Dungeon Masters

by Mike Wild

  “Bazinga, Trix.”

  “How goes it, Cooper?”

  Trix flashed a pass for herself and her party and they moved to the steps to level 2. There was space enough for three to descend abreast their horseshoe shape, but Trix kept the boffins in line. The stone risers had a vertiginous spiral to them and had been worn almost to bowls by the tread of countless creatures over the years. Trix knew exactly how many steps there were—one hundred forty-nine. She’d seen men and women bleed out on every one of them. But that was then, and this was now, and she smiled as the boffins paled at the fact that the storm lamps had, now, been replaced by actual flaming torches. The shadows they cast lodged in and highlighted every worry line on their faces. More to milk the moment than from actual concern, Trix unsheathed her crossbow and panned it left to right while they descended, talking to her party in whispers, as if something was lurking around the spiral that might overhear.

  Something was. Sort of. The nooks and crannies in the crumbling stone at the edge of the steps had accumulated pot shards, worthless coins, and the skeletal remains of what might have been mice but for the arrow-like skulls and forked tails. Not all the bones were tiny. One boffin, torn between scientific and base pursuits, stooped to pick up one of the coins—it glistered, after all—and something glistening snapped from an obscured vent to wrap itself around his neck. Trix heard the snap and subsequent gurk, spun with her crossbow, and shot a quarrel that severed its tongue near the root. The purple-faced boffin hacked and stumbled, kicking at the rubbish, and a skull tumbled out to clatter and shatter on the steps. This time, it was human.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Trix shouted. “What did I tell you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Don’t fucking do it. Or next time, I’ll strangle you myself.”

  It was a chastised—Trix hoped more cautious—group she led off the final step onto level 2. Its first corridor led into an area much different in layout from level 1—a series of square stone islands each holding a massive, thickly barred cage of rusted iron and linked by bridges over narrow canals. The cages were empty, the canals dry, and no one had ever worked out the purpose of either. Sounds came from ahead. Shouts. Trix raised the crossbow she’d kept deployed but then lowered it when she saw whence the shouts came. A mercenary team that had obviously struck lucky with a treasure trove. Despite carrying between them a white-faced member whose badly cauterised stumps of thighs still leaked blood, they jubilantly held aloft some idol to something, somewhere. Whether it had value to DragonCorp—whether, in other words, they’d be allowed to keep it—Trix didn’t know.

  They walked. Miles. Such was the labyrinth they were in. It became clear to the boffins that level 2 was much more expansive than level 1, the latter being, as it were, just the tip of the dimensional iceberg. Islands left behind, they came to an area of small cell-like chambers overgrown with plant life the boffins were keen to explore. These weren’t on their itinerary, but they’d made good time so Trix let them. Whenever one or more ducked their heads into one of the chambers, however, she casually marked the entrances with a chalk ‘X’. The practice seemed odd, but the fact was in this part of the level you could never be truly sure that the door through which you entered would still be there when you turned around. Case in point, a confused boffin exiting a chamber three doors down from the one he’d just entered.

  The reason for this confusion was The Faze. That area lay just ahead, but its peculiarities leaked some. The Faze was … well, Shen called it navigationally problematic, while Trix was a little more prosaic in her summation—it was a pain in the arse. Its confusion of corridors shifted constantly, and more than one party had taken what it had thought was the right turn only to find it was the wrong turn and, in trying to retrace their steps, had discovered there were, in fact, no right turns at all. This was all supposition, of course, as none of them had ever been seen again. After her own successful navigations, Trix had a feel for its meanderings, however, and roped the boffins together before she led them in. She felt the usual strange and unexplained tensions in the rope and the usual fear that this time at least one of her party would be missing at the other end, but thankfully they were all present and correct, if a little dizzied and confused.

