Dead Must Die: The Realms: Master of the Dungeon - Book One

by C. M. Carney

  “No, last time we did that you used a bunch of words I didn’t know and it made me feel bad. I want to feel good and do something fun. Maybe I should bury you up to your neck again in the Wyrmynn’s latrine.”

  “I’d rather you not, all things considered,” Dirge responded in his silky, almost seductive, voice.

  “You’re boring too,” Simon said and tossed another bone at a third dread knight. This one‘s arms were splayed wide and had been spinning in circles for the better part of an hour without getting dizzy. The bone’s jagged end pierced the corpse’s side and stuck. Despite the small victory, Simon refused the next proffered bone.

  “Are you still upset the Dark Dryad canceled your date?”

  “No,” Simon whined. “And she didn’t cancel it, she was sick. Some kinda fungal infection. Probably got it from one of those walking blobs of spores she uses as minions.”

  “Yes, that is a convincing possibility,” Dirge said.

  Simon’s sockets snapped over to Dirge. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, just some idle chatter,” Dirge said, his voice rising in pitch.

  Simon stared at the man. Sometimes he regretted reanimating the Aegyptian assassin. The dude was as unbearable in undeath as he had been in life. I could just kill him again and reanimate someone else.

  Sadly he didn’t have many better options. The Barrow wasn’t seeing a great influx of new corpses. Truth be told, he hadn’t thought he’d be able to bring Dirge back since the dude’s soul had been consumed by a nasty poison. Still living Dirge had tried to use it on Gryph’s pal Ovyrm, before the xydai had turned the assassin’s own weapon against him.

  Dirge had suggested his current charming personality was a biological echo left in his brain after his soul perished. The theory was bolstered by his dispassion concerning the loss of said soul.

  Maybe you need to have a soul to miss having a soul? Simon thought before the paradox made his head hurt. And how can my head hurt? It’s just a damn skull.

  “You think she’s cheating on me?” Simon asked in a voice tinged with notes of anger and desperation.

  “No, no, no, of course not,” Dirge said, casually waving his hand to dismiss the idea. “Who could she be seeing? It isn’t like this place is rife with eligible bachelors.”

  “True,” Simon said, unconvinced. He was silent for a moment. “Maybe it’s the black ooze.”

  “Maybe what’s the black ooze?”

  “Ya know, her other fella.”

  “What? No. First off, the black ooze ain’t a fella. It’s an acidic entity made from the cast-off remnants of consumed souls. Second … no.”

  “Yeah,” Simon said frumpily. “That Wyrmynn leader Scarface then?”

  “She’s not seeing anyone else.”

  “How can you be sure?” Simon asked, his voice cracking and betraying him again.

  “Because there is no one else to see,” Dirge answered in exaggerated exasperation. “If you’re so concerned about it why don’t you have the Barrow keep an eye on her?”

  “I would never spy on her,” Simon said affronted.

  “Oh, I see, the Barrow still slumbers.”

  “Yes,” he said testily, then realized what he’d just admitted to. The Barrow was in fact slumbering. The whole dungeon was some kinda living energy entity. To survive it bonded with a sentient being in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. But, the Barrow’s last host had been a real dick knocker named Ouzeriuo. Instead of sharing resources, Ouzeriuo had cut the Barrow out, becoming more parasite that host. This had left the Barrow weak and withdrawn. Simon had promised to change all that when he agreed to bond with the Barrow, but without a steady influx of adventurers, the Barrow had precious little life energy to feed upon. The bodies left behind by Gryph had saved the Barrow from going dormant, but it needed more and was unwilling to ‘waste it spying on an entity that poses no threat.’

  “You could talk to her. Girls like that kinda thing,” Dirge said.

  “And say what? Back when I was alive I talked to a girl once, and that ended with my britches pulled down and my underclothes pulled over my head courtesy of her older brother. I learned my lesson that day. Girls don’t like talking.”

  “Not sure that‘s what you should have taken from that.”

  But Simon was already not listening. “What she needs is a grand romantic gesture from me.”

