The Cabin Is Always Hungry

LAST RESORT

PART 1

The forest was silent when the devil came to roost.

It brought with it a charming smile to match its handsome face, black pushed-back hair, and a white LL Bean fisherman sweater warm enough to curl by the fire. But its welcoming image was meant to deceive. To become a friend of mine, though we’re anything but friends. It was in his name—in his nature. Administrator Elvis, I called him, one of the few of his kind who oversaw dungeons like mine.

And now he was here again, probably enjoying the carnage last night.

After I invited him inside the cabin, Elvis studied the living room like a strict parent. All but three of his guards stayed outside per my request, which the administrator honored much too quickly for my taste. He wasn’t scared of me, and without a scenario triggered, I couldn’t read his Resolve, his emotions, or his will. And Elvis knew that. If I triggered one, they’d know about it immediately, and I had several ideas about how they would react—most of it probably wouldn’t end up well for me. Even if he was scared, he was doing a fine job hiding it.

But my Dread, well, that they could feel. I saw the hairs at the nape of the guards’ necks standing up once they entered the cabin’s threshold. They (and everyone outside) looked human, and I wondered if some illusion magic was at play. I’ve never seen an elf before, I mused.

“May I sit?” Elvis asked politely, gesturing to the couch.

I nodded. “Please, and help yourself.” At the cost of one crystal, a plate of chocolate chip cookies, lemon curd, perfectly-cut marbled brownies, snickerdoodles, four tall glasses of milk, and a steaming pot of citrus herbal tea materialized on the coffee table.

Elvis smiled and nodded approvingly but then glanced at the splatter of blood staining the couch with disgust.

“Sorry about that,” I said. Opening up the Dungeon Tab, I spent another crystal to “clean” the sofa. I kept everything the same since we needed it for the police to find as evidence later and nail the cult.

Elvis sat down on the now pristine couch, and since I did not have a body, I hovered across the coffee table from him. He took a bite out of the chocolate chip cookies, making a show of dunking them into the milk before eating them. I realized he was showing the three guards how to eat Earth snacks. He invited them to sit down with him. The guards put down their swords and bows, helping themselves with the sugary snacks and following Elvis’s lead.

So they’re definitely not from Earth.

I caught one guard’s eyes widened in shock, surprised by how too sugary they were. He didn’t want to be seen as rude, so he forcibly swallowed the lump of brownies already inside his mouth, washing it down with the glass of milk, and put down the rest on the end table beside him. He never touched it again.

Suddenly, Goliath walked in from the kitchen, and I swore I could hear everyone’s butt cheeks clenched as his looming presence almost snuffed out the amicable energy in the room. He always had his double-sided axe with him, now resting to the side. For the first time since Elvis got here, he visibly gulped. Maybe that was just a lump of cookies. Above us, Old Growth perched on the roof, watching the rest of the guards standing outside. One aimed an arrow at Oldie, but another archer smacked him across the back of the head and shouted at him not to shoot.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? You mentioned a debut. What’s that all about?” I asked.

Elvis took a big sip of the milk. “Your debut to my people. You see, we administrators watch every dungeon we know in existence. As the favorite child of The System, who works hand-in-hand with our universal god, we get that benefit, unlike the others. The System forbade Dungeon Cores from sprouting in my world. Who wants dead guardians, engineers, and free labor? Am I right? Consider the administrators as the white blood cells in the human body. We do an important job, but at some point, we seek entertainment. Death Cores are notoriously rare, so when one pops up, well, we can’t help ourselves but gather and watch.”

“Dungeons are…what, TV shows?”

“More like giant arenas. You know your Roman history. We watch. We bet. We pay. And oh yessss, we pay handsomely.”

“Are there cameras around my domain? Are your people watching right now?”

“Oh, we don’t do cameras, Dungeon Mark. We see everything just like your eyes can. And discussions between a Core and an administrator is always a private affair.”

Ah. I get it. “It’s through me. I have Many-Eyes. I’m basically the cameraman.”

