Dungeon Dalliance

by Charles Andrews

  I figured the moment I stepped on the other side of that exit the whole thing would come down around us, and not a moment too soon. The only problem was Tomas stood there with the two assholes we’d left in our dust when we were on our way down through the dungeon, and none of them looked all that happy to see us.

  Madison was also there. At least it was the girl who I was pretty sure was Madison. She had her arms crossed and she was looking around like she wanted to be anywhere but in the middle of a crystal mountain that seemed like it was on the verge of coming down around us.

  “Sup loser?” Tomas said. “I bet you thought you could get away. Well I’m going to bring a world of hurt down on you.”

  I looked around. Took in the dungeon that was threatening to fall down around us. Sure I knew there wasn’t any danger of the thing actually falling down around us until the right moment, but they didn’t know that. The other two assholes were looking around like they were worried they were going to be squashed like bugs at any moment.

  It was a good look on them. I’m not gonna lie. Seeing fear being struck in the hearts of a couple of assholes I had no chance of taking in a fair fight was kinda a good feeling.

  “Um, are you sure we want to stay in here?” one of them asked. “Why don’t we just step outside and wait for this thing to come down around them?”

  “Would you dicks please stop being such huge gaping pussies?” Tomas snapped, his face contorted in red rage as he seemed to completely miss the ridiculous contradiction in what he’d just said. “You told me you wanted this guy taken care of, and I’m going to take care of him.”

  Keli, Teiafa, and Sefia appeared beside me. Keli held out her hand and a flame danced there, but a quick look at Tomas’ level compared to ours told the story. He was going to be able to at least kill me before we killed him, even if the girls might be able to avenge my death.

  Then again. There was Teiafa standing next to us with her green skin looking like she could really do some damage if she put her mind to it. I wasn’t sure of what she could do though. Especially if she was drained after fighting off whatever malevolent force had been holding her captive in here.

  I didn’t really have the cards, is the point, and I couldn’t rely on the cards I did have, so I figured it was time for me to bluff.

  “Are you sure you want to take another step closer Tommy?” I asked.

  “Your name is Tommy?” one of the other dudes asked with a laugh.

  A laugh that was cut short as Tomas’ sword made contact with the guy’s neck and relieved him of his head. That head went rolling, and it was a little funny watching the thing shaking and moving back and forth as the ground rumbled beneath us. Sort of funny, but sort of disgusting as well.

  “That’s disgusting,” Keli said.

  “She’s right on that score,” Treanna said. “I didn’t know a head could move around like that, and I’ve seen some pretty disgusting things in my day.”

  I didn’t bother to remind her that she was an AI in a video game that had only gone online a couple of weeks back, so it wasn’t really possible that she’d actually seen some disgusting things in her day. There wasn’t time for it, for one, and I knew she was jacked into the overall computer system running this game so who knew what kind of disgusting videos she had access to in an attempt to give her some semblance of true intelligence?

  “Take another step and you’re going to seriously regret it,” I said, trying to keep my voice nice and quiet. “Do you see this woman standing next to me?”

  Tomas looked the girl up and down, which earned him an annoyed look from Madison. She didn’t look all that happy at all at being dragged into this dungeon that looked like it was about to collapse in on itself in the first place.

  So she was already in a bad mood, and Tomas checking out my friend seemed to make that mood even worse.

  “Oh I see her,” Tomas said. “I don’t know what a loser rizon like you is doing to get all these girls to spend time with you in the game, but I can tell you that I’ll have a lot of fun with them when I kill your ass.”

  His blade shone red, slick with the blood of the asshole he’d just beheaded. It didn’t seem like it was a good move to go killing people who were supposed to be his friends, or at the very least his allies, but then again Tomas never struck me as the kind of guy to really care about that sort of thing to begin with.

  “Ready to die, asshole?” Tomas asked.

  “I need you to break to either side of him and run as fast as you can towards the exit,” I whispered.

  “What are you talking about?” Keli asked. “He’s going to kill you if we leave you in here! You don’t have any way of taking him on!”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said.

  “If this is you trying to be all macho and shit then it’s not working,” Sefia said. “We stand with you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Would you trust that I have a plan and it involves you getting the fuck out of here? The same goes for you too.”

  That last bit was directed at Teiafa. She smiled.

  “I could destroy him if you wanted,” she said.

  “I don’t doubt you could,” I said, not quite believing it. “But I have to do this on my own. I have to let him know I can take him out no matter what he does to me, and I don’t need to be all fancy at fighting or anything.”

  They all three stared at me for a long moment. Meanwhile Treanna was alternating between laughing and looking worried. After all, she could see what was going on in my head, and she knew the risks involved in what I was planning.

  “The spirit of the mountain is going to kill you if you’re not careful!” I shouted.

  “Bullshit,” Tomas said. “I don’t know who this glowing green chick is, but she’s not the spirit of the mountain. A useless Healer fuck like you didn’t conquer this crystal cave. That’s for me to do, and how dare you insinuate you beat me to something like that!”

