by DB King
“Um, we’ll go downstairs and get some breakfast, shall we Anja?” Dirk said.
Anja smiled. “Good idea. Let’s do that. Marcus, Ella, we’ll see you later today, I’m sure.”
As soon as they left, Ella flew up to a level with Marcus’s face. Her eyes were gleaming with interest and excitement. “What is this, Marcus? What are you going to do?”
Marcus grinned at her excitement. “Well, you know how we were talking about making a cursed dungeon?”
“Yes…”
“I’m going to use this liquid silver as one of the ingredients when I do that. Look at this.”
He conjured his dungeon management table in the middle of the room. It took up a great amount of the small space, and Ella hovered above it as Marcus gestured to the Pirate’s Cove dungeon.
“Look at the elements,” he said.
“Salt,” Ella read, “and Silver.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “So, from the dungeon’s point of view, Silver is an element the same way that Water is. Now, I don’t know for sure, but I feel like if I can use some of this liquid silver in the creation of a dungeon, along with an evil element, then the dungeon might have the chance to produce Elemental Silver as the special power I can gain from running the dungeon.”
Ella nodded slowly. “Yes, I see how you could think that, but isn’t there a flaw in that plan?”
Marcus frowned. “What’s the flaw?”
“Well, think about the last cursed dungeon you created.” She gestured to the dungeon on the management table. “See, here, how its elements are Fire and Pestilence. Now Pestilence is obviously the cursed element there, but it’s combined with the Fire element that you placed in the dungeon to create the monsters. The power you were granted to fight that dungeon was Elemental Water. You see? You were actually granted the opposite elemental power from the element you put in.”
Marcus scratched his chin. “You’re right, of course. So in that scenario, the silver would combine with the cursed element to create some monster, and I would be granted whatever the elemental opposite of silver is. And what do you think that might be?”
“I have no idea,” Ella said. “Maybe Fire, since the silver monsters burn so easily? But I think you could still create the dungeon in such a way as to get the elemental power you put in. The dungeon could no doubt be guided in that direction if you gave it the right cursed ingredient.”
Marcus nodded slowly. “Yes, I see that. The dungeon is going to grant the elemental power that will defeat the monsters inside. So I need something in the dungeon that can be defeated only by the application of silver…”
They met each other’s gaze, and Marcus saw Ella’s eyes widen into a look partly of horror and partly of excitement.
“Vampires!” they both said at the same time.
Marcus shook his head and frowned. “I see it, of course. Vampires are the only thing we know of that has silver as its elemental weakness. A vampire trapped in a dungeon with a pot of silver and left to gestate could well produce a cursed dungeon that would grant the Elemental Silver power. But where do we get a vampire?”
Ella looked at him. “There are two asleep downstairs,” she said. “They seem drawn to the dungeons, it would be easy to get them into a crucible chamber and…”
Marcus shook his head again. “Think about what you’re saying!” he chided her. “I’ve brought these two here in good faith. However cursed they are—and I’m not denying they are pretty dark creatures—they are intelligent and aware, as much as you or I. To trap such a being in a dungeon against its will… no, it’s unthinkable. I wouldn’t do it.”
Ella smiled. “I know you wouldn’t,” she said.
Marcus was confused. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Why did you say it then?”
“Marcus, I’m your dungeon faerie. Your power derives from our alliance. Ultimately, you and I have a responsibility to each other, and a part of my responsibility is to make sure that you remember the most important lesson of the old legend of the first Eloran. Your intention is what determines whether you have a good or bad outcome from your interactions with your dungeons. You’re right, to trap the vampires and turn them into a dungeon would be exactly the kind of act that would cause your dungeons to go awry. It’s my job to keep that uppermost in your mind. Particularly when thinking about something so dangerous and possibly corrupting as a cursed dungeon.”
