Endless Dungeon

by Richard J Thorn

  Time slowed to a crawl, Cass's heart sped up and her hands grew clammy. She had a feeling this was going to be a much bigger fight than just a couple rats.

  Trexxa led them into a passageway that twisted down for several minutes before they came out into a large cavern. Stalactites hung ominously. Cass gasped when she saw the sparkling, clear stream. It was so clear that she was sure it had to be magically treated.

  Trexxa crouched down and Cass did the same and they watched, breathlessly, as a large were-boar walked by. Cass estimated that he weighed 150 pounds. Her mouth salivated at the thought of all that boar meat.

  But he wasn't going to go willingly.

  They waited until he turned around on his patrol route and headed back. They slipped back aways until they were out of sight of the rest. Trexxa indicated to the wand and Cass nodded. She was going to pull him with her new-found dot.

  Right before she cast her dot, she glanced at his hp bar. He was 2nd level and had 20 hp. Hopefully they could take him.

  Taking a deep breath, Cass called forth the same flame-licking thoughts and directed it toward the boar. Instantly, a shot of pure fire raced from the tip of her wand and blasted the unaware beast. He squealed, turned to face the direction of the flame and charged.

  Holy hell, she had no idea anything could run so fast. Just before the large beast pounced on her, Trexxa hissed and stepped out of the shadows.

  Chapter 3

  Cass's heart thundered in her chest as she had just seen her life flash before her eyes. Glancing at his hp, she saw that the lit pig was being cooked alive for 2 hp every second.

  Trexxa jumped out of the shadows and raked him across the face, causing another 3 hp, bringing him down to 15. The squeal he gave when he saw Trexxa, then noticed he was on fire, reverberated through the room, causing chills to sweep up the back of Cass's neck.

  She glanced at her mana and saw that her dot had only taken 1 mp, leaving her with 6. She didn't know how long the fire would last, but the smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils and made her gag.

  With great concentration, she conjured a fireball and sent it straight at the fighting beast. At the same time it struck him for 5, he gored Trexxa, taking a chunk of flesh from her shoulder.

  Cass cried out as she saw that Trexxa was left with 7 hp. She hadn't realized it until now, but she only had 3 more hp than she did.

  Trexxa uttered a guttural roar that sent chills through Cass's spine and lunged for the beast. Biting him, she pierced his tough hide and hit an artery. 4 hp were rent from his pool and blood started spurting everywhere. Her fire dot ticked one last time, causing another 2, leaving him with only 4.

  The blood loss didn't seem to stop him, however. It only made him angrier. He gnashed his teeth and leaped on Trexxa, toppling her to the floor. With enough mana to cast one more fire spell, Cass worried that she'd accidentally hit Trexxa instead. But she had to do something.

  Concentrating as hard as she could, Cass called forth the energy of the earth and directed it at the vicious boar. Again, instantly, the ball of flames leapt from her wand tip and blasted into the beast.

  It was something she'd need to reflect upon later, but it was obvious that the more she used her wand, the more connected she became and the easier it became to use. She could also tell that her spells were stronger and the fire hotter.

  The pig screamed as the fireball slammed into him for 6 hp, killing him. Trexxa used her powerful hind feet to kick him off, shoving his limp body to the wall. Cass flicked on her light and stared down at the dead pig. They did it. They'd worked together like a well-oiled team and brought down something tougher than either of them.

  *** Feral were-boar killed - XP gained: 10 ***

  That's when she noticed Trexxa was bleeding.

  "Oh no!" She cried out and fell to her knees in front of the raptor. But before she had a chance to do anything about it, the wound closed and healed itself.

  "What...what happened?" Cass looked up into the raptor's emerald eyes. "Why did you heal?"

  Trexxa hissed and pointed her to her spellbook.

  "You have a light healing spell?" Cass smiled, amazed. This was getting better and better all the time.

  Trexxa pointed.

  "Ah, I see. It's a self heal." She also saw that it had a 1-hour cooldown.

