Lord of Creation

by Lawrence Blackwood

  I barely dodged a powerful combo of strikes that could have easily killed me on my way to the Dungeon alone. The only thing that saved me was my clumsiness leading me straight over the side of the Dungeon stairs. I ignored the pain that shot through my hip and spine and scrambled to my feet before barreling through the dungeon. When I finally found a side room, I pressed my palm to the wall, which opened up for me to go inside. It was my turn to fight back.

  Niko was in the other half of the side walls already, dutifully peppering his ex partner with spells. It must have been hard for him, but none of that mattered right now. If we hesitated we died. I launched Magic Missiles as fast as I could, but they barely seemed to faze Meathead as he decimated my minions. Even eye hits barely slowed him. I seriously needed to get some better spells.

  Meathead was moving too fast. 4 rooms. 8. 10, and he finally started to slow down. He still hadn't fallen by 16, the old Boss Room. He took a heavy hit in room 20, but his rage carried him through 21. He was barely able to walk by the time he made it through room 22, but a well placed hit could still kill me. I exited the side rooms and prepared my speech.

  "Welcome, brave adventurer, to my humble abode. And your grave!" Yeah yeah, I know, it was still the same old one I started with. It worked though, especially when Niko revealed himself. It may have worked a little too well. This dude seemed to positively thrive on rage. We just had to survive until he wore himself out. Because of his time in the Dungeon, I could practically hear his heartbeat. It was easily going at 200 beats per minute. The human body wasn't supposed to do that, but it also wasn't supposed to launch Magic Missiles.

  Felix took the front, his Dark Warrior phalanx took their usual rear flanking positions, and Niko and I took the sides. The Dark Warriors attacked just before Felix's first swing, distracting Meathead. His counter attack sliced straight through two of the Warriors and sent another flying across the room. Felix pressed his advantage and swung at Meatheads equally meaty neck.

  I would have done something similar, had I been tall enough. As it was though, I brought Bone Breaker down onto his knee as hard as my Strength allowed. The massive weapon lived up to its name as Meathead's joint capsule was decimated. He howled and brought his weapon shrieking toward me. The massive hit cleaved my shield in two and nearly severed my left arm.

  Pain like I had never felt before shot through me. Blood sprayed the floor and myself, and I was sent spinning backwards. That single hit dropped me to less than 100 health, and a bleeding Debuff was quickly taking what little I had left. I had just enough time to see the remaining Dark Warriors surround Meathead before I fell into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind.

  "...lost a lot of blood, might not... I could always bring him..." My eyes slowly fluttered open to reveal the dark stone of my Dungeon. Did they just let me sit there, or did we have a medical wing? "Did we win?" Niko and Felix looked surprised to see me awake so soon.

  "What?" They were starting to worry me.

  "I'm not dead or anything, right? Oh, shit. Niko, were you just talking about bringing me back from the dead. " Niko's nervous look told me everything I needed to know. "Please tell me I'm not some sort of fucking zombie."

  "Well, you aren't a zombie, but you aren't you either. At least not fully." What?! I tried to look at my arm, but Felix pushed me back into soft bedding. At least one of my questions were answered. I briefly wondered whether it was Felix or Niko in charge of the medical wing.

  "What's wrong with my arm?" I demanded. Niko looked to Felix for guidance, as if unsure what to say.

  Felix, as usual, was perfectly quiet thanks to Stoic Calm. "Well, uh..." Niko's voice trailed off. "We had to, um, amputate it."

  Well shit. At least it was my only left arm, right? Hell, I could probably make myself a new one with enough time. I'd have the Workers look into it, and do some experimentation of my own. "Niko. I don't give a shit about my arm. Let's work on making a new one, a better one. Then it's back to the Dungeon. And back to my first question. Did we win?"

  Felix chuckled. "Of course we won Boss."

  As soon as we were able, Niko and I set on making the new arm. The basic principle was simple. The Level Ups I received for helping take down Meathead had sealed the stump of my arm, but didn't reattach the end of it. Because of that, all we had to do is strap a useless skeleton arm onto the stump, and I'd have to live with it for a few weeks until, hopefully, I got a Prosthetic Arm Proficiency. There's no guarantee it would work, but it was worth a shot. Worst case scenario, I was still an amputee. Best case scenario, I got a badass weapon of an arm.

  Niko, Felix, and I went to the Dungeon. Felix made his way to the Boss Room, while Niko and I stayed back. I did the honors of killing the skeleton... but there were no skeletons in the Dungeon. They were almost all Dark Warriors, and even a few creatures that looked like miniature versions of Felix. Niko grinned at my confused look. "Raul gave us a ton of Exp when he died. I'm nearly Level 70 now. Felix is 93, I think, and I have no idea what level you are. The Dungeon benefited the most, though. My old team wouldn't have made it through the first room if the Dungeon was this strong when we attacked." As excited as I was about the upgrade, I was a little annoyed that we didn't have Skeletons any more. At this point we might as well just sew a Dark Warrior arm onto my stump and call it good.

