The fifty-six-year-old Cassandra Keep woke up disoriented with a look of confusion on her face. The confused look would have been seen on her face if it was not for the fact that she was in total darkness. Well, that not entirely true either, as there is some light. Although faint, it is coming from something that is stuck to the walls. The name of Light Moss comes to mind, and a shock of memories flooded her like a dam was busted. Laying her head back down upon the floor, she groans as she pushes aside the memories as she tries to remember how she got here. The pounding in her head is like having a hangover, not remembering drinking anything last night. She rubs her throat, which was sore. She faintly remembering a magic trick she was performing go wrong, and...She died. Her eyes grew wide as she thought over the fact that the chains and key to the lock would not unlock. It wasn’t until she was near her death that she realizes someone had superglue the latch to keep it from opening. She has been or was a second class magician and puppeteer for the Magic House in the city. Every day she did a puppet show for the kids with the puppets that she hand-carved and painted. Some of her puppets were all wood, while others were made of paper mache and dress up with handmade clothing that she has sewn. Over the years, she created hundreds of puppets and even sold a lot of them online. She learns sleight of hand magician work by being an assistant then an apprentice then moving up to doing some shows to help her mentor out.

Adding in her puppet shows it drew in a healthy crowd that kept the Magic House afloat. It was when her mentor added two more apprentices that things went downhill. Veil death threats and bullying came about a year ago when another magician offers her mentor a lot of money to sell. Sandra was okay with her mentor selling, but the magician wanted her puppet business too. So she refuses the offer. One reason was that the guy was an ass, and that was putting it mildly, and the second reason was the amount of money he offers was an insult. She figures that it was him behind her death, but she got the last laugh. She left everything to a puppet show out East and a museum several states away, stipulating that her scripts and puppets can not be sold for fifty years. She tries to chuckle only to feel her throat hurting, and she groans instead.

Sandra inhales sharply as the thoughts that were the memories of a sixteen-year-old girl named Sandra Hope came to her vividly. The memories show her that she was choked to death in a dungeon outside of a town called Shadedale. The man that choke her was a fellow adventurer, a fighter by the name of Gary Stoneshield that was let go from the army. Somewhere in his thirties, with pockmark face and should be sporting some deep claw marks that Sandra left on his face as she died. She can remember the disgusting man’s breath on her face and the unwashed body smell that would gag her when she was too close to him. There is one thing that Cassandra was strict on, that is body hygiene. Taking care of her body and making sure to bathe daily to keep clean was ingrained in her from a kid in the orphanage. The woman who was in charge of the orphanage was strict on cleanliness. It was one reason she was in good shape, smell good, and still had a youthful appearance. Her daily exercises, yoga, healthy eating style, and meditation was her daily routine to maintain her body. Now she is in a teenage body. Her memories show her to be a petite girl with large breasts that cause a lot of problems with the girl from men’s advances. She was an orphan that grew up in an orphanage and was raped repeatedly before her mentor bought her and trained her in magic. It didn’t stop the abuse of sleeping with the mage.

What surprised her, even more, is the fact she can do magic. As a matter of fact, it was light magic. Several illusion spells appear in her mind. The knowledge on how to cast the spells nearly made her cry with joy. She has always desire to be able to do real magic. Since she was a child, she had always wished to cast magic. Her eyes open wide with the thought that these spells could push her puppet and magic shop to another level! Then the knowledge that she died finally hit her. Bile starts to rise to her throat. Taking a deep breath, she settles her stomach down as her eyes water at the thought that she will not see any of her friends again. Sitting up, she was about to cast the spell Light to see where she was at when she heard voices coming her way. Panic fills her as she remembers that she was kill and thinking that the man was coming back to get rid of the body. She moves away from where she woke up in fear and hid in depression against the wall that she trips and fell into, groaning as she rubs her knee from hitting the ground hard. She steadies her breath as a spell came to mind, lesser illusion, muttering the spell as she weaves her hand. She was thinking of a cave wall like the one she saw when she and her best friend explored a cave a few months ago. She decides that she will take on Sandra Hope’s name for now until she can leave this place and find another city to settle down.

The spell ended as the voices came closer down the tunnel of the dungeon. The torch lite up the surroundings as they came into view. A smaller woman was dragging a big warrior by the ear. Sandra recognizes the woman as Stacy Hart, a half breed dwarven woman that is a dealer in shoddy merchandise and gambling near the entrance of the Rat Dungeon. Biting her lip to keep herself from screaming as she remembers that this was a rat-infested dungeon.

Oh god, she hates mice but hates rats even more. She has been known to jump on chairs, tables even into stranger’s arms to get away from a mouse. Beads of sweat built upon her forehead and trickle down her back at the thought of rats crawling around. Sandra started to sweat more from the fear that was gripping her heart.