“It’s a bingo! Wait, is that how you say it?”

I shook my head. “And you’re here to offer me a contract deal to what exactly?”

He took another big gulp of the milk, almost emptying the glass. I spent a quarter of a crystal filling it back up instantly. “Oh, thank you, Lord Dungeon. This is very delicious. Well, yes, I am here to offer you a contract on behalf of my guild.”

A guild, eh?

“When everyone became aware of your Death Core, a bidding war occurred immediately. It was…barbaric, a display of violence only a Death Lord such as you would appreciate. Almost ten thousand of my kin died by the last count, and that tally was two weeks ago. My guild, The Immaran Guild, won the bidding war in the end, but at a very close margin. My superiors thought it wasn’t worth the hassle, but then the blood you unleashed last night was something to behold. Earth—and the delvers in it—has a unique charm that is unlike other worlds. Low magic. Helpless victims. Ahh, what a fun time. That just brought your value up by fifty-six percent.”

“But I’ve only been a Dungeon Core for five days.”

“Time works differently where I’m from, Dungeon Mark.”

“Then, how much did your guild bid?”

Elvis smirked. “Do you really want to know?”

Duh, who doesn’t? “Well, yeah. Now I kinda want to know how much I’m worth,” I blurted out.

Elvis opened the palm of his hands. “If you insist. It’s about eighty billion zumac. Or in this world’s currency, about nine hundred billion dollars. Plus change.”

Oh, that’s…a lot of zeroes. “If you’re paying that much, can you tell me how many Death Cores are there?”

Elvis’s smile didn’t falter, and he answered simply, “No.”

Fine. “So you’re here to convince me to sign a contract with your guild. Why would I do that?”

“All thriving Cores in existence have guilds behind them, even the handful left here on Earth. And no, you can’t know who they are either. It’s their choice to contact you. But to a Death Core, that should be quite easy.”

“Hm. They’re probably sizing me up.”

Elvis chuckled. “Oh, you’re right about that, too. If you wish to grow and succeed as a Death Core, you need our resources. For one, we can pay you a royalty fee for the broadcasting rights, like what you do here on Earth. We pay the System the money, and the System converts it to a Core’s currency, the crystals. For every scenario you complete, we’ll give you our Death Core rate of ten thousand crystals, which is a lot of money for Dungeon Cores. Remember, a scenario must have at least three delvers for it to count per our contract.”

“That’s a bit arbitrary.”

“We’re basing it on what an adventuring party would be in other worlds. Three is the minimum to form a party. Earth is no exception. It also serves another purpose.”

“Is that so I can’t farm you for coin if I ran a scenario with just one delver?”

“You’re smarter than you look, Dungeon Mark. You can still run scenarios for a solo or two delvers as the System allows, we just won’t pay you the fee.”

“You want more bloodbath. Got it.”

”And a little extra might be included from our viewers as donations. You can use these funds to improve your dungeon and your archetypes. Leveling them up would require both crystals and essence. Death Cores can extract the latter very easily.”

And all it requires are blood and fear. “And you’ll earn a hefty profit as well.”

Elvis pursed his lips. “This is business. Of course, we’ll profit, but that’s the one thing you do not have to worry about. Another thing we could do for you as our client is our knowledge of the System. We can advise you to become the better you.”

I narrowed my gaze. He was laying the sales pitch on me too thick. “I don’t really appreciate it when someone micromanages me or tells me what to do. I don’t appreciate it then when I was alive as a human, and I certainly don’t appreciate it now.”

The other guards shared a concerned look, but Elvis wasn’t perturbed. “As I have said, my kind cannot interfere with your decisions and whatever you do with your dungeon. The System considers all of this zumac we give you as mere donations, which is allowed. Think of it as a patronage. If you want to smite us now, it is within your right to do so. After all, we are made of flesh and bone. To a Core, we are meat.”

“But then the Immaran Guild will come after me.”

