by Troy Neenan
Sensing the life that was inside, the oldest stoner put his ear against the woman's stomach, “Hey, I think I can hear something.”
David found the words just vomiting out of him, “Come forth.” His repair job must have messed up somewhere because even to his ears it sounded as if he had contracted throat cancer.
Great I'm one step closer to being fat Batman. David thought.
Realising that he had just fucked himself, the Dungeon Core attempted to get up. His muscles felt like worn leather coated in bubble wrap, his joints cracked with even the slightest movement, and the simplest flex was sluggish.
As one, the junkies turned their heads to see their vanquished foe trying to get onto his feet. So much for the Dungeon Core's daring escape plan.
“Bastard's still alive,” the guy with the ACDC bandanna sneered.
David's murderer stood up, snatching up a bloody box cutter from the floor as he rose, “I'll fuckin' fix that.” He approached the Dungeon Core like a man that was just barely holding himself together.
The expression on his face caused a bolt of fear to travel down the Dungeon Core's spine. He wasn't sure that a box cutter could kill him, but he really didn't want to find out.
The younger woman stepped back, “How? I stabbed him in the eye.” Her expression changed to confusion when she saw her victim's nearly repaired eye, “What the fuck is that?”
Not wanting to see a murder, an older woman who had the hair and body of a hag noticed that the older man still had his ear pressed up against the dead woman's womb. She also noticed that he had wet himself. “Get off her, Glen.” she said and pulled the pervert away.
Glen fell back to the floor and looked content to stay there.
“God dammit, what's wrong with you?”
ACDC guy leaned over the woman's corpse, “Look.” he pointed at a small hole in the woman's stomach. The old man must have accidentally created when he touched her decrepit skin.
David hoped that the hole was interesting enough that it would cause the boyfriend to look away for about twenty minutes. That should be more than enough time for him to limp out of the room; sadly, it looked as if that wasn't going to happen.
Fear was becoming an excellent motivator. The Dungeon Core was growing to suspect that he needed to physically touch the thing that was inside the woman's womb, a slight oversight in his plan now that he thought about it, but the idea that he was going to be chopped up into little pieces allowed him to be open to all kinds of insane ideas.
Right now he pictured himself jumping around like he was in the martial arts movie. His fist swinging outward, treating each of the junkies like they were his personal punching bag. Maybe if he believed that he could do half of what he fantasized about, maybe he would get out of there.
From the depths of that mound of irregular flesh, something that was never meant to be stirred.
The screams filled the building as gore covered hand burst out of the mummy's bloated stomach. It reached for the light as if it was a tangible thing, the hand clawing at the foul air.
The junkies screamed and their cries summoned two more of their number from down stairs.
One of the new comers, a transient with a bandage over one eye saw the knife in the boyfriend's hands and ran the other way. Seeing that escape was an option, two of the male junkies who had been looming over the mummy ran for the exit. Both of them had seen Alien and knew where this was going.
The gore covered hand retreated back into the darkness. Ten fingers gripped the deceased woman's paper thin skin and there came a sickening tearing. To David it was like seeing somebody trying to break free of a bathtub filled with mouldy tomato the soup, the rancid skin acting as a cage.
The mound of flesh separated like a broken pie. There was not the splatter of blood or amniotic fluids, there wasn't much left of the mummified corpse which didn't disintegrate under its own weight.
Cries, screams, and curses filled every corner of the racquet ball centre as all eyes were on the small girl who had freed herself from her mother's rapidly decomposing corpse.
The whole room just stopped. The Dungeon Core, the boyfriend, the other men and women in the room, all of them became as still as lawn ornaments, staring at the thing that should not be.
The girl was about three years old and looked to be composed of skin, hair, and bone. Naturally, she was naked and covered in her mother's blood. She sat inside the deflated remains of her mother, looking at the room with a blank look.
The woman, who David referred to as the Hag, was the first to talk. She was scared just like the rest of them, unsure what was happening, frightened to the point that she just had to say anything to cut through the atmosphere. “I thought Judith couldn't have kids. Didn't she...”
Judith. The name seemed to make what David had done seem more real. He hadn't wanted to kill her, he hadn't wanted to... Wait. “She wasn't pregnant?” he said hoarsely.
The boyfriend grabbed David by the collar and slammed him against the ground, “What did you do? Huh? What did you do?” He sent his fist into David's stomach, “What did you do to my sister?” Judith's apparent brother gave David another punch to the stomach.
Congratulations. Your apparent meddling of nature has resulted in a new skill and a dungeon ability.
Mitosis Cloning. Level 1.
You can now artificially inseminate a female by using her own DNA as a guide. The clone will have the appearance and genetic characteristics of the original. There is a 20% chance of a miscarriage. 50% chance of a random negative mutation occurring.
Mitosis cloning. Level 2
Mitosis cloning. Level 3
Mitosis cloning. Level 4
Mitosis cloning. Level 5. There is a 19.5 chance of a miscarriage. There is a 49% of a negative mutation occurring.