Marcus smiled. “Very well. Thank you, then. I understand now.” He sighed. “Well, here’s what I propose. I will put off my project of creating a cursed dungeon for the moment, until we can come up with a way to get a vampire element into a dungeon—a way that doesn’t involve betraying my vampire allies.”
“What are they like, the vampires?”
“Max and Daya? They’re… odd. They have a very human side to them. They are a brother and sister, and they argue like siblings. They fight well, with immense strength and speed. They are… I don’t know. They’re not evil, not in their intentions, but they’re… dark. Creepy. There’s something in the way they move and in the way they look at you, it makes you understand very clearly that they are what they are. They’re not human as we know it—they’re very much a different kind of being, despite how they look and act some of the time.”
Ella nodded, and was about to speak when Marcus held up a hand. “There’s something important I want to tell you,” he said.
“Very well,” Ella replied, looking inquiringly at him. She came over and sat on the edge of one of the fireside chairs. Marcus took another quick look at the Pirate’s Cove on the management table. He scanned the shoreline for any sign of a strange, tall, unnaturally thin figure, but there was nothing. Not surprised, he dismissed the dungeon table and it vanished with a faint pop, leaving the rug in the center of the room clear.
Marcus sat in the chair opposite Ella, leaned forward, and told her the whole story of the minutes at the end of the Pirate’s Cove dungeon run, when Anja and Dirk were gone. He told her how he had faced down the pressure from the dungeon to leave immediately, and how in doing so, he had felt the relationship between him and his dungeon system change. At the end of the tale, he related the story of the tall figure at the waterline, and how it had raised a thin white hand in greeting.
Ella shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, and Marcus felt the hairs on his own arms and on the back of his neck rising as he remembered that eerie sight. Ella, who was perched on the edge of the chair, scooted backward into the corner of the chair and drew her knees up to her chest.
“Brrr,” she said. “Creepy. It gives me the shivers, but I have no idea what it could have been.”
“Really?” Marcus said, feeling a little disappointed. He was hoping Ella would be able to explain it.
“I’m afraid so,” Ella said. “In all the dungeon lore I’ve ever known, I’ve never heard of anything like that happening.”
“It wasn’t a monster, that’s for sure,” Marcus said.
“How can you be so certain?” Ella asked.
“Well, for a start the dungeon run was finished. We’d killed all the monsters and the loot had dropped. The door was open and the dungeon was pushing us out. It seems hard to believe that a monster would spawn in that situation.”
“True,” Ella agreed.
“Also, all the monsters in that dungeon have a sea theme. They’re lobsters, pirates, octopuses, crabs. That was no sea creature, but a human, or something like it. And it raised its hand to acknowledge me, then vanished. That’s not the actions of a monster. I don’t suppose…” He hesitated.
“Go on,” Ella said.
“Well, it sounds odd, and to be honest I don’t truly think it was this, but do you think it might have been some manifestation of the sentient dungeon system itself?”
Ella sat forward, excited. “Oh, I suppose it could be!” she said. “I have heard of such things, though it’s very rare. Yes, it could be that, and it would make sense for it to show itself to you as a mark of respe
ct, since you faced it down and established your control over it.”
Marcus was not convinced. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but there was some reason why he just didn’t think it was true. The tall, ragged figure had felt like an outsider, a visitor from some other place. If he were to meet a physical manifestation of his dungeon system’s sentient awareness, he didn’t think it would look—or feel—like that.
“Well, I guess there’s no answering the question now,” he said. “It was a good run, and the cannons were a nice touch. I’m glad we got the gunpowder out, and I’ll look forward to the opportunity to experiment with the liquid silver at leisure. Both those things give us the opportunity to use new and interesting defensive tactics if and when we’re attacked by the Corsair.”
Marcus stood. He was hungry, and felt like joining Anja and Dirk in the kitchens. He was about to suggest to Ella that they go downstairs when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” Marcus called, and the door opened to reveal Kairn.
“Ah, Marcus, Anja said that you were back,” the dwarf said briskly. “We have visitors, and also I have some interesting news.”
