by A. J. Markam
I stared at it in confusion.
Dungeon core?
Transfer complete?
And then I remembered…
I had been tied up to a wooden plank at the volcano when Orlo had told me about his future plans.
I’m using the proceeds to fund my next great venture… dungeon core crystals! I’ve discovered the secret to generating the crystals, which formerly only appeared by chance! I sold war golems simply to fund my dungeon core business!
My eyes widened.
Dungeon cores were a rarity in OtherWorld. Most dungeons were just structures, a series of chambers inhabited by monsters that you fought your way through to get gold and loot. They ‘rebooted’ every time a new party entered, and it was the same damn thing if you went back in again. The Tomb of Tharos in Exardus had been a regular dungeon, which was why it was so goddamn boring to run after the first couple of times. Nothing ever changed – it was always the same.
But there were a few dungeons here and there that were supposedly sentient. They were controlled by a centralized intelligence that governed not only the dungeon’s design but everything that took place in it. The intelligence resided in a crystal, called a dungeon core.
The mark of a dungeon-core dungeon was that it grew over time. It changed, expanded, added new levels and more monsters and threats. Players who had encountered one swore that it learned from your actions. The further you progressed, the more you would find that the awesome tactic you’d used just a couple of levels above was now utterly useless. The dungeon would learn to defend against it, and sometimes even turn your own tactics against you.
In other words, dungeon-core dungeons evolved.
Like a living thing.
And at the center of every such dungeon was a crystal that directed everything that went on inside it.
Orlo had never said how he generated the crystals… but from what little I knew, a crystal required a soul to make it a dungeon core.
I read the screen again.
DUNGEON CORE SOUL TRANSFER COMPLETE.
Could it be…?
COULD IT?
I yanked Soraiya’s face around savagely and pointed at the screen. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know… it was one of Orlo’s projects…”
“You said you’d seen him do the transfer dozens of times,” I snapped. “Are you sure you did exactly what he did?”
She sniffled. “I mean, I did what I saw him do – ”
“Was he specifically transferring souls back into physical bodies?”
“He – he said he was transferring souls – ”
“But into physical bodies, or into dungeon cores?”
Her eyes widened, and she saw her chance to extract herself from this mess. “Maybe dungeon cores! Y-yes – yes, I think that was it!”
“So you’re saying that Alaria’s soul might be locked inside a dungeon core crystal somewhere?” I asked, hope rising like a symphony’s crescendo.
“Y-yes – yes, absolutely!” Soraiya cried out, her voice becoming more confident.
I was sure she was lying. Not about the possibility; just about whether she knew without a doubt that it had happened.
“Take me to wherever the dungeon core is, then.”
She got a crafty look on her face. “Of course… after you free me. Then I’ll be happy to – ”
I smiled nastily as I interrupted her. “You forget, I don’t have to bargain with you anymore. I COMMAND YOU, take me to wherever the dungeon core is.”
Her collar glowed, and her smile turned to hatred. But she stood up.
“I’ll kill you for this,” she whispered angrily.
“Oh, and by the way – never, EVER attack me, or Stig, or Alaria’s body or soul, or any other demon in this lair. Got it?”
She grumbled something under her breath.
“I SAID, GOT IT?”
“I understand… Master,” she sneered. I could hear the contempt and hatred in her voice.
Then she turned and started back into the secret passageway – but this time she walked instead of ran.
“Come on, guys,” I said to Stig and Grung. “Let’s go.”
As they followed Soraiya into the tunnel, I turned back to Alaria’s flesh-and-blood body still lying on the table.
I pressed my hand against her face.
Still warm.
I placed my palm on her chest.
I could still feel a heartbeat, although it was weak.
“Hang on, baby,” I whispered. “Just hang on.”
And then I followed the demons into the tunnel.
3
Stig, Grung, Soraiya, and I exited the hangar where the war golems had been housed and began to walk across the grassy plains.
“So you knew about the dungeon cores?” I asked Soraiya.
I could hear the slightest hesitation in her voice, and then she powered on through to absolute certainty. “Of course – Orlo talked about them all the – ”
“Let me rephrase that,” I interrupted. “Tell me the truth about how much you knew about the dungeon cores.”
The collar glowed faintly, and she glowered at me – but when she answered, I knew it wasn’t bullshit.
“I knew he was up to something, but I didn’t know what. Orlo wouldn’t tell me what it was, and he never mentioned it by name.”
“Then how do you know where to go? Tell the truth.”
“Because this is where he always went after the experiments. You know, you don’t have to keep commanding me,” she snapped.
“Really. How about this – I command you to tell me the truth whenever I ask you a question for as long as you wear that collar. Now I won’t have to keep asking you.”
Her collar glowed again.
“You’re an idiot and an asshole. How’s that for the truth?” she snarled.
“I didn’t ask you a question. Now take me to wherever we’re going.”
“Why don’t you ask me to tell you the truth about whether I meant to hurt Alaria?” she challenged me.
I hesitated.
Part of me didn’t want to give up being 100% sure.
