Chapter One

“Thou speak'st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.”

- Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

   “I,” the being thought. The rest was darkness. It was a disembodied thought. One piece of a whole. Time passed.

   “I am,” it thought this time. That thought was better. It felt right. But something was still missing. Time passed.

   “I am Puck,” it thought, and it opened its eyes. Awareness flood through the being all at once, giving it a pounding headache. There was a room. A bed. A long dead fire. Bookshelves. Pieces. Things. Doors. A stone table. The earth around the room. It could feel the earth! A worm crawled through the earth. As an instinct, the consciousness that was Puck ate the worm. Its essence rushed into Puck. The headache lessened infinitesimally. Puck shut his eyes again, concentrated, and opened them again. His awareness focused.

   A small creature with two legs, two arms, and delicate wings kneeled on the stone table, fitting fragments of a red gemstone together. A pixie, Puck thought, though how he knew what a pixie was, he had no clue. The stone had the remains strange symbols on it that nagged at Puck’s mind, but were otherwise unfamiliar. There were large cracks in the stone and pieces missing, but it was nearly whole.

   “Hello?” the pixie said to the stone. “Are you there? Please be there.” Its hands glowed as it used some kind of ability on the crystal. Two of the pieces fused together, but left a small fissure where some of the mass was missing.

   “Hello? Dungeon?” the pixie pleaded. After no answer came, the pixie broke down sobbing on the stone.

   “Who are you talking to?” asked Puck, irritated. The pixie’s sobs were not helping his headache.

   The startled pixie shot into the air and whirled. “Who said that?”

   Puck stepped out from behind one of the pillars. “I am Puck. I am. . .” he trailed off. He didn’t know anything else.

   The pixie stared at him. “You’re a ghost!” It flew back ten feet.

   Puck shrugged. With a thought that felt natural, he decided he wanted to be sitting on the table, and was only slightly surprised when a moment later he actually was. He didn’t sink through, which made him feel rather unghostlike.

   “What I am is someone with a headache. Now who are you, why are you talking to yourself, and what are you doing in this place?” Puck distinctly felt that this room and the space around it was his and that this lesser fae was an outsider. Lesser fae? He shook his head clear. It didn’t work.

   The pixie looked at him strangely. Then it bent its neck and looked closer. Puck felt a little strange, like it was looking through him. He looked at his hands. They were decidedly spectral. Translucent. He could vaguely see his legs, and the table through them. Maybe the pixie is looking through me, he thought.

   “Are you the dungeon?” the pixie asked.

   “Do I look like a dungeon?” Puck asked. He looked closer at the pixie. In spite of the darkness, he had no problems making out its features. It was male, with brown hair and skin the tone and texture of cracked earth. It had the wings of a moth, soft and furry, with markings that looked like the eyes of some kind of creature.

   “No,” the pixie replied. Its shoulders sagged in disappointment.

   “Are you going to answer my questions?”

   “I am Dixon. A dungeon pixie. I came here to bond with the dungeon.”

   “Well, I fear there is no dungeon here. You can leave now.”

   A strange image appeared in the back of Puck’s consciousness. It looked like a scroll. He tried to look at it. It read:

   You wish to deny the bond with Dixon? This decision is final. Yes/No?

  Puck blinked. That was weird. Of course he wished to deny the bond. Yes. He wasn’t bonding with some strange pixie trespassing in his home. Dixon looked off to the side for a moment, then stared at him with huge eyes.

  “What did you just do? NO! HOW?” Dixon cried out.

  Puck winced, the sound made his headache worse. Also, he could suddenly sense the foreign presence of the pixie within himself, not just visually. The sensation was disconcerting, as he could clearly see the pixie hovering a distance away. “If you don’t start talking now, I will haunt you and turn your life into a living hell. I will scream when you lay your head down to sleep, cause your skin to itch, your hair to fall, and other torments fell,” he growled. Another scroll appeared.

   You have vowed to torment Dixon until you are satisfied with the answers to his questions. Are you sure? Yes/No?

   What was this thing? Puck shook his head again in confusion but nodded to the question on the scroll. It faded away.

  “Why would you do that?” the pixie screamed at him. “What did I ever do to you?”

   Puck’s headache raged. He yelled at Dixon. “Enough of all your empty headed talk. Let your tongue be silent or be forced to walk.”

   Power surged from Puck and into the pixie. The tiny creature opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. At nearly the same moment, his wings froze in place and he dropped to the ground with a thump. Puck would have laughed, but he was astounded. How had that happened? Then his headache grew exponentially and everything went dark again.

