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Chapter 1.0 – Choosing a new home

  The grey dull soul orb was dropping to the world below feeling its previous life experiences go away. It was like the memories were slowly fading away into the fog of his mind. His memories of his wives, friends, warm nights by the fire slowly became hazy and then disappeared. While his pleasant memories were disappearing, he still remembered common things, like how he could summon his soul page, or how to read and write. The memories of killing mana monsters and the deaths of all the people stayed with him. Yet, Salurin’s justice made little to no sense for him. If his crime has a person was to needless cause death to adventurers, why was it ok for him to purposely do so? After all a thousand years controlling a Dungeon, he would end up killing hundreds of thousands of Adventurers. He knew the layouts, traps, monster combinations for a hundred… well maybe ten… no more like two… and then the knowledge was gone as he fell through the dirt and stone towards the core of the world.

  As the soul settled in the blazing hot core of the world, light blinded every sense of the little orb. It wasn’t till he closed his eyes that he realized he even had a body again. Heat began to leave his body as he opened his eyes to a small stone room. The only light that could be seen came from a glowing orb. Otherwise, he was in a small circular cave, half of the floor was bare, while the other half was covered in three golden circles set next to each other. The small being took a moment to look at itself. For his legs, they appeared to be covered in brown fur that was shaggy and thick, and bent like the hind legs of a goat. Upon looking at his waist, there was tied a small leather loin cloth to keep him modest. While at his hips the fur stopped and formed a soft green bare muscled chest and arms. Looking at his hands, each of his fingers formed long black claws that seemed to be as strong as steel. Carefully touching his head, he realized that he had a small goatee on his chin, along with a bald scalp that had two goat like horns as long as his forearms coming out of the top of his head. It wasn’t till he noticed the whip like motion, that he realized he had a long thin prehensile tail.

  Bowing his head, the little demon spoke, “Blessed are the Gods for they granted us the ability to see ourselves.” The little prayer activated the demons soul page, and wild mana formed into a blue box that could be read by any creature in the world.

  The demon, Shedzuoxohr, looked over his soul page with a critical eye. From his previous life he knew the general rules. Strength, for instance was a general statistic for his whole body and controlled: how well he could climb; how much weight he could lift; and how much damage he could do with his claws or a weapon. For most people, a statistic of 10 was normal for a starting teenager, that’s usually when a soul page would become visible for a person. Shedzuoxohr, knew that when the soul page first appeared Human, Elves, Dwarves, and even Gnomes all considered it a time of adulthood. There was a vague feeling of celebration and warmth from his previous life about his soul page, like he had spent many hours looking at it.

  “So my name is Shedzuoxohr?” The demon said out load. As soon as he said his name, he felt throughout his whole body like he had thrown a stone into a still pond and that the ripples were stretching outward. A feeling of danger began to arise in the demon as the ripples crashed against some type of barrier and began to come back against him. When the first one hit, a wave of nausea rolled over the demon’s stomach twisting it like a wet rag. Then the second wave came sending him down on his knee’s with a stabbing headache. Pain, confusion, and even hallucinations plague the young demon’s mind for a moment. Slowly, he got up to be greeted by an Event prompt.

  Realization struck, Shedzuoxoh, he would need to at least choose an alias before giving out his name ever again. Taking a step forward another Event prompt popped up before him, as three portals came into view in the center of each summoning circle.

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  The young demon looked at each of the portals and could see the environments beyond. The furthest one on the left looked to be the natural cave system. A dirt brown floor with greyish stone showed through the pool. The next portal showed the carved stone tombs and dusty floor of a Crypt. While the last Portal showed a small ledge overlooking a huge pool of magma. By the world event prompt it seemed that the natural cave system was one of the easier starter dungeons. Granted he would have to face numerous animals before starting his first dungeon level, but that didn’t scare him. What scared him was the fact that he would only have a few levels created before being found. Therefore, the choice was simple, the demon walked through portal to the Magma Pools.

  The site that greeted Shedzuoxoh was a humbling one. Volcanic ash rose into the air, and with it came the heavy suppressing heat from the magma. Looking up, a black volcanic glass dome ceiling could be seen. At its peak was a small tunnel that acted like a chimney. Far off in the distance, the glare from the magma showed lava tubs across the great magma pool that the ledge was perched above. Turning around the demon heard the crunch of the black sand has his small hoof feet moved. In place of the portal was a black stone wall. He briefly touched the wall feeling its smoothness from the constant erosion of magma. The magma close to the ledge bubbled and a small splash came up dropping a little bit of it on the demon. The orange glowing liquid felt briefly warm and slowly started to harden on his skin. Smiling that his body was able to tolerate the extreme conditions of the magma pools. Shedzuoxoh, tried to brush the cooling magma off his forearm only to realize that it had harden to his skin. Gritting his fangs, the demon began pulling on the magma like a sticky glob of glue feeling his greenish skin pull off with it. Grunts and cursing occurred as the pain increase until finally, the now blackish rock was pulled off his forearm. A large piece of his skin had come off as well, and underneath it was a set of new scales in piece of his flesh that were as bright red as the color of blood. Seeing the flash of an event prompt brought his attention to it.

  Shaking his head at the prompt, Shedzuoxoh, couldn’t help but think that the universe had a sense of humor. Looking around, Shedzuoxoh realized that the safest place for his summoning circle was on the ledge that he was standing on. So without any more thought he closed his eyes and searched within for the knowledge of the spell. Slowly dark sounding words came to his lips, as his mind relaxed and began to feel his mana. For years as a human he had tried to awaken his talent for magic, but this innate ability to relax and channel mana had been so evasive he gave up. Now because of his race, it was like breathing. Swirls of energy began to move his hands into arcane jestures. While a grand picture in his mind began to form of a golden circle set in black glass. Then four smaller circles appeared on the outside of circle at the cardinal points of the compass. Lines with arcane script began to flow outside of the circles connecting them through mystical channels. As the spell neared completion, the demon felt the mana in the magma pool respond. The smallest drop of mana in a raging current of energy drifted into the summoning circle, allowing the circle to connect with the world around it. The spell began to slow down its tempo of energy, as the last key mystical ingredient was added. A small tether of energy broke from Shedzuoxoh’s soul and connected with circle creating a mental and spiritual bond with it.

  The spell closed itself off and Shedzuoxoh realized that now he was connected with the Magma Pools his evolution would increase. Smiling, he opened his eyes to see a five golden circles pulsing with energy on the melted black glass floor of the ledge. The center circle was the largest and was about six inches in diameter. The four other circles were about one inch in diameter and set in place so that they were aligned with north, south, east and west. Arcane script flowed over the outside perimeters of the circles. While a single line of the script connected the circles with the main one. Bending down his little body, Shedzuoxoh, touched the golden script and felt the energy it held. Smiling, he had one more thing to do.

  “Gods of old and new hear my plea! From now till the end of days, let all who see me call me Alistair! For I am a Dungeon Demon!” The Demon shouted out to the universe.

  Thanks for the tip on the line breaks.... for some reason I had to "view source" and delete them. Anyway, Lines Removed! Hizzah!

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