“So, what now, Mr. Dungeon Boss?” Lexi asked not knowing if she can be heard now that he wasn’t an orb. The boss dude looked up at her.

“Now we do as Mother decrees.” He grinned. His voice still creepy and monstrous sounds around her own mind.

“Mother?” Lexi asks, clearly confused.

“Don’t tell me you did not hear her decree as you awoke?” His face was contorted with a look of concern and maybe even a little bit of uneasiness.

“I didn’t hear any voice or any decree as you put it.” Lexi responded.

“But how is it possible that Mother didn’t speak to you? Does that mean she didn’t give you a purpose?” Lexi would have shrugged if she had means to do so.

“So, I got no decree, maybe Mother loves me more since she gave me free will? What do you think of that?” While she boasted, inside she felt nothing but an empty cold. Her mother had abandoned her when she was three years old. Left her at that orphanage, she shouldn’t remember that, but she does. As her mind spirals down unpleasant memory lane, the boss man is impaled by a black slid object of some kind. It is thin like a sheet of paper and narrow, but as long as a spear. Blood spills from his mouth as he coughs it up, he tries to get up. Fails and wobbles face down to the ground. Lexi snaps out of her mind, she sees it all she just didn’t fast enough. She shoots up to the ceiling she isn’t fighting the second wave alone, she thinks. She watches a werewolf with a young green haired girl with her arms around its neck claw in stone they descend into the chasm. She must be no older than twelve. The little girl walks over to the boss and touches the strange black spear it shoots up into her hand turning into a fang tattoo that extends all the way from shoulder to fingertip. She has another one just like it on her other arm. Whatever they say to one another Lexi cannot hear. She wishes she could lip read, but she hasn’t spent enough time around people for that to be even a little possible. The two new guests of the dungeon look over the mangled naked bodies. The girl points at one of the men’s genitals and laughs, Lexi didn’t need lip reading to understand that. The werewolf places a clawed hand over his eyes and shakes its head. A rock hits the girl in the head making her stumble, but she keeps on her feet, blood drips from her eyebrow. Bright red. She unleashes bow of the black spears into the boss guy, and he collapses again. The pair exchange a few words, she retrieves her weapons, and the werewolf rips off the guys head. Then they stare at each other in silence for a moment and the girl unleashes both of her black spears into the headless body. The werewolf crushes the head and body loses shape and turns to what can only be described as pink crewing gum that has lost its taste. The flesh drops to the ground the werewolf is left holding the orb, but not for long as it unleashes streaks of lightning. The werewolf lets go of the orb, its fur smoking it reaches into his bag and produces a red crystal, he moves his jaw to say something, but the boss hits him with another dose of lightning, and he falls to the ground. The girl misses with both of her spears, and they are too far for her now, she looks desperate. She screams. This time Lexi can hear it, not only hear it she can feel it she feels like her mid itself is being ripped apart. Run. The only thing she can think to do is run, but she couldn’t move. The pain ripped through her like she was paper. Her vision filled with a brilliant number of colors and then everything went black.

***

“Wake up you damn drunk! What do I pay you for?” shouted Donna, she grabbed Henrick by the horn and lifted his head and scrawny neck up from the hay he was sleeping in. His head was pounding, he had spent his yesterdays wage drinking.

“I’m up, I’m up. Let go of me you bitch.” He said pulling his head and horns free of Donnas grasp. He looked out past her scowling face. The stable was filled with new exotic mounts one of them a damn griffin, eagerly ripping into what looks like half a pig. Henrick groaned and made his way to the corner where he left the tools of his trade last night. As he entered the nearest stall and began to shoveling giant lion shit, he began recalling the strange dream he had. He dreamt he was a woman from a strange other world, who died on her birthday and became a monster in a gate. He continued to shovel shit into a wheelbarrow until it was full. As he passed the griffin the damn thing looked weird its eyes wet with tears.

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“I’d be crying too if I had to be surrounded by all this shit” he chuckled. He pushed the wheelbarrow out of the stable, then to the herbalist who paid him for the shit. Her daughter was a little older than him, and she was darn cute, yet today her smile didn’t seem to affect him the same. Was he getting sick? He returned to the stable just as the griffin let loose a massive fart followed by a spray of yellow shit that painted the wall. It let out a whine, a screech and a groan then it collapsed.

