The blackness of the dungeon consumed me, washing over my body in a wave of agony identical to what the blessing box had bestowed upon my innocent hand, only ten times as bad. Thankfully, it was over as quickly as it’d begun. After laying on the ground for several agonizingly slow breaths and forcing my body to believe that I indeed had not been rendered a useless pile of meat, but was in fact still alive and well, I opened my eyes to find myself in the damp cave, a faintly flickering torch lying on a dry patch of stone beside me.
Once my breathing finally went back to normal, in and out, in and out, I stood and snatched up the torch glancing around the empty space. It was stone, nothing to write home about, so I just walked out of the narrow cave with a shrug, ready to get this adventure started at last. This proved to be the first of many mistakes.
Partly blinded by the torch I was stupidly holding out in front of me, I failed to spot the creatures lurking just outside my dungeon-appointed hiding spot. Not even five minutes into my adventure, I already had two monsters leaping through the air toward me and I couldn’t even see the fuckers until it was too late.
The first latched onto my left arm with a wet ripping sound and I screamed at what I can only describe as a cube of flesh with eyes, trying to batter it away with the torch. While I did somehow manage to burn away my eyebrows, my frantic flailing with the improvised weapon also served to club the other nightmare cube out of the air and back down onto the stone floor with a sloppy popping sound like a plate of spaghetti hitting the floor.
Another hearty thwack with the torch tore the first fleshy beast free, taking a good chunk of my upper arm with it and plunging the cave into darkness as the torch snapped in two and proceeded to fall into a nearby puddle.
I cursed, because of course I did, have you even been reading this fucking book so far? Then grabbed my rapier and tried to pull it free from its sheathe, tried being the operative word because the arcana’s damned sword got stuck in the sheathe so I was just tugging tugging tugging until the stupid fucking thing came free, and then I realized I was still fucked because I couldn’t see shit, but… Wait…
Why weren't they attacking?
Thankfully, a quick glance at my system boxes answered my most immediate questions.
==========
=System Log=
-Monster slain: Meatcube; Level 1
-Experience Rewarded: 2
-Bonus Exp: 1 - Monster above your level slain
-Monster slain: Meatcube; Level 1
-Experience Rewarded: 2
-Bonus Exp: 1 - Monster above your level slain
==========
I let out a heavy breath and fell onto the ground shaking, my rapier falling away from my hand to clatter on the stone floor of the cave. Half aware of what I was doing I swung my pack from my shoulders and onto my lap then began rummaging around inside it until I found my lighter and the oil lantern. It was a bit touch and go trying to light the damn thing in the dark with my injuries, managing to burn my fingers in the process. In the end, I was rewarded with a bright source of light and a grotesque sight.
Two lumps of reddish-brown meat lay oozing on the ground not three feet away, bits of broken bone and teeth jutting from what was presumably the meatcubes’ mouths. I shuddered and looked away, right at the gaping hole in my arm which was still gushing a shit ton of blood. I suddenly understood why I was still feeling so cold despite the spreading warmth of my lamp.
I dove back into my pack without hesitation, retrieving the one healing potion I’d bought along for emergencies. It sucked to be using it so soon, but as my father always said, shit happens. I uncorked the small bottle, straining my pathetic muscles to open the stupid shot glass-sized bottle before just ripping it free with my teeth. Carefully, I let drip a few drops of the yellow-red liquid onto the open wound with the dropper the apothecary had so kindly given me free of charge. Pain lanced through my arm as the potion went to work reknitting my flesh and I found myself biting down hard on the cork almost reflexively. Thankfully it didn’t take long for the potion to finish doing its thing.
When it was all done I’d barely used any of the potion and there was only a bit of an ache left lingering in my arm. I checked my status page, noted that my health was only down by one point, from ten to nine, and let out a sigh of relief. Once I’d recollected myself I stuffed my stuff back into the pack and gave myself a hearty slap to the face for being so stupid, which was in and of itself a stupid idea because the clap of my slap echoed off the cave walls, no doubt alerting at least a dozen or so monsters to my position.
“Right,” I said to no one in particular, shaking my head. “Time to get serious.” My intellect reaffirmed, I confidently strode forward into the beckoning darkness, purposefully not looking at the dead creatures as I stepped over them. I made it about five minutes before I remembered that my sword was still laying on the ground where I’d dropped.
Cursing once more I ran back to retrieve the stupid thing and cursed again as I realized I’d somehow bent the blade already. I sighed, picked up the weapon, and, against my better judgment, used a rock to try and bend the blade back into shape. It worked! Kind of. My poor strength meant it was actually harder for me to accidentally break the rapier. When I’d finished my shoddy repairs, however, I still couldn’t get it to go all the way in the sheathe, but hey, who needs to sheathe their weapon anyway? This was a dungeon, after all. Best to keep my weapon ready at all times. Right?