  “Not a bad idea. Women like grand romantic gestures. What do you have in mind?”

  “Hmmm, I could kill her other boyfriend in some kinda duel. Ya know like guns blazing at high noon. But I’d need a white hat.”

  “First, there is no other boyfriend. Second, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “It’s from a movie I think.”

  “What’s a movie?” Dirge asked.

  Simon cocked his skull to the side. He wasn‘t sure what a movie was but felt he should. From time to time he got flashes of memories that were not his own. Movies, proms, letterman jackets, cold mountains in Korea. He remembered things he’d never seen and places he’d never been.

  The Barrow had suggested that they were bits of Gryph’s memories, or maybe Wick’s. After all, Simon had shared time with both men inside Ouzeriuo’s weird soul realm. Who knew what kinda cross contamination their minds had experienced. While that made sense, Simon didn’t like it and didn’t like Dirge questioning him.

  “You can shut up now.”

  “That isn’t very friendly,” Dirge said, but a blank stare from Simon’s skull shut him up.

  Simon sighed, an ability he still didn’t understand considering he had no actual body. “I’m bored. This place is boring.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Shut up you.” The words were barely out of Simon’s mouth when an odd tickle at the back of his mind told him the Barrow had awoken.

  We have company.

  Simon leaned forward in his throne. “Really? Who is it?”

  Five adventurers. Four are slightly above average in powers and capabilities. Nothing too threatening. The fifth, however, is teeming with a range of magical energies. He is very dangerous.

  “Generate a dread knight in the first chamber. I want to talk to these newcomers.”

  I cannot. After repurchasing the ability to create new dread knights, I am low on energy reserves. I cannot generate a new dread knight at this time.

  Simon stroked his chin, annoyed that the Barrow sounded like a legal disclaimer, whatever that was, then stood and walked to Dirge. The reanimated assassin had only a moment to panic before Simon’s hands snapped out, grabbed his neck and wrenched his head from his body. The headless corpse slumped to the ground, and the head stared Simon in the face.

  “Well that was unfriendly,” Dirge said and a moment later the light behind his dead eyes dimmed and his tongue lolled out of his mouth.

  Simon dropped the head on top of the corpse. “That should be enough.”

  Indeed, the Barrow thought. The head and body decomposed into a viscous jelly and soaked into the hard-packed dirt of the floor. The Barrow fed on the life energy Simon had used to reanimate Dirge. I am ready.

  Simon closed his eyes, which for him meant dimming the lights illuminating his eye sockets. The shrouded robes dissipated and the skull that Simon now called home clattered to the seat of the throne.

  The dread knights continued their belly rubbing, hopping and spinning, paying no heed to their master’s departure.

  6

  Verreth crested the hill and pointed down into a shadowy crevasse sunk deep into the base of the mountain pass. “There. The entrance to the Barrow.”

  The others squinted into the unnatural shade of the fissure that resembled a wound that had exploded from inside the earth. Poking from the heart of the gash was the tip of a ragged black tower. The entrance was the stuff of nightmares, a doorway built into the center of a gaping, skeletal maw.

  “Well, that’s over the top,” Serraia said.

&nb
sp; “The fell undead use fear as a weapon,” Sir Humperdinck said. “Do not let this petty warning scare you.”

  On cue a rancid wind picked up, moaning upwards from the depths of the fissure and flowing over the adventurers.

  “It seem good warning to Brahk. Maybe we should go home.” The half-orc had already turned around when the massive hand of Sir Humperdinck stayed his departure.

  “Fear not friend, no paltry undead can pierce my armor or stay my blade.” To prove the mightiness of both, Sir Humperdinck drew his sword and smashed the flat of the blade against his breastplate.

  “Yeah, but you’re the only one with those two things,” Gerryt said.

  Sir Humperdinck paid the hunter no heed and raised his sword above his head and roared before rushing towards the fanged mouth of the entranceway.

  “Just stay behind him and let him do the heavy lifting and the riches of the Barrow will be ours,” Verreth said, clapping Brahk on the back and following the giant knight. The others glanced at each other before joining.

