The Dungeon Con: One Foot in the Grave ( Hank Grave Book 1): One Foot in the Grave (Hank Grave series)

by Marty Myers

  Hank said, “ I imagine that many offer you and your subjects the rights to the prey they catch where ever they are and I would do that too. I would imagine that having more and more of your subjects spread far and wide across the realm would strengthen your kingdom. So a bigger stronger spider kingdom would also be a good argument for granting my request.”

  Hank said, “ Llywelyn has not revealed much to me, but when she was first trying to convince me to pursue this course of action she mentioned that you have many different types of spiders as your subjects. Please do not take my question as being rude or prying into your affairs, but do you, in fact, rule over all the spiders of the world?” The Queen became very still indeed in her web and a while passed before she answered. “ We spiders know much of other’s business but most others know little of our own. Why do you ask about this topic.” “ I was wondering if you would be interested in taking in trade knowledge of the many spiders from my own homeland which is in an entire realm far off where there may be many species of spiders unknown to you and your kingdom.” The spider queens eyes gleamed with an illumination all their own at hearing this.

  “ You claim that you are not from this realm and have knowledge of foreign spiders that are not found in this realm or my kingdom. Is this true my friend,” the queen asked shifting slightly in her web toward Llywelyn? Llywelyn had to think, but she did remember in sharing Hank’s memories odd spiders he had encountered in everyday life, encountered as pets of friends, pet stores, at the zoos he had gone to occasionally and most often viewed on tv during shows called nature documentaries. “ He is most definitely from a far-off realm your majesty,” Llywelyn said, “ I know he has seen many spiders from there and I believe he may have seen some I am not familiar with though I can not say with absolute certainty that you would not know them.” The queen said, “ I will accept this knowledge as partial payment for some of my subjects moving into your domain and swearing servitude to you for a number of generations. But I will have it beforehand so that I might judge its worth to me.”

  Hank agreed and asked Llywelyn what the best way to share the memories with the queen was. Llywelyn showed him where a crystal was stored back in her own dungeon which was capable of holding, storing and transferring memories between individuals. She had him teleport the crystal to them in the scrying pool room and began the process of looking through and copying his spider related memories into it.

  It was a surprisingly long list of different encounters and learning experiences which began at an early age, through hikes and camping to school lessons and carried on to just a few months ago when he had watched yet another nature documentary about the many desert inhabitants of his world. She also found some really terrible sci-fi movies with all sorts of giant spiders that she did not include. There were also a lot of internet articles as well detailing new findings which had come to him through news feeds and as click bait.

  When she was done Hank teleported it to the patient spider queen who began reviewing it. They waited patiently while she worked to review and absorb the memories. When she spoke again her voice sounded just a little bit excited. The Spider Queen said, “ this and your two earlier arguments are now sufficient for me to grant your request Hank. Should you ever manage to find a way back to your old home I would be very interested in procuring breeding pairs of certain spiders to add to my kingdom of webs.”

  “ I will grant one of my more promising daughters the right to take a group of settlers to travel to your dungeon and set up there once I know where to send them to.” Hank said, Thank you, your majesty, could I instead offer to teleport them back with us. Llywelyn has told me that letting the spiders design their own level in my dungeon as I am building it would be the best way to end up with a superior design.” The queen said, “ very well, Llywelyn is right in her wise counsel to you. Females are almost always right. The sooner the male figures this out the sooner everything works out better for all involved. I saw that although you offered me the knowledge it was Llywelyn who had to find a way to actually implement your trade. It was good that you bowed to her superior knowledge to bargain with me. Keep that in mind and you should continue to succeed.”

  Hank bowed to the queen as she summoned her subjects to be teleported home with Hank. A spider which resembled the queen in shape and coloring entered the chamber from a hole in the wall high above he had not noticed before and lowered itself on a web down to them. It was the size of a pony which was small only in comparison to its dam. Following her were another two dozen spiders ranging in size between her and a medium-sized dog. Then there was a multitude of smaller spiders in all sorts of colors and sizes ranging from hand-sized down to the size of a fingernail which spilled out of the walls and the webs following behind them.

  Hank stopped trying to count them all and focused instead back on the largest spider which had come to a stop a short distance in front of them and lowered itself in what might be a bow first to the queen and then towards him. “ This is my daughter Finelity. She is perhaps too smart for her own good and has been impatiently petitioning me for an opportunity to go out and settle a colony of her own for a while now. To prove herself and her ideas. As you can see she has a small court of her own which wish to join her in her new colony. Then beyond her adherents are more of my loyal subjects whom I am entrusting to your care Hank.”

  “ They are all ready to be sworn into your service. Do not make me regret allowing you this opportunity. A new colony succeeds or fails by the cooperation of spider and dungeon.” “ Hank,” a smaller younger voice said from Finelity’s direction. “ It is so good to meet you, I am excited to get this opportunity to establish myself in your dungeon,” the young spider said.

