Charlie

When they finally reached the hallway’s end, there was no doubt in Charlie’s mind where they were.

They’d reached it. After all this time, they were in the center of the dungeon. He patted the friendly Scaler on the head. It and Bonehead knew what was up ahead as well.

They both acknowledged him with the noise he’d become used to hearing from them. “Arh!”

Charlie looked up at Lyra. The two of them exchanged a nod. She still cradled Kyo in her arms. Luckily, the baby boy had fallen asleep on their walk here.

Charlie steeled himself. This was it. The fate of Sange and all of its people would depend on the outcome of the battle ahead.

They stalked forward, staying close to the wall to mask their presence. Lyra crouched forward, moving slowly, and craning her neck to look further into the room. The Scalers moved just behind her, keeping their bodies low to the ground. They stopped when they reached the threshold leading into the dungeon’s center.

The friendly Scaler crept up next to Lyra so Charlie could look into the room as well. Since she was crouched and he was on top of the friendly Scaler’s head, they were at eye level with one another.

Lyra held a finger up to her lips. Charlie nodded. She wanted to gauge the situation instead of barging in. As eager as he was to fight, formulating a strategy ahead of time made sense here. His dungeon integrity was extremely limited.

He had to be smart.

Neither of them was prepared for what they saw inside the dungeon’s center. It was almost too much to take in at once.

It was a massive room, as the centers of most dungeons were, from what Charlie had seen. But this dungeon’s center held within in it a blend of almost every type of weird hallway ornaments they’d seen thus far.

A spiral staircase started on one wall, and then curled all the way around the room, slowly rising in height and continuing on out of Charlie’s sight. At their angle, he couldn’t see the roof, but he assumed it went all the way up, like the other staircases he’d seen in the dungeon.

The odd, flickering lamps were affixed to the wall almost at random. There was no reason for them to be where they were. It was as if someone had gone around sticking them to the wall in a way that would clearly tell everyone who saw them the decorator was insane. Some of the lamps were even backwards. It appeared someone had shoved the light portion into the wall, and the piece that would normally screw into the wall jutted out awkwardly.

There were several mirrors embedded in the ground. Just like they’d seen before, the glass inside would crack. But instead of moving from one end of a hallway to another, in this room, the glass shards rose straight up into the air. After a few moments, they slowly descended again and snapped back into place. Charlie could only assume the partner mirrors were built into the ceiling this time.

There were ovens whose doors creaked open and then back shut, letting in random bursts of heat. Spouts of water shot from the walls and landed in tubs further down. There were several sideways doorframes without doors. Only a dungeon wall hiding behind them.

It was absurd. This room was a strange amalgamation of everything that they had experienced inside the dungeon so far.

In the room’s center, a well-dressed man sat facing away from them at a wooden table that had clearly grown inside the dungeon itself. The man wore a black button-up shirt with matching pants, and he’d combed his dark hair to the back. He crossed his legs at the knee and leaned back in his chair with his hands in his lap.

Behind him, on either side, was a snatcher. One of them was the one that had escorted Brel. The other, Charlie didn’t recognize.

Brel was present too but stood off on his own. He leaned against a wall with crossed arms, near one of the weird baths. Charlie was pretty sure he was close enough that the water was probably splashing him, but if he was, he didn’t react. He’d sat the head of his hammer down on the ground next to him, its handle sticking up in the air.

Why was he so far away from the others?

He looked over to ask Lyra what she thought about all this and noticed her shaking.

“Lyra? Are you okay?” he asked. It was normal to be nervous, but this wasn’t like her.

“That’s…the mayor. He’s not supposed to be here. Why is he here?” she whispered, almost more to herself than to Charlie. She sounded distressed. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him, surprised, like she’d forgotten he was here. Her gaze fell, and Charlie left her to her thoughts. She seemed like she needed a minute to process. Still, the fact that this man was the mayor surprised him. The mayor in Hilda’s village had been ancient. The Mayor of Sange seemed around Merlin’s age, and offered a stark contrast to the wrinkly, shrunken Mayor of the Town of Garden.

The mayor unclasped his legs and stood. He held his hands out wide and started laughing. “Ah, there they are! Right on time!”

Charlie’s eyes shot open, and he leaned back to avoid being spotted. But then he realized the mayor hadn’t even been looking in their direction. So, who was he talking to? Charlie leaned back in and peeked around the corner.

He swallowed.

Hex Knights. Five of them. Had they finally caught up to him? Here of all places. This wasn’t good. But wait, that didn’t make any sense. If they were here for him, why would they be meeting with the mayor instead of looking for him in the dungeon? No…maybe they didn’t know he was here at all. He’d play it cool for now.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The knights were led by a young blonde woman with hair so long it fell all the way down to the back of her legs. She wore black, golden-trimmed armor, and her sword was already unsheathed. She carried it in her hands as she walked. Behind her, three men and one other woman wore the same black armor he’d seen Richard wearing.

Even if they weren’t here for him, he knew their chances of taking on five Hex Knights and the core guardian all at once were basically zero. It would be difficult at full power, but with only 12% of his dungeon integrity, it would be impossible.

