Inside the Spy Alley, the team found a long staircase heading down. The place was small, and the walls were close to each other, giving off a claustrophobic feeling. All over the sides of this passage were posters, signatures, old photos, magazine covers, and graffiti. All related to music and bands. Hera had to admit, they nailed the old underground vibe they were aiming for.
Halfway through the staircases, there was a fork on the path. One side led to the actual club, while the other led to the dungeon. After knowing about this place, Vash insisted to come back here when there was an actual party going on. But that wouldn’t be today. They moved to the left, and the path became bigger. The underground aesthetic was still there, but it was more comfortable for people with heavy equipment to pass by. Then again, Hera didn’t believe anyone would have problems coming down wearing plate armor or carrying long weapons. Sure, they might need to move in a different way, but the size of the staircase wouldn’t stop anyone from bringing something to the dungeon. Unless it was a drum set.
Focusing back on the dungeon, Hera walked with the rest of her team to the dungeon door. The dungeon door was just a simple set of double metal doors with a bar going across each side that the team would push to open. Inside was another corridor, but now there was more noise, a rhythmic thumping of a muffled beat. Halfway across that path, a notification appeared in front of everyone.
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You have discovered a dungeon quest
Ultimate Dance Rumble
You have entered the competition to decide who is the best dancer. To maintain its status among the other groups, your team must win at least 4 dance battles, otherwise the competition will bar your team from ever participating again.
First completion rewards:
Ultimate Dance Rumble Prize, 10 million gold.
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“Holy shit,” Hera gasped. 10 million gold for the first reward was a ridiculous number. Sure, she never came this deep into the MAZE before, but even then, it was just absurd.
“Am I seeing the right number of zeros,” Vash asked.
“You still have the rewards show up as numbers?” Skyler turned to the harpy.
“Well… Yeah. Don’t you?”
“No, I changed to words. It makes more sense and I don’t have to worry about reading it wrong, since it usually is just a bunch of zeros,” the elf replied.
“Oh… that’s a good idea,” Vash closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened he nodded, “Yeah. I had miscounted. Ok, this makes more sense.”
“How much did you think we were going to get?” Skyler gasped.
Vash started walking faster, ignoring the question completely, “By the way, I don’t think we talked about this, but do any of you know how to dance?”
Roan shook his head.
“Do I look like a dancer?” Flint huffed.
“I can try. My mother forced me to learn ballroom dancing when I was 8. She wanted me to be on those little miss whateverthefuck competitions but it never worked out,” Hera’s admission made everyone turn and stare at her.
“You know… you don’t talk much about your mother, but every time you mention something she somehow seems worse,” Skyler just stared at the Ophidianite, shaking her head, “I’m really glad she didn’t rub off on you.”
“You need to thank my dad, and my grandma,” Hera gave a sad smile, remembering the old days with Grandma Triss, “Anyway. Consider a maybe for me.”
“I did learn a bit, but never practiced all that much. Also, I’m more of a country girl,” Skyler said.
“I know how to dance. It was part of the curriculum in my class. I went to a few competitions, got first prize and everything,” Neria admitted.
“You won dance competitions?” Vash gasped.
Neria squinted at him, “Is that so hard to believe?”
“No, no. It’s just a surprise,” the harpy quickly turned around, “Let’s just keep goings everyone. Between all of us, I’m sure we can win at least 4 times. Let me go first, ok? Then we can have an idea of what is going on,” the performer announced proudly.
“Are you going to play your own music for us from the get go? Or do you want to see what is like when we are doing this on their terms?” Neria walked a bit faster to keep the harpy’s pace.
“I’m thinking about the second option. I wanna know if these monsters can dance,” Vash was grinning from ear to ear.
That corridor was long, much longer than the one they used to get there, but they finally arrived at the end. Another set of doors. Beyond them was a crowd of several monsters. Some were Arachnes, centaur like creatures that, instead of having the lower half of a horse, had that of a spider. Their face also had a distorted appearance, with hair replaced by hundreds of eyes and large mandibles that clacked as they talked. But what they wore could only be described as idol dresses. Pink frilly bows on their neck and short checkered pink skirts covering their spider torso. They even had knee-high socks on each of their legs. The next group Hera noticed was a crowd of EDM zombies. They were all wearing bright colors, contrasting with the gray, putrid skin under the clothes. Large atomic yellow or neon green shutter glasses and caps with a flat brim. The rest was all just as strange. Rocker Golems were fairly self explanatory. Clockwork drones with thin limbs wearing those old timey clothes when people started hearing jazz. There were too many monsters to get a proper look and the moment the Harmony Guardians walked inside the room, all the creatures turned to the newcomers opening a path to the stage.
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Vash took the lead and walked to the stage, with the rest of the team to the side cheering on him. It was odd to be in the middle of all these monsters, all of which who were at least level 67, but the energy in the place was contagious.
A bipedal tortoise slowly approached the stage as a microphone came down from the ceiling. Everyone just watched him, yelling and calling out various names of the groups or their members. It was easy to tell that the people doing the dungeon were the underdogs. No one was cheering for them. Someone gave Vash a tablet for him to pick the song.