Undeterred and re-equipped, I started off once more, this time not quite as confident as before, my rapier held out before me alongside my lantern to ward off the darkness and its concealed threats as I edged forwards the ever-receding dark. It wasn’t long before I spotted another mass of unidentifiable red-brown meat crawling forward with a single long spindly arm it was using to roll itself forward, its long needle-like claws scratching along the floor like a chisel on glass.
Thankfully, the monster didn’t seem to have any way of seeing me, having had one arm where the eyes of the other two had been, but I tried to move as quietly as possible as I approached the thing anyway. It was a good habit to get into, I told myself. Unfortunately, I only made it about two steps toward the thing before my boot made a rather loud scuffing noise against the floor and both I and the meatcube froze.
In an instant the creature, no bigger than my hand, launched itself off the ground with its one long arm, piercing claws and gnashing teeth hurtling through the air towards my face before I could so much as blink. I did the first thing I could think of, or well, I wasn’t thinking, but that much will be obvious in a moment. I screamed, “bite me fucker!” and threw out a thrust with my rapier.
I completely missed the little shit, distracted by the sudden tingling above my diaphragm as my skill, The Minstrel’s Taunt, activated. The fucker did indeed bite me as requested, not so cleanly slicing my favorite finger off at the knuckle, leaving both my left hand and my soul permanently diminished by the loss.
I yelled in blind fury and stomped down the thing with my steel-toed boot as it hit the ground still chewing on my precious digit. In what was no doubt a moment of extreme desperation, the little shit tried to catch my boot with its clawed hand, impaling the rubber sole with its needle-like nails. Thankfully the steel plate under the insole stopped its claws before they could penetrate through the shoe and into my foot. The momentum of my stomp crushed the pitiful thing with a wet pop, unfettered by the thing’s pathetic attack. A moment later I checked my system log to find the same kill notification as before.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
I stared at the thing’s name for a second and nodded. Meatcube was a suitably shitty name for such a shitty little nightmare. That was when I noticed another box flashing green in the corner of my vision, this one marked with a little paw print and leaf insignia. I focused on it as I retrieved my potion and dripped a drop onto the stump of my middle finger. A green box appeared in my vision as I was frowning down at the scared flesh crawling across the ragged edge of my knuckle. Damn, I thought. I’d been hoping that somehow it’d regrow the finger.
Note to self, don’t lose any more body parts.
==========
=Bestiary=
-Meatcube
-Genus: Esca Kyvos
-Description: The meatcube is generally a docile creature that lives at the entrance to most dungeons and scavenges off corpses. When young, they usually travel in groups of two or more and can, especially when matured, prove dangerous to even the strongest adventures. Whilst some are blind, all meatcubes have incredibly sharp hearing, and with their lamprey-like mouths full of rows of razor-blade teeth, they can quickly prove themselves deadly in ambush attacks. They generally range in size from half a foot cubed as juveniles to five feet cubed when fully matured, though they never truly stop growing so long as they are provided with an adequate food supply.
==========
I blinked at the description, then stared down at the rapidly decaying monster still attached to my boot. Gingerly, I retrieved the sword breaker from my belt and pried the corpse free, proceeding to prod the corpse with the dagger’s tip.
==========
=Would you like to loot: Meat-Cube Level 1=
-Yes/No
==========
Damn it all, I’d forgotten about that part of the system. It was all the adventurer’s ever seemed to talk about sometimes. Still cursing myself out I chose yes, and the monster’s corpse twitched once before disintegrating into a cloud of harmless sparks. When I finished blinking the light from my eyes I found six little cubes of dried meat just sitting in a neat pile atop a thin piece of butcher paper.
Cute, I thought, picking up one of the sugar cube-sized blocks and giving it a hesitant sniff. I decided not to try eating it when I couldn’t smell anything from the little block. I decided to just call them jerky cubes and stowed them in my pack all neatly folded up in that oh-so-convenient butcher paper they’d appeared with.
Thanks to the little bit of potion I’d used on my finger my health was actually back to ten points again, and my stamina was already back to full as well from the short break. Curiously, my mana pool was untouched, so I supposed that my taunt skill must not have affected it, or I had done something wrong when activating it and it hadn’t worked. Based on my missing middle finger, however, I’d say the skill worked just fine.
Dusting myself off once more, I started off again, this time only making it only a few steps before remembering to retrieve my sword again. Thankfully there wasn’t any more damage that I could see this time, and I actually got the thing to slide back into its sheath! Kind of. It was only sticking out by an inch or two, and I couldn’t get it back out, but that was fine. The sword breaker seemed like more than enough to deal with the pernicious little meatcubes. Was that the right word, pernicious? Ah, who gives a fuck, it sounds cool so I’ll keep it.
As I wandered the stone tunnels, making a right at every intersection, (that was the right thing to do in mazes, right?) I began to feel a bit unsettled by the ever-gray walls and irregular floors. It was definitely just the stone, not the distant monster sounds echoing discordantly through the tunnels in a whispered cacophony of terror. Yup. definitely just the floors.
