Just one upper-level Dungeon. I needed to satisfy this burning curiosity at least once before I could move on to mundane inspections.

  It wasn’t far away from a cluster of lower-level Dungeons. Slightly up the craggy slope of the mountain. I flew high in the air so that the little gnats on the ground couldn’t bother me. I had already fallen for their provocations once, taking them up on the challenge that came at the other end of a javelin.

  But, it became clear why this place belonged to the rats. It should be an embarrassment to be this pathetic so close to the top. How did you live with yourself knowing that you were this inept at fighting at this point?

  I gave them some grace. I knew that there was a mass of XP flushed into the lower levels. The quality of demon here wasn’t special. Not as special as it should be. I imagined that there was some ancient demon complaining about how difficult it used to be to get up here and that the new generations are soft.

  I shouldn’t complain so much. Food was food and even these lowlifes needed to be rendered unable to return. In a way, I was making death real for them. They should be relieved. They should be thanking me for the good fortune of the finality I handed them.

  I landed with a thunderous boom atop the location that led to the entrance of the Dungeon. This time, it was a set of large stone doors that were framed directly on the side of the mountain. A scene of violence was etched upon the surface, showing the world the appearance of a group of woman stabbing a man to death in his bed.

  “You’re new,” a deep voice echoed off the wall.

  I jumped into attention, putting my fists in the direction of the noise. Sitting a few feet away from the entrance was a man made of the same rock that made up the mountain. His gemstone eyes observed me passively.

  “Are you planning to block my way?” I asked with a raise of my eyebrow.

  “No, who would want their purpose to be gatekeeper?” The boulder demon asked with a slow pronunciation. “What an empty and pointless thing to be; guarding a thing made by someone that doesn’t even care about it.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Nice view,” the demon answered.

  I turned around and observed the same horizon that the boulder watched. A red sun sat sunken in the rocky edge of the universe to create a streaking crimson. The architects of this place made no efforts to obscure just how small this region actually was. A ring of rock and a mountain. That was it.

  “I suppose it is,” I agreed.

  “I’ve been watching this scene for quite a while,” the demon continued. “When I stare at it, I lose track of time. It gives me feelings of peace.”

  “What is your purpose in being here?” I demanded with a sharp tongue. “Why do you sit here when the destination is right above you? Does it start stir in your chest, the things that wait for you at the other side?”

  “There was a time that I burned with a white hot passion,” the demon conceded. Sounds of stones grinding against each other blasted my ears when he shifted. “There was a time that I strove to reach the top for nothing else but to make sense of it all. I wanted to use my authority to order the Follies to tell me what this was all for and create a place where I could feel peace. If for nothing else, I wanted to make sure that someone else couldn’t make it worse for me.”

  “And you gave up,” I accused.

  “Yes,” the demon nodded. “I gave up with the goal in sight. I look up so little now that I sometimes forget that it’s there. I came to the realization that I didn’t need it anymore.”

  “It sounds like the excuses of the weak. How far did you make it?”

  “Exactly this far. Not one step higher than this point.”

  It didn’t make any sense to me. Something in my mind could not comprehend a single reason that would drive such a conclusion. There seemed to be nothing deficient about the demon that I could see. There was an air about him that separated him from the rats that I roasted on my way to get here. He was better that them; better than the perch he rested on.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Why did you quit?”

  “What I wanted wasn’t up there,” the demon answered simply.

  “Bullshit,” I spat. “Every demon that is worth killing is up there somewhere and I want to throw my flesh into the fray.”

  “I am not you, I do not fight because I want to fight. I fight to achieve something. I only discovered that what I wanted wasn’t up there. I cannot be given peace. It is something that has to be created internally. A tranquil world will not have settled my tumultuous center. But, then I came to this Dungeon and I saw the view. And, ever since then, I have had no desire to go onwards. This was my answer.”

  “What if I obstructed the view?”

  For some reason, I wanted to test this demon. I needed to put his beliefs on trial. Everyone is willing to commit to violence to protect something important to them. This view was his meaning of life; threatening it had to be the surefire way of getting him to crack. I would kill him after he rose to the challenge and I would move on after.

