Dungeon Dalliance

by Charles Andrews

  “Son of a bitch!” I shouted. “We’re trapped!”

  I looked up at the crystals above us. They glowed with the same power that I’d seen in all the other crystals I’d used to fight off the various monstrosities living in this dungeon. Only now it seemed like those crystals were turning on us. Getting ready to take us out.

  I can’t say that I liked having the awesome magical power I’d been using to save our asses suddenly turning against us.

  “Maybe I could blast a way through the barrier?” Keli said.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” I said. “I get the feeling that barrier isn’t the magic in the room trying to keep us here so much as it’s the devs trying to keep us in here for the boss fight.”

  The look of dawning realization and horror on her face was heartbreaking. She looked to Sefia. Yeah, she was realizing exactly what that meant for our companion, and it wasn’t anything good.

  “I’m sorry I brought you here,” I said.

  A crack from directly overhead drew my attention. Another crystal stalactite was on the verge of breaking free.

  I moved without thinking. I was a player, after all. I could live to see another day even if I did die in the moment. That wasn’t the case with Sefia though. No, if she was taken out then that was that.

  So I shoved her out of the way as the crystal came crashing down. The thing stabbed into me and it hurt like a motherfucker, but I hit myself with a quick heal over time to counteract the way my hit points were dropping like a rock.

  Sure it didn’t help that there was a giant crystal spear buried in my body pinning me to the ground, but at least that heal over time kept me alive. A wound that probably would’ve killed me in the real world was only an inconvenience because of the way the game mechanics worked.

  “Motherfucker that hurts!” I said.

  Something else filled my mind as I cried out in pain, though. Something that had been missing up to that moment. Something I’d felt every other moment of our delve into the cave.

  There was that anger, but under that was something else. There was curiosity as well. I turned, and boy let me tell you it hurt like a motherfucker to turn when I had a giant crystal shard buried in my body, and saw that glowing getting more and more pronounced from the crystal sphere in the middle.

  The shaking was really starting to tear the place down around us. I knew it was only a matter of time before something landed that was going to really ruin our fucking day. All it would take was one of those crystals hitting me in the head and that’d be all she wrote. It’s not like I could do another save like the last one either. Not when I couldn’t move because I was sort of speared to the floor by this motherfucker of a crystal.

  “Come on!” I shouted at the green orb. “Do your fucking best! Show us what you have!”

  “Is it really a good idea to antagonize the powerful magical creature that’s trying to kill us?” Sefia asked, looking at the other jagged crystal stalactites that looked just on the edge of seriously harming us.

  I gritted my teeth, but there was that feeling. That sense of curiosity under the anger. An almost separate emotion. As though there were two sets of emotion warring for supremacy in this chamber, and there was something about that curiosity that was winning out.

  I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t feeling it playing out in my head.

  More crystals broke free. They flew down and I knew this was going to be it. We’d activated some defense mechanism, something in the dungeon that was meant to keep players out of here, and clearly we hadn’t done whatever the prerequisite was to fight off those crystals lancing through the air towards us. Maybe there was something we were supposed to get from the monsters up above. Maybe there was some clue we’d missed.

  Whatever it was, we were about to die. I’d failed myself, Keli, and more than anything I’d failed Sefia who’d followed us down here despite her misgivings. Now she was going to die for it. Permanently.

  The crystals fell. A wave of bright green magic shot out from the sphere. Slammed into those crystals and stopped them, which created a massive explosion of energy as whatever magic was trapped within the crystals combined with whatever magic was being sent out of the sphere.

  Damn. When the people who made this game put shit together they really knew how to make it look impressive! I looked away from the explosion, and when I looked back everything seemed a hell of a lot more calm than it’d been just moments ago.

  That hazy green magic was over us. The room was still going to shit all around us, but every time one of those crystals fell it hit the magic and disappeared in a similarly explosive fashion. Thankfully those explosions were going up and away from us, and down where they could seriously fuck our shit up.

  “Amazing,” I said, looking up at the fireworks on display.

  “Amazing?” Keli said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. What the hell is going on here?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think it has something to do with whatever’s lurking in there.”

  I pointed to the sphere. Where there was still something magical pulsing inside. Something that looked like it was straining to get out. Something that looked like it was powerful enough that it could kill all our asses with a thought.

  Those thoughts were getting stronger and stronger with every moment, too. As though the thing was waking from a deep slumber or something. As though there was something seriously dangerous going on in here.

  “Um, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”

  “What is that?” Keli asked.

  Sefia, for her part, seemed to have completely lost it. She fell to her knees and bent over so she was staring down at the crystal beneath her feet and not looking at the thing coming out of the sphere. It was the figure that’d been in there earlier. The thing that looked like a photo negative with green magical mist rising from it.