“Who are the visitors?”
“The Akhian traders who brought the message about the Corsair. Amun and Isa. They came across the wasteland alone, and I’m thinking we’re going to need to start patrolling the road from the stronghold to the slums. The wights are active and they might attack unwary travelers.”
“Amun and Isa are all right, though? They weren’t attacked?”
“No. Thankfully the captain of the guard had the presence of mind to send out an escort and bring them in as soon as they were sighted. The wights are about, but the captain sent out a strong force and they weren’t attacked. Amun and Isa seem well able to handle themselves anyway, and the wights didn’t seem to frighten them in the least. They’re in the kitchens, eating with Anja and Dirk.”
“Good, good,” Marcus said. “I’ll go there and meet them now. I’m hungry too. But you said there’s another piece of news? What is that?”
“Ah, yes, that,” Kairn said with a smile. “We’ve captured one of the Wasteland wights. It’s downstairs, locked in a cage. And, most surprising of all… it’s talking.”
Chapter 20
Marcus followed Kairn downstairs to the courtyard. Standing in a little knot around an iron cage was a group of guards. They parted deferentially for Marcus when he arrived.
“Sir,” the captain said, “here is the creature. A patrol took it lurking just outside the walls. These wights, as you found out when they attacked you, sir, they become solid when you touch them. The patrol threw a length of iron chain around the creature, sir, and here it is.”
He gestured toward the small cage. Marcus remembered that it had been used to bring a flock of chickens to the stronghold some weeks ago and had been sitting empty since then. It stood as high as Marcus’s waist, an ugly, functional thing with black bars of cast iron.
The wight took up most of the space inside it. As Marcus approached, he saw that the creature was sitting with its bony knees drawn up. It looked at first like no more than a bundle of gray rags, but as Marcus approached, he heard a stream of words coming from it. The voice was hollow and strange. It sounded distant, as if it was coming through a wall or from under a floor.
As he walked up to the cage, the wight inside raised its head.
The wight was speaking, as Kairn had said. It had a skull instead of a face, and its jaw moved slowly, but the movements seemed to bear little relation to the sounds it was producing. Marcus leaned a little closer, listening. The words were in no language he had ever heard before. There were some sounds that seemed similar to the language of Kraken City, but not many.
It was strange, listening to the creature speak. The voice sounded far away, emotionless and remote. The wight’s bony hands were wrapped around its knees, and it didn’t seem to be looking at Marcus. Its head moved from side to side as if looking at something that Marcus couldn’t see.
He felt a sudden rush of pity for the creature.
“Get it a bigger space to be in,” he said. “We don’t know what it is, but if it has language then we have to assume it’s conscious and has some self-awareness at least. Even though the wights attacked us, I won’t treat them like animals. We’ll keep it captive, but we’ll treat it as humanely as possible.”
“I can probably make a bigger iron cage for it,” Kairn said thoughtfully. “It seems to like the sun, so we’ll keep it out here for the moment and transfer it to a bigger cage when we have the chance.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “Do that, and let me know when it’s done. I’ll want the others to take a look when they have the chance as well.”
Kairn nodded. With one last look at the wight, he turned and headed toward the smithy.
Marcus went downstairs with Ella to find the Akhians and his other friends. He found them in the kitchens, sitting around a big table eating and laughing together. They greeted him warmly as he sat down.
“So,” he said to the Amun and Isa, “I hear you encountered some wights in your journey over the Wasteland? I’m glad you weren’t attacked.”
“Ah, yes, those old ghosts,” Isa said dismissively. “We were not worried about them. We have many such creatures in the old tombs of our homeland, so they don’t bother us.”
“Really?” Marcus asked with interest. “Wights are common in Akhi?”
“Oh yes,” she said with a smile. “The ancient peoples of our land built many tombs, great step pyramids full of labyrinthine chambers. There are great treasures hidden within the tombs, and we have teams of adventurers who will explore the tombs in search of loot. Those tombs are full of wights—the ghosts of the ancient civilization from our land, the ones who built the tombs.”
