There was no stopping the letters. No matter how many Spok managed to destroy another one would emerge from thin air. For all intents and purposes the count’s house had been thoroughly infected. The only thing the spirit guide could do was close all doors, shutter all windows, and light up every fireplace to prevent letters from leaking into the rest of the town. It would have been a lot easier if the building belonged to the dungeon. Sadly, that was beyond her control.

“Spok,” Theo said from her necklace.

“As I said, I’m not aware of any unique entity that has both abilities you mentioned,” Spok said in the level voice of an overworked secretary, while snatching another cursed letter from the air.

“It’s not that. I just got a letter.”

“You did, sir? That’s rather surprising. Mage towers don’t usually respond that fast unless it’s about money.”

“Not that kind of letter,” the dungeon grumbled. “One of the cursed ones.”

For an instant of a second, Spok froze.

“Oh dear,” she said.

“Does that mean I’m infected?”

“That’s difficult to say, sir. Did you open the letter?”

“I’m not an idiot!” Theo resented the question. Not opening suspicious letters was a key part of his previous life. Back then, the letters were electronic, but the same principle held.

The moment the letter had appeared in his main body, the dungeon had instantly used telekinesis to keep it in the air, avoiding any and all contact. What was more, he had created an aether sphere around it in an attempt to quarantine the dangerous object.

“The letter’s in the air. Will anything happen if I zap it?”

“Just a moment, sir.” Spok rushed out of the count’s house, closing the door firmly behind her. “I’ll be with you right away.”

In a hastened pace, the spirit guide made her way to the first pavement tile that was part of the dungeon. The moment her foot came in contact, she instantly disappeared, reappearing in the baron’s mansion.

Things were just as the dungeon had said. The letter was within an aether sphere, floating a foot from the ground, and almost as much from the outer door.

“It didn’t come into contact with me, so I should be fine, right?” Theo asked with measured concern.

“I believe so, sir.” Spok nodded. “The curse should only activate once you read its contents, but refraining from touching it is a wise precaution.” She didn’t feel the need to remind him that she had come into contact with hundreds of letters up to this point. “Burning it should be fine.”

Immediately, large electric sparks filled the aether sphere, turning the letter to cinders.

“I used blessed lightning, just in case,” Theo felt the need to explain.

“Wonderful idea, sir.”

“How the heck did it get here?! I haven’t even touched the abomination, yet!”

“Sir…” Spok adjusted her glasses. “You’re in a cursed estate and by your own admission have come into contact with several curses so far. It is safe to assume that one of those curses determined your location.”

“Curses can do that?!”

“Depends on the curse, sir, but yes. How would curses know what to affect otherwise? I believe there are spells to protect from that, but they aren’t native dungeon abilities. You’ll have to ask a mage tower for details.”

“What? So anyone can curse me and there’s nothing I can do about it?! Why was this allowed?! You know more spells than I can remember and not one of them can stop cursed—”

“Dungeons are immune to curses, sir.” The woman gently popped the aether sphere. Her own telekinesis was working at full strength now, so she collected the ashes—to keep the room clean, rather than anything else. “And there’s no obvious protection against abominations other than defeating them.”

Theo, however, was no longer listening. Having a letter appear in his main body had stressed him out more than anything his avatar was facing. There was also the matter of Spok not being fully aware of matters. For one thing, she was clueless regarding his devastating hunger.

The shutters of the building creaked in a sigh. Theo really didn’t want to resort to the advice of Switches, but it seemed that he didn’t have much of a choice. It was difficult enough to ignore the gnome, when the same had continuously increased the size of his “workshop” within the dungeon’s body. The annoying thing was that the gnome seemed to know exactly how much to ask for without attracting any attention. A small room here, just one more device there… bit by bit the workshop had grown to ten times its original size. Ever since their last conversation Cmyk had been dragging parts of the fallen airship to the dungeon. At present, there were more of them in there than outside in the field.

Just as Switches was in the process of modifying a goblin glider, Theo raised the floor beneath him. A makeshift elevator propelled the gnome all the way up until, seconds later, he found himself in the parlor of the baron’s mansion.

