The creature was shaped like a man, but its skin, its substance, was that of the deep void between the stars. Hauntingly empty, pure abyss, and it opened like an orifice as an eye split the approximation of a face. Starkest white flesh, glistening wet, and slashed through with a red pupil. Cold intent dribbled down her skin. The floating teeth aligned, clicked together, and grinned.
[Hello, little child, won’t you free me from my prison?]
Zoe shuddered as the word sounded inside her flesh. This wasn’t the System, but it echoed down the same channels. She had heard this voice once before, as it devoured children…
“Are you the dungeon boss?”
The creature grinned as another eye split open its belly.
[Level up! You are now level 27]
She watched out of the corner of her eye as she inspected her injury. Her leg was floppy, but too straight, the broken bones removing any indication of normal shape. Every inch bruised. The tissue beneath a wreck. It looked as though a car fell on her leg. Only the cold knowledge that Vitality and Skein could fix this — courtesy of her Black Star experiences — kept her from giving up.
[Level up! You are now level 28]
She dismissed the prompts before she was asked to incorporate elements. Though her hunger stirred, she knew she could hold off for now. Better to wait until the others were here before she broke up the Mirrorbell fragments and completed the dungeon quest. Her chain wrapped back around her leg and stiffened, but the bones were so shattered she could hardly believe she was conscious. High Willpower must be good for something. Vitality itched away as it stopped inflammation, prevented internal bleeding, and started setting the bones, but she knew it would take days at the fastest.
Fortunately, she had days now. The dungeon was almost over…
Where were the fragments? She glanced about the dim space — tempted to think of it as a room — and saw a glint amongst the walls of slimy brain.
The hanging figure’s eyes bulged as they watched her crawl across the slimy bone of the skull toward two shining objects. She reached a tentative finger and brushed against the fragments of the Mirrorbell.
She returned her gaze to the void poured figure suspended above her. Seven eyes met her own. Red pinprick pupils dilating like apertures over fire.
If the fragments were the means to completing the quest and completing the dungeon, then the boss was just an obstacle… Killing Zazzatha meant nothing to the quest, it was just a necessity to survive. But that didn’t answer the question of what she was staring at.
“What… what are you?”
[I’m the soul of an orphan. Bereft of love and locked away. Please, you must free me before the dungeon forces me…]
The head lolled against its chest.
[No, please]
[Don’t make me…]
The eyes blinked closed, and the liquid skin became seamless once more. Zoe sat up with a groan.
“Force you to do what?”
[Kill again!]
The figure flailed against its bindings. Jaws split the body from head to groin. White teeth glinted as a fat red tongue tasted the air. It sagged and dissolved into shrieking, insectile giggles as the vertical maw zipped shut.
[You have discovered a Mubilashi seed!]
[The Mubilashi is the beating heart of the dungeon. Do you wish to free the Mubilashi seed?]
[Yes]/[No]
Zoe backed away from the suspended figure. Amorphous brains squished over her shoulders. Pain flared in her leg, and she focused her Willpower to wrap up the pain and bundle it away. It worked, somewhat.
Eyes split open and sank into the nether colored being.
[Won’t you free me?]
She barked out a laugh.
“Why would I do that? So you can destroy me?”
[So I can serve you]
Dull pain rattled her thoughts. Brain dripped from the shredded ceiling and landed between her legs. This had to be a trick… right? Even her hunger seemed cautious.
“What do you mean… serve me?”
The figure strained against the flesh holding it like an ant in bubblegum.
[Free me and I shall grant you one boon, so long as it is within my power]
“What is the power of a Mubilashi seed?”
[Vast]
Zoe shook her head, sickened at her memories of The Magnifying Glass’s horrific first round.
“I’ve seen what you creatures do when you’re let loose…” Bile became vitriol in her mouth. “You’re worse than monsters! You’re… you’re nightmares, you’re hell let loose and given flesh!”
The creature was all smiles.
[Release me now, or suffer my wrath, as all fools must suffer the wrath of the Mubilashi]
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You’re trapped! There’s not a damned thing you can do!” she propped herself up and stood. “And I’m going to get the system trapped just like you, and I’m going to —”
[You have met victory conditions for the Dungeon quest. Patience reached. Initiating Dungeon end state…]
[The shackles of the Mubilashi seed have weakened!]
[Time until dungeon collapse: 5 minutes]
[4 minutes, 59 seconds]
The Mubilashi giggled and flexed like a worm loving the hook`.
[4 minutes, 57 seconds]
[Tick]
[4 minutes, 55 seconds]
[Tock]
###
Blood frothed the water. Choppy waves rocked and lilted the flotsam of houses. Beneath the surface, the water churned dirt and rubble and shattered corpses long rotten. The air reeked like an abattoir left out in the sun.
But all of this slowing…
Rubble sank to the stirred lakebed. The eddies spun themselves to sleep as the chopping waves became mere wobbles. Ripples. The storm of the dying boss passed into peace.
[The shackles of the Mubilashi seed have weakened]
Two figures kicked their way up to the surface and latched onto a floating wooden door. Water dribbled from between their greying lips as their bodies breathed.
[Time until dungeon collapse: 5 minutes]
[4 minutes, 59 seconds]
The one who wore Cassy smiled and rubbed her cheek against the wood. Peeling paint scraped off and drifted away on the offal tide. Her plan was coming to fruition, soon, they would be free.
