Chp 1: The Dao of Dug (Patreon)

Yep, he was still in the back seat. 

Looking in my rearview for the fifteenth time didn't make my passenger any less creepy. Unlike innocuous hitch hiker ghosts this fucker didn’t appear to be intending to leave before we reached his destination. Misplaced hopes dashed, I tried to play it off like I was checking traffic. 

I wasn't the kind of person who was put off by Goths or Punk Rockers but the guy in my back seat was something else. It wasn't what he was wearing. Overall he had a clean cut kind of look, real middle american nobody. It was something in the set of his eyes and smell that had alarm bells ringing in my head. Between the two his eyes, hard but vacant and a touch to close together, weren’t fantastic but it was the smell that was really freaking me out. It wasn’t the usual pothead thinking he can cover it up with patchouli, or maybe shat-his-pants stench.

It was ammonia-like but sort of vinegary too, like old sweat and something sinister. That coupled with the fact he was either jacking it through the hoodie pouch or fondling something knife-shaped was even less stelar. Neither was a fantastic option, but I wanted it to be the former instead of the latter. A fact which was a strong indicator of how fucking awful my decision to pick him up had been.

A decision I had made because I thought I was smarter than Dug.

Dug of the Grateful Dead T-shirt. The veteran driver who made sure I wouldn't veer into oncoming traffic or creep out passengers. He had spent a whole half hour with me before signing off on my employment after only driving three blocks. Dug had seemed like a pothead with a shit work ethic.

I wish I had listened to Dug. Dug knew what was up.

"Hey, listen!" Dug had giggled at his joke while I sat staring at him in hopes he'd get out of my car already. He hadn't noticed my "vibe" and stared into the middle distance over my shoulder when he continued.

"Don't pick-up clean-cut dudes after midnight," he said then nodded in agreement with himself.

"Why?" I'd asked, too confused too remember I wanted him to leave, not impart stoner wisdom. Instead, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what reference he was mangling.

"Because like, only serial killers and evangers are out that late. Them and alchies. Alchies are cool if they tip," Dug said and I nodded.

"Groovy," I said and he nodded again then got out of my car. I watched him walk back toward his car but couldn't shake the image of him unfolding a scooter with a practiced snap. The word felt less complete somehow when he drove off instead.

Evangers. I assumed, now, that he meant evangelists. I'd had a couple ambush me on rides before and it had never been pleasant. Despite being an atheist, I was wishing I was currently being asked if I'd accepted the baby Jesus as my Lord and Savior. If I'd had the brain cells to spare it might have become the moment I found religion. At the very least God, Buddha, and Zeus would have been receiving some rather frantic prayers.

Instead, I glanced back and caught a glitter of metal. He definitely wasn't just touching himself. As I scrambled for some idea of how to out get of being stabbed a warning message popped up on my heads-up display. The heads-up display that I didn't have because those weren't real outside of movies.

Kill one person to qualify!

That was all it said. Staring at it I heard a delighted cackle from the backseat but didn't register it as important. I only had eyes for the impossible sign on my windshield. Something about the incongruence of it had my heart hammering in my chest louder than it had even when I thought I would be murdered. What I was seeing wasn’t right.

Somehow, I managed to tear my eyes away. Routine or some sixth sense reminding me that I'd had my eyes off the road too long. Unlike what to do about the guy in the back, my next thoughts crystallized in an instant. I was heading for a busy pedestrian crossing and there wasn't enough room to brake.

Everyone I was looking at was mid-bar-crawl and too slow to realize I was barreling toward them. It was my fault they were in danger. Mine, not the freak in the back seat. I exhaled, the tension in my body releasing as I turned hard, ramming my car into a pole.

The sound of metal and glass crushing was all I could hear. Knife in hand the creep went flying past me and out where the windshield should have been. It made me feel a little better to see him collide with the sidewalk despite the pain I was in. That guy could go fuck himself with his knife as far as I was concerned.

Vision blurry, it took a moment for me to realize that the sign hadn't disappeared. It was floating in the air, but the message had changed:

Kills: 1

It said in its impersonal red letters. It looked like a shitty sans-serif font, the sort I'd have gotten a dirty look from my professor for using in a project. Ah, the art degree. The financial black hole that I'd been busting my ass driving to pay for.

The number one wasn't stable. It shimmered before settling on two only to start shimmering again as I started to lose consciousness.

"We ask for one kill and you give us three, including yourself. Nice initiative," a guy in a hooded robe said as I opened my eyes. I was seated at a nice desk in a comfy chair with an expensive-looking carpet under it. The guy in the robe had a nicer chair but that was to be expected. That all of this was floating in a swirling abyss had a less readily visible explanation.

"Uhm…what did I qualify for…Sir?" I asked after a few minutes passed while the hood read something in a file folder. He looked up and I realized that I wasn't talking to a person so much as the abyss itself. I forced myself to blink, feeling that I shouldn't look for too long.

"How polite… Oh, it seems there was a glitch with your invitation. Hahaha, you went for it not knowing what you‘d get? You're a real go-getter," the hood said and I smiled. Or at least forced my mouth into the general shape. It didn't feel like I was smiling though, which was weird. After working customer service jobs for years, I could usually force one no matter my mood.

