The Dungeon Con: One Foot in the Grave ( Hank Grave Book 1): One Foot in the Grave (Hank Grave series)

by Marty Myers

  When he and Alastor were finished he focused once more on his own skeletons standing outside the now empty boudoir. He directed one of them over to the doorway across the room and had it try to open it. It received a continuous death bolt which rattled it a bit before the charge wore down. Hank then had another more fit skeleton open the door and found a gigantic bedroom which doubled as a gothic torture chamber. On one side there was a huge four poster bed and a sizable chest and on the other an iron maiden, a rack and a fireplace with a brazier full of irons. There was also a wall lined with arm and leg chains and manacles and work table with several other smaller torture implements like metal boots and thumbscrews and pliers.

  Taking one long look inside, Hank directed the skeleton to try opening the chest. When they touched it they got the obligatory death bolt for their trouble. In addition, it was locked with a more mundane lock which refused to give. Hank quickly decided to bring the chest home and leave all the other nasty surprises there. He focused for a moment and the chest disappeared into his treasure vault.

  Then he happened to look a bit closer at the layout of the room as he felt there was something a little off about it. He carefully had Alastor scry the room again and found a hidden oubliette set into the floor by the bedside. Alastasia would have been able to hear and view her captives through the grille of the trap door anytime she decided to use the bed. There were many wards and spells set upon it that didn’t seem to be decaying like much of the rest of the crypt’s magic’s either. Hank had his most ragged skeleton try to open the trap door only to have his skeleton explode. The backlash hit Hank who grimaced at the reminder that controlling skeletons directly did have a few drawbacks.

  He thought about it for a few minutes and then tried raising one of the local skeletons he had found in the hallway outside thinking that maybe some lingering traces of Alastasia’s magic might allow her own skeletons to open the hatch without sitting off the traps. Again this was a feat he had not tried before and he found that raising a skeleton so far away was a much greater effort on his part, than if the bones had been with him. He got the sense that perhaps there were many necromancers who could not have managed such a feat from so far away. He would have to ask Provoas about it when he got the chance. Hank had the skeleton try opening the hatch and to his delight, it worked. He had doubted that she would have personally done such plebeian chores as opening the gate or throwing prisoners into her Oubliette after all.

  He could see that the chamber below had been formed with magic as it was unnaturally shaped like a bottle or teardrop with perfectly smooth black obsidian walls. He was careful not to actually enter the cell because he had the feeling that the magic’s woven into the prison’s walls were meant to keep everything in and he did not want to test them. It was so dark inside that only his soul sight allowed him to see that there was an occupant. Its aura was billowing unnaturally out from the figure and being pulled one wisp at a time into the obsidian all around the figure. It’s aura was almost pure black which further obscured the details of the person to Hanks sight.

  Hank cast a will-o-wisp in the bedroom to better see by. The figure below was an imposing sight. A tall, wild looking, ragged emaciated vampire with red eyes and long white fangs and a tattered cloak stood below looking up at him. Hank said, “ I am currently releasing the few independent creatures here as I loot the place do you want out? I warn you beforehand I don’t want any trouble before I try to get you out of there.” The vampire looked at him for a long moment before it spoke in a raspy choking voice. “ If you can free me from this chamber I will not harm you.”

  Hank looked around until he found a rope and bone ladder cleverly disguised in a hidden drawer built into the bed’s frame. He could see there was a complex spell woven into the rope that seemed to bypass the wards set into the oubliette. He had the skeleton lower the rope down to the vampire who creakily climbed up the rope and out onto the bedroom’s floor. “ My thanks to you spirit,” It rasped as it lay still a moment before crawling up onto all fours. The vampire sniffed the air and looked intently around before speaking, “ there is no blood here to hunt. I must have some soon or I will be too weak to rise again at nightfall.”

  Hank focused and attempted to see if he could scry for anything nearby. He reminded himself that he could be many places doing different things if he made himself. He focused on creating the scrying pool in his mind’s eye and found himself there too, standing at the pool’s edge. He focused upon casting out for an animal and found another mountain goat. Then setting himself a harder task he teleported the animal from the mountain to the bedchamber. It was as if he was juggling a couple balls while directing the skeleton as well.

  Suddenly the goat appeared and the vampire instantly sprang into action throwing itself upon the animals back, wrapping its long bare limbs around the beast as its head lunged forward and it’s long white fangs sank into the goat’s neck. The animal it clutched bleated in fear briefly before succumbing to the unexpected predator on its back. A minute or two later after the sucking sounds had died down the vampire drew itself up to its feet again. Only now that the blood reinvigorated the wasted body could Hank make out enough features to tell that it was a she. The figure had regained some feminine curves and fine long black hair had erupted from the vampires head. “ I am called Eleanora of the house of Nightmire. I thank you for rescuing me and for supplying me with sustenance in this time of need,” she said. “ How did you make the goat suddenly appear,” she asked?” “ I am Hank Graves,” Hank said. “ It was just luck that I was here and noticed the trap door. I am glad to have helped you out. As to the appearance of the goat, I would rather not say.” The woman looked at him for a minute before deciding to drop the subject.