  And it was awake.

  “Looks like whatever was in there has decided to come pay us a visit,” I whispered, not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but pretty sure we were on the verge of having our digital asses handed to us.

  The thing floated over. As it moved a corridor of green light surrounded it in swirls. As though there was a horizontal tornado of magic surrounding the thing and protecting it from the crystals being hurled down from all around, like the whole mountain was coming down on top of us and this magical creature was the only thing protecting us.

  “Weird,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Keli asked, still staring at the thing with more wonder than terror.

  “You’d think if this thing really wanted to kill us then it wouldn’t be stopping all those crystals from coming down and fucking our shit up,” I said. “She could’ve let dungeon fall apart around us and that would be that.”

  “Maybe,” Keli said. “Or maybe there’s something going on here that goes way beyond our understanding of how the game works.”

  “Maybe that’s the case too,” I said.

  I was willing to admit that there was a lot I just didn’t know about this game. A lot I was taking on faith based on previous gaming experiences. I’d been winging it pretty much since the moment I entered the game and found my ass getting gouged by boar tusk, and now didn’t seem like any time to stop winging it.

  Especially when there was a hot being of pure magic floating before us and looking down with what I imagined was the same kind of curiosity a young child down on the flatland had when they were looking at ants or some other bug that they were trying to decide if they were going to end or not.

  It wasn’t exactly a fun feeling thinking about how this gorgeous creature could end us if it wanted to, but then again I was the one playing the game based on high fantasy where there were plenty of powerful beings that could end someone without blinking or feeling the least bit of remorse about it.

  “Um, hi?” I said, trying not to stare.

  Though honestly it was diffi
cult not staring. She definitely hewed more towards the female side of the gender spectrum, and she was nothing short of spectacular. Sure she was still doing that magical glow thing, but as she got closer it seemed to dissipate around her just a little until there was a sexy creature floating before us with some mist coming off of her and a slight green tone to her skin, but there were definitely skin tones now.

  She regarded us from a perfect body that was completely nude. Her breasts were large and didn’t show a hint of gravity doing its work on her. Her figure was a perfect hourglass that moved down to a little slice of heaven between her legs. She had long flowing white hair that fell down past her shoulders, and was perfectly coiffed for all that she was a magical being who looked like she’d been trapped down here for a long time.

  That showed just how the game had its hooks in me at this point. Of course she wasn’t a magical being who’d been stuck down here forever. This whole world had only come into being about a month back. Still, I was starting to think that way because this world was starting to feel more real to me than the real world.

  “You called to me,” the voice said. “I heard your call and I have come.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said, suddenly unsure of what to say. It’s not like I had much experience talking with living goddesses. The only advice I’d ever gotten on talking with gods was saying yes when they inquired about the status of my own divinity, but she hadn’t said her right words so it’s not like I could use that quote.

  It’s not like the nice magical monstrosity that wasn’t killing us yet would have any idea what the hell I was talking about if I did go quoting ancient movies at her, for that matter.

  “Why have you come here?” she asked, her voice sounding slightly off.

  I’m sure it was meant to be a magical effect, but it really sounded like whoever did the sound design for this encounter had decided to double the voice work and then do some work on the doubling to give it an otherworldly quality that was anything but because it sounded like every other cheesy vocal special effect when a being was supposed to be all powerful and mysterious and shit.

  “Um. We seek any wisdom you might offer?”

  The woman looked down at me. Smiled.

  “So many others have come here looking for power. You are the first to seek wisdom. How do I know you don’t lie?”

  I looked up. The place was still coming down around us. That fury was more powerful than ever, but it was like it was being held at bay by something. Maybe even by the creature floating before us looking so distractingly beautiful.

  And that’s when it hit me.

  “You’re not the dungeon boss,” I said. “You’re the reward. You’re trapped down here just as sure as we are!”

  12

  Captive Goddess

  “What are you talking about?” Keli asked. “Of course she’s the boss for this dungeon. What else would she be?”

  “No, she isn’t,” I said, feeling with my thoughts and searching her feelings for what I knew to be true. This was Teiafa I’d created a link with, and…

  “She’s being held captive here. I can sense it.”

  “And we have a winner!” Treanna said, doing a little twirl in the air that showed off all of her distracting curves, but I was so caught up in the moment that I wasn’t all that into paying attention to her or the distractions she had on offer.

  “That’s what I felt when I was out there fighting off the crystal guardian. That was you who came out, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  Teiafa smiled. It looked odd on her light green face, but it was beautiful for all that. Everything about her was beautiful. And more than a little distracting considering how worked up I got earlier.

  “The question is why did you come up there? Why project your consciousness when this thing is out there?”

