Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience

by Jonathan Brooks

  It felt like his chest was being ripped out of his body when he did that; he looked to see what was wrong and saw that over 8,000 Unconverted Mana had just been used to make the metal bar! He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was even more expensive Creating it than getting rid of it. He quickly recovered, though, and beckoned everyone inside the tunnel. They rushed to the hole and ran as fast as they could, as stealth was no longer an option. He practically flew down the tunnel until he reached the junction, which was clear now that the others had started down toward his dungeon.

  “Deecy, get everyone inside and push towards the back – and avoid the defenses! They should be pretty easy to spot, but I don’t want anyone getting hurt. We’re out of time, so everyone has to hurry!”

  She acknowledged the information and he saw through his Territorial Sight how Eisa and Regnark were now urging everyone to run; looking quite a bit further out, he stared at something, searching for some sign that his assumptions were accurate. He really hoped they were, because otherwise they were all going to be in serious trouble.

  Chapter 41

  Chareese was just waking up when the guard she had stationed down in the prison threw open the door and shouted, “The prisoners have escaped!”

  Normally, she would’ve screamed and reprimanded the Assassin Agent-in-training for barging in and shouting at her, but there were more pertinent issues to address. “Which ones? And how did they get past you?” she asked, flinging herself already dressed out of bed. She was so exhausted last night when the prisoners had been brought in that she had barely gotten through the intake interview process before she was forced to retire.

  Being up for nearly two days straight dealing with the mess the Westfork Merchant Collective had dropped on her lap was enough to drive her straight to bed after the disaster of an interview. In fact, she barely remembered walking inside her sparsely furnished room at the Allroads Governmental Criminal Prison before she collapsed on her bed…it felt like only minutes ago.

  “Everyone in Room 8 – they looked to be going into some sort of hole in the floor,” the guard said, which was confusing.

  She was already running out the door and towards the stairs when she asked him, “Well, did you open the door and stop them? You have the authority to do that, you know; I doubt they could’ve stopped you even if they piled on top of you.”

  He sounded hesitant as they started to fly down the stairs, taking them 3 or 4 at a time. “I tried, ma’am – but the door wouldn’t open. Something they did is blocking it.”

  She didn’t even know what to say. Never in her 60 years in her position at Allroads had there ever been a single escape, let alone the 87 inmates inside Room 8. From what she knew from before she arrived, there hadn’t been any escapes on record. She knew from experience that not everything was recorded the way it should be, but something like an escaped criminal was something that would’ve been noted.

  She hit the ground floor at a run and shouted back at the obviously incompetent guard, “Give me the keys!” A ring of keys flew towards her and she deftly caught it, finding the right key immediately. She was about to put it in the lock, but she saw that it was already open. “You left it open! No wonder they escaped.”

  “Sorry, ma’am – I didn’t think it mattered and I thought it would be better to get to you as soon as possible. Besides, it won’t—”

  She was already trying to push open the door, but it was like the man said: It wouldn’t budge. She knew she had a much higher Brawn Stat than an Assassin, though even with that, the door didn’t move more than a tiny amount. It was almost as if they had found some way to weld the metal together, locking it in place – which should be impossible, but especially for those with NABs on their wrists. She gave up after almost a minute of trying to force her way through. I’m going to have to contact the Syndicate to see if they can loan me Goliath – not even Magisteel can resist him if he wants to get through somewhere. The prison wasn’t made to accommodate anyone with primarily Brawn stats past A-10th-Rated, though they didn’t advertise that fact.

  “Well, as long as you’ve secured the other cells, I’ll have to see if I can get some help with this door,” she said, but there was only silence behind her. Putting her head in her hand, she asked with sleep-deprived impatience, “You did check the other rooms, didn’t you?”

  “Uh…let me get right on that.”

  You would think that being A-Rated would indicate some sort of smarts for living that long, but I guess delving through dungeons doesn’t prepare you for working for the Allroads Government. Chareese ran with him to the next cell which held even more of the Judgement-marked people – and there was no one inside. All of them…were gone.

  When they were originally taken into custody just over a week ago, she was thoroughly confused by them; normally, those with the marks above their heads – which were created by one of the few Holy Paladins that existed in that area of the world – were murderers, thieves, and other unwanted miscreants that were sent into exile rather than killed outright. It was thought to be a worse punishment to be stripped of any help and branded as an outlaw, sent to try to survive in the tumultuous countryside by themselves. Every once in a while, one of these Marked individuals would arrive at Allroads from all over the land, where they would seek asylum and help from a city not affiliated with any Kingdom.

  The Allroads Government, however, didn’t quite have the same sort of reputation for leniency that the Kingdoms did when it came to the Judgement-marked by letting them continue to live in the first place. Strict laws were in place in the city in the form of rules and regulations, and if someone was already proven to be some sort of serious criminal, Allroads tended to eliminate a future problem rather than risk something else happening in their city. Needless to say, those with the Marks who arrived didn’t live long.