You have discovered a new negative mutation: Mute.
You have gained the dungeon power. Artificial Aging.
You can now artificially age a minion that is under your control. Requirements: Materials, energy.
Spawn Game: Deck Manipulation:
You and your opponent can now modify your decks before game.
Oh Shit. David was starting to get an idea of how badly he had just screwed up.
Seeing the three-year-old girl who had just burst free of her mother's mummified corpse, the hag moved to pick her up, some maternal part of her overriding her fear and confusion. “Look at you, look at you.” she said in that way that people talk to babies.
The brother showed David the knife, “You know what I'm gonna do with this?”
There was a scream to the left. Eyes turned to see the seventeen year old girl looking down at Glen's body and she was freaking out.
At first everyone thought that the older man was just lying on the ground that was before they saw that there was a small smoke trail flowing out from the man's ear and that a single stream of blood was trickling down to the floor.
Distracted by the young woman's frantic screams, the Hag failed to notice that the little girl had placed both her hands on the old woman's chest.
From the little girl's palms, a pair of two-inch-long bone needles pierced through her skin and buried themselves into the older woman's chest. The little monster giggled as the funny woman staggered back as her lungs were skewed.
“Judith?” The brother said, just looking at the small girl.
As the Hag fell back, the tiny terror performed a backflip and flew into the ACDC fan's chest, her left arm extended.
She stuck like the interest on a credit card, her spike sinking into the man's neck. They both fell to the floor, but not before the small girl sent her right bone spike into his face. The stiletto of bone bounced off the stoner's skull and girl pouted at the inconvenience. She wasn't strong enough to pierce through solid bone.
Understanding flashed in the seventeen year old and the teenager let out a scream that could get her on the cast of any horror movie, but instead of running, which would have been the smart thing
to do, she just stood there using her lungs like a set of bagpipes.
The little girl also winced and she stared at the screaming idiot, not able to contemplate how this person could scream so loudly or why. Was the woman hungry?
The little girl took a step towards the annoying teenager, her hands covered in blood of her victims and her mother. The males in the room stepped back; they had seen enough movies to know that they were just fodder here.
Taking a single step towards the screaming girl, her little foot touched on the filthy carpet and then wobbled. Unused to balancing herself on two legs, the tiny terror fell face first on the floor.
“Judith!” the brother screamed. Ignoring David he ran to the small girl and bent down to pick her up. He must have been smoking pure mercury because everyone else in the room had a reasonable idea about what was going to happen.
The brother picked up the small girl who looked at him in confusion, “Judith. Judith. You're...” His sentence stopped abruptly as the clone of his sister sent her two inch spike right into his eye.
Chapter Fourteen
After the surviving drug addicts had all ran for the hills, things had quieted down somewhat. David had been intending to leave the clone where she was. The creature was seven kinds of bad and in his current state he didn't have a prayer of surviving five seconds against her. But something stopped him.
Maybe it was because he had helped to make this creature, maybe his brain wasn't working right, or maybe he was just that stupid. But once David had gotten himself a breather, he and the little monster escaped the building together.
Unable to call a taxi due to several obvious reasons, the Dungeon Core stole a nearby van which probably belonged to one of the people he had recently killed.
The van smelled like it belonged to an alcoholic and it had this really creepy vibe to it. One indicator was the well-padded walls and the chicken wire covering the windows. Worse, Disney's greatest hits were in the CD player. David's arsehole tightened just thinking about the horrors that this thing must have seen.
A trip to the nearest swimming pool showers and another trip to a neighbour's clothesline, and the pair were finally getting somewhere. Suitable underwear was going to be a bit trickier. Having a face like a garbage bag covered in barbecue sauce, it was understandable that the Dungeon Core was not comfortable loitering around a department store looking for women's panties. That problem was for later though.
The hospital was one of the perfect places where somebody like David could hide in plain sight. While the outside world stared uncomfortably at people who looked like they were set on fire, nurses and doctors didn't ask questions when one passed them by.
The main problem was the records. While you could get away with squatting in a room for a few hours, in the long term things just didn't work out that way. A hospital was a hectic environment, but beds were a finite resource.
Being a help desk support agent in another life, David knew the lingo on how to bypass everything. The trick was to act like a nervous dumb-arse who believed that he was sitting on a landmine. Dealing with idiots who lost their password was the backbone of an IT industry.
“You never told me you had a daughter,” Cassidy said as she stared at the cute little monster like she was a panda cub.
“It was rather sudden for me to,” David said.
Once upon a time, Cassidy Sasca had been a young pre-law student. Her first and only client was a man who was suing his wife for cheating on him with a man twenty years his senior. Cassidy, being a young, blonde, and very charming had earned the affections of her client.
What her teacher had failed to learn about the man was that he didn't take rejection well; the flaming Molotov cocktail he threw at his young lawyer became a quick indicator.
The scumbag got a life sentence, his ex-wife was happy with a man who was old enough to be her father, and Cassidy got a face like a burnt pizza and forty thousand dollars in school bills to pay back. The pre-law student was also sure that she got a drug addiction, courtesy of all the fine medication that she was taking.
