《Dungeon of Immortals》 Born on a Battlefield(Ch. 1) All life comes from mana. No matter how lopsided or skewed the mana of a living creature, no creature exists without the six basic elements - earth, air, water, fire, light, and darkness. ~Archmage Ged Rain on the battlefield woke me from dreams afloat on the screams of dying men. I felt it falling on my crystal skin. I had memories of having arms and legs, but I could feel that I was only ever this, a crystal. Oddly enough, I could see myself as well as my surroundings in a small sphere of about 6 ". Odd simply because I remembered seeing differently in a hundred shadowed memories. It was dark, but I could see clearly within my tiny scope. I was a faceted crystal, about the size of a robin''s egg of a nearly opaque deep red, to all appearance black except as the crack of lightning shone brightly enough to push light through me. I radiated mana and a glow not of light but of shadow. My first emotion, the first one that truly belonged to me, was terror. Above me was a seemingly endless expanse with rain falling into my sight briefly before it touched the ground. Loosely clasped around me was the hand of a dead man, his arm disappearing into the unknown. It was just enough to remind me of my dreams of death. I didn''t want to die. Instinctively, I feared this wide open space and the limb of this dead man, so instead of staying where i lay, I grasped about me with my power and began to devour the rock around me.
New Materials Gained - Dirt, Rock, Flesh, Bone
The Voice of the World rang out in my mind as a message in my vision, telling me of my achievements, but I was too concerned with digging down away from the horrible space and the memories of brutal death to pay it much heed. I dug downward and angled my path slightly, cutting off the droplets of rain and the awful, empty sky. I felt a strange sensation, as though I were becoming thin and transparent. The earth became heavy and my pace slowed, until finally, even consciousness was too much effort. * * * * * I awoke to the safe embrace of dirt and stone comfortingly surrounding me on three sides. My short tunnel angled sharply up and the movement of the air hinted at the shallowness of my refuge. At merely a foot in diameter, it could be mistaken for a rabbit burrow or an empty fencepost hole. The remembered terror came back, but without the bite and panic. I feared the surface and the death that was there, so I continued to devour, digging downward further. My memory became a patchwork of consciousness and oblivion. When I was awake, I dug deeper into the earth. When I was tired I slept. Each time I awoke, I felt stronger and could devour the stone and dirt longer. As I dug down, the air felt thicker, until I could almost imagine the walls of my crystal creaking with the effort to breath. That''s when I realized I could breath, and when I realized that I couldn''t dig down any deeper. Here I stand, so to speak, although I was simply lying on the dirt at the bottom of my long sloped tunnel. I felt my mind clear, as though from an adrenaline high, and for the first time, I felt a sense of calm and security. The surface was distant, from my perspective, perhaps a dozen of feet away up a sharply sloped tunnel. I had grown in size. Now I was a 3 inch orb and my senses extended nearly three feet in every direction. My unfocused devouring had left me at the base of a 6 foot diameter room of plain dirt, really just the widest end of a tunnel which stretched beyond my sight up to the surface. I finally took a step back from my frantic efforts to consider some important questions. What am I? I had vague memories of past events, mostly painful death in a myriad of fashions. I could remember dying from an arrow to the throat, a sword through the gut, bleeding out from a crushed leg, being impaled and lifted up by a spear, and on and on. I could feel the memories fade in with pain and terror and awful epiphany that this was the moment of death and trickle off in the final black abyss of death. I felt instinctively that there must be more memories than these. Something that came before, even if there was nothing to come after. Out of hundreds of deaths, there were a few shining exceptions and I found myself wishing to be an exception. I wanted to rise above the common and mediocre. These few exceptions were those who cast their final thoughts to the welfare of others. There were perhaps half a dozen of those who died who did it for the men standing next to them. Some of them went to their deaths so that someone else would not have to die. One dead man had hoped for... something more to come from his and others deaths. The concepts were beyond my feeble understanding.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It was clear to me that I was not, and never had been, one of these men who died. The powerful memories had tired me and my mind retreated into unconsciousness. I slept. * * * * *
Congratulations! You have built the first room of your Dungeon!
I awoke to a message from the Voice of the World. Some of the memories I had referenced it, so I knew what it was. The Voice of the World was with every living creature. It seemed to track all my progress. Perhaps it could answer my question. I directed my thoughts toward it. What am I?