  As they were speaking another large spider slowly lowered itself down among the crowd. It looked larger even than Finelity, or at least its middle was larger. Something about its movements seemed sluggish and off, compared to the other spider’s agility. “ This is Idlenest, The Queen said, “ she is my eldest daughter still living at home at this time. I have commanded her to accompany her younger sister and to choose at last a position in our society for herself, and no sitting in your web does not count my dear.” Hank could sense a long-standing family argument was brewing and decided that haste was in order.

  “ Okay everyone I am glad to meet you. I want to get many of your questions answered as soon as possible and get you all sworn in so here we go. I am Hank Graves a new dungeon who is in need of your service. The Darkness is pressing me to grow rapidly in size and strength to prepare for the next war with the Light. Right now I am just getting my minions gathered up and my dungeon floors established. I am primarily a dungeon of the dead with a talent for necromancy. I have around four hundred undead already occupying several floors of my dungeon deep inside a mountain. Most of them are dwarf skeletons with a smaller number of wights, ghosts, and zombies rounding them out.”

  “ I also am bringing in goblins into a floor near your area to bolster my minion’s numbers.” “ Yum, goblins,” Idlenest could be heard to mutter appreciatively. “ I expect to have more adventurers heading into the upper areas soon, but in the meantime, I want to be sure to have enough food for everyone. So I will be working out just what other creatures I need to bring in with your leaders once we get settled in.”

  “ My first priority when we arrive will be setting out a floor plan and designing your area with Finelity and you all will be getting a say in its construction as well. I am a very fast builder so I expect we can get it roughed in in less than a day and completed shortly afterward. As you can tell from my speech and mannerisms I am not your typical Dark One. For good or ill, I am new to this. I can be reasonable and I want to work together with my minions to make an excellent dungeon which will hold off the forces of Light while we build up our strength and numbers to form our horde. I expect you all to do your part as well.”

  “ I hope that has answered many of your questions, but I will take a few more before we get started.
So is there any questions that need to be answered before I get you all sworn in?” Most of the spiders stood perfectly still and silent. Being asked to question their leaders was a foreign concept to the majority of them after all. Hank could see only a few slight movements among them. If he hadn’t become used to the complete stillness of the dead themselves it would have been an unnerving sight.

  “ Okay then let’s start with Finelity and your court, Idlenest why don’t you come on up front here as well as I generally like to do this with the leaders of each faction of my minions first and work my way down.” Something like snickering came from among the other large spiders at the mention of Idlenest being among the leaders. Reluctantly she came up and stared balefully around her at the other spiders as she took her place beside her sister.

  Hank focused his magics and his soul sight and began the chant to accept them into his service. He took each and every spider’s name and looked into them as he had done with his dark dwarfs before adding their pledges to himself and pledging in turn to their queen for the length and terms of their colonies servitude. When at last he was through he and Llywelyn once more bowed to the Queen of Spiders.

  Then he teleported the spiders back by the dozens and hundreds to his scrying chambers. The room was soon packed with his new minions. He was glad that neither he nor Llywelyn needed actual room to stand because he could see it would not be hard to accidentally squash a few of the smaller spiders. Instead, he split off another part of himself and sent him to the Goblins level.

  “ Okay,” Hank said, as he changed the scrying pool viewpoint over to the area where his goblins were looking around. “ Here is where the goblins will be moved in here in a few days when I go get them. Right now there are only two forward scouts sent here to get the layout and report back to the other goblins so do not eat them. Those two there are off of the menu for now.” There were a few quiet groans at this but Hank ignored them.

  “ So what do you want to be made first, because I was thinking you might want something like a smaller version of the spider queens lair.” Finelity spoke up and said, “ you mean the chamber we met you in? I don’t think that would be the way to go. That hall was actually designed just to impress outsiders like yourselves who are visiting and not really built to be best for our own uses.”

  “ You want a dungeon floor where it will be difficult for humans and others to move around in normally and easy for us move through to hunt them in and keep them from getting in deeper.” Hank said, “ yes that sounds good so what do you have in mind.” “ Well if you already didn’t have a floor set above and below us I would suggest more of a deep chasm where they would need to climb up and down through our webs and where they could slip and fall to their deaths but a long deep chasm is probably already impractical from the description of your other minions who might need to move through our floor at some point.”

  “ So, instead,” she said, “ I would suggest more of a twisty set of tunnels shaped kind of like a looped figure eight with a more narrow section coming at about your chest height. This makes it awkward for men to defend their lower halves against attacks while they walk upright and gives a good area above them from which to launch attacks if they crawl on all fours down below. If you added in odd spaced smaller tunnels alternating from either right and left and in the top and bottom of the rounded eights and a central cave in each center that all of the smaller interior tunnels led into then I think you would have a good start.”