  He raised his sword, and I figured this was the opportune moment. I hit him with a stun, and then a mez. I figured it wasn’t going to last very long even if it landed, but I did have a bunch of gear that gave me bonuses that were supposed to help with this sort of thing.

  All I could do was hope that all that gear I’d picked up actually did help.

  The stun didn’t land, but for a wonder the mez did. He stood there with his sword raised high in the process of coming down and slicing me up, but he was stuck where he stood unable to make a move. I could see his eyes moving so I knew he could see everything that was going on here, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  “Now!” I said, sprinting along with the ladies.

  We sprinted past the remaining asshole. He was busy chasing after his friend’s head and looking just a little confused that the guy they’d brought in here to help them out had turned on them, so he couldn’t do much of anything. That didn’t stop me from hitting him with a stun and kicking him in the ass on my way out though.

  Then I was next to Madison. I looked at her for a long moment, and thought of all the times she’d been right there while Tommy was acting like an asshole in the real world. All the times she’d looked down at me like I was the scum of the earth just because an accident of birth meant I’d been born on earth rather than in one of the massive elevators at equidistant points around the equator.

  And I knew I wasn’t going to leave without giving her a chance. She might’ve watched Tommy being an asshole, but she hadn’t been an active bitch. Not exactly.

  “You need to get the fuck out of here now,” I said.

  “Why the fuck are you even talking to her you loser?” Tomas asked.

  I wheeled around. Okay then. It looked like the mez had worn off. He was looking just a little confused, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he was back on his feet and ready to cause more trouble.

  “Because she’s stuck with an asshole like you the same as everyone else here,” I growled. “And I figure she deserves a chance to
get out of here before you bring her to her death!”

  “Whatever” Tomas said, hefting his sword and running at me.

  I sighed. There was nothing for it. I hit a stun on one of the crystals hanging over him, and a whole group of them came down all at once. I was kind of surprised that still worked, but I also wasn’t going to knock it if it did work.

  None of them actually killed him, but a few of them slammed into his body and pierced through him in much the same way that a crystal had pierced through me down below.

  I winced and turned away from the sight. It wasn’t pretty, that was for sure, but I figured the prick deserved every bit of what’d just happened to him if he was going to keep coming at me. His sword hand twitched a couple of times, and then the sword clattered to the floor.

  Also? He totally glared at me the entire time. Which I guess I should’ve totally expected considering I’d just impaled the asshole, but he was the one who brought it on himself.

  The remaining asshole had given up on chasing his friend’s head and he stared at me for a long moment. He blinked a couple of times, then turned tail and bolted.

  “What?” I shouted after them. “Where the fuck are you going? I thought you weren’t afraid of healers!”

  Maybe he hadn’t been afraid of healers, but he was afraid of whatever the hell I could do with the crystals all around us. Honestly I was a little afraid of it too, those things seemed to have more to do with whatever was holding Teiafa captive than they did with Teiafa, but it was too late to put that cat back I nthe bag.

  Also? Those crystals were totally starting to crack all around us. I glanced at Tomas one final time, and figured it was high time to get while the getting was good.

  So I grabbed Madison, ignoring her protests, and sprinted for the exit.

  15

  Skedaddle

  I was just a little surprised when my sprint at full speed took me right past the asshole who’d been there with Tomas ready to fuck my shit up. Maybe he didn’t have the same speed ability that I had. Maybe he didn’t realize the world of hurt that was about to come down on him.

  Maybe I was just more motivated because I knew there was something nasty lurking in the depths of this place. Something that I thought I could almost feel.

  Something that wasn’t the nice hot spirit who’d been nice enough to take me into her crystal whatever-the-fuck that thing was and really put the “fantasy” in “fantasy massive online virtual reality game.”

  Whatever the reason, I shot right past him, ignoring the way Madison beat at my back. I also grinned, because the cracking all around me only got worse as I shot past the prick. Yeah, I had a pretty good idea that what was going on here was an event that was designed to make it so the place crumbled to pieces right behind me, and that meant anyone who was left behind me when I finished the event and jumped out of the entrance in a suitably dramatic fashion was going to be fucked.

  I yelled and dove forward, tossing Madison ahead of me. It looked like sprinting past that prick had him redoubling his efforts to the point he was actually on the verge of catching up with me, and I didn’t want to give him even a chance to catch up with me and make it out of there alive.

  I realized my mistake as I crossed the dungeon threshold. I might be throwing myself to the ground, but unfortunately for yours truly that ground was still covered in crystals that looked like they were knives. Only they seemed to vanish in a puff of dust as I crossed the line from crystal mountain to forest.

  There was a crash like the world ending behind me, and I knew that I’d been right.

  “You made it!” Sefia said.

  “Of course I did,” I said, holding up a hand as I gasped for breath to let them know I was going to need just a little bit of a breather.