“Switches!” Theo’s voice boomed without the slightest notion of an apology. “What do you know about cursed letters?”

“Cursed letters?” The gnome’s ears twitched. “Umm… They are cursed. And made of paper?” His glance moved from Spok to the opposing wall. “You want me to make you some?” It wasn’t something the gnome usually did, but for the sake of his job and his dungeon lab, he was willing to give it a go.

“Why’d I want that?!” Several doors opened and slammed. “Will any of them affect me?”

“Oh.” Switched waved his hand in relief. “Of course not. You’re a dungeon.”

Normally, the conversation should have ended there. The creaking of the floor, though, made it clear that wasn’t the answer the dungeon was expecting.

“You’re quite safe, sir.” Spok crossed her arms, marginally annoyed that the dungeon was looking down on her. “It’s only the inhabitants of the Rosewind that should be concerned.”

“I didn’t say I felt unsafe,” the dungeon lied in the most obvious fashion. “I just…” his voice trailed off.

He had been so busy worrying about one thing that he had completely overlooked a far greater problem. The entire reason he had set out to destroy the abomination as quickly as possible was so that Rosewind wouldn’t be infected. Now, that was precisely what was happening.

“Spok,” he said again, his voice calm and perfectly level. “Count Alvare was never in the dungeon,” he said. “How come he was affected?”

“Zombie letters have a tendency to spread quickly, sir,” the spirit guide replied. “With most of your group coming from the same place, I expect the location of the town had been revealed.”

“You said everyone in the cursed estate could have revealed the location of their homes,” the dungeon continued its thought process.

Since neither the baroness, Marquis Dott, nor Count Alvare had been in the dungeon, it was entirely possible that they weren’t patient zero. On the other hand, there was someone else who had a far more important role; someone who, if infected, could easily have spread letters to every other noble in town, and quite a few beyond—Earl Rosewind himself. And, it so happened that the earl’s son had also set foot in the cursed estate.

“The earl!” Theo’s voice filled the entire building. “Spok—”

“On it.” The spirit guide vanished, reappearing some fifty feet from the earl’s castle.

“Switches, how long till you finish?”

“Soon, soon.” The gnome nodded multiple times. “I’m just in the process of—”

“You have full access to anything except my core chamber,” Theo interrupted. “Finish what you got and send it to where I am. The Lionmane guildmaster knows where that is.”

Before the gnome could even comment, the floor beneath him descended, taking him back to the bowels of the dungeon.

This wasn’t good. The worst had already happened. Theo’s only hope was that Amelia’s father could also have gotten a few zombie letters of his own. Since he was more important than Earl Rosewind, any group of heroes would be dispatched there first. That gave the dungeon a bit more time.

While the chaos in Rosewind was building up, the dungeon’s avatar continued his fight with the skeletal amalgamation. The entity had learned quite a lot of his and Liandra’s tricks. It knew not to attack until the aether sphere’s invulnerability had passed, and had also developed an immunity to fire. Occasionally, Liandra would cut off a limb or appendage, only to have the monocle summon a new group of skeletal husks that quickly merged with the butler, restoring it to full health.

Placing his hand against the floor, Theo used his dungeon skill to create a massive chamber around the red skeleton.

Crimson strands shot out from the amalgamation’s body, attaching themselves to the walls.

“Your repertoire has gotten stale, old boy,” Count Alvera—or rather, the monocle controlling him—sneered from a safe distance away. “You’ll have to do much better than that to—”

Stone spikes shot out from all surfaces of the chamber, transforming the butler into a reverse porcupine.

YOU FEEL DEVASTATING HUNGER!

YOU NEED TO CONSUME A MONSTER CORE!

FAILING TO DO SO IN ONE HOUR WILL HALVE YOUR CURRENT ENERGY!

The all but forgotten reminder appeared in the dungeon’s main body.

“I know, I know,” Theo grumbled. It wasn’t as if he could forget.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Careful.” Liandra raised her sword. “It’s not over.”

In the center of the newly created chamber, the massive amalgamation broke up into pieces. Each piece quickly transformed into a smaller skeletal entity. Skeletal husks, skeletal worms, even skeletal insects moved about between the stone spikes.

