply stop being a challenge eventually if it never adapts to the people challenging it. Therefore, dungeons are guided by sapient 'cores' who must also work to constantly improve themselves, ever-motivated to keep the mortals on their toes in case the mortals might capture or destroy them."

Xenia groans. "Eh? I haven't even murdered anyone yet, and apparently I can't just wander out and stab a dude for funsies or anything, so why would anyone wanna destroy me?"

"Well, it's one of the motivations to even attempt a dungeon, of course. Braving a dungeon at all means some experience, material rewards and so on, but destroying a dungeon core is like receiving the equivalent of a hundred dungeon dives at once. It's guaranteed Paragonhood...granted, you would probably piss off anyone else using the dungeon, but for many that's quite worth it."

Doing her best to look out of the cave entrance for potential dungeon-killers, Xenia finds it's getting a bit too dark outside to see much of anything. "Okay, great. So dudes are just gonna wander into my home and try to smash me every day..." Her voice fades out again for a moment. "...I mean, crack me open for the tasty Paragon-goo inside or whatever, but what the hell do I get out of it?"

Guy bobs up and down, in an impression of a shrug. "Well, how does minor god-like power sound to you? Like the mortals, you also gain a bit of power and experience from every fight within your walls. You can absorb materials and items left behind, and when a mortal dies, you can absorb essentially everything they are as well. The closer the mortal was to Paragonhood, the more you gain yourself. You can't leave, but within the constraints of making the place into a deathtrap, you're pretty much free to create whatever little bloody paradise you can dream of."

Xenia thinks to herself. "So basically this is like playing a game of the Sims, huh?"

"...I don't know what that is. As long as it involves determining who is worthy of power and divine favor, then I suppose so?"

The dungeon master grins and crosses her arms. "Well you're in luck, because my middle name is Worthy!"

Guy stares at Xenia, which is impressive for a construct without eyes.

"...And my last name is Worthy. Shut up!"

"Is your middle name really - " Guy is interrupted as their frame is grabbed by the woman who may or may not be named Worthy twice.

"Shut up! Now, tell me how to murder shit! Momma's got some redecorating to do!"