  Sir Humperdinck ducked under the stalactites hanging like fangs and passed through the threshold. He failed to notice the precipitous drop in temperature, nor the slight change in air pressure. Ahead of him was an obsidian door carved with frescoes of skeletal beings dragging the living to the feet of a throne made of bone. A shadowed figure sat upon the throne, one desiccated hand reaching out to claim its victims.

  There was no door handle or other obvious methods of opening the door, so Sir Humperdinck resorted to the age-old method of banging on the door with his mailed fist. The others passed through the field and stood behind them.

  “Anyone else cold?” Serraia asked as an unholy chill sunk into her bones.

  “Yup, I’m out of here,” Gerryt responded, spun around and walked back up the incline. He got a few feet before smashing into an unseen barrier. “What in blazes?” he asked a hand snapping to his nose. It came away bloody.

  A moment later Brahk was there pounding ineffectually on the invisible field. Behind them, the creak of ancient rusted hinges rose and the obsidian door opened.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Sir Humperdinck rushed though, his pristine white cloak whipping in the noxious wind that rose from inside the Barrow.

  Serraia looked at the door, eyes wide, before turning around and joining the others in bashing the magical shield.

  “It won’t work,” Verreth said. “We are inside the Barrow. We go forward or we die.”

  “You knew this would happen, you damn cockalorum,” Serraia spat and slapped him.

  “Yes, I did,” Verreth said rubbing his reddening cheek. “As would you, if you’d ever read anything about sentient dungeons. Now quit your bitching and let’s get on with it.” He turned and entered the Barrow. A few moments later the others followed.

  As soon as the last adventurer was though, the obsidian door slammed shut with a clang of dramatic finality.

  *****

  Every step Sir Humperdinck took into the Barrow brought him deeper into the vile morass of undeath. He could feel the infernal energies in the stale air, in the rock beneath his feet, in every mote of dust floating around him.

  “This place is pure evil,” the knight said to his companions.

  “Yah think?” the hunter barked, but Sir Humperdinck knew the man was not directing his ire at him. It was born of fear.

  “Do not let the fear take hold of you. Therein lies the road to despair and death,” Sir Humperdinck said. He held his sword in front of him and the golden glow of holy empyrean magic pulsed forth, pushing both the shadows and the chill back. “Bask in the holy light of my faith and you will find strength.”

  The hunter muttered a comment disparaging Sir Humperdinck’s mother, and her imagined dalliances with goblins, but the knight paid him no heed. He knew sarcasm and humor were signs of a weak will and a lack of faith. Sir Humperdinck’s will and faith were as strong as adamantine, and he had never been humorous in all his entire life.

  They descended a staircase hewn from the bare rock and emerged into a wide chamber. At the far end was another passage that led further down into the Barrow.

  “This seems too easy,” Serraia said, a crackling sphere of pale blue formed over her hand and she tossed it across the room. It hovered near the far passageway, giving those without night vision a clearer view of the room.

  A low scraping rose, echoing from the passage. It sounded like bones scraping across a piece of slate followed by the sound of sharp metal dragging across the stone. Sir Humperdinck raised his sword, while the others behind him nocked a bow, hefted a mace, drew a thin rapier and summoned blue mystic energy. A moment later a shriveled corpse that had once been a man shuffled into the room.

  “Dread knight.” Sir Humperdinck said. “It is powerful but brainless and mute.”

  Tension hung heavy as the creature’s dead eyes passed over the group. It raised the rusty sword it had been dragging onto one shoulder, cocked its head and spoke.

  “Sup, dudes?” the dread knight said in a voice that was a lot less dry and dead and a lot more cracking and pubescent. “And milady?”

  “Uh, what?” Gerryt said.

  “Pay the abomination no heed, able hunter. It is a cretinous worm-riddled thing,” Sir Humperdinck said.

  “I am not worm-riddled,” the dread knight said, looking at itself. “This body hasn’t been animated long enough to attract any.”