  "Well, that's awesome!" She stood and ruffled the raptor's head. "Why don't we drag this beast back home and have ourselves a feast."

  Trexxa held up a clawed hand.

  Cass watched as she stealthily darted into the room, looked around until she found a flask, rinsed it out in the pristine water and brought it back.

  "Thanks!" Cass took the proffered water and greedily drank down as much as she could. Her tummy rumbled with the fresh, cool liquid. She even poured some over her head and washed the dirt and blood away.

  Trexxa laughed and filled up the flask again. When she brought it back, she stuffed it in Cass's backpack.

  Together they rifled through the boar's body. They found about 15 cp and a bronze trinket. She had no idea what she was going to do with either of those things, but she threw them in her backpack anyway.

  Cass was about to drag the carcass back, when Trexxa stopped her.

  With a wicked smile on her face, she flashed her sharp claws and set to work dicing and slicing the beast up. Half an hour later he was cut into 10 equal portions of fresh meat.

  Cass could not believe what she'd just witnessed. Trexxa was honestly the best thing that had ever happened to her. She'd be lost without her. Hugging her close, she thanked the emerald-eyed raptor and offered her another swig of their water to which Trexxa gratefully accepted.

  "Is there another one in there?" Cass wondered aloud. Trexxa dashed off, rummaged around for a few minutes before hissing that she'd found one and held it aloft. After she rinsed it out and filled it up, she brought it back and put it in her own backpack.

  Once all the meat had been neatly packed up into her pack, they set off back down the way they came. Cass didn't like how dark and eerie it was. Far off sounds caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up. She was both curious and cautious about wanting to find out what was causing it.

  She also wanted to start putting her base together. Then it hit her! She could now make logs! After supper, she was going to have some experimenting to do. Could she make a log window? A door? How did that work?

  Trexxa bounced her way back to camp. She was such a character. Cass loved that little raptor. She wasn't sure she ever wanted another pet, that's how much she'd squirmed her way into her heart.

  When they came back to their make-shift camp, they both immediately noticed some footprints and Trexxa's carefully arranged sticks were scattered.

  "What happened?"

  Trexxa shrugged, sniffed around and pointed down one of the hallways.

  Cass shivered. She did NOT like having her little base camp messed with. She studied the tracks, but as she had yet to see any humanoids she couldn't say for certain what it was. Maybe a goblin or gnoll or literally anything.

  Cass grabbed a few logs that she'd converted earlier and set about making the fire. Her mana had fully regenned and when everything was ready, she lit the fire.

  Trexxa meanwhile carefully separated the cuts of meat, stuffing half in her pack and putting the rest back. Cass wondered if things spoiled in this digital world. Or if they could get sick from contaminated or uncooked meat. Lots of questions, but no one to ask.

  One thing was for certain, the boar meat was 1000x better than the rat meat. She ate hungrily and laughed as Trexxa ripped and tore into the succulent, cooked flesh. She liked hers a bit on the pink side.

  After the meal had been polished off and their canteens half-downed, Cass decided to play around with her one and only Spark spell. She noticed that there was a new log entry in her spellbook: Fire Dot. She was pretty sure that wasn't there the last time she looked.

  Was this how she learned new spells?

  One th
ing she wanted to find out was if she could conjure a light spell. She was tired of carrying around the futuristic torch. It wasn't exactly heavy, but she'd much prefer to have both hands free during a fight.

  Trexxa laid against the wall and fiddled with her HUD, her eyes lighting up every now and then.

  Concentrating on a point right next to and above her head, Cass pictured the gentlest of sparks. At first it just bounced in her hair and fell to the floor. But she found that the more she practiced, the more the tiny light did exactly as she wished.

  After hours of practice, Cass giggled and showed Trexxa when she'd finally created a stable light that hung out above her left shoulder. Trexxa hissed her approval and clapped her tiny hands together when she showed her the dancing, sparkling fire-backed light.

  Cass could - at will - make it grow larger and brighter, smaller or even extinguish it entirely.

  But the biggest discovery was that she could send it on ahead of her. Once she realized how much she could control it even with just the most minuscule effort, her mind whirled into overdrive with the possibilities.