  Something passed through Puck’s cheek. He swatted at it, but came into contact with nothing. A second later, something passed through his cheek again. He opened his eyes to discover he was lying on the floor. Directly in front of him was a very angry looking pixie wielding a charred twig.

   “What?” Puck asked. The headache had faded.

   The pixie, Dixon, he remembered, said something, but no sound came out.

   “What?” Puck asked again. Dixon shoved the stick through Puck’s eye. The sensation was disconcerting, but not painful. The pixie pointed at his own throat with his free hand, then at Puck.

   “Oh,” the spirit said as he remembered earlier events. He sat up. “You have my permission to speak.”

   “What kind of monster are you?” Dixon screamed.

   “I can change my mind,” Puck pointed out.

   The pixie calmed himself with noticeable effort. “What. Are. You?” he asked.

   “I don’t know,” Puck asked more than stated.

   “Just look, you idiot!” Dixon shouted.

   Puck glared at the pixie, but denied his urge to shut the tiny creature up again. “What do you mean, look?” he asked.

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   “Oh, for the love of Oberon. Just think about looking at your dungeon scroll,” the pixie huffed in frustration.

   “Dungeon scroll?” Puck asked aloud. Another scroll appeared in his consciousness.

Name: Puck Level: 1 Classification: Fae Dungeon

Bonds: 0 Creatures: 0 Rooms: 2

Abilities: Command Lesser Fae Treasure: None

   “What in the hells is a fae dungeon? What in the hells is this scroll?”

   “A fae dungeon?” Dixon asked. “That’s impossible.”

   “That’s what the bloody thing says. Level 1. Fae dungeon. Zero bonds. Zero Creatures. Two rooms. No treasure.” He left the ability out intentionally. It was fairly obvious anyway.

   The pixie was staring at him again, which irritated him.

   “What?” Puck grumbled.

   “How are you not in a dungeon stone?” Dixon mused.

   The fae spirit stood up angrily. He towered over the pixie at five times its six inch height. Dixon jumped back as if to fly away, but his wings still didn’t work so he fell on his butt. He caught himself with his hands before he went over on his back.

   Puck laughed cruelly and cursed the little fae again. “When comfort lulls with its gentle best, may merciless Puck’s pinches haunt your rest.” Magic surged in the room again, but this time caused no headache. Dixon jumped to his feet with a cry.

   “How? No, sorry.” The pixie stopped himself.

   “Answers. What are you doing in my home?” Puck demanded.

   “First,” the tiny creature began resentfully, “You ARE your home. You should be able to feel the area around your, uh. . . stone. . . as if it was a part of you.”

   “I can feel this entire room,” Puck stated. “And I am not a stone.”

   “The entire room? But you’re a newborn dungeon. Level 1.” The pixie paused to think. “Do you remember anything from before?”

   “Before what? I remember waking up, seeing you talking to yourself. . .” A vague memory interrupted Puck’s train of thought. Spinning. A pull. An explosion. Darkness. He said as much to Dixon.

   “The explosion must have done it! It must have directed the channeled magical energy into your spirit and the walls.” The pixie flapped his wings excitedly. His face fell as the curse binding them kept him from flying. “Are you going to let me go?” he asked Puck.

   “When I’m done with you. Maybe.” Puck smirked.

   Dixon sighed and sat down on the floor. He hadn’t been seated for long when he jerked in surprise as invisible fingers pinched him. “Who are you?” he asked again, almost rhetorically.

   “Puck.” Puck said again.

   “Puck is a famous member of the Fae Court who has been dead for 500 years. You can’t be. . .” The pixie’s jaw dropped. “Great Oberon! You must be THE Puck. Robin Goodfellow. This is what happened to you. You became a dungeon!”

   “Sure. I am a the spirit of a dead fae who became a dungeon. What does that even mean, sprite?”

   “If you had bonded with me, I could have helped you.” Dixon said stubbornly. “But now, we’re both screwed.”

   “You’re going to help me anyway, if you ever want to fly again,” the spirit said.

   “If I don’t bond with a dungeon soon, I will starve to death. The only unbonded dungeon in the region refused the bond.” Dixon’s eyes shined with accusation.

   Puck shrugged. He hadn’t known any better, and still didn’t think he needed the pixie’s help. He was a spirit, and didn’t think anything could touch him. Certainly the pixie’s stick had gone right through his incorporeal form. The pixie’s hunger issues weren’t his concern.

   “So eat a mushroom. There are a few growing in the corner.”