  “ And no level tunnel floors either, alternate every couple feet with a step up and then down and then up again to make them mind their footing all the time.You also want airflow through the whole thing so that our webs will have a chance to catch smaller prey and will move in the breeze and catch their attention. The exterior tunnels would need to loop around a bit to meet up though,” she said.

  “ So how about the placing of the entrances and exits from above and below your floor Hank said as he tried to envision the layout of the new floor. Well there would be several sloping tunnels up to the goblins level above,” she said. Perhaps styled as trap doors or even pit traps to catch the unwary among them and of course any stupid adventurers who came along.” Hank worked on the plans while one of his other selves began carving it out.

  Chapter 40

  Meanwhile Llywelyn pulled part of Hank back within her mindscape. She said, “ bargaining with the Spider Queen and getting her subjects has taken up more time than I foresaw today. The Darkness will not hold open the gate forever on our account. I need you to show me the core you got from Skarlock’s doom somewhere safe where I can study it now before our time is up.” Hank felt the strain a little bit from having his attention split into three, but luckily the part of himself that was carving out the spiders’ floor plan was not too mentally challenged after all the practice he already had in tunneling.

  He obligingly stepped back out of her mindscape and took her to his vault. He brought the core out for her inspection after renewing the wards and protections over the chamber. Llywelyn looked very closely at the cracked spherical crystal about the size of a birds egg. It was dimly lit from within by a small amount of dark essence with a few other bits of the other essences mixed within. She searched for even a small spark of Skarlock’s soul hoping she would find it even though she knew she would not. Deep within it, she saw a shadowed Gordian’s Knot floating inside the damaged heart stone with a tiny cord running out of it and into Hank. There was no sign of a soul whatsoever but somehow the magic’s of the dungeon ritual itself had remained intact.

  She had seen the stone just as it had been recovered from Hank’s own memories and physically it had been in worse shape then than it was now. That meant it was at least capable of some amount of rejuvenation on its own. She gently sang to it the chants she had created long ago to help her infant dungeons grow and develop when they had first been conceived and watched the crystal’s healing quicken. She sent a tiny probe down into the crystal matrix of the gordian knot and traced each and every pathway beginning to fix any damage she found there and reinforcing the flow of essence within.

  Suddenly a wild idea came to her looking down at this tiny empty vessel. She thought of Hank and his nearly unlimited potential. She knew the bans had still not taken a hold of him. She herself might be somewhat hindered by them, but she had been born before they were set in place and with the Darkness himself working to weaken and break the Second Ban which not only kept him from resurrecting his son, but also prohibited the birthing of new dungeons. With this remnant of crystal dungeon core from Skarlock she realized she had a shot at managing to have a child with Hank.

  She gently worked on establishing a link to herself similar to the cord that already connected Hank to the crystal. She checked to see if there was any restriction upon the crystal itself from the bans and could find nothing inhibiting it. Skarlock had not lived to see the setting of the Second Ban and the crystal fragment that was all that was left of him apparently had not qualified to the bans magic when they were set in place as a dungeon.

  Now Llywelyn thought, let’s see if this works. “ Hank I have set some magics in place upon this fragment to try to fix the damage done to it. Can I please take it with me to keep working on it. When I finish repairing it fully I will bring it back to you.” Thinking that she missed Skarlock and wanted a piece of him as a keepsake Hank said, “ okay, I was going to try something similar but I really don’t know enough about how to do it and I was afraid I would just end up ruining it if I tried anything.”

  “ Come here then Llywelyn said and we can work on it together.” She carefully walked him through the chants of conception without explaining them to him about what they were and then moved on to the other chants of healing and rejuvenation. She empahsized to him those that repaired the crystal and when she was sure they had the crystal properly primed she carefully set it down close by and changed topics. “ Enough of that for now,” she said the crystal needs time to slowly absorb the essence, come into
balance and heal.”

  “ Hank I want to make sure your as prepared as I can get you before you lay out all of your dungeon levels.” As she was quizzing him about all that he had done and had yet to do to prepare himself to meet the Darkness expectations. she locked away absolutely all of the thoughts that she did not wish for him to know. She made sure he was fully focused on her instructions and that his mind had moved on from thinking about the crystal.

  Then she pulled him deep into her mindscape where she began to let him think about having his way with her. “ I believe its time to reward you for all of your hard work lately,” she said. Llywelyn danced and swayed back and forth hypnotically in Hanks embrace allowing more and more of their bodies to rub and press together. She then let him peel away her clothes one piece at a time and then stood proud and bare before his hungry gaze.

  She reveled in his fresh memories of having bodies. His caress of her ample curves and all of the sensations and feelings one could experience once flesh met flesh they explored together. She gave herself fully to the moment with Hank, taking them to heights of pleasure few taste for long and holding them there for several shining minutes. Letting their hearts thunder and their cries of passion mount higher and higher. When she thought they could no longer hold on she began to let slip their memories illusion of physical forms and pulled him tightly to herself pressing her fading body into Hanks.