This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream…

Dania opened her eyes, her hand still locked around Jake's. The beach was gone. Instead, she and Jake stood in a vaguely familiar linoleum-tiled hallway that stretched ahead of them for an uncomfortably long distance. Dania glanced behind herself to see a pair of double doors with the bar-type handles, but they'd been chained shut.

The scent of floor polish, greasy food, hairspray, and body odor drifted by. Somewhere, a chair squeaked against the floor. A door slammed in the distance.

"Oh, shit," Jake muttered beside her. "Are we at my high school?"

"I think we might be at mine," Dania said, realizing the reason the hallway looked familiar. As soon as she thought it, an obnoxiously loud bell shrilled overhead, and more doors opened, with teenagers spilling out into the hallway, kicking up a cacophony with their various conversations as they streamed through the crowd of their own making, hustling to their next class.

"Get to class, you two!"

A man leaned out of the nearest classroom door, a frown on his face. He straightened up and strode toward them as the students naturally parted for him to pass. "What are you doing just standing there? You don't want to be late for your final! It's fifty percent of your grade for the entire semester. Get a move on!" He swung his arm in an angry motion that pointed down the hallway.

Dania tugged Jake into motion, leaning in to speak in his ear.

"Listen, I think this one might be like that first floor, where the natives turn hostile if we seem out of place," she said. "Let's just go to… whatever class, I guess."

"How am I going to take a final in a class I've never been to?" Jake whispered back. "I'm a freshman! I've only ever taken midterms!"

"Don't panic. We'll figure something out." But even as she said it, Dania had to swallow back her own rising anxiety.

I've been out of school longer than I care to think about, she reminded herself. This is just an anxiety dream brought on by this dungeon. I just have to figure out the key and—

The bell shrilled over their heads once more, and several doors slammed as the hallway emptied out, leaving the two of them standing alone.

"Pull your deck," Dania whispered as her pulse accelerated, pounding in her ears. She touched her own deck and brought out her cards as a rhythmic, angry tapping echoed down the hall toward them.

Jake touched the first of his five cards, and Machairi flowed up from the black light that spilled to the ground in response. Dania glanced at her four: her lioness mantle, Megafauna, Enraged Defense, and Polar Sanctuary.

She touched her mantle card, and it dissolved into a tawny light that flowed over her like the brush of warm fur. Deep within her chest, a rumbling, warning growl grew, and she blinked as the light brightened, and the colors dimmed and shifted. The red-orange of the student lockers faded, making the green in the walls and the blue speckles on the linoleum floor stand out.

"Whoa!" Jake said next to her. "Dani, you look so cool! That mantle is just—"

"Where are you supposed to be?" The shriek of rage came from a female figure down at the end of the hallway. The ominous tapping intensified, echoing painfully in Dania's suddenly very sensitive ears. She turned to see the female charging down the hallway at them, her hands glowing dimly purple. She pointed one hand at Jake, and a snarl of warning burst from Dania's lips.

"Don't you talk back to me! I am the Vice-Principal of this school!" The woman, who wore a skirt suit, high heels, and a bun so tight it would have made Dania's old drill sergeant proud, threw her hands on her hips and snarled right back. Hatred glittered in her eyes, along with a fierce savage joy that told Dania clearly that here was a representative of the worst kind of educator: the ones who loved the power of authority and hated the kids they were supposed to teach.

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Nightmare Vice-Principal

Mortal/Psychic/Shadow [Dream]

Dungeon Monster

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Health: 50

Attack: 10

Defense: 5

Magical Attack: 5x2 [Psychic]

Magical Defense: 5

Special: Educator: +1 to all attacks when facing mortal opponents under the age of 18, or who exist in their pre-evolved incarnation.

Special: Manipulative: This creature’s Magical Attack is non-lethal. If any single hit inflicts damage that is higher than half the target’s health, the target is paralyzed for 1 minute. If any single hit inflicts damage higher than one quarter of the target’s health, the target experiences a -2 modifier to all stats except health.

Special: Dream Card: If this creature is slain, it will drop an uncommon card 20% of the time, and a rare one 5% of the time. If that card drops, 50% of the time it will be a [Dream] card.

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The Vice-Principal raised her glowing hands and sent a bolt of purple light arrowing at Dania and Jake both. Machairi charged at her, wall-running up onto the lockers before making a flying leap, his knives out. Dania didn't have time to see if they landed or not, as she was busy tackling Jake to the stinking linoleum floor.