  “ Where is Alastasia,” Eleanora asked with a wicked gleam in her eye. “ I believe that she has been destroyed a few weeks ago by this kingdoms army and clerics,” Hank said. The vampire’s stance wavered slightly at hearing this. “ I had hoped to finish her off myself,” she said with a catch in her voice. “ She deserved to be slain by my hand.” Hank replied, “ I was not there, but eyewitnesses say that most of the Dark Host was destroyed upon the field of battle. I also can tell you that much of her personal enchantments are crumbling here indicating she did not survive. The ransacked condition of her tomb is due to adventurers already making their way down here to dig through her possessions, loot everything and finish off her remaining minions. That’s one reason I am here as well. I needed to see if I could recover some of her servants. Eleanora do you need anything else before I go. Unfortunately, I have much to do and not much time to do it in.”

  Hank found himself repressing the urge to try to bind her to his will with castings that the grimoire in his head was supplying him. The orders Provoas had given him to master the spells therein were trying to push him into doing so. Luckily Llywelyn’s advice on how to resist the geas was helping as he reminded himself of a couple other orders his masters had also given him like keeping a low profile and not bringing back others to the dungeon so as to not reveal its location or the Dark’s plans to resurrect the Dark Prince. That could be interpreted as reasons to not try casting the bindings upon random vampires he met. After all he reasoned, he didn’t know whether he would fail and she could escape him to tell others of their encounter. Finally, Hank managed to quell the urge. She looked at him haughtily before she answered. “ I do not require anything more from you Hank Graves. Perhaps one night we shall meet again.” With that, she walked out of the bedroom and swiftly disappeared into the night.

  Hank looked around to see if there was anything else he wanted to take before he left. He teleported all but one skeleton back to the dungeon and stood there thinking. What he had in mind was probably overreaching, but he decided he was going to try it anyway. He used his two places at once talent again to hollow out a space deep in his dungeon big enough for two rooms. One was large enough to be a bedroom and to hold the large bed and the other below it was shaped ju
st a tiny bit bigger than the room below him. He then took one last long look and then grabbed a hold of the oubliette and reached deep into the bond he shared with Alastor just as his imp noticed what he was up to.

  The magic’s of the prison wasn’t specifically designed to stop this particular attempt because no one had imagined anyone could or would ever be able to teleport whole dungeon rooms from place to place like Hank was. Still it resisted, in general, his essence claiming and enfolding it. To Hank it was as if he was trying to pick up an elephant and then swallow him hole. If it had not been for Alastor putting everything he had into backing Hank up the whole thing would have failed either immediately or come apart somewhere not too far from where the attempt started. Hank could have become trapped inside the magical prison or maybe even had his aura torn apart and scattered everywhere between the two locations. As it was he felt like both his selves were being ripped apart and drew as hard as he could upon all of his bonds. He even felt the Gordian’s knot in his aura between him and his body strain with the draw and surge with energy drawn from the altar as he felt as the chamber appear nestled deep in his dungeon.

  Then as suddenly as it had happened it was over and other than a pounding headache Hank felt fine. He did notice his core essence was fairly depleted though. Hank made his way from the scrying pool back over to the kitchen where he found Alastor and Anatolius trying to get the attention of his other catatonic drifting self. Hank stepped back into his other self and felt at least twice as bad as he had just a moment before. “ Hank, Alastor said you madman, you have got to stop doing this impulsive crazy stuff! One of these days its going to backfire and we are going to be screwed.” “ I am sorry,” said Hank as he floated in the pantry trying to ease his banging head. “ Your right Alastor I will cut down on the crazy stuff for a while and try to be more careful.”

  Hank then told the Anatolius that he needed to rest and recover a bit before trying to free his wife from the pendant. The ghost was not happy to hear this but after seeing how bad Hank looked he relented and agreed. Hank quickly placed a stone door in place to seal off the pantry and then took his first break in quite a while to try to meditate, recuperate and soothe his troubled aura.

  Chapter 20

  An hour later he felt ready to try to figure out the pendant. He had had the same skeleton hold it the entire time. Hank was worried that if someone had touched it they might inadvertently claim its magic. Instead, he carefully extended his senses towards the pendant checking it over for any traps. After a while of studying it he was fairly sure that this was made of the same type of obsidian as the oubliette, maybe even being a piece of it taken off of the larger artifact.

  He found similar spells and enchantments on each of them and although the pendant was not as powerful as the larger stone he found that they both gave their owner control of those held inside them and the ability to draw upon one of their magic’s or talents as if it were their own. They were each layered with powerful protections that allowed them to keep those with magic contained within and for the owner to tap into their energies as if they were his own. The oubliette could also be made to drain a victim of their essence to empower it’s master. Only a spirit could take up little enough room to fit inside the pendant but the castings where nearly the same. The amulets range was much less than the oubliette. The pendant might grant its owner these powers within a dozen feet but the oubliette would have a much much greater range.

