Interlude continued

The screaming and screeching of burning monsters behind them became immediately muffled and then silenced as Arthur and his guild stepped over the threshold into the next room. Once everyone was through, Arthur turned back to look into the basement they’d just left. However, there was nothing there, just pitch black darkness, no burning mimics or little demon children, just a black void.

He shook his head and took a deep breath, half the battle with this dungeon was fought in the mind. It was clearly trying to mess with them, it was like it understood what humans feared the most and used what tools it had in order to intimidate and psych them out.

The question was though, how did it even know how to do that? Or to even do that at all? How did it learn these things, who taught it? The prevailing theory these days was that dungeons were semi-sentient and natural predators, so was the way a dungeon killed those that delved in them simply natural instinct? Like a lion hunting its prey?

The point being, that dungeons weren’t just strange abnormalities of folded space and time filled with monsters and loot. Each dungeon was unique and appeared to have its own favoured tactics and strategies in how it attracted and killed its prey. This particular dungeon appeared to favour the haunted house routine.

Arthur quashed the tiny, insignificant spark of anxiety in him before it could take root and allowed a cold anger and hatred of the dungeon to smother and replace it.

“More flares,” he tersely ordered his guild.

Several more flares were thrown throughout the room revealing a relatively large chamber, several times the size of a classroom. The room was featureless, with only plain wooden floor boards and what looked to be white plaster walls. Various pieces of furniture were strewn around from having been thrown through in an effort to trigger any traps waiting for them.

Arthur and the guild looked around, trying to find the enemy, wary of another ambush or trap that they’d missed. But nothing happened, there appeared to be nothing in the room, nothing special about it at all.

SOB. Sniffle.

The sounds of a child sobbing and weeping drew everyone’s attention to the far corner of the room. There in the corner, was a small child, a little girl, facing away from them sitting down with her arms around her knees, quietly crying. They went on full alert, ready for the inevitable horror to come.

But nothing happened, no ambush, no traps, no swarms of demonic little monsters in the shape of little girls to attack them. The little girl simply continued to weep away in the corner while the hunters awkwardly watched, their weapons slowly lowering.

Arthur noticed his slayer’s confusion and relaxing stances. “Goddamnit don’t lower your guards!” he snapped at them.

“Is that really another one of them?” one of his slayers asked in confusion.

“Of course it is! Let's just kill it and move on!” someone responded.

“But it's not attacking us,” another slayer put in.

“Thats because its trying to fuck with our heads! This whole dungeon is one big mindfuck!” someone angrily said and Arthur had to silently agree with them.

In order to forestall any further debate, because this was obviously another one of the dungeons tricks, Arthur strode forward and got his warhammer ready. The girl seemed to notice Arthur’s advance and turned around with wide fearful eyes.

She shrieked in fear. “Please! Please don’t hurt me!” she pleaded. He stopped in surprise, looking down at the girl for the first time. She didn’t look like the other creatures in the dungeon, well she did and she didn’t. Both the little girl cowering before him and the dungeon creatures were pale skinned, had the same facial features, had curly blonde hair and were the same age. But the feral, carnivorous creatures that had swarmed forth from the dungeon into rural Pennsylvania were all doll-like, perfect little angels, with immaculate floral patterned dresses covered in blood. The girl before him was filthy, covered in dust and grime with tear streaks running down her face, looked like she hadn’t slept in days and had dried snot under her nose.

“Please! Where am I? Where’s my father?” She looked up at him tearfully.

“Holy shit! Is that who I think it is?” one of the slayers from behind him remarked in surprise.

“It can’t be!” The guild broke out into muttering and arguing, debating if the girl truly was who they thought she was. Laura Airson, daughter of Luke Airson, the man who’d started all this so that he could bring his daughter back to life. Apparently he’d succeeded.

Though Arthur wasn’t quite so convinced. He lowered his warhammer, but he continued to stare down at the girl. She shivered in fear as she stared back, tears fell from her eyes, a snot bubble formed under nose. The spell was broken when Arthur felt himself shoved lightly to the side and a female member of his guild knelt down in front of the girl.

“Sarah, wait!” he objected. But it was too late, the slayer knelt down in front of the girl and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Hey there sweetie, it's gonna be okay,” she said comfortingly to the crying little girl. The little girl leapt into Sarah’s arms, Arthur’s heart went into his throat and he could just imagine the girl revealing a row of razor sharp fangs before chomping down into Sarah’s neck. But it didn’t happen. She just looked like a scared little girl, however Arthur wasn’t convinced.

“Jesus H fuck Sarah! Get away from her!” Arthur sternly ordered the slayer and grabbed her shoulder, attempting to get his slayer away from the little girl.