  “So you admit it, you are a defiled corpse raised for ill purposes too horrible to conceive,” Sir Humperdinck said, jabbing his huge sword at the dread knight with all the effort of a man talking with his fork.

  “More of a floating skull in a halo of dark smoke,” the dread knight said, and then looked at its own body. “Oh, you mean this. Well kinda, I used Dirge’s life energy to make it, so not sure if that falls into your ‘defiled corpse’ category or not.” This last bit the dread knight said while holding the first two fingers on each hand up and pulling them down. The gesture was foreign to the adventurers, but its meaning was clear.

  “So you admit it. You murdered this Dirge, used his blessed life essence to animate this abomination and thereby damned your soul to the Abyss?” Sir Humperdinck roared.

  “I didn’t kill him. Ovyrm did, but to be honest, the prick deserved it. And there was nothing blessed about his life, so I doubt there was much blessed about his essence either.”

  “Corrupter, defiler, heretic,” Sir Humperdinck roared and rushed the dread knight. The foul creature had no time to raise its rusted weapon before the glowing two-handed blade sliced clean through its neck. Its head fell to the floor, and the body collapsed in a heap to the sound of dry kindling.

  The head rolled around for a few seconds until Sir Humperdinck stepped upon it to arrest its motion.

  “What is wrong with you guys? I just wanted to talk.”

  Sir Humperdinck stepped down hard, crushing the undead beastie’s skull into a rotten smear of jelly.

  “You sure that was a good idea?” Verreth asked as Sir Humperdinck looked at the muck on his boot with distaste.

  The man spun. “It was undead, and I killed it. Is that not why we are here?” The threat of violence should anyone disagree with the monstrous knight was obvious.

  “I just meant,” Verreth said, hands spread wide in deference. “That knowledge is power, so maybe we should have listened to what it was going to say?”

  “Is it me, or did he sound like a whiny teenager?” Serraia asked.

  “She means it sounded like her last boyfriend,” Gerryt said, elbowing Brahk. The half-orc chortled in amusement.

  “I’m serious, but I agree with Verreth. We could have learned something from him.”

  “It!” Sir Humperdinck roared. “He was an it, and I want to hear nothing more about knowledge. All we need is faith. Facts and knowledge just confuse the mind and lead the soul into temptation.”

  “Okay then,” Serraia said. “You’re the boss.”

  “Yes I am,” Si
r Humperdinck said with a nod. “Let us be on our way. There are more dead to kill.” With that the brawny knight strode down the passageway leaving his compatriots to rush after him.

  Behind them the body of the dread knight dissolved and leached into the stone of the Barrow floor like water being absorbed by a parched desert.

  7

  Deep in the Barrow, the skull that was once the Barrow King shook. A moment later black smoke coalesced about it, raising the skull from the stone seat, forming a robe of wispy darkness. Silvery light sparked from the empty eye sockets and the newly reformed spectre shivered.

  “What the hell was that? Asshole! I just wanted to chat.” Simon paused waiting for a response. When none came, he looked around searching for Dirge. Then he remembered. “Oh yeah, I killed that dude.” Simon sent his thoughts inwards.

  That was a Knight of the Blazing Fist, the Barrow said. A famed order of undead slayers. Though they were all killed long ago.

  “How do you know that?”

  Because we killed them.

  “Who is we?”

  Ouzeriuo and I.

  “I thought you two hated each other.”

  Hate is a mortal emotion. As is love. I did not hate Ouzeriuo any more than I love you. On occasion, we worked together. It is a shame he would not accept a binding with me. He was very powerful.

  “You are really shitty at making a dude feel better.” The Barrow said nothing. “Oh, so now you’re doing the silent treatment?” The silence hung heavier. “So what do we do?” Simon asked, desperate and annoyed.

  A Knight of the Blazing Fist is an extremely dangerous enemy to entities such as you and I. They are filled with empyrean light and life magic, powers antithetical to the energies that sustain us. It took the combined might of Ouzeriuo and myself to crush them the last time, and I was much less hungry then.