“Thank you, I haven’t cleaned yellow griffin shit yet.” He said to no one. Out of the stable around the corner and up the stairs to the office. He knocks as he enters.

“Hey the griffin just collapsed.”

“What? Why? What did you do?” Donna sneered at him.

“I didn’t do anything, it just shat itself and died.” He said as calmly and as non-defensively as he could.

“Fuck, the owner is gonna be pissed. Any suggestions?” Donna looked worried.

“The pig it was eating, did you get it?” Henrick asked.

“No, why?”

“Then just say that the it’s the pigs fault, the guy paid for a roof for the beast not for feed right?” he hoped he was right.

“No…” she finally answered “boarding and feed.” She looked down at the desk she sat behind.

Henricks vision blurred for a moment his min cloudy as the memories of Lexi mixed with his own.

“Go to Vile Table Inn and fetch the griffins owner, tell her I need to see her.” Lexi heard the words but did not commit them to memory. In one ear and out the other. She shook her head trying to shake the grogginess away. She blinked hard over and over but the brain fog would not lift.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” shouted Donna. Lexi looked up to see a fat woman in a dirty red dress. Donna, she knows her, she’s been working for her for a year now. No not her, Henrick was. Lexi turned around and left the office. Up the wooden stairs she heard Donna say something else but couldn’t make it out. She looked at her hands. Dirty, nails stuffed with dirt and shit. Dry hay like brown hair tied up in a ponytail, horns like a ram. This can’t be happening, she refuses to believe it. She walked across the street and looked at herself in a thick window that barely gave any reflection, but it was enough to see she was in a body of a boy. Henrick is almost fifteen, she knows that, if she thinks about it, she knows the names and faces of everyone he does. The brain fog lightens a little. The dream, she recall his last dream. It was a dream, wasn’t it? Did she really die? What is this then? The after life? Reincarnation maybe? No this doesn’t make sense to her, she begins to walk down the dirt street as she is consumed by her thoughts. What she thinks she knows about reincarnation must be wrong because she isn’t a bug or a tree. What other explanation is there, she remembers her death clearly now, the trash, the slip the chicken wing taste replaced by the taste of blood. She died. Her understanding of this world as simple as it is having taken over the young boys body, it mixes with her own mind, and the fog seems to settle. She takes a deep breath, the smell of beer, sweat and grilled meat fills her nose. Her mouth waters, she is hungry. She looks up at the sign. A carving of a table with hosting a bowl with tongues in it. It’s the Vile Table Inn. She recalls various comments of what or who the tongues belong to. She stares at the sign for a while. A tall, shirtless bald man covered in thick body hair leaves the place and shoves her out of his way grumbling several incoherent words.

“Takes a really big man to shove a girl” she says without thinking. The man turns looks her up and down, frowns then takes a step closer to her his face pockmarked and dirty his breath reeks of rot and beer.

“I don’t see no girl here but if you want, I can make you into one.” He grins his yellow, brown and black teeth. Reaches down and cups her dick and balls in one hand. A shiver runs down her spine and she is filled with fear. He can see it. His smile widens. He towers over her, shit run, why did you say that?! Run you idiot. Her mental barrage of self works. She turns and jolts into the inn without saying a word shutting the door behind her. The inside is lit by candle chandeliers. But it’s still pretty dark inside, the room is filled with smoke, some of it from the cooking some from various patrons smoking. She sits at a free stool at the bar. What the fuck, did she just escape a rape? She shivers.

“What’ll you have?” a handsome man with a neatly trimmed beard asks.

“Wa-ter.” She responds, her voice cracks and she begins to cry.

“I don’t serve water and I don’t need you ruining the happy moods of my patrons boy, get the fuck out!” the man jeers. Lexi doesn’t move, and after two more sobs someone grabs her arm just below the armpit and pulls her off the chair. With in seconds, she is outside and on the ground face down in the dirt. She rolls around on her back. She is in the alley way between the inn and some other building. She turns onto her side, takes the fetal position and cries. This is just too much for her. She cries until her eyes are sore, and she continues past the pain. Eventually she can cry no more for miserable situation. She is too hungry. She thinks where she could get some food, but nowhere is free and Henrick spent all his money on booze. The thought of shoveling shit reminds her of the griffin yellow on the stable wall and she throws up.