  However, the arrival of so many at once was unprecedented; they were taken to the Prison rather than killed out of hand because something seemed strange about them. First, they didn’t seem the type to be Judgement-marked; many of them appeared to be bedraggled townspeople that looked like they were completely out of their element walking around the countryside. Some of them had the rough exterior that was usually seen on the Marked, but after talking with a few of them, they didn’t have the same attitude or personality as a murderer, thief, or other scoundrel.

  Second, even the townspeople included in the bunch had SDIAs, though none of them were officially registered with the Syndicate – which was more than highly unusual. Most of them were still in their G-Ratings, but they were at similar enough statuses that they appeared to have all received their Interface Artifacts at roughly the same time. Not only that, but the low-Rated townspeople all had at least one Taught ability – which was also highly unusual.

  Third, none of them would admit to what they had done to get them Judgement-marked. Her Aural Truth ability – which allowed her to detect truth and lies when she heard someone speaking – could only determine if they were lying to her, but none of them had disclosed their story. The most she had gotten from them was where they had come from: the Craytion Kingdom to the east; with that information, at least, she had sent a courier to the Syndicate headquarters in the Kingdom to see if they had any insight on what these people were accused of doing. What worried her a little was that there was some sort of rogue Holy Paladin Marking whole villages and towns as they passed through the Kingdom, so she wanted to make sure the people they were holding were indeed criminals.

  She looked at the guard with consternation and ran over to the next cell, which was the one supposed to be housing their newest guests; she used that term because they weren’t technically criminals yet even though they had broken a few rules – but those usually just resulted in heavy fines. What was unproven was how they had somehow altered their SDIAs in a way to display false information, which was something much more serious. When she had heard about the large man with the Dire Wolf as a bonded pet having Taught Abilit
ies, she somehow knew the two groups had to be connected somehow.

  The girl had most of the same Taught Abilities plus a few more, but the young man – boy, really – had practically nothing. Unsurprising considering his Class as an Instructor-Researcher, but it was a strange choice for one only in the E-Ratings. Chareese had planned on digging into more of their backgrounds and questioning them some more this morning, but as she looked through the grate inside the cell holding them – it was empty as well.

  She took the keys and unlocked the door and pushed hard, fully expecting it to be as stuck as the others – which caused her to overcompensate and practically fall inside. She got up quickly and saw the square hole in the floor near the corner; less than a second later, she was holding her head down into what looked like a freshly dug, precisely cut tunnel leading down. How did they cut through the Magisteel? Looking around, she saw three pairs of NABs lying somehow cut on the floor, with what looked like scorch marks on their edges. The collar and leash that held the Dire Wolf was unbroken and lying on the floor as well, looking almost as if the beast had just casually slipped it off.

  Even if they had somehow had their Power back, there isn’t a single spell or ability that can cut through Magisteel – at least that I know of. In addition to being strong, Magisteel was highly resistant to Power-based effects, which was what made it such an effective material for housing some of the most powerful criminals; while NABs were usually quite effective, particularly strong Adventurers with abnormally high Mind stats were occasionally able to break them through a Power overload. Again, it wasn’t something that they advertised, but it happened occasionally.

  “You’re with me – we’re going after them,” she told the Assassin Agent-in-training, who was looking horrified at the hole in the cell floor. Chareese could imagine what he was thinking: “If they were powerful enough to get through their Bands and cut through the floor, how do we stand a chance against them?” While she shared his reservations, something about the entire situation didn’t seem right – and she hated a mystery. It was why she chose to be an Inquisitor in the first place.

  Chareese jumped down the hole and started moving down the tunnel, giving the guard no chance to back out; there was no way he was refusing a direct order, as well as leaving his superior to go after the prisoners he had let get away under his watch by herself. She moved quickly down the dark tunnel and used her Searchlight spell to project a beam of intense light in front of her. Hearing the Assassin drop down behind her, she increased her pace, knowing he would easily be able to keep up with her.

  Coming to a junction in the tunnels, she saw two branching off in what she assumed was the direction of the other cells. Where did all of these tunnels come from? How long have these been here? While they looked like they were freshly carved out of the earth, as there were slight crumblings here and there where a part of it had fallen, there was no way someone could’ve done this all in just the last few hours. There were some spells and other Mage-class abilities that could probably do it, but it would take days and tens of thousands of units of Power to accomplish even what she had seen so far. And that didn’t even count the broken NABs and the missing metal from their cells…

  Picking the only alternative tunnel to go down, she led the way down an even longer tunnel. She deactivated her Searchlight spell because someone had placed basic Magelight orbs along the right wall of the tunnel every 50 feet or so, which provided plenty of light to see by. Pulling her bladed staff out of her PIB as she ran, Chareese held it out in front of her so that if anything was waiting for them, she was ready; while the Inquisitor Class was primarily spell-based, she had enough points in her Brawn and Body stats to make her more than a match for almost anyone in the mid-B-Ratings or below – and, if the Codex Array had been accurate about their Interfaces, none of the people who had escaped was much of a threat.