She reached out across the door to the body who her body loved and gripped the hand of the one who wore Joel.
“Tell me,” the words dripped from Joel’s ruined lips like paint from a leaking bucket. His jaw stretched and torn apart from birthing two dozen offspring. The pale gremlins hung from his body like baby scorpions. A strange emotion passed through the one who wore Cassy at the sight of the offspring she made. Her body shook as the alien joy crystalized inside veins and ruptured skin.
A long grey tube slipped from beneath her ragged top and wormed across to the one who wore Joel. He sniffed and smiled as the tube slipped between his lips and pumped its chunky syrup.
Joel suckled as the one who wore Cassy described the scene in the dungeon, and how it would all end. The black sunset would crack open this dungeon womb. They would emerge, bathed in victory, and the new world would dawn under their true purpose.
Everything was going according to plan.
###
Bella paddled through the wreckage on the board. She couldn’t believe the board held up to the stress of riding the wave, but she would not examine it too deeply. Maybe Skein had played a role, or her body path, or even the Gambler stepping in to save her life.
So many strange, unexplainable events had happened. Fighting monsters, landing planes, surfing gigantic waves made by colossal creatures collapsing into a half-drowned town in a pocket dimension. She couldn’t explain and so she left them at that. Strange and unexplainable.
God, what she wouldn’t do for a drink…
[4 minutes, 29 seconds]
Especially with that countdown ticking along in the back of her mind. A Mubilashi was going to be released? She sighed, feeling a tiredness creep through her muscles that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
But the blood-thirst offset the impending sense of doom and gloom. The dryness — like sand craving the rain of a slit throat — leached up from her blade. It coursed along the wires inside her and fed into her body directly.
Something lived nearby. The feeling had grown stronger as she paddled in this direction and now she sat up on the board to look about. The wake of the wave was all wreckage and churning foam. A world of bright popping pink underneath the light of the curved blue sky. She listened to the wind blow as a patch of dark, waterlogged robes caught her attention.
With swift, powerful strokes she paddled closer.
Oriz.
Bella’s summer as a lifeguard came back to her as she fished Oriz from the water and draped her over the end of the board. For a moment, Bella feared the worst, but the grey-skinned alien woman was fine. Her Vitality kept her from swallowing water even while she was unconscious. Though she looked like a drowned rat, she seemed to be only sleeping.
Her blade urged her to finish the job and take the easy victim, but Bella ignored the vague impressions of violence. She had already gained a few levels from the boss fight and now sat at level 18.
Besides, Oriz didn’t have long. Limp rainbow aura leaked from her like oil in a puddle.
“Bella,” came Anton’s voice.
She started as a silver eye floated down from the sky and hovered above her. It peeled and displayed Anton paddling on his board, while Zoe sat in a weird fleshy cave.
Bella sighed with relief.
“You’re alive,” she said.
“Yeah,” Zoe said. “But maybe for not much longer. This thing here,” the mirror adjusted, and Bella gasped — a harsh intake of breath at the same time as Anton — as the Mubilashi hanging above Zoe was revealed. “This thing wants me to free it. Says it’ll grant me a boon, but —”
“Terrible idea,” Anton said.
“Nope, nope, nope,” Bella said with a shudder. “Don’t trust that thing.”
“That’s what I thought,” Zoe took a deep breath. “I have the fragments here and I have enough levels to incorporate them both. I think the dungeon wants us out of here, which is why it released the Mubilashi. It’s like one last suicide bomb to take us out.”
“Then incorporate the fragments,” Anton said. “What are you waiting for?”
Bella had a sneaking suspicion… She closed her eyes and sighed. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Zoe needed a break. They all needed a break.
“We forgot about one variable,” Zoe said. “Dungeon instability. I checked, and it’s currently at 65%. If I consume the fragments, then… it’ll cause another incursion to the Black Star dimension. I don’t have my daily ability to harmonize the incursion. It’s going to suck me through.”
She opened her eyes. The island was close by, she could paddle there if she burned her remaining Skein.
“Anton, how far away are we from Zoe?”
Anton’s eye turned.
“Your three minutes from the island, if you sprint hard, two minutes to the top? I’m a minute further away.”
[4 minutes, 2 seconds]
“Wait for four minutes,” Bella said into the orb. “Just hold on Zoe, we’re coming. If there’s an incursion, we’ll face it together. No more splitting the party.”
As Bella spoke she burned her Skein, leaned forward, and paddled. Water flung up behind her as she surged across the water. She had to make it. She just had to.
[3 minutes, 59 seconds]
###
Zoe sat underneath the Mubilashi. It twitched and sagged, sinking lower with every second as the pink flesh bindings loosened. Soon the tide of biting horror contained within its midnight form would be free. She couldn’t help but shudder as she clutched the two fragments. Each one was dull, shining, heavy, light — her hunger begged her to consume them, but it was a whimpering sound — because not even her hunger wanted to be alone.
The fall between worlds played back behind her eyes. The shaft of darkness. Where she met Trinch. Where she met the Black Star system. Where her journey took a hard left turn.
Her chain stroked her leg, squeezed the lightest of touch, as mothwings fluttered over her heart. The seconds ticked away, and Zoe waited for her friends.
Because when she summoned the abyss, she didn’t want to face it alone.