《Dungeon - blackjack n' Whooters》


 01 dead but somewhat alive

    okay so I fucked up¡­


    well, I say I fucked up, but I also kinda redeemed myself.


    it all started with me and my buddy teddy, starting high school.


    I was built like a linebacker and was thus pushed onto the school¡¯s football team.


    while my buddy teddy was a scrawny kid who looked through bottle thick glasses.


    needless to say, he did not make it onto the team. but He and I had braved middle-school together damit and I would be dammed I didn¡¯t soldier on and leave a man behind


    literally since my father is¡­ was an army drill-Sargent. so you know, misbehave and its a thousand laps on the ¡®track¡¯.


    brrr, I¡¯m shaking just thinking about it.


    but a nerd hanging out with a jock gets to be the target of much harassment.


    Harassment, I as of 20 min before my death wasn¡¯t quite aware of how bad it actually was.


    one of the things i liked about teddy was how good he was tabletop games, he was an especially kick as dungeon master for a group 4 nerds and me. it was here that i was subject to light teasing by the nerds. this was their world, i was just a tourist.


    i had always been aware of the disconnect between my two groups of friends which was why i tried to blur the line a bit¡­


    i stole my father¡¯s poker set.


    see the way I figured, my jock friend would only do things if it was manly in nature


    pump some iron


    work on cars


    cat-call a passing hottie


    so i figured my tabletop master of a friend could wipe them in a game of poker


    and since the jetons all had point anyways i had made a list of dares one could make the others do by virtue of loosing


    i was quite proud of my scheme and when i presented my idea to teddy he had a look of proud fondness towards his friend


    see if my scrawny friend could beat my jock friends in a game of manly poker. they would have to respect him. right?


    it actually went fine. at first, the jock wes sceptical but accepted since. it would be funny to see whoever had to walk into the girl¡¯s locker room and get the queen bee¡¯s panties.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.teddy had lost that one and he just gave me his glasses and asked me to throw him in there.


    bastard wouldn¡¯t tell us what happened in there but when he got out he was drenched but more importantly he had a pair of white panties in his teeth and seven kisses in different colours all over his face


    yea the jocks respected the hell out of that


    an thus he started hanging out more with the jocks and less with the nerds.


    the tone at the table changed. it was subtle at first. but it got more and more pronounced as the nerd community within the school started treating teddy as if he had betrayed them somehow.


    the night before my death the 4 other nerds who at this point where the last nerds who hadn¡¯t shunned teddy, finally did. instead of shoving up to our weekly game night, they had almost simultaneously sent teddy a message about dropping the game to ¡®focus on their studies¡¯.


    teddy had been heartbroken and I had called home to tell the folks I would stay with teddy for the night as was ¡®a soldier in need of extraction¡¯ as I had put it to my father. he always talked in military terms. and he had taken that as a cue to swing by with a med-drop as he called it. a basket with lots of chips n¡¯ soda covered in a camo patterned blanket with a red cross emblazoned upon it, and a message about how we could ¡°expect extraction at O 700 hour, so we had better hold out till morning dangit¡±. it was a standing joke since i was five and my dad was in no mind to change that anytime soon.


    my dad had true to his world honked his horn at precisely 6:59 from outside teddys house and we were leaving at exactly 7 under imaginary gunfire


    we had been dropped off at school and I left a teddy in a much better mood than what he had been the night before so that we could go to our different classes.


    But as I turned a corner I heard a commotion pick up behind me and I turned around to learn exactly how far down the totem pole teddy had gotten


    he was on the ground while a group black-clad nerds with the Antifa logo on their sweatshirt was kicking, spitting and drenching teddy while all he could do was do his best to cover his head


    I saw RED


    so with a 3-yard running start, I made a knee tackle to one of their faces and heard a satisfying crunch as the girl¡¯s jar broke.