  She knew with a bit of tinkering, she could weaponize this. She was sure of it. But for now, she'd be content with it just being a fancy light. Which meant freeing up one of her hands.

  She checked her spellbook just to see if her gut was right. Yep, there was now a new entry for Light. A tingle of excitement raced through her. She was starting to figure this place out.

  "What do you think of that, Trexxa? Now we don't have to carry this heavy torch."

  Trexxa hissed excitedly. In her eyes she could see the sparkle of pure excitement. She wanted to show her something.

  "What it is, Miss. Hissy?" Cass followed the silly raptor back to their den. She stopped short when she saw a bunch of logs all laid out in such a way that it made a door.

  "What's this?"

  Hiss! The raptor flailed her small arms toward her construction.

  "A door?" Cass shook her head. "I don't understand --"

  Trexxa plucked the ebony wand from Cass and pointed it at the carefully arranged sticks. She then pointed to the dancing fire light above her shoulder and back to the sticks and finally to the wand. Then peered at her expectantly.

  Cass puzzled over the raptor's antics. "You want me to use the wand?"

  Trexxa nodded vigorously.

  "To...?"

  Trexxa pointed to the dancing light.

  Cass's eyes popped open. "A door? You mean I can create a door with the wand?"

  Trexxa nodded her head so hard Cass thought it was going to fly off.

  Cass looked at the door for several minutes, wondering how she hadn't thought of that. That was absolutely brilliant. Would it work, though, that was the only question. From what she was starting to learn about this world, she thought that maybe it would.

  Trexxa swished her tail expectantly as Cass stared at the carefully laid out logs.

  Did it work like the magic?

  Cass closed her eyes and pictured in her mind's eye a sturdy, wooden door with all the pieces of wood magically melded together. She shivered. If this worked, the sky was the limit. She wondered where all this magic came from. She could sense that it was flowing through the wand, but where was the energy actually coming from?

  Before she had a chance to open her eyes, she heard an excited hiss. Her heart leapt in her chest. Had it worked? This was a game changer if it did.

  Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Cass collected her thoughts and slowly opened her eyes. There it was! A door. A crappy one, to be sure. Maybe with practice, she'd get better. But a door, nonetheless.

  Cass stared at the magical door for several minutes, then wondered how she was going to fit it in the doorway. Then she remembered her pickaxe. Rummaging around in her pack, she brought out the heavy instrument and lifted it high above her head. Trexxa scurried out of the way. A couple hits later and the door - instead of laying in pieces on the floor - had become a miniature of itself.

  "It worked!" She threw down the pick and hugged the raptor, who was hissing and jumping up and down in delight.

  So that was the secret. Anything she wanted to learn, she just needed to piece together and use her wand. She hadn't realized it at first, but the exertion had stolen half her mana. Maybe if it was too complex, she'd have to wait until she was a higher level to attempt.

  Now, the question was: would it fit. Would the crappy door that she just created out of logs fit magically into the doorway of their base?

  Lifting it was dead simple. Cass estimated that it weighed no more than a pound.

  With shaky hands, she brought it over to the door-frame and set it inside. With a puff of smoke, the door auto-magically fitted right into the two-block high door-frame.

  "It fit! We did it, Trexxa!" Cass hugged the hissing raptor and stroked her blue-flecked scales. Having her own, personal - intelligent - companion was easily the most exciting thing about this whole adventure.

  Speaking of adventure, she was starting to get the itch to explore. Maybe they'd find clues to where they were. What else was down here? Who else was down here? Were there other adventurers beside herself?

  But first she wanted a nap. Eating all that boar meat and doing all that mental work with her new light spell had completely exhausted her. Before curling up with Trexxa in the corner, she glanced at her XP and saw she was half-way to level 2. Thoughts of new spells and more health and mana danced excitedly in her head as she slowly, serenely drifted off to sleep.

  What felt like moments later - but was probably hours - Cass awakened to the sound of Trexxa hissing and growling low in her throat. She'd never heard that sound before and it terrified her.