Race: Dungeon Core Name: None
Mana: 36/36 Health: 24/24
Influence: .3 Intelligence: 11
Creatures: 0 Rooms: 1
Materials: 4 Blueprints: 0
So I was a dungeon core. It felt right. I reached out with my senses and viewed my little room and was staggered at my range of vision. My sight stretched a few inches into the walls of the small room I was in. More excitingly, I could see the long and increasingly narrow corridor that led up to the surface and even a foot beyond it. My mana faded out into the world like the steady breath of a living creature and I felt a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction as I identified myself as alive. My body was this cave. My crystal core was my heart. My mana was my blood and breath. I slept and I ate like any living creature. It was an epiphany. For a few breaths, I savored the moment, and then the tunnel leading to my heart caught my attention. It started one foot wide and gradually widened until it reached this room. It was mishapen, not evenly sloped, and just ugly. Without considering it, I reached out and devoured more of the dirt at the entrance. The first inches came away easily, as it was permeated by my mana. The next few inches were stubborn and tough to eat, but I persevered. As I opened up the entrance wider, it felt like I could suddenly breath easier. The ground where I lay no longer seemed as stifling. It was like opening a window on a hot day. I was just feeling tired, when the picked over corpse of the dead man above shifted into my view. I had a sudden flashback to his particular death, bludgeoned to death by a cavalry charge, and my blood ran cold. The air above my core misted with sudden condensation as I realized that I could still die. A dozen feet of distance was not safety. I suddenly longed to stop up my mouth and hold my breath forever, but the mere thought made me feel like drowning. Mist began to form at the mouth of my dungeon and flow downward to the call of gravity. Suddenly, a black shape hopped into view. I recognized it as a crow. They had been waiting above the battlefield and many of those dying had looked up to see them flying by. I froze. The mist in my dungeon only grew deeper over my core as I held my breath, leaving the air still and chill. The crow, fat with carrion, curiously cocked its head and eyed the dark hole. It could see me, I realized. The slope of my tunnel ran more or less straight from where I lay up the incine to the cave mouth. At the bottom, my darkly glowing core was plain to see. The crow began to hop down the tunnel with careful bounding steps. It was probably a foot tall with sleek black feathers, darkened around its head from recent feeding. Although it was hardly a mighty warrior, it could certainly kill me as I lay helpless like a babe. Go away! I thought at it. I felt a vague sensation of curiousity in its tiny bird brain and it instead hopped down the tunnel more quickly, using its wings to correct its balance when the ground hidden beneath the mist was too uneven. Go away! Shoo! I mentally shouted. Of course, I couldn''t make a sound. I suddenly longed for arms and legs, like the memories of men I held. Stop! You don''t belong here! None of my efforts seem to net anything but greater interest from the bird. It reached the bottom of the tunnel and began to pick its way through the mist. My desperation continued to grow. I summoned all my energy and took a deep breath. The mist in the cave rose in a column as I engulfed the bird in all the mana I had at my disposal. I felt the energy of the bird, its mana dark green, repulsing my own. My will caused our energies to collide. Like acid, the crow''s mana burned away at my blackish red mana, but as it did, the bird''s mana grew fainter. The crow began to struggle now. It was wrapped in frigid mist so thick it couldn''t see out and only the tips of its wings showed as it twisted about running into a wall as it flailed. I felt my consciousness slipping as I poured everything I had into it. The crow''s mana dimmed and my own mana flooded it system. GET OUT! Like a spent match, my consciousness guttered and slipped into oblivion, but not before I saw the crow winging its way out of my tunnel. Carrion Eater(Ch. 2) I awoke with a flash of panic. I immediately scanned my cave, only to find it empty. There was nothing there to harm me. I took stock of myself and found that little had changed. Perhaps my mana penetrated a little further into the ground around me, but it could be my own wishful thinking. At the lip of my cave, the familar corpse still rested, heavily picked over by scavengers. My mana had completely permeated the dead body. I was amazed at the intricacy of the skeleton. Even the rotten remains of the flesh and organs hinted at a complex creature with a physiology totally alien compared to my simple crystalline core. I lost track of time as I studied the way the tendons and muscles had moved the skeleton, often having to extrapolate from the torn remnants. With growing wonder, I came to the conclusion that I could mimic the kinetic force of muscles and tendons by replacing them with mana. In time with my own epiphany, the Voice of the World applauded my achievement.
