by DB King
After he had finished explaining the dungeons to the Akhians, he’d bade them farewell. They’d agreed to stay in the Home Port inn for now. The Maiden’s Hope would be making the crossing back to the Isles of the Sun in due course, and the Akhians could travel back as far as there if they wanted to, and take a ship from the Isles back to Akhi.
When he’d said goodbye and thanked them, Marcus had walked with Ben and Anja back to the slums. He’d sought out the slum dwellers’ leaders and had them show him where the bodies had been found, and where the nearby Underway entrance was. Then, he had sent his companions back to the stronghold.
They had protested, but he’d insisted. Marcus felt that the silver dagger given to him by the dungeons was a message. None of the others had been given silver weapons, though the dungeon could have chosen to do so. Marcus took that to mean that he and no other was to go up against the vampires.
He had decided that the most direct way of finding out more was to find the three vampires who had escaped from their prison in the Underway. There was no doubt in his mind that these vampires were the ones responsible for the spate of exsanguinations that had recently plagued the city. Vampires cannot abide daylight, but they must feed, so he figured that they must be hiding out in the Underway, nearby to a place where they could come out and get food.
So, he would run them to ground. He was not concerned for his own safety. He had a silver dagger that could kill a vampire with one stroke. He had his dungeons, which he could open and use to trap the vampires if necessary, and he had a powerful arsenal of spells at his command. Over everything, he had a compelling sense that he should do this alone. His dungeon master’s instinct had never been wrong before, and he did not think it was wrong now.
He waited, watching the dark Underway entrance as the pale moon sailed slowly across the cloudy sky. When it was completely dark, he moved.
Silent as a shadow, he slipped through the night toward the entrance, sticking to the shadow of the walls as he approached. His silver dagger was in his hand, and his mace was loose in his belt so that he could draw it and place a dungeon at a moment’s notice.
At the entrance to the Underway, he stopped, listening.
When he was content that there was no sound from within, he slipped through the entrance.
“Ultimate Stealth,” he said, and felt the spell take effect. Marcus barely made any sound normally, but now he was as silent as if he were not there at all.
This time, he let the upgrade that came from using the spell slip past his vision straight away, instead of putting it off.
Spell: Ultimate Stealth Level 1
Level Increase: 6%
Progress to next level: 79%
His eyes adjusted to the dark. Marcus had always had good night vision, but since he had become the dungeon master, his night vision had increased tenfold. To Marcus’s eyes, the darkness of the corridor looked as if it were lit by moonlight, though to a normal person it would have been utterly dark.
He crept along the narrow passage. When it broadened out and split in two directions, he looked closely at the ground. Sure enough, there were traces here. Not much, but the thin lair of mud and grime that coated the corridor had been disturbed in the corridor to the right, but not the one to the left.
Taking the right-most corridor, Marcus crept stealthily along until he reached a shaft that plunged straight downward. There were wedges cut into the rock wall of the shaft that would serve as steps. Again, an examination of the ground showed no disturbance on the corridor floor beyond the opening of the shaft.
Got you, he thought as he swung down the shaft and climbed.
It was a long way down. After several minutes of careful climbing, Marcus reached a flat surface. He was in a wider passage that smelled damp and cold. A rat scurried past his feet and vanished into a drainage hole.
Marcus looked around, straining his ears for any sound. And he heard something. Voices. Two voices, indistinct, coming from his right.
Stealthy as a hunting cat he went that way, the voices getting louder and clearer as he approached them. He reached a doorway leading off the main tunnel. It opened on a shaft that fell steeply downward, and at the end of the shaft, a glimmer of light cut through the darkness.
Marcus cast his stealth spell again and made his way down the shaft. As he did so, the voices became more distinct until, as he approached the end of the shaft, he could make out what they were saying.
There was a man and a woman speaking together. They sounded bored.
“It’s your turn to deal,” the man said, petulantly.