  A lengthy corridor led them to their first official stop of their four-day itinerary. It was code-named ‘The Jungle’ but in fact wasn’t a jungle at all. It was an overgrown nursery of sorts. Exactly what its purpose had been no one knew, but plants and vines had once been cultivated here. They had long since run wild from their beds, fed, it seemed, by the waters of an ornate circular fountain at The Jungle’s centre, now bled dry. They seemed to have sought it out after other sustenance had ceased, and roots still gripped its edge with browned, brittle fingers. In contrast, the vegetation they had spawned was, strangely, still green and lush and thickly covered the walls. It had been so since Trix’s first visit years ago and remained so now. It thrived and was everywhere.

  She thought the boffins were going to wet themselves. They leapt forth with almost childlike glee, secateurs and sample jars at the ready, and as they went Trix recalled other plants that had been part of The Jungle when it had first been discovered. They—the army, that is, not DragonCorp; this was early days—had lost twelve men to the Venus mantraps lying hidden within the green growth. All attempts to cull them had failed until they’d realised the plants were respawning offshoots from a massive mother plant hidden deeper still. Protected by thick, thrashing defences, it had proven impossible to destroy until one of their people had given themselves up as bait. One of their people with a grenade. She’d lost a good friend that day.

  Trix sighed, not only with the memory but with weariness. It had been a long day. She let the boffins continue their explorations while she set up their camp for the night. Done, she squatted against a pillar and lit up a fag. She toyed with the lid of her Zippo while blowing smoke rings towards the plants and watching ghosts from the past.

  She stood suddenly, Zippo slamming shut. That area against a wall where a number of the boffins were congregating—she didn’t recognise it. The plants must have shifted to reveal a part of the nursery previously obscured. Had to have done. That, or the damn place had grown since last she’d been here.

  Trix moved over. Spotted something when halfway there, hidden amongst the tangles of foliage. Something not organic but metal. A sconce? No—a lever! She let out a warning cry but too late—one of the boffins was already pulling hard at a set of roots, and as the roots gave, they exerted pressure on the lever and pulled it down. It slammed home with a thunk and from somewhere beyond the wall came a heavy clank, clank, clank of chain and gears.

  “Get away from there,” Trix ordered. “Fall back to me, now.”

  “Just one second, pl—”

  “NOW!”

  The boffins complied, but with expressions suggesting they wondered what the fuss was about. Trix wondered what it would be about. Nothing happened for some seconds while the mechanism continued to clank, then came a moment’s silence when it seemed nothing was going to happen at all. Suddenly, a part of the wall trembled, shaking loose a shower of ancient dust forming the outline of a door. Another second’s delay and it began to rise with a hollow cracking of stone and a rumble like thunder. Trix heard the gasps of the boffins behind her.

  Her gut twisted. Because she’d caught a scent that took her back to her very first day in the dungeon. The air in the secured levels was rank, for sure, but had nonetheless been diluted by DOME activity. What Trix smelled now was as old and evil as in the bad dream of that day that still plagued her. Wherever this air was coming from, no one from Trix’s dimension had yet set foot. The lever had opened a secret passage to either a separate area on this level, or worse—much worse—to a lower one.

  And something was coming out of it.

  The boffins backed off, muttering worriedly, as a huge cloven hoof stomped the floor. Hands the size of sledgehammers with the texture of
aged leather clutched the jambs on either side of the passage and began to pull through the body to which they belonged—a muscular, hairy body matted with shit, which was far too big and forced the jambs outward, buckling them, as it came. The upper mantle gave, too, this time under the pressure of a pair of giant sweeping horns. The emerging beast was oblivious to the stonework falling about it, bouncing off it, coating it with dust. It seemed concerned only with its new surroundings. Trix swallowed.

  “Back up slowly,” she instructed her charges. “Try not to make a sound.”

  “Dear god in heaven, what is that thing?”

  “Biped Hunter-Killer, Class 9A.”

  “That is your DOME classification, yes? But what does it mean?”

