by Marty Myers
“ Now go see to building the treasure room and prepare for the gates opening All of you are to meet me at the gate when the time comes so be prepared.” He instructed before leaving the three once more. Hank hurried to think about how he wanted to build the treasure vault. He decided that he would make the room without entrances or exits to make it fairly secure right off the bat. He and Alastor would be able to come and go easily enough but that would limit most others unless they had their own ability to teleport. Then depending on whether the treasure was just coins or what it was comprised of he could flood the chamber after it was teleported in or perhaps even fill the room with poisonous gases to deter thieves.
First Hank checked the area over for any flaws in the stone and found none in the areas he had chosen. He wanted the vault to be fairly big so he made it one hundred feet long. Alastor hustled to teleport the waste rock away from the dungeon. “ Hank, he said we are going have to find somewhere else to put all of these blocks soon. The area we chose over on the top of the opposite wall of the pass is almost filled now. Its way more than we need to build the tower we were talking about and I am not even sure that that’s still as good an idea as we were originally thinking it would be.” “ You might be right,” Hank said. “ But I still think we can find other uses for the blocks. Once we’re done here you can hunt for another spot to put them.”
As he worked he made sure that each wall would be at least 20 foot thick to discourage tunneling in. One wall faced the back of the great hall as Provoas had instructed while the vaults other side came near one of the original cave rooms they had first excavated. Hank shaped the vault into an oval so that carrying anything out of it would be difficult, then he strengthened every surface with his earth magic which had been growing a bit with all of the stonework and earth moving he had been up to.
Once it was done they didn’t know how long that had until the gate would open, so they gathered ten skeletons and experimented with seeing whether Birch could order them about or not. It took a while for him to get the hang of it but eventually, he managed to gain a rough control over their actions. It seemed like those that Hank had personally raised were much easier for Birch to command than the ones Alastor had made and the ones Provoas had created were even more difficult for him to order about at all.
Then Alastor transported them all down to the gate to see if they could determine how long they had. It seemed they would not have long to wait as the gate’s energy had increased quite a bit since last they had looked upon it. The dragon’s bones were almost covered entirely by the heart of darkness coalescing in its chest. “ Provoas isn’t here yet,” Alastor said, “ so it must not be quite ready. Hank, we need to be ready for whatever comes through that portal. If Provoas warned us that they could be dangerous to us, then you can bet that they will be.”
“ I am warning you now, I am going to be appearing much more demonic while their around. I have been toning it down a bit with you to put you more at ease, but we need to look and act hard and dangerous to keep from getting challenged or even beaten on depending on who or what these guards are.” With that Alastor grew another couple feet until he was around six and a half foot tall. His skin became more scaly and thickened while his facial features became a bit sharper with his snout lengthening and his teeth sharpening. His hands and feet became clawed and he hunched just a bit as more muscles coiled up in his chest and back. The spade of his tail lashed and looked sharper as well and more than a hint of brimstone could be seen rising off of him in heat waves in the cool interior of the dungeon. Birch backed up a step as the changes took place. He did not like demons and he definitely didn’t feel comfortable with Alastor’s changing looks. Hank though knew through their bond that nothing inside the demon was any different than it had been and that this was still the same Alastor that he had been dealing with all along.
He said, “ I wonder if I can do anything like that to help us out in this respect.” He focused on his own form and realized that he looked as he did because this was how he thought of himself. In his favorite worn jeans and a comfortable shirt he liked. He thought about donning something different and saw his appearance almost instantly change into another outfit he liked to wear. He wondered how much he could change and tried changing into one of his favorite costumes from a few years ago. Looking down he found himself wearing a long dark robe with a hood and belt. He found he could change the colors and a lot of other details if he focused on them.
Then he thought about wearing a mask and quickly went through several of his favorite options while Alastor and Birch watched and described his appearances. Thank goodness he loved Halloween so much as a kid before he had found that the costume contests at the cons were just a grown-up version of the same thing. Mentally he tried on several before finally returning to a classic black helmet of a certain fallen knight from a galaxy far far away. He subtracted the tech gadgets on the outfit since they wouldn’t be understood or appreciated here by this crowd. But he kept the cape, after all without the worry of it snagging, a cape became once more one of the greatest hallmarks of bad guys and dark empires everywhere. His voice was already weird sounding with his condition so altering it a bit more and adding the weird breathing sounds in when he felt like it wasn’t much of a challenge either.
Finally, he asked them what they thought. Hank had kept talking up a constant stream of information as he went about this so Alastor and Birch had some vague ideas where Hank had got his attire from. Birch said, “ this is what your people do for fun? Dress up in odd clothes from your fairytales and pretend to be the heroes and villains that never existed?” “ Well, Hank said anything sounds weird when you say it like that. But yes that’s what some of us do once in a while in our free time,” he muttered self consciously. “ How does it look though,” he asked. “ It looks intimidating actually,” Alastor said. “ That big shiny black head and the odd eyes reflecting the room back at me make me wonder what you hiding in there and the voice and loud breathing is oddly disturbing too.”