New Blueprints Gained ¨C Skeleton, Zombie
Naturally, supplying mana to the muscles was an even easier task than rigging up the bones of a skeleton. A zombie would be less coordinated, but depending on the body it might possess greater force and would be more difficult to destroy. I turned my attention back to the corpse above me, this time with a specific intent. How could I make use of its skeleton? With its arms and legs, I would no longer have to the fear the depredations of random birds, at the very least. The tatters of flesh adorning it now were simultaneously not enough and far too much for my purposes. Without much consideration, I bowed to my instincts and quickly devoured the body, a task eased by my mana pervading it. For the first time, I looked inward and realized that not everything I devoured was burned as fuel. A small quantity of stone, some dirt, and the corpse, all persisted in a kind of extra dimensional craw. Everything inside me was permeated with my mana and the most valuable parts were already evanescing into mana. I controlled that process and easily stripped all of the flesh from the skeleton, leaving behind only bleached bone. I then regurgitated the skeleton out on the floor of my cave. I turned my focus to rigging the skeleton, substituting mana for muscles and tendons. When I finally finished, a niggling doubt in the back of my mind said that it was missing some connections, but when the skeleton rose jerkily to its feet, I had not room for such concerns.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. The skeleton surveyed its surroundings and I felt a vague sense of feedback from our connection, since it was running on my mana. It felt almost like feeling coming back into a forgotten limb. I had a sudden insight as I realized it wasn¡¯t the only entity I could feel. The crow was out there, just beyond the mouth of my tunnel ¨C beyond the reach of my mana breath that pulsed a few feet further into the world. I could sense it. It was obeying my last command, staying technically outside of me, yet as close as possible. It felt distressed. I felt curious and with my skeleton here, what could a mere crow do to me. Tentatively, I reached out toward the crow¡¯s simple mind. Come. Almost immediately, the bird hopped into my tunnel and followed it down until it stood at the edge of my room. It looked ill. Its feathers were coming out in bunches, so much so that its pale skin showed in places. Its small black eyes were rimmed with crust and it lacked the energy and alertness it had shown in our first encounter. I looked passed all of that, however, and felt my pulse quicken as I looked at its mana system. Just like the skeleton, it ran on my mana now. All of its bodily processes required my mana to continue working, and the scarcity of it was clearly the cause of its sickness. Even as I watched, every pulse of my core pushed more mana into the air and revitalized the crow. What I had initially undertaken solely as a lifesaving measure had developed into something else entirely. This crow was mine now, and its life depended on me. Clearly, it even obeyed my commands. It had upheld the letter of my orders even at the risk of its own life. I was suddenly reminded of those few dozen men who had died with the welfare of their fellow soldiers on their minds. This crow was willing to place my wellbeing and my commands above its own. It was truly my brother in arms. I felt a sudden inspiration to honor it in some way. It was unique and better than its peers, just as I continued to strive to be. Vague hints of military decorations or ranks seeped through from the outer edges of my borrowed memories, but none of it made any sense to me. However, I suddenly realized that in every memory of every dead man, they all had one thing in common. They each had a name. I would honor my crow with a name. Vaguely, I understood that not all names were created equal. I should name my crow something meaningful to remind it and me of why it was greater than its peers. As such, names that referenced black or crow were immediately out. Every crow was black, I knew, and certainly every crow was a crow. Fide. I declared. You shall be named loyalty.
