CHAPTER 9

Meanwhile, back at Dungeon Dwellers GO! Headquarters. The staff was getting more worried as time passed. Suddenly, the teleporter began to glow, and out stepped Maria. Her outfit and gear were broken and torn to shreds. She was holding Kevin in her arms. He was in even worse shape than Maria. His gear was completely torn apart exposing his body. He had bloody wounds all over his body, One of the staff yelled for a medic. Maria shouted, “we are fine, I don’t need a medic.” She stared at him with fierce eyes. They quickly canceled the call for help. She gave everyone else a stare. “I’ll tend to Kevin’s injuries she barked. Jerermy appeared from the crowd of onlookers as she took Kevin to the infirmary. He wanted to know what had happened. “I’ll explain everything after I take care of Kevin,” she said. As well as myself so give me some time. She carried Kevin over to the infirmary.

She began treating his injuries. First by cleaning off his wounds and then bandaging them. She told the staff to get Kevin some fresh clothes. She wasn’t too concerned about herself at the time. She wanted to get Kevin in stable condition. She got him propped up in a bed in the infirmary. He told her nothing felt broken, she still had him get x-rayed in case. After a few hours of tests and examinations. Kevin was back in the wing of the infirmary. He told Maria he was going to go to sleep. After she got him cleaned up and bandaged, she went to tend to herself. Her injuries weren’t as bad, she just ignored them and just cleaned up and changed. She was now going to tell what had transpired in the dungeon…

“How did Cory, Samantha, and Brad end up getting separated from you guys and in this condition.” Asked Jeremy. “Well it is a long story,” Said Maria. Maria went over the room rights vaguely, just how they worked, and nothing more for the first 2 rooms. She began telling Jerrimy about the third room is where all their trouble began. “If it wasn’t for Kevin we would all have been kicked out of the dungeon” she stated. “The mini-boss of that room has the power to awaken one’s worst fear,” she said with fear. The boss is easy to beat if one can overcome their fear,” she said. Somehow Kevin was able to overcome it or not have a fear at all,” she stated. “Kevin rescued me first,” she said with embarrassment. “I honestly don’t want to talk about my fear, but Kevin was able to save me.” She said. “After I awoke I found the Valkyrie I had summoned to protect Kevin had healed me,” she said. “The valkyrie told me Kevin had set off to help Cory. So, I and the Valkyrie decided we would assist Brad and Samantha but before we could enter the mirrors I heard a deafening scream which came from Kevin” she said. “Next thing I know my Valkyrie had vanished. I had gotten a message saying my Valkyrie had self-sacrificed itself for Kevin. I ran over to Kevin to help him. When I arrived, the clock hit zero, and Cory, Samantha, and Brad all vanished and were dispelled from the dungeon.

“So that explains it,” said Jerrimy. Cory is traumatized from being in small spaces there. Samantha and Brad were lucky to escape with the injuries they had sustained thanks to their ability. Unfortunately, their injuries were so severe they haven’t woken up yet and I don’t think they will be able to fight anymore.” He said frustrated, “I’m going to have to round you up some new teammates,” he said.

“There is more to the story,” she said. “The boss room is where things went for a turn for the worst.” She replied. “The boss trapped Kevin in this crystal ball I got as the dungeon reward.” She showed him the crystal ball as he pulled it out from her inventory. “The boss managed to kill Kevin in the crystal ball. He brought Kevin into his worse traumatic experience.” I was able to defeat the boss and got the resurrection skills. I am very grateful I was able to otherwise I couldn’t have saved Kevin.” she began to sob. With that, she was left alone and went to see Kevin back in the infirmary.

Maria went to visit Kevin in the infirmary. “Ugh,” moaned Kevin. “This sucks”, he said. “Yeah, this I kind of bad.” Said Maria. “I’m going to have to find some new teammates…” she sighed under her breath. “What do you mean you have to find new teammates?” asked Kevin. Maria went into detail about how Cory had lost his mind in the dungeon. As well as how Samantha and Brad had been crippled.

“Yeah, that is bad.” Said Kevin. “On the plus side, I have you at my party.” Said Maria. “Once you recover the Company says they want to recruit you to help me get items from the dungeon runs.” She said. “Shadow Corps will be hard to handle.” She said. “I’m going to check on Brad and Samantha…” she stated. Maria got up and left. Kevin spent a few days healing up in the infirmary.

Kevin had finally recovered and was able to go back home. He was given a briefing on why dungeons needed to be completed. Apparently, a solar storm from the sun had fried the quantum computer the game was running on. At the time the computer was being housed at a facility in a classified location. The computer had overloaded and blew the facility apart. The interesting about the whole ordeal. The info had been magnetized to the Earth’s magnetic field. In other words, he was told the game had literally downloaded itself to the Earth. At first the company was concerned and had tried shut the game down. They soon realized the game wasn’t on a server anywhere. Days of figuring things out finally concluded the game somehow was still online but not sure how. It took months to figure it out. Not before things started to go sideways. Players began experiencing all sorts of glitches and bugs. Including spawns entering the real world.

