Kerson Road Dungeon: Enter Y/n?

Dale felt his heart skip a beat when the message popped up. That’s where his kids’ mother lived. He could even see the house from where he was standing at the start of Kerson Road.

Dale stumbled into a run around the edge of the Dungeon. The strange wall wasn’t visible, but it kept him out.

“They were safe! They were fucking safe, god damnit!” Dale screamed following the edge of the dungeon wall until he was past his ex’s house.

The kobolds and humans with Dale stared at him. Some looked perplexed, others looked morose.

“We hunt?” Xilbit called out to Dale, holding his spear up in question.

Dale was about to answer but held himself back. He made it back to the group and was breathing hard until he started to get his body back under control. Steven, Mary, and Anna were all watching his every move.

Dale smiled at Anna then offered a sober look to Steven and Mary. “I can’t ask you to go in with me. You’ve got your own to protect.” Steven nodded and Dale turned to Xilbit.

“This is a dungeon, so it won’t be easy. Some of us might not come back out. Is that a risk you’re willing to commit all your people to?” Dale asked him.

Xilbit reached a claw up and scratched at his snout for a moment. He looked back at his group of kobolds. Something had slowly been happening to them throughout the journey. Where once they were skittish and afraid of everything, now spines were straighter, and tails weren’t whipping around in confused fear.

“We hunt?” He called to them, his tight, high voice demanding.

“We hunt!” They called back to him.

Xilbit turned to Dale. “We hunt.”

Steven, Mary, and Anna watched the rest as they all put their hands against the strange invisible barrier. Then, one by one, each disappeared into the strange dungeon.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dale had his spear at the ready when he appeared on the other side of the barrier. Each kobold rapidly showed up at his side. They all moved forward when the last kobold entered.

Massive piles of cars blocked their view of the rest of the street. Dale tried door handles, but they wouldn’t even budge. He was reminded of video games where it looked like there was this whole other part to explore but due to time constraints had been sealed away. The windows of the cars clearly showed everything inside. Some were packed with supplies while others were empty of everything and cleaned.

The maze wall of stacked cars didn’t offer any spaces small enough for Dale to get through. They were small enough for kobolds.

“Xilbit, could you see if you can fit through that hole there between the cars?” Dale asked him.

Xilbit nodded and passed his spear to one of the others. It took only seconds for him to learn that the spaces had barriers up just as impervious as the one that protected the dungeon.

“Junk maze.” Dale murmured to himself and continued walking down the corridor of cars.

A weird motor noise informed him something was around the next corner. Dale crept up and peeked around the wall. A weird machine that looked sort of like a gremlin with wheels for hands and feet was pacing back and forth along the corridor. The engine noise seemed to be coming from the place where the wheels were.

Dale waited until the thing was turning to head back away from him. He leapt out and stabbed with his spear. There was a screech like metal grinding against metal. Red liquid, definitely not blood, squirted from the back of the gremlin.

The smell hit Dale and he remembered growing up around a mechanic. Transmission fluid?

Dale wrenched the spear back out and then stabbed it into the back of the gremlin’s skull. Or tried to. A clank and screech told him a hardened metal shell protected the brain or whatever may pass for a brain.

The wheeled gremlin was trying to get away and making squeaking and honking noises like a machine. Dale stabbed into its hunched back again. Then he stabbed it a third time. Finally, the wheels stopped, and the gremlin wheezed out a last sad whine before lying still in seeming death.

Blackened oil and dark fluids leaked into a puddle beneath the creature. Dale reached down and looted it. Eight copper and a small leather and machine bag that it took a moment to identify. It was a mechanized heart. There wasn’t much of a description when he tried identifying further details. Just that it carried a spark. What spark or what the spark was, was left out of the description.

Now, he could hear loud engine noises and metal scraping against metal. Squeaks from unlubricated wheels permeated the maze.

Dale gripped his spear tighter and continued forward. Xilbit was close behind and Ichnick was mumbling a spell under his breath while they came to the next bend in the corridor.