Hanks only regret was not being able to actually make the iconic sci-fi sword that went with the toon. Ah well since he was immaterial, maybe being able to wave one around and duel wouldn’t have been feasible anyway. Just thinking about it though, his mind suddenly had an unexpected info dump from the grimoire. It didn’t possess the spells needed to make one, but there was a mention of such a thing existing. In part of the histories of the Dark’s rule, it spoke of a weapon whose blade was made of pure immaterial necromantic essence contained within a dark crystal that was mounted in the hilt of a broken relic sword long ago. Hanks mind burbled excitedly at the thought of eventually being able to recreate one of geekdom’s most cherished weapons.
While he was imagining it Provoas came into the chamber and approached the three of them. With a wave of his hand, he dispelled the living semblance that still clung to Birch and stood regarding his two protégés. “ Hmm, I see the Darks gift of power is settling in nicely with you Alastor, your scales are certainly gleaming with demonic essence now.” He looked over Hanks appearance for a while longer. “ This guise seems a bit overdone my dungeon, although the black color scheme and the cape are definitely a nice touch. One of the advantages of your condition is, of course, the ease of taking on one semblance or another. Go ahead and try this one for a while then and see whether it works for you,” he said. “ It is fairly immaterial what outer form you choose to wear. It is what is behind the mask which counts.”
Provoas then went up to the portal and began chanting, after a while the dragons head reluctantly joined him and after a pause so to did the Darkness own voice take up the chant and complete the dark chorus. The Dark energies in the room continued to build while Hank monitored them rising steadily on this floor of the dungeon. He felt stray energies passing into the stone and worked at catching and absorbing them with his aura so that they wouldn’t leak out past the wards and protections obscuring their hiding place.
Finally, the center o
f the portal broke open and pushed out until another large chamber could be seen upon the other side. Large black armored figures in a variety of forms could be seen standing in columns at attention as the Darkness opened the portal from the other side. Standing next to The Lord Darkness orb of awful inky black energies was a robed figure of a woman glowing a dark gray close to black with a touch of demon red here and there embedded in her aura. Not much more could he tell.
Hank instinctively knew this was the other dungeon as he could feel its potent presence as if it was just a few feet away. Then having thought that, it was as if the two of them were drawing closer together and then suddenly it was as if they were pressed right up against each other in a crowded room. He felt their bodies touching, for the first time since he had had the ritual performed upon him he could feel himself and another person in contact with one another. Even though neither of them had moved from where their spirits hovered in the two rooms mystically they were now also sandwiched together.
Hank felt himself flush as the woman’s body pressed against him most pleasantly. Remembering Provoas words he kept still and apologized. “ I am sorry Dark Lady of the Citadel. I had no idea this was what meeting you through the portal was going to be like, please excuse me.” The woman’s eyes which were flush with his own snapped at first with Darkness and fury and then mellowed a bit before finally glinting with amusement as Hank spoke. Her voice was a powerful deep tone resonating psychically throughout his own consciousness as her deep red lips moving mere centimeters from his. “ You are so young, I had no idea you would be so little and so uncorrupted. You are almost cute. I was expecting to have to deal with a brute or a bore or a madman long tainted by the Masters Darkness.” He felt energies which had been hidden and waiting to strike at him only now easing back into the other Dungeons core and was relieved she had not fried him with them.
“ My lady, I am named Hank Graves, is there a way I could stop imposing myself so upon your being? And what would you prefer to be called?” From inches away her now light honeyed eyes looked back at Hank and judged him, and instead of answering his questions she said. “ This shell you wear is a façade, I would prefer to deal with you wearing something more natural to your being. Hank looked around, he realized that he was both here and still equally over there where he hovered next to Alastor wearing his outlandish costume. “ Madam as you wish,” he said as he let the costume revert back to his own comfortable clothes. He maintained eye contact and tried not to think too much about everything of his and hers that was touching. “ You can call me Llywelyn, the Dark Citadel, or the Dark Lady or a combination of the those three if you wish,” she said.
He pulled his mind from his current predicament long enough to think about what else he was supposed to be doing.Hank thought of Birch and his need to have him go into the portal and retrieve the treasure. “ Lady Llywellyn I have been commanded to have some of my minions go to you and retrieve some treasure by my master Provoas. I would ask your leave to do so.” Again there was amusement dancing in her eyes at his speech. “ I grant thee permission to do so Hank, however, let us not rush this meeting along.”
