I stared at the entrance that had just exploded outward in shock and mild horror as I heard the impact of huge stones hitting the ground outside. I tried to turn my perception out the door, but all I saw was a wall of white, separate from the sunlight now pouring in. I hummed in aggravation at the wall that mocked my attempts at experiencing the outside world with its very existence, then returned my attention to the menus. Now that my entrance could function as such again, there were upgrades available.
Dungeon Entrance Upgrades
Cactus Door
Cost: 10 Mana
A rough door made of cactus chunks that have been pierced through each other. Difficult to open without ample protection, but easily destroyed.
Stone Swinging Door
Cost: 20 Mana
A simple quarrystone door that swings easily on unseen hinges. Difficult to destroy without proper tools.
I tried to fiddle with the menu more, but it didn’t seem to have any other options. Looking at the meager 5 mana I currently had, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and that my time was better spent elsewhere. Like in the one menu I hadn’t opened yet.
The traps menu seemed fairly simple, with four buttons in a standard square formation that read Stationary, Mechanical, Magic, and Mechanisms. The first three were straightforward enough, with each only having a couple options to start off. Stationary had Pitfalls, Slopes, and Spikes. Mechanical had Trap Doors and Stone Crushers, and Magic only had an option called Vertigo, which apparently was a glyph of some kind that could be placed on the floor so that someone who walked on it would suddenly lose their balance for a few seconds.
Mechanisms, however, were clearly going to be a very different animal. I only had Pulley System, Activation Lever, Pressure Plate, and Mana Core available to me, but I didn’t need to think hard about how insane I could get even with those. I slowly put the traps menu away for the moment, not sure how to feel about what was in there, and considered my next move. Now that people could enter, I would need to start actually planning out how to get the resources I needed for more upgrades and rooms, but I also still didn’t know how to access the space behind the other doorway in the statue room. Either way, though, I would have to wait. No Existence Points and low mana meant nothing would be available for a while.
[Guess I’ll just go back to ‘sleep mode’ for now.]
—
As Karzem approached the town, he could see people running around and yelling. He led Axeel to the left off the road, and jogged along the south wall that held back the floodwaters every year. The wall was so old that nobody remembered just how long it had been there, only that it had been made after the founding of the town. He finally reached the west side of town, where the farmhouses and crop fields were, and led Axeel to his family’s barn. His eldest brother Ockraniaz was closing the first of the two doors as he noticed the youngest member of the family approach.
“Karzem!” He rushed over with a worried look. “You made it back after all, good. Mother and Father are in the main square, the elders called everyone for a meeting. I’ll take Axeel, you get going.” He reached for the lead tied around Axeel’s neck, and Karzem handed it over.
“Shouldn’t I stay, and help you close the barn?” the young boy asked as his brother ushered the aurochs inside.
“No time,” Ockraniaz called back, “the chickens need rounding up, too. Just get back to town! I’ll be along soon enough!” Karzem did as he was bid, setting off back toward the town as he wondered what the hurry was.
His home wasn’t very large, but it had everything that was needed for life, and the influx of travelers every winter brought plenty of extra wealth, information, and exotic goods to make sure the town’s name of Sabi didn’t disappear into the dunes that surrounded it. Karzem was sure that the dungeon’s entrance exploding open had caught everyone’s attention, but he didn’t think it would have caused such a reaction before they were told what the sound actually was. As he finally reached the main square, guided by the towering visage of the clocktower, he could see the elders on the Announcement Stage trying to calm everyone down.
“Please! Please!” Elder Capu had his arms in the air, making soothing motions not unlike those Karzem’s family used to soothe their farm animals. “The longer we panic, the less time we will have to prepare!”
“You all need to calm down and stop talking over each other!” Elder Sàvi was leaning heavily on a large carved staff, old enough now to be confined to her rocking chair most days, but needed on her feet for what was clearly an emergency situation.
Finally, Elder Zwel stepped forward and gently moved his colleagues behind him. Karzem covered his ears as he watched the old orc fill his lungs fully.
‘ENOUGH OF YOUR WITLESS CHATTERING!” The sound made everyone else stop talking, and a few people even fell over. Karzem gritted his teeth as the sheer volume of Elder Zwel rattled his bones and rendered the covering of his ears a futile gesture. Once the crowd was pacified, Elder Zwel motioned for Elder Capu to go ahead, and moved back to where he had been standing behind his seniors.