“As is our right as well.”

“And if I said no and showed you the door?”

“Then my guild will relinquish our bid, putting your Core back to auction, and another bidding war will start. Another administrator will come to give you the same sales pitch again. A different tune, but the same lyrics nonetheless. You reject them, and the process starts again, wasting more of your time and costing my world with more bodies and coins. There are thousands of guilds dying to have you as their client, and they are willing to destroy the Immaran Guild to have it.”

“You still haven’t explained to me why. It can’t just be because of money.”

“Not every explanation has to be so complex, Lord Dungeon. Even my world is ruled by money like yours do. You’d be surprised how obsessed the universe is with wealth and coin. We have no ulterior motives here besides profit and making people happy. Your success simply correlates with it. You are lucky that you have a Death Core, the most coveted viewing experience in the known universe.” Elvis paused and smiled mischievously. “And more.”

“But I can grow on my own. I’ve done well so far, and the System rewards me for completing the scenarios with crystals anyway.”

“Oh, but how long will that last? You must complete hidden milestones to get them or find those pesky quests that give out better rewards. What the System provides fluctuates many times.”

“I’ll manage.”

“It will take you months and plenty of delvers to go through just to get ten thousand crystals, which you could have gotten from a single delve if you were to work with us. It will take years, maybe a decade, for you to grow and multiply as a dungeon, which also costs a lot of resources. These crystals can buy you skills and ability improvements for your Core and expand your dungeon quickly. While we administrators were made aware of you the moment you were born, it is only a matter of time before others in the wide universe find you and are willing to use your Core for their nefarious purposes.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I turned to the guards. “Does the Immaran Guild also offer protection services against such threats?”

Elvis regarded Goliath with amusement. “Ah, but you will create more monsters, Dungeon Mark. You have no need for mortal guards.”

“Thanks for the confidence,” I said sarcastically.

“And as an offer of goodwill, the guild is willing to give you twenty thousand crystals right here as a signing bonus.”

“Just to sweeten the pot, huh?”

“Just to sweeten the pot,” Elvis repeated.

“Last time you were here, you gave me extra abilities and even upgraded my archetypes. You said the Elders gave them to me.”

Elvis’s back straightened, and the other guards felt uncomfortable as well. “It is considered uncouth to discuss the Elders. They are watching us as we speak.”

“I thought this discussion was private.”

“Not for them.”

“So? Can’t they reward me with more upgrades instead of cash?”

“Well, that event was after we won the bidding war, and we were honored to introduce ourselves to you as emissaries. An offense to the System had been committed, and we were allowed to bequeath such gifts to you without cost or consequence.”

“And that door closed.”

“We work with what we have, which is plenty enough. We can certainly still give you extra abilities, but it will cost us. Everything in the System has a price. You saw to that.”

“How much?”

“A city.”

A city…? Oh. “Ohhhh.” A Death Core’s price was always written in blood. My currency was death and destruction. Wherever I looked and whatever I touched, it would be my currency, always.

“Yes, it’s much easier to grow on your own with plenty of crystals at your disposal. We leave the expansion decisions to you with a little extra helping from our pockets, of course,” Elvis said.

I sighed. “Tempting.”

Elvis was clearly enjoying the game of selling me his guild. “Unfortunately for you, Dungeon Mark, your Core exists in a world where no one knows who you are. In other worlds, you’d have delvers lining up every single week! Kings marching towards you with his armies! High-level adventuring parties craving for an ounce of your power. Your people do not enjoy the System’s gifts. Levels. Rankings. Arcana. Loot.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. Earth’s boring. I like boring.”