   The pixie looked at him mind-boggled, while shifting from side to side to keep from being pinched. “Dungeon pixies can’t eat. We exist in a symbiotic relationship with dungeons, feeding off excess mana from our bonded dungeon.”

   Puck ignored the information. “What exactly is a dungeon? You haven’t answered me yet, and I’m running out of curses.”

   “A dungeon is a sentient arcane intelligence, or A.I. usually bound to a dungeon stone, capable of changing the environment within its zone of influence through the innate use of magic. It can absorb creatures to grow stronger, then recreate them via magical means in order to protect itself. It can also absorb and create treasure.”

   “Can dungeons cast spells?” Puck asked.

   “I would have said no, before you did it. Creatures the dungeon creates sometimes can. Traps created by the dungeon can recreate certain spell effects. But you’re also the only dungeon in existence that isn’t bound to its stone. The only fae dungeon in history and the only dungeon I’ve ever heard of created from a sentient soul. So who knows what your rules are.”

   “If I can absorb items, why don’t I have any treasure? There are a lot of things in this room,” the dungeon pointed out.

   The pixie shrugged, stood and started to pace back and forth. “Have you tried?”

   “How do I do that?”

  “Just focus on the object you want to absorb. That should be enough.”

  Puck remembered the worm he had consumed as he awoke and imagined it was probably similar. But what to absorb? He looked around his room. A pair of black iron manacles rested on the floor, causing a minor itch in his consciousness as he became aware of them. A huge bed took up part of the room, with bookshelves and various items on them. A tome sat on the table next to him. Other than a lot of dust, everything seemed well preserved for having been there at least 500 years. He looked at the book. It was written in a combination of runes and a strange language he didn’t know. He decided to try the book. Puck concentrated on its presence in his awareness. It loomed large in his mind as he attempted to consume it like he had the worm. Its edges blurred. A scroll appeared in the back of his consciousness.

Ancient Spellbook: Because this item was affected by the spell that bound your soul to the dungeon, it is a unique part of you and cannot be absorbed. It will, however, allow you to use runes and learn one school of magic from its pages. Would you like to do so now? Yes/no?

   Puck nodded yes. The words faded and new ones appeared.

You may learn one of the following schools of magic from the Ancient Spellbook: Illusion or Summoning. Which do you choose?

   Illusion. Puck answered so fast he didn’t have time to think about it or weigh the decision. The scroll changed again.

You have gained the ability [Illusion I]. You have learned the spell [Glamour].

   Puck smiled as the scroll faded. This was perfect. It felt right. He looked at his Dungeon Scroll again.

Name: Puck Level: 1 Classification: Fae Dungeon

Bonds: 0 Creatures: 0 Rooms: 1

Abilities: Command Lesser Fae, Illusion I

Spells: Glamour

Treasure: None

   “Did it work?” Dixon’s voice asked, breaking Puck’s concentration.

   The taller sprite looked at the pixie and shook his head. “No. Apparently it’s considered a permanent part of me. ” He chose not to tell him about the spell. Curiosity got the better of him and he focused on Dixon and tried to absorb him. A scroll appeared.

You cannot absorb living or unliving sentients without their consent.

   Puck shrugged, his curiosity sated. He looked around the room and decided to try to absorb something else. Hmm. Maybe the bed. His brow furrowed as he concentrated on “eating” the bed. As he watched, it crumbled into dust, and the dust faded away. A new scroll read:

You have gained Noble’s Mahogany Bed (200 lbs.) as Treasure. You can now include this in drops from your Monsters. It is too big to be included in Chests.

   “Dixon, what is this about monsters and chests?” he asked the pixie, who paced from one side to the next on the floor. Dixon’s back was turned and as he looked over his shoulder to reply to Puck, he unwittingly walked into the strange circle on the floor. “Oh. You can use your mana to create. . .” he began as he turned around and ran into an invisible wall at the edge of the markings. “What the. . .” The tiny sprite raised his hands and pressed against the invisible force. “What did you do? What did I do to deserve this?” he yelled as he slammed his fists against the walls of his prison.

   “Umm.” Puck started. “What did YOU do? I was busy turning a bed into a treasure.”

   Dixon looked down at the symbols and sighed then jumped as Puck’s curse pinched him again. “I walked into an active binding circle. A 500 year old active binding circle.” He read some of the runes. “A 500 year old active binding circle specifically tuned to holding live fae.” He shook his head in frustration and sadness. “I guess we know what happened to you, now.” He peered at the cold iron manacles lying on the floor in the circle nearby and sighed again. “This is officially my worst nightmare.”

   Puck laughed.