Prelude
Things were strange to start with. For the past several days there had been bad electromagnetic interference. Radio', cell phones, TV, even cable networks were not working right or well. News reported massive solar storms were causing the events on a world wide scale. Business were down to using old hand calculators if they wanted to do anything. As such several businesses just shut down for the duration.
This man, he had found a couple stores open, clothing shop, local grocery and a sub-shop that were open and got several items from the first two and then some subs with the idea of going to a friend's house for dinner. He had 3 foot-long subs and chips. While driving down a mostly deserted road, he passed through these pillars and statues he had driven by hundreds of times before, today something weird happened. This day energy was jumping between the city symbols, 4 bronze statues showing the industry prevalent in the cities founding, this energy, which looked like St Elmo's Fire, struck the two large Masonic Pillars on each side of the road at the exact moment he drove between them. There was a flash of light and he was falling, or the car was tossed, he did not know which, but in that moment he knew he was going to die.
His last thoughts were 'where did that wall come from ?'
He remembered hearing voices, questions, maybe flashing lights but it was all a blur filled with pain and the surety that he was dying. He felt cold now, and the bed felt more like a stone floor. Then he wonders if he somehow fell out of the bed and on to the floor. It was far too dark to see anything and he hurt in places he does not remember hurting before. For the moment he is too scared to move, but there is this smell, gasoline and old water. In that moment a new fear runs through him, maybe he is not on the floor, but on the road and the crash left him blind. Oh he so hoped he was not blind. That scared him more than almost anything else. That makes him start to cry but he hurts to much to call out.
After an unknown amount of time, hearing no other sounds, not even passing cars, he starts to worry he will never be found. So he decides to try and sit up. Which he does with a surprising amount of ease. He reaches for his round stomach only to find a concave space it was once in and the fear comes back and brings friends. He was 300lbs plus and has always been overweight, since he was a child. No belly to his mind means it got removed, likely in a very unpleasant way. Still scared and running more on adrenalin that common sense, he manages to stand and tries to walk, only to have his pants drop around his ankles. It is only by blind luck he did not fall again. He shuffles forward, toward the smell, reasoning it's what's left of his car. He is hoping the emergency blinkers still work, that way someone will at least see his car. Then maybe he can be rescued, or at least his body found. He walks in to the side of the car, feels around and makes out the rear door, then sliding to the left finds the open door to the driver's seat. Through feel and memory he finds his way in to the wet, sticky seat, grimacing when his bare bottom hits that in the seat. Some searching shows the front console is leaning forward some but not enough to trap his legs. Searching with his hands along the column he finds the knob for the emergency lights and pulls it. The flashers come on and he is thrilled to actually see them. With a touch of hope that he is not totally blind he finds the knob for the headlights, but they don't come on, but the interior head lamp does work. What this shows him is the front of the car is smashed in to an old stone wall. The front end is a total loss and he suspects the engine will never work again.
Shaking he looks down at his legs, only those are not his legs. His had many scars, mostly from his cats using them to pull themselves up on his legs as kittens. These legs are a little more tan, very shapely and slender. Unzipping his coat he looks inside, expecting to see very unpleasant sight, instead his shirt is clean(ish) and his chest is Huge, bigger than before and shaped differently. This causes him to pause and wonder if he is actually just dreaming. He knows how to check that but is not sure he wants to. A short hand check of his lower region confirms that he is now a She. A slender Busty she at that. Trying not to freak out and going on the assumption that this is a mix of dream and shock. He just goes with it, planning to freak out later if this turns out to Not be a dream. Looking about the car he notes that the stuff on his seat is in fact from the cup of soda that had been in the carrier next to his seat before the crash and not there for Blood or worse. That is calming, though still Ick, soda puddle, ick.
A careful search of the interior turns up a small emergency flashlight that still works and that while tossed around most of his shopping is intact. Miraculously the sandwiches she bought are still in their bag and only on the floor, in one piece yet. So she will not starve in the short run. She starts to scrounge around the car. Digging out the blue cloth grocery bags and the other items, new shirts, belt, socks, she bought at a thrift store, some groceries (peanut butter, cereal, couple bags of chips, crackers, Soda's and some cans of soup he got, stuff that needs little to fix or can be eaten if there is no power. And the vitamins and meds he got just in case (B12, C, Aspirin, Ibuprofen and Probiotics 10). Takes a bit of work to pack everything, but still working on dream logic, thinks little of it when everything including his spare jack and umbrella fit inside his two grocery bags and that the little cheap light has not started to dim yet.
But once everything she can scrounge is out (including the owners-manual) she actually looks around the room she is in. It’s a good sized room, dark stone walls, 2 entrances each more than large enough for her car to pass through, but no way to tell which one leads out. Near as she can figure, using dream logic, she must have fallen down one, then crashed in to the wall. Maybe in a large sewer line under the city. Then with a grin, Or a dungeon with creepies and hopefully adventurers. Nice pretty mostly naked and sexually free adventurers. hehehe
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
If you are going to fantasize might as well do it right.
