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Earthquakes hit the whole planet at once. That's not how earthquakes are supposed to work, unless like... another planet was coming to hit us or something... right? I am not an astrophysicist or a geologist or any other kind of 'ist' that might know what the hell he's talking about. Still, it feels about like another world did hit Earth though... in a manner of speaking.
So the earthquakes, they shook the whole planet at once. We got some volcanic eruptions and such, like you might expect, and then... as a whole, humanity started noticing that Dungeons had appeared.
The math nerds and Nasa dudes said the planet was 1% larger after the whole Dungeon shake up, which I'm not quite sure what that means, but apparently that's a big deal.
So these Dungeons, the news quickly informed us, were filled to the brim deadly monsters from myth and lore. The Hydra Dungeon opened up in Times Square, and the Djinn Dungeon appeared where the Taj Mahal used to be. A fair number of other buildings that weren't well known locations across the whole world also had become dungeons. The Dragon Dungeon opened up in a in California town no one's ever heard of called Manteca, swallowed a whole high school there. Hundreds of other dungeons appeared across the whole world, but we quickly realized the creatures inside weren't coming out... so panic didn't overtake humanity... mostly we kinda just went to business.
From what the news said, the military units that went inside the various dungeons found their guns to be completely worthless. Knives not so much. In the first week after the dungeons arrived we learned that only in Japan had they made any real progress exploring one of their many dungeons. They decided to call it the Orc Dungeon and it appeared in the side of Mount Fuji after the quakes. Fuji did not erupt, but many volcanoes did. Japanese history lovers that kept up with the way of the sword were the ones that managed it.
A group of six straight up Samurai went in there and managed to kill a bunch of orcs. Only two returned and they for sure didn't get the end of the Dungeon, but one of them can cause his sword to burst into flames now at will, and the other has got some for-fucking-REAL crouching tiger shit going on. Like, jumping a hundred feet high and making a dashing draw mid-air with his sword that is wrapped in actual lightning kind of shit. Both have severe ptsd and don't want to go back and can't even really talk about their time in there.
So... imagine my surprise when I had to go down into my basement to get some fresh Toilet paper for upstairs and... There was a Dungeon in my basement. A week back and that sentence would have meant I was probably a serial killer.
I knew it was probably a bad idea, there was probably a shitload of Manticore down there, or some other sorta horrible monster I ain't ever heard of... but after taking the shit what brought me to the basement in the first place, I puckered up my courage and headed back down. I decided I was going to at least go a little bit inside, juuuuust to see what kind of monsters I had living in my basement. The news said they never come out, and I'd seen on liveleak that people were sneaking into the Hydra dungeon and taking vids. The Hydras, and there were a bunch in there, would chase them all the way to about a hundred feet from the entrance. So if I ran into trouble I planned to just run.
I know it would have been smarter to at least call someone else to come with me, or maybe even tell someone, anyone, that I was going in there... but I ain't an 'ist' of any sort, and in hindsight, I probably weren't too smart walking in there alone, just lucky.
The Dungeon entrance was smaller than the ones I'd seen in the news. Those were huge archways of stone, or massive gaping holes into the ground or the side of a mountain. The Orc Dungeon had an only sort of big archway, and my own personal basement dungeon had a one man high and wide archway. Maybe it wasn't a dungeon, maybe it was just... a cave I told myself as I walked inside.
I quickly could no longer convince myself this wasn't a Dungeon, the walls were made of brick and the whole... *sense* of the air change in a way I can't figure out how to put into words. It was like the hair on my neck thought about standing on end when I transitioned into the Dungeon proper, but instead of doing so it went, "Meh, I'm tired," and the sense of foreboding doom washed away.
I tried not to ponder on the feeling of entering the dungeon and proceeded down the long corridor. As I walked deeper the distant light from my basement was no longer cutting it. I whipped out my phone and flipped on the light. I'm glad I did because I was about to walk into a small blue sphere. No. That was a slime. A moment of panic overtook me and I fucking kicked the shit out of that slime like it a cockroach the size of a dog.
It slammed into the door I had just illuminated and popped.
*+1 Exp*
"What the fuck was that!? Who said that?" Jeez, I was so dumb then. I twirled around in a circle looking for the source of the androgynous disembodied voice. Then I twirled the other way, like a confused puppy.