Because if I was wrong, then everything I’d done back in the laboratory had been assholish in the extreme, and I couldn’t hide behind Soraiya’s supposed wrongdoing as an excuse.
But in the end, I wanted to know the truth more than I wanted to keep up the illusion that I was still a good person, despite what I’d done.
“…tell me the truth about whether you meant to hurt or kill Alaria back there.”
Her collar glowed. “I wasn’t trying to kill her. I was honestly trying to transfer her soul back into her body.”
My stomach twisted into knots.
She looked at me hatefully. “How’s that for the truth, Master?”
I grappled with my conscience for a second, feeling bad about myself –
And then I thought, Maybe ask a few more questions.
“If you could have gotten out of your Oath to help us out, would you have? Yes or no.”
She swallowed hard. “…yes.”
“Were you trying to figure out how to get out of your oath?”
She looked sick. “Y-yes.”
I was getting angrier and more self-righteous with every answer she gave.
“Were you sad when she died?”
Soraiya’s leering hatred disappeared, and she looked nervous. “No, but I – ”
“Were you secretly GLAD when she died?”
She looked sick. “…a little bit, but – ”
“You were GLAD?! Yes or no!”
Her plum-colored skin became paler by the second. “Y-yes.”
Now I was furious again – murderously furious. “What EXACTLY did you feel when you knew she was dead?”
“Scared!” she cried out. “Terrified!”
I stopped, surprised by the answer. “Why?”
“Because I thought you were going to torture me!” she said, and broke into sobs. “Yo
u’re just like Orlo!”
All the muscles in my face froze. I felt sick to my stomach.
“No I’m not!”
“You talk all the time about how wonderful you are, how much you free demons – but who’s wearing a collar right now?! Who threatened to torture me for days until you believed me?! Who – ”
“SHUT UP!” I roared.
The collar glowed, and she stopped speaking.
I stood there feeling both ashamed of my behavior and furious at her for calling me out. I looked over at Stig for confirmation that I was in the right, but he just stared at the grass and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Take me to the dungeon core,” I said quietly, and Soraiya began walking again in silence.
Once we got about 300 yards away from the hangar, she stopped.
“Is this it?” I asked.
“It’s somewhere out here,” she said sullenly.
“‘Somewhere’? You don’t know where?”
“Not exactly. All I know is that he used to go out in that field after every experiment,” she said, pointing at what looked like just another expanse of tall grass.
“What happened to the other… ‘experiments’?” I asked uneasily.
“I have no idea. I just know that he came out here after he did things in the lab, and I never found out anything else.”
“What am I looking for?”
“A small cave in the ground.”
I gazed out at the field. I thought about ordering her to help me search, but part of me was worried that she might try to sabotage whatever I might find.
And another part of me was disgusted by how I’d acted, and didn’t want to look at her anymore.
“Stay here,” I ordered her, “and don’t move from this spot until I tell you to.”
“Even if you’re attacked?” she asked coldly.
I thought about that.
I’d seen her stab three explosive arrows in Orlo’s back. I was sure she could find some way to justify doing something similar to me.
“No, don’t come even if I’m attacked.”
“What if you die?” she sneered.
“Then I guess you’re going to be standing here a long fucking time. Grung, Stig – let’s go.”
We left her there alone and started sweeping the field, spread out in a row like a search party looking for a body.
In a way, I guess, we were.
After ten minutes of looking, Stig called out, “Boss, I found somethin’.”
I walked over to where he was standing. Sure enough, under the knee-high grass (or Stig-tall if you were using him as your unit of measurement) there was a three-foot-diameter hole in the dirt that was mostly camouflaged by the undergrowth around it.
“I’ll go in first,” I said, and pulled a torch out of my bag. “Light this for me.”
As Stig summoned a fireball in the palm of his hand, I realized I had forgotten to say something.
“Please,” I added.
Stig nodded, and touched the fireball to the torch.
With a source of light in hand, I sat down on the edge of the hole and lowered myself inside.
4
Once my feet touched solid ground, I lifted my torch and had a look around.
It wasn’t a normal cave. At least not like Orlo’s lair, with its passageways carved out of rock. This was a dank underground space carved out of dirt, and not much more.
I shone the light around me. The room was more or less rectangular. It appeared to be very recently dug. There was a rich, earthy smell and a dampness in the air. I guess it could have been some sort of animal’s underground den. It was big enough for a bear, but there were no bones or anything else that a bear would have left behind.
There was, however, something else.
It was a green, translucent blob, maybe twelve inches tall, that oozed along the dirt floor towards me. Pseudopod-like appendages strained from its surface like an overgrown amoeba, only to collapse back into its body.
Jesus – is that what I think it is?
I selected the ugly little monstrosity and confirmed my suspicions.
Slime mold – Level 1
Slime molds were pretty much what the name implied: creatures made of slime that looked like somebody had popped them out of a Lovecraftian Jell-O mold. (Yes, I know that ‘mold’ has a different meaning here, but whatever – Lovecraftian Jell-O mold fits to a ‘t.’) They were disgusting monsters that would attack living creatures, encase them in their gooey bodies, and slowly digest them. It wasn’t uncommon to see bigger slime molds with entire skeletons encased in rusty armor inside their gelatinous bodies.