    she and I tumbled and took down several others with me. I was on my feet in seconds and put my fathers krav maga training to good use as i broke ribs, bones and jars on these black block cowards


    then someone pushed me, and I fell out onto a road as one of those fuckers who never slow down on a school street ran me over


    and I was dead¡­


    and then I woke up in a cave as a big red gem

 02 small folk hunted

    mojiso I was stuck in this cave as a gem in the wall, it was strange how I instinctively knew that my soul was in that gem while the cave was my body somehow. the cave itself was rather straight in an upwards slanted kind of way which I only knew due to a small pond that had formed under a crop of stalagmites or are they stalactites?.


    what did teddy use to say? hmm ¡°if it hangs from a ceiling; it forms A T with it. while you Mite fall and impale yourself on those that are on the ground¡±. I¡¯m being awfully calm about all of this. I mean normally I would probably panic or be sick with worry for my buddy teddy. but they where currently being drowned out by whatever I now am, it is natural instinct to protect my gemstone


    I thought of the games I played with teddy and was struck by inspiration as I drew upon one of my most cherished memories of him.


    I felt better now.


    before I had realised it I had made a statue that was so lifelike it could have been him as he sat there engrossed in his storytelling over the top of his dungeon master screen behind which I had hidden my core. granted all you had to do was walk behind the screen but now the gem was not eminently visible from outside.


    I now knew what I was. teddy had been head over heels about a new genre of stories that he loved to read and I realised. this should have been him, not me¡­ a classic trope as he called it was that some deity would manipulate circumstances so the mc died and was reincarnated. but I had gotten I the way of that and now here I was in the shoes of my friend


    in the dream of my friend who always how he would do it if it happened to him


    but I wasn¡¯t a dungeon master, I had only tried it once I a game of ¡®bunions and flagons¡¯ and that had been mostly for laughs¡­


    I looked at the DM screen that right now was just 3 thick slabs of stone. that ain¡¯t right


    and I didn¡¯t want to forget my friend, so I tried to will picture onto the slap


    the left-wing was depicted with a series of picture of how I, as a big burly warrior (i change our looks a little) befriended the mousy looking wizard


    the right was depicted with a series of pictures of how we struggled our way into each other¡¯s group of friends with my friend¡¯s glorious panty snatching taking the centrepiece


    and in the middle, I depicted the betrayal of his nerd friends as I had clad them in demonic-looking skulls.


    I took a step backwards and admired my handiwork.


    it was eerie how good it looked. especially because my talents did not lie in art as my mother would have said.


    I just sat there looking at me and teddy¡¯s story with a small pang of longing in my heart as I listen to the occasional drip from the stalactites when a small band of leather-clad green folk rushed into the cave


    they were talking in low voices yet I could hear them perfectly. what was weirder though was how I could understand them completely even though I didn¡¯t recognise a single word they said. they had a squirming sack roughly their size strung up on a pole 2 of them were carrying on in each end


    ¡°hurry up before man finds us and kills us¡±


    they dashed into the cave and froze the instant the saw teddy and the screen, who by the way was at least 8 or 9 times taller than they where.


    after a few tense seconds, their leader apperently decided my statue wasn¡¯t dangerous but an opportunity as he pointed to teddys massive stone head ¡°climb up, good hiding¡± he hissed at his band before adding a ¡°quickly¡±


    the little buggers scaled teddy in an impressive time. they made an almost vertical bucket chain with their burden whilst hanging on to virtually nothing and then scampering after themselves and in no times flat they where hidden in a little alcove that had formed behind teddys shoulders.


    they were being very still when 3 people double the size of the green men ran inside only for the woman of the group grab the 2 men¡¯s shoulders which had them stop at a moment


    the woman was human that much was clear, average built but with motherly hips and bust


    ¡°I sense dungeon, be careful.


    the two men tensed at that but nodded and proceeded after the woman had cast a light spell that floated gently behind her


    right humans can¡¯t see in the dark that¡¯s fantasy 101.


    so I focused on her light and will the tips of the stalactites to light up


    it wasn¡¯t as powerful as her light but the quantity did the trick of lighting up the cave


    ¡°hey Cecile, did the dungeon just fucking copy your light spell?¡±. the man who had taken point said in a clearly shaken voice


    ¡°maybe, I will have to be careful in my spelling, and so it hinges on Chris and you, right Chris. Chirs?.


    both the other man and Cecile first looked at Chris and then followed where chis were looking to see why he had frozen in place


    and they to froze when they saw the (compared to them) giant lifelike statue


    Cecile was quick on to unfreeze ¡°dungeon, a band of goblins have raided our village and stolen many of our young. the group we are tracking have my daughter and if I find that you shelter them by the name of [Elyssa] I shall travel to your heart room and destroy you.


