by Eric Ugland
There were a few nods. Slow. Steady nods.
“For the idiot among us,” Nikolai continued, “and for those who think they know, I will explain a bit. Dungeons are built to protect things. Namely treasure. They are built with and by magic, which means the Dungeon itself is magic. There is a host of creatures who are built in the Dungeon, spawned by the Dungeon to do the bidding of the Dungeon. One of the great mysteries is why, but we do not care. The Dungeon wants to feed on the life force and energy of as many living creatures it can. Or even the energy and unlife forces of the undead. Thus it fills itself with bonus treasure to lure in the stupid. Even the smallest Dungeon is full of riches beyond measure. This one, if it is as old as it seems, and if it has been left idle as long as it has, will likely be ripe with treasure and rife with peril. I cannot, in good conscience, lie to you and say we will all make it out alive. It is likely we will all perish.”
“You are just amazing for morale,” I said. “Fucking lie to us, man.”
He frowned, and I could tell he wanted his levels back just so he could punch me in the face.
“This,” he continued as if I hadn’t interrupted him, “is the last place we might find safety until we are to the next level of the Dungeon. When we open that door there,” he pointed to the only door in the room in what I considered a completely superfluous gesture, being as there was, you know, only one door in the room, “we must be on high alert until such time as we exit or die.”
“Got it,” I said. “Monsters, traps, and treasure. What a way to go.”
But there wasn’t exactly a choice in the matter, as evidenced by the skeleton in the corner. We could sit and starve to death, or we could take our chances. And I for one, relished the opportunity to lay the smackdown on some monsters. Fighting against other humans, or other sentient races for that matter, always left a bad taste in my mouth. Which could just be the blood I always seemed to get splashed with, but I’d like to believe it was also the burgeoning conscience I seemed to be growing in this new land.
Before opening the door, I doled out what weapons I had: a short bow to Emeline, as well as a few quivers of arrows, which really completed her ensemble. Nothing matches a ball gown quite like ranged weapons. Donner rolled with the war hammer I’d been using, while I pulled out a busted shield and a big sword. Nikolai got to use Cleeve’s sword, the Coggeshall blade, while the other two members of my hirð stuck with their weapons of choice, spears. After a little stretching and limbering up, I pushed the door open. A very loud gong rang out. As soon as we were all through the door, it slammed shut behind us.
“Game on,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The hallway was long and reasonably well-lit. It was difficult to discern where the light was coming from — nothing seemed to be in place, no torches or lamps or anything. Just ambient light. The floors were grey stone bricks that fit nearly perfectly together, completely flat, as was the ceiling. The walls, on the other hand, were more rustic-looking, with the bricks protruding ever so much. There was no dust on the floor, no cobwebs in the corners. It was, well, cleanish. I wouldn’t eat off the floors, but I’d probably extend the five-second rule out to thirty.
I moved forward, taking the lead.
Looking ahead, there were doors and junctions aplenty, and I had a sinking feeling.
The first junction was a simple offshoot. At the far end, I spotted a familiar group of creatures: Goblins. Six of them. They played dice against a wall.
“Hey,” I yelled to them, thinking perhaps we could avoid violence, “think we could, you know, play through?”
There was a tense silence as the goblins stared me down. They all had swords of various makes, nothing particularly impressive. Every piece looked as if it had been scavenged and then customized. There were no rings on these guys’ swords though. The biggest of the goblins had a massive scar cutting through one ear and all the way across his face, and the scar seemed to have blackened, making him look vile. Evil. One had an extra ear hanging right in front of his right ear. They all had on black leather armor, again, looking like it had been patched together.
They unsheathed their weapons, and stood to attention, the dice game forgotten.
One of them screamed and they all charged.
I put the shield out just in time to catch a goblin's thrust. But while I was stopping the fastest goblin, the next in line lunged at me, his shitty sword skating right along my rib, the bone saving me from what might have been a nasty wound. He was so close to me that I couldn’t even swing my sword. Apparently Dungeon-based goblins were more skilled than the first assholes I met in Vuldranni.
From behind, a spear shot under my arm, going deep into the goblin’s face, and the creature’s viscera splooshed all over me.
The battle was on and over in barely a heartbeat, thanks to my trusty Lutra. Even though goblins are pretty small, they seemed to have an incredible amount of gunk inside them. A ten-foot section of the corridor was just nothing but gross. And I happened to be in that section. Notably, so was Donner. Everyone else, though, made it through fine.
A simple white globe, maybe one inch in diameter, floated in the middle of the hallway, hovering above the remains of the goblins. It glowed, gentle, inviting.
I reached towards it, then remembered I’d been a bit of a dumbass lately (or you know, since the second I came into either one of the worlds I’d been in), so I stopped and looked to Nikolai.
He nodded at me.
I touched the orb.
As soon as my finger made contact, a pile of coins dropped, bouncing down on the stone floor. Donner was on them immediately.
I looked over the goblin’s equipment. I thought about taking it, but it was all garbage.
“This is weird,” I said. “Even for Vuldranni.”
“What do you mean by that?” Emeline asked.