“Predictable,” the monocle sighed as the skeletal entities quickly moved together, reconstructing the massive amalgamation. “I would have thought that after piquing mother’s interest, you’d come up with something more interesting. Alas, life is full of disappointments. I would know—my wife collects them and makes them into puppets. In a way, I should be thanking you. Once this is over, I’ll ask mother to let me have you for my hew puppet. As for my wife—” the count switched his focus onto Liandra “—she’s been wanting to get a hero for a while. One must admit that heroines are rather rare. Then again, now that mother is free, I’m sure we’ll have a large selection to choose from.”

A dagger split the air, aiming for the monocle. A torrent of blood flew up from the amalgamation, causing the weapon to bounce off, like metal hitting granite.

“That was rather sneaky.” Bones fragments grew out of the count’s face as the monocle spoke, surrounding it completely. “Not very hero-like I’d say. It would be a shame if you were to take the life of a perfectly good noble, don’t you think?”

This was a difficult situation. One strike on Liandra’s part and she could dispatch both the red skeleton and the monocle. Doing so, though, would deprive them from the only means of destroying the abomination, not to mention put a man’s life at risk.

“Coward!” With a hint of annoyance, the avatar retracted the spikes into the walls.

The skeleton didn’t react, allowing itself to fall to the floor of the chamber with a bang. Cracks emerged on the solid stone surface.

The dungeon considered creating an ice elemental. There was no doubt in his mind that such a creature would easily defeat the red skeleton. Yet, once that was done, the avatar and Liandra would have to defeat it.

He could try to entangle it, but that would only cause the being to disassemble and assemble again. Although…

“Stay here,” the avatar told Liandra. “I want to try something.”

Stepping off the edge of the corridor, the baron floated into the large chamber. The area extended a hundred feet in all directions, acting as a cube of space within the underground tunnel network. The only source of light came from the side corridors above and the few flickering flames that danced on the red skeleton.

“Finally decided to get serious?” Marquis Leveek asked. As he did, blood formed around the count’s head, forming a crimson helmet. “Don’t think you can snatch me away this time. As I said, I have carefully examined your method of fighting. There’s nothing you could surprise me with.”

“Even what I learned from Memoria’s tomb?” the avatar asked.

This was a bluff, of course. None of the new skills were remotely useful. That wasn’t Theo’s plan. It was already clear that if he didn’t defeat the abomination and all other minions, he wouldn’t survive until tomorrow. Thus, there was no point in economizing energy. Instead, he intended to raise some abilities to their maximum, so that he could be ready for the real battle.

“And what have you learned?”

Being a believer that showing was better than telling, Theo had his avatar use the same ability in immediate succession.

Aether threads bound the skeleton’s legs together. The avatar didn’t stop there, as thousands more emerged, wrapping the target like a cocoon. Given the amount of mana used, any sane person would have stopped at this point. Theo didn’t. All his efforts so far had only raised his entangle skill to three. If Spok were here, she’d probably make a comment that the ability wasn’t supposed to be used that way, and she’d be right. Yet as long as it worked, the dungeon didn’t care.

When the ability finally reached level four, the avatar stopped. Boosting skills was one thing, but depleting all his energy wasn’t an entirely different matter. Plus, from the looks of it, he had neutralized the bone amalgamation, transforming it into a ball of aether twine.

“Lia,” the avatar turned around. “I think we’re done.”

“Are you sure?” the heroine asked.

“Very funny.” The baron grumbled.

The avatar was about to say more when a series of crimson strands emerged from the ball, increasing in length. Several of them pierced the avatar’s torso. Thankfully, the dimness of the chamber prevented the heroine from seeing how bad it really was.

Oh, that’s what you meant, Theo thought.

Liandra wasn’t being sarcastic, but rather concerned.

Without wasting a second, the woman leaped down into the wider chamber. Blood threads darted her direction in an attempt to skewer her as they had the baron. A series of slashes was more than enough to slice up the strands, causing their ends to evaporate.