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    there was a chime-like sound as the mother bear of a woman invoked the name, Elyssa.


    it was clear the couldn¡¯t see me as both goblins and humans had not looked once at where I was looking from.


    there was no debate in my mind the little green fuckers had kidnapped children but how to talk to the woman without a form


    so I formed an arrow outlined by weak lights on the ground and then moved it over the cave floor towards and upwards until it pointed at teddy¡¯s shoulder.


    a goblin was peeking over the edge thinking himself hidden until his eyes met Cecile¡¯s.


    quick as a whip she hurled a ball of magical gas up into the goblin hideout and all tension left them as they fell asleep.


    ¡°Bjorn, Chriss¡± the two men moved fast (not goblin fast though), they were at the top of Teddy in but a moment and both performed a very practised manoeuvre where they swung themselves over the ledge (shoulder) and continued in a roll that saw both men on their feet with blades drawn and in motion.


    The sleeping green men were dispatched efficiently and the previously squirming bag was opened to reveal a sleeping girl that I put in the range of 8 to 13


    ¡°she is okay Cecile¡± yelled Bjorn as a weight was lifted from his shoulders.


    ¡°The goblins aren¡¯t dissolving¡± this time it was Chriss who yelled. ¡°so that means they aren¡¯t from this dungeon¡±


    so the green men where goblins, should have know


    Bjorn took out a bundle of rope with a hook attached from his backpack and fastened it around teddy¡¯s neck. he and Chris then used the rope secured in a loop under the child¡¯s arms to lower her down to the waiting mother. then they rappelled down one at a time.


    all 4 of them were now behind the DM screen  Cecile where fusing over the sleeping girl in her arms while Chris and Bjorn just stood starring dumbfounded at the turquoise gem that was embedded into the wall.


    ¡°Hey Chris, what kind of dungeon makes that kind of art before¡­¡± Bjorn gestures at the statue and the blank backside of the master screen.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what to tell you, Bjorn, I haven¡¯t seen anything quite like it¡±


    Cecile seemed to have determined her child safe for the moment


    and I deemed I didn¡¯t want them this close to my exposed core so I made another arrow out of light and had it going away from my core


    ¡°heh, now that is probably the most politely I¡¯ve ever been asked to fuck off by a dungeon¡± A visible relieved Chris chuckled.


    the arrow leads them around to the left side of the screen where I had it point towards the pictures.


    I wanted to know what they thought of the story.


    ¡°what, do you want us to look at the murals?¡± both men looked a little spooked but said nothing as Cecile walked over to the mural.


    now how could I communicate with Cecile, writing wouldn¡¯t help as none of the 3 spoke English. so I flashed her a smiling emoji.


    she smiled at that.


    she focused on the mural and started ¡°so a mage and a knight became friends and helped cover each other¡¯s weaknesses¡±.


    I gave the image of two grasping hands and then lead her to the other side


    ¡°the 2 became close and both wanted the other to share their friends the mage was the first to achieve success but when the knight succeded the mages friends grew jealous and shunned the mage¡±


    I made the cry face emoji bob up and down as I lead her to the centrepiece


    ¡°the mage was attacked and brutally beaten. so the knight came to the rescue but was shoved off a cliff. he fell to his death, no not his death, the knight¡¯s shoes are that of the mage. you¡¯re the knight and you believe your friend was fated for this¡±¡­ she looked at the last picture again and let a tiny chuckle slip. ¡°you believe this spot as a dungeon was for your friend.¡± I made the neutral emoji face but with a tear and made it nod


