[Armaros]
Armaros felt it first. A sudden change that would shake his city. His intricate connection to the city, laid out like millions of invisible threads, started to snap string by string. He quickly opened several menus but saw no indication of an invasion: demon or monster. It wouldn’t have made any sense anyways.
The anomaly was from inside Brunswick’s walls.
The vibrations had interrupted Armaros’ meal of requisitioned vegetables spiced with medicinal herbs and lightly seared donated flesh. Without a word, he gently laid his silverware down atop his porcelain plate and delicately wiped the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. Nothing could be out of place, nothing in his infallible mannerisms or pristine expression could betray the truth of his emotions. He was a statue, a symbol of all that has been built.
An attendant hastily helped pull Armaros’ seat back so that they could stand. Another adjusted the creases in his robes while a third offered him a drink.
“I-is there a problem with the meal?”
“No, it was excellent as always,” Armaros replied with a genteel smile. His eyes radiating a brilliant gleam that diffused the energy in the room. “I just do not have the time to finish because I need to speak to Sir Leal urgently. Could you please summon them for me?”
“Right away, Master Armaros.”
“A private conversation,” Armaros clarified towards the remaining demons in the room.
The rest of the attendants quickly filed out of Armaros’ chamber and closed the door behind them in consideration for their leader’s desire for privacy. Armaros pushed down on the dining table, the inventory system in their floor quickly swallowed the furniture and fineries before spitting out a desk and chair.
Armaros planted his hand on the desk and leaned against the wood. Lights flashed behind his eyes like a rave as they inspected every connection point in Brunswick. He quickly reinvestigated the security of the city first. The walls were secure and each gate operated as normal.
He sighed in relief before making a difficult expression. Following the pattern of disrupted threads slowly made the picture clearer. Though the affected threads were in random locations around the city, their connections all began to center on one location.
The Dungeon entrance.
“You called for me, Leader,” Sir Leal boomed with a low bow.
Armaros’ muscles tensed ever so slightly at the mastiff’s unnaturally loud speaking voice. His intense focus made him unaware of the Grigori’s hulking presence. Sounds of the door creaking open nor the clinking of polished Sin-got plates bumping into each other reached the leader’s ears.
“Sir Leal,” Armaros greeted with a nod. “I need you to send a squad to the Dungeon Hall. I’m sensing there are issues.”
“There is already a squad there for the Dungeon clearing. I can send more, if that is what you want. But, there are always issues when we open up the Dungeon,” Sir Leal commented as he scratched underneath his spiked collar. “The cut-throat nature of the place always leads to bad blood in the new recruits. What sort of issue are you expecting?”
Armaros scratched his chin. It was the question that he also wanted the answer to.
“Sabotage, perhaps,” Armaros replied. “I’m not certain, but there are disturbances all over the city. The Dungeon Hall is the focal point of all of it.”
“Your will is done,” Sir Leal announced. “I will go myself to provide a report.”
“I’m counting on you.”
Sir Leal’s investigation would prove unnecessary. The clanging of metal could be heard down the hall. A junior Grigori sprinted to the doorway, skidding across the ground to try to stop themselves in time. They bowed so low that their forehead almost kissed the floor. Their body shook with their heaving breaths and sweat coated their skin.
“Grigori, what brings you here without permission?” Sir Leal barked at his junior.
“Apologies, Vice-Leader,” the junior Grigori panted, lowering themselves further to the floor. “I have an urgent report and could not find you.”
“It’s alright,” Armaros cooed as he touched the demon’s shoulder and coaxed them to rise from their bow. “Please, let us know what it is that brings you here. It must be quite urgent.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“It is,” the Junior Grigori eagerly agreed. “I come here to report a situation at the Dungeon Hall.”
A rumble shook the ground and caused the junior Grigori to flinch. Outside, shouts and gasps could be heard as the stone buildings rocked back and forth. A plume of dust could be seen out the window like a dirty cloud.
Armaros also flinched, but for a different reason. Hundreds of threads were snapping simultaneously. Endless warnings filled his head to the point that he had to forcefully shut them off to remain sane. A blaring red splotch, like a seeping wound, glowed angrily on his internal map of Brunswick to tell Armaros a fact that should not be possible.
“The Dungeon is collapsing.”
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[???]
“Say that again.”
“The Inverted Tower is collapsing,” the demon correspondent eagerly reported to their leader. “Our Messenger in Brunswick has been sending in several messages screaming about it. The Grigori are out en masse and the entire place is panicking.”