The light impacted the set of lockers immediately above their heads and shattered into a shower of purple sparks. Dania launched herself at the Vice-Principal and slashed at the woman with a one-two attack of her clawed hands, just as one of Jake's shadowlings rolled into place next to her.

The Vice-Principal screamed, and whirled to blast Dania with the glowing purple light from her other hand. The light slammed into Dania's face, blinding her in a wash of black-streaked ultraviolet light.

You're worthless, Ellis! You can't do anything right! How do you think you can possibly take care of Jake? He needs his mom, and you're just a fuck-up who barely graduated from nursing school—

Dania snarled and shoved these amplified insecurities away.

Bitch, I made it through basic training and nursing school, she thought savagely. You can't hurt me with my own doubts; we're motherfucking battle buddies at this point!

She flicked her wrist to draw a new hand. This time, her trusty Tar Pit came into view, and Dania threw it out into the hallway behind them. A second Shadowling joined them, and she could hear Machairi's psychotic laughter coming from somewhere.

"Where are you supposed to be?" the Vice-Principal shrieked, raising her arm as more purple light swirled around it. Dania opened her mouth with a roar and closed her teeth around the bitch's wrist, biting down until she felt the bones crack.

The Vice-Principal screamed again, a long, shrill sound that dissolved into the high, incessant ringing of the bell. Just as the monster dissolved into a swirl of black and purple light, doors all along the hallway slammed open. A cacophony of voices spilled out a heartbeat before students began to flood into the corridor.

"Congratulations! You have defeated the Nightmare Vice-Principal. You have leveled up. You are now level eleven."

Someone grabbed her arm. Dani turned with a snarl, only to see that it was Jake, his face tight, but his eyes triumphant.

"Dismiss your cards," he said as he bent to retrieve the card the Vice-Principal had dropped. He handed it to Dania, and she put it in the inside pocket of her jacket. "And let's go. People are starting to stare."

Dania inhaled, her sensitized nose wrinkling at the stench of all the teenagers crowding around them, and shook her head, dismissing her cards. She let Jake help stand from where she'd ended up crouching, and did her best to blend in with the flow of traffic.

"We still don't know where we're going," she reminded Jake in a low undertone.

"I know," he said. "But we stand out too much if we don't move, and I don't want to fight another teacher or whatever right now. I think you took some damage."

"A little," Dania admitted. "Not much."

"Not much? You took that blast right to the face, Dani!"

Dania smiled and shrugged. "Non-lethal psychic attack," she said. "Bitch tried to use my own insecurities against me. Little did she know that my insecurities and I are old friends."

Jake frowned at her, doubt creasing his face. Dania shook her head and laughed.

"You'll get it when you're older, kid. I'm good. Trust me."

"You two! Quit jabbering and get to class! If you're late for your final, you'll get docked points! Get moving."

Dania looked up to see a teacher who looked like a clone of the first guy who'd yelled at them. He stood in the middle of the hallway, his fisted hands on his hips, scowling at the two of them while the other students flowed around him like he was a rock in a stream.

A stat card appeared above his head, with stats not that different from the Vice-Principal.

We don’t need another fight like that.

"Sorry, sir," Dania muttered, ducking her head and walking past him. She glanced back to see that the teacher had turned, still scowling, and continued to stare at them. On impulse, she pulled Jake around the corner of an intersecting hallway, only to find that it appeared to be identical to the first one… complete with a scowling teacher standing in the center.

"Pick a door," Dania muttered as the warning bell sounded overhead. "Any door. It doesn't matter which one, we just need to be out of this hallway now!"

"Here," Jake said, grabbing a handle and tugging it open. Dania put one hand on his back and pushed him ahead, and then followed him in and let it close behind herself.

"Take a seat! No talking!"

Dania looked past Jake to see a third incarnation of the same male teacher glowering at them from behind the classic wooden teacher's desk. The teacher held an old-fashioned wooden pencil, which he used to point to a pile of papers on the desk.

"Take one and sit down. Do not start until the bell rings."

"Dani-" Jake whispered, his voice uneasy.

"No talking!"

Dania gulped and pushed past Jake. Under the teacher's glowering stare, she took a packet, and then turned to find an empty seat. There were only two, right up front in the center of the classroom. Every other desk held a student.

All of whom stared at her and Jake.

With hostility.

Shit.