Dungeons Inc.

Hello, my friend, and welcome to Dungeons Incorporated. We're so very glad you could join our tour on this fine day... I am Peter M. Piranha – you can call me Petey – and I'm the "Boss" of this wing of the company, otherwise known as "The Forest Temple"... We here at Dungeons Incorporated have one goal: to please you, the customer. Now, if you'll follow us this way... and try not to step into the bear trap on your right—it's reserved for any green man-dress wearing blonde elves that happen to stop by... And now, to begin the tour...

First, you may want to know a little about me

I love doing paperwork almost as much as slowly devouring valiant heroes... And that's a lot.

I am Peter Piranha, as I mentioned before... Some of my closer "pals" like to call me Petey Piranha... I began life as a mere seed, and after 4 years of Carnivorous Plant Studies at Photosynthesis University, I majored in Plumber Killing. When I was approached by a man who wished for me to address him as Bowser, I was offered a position of being the "Boss" of this dungeon you see here, referred to by him as "The Forest Temple" and by several protagonists as "That Easy Level"... Naturally, I assumed that taking up such a job would require me to shoot brown globs of goop in groups of three, diagonally at any red-capped protagonist who happened to pass by, and repeat this cycle until I knocked him out or he found my belly button as a weak point and jumped on it, thus killing me... Though it was true that I got to partake in this field of work—and trust me, I love every minute of it, I also had the ability to manage a small business and deal with marketing, employee recruiting and other areas such as those... All in all, I can say I'm very satisfied with my job. Now, to take you on a tour of our facilities...

The facilities

The safety to visitors while working in or around our facilities and equipment is a very high priority...

Our facilities are state-of-the-art dungeons with the newest killing equipment possible. We strive to truly challenge our visitors and their lives on the way to our facilities, and at the same time, provide a comfortable working environment for employees, allowing them to pace around in circles without coming into harm's way... Our dungeons have been designed by top-notch architects to have little-to-no lighting, and appear rustic and moldy, while still maintaining working equipment. Let me tell you, maintenance has to be 24/7. We try to keep the dungeon's "theme" by placing appropriate equipment and traps inside... For example, the "Fire Temple" wing of our business recently got a shipment of ice beams, which they had to return to the vendor. Atmosphere is very important to us. Our facilities are also built with only one entrance, and lead from the less important or, "easier" rooms to the more complex ones, and finally, to my office. I gladly accept any employee comments and criticism, provided that they go through the mandatory procedure of body-slamming onto my belly button after facing a barrage of brown slime spewed from my mouth, provided that I am not killed by the end of this process. Because most of my employees can only pace around a few steps, turn, then pace some more, and possibly charge someone they do not recognize, they usually do not enter my office. Now, to tell you a bit about the folks that keep this place running...

The employees

Our offices have a number of different fields in which employees can work. Anyone can find a job here at Dungeons Inc., unless they happen to be some annoying do-gooder or an "enemy" (why I call my own employees this is beyond me) that believes he is an exception to the rules and can put up more of a fight than me... I'm the damn boss so I should be the most powerful being in our offices... Anyone who thinks otherwise can try and be an entrepreneur by being an overworld enemy that protagonists will barely spare a second glance at. Have fun alone in Hyrule Field, asshat!

Security

These are the people you see most often walking around the dungeon... Their job is merely to patrol a few square feet constantly, until they spot someone who seems to be against our cause... Then they bombard this person using their only attack... Usually, our security forces aren't very intelligent or useful, and are either easily killed or avoided, almost daily, but we are very cost-effective, so can't afford to hire professional security... Cheap immigrant Goomba labor is much easier to manage...

Cubicle workers

These employees are crucial to our cause, because they slave away under fluorescent lights for 10 hours every day, making sure that the timing isn't off when one of our guillotines falls on a visitor...

Of course, to keep a dungeon up-and-running, we have to have many, many workers in side offices, that control every aspect of the facility. Every fire cannon launch and every door lock is controlled by a number of office workers, each in their own cubicle... Though we can't say these folks are happy, as they are cramped into tiny offices, smaller than the areas their half-witted brethren control, they are at the very least, put out of harm's way. These are the guys that got beat up on the playground as kids because they played RuneScape or had Dora the Explorer underwear, so they obviously wouldn't stand a chance against a little man in a green dress or a middle-aged plumber, controlled by a 5 year old...