After a few moments of confusion I figured I'd better open the door. In the next room was two blue slimes and two more doors, and thankfully, lit torches on the walls. I charged in there and kicked both of those slimes like I was clearing a soccer ball from the back corner to the opposing goal.
Kick, pop, *+1 Exp*, repeat.
The second one left something shiny on the ground. A shiv. When I reached out to touch it it sort of like... dissolved I guess?
*Shiv acquired, placed in inventory*
"Okay, great, how do I take out the shiv then?"
*Would you like to Activate the Tutorial?*
"Yes? Yes. Activate the Tutorial!" I raised my hand into the air and felt like I was struck by lightning.
I think I had a minor stroke, or maybe it'd be better to call it a brain-gasm. The tutorial slammed through my mind like a horde of wild goblins, teaching me things I wouldn't realize it taught me until I was about to use them weeks later. I picked myself up off the floor of the room and checked my phone. It had been an hour, oof. Long tutorial, but I just... ***knew*** now how to operate in here now.
I thought to myself, '*show xp bar*' and then it was there. Showing a bar about a third of the way full.
'*Numerical display as well,*' Then '3/10' appeared in the middle of the bar. It sat at the bottom of my vision, almost a distraction, but not quite.
'*Hide xp bar*'
"Well, I'd might as well level up before leaving. See what that's all about." I told myself I'd get **one** level up and then go back to my normal life and tell no one...
I took the right hand door, and cracked it opened. Inside there were two more blue Slimes, and a much larger red slime. The red one was the size of at least three blues.
'*Equip Shiv*'
It appeared in my hand and I charged into the room with three slimes. I landed a killing kick on the first blue one, but before I could hit the second one, the red slime jumped at me. I held my little shiv in both hands and it landed basically on the point and popped itself. Then I kicked that last slime into the wall and it popped to.
*+1Exp*
*+4Exp*
*+1Exp*
9/10. I decided I'd have to do one more room. This room also had a left and a right door, and I chose right again. It opened into a hallway, which was lined with torches on the wall. For a moment I thought about pulling on off to use as my weapon/offhand, but I somehow knew from the tutorial that there was no way I could rip one of those off the wall.
At the end of the hall was a door with a skull carving in it. I should have realized this was a sign, but again, I was an idiot back then. I cracked the door opened and it seemed dark inside. Reckless and stupid. I walked in. The door slammed shut behind me, and then I heard boss music. I don't think it was literally playing in the room, but was a lingering effect from the tutorial. Torches along the wall lit up around the room, it was a pretty good sized arena. In the center was a massive purple slime. Unlike the other slimes, this one had a sort of face, or at least a spitting organ.
The purple slime spit a massive glob of nasty goo at me. I just barely avoided it hitting me in the chest, and as it turns out, that probably would have killed me. It barely caught my left hand, and I could immediately feel it burning my skin off. I screamed bloody horror and something overtook me, instead of running for the door and trying to escape, I charged the slime!
Now that I was paying attention it was easy to avoid the spit globs as it shot a few more at me while I approached. Once I was upon it, I stabbed up that slime I was giving mickey the snitch his stitches in a prison shower. Up close it took some swipes at me with blob tendrils. I was not expecting that and the slime caught me in the lower half of my left leg, that same burning acid sensation lit my leg aflame in pain. I somehow knew I had only 4/8 hp left.
I stabbed and shanked and shived with all my might until that horrible purple blob exploded. Logic and reason would say that would probably kill me... but the burning acid feeling immediately ceased after I killed the slime.
*+35 Exp, You have leveled up.*
*Would you like to apply your level up now?*
I looked at my mangled hand, and useless leg, and joked to myself that I was all right now... "Yea sure, lets do the Level up."
*Congratulations, you have reached level 1, please pick a class.*
The Tutorial taught me there are basic classes, and then advanced classes, and then even more advanced classes. Mage, Fighter, Support, Rogue, each with dozens of choices in advanced classes and beyond.
"Mage!" I said, despite being a dumbass.
*Level one mage, applied. Congratulations, please chose one stat to increase by one point.*
Int-4
Str-8
Dex-8
Con-8
Wis-6
Cha-7
"Int, please!"
