AI Dungeon Presents: The Empty Cell is Filled with Doubt
Kill the next two? They run a profitable jail.
[PROMPT: You are a thief who has been hired to steal a rare book from a library with a mysterious prison at its center. The prison-library is a dusty tower of stairs supposedly long deserted by everyone except its bitter architect. However, as you reach the inner layer of the library, you find a cell with a young man inside.]
He looks up when he sees you and speaks in an odd language that you do not understand. “Hello,” he says. “I am the prisoner.”
The Prisoner: A Young Man
The prisoner’s name is William, but you know him only as the boy. You have never seen this boy before in your life. He is dressed in rags, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a wooden sword. His eyes are bloodshot and his face is pale. He looks like he has not eaten for days.
“William is a prisoner in a prison that is filled with books,” the boy says. “He cannot leave the prison.”
“What do you want me to do?” you ask.
“Kill the jailers,” he says, pointing at a row of cells with each arm. “Then, help me escape from this place.”
The Jailers: Dead
You see a row of cells, all of them filled with corpses.
The corpses are not violent or angry ghosts. They are just there. You see a shotgun in the first cell and an old hunting knife in the next. The next is empty. The next is filled with a ghostly being you cannot see and the next with an angry, violent man.
You point at the cells as the boy explains their contents to you.
“The cell with the shotgun is filled with ghosts,” you tell him.
“The cell with the knife is filled with killers. The empty cell is filled with doubt. The ghostly being is me, and the man is… I think he was a soldier. I am not sure. The next cell over is filled with heroes, and the next with madmen. The next two cells over contain a mother and daughter. The little girl is dying.”
“Kill the next two? They run a profitable jail.”
“The next cell over contains a man who believes he is a bird. The next cell over contains a devil worshipper. The last two cells over contain a man and a woman who are sick. Kill the sick ones first. Then, kill all the others. After that, help me escape this prison.”
If you do, you will be able to leave the prison-library. If you don’t, you will die here.
What will you do?
Other stories this week:
“Conspiracy” - The final step is to erase yourself from history.
I for one welcome fiction from our new AI overlords. Send notes to adi@robotlit.com.