“I don’t care,” the woman replied. “You’re better at it than me. I fumble the cards and take ages to shuffle, and then you laugh at me and complain that I didn’t shuffle properly when I win.”
“All the more reason for you to practice,” the man countered.
“As if I need to be good at cutting and dealing cards. Why are we playing this stupid game anyway?”
“Because there’s nothing better to do?” the man said dryly. “And because it keeps our minds off feeding?”
“It might keep your mind off feeding,” the woman grumbled. “As for me, I could eat a town. Is there anything left from the last one?”
“Don’t talk like that,” the man said. “You know as well as I do that there isn’t any left. Here, deal the damn cards.”
“Oh, give them here then.”
There was a slapping sound, and the noise of something falling to the ground. The woman cursed, and the man laughed.
“I told you that I was no good at it!” the woman said angrily.
“And I told you that means you need to practice!”
Marcus frowned as he edged up toward the source of the light. He had not known exactly what to expect here, but he certainly hadn’t expected to hear what sounded like two bored humans bickering about a card game. At the end of the shaft there was an opening three feet across and two feet high. He leaned forward and peered down into the chamber beyond.
At a small, square wooden table, a man and a woman sat by the light of a single candle. They were odd-looking, young yet not young, human and yet somehow not human. A chill ran over him, and yet they seemed so normal.
Are these the vampires we’ve been so worried about? he thought. They certainly didn’t look all that threatening, but appearances could be deceiving.
They were dressed strangely, in ragged gray garments that looked ancient. The clothing they wore was clearly damp and moldy, and their pale skin showed through rents in the cloth. They were both inhumanly pale, an unhealthy whiteness, like mushrooms that grow in the dark. The man had black hair and a short black beard, and the woman had black hair that was long and hung down her back in a damp tangle. For all their strangeness, they had the same high cheekbones and slight curves to their noses. They could almost have been brother and sister. In fact, by their bickering, Marcus considered that as a distinct possibility.
The woman dealt the cards clumsily, slap, slap, slap, on the wooden table as Marcus examined the rest of the room. It seemed entirely empty except for three great stone jugs that stood up against one wall. Where did these people sleep? Did they sleep? And were they not cold? The air was cold and damp, and yet they were dressed in rags and they were both barefoot.
The man picked up his cards and then threw them down again. “I’ve got the same three cards as last time! You need to learn to shuffle, Daya!”
They resumed their bickering about the card game. Marcus decided he’d had enough. Silently, he eased his dungeon mace from his belt and aimed it through the gap at the wall on the opposite side of the room from his observation post.
Crucible: Place Arena Dungeon, he said in his mind. The wall next to the vampires shimmered, and the bronze door appeared there. Both vampires leaped up from the table, glaring at the door.
“What in the… where did that come from?” the woman asked.
“I’ve no idea, Daya,” the man said, “but don’t you fe
el the energy from it?”
“I… yes! Yes I do!” she said, approaching the door reverentially. “It’s… can it be this that woke us? It’s the same feeling I got when I awoke, the power of it ringing through me like a trumpet call.”
She padded toward the door on her bare feet and held out one long, thin arm to place a pale hand on the door. As Marcus had hoped, the dungeon responded. The door swung open.
Where is the third vampire? Marcus wondered. There were three coffins and three sets of prints, but there are only these two here. Perhaps the third one is out hunting and they’re waiting for him to return with some victim to feed on?
“Oh, Max, can you feel it?” the vampire woman said.
The man responded quietly. “I can feel it, but be wary, Daya. What is this? Surely it must be some trick? I don’t know what this is, but I don’t like it, and we’re unable to use our full powers…”
That was all Marcus needed to hear. Despite his words, the male vampire called Max was moving toward the dungeon entrance. He stepped up to the door and leaned his head inside, and Daya hung on the edge of the door, gazing in.
