Dungeon Champions

We spared no time exiting the room through an opening on the far side. No one even mentioned going to the fallback point or retreating. When it came to dungeons, forward was the only way to deal with them.

In total, leveling up, eating, and cleaning up had taken us maybe ten minutes. Passing Britney yet another medium-sized mana gem, I commented, “We are going to need a week or two to recharge these.”

Zuri gave me a heavy-lidded look. “I would not mind a week of relaxation and…”

Merielle and Britney both cleared their throats. There was a subtle difference in them both. I got the feeling Merielle was trying to convey something, while the celestial just wanted to distract from the topic.

Summoning my armor and sword, I took the lead. Using my Tablet, I signaled where I wanted the women to position themselves. They accepted my directives without question. This time, Merielle was at the rear of the group, with Nym, then Britney, then Zuri in between the two of us.

We walked down a new tunnel, the first few feet dead gray before gradually returning to the same pulsating, disgusting color and texture as the entrance.

“This place is…different,” I said to Skullie as I stabbed the wall again.

“I know what you mean. A constructed dungeon…it’s nothing like I imagined.”

“Not just the flesh walls and living floors, either.” I stabbed the wall, creating a bleeding wound that healed too quickly. “The monsters. Why aren’t they like the creatures that attacked Boulibar Bay?”

Skullie’s jaw made a clicking noise. “Maybe they escaped…before all this?”

I frowned. “Nah. Something stinks about this whole setup.”

From behind me, Britney let out a soft sigh. “Whatever’s going on, we need to find a way to help those people trapped in the cocoons.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Let’s go.”

We moved forward cautiously, weapons at the ready. The corridor twisted and turned, occasionally branching off into smaller passages. I tried to keep track of our route, but the organic nature of the dungeon made it difficult to maintain any sense of direction.

As a token protest, I resumed my earlier stance—stabbing the tip of my sword as far into the walls as I could get it without costing me speed. I tried calculating how many hit points of damage the act would have done on a mundane creature, and stopped somewhere in the hundreds.

Regeneration is cheating, I thought sourly. There has to be some source for all that healing. If so, I’m draining whatever that is.

After what felt like hours of trudging through the gorey landscape, we came to a large, domed chamber. Unlike the rest of the dungeon, this room was eerily quiet. No pulsing walls or writhing tentacles. Just smooth, almost glassy surfaces that seemed to absorb the light.

The outer edges of the room were all giant silver structures that my Earth memories told me looked like computer servers. Lights blinked on them and dials flashed, but none of it seemed to be doing anything.

In the center of the room stood a pedestal, and atop it sat a pulsing structure about the size of a human head.

Merielle gasped, a sharp intake of breath. “Is that...?”

I shook my head. “No way that’s the core. Doesn’t look anything like one.” My borrowed memories told me such, but also there was a hallway beyond this room, and that meant we had yet to reach the end.

“He’s right,” Skullie said. “I don’t know what a manufactured dungeon core looks like, but it couldn’t be that.”

I approached the pedestal cautiously, studying the pulsing structure. It looked almost organic, with veins of glowing energy running through it. But there was also something mechanical about it—tiny gears and circuits visible beneath the surface. There was a small blood-red rune in the center.

“What is this thing?”

As if in response, the rune suddenly flared with light. A magical projection sprang to life above it, flickering and unstable.

The image showed a man in a lab coat, his face haggard and drawn. When he spoke, his voice was tinny and distorted:

“If you’re seeing this, then the experiment has…progressed further than anticipated. I am—was—Dr. Arlen Voss. Lead researcher on Project Synthesis. We were trying to create a new type of dungeon, one that could be controlled and directed. But something went wrong. The core became unstable, merging with the artificial intelligence we'd developed to manage it. It’s growing, evolving in ways we never intended.”

The image flickered, breaking up for a moment before stabilizing.

“I don’t have much time. The dungeon is consuming everything—people, animals, even the very land itself. You must find a way to shut it down before it spreads beyond our containment measures. The true core is hidden deep within, protected by the dungeon’s defenses. This node is just one of many control points. Destroy them all, and you may be able to weaken the core enough to...”

The message cut off abruptly, leaving us staring at the now-dark projection in stunned silence.

“Well,” I said after a moment, “I guess that explains a few things.”

“Does it?” Zuri asked with a nervous chuckle.

Britney looked shaken, but she rolled her eyes. “They lost control of their experiment and now we’re paying the price.”

“Apparently so,” Skullie muttered from my pack. “Looks like the creators’ reach exceeded their grasp.”

Zuri stepped forward, examining the pulsing structure on the pedestal. “So this is one of the control nodes.” She reached out for it, paused, and pulled her hand back. “Do we need to destroy it?”