"You are the winner of a prestigious opportunity to establish a Dungeon," the abyss began, manifesting cans of cola on its desk and pushing one toward me.

"You'll be competing against the forces of Order to accumulate points. Now, it's a very cushy position. Only it does come with quite a lot of management duties rather than hands-on killing," the hood started and there was a weird hitch in his shoulders like he was bracing for something.

"If you want to be knee-deep in blood, guts, and glory, we do have a few lesser opportunities. Demon Lord or Grand Calamity are particularly popular," the Abyss continued as I drank my cola and listened. It was cherry vanilla, a flavor I had conflicting feelings about.

"May I ask some questions before I choose?" I asked and it nodded. They nodded, I corrected myself. He didn't feel like any kind of human, but it was a shitty thing to use ‘it’. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should have been panicking. Or at least worried about my situation more than pronouns. I felt calm. Way too calm.

"When you say ‘management’ and ‘dungeon’, I get a ‘sim’ vibe from that. Is that the right idea ...  like I'd be designing it and filling it with monsters?" I asked and they nodded again, and I felt like they were smiling somehow. A weak smile that made me feel like a star had died somewhere in the universe and I was watching the embers flicker out.

"Exactly," he said, sounding pleased but not hopeful.

"It's funny. Despite putting out games to indoctrinate your species, we’ve gotten a very low return on investment lately. The majority of you seem to only understand FPS or dating sims," he said and sounded tired. I nodded, feeling sympathetic. If he was dealing with "the hardcores" then his job was bound to be miserable. Most of them had likely never seen something like Sim World let alone played it.

Letting my guard down was a mistake, but that moment of sympathy was all it took. I had tutored my share of idiot savants who could draw with great skill but had all the imagination of toast. Thinking about them I felt I'd found a brother in arms. That was enough to make me forget I was too calm or wonder if there were cosmic roofies in my soda. The cherry vanilla soda that was now an orange one somehow.

"Would killing adventurers be the main source of points I could earn, or are there other methods?" I asked, but wasn't hopeful for an alternative. I'd been a pretty serious tabletop RPG player at one point. Even though it had been years since I‘d had that kind of time, I remembered the basics. It was weird to think they'd been priming me for the situation I was in.

"I have to apologize. I'm not that familiar with the more in-depth mechanics. You're the first person who's even asked about that," he said and I felt like I could detect a bit of embarrassment. It was strange to get impressions from a being that was face- and formless. It could have been something in his voice but even when he paused, I felt as if I could see emotion.

"Okay… are there any specific drawbacks that I should be aware of before starting?" I asked and it was the last question I could think of. The last question I could think of that I wanted to ask. There were plenty more that I should have. Ones I'd be demanding answers to, if my mind were working normally. Instead, I felt like most of them didn't matter or wouldn't be answered.

Chief among those I didn't want to know about was the current tally of points between the sides. The second was how much my contributions could tip the scale. I was happy with the idea of living in ignorance of the value of my contributions. It was cowardly, but I was comfortable with that.

"That I know of? Two," he said after some deliberation, seemingly lost in thought.

"If your dungeon consumes more energy than it produces, it will experience collapses. Newest to oldest parts’, The Hood informed me and then took a drink from his soda for the first time. It was odd to watch since I could hear the sounds of drinking but couldn't see anything.

"Second, if you fail to produce two points in your first calendar year you will be penalized. I'm not privy to what that penalty will be, but I'm pretty sure it's either death or torture," the Hood continued after some consideration. It wasn't such a bad thing unless the points were hard to get.

"Okay, can I request to start at the beginning of the year wherever I'm sent to do this?" I asked and was rewarded with another dying-star smile.

"Ha, normally we dump you in with only a week left of the calendar year. Since you asked though, I'll give you two," the Hood said and I got the feeling that he was telling the truth. Like his smile, I wasn't sure where the feeling was coming from.

"Deal," I said and he blinked, taken aback.

"You'll take it?” he asked. He felt like a dude, but I felt like I was assuming things but too embarrassed to ask, 'Hey, are you a guy? Cuz I feel like you're a guy and it's throwing me off.' I could hear the stupidity in the very thought. It didn't deserve to be spoken and I crushed it to death in a corner of my mind. The corner I usually reserved for imaginary spiders.

"It suits me better than Demon Lord at least," I said, not sure but not wanting to have to go kill things the old-fashioned way either. The dying-star smile collapsed into the brilliance of a Nova as he beamed at me.

"Excellent! You have style and smarts," the Hood said and suddenly I was sitting in a comfy chair in the woods at the foot of a mountain range. It took several minutes for me to accept the sudden change in scenery and an hour to absorb what I'd agreed to.

A thought struck me. "Who was the third person I killed?" I said aloud to the trees and mountains around me, recalling my stated kill count. I'd almost forgotten in all the weirdness.

"Eric Rashad, age 75, died of a heart attack when your car stopped only inches from him. You received a bonus since he didn't have a history of heart disease," he whispered in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

"Th-thanks," I said, nodding as I tried not to shit in my comfy chair.

"You’re welcome, I enjoyed our chat. Text me any time if you have a question, or just want to talk," the Hood said cheerfully in my mind before hanging up with an audible click.