“Ya dumb! Ignorant horny fool! Why in the thirty-three fucking Hells did ya kill that girl?” The sound of heavy smacking of a palm again a face could be heard. “All ya had to do is get her drunk after the dungeon run. Then!” She pauses, taking a deep breath, “That vial I gave ya. All ya had to do is slip it into her drink. I could have made several gold crowns off her as a slave to a noble. Those Eastern nobles salivate over a young girl that is a mage that they can break and control, and now ya ruin it! Because ya could not keep it in urs pants!” Sandra can see that the ugly beard woman is peering around in the darkness and not seeing anything. “Either the rats ate her, or the dungeon adsorb her! She not here! There are only two ways to go, deeper in the dungeon or out the front, and I’ve not seen her go past us. Besides the fact she mediocre in spellcasting, no one is going to care about if she disappears or dies being an orphan and that her master is dead!”

The woman peered into the darkness and snorted as she leaps up and grabs the man’s ear. “I’m putting ya into the bordello to service my clients until you pay me back the two gold ya lost!” the dwarven woman said as she drags the bent-over crying man out the dungeon.

Cassandra can still remember the feeling of the man choking her after he pushes Sandra down to rape her. She remembers casting a flash that blinded him, but his strength was too much for her. The memories of seeing the other three members of adventurers that she group only turning their heads and ignore her pleas of help as the man was trying to rape her. Sandra narrow her eyes and watch the torchlight fade away as the woman berate the man.

“Just you wait, I will make you pay! It may not be today, but it will be soon.” The anger of her death by someone coveting her things. Then the death of this girl because they wanted to sell her off as a slave. Hell, not even mentioning the attempted rape! Make her blood boil! The sound of squeaking made her squeal as her hand clamp over her mouth to stifle a scream.

She frantically pours through her memories on various spells. Only finding a minor light arrow spell, a couple of minor illusion spells, and a minor heal spell. The spells she has to fight with, it is kind of pathetic. She can remember Sandra and her group, killing some of the smaller rats and having to cast twice to kill a larger rat using the light arrow spell. Sitting upright as she thought of her staff and a dagger that the man flung away when he was trying to rape her. She cast a light spell and broke the illusion of a wall covering her as she got up and walked around, holding up the light that she held in her hand. Something glean from the light that is shining upon it. Finding her dagger that was half-buried on the floor like the dungeon was absorbing it, but once she touches the knife, it pops right out of the ground. Looking at the spot on the ground and watching the small hole that the dagger was in close up. Sandra stood up from her crouching position as she saw her staff nearby, slowly sinking into the ground. She rushes over to it and pulls it out of the ground. She was sensing some mana in the bone-white staff that was made from a glowing oak tree far to the north. The staff can at least double the damage of her spells and duration of the spells. If she had a crystal embedded in the staff, it could store mana to be used to cast a spell if she runs low. Only Sandra was too poor to buy one considering the staff was given to her by her mentor.

She turns to leave but stops and reaches into her pouch at her waist and pulls out a silver, hefting it for a moment in thought. Knowing the silver could give her a week worth of food, she tosses it to the ground and says. “Thanks for not taking my stuff.”

She stares toward the front of the dungeon and then toward the back of the dungeon. She needs to find a safe place and then follow some adventurers out of the dungeon. It was morning when she came in here with the group, and it was about noon when she was killed. Figuring it was about an hour when the dwarf woman appears. She needs to wait about seven hours, maybe eight hours, to be sure to escape from the dungeon. Every time she heard a squeak, she would jump and hold the staff with clench hands after a few minutes, she would painfully pry her fingers from around the staff.

She was shivering in horror as memories of Sandra skinning a rat for its fur to earn an extra a copper Fen. A hundred copper Fen is worth a silver Del. One hundred silver Del is worth a gold Crown. The Adventurer Guild will pay one Fen per rat tail and another Fen for the hide if in good condition. The Merchant guild will pay one Del per five gallbladders from a rat. The disease rat the tail is the only thing worth getting for a bounty. If you get bitten by one, there a chance of getting one of several diseases that could keep you from working or even dying. Most adventurers have to purchase potions to cure the disease because healers are rare and, if found, are snapped up by the temples or nobles, which explains why Sandra hid her healing powers from everyone. If anyone found out that she can heal people, her life will be control and her freedom restricted.

Three weeks ago, the third level of the Rat dungeon as they call it opened up, and the stories of Ratmen were the talk of the town. The rats here on the first two levels are about the size of a cat, and the Ratmen are humanoid creatures that stood about knee-high. The stories that been going around saying the Ratmen in the dungeon have just starting to wear clothing and carrying sharpen sticks. A skinned Ratman fur is worth twenty copper Fen, and the tail is twice as long as a rat, and the bounty is worth two Fen per tail. The idea of encountering any of them sent shivers down her spine. She pauses and whispers into the darkness a silent prayer.