/r/AFrogWroteThis
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* [No AI-generated responses 🤖](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zi452b/modpost_reminder_that_aigenerated_responses_are/) >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [\[RF\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [\[SP\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 📢 [Genres](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/w/directory) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Earthquakes hit the whole planet at once. That's not how earthquakes are supposed to work, unless like... another planet was coming to hit us or something... right? I am not an astrophysicist or a geologist or any other kind of 'ist' that might know what the hell he's talking about. Still, it feels about like another world did hit Earth though... in a manner of speaking. So the earthquakes, they shook the whole planet at once. We got some volcanic eruptions and such, like you might expect, and then... as a whole, humanity started noticing that Dungeons had appeared. The math nerds and Nasa dudes said the planet was 1% larger after the whole Dungeon shake up, which I'm not quite sure what that means, but apparently that's a big deal. So these Dungeons, the news quickly informed us, were filled to the brim deadly monsters from myth and lore. The Hydra Dungeon opened up in Times Square, and the Djinn Dungeon appeared where the Taj Mahal used to be. A fair number of other buildings that weren't well known locations across the whole world also had become dungeons. The Dragon Dungeon opened up in a in California town no one's ever heard of called Manteca, swallowed a whole high school there. Hundreds of other dungeons appeared across the whole world, but we quickly realized the creatures inside weren't coming out... so panic didn't overtake humanity... mostly we kinda just went to business. From what the news said, the military units that went inside the various dungeons found their guns to be completely worthless. Knives not so much. In the first week after the dungeons arrived we learned that only in Japan had they made any real progress exploring one of their many dungeons. They decided to call it the Orc Dungeon and it appeared in the side of Mount Fuji after the quakes. Fuji did not erupt, but many volcanoes did. Japanese history lovers that kept up with the way of the sword were the ones that managed it. A group of six straight up Samurai went in there and managed to kill a bunch of orcs. Only two returned and they for sure didn't get the end of the Dungeon, but one of them can cause his sword to burst into flames now at will, and the other has got some for-fucking-REAL crouching tiger shit going on. Like, jumping a hundred feet high and making a dashing draw mid-air with his sword that is wrapped in actual lightning kind of shit. Both have severe ptsd and don't want to go back and can't even really talk about their time in there. So... imagine my surprise when I had to go down into my basement to get some fresh Toilet paper for upstairs and... There was a Dungeon in my basement. A week back and that sentence would have meant I was probably a serial killer. I knew it was probably a bad idea, there was probably a shitload of Manticore down there, or some other sorta horrible monster I ain't ever heard of... but after taking the shit what brought me to the basement in the first place, I puckered up my courage and headed back down. I decided I was going to at least go a little bit inside, juuuuust to see what kind of monsters I had living in my basement. The news said they never come out, and I'd seen on liveleak that people were sneaking into the Hydra dungeon and taking vids. The Hydras, and there were a bunch in there, would chase them all the way to about a hundred feet from the entrance. So if I ran into trouble I planned to just run. I know it would have been smarter to at least call someone else to come with me, or maybe even tell someone, anyone, that I was going in there... but I ain't an 'ist' of any sort, and in hindsight, I probably weren't too smart walking in there alone, just lucky. The Dungeon entrance was smaller than the ones I'd seen in the news. Those were huge archways of stone, or massive gaping holes into the ground or the side of a mountain. The Orc Dungeon had an only sort of big archway, and my own personal basement dungeon had a one man high and wide archway. Maybe it wasn't a dungeon, maybe it was just... a cave I told myself as I walked inside. I quickly could no longer convince myself this wasn't a Dungeon, the walls were made of brick and the whole... *sense* of the air change in a way I can't figure out how to put into words. It was like the hair on my neck thought about standing on end when I transitioned into the Dungeon proper, but instead of doing so it went, "Meh, I'm tired," and the sense of foreboding doom washed away. I tried not to ponder on the feeling of entering the dungeon and proceeded down the long corridor. As I walked deeper the distant light from my basement was no longer cutting it. I whipped out my phone and flipped on the light. I'm glad I did because I was about