“ Let me introduce you to some of the very few perks there are of our current existence.” Hank felt her do something he couldn’t quite grasp and then her eyes darted over past Hank’s and she said, “ see how slowly everyone now moves. To you and I, in this moment they are as insects in amber. This is because we are both right here in each other’s minds where thoughts run like lightning while their physical bodies plod along at almost a standstill like a bubble forming in cooling tar. It will be a while before they finally burst into action as long as we will it to be so.”
“ Not only do we control the perception of time between us but also that of our whereabouts. Come let me take you to my den.” And having said so, she took his hand and led him suddenly from where he stood next to her on the other side of the portal down empty hallways and through dark echoing caverns until they reached a grand doorway deep within her being. All the while they were walking they both enjoyed the sensation of physical contact between them and even the feeling of their footsteps upon the floor. “ Almost all of this is simply a mental mirage we are creating,” Llywelyn said. “ The feeling of the floor as we trod upon it for instance. It is based only on our memories of how that felt to us when we had bodies. Mostly they are yours, since yours are so much fresher than mine. While the looks of everything here is my contribution to this experience.”
“ The touch of our hands she said as she ran her fingers across Hanks palm as they held hands this isn’t nearly as much of a phantasm as the rest of it is though. In a very real sense the both of us are touching now through the portal, our spirit bodies and our minds are both capable of sharing the same space or an adjacent one as well. This can be a very good thing or it can be a very bad thing.” She suddenly showed him a hidden dagger held in the folds of her robe at her side in her other hand. Hank tensed but she simply dropped it and it disintegrated before it fell to the floor. “ You need to be more careful young one,” she said. “ I have lured you deep into my own dungeon and into my power and if I wished you harm then harm would surely come to you here.”
“ I tell you this she said because you are too trusting and I am inclined now having met you to wish you well. You have so much to learn yet about who and what you are now. Those lessons can be learned with bitter tears or they’re instruction can be fed to you by my hand instead like honeyed ambrosia. The choice is equally yours and mine,” she said as she ushered him through the door. Hank was very nervous now, Llywelyn seemed to be playing with him in many ways, like a cat with a mouse. He recognized her words could be taken to be quite suggestive of activities they could participate in other than just learning.
Inside the room was the first hint of color and warmth he had seen since entering the Dark Citadel. There were paintings of great vistas on the walls, of castles and mountains and seas. There were also bookshelves full of books with different colored spines and comfy chairs and sofas set around the room to read them in. The room was lit with warm lantern light from lanterns hanging from above. “ These are my personal chambers,” she said as she gestured around. “ We may relax here as only I have dominion in these rooms.”
“ During the portals connecting us we must and will stay touching at all times,” Llywelyn said as she raised her other hand pushing back her hood. Her long brown hair spilled out as she did so, catching the light as it fell onto her shoulders. She then undid the clasp at the throat of her the robe which opened and fell away to lie at her feet. It revealed that she was wearing a beautiful blue velvet dress that clung to her ample figure displaying her charms very well.
The neckline plunged to show off a marvelous bust which Hank could hardly fail to appreciate. When he realized that he was still staring down at her cleavage from such a close range he brought his eyes up to meet her’s and blushed. She laughed at this and said, “ it has been ages since I saw someone blush Hank. That alone is worth something to me and I take no umbrage from your gaze. My vanity allows me to enjoy the appreciation of my form I see in your eyes.”
“ Keep in mind though that whether fair or foul my appearance and yours is still but a shell we can wear to disguise the truth.” As she said this her appearance slowly began to age until she looked like an old a withered crone. “ I am still who and what I am, whatever guise I don.” Hank held steady at this display and looked at her as he held her hand. “ My lady I thank you for the lesson.” Through their touching he could now feel a little bit more of both the personality and physicality of his fellow dungeon. A moment later Llywelyn was just as she had been, a stunning beauty at the pinnacle of her youth. “ I am old Hank,” she said, “ and yet age does not mean to us what it does to mortals. If we take care of ourselves and do not receive too grievous of injuries we actually grow in power and influence as we age. I have been in good health and bad as great battles have been fought without and within my halls.”
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br /> “ But it is the mind where we face our greatest challenges. For we begin life in a much different state than this one and what makes us who we are slowly can fade as time and essence pass us by. I have much to give one such as you but I want something great in return. I want to share myself and for you to share in yourself equally with me. Our memories and experiences and even essences can be blended together. We can share a little at a time or we can share a lot. It is a completely willing process between us that I propose.”
“ For me, it will help to maintain my fading humanity, refresh my memories and reinvigorate my life. For you, it will gift you with many of the lessons I learned the hard way being one of the first of our kind and also help add to your own growing personal power. I don’t propose a complete sharing between us for there are terrible things within my experiences that would shatter your mind were I to impart them to you. I will shield you from that harm. But there are great things within me as well which would enrich you many fold. What do you say, Hank?” As he hesitated she said. “ Please think it over.”