“Don’t listen to him,” Ragnar said as he wiped the goblin blood off his spear. “He says dumb things.”
I spent a minute getting the goblin gunk off myself, and as I was clearing the ichor from my face, I yelped in surprise as Nikolai was barely an inch from me.
“You fight like shit,” he said. “And now that I am rather incapacitated, we cannot survive this mess if you do not get better. Quickly.”
He ripped the shield from my arm and hit me with it.
One point of damage.
“The shield is not a tool for bashing,” he snapped. “It is for blocking. If it were not for your quick thinking backup, you would have been sliced to pieces by a fucking goblin. A goblin.”
“I blocked one—”
“There were six. Blocking one the way you did left you wide open for the other five. Despite the pain it clearly causes you, do some thinking. Remember your fucking training. Cleeve did not sweat night after night because he wanted the exercise. He wanted you to be better at what it seems you are destined to do. If not for me, improve because Cleeve wanted you to.”
It sucked to get my ass chewed out. Double suck for throwing out the guilt train of me disappointing Cleeve. But then again, it was kind of nice seeing Nikolai return to a more normal version of himself. I just wished it wasn’t quite so focused on my being an idiot. I guess I could try to listen to him and not suffer his abuse any more.
“So what should I do then?” I asked.
“Decide what it is you are going to do. Are you going to use a shield and sword? Fine. Focus on that. Learn how to use them. Master them. Are you going to use an axe? Fine. Do that. A hammer? A spear? A bow? Whatever it is, conquer that before moving on. Because in here, in this dungeon, you need to be our front.”
“So I should use a shield?”
“Can you use it properly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then stick with something you know how to use. And if you’re going to use a shield, use one that’s a proper size.”
He tossed the shield to the side.
“That,” he said, pointing to the shield, “is f
or small people riding small horses. You are on the ground. On your feet. And you are quickly becoming a giant.”
“So I don’t even have the proper shield to use, so—”
“Exactly.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because if I tell you something, you will not learn it. I am trying to get you to think for yourself.”
He flicked my forehead, and then walked away.
“Skeld,” Nikolai said, “with me. We are scouting ahead.”
“Welcome to the Dungeon,” Emeline said, holding her gown up a little as she stepped over the goblin mess.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I pulled out a battle axe and marched to the t-junction at the end of our current hall. Nikolai kneeled at one wall, looking to the right, while Skeld peeked around to the left.
“End,” Skeld called out.
“Door,” Nikolai replied.
I walked out into the junction and looked. Sure enough, one direction, left, looked like someone just stopped building. The other way held a heavy wood door.
“I guess we know which way we’re going,” I said.
“This is why you are not choosing,” Nikolai replied. “Skeld, Ragnar, down the hall. Be slow and careful. Check for traps, and make sure the wall is actually a wall.”
Skeld and Ragnar moved down the hall, checked the stones on the floor, and that was that. Nothing.
“Nothing,” Skeld said. “All clear.”
Nikolai moved slowly up the hall until he got to the door. He put his ear up and listened to the other side.
It smelled bad next to the door. Like death.
Nikolai put his hand against the door, then gave a little push. It wasn’t locked.
Inside, bodies in various states of decay were stacked like cordwood. No humans that I could pick out — just all sorts of humanoid monsters, a surprising number of them goblins. There was a small clear space in the middle, creating a sort of walkway, and another door on the other end.
As soon as our door opened, the smell worsened immensely. It was absolutely revolting, and I had a tough time keeping my stomach to myself. Emeline puked all over the wall she was standing next to. I reached over and held her hair back.
“We will move quickly through there,” Nikolai snapped back to us, apparently unaffected by the filth. “There is a reason these bodies are here, and I fear what it might mean for us if we linger too long.”
With that, he was moving. We followed, hands over mouths. There was a strong feeling of wrongness in the place. Perhaps the death, also the sickness, but it seemed like more than that. It wasn’t until I was almost all the way through the room when I realized what was bothering me so much. All of the creatures who’d been touching the floor or the walls seemed to have melted into the floor or the wall. My first thought was that the room wasn’t made well, that the walls and floor were sinking. But the truth was more vile — the bodies were actually being absorbed by the room. I held up my hand to Nikolai, only to see I was the last one in the room. Everyone else was waiting for me to hurry up and get through.
I rushed across and stepped through the doorway into what looked like an antechamber. There were three doors in the place: the one we’d come through, one to our left that was hanging a bit open, and one in front of us.
I shut the door behind me. Nikolai was at the next open door while Ragnar and Skeld stood across the room at the other.
“Those bodies were being eaten by the room,” I said.
Nikolai shot me a look, a pretty clear ‘shut the fuck up’ sort of thing. He pushed the door open a little more with his toe, and peeked in. Looking over his shoulder, I saw crates and barrels.
“Storage,” he whispered.
“Wait—“
He held up a hand.
“Stop talking,” he snapped.
He moved around me, and headed over to the rest of the hirð. I looked at the barrels and stuff in the room, and I thought about grabbing it all and shoving it in the bag, but it was pretty nasty stuff. Dark mold grew in between crates and up onto the walls. Mold which hadn’t been disturbed in a rather long period of time, and I couldn’t see any scenario in which adding mold to the mix made things better.