“You adventure in there and bring back treasure? Sounds like the dungeons,” Marcus said with a smile.
Amun leaned forward. “Exactly!” he said. “That’s why we wanted to come and visit you. You remember Jacob, the elder who came with us to Kraken City? In his day, he was a great adventurer—one of the most famous in the land. He was the one who first made the connection between your dungeons and our treasure tombs. Isa and I have adventured in the tombs many times, and we’re both good fighters. We decided that we should ask for the opportunity to adventure in one of your dungeons. Would you permit that?”
Marcus smiled, looking at the two strong warriors in their elaborate, outlandish armor. They certainly looked like ideal candidates for dungeon adventuring.
“I would be glad to do a dungeon run with you!” he said. “In fact, it just so happens that I have one upgraded dungeon that I haven’t explored yet in its new form. If you wanted to, we could go there today? You’ll get to take back a share of the loot when you go back to Akhi, of course.”
“If we can bring some interesting loot from the dungeons,” Amun said, “it will help to convince those in our land who doubt the value of setting up a trade route to Kraken City. Yes, that would be very valuable to us!”
“Also,” Isa put in, “I’ve not fought any enemies since the battle on the ship, and then we had not much chance to fight, since the odds were so drastically against us. I’d like the chance to use my spear again.”
She slapped the shaft of the long, leaf-bladed spear that leaned against the table next to her.
“That sounds like a plan,” Marcus said. “Let me take some food, then we’ll go and explore the upgraded Harpy dungeon!”
Less than an hour later, Marcus was standing in the dungeon lobby with Isa, Amun, and Ella at his side. He aimed his mace at the wall and placed the entrance to the Harpy dungeon. The doorway appeared as a strangely shaped wooden entrance. It was as if the roots of a great tree had opened up to create a way through. Beyond the entrance, there was a dark passageway lit by flaming torches.
“We’ll need to take care and look out for traps on the way in,” he warned his friends. “Once we’re inside, I’ll be using ma
gic to boost your abilities as well as my own. I don’t know exactly what form the monsters inside will take, but whatever it is you can be guaranteed a good fight.”
“Let’s do it,” Amun said, sounding excited at the prospect of battle. He held a short sword in his right hand, and in his left, he clutched his small bronze buckler shield. He and Isa were lithe and relaxed in their movements, like the practiced fighters they were.
Marcus took a breath and stepped inside the passage.
Immediately, he was presented with a new challenge. Where before the passageway had been straight and direct, leading through two traps to the main chamber, Marcus now found that the passage went forward about twenty feet and branched off into three passages. The left-hand passage plunged steeply downward, the middle one ran on straight, and the right-hand passage climbed upward, with light shining down it from above.
“Top passage first?” Marcus suggested. Ella, Amun, and Isa all agreed. He stepped forward, hand outstretched toward the light, but his fingers met unexpected resistance.
“What the…” he muttered. He pushed, gently at first, them more firmly. It was as if there was a thick, flexible barrier stretched across the entranceway, invisible but impassable.
Isa stepped forward, sensing that something was wrong but unable to see what it was. When she felt the barrier for herself, her eyes widened. “I’ve never come across something like that before!” she exclaimed. “What does it mean?”
Marcus frowned. “I’m not certain yet what it means,” he said quietly, “but I wonder… let’s see…”
He moved to the middle passage and pushed a hand toward the entrance. Again, the same implacable resistance met his hand, as if he were stretching his arm into an invisible sheet stretched tight over the entrance. He nodded.
“It’s the same here,” he announced. “We can’t enter the middle passage.”
“What about the last one?” Amun asked. He stepped up to the entrance that led downwards and gingerly pressed a hand forward into the space. There was no resistance. The others all came up and stood near him, passing without resistance into the top of the leftmost passage.
