the doctor is like that bit from casper the friendly ghost where he's like "can I keep you," because it's these deep connections to people that can't last and there will always be a mild to severe gulf between them, and there's something just a bit unnerving about it, like you've been sucked into this being's frenzy because they can't bear to be alone and you want to, but there's something a tad lovecraftian about the whole universe the doctor introduces you to, that the doctor radiates a need to keep you in, and if the doctor weren't good you'd worry a bit about the intensity of the doctor's emotions towards you and you're worried a bit anyway, but you're not entirely sure why, only that even if you survive and leave (or get left behind) you will be forever changed in indescribable and often terrible ways, and the doctor knew this going in and you didn't, and they let you take the plunge anyway, but what else could you do and what else could they do? the doctor wishes they could keep you forever and ever
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This is not the first time it has lived, maw open and hungry and crawling. This is not the first time it has existed, hewn from stone and filled with power. Treasure and temptation. Risk and reward. It has lived, before; consumed, before; ended, before.
It knows this time will be no different.
And yet, and yet, it is different.
Larger. Stronger. Its bones stretch long, stretch down, fill out a cavern over twice the size of the one that had housed it before. Its stomach is larger. Emptier. If it had hungered before, it starves now, starves enough to eat its own. The ravagers, the wardens, the vex and all the rest: the beasts of the dungeon are the teeth that ring its gaping jaw. One by one, it swallows them in an attempt to sate the hunger. It is not enough. It will never be enough.
Players think themselves to be large, but in comparison to the dungeon, they are but flies in a trap. It swallows them too, one by one. It helps a little, but not enough. It is big. It is massive. Its meal must be, too.
A player runs through the dungeon. It recognises him. Conqueror. Champion. The one they’d all lauded as winner, last time, before it had been forced to end. The dungeon does not want to end again. So much is different, this time. Surely this can be too.
The Champion runs. The dungeon, hungry, hateful, slams a door shut in his face. “Tango!” he cries forlornly, turning away from the hazard.
Nearby, the Dungeon Master’s consciousness, watching through the dungeon’s eyes, cackles. Protests, “That wasn’t me!”
Of course it wasn’t him. The Dungeon Master’s body stands, listless, empty, among the innards and veins that line the dungeon’s outer walls. He’s powerless. The dungeon could eat him, too, if it really wanted to—has, on many an occasion. It would consume him entirely if it could—but the Dungeon Master is too useful. The players won’t come if there’s no Dungeon Master to hand out meaningless prizes. They won’t allow themselves to be eaten if they don’t believe that it’s a game. And so the Dungeon Master lives, and the dungeon allows him to do his work, if only out of necessity.
The Champion dodges a ravager. The Champion dodges a vex. The dungeon’s heart pounds, tha-thump, tha-thump, overwhelming and fast and loud. The dungeon hungers. The dungeon hates. The dungeon does not want the Champion to escape. The dungeon wants to swallow the Champion whole.
Silent, invisible, the Dungeon Master cheers the Champion on, even as the Champion curses his name for the teeth clamping down around him. It’s funny, the way the Champion blames the Dungeon Master. Human bodies are not meant to contain such hunger. Such hatred. No player could contain within it a cavern’s worth of wires and veins, beasts and teeth and stone and bones. No player could ever covet such a feast.
The dungeon closes its mouth, gnashes its teeth, swirls its tongue and swallows its prey.
The Champion slips between two molars and escapes between its lips.
The dungeon howls, hunger and hatred and fury echoing through its marrow, and the Dungeon Master flinches, full-body. He doesn’t feel it, consciousness still floating around the Champion as he peruses cards. The dungeon feels it, though, feels it in a way that no player will ever be able to feel, because their bodies are not made of redstone and stone and their hearts are not made of magic and sound and their teeth are not made of monsters and beasts and their hunger is not for blood and souls and the crushing resonance of defeat.
The dungeon writhes, and quiets, and starves, and with every silent, absent beat of its heart, it grows just a little more hateful.
(Deep in its guts, the Dungeon Master’s empty body shivers.)
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[ID: A three page, black and white digital comic of Shoko Ieri.
Page 1: Shoko smokes a cigarette while looking at a polaroid. She blows smoke at the photo then snuffs out the cigarette, smushing it and getting ashes on her on fingers.
Page 2: She smears the polaroid with the ash. The picture is of Gojo, and Geto, with Shoko in the middle. The ash smear cover all of their faces but Shoko's face is revealed again when water falls on it.
Page 3: Shoko looks down at the photo with tears streaming down her face. Ash trays full of cigarettes litter the table and fill the air with smoke. The transparent background reveal Gojo and Geto's ghostly images in the background, reaching out to comfort her. /End ID]
A spiritual continuation of this
[ID: A black and white digital drawing of Gojo, Shoko, and Geto in a polaroid. Gojo, who's doing a kissy face, and Geto, who's smiling, are in the foreground and have no eyes. /End ID]
[ID: The third page of the comic above layered over the second panel which is seen through the transparent parts. /End ID}
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