Chapter 29 – Floor 99 – The Royal Court

On the 99th Floor, a declaration of emergency was sent to the ten Sector Administrators. The Royal Palace was fervent with activity. Hell had not opened for exactly 921 years, and the abrupt opening 10 years ago had sent the Guardian of Hell, Hades, into a panic. Every Floor Administrator was overseen strictly in ten sectors. Hades himself was also a Sector Administrator who ran the last 10 Floors. With a face like a blue flame of souls, his eyes were white balls of energy that pierced through his subordinates.

The first ten floors of the dungeon were overseen by the Undead God Charon, who was usually the busiest Admin because he had the largest quantity of the souls flowing through his floors. He was a ghost with an elderly appearance, and he stroked his white beard in anticipation for the meeting. He was a hardworking and antisocial Sector Admin in the dungeon, and he would without a doubt get behind in his work from being on the 99th Floor for too long.

The Seven Deadly Sins were well known Sector Administrators. These Deadly Sins were the center of gossip and drama within the dungeon. In this instance, the Sin of Pride left his Archway and leisurely walked to the Palace the old-fashioned way, admiring the scenery on his way down the floors. He was the last one to arrive at the Palace, as everyone else used their teleportation rings to instantly arrive at the Palace.

Every Deity who runs a Floor in the Dungeon is issued a Skull Ring that allows them to freely go between certain floors. Only the ten Sector Administrators were allowed to be members of the Royal Court of the Hell. They were also permitted to enter the more restrictive floors without permission. Floor 99 where the Royal Palace resided was one example. The Royal Court were all given special Skull Rings that were custom designed by the Senior Administrator that allowed them to have special privileges within the dungeon.

The Senior Administrator was thorough. If an accident were to occur, as in a Floor Admin's death, or even in the rare case of a Sector Administrator's death, the Skull Ring bound to their soul and would instantly dissipate with them. No Soul who entered the dungeon could reasonably use the various powers of the Skull Rings without her oversight. Although the Goddess of Administration, known as The Administrator, was not considered a true Sector Administrator, her job was considered important, and she worked behind the scenes on Floor 98, keeping track of everything that went on that she could. She was a Shade and had red skin, yellow eyes, and a wicked smile, which was not often seen.

Pride walked into the throne room nonchalantly. Twelve jet black thrones encircled a square meeting table with an empty throne towering above the meeting room. Hades stood next to the empty throne, but he didn't dare sit in the throne of The First Deathless. The last time Hades had heard from Authority was over 300 years ago; he had barred himself in on the 100th Floor and broke communication with the Royal Court, leading to theories and rumors surrounding his sudden disappearance.

When Lavilin opened the doors of the dungeon 10 years ago, Hades and The Administrator met together to implement preemptive measures for the impending expeditions into the dungeon. Whenever The First Deathless had opened the dungeon in the past, strict policies were put in place, not allowing Shades or Spirits to leave the dungeon without his oversight. Administrators bound by the Skull Rings were unable to leave the Dungeon by the Administrator Contract anyways, and some of them couldn't even leave the Floor they were the Admin of.

The Dungeon itself was powered by the souls that went through it. On specific floors throughout the 100 floors, souls that failed to survive were fed into the generator mechanisms of the dungeon. This absurd level of energy and aura allows Floor Admins and Sector Admins to impose unnatural laws of nature onto individual floors, larger sectors, or in The Administrator's case, the dungeon as a whole. Letting too many monsters out could potentially damage the dungeon's power grid in the long term. The Dungeon Break was usually just a tradition, but the last one was an exception.

The Three Great Dungeons were specifically designed by the mysterious Architect to detain all the living Authorities within them. Their thought process in doing so was to prolong the last flickering lives left in the universe by trapping the threatening powers that had previously destroyed it. In their design, The Authorities could not leave unless exterior conditions were met. Purgatory, for example, had to be opened from the outside with the Five Destiny Seals whereas Heaven and Hell had to be conquered.