“Looks that way,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “But watch yourselves—we don’t know what kind of defenses it might have. Probably has some nasty surprises.”

As if on cue, the room suddenly came alive. The smooth walls began to ripple and bulge, and the air filled with a high-pitched whine.

“Watch out!” Merielle shouted, raising her hammer defensively.

Tendrils of energy shot out from the control node, lashing towards us like electric whips. We scattered, dodging the attacks as best we could in the confined space.

Merielle parried one of the tendrils with her hammer, and the limb struck out, wrapping around the metal head. Rippling electricity raced through the weapon. Right into Merielle.

The elf’s body convulsed as electricity coursed through her. With a pained cry, she dropped her hammer and fell to her knees.

“Merielle!” I shouted, rushing toward her.

More energy tendrils lashed out, forcing me to dive and roll to avoid them. I came up next to Merielle, grabbing her arm and pulling her away from the fallen hammer.

“Are you okay?” I asked urgently.

She nodded weakly, her hair standing on end from the electrical shock. “I’ll... I’ll be fine. Just need a moment.”

Across the room, Britney and Nym were trying to take down the control node, but they seemed to have little effect. The node’s defenses absorbed or deflected each attack.

Meanwhile, Sadie darted between the whipping tendrils, her feline agility allowing her to get close to the pedestal. But as soon as she reached the node, a pulse of energy sent her flying back.

Nym fell back to tend to the mewling cat.

“We need to overload it somehow!” Zuri called out, narrowly avoiding a tendril strike.

An idea struck me. “Skullie, you said this place felt wrong, right? Like it was twisting the natural order of things?”

“Yes,” the skull replied. “It’s an abomination against the natural laws of dungeons.”

I grinned. “Then let’s fight unnatural with natural.” I summoned my Axe of Felling to my hand, knowing I’d get the bonus from it. Then I called upon the power of my Champion of Wind title.

A gust of wind pushed against my back, propelling me forward.

I charged towards the control node, wind at my back and the Axe of Felling raised high. Energy tendrils lashed out at me, but the powerful gust of wind helped me out maneuver them.

My blade connected with a satisfying crack, biting deep into the pulsing structure.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the node began to vibrate violently, cracks spreading across its surface.

Energy arced wildly from the fissures, forcing me to leap back.

“Take cover!” I shouted to the others.

We all dove for the edges of the room as the control node exploded in a burst of light and sound. Shrapnel and energy whipped through the air, pinging off the metal server-like structures around us.

When the dust settled, the pedestal stood empty, only a few sparking wires remaining where the node had been.

“Everyone okay?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

There were groans and positive responses from around the room.

“Define okay,” Britney grumbled, brushing debris off her clothes.

I ignored the celestial. “Merielle?”

Zuri rushed over to check on the elf, who was a bit shaky from the electrical shock. “Still alive.”

“Glad to hear we’re all still breathing. Let’s keep it that way.”

Nym staggered to her feet, holding out her arms for Sadie to jump into. “One down, who knows how many to go?” Her ears drooped. “Feels like a lot.”

The feline let out a low growl in agreement.

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “And we still need to find the main core and figure out how to shut it down for good.”

As if in response to the destruction of the control node, the room began to shift around us. The fleshy walls pulsed and writhed, and new passages opened up where there had been none before. There were five of them, like points on a star.

“I think the dungeon noticed what we did,” Nym said, her eyes wide as she clutched Sadie to her chest.

“A dungeon can’t think,” Britney scoffed. “Only a Core can.”

In response there was a low, rumbling growl that echoed through the chamber. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. The floor beneath our feet trembled.

There was no way we could have a repeat mini-boss fight so soon.

“Maybe not, but this one is reacting,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”

“To where exactly?” Britney snapped. “Are you just planning on picking a passage and seeing where it goes?”

I ignored the celestial and did exactly that. Something from my Earth memories told me that I was supposed to follow my dominant hand, and so I went right. I had no idea where it would leave, but I desperately wanted to put some distance between us and the destroyed node. If something was coming to check on it, I didn’t want to be there when it showed up.

The corridor twisted and turned, branching off in multiple directions. I felt lost. Our only guideposts were strange markings at intersections that didn’t give any real indication of where we were.

If we had time to stop, I’d examine them more closely. There had to be some rhyme or reason to the layout of this place. But what I could only assume was Hugo 2.0 was still making lumbering, angry sounds behind us.

Zuri (to Jordan): Do you know where we’re going?

I looked over at the medusa-kin. She was panting and pushing herself, and it was obvious that she was struggling to keep up. They all were. But they trusted me. I had to guide them, but being on the run like this meant I couldn’t think things through.