  At least it meant that I got to hit it a few times before it died, which did wonders for my frustration. Niko had to do the dissection, but as a Necromancer he was familiar enough with the process not to be bothered. Even Niko seemed a little perturbed by the awful stench, and "accidentally" covered my stump in the stuff when he attached the arm (Which hurt like a bitch. Have you ever had an arm sewed onto your severed stump?)

  It took a while to get used to missing an arm, especially with the dead weight of somebody else's attached to mine at the elbow. I did what I could to help with Dungeon work, but the new regular sized Worker, who was slightly taller than me, and 3 new small Workers from the Dungeon's recent level ups, there wasn't much for me to do anyway.

  "Those little guys show up faster than Gremlins." I remarked as I watched them work on a complicated system of traps. For some reason they spent tons of time working on them, but none were ever implemented.

  "Gremlins?" Felix asked.

  Oh, right. They don't have T.V. here. "A show from my life before here. They were little furry guys that multiplied when they got wet." Felix nodded. "Anyway," I continued, "any idea when this thing is going to be done?" Felix shrugged and motioned a Worker over.

  "Two weeks! Two weeks till traps are done!" The Worker squeaked. If I had to guess, it was the same one that initially started the massive project. I waved him off, and went back to wondering what exactly they were building.

  I turned away from the project and headed out toward the forest. I needed a little bit of alone time. Since I was brought here, I hadn't really thought much about home or how crazy of a situation I was really in. Losing an arm kind of put things in perspective for me. It had been a couple months since I disappeared. What would my family think? My friends, my girlfriend? They've got to be driving themselves crazy looking for me, and it had taken me months to even think about them. I know I was busy with survival and the Dungeon, but what kind of person did that make me?

  And there was also the fact that I ran a freaking Dungeon! Seriously what the hell?! And I've just been going with it like it's no big deal. Not to mention that I could easily run into somebody that could kill me without breaking a sweat. Like Meathead. One of his swings nearly killed me, and took my whole damn arm. I couldn't slow down, and I couldn't hold back. If I started second guessing myself now, I would get trampled. And so would everyone in my charge.

  That day, I resolved not to look back any more. My old life was gone. My new life was deadly, and I couldn't let my guard down for a second. For half a year after that day, things went well. The Dungeon expanded, we Leveled like crazy, and the trap system worked like a charm. A dozen Meatheads with a dozen he
alers wouldn't even pretend to challenge the first room.

  They say that with great power comes great responsibility. We should have heeded that advice. With our great power, all we did was attract something. Something bad.

  Chapter 3

  That day started like any other- clear skies, great weather, and tons of experience... Okay, so the day was a little off. Even Felix could feel it. The weather really was nice, but the whole world seemed a little darker than usual. Like when you're messing with the brightness slider on MS Paint.

  And I had no clue why. Until, as I was heading into the dungeon, it hit me. Literally. A black, leathery wing slammed into my face, knocking me backward into the hard stone of the dungeon's stairs. Thankfully, the other gory myriad of parts raining from the sky missed me. They were all the same inky black as the wing.

  What the hell is going on here?

  My question was soon answered when a pale, almost albino woman gently landed on the stair above me. She balanced perfectly on the step's edge in a way that should have been impossible. Which about fit the bill for her appearance as well.

  Raven black hair and dark feathered wings complimented her pale flesh and angular face, creating a definite succubus vibe that was only accented by her pointed teeth and short but vicious looking claws. Her dress accentuated the literally otherworldly curves of her body, but any thought of physical beauty fled my mind as I realized that her dress was made of fire. Flames flickered and danced like a shapely bonfire in slow motion, and before she had the chance to speak I flung myself further down the stairs. Which, for any of you who have never fallen down a flight of stairs, hurts like crazy. Thankfully, the actual damage I took was negligible.

  It almost didn't matter that I was safe, because when I looked up to see the woman standing over me again I almost had a heart attack. "We need to talk, Mr. Dungeon Master." She said in a voice laced with disdain, as if she had to force herself just to be in my presence. This wasn't going to end well, I already knew it.

  "You've been collecting a lot of power recently. Much more than you should be able to, given how little your dungeon has had a master. At this point, you could overwhelm any organized force within a hundred mile radius. We can't have that though, can we?

  "I propose a deal. It should be a simple choice, really. Either you join me and my master in the underworld and take control of a dungeon there, or I kill you. And don't think I can't. That harpy that I just killed? It could take out half your dungeon on its own. I'll give you a few hours to make your decision."

  With that, she disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a faint trace of sulfur and-I kid you not- perfume. I sat there, stunned. Were we really growing that powerful? I quickly gathered Niko and Felix to talk about the mysterious woman, but it didn't take long for us to agree that we didn't have much of a choice. If what she said was true, there was no way we would stand a chance.