  Trix’s eyes narrowed. “It means we’ve got ourselves a minotaur.”

  III

  Encounter

  The remains of the doorframe sloughed from the minotaur as it thudded fully into the nursery and rose to full height, which was half as high again as the door. Its great, bullish head turned slowly left and right, sniffing at the air. The beast was wary, that much was clear—the passage opened likely for the first time in an age, this was as much unknown territory to it as it had been to the boffins. But the boffins hadn’t marked their dominance of it by unsheathing a giant battle-axe and letting out a territorial roar.

  The beast’s bluster didn’t worry Trix. Not yet. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if she could get her people back to The Faze. It’d mean abandoning the camping gear, but no matter, they’d survive. But could she get them back? The minotaur’s nostrils were widely dilated now, sucking in scents like a Hoover, and it would soon have their own.

  Trix began to take even steps backwards, arms outstretched, shepherding the boffins behind her towards The Faze. She watched the minotaur all the time, ready for the smallest movement. If they could keep going, they’d be able to lose the beast in Shen’s navigationally problematic maze without it ever having realised they were there. She actually began to believe they’d make it, but then the tension in the group behind her reached the breaking point and one of the boffins shouted, “For god’s sake, what are we DOING? Why don’t we RUN?”

  The minotaur’s gaze swept round, its snout emitting twin columns of steam. Its pig-like eyes narrowed. Mean, bloodshot white. Trix reached over her shoulder to grasp the quarterstaff slung there. She flipped it 360 degrees, bringing it to bear, held diagonally before her, like the slash of a ‘no entry’ sign. It was as much a warning for the boffins as the minotaur—don’t cross the line. It was no longer the boffins’ safety she had responsibility for, but their very lives.

  It seemed to Trix there was no point looking for small movements anymore. Not with the bastard already pounding towards her. It careened up the corridor, breaking off sconces and chunks of arch as it came, moving, for such a large beast, with startling speed. As Trix had known would be the case once alerted to their presence, it would be on top of the boffins before they were halfway to The Faze, even if they now chose to run. She reckoned that the only way to turn this thing around was to literally turn it around. She ordered the boffins to remain exactly where they were and then raced forward to meet the minotaur, shouting, “HEY!” The beast grunted, slowed, then stomped to where it towered over her, dumbfounded by the small thing that stood defiantly in its path. It growled and raised its axe, but Trix had already depressed a stud on her staff to release percussive caps on both its ends, and one she jabbed onto the minotaur’s arm. It detonated and the minotaur staggered back, more from shock than actual pain. Trix whirled the staff, presenting its other tip to the beast, and, as it tried to retaliate, struck again. The second detonation made it stagger no more than the first but achieved its purpose—got its attention, warned it to back the fuck off.

  Now all she needed to do was actually get the bastard away from the boffins. She swung the staff in an uppercut that caught the minotaur under the chin, then, while its head was tipped back, slipped between its legs to take up position behind it. She heard a grunt of confusion as it looked back down to find her gone, then before its attention could wander elsewhere, whistled to draw it around. By the time the dim-witted beast had processed what for it was a complex tactical manoeuvre and turned a hundred-eighty degrees, Trix had sheathed her quarterstaff and was instead aiming her crossbow at its chest.

  The beast’s eyes narrowed once more as it sighted the weapon, and its chest heaved in what was presumably the minotaur equivalent of a hearty laugh. It knew such a weapon would be woefully inadequate to kill it. Trix knew that, too, but that was fine. She didn’t want to kill it. Not yet anyway. She just wanted to make it angry.

  The first bolt she fired garnered a grunt of annoyance. The second something more indignant. As the third hit home, and the minotaur angrily snatched it and the other bolts from its chest, flinging them to the ground, they were talking roar. Trix began to back along the corridor, back towards the nursery, firing all the time. As the minotaur began to pound towards her, she turned and ran.

