They worked tirelessly for hours on end. The end result was a dungeon that might be able to repel enemy dungeon guardians that would undoubtedly be coming to reclaim the Celestial Node.
Gwen had found headsets in the tech storage room that only half-worked. Most of the time, all they would get was static. That was better than listening to Kronke mutter to himself. Most of what he said wasn’t pleasant. Even worse were the maniacal giggles.
Part of Cal was connected to Dave’s core, but another part of him, the part that was in his body, was pulling people’s leftover lunches from the fridge and putting them in a box. With Mimi, he’d had to remain within five feet of her dungeon core.
However, with Mimi, he hadn’t had the magic parallelograms. The marketing swag gave him the Apothos he needed to leave the inner sanctum. As long as he stayed with Dave’s Area of Influence, he was okay. Besides, they’d needed every able body to do the work.
After finishing emptying the fridge, Cal left the break room carrying a boxload of stuff, including Ethel’s chicken salad. The container had her name on it, but she’d obviously forgotten about it. The chicken salad was green now and had an odor that would bring a lich to his knees. The green chicken salad just might be their ultimate weapon against their enemies.
Kronke, once again, accidentally turned on his headset. “No, Pinkerton. Killing my friends won’t make them happier. Shut up. Kronke getting tired of your murderous intentions.”
Gwen’s voice came on air. “Hey, big guy, um, we can hear you. How about you take off the bracelet and take a break from you-know-who.”
“No. Pinkerton is Kronke’s friend. It okay.”
Cal doubted that.
Helga screamed through hers, not understanding the volume setting. “By my brother’s athlete’s foot, why put carpet in a blasted cave? And wet carpet? Why a cave down here in the first place? Hurts my eyes, it does. Change it, we must.”
Cal stopped in the bare cubicle farm—all the cube walls were now in the inner sanctum, so the place was empty. “Helga, we can’t spare the Apothos to change things much. We did add the secret door connecting the secret archive to the inner sanctum. But everything else has to stay the same. Have you found anything?”
Helga grunted. “About as much trash as we found in Otis’s lair! So much rust! So many suits of garbage armor.”
“Kronke miss black and gold armor! No, Pinkerton, Kronke love Reaper Cloak. Kronke just feeling nostalgic.”
Gwen tried to say something, but then there was then a bunch of squelches and static, and Cal dropped the box of food and ripped off the headset before his ears started to bleed. This was crazy. He set it back on his head and picked up the box. “Guys, we’re ditching the headsets. What are they? Ra-Dee-Oos? Well, they are about as good as the Electronic Abacuses. As in they are terrible. We’re doing a Conference Call.”
Dave responded with unintelligible static. No wonder all this stuff was in the basement. It simply didn’t work.
Cal walked through the corner office, down the secret staircase, and into the super-secret archive, where the filing cabinets had all been emptied. They now had robotic legs, and each were filled with cast off office supplies, staples, paperclips, a variety of pens that didn’t work, and other objects. Stuffed full, they were heavy and deadly.
Cal cast his Conference Call spell.
The first thing he heard was a woman’s whispering voice.
That was what Kronke was hearing.
Dave came online.