Creature Named ¨C Fide, the Carrion Crow
A massive outpouring of mana rushed out from me and engulfed Fide, but unlike last time there was no resistance. He grew visibly healthy before my eyes. His feathers puffed out and became glossy. Expending so much mana made me tired again. Serve me well, I commanded before I slept. Growth(Ch. 3) I awoke to find my core under vigilante guard from the nameless skeleton. I could sense my crow out and about, somewhere beyond the confines of my small tunnel. Once again, I felt larger and more powerful. I breathed just a little easier. I surveyed my little tunnel. I was able to take in all 12 feet or so from mouth to root without much thought. I pondered what would happen if other creatures were to come and kill. I could consider myself safe from common scavengers. The memories I had absorbed hinted and outright told of more terrible things. Some men had dreamed of nightmares to overlay their enemies ¨C terrible things that may or may not exist. Apart from that, the men themselves would be a serious challenge if they came seeking me for any reason. Thankfully, the entrance to my cave was small currently. Despite how stifling that felt, I resolved myself not to expand it until I had improved my defenses within my dungeon body. The first defense was something called strategic depth. Apparently, simply being far enough from my enemy to be able to see him coming and react was of paramount importance in any kind of war. This was a trait I could directly apply to my current situation. A 12 foot long downward slope was simply inadequate. First, I began to absorb the dirt and stone at the back of the cave. The first few feet were simple, but I found that the further from my core I went, the more mana intensive the process became. I solved that issue by controlling the skeleton to pick me up and carry me to the back wall that I wished to affect. Once again, time passed untracked by my mind as I dug out the beginnings of a real cave. I lowered the floor another three feet and created an eight from diameter round tunnel that ran straight and smooth for about 50 feet. The further I got from the entrance, the more I wanted to expand it to let my mana flow more freely, but I restrained myself. I took a nap. At the end of the 50 foot tunnel, I carved out a larger room, roughly 15¡¯ across. As a precaution, I placed my core off center, so that I could not be seen without entering the room. It ran contrary to my sense of symmetry that seemed to demand even sized rooms and tunnels and my core in a central and centered position. As the skeleton set me down on the ground, I felt the claustrophic sensation of drowning, like those men who died with lung wounds. Quickly, I used a bit of earth and stone to raise a small pedestal below me. I slept again. When I awoke again, my mana had finished permeating the new depths of my cave. I saw Fide had returned again and directed my mind to him. With a start, I found myself looking through his eyes. He stood uncertainly at the wider opening to the new tunnel. At his feet lay a pile of bones, his offering to me. I saw that Fide had brought me the bones of the dead men above and each was heavy with a gobbet of overripe meat. From his mind, I gleaned that this was his best effort to give me what he himself desired ¨C the very tastiest morsels of food. Clearly, I had no use for such damaged flesh. It would a largely intact and moderately fresh corpse to make a decent zombie. I tried to communicate this to him by sending him images of what I wanted, a complete skeleton. Eat, I told him. Flesh yours. Bones mine. Fide at first hesitated, his natural instincts telling that the proper way to fulfill social responsibility was with a gobbet of rotten meat. His own hunger quickly won out, however. He cleaned the bones of all but reddish shreds, and I absorbed and cleaned them. I had an excess of major bones now, arms and legs.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Fide, now engaged in a physically easier task, left to collect bones with my happy allowance that he could feed while he was out and about. Despite that, I knew that he would be back frequently. His body ran on my mana now, and he would never feel comfortable away from his home. I noticed, absent mindedly, that he was larger than when I first met him, and perhaps smarter. I could hope so, at least. My primary attention was focused on my cave. Certainly, I would have enough time to conquer any more would-be explorers the size of crows. However, I was certain that anything larger could walk straight down the tunnel and crush me. I began to consider my likely enemies. I doubted that I would see many flying creatures, since logically they would remain airborn and leave holes in the ground alone. Even if one did come in here, Fide¡¯s wingspan was wider than he was tall, so I can assume any bird large enough to be a threat would be equally grounded from flight. Still, this was an issue I could affect. The mouth of my cave was merely two feet in diameter. I reasoned that my tunneled could share those dimensions without making me short of breath. I took some of the dirt