Brown-nosers

These fellows are my personal assistants/bodyguards, and will participate in any visitor/boss encounter by attacking the visitor and trying to distract him while I swallow him whole... They are killed off almost as often as their friends in the rest of the dungeon, but this doesn't matter to them. Any chance of a raise is more important than their lives... These chaps are getting the short end of the stick, because they have to work as my servants when not trying to protect me; a job that requires them to do everything from feeding me to wiping my shit from the floor.. Yes, I am incredibly lazy. But having people do things for you is just so much easier...

Our services

At this point, you could be wondering about what exactly we do most of the time. We can't possibly just wait around for some visitor to come by and try our hardest to kill him... There isn't any profit in that. That is, in fact, true. Dungeons Inc. provides many different services, which I will now tell you about (as if you have a choice...).

Item storage

Our facilities are very practical when it comes to item storage. Have a legendary sword, invisibility cloak or phoenix down? Don't want to use it? Well, what better to do with such a valuable and necessary item than hide it in a dark death trap where you can't reach it, in an unlocked treasure chest? And, if you pay extra, we can even put it in a locked room, accessible only when a simple puzzle involving movable blocks or switches is solved... With such an ingenious contraption housing your valuable item, no one aside from a simple-minded dungeon-crawler will be able to find it... And there aren't exactly a ton of those... Well, maybe there are, but still...

Dangerous material disposal

Have a whole ton of nuclear waste in need of disposal? How about enough lava to fill a small lake? Hundreds of metal spikes you have nothing to do with? Give any dangerous substance or items to us, and we'll take them off your hands, cost free, for use in our dungeon. We won't even ask how you got any of those substances in the first place... It's confidential, safe, and most importantly, free!

Professional kidnapping

Have a princess you love so much that you want to see her locked up in a metal cage somewhere in a dungeon? How about an annoying monkey sidekick you can't seem to be able to live with, but need for an important mission? Our quality goons will kidnap them for a notary fee, and place them in one of our dungeons, where no one (aside from a goddamn protagonist... again) can reach them. It's safer than hiring the mob to "whack" someone, although a tad less effective...

Car manufacturing

Yes, those seemingly useless contraptions and traps that are standard feature in our dungeons can be used for purposes other than killing whoever tries to pass... The flamethrowers, metal spikes, and ghostly Wallmasters in our facilities can be used to assemble automobiles. Granted, your car may come out looking like a pile of beat-up metal, but you'll save a ton of money that you wouldn't if you bought a normally-built car...

Our true mission

A board meeting between our supervisors... The Axis of Evil of videogame super-bosses, if you will. No, I'm not clear on why Lindsay Lohan is in there, either...

Well, I can see you people out there shaking your heads at our seemingly laughably ineffective dungeons, with purposes that are so contradictory that they could fit into a satire on some sort of a Wikipedia ripoff... Well, to be honest with you, they don't serve much of a purpose other than luring in the protagonists that my superiors hold grudges against, and hopefully killing them. They pay us big money for doing this, and that's the reason why I can afford to smoke Cuban cigars in my office with a koala-bearskin rug under my feet as I speak with you now. I'm not really sure why we have to do this, and neither are my employees, but we're all left well-off, so who gives a flying fuck? You're breathing in too much of my Alpine-fresh air, and I have a 3 o'clock meeting with some Malaysian prostitutes, so get the hell out of here right now. And try not to get lathed on the way out. A bit ironic seeing as how I was talking to you at the beginning of the article, ain't it? Well, you're going to get killed before you manage to leave, so it really doesn't matter to me...

Legal

Our self-destruct sequences are not afraid to be cliché. We built traps like these to keep a shirtless bandicoot out on a remote island.

While we may be able to construct a series of dungeons for you, many with built-in self destruct sequences, please be aware that the Fire Department legally requires us to provide one straightforward, discernible route through each location (dry government officials found no irony in telling me even death-traps must be kept up to code). We will also be required to include in each project the exact pieces of equipment that will enable a forthright hero to traverse each location and expose the *FREELY* included boss's single weak point. These items will be carefully hidden in giant treasure chests or other obvious collectable boxes throughout. Hidden equipment may include (but will not be limited to): compasses, maps, Hookshots, boomerangs, Fireflowers, a big sword that rains lightning, PSG-1s, dynamite, Materia, an unconvincing but strangely effective disguise, a whip upgrade, or a random McGuffin used as a key. We accept no responsibility for the fact that anyone with any sense will be led by the hand through our constructs and herded straight to you, filled with anger by the preceding ordeals.

See also

• Dungeon Keeper: we made stuff for these guys.