From Gwen. From Dave. Cal picked up the box. This was much better. Suddenly, he heard a bleating. Was that Hurricane? Cal nearly dropped the box again. Helga answered with actual words. “Not stick pigs,> Kronke protested. More bleating. It was getting louder. At least it wasn’t screaming. Few things in the multiverse were more annoying than goats screaming. It wasn’t funny at all. Cal entered the inner sanctum’s cubicle labyrinth, which was at an incline, which made it harder somehow. He didn’t get lost because he was connected to Dave’s core. Rounding a corner, he set the box down in front of Dave’s desk. The surviving Dweebers had brought his entire office down and recreated it, so it was around the dungeon’s new pedestal. The pinball bumper had been replaced by a copy of Dave’s desk. Seeing the desk down there made Cal pause. It kind of brought the whole difficult situation squarely home. Evil had found them in their workplace. Dave was looking a lot better, and he seemed back to his old self. There was still bruising on his face, but his many two magical pairs of eyeglasses were back on his face, and his suit didn’t look so rumpled. His magical tie’s knot was perfectly straight. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Gwen sent him a message. Cal was curious, but first, he cast a special version of his Triple A spell. It was called the Quick Scan, and he loved it. It gave them a fuller picture of The Soul Crusher, the dungeon that Dave had fashioned using the Apothos he gathered from his own core, one of the parallelogram batteries, and Cal’s Funk Soul. <<<>>> Triple A Quick Scan of The Soul Crusher Entrance Quick Name: Bowling for Dungeoneers: The Wrath of Dave Quick Note: Remember how that huge boulder nearly killed that one dungeoneer, Indiana Jones, in that one Uroth movie? Well, this is the same same, only different. There are three huge balls, timed to roll from the ceiling down the tracks and into a housing on the left. This replaced the Newton’s Cradle room that Dave had before. The wall has been repaired. There are no shortcuts to the inner sanctum. * * * Room #1 (Going clockwise from the top) Quick Name: Does Not Compute Quick Note: Yes, the Department abandoned their Electronic Abacus Systems (also known as compooters) in favor of magic, but these gadgets have found new life in the hands of gifted gadgeteer, namely Gwenivere Copperblade. Gwen has built some vicious robots that will destroy bodies just as those old Electronic Abacuses destroyed souls. Just ask an IT guy how well those old computers work. No. Don’t. Tech support people are strange. * * * Room #2 Quick Name: Weird Tiled Room Quick Note: This is a weird, tiled room, circular in nature, with a vent on the wall and a drainage grate on the floor. Weird, right? And probably important in some way that will be made clear in time. For now, it’s just that weird room you sometimes find in houses, when you’re shopping for a place, after a messy divorce. You’ll need an extra room for your daughter, but not that one weird red room in the basement. Might be a gateway to hell. Not a good place to read “Goodnight Moon” to your kid before she goes to sleep. Uroth is such a backwater, but they do have some good books there. Additional Note: I know you tried to open it, but that vent on the wall is sealed shut tight. * * * Room #3 Quick Name: Kronke’s Paper Shredder of Destiny Room Quick Note: The Department had some paper they wanted a dragon to incinerate. To avoid identify theft probably, or to hide Department secrets that might destroy careers, or to keep state secrets safe. Either way, Kronke has a ton of disposable paper, and he’s not afraid to use it. Additional Note #1: Seriously, what is up with the Pink Reaper? Pinkerton is an HR violation waiting to happen. Additional Note #2: A secret passageway leads to Helga’s Rage Cave * * * Room #4 Quick Name: Helga’s Rage Cave Quick Note: Who puts carpet in a dungeon? Seriously! Some people’s kids. I’m not a fan. However, Helga is going to have traps, she’s going to have weapons and armor galore, and if I’m not mistaken, Gwen is going to help turbo-charge Cal’s illusions. That Gwen. She’s clever. What a vital DUDE resource. And an HR violation waiting to happen. * * * Room #5 Quick Name: Filing Cabinet Alley Quick Note: Come into this room, and you’ll see two rows of filing cabinets, on either side. Just walk right through, right? Until those drawers come shooting out, at random intervals, punching through armor and shattering bone. Flesh cannot withstand the power of a filing cabinet drawer. File under “M” for murder! Additional traps are