from my recent digging and made alternating baffles every 5-10 feet of the tunnel, sometimes widely spaced, sometimes distant from one another. Again, this would prevent anything from flying down the tunnel directly to my core. It would also help to limit overly large creatures, against whom I would need the most time. Moving dirt I had already devoured into place proved to be much easier than devouring new dirt and stone as I had been for the last while. I immediately pushed forward with my next idea. If my opponents were to be land bound, a nice big hole in the ground would go a long way toward stopping them. About two thirds of the way down the tunnel, I had placed three the baffles quite close together, a quick zigzag in the tunnel that would block line of sight. Now, I devoured the ground between those four baffles, creating a pit. I even had my skeleton walk me back to that point in the tunnel in an effort to make it as deep as possible. That turned out be just over five feet deep, before I felt it become such a strain that further progress was negligible. I considered jumping into the hole to dig deeper, but the memory of drowning in deep mana stopped me. I would just have to deepen the pit little by little as my mana permeated its floor and walls. In the mean time, it was less a trap or hazard and more of a tactical obstacle. If anything came into my cave, I could have my skeleton waiting to rain attacks down on the intruder while they tried to climb up. Tired from digging through raw earth, I ordered the skeleton to replace me back on my pedestal and promptly slept again. When I awoke, I was happy to see a new pile of bones helpfully deposited at the mouth of the tunnel by Fide. My skeleton might be a better protector, but I couldn¡¯t help but appreciate the initiative Fide was showing. I quickly devoured the bones, and found all the major parts of a skeleton. I quickly fell to rigging another skeleton and soon it took form and stood up next to its fellow. I paused after creating it, and compared the two. My first skeleton had noticeably stronger ties between its bones, as well as a thin sheath of mana supporting and reinforcing its whole body. That hadn¡¯t been the case when I first created it. It seemed that my mana would continue to reinforce skeletons that I made if they simply continued stayed near me. Since that seemed to be the case, I didn¡¯t hesitate to station this new skeleton in the room with my core as well. I had just finished scraping another few inches off the bottom of the pit when Fide reentered the dungeon. It immediately drew my attention because he was flying full speed and threaded the first two baffles along the hallway like an aerial acrobat. I soon saw the reason for his haste. Another creature squeezed into the tunnel and tumbled down the slope as well. It appeared I was about to have my second visitor. Gifts(Ch. 4) Two days ago, the armies of Duke Barach and King Iltor had decided to chop each other up in the fields outside the town of Agrakin. Of course, both armies stripped the countryside of grain and cattle at sword point when they marched in and tried to carry away anything of value when they left. Both armies left most of themselves dead and the battle moved away to somewhere else. After the armies, the scavengers came ¨Ccamp followers and grave robbers looted the bodies of everything obviously valuable. Crows ate until they couldn¡¯t fly, and picked the corpses for delicacies. Wolves dragged away the fresh corpses even before the soldiers left the field. Kit had waited. The sun was set. The chill of night was descending with a low fog settling across the battlefield. The quiet squawks and scrabbles of crows and the buzz of flies filled the air. Kit shivered. Skirting the edge of the battlefield netted hard bread and water flasks, but no valuables. Now it was time to go deeper in. At night, the other two legged scavengers were mostly gone and the crows slept. Kit skulked carefully across the field of corpses, stopping at each one and looking for a piece of hope in the form of a stray coin, a forgotten ring, or a salvageable weapon. The mist congealed on Kit¡¯s skin, leaving a sheet of silvered droplets in the moonlight. The fog washed everything in shades of black and white, but Kit was careful to listen for the sounds of other creatures and avoid them. One body at a time, the search continued. Kit¡¯s rag wrapped feet picked their way forward from corpse to corpse under the moonlight, until a flash of motion and a glint of silver caught the light. An abnormally large crow picked apart a corpse, oddly stripping meat off the hand. Kit froze low to the ground. The crow moved with curious intent. It would peck and strip a scrap of flesh off the hand, then cock its head to eye it carefully, before choosing a new bit of flesh to remove. A silver wedding band stubbornly held to the corpse¡¯s finger buried in the bloated flesh. Kit studied the crow, judging the odds. One hand grasped a broken sword, snapped off flat 6 inches above the guard. The weapon was heavy, ungainly, and hardly sharpened. With luck, the crow could be startled away and