Chapter 63: Missing
Tuesday, April 11th, 1:20 PM
Castle
Dungeon Ciara
[No need to send the marine, Mister President. Joe, you’re needed in the castle for healing. FBI Director James Koel injured his hand when the President asked him to help test his new strength. Oh, and the President is now a Dungeon resident.]
“Roger that.” Joe explained the situation to a group of confused military personnel and raced toward the castle.
“This castle counts as part of the Dungeon?” President Thomas asked.
[Yes. That is precisely the spot where my home was before the bomb, and I built the castle, so it’s part of my Dungeon. If you recall, my other human residents took you through my old basement, before.]
“It’s fascinating, to speak with a being who can communicate with… is this telepathy?”
[Essentially, yes.]
“How far away can it be used?”
[Ah, we haven’t tested that, but it seems restricted to areas my Dungeon has influence over.]
“Are you responsible for the swift recovery of this area’s ecosystem?”
[Yes. My mana encourages healthy and rapid growth of plants and animals, and Sven says it will also extend lifespans—including for anyone who gains a blessing, or, as the Adventurer’s Guild has taken to calling it, a class. But in truth, all of this comes from Lord Auronox.]
“The Dragon.”
[Yes.]
“How did you become a Dungeon?”
[Ah. That was quite an experience…]
“Fascinating, though I am sorry for the loss of your human body. So, during the nuclear blast, you became this… glowing gem that builds a Dungeon around it?”
Damn. I should’ve been more careful about the existence of my core…
[My body is effectively the entire area I have claimed and altered. Taking that into account, a rough estimate of my size would be two cubic kilometers.]
“Twice the volume of the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens… That’s incredible.” Aron Thomas shook his head. “I have reports of your first and second floors, where people have been training. How many floors does the Dungeon have?”
[Four.]
I took the time to explain delving to him, and to drive home the point that my Dungeon was intended as a whetstone to help humans grow strong enough to defeat the forces of the opposing Dragon.
After receiving their security clearance screening, my first six human residents returned to the castle.
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As Joe and the others seated themselves, the President said, “At this time, I see no cause for anything but cooperation between the Federal Government and the Dungeon. She will be treated as a US citizen, and I hereby ask for her cooperation to help end the war and aid our nation’s recovery.”
One woman and two men seated at the table wore bitter frowns at his words. The woman opened her mouth to speak, but the President held up a hand when Ciara spoke.
[I’m glad we can work together, Mister President. I’ll do my best to assist in ways that will encourage people to grow, rather than coddling them. To that end, I have the capacity to create enormous quantities of resources. But you’ll need people to harvest and process them.]
“You’re referring to the regenerating metal nodes?” the President asked, raising a sculpted eyebrow.
[Yes. I have the capacity to create many elements—possibly all of them. If you’re lacking anything, let me know. I can also expand the harbor to allow more and larger ships to dock. I’m not sure what I can do to defend you all against bombardment from the air, so you’ll need to handle that part of our defense. But I can provide excellent reconnaissance anywhere I’ve claimed the surface, as well as food and raw materials.]
After some discussion, President Thomas said, “I ask that you surround this location with Dungeon-claimed land, out to two hundred kilometers in every direction, to give us an idea of what’s happening and to help the land recover. Also, are you able to build a harbor out in the bay?”
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I spent the next two days modifying the surrounding area, including the addition of a massive, protected port that enclosed the area from Lighthouse Point out to two kilometers south of Pleasure Point. A sizable and driveable breakwater surrounded all but the main channel entrance from the south.
Raised piers were shaped and matched to exact specifications for various ships including military, cargo, and fishing vessels. The original Santa Cruz Wharf remained as well. In all, there was docking space for up to two aircraft carrier battle-groups and twenty full-size cargo vessels.
All the docking structures were raised on massive, hardened-stone pillars, and I shaped shallow reefs beneath them to encourage wildlife to thrive in the north end of the bay.
It also helped that both the military and sailors from private vessels were busy researching new naval propulsion systems based around hearthstones for steam production. I loved the idea of shipping no longer requiring fuel that would pollute the air or water.
Captain Dan offered his vessel as a test-bed for one of the smaller propulsion systems, and work to convert the diesel-powered trawler began in earnest.
The original harbor could now support a massive fleet of fishing and personal vessels after I expanded it to ten times its original size, though I kept its entrance the same as before.
