DUNGEON FILE 012:
YOU HAD ONE JOB
Feeling significantly better equipped, marginally safer, and only slightly absurd, I abandoned my makeshift workshop.
Carefully gathering the remaining harvested flowers and mushrooms, I stuffed them into my pockets and a satchel fashioned from more dress scraps.
Maybe I can make a living down here, I mused, skipping lightly along the ruined corridor, finally feeling confident enough to search for an exit:
Mushroom Merchant Aya! Purveyor of fine fungi and questionable fashion! I'll corner the market!
Then I'll never have to fight anything scarier than a shrimp again!!
I was reasonably sure I knew the way out of this specific corridor now, even if I didn't know where 'out' led apart from more ruins.
At least the [Sanctuary] had to be in the opposite direction from this creepy castle. Progress! Until…
Thud.
Thud.
My skipping came to an abrupt halt. My head snapped up. What was that? It sounded heavy.
The sound scraped along the flagstones, closer now, mixed with something else… a faint, metal dragging noise that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Scrapescrapecrape…
My hand flew to my hip—empty!
Right. The sword. My eyes darted to the Parry beside me. "Uh, Party?" I whispered urgently. "Give that back? Please?" The crab-thing just burbled softly, unmoving.
Useless!
Then, a voice slithered out from around the corner, high-pitched and almost lilting with a strange, drawling accent—I might recognize it as vaguely Northern Silver-born.
"Heeeelloooo~? Ooooh? Whatcha got there, then? A little lost sweetling, wanderin' all alone in the dark?"
It was a woman's voice, almost human, but fundamentally wrong; like something was wearing a person's voice like ill-fitting clothes.
Could she be a Hunter…? Though I can't say her words sounded directly malicious, there was a strong vibe of something being just… not right.
"Show yourself, if you would!" I demanded. My voice cracked slightly. "Who is speaking?"
A figure leaned casually around the edge of the broken archway leading into the side passage. Just leaned, almost coquettishly.
All I could see at first was an elegantly braided fall of stark white hair, catching the dim light like spun moonlight, and a gauntleted hand resting on the crumbling stone.
She was tall, gaunt, clad in what looked like ancient, ornate purple-hued plate armor.
Rusted pauldrons seemed fused directly into pale, sagging flesh. A dented chestplate was cracked open, revealing not chainmail or padding beneath, but glimpses of a completely exposed breast glimmering with bright purple veins. That's odd.
Isn't the curse supposed to regenerate someone completely? What was wrong with her body that made it look so damaged?
"Oh hey! Just little ol' me, sweetling!" She chirped, cheerful yet somehow grating. "No need to be frightened!"
What the hell is she? Human? No. Undead? Maybe? Possessed? Definitely felt like it.
That wasn't the mindless hunger of a typical Dungeon beast. She seemed conversational. And utterly, terrifyingly insane…
"Keep your distance for a moment now," I ordered as the lady knight approached a step closer. "You don't sound right."
"Oh, pft. Don't you be impolite now! I can just tell your lost. Just like poor little me! Came tumbling down into this nasty old place, didn't we?" She continued, shifting abruptly to a cloying sweetness. "Pretty tunic yer wearin'! I used to wear such lovely things, afore… well. Afore." She gestured vaguely with her clawed gauntlet.
"Point is. We ought to stick together, sweetling. Us humans gotta look out for each other down 'ere, eh?"
Us humans? My mind pounded. This thing was not human.
"I think I'll pass," I scoffed, wrinkling my nose against the sight.
"But it ain't safe to be wandering all alone, is it? So dark… so many… creepy crawlies… down here. I'd know. Just came from… exploring," she squeaked, taking another dragging step closer.
"Found some lovely… treasures. Broken bits. Shiny bits. You like shiny bits?" She paused, then let out another rattling giggle. "Silly question! Everyone likes shiny bits! Really, you should come and see em'. Might find somethin' real useful for your dungeoneering and all, and me 'nd my friends are real generous."
"No, I'm busy, that's all. I'd suggest you mind your business. I have got places to be and all, I'm sure you can imagine."
Preferably anywhere but here.
"Places to be?" The knight-lady tilted her head again. "Places to be with who, sweetie? Ain't nobody down 'ere keepin' schedules! 'Cept maybe ol' King Haghni down on the Ninth, countin' 'is sorrows, eh?" She cackled. "Nah, nah, you come with us! We'll 'ave a good chat! Share some food! Set up a bonfire!"
"For the third damn time, hard pass," I said coldly, reaching for the hilt of… oh, right. The crab had my sword. Damn it. My words were my only weapon for now.
