The Dungeon: Cellblock B

What can we say? Despite the horrendously barbaric conditions of The Dungeon (only two premium cable channels and the complete lack of a jacuzzi), eager applicants keep sending in their suggestions. To deal with our own overcrowding, we proudly announce the opening of a new cell block.

[Editor's note: the following list is numbered using the HTML <OL> tag with the START parameter set to 201. If the list below starts at 1 instead of 201, your browser doesn't support the latest HTML standard.]

  1. All giant serpents acting as guardians in underground lakes will be fitted with sports goggles to prevent eye injuries.

  2. All crones with the ability to prophesy will be given free facelifts, permanents, manicures, and Donna Karan wardrobes. That should pretty well destroy their credibility.

  3. I will not employ an evil wizard if he has a sleazy mustache.

  4. I will hire an entire squad of blind guards. Not only is this in keeping with my status as an equal opportunity employer, but it will come in handy when the hero becomes invisible or douses my only light source.

  5. All repair work will be done by an in-house maintenance staff. Any alleged "repairmen" who show up at the fortress will be escorted to the dungeon.

  6. When my Legions of Terror park their vehicle to do reconnaissance on foot, they will be instructed to employ The Club.

  7. Employees will have conjugal visit trailers which they may use provided they call in a replacement and sign out on the timesheet. Given this, anyone caught making out in a closet while leaving their station unmonitored will be shot.

  8. Members of my Legion of Terror will attend seminars on Sensitivity Training. It's good public relations for them to be kind and courteous to the general population when not actively engaged in sowing chaos and destruction.

  9. I will not, under any circumstances, marry a woman I know to be a faithless, conniving, back-stabbing witch simply because I am absolutely desperate to perpetuate my family line. Of course, we can still date.

  10. All guest-quarters will be bugged and monitored so that I can keep track of what the visitors I have for some reason allowed to roam about my fortress are actually plotting.

  11. If my chief engineer displeases me, he will be shot, not imprisoned in the dungeon or beyond the traps he helped design.

  12. I will not send out battalions composed wholly of robots or skeletons against heroes who have qualms about killing living beings.

  13. I will not wear long, heavy cloaks. While they certainly make a bold fashion statement, they have an annoying tendency to get caught in doors or tripped over during an escape.

  14. If a malignant being demands a sacrificial victim have a particular quality, I will check to make sure said victim has this quality immediately before the sacrifice and not rely on earlier results. (Especially if the quality is virginity and the victim is the hero's girlfriend.)

  15. If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device, I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them, but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds.

  16. If my Legions of Terror are defeated in a battle, I will quietly withdraw and regroup instead of launching a haphazard mission to assassinate the hero.

  17. If I'm wearing the key to the hero's shackles around my neck and his former girlfriend now volunteers to become my mistress and we are all alone in my bedchamber on my bed and she offers me a goblet of wine, I will politely decline the offer.

  18. I will not pick up a glowing ancient artifact and shout "Its power is now mine!!!" Instead I will grab some tongs, transfer it to a hazardous materials container, and transport it back to my lab for study.

  19. I will be selective in the hiring of assassins. Anyone who attempts to strike down the hero the first instant his back is turned will not even be considered for the job.

  20. Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace, screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts it at my face, my reaction will be "Hmm...I think I need a shave."

  21. My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate.

  22. I reserve the right to execute any henchmen who appear to be a little too intelligent, powerful, or devious. However if I do so, I will not at some subsequent point shout "Why am I surrounded by these incompetent fools?!"

  23. I will install a fire extinguisher in every room -- three, if the room contains vital equipment or volatile chemicals.

  24. I will build machines which simply fail when overloaded, rather than wipe out all nearby henchmen in an explosion or worse yet set off a chain reaction. I will do this by using devices known as "surge protectors".

  25. I will explain to my guards that most people have their eyes in the front of their heads and thus while searching for someone it makes little sense to draw a weapon and slowly back down the hallway.

  26. I will have a staff of competent detectives handy. If I learn that someone in a certain village is plotting against me, I will have them find out who rather than wipe out the entire village in a preemptive strike.

  27. I will never bait a trap with genuine bait.

  28. If the hero claims he wishes to confess in public or to me personally, I will remind him that a notarized deposition will serve just as well.

  29. If I have several diabolical schemes to destroy the hero, I will set all of them in motion at once rather than wait for them to fail and launch them successively.

  30. I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.

  31. Mythical guardians will be instructed to ask visitors name, purpose of visit, and whether they have an appointment instead of ancient riddles.

Those who helped create the Top 100 List have kept their positions of honor. Those who were originally let into Cellblock A are still languishing away. But I still feel the need to reward the new contributors. If I ever become an Evil Overlord, the following people will be granted corporate suites in my dungeon and receive a diet of homemade bread and pure spring water.

This Dungeon List is Copyright 1996-1998 by Peter Anspach <Anspach@aol.com>. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way and (2) this copyright notice is attached.

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