The Infinity Dungeon [LitRPG]

The white light was all-encompassing. Michael was no stranger to it by now, used to what had to be the dungeon's preferred mode of transportation for its delvers. He wondered if he was getting privileged treatment, being a champion of the resident spirit and all that, before chuckling at his own idiocy.

Of course he was. Infy was even talking to him!

Speaking of the dungeon spirit, by squinting hard and forcing some magic into his eyes, Michael thought he could see a silhouette against the stubborn white that refused to fade. It resolved itself into a grim reaper, scepter and all, clad in dark flowing robes that somehow managed to defy gravity and hint at obscenely erotic womanly curves.

The tattered cloth hid the woman's face completely. It was a single piece, flowing down into a gigantic Victorian skirt that oozed solid shadows. They were black and thick, hiding the woman's legs and slowly dissipating against the white backdrop like smoke, turning grey and then misty white, and then vanishing.

"Hello Infy," Michael said.

The woman giggled. "Cocky, I like that."

Her voice was sensual. Michael felt suddenly self-conscious, examining his posture, finding it extremely arrogant for some reason. The realization muted the effect somewhat, but it did not fade entirely.

Infy giggled again. In moments like these, Michael wondered where Icarus went to hide, for he could feel the presence of his AI tucked away in a remote corner of his Inner Space, but only barely.

"To think all it took was some magic, and a wonder weapon to get your old self back," Infy said. "I hated seeing you all broken and depressed. It doesn't fit my Champion."

Michael stayed silent, for once.

When the silence stretched on, however, he began to sweat. He thought about something he could say, but nothing seemed to come to mind.

"What is this place?" he said eventually, settling for the obvious.

The dungeon spirit did not move. She stood where she was, a statue of shadows and cloth like a gothic rendition of the grim reaper, the sole point of darkness in a blinding white room.

"Infy?" Michael called to her, but she was as mute as a statue.

"Infy!"

He walked up to her, and for some reason he could not explain decided to jolt her with some magic. She gasped at the sudden touch of mana, which felt like the little static discharge one gets after rubbing wool and then touching a metal object. It stung a bit, and it was enough to shake the spirit out of its strange state.

"Infy? What's going on?"

"It's okay," she said, a smile in her voice. "I'm happy you are calling me that. I like the nickname."

There was something eerie about her, though. Only after a few seconds did Michael realize that she lacked the human micro-movements that usually helped bridge the uncanny valley and let someone see what's humanoid as human enough not to be repulsed by it.

Now, Infy looked like a doll on strings, immobile save for the gestures she made while speaking. Except, the strings holding the doll up were growing slack, and she was slowly slumping forward, crushed by gravity and unable to resist its pull. Her clothes, which had been floating and moved by an unseen wind, were now stiff and rigid, angling downwards.

"You don't look okay," Michael said, voice laced with worry.

"I will be," Infy's own voice was pained. "With your help, I will be."

Michael was about to offer his unconditional help, but stopped himself. Why was he so eager to offer his help to what was in truth an unknown entity probably older than civilization itself? One that controlled, was controlled by, or was at least a manifestation of, the dungeon: a magical construct most probably responsible for the destruction of at least two separate civilizations.

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Was it perhaps due to how human she looked? How fragile, and in pain?

Had she chosen to appear as a woman to look vulnerable in his eyes, which were inevitably those of a man?

Sure, she had helped him a great deal. She had given him magic, and then she had given him the tools to restore the very same magic that he had stupidly destroyed while playing with it without really knowing what he was doing.

But then again, she was also probably the entity behind the presence of the System in the first place. Perhaps he should ask her about that.

"How can I even help you?" he asked instead. "I'm in no position to help anyone."

"You will be, after you've helped yourself." She said. "What do you know about the Renegade?"

She was struggling to speak, and her voice was slowly becoming monotone as she began to control her vocal chords manually.

"That he's extremely powerful, and he has some ties to Johanne."

"Is that all?"

"It is."

Infy deflated, the first human expression in a while. "Ah, so she truly does not remember. I felt her picking at the boundaries of the Second Floor, but I had overexerted myself in an attempt to stabilize my condition, and was too tired to focus my attention on her. It is only through great effort that I can manifest lucidly in one place. As such, my time is limited. Listen well, Michael. The Renegade was Johanne's teacher, from a world where sorcery existed well before I was sent there.

"Johanne has always had a talent for magic, while her teacher had reached a bottleneck. He was powerful, but he was stuck, reaching the limit of what hard work could achieve on its own without the help of talent. She became the Champion, and he the Renegade. When she met me, she was the first of her world to reach the requirements necessary to finally have an audience with a Dungeon Spirit. The Renegade, jealous, imprisoned her. Your next challenge is ready. We will talk after I have rested enough."

She started to fade, and a door appeared in the distance. It was only visible because its light was slightly less solid than the rest of the white room's bright ambience, a silhouette of gray against the monotone white.

When Infy was almost completely gone, only a pale shadow remaining where she once stood, she suddenly straightened as if remembering something crucial.

"The white room will remain for a few more hours, if you wish to rest and develop your Inner Space. In fact, you should."

With that, she was gone. Leaving only the empty, blinding space and a door. There was nothing else, and distance lost all its meaning. Michael did not even try to walk anywhere, instead slumping to the ground and crossing his legs.

He felt tired. How long had it been since he last slept? With Icarus' help, he used a tremendous amount of mana to manipulate his endocrine system and force it to secrete neurotransmitters and hormones to keep him from falling asleep. Neither he nor his AI were too happy about it, but neither could Michael walk into the next challenge unprepared.

All he had right now was a powerful weapon that could only bring widespread destruction, and a trickle of magic filling up a flimsy battery. Anything else–the Nuclear Manifestation, the debris he could use to build more machines, the asteroid and the central star–was purely theoretical.

"Let's see if I can turn theory into practice."

Closing his eyes, he slipped into his Inner Space easily. The manifestation of his own magic, which had eluded him for all his many tries while powerless, was once again a single thought away, always within reach. It brought tears to his eyes.

The alien landscape was something he still wasn't familiar with, and for a moment the sense of vertigo that came from expecting the Sanctum and finding himself in Inner Space threatened to overtake him.

His stomach settled, and he reoriented his weightless body. Before him, a couple dozen feet away, the solar collector was beaming its energy to the battery pack. The cubical structure looked like four metal drums stuck together with wire, and another beam erupted from a spike on one of the sides and shot into the distance, towards Icarus' planet that hung in space like a large moon or a small planetoid. Runes dotted its surface, now dark and now shimmering with magic they collected from the sun.

Michael knew that if he flew even a few hundred yards away from the structures he had built, which now looked rather large from up close, they would appear very small, betraying the true immense scale of this gigantic place. The solar collector was easily taller than Michael, with four petals of shiny solar cells spanning tens of feet. The battery pack was bulky, and Icarus' planet was massive.

The Space itself, while finite, was orders of magnitude bigger. Michael could see everything if he focused, and he did so by pulling the far away asteroid he mined materials from into focus. He realized he could only focus on things he had already explored, like the asteroid and its close neighbors, but not the rest of the belt. He couldn't even see the Nuclear thing without a lot of blur, and that was because it was huge. A bright dot in the distance, close to the edge.

"Alright. Clock's ticking. Let's get building."

"Love it," Icarus joked, "I've always wanted to play magic Stellaris."