The turtle slowly reached out for the microphone. Hera wouldn’t be surprised if the 5 minute delay between battles was all because this creature took too long to say anything.
“And the Underdogs finally take the stage. All other groups have already finished their matches and the leader board is in place. Yet, my dear creatures, we still have one more round!” the booming voice of the turtle made the crowd explode. Despite the slow movements, that announcer had more energy than anyone in here, and his speech sounded as if someone had put a video on 1.5 speed.
“And here are the Underdogs’ first opponent, who is currently number 8 on the ranking. Give a round of applause and clacks for The Mythical Mixers!”
On the opposite side, a Chimera walked forward. The creature had a lion’s body and head, with another head coming from its back, this one being that of a goat, and its tail was a long snake. It was still moving on all fours, but it had some black pants from where the snake appears and hoodie on the goat's head as they moved closer to Vash, who was at the center of the ‘arena.’
“Let’s get this over with,” the Chimera spoke, each word being said by one of the heads in perfect sync. An upbeat hip hop song began, and the monster stepped from side to side before it started to break dance, flipping from side to side, spinning on its front legs.
Hera didn’t know much about dancing, and the fact that these were monsters made even harder for her to grade their performance. But the crowd seemed to enjoy, they were screaming and would shout even louder after every move. After some time, the Chimera landed back on their feet and stepped back, giving the floor to Vash.
The Harpy started with both his wing around his body, opening his arms and shaking them three times before returning to that initial position as he got in the rhythm of the song. To start, he spun, doing a flip before landing on a single foot. Then he jumped from the side and did the same move that the Chimera did, using his wings to hold his body while his lower legs moved around him. He continued like that for a few moments, picking up speed until he started to spin on his head. While still spinning, he beat his wings to start flying upside down, and was able to get a good half a meter above the ground before he had to flip and land properly.
There was no sound at the end of his routine. All monsters just stared in silence until the cheers exploded. The sound was deafening and Hera could feel the ground shaking from the sheer volume of their voices.
“Would you look at that? The Underdogs had to bring it to continue being a part of our show and they BROUGHT IT! But will they be able to ride that wave or will they lose that steam? Let’s bring up their next challenger,“ the announcer called.
“I’ll go next. I already know the song I want to pick,” Skyler had a smile as she used the tablet to pick her song, “Flint, can you make me a cowboy hat?”
Flint thought for a moment, “Sure, here,” he produced a white cowboy hat.
“You had a blueprint for that?” Hera asked.
“What? People like what they like. If someone asks for an enchanted helmet that has a specific shape, like a fedora or a top hat, I need to start from somewhere. Same principle,” Flint shrugged.
“Ok then, I got this,” Skyler announced proudly.
Her opponent was a Minotaur like creature made of pure lava. And unfortunately, they were also wearing a cowboy hat, leather pants with a very large silver belt buckle with the image of a bull being lassoed. He also had an open jeans jacket but no shirt underneath it.
“I may have overestimated my chances,” the elf admitted to the group.
“Now the Underdogs face of again the Molten Ranch!”
“Yep, I’m screwed,” Skyler sighed.
The molten Minotaur started dancing, a classical line dance. It would look better if there was a group following him, but he was doing it well enough by himself. His hooves mirrored the sound of cowboy boots. Hera didn’t pay attention to that dance, instead she tried to look around the place, hoping to find some clues about the previous champions. Maybe it was on a poster in the walls, or something.
She tapped Flint and gave a heads up about what she was going to do and walked away. There were a lot of monsters in the area and vanishing out of the blue didn’t seem like a good idea. For the next 10 minutes, or 3 battles, she focused on the area. The walls were much cleaner than the ones in Spy Alley, there were no pictures, or anything, only some flags of each of the 20 groups located where the bulk of their members were. Hera also asked to some monsters, a group of treants, living wood beings with two arms and two legs, wearing a very solar punk style of clothing. Loose fabrics, bandannas and cloths around their heads, lots of rings with some flowers and vines weaved all over their body to support the rest of the outfit. But they just waved her off. The argument was that they had nothing to say to someone who couldn’t even dance.
When she returned, Neria was doing her dance. It was a full-blown flamenco dance, including castanets in one of her hands to follow the beat of the music. The triton waved her skirt and clacked her feet. Facing her was an idol, Arachne, and by the look on her face, she was about to lose. Hera focused on her friend, enthralled by the dance until the song was over.
The crowd cheered, and the Underdogs won their second battle. Skyler, Flint, and Roan all lost their own battles. Vash turned to the Empress, “You are next.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. The message told us that everyone had to participate in the dance battle. At least once.”
“Oh ok,” Hera sighed and picked a song, she didn’t have any idea what to do, and instead, just decided to pick something random.
Against her came the Bone Chills, a group of skeletons with four arms and two heads. They danced to a pop song, but the Empress could only pay attention to the crowd. Everyone was staring at her, cheering her opponents and saying that she sucked. When her turn came, she took a deep breath and started to dance, hoping to prove everyone here wrong.
By the end, the Ophidianite just wanted to vanish from existence and erase the memory of her ‘dance’ along with her.