Hell was actually a retrofitted dungeon originally designed by the Primordial Authority Chaos as a challenge to mortals. The First Deathless conquered the dungeon and killed the mighty Primordial Chaos eons ago. The First Deathless abandoned Hell and fought with various Authorities afterwards, leaving Hell as an empty husk.

Because of this, Hell was a prime candidate to detain the First Deathless for the sake of irony. Authorities conspired to retrofit the decrepit dungeon with the intention to detain The First Deathless. Their twisted idea was to trap the Conquer of Hell in Hell as its reigning Authority until another could conquer it. To that end, they redesigned the dungeon to be unconquerable and even more difficult than when The First Deathless had conquered it.

The First did gain certain privileges, as Hell's Master, however. He could open and close the Gates of the Dungeon as he pleased and could send Shades into the world if he wished. But, he decided to take a methodical approach to earn his freedom. He waited a millennium at a time for the powers of the world to be cultivated to their peak and then opened the dungeon to entice the powers of Ryko with hopes of wealth, power, and fame. He was hoping a stronger generation could conquer Hell before imploding in on themselves, but no one was strong enough. If he waited too little or too much time, the power balance in Ryko would be uncontrollable and unstable. In a way, opening and closing Hell kept Ryko's inhabitants from turning against themselves since their power levels didn't spiral out of control against each other.

Despite opening Hell several times, no party from the outside had ever cleared past the 95th Floor. Even within the Dungeon, a soul on their pilgrimage to eternal rest rarely completed the 90th Floor. Typically, those who got to the 90th Floor would quickly be recruited by Hades himself to be trained as a new Floor Administrator in the event of the death of a Floor Admin, whether that be from old age, incompetence, or insubordination.

The First Deathless, Hades, and the Administrator ran Hell well for eras, but three centuries ago, the 100th Floor where The First resided was suddenly sealed from the inside. With The First's fate unknown, Hades was assumed to be the interim leader until their Authority returned. All 12 members of the interim Royal Court had arrived. Several Sector Administrators glared at Pride with disgust.

"You kept us waiting, idiot." The Deadly Sin Lust rolled her eyes at him. Her appearance was veiled underneath a black hood, but everyone could see the outlines of her yellow eyes staring him down angrily.

"We all know Pride is a fool. Cut him some slack. Even in our situation, he's clueless enough to be four days late." The Sin of Greed laughed, trying to lighten the mood. He had a beautiful complexion, silver hair, and bright, shimmering, green eyes. He looked around 25, but underneath his bravado, he too disdained Pride's indifference to their state of emergency. Pride took his seat without caring nor acknowledging their remarks. As a member of the nearly extinct Giant race, Pride stood at over twelve feet tall, and his throne was the largest. With a loud plump, Pride sat down.

"Now that everyone is here, we can begin." Hades made no comment. Pride was even like this in front of their Authority. Hades tolerated Pride's insubordinate behavior because The First did. It was strange; even though The First would ruthlessly weed out any insubordination and thoughts of dissent, with Pride, the Authority made an exception. He would laugh and find Pride's strange attitude humorous. Hades was always perplexed by this because The First had slain previous members of the Seven Deadly Sins for less.

Nonetheless, Hades put up with it and addressed the Court, "As some of you may already be aware, the one who opened the gates from the outside, Lavilin, entered the dungeon ten years ago."

Some of the sector admins were shocked and started to pay attention. While most of the Royal Demonic Court kept up to date with Dungeon news and drama, some were completely out of touch and didn't even realize the dungeon had opened.

"Impossible, the dungeon can't be opened from the outside! Only The First can open the dungeon, and he is still in seclusion on the 100th Floor." Charon cut Hades off in surprise.

"Indeed Charon, it should be impossible, unless, another Authority is involved. Without that level of power, an override of the Dungeon's inherent design cannot happen. The Administrator and I have a few guesses."

The Administrator took over from there.

"The two most likely culprits are the only two other Authorities who can directly influence Ryko, The Primordial Void, and the Queen of Heaven. Because she rules Heaven, she may be trying to provoke The First Deathless into a war to shift the balance of control between countries in Ryko."

