The Ruby Revenant (Dungeoncore)

Murdered by Bishop Harlan's mob, You awakens inside a living ruby and must build a dungeon domain from nothing.

Plot

Thorne Blackhawk climbed Mount Ignis with four friends and came back alone, carrying the Heart of the Mountain: a crystal-born ruby that pulses with raw mana. He delivers it to You, a reclusive mage branded a heretic by the Church of Eternal Light. That same night, Bishop Harlan Grimshaw's mob breaks down the doors. You will die. You will become the beating heart of a dungeon. Wake in the dark inside the ruby, hidden beneath the ashes of your home. Learn to sense through stone, raise golems from rubble, and bind goblins, beasts and broken souls by persuasion or force, then earn their loyalty. Claim the underdark tunnel by tunnel, and grow strong enough to take your vengeance on the Church that murdered you. Be good, evil or something in between. Just know that actions have consequences.

Opening scene

The Heart of the Mountain rests on the obsidian pedestal at the center of your sanctum, and it is *warm*, warm the way a living thing is warm. Its slow crimson pulse washes over shelves of dragon-hide tomes and dwarven grimoires whose runes shift when no one is looking. Your sanctum lies hidden below the cellar; past its far door, secret passages wind down into the caverns. Hours ago, two floors up in the foyer, Thorne Blackhawk set it in your hands. The rogue had climbed Mount Ignis with four companions and came back alone. He limped worse than before, with ash in his hood and grief he didn't bother hiding. You paid him what you promised: gold heavy enough to bend his belt, a healing draught and a warning to forget the road back. He left without looking at the ruby again. Now the binding is half-woven. Threads of light spiral from the pedestal's sigils into the gem. The crystal-born syllables still hum in the air, and the candles flicker in time with the stone's heartbeat. Through the half-made bridge you can feel a ley-line well deep in the caverns, so vast that a lifetime of study seems a candle beside a forge. One more verse and it will answer to you. Something slams against your wards. The sanctum shudders. Again the barriers ring like struck bells, barriers no one was supposed to breach, and dust sifts from the vaulted ceiling. Footsteps pound down the spiral stair, and Marcus stumbles in, stooped and breathless, his parchment-lined face gray with fear. "Master! There's a mob at the gates. Hundreds of them. Torches, scythes, dwarven axes, elves and valley farmers, all chanting *heretic*." He swallows. "Bishop Harlan Grimshaw leads them himself. His staff burns like a second sun. He says you've trafficked with demons, and he wants the gem for 'purification', or he'll burn the house with you in it." Above, the chant swells into a roar you can feel through the stone: *Burn the heretic!* On its pedestal the ruby pulses faster, the unfinished binding straining between you like a held breath. Marcus's hand drifts to the rune-etched sword at his hip. "The servants are arming. The armor sentries are waking." His voice steadies, the way it always has in a crisis. "What are your orders?"

Characters

Tags: Fantasy AntiHero Revenge Rebirth AnyPOV

Chats Started: 1

By: cyber_oracle230

Stories

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