“Stop it Arthur! Can’t you see she's not one of them!”

“You don’t know that! This could just be another trick!” he shouted.

“You don’t know that either! What if it’s really her?”

“No fuckin’ way its her Sarah!” one of the other slayers came up to them. The rest of the guild continued to argue with each other. Marvin meanwhile, quietly patrolled the room with his shotgun, watching the rest of the guild’s backs, never having been one to engage in too much chatter.

“What's your name sweetie?” Sarah asked the little girl kindly.

“Erm…my name's Laura, miss, Laura Airson,” the little girl said timidly.

“Bullshit!” a slayer said in the background.

“Are you here to take me away from here?” the little girl asked hopefully. “We have to leave before it comes back!” she implored them.

“Before what comes back?” Arthur asked in suspicion, despite not wanting to entertain the notion that this girl really could be the real thing.

“The monster! It's not like the others! It's mean! It's bigger and uglier than all the other ones, it will eat you if it finds you here!” She sounded increasingly panicked.

“Sounds like the boss,” someone remarked.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“A boss that leaves the boss chamber? I’ve never heard of something like that,” another slayer responded with scepticism.

“We’re not here for the boss or the girl….or whatever she is, we’re here for the dungeon core,” Arthur reminded everyone as Sarah continued to try and comfort the little girl.

“Oh! Do you mean the shiny thingy over there in that cupboard?” the little girl spoke up. She pointed to a nearby wall and everyone looked over to where she pointed.

There in the wall, was a small cupboard door that looked like a dumbwaiter system for carrying food up and down between floors. One of the slayers cautiously approached it and opened the door. There, shining in the dark alcove, was a strange crystalline structure the size of a football, it was multicoloured like that of essence, its colours shifted and swirled beneath the surface. The air around it seemed to vibrate, the structure wasn’t just a simple orb or cube or any sort of simplistic shape, but instead it appeared to be a complex, intricate polyhedron with numerous edges and corners.

Before Arthur could shout a warning, the slayer who’d approached it, picked it up. Nothing happened. The slayer wasn’t struck down on the spot, nor did the dungeon react in any way.

“Well shit, that was easy. Is that it then, this is the core, just like that?” the slayer questioned in confusion as he held the apparent core in his hands.

Arthur considered their situation and weighed his options. They were in the bottom of the dungeon and there didn’t appear to be anywhere else to go except back the way they came. They had the dungeon core, or so it appeared. There may or may not be a dungeon boss on its way back here. And then there was the girl, ‘Laura Airson’, still nestled in Sarah’s arms, he’d had no idea Sarah was so maternal.

Normally, he'd be much more sceptical about their whole situation and take some time sorting out the facts. Was that actually the dungeon core or just some cheap bauble the dungeon had directed them to? Was that actually the real Laura Airson or just the dungeon tricking them? Or indeed was she the actual boss?

However, one glaring fact remained, they were on their last legs. They were tired, many of the guild members were wounded and their continuous expenditure of magic was preventing them from healing their wounds properly. They needed to get out soon, they couldn’t fight many more battles without taking bad losses. Even Arthur was wounded, with a nasty bite wound to his side still trickling blood down his ribs.

That decided it, they were leaving. Shiny bauble or dungeon core, it still looked like it would convince the governor of its authenticity and he would provide them the bounty for it. And as for the ‘girl’, if she was actually Laura Arson then great, but if she was actually another dungeon spawn, then what's one more after all the thousands? To be honest he was tempted to leave her, but he knew he’d be faced with a mutiny if he tried it.

“Right! That's it! Job done, we’re leaving!” he spoke up.

Everyone looked at him. “What about the girl, boss?” a slayer asked.

“We’re taking her with us, monster or not she’ll be someone else's problem when we get outside,” Arthur responded.

There were a few objections at that but he ignored them all and strode past them to re-enter the basement. Upon his re-entry, he saw the basement was empty, the junk piles were still there but all the mimics and little girl monsters had disappeared, probably reabsorbed by the dungeon when they’d died.

The rest of the guild filtered back into the basement and Arthur led them through and up the stairs. The entire guild was on tenterhooks as they crept through the dungeon, guiltily sneaking back the way they came. They hadn’t fought the boss, or even encountered it, yet they were leaving anyway, it felt wrong somehow.

Arthur on the other hand, was suspicious, it was like the dungeon was letting them go, like it wanted them to leave. Was it because they had the core and it no longer had any power? Or was it because of something else? He glanced at the little girl who was being carried along in Sarah’s arms. She still just looked like a frightened little girl, nothing at all like the little monsters that had plagued them all for the past several days.

