The Dungeon existed.
Perhaps it had always existed.
Perhaps it had existed since the creation of the World. When the first dream filtered down down down and touched upon the swirling darkness of undefined chaos.
But that didn't matter. Because untold eons had followed, as the Dungeon was molded and changed. The First Fairy King brought order to the rambling briars and matchless disorder. The Dungeon was pruned. Sheared away. Crafted into something to help. Strengthen. A golden age followed.
But the kings that followed after were not as capable nor as wise.
It was a slow decline. Other discoveries made the Dungeon a less efficient tool. Or the kings made poor choices and attempted to modify the Dungeon, as they had endlessly changed and grew, not understanding the wisdom of those who came before.
Then the Dungeon grew to be too dangerous, and was abandoned.
The method of achieving the purpose changed, but its purpose remained unchanged. But as fewer and fewer attempted it, it became harder and harder to please, to achieve what the corrupted Dungeon considered 'success'.
Should the Fae known as Maurice de Bracy ever defeat the current challenge of the Dungeon he was fighting in, he would be powerful enough to be a High Fae equal to those of the Lord of the Northern Wind, despite Maurice de Bracy entering the dungeon as a Lowling fae after an unpermitted trip to the Human World to cause chaos. Upon his return trip, however, he had taken the wrong turn and found himself in the Dungeon. It had not even taken him long to reach the power, but the Dungeon did not consider his mental abilities to be equal to his gained power, and kept him, and would continue to keep him, until he matched what it desired.
Yes, the Dungeon connected to what they now naively called the Stable. It connected to other, abandoned structures and not quite abandoned structures.
It grew, like a briar of roses unkempt and untamed. It would have continued to grow, more jumbled, more twisted.
But then it was invaded.
The unkept briar was weak against chaos.
And as the dark dreams and terrible realities of mankind grew, a terrible nightmare attached itself to the Dungeon.
Some call it the backrooms.
And then the Dungeon was in a fight for its own survival.
So something like a decade ago, when a lost lordling wandered into the Stable to seek escape, the Dungeon allowed the fae child to shape it, like the Fairy Kings of old had. The backrooms must not be allowed to reach the Dungeon's heart.
Desperation rarely makes for good decisions.
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All of this was unknown to the few who traveled the Dungeon.
For example, the baker fairy who was of a simple mind and completely dedicated to his craft, had very little interest in gaining power. His fears were of yeast falling, sugar burning, and the ingredient quality being unexpectedly bad. He had to take a horse from the Stable to make his deliveries. The loaf never considered the challenges of the Dungeon to be that hard, and completed his challenge without much ado. He had just assumed it was something one did while in the Stable. He neither sought to grow or change, and there was little the Dungeon in its current form could do.
The other few who traversed the Dungeon had different states of awareness. There was a cat that was doing very well for herself, but her challenges were not drinking spoiled milk or eating grass. There was a Middling Knight who wisely or unwisely considered his time in the Dungeon to be a dream, and had he not lost all his limbs in a battle, he may have even unraveled the secrets. There was a child, a gooseboy, who sometimes went through the easiest levels of the dungeon, but as he was so young, the protection was firm and he was safe; he alone went around telling people about what he had seen, though none believed him.
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The one who suspected the most was a plain nosed hobo. She suspected, but she never had enough time to investigate. She did realize that the Stable and the Dungeon were separate, but as she has wandered very far, she had more experience with these kind of things.
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The Dungeon needed people. Needed them.
And one of it's new favorites, whom it had wanted for so long, had lost the protection that had kept the lad from accidently wandering into its halls. What triumph, what loss. The first venture had been successful, even if that one had not gone on the proper path nor listened to instructions at all.
And what no one considered, was that the Dungeon could see the Game as well.
The Fear of Failure and the Fear of Self watched, unblinking.
"If he dies...." said the Fear of Failure.
"He must not die." said the Fear of Self.
There were many Fears, of course. But thankfully or unthankfully, the Fear of All Things was not something the one called Elswith, or Branch, or Dan!&(, suffered. That Fear remained away.
Yes, what no one considered was that the Citadel had grown too large, and had forgotten much from what had come before.
And they did not know would hurt them.
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Shelby stood up straighter, her glove tingling sharply. She tried to remember what Jesseme had said about using it properly. She had a habit of shocking herself because she forgot to adjust the settings with enough finesse. The sense behind the walls seemed to concentrate harshly. Shivers ran down her spine. The little doll in her saddle bag style purse quaked.
"Kenton, we need to hurry. We need to hurry right now."
"Gooseberry wine, at this time! What an insult!" Kenton said, pulling his attention away from the mirror. They had the rough idea that perhaps the Stable had taken them to the Mirror to watch the Game.
She grabbed his shoulder, and continued down the way they were going. She entered first, to see if the way had been disturbed before them, using her glove to feel the currents. The Stable seemed to want to take them to the least used places.
Kenton picked up on her seriousness, which was good. She had the vague idea that the Stable was going to take them to its deepest places, now. Or somewhere to help Branch. "So, the Dungeon. It's part of the Stable?"
"Oh, Old Mapper legends long speak of it. The Dungeon is its own unto itself. But the rumors say that many of the ruins used to connect to it too. But the Dungeon has been dead for a long time..." Then his face fell.
"But it's back now, isn't it?" They entered a section with perfectly clean tiles and a table and chairs, everything white as the glistening tiles reached from the floors, all the way up the walls, and overhead to cover the ceiling. The skeleton sitting unanimated in one of the chairs was perfectly clean too, glaringly white with a sparkling shine.
She and Kenton walked together quickly. She had to admire the mapper. He clearly knew something of how to safely travel through dangerous places. If only he learned that shortcuts never worked out for her, he would be a perfect companion.
At last they cleared the perfectly clean room and entered a more normal space. Fancy but long disused. "Yes. But it's not as it was before. It doesn't match any of the wisdom from the previous mappers."
"I was wondering about that. That's how you got a Status Window, isn't it?"
"The blue box?"
She could see his because he didn't close it properly, but he couldn't see hers. Her negative luck stat always glared at her when she checked it, which discouraged her from doing so. Her own Status Window was from a previous adventure (See Shelby Crossmin and the Hunter's Alliance, or it's other titles such as I am the Minimap Mage and I alone know the Path through the Shadow Tower, or it's other other title, I have a minimap and Tower's Cheat Code, where she appears as a side character. And no, she doesn't know why there are so many different names to the same story). Her's was different from his, and she had to wonder about what had fundamentally changed in Fairyland that a concept as modern as a status window appeared.
Honestly, she thought it was a bad omen.
"Yes. The blue box." She said, confirming. She hadn't been into the Dungeon, just seen into it vaguely. It was not a well kept Dungeon, that she knew. It was a dangerous time to be here. She paused the same feeling from before chased down her spine. Wherever the Stable was taking them, she wanted to be there as soon as possible.
There was a sound behind them.
"But my question is: can things from the Dungeon come out?"
Of course, she forgot her own golden rule. Don't look behind you at scary moments.
Metal limbed android looking things.
"No, they should not."
"You tell them that."
The sound of them approaching grew louder.
"Time to go." she said, and fell back to the most important of her golden rules. Run if you can.