The last door opened onto a hallway, about thirty yards long. At the end an open archway led to what looked like a large open room with a dark red carpet across most of the floor. There was a lump in the middle of the carpet.
“This is most definitely a trap of some sort,” Nikolai said.
“Obviously.”
“Shut up.”
He arranged us the way he wanted us to travel. I was point, with Ragnar and Skeld behind me. Nikolai and Emeline behind them, Donner in the back. Nikolai traded his sword back to me in favor of a rather mild-looking short-bow. He’d asked for the smallest bow I could find, and this one looked almost like it was for a child.
I led the way into the room, stopping any time I thought I saw something odd or out of order. I didn’t exactly know the kind of traps we’d find in this place, but I had to imagine they were similar to things I’d seen in the games I’d played. Tripwires and acid pits. At the edge of the room, I could see the lump much better. A body. Something goblinoid without being a goblin. Bigger. More refined. A goblin 2.0 perhaps?
Someone behind me gave me a push — my bet was on Ragnar.
Onwards.
Statues were positioned around the perimeter. They’d been made with some skill, but not a whole lot of artistic beauty. The things were hideous. Creatures I never wanted to realize existed, let alone see, even if just carved in stone.
There was a doorway to the left, one to the right, and a stairwell in front of us leading to another large open archway, and while I could tell that there was a room of sorts beyond, I couldn’t see anything on ground level. You know, what with the ground being a full story above where I was. Directly above, the ceiling soared, and, at the top, I saw another carving: a great black thing with tentacles. I could just make out some gold filigree up there as well. Unique design, but nothing I’d pick for my home.
I knelt at the carpet and slid my axe blade underneath. Just to peek. Stone floor.
Nikolai stepped around me and walked over to the dead creature. He knelt.
“Hobgoblin,” he said.
“I’msorrywhat?” I replied.
“Hobgoblin. Goblin’s bigger cousin. Harder, faster, smarter.”
“Awesome.”
The creature was bigger than most humans, about six or seven feet tall. A solid amount of muscle under what looked to be thick orange skin. Not like bright orange, not unreal, but like a muted carrot. Or a tanning salon aficionado. Black finger nails came to points, and wiry black hair shot out of various places about the body. The facial features were heavy, with little subtlety. Shorter legs than I was expecting, the ratio was all off, especially as compared to the lengthy torso. The hobgoblin must’ve had great balance with such a low center of gravity. And, unlike the rest of the goblins I’d interacted, the hobgoblin was clean. Neat. A creature which bathed regularly and understood basic concepts of hygiene.
I stayed at the edge of the carpet and looked from the left door to the right door, trying to discern anything that might give me a clue which way we should go.
The rest of the group walked over to the dead body. Ragnar, naturally, dug through the hobgoblin’s pouches and pockets.
Without any warning, a creature dropped from the ceiling, enveloping the entire party.
Except me.
“Fuck.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It looked a bit like the membrane that made up a batwing, but thicker. Almost like a black leather cloak, with a singular grasping hand-thing on its back facing the ceiling. Likely, that was the means by which the creature’d held onto the ceiling.
Muffled cries came out from underneath.
I planted my feet and swung as hard as I could, the axe whistling through the air. It sliced right through the creature’s me
mbranous body like it was nothing. Chop and slice and deal with ichor. Chop and slice. Chop and slice.
The thing tried to crawl away, but it couldn’t move particularly well. When I got close to the middle of the thing, I made a big horizontal slice, lopping off a big chunk. There was an eruption of thick black oozy blood, or some other equally noxious bodily fluid, and the creature stilled. But it started undulating a second later when my friends underneath it pushed and pulled, attempting to get out from under the thing.
I ripped the leathery skin apart, afraid of using the axe when I didn’t need to, thinking what might happen if I were to cut into Nikolai. As soon as I tore the skin, though, I heard a bang and a roar.
To my left, a hobgoblin came into the room, axe held high above his head with both hands.
I kicked my axe up, grabbed and threw it, almost in one motion. It hit the orangeskin smack in the head, splitting the skull and stopping the momentum of his upper body. The lower body continued, legs shooting up in some sort of gruesome slapstick.
I could hear his friends coming up from behind. So I sprinted over to the newly-deceased body and snagged his axe off the ground. Which I promptly threw, catching the incoming opponent by surprise. Another solid hit, another spray of blood, and it was fightin’ time. The hobgoblins certainly didn’t seem like they had much in the way of concern for life, straight up shoving their dying buddy out of the way to get to me.
Three of them came at me. One had twin swords, one held a hammer, and the last had a hand-axe in each meaty fist.
I stomped my foot on the first hobgoblin’s mushed melon, and ripped my battle axe free, getting it up in front of me just in time to block a swinging hammer. I jabbed out with the butt of my haft, connecting directly with Hammer’s disgusting pig-shaped nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and I saw his eyes close involuntarily. The nose is always a painful spot, no matter what species you are. I jammed my foot down on his booted foot, then pushed the hobgoblin over as soon as he became unbalanced.