"Your friends waiting just inside to jump me? How terribly original. Did you think I was born yesterday? Fuck off, corpse. Looks like the only thing you've got to offer is tetanus. You're dead, aren't you? Or the closest thing you can be to it."
That did it. The fake sweetness evaporated. Her voice dropped, losing the fake lilt, becoming a low, guttural growl.
"...So small. So fresh. Still got that Topside stink on ya."
Her lips pulled back in a rictus grin that might have once been intended as charming, revealing teeth that looked unnervingly long and sharp.
Her eyes… Gods, her eyes were wide, pupils dilated to violet pits, nearly glowing, reflecting the dim light with a predatory gleam. They fixed on me instantly.
"Is it our décor? Not fancy enough for her Ladyship? We tried tidying! Sisters! Did we forget to dust the silver chandelier again?!" It let out a frustrated shriek, then dissolved into that awful, grating giggle once more. "No matter! You'll come around! They all come around eventually! It gets in, dunnit? The damp… the rot… Slips right under yer skin… right under yer armor…" Another broken giggle. "Makes ya forget things. Like… like what fresh air smells like. Or… faces…"
Then, she moved.
Not like a human. Not even like a normal undead shambler. She surged forward with a jerky, unnatural speed, metal scraping, bones clicking within the rusted armor.
One moment she was leaning casually by the archway, the next her gauntleted hand lashed out, aimed in a perfect arc to scratch out my eyes…
The light in her eyes seemed to nearly glow. "You fight it now, little sweetling, fluttering so prettily! But the cage is vast, the bars are rusted shut… and soon enough, you'll forget your own song and learn to sing His. Stains your thoughts that lovely shade of violet, see?" her voice seemed to echo, nearly singing, as the clawed metal nearly connected with my eyes.
No! Not like this! I won't just lie here and be broken!
My eyes locked onto Parry sitting nearby. Can't it do something? The massive crab was still sitting exactly where I'd left it, impassively holding my jian, seemingly oblivious to the brutal torture happening mere feet away.
Useless… useless crustacean!
Give it back!
Adrenaline flooded my system. I lunged sideways with strength I didn't know I possessed, my fingers scrabbling, wrenching the sword's hilt free from the creature's grasp with surprising ease.
The Hermit just burbled as usual, seemingly indifferent to the hostile knight's presence.
Scrambling backward on the dusty carpet, I somehow got my feet under me, clutching the jian in a one-handed grip. The knight straightened up, momentarily surprised by my sudden resistance, her rotten grin faltering for a small moment. She spat out an annoyed hiss.
Metal screamed against metal. But instead of my arm breaking or the sword flying from my grasp, the jian, guided by my focus, smoothly deflected the blow. The knight's heavy gauntlet scraped harmlessly past, thrown off balance by the unexpected parry.
The lightness of the blade felt miraculous in my hands. The fine steel met the descending gauntlet with a ringing clang, smoothly deflecting the slash.
Her attacks were brutal, powerful, but also… predictable in their arrogance. It seemed so easy to parry blow after blow of her punches, pausing them midair with a mere flick of my sword. It felt so, so, wonderful; Mendell was so right about this.
So I wouldn't be worthless!
I have to live, to show beyond a doubt I exist for a reason, because I made a promise to prove it to myself.
Prove that Ayauhcihuatl Tallón wasn't just some pampered noble destined to die over and over, forgotten in the dark.
That I was worthy of drawing breath, even down here!
"Get off me!" I demanded.
Reversing my grip on the jian for only a second, channeling all my fear, rage, and desperate resolve into my core, I lunged forward, aiming for that sliver of vulnerability in her plate armor.
The tip of the jian met rusted metal, screeched for a horrifying instant, then slipped down into the perfect position through with a sickening squelch into the rotten flesh and corrupted viscera beneath.
There was no clang of metal this time.
Only a wet tearing sound as the point of the jian punched through withered flesh and something vital beneath. The knight froze mid-lunge. Her head snapped down, violet eyes widening in disbelief as it stared at the blade embedded deep in her torso.
I didn't pull back. I twisted the blade, gritting my teeth against the horrid grinding sensation from within its body. Then I yanked it partially free, only to stab again.
And again.
And again.
Stabbing wildly, blindly, putting all my weight behind each desperate thrust, feeling rotten flesh give way, hearing wet, tearing sounds that made my stomach heave.
Again.
Again.
Again.
"STOOOP! Stop it! Please! Mercy! Hurts! It HURTS! Sweetling… mercy… please…! I can't hurt 'ya no more like this, I swear it's enough!"
"Die! Just die!" I screamed. Nausea churned in my stomach. "Stop pretending to be a human! You are a cruel, terrible, woman to say those things. There is nothing merciful about whatever you are. So shut up, everything you say is a lie!"