  “You will leave eventually,” the demon answered. “You are destined for more than that petty existence. The world above still calls for you.”

  “What if I tried to kill you?”

  “I would flee. You are not the first who tried to take my life for no other reason than my existence. I have a lengthy stockpile of items that I could use. I would hide until you left, as you are destined to do, and I would return to my view.”

  “What if I promised to destroy this view when I take over Hell?”

  The expression on the boulder demon’s face shifted just ever so slightly. I grinned with joy that I had struck the necessary chord to ignite his fire. Now stand up. Stand up and try to kill me for daring to try to take away what is precious to you. Secure your right to this place by force or surrender it to me.

  “Then I should feel fortunate that I have it memorized to heart,” the boulder replied with a smile. “Impermanence was something that we all once lived with. I will just learn to live with it again.”

  That twitch in the face was all I was given. The demon returned to a neutral expression once again. I felt no passion burning inside of him, nothing that would fuel any worthwhile fight.

  “You should have turned into a donkey with how stubborn you are,” I commented with a sigh.

  “They chose an unyielding rock instead,” the boulder replied. “With enough time and effort, I can be remolded. The only issue is that nobody has the same patience as water.”

  “It is not worth my time and effort,” I grunted in agreement, turning away from the puzzling man.

  The doors split away effortlessly when I put my hands on it, inviting me further inward. A shimmering surface waited behind the doors; a gateway to a completely different place.

  “Say, do you know what’s on the other side?” I asked.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me that. If you’re going in, tell me what you find,” the demon requested. “I’ll pay you for it.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know what you see,” he answered. “No one has ever seen the same thing and I want to know what it means.”

  “Sure.”

  I left the frustrating boulder behind and took a step into the shimmering surface. Blackness filled my eyes and my consciousness rushed through my head like there was a hole in it. I fell from a great height, my mind not coherent enough to activate my wings. My body felt like it plunged deep in cold water.

  I tried to swim and my arms felt like they were stuck in molasses. I surfaced with a loud splash. I sputtered and coughed, drowning in the dark. I used my [Torchlight], but it did not respond. Wherever I was, magic was suppressed.

  Was that the theme of this Dungeon? If it was, I should shift all my stats now.

  The water around me developed a current that started carrying me away. It flowed faster and faster, hitting surfaces I could not see and developing rapids. I tumbled and bounced over the choppy water, reaching in every direction for something to grab ahold of.

  Instead, something grabbed onto me. I felt hands grip onto my shoulder and pull me upwards. In a flash I breached into the light.

  It blinded me and I lashed out to find the owner of the hands. I found soft skin and a narrow neck that I grabbed onto tightly. I heard a gasp of surprise as I flipped my body around to pin the entity down.

  “-“

  Radio static filled my head and I growled in pain. It was a name. I know it was a name. My name left that mouth and tore into my brain. A verbal dagger deep inside my skull that I couldn’t excise. I clutched my head with one hand and kept a firm grip on the neck I found.

  “-“

  Again. A white hot iron into my eye. I reared back and bellowed. My eyes were clenched shut and my face was squeezed into a grimace.

  Then silence. Blissful, beautiful silence. Whatever I had grabbed a hold of had stopped resisting, stopped saying my name. Slowly, the ripping pain subsided and I could think again. I could open my eyes.

  And, when I did, I shouted in surprise.

  She was thin. Her hair spread around the bed like a rusty puddle of blood. Her eyes stared at me blankly, completely accepting of her pitiful situation.

  “Miranda.”

  My hand tightened. It was an illusion. It was far too late for illusions to mean anything. How could anyone be fooled by this after getting this far? I just had to kill her to move on. I just needed to wrench my arm in a certain way and her neck would snap. It wouldn’t even be difficult; she was so horribly ill at the point that even a toddler could have finished her off.

  “What,” she said with a smile, kissing the hand grasped around her throat. “Are you finally going to set me free?”

  “You’re not real,” I said. Something deep inside of me hoped that Miranda was in there and that she could understand me.

  “Faking insanity isn’t like you,” she said softly, grabbing my wrist weakly and trying to pull me off. “I know that you’ve moved on. Who is the woman you love now?”