  I stood there with my chest heaving for breath. That was one of the bad things about being in a game like this where everything was so realistic. If this were an old game I was playing in front of a monitor I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit.

  Or if I did have to deal with some stupid mechanic like having to catch my breath then at the very least it would be represented by a bar on the screen and not by an impossibly nasty burning sensation running through lungs that felt like they wanted to just quit working and call it a day.

  “Of course they’re surprised,” Treanna said with a laugh. “You should’ve seen yourself as you were diving for that exit. It looked like something out of a cheesy action movie. Minus the big explosion behind you of course.”

  I didn’t have enough breath to tell her what I thought of her opinion, but I did have enough wherewithal to flip her the bird. She did an indignant twirl in the air, but blessedly she kept her running commentary to herself after that.

  “What happened there?” Keli asked, staring behind me with wide eyes.

  I’d finally caught my breath to the point where I felt like I could say something. I stood and turned to look, and it was pretty much what I’d expected.

  Sure there were a couple of details that were a little more gory than I’d expected. Like there were a couple of arms and I’m pretty sure what had been the top of someone’s head sticking out of the spot that had been the dungeon entrance until a couple of seconds ago.

  I winced, but I knew that asshole would be traveling to wherever it was players resurrected in the game. Also it’s not like he likely felt any pain as the whole entrance came down on him.

  “Load bearing boss,” I said.

  “What?” Keli asked.

  “We defeated a load bearing boss,” I said. “Y’know in a video game when you beat a boss and suddenly everything comes down around you? Well that’s what happened here.”

  “Huh,” Keli said. “I’ve never heard the term before, but it does sort of make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “But it’s a trope in gaming, and it looks like the people who put together Crystalia aren’t above tossing in some tropes. Whether that’s because they’re lazy or giving a nod is anyone’s guess.”

  “Well at least we got out of there before the whole place went up,” Sefia said, eyeing the entrance and all the body parts sticking out of it like she was imagining what it might’ve been like if she’d been the one who was caught there.

  She’d probably be communing with whatever deity she believed in, assuming there was even a deity like that or an afterlife that the developers had programmed for her. I couldn’t be sure about that, though it would make me feel better about putting her in potentially life threatening situations if I knew there was the digital equivalent of a nice afterlife waiting for her on the other side of whatever nasty death I’d inadvertently led her to.

  “Actually we were never in any danger of getting squished by anything,” I said.

  “What?” Sefia said. “How can you say that? The whole thing just came down and killed those poor people!”

  “Yup, and they were in danger because they weren’t keeping up with me. You were never in any danger as long as you were ahead of me because I’m pretty sure the whole event was tied to me since I was the one who technically defeated the dungeon.”

  “I have no idea what you’re saying,” Sefia said.

  Meanwhile Treanna was doing a little twirl in front of me. It was a distracting twirl because it showed off the delicious curve of her ass and some other things that she was probably showing me on purpose considering all that tight leather she wore. It also left me wondering how exactly she managed to keep that spiked witch’s hat on all the time while she was doing her aerial acrobatics, but that was a thought for another time.

  “I think I get it,” Keli said, talking slowly. “The dungeon was designed as an event for players. The devs wanted it to be a dramatic event where you had to make an escape with the whole thing coming down around us.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “We were never in any danger of any part of that dungeon coming down around us because it was programmed to come down behind us and make us think the whole thing was
going to come down around us at any moment.”

  Meanwhile the forest spirit, whatever the hell she was, stared between the three of us as though we were talking gibberish. Finally she spoke up, and as she did something seemed to happen to her.

  “I don’t…”

  She cried out in surprise as a strange light surrounded her. One moment she was that odd translucent green color, as though she was made of pure spiritual energy, and the next moment she stumbled forward and looked different.

  Very good, but different. She fell to the ground, for one, which was the source of that stumble. But I caught her before she actually hit the ground and potentially damaged anything. Which had my hands all over her, but considering everything we’d already shared down there in that dungeon I figured she wouldn’t mind.

  She looked up at me and smiled. And it was a smile that was a lot more substantial, because she was suddenly made of solid flesh rather than that ephemeral ectoplasm, or whatever the fuck it was she’d been made of before.

  I guess she’d felt real enough even before when she had that magical mist coming off of her, but she looked more solid now. Sure she still had a slight green tint to her skin, and sure she sparkled with magical energy, but she looked more solid.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, worried that something might’ve happened that broke her after that run through the dungeon.

  She collapsed to her knees, but then held a hand up when I moved to help her out again. Her breathing was coming in heavy gasps which was a bit of a distraction considering she still wasn’t wearing all that much, but she seemed to have some control.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s simply the magical connection to that place of power severing from me.”

  I turned to look at the crystal dungeon. Thought about the malice I’d felt lurking in there. The malice and the power. Power I’d been able to harness. Power I was starting to suspect didn’t have anything at all to do with the pretty forest spirit standing there with her faint green skin looking absolutely gorgeous wearing practically nothing.