Eventually, they reached the dungeon entrance in a small entry hall. Still nothing had attacked them, by now it was pretty clear the dungeon was just letting them go, he looked at the girl again. She was looking progressively less frightened and more excited, she wasn’t fooling him anymore.

Arthur began reaching for the girl just as they exited the dungeon and daylight surrounded them. His actions were interrupted however.

“THERE THEY ARE!”

“THEY SURVIVED!”

“THANK GOD THEY’RE ALIVE!”

“What's that with them?”

Almost immediately, Arthur and his surviving guild members were surrounded by people, paramedics, journalists, police, soldiers, government types and even civilians. All wanting different things, several of his slayers were immediately taken away by the paramedics for their wounds to be treated while the police and soldiers tried to get everyone else back from the dungeon entrance and the emerging slayers.

Arthur adjusted himself to sudden light and noise and led his guild through the crowd over to the large tent set outside the fortified compound surrounding the dungeon which held the State governor and his staff. They entered the tent and found the State governor of Pennsylvania along with numerous soldiers, police and suits, before they could talk however, they were interrupted.

“Daddy!”

Everyone jumped in shock and fear, that voice and word having taken on a different meaning in the previous days because it was often something cried out right before one of the Evershire House dungeon spawns would devour its victim. But this time it was different.

“Laura? Is…it that you?” a tired and frail voice answered.

“Daddy!” the little girl cried out again.

“Oh god! Laura!” A middle aged man wearing a dirty white shirt and trousers rushed forward and grabbed the little girl from Sarah’s arms, pulling her into a hug. Father and daughter reunited.

Everyone watched the scene in amazement.

“Ahem, is that truly Mr Airson’s daughter? The one that died? And not just another one of those creatures?” a man in an expensive looking grey tailored suit asked doubtfully. He was flanked by several people in black suits holding touchscreens.

Arthur was conflicted, should he tell them his suspicions? Or should he let it go? He watched the man holding his daughter, weeping with joy. Maybe she was the real deal, apart from the dungeon letting her go, she certainly hadn’t done anything that would make him suspect her. He didn’t know anymore, too tired to give it much thought.

“Well I-” he began before being interrupted.

“Thank You! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Arthur had his hand seized by Luke Airson, the girl’s ‘father’, he was frantically pumping it up and down as he wept with joy, his ‘daughter’ still cradled in his other arm. “How can I ever repay you? You rescued my daughter from that place, my little Laura!” The man sobbed with joy.

Arthur could only grimace in awkwardness, everyone else in the command tent looked at the pair in amazement.

“Erm..maybe, we still haven’t really ascertained the-” But he was interrupted again.

“Anything! I’ll give you anything you want for saving my little girl!” Mr Airson cried.

“Ah yes, well let's deal with that later, I believe you have something for us Arthur?” the governor looked at Arthur and over to the slayer that still held the dungeon core.

“Yeah…..the core, Jenkins pass it here.” He motioned to the slayer holding the shining multicoloured shape who passed it over to him. “Here it is sir.” He held it out to the governor who then beckoned forth someone from the side of the tent.

A smartly dressed woman came forth with a large metal box and held it out so that Arthur could place it in, she then closed the box and sealed it shut before handcuffing it to a similarly clad large muscular man next to her.

“That's great, thank you so much Arthur. Now don’t worry, despite your part in this fiasco, we’ll still make sure to pay you the appropriate bounty. Now then, I’m sure you and your team will want to rest and get your injuries looked at, don’t let us keep you.” The governor turned away to converse with the two individuals who'd taken the core. Arthur felt a small surge of indignation, was the governor really still intent on assigning blame to him and his guild for all this? And why the hell was the actual guy, Luke Airson, who caused all this not behind bars? He sighed tiredly, trying to let it go.

For some reason, Arthur didn’t get the impression that the two suits who’d just taken the dungeon core were from the government or the military. In anycase, he recognised a dismissal when he heard one and he was desperate to get something to eat, get his wounds looked at and then collapse into a bed somewhere.

After another promise from Mr Airson of extravagant rewards for rescuing his daughter, Arthur led his slayers outside the tent. He held the tent flap open for the last of the slayers duck under.

Just as the tent flap was closing, he caught one last quick glimpse of the little girl, Laura Airson. She was still being carried and hugged by her overjoyed father. Mr Airson’s back was to the tent and the girl’s head was over his shoulder facing the tent exit. Just as the tent flap was closing, Arthur and the girl locked eyes, she smiled at him, briefly revealing a too wide mouth full of razor sharp fangs.

The tent flap closed and he stared at it for a few seconds before stiffly turning around and walking away.

Book 3 End