  What worried Chareese as she progressed deeper and deeper down the tunnel was the sheer size and depth of it; the presence of someone either on the inside helping them escape or other, powerful outside help was highly probable by that point. She debated turning back as she estimated that she had run nearly half a mile, as it was quite possible she was heading into an ambush at that point; this was looking less and less like a prisoner escape, and more like some sort of carefully planned action that must’ve taken years to set up and arrange. Thoughts of some sort of overarching conspiracy flitted across her mind, occupying her attention so thoroughly that she almost ran into something – at least, before her awareness caught up to her and stopped her body before she ran straight into some rocks.

  “Wha-what is…uh…is that a dungeon?!” the guard asked unnecessarily from behind her, his voice incredulous and a bit shaken. For the first time, she was right there with him.

  She had seen thousands upon thousands of dungeon entrances over her 315 years as an Adventurer – once you reached the B-Ratings, aging was slowed down dramatically, and it only increased as you progressed. Therefore, she recognized the arrangement of rocks that appeared to erupt out of the dirt floor, as well as the relatively dark tunnel leading farther inside. Where did this come from? Was it here this whole time? The churned-up ground around the entrance spoke to it having been recently formed, but she also wasn’t an expert on dirt and tunnels.

  “Thorve,” she said quietly, using the guard’s name for the first time, “go back up and get at least two squads as reinforcements as quickly as you can – but don’t spread around what you saw here. Doing so could cause a panic we can’t afford right now.”

  Thorve hesitated, before saying, “Yes, ma’am…but aren’t you coming with me? This looks too dangerous to stay here by yourself.”

  “No, I’m staying here,” she told him without even looking back at him – her eyes were all on the dark dungeon entrance. “While you’re gone, I’m going to investigate this to see if I can find out what’s going on.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea—”

  “You have your orders,” she told him sternly.

  Another hesitation, before he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chareese heard him take off back up the tunnel, moving faster than he had before due to his superior Speed stat. She activated her Searchlight spell again and pointed it down the entrance tunnel; with careful steps, she ventured down into a dungeon that shouldn’t even exist.

  Chapter 42

  It didn’t take long for her to get to the bottom of the tunnel, where she encountered a large plain-looking room with no interior ornamentation, which was quite unlike almost every dungeon she had ever encountered before. Even back when she had been a G-Rated Adventurer nearly three centuries ago, even the plainest, easiest dungeons had some sort of theme to them – from simple vines along the wall in Plant dungeons, to jets of flame constantly erupting from the ceiling in Fire dungeons, to veins of illuminated crystals in Light dungeons. This one, however, had nothing…except monsters.

  An impossible collection of dungeon monsters.

  She saw some undead skeletons shambling towards her, a relatively small lumbering stone golem that stomped its way slowly along, and a large wasp that quickly buzzed in her direction. Three different types of elements that were represented all together, which was something she had never heard of before. Behind them came more of the same, though there weren’t many; all told, she quickly counted less than two dozen monsters ready to attack her.

  With her Searchlight spell still on, she saw three traps highlighted to her vision – which was its actual primary function – but they appeared to be quite avoidable if she took care. Which was good, because although she could easily identify their presence, she didn’t have any type of spell or ability that could deactivate them.

  Within seconds, the first of the wasps approached her and she swung her bladed staff at it with practiced efficiency, instantly slicing through it like it was paper. It fell to the ground and started to dissolve just as quickly as it would inside a normal dungeon, which made the entire
situation even stranger; she had briefly thought that the dungeon entrance was faked somehow and that these monsters were real beasts and creatures brought down here – again, somehow – but that possibility was now gone.

  Using her other hand, she activated her Whip of Justice – which was a silly name, because she would never use it on a person in the name of “Justice” – and a long strand of light appeared, and she instantly flicked it forward into the skeleton getting closer to her. Its bones shattered upon impact, flinging pieces everywhere – with a few even hitting the nearby stone golem, chipping off a piece of it. Why are they so weak? She had a feeling that she could just punch every single one of them with her bare fists and be fine, but she was a lot more cautious than that.

  Using her Whip and bladed staff, she tore through the rest of the monsters in the room in under a minute. None of them required more than one strike to take down, which she hadn’t experienced in a long, long time; the last time she had felt the difference in their Ratings so much was when she helped a friend over a century ago in a G-Rated dungeon. Even as a low-A-Rated Adventurer, she was able to tear through the dungeon just as easily as she was here.

  She avoided the traps on the way to the exit, but in a fit of curiosity, she triggered the one next to the door with her staff and jumped back. Noxious gas erupted out of the ground, spewing around so quickly that she got a whiff of it; it burned her throat a little and made her cough a couple of times before it cleared up. When she looked at her Vitality, however, she saw that a single point had been taken away. She instantly healed herself with her lowest Power-cost healing spell – Heal Minor Wounds – which she had purchased from an Instructor years ago that Taught her for 50 gold pieces. It was a deal she never regretted, as her other healing spells were expensive and worked better on groups.

  Before she went through the tunnel to the next room, she felt the rush of Essence fill her body. It wasn’t much – pitiful, really – but it had been over a decade since she had been dungeon delving and she forgot how good it felt to absorb the precious substance. If she had doubted it before, the Essence she received cemented the proof that she was really in a dungeon – and that she wasn’t imagining everything.