A low glow surrounded the sword, made visible in the darkness. As Liandra flew towards the ground, more clusters of blood shot out. More skeletons emerged, charging at the heroine. All of them were equipped with large bone shields and daggers. Their actions were a lot faster than expected. Like cockroaches in the dark, they moved in unison, rushing to the spot that Liandra would fall to.

The legendary sword split the air moments before that could happen, cutting bone as if it were soft butter. Bone fragments of half a dozen skeletons fell to the ground. The rest charged on. Knowing no fear or hesitation three swung their shields at the heroine.

In the blink of an eye, Liandra sliced off their arms, leaving the bone shields to fly past.

“Can you move?” she asked.

“More or less,” the dungeon’s avatar replied.

The nature of the attack had put him in a compromising situation. If he were to be too active, there was the risk that Liandra might suspect something. If he acted too weak, she might try to check his condition, which was just as bad. What he needed was a distraction, and as every person under pressure knew, there was only one distraction that always worked.

“Look out behind you!” the baron shouted, just in time to hopefully prevent her from noticing the new burst of blood threads that pierced him.

The odds of her looking back were one in a thousand, and yet the heroine did just that… only to notice a new skeletal amalgamation assemble right in front of her.

Throwing back all the shield skeletons with a spin attack, Liandra performed a chop attack on the new creature. Before she could hit it, the skeletal entity blocked with a massive crimson sword. The heroine’s attack was strong enough to cause the blood sword to explode, yet lost too much of its momentum in the process. The direction of the attack was diverted, striking the shoulder of the massive creature instead of its head.

As the skeletal arm detached, multiple skeleton upper-torsos emerged from it, reaching out to reattach it. Unwilling to grant it the opportunity, Liandra struck the arm, sending it flying to the far side of the chamber.

“Not bad,” Count Alvare clapped from the corridor above. “It seems you’re the genuine article. You’ll be splendid as the centerpiece of my wife’s new collection.”

“Why don’t you come down here and face me yourself?” Liandra asked, keeping her distance from the amalgamation.

“Really?” The monocle laughed. “Why would I do that? The beauty of dabbling in necromancy is that I can summon others a lot more suitable for the job.”

If Theo could use the full extent of his dungeon powers, the annoying little speck of waste would have seen what it means to summon entities. The griffins and slimes that had emerged in Rosewind were all the result of two structures that the dungeon had created. If he wanted, he could create an army in the tens of thousands, even more. It was the maintenance that caused issues. That was one of the reasons that dungeons were constantly in need of resources and magic. It was all one vicious circle: the more minions a dungeon had, the more minions they needed to obtain the resources necessary for their upkeep.

Hold on, Theo thought. Where did the monocle get his energy from? Even if skeletons were low cost, low maintenance, the monocle had been using too many of them in the last few minutes. The number wouldn’t be a problem for a dungeon, yet anyone else would have long depleted his mana.

Surrounding himself with a shield of ice, he then quickly used several blessings to evaporate all the blood strands that had pierced him. That done, he cast a flight spell on the ice shield, sending it flying in the direction of the count.

Barely had it passed ten feet when the chunk of ice was smashed with one hit. A new skeletal amalgamation had emerged on the scene. Thin threads of blood trickled from the ball of aether threads on the floor to the new skeleton, slowly covering it up from the feet up. Before everyone’s eyes, a new monstrosity formed.

“Maybe I forgot to mention that mother increased my allowance,” the monocle said gleefully. “I can summon several butlers now.”

“That’s good,” the avatar said, creating a sword-shaped shard of ice.

“Good?”

“It gives me a lot to train on.”

Casting several swiftness spells on himself, the avatar then cast two sets of entanglement on each of the amalgamations.

They better drop a serious core, Theo said to himself.

Aether threads surrounded the monsters like nets, quickly entangling them to the point that they couldn’t move. Blood strands—the only part of the butlers that could move unrestricted—shot out in an attempt to stop the baron, but Liandra was already on guard. In this classical pattern of swords and sorcery, she had become the shield for the baron’s magic attacks.

“Interesting approach,” Count Alvera mused. “Very original, though futile.”