Though this one looked relatively harmless, slime molds quickly got more dangerous as they leveled up. Besides an increase in size, speed, and strength, they could also develop powers: acid attacks, the ability to ‘throw’ goopy spores at enemies, even mimicry. I’d heard of some pretty convincing humanoid shapes made out of color-shifting slime-molds. I’d also heard some nasty stories of them crawling up onto ceilings, lying in wait, and then dropping down on the first hapless player to walk beneath them.
Though you’d occasionally see them aboveground, they tended to frequent caves and underground caverns. In fact, there were entire dungeons built around slime molds –
THAT’S IT! I realized. This is –
Well, it MIGHT be what I’m looking for…
It was definitely a slime mold dungeon, that much was true. Although it was probably the saddest ‘dungeon’ I think I’d ever seen in my life.
Was it Alaria’s dungeon, though?
If she’d had a choice, I didn’t see her wanting to have anything to do with slime molds.
Then again, I wasn’t even sure if she really was a dungeon core. Hell, I wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.
The slime mold sssslurped and glurrrrpped its way over to my foot and latched on like a repugnant toddler from another dimension.
I tried kicking it off, but it hung onto my boot like a glob of green jelly. Or, worse (and more accurately), a snot loogie hawked up out of a giant’s throat.
‘-1’ floated up through the air, and my Health fell by one.
When you’ve got 1800+ hit points, one is not a big deal – but still.
“You little bastard,” I muttered.
I stomped hard, but he hung on. And he was slowly crawling up my boot.
So I hit him with Darkfire.
The spell usually lasted six seconds – but after one second, the slime mold burst like an overstuffed pimple, splattering green gobbets all over the floor of the cave.
I winced. “Gross…”
‘3 XP’ floated up through the air.
Wow.
I would have gotten more Experience Points from picking my nose.
“You okay down there, boss?” Stig’s voice asked from above.
I didn’t think I was in any danger from this dungeon’s slime molds – not unless the place suddenly filled up with them like a swimming pool full of lime-green Jell-O.
“I’m fine,” I called out. “Stay up there until I need you.”
I continued my search. At the far end of the cave was another hole, sort of like a doorway. Beyond that was more darkness that my torchlight couldn’t penetrate from where I stood.
Caution got the better of me – after all, I had no idea what lay in the next room. Maybe a whole horde of nasty, undulating mucus blobs.
I was just about to call out to Stig when I saw something out of the corner of my eye – a flash of golden light.
I looked around quickly but saw nothing.
Had I imagined it?
Suddenly a small, sharp pain zapped my ass. It felt like a spark of static electricity.
“Ow!” I exclaimed, and turned around as fast as I could.
A blur of light trailing golden dust flew out from behind me and zipped through the air.
So I hadn’t imagined it!
I selected the tiny object, because it was too damn fast to s
ee what it was.
Fairy – Level 1
Huh.
Fairies were a somewhat rare sight in OtherWorld. They weren’t a playable Class, so they were always NPCs. Usually they were employed as pretty background imagery in forests and nothing more, though I’d heard of adventures where players encountered them on quests like Gulliver and the Lilliputians, getting tied down with golden threads and whatnot.
Fairies belonged to a family of creatures that included pixies, sprites, and brownies. I knew nothing about the differences between them, other than fairies and pixies could fly, and brownies and sprites couldn’t.
Level 1 – that explained why its attack hadn’t been more powerful. Not that it was painless, mind you. Just more annoying than anything else.
I checked my hit points and noted with amusement that I had lost another hit point. Or less than 0.1% of my Health.
Jesus – between the fairies and slime molds, I don’t know if I’m going to get out of here alive.
That was sarcasm.
Now I knew how Orlo and Saykir must have felt when I hit them with my paltry spells.
Well… hopefully mine had been a little more painful than a static electricity pop.
The blur of golden light swooshed back and forth like a hummingbird, if hummingbirds glowed and gave off faint trails of pixie dust.
I could have killed it with a single Darkbolt – actually, I would have annihilated it – but I didn’t really want to. I’d had my fill of inflicting cruelty for the day.
“Hold on,” I said, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Mustn’t hurt Mistress!” a tiny little voice said. It was high-pitched and feminine, innocent and naïve-sounding, breathy and unexpectedly sexy – sort of like a two-inch-tall Marilyn Monroe. “Big Thing must leave, now!”
“‘Mistress’? Is that your name?”
“No, I is Wylla!”
“You’re a fairy?”
“I is – a dungeon fairy!” the tiny voice said with immense pride.
I had no idea what a ‘dungeon fairy’ was, though I assumed it was just a fairy that hung out in dungeons. God knows why.
“Stay still for a second.”
“Why?” the voice asked distrustfully.
“I want to see you, and I can’t if you keep moving so fast.”