I looked around my domain. With the town of Point Hope almost fifteen miles away, I’m not exactly surrounded by willing delvers, and Earth was not a fantasy land. No paladins, warriors, rogues, clerics, and mages formed parties and delving dungeons in faraway places. I still adhere to the rules of Earth and its beliefs. A majority of the people didn’t even believe in magic or monsters. But they are real, just waiting at the periphery like me. I had to entice them to come to me. Sometimes, they stumbled into my domain by accident. It was not a guarantee that I would receive a group of delvers every night like other worlds. There might be times when I couldn’t feed for weeks, even months. I dreaded what hunger felt like for a Core deprived that long of essence. I barely lasted a day last time. But weeks? Months? Fuck that.

What am I thinking? Delves meant death, and it meant I was leading randompeople to their doom. I would be the one responsible for their demise and the horrors they would face. I felt nothing when I was doing it to Hodge and the cultists, but to people I didn’t know? Strangers who were just lost in the woods? Did I have it in me to feed on more of the innocent again?

I regarded Elvis. “Hand me the contract.”

A briefcase appeared next to Elvis, and he unlatched it open. He placed a stack of paper at least twenty pages long down on the coffee table.

“Demon, are you here?” I called out.

The demon’s shadow enveloped the room’s far corner, and Elvis looked up. However, the other guards did not and looked around like lost puppies. I realized they couldn’t sense the demon. They couldn’t actually see me. I noticed a tiny metallic device plugged inside their right ear. And that’s how they could hear me. I ignored it for now and turned to the demon. “Read the contract front to back and back to front. Read it thoroughly. Read it three times. Find anything funny.”

The demon obliged hungrily. They were in their element, after all.

Most of the contract was standard slop, like breaking it would result in some consequences that heavily involved a lot of money, and I shouldn’t associate myself with other guilds. Fortunately, I could afford it since converting crystals to zumac was easy. I admit that I wasn’t good at reading nor signing contracts, but fiends were notoriously meticulous at crafting them. It took the demon almost two hours to finish reading it three times while Elvis and his guards sat patiently on the couch. Then, the demon possessed Melanie’s corpse, wrote something on several of the pages, and handed it back to Elvis. The administrator took another half an hour just reading through the changes, almost deliberate at prolonging the demon’s pain while they’re occupying dead flesh.

Elvis nodded and put the paper back down on the coffee table. “This will do. At the end of each local solar cycle, ten percent of the broadcasting profits will go to Dungeon Mark. And we’ll meet again every five years for the contract’s renewal.”

“What’d you do?” I asked the demon.

“I gave you a better deal, my liege. The administrators are going to make a mountain of gold off your back that you deserve at least a slice of the pie. They are desperate enough for you to sign the contract that they’ll agree to any of our terms. They’d have you working in perpetuity. I gave the contract an expiration date of five years and a generous percentage of the profits. Then, we can negotiate for a better deal once you’ve expanded.”

“She’s right,” Elvis said. “But my superiors will be pleased, nonetheless. I won’t bother you anymore unless summoned. Ah, before I forget…”

[ An Administrator has given you 20,000 crystals. You may use it at your own convenience. ]

“And one more thing: the Cult of Astaroth is still out there. You have only destroyed the people directly responsible for your birth. Since you are now my client, I advise you to do something about it before the problems get…bigger or worse. Or ignore it. It is up to you. As for the cult’s complete destruction, the System’s reward is still open. You should take it.”

“Well, how great is this reward?”

Elvis grinned. “Worth. Your. Time. You are given a rare opportunity to become one of the most powerful Death Cores in existence, my lord. The System does not give these rewards lightly.”

[ You received a Quest. Destroy the Cult of Astaroth on Earth. Leave no one alive. Show no mercy. ]

“I think you already know where to start,” Elvis said.

“Portland,” I said.

Elvis glanced at the library, to Oracle peeking from behind the door frame. “Your friend over there will find them.”

“Noted,” I said.

Elvis got up from the couch and stretched. “Well, this has been fun! It is a pleasure doing business with you, Dungeon Mark. We will do great things together. Until then.”

Elvis and his guards vanished into thin air in the blink of an eye.

“Tell me, demon, did I make a mistake signing that?” I asked when I was sure they were all gone.