“Please, any god that hear me, let me get out of this dungeon and safely away from this place, and I will build you a small shrine,” rolling her eyes, “okay, it will be a tiny shrine.” She jumps as she hears some voices coming her way. Rushing over to the dungeon wall, she makes herself flush with the wall and turns off the light. After a moment, she cast the minor illusion spell. A shimmering wall encloses her to hide her behind the illusionary wall.

Two men walk in the tunnel of the dungeon. One of the men is wearing metal armor like a knight in fantasy stories she read about. The other is an old wizard in a pointed hat and long robes. The robes appear to be red. The mage has a flame that is glowing at the end of his staff. Making him a fire mage. He looks to be about thirty and skinny with messy brown hair that drapes to his shoulders with a big beak-like nose. The man’s eyes were ablaze with red fire, most likely a spell to detect heat sources. She prays that it has a limited distance it can see. Luck would have it that the Tinman block the view of the wizard.

“Miss Hart said the young mage died by a rat swarm. She wants us to kill as many rats until we find her core.” The knight said to the mage.

“Hmmph! More likely, she wanted that soul core to put in a sex golem to use in her brothel. I know she owns six of them.” the mage said as the knight shiver upon hearing that.

“I’m glad I am not a magic-user with a core, No wonder many of you rather explode than have your core taken.” the knight said.

“Aye, I bought a rune and had it tattooed on my skull that will teleport my core to a safe location to be put into a golem I already had built when I die. Cost me ten crowns for the tattoo and several hundred more for the golem. I lose some magic powers but gain several hundred years, maybe a thousand years of life.” The mage waves his staff about.

The knight shivers and shakes his head, “you lose your humanity doing that!”

“I would do it now, but I need one more part to make the golem perfect, but I would not be able to learn any more spells or grow stronger. I need to find a powerful magic core that will ensure I would not lose any of my spells. If the girl had died in here, it would take a week before the dungeon adsorbs her core. Oh, it would be nice to get a dungeon core instead!” The wizard crackle. They move on deeper into the dungeon.

Sandra leans back against the wall in shock at how many people are after her. The body that she is in has no clan or family to protect her. The girl acquires her powers at fourteen when puberty hits her at the orphanage. The girl lost her virginity when she was eight to one of the men that own and care for the orphanage. The girl’s memories show a blur of men’s faces, laughter, and bad smells until she was taken in by a mage. Most of all. The humiliation and anger of the girl’s life up to then ended on the day that she cast a spell Light blinding some of the bullies. A mage saw her and bought her from the orphanage for a silver. She ended up warming the mage bed. To her, it was better than having several men and boys at the orphanage raping her nightly. The only good that came from it all was learning spells.

Just a few months ago, she formed her mage core, which made her store mana easier. The core that in this body has allowed her to cast spells several times a day. Three weeks ago, her master was killed in a duel, and she fled the hut that the mage lived in, as the winner gains all of the mage’s belonging and the hut. Thankfully the slave contract ended when the mage died in the duel. She was able to steal the staff and two books, one of which she had not been able to open and was buried outside the village in an oilskin bag. The other book is in her backpack that still on her back.

She can hear fighting farther in the dungeon as the two men fought rats. If she doesn’t get out of this dungeon tonight and allow the dungeon to reset, they will know she is still alive. She moves as silently as she could toward the front of the dungeon. The dungeon is young and doesn’t reset but twice a day. Once at noon and again at sunset when the town closes the dungeon down. Sandra found a place to hide and cast her illusion spell and waited for the two men to leave. Several more people came into the dungeon, most of them left limping or harboring wounds from fighting. Seeing the light outside was dimming a guard step in and blew a horn that echoes down the dungeon corridor. A few minutes later, several men and women covered in blood and gore came running past her out the dungeon’s entrance and passed the guard.

The guard stares into the dungeon for a moment before turning to head toward the gate of the enclosure. A guard tower stood on the other side so they can shoot any of the rats that exit the dungeon and wreak havoc upon the town. As the guard shuts the gate, she rushes out and head over to next to the gate and cast the spell again to hide so that when the next morning comes, and the gate opens, she could escape. Sandra thought over what to do with her illusion spell. She decides that casting it on herself in the morning, making her appear as someone else. Hopefully, early in the morning, when the town guard will let many of the newbie adventurers to train and mine the dungeon, maybe she could slip out undetected.

The first floor has tin ore nodes, and the second floor has copper that can be mine daily, and the local Adventure guild make sure to mine them. Sometimes, gems could be found on the ground. But that only happens a few times a year. But for a newbie to find one, it is worth a silver Del even if the gem cost several Del they still have to turn them into the guildhall. She heard a guard climb the tower, and then a bow releasing an arrow over her head and thump into a squealing rat that died near the entrance. That image of the dead rat causes a small squeal from her lips before she presses her mouth shut tight.

“That one!” someone in the tower said.

Another voice beyond the gate spoke up, “ninety-nine more to go!”

Sandra’s eyes went wide, and she mouths ninety-nine more.