  “I can fight it,” she said, shivering as she looked up at the crystal destruction raining down on us. “It is difficult, but it is possible. For now.”

  For now. That was ominous. If an all powerful creature was having trouble holding back the big scary thing that was keeping her captive then what chance did we have? But of course we had a chance. It’s not like this was the real world where things had no rhyme or reason for the most part.

  No, this was a game. This was a world that had been designed by other humans. This was a world where there was a way to get through something this difficult, because whoever put this together had designed it that way.

  All we had to do was figure out what it was we needed to do to get through this part of the dungeon.

  If there was a way to fight these things then maybe this beautiful creature before me had something to do with that clue. So I held my hand out. Offered it to her.

  She looked down as though she wasn’t sure what to make of that offered hand. Looked up and smiled.

  “We can help you,” I said.

  I knew I was taking a hell of a risk here. I knew there was still a chance that this creature could be a terrifying monstrosity that was about to turn all of us inside out.

  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was right about this. That this beautiful magical creature needed our help. That if we could help her to escape then…

  Her hand reached out and touched mine, and a notification popped up that told me I was totally on the right track here.

  Social link with Teiafa level up!

  Current level: 2.

  The mysterious creature trapped by the forest crystal cave has come to you for assistance. Discover her secrets and help her to seal your fate!

  Well then. Seal my fate? That seemed ominous. I wasn’t sure I wanted any fates to be sealed or anything like that. Especially when we were buried in a crystal mountain growing like a cancer in the middle of a massive forest that seemed like it was on the verge of coming down around us.

  Still. There was that touch. It felt good. Really good. She smiled, leaned in to kiss me, and I had a moment of fleeting worry for Keli and Sefia standing next to me.

  I didn’t have to worry about Treanna, at least. She was doing little barrel rolls all around my head and pumping her fist. Whooping as those lips made contact with mine, and suddenly the world flashed white around me and then disappeared to nothing.

  Well, almost nothing. I turned around, just a touch confused at what the hell was going on here, and found myself staring out at the crystal cavern. Only it was a very different view of the place because I was staring from the inside of the sphere.

  Green magic moved around the edge of the sphere obscuring what was going on in the outside world even more than it already had been. As though someone, or something, wanted to have a little privacy in here.

  With the hand that’d just been offered to me and the lips that’d just been planted on mine I had a pretty good idea of exactly which all powerful magical creature was looking for a little privacy, and I shivered in anticipation of what was about to happen.

  I turned to see the magical creature floating in the middle of her sphere, but she wasn’t lying on her back like before. No, she was upright and staring at me with the faintest hint of a smile on her face. Every inch of her body was perfection suspended in the air.

  I stepped forward and floated up. I suppose flying through the air should’ve been a trippy feeling, but I was more concerned by the embrace that wrapped around me as I made contact with this magical woman.

  “I felt you out there,” she said. “That’s what drew me. The strength of your feeling. The strength of your desire while you fought the crystal guardians. Show me what it means.”

  She leaned in and kissed me again.

  It was a hesitant kiss at first. Like I was having a genuine “show me what kiss is Jim Kirk” moment with a fantastical creature that wasn’t sure about the ins and outs of human mating behavior. Pun totally intended.

  This gorgeous creature certainly had my attention though. Her body pressed against mine in all the right ways, and I wasn’t complaining as she fumbled at my cloth
es with an urgency that surprised me.

  Then again I guess it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that she was feeling a certain sense of urgency. After all, I had no idea how long she’d been buried down here in this cavern. Maybe it’d been so long that she was just as hard up for a little bit of attention from the opposite sex as I was because of my long dry spell as a result of being stuck at the Academy where no woman would give me the time of day.

  “Show me what you can do,” she said.

  It was nuts. Here I was in yet another encounter where the horniness I was projecting with my mind had somehow gotten the attention of a lady who was interested in having a little bit of fun, only this time around the lady who was interested in having a little bit of fun was an elemental being of pure magic who wanted to get busy.

  I was really going to have to learn how to stop projecting those thoughts, but at the same time it’s not like I was complaining if that projection resulted in fun encounters like this!

  So I went with it. If she was asking me for this kind of fun then I was going to give it to her. It’s not like I was a slouch in that department. I’d been with plenty of women when I was down on the surface where I could get the time of day from a lady, and if I was a little rusty at this then at least I figured I could make up for it with enthusiasm!

  My hands roamed over her body. She was surprisingly warm. Like the magic that pulsed deep inside her was heating her body beyond what I would expect.

  That or, again, it’d been so long that I just didn’t remember what it was like. Then again it’s not like what a woman feels like under your hand is the kind of thing a guy ever forgets. Even if it had been awhile.

  I explored her mouth with my own as my hands moved down between her legs to see what there was to feel there.