Casting his Ultimate Stealth spell again, Marcus slipped feet first through the gap. His silver dagger was in his hand as the spell progress flashed through his mind. Much more of this and he would be up a level!
Spell: Ultimate Stealth Level 1
Level Increase: 5%
Progress to next level: 85%
In one bound, he crossed the little room and grabbed Daya from behind, casting Hero’s Might as he did. The strength filled him, and the progress flashed up even as he grabbed the vampire woman.
Spell: Hero’s Might Level 2
Level increase: 6%
Progress to next level: 45%
He pulled her back, off balance, and held the silver knife to her throat as he pulled her away from the dungeon entrance and pinned her arms behind her with his left hand.
“Don’t move!” he shouted. “Don’t move, either of you. This knife is pure silver and will kill you at a stroke, but I don’t want to kill you. I just want to talk. Can we talk?”
The man had whirled and now stood frozen by the entrance to the dungeon, staring in horror at Daya and Marcus.
“Wh… what do you want to talk about?” Max said shakily.
“I want to talk about you. About who you are, and why you’re here, and where the third member of your party is. I want to talk about the Corsair, and the dungeons, and the killings that have been afflicting my city. I want to talk about it all, but I’ll kill you instead if I have to.”
“All right, all right!” Max said, holding up his hands. “We’ll talk. Let her go, and we’ll talk. We’ll tell you everything.”
Marcus eased his grip on the woman’s arms slightly. Despite her small stature, Marcus could feel immense strength in her slight arms as he pinned them in his own. He remembered the handprints on the insides of the coffins, and the three-inch thick lead that had been smashed outward with sheer brute strength.
“Slowly,” he warned. “I’m going to trust you and let you go slowly.”
He eased his grip on Daya’s arms and let his knife move away from her throat.
A moment too late, he saw Max’s eyes meet Daya’s and realized the message. Daya sprang away from him, quick as a striking snake. Sudden horror gripped Marcus as he thought he had massively miscalculated. If they both attacked him at once, would he be able to fend off the attack?
But to his surprise, neither of them tried to attack him. Instead, Daya dashed to Max and grabbed his hand, and together they fled from Marcus—through the bronze door and straight into the Arena dungeon.
Chapter 15
The gate into the arena clanged open, and the roar of the crowd erupted. He’d been startled and braced for combat, but he quickly realized what had happened. For some reason, these creatures were drawn to the dungeons like moths to a candle flame. They must have seen the dungeon doorway as an escape from him, a place of safety.
Another thought struck him. They had no idea what it was they were charging into. What if they got themselves killed in the arena? The dungeons seemed to want to be helpful recently, but Marcus was not sure he wanted to trust his dungeon system’s new sentience quite that much. He would have to go in after them and see that they didn’t get themselves killed before he could talk to them—after all, they seemed the most likely to be able to tell him what was going on.
“Damn it!” he cursed under his breath as he heard the clanging of metal gates and the shrieking and bellowing of the crowd from above. “The dungeon’s throwing enemies at them already! I have to get in there. Here’s hoping these guys can fight!”
With that, he charged in through the entrance and pounded up the stairs, hearing the bronze doorway clang shut behind him.
When he leaped into the arena, his sword in one hand and his mace in the other, he was greeted with a strange sight. When he had entered the arena before, the sky above had been bright blue and dotted with clouds. Now, the arena was awash with white moonlight. A fat full moon gleamed down on the arena, turning the whole scene into one of white sand and inky shadows. In the stands, the crowd was a shadowy mass in the moonlight, but they leaped and cheered with as much enthusiasm as ever.
The vampires were at the other side of the arena. Instead of a champion and two chariots, this time the dungeon had thrown three champions out to begin with. As Marcus ran in, he saw Daya leap at the nearest champion. The champion swung his warhammer at her, but she caught its shaft in mid-air with her left hand and leaped up to kick the champion in the face with her bare feet.