“Thank you,” Elder Capu said, still rubbing his longer-than average ears. The grey-haired half-elf turned back to face the crowd, and raised his voice so that the partially-deafened audience could hear him. “Everyone, I know this is nearly unprecedented for most of you, but we must work together if we are to deal with the threat of bandits. Whether we fight, flee, or call for aid, we must do so together, or we risk losing everything.”
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Karzem stared in shock as Elder Capu kept talking, barely able to believe what he had heard. Sabi had always been a thriving place, but bandits had never tried to attack them before. The legend of how dangerous The Great Sha’abokk Dungeon was had always deterred them. It seemed that nothing lasted forever, after all. Karzem started moving forward through the crowd towards the stage, and eventually reached the edge of the elevated wooden platform, where Elder Capu was conversing with the baker.
“-so if we could just have the aurochs in position in time, we could simply have them stampede over the bandits, and solve the problem for us.” Brawd, Karzem remembered his name was, seemed to think this was a reasonable idea, clearly having no inkling as to how long it would take to coax all those animals back to town. Karzem didn’t have time to convince him or anyone else of how terrible the idea was, though.
“Elder Capu, I bring worse news!” Everyone suddenly looked down at the boy, ceasing their talking, and Karzem felt even smaller than he was. “Uh-um… I….”
Elder Capu realized what the problem was right away, and waved his arm to make some space.
“It’s alright, Karzem. Tell me what you’ve learned.”
Karzem could breathe again, but looking up at the old man’s kind eyes nearly made him burst into tears at how much worse he was about to make everyone’s lives.
“Sir, I was bringing back our most stubborn aurochs when I saw the entrance to The Great Sha’abokk Dungeon explode open!” Everyone went silent for a moment before whispers and murmurs started making their way through the crowd. Elder Capu’s face, meanwhile, had changed from kind and understanding to horrified beyond reason. The expression didn’t last long, though, as he stood back up, and pointed into the crowd.
“Lubb, Biega, get to the entrance to The Great Sha’abokk Dungeon as fast as you can, then report back here the same way.” He bent back down. “Child, very rarely do I ask this, and I cannot recall another time I have wished it to be so, but is this a lie? Have you, for whatever reason, chosen to trick me in saying this?” Elder Capu’s face had changed again, this time to an almost pleading expression. Karzem only shook his head, finally hearing his parents moving closer through the crowd. Despair flashed across the Elder’s features for a moment before he stood up once more with a determined expression. He began speaking to the townsfolk again as Karzem’s parents appeared and wrapped their arms around the boy.
“Oh, my boy,” his mother nearly sobbed as she knelt down, “oh, thank the Waters you’re safe.”
“Where have you been?” Karzem could hear the beat of his father’s heart. The man was nearly inhuman in his strength, and being surrounded by his massive frame again was a comfort to Karzem. “You should have been back hours ago! Was Axeel really being that much of a problem today?”
“Yes, he stopped and lay down in the middle of the road right in front of the dungeon. When the entrance exploded, he moved quickly, but until then, every step was a struggle.” The boy looked up at his parents. “What are we going to do? We can’t fight bandits.”
His parents pulled back slightly as they relaxed their postures, then looked back up to the platform where Elder Capu was speaking. Multiple suggestions for how to stop the bandits had been given, but all were found unsuitable for one reason or another. Soon, the crowd had fallen silent, with all ideas for defending the town spent and struck down. Someone let out a choked sob, and like the flood from a collapsing dam, despair swept through the crowd. Karzem felt it too, as his mother held him tighter. Before it could take hold, though, the voice of Elder Zwel rang out again.
“Fine then,” he said as every eye turned to him, “if there is no other choice, then I will make an opportunity for everyone to escape, at least.” He stood, and Elder Sàvi moved closer.
“You cannot possibly mean to face an entire bandit raid alone.”