“It depends on how you wield the contract, my liege. You are a Core created by the System—A physical extension of it. Cores are the closest being to its power. Not the administrators. If the Immaran Guild comes for you, create an army of giants, archliches, and dragons, and they’ll change their tune sooner or later. If they attack you, it means they’re delving. Whatever administrative powers they have over the System would vanish.”

“What if they bring an army?”

“An army is a farm to a Death Core. If the Immaran Guild is smart, they won’t hand you a buffet. Even Puzzle Cores acquire hundreds of essences from the deaths of thousands. Cunning rulers from other worlds always use an adventuring party to destroy a Core.”

I frowned. Time will tell.

“My lord, what are your orders with the cultists in Portland?”

“Jonas, their leader, called someone from London before he died. That’s where Oracle traced it last.” A flash of Jonas torn in half by the elevator doors entered my mind. I still relished the way he begged me.

> THE CULTISTS IN PORTLAND WENT UNDERGROUND, Oracle said from the computer.

“Oh? How so?” I asked.

> THEY WERE EXPECTING JUSTIN HODGE TO CONTACT THEM UPON THE MISSION’S SUCCESS BY DAWN. HE WAS NINE HOURS LATE.

Shit. “And they have a nine-hour head start. Obviously, I’m not dead…so the rats are fleeing. Oracle, do you have access to the cameras in that office building of theirs right now?”

> YES.

“Do you see anyone?”

> BASED ON THE KEY CARD ACCESS, NO ONE HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING IN THE PAST SIXTEEN HOURS SINCE JONAS’S DEATH.

“They already know something is amiss,” the demon said. “It is possible that Astaroth has made contact with his mortal emissary, warning them of the danger. They have been marked.”

I turned back to Oracle. “From those key cards, do you have names? Addresses?”

> YES. I HAVE ACCESS TO THE BUILDING’S SECURITY SYSTEM. I KNOW THEIR NAMES AND WHERE THEY LIVE.

“Find them.”

Oracle took fourteen minutes to compile a profile of twenty-seven names. In the last three hours, their names appeared in a manifest for a one-way flight to New York and then a connection flight to London. The plane would leave in forty minutes via a charter jet provided by Wellspring Domain LLC.

That’s fake as hell, I thought, amused.

The demon had already exited Melanie’s body, no longer able to tolerate the pain of occupying a corpse. Still, they hovered near me as I flew toward the library to access Oracle’s computer screen directly. Goliath and Siren stood behind, waiting and watching. Oracle poured through the cult’s emails, text messages, voicemails, and anything that could paint a picture of who these people were. Most of them did not know anything about the Death Core or that Jonas and Justin Hodge had planned to create one. Based on the conversation they had that night, it was a very small circle who knew my true nature. However, they were all aware that Hodge went on a special mission with his sect on behalf of The Seat, which I reckoned were probably their leaders. Unfortunately, the servers Oracle hacked didn’t tell me who they were. Because Hodge (or any of his followers) failed to contact them, an order came from New York to abandon the Portland chamber, and everyone was ordered to leave Oregon.

And now they were gathered in the Portland International Airport, waiting to board the chartered plane.

Siren giggled behind me.

“What is it, Siren? Do you know something?”

Siren smiled and nodded. “In the city where dreams never sleep, under neon lights secrets we keep,” she sang in the tune of an upbeat pop ballad. “Someone in New York can see your spark! Light up the night, ignite the dark! Oh, heavens do speak; let the stars align. Send a message to seek what’s truly yours. Only blood is the call, the bond untold! Bring them to the fold, love, it’s your gold.”

“A message?”

“Oh, heavens do speak…”

“Oracle…what is your maximum access range to this aircraft? How many passengers does it have?”

> THERE ARE TWENTY-SEVEN PASSENGERS, TWO PILOTS, ONE FLIGHT ATTENDANT. THIS IS A PRIVATE FLIGHT, SO ALL OF THE PASSENGERS ARE CULTISTS.