  Which meant we had to go. None of us were eager to visit the underworld, obviously, but none of us wanted to die either (Even if Niko would have appreciated the corpses, being a necromancer and all). That being settled, all we could do was wait. After the visit, nobody really had any motivation to do anything. I mean, I saw myself as a fairly positive person, but come on.

  Okay... I was actually a little excited. It's not every day you got a personal invite to be a dungeon master in hell, after all. Sure, we were all probably going to die horrendous deaths at the hands (or claws) of some demon or other. But we would also look badass doing it, which would almost make the whole thing worth it.

  With the meeting concluded, we all set out to do individual tasks that needed to be seen to before our departure. Niko went off to gather the most valuable of his potions and other magical knickknacks, Felix was absorbing dark essence or whatever evil things Doom Knights got up to, and I focused on deconstructing the house back into bare bones to upgrade my bone club with.

  Honestly, the thing was starting to look pretty gnarly. After my upgrades, it sported sharp protrusions along the bashing end that looked like elongated canines. A heavy, ridged spine trailed down the back of it, providing a secondary attack that was easily as deadly as the first.

  Intent as I was on inspecting my impressive looking weapon, I failed to notice the mysterious woman peering over my shoulder. Which, given how dangerous she likely was, letting her sneak up on me was a big oops on my part.

  "With a weapon like that I daresay you might actually fit in down under. You'll need to know how to use it though." She winked as I jumped easily a full two feet into the air, totally landing gracefully with my weapon poised to strike.

  Well, it might not have quite been graceful, but that's not the point here. The point was, this chick was good. Like crazy good. The creepy gal had to be at least twice my Level, which meant that she could probably single-handedly take over a large portion of this world.

  "Time to go?" I asked, doing my best to quell the nervousness that was steadily rising in my stomach. She nodded, and I summoned Niko and Felix. Then, we disappeared in a burning flash of heat and power. Maybe this was a bad idea... was my last thought before my life devolved into a storm of hellfire.

  ◆◆◆

  "N-Niko, Felix, you guys okay?" I asked, but if they answered their voices were lost among the sounds of my own retching. Through my blurry, distorted vision all I could make out was a deep green, nearly black floor made of tiled stone. Oh, and a small pool of bile building up around my left hand.

  "Ack!" I yelped as the warm, viscous liquid touched me. Yeah, I know. I should be over petty stuff like that after the whole dungeon master thing and all, but let me tell you a secret; I'm not.

  After gingerly wiping the bile on my jeans, I looked around to notice Niko and Felix eyeing me cautiously. "What?" I asked, wondering what about me could have caught their attention when we were literally in the underworld.

  Wait a sec...

  I spun around to find none other than the damned woman herself standing behind me. Only, she was wearing a dress of water instead of fire and she looked considerably less harsh than the other two times I had met her.

  "You must be the new arrivals! I've been waiting for you all!" She exclaimed happily, jumping once and clapping her hands a little.

  Huh?

  "Um, who, are you? The crazy chick that brought us here looks exactly like you..." I asked, hoping she would also answer my implied question of what the hell are you?! To my disbelief, she complied, with an angry look on her face.

  "I'm Lucia. That bitch that brought you here is my elder sister, Lacey. That rotten woman hates me, and I hate her. We're at somewhat of a stalemate, though. Anywho, let me show you around!" She brightened on her last sentence, indicating the shiny, metallic green room all around us.

  "This, is your new dungeon. Well, Mr. Donovan's dungeon, more like. You two are just his minions!" She giggled slightly before continuing, "Let's start with the Boss Room!" With a flourish, she cast a spell that teleported us to the Boss Room. Unlike Lacey's spell, Lucia's magic felt more like the soothing waves of an ocean instead of wrathful fire. Lucia's teleportation was also considerably less rough than Lacey's, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the different types of magic or shorter distance. Either way, I was thankful not to have to relive the experience so soon.

  All thoughts of the strange women fled my mind as I surveyed the Boss Room. It was a deep green that reminded me more of venom than anything nature related. The ceiling was at least forty feet above us, and the whole place looked like a gothic mansion flipped inside out. Harsh, angular posts jutted from the walls at odd intervals, covered with all sorts of fantastical creatures. Most of them were foreign, but I could make out a few- goblins, gargoyles, even a kobold or two.

  Before I could finish my inspection, Lucia quickly ushered us from the room, saying that we had to hurry and see the rest. Unsurprisingly, it was all the same sickly green. I definitely would have picked a different shade, if not a different color, but I was too preoccup
ied to consider in in too much depth.

  From a dungeoneer's aspect, on the other hand, this place was an absolute goldmine. For now it was mostly empty hallways, but I could practically see future plans and blueprints falling into place as we walked. Here, a seam in the tiles that could easily hide a trap door, there a blemish that would be perfect for stringing up tripwire, and countless other ideas sprang forth.