    ¡°well I can honestly tell you that I haven¡¯t heard of a dungeon being sentient this early in its life before and then it usually takes them a long while to figure out how to communicate with us¡±


    I made a baby emoji and then a baby emoji and then a bit away I made the family emoji


    ¡°I guess one could look at new dungeons as babies without anyone to guide them¡±


    a moment of indecision crossed her face before she added ¡°you already have a leg up on them though so I¡¯m sure you will figure it out¡± she turned to the two men


    now we really must be going so I can put my sweet girl to bed¡± and with that, she left my cave with her daughter and 2 chaperones


    the sloping of the cave meant that I could see them for a long time while they made it down the mountain that my cave resided on


    another thing, when the group left I slowly felt senses I wasn¡¯t aware had faded, coming back to me.


    this must be what teddy called the rule of no interference


    and that is when the taste of goblin hit me.

 03 the taste of goblin

    as my senses returned the taste of goblin hit me,


    and let me tell you, the taste of goblin is VILE¡­


    especially when you don¡¯t just taste their physical aspect but their spiritual aspect as well.


    As I tasted goblin I began to know about how the goblin body and soul work


    oh I wish it would stop already.


    my wish was sort of granted as the goblin taste gave way to something way better.


    The taste of emotions


    the spine chilling fear my statue had invoked in the goblin troupe as well (to a lesser degree) as the humans.


    the binding hope of having found the perfect hiding spot.


    the anger and determination of a mother protecting her cub.


    goblin despair at having nowhere to go but death now that a bigger predator had found it.


    there where more than those but all were overpowered by the raw unschooled emotions of a child, it was like premium beef cooked to mouthwatering perfection.


    both the child¡¯s fear and despair, its feelings of hope and safety was fine wine and caviar.


    I could feel my cor grow with this well of emotions


    THIS, I needed MORE.


    Almost unconsciously I had spawned a dozen or so goblins, but when I looked at Teddy as he sat behind the screen I remembered how he had taken me on rollercoasters like trips through storytelling.


    and then I thought of all the other things I had done in my life where I had felt strongly


    movies I had seen


    amusement parks


    both playing and seeing sport events


    a wide grin started forming. Yes, I would let them come to ME I would make them Feel ALL of the emotions and then I would let them go to spread the word, so they and more could come back and give me MORE Emotions.


    now where to start.


    my high faded as I looked at the dozen of goblins before me


    all where naked their skin was warted their eyes glowing ever so slightly red.


    their droll fell from crooked and sharp fangs somewhere between those of a wolf and those of a shark. hunched over with potbellies and arms that reached down to their knees, they looked¡­ stupid.


    I instinctively knew that only that which had become part of me was what I could recreate.


    in other words, I would have to ¡®taste¡¯ more creatures.


    it also seemed like they were missing something, a purpose? a job?


    sigh, I selected a random goblin to see if I could at least modify the goblins, I mean I had modified rock to make a statue of teddy so this should be easy right.


    no, it isn¡¯t.


    turns out flesh is not the same as rock and the first goblin died as his skin which had resisted my meddling was suddenly ripped from his body


    and I mean ALL of his skin.


    little bugger died screaming to all hell


    the next goblin I was a lot gentler towards and while I couldn¡¯t remove the warts entirely, I did manage to reduce them enough so that they could pass for birthmarks. Close enough.


    the original goblins who had come into my cave had all been wearing a patchwork of different cloths chains and metal bits and since I could make as much of each of those patches it took little effort to dress a goblin in a white linen shirt and soft black leather pants. now that gave me an idea


    I formed a leather vest on the goblin and started to pull on its straps.


    pull for pull the goblins hunched over form straightened and the goblin now looked halfway decent


    as if it could sense the pride in my cosmetic enhancements the little bugger smiled at me.


    which broke any respectable image I had just crafted.


    so I after some moulding, I managed to make a mouth guard out of iron


    the goblin got a bowler and some high strapped boots and the bugger could almost pass for a wild western cowboy. looking at the other goblins and I the altered one was unrecognisable


    the cowboy goblin made me think of a saloon and how there would always be someone there, to strip you of all your hard-earned gold through games of chance and skill.


