The small lavender crystal shimmered with iridescence in the morning light. It wobbled slightly in the soft bed of moss at the entrance to a small cave nestled in dense foliage. A symphony of birdsong, ape calls, insect trilling, and gentle breaking surf on a distant coastline serenaded this world’s newest arrival.

  Charlie didn’t rouse from slumber in any normal sense. One moment they were asleep and the next they were wide awake. Everything felt alien, turned upside down. Charlie tried to “look” one direction and their mind was assaulted by hundreds of images. Sensations rushed through Charlie’s consciousness unfiltered by sensory organs, haltingly nostalgic, yet dramatically unfamiliar.

  If Charlie had still possessed a stomach its contents would have been spread out over the moss they were resting in. Unable to physically react to the spinning world in a physical manner, a wave of disassociation crashed against Charlie’s psyche. Charlie attempted to let everything in, attempted to not be overwhelmed, but they had no natural mechanism to halt the torrent of information streaming into their mind.

  Charlie rode waves of images, sounds, scents, and everything in between. Charlie sorted the images and forced that stream of information into one portion of their mind. The other sensations followed suit, adding one flow of after another as Charlie rebuilt their sense of perception.

  It was discombobulating. Not only could Charlie sense everything in their sphere of influence in every way imaginable, but they had no orientation or modulation. Sounds came from all directions in every pitch and volume. Images floated in Charlie’s mind’s eye, flipping, rotating, and twisting without a horizon or even sense of dimension. Scents and tastes co-mingled evoking strong memories from Charlie’s past. This is my mind. I will bring order to this chaos. This is unacceptable!

  Charlie did not know how long it took, but they managed to marshal their discipline and enforce their will upon the data. Everything became oriented around the focal point of their mind. Charlie learned how to focus their attention on a particular area within their influence. Charlie turned off the tactile, taste, and scent inputs. Sound and sight would be enough to get a start.

  Charlie finally found the notification queue and focused on it, arranging all of the starting notifications so they could make appropriate decisions. Informative notifications could simply be absorbed, like the many streams of sensation, they existed as data that could be parsed. However, notifications that required action were best dealt with through contemplation and consideration, not instinct.

  The first notification was one that Charlie had been expecting. They already had the perfect name picked out.

  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?

  Charlie focused on the blinking series of dashes. I am the Lurking Lair. I will be a dungeon unlike any other.

  The blinking name field shrunk down and was replaced by Charlie’s status sheet, with the name filled in. Charlie took a moment to pour over the information. It didn’t exactly feel like reading, but it was a fair approximation.

  So many options! Time to make some choices. Which starting abilities do I want? Which ones will work the best with my plan? If I hadn’t thought this through, it’d probably take a while. The Lurking Lair spent the next few minutes looking over the abilities. It was fun to extrapolate what types of growth paths they would offer and what environments each ability would perform best in.

  The spells took care of basic monsters to populate the environs of a dungeon. If the Lair’s starting location had been near a city, Bind, Influence Infusion, and Mana Osmosis would have been perfect. It would be invaluable to lay in wait and slowly grow in strength before revealing the dungeon’s existence to an unsuspecting populace. Alternatively, a spawn location in a desert where low level creatures would be rare and high level threats the norm would require entirely different starting abilities, more along the lines of Consume, Assimilate, and Influence Infusion.

  The Lair had asked for rainforest or jungle start to facilitate their designs with ability selection in mind. An odd ability combination was part of the Lair’s plan. Picking Bind, Consume, and Assimilate, the dungeon radiated satisfaction. You don’t need to focus on influence expansion if you’re going to be mobile from the start. Time to move onto the next part of the plan.

  Looking around their meager sphere of influence, the Lair checked to assure that there were no immediate threats in the small cave. A 360-degree view of everything within the sphere leaped into life around the center of the Lair’s mind. Where the influence ceased all information abruptly halted. It was an odd feeling, but no less so than adjusting to the data in the first place.

  The cave was small, moist, and filled with vegetation. Insects crawled over rocks, along the moss, and in between the bats hanging from the ceiling. Lush ferns and tangled vines covered most of the entrance to the small hideaway from view. A wonderful interweaving of wild animal sounds made its way into the Lairs senses, but nothing had stepped a foot across the threshold. Nothing stirred.

  No immediate threats, I am good to move on to phase two. I wonder if I get experience for killing the bats and insects? If I do, maybe I should summon a monster right away? Nah. Stick to the plan and get this out of the way. The Lair focused its attention upon the summon dungeon familiar spell and began to concentrate.

  While concentrating, the rest of the world dropped away and only the clear, perfect focus of a singular mind devoted to a task enveloped the Lair. This was the peace that they had been seeking. The opportunity to devote themselves wholly to a task, to self-betterment. Once the hour was up, only noticeably apparent from the notification requesting the class selection of the familiar, the Lair felt revitalized and clear headed.

  I would have preferred a familiar that I could reasonably hope could carry on a decent conversation, but that isn’t in the cards today. The Lair selected “warrior” and released the spell, watching the representation of their mana pool, a small beaker filled with opaque blue liquid, drain completely. There was no corresponding sensation, which was unexpected; the Lair had assumed that using mana would produce a feedback.

  The Lair waited patiently for their mana to recover and their new familiar to arrive. The Lair knew that a typically being recovered at the rate of 5 mana per hour, all of the other rules had held true up ‘til this point and the Lair had no reason to suspect otherwise. However, the dungeon race bonuses and the Lair’s lucky roll on the Spirit stat would vastly improve their mana regen rate. The Spirit stat increased mana regeneration by 1 for every point of Spirit above 10. In the Lair’s case, this meant a rather incredible 21 mana per hour. It is a good assumption that dungeons need the bonuses they get in order to defend themselves, so it’s not a dramatic rate for other dungeons, just compared to other races. The 0 movement speed would a real punch in the gut if I couldn’t think outside the box.

  The Lair didn’t feel the ground shaking, but they heard the birds spook and burst from the trees heralding the approach of something large. Branches on the forest floor snapped and a terrible crashing echoed from the dense brush. Something was coming.

  What does Asphodel symbolize?

  Asphodel is a type of lily and means 'remembered beyond the tomb' or 'my regrets follow you to the grave' while wormwood is often associated with regret or bitterness.