the ring claimed. A silver band was perhaps the cheapest promise token available, but Kit knew it could be traded for warm clothing, shoes, and even a decent knife, if it could be sold properly. The crow made a cheerful squawk as it tore the ring free, and Kit broke free of distracting daydreams of warm clothes, warm food, and warm sleep. The crow startled into the air as Kit broke from hiding and charged it, holding the sword awkwardly by its overlong handle. The chase was on as the crow shot across the ground, laboring under a full belly and resting start. The ring glittered in its beak as the muffled beat of its wings drove it through the air scarcely higher than Kit¡¯s head. Kit sprinted after it, almost immediately feeling lightheaded with hunger and fatigue. At first, Kit almost caught it, missing with a clumsy overhead swing, but seconds later it seemed the chase was doomed to failure. Kit almost quit and gave up the foolhardy venture, before the crow dived into the ground. ¡°Hsh! Get back here you stupid chicken!¡± Kit hissed, quiet even now for fear of other scavengers. For a moment, Kit was certain the bird had actually been swallowed by the earth, before practically tripping into a hole. The tunnel looked like something a badger or other large burrower would make and Kit scrabbled down it with the ease of a child long used to fleeing into narrow spaces to avoid those who were bigger.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. A dim sourceless light diffused the air, making navigation by sight just barely possible, and Kit focused everything on keeping track of the ring. The tunnel widened, but Kit paid it no mind. The sparkle of silver disappeared around a wall of some kind, but Kit was close behind. The next section of the tunnel felt almost like an obstacle course, forcing Kit to change direction almost every other step, with only brief glimpses of the crow. Just at the end of long step, Kit was preparing to pivot to go around yet another wall, only to find nothing underfoot. For a long, heart stopping moment, Kit felt the squeeze of terror. A wall careened out of the darkness too fast to be guarded against and a starburst of brightness was the last thing before unconsciousness. The small body tumbled the last few feet into the pit bonelessly and lay very still. ? I put my skeletons on standby at the edge of the pit and silently urged Fide to fly faster, while I readied myself for a violent confrontation. The unknown creature had unexpected speed and unknown ferociousness. Then, the little two legged creature collided with the stepped into the pit and collided with the baffle in the middle before it dropped the half dozen feet to the bottom like a dead man. Fide arrived at my core and flapped to a stop, cocking his head back and mantling in preparation for the enemy. For a heartbeat, I didn¡¯t know what to do. Curious, I stretched out my senses to the small two leg. Deeper mana at the bottom of the pit made it difficult to clearly see, but the creature appeared to be a small human in most respects. It had two legs, two arms, a head, and the common sensory organs preferred by ambulatory creatures. Blood leaked from its skull in a very tasty way and I idly devoured it. The taste was heady and far more energizing than the rocks, dirt, or dead flesh of my regular diet. The thick mana at the bottom of the pit made certain things even clearer, such as the fact that the creature¡¯s mana system was much stronger than Fide¡¯s and the way it was guttering and draining away as I watched. Bemused by the sudden turn of events, I pressed with my own mana and shattered the fragile barrier surrounding the creature. From there, it felt entirely natural for the surrounding mana to fill in as its own mana left, but that ease soon ended. Soon felt the density of mana at the bottom of the pit reached equilibrium, but the sensation of broken vessel bleeding mana didn¡¯t stop. The creature had apparently taken some kind of serious hurt from its madcap dive headfirst into a dry pit. Without considering it overly, I exerted myself to fill in its mana system, breaking and rewriting the remaining holdouts within and repairing cracks and damage by the forceful application of extra mana. Where necessary, I shored up the mana patterns that supported its flesh, particularly around the head and neck. The ambient mana had done most of the work, or I didn¡¯t think it would have been remotely possible, but eventually, the little human-like creature stopped leaking mana and blood. I had become more tired than I expected from the exertion. I would soon sleep. Shiny? Fide asked. I had been ignoring him while I was engrossed in my sudden project and now he stood directly in front of my core and thrust the a small band of metal toward me. Yes, shiny, I replied. Fide deposited the small band of metal at the base of my pedestal and hopped back, mantling his feathers proudly. Shiny good? Fide good? Fide is good. Fide seemed content with that small bit of praise and turned to fly out of the cave again. Flesh eat. Bones get. Okay, I acknowledged. I took a moment to devour the small hoop of metal.
