The Good Guys Chronicles Box Set

by Eric Ugland

  Congratulations and warnings unto you.

  Do you wish to form a party or enter as a solo adventurer?

  “Shit,” I whispered, sneaking a glance above to see more of the brick and mortar of the prison tumbling down. “I’m making a party and we’re going into a dungeon. Everyone accept.”

  I shot out invites to Donner and Emeline, and then grabbed the handle again.

  You have reached The Dungeon of the Ancients.

  Congratulations and warnings unto you.

  Do you wish to enter?

  YES/NO

  Grinning like an idiot, I selected YES just as everything around us started to collapse.

  Then, everything went black.

  Chapter 122

  Light flared around us, and not only could we see, but we could breathe, there wasn’t even a mote of dust floating in the air around us. The door to the dungeon hadn’t opened in a traditional sense, it was more of a magical portal I guess. At least, that’s the way it seemed to me.

  “A dungeon,” Nikolai said, barely above a whisper.

  While the locals were impressed about the whole thing — or at least doing a good job of seeming like it — I had to admit that what I saw wasn’t anything to write home about. We were in a dimly-lit room, not that big, not that small. A heavy wooden table took over most of one side of the room, a threadbare carpet held the center, and a few chairs that had seen better days rounded things out. A bleached skeleton sat in the corner, arms around its knees. A few threads of remaining clothes hung off it, and a rusting sword laid on the ground nearby. Some small bits of metal dotted the skeletons waist, all that remained from what seemed like it had once been a belt and sheath. Obviously, there were no windows, but there was a single door mounted in the middle of the far wall. But the door we’d come through was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t find a hatch above us, or a trap door below us either. We’d appeared in the space and now there was no exit.

  “So, uh —” I started, but Nikolai put his hand up.

  “This is a Dungeon. I did not believe one existed here, beneath Osterstadt, but you have proven me wrong. Before you ask me far too many questions with obvious answers, what happened to your face?”

  “My face?”

  “It is covered in blood.”

  I put my hand up and on my face. I felt tacky. Sure enough, blood came off on my hand. Nothing hurt though.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We found him like that when we woke him up,” Skeld said.

  “What were you doing last night?” Nikolai said. “Where did you get that potion you forced down my throat?”

  “I had a visit from Mister Paul.”

  “The being who blessed you with your boons?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And he gave you that potion, the one you gave to me?”

  “Yup.”

  “You are a fool. You realize you spurned his gift?”

  “Dude, you needed it more—”

  “I mean nothing to this deity! You, on the other hand, received a great gift from him and— Never mind. It is done, you are likely never going to see him again, but we all might feel his wrath. What else did he give you?”

  “A spell book—”

  “Montana,” Nikolai snapped. “You attempted to learn another spell?”

  “Hey, man, I did learn that spell.”

  “Your bullheadedness will be the death of us all. Stop trying to learn spells.”

  “Why?”

  “Clearly you have little gift for magic, or else it would not cause you such grief every time you attempt to learn it.”

  “So I can’t do magic?”

  “It certainly seems as if it is not your strong suit.””

  “Is that somewhere on my character sheet?”

  “Magic and muscles do not play well together,” Nikolai said. “You being little else beyond muscle are risking your life every time you even cast a spell. Especially if it is a spell requiring heavy amounts of mana. Similarly with learning spells. Have you ever wondered why it hurts you so?”

  “No one told me any of this,” I said. “How the fuck was I supposed to know?”

  “Perhaps you could think about asking questions before engaging in foolish actions, Montana Coggeshall, Duke of Idiots.”

  “Seems a bit harsh,” I muttered.

  “You are the one who keeps tying lives to yours and yet act as if nothing you do has consequences.”

  I opened my mouth to rebut him, but I really had nothing to say. The man had a point. It may have been a point I didn’t particularly like, but it was a point nonetheless.

  Nikolai shook his head, and started pacing.

  “I am assuming none of you have been in a Dungeon before,” he said, then looked out at his collected audience. No one said anything. “Silence. Good. Perhaps you’ve heard of Dungeons then.”

  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 123

  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 for 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 124

  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 stepp
ed 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?