Jordan (to Zuri): We need to find more of those control nodes. It’s our best shot at weakening this thing.

Zuri (to Jordan): I agree…but do you know where they are?

I didn’t. There wasn’t exactly a map of this place. The dungeon was shifting, changing. I wasn’t sure how it was doing it, but unless—

Sadie let out a yowl of warning. The floor ahead of us began to bubble and heave, like boiling mud. Globs of fleshy matter flew from the surface as if something was tunneling through the floor at an alarming speed.

“Back!” I shouted, skidding to a halt. “Other way!”

We spun around, only to find the passage behind us sealing shut, the walls growing together.

“We’re trapped!” Britney snapped. “What do we do now?”

I scanned our surroundings frantically, looking for any way out. The bubbling floor was getting closer, and I could see shapes forming within it—misshapen creatures clawing their way to the surface.

“Up there!” Nym pointed to a small opening high on one wall, barely visible amidst the pulsing tissue. “I think I can reach it!”

Without waiting for a response, the nimble catgirl leapt into action. She bounded off the walls, using her claws to gain purchase on the spongy surface. With a final leap, she caught the edge of the opening and pulled herself through.

“It leads somewhere!” her muffled voice called down to us. “But it’s a tight fit!”

“Go!” I shouted to the others as the floor vomited out a handful of grotesque patchwork creatures. “I’ll hold them off!”

Zuri looked like she wanted to argue, but nodded grimly. She boosted Britney up, then Merielle. Sadie scaled the wall as easily as Nym had.

As much as I wanted my party to gain experience points, there was no point dying in an unfair fight.

And I didn’t plan on standing toe-to-toe and fighting these things.

I turned to face the creatures, my Fast Sword of Bloodletting held out in front of me. The first monster—a writhing mass of tentacles and eyes—lunged at me. I sidestepped and brought my blade down in a vicious arc, cleaving through its misshapen body. Black ichor sprayed as the creature collapsed.

But more were emerging from the bubbling floor, their twisted forms defying description. I fought defensively, using quick strikes to keep them at bay while slowly backing towards the wall.

“Jordan!” Zuri called from above. “We’re all through! Hurry!”

I chanced a glance upward. Zuri’s face peered down from the opening, her eyes wide with concern.

“Go!” I shouted back. “I’m right behind you!”

With a burst of speed, I charged toward the wall. The creatures surged after me, their claws and tentacles grasping at my heels. I leapt, pushing off the spongy surface and propelling myself upward.

For a heart-stopping moment, I thought I wouldn’t make it. Then Zuri’s hand shot out, grabbing my wrist and hauling me up the last few feet.

I squeezed through the opening just as a tentacle wrapped around my ankle. With a savage kick, I dislodged it and tumbled into the space beyond.

We found ourselves in a narrow tunnel, barely large enough to crawl through. The air was thick and humid, and I could hear the slurping, angry pulsing of the walls.

“Anyone hurt?” I asked as I paused to catch my breath.

Merielle and Zuri both shook their heads. Sadie yowled but Nym shushed her, almost as if she was afraid something would follow us if we made too much noise.

That thought woke up something primal in me. I didn’t want to be playing hide-and-seek in the ventilation system with the alien lifeforms down there. We didn’t exactly have an airlock to eject them out of.

“That was too close,” I said, shaking my head. “We need to be more careful. This place is actively trying to kill us.”

“No kidding,” Britney muttered, brushing some fleshy debris off her as if there weren’t just more waiting. “So what’s the plan now? Crawl through gross tunnels until we find more of those node things?”

“For now? Yes.” I pointed ahead. “This looks clear, and if those things were going to follow us up here, they already would have. Finding those nodes is our best lead on weakening this place enough to find and destroy the core.”

“We’ll be okay,” Nym said in a quiet voice. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to us, or to Sadie, but she cuddled the cat to her chest. “Jordan won’t let anything hurt us. He’ll protect us.”

My heart simultaneously broke and grew cold. Her innocent faith in me made me feel like a monster—a fraud—for not knowing what to do, but it also spurred me to find a solution.

“You’re right,” I said. “I will. Let’s go.”

We made our way through the narrow tunnel, crawling on our hands and knees. The fleshy walls pulsed, occasionally squeezing inward as if trying to crush us. More than once, we had to forcibly push our way through constricting sections.

But there were no monsters, and no protrusions that barred our path for very long. This part of the dungeon didn’t seem to spiral in different directions or change locations on us. If it weren’t for the squishing flesh under us, I might have thought we were in a different dungeon entirely.

After long minutes of claustrophobic crawling, the tunnel finally opened up into a larger chamber. We stumbled out, grateful for the chance to stand upright again.