New Material Gained ¨C Silver
An electric thrill ran through me as I digested it. The metal was rich in mana. I estimated that that little ring of metal contained the same mana as all the stone I¡¯d devoured so far or more. I immediately stopped consuming, leaving the rest of the now shining silver ring untouched. Such a thing was obviously valuable and hard to come by. I could certainly eat dirt and rocks whenever I wanted to regain mana, if I ever ran low of resources, but this ring had potential to be something more than just food. Before I allowed myself to slumber, I sent my newest skeleton to clamber down into the pit and retrieve my new two leg. He would be one of us when he awoke and I wanted to see if he was smarter than Fide. I smiled to myself thinking that once again I had succeeded in emulating those few exceptions who cared for their own. I had clearly saved the little human thing when it would have died and now it would owe me its life. Wouldn¡¯t I have another faithful brother in arms now? I drifted asleep with such rosy thoughts in mind. Soldiers and Slaves(Ch. 5) Kit awoke to the odd sensation of starving without weakness and pain without injury. His entire body felt lightly bruised and sore, while his head would occasionally twinge with phantom pains. Kit cradled his head as he sat up. There was none of the vertigo or nausea he expected. Going to bed without food again, should have made him feel more awful than usual. He should have gone and begged a scrapped of hard bread from the baker at least instead of¡­ Kit sat upright and scanned his surroundings. A small globe, blacker than the surrounding dimness, was the only thing that stood out to him. A human skeleton incongruously leaned against the wall, impossibly intact. Otherwise, the small dirt room was unremarkable, although he could just make out the walls and an exit, as well. Oh, you¡¯re awake. Welcome, brave soldier. Kit¡¯s soul practically left his body as a clear even voice appeared in his mind. It was like someone else was using his thought-box to think thoughts. The sensation was simultaneously weird and terrifying, since he had to wonder what else it could control if it could think In his head. Kit froze and instinctually turned to look at the darker blot of darkness along the left hand wall of the room. The blackness seemed to pulsed and the faintest hint of deep red light gleamed from a crystal at the center. ¡°W-who?¡± Kit stammered. He gulped loudly and realized that his throat was parched. I am this dungeon that you are in. Kit felt a sense of surreality wash over him at the word ¡®dungeon¡¯. Dungeons were places where heroes were made, fortunes were found, and fools died. He felt an epiphany as he realized he was in the last category, a fool. When Kit didn¡¯t respond, the dungeon continued. You are one of mine. I will give you name. ¡°What! No! I¡¯m¡­ I have a name,¡± Kit stammered. He lurched to his feet. The dungeon was claiming him. He¡¯d heard stories about this, how if a dungeon claimed you as its slave you were forced to serve it for life. He had to get out of here, while he still could. Kit staggered through the exit into another smaller room and jerked away from another skeleton, this one clearly standing upright and holding Kit¡¯s old broken blade. He sidled past it, unwilling to show his back to a clearly animate undead creature. Be careful of the pit. It¡¯s not too deep if you are careful. The warning was timely and Kit managed to drop feet first into the pit safely. It only took a few paces before he was across to the other side and scrambling up the wall that was almost as tall as his outstretched arms. I like silver and bones, the voice commented incongruously. Kit ran as fast as he could while zigzagging through the baffled walls. It was only a couple dozen feet later and he found himself scrabbling up a steep slope and out a hole into the light of day. The pangs of hunger and thirst and a vague but growing sense of malaise hit him almost as soon as he stepped foot outside. All the hunger he felt before as well as a pounding headache hit him like slamming into a wall. Kit stumbled and rolled across the ground while he struggled to get his head to work. It was daylight on the battlefield, probably, hopefully, the third day after the battle. Kit kept low, despite the smell of rot seeping across the ground thick enough to taste. The bodies were heading toward their ripest now. He looked out across the battlefield and was relieved to see very few scavengers. The best of the battlefield pickings had been taken already. These were the lazier or more determined scavengers, but still braver than Kit was willing to be. Kit skulked his way off of the battlefield. The task was made more difficult by his headache, which seemed to get ever worse, and the pangs of hunger and thirst he couldn¡¯t address. Beneath all of that was a general feeling of doom and foreboding that seemed to urge him to stop or to go back to the comfort of the dungeon where he wouldn¡¯t have to face this misery, but Kit stubbornly refused. Kit set his sights on Agrakin. The town was only an hour or two distant, even at Kit¡¯s pace. The battle had happened in some hapless farmer¡¯s field. As Kit left the concentration of corpses, his nose remembered what it felt like to breath air untainted by rot. Somehow, his head just hurt worse the further he went. Normally, Kit would have taken a slow circuitous route through the hedges and groves surrounding Agrakin and up to a little used sidegate. Today, he found it all he could do to find the main road and parallel it through the undergrowth.