I came across another pair of meatcubes as I walked, dispatching them in a similarly chaotic if a bit more healthy, manner, managing to only take a small cut along my ankle from one of the fuckers. I had two more similar fights before the weariness began to overtake me and it became a struggle to keep my eyes open.
As if the dungeon somehow understood my plight, I suddenly stumbled across a narrow shelf set high into the tunnel wall, out of reach of the wandering meatcubes. I pulled myself up and inside the space with the last dregs of my energy and pulled out a strip of dried fruit leather and some jerky of the non-cube variety for my dinner as I pulled up my status window.
==========
=Status=
-Name: Mairenn Crowe
-Blessing: Reverse Minstrel
-Level: 0
-Experience: 27/100
-Attribute points: 0
-Skill points: 0
-Ability Points: 0
-Health: 7/10
-Stamina: 2/10
-Mana: 7/7
==========
I frowned at the missing health, but I was too tired to worry about it. It was probably just from the accumulation of scratches and bruises, I told myself. Settling back with my head against my pack I let out a soft sigh, not entirely disappointed by my performance over the last few hours. It wasn’t terrible for a first-time solo dungeon dive, I thought. In fact, I was still alive, so I was already doing better than most solo divers.
Yeah, I know, great logic.
I wasn’t entirely sure how long I slept before I was jerked awake by a whispered voice speaking in my ear. “Move,” was all the voice said, and I bolted upright, smacking my head against the solid stone above me with a solid crack that echoed off the walls outside my little alcove of safe sleeping. In the dying light of my lantern, a shadow moved across the entrance to my alcove like oil sliding over a sheet of black fabric as a trickle of blood ran from my forehead down into my eyes.
Whatever had made the shadow let out a gurgling rumble of noise like rubber wheels on hard flooring in response to the sound of my head hitting stone. Without any warning, the thing began to scratch the opening of my alcove with a clawed paw the size of my head, its talons flashing a sickly green in the flickering lamplight. I didn’t even have time to question the strange voice in my head as panic froze me stiff as iron, my brain going blank in the face of my terror.
A whimper forced itself from my lips before I could stop it, but I couldn’t even feel disgusted with myself. My mind raced as I searched for something that might work, all the while holding my sword-breaker in both hands as I trembled in the narrow alcove. The monster’s paw reached farther back and I shouted wordlessly, driving the weapon through the top of the beast’s paw with a panicked jab, electing a yowl from the creature. It yanked its paw free from the alcove, tearing the weapon from my hand and dragging me half out of the space with the violent motion.
I caught a brief glimpse of the creature’s shadowy serpentine form before I ducked back into my hiding space. I cowered in the far back of the space, curling in on myself and shuddering. I felt bile build in the back of my throat but thankfully managed to choke it back down. As if the arcana themselves had heard my silent prayers, the creature’s growls and howls were suddenly joined by the sound of people shouting.
My heart soared in hope as the sounds of fighting broke out on the other side of the alcove’s entrance, lasting for barely a moment before being replaced by an uncomfortable silence that left my chest aching with anxious tension. Indecipherable chatting broke out between whoever was outside and my fears began to ease, my racing heart beginning to slow at last. A moment later a green-haired woman poked her head up over the lip of my hiding spot and flashed me a broad grin.
“Hey there,” she said with a thick rural accent. “Hope you don’t mind, but you looked like you needed some help there.”
I laughed in what proved to be a bitter half-crazed sound, and shook my head wordlessly, feeling tears build in the corners of my eyes followed by immediate shame for the pathetic display. I was better than that, I told myself.
Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself, then crawled to the edge of my shelter and held my hand out to the other woman. “Mairenn,” I said. “Thanks for the help. You all are lifesavers, literally.”
The other woman chuckled at that but took my hand. “Don’t worry about it. We were just taking advantage of the situation is all. My name’s Carlyn, by the way. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” I replied as we shook hands, matching her smile with a weak one of my own as I stared into the woman’s enticingly dark eyes, wondering if perhaps the arcana actually had heard my prayers for a change.
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Sightless, we watch the girl as she stumbles through our halls, clueless as a newborn. But we feel the potential, the thing we need, lying there within her, just out of reach. Our pets wish to feast upon her flesh, upon the growing power inside her, but they obey our will, instead skulking in the shadows, waiting for whatever chance might be offered to them.
Elsewhere, other creatures not of we worked their schemes to foil our plans, but they underestimated us. They think us but a trifling of those mortal pretenders, of those cruel master’s who have laid claim to what is not theirs, but our true nature is beyond the scope of what they can understand. But soon, we tell ourselves, soon they will know. Those mortal fools will tremble at our approach as we reclaim what was ours and we will make them pay.
Bit by bit we guide the girl our way, feeding her power with what little morsels she can consume, each step she takes another towards our goal. We set a pet free, easing our hold upon its leash, letting it run amok as it pleases, and we make our presence known. The serpent howls in hunger, starved for our purpose, but suffers little as the first act comes to fruition. And so we wait and watch and scheme as events bend to our desires, a play written in the threads of fate itself, and we prepare.