Cassidy took a bite out of her fried chicken and groaned in satisfaction. “Do you know how long it has been since I ate fried chicken? Two years.”
“Weren't you admitted five weeks ago?” David asked.
The young student of the law looked bad. Her entire upper body was covered in bandages and from what David could see of her, everything was red and angry. She had spent the first few weeks in a sterilised room, the doctors too afraid that her wounds would get infected. Now, she was in general population and hooked up to an IV drip that was filled with all kinds of fun things.
“Yeah, well. Back then I was watching my figure.” behind her bandages, Cassidy's face twisted in bitterness, “Three days at a gym per week. I f...” she looked across the room at the child in the wheelchair, “I starved myself. I studied my arse off. I missed music festivals...”
It was best not to interrupt Cassidy when she got this way. Her anger was understandable. She had lost not only her face, but her career. While a person's physical appearance should not be important in a courtroom, it was kind of difficult for any jury to concentrate on the facts when there was a burn victim pacing around.
Sitting in a hospital, eating fried chicken, David tried not to think about what had happened back in the crack house. Meanwhile, the small girl devoured the fowl, ripping apart the meat like a rabid dog and not caring about chewing.
“Settle down,” Cassidy said, “It's like you've never eaten before.”
David winced at that.
The Dungeon Core contemplated how surprisingly normal his creation looked. As far he could tell, the only thing that separated her from an ordinary girl were the bone spikes and the curious way that she looked at everything.
For somebody who had performed a serious acrobatic murder spree, the girl had little control over her body. She couldn't stand correctly so David was forced to steal a wheelchair and for the most part she seemed happy to just sit there.
Finished with her rant and the injustice of the world, Cassidy smiled at the little murderer, not understanding how close she was to death. “What's your name sweetie?”
“Her name is Judith,” David said a little too quickly. The Dungeon Core immediately felt bad for his choice of names. Accidentally creating a clone and then naming it after her deceased mother, a woman that he had killed was weird on a whole other scale.
As far as he could tell, the junkie had experienced ovarian miscarriage. The Dungeon Core had assumed from her bump that she was pregnant and his essence, acting to his assumption, manipulated the junkie's ovaries to produce a single egg. The rest of what happened would have to be explained by a lanky Scottish actor wearing a business suit with trainers, because it confused the hell out of him.
You have assigned the name Judith to minion Variant.
Name: Judith.
Species name: Variant.
Race: Humanoid
Job: None.
Current task: None.
Based on the creature known as human. Homo Prodigisum, Variants are mutations created by the Dungeon Master, David Mascoff. This creature not only has the intelligence of a human but also has inbuilt weaponry. Two spikes made of solid bone pierce through the Variant's palms, each capable of injecting their prey with a highly caustic acid. Born with the natural ability to create swords and stabbing weapons, as well as having little empathy for their targets, they are natural hunters and killers.
David hissed as he read the information. It was great that his creation wasn't a drooling mess, but she was something straight out of a comic book. He hadn't been really thinking when he put down the sword smithing card; he just didn't have anything else in his hand that he liked.
He held his head and was glad that he hadn't fixed his tear ducts or he might have broken down and cried.
In his infinite stupidity, the Dungeon Core had left his wallet in one of many of Darwin's hospitals, though it was most likely in
a police evidence locker right now, gathering dust. He didn't even know if he was being hunted by the police for arson, but from the mess that happened back in the crack house it was most likely going to be a certainty.
I'm going to have to leave the country. Everything seemed to be going downhill ever since he rammed into that cave. David had no face, he had no money, and it was possible that he was going to face criminal charges. How had things gotten so messed up?
He raised his right hand and examined the damage. It had been a miracle that he had managed to drive that van at all. His hand had felt like broken twigs covered in rubber. All he could successfully move were his thumbs and his index fingers, the rest were merely decoration.
“Cassidy, could you look after Judith for a second? I'm going to take a short nap.”
The pre-law student shrugged, “No problem. There's not much else to do.”
David stared at the Variant, his eyes serious, “Don't cause trouble.”
“Oh, she won't be any trouble. Will you?” Cassidy smiled at the small girl. It looked extremely unsettling.
Eating an over-salted chip, David let out a deep sigh, which sounded like Death had something caught in his throat. He got comfortable and opened the Forge game. Immediately he was assaulted with a new prompt.
You have unlocked a new game mode. Modify and repair.
Intrigued, David selected the new DLC.
The Dungeon Core's vision was cut in two. On the right side of his new hub was the word Modify and underneath was a cartoon of a man. It was one of those old timey cartoons, like something out of the fifties. It sort of looked like a certain character out of a popular game series, only this guy wasn't holding up his thumb.
There was a puff of smoke and the cartoon man was now buffed out, with muscles that were barely contained in his shirt and pants. A moment later and he looked like some sort of lizard man, after that the character had metal arms. The animation repeated after that.