  Hank shared this information with no one. He telepathically warned Alastor to keep quiet about it too. This was a dangerous but useful tool they might be able to make work for them. He wondered how hard it was going to be to claim the pendant, luckily he could see the aura of the pendant’s last mistress was almost completely gone. Its erosion probably accelerated by his removing it from the crypt by teleportation which was not kind to auras. He wondered if there was a way to use that to his advantage at some point but shelved the idea and got back to trying to unlock the pendant.

  “ Okay Anatolius,” Hank said. “ I have studied the pendant closely and it seems to me that claiming it is one of the only ways to gain the power to set anyone trapped inside it free so that is what I am going to do now.” The ghost was anxious but nodded his head at Hank’s words. Hank focused his will upon the black pendant and reached out with his magic’s but the pendant resisted him. He tried again but each time his magic’s could not penetrate the stone.

  Finally he gingerly reached out his hand and tried grasping the pendant. He felt a surge of energies and felt a sense of movement and found himself standing within a small smoky chamber looking at a slim attractive woman who he could tell was a spirit. “ Hello,” Hank said as the woman recoiled and Hank realized he was still wearing the black robes and helmet of his costume. Hank dismissed the disguise. “Sorry, he said “ I am dealing with a lot of the Dark’s minions right now and they aren’t easy to intimidate. I am called Hank and I am looking for Melody is that your name?” The lady nodded and so Hank said, “ your husband Anatolius has asked me to try to free you from the pendant.” “ Stranger.” the woman said, “ if you have stepped in here you have surely doomed yourself to be Alastasia’s slave alongside me.” “ No she is dead,” Hank said, “ I took a hold of the pendant after finding it at your husbands request and am trying to claim it so I can free you.”

  The woman paled and then said, “ Quickly then, repeat this chant! I claim thee, Tear of Timphany, Nemesis, Invidia, your power is mine in the name of the Darkness let it bind mine onto thee onto thine.” The chant thundered throughout Hank as he spoke the words with the woman. Upon finishing he felt his hold upon the pendant solidify as the skeleton previously holding it fell into dust and blew away upon a inexplicable wind that rose from nowhere within the pantry.

  She bowed her head to Hank and then he found himself once more floating in the pantry with the pendant in his hand. He willed her spirit to come forth from the stone and she too appeared next to him. Anatolius immediately flew to Melody and they embraced and cried upon seeing each other. Hank was busy looking at the pendant and marveling at being able to hold something again. He could instinctively feel that his possession of the artifact was absolute and that only his obliteration or its destruction would separate them. Maybe this was why his immaterial form could hold the pendant he thought.

  The couple spoke quietly to each other for several minutes while Hank looked the pendant over and then broke apart to turn to Hank. He could see that the woman’s spirit was weakened and dimming. He said, “ it looks like we do not have much time. If you both wish to be together I will need to bind you both here and try to invigorate you two very soon.” Anatolius and his wife Melody both nodded happily to him and said, “ you have shown us you are a man of your word, we are ready to enter your service Hank.” So Hank drew out a protective circle big enough for them both to stand in and proceeded to use the chants from the grimoire to bind and empower the ghosts. He also gave them command over the remaining skeletons he had brought back to serve as the kitchen staff and even carved them another chamber off of the kitchen pantry area to serve as their own personal bedroom. Hank wasn’t entirely certain whether they needed it, but he wasn’t about to short them on something simple that might make them happier and cost him just a little more time and effort to keep their goodwill.

  After he had finished and showed them their room he asked Melody, “ can you tell me anything else about the pendant and its uses?” She shuddered a bit and looked at Hank carefully before answering. “It is both a prison of souls and spirits and a fell talisman that is connected to a much larger device of imprisonment. It is the primary key to Alastasia’s hidden oubliette. As to its uses. It can be used to trap a spirit indefinitely, either to preserve them or to drain their essence into the owners own core and destroy them utterly. With it, one can also harness another’s power or talent one at a time as it influences those trapped within forcing them to fall under the wearers sway. The gem is a prison which encapsulates the prison
er’s essence and keeps all outside influences at bay while stopping any magic’s from escaping as well unless the owner wishes it otherwise. The oubliette is said to have much the same enchantments only they are much stronger and able to hold entire physical beings inside of it.”

  Hank took all this in and said. “ I need you to do something for me.” Melody looked on in fear worried that Hank was about to order her back into the pendant. “ I need you to swear to keep this a secret and never tell anyone else what this is, or does or that I have it. It would be too tempting for someone else to try to take it from me and I now know that once someone owns this thing the only way for it to pass on is by their destruction.” Hank experimentally lifted the pendant up over his head and tried wearing it. He was pleased to find it settled around his neck like just like a regular necklace and then became immaterial. He tried slowly passing through a wall and felt no more resistance than ever. Hank took the pendant off and found once more that it was solid before putting it on again. Very curious indeed he thought.

  “ Anyway, I want to show you around the kitchen where you will be for now. I will be working out how to fulfill the rest of your husband’s demands soon. Looking for your family or descendants. But in the meantime, I need the kitchen ran and the guards kept fed. When you need game or foodstuff brought down before meals just get my attention through your bindings and I or Alastor will teleport in the animals.”