Over the course of those two days, I learned a bit about Aron Thomas, and he awarded all six of my previous human residents Congressional Medals of Honor for their service to the local community and the nation.
So far, President Thomas seemed like a decent man, though three of his cabinet members were staunch complainers and advocates for me and everyone who was awakened to be locked away. The final nail in the coffin of them ever gaining my trust came after I finally felt comfortable letting Sunny, Sandy, Nino, and Hanzo meet the government.
Those four animal residents made an impressive showing, causing smiles to break out among almost everyone present as they spoke with the President and his cabinet—until one person shat on the moment.
“Those animals aren’t natural. They’re potentially dangerous and should be caged,” said Miss Karen Felt, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Her straight black hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her eyes shone with contempt.
[Girls is bad?] Sunny and Sandy asked in unison. They raised their eyebrows and their tails stopped wagging.
Nino glared at the woman. [Foolish human. All animals are potentially dangerous, including humans. You smell like aggression and fear. That’s a dangerous combination. Not fit for leadership.]
Miss Felt stared down her nose at Nino and sucked a breath in through her nose. She opened her mouth to speak.
Siobhán deadpanned at Miss Felt and talked first, with a scathing tone. “Karen, perhaps you should learn about what’s happened here, before you continue to make a fool of yourself by suggesting that heroes should be locked-up. Did you even read the reports of what happened in this place before you arrived?”
Rihelah left her seat to hug my girls. “Sunny and Sandy are gentle, loyal pups. All four of these brave animals risked their lives to save children from those One World Order traitors.” Rihelah shot a glare at Karen. “How dare you?”
Karen flicked her gaze from Rihelah to Michael for an instant, and a subtle, cruel smile crossed her lips.
[Sunny loves Ryebean.]
[Sandy too.]
They licked her face as their tails resumed wagging.
The cats kept their unblinking stares on Karen.
Hanzo said, [Irrational human.]
James whispered something to the President, who sighed at Karen.
Still smiling, Karen said, “I’ll not be told off by these unnatural pets. They lack the capacity for—”
President Thomas cut her off. “Miss Felt, I have it on good authority that three little girls were saved by these animals. You are clearly in the wrong. Read the reports before you open your mouth. That will be all.”
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Beside Siobhán, Michael and Rihelah were engulfed by bright blue flashes. Their clothing dropped to the floor in two piles, and the room went silent.
[What happened? Where are my Ryebean and Michael?]
Mike muttered, “That’s not funny, Ciara. Bring them back.”
[I can’t find them. Whose ability made them disappear from my Dungeon? What have those bastards done?] Ciara’s voice grew ominous.
“Ciara… calm down and tell us what happened,” said Joe.
[Tell them to bring Michael and Rihelah back. NOW.]
“You’d better be joking, Ciara.” Mike stood from his seat.
“Ciara, what do you mean?” asked President Thomas.
[Michael and Rihelah disappeared… completely. Thomas, did your people pick up some ability you haven’t told me about? How were they removed as residents? If they’ve been harmed, whoever did this is going to suffer.] Ciara practically hissed the words, and her tone was hateful.
A Secret Service agent called from down the hall, “Sir, we can’t get out of the castle. The door won’t budge.”
Screams came from inside the castle where Secret Service and military service members were patrolling. Joe took off toward the screams and found Ciara’s spiders wrapping two people up.
Joe called out, “Ciara, stop it! Nobody here did anything!”
“Are you injured? Were you bitten?” asked one of the men in black.
One man replied, “No.”
The other shook his head, and seemed too terrified to speak.
“Stop, Ciara! You’re not going to help anyone by fighting the government!” Joe yelled.
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Mike growled from behind Joe, “Ciara! Knock this shit off, and… Bring. Back. My. Son.”
Ciara’s voice hissed, like a reptilian predator, [Tell that to those bastards who severed Rihelah and Michael’s connection—they’re no longer residents, and I can’t find them!]
“Ciara, you have ten seconds to bring my son back.” Mike’s voice was ice as he aimed his pistol at a Dire Widow.
[Are you serious, Mike? After everything we’ve been through, do you really believe I’d harm people whom I love?]