  *****

  She lay still, shivering as she tried to adjust her sight to the dimness of the room. There was only one small, glowing mushroom in the corner and her heart froze in her terrified body when she saw a small shadow cross in front of it.

  They weren't alone! Who - or what - was in here? Cass felt her blood chill and her hands grow clammy as she watched the stealthy shadow slide across her vision. It paused for a heartbeat, then continued. Without even realizing she was doing it, she reached into her backpack and pulled out her wand. But the moment she did, she felt it being tugged out of her grasp.

  "No!" She cried out and tried vainly to hang on to it. It was her life. Other than Trexxa, it was everything.

  The moment the intruder had the wand in his grasp, he cackled like a maniac and darted off.

  "Trexxa!" She cried out and jerked herself fully awake. "He took my wand!"

  Hiss! The raptor leapt to her feet and raced out the door after the thief.

  Cass grabbed a wooden log for protection and ran after them. The wily thief darted this way and that, but Trexxa was like a bull-dog on his trail. He could not shake her. After a couple of minutes, Cass was panting and wheezing and just about ready to give up, when they ducked into a side tunnel.

  "Get 'em, Rexxa!"

  Trexxa hissed and sprinted in the room after them. She was such a good girl. Cass couldn't help but smile. She couldn't believe that she had let her wand be snatched right from her hand. She was going to have to be much more careful than that. But thanks to her pet, she was pretty certain that she would get it back.

  A moment after Trexxa chased the Goblin into the room, she huffed and puffed her way in.

  Cass only had a moment to survey the situation, but when she did, she stopped short. There were three shivering, obviously beaten young Goblins huddled in the corner. One of them had her wand. Trexxa was growling and hissing at them and had herded them like cattle into the corner.

  Once she'd caught her breath, she walked up to the trio and demanded to know what was going on.

  "We're sorry, mistress..." One Goblin started, trembling so bad he could barely speak.

  "It's just that..."

  "Go on!" Cass demanded and reached for her wand.

  The small, green Goblin pulled it away, his tiny eyes bu
lged like large marbles and his lips twitched. He cast his gaze toward the dusty ground and squeaked out his response.

  "Our..." He glanced at the two other Goblins for support. "Caravan broke down and..." He sniffled and wiped the snot from his face. "M...m...master threatened to flay the skin off our backs if we didn't fix it." He held up the wand. "This...wand will do the trick." His sullen green eyes darted back and forth between Trexxa and Cass.

  "You...understand, yes?"

  Cass nodded. She thought she could understand.

  "So you stole my wand in hopes that it could help you repair your caravan?"

  The three Goblins nodded in perfect synchronicity, their eyes suddenly upturned and hopeful.

  "Trexxa, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

  Hiss?

  "Why don't we help these poor Goblins fix up their caravan. Then maybe we can do something about their slave master. Get my drift?" She nudged the scaly beast.

  Trexxa placed her claw under her chin and contemplated her pet's cryptic words. Then it hit her.

  Hiss!

  "Good. Now," Cass turned to the Goblin holding her wand. "We'll make a deal with you. You give me back my wand and we'll help you fix your caravan. Deal?" Cass noted that the Goblin who held her wand, his eyes widened even further. She wasn't certain that they weren't going to pop out. His flushed face turned ashen and he looked like he was going to die.

  "But...but..."

  "No buts. Hand me back my wand and we'll help you." She flicked her thumb toward Trexxa. "It really is your only choice."

  Trembling like a lone leaf in the first storm of winter, the ashen-faced Goblin held out his scrawny, clawed hand and released the ebony wand into Cass's possession.

  "Thank you." She smiled, gripping the solid wood in her hands. The wand thrummed and warm, familiar magic coursed through her body. She vowed never to lose it again. However, one thing that this taught her: She needed a secondary weapon. Something like a cold, steel blade that she could fall back on in emergencies or while waiting for her mana to recharge.

  The Goblin fell to his knees and prostrated himself before her. "Don't beat me! I'll do anything you say!"