This room was different from the others we’d encountered. Instead of organic, fleshy walls, it was lined with sleek metal panels. Blinking lights were everywhere, and a sort of mechanical humming made me feel uneasy. There were metal structures in a circular pattern around the room. Something about their placement nagged at my memory, but I couldn’t place why it was familiar.

We all just sort of sat there in mute silence, looking around.

Finally, Zuri spoke. “What is this place?” she asked, awe and wonder in her voice.

Before anyone could answer, another magical display flickered to life in the center of the room. This one showed a map of what was easy to assume was the dungeon—a sprawling, ever-shifting maze of corridors and chambers. Several pulsing points of light were scattered throughout the map. Those were stationary, even as the rest of the map moved.

“Those must be the other control nodes,” I said, pointing to the glowing points. “And look—there’s a larger concentration of energy at the center. That has to be where the core is located.”

Skullie clicked his jaws together. “I don’t like any of this,” he said in a small voice.

Nym studied the map intently. “It’s constantly changing. How are we supposed to navigate this?”

I frowned. “The shaft we were just in wasn’t moving. I think it must have been… It reminded me of something: a ventilation system.”

“What does that mean,” Merielle asked.

“I’m not completely sure…but…” I pointed at the map. “Don’t look at the hallways. Focus on the control nodes.”

The elf did as I said, as did the catgirl, medusa-kin, and celestial. All of them looked confused at first, but slow realizations dawned on their faces.

“They aren’t moving,” Merielle said, almost breathless.

“How?” Britney asked, annoyance clear in her tone.

I waved a hand in the air. “Does it matter? The ventilation system is like those nodes. It didn’t move, and it led us straight here.”

“Right. But where is here?” Britney asked. “And why is here important?”

A shrieking sound blared through the room before I could answer. Red light began flashing from somewhere, and the holographic display flickered and distorted.

The metal panels on the walls began to slide open, revealing rows of vertical metal bars. They were covered in runes and nodes, but with little glimmering points of light at regular intervals. Each had a small glowing sphere next to it, much like the elemental containment spheres we’d found on Captain Drake’s ship.

That mechanical whining noise started to speed up and the spheres started to glow bright.

“Get down!” I shouted, diving for cover behind one of the metal structures.

Beams of energy lanced through the air where I’d been standing just seconds before. The light pinged off the floor, leaving a small scorch mark in its place.

The others scrambled for whatever cover they could find as the room erupted into chaos. Beams of light scattered randomly, telling me they weren’t picking targets. This was just scatter fire; a large amount of hurt in a small space designed to eventually stop whatever wasn’t supposed to be there.

I scanned the room, looking for anything we could use. There was a large panel in the center of the room, not too far from where I was, that looked like it could be in control. Rows of lights that blinked on and off in time with fired energy beams.

“Distract it!” I shouted. “I’m going to try something!”

Without waiting for a response, I dashed out from behind the console. Energy beams sizzled past me as I zigzagged across the room. I could hear the others shouting, trying to draw fire and providing what cover they could. It was hard to fight back against something that didn’t have a body or seem to use logic in any way.

I dove the last few feet, sliding across the smooth floor. The quasi-control panel was massive, about the size of my torso, with buttons everywhere. There wasn’t any time to examine things or make decisions on how to proceed. I just had to do something.

“Jordan, hurry!” Zuri cried out just seconds before a beam scorched the floor dangerously close to her position.

I gritted my teeth. Nothing about the controls made logical sense—it was all flashing lights and incomprehensible symbols. My inherited memories didn’t have anything to offer me. Someone got science fiction in my fantasy and I wasn’t prepared for it.

In frustration, I slammed my fist down on the largest button.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the room went dark.

The quasi-weapons fell silent, and the red light faded out. We were plunged into near-total darkness, broken only by the faint glow of a few emergency lights.

“What did you do?” Nym asked. I could see her eyes—and Sadie’s smaller pair—clearly in the dark.

I shrugged. “Honestly? I have no idea. I just hit the biggest button and hoped for the best.”

The room suddenly hummed back to life. With a small hiss, the lights flickered on, but dimmer than before. The spheres remained inactive.

“Well, whatever you did, it worked,” Merielle said, cautiously emerging from her hiding spot. “At least for now.”

“We should take advantage of this quiet while we can.” There wasn’t anything I could glean from the information I had in front of me, and my memories and abilities had nothing to add. It was almost like this was something completely new. “Let’s see if we can—”

I was cut off by a loud grinding noise. The floor beneath our feet began to tremble and shift.

“What’s happening now?” Britney said, wrapping her arms around her chest. It looked like she wanted to cry.

Before I could answer, the floor split open. A large circular section in the center of the room began to descend, forming a ramp that spiraled down into darkness.