“Let’s just say your behavior right now is making it difficult to trust. Time’s up, by the way.” Mike shot one Dire Widow, causing its abdomen to explode in a spray of yellow ichor, but the other spider disappeared into a tunnel before he could line up another shot.
[So, you’re turning against me? You think I’d hurt them? How dare you?] Ciara’s tone made Joe’s blood run cold. Then he felt something else that made him drop to one knee as Mike did the same.
Joe asked, “Master Guns… did—”
“Yeah. We’re cut off.” Mike slammed the castle floor with his fist, shattering his knuckles.
As Joe healed him, he felt a flash of purest rage flow into him before it disappeared as another connection was dropped. Numerous personnel were knocked aside as Joy and Siobhán raced up the stairs, followed by Sunny, Sandy, Hanzo, and Nino.
“Siobhán… why?” Joe glared at the floor.
FBI Director James whispered something to Colonel Hart, who spoke into his radio, “We have rogue individuals fleeing a situation inside the castle. Detain them immediately.”
The man who sat next to Karen whispered something to James, who whispered to Colonel Hart.
The colonel grimaced as he keyed his radio again and added, “Subjects are empowered. Use of lethal force is authorized.”
Looking out the castle window, he saw Siobhán and Joy sprinting toward the Crow’s Nest alongside Sunny, Sandy, and the cats after they’d all jumped into the moat from above. Hundreds of troops were closing on them from the beach.
Joe bellowed, “No, Colonel! Tell them to stand down! If anyone harms them, we’ll all be in a world of—”
It was too late. The marines opened fire, and unlike the traitors, their shots were accurate.
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[NO!]
Terrified yowls of pain rang out from my sweet girls and they collapsed, tumbling across the ground as bullets kept hitting them.
[Sunny is pain…] [Why humans hurted us?] she whined with the saddest tone I’d ever heard.
Sandy lay silent beside her sister.
[YOU WILL ALL DIE!]
Siobhán and Joy uttered ragged screams as their slender bodies were riddled with holes.
Siobhán’s eyes were already flooded by tears as the first shot pierced her chest, and she wailed, “Why?”
A bullet struck Siobhán’s head and she dropped, then lay still as she slid face-down over the pavement.
The cats rolled to a stop.
A second later, Joy tumbled forward and slid to a halt, leaving a streak of blood.
[How dare you? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU?]
“Shit.” Joe dropped to his knees. He watched through the bottom of the window as Nita went mad after tumbling off Siobhán’s neck. She raced across the pavement toward the marines with terrifying speed, but the huge spider was also shot and killed.
The cacophony of yells had quieted around them.
Karen Felt stepped in front of the others. “You see? This is why the Dungeon needs to be put under control. Her creatures and residents are freaks!”
[Any last words, bitch?]
I sent a quartet of Dire Widows in through one of the air vents and had them abseil from above Karen.
“Ciara, don’t!” Mike yelled.
I enjoyed the vile woman’s screams as my minions sank their fangs into her face. Before anyone could kill them, the spiders dropped to the floor and exited via a pair of tunnels beneath the table.
Joe pulled an antidote potion out and made the panicked woman drink it.
[You should have let her die, Joe. She mocked them. Your marines killed my family, and that rotten bitch mocked them!]
Mike shook his head, covering his mouth with his hand.
Colonel Hart asked, “You have an opinion you’d like to share with us, Elliott?”
Mike’s voice wavered. “Negative, sir.”
Joe shuddered with loss and frustration, then raised a hand.
“You may speak,” the President nodded to Joe.
“Mister President, with all due respect, sir, harming them would have been a disaster, but killing them was the worst thing we could have possibly done. They were her dogs from before the war, her cat, and her students, all of whom she viewed as family. There’s nobody Ciara loves more than those Labs, Joy, Siobhán, and Rihelah, who disappeared along with Elliott’s son Michael.”
Karen Felt scoffed as she held a tissue to the wounds on her face. “As soon as this vile Dungeon came into existence, conflict was inevitable.”
Joe shook his head.
President Thomas said, “Miss Felt, you are out of line.”
“Out of line? OUT OF LINE? I was attacked by giant spiders, and—”
Thomas snapped his head in her direction. “Shut. Up. You received antidote. You’re not going to die.”
He asked Joe, “You have something else to add, son?”
“Sir, are you familiar with what happens when you attack a mother bear’s cubs? This is the most terrifying mother of all. She just lost all her babies, and we’re responsible.”