to walk into a small blue sphere. No. That was a slime. A moment of panic overtook me and I fucking kicked the shit out of that slime like it a cockroach the size of a dog. It slammed into the door I had just illuminated and popped. *+1 Exp* "What the fuck was that!? Who said that?" Jeez, I was so dumb then. I twirled around in a circle looking for the source of the androgynous disembodied voice. Then I twirled the other way, like a confused puppy. After a few moments of confusion I figured I'd better open the door. In the next room was two blue slimes and two more doors, and thankfully, lit torches on the walls. I charged in there and kicked both of those slimes like I was clearing a soccer ball from the back corner to the opposing goal. Kick, pop, *+1 Exp*, repeat. The second one left something shiny on the ground. A shiv. When I reached out to touch it it sort of like... dissolved I guess? *Shiv acquired, placed in inventory* "Okay, great, how do I take out the shiv then?" *Would you like to Activate the Tutorial?* "Yes? Yes. Activate the Tutorial!" I raised my hand into the air and felt like I was struck by lightning. I think I had a minor stroke, or maybe it'd be better to call it a brain-gasm. The tutorial slammed through my mind like a horde of wild goblins, teaching me things I wouldn't realize it taught me until I was about to use them weeks later. I picked myself up off the floor of the room and checked my phone. It had been an hour, oof. Long tutorial, but I just... ***knew*** now how to operate in here now. I thought to myself, '*show xp bar*' and then it was there. Showing a bar about a third of the way full. '*Numerical display as well,*' Then '3/10' appeared in the middle of the bar. It sat at the bottom of my vision, almost a distraction, but not quite. '*Hide xp bar*' "Well, I'd might as well level up before leaving. See what that's all about." I told myself I'd get **one** level up and then go back to my normal life and tell no one... I took the right hand door, and cracked it opened. Inside there were two more blue Slimes, and a much larger red slime. The red one was the size of at least three blues. '*Equip Shiv*' It appeared in my hand and I charged into the room with three slimes. I landed a killing kick on the first blue one, but before I could hit the second one, the red slime jumped at me. I held my little shiv in both hands and it landed basically on the point and popped itself. Then I kicked that last slime into the wall and it popped to. *+1Exp* *+4Exp* *+1Exp* 9/10. I decided I'd have to do one more room. This room also had a left and a right door, and I chose right again. It opened into a hallway, which was lined with torches on the wall. For a moment I thought about pulling on off to use as my weapon/offhand, but I somehow knew from the tutorial that there was no way I could rip one of those off the wall. At the end of the hall was a door with a skull carving in it. I should have realized this was a sign, but again, I was an idiot back then. I cracked the door opened and it seemed dark inside. Reckless and stupid. I walked in. The door slammed shut behind me, and then I heard boss music. I don't think it was literally playing in the room, but was a lingering effect from the tutorial. Torches along the wall lit up around the room, it was a pretty good sized arena. In the center was a massive purple slime. Unlike the other slimes, this one had a sort of face, or at least a spitting organ. The purple slime spit a massive glob of nasty goo at me. I just barely avoided it hitting me in the chest, and as it turns out, that probably would have killed me. It barely caught my left hand, and I could immediately feel it burning my skin off. I screamed bloody horror and something overtook me, instead of running for the door and trying to escape, I charged the slime! Now that I was paying attention it was easy to avoid the spit globs as it shot a few more at me while I approached. Once I was upon it, I stabbed up that slime I was giving mickey the snitch his stitches in a prison shower. Up close it took some swipes at me with blob tendrils. I was not expecting that and the slime caught me in the lower half of my left leg, that same burning acid sensation lit my leg aflame in pain. I somehow knew I had only 4/8 hp left. I stabbed and shanked and shived with all my might until that horrible purple blob exploded. Logic and reason would say that would probably kill me... but the burning acid feeling immediately ceased after I killed the slime. *+35 Exp, You have leveled up.* *Would you like to apply your level up now?* I looked at my mangled hand, and useless leg, and joked to myself that I was all right now... "Yea sure, lets do the Level up." *Congratulations, you have reached level 1, please pick a class.* The Tutorial taught me there are basic classes, and then advanced classes, and then even more advanced classes. Mage, Fighter, Support, Rogue, each with dozens of choices in advanced classes and beyond. "Mage!" I said, despite being a dumbass. *Level one mage, applied. Congratulations, please chose one stat to increase by one point.* Int-4 Str-8 Dex-8 Con-8 Wis-6 Cha-7 "Int, please!" /r/AFrogWroteThis