Vellom raised a thorny eyebrow, when a monstrous spider that had lowered itself from onhigh a funnel to within an inch of her head got punted from its thread by Dimrat’s Cursed Eye attack. It bounced outside the den’s entrance and skittered away abandoning a leg or two. Vellom spun to witness its retreat, then turned to Dimrat with a wicked side-eye to catch the grin of a phantasmal leathery head that quipped, ‘my lady’s instincts are never wrong? Indeed! Then know me.'
'I am Lord Dimrat of Langley.’
‘..Langley?’ there was surprise in her voice.
‘Yes, my old home, where I will soon return to the hearth. Betray the Fallen? My dear lady I would sooner gouge out my eyes! I am the Fallen. And I will bring a reckoning upon these lands the likes they’ve never seen’
For over a thousand years Dimrat remained at the bottom of Rhilhime river. But in all Vellom’s years her story took place in the throng of destruction, her faction decimated, her friends and allies hunted to the brink.
Yet never, from the mountainous mines of Umimdere, to the sunken halls of Undeep had she ever seen such an unmistakably evil, remarkably animated grin as the one she laid eyes upon at that moment. It was positively Fallen. He was but a skull, visible through the apparition of the human head he once was. There was nothing behind Dimrat’s eyes but madness. She was smitten.
‘What..’ She tried to speak but her voice quivered out. Vines twisted into that of a hand that covered her mouth, where flowers bloomed and wilted from her fingers to disguise her excitement, and sporadically wherever her vines trailed in response to her emotions. Her eyes fluttered shut. She had completely lowered her guard.
It seemed in this state she had less control over herself than she would have him believe. Dimrat pondered it. She was a fickle coin. One so easily flattered with such little restraint should not be flipped casually. He bore it in mind.
Vellom blushed. There was a subtle undertone of sarcasm, but she masked it well behind a willingness to play along, ‘I am saved, my lord’, she said, while another giant spider chewed at her leg; an irony so insignificant she didn’t even notice.
He sighed. ‘..Indeed quite my lady, though I suspect I am not so fortunate?’
The flowery fan withdrew from her face to reveal a devilish smile. ‘..indeed not.’
Her teeth were mere rows of thorns coiled behind the shape of lips, animated with the curious precision of a master sculptor. It made him wonder. Why would a carnivorous weed, perhaps the most distant of all creatures from humanity, imagine itself so? And most intriguing of all, learn enough of humankind to mimic them with such grace?
The tension in the air had evaporated into an entirely different mood. There was room to breathe, despite his situation.
‘Lady Vellom. Langley is infested with the unsquashed. The enemy is entrenched at our heart. How did this come to pass?’
‘..where have you been, my lord?’
‘Imprisoned in Rhilhime’
She gasped. ‘How long?’
‘A millennia.’
‘...surely you jest?’
Dimrat levitated to head height while his gastrapodeon companion slugged along the ground beneath. He approached Vellom, when to her alarm he exhaled a dense mist of curse into her face.
‘Such abundance! How do you not break apart?’
Dimrat grinned.
‘The lady first’
‘Foliage ruffled and bloomed to hide her mouth. She lifted off the ground and waded through webbing to a wooden chest surrounded by abandoned mining equipment. She sat down on top within a cloud of dust then began to kick her legs back and forth, and gathered herself.
‘I suppose I was there in the beginning’
Dimrat and snail followed her.
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‘Though I was but a little weed in the garden’
‘..Garden?’ interrupted Dimrat.
‘..the gardens of Edinnor. Back then I was fed on sap and dew by the Caretaker, who my sisters and I would chase at play’
‘Caretaker?’ He began to ask, when she interjected, ‘I do not know.’
‘...he was Oaken, and as old and tall as the trees. My sisters and I were not his charge, but he tended to us and the gardens regardless. One day the sky fell, and the Caretaker flew into a rage for the first time. And the last time... Far away and above, a perfect cube of landmass floated into sight’
‘Ah!’ blurted Dimrat, at a rather disturbing memory that interrupted her story. ‘A Territory Shift. I had forgotten’
{Tutorial: Territory Shift]: The dungeon is not static. Gigantic realm-sized territories slot together like a rubix cube in perfect symmetry, down to minute details like the brickwork of dungeon corridors, cave networks, ley lines, roads; even the crest of the dales and gentle downs, even the winding rivers and the snowy peaks of mountain ranges interchange harmoniously with a turn of the cube. Each landmass is precisely equal sized.
He remembered it well. The machinations of the dungeon worked like a board game, advanced or retreated at the edge of swords and at the behest of its resurrected monarchs. It is an ancient and colossal contraption whose wardens cared nothing for the plight of its denizens, only that the game ran smoothly and continued ad infinitum. It was a prison. How the world connected depended on which faction owned what territory. And it appeared the Fallen owned nothing.