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    I floated over to the spot behind the screen and a plan for the first floor started to form.


    a desk formed behind the screen, here visitor could exchange their anything for to get the essential item of my dungeon, The Jeton.


    carved from goblin thighbone with intricate carvings also of goblins doing goblin things. the 3 jetons of lovest value took form in my dungeon, all where an 8th of an inch thick at the rim. all 3 had green paint in its deepest crevices almost like a background to the carving in their centre was their chosen denominations 1, 2 and 5.


    the visitors would drop their offer into a deep hole, in which a trapdoor would make it difficult to retrieve to objects when placed within. then a goblin would hand over the jetons so that the visitors could start gambling away.


    one of the undressed goblins came over and crawled over the counter, so I dressed him as I had dressed the first one, then I thought better of it and replaced the bowler with a topless cap and gave the goblin a monocle.


    why? because I thought it was funny, that¡¯s why.


    now I needed a reason for people to want the jetons.


    the exchange so far only took up half of the desk, so the other half should be what you could buy with you hard-won jetons. this time I made shute where the items could spawn out of sight and be delivered. now for a visual display, I decided to mimic the carnival lotteries. and while there were a few teddy bears and the like it was mostly ingots of iron, copper and silver, beneath them where their corespondent coins, no people would just steal them, so I hollowed out all of the items and filled them with stone, that I fused to the wall for good measure. bolts of linen in different colours joined the prices on the wall alongside pelts from rabbit¡¯s, wolves and a bear.


    no way the goblins had killed one themselves. it was more likely the little thieves had stolen the scraps of fur I had made the pelt them out of.


    another goblin must have sensed that there was a job to do, cuz another one had jumped the bar and I dressed it as I had the others. I added a slip of leather underneath each item with its value in jetons pressed my will upon this shop to be fair and left it at that.


    there would probably be those that would just go in, exchange what they didn¡¯t need for that which they did. but that would be fine too, as I could probably get a lot of patterns that way.


    the giant statue of teddy would do nicely as a doorway into what would eventually become a casino prober.


    for now, it was just a plain featureless room 8 feet tall, 20 feet wide and 30 feet deep


    my core had moved along as I had carved the room and it now rested on the far wall across from the door


    I made a couple of tables with 6 chairs for each and a fireplace for ambience


    I had thought magically making a fire would have been a limit but apperently not.


    though at first, it was more like a spark that just caught on really well.


    the fire was smokeless and as I investigated why it seemed as if the wood was just too pure to make smoke, so I went back to the shop to add a few logs of the pure wood.


    who knew the sort of people that would enjoy that kind of fire.


    I wrought a chain and connected it to a wheel of wood and hung one over each of the 3 tables. several lights were put on the wheels so that the tables would have light.


    then each table got a deck of card, 52 cards split into 4 colours, red, blue, green, and black


    the backside where all a plain white so as to avoid marked cards if I were to start something new I would try to set the trend to discourage cheaters


    the jack of red showed a knight starting a war, the queen of red showed a queen directing a war and the king of red showed a king triumphant in war


    the jack of blue showed a man with black boils, the queen of blue, showed a woman grieving her sick family. and the king of blue showed a man on a sick horse with a crowned plague mask riding through streets of plague.


    the jack of green showed a farmer on dead fields, the queen of green showed a thin woman eating her own leg and the king of blue showed a king riding on a painfully thin horse, to fields aplenty leaving dead and wasted crops behind


    the jack of black showed a nobleman and peasant dead in graves side by side, the queen of black showed a queen and a Whore dead in graves side by side and the king of black showed a skeleton clad in black holding a scythe over fields dead people, no crown on it head. but plenty at the horse¡¯s hooves.


    my goal was to have people react to the horseman cards as reaction equals emotions. and in a game of cards, shoving emotion is dangerous.


    the room looked fine for now and I dressed the rest of the goblins as I had the first. it was far from done, but it would do for now