Their leader did not express the same unrestrained joy that the demon offering the news did. Even with the biggest news they had received since they joined the group, there was no change in emotion in their leader that could be seen through the horse skull fastened to her face. She endlessly ignited and quenched a flame on the tip of her finger. She closed her hand, extinguishing it for good and shifted from her lounging position.
The news was too good for someone like her to be hearing. It was like a mousetrap armed with a warhead. But, how brazen it was bothered in a different way. She scowled in memories of lessons learned of being overeager in the face of good news. The faces of those that fell into the hands of her enemy as punishment for her rashness still scorched her memories.
“Dungeons don’t collapse,” she stated firmly. “Not one Dungeon has disappeared. Just like how Armaros doesn’t get injured and Sir Leal doesn’t leave the city. We need to figure out what’s actually happening.”
“But, that doesn’t change the fact that every single one of our agents connecting the Messenger said the same exact thing. And, Armaros closed all the gates,” the Correspondent argued. “When have they done that outside of our attacks?”
“They haven’t,” she agreed. “Someone else might be attacking them. Let them whittle away at each other’s power.”
Another one of her followers came bustling in. Their armor was equipped and their weapons dangled in the scabbards at their side.
“I’ve gathered everyone available. We’re ready to leave at your command.”
She breathed in deeply and exhaled a long trail of smoke. She knew they were trying to spur her into action. She was a dormant volcano; once she was ignited, she’d burn down the world. Nobody wanted to hide in caves and bide their time while their enemies got to rule the surface. It’d been so long since her army moved and the bedsores caused by the stillness had grown too uncomfortable to withstand.
“Ready for what, exactly?” She demanded of the demon that walked in. A burst of flames shot out of the eye holes of the horse skull. “What are we going to do just because the Dungeon collapsed? I didn’t hear anything about Grigori casualties nor word of a weakening of their outer walls nor a statement from Armaros. A gap has not suddenly opened just because our enemy has stumbled slightly. Send up the fliers, I need visual confirmation that it’s gone.”
Both demons were cowed in the face of the scolding. The armored one turned around to give out the received orders while the Correspondent remained in place to provide updates whenever the Messenger next contacted them.
“Anything new?” The leader asked.
“No.”
Things had gone silent since they entered the room. The barrage of messages that assailed them and made their eyes water shut off as quickly as they had arrived. A sinking feeling developed in their heart. What if it had been a false alarm or an erroneous report? They had received conflicting reports in the past, but it didn’t make sense that all their agents were mistaken at the same time.
“I don’t like this,” she muttered to herself.
Ding.
The Correspondent went cross-eyed in haste of getting the message open. This time, it was far more than just some words. It was an image taken from the Messenger’s own eyes. The vantage point was a nearby rooftop. At least twenty Grigori stood around the ruins of the Dungeon Hall. In the center were three wounded demons: a lizard, an oni, and a dog. A caption sat at the bottom.
Three survivors. Believed suspects in destruction of Dungeon. Apprehension ongoing.
“Holy shit,” the Correspondent uttered accidentally.
“What does it say?”
“We have visual proof, the Dungeon Hall is down and the entrance is gone,” the Correspondent reported gleefully at the update. “Not only that, there were demons that survived that the Grigori believed may have caused it.”
The leader immediately got up and walked towards the Correspondent. Flames shot out their eyes like the exhaust pipes of a dragster. Her red hair dripped magma that sizzled on the stony ground.
“Did you say that they think that there is a demon that has the ability to destroy Dungeons?” She demanded, her eye holes whistling like boiling tea kettles.
“Y-yes,” the Correspondent coughed, the heat exuding off of the Leader’s form was too much for them to comfortably endure. “The Grigori are moving in to capture them as we speak.”
The Leader bit her nails as she paced back and forth. It didn’t make any sense, the information should be impossible. But, if it was fake, what was the point of this farce? Who was this performance for if they really weren’t in trouble?
All of the obstacles that would block the track evaporated one by one to leave an unimpeded route straight forwards. She felt her hatred and anger picking up steam like a locomotive with no brakes. A way to wound the seemingly unassailable Armaros had appeared. The keys to toppling their empire laid within Brunswick’s walls, ripe for her to pluck for herself. She would be unrecognizable to herself if she did not jump at the opportunity.
“We will have to do something about this,” the Leader concluded. “If there is even a remote chance that these demons were responsible for the closing of a Dungeon, we cannot let Armaros get their hands on them.”
“Should I notify the soldiers to leave?”
“No, I’m going myself.”