The champion’s bronze helmet crumpled as his head snapped back, and the warhammer bent and broke in the small woman’s grip as if it were made of hollow tin.
A second champion charged in to help his comrade, but Max launched himself forward to intercept him. An animal snarl came from Max as he connected with his enemy. He dived in under the champion’s warhammer and, in a spurt of blood, he plunged his fist into the champion’s chest.
The blood-thirsty crowd roared in appreciation as Max yanked out the champion’s beating heart, held it up for a moment in the moonlight, and flung it to the ground.
Marcus watched in a kind of horrified fascination as Max and Daya, ignoring the third champion completely, dropped their faces to the necks of their defeated foes. Daya’s enemy, who was still alive, screamed as she plunged her teeth into his neck. Max’s champion was already dead, and he crumpled to the ground as the vampire fed.
The third champion turned his head and looked at Marcus. Marcus braced himself for the enemy’s charge. The champion raised his warhammer. With a bellowing cry, he thundered toward Marcus.
Marcus dodged left and stabbed upward as the champion swung. His blade clanged off his enemy’s partial chest plate, and the champion staggered. Marcus dived in and smacked the champion’s left leg out from under him, dispatching him with a swift stab to the chest. Blood fountained upward and Marcus stepped away, looking around the dungeon.
He felt a surge of creative energy swirling around him. It took him a moment to identify its source—the dungeon! The dungeon was preparing another wave of monsters.
With a strange twist of his will, Marcus realized that he was in control of the surge. He held out his free hand and stopped it. He suppressed the second wave—and the gates on the other side of the arena slammed shut. There was a hissing sound, like wind through leaves, and Marcus looked up at the crowded stands. Smoke seemed to billow there for an instant, and, just like that, the crowd vanished.
The whole arena fell deathly silent.
Marcus turned slowly, his sword in one hand. He drew his silver dagger from his belt and balanced it in his other hand. Just below the surface he could feel the dungeon’s second wave, ready to be released at his command. With a stroke of his will, he could summon an army of monsters, but for the moment he chose not to. Instead, he turned to watch the vampires.
They were feeding.
Feeding until Marcus supposed that there could be no blood left in the champions. He stood and watched, and eventually, Daya raised her head. Max did the same. Blood running down their chins, they both looked up at the moon and howled like wolves.
The eerie sound chilled Marcus to his core. Earlier, he had thought them human, a brother and sister bickering over a game of cards. Now, with that piercing sound, he realized that whatever they were, it was not human. A sudden urge to call forth an army of monsters filled him. He thought of the lobster monstrosities from the Pirate’s Cove dungeon—they could spit liquid silver. Surely that would put an end to the vampires?
No, Marcus decided. Not yet, at least. He wanted to know what these creatures were, and what they had to tell him.
He took two steps forward. “Enough!” he roared, and his voice echoed and rang off the walls of the empty arena. The two vampires let off their howling abruptly and turned to face him slowly.
They had changed, he saw. Their bodies had filled out, and they looked less haggard, but their faces were still just as pale. The blood that covered their chins looked black in the moonlight. They stood beside each other and grinned malevolently, their fangs glittering. Their eyes burned like red coals, the only color in the whole pallid scene.
“Well,” Max said, as Marcus stopped ten paces away from them, “that was unexpected and very welcome. We don’t like to feed on the innocent when we can help it, but these warriors, well, that’s a different story.”
He gestured to the fallen champions and lifted his ragged sleeve to wipe his mouth. Daya stepped forward, wiped her mouth, and pointed a finger at Marcus. “Who are you?” she demanded, “and what is this place?”
“My name is Marcus,” he replied simply, “and this is a dungeon of evolution. I am the master of the dungeons. You are in my realm, and I still want to talk with you.”
Daya glanced at Max. “A dungeon of evolution?” she said suspiciously. “But I thought they had been gone from the world for hundreds of years. How is it that you come to be here, with this great power?”