“Then why don’t you summon a few more?” the dungeon avatar grunted. “Out of mana?”

“Mother can give me more mana than you could possibly imagine. I just don’t feel like wasting it. Especially since you’re the one in trouble. Mother’s blood doesn’t require mana, and neither do the butlers I’ve already summoned. You, on the other hand, must constantly maintain your entangle spell. Who do you think will last longer?”

“Who says I need to maintain it?” Theo asked.

That was false, of course. The avatar could escape the fight at any point. It would be at least minutes before the effects of the spell were undone. Already there were more than enough threads to keep the butler trio immobilized for a while. The whole point was for him to gain the core points from assimilating the three cores that the monocle had so generously provided. Once that was done, he could—

Without warning, a loud screech filled the corridors. It was immediately followed by the flapping of wings. All attention focused on the corridor behind, only to see a griffin emerge at an impressive speed. On closer examination, a rider could be seen on its back, holding tightly to the creature for dear life. The sight was so shockingly absurd that no one could look away, mesmerized at the ludicrousness.

Everyone observed the griffin and rider fly straight towards Count Alvera. The rider drew a sword and slashed the air. Bolts of lightning shot out, heading through the chamber until they struck the count. A high-pitched scream filled the air as the unfortunate noble shook violently for several seconds before collapsing to the floor.

All blood strands in the large chamber suddenly liquified, falling to the ground.

“Mother, no!” the monocle shouted as his crimson layer of protection dripped off. “It wasn’t a fair fight! He wasn’t supposed to get reinforcements!”

Skeletons emerged from the ground beneath Count Alvera, wrapping him in a cage of bone.

“This doesn’t count! It wasn’t supposed to happen!” the monocle shouted, the bone cage sprang dozens of feet. “You’re cheating! Mark my words! Mother will get you for this!” It rushed down the corridor at impressive speed.

“Damnit!” the avatar muttered beneath his breath.

“Avid?” Liandra asked, looking at the griffin rider. “What are you doing here?”

Flying into the large chamber, the griffin made a few circles to enjoy its newly found freedom of space, then swooped down, landing a few steps away from the baron and Liandra. Pleased with itself, the creature puffed its chest in pride. On its back, Avid slowly put his sword away.

“Did you just zap Count Alvera?” the avatar asked in a seemingly calm tone.

Avid nodded.

“When we came across Baroness Elderion, we knew there was no point in going back,” the young noble said. “Heading to help you was the only choice.”

“Only choice?” Theo did his utmost to remain calm. “We told you that you had to stay there and look after yourself until we dealt with this. You’ve seen how crap you are in fighting! What did you think you could achieve on your own?”

“Octavian doesn’t like others on his back… Also, they had to stay back and keep the brainwashed from escaping the treasury.”

“Treasury?” The word caught Theo’s attention. “What treasury?”

“We found the treasury. It was full of everything. Magical artifacts, weapons, scrolls… We started arming ourselves when the baroness appeared out of nowhere, along with others from Rosewind.”

That was the first morsel of good news that Theo had heard since starting this mission. Apparently, the ruby ring had told the truth. There really was a treasury, and it contained its fair share of magical items, probably more, since the occupants of the castle were necromancers.

“Lia, give him your hero scroll. And you,” he turned back to Avid, “I want you to find Ulf and Amelia, then go back inside.”

“That’s a bad idea.” Liandra shook her head.

“The treasury contains the family’s greatest treasures,” the avatar looked at her. “It’s out of the way, so he’ll be a lot safer than coming with us. Also, if I’m right, there’ll be at least one mana gem there.” Or at least he very much hoped so.

“I’m not sure.” The heroine hesitated. “It might be dangerous.”

“It’s a treasury! What could possibly happen?” The avatar asked. “Meanwhile, we’ll—”

The discussion was interrupted by a series of loud crunching sounds. For no apparent reason, all three cocooned skeletons were crushed by an invisible force, causing the aether threads around them to fall flat to the ground like a deflated balloon. Blood trickled from two of them, transforming into a crimson carpet that continued straight up the chamber’s wall and into the corridor ahead.

Someone had just sent the group an invitation.