In the center of the knights walked a man in vibrant red attire. He wore a massive red cloak with fur trimmings and had pulled it over his shoulders to cover the front of his body. The man was also blonde, but his hair was neatly trimmed and styled. He walked with his head held high, but even that didn’t mask the fact it was clearly his first time inside a dungeon.

His head turned from side to side as he stared at the walls and ceilings of the massive room. His mouth hung open as he studied the strange ornaments and decorations. He pointed out the staircase to one knight, and the knight laughed about whatever it was the man said.

Lyra studied the newcomers. “Who are they?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen that armor,” Lyra said.

“Hex Knights,” Charlie informed her.

Lyra turned toward him, a shocked expression on her face. “You’re sure? But they don’t travel with nobility…so that would mean the man in their center is...” She paused.

Charlie looked at her. “Is who?” he asked.

She shrunk back from the entrance to the room and sat against the hallway wall. “Charlie, that’s the King of Aysela…”

Charlie tilted his head at her. The king? But why would he be here? Lyra held a hand over her mouth. She didn’t seem to be doing well. That worried Charlie. If she didn’t improve soon, he’d need to tell her to run away with Kyo. It would be too dangerous for her to fight if she was this distracted. He turned his attention back to the room and directed his friendly Scaler mount to take him back to spy on the people inside some more.

It seemed they had finished with their greetings already.

They stood to the side of the wooden table now. The mayor and his snatchers on one side, the king, and the knights in a group in front of them.

The king stood back and looked up at the ceiling again. “I wasn’t expecting all of this. Are all dungeons like this, Fiona?”

The mayor’s head perked up when he heard her name.

The long-haired woman looked up at the walls and then turned back to the king. “No, your majesty. This one is certainly unique.” Fiona’s attention turned toward the mayor. “How did you manage to subjugate the core guardian?” she asked him.

The mayor chuckled. “Subjugate? No, my dear, I have not subjugated the core guardian or the dungeon. I made a deal. A deal that’s mutually beneficial for all parties involved. I’m sure his majesty would not have made the trip if he didn’t know that much already. So, my king, are you prepared to ascend? To reach the thing that all mortal men seek in life. Be it by means of magic, or miracle. Prayers, potions, and rituals. Yes, surely your majesty has come for the boon that can only be found in Sange.”

The mayor turned, and his eyes locked directly on Charlie for just a moment. “Watch closely,” he called out.

Charlie’s mouth fell open. The mayor had known they were here all along.

The mayor’s arms shot out to either side, and he shouted, his words reverberating around the room. “Feast your eyes, my king, on a creature capable of granting immortality itself.”

Something dripped from the ceiling.

Charlie looked up. The aquamarine droplets fell like raindrops in a concentrated area just in front of the mayor. Beads of the strange liquid came from the ground as well. The bizarre solution started to coalesce, and slowly but surely, the creature formed. When the droplets had all merged, all that remained was a perfect sphere.

The sphere rippled, and the bottom portion of the shape gave way. The top was still round, but the bottom was like running water contained in itself.

Fiona held her blade up toward the creature. “Get back, my king!” she cried. The other knights drew their weapons as well.

“What…is that?” the king asked.

One of the male knights answered. “It appears to be a beast of the shapeless variant, my lord. But I’ve never seen one that big. What are your orders, Fiona?”

Fiona kept her sword pointed at the beast but turned her gaze toward the mayor. “What is this?” she asked.

The mayor turned around to face them. He looked surprised. “This is what you came for. You’ve seen what it can do. You watched the elderly and sickened members of the nobility leave for Sange and return with their youth and good health restored. Your majesty, with this power, you need not worry about an heir. You could rule Aysela indefinitely. Imagine the power of an immortal king. This is what will make Aysela a kingdom set apart. This will be your legacy, my king.”

Fiona shook her head. “Your majesty, we cannot trust this. It is reckless.”

“How does it work?” the king asked.

Fiona turned back, a shocked expression on her face.

The mayor smirked. He made a motion with a hand. From one of the other tunnels, a snatcher entered. In its hand was a large black bag. Inside it, something struggled.

Charlie tilted his head. What was going on?

Fiona eyed the snatcher and the bag in his hand. “What is that?” she asked.

The mayor held a hand up. “Patience.” He nodded, and the snatcher tossed the bag inside the amorphous liquid creature. “Immortality is a grand gift, but a price must be paid for it,” the mayor said, beckoning at the core guardian.

Everyone watched as the bag inside the transparent creature slowly dissolved.

Several gasped. Charlie was among them.

A small Black boy with dark hair floated in the liquid.

“The vigor of the young freely offered in exchange for the preservation of society’s greatest members. Isn’t it poetic, your majesty?” the mayor asked.

The boy’s limbs started to elongate and grow. His face twisted into a pained expression, and then he went still.

Charlie shook his head. What was going on? Could he stop it? There had to be a way!

It hit him. Lyra realized it at the same time that he did.

She shook her head, staring at the man the boy had grown into.

Just like that, his childhood was gone. His youth was gone.

The grim truth reared its head. “This is how they make snatchers, all of them are children…” Lyra said.