"I'm begging you. Death hurts every time, worse'n ya can even imagine," her eyes glowing violet eyes dulled completely. "I ain't… I-I ain't wanna die again! Every time I'm sent back t' the dark… Is this the punishment? Endless? To be torn apart by frightened little things like you over 'nd over?! Ain't fair! It ain't right! Stop it! STOP IT!STOP IT!"
…Fuck! I staggered back, the jian slick with something dark and viscous, red and purple and black. My stomach churned violently, threatening to heave the same way it did when I killed the stupid Nautilus. This bitch wasn't dying fast enough for me to ignore it…!
Gods, what am I doing?!
The sickness grew. I had inflicted this. I knew she wasn't human, Gods no, but she sure knew how to scream like one.
No matter how many justifications I made in my mind, it didn't make moving my hands down to stab her again any less sickening.
…My stupid fucking hesitation was all the opening she needed.
Agony exploded behind my eyes as the back of her metal-clad hand slammed into the side of my head, wide smile instantly plastered back upon her rotten face.
The air exploded from my lungs in a silent gasp: It felt like being hit by a collapsing wall.
Stars burst behind my eyes as I was lifted bodily off my feet, sailing backwards through the air before crashing hard against the cold, unyielding stone wall of the corridor. My head connected with a sickening thud.
"Feel that, sweetling?! Does it sting? Does it burn real nice 'n proper? Hah!" she crooned, her face inches from mine. Her breath felt cold, dead. Those violet pits scanned me hungrily. "Lucky bitch! Every breath ya take down 'ere feels like yer stealin' [Essence] right outta my lungs! Makes me wanna retch! Stab! Stab!"
Her gauntleted hand clamped around my throat, not quite choking me yet, just… holding me. Pinning me like an insect. The cold metal bit into my skin. I forced my jian back against her neck in retaliation, but I barely had the strength to even hold it.
Just as I futilely deflected the knight's attacks away from my vitals, two more figures detached themselves from the deep shadows within the side passage the first knight had emerged from. They moved with the same jerky, unnatural gait, clad in similar states of ornate decay.
One wore slimmer, perhaps fencer-style armor, now pitted and stained, wielding a shard of what looked like a broken silver mirror like a dagger. The other was bulkier, her helmet crushed inwards on one side, revealing a glimpse of desiccated white and purple-veined flesh beneath, dragging a heavy, spiked mace that left gouges in the ancient stone floor.
What happened next was a blur of agony and violation.While the first knight kept me pinned, the other two descended. The fencer used the glass shard like a stiletto, driving it into my shoulder with a wet shlick.
Pain, white-hot and blinding, ripped through the improvised stitches of my tilmàtli into my shoulderblade as if it were the soft flesh of a fruit.
Stop it… stop it… please…
My thoughts were a disconnected mess. More shards plunged into me—my thigh, my side, my other arm. The fencer hauled me roughly to my feet, my legs barely supporting me. The world spun sickeningly.
Then, with contemptuous ease, she swung me around and threw me bodily against one of the stone columns. My head connected with the unyielding surface with a sickening thwack.
Darkness encroached at the edges of my vision.
"Mind the carpet, Iolanthe!" the knight chided the fencer. "Makes such a mess."
"Oopsie!" The beast named 'Iolanthe' giggled, pulling a shard free from my back with another spurt of blood.
Heavy, armored boots slammed into my ribs, my stomach, my back. Each impact drove the remaining air from my lungs, sent jolts of agony through my system, until my jian clattered to the ground.
"See? Told ya she'd stick around!"
"Soft, ain't she? I've never seen someone as weak as this."
"Wonder if her eyes'll burst out if I kick 'er 'ead 'arder? It's so yummy popping the [Essence] outta 'em~!"
I suddenly felt the plates of my skull snap backward, vertebrae grinding under the sudden strain of the impact as the feeble mushroom hat plopped to the ground as well.
I trembled, struggled to inhale, but the foggy air of the ruins was thick and polluted from raised dust, and my damaged lungs refused to cooperate.
[HP CRITICALLY LOW.]
Lying uselessly on the stones, I saw my jian flash with a white aura. I must have reached below 30%; That buff would be far more helpful if that sword were in my hand!
Blood seeped from my mouth in thick hot ribbons, the world around lurching violently, and a wave of pure pain, nerves screaming, crashed over.
I felt my heart hammer once, then falter, a single irregular thump as blood failed to circulate through crushed arteries.
The world narrowed to a single pinpoint of agony, and then, blessedly, oblivion claimed me.
[YOU HAVE DIED.]
…
Fuck. I should've known better. Really, I should have.