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kevin hung out with Maria for a bit as they went on a date. Maria drove him home. She watched as he got up to his apartment door and went in. She then drove off. He opened the door to his apartment. He tried to turn on the lights wouldn’t turn on. “Did I forget to pay the electric bill again?” he thought. Just then he was blinded by a flash of light and hit over on the back of the head. He fell silently to the ground. A man in a mysterious outfit put a collar on Kevin. The man then bound, gagged, and blindfolded Kevin and stuffed him into a sack. “I’ve got our prize,” said the man on the radio. Another man was also present. “Let’s get going,” he said. “Not so fast,” a voice over the radio said. “We need you to stay here and get rid of any evidence of our presence here.” Said the voice on the radio.” The man groaned. He helped load up Kevin into a truck and stayed behind. He watched as his partner sped out of sight into the night. The man sighed and turned. The poor fool wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking and tripped over a barbell. He stumbled over to the sofa trying to regain his balance. He accidentally bumped into a table sitting next to the sofa and caused the domino effect of stuff to fall and he was struck in the head by a bookshelf behind the sofa knocking him out. The man fell into a pile-up of books buried under a bookshelf on the sofa…

The next day Maria arrived at Kevin’s apartment. She knocked on the door. As she did the door opened slowly. “That is strange”. She thought. Maria went inside and found the lights were not working. She illuminated a ball of light from her hand. What she saw was a scary site. Kevin’s apartment had been torn apart as if there was a skirmish. She quickly looked around calling out for Kevin. Her shouting woke a man she didn’t see lying on the sofa under a pile of books. The man groaned as he woke up. As he got up, he pulled a book off his face that had opened up on him when the bookshelf fell. Pulling himself up from a pile-up of books from the sofa was a man from the Shadow Corps. Maria turned back in surprise. She yelped. The man was just as surprised as Maria. He dropped the book he was holding. Maria quickly glanced at the title of the book he had dropped before turning on him. The book happened to be one of Kevin’s favorites in a series. Rise of The Weakest Summoner by J R Saileri.

Before the man could react, Maria had him encased in bindings in a spherical prison. Maria was livid and angry. “What have you done with Kevin she demanded. The man, unfortunately, wouldn’t be able to lie or keep his mouth shut since Maria had him trapped in a special device that was a reward for clearing a PVP event in Dungeon Dwellers GO!. It allowed one to get someone to tell the truth. The item was only given to the top 10 players of that event. It helped get info from other players in PVP matches. Maria though used it for interrogation. It could easily be dispelled by another player or if the opponent was fast enough to break free. But the man here was in no space for getting out.

Maria asked what he had done with Kevin. His only reply was Kevin had been taken to Shadow Corps to be used as a slave. They were going to use him to farm dungeons for the Shadow Corps. He wasn’t given more info besides that. Maria fell to her knees in horror. She locked up the man in her car and took him to Dungeon Dwellers GO! Headquarters. She arrived and told Jeremy that Kevin had been kidnapped. She gave the captured man over to Jeremy. Maria wasn’t sure what to do. Her teammates were now incapacitated, and she was alone…

The man that Maria had ended up capturing wasn’t any help. The man was no more than a mind slave. Things only got more desperate for Maria to find Kevin when the man had his memory wiped of everything. The day after he was captured. The collar he was wearing completely wiped his mind. Shadow Corps must have gotten hint their man was gone.

Maria had heard some horror stories about people getting captured by Shadow Corps. The rumors tended to be wild about what happened to the enslaved. The ones that ended up getting captured for interrogation. They ended up just having their entire mind erased. While traitors had their heads blown off from the slave collars.

Maria had to keep her mind off Kevin. It was affecting her performance. Without her team, over the next few weeks, she was sent into joint operations with other parties and organizations to combat Shadow Corps. As well as the issue with the overloaded quantum computer that blew up. Even though it was gone it kept making more dungeons spawning for Dungeon Dweller’s GO! Things would only get worse from there.

Maria was driving to the hospital to help with injured players. With her team out of action. Other players were having a much harder time stopping the dungeons from getting out of hand. Worse yet, a rumored player in Shadow Corps had emerged. Clearing the dungeons for them to use the relics it had to have more control. It seemed to Maria at this point things were a losing battle.

Maria was lost in thought when she heard a loud explosion shake the ground a few blocks away from her. She stopped her car and looked for where the noise had come from. The noise was soon followed by more explosions and people screaming. Maria floored the accelerator towards the explosions. She knew that Shadow Corps had recently been up to acts that would be considered terrorism. Fearing the worst, she stopped a block from the explosions were coming from. Maria was a medic at heart and in the game. She knew there were people in trouble she needed to help. Maria rounded a corner, she stopped to peak around a building. She was expecting to see death and destruction. What she got instead was about the same but not what she was expecting at all.

The place was a total mess. Bodies littered the area that was now filled with craters. Fighting was still going on as people in black uniforms were fighting what looked like cartoon characters. Maria looked around the corner in total silence as she got a better look at the scene. The area looked like something out of a cartoon. What in the living heck is going on here. She wanted to get a better look. Maria took a step from the shadows of a building hoping not to be spotted by anyone or anything. Suddenly she was given a warning message.

You have now entered the phsycotunes dungeon…