  Trix was under no illusions. She’d been toying with the dim-witted beast, for sure, but the toying had purpose; this was no game. She’d fought minotaurs before, but only as part of a larger team, and even then it had taken them all to bring the beasts down. DOME’s official guidance was that under no circumstance should Class 9A’s be challenged by fewer than four persons, but Trix reckoned even that was an underestimation. The old joke ran that it usually resulted in one getting the shit pounded out of him while the others ran away.

  For that reason, even though she was drawing the minotaur towards her, she meant to keep as much distance as possible between them. There was no one to call on for help. She was on her own and, potions or not, one successful strike from that axe—hell, a fist alone would do it—and it would be lights out. Goodnight, Vienna. Goodbye, head. This was why she was leading it back to the nursery rather than trying to tackle it in the corridor—there she’d have room to manoeuvre. She knew exactly how she was going to manoeuvre, too.

  Admittedly, things didn’t start well. She’d just reached the stretch of the corridor where it opened out into the nursery, was turning to fire another bolt, when the minotaur, frustrated by its small, elusive annoyance, roared and brought its axe down into the floor. Trix, caught at an awkward angle, felt the impact, saw the resultant web of cracks jink towards her, begin to surround her, and, while she started to twist back and run, it was too late. She felt the floor bulge slightly beneath her, and then she was pitched off her feet as the shockwave hit.

  She went down hard, scrabbled back upright, but the gap between herself and the minotaur had closed dangerously, almost lethally. Its rank stench of sweat and crap filled her nostrils; she could feel its fetid exhalations on the back of her neck and, worse still, hear the great swoosh of the axe as it swung again. This time it was not aimed at the floor and came so close that one of its blades sliced her hair. Only the fact that it took the minotaur a moment to heave the axe from where it had subsequently embedded itself in the wall gave her the space she needed.

  Trix let out a roar of her own, channelling everything she had into widening their distance in a final spurt. No need for a potion. Not yet. She pounded into the nursery and ran straight for its far wall. With a second roar of determination, she used her quarterstaff to pole-vault upwards, grab the vines. She climbed. High. So high that when, a second later, the minotaur pounded in after her, it took the beast a moment to locate her, hanging on the vegetation. It growled, and was still growling when the first of the firebolts thudded into its chest.

  Firebolts. They were the thing. Normal bolts might not do much to a minotaur’s thick hide, but a firebolt was something else. Weapons were very much horses for courses on the levels, and, while the napalm-dipped projectiles had about as much physical stopping power as normal bolts, this wasn’t about stopping power; it was about fire power.

  The big, hairy bastard realised this as it tried to snatch the bolt from its chest as it had
the earlier one. The bolt came out easily enough, but the burning petroleum jelly that had already dripped from it into the minotaur’s thick, matted hair could not be dealt with so simply. The beast slapped at the spot where the bolt had impacted, trying to douse the flames, burning its hand with napalm, too, but the fire merely spread. Trix gave no quarter—she launched a second firebolt into its thigh, another into its upper left arm, and, as it turned, roaring, a fourth into the small of its back. Suddenly the minotaur was flailing.

  Trix’s plan did, however, have one unexpected drawback. God only knew what vile collection of shit had accumulated in the minotaur’s hide over the years, because it began to give off a black, toxic smoke, and Trix found herself struggling to see through the cloud to draw a bead for what she hoped would be her drop shot.

  She found out rather rudely where the minotaur was as some of the vines to which she clung were torn away beneath her. Damn thing was stumbling blindly, nothing but instinct, but then you didn’t exactly need to be precise to do what it was doing. A whole swathe of greenery fell to its agonised, enraged strength, and Trix had to leap from her current handhold to another. It did little good—the vines were so intertwined that as the previous growth was pulled away, her current perch began to follow. The acrid stench of burning flesh that was now filling her nostrils suggested the minotaur should succumb to its injuries soon—should—but at the moment it was showing no signs of slacking.