He stewed on it while Vellom continued...
‘Yes, a Territory Shift…’
‘...the Caretaker disappeared towards the Territory Shift, that great behemoth in the sky. He never returned. For a time it seemed the gardens were overrun with Fallen, our saviours, and that all would end well, but they trampled my sisters and I in their haste towards the new landmass. We lay broken and scared, while the world burned around us. Only one ever stopped to offer help, so forgive me if I am not so bridled by the cause as you are my dear lord’
Dimrat furrowed his brows and contemplated. ‘...who was this saviour?’
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh? You would rather him than I? How queer’
Dimrat grinned.
‘A guest would prefer the term eccentric’
‘And it would please a host if she had your undivided attention...’
‘The lady doth protest too much!’
She tutted. ‘Hmph, fine. I shall indulge your curiosity further...’
‘He was a commander of sorts. Many followed him. They were beset by grief and urgency, yet he stooped low beneath his station to cradle one such as I and for it I am eternally grateful. His followers mended us, before they advanced to the front. What was it he had said…’
For a moment they both fell quiet, lost in thought, when at the tip of both their breaths came the same utterance.
‘...a kindness for a coin’
They glanced up at each other with the same inquisitive scowl. Then Vellom spoke first.
‘You knew of him?’
‘I...suppose I must have. How unexpected’
‘And of the phrase?’
Dimrat shook his head. ‘It’s nonsense’
‘Well’, she said, ‘it became a race for survival from there. Roving packs of men and beasts emerged from the wood and so began the hunt. We were a motherless daughterhood. Of which I was the weakest, the smallest. I was not fast enough to flee the chaos alongside my sisters, so I crawled into the cracks below, and despaired. In time it led me to this place. I lost count of how many times I nearly died down here...in this very warren. But in the end, I alone survived.’
There was a lull, when she spoke again.
‘I must say, my lord, you make better company than food. It has been a craving of mine for quite some time’
‘Craving? Ah, but of course, those who would survive must become shadow’
‘Astute. Yes. The dungeon sweepers have hunted us to the ends of the realm. Those who remain do so in hiding…’
Dimrat’s words fell uneasy, ‘do you mean to say there are more than one dungeon sweeper?’
She sneered at his ignorance. ‘My dear lord...we would not be here now if it was any other sweeper but Tarface’
‘Then he is the weakest?’
‘...and the slowest’
He stewed on that. Never had his powerlessness been so evident. He was stark naked in this world. He needed to become stronger.
Then he changed the subject.
‘When was the last realm shift?’
‘Never’
That surprised him.
‘In all the years you drank from the river there has not been a single one. That was the first and last I ever saw. I know little of the great wars my lord. Now...’
Her foot-kicking stopped, then she leaned forward. It grabbed his attention.
‘Your turn.’
Without an inkling of hesitancy, Dimrat proclaimed ‘I know nothing!’
She frowned.
‘That’s not fair!’
‘Fair? My dear lady, I do not understand this word? There are no such concepts for the Fallen!’
She crossed her arms once again and glowered at him.
‘...then here’s something you will understand. This Warren is your grave. Claw your way out’
He had perhaps grown too comfortable. She unravelled into brambles and fumed passed him in a hurry. The head that is Dimrat spun after her, then his jaw dropped. The whole time he had not noticed.The dug-in had no back wall. He gazed out into a jarring abyss.
‘This is no den!’
It was not. It was the drafty edge of infinity, the realm edge.
He chased her with his eyes to the verge, then peered up with astonishment.
Roots glistened dewy and grew wild, like an unkempt mane, and drank deep from vaporous waterfalls that drizzled him. Vellom had scaled the vertical outskirts of the world. She disappeared into the misty veil through a shower of mud and stone that fell into his eye sockets and filtered through the clacking of his mouth.
He would not dare follow. He could levitate, not fly. Only now did he realise why the Dregs had been so quiet. They were likely still falling towards oblivion.
He snorted, then moaned ‘now who’s the traitor?!’ but he argued only with his own echo.
[WARNING]: Realm boundary reached [Subterranean Warrens of Lost Edinnor]
Faction owned: [Undead]
Connected territory: [no connected territory]
[Turn back]
Dimrat floated backwards away from the edge. He turned to face his only path, then dismayed. It was a wide, exposed, alluring den entrance, that flickered green under dying light. He was alone in eerie silence.
‘..,perhaps a coinflip too many’
The undead snail felt its way up to Dimrat’s side, its slippery proboscis probing for food. It fixed a concerned bulbous eye on Dimrat, while its other scanned the burrows. With good reason. For now the curiosity of the warren peeped back at them with a worrying unison. Eyes large and small near and far, that shared a single vision. Bloodlust.