Two seconds after Joe said that, the screaming began outside the castle.
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Nothing mattered anymore.
They took my Ryebean and Michael and removed their immortality. For all I know, they’re lost forever.
I’d been accused of a crime I didn’t commit—against the ones I loved most—by people I had trusted.
To protect my remaining beans, I removed Mike and Joe temporarily so I could get them underground.
The military—our own military—shot and killed my sweet, innocent babies.
They murdered my family!
With no more reason or desire to hold back, I released the Dungeon within.
It leered at the humans, and saw only food and threats.
Inside my first floor, twenty new minions were created by my instinct.
Alongside all my other flying and crawling arthropods that were already on their way to the surface, those new creatures erupted from minion highways and headed straight for the marines who had butchered my loved ones.
Crafted to immobilize humans, Murder hornets were based on Bald-faced hornets but with dragonfly wings for extra agility and speed. They had fang-like centipede forcipules with two sets of venom glands and legs replaced by scorpion tails, along with the original stinger of a bald-faced hornet. Somehow, my Dungeon instinct knew how to isolate and increase the potency of the paralyzing aspect of the venoms while decreasing their lethality. My instinct sought agonizing punishment and slow death, rather than instant murder. Everything except their wings was maxed to 500%.
They looked unnatural, but Murder hornets were 100% purpose-built, unlike the creatures I’d made with my human side, who’d all been made to fit into an ecosystem. They received a Stealth augmentation, making them hard to see, while their quiet dragonfly wings rendered them almost impossible to notice before it was too late.
The marines had no clue they were in danger until the first screams of pain rang out. Twenty enemies at a time, my Murder hornets found exposed skin and struck, injecting a dose of paralyzing venom before moving on. Within seconds, each person who’d been stung or bitten collapsed into what looked like a seizure.
While my new hornets did their grim work, my instinct cooked up another terrifying creature. Although smaller than my Twilight crickets, Reaper spiders were stout enough to give any arachnophobe pause. They were built from Bold Jumping spiders with two sets of venom glands taken from a Black Widow and a Scolopendra centipede. As usual, the size of everything was maxed-out.
Twenty Reaper spiders were spawned, all sporting hornet stingers on top of their bodies in case anyone tried to smash them. Their venom received the same effects as the Murder hornets, and Stealth augmentations.
My Canopy Crawlers and Dire Widows had completely locked the castle down, webbing off every exit from the outside.
I managed to regain control of myself just as the Reaper spiders were in position to launch into an assault that would paralyze everyone in the castle. The sight of Joe and Mike both on the edge of tears made me pause.
No. I mustn’t.
I won’t become a monster.
Thankfully, the marines who’d been stung by my Murder hornets were being doused with antidote potions by members of the Adventurers Guild. None had died because of how the venom was tailored. I was livid over what they’d done, and I hated them for it, but I understood those people were just following orders.
I need to figure this out, and the ones responsible need to pay.
I offered residency to Joe, though I was still too pissed at Mike and the President to bother with them.
“The Dungeon is offering for me to be a resident again. I’ll be able to talk with her,” Joe muttered.
Mike glared. “Go ahead, and tell Ciara she’s in deep shit.”
No, Mike. Whoever took Michael and Rihelah away is in deep shit. The ones who killed my dogs, my beans, and my cats… they are in deep shit.
“Talk to me, Ciara.”
[Tell the President he can either bring back Michael and Rihelah, or our cooperation ends, and everyone dies.]
“I can’t say that, Ciara. You know he won’t—”
[You saw what they did, Joe. They killed all my residents, including Siobhán! I thought you loved her? Was that a lie?]
Joe gritted his teeth. “Don’t you ever accuse me of wishing harm on Siobhán,” he growled.
[Ah. Now you know how I feel about Mike accusing me. They took Rihelah and Michael away and I still can’t find them. Tell them if they want to leave my house alive, they will head back to the dining room, sit their asses down, and return Michael and Rihelah to us.]
“What’s she saying?” the President asked.
“I…”
“Out with it, son.”
“Sir… Ciara says she wants everyone to head to the dining room to talk. We have to bring Michael and Rihelah back, or she’s going to kill us all.”
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Floors: 4
Minions: 411/480
Residents: 9/18
Denizens: 853429
Traps: 10/20