“I can, and I do,” the large man replied. “I may be old, but I’m still a Dungeoneer, and while I can’t do anything about Sha’abokk awakening, I still have more combat experience than anyone else here, and probably most of those bandits, too. I’ve lived a good life. If it ends in defense of the people I swore to serve, then so be it. There are no better ideas forthcoming, and I will suffer no argument as to how I perform my duty. If everyone is gone by sunrise, then the bandits won’t be able to follow, and the Dungeon should still be too weak to stop you. I suggest you start preparing now.” With that, he walked away, leaving his speechless fellow elders to direct the townsfolk.
—
I could see things, now. Things that weren’t part of me. Was this the outside? I doubted this was what it actually looked like, at the very least. Shifting hues of a grayscale landscape moved constantly and randomly, looking like a world made of TV static. Amongst the fuzz and blur, though, there were blobs of color darting about. I couldn’t focus on them or zoom in, though, leaving me to simply guess that they were animals. They were mostly shades of red, but a few were closer to purple. What that meant I had no idea, but I couldn’t investigate further in this state, so I tried looking around. To my left, I saw nothing, but in the opposite direction, I noticed a tiny inconsistency in the pattern of the sky’s motions. I tried shunting myself toward it, but nothing happened. Finally, I looked down, out of habit, and saw that I had a body, translucent and vaguely luminous.
I raised my left hand up, and touched my face with it. I could feel the contact, and stared at my hand for a moment. I didn’t speak, though, and I tried to not think as best I could. Something felt off about this experience, like I wasn’t supposed to be doing it. I decided not to push my luck with needless noise, and started walking. If there was something out there that was going to take issue with me existing like this, better to make use of it quickly.
After a short while, I realized two things. First, the inconsistency I had noticed was some kind of tower, though the static made it impossible for me to know what it was for. The second thing I noticed was that my walking pace didn’t match my speed. My feet didn’t slide over the ground like a low-quality walk cycle in a game, but I was definitely moving faster than I should have been. Was this all really just a dream? If so, where was the nearest dream interpreter? Because I clearly had some weird things to work out. Regardless, I soon found myself much closer to the tower, as well as the town that surrounded it. I hadn’t noticed it before, thanks to the static, but it was definitely some kind of civilization.
I saw a huge congregation of red blobs further in, but decided I would be better served looking for something that looked more welcoming. I moved left from the town entrance, and followed the wall on my right to the far side of the settlement. There were more blobs as I went, mostly small, bug-sized ones, but they were all red, so I ignored them. Once I had reached the other side, I saw more buildings, but they were larger and more spaced out. I looked carefully at the land itself, and realized this was farmland. As I did, a red blob came out of one of the buildings, following a much larger blue blob. I stopped, wondering if I would finally find out what the colors meant, and waited in what seemed like a main road as the two blobs approached.
The blue one stopped right in front of me, and I could see the red one move around one side and towards me. I was pretty sure the blue one could sense me, somehow, as it refused to move when the red one nudged its side.
-
Ockraniaz shoved Axeel’s side again, perplexed at the beast’s behavior. He had always been the most disobedient Aurochs on his family’s farm, but he had never tried to get out of the barn like this before, and now he simply stood in the middle of the road, staring at a spot right in front of him, like there was a person standing there.
“Alright, Axeel, that’s enough,” he said, moving towards Axeel’s head. “We need to get you back in-“ He yelped in shock, stumbling back as his arm came into contact with something so cold it burned. He looked back at the spot in front of Axeel, holding his injured arm close, just below the elbow, where he had felt the contact. The limb hung limply, the pain overwhelming his ability to move it freely. As he stared, though, he noticed something. A slight shimmer in the air, like the heat of the desert at midday. It shifted slightly, and he felt eyes upon him. He could tell it was the approximate shape of a human, and stories from his childhood surged into the forefront of his memory.
“The Shimmering Death of Sha’abokk….” He backed up, ignoring Axeel now, even as the aurochs continued staring at the figure in front of him.
-
I stared in surprise as the boy that had touched me reeled back, and after a few seconds ran away. He was a red blob again, but for a split-second when he touched me, I could see the world properly again. I could see that I was in a desert oasis of some kind, I could see the large barn-like structures that were built with lots of open space for airflow, but with plenty of overhangs and turns in the design to prevent most sand and debris from getting in. I also saw the enormous bull that was standing in front of me, which had returned to looking like a huge blue blob. I stared for a few more moments before finally speaking.
“And who might you be?”