exploding pins, hyper-magnetic paperclips, stick pins on the floor, ultra-sticky Post-it notes, spools of tape. All that stuff is going to distract raiders, so when the ultra-heavy drawers come shooting out, the invaders won’t stand a chance. This, like most office supplies areas in your typical office building are death traps. They just don’t know it yet. Additional Note: A secret passageway, not too well-hidden leads to the office supply room, which is mostly empty. Another secret passage leads to the super-secret archive. Which is also super dangerous. Take the Long Hallway to get to the Chessboard Chuckles. * * * Room #6 Quick Name: The Long Hallway Quick Note: It’s a Long Hallway with industrial gray (anti-bacterial) carpet and beige walls. Helga is much happier with it being so boring now. Gwen liked it the other way, but with the redesign, she did add the ceiling titles which she likes so much. And about halfway down, there’s a gigantic filing cabinet up above. Step on the pressure plate and get squashed. * * * Room #7 Quick Name: Chessboard Chuckles Quick Note: Take a chessboard. Put in traps. Add in some cute but suicidal dust bunnies and some rabid staplers who might have actual rabies, and then gather a bunch of precocious middle schoolers, teach them Geller's Rook and Pawn Endgame, and go to town. Additional Note: If you have access to precocious middle schoolers, you’ll probably be okay. Middle schoolers know all about survival at any cost. * * * Room #8 Quick Name: The Break Room of Utter Despair Quick Note: Remember Dave’s old rec room, which stank of loneliness and desperation? The new version is like that, but with better traps. Don’t go near the microwave. No one ever cleans it. Do you want a mutant virus? Because that’s how you get a mutant virus. * * * The Inner Sanctum Quick Name: The Soul Crusher’s Office Quick Note: It’s cold. There is no hope. You will work here until you die. There is no escape. But there is paperwork, annual evaluations that don’t mean anything, and confusing health insurance that is too expensive to afford. Additional Note #1: Just kidding. There is no health insurance. Just don’t get sick, LOL. Additional Note #2: The Soul Crusher himself is here. And he’s ready to belittle you to death. On a happier note, it’ll be cheaper than paying your non-existent health insurance’s deductible. <<<>>> Gwen laughed. Helga grunted. Dave weighed in. Cal had no answers, as far as the Pink Reaper was concerned, nor did he know where the descriptions came from. Yes, like the corner office, the weird, tiled room was bound to be important, and they’d figure that out in time. First, Cal hurried through the dungeon to get to the Does Not Compute room. He walked in to find Gwen stained with oil, with a screwdriver in her hand, and her goggles firmly attached. Fullgeers was nearby, steaming and making her coffee drinks, which she was guzzling down. “Were you going to sleep?” Cal asked her. Gwen barked. “What? No! Too much cool stuff to make! Got legs on the filing cabinets. Lots of kamikazes here, Cal. Lots of suicidal minions, ready to give their lives for the cause. And I’m not an HR violation. I don’t have a fully sentient weapon wanting us all dead.” “Yeah. About that.” Cal sighed. “Let’s change the subject and hope that Kronke is a saint. I think he is?” “Fine. Fine. Fine. Look!” Gwen switched on a machine—like a glowing table with a lamp. “Come and put your hand here. And cast an illusion. Something good. Not like your usual sucky illusions.” “Hey! My simulations are fairly good now. I ascended!” “Just do it.” Cal went with one of Dave’s Flying Inferno Spiders. Suddenly, a spider dragon filled one whole corner of the room. Cal grinned. “We’re going to use the heck out of this. Fullgeers, give me a coffee. Make it strong, sweet, and milky. Like my mother used to make.” The machine hissed, “As you wish. You can sip it before you succumb to your death. For the minions of Inke are coming, and they are coming in force. We shall not survive this. And all of these preparations will have been for naught. These violent delights will have violent ends.” “Shut up, Fullgeers!” Gwen shouted. “And keep us caffeinated. We’re going to save the whole office, and then you’ll thank us. And you’ll admit you were wrong. So flippin’ wrong!” Cal hoped she was right. An hour later, with only two hours until noon, it was time to take on Inke and his tattoo minions. And like with Dave, they were swollen with Apothos and ready to kill for the Vanilla Master, whoever that was. Cal prayed that the Soul Crusher would be up to the task. Ready or not, it was dungeon time!