"The Void, on the other hand, could be somehow aware of The First's sudden seclusion and has finally decided to make a move. Lavalin also brought one of the Destiny Seals with him into the dungeon. This provocation will surely bring in a powerful party to retrieve it, which will further weaken Ryko's native forces." The Goddess had analyzed the origins of Lavalin thoroughly. Lavalin was most likely backed by one of those two Authorities. Every other Authority trapped in Purgatory could not meddle in the political affairs of Ryko easily.

"There is another explanation, Administrator," a confident voice spoke up.

"It is obvious. The prophecies of our resident prophets have finally come true! Lavalin is here to conquer the dungeon and set our great Authority free, and then The First Deathless will take over Ryko!" Pride raised his fist gleefully.

"Enough." Hades had lost his patience. A few members of the Royal Court believed the prophecy, but he did not. After The First's disappearance, the two most powerful prophets of the Dungeon from Floors 26 and 96 had come together to figure out His whereabouts.

Instead, they came up with a prophecy:

"The doors shall open, and the one who will open the doors shall conquer the dungeon. The doors shall close, and the one to close the doors shall conquer the dungeon. Our Deathless will consume Heaven, but Hell will remain closed."

The prophecy implied The First would be freed by someone who could open the doors from the outside. Their freed Authority would leave Hell and conquer Heaven. Enthusiasts like Pride loved to hear that Hell would rise to conquer the world and sent subordinates to Floor 0 in anticipation of their savior's arrival. This was the reason for the unnaturally large forces associated with the Dungeon Break. Pride was not the only one, and others also sent forces to greet their 'new king'.

Although the first part of the prophecy came true, Hades wanted to take a practical approach devoid of emotion. He let the Shades and Spirits crowd Floor 0 to keep order between the Sector Admins in the wake of their leader's absence.

"If the prophecy is true or not does not matter at this point. I have called everyone here because the first party has arrived. The Goddess of the Gates split their party up, and they should die off soon." Hades explained. The Administrator interjected Hades.

"Although it would be great if Lavalin or this party were to conquer the dungeon and free us, objectively, they are weaker compared to previous parties. Not enough time has passed between eras, and there are only a few Deities in their party. They should have taken a more balanced approach like the last party who used a few strong members, yet they came in with 100 weaker members instead." Hades shook his head disappointed. Lavalin was a disappointment, and he had struggled for ten years to make substantial progress of his own.

Sloth was indignant saying, "So... why are we here if the party is weak, and Lavalin's progress is unimpressive?" Sloth looked like a small, fat child from the Goblin Race. He rarely went outside his house, and he could care less about his duties or the dungeon drama. The entire meeting, he tried to stay awake with wrist holding up his drooping, pudgy, face. He was unamused, uninvolved, and often incompetent in running his sector. It could be said that he was objectively the most incompetent of the eleven gathered.

Hades responded, "The Dungeon cannot be closed without The First's permission. Unless He returns, we will be welcoming many subjugation parties in the next few centuries. We must prepare for the worst possible scenario. The planet of Ryko may lose all their Gods to our dungeon and become vulnerable when the Void wishes to make his move against the planet. We allowed the Dungeon Break, but nothing like that can happen again."

"Without our Authority, our Dungeon will surely become a liability over time inside and outside. We must pretend like he is here for as long as possible and keep our operations consistent to give the illusion we opened it the gates on purpose. This meeting is about preparing for the worst case and delaying it. We must adapt. If there are accidents facing Ryko's Deities, a few of our Administrators will die.

Therefore, we will change the Dungeon's time perception from x0.15 speed to its maximum of x0.01 speed. 10 years on Ryko will go from 150 years to 1000 years now. This is to give The First more time to leave seclusion before the next party arrives. This incurs more risks in the event of an Administrators' death since there will be less replacements and a lower volume of souls entering the dungeon, so we must be more careful. This meeting at its core is a warning: keep your sectors in check while we await our Authority. Any questions?"