The Dungeon

Somewhere, somewhen, there is a dungeon.

It is utterly unremarkable, a thing of skeletons and trapdoors. You have travelled to this dungeon, in one of your many faces. Perhaps you have even taken the helm of this dungeon, churning the lives of others into the paste that keeps the portcullises opening. Everyone has, at some point or another, gone to the dungeon.

Inevitably, you crawl back to town, blood on your hands and teeth. You sell what you can, drink through the horrors of success, and rest for the next excursion. Some die in the dungeon, some go to challenge others. Most are simply forgotten, a casualty of timing and interest. However, no one considers the dungeon. 

No matter the efforts put into it, no matter the time spent to explore and understand, there is always something forgotten in the dungeon. A corner unexamined, a stone unturned, and question unsolved. There, stowed away uncommented upon, unnoticed, is a small, wooden trap door. It is always in the last place you look, as all unremarkable things are. The trap door goes down, and only one way.

Beneath the familiar stones are a different space. Laws and rules are inverted from floor to floor, an impossible stretch that belies all reason. You will never see it all. That is it's one kindness. 

Someday, after delving deep enough, you will realize the truth of the place. It is not a surprising place, there is secret plot to it. It is stone and mortar and fire and traps. It is a dungeon, same as every one you have seen behind your many faces. Each excursion in every world and every land between a piece of the whole. 

It is the same dungeon. It always has been.