After close to an hour of walking, legs hurting from the strain, by passed a few traps and much dodging of them with no end in sight, she comes around a corner and finds herself back in the room with her car. This is going from a dream to a nightmare, one of those sick revolving ones that nothing makes sense in and just keeps repeating over and over endlessly.
To break the cycle she walks over to the back wall and tries to kick it, only to 'miss'. Stumbling forward she finds the back wall is actually further away and hidden by an optical illusion that is so good she did not see it Before she tried that. If that is the case there is no telling how many such side passages she missed … the game reference, 'you are in a dungeon, all the passages look alike.' comes to mind. That from the Amulet of Yendor or something like it, simple 2D game with symbols for monsters. Impossible to beat and completely random levels each time it's played. If that's the case she now hopes she is on level one and can escape if she just finds the stairs up, without running in to any monsters first.
Knowing the trick now, she chooses a direction and walks with one hand on a wall. A couple of times she finds another of those hidden openings, but instead pulls out a pack of stickup notes she kept in her car for assorted reasons and a pen, puts one up, makes a note of direction she came and then moves on. Hoping they will remain there and not wander off on their own, or that some wandering monster does not remove them. Eventually she comes to something different, a raised section of stones, figures out they are loose and seem to be in some kind of pattern. So using her sticky notes she tries different patterns, marking the paper she put on each stone. She is not sure how long she plays with them before she hears a sound and a section of the floor falls open just to her left. Where she would have been standing had she not dropped her pen and went after it upon hitting the last stone. Using her flashlight she looked in and decided that was not a good way to go. Spiked trap with lots of broken bodies on top, skeletons mostly and gear lining the floor. Looking at the gear she wishes she could just levitate some of it out. Grinning stupidly to herself she uses the feelings she gets in dreams where she is telekinetic to reach out and pull an item. Much to her surprise she feels a vibration in her head (instead of her arms like in most of her dreams) and a bag she had focused on shoots out and to her hand. She falls backwards and stares at it. "Holy Shit" she laughs. It takes a little more effort to figure out How she did it the first time but soon enough she has emptied the pit of everything Except the bodies. Those she has no interest in.
She spends the next little while searching her catch and sorting useful from junk. Junk goes back in the hole.
She finds lots of strange coins, a nice long dagger still with its sheath, a few gems, some badly made or more than likely costume jewelry. A large unmarked bottle marked for what she thinks is 3rds. Maybe doses. A smaller bottle with a picture of someone running on it and a third one with an hour glass picture on it, running backwards. A nice leather backpack in good shape. In it are some clothes, all too small for her except for a large, very patched cloak. Which being the dramatic person she is, she puts on over her coat. It's long enough that when she sits back on the floor it protects her legs from the coolness of the floor. Which is all the reason she needs to keep wearing it. Empties out the child sized clothing and then stuffs her stuff in or tries to. The blue bags Will Not go in, other stuff will … and that triggers another memory, Pulling her umbrella from the blue bag she tries to shove it in to the center of the main pouch, it and her arm go all the way in. Cue laughter. Bags of Holding, wheee.
Puts new stuff in the new bag, and then returns to the puzzle lock. If it's trapped like that, maybe there is something worthwhile it opens. Sitting back from it this time, uses her TK to push buttons, she plays with it more. Another trap is activated when she pushes a stone twice, this time spikes from the ceiling. They retract and she sees more bodies up inside it's hole. When they get to the top they shake a few old bones fall in to the open pit trap but that's it.
Looking at how things are set up, she moves down the hall and then starts over, going left to right this time. 3 more traps later (slicing blades from back wall, fire jets from under bricks, crisscross needle shooters which barely miss her as she is by this time laying on her stomach and has her head perched in the backs of her hands. Finally she figures out the pattern, and a door opens further down the hall. She has to scoot around the pit (not easy) and then head to the door. Being a smart person, she puts a broken spear shaft in first, it's end gets cut off by a guillotine blade. She gulps, and pulls up the chopped off end via her TK, then uses it to jam the mechanism that is trying to reset it. Thinking now, she uses her TK to probe ahead, setting off other traps, which she uses a combination of old rags, pieces of wood and junk she retrieves from the pit to jam up.
By the end she makes it to the room and finds a chest full of gold and silver coins. A nice box with carved sailing ships on it, with gems in it and a single bronze ring with runes on it. She puts that on and admires it. A good wood backed shield with thin metal over the top, leaning against the chest and on a shelf, glowing slightly is a 6" cube. She considers, then dumps the chest in to the bag she found, puts the box in a side pouch as well as the Cube. Lastly she takes the shield. On consideration she puts a belt around her waist, and puts the dagger in it. Then with the pack over her shoulders, bags in one hand by their straps, she makes her way out of the very trapped room Turns away from the direction of the pit and moves on. Running the remains of the spear shaft along the wall to keep an eye out for cross passages.