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The south gate of Agrakin was visible in the distance along the road when Kit spotted a column of armed men with prisoners. They flew no colors, but went unopposed within sight of the city. Mercenaries, probably, but that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t be bandits too. The line of prisoners were chained at the neck and included children and women, some of whom were legal slaves in war time since they came from the army of King Barach. Some of them were probably not. Kit crouched into the hedgerow along the road as they marched past. He felt himself break into a cold sweat and a fever chill swept through his body. Suddenly, he felt the urge to sneeze and held it in as the long train of prisoners shuffled by to sounds of clanking chains and quiet weeping. Finally, the group was gone. Kit skulked up to the city wall. No way was he going through the main gate now. City guards weren¡¯t above making a buck from a quick slave, either. Instead, he skulked along the wall to the east until he found the side gate he normally used. This gate was only staffed by one guard, an older man named Clyde with a penchant for cheap beer. Kit held no fear of him. Kit rapped on the small gate, barely bigger than a regular door. ¡°Who¡¯s that?¡± Clyde called. The slur of intoxication caused the words to run together. ¡°It¡¯s Kit. Let me in.¡± The guard peeked out rather than reply and moments later the thump of the heavy crossbeam being pulled back allowed the gate to open a crack. Kit wasted no time in slipping though. ¡°Find anything?¡± Clyde asked. ¡°I about died,¡± Kit said. The sudden darkness set his head to spinning and Kit had to lean against the wall for a moment to steady himself. ¡°Too bad,¡± Clyde grumbled, but didn¡¯t press the issue. Kit just looked that terrible. The pathways of the slum side of town came naturally to Kit, although he did find himself moving slower than normal. He quickly made a beeline for the bakery and dug into the trash bins there. Several minutes and lowered expectations later, Kit had something that could be broadly termed food. His next stop was the public fountain that bordered the middle class district. The streets were blessedly uncrowded, and Kit made good time to the fountain, making it there before the sun topped out in the sky. He collapsed onto the fountains edge and splashed water on his feverish face. The bread scraps he¡¯d reclaimed from the trash bins were burnt and harder than rock, but he¡¯d learned that if you soaked it, you could eat it out of the crust like eating out of a shell. Of course, today, he was so hungry he ate the crusts, too. After his meal, he lay back in the sun, just feeling his head ache to the beat of his heart. His stomach unclenched somewhat and he was no longer thirsty. The warmth washed through him, and quite accidentally, he fell asleep. ? I was bemused by the sudden departure of the two legs. I couldn¡¯t decide if the creature was smarter than Fide or not. On the one hand, it had responded to me with words out loud, which was something Fide couldn¡¯t do. On the other hand, Fide was much more coherent. I decided that time would tell. The little human had left immediately seeming panicked. I hoped it was off to help in the same way that Fide did, so I told it what I liked, but the creature hadn¡¯t responded. In fact, I¡¯d gotten a strange jumble of incomplete thoughts and strange emotions from it before it left my dungeon entirely. I put such thoughts on the backburner. I spent some time digging the pit a few inches deeper, and then I surveyed my dungeon. I was once again struck by how small it was compared to the threats I feared. In the midst of thinking of how I could improve my dungeon, I noticed my younger skeleton which I had stationed just behind the pit. It was holding a broken sword. Very good! I congratulated it. It gave no sense of caring one way or the other, but I thought that it was only right to praise someone when they did something right. The skeleton had acted entirely upon its fragmented memories, left over in the scraps of mana trapped in its bones. Those fragments hadn¡¯t all dissipated before I put the bones back together and this was the result. I wished to get more weapons for my skeletons, so I directed the younger skeleton to step outside. Almost instantly it began to crumble. My mana bled out of it and naturally flowed back into my dungeon. After merely a pace, the skeleton had become so weak I almost couldn¡¯t command it to return in time to save all the hard work it took to make one. I mused over the difference between these undead and Fide, who could go out for hours on end without severe problems. I could only assume it had something to do with the ability of Fide to produce his own mana, which the skeletons clearly lacked. I set myself to lengthening my dungeon, carving out another half a foot on every wall of my core room while the going was easy, since it was all permeated with my mana. Then Fide returned with enough bones and I made another skeleton, stationing this one at my side as well, until it had grown in power. I noticed that my first skeleton had stopped adding layers of mana. It has become as strong as it was going to through natural processes, although I thought that if I was able to live on a deeper level, my skeletons would be able to grow more powerful as well from the ambient mana. At this time, I realized that it had been a long time since the little human had left. Fide had been quite sick after merely a day away from my dungeon, initially. Wouldn¡¯t that be a problem for my newest companion? Fide follow two leg? Keep safe. Be safe. Fide cocked his adorable little head to one side and nodded. Safe.