“…let the stars align…” Siren sang in a beautiful falsetto, scratching a part of my brain that sent goosebumps all over my form.

> I HAVE ACCESS TO THE AIRCRAFT FOR TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES UNTIL THEY ARE NO LONGER IN RANGE.

“…Only blood is the call, the bond untold…”

“And can you see the aircraft’s trajectory, specifically once they are away from the populated areas?”

> I WILL HAVE A FOUR-MINUTE WINDOW.

“…Bring them to the fold, love…”

“My gold,” I finished for Siren.

And I did see my golden ticket. From the security camera pointed at the waiting lounge, all twenty-seven of the cultists sat scattered across the terminal. But my eyes were drawn to a woman reading a book by the corner of the feed.

“Her. She’s Jonas’s assistant. I think Allie is her name. She was there the night Melanie and Hodge visited him,” I said. “She probably knows who the other leaders are.”

Goliath pointed at his non-existent watch on his wrist.

“Right. No time. The plane leaves in half an hour, and we’re too far away.”

…but there is a way.

I glanced at the twenty thousand crystals that Elvis gave me. Plenty enough to buy anything with my unlimited access to the System. I just had to find the cheaper ones. I brought up the Dungeon Tab again, filtered my search, and narrowed my options.

There!

Teleportation Pedestal

This 10x10-foot tall device allows you to teleport a single creature you know within five hundred miles from the pedestal, provided you are familiar with their full name, exact appearance, and precise location. If any of this information is incorrect or incomplete, there is a 50% chance the creature will arrive at the pedestal deformed, injured, or dead. If you have two pedestals, you can link them together and form a chained network of portals within a range of five miles. Creatures immune or hidden from divination magic will not be teleported to the pedestal.

Teleporting a single creature costs five hundred crystals each.

This was the cheapest (and smallest) long-range teleportation device on the list, but it would still cost me ten thousand crystals, which was nothing to scoff at. But it might be useful in the future, I tried to convince myself. No, I had to do it. I hesitated for a moment, closed my eyes, and hit the [ Purchase ] button. That’s it. No takebacks. Allison Collins was the only person with multiple contacts with Jonas, who planned his daily schedules and knew the people he talked to because of her position as his secretary. She was the closest person who knew what was going on more than anyone else.

Let’s hope they’re not immune to divination because this will fucking suck, I thought. And a waste of money.

“Are we running a scenario, my lord?” The Siren sang excitedly.

I looked at Siren. Huh. That’s actually not a bad idea. I was feeling a bit peckish. “We’ll have to teleport two more delvers for it to count. Oracle, out of the twenty-six cultists left, who are higher-ranked?”

Oracle gave me three more names on the screen. If Allie refused to give me the answers I sought, perhaps the other three would be more…malleable. I think I can spare two thousand crystals to teleport four people. I knew their names. Their faces from their IDs. And thanks to Oracle hacking the airport’s security cameras, their exact coordinates of where they sat, stood, pissed, or shit. If I had enough crystals, I would teleport all twenty-seven and feed on them. But I had to save up the rest for other substantial improvements around my dungeon.

“I’ll have dinner for four, Oracle.”

“What will you do once we know their names? They might be out of reach, out of our grasp, out of our control,” Siren sang.

“We need four-hundred and sixty-seven essences to create a second dungeon, right?”

Goliath and Siren both nodded eagerly.

“Sooner or later, they’ll tell us their headquarters. London, New York, wherever it may be. And when they do, that’s where I’ll build my second dungeon. Stay close to them, and eliminate them.”

> WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS WAITING IN THE TERMINAL?

“Crash the plane into the mountains.” I thought about the two pilots and the flight attendant caught in this mess. Innocents in my war against the cult who destroyed me. But for all I know, this chartered flight came from another Astaroth worshipper they probably served. For all I know, they were a part of it.

No, I couldn’t afford to doubt myself. My decision was clear, even if it pained me.

“No survivors,” I told Oracle.