Dungeon Core: Bugged Ascension

~A bleeding cyclopean skull.

“By the Throne, I’m bored.”

The ethereal eye slowly shifts its focus towards the speaker. The spirit of the skull cares not for words in undeath any more than it did in life. But as the voice belongs to the one it now calls master, in this life and after a failed Challenge in the last, it must attend.

The mouth of the voice curves up into a predatory smile as the skull’s gaze finally reaches it. Uncaring of the opulence its vision crossed over, it now looks upon the face of Fallen, the Prince who cast aside their crown, “/Bored.\”

“Yes, bored. All this waiting around is so dull, so blasé. If I had known the others would take so long to pick a winner, I might have tried harder.”

“/Tried.\”

Fallen laughs. The skeletons serving as attendants, carrying fine wines and foods, laugh as well. The bloody skull laughs, not because it wants to, but because it must.

Fallen’s laughter laughs once he grows bored with laughing himself. The walls of the beautiful marble room bleed bright red, then run black, “ENOUGH!”

Silence descends.

The skull tracks Fallen as he stands up after his outburst and paces around the outrageously furnished but otherwise not especially grand room. The defeated spirit, dimwitted though they may have been, knows what comes next.

Suddenly, Fallen twirls with a flourish and points at the massive eye, excitement on his face, “That’s a brilliant idea! Why bother staying here, waiting for them to finish their silly infighting, when there are villages, cities, provinces ripe for the conquering.”

Fallen walks up to the skull and presses through the slick fountaining blood around its cheeks, grabbing hold of the bone solely remaining of the skull’s former frame. The fragment of which is still far larger than Fallen’s entire body, “When did you get so smart, hmm?”

“/Smart.\”

Fallen chuckles at the skull’s reply before twirling his finger and falling back onto a cushioned pedestal brought into place behind him, “I knew there was a reason I kept you around. All the other princes went mad when the Rust overwhelmed their minds. But not you.”

The skull wonders if it is supposed to speak again. Sometimes its master gets upset when it talks too much, other times when it is too silent. The master calls it a ‘game’ though the skull seems often to lose.

With his finger still swirling in the air there is a plethora of skeletons from all manner of beast and being that gather the various treasures on display in the room. Then, one after the other they march, crawl, fly and climb the skull’s pitted and dry fangs before passing into one of its nostril slits, or for the larger creatures disappearing into the eye itself.

The skull’s mastery of compression, expansion, and space allowing the Domain within its interior to be elsewhere.

As the final minion crosses the threshold and is stored safely away, Fallen places his dancing fingers in his mouth and unleashes a piercing whistle. The skull reacts to it with a rumble. Vibrating upon the stone floor for several long moments until finally, a massive claw erupts from the folded space behind the eye socket. Soon followed by the rest of the gigantic hermit crab whose prodigious growth was spurred by the disposal of the broken bodies and souls of those who have failed to defeat Fallen.

The crab unfurls from within the skull and a wave from Fallen’s hand sends it scuttling under the bleeding skull. After a short period of adjustment, the crustacean lifts the massive ‘shell’, before rebalancing the skull to face behind it.

The skull’s vision is nonetheless unobstructed as its eye peers through the back of itself to keep focused on Fallen, “Watch our flanks, won’t you deary?”

“/Flanks.\” Finally released from the duty of looking to its master, the skull reverts to its typical forward stare.

The skull feels where the palanquin bearing skeletons ascend the back of itself before entrenching over the broken hollow of its former crown, “Onward! To Excitement! To Freedom! To Life!”

“/Life.\”

As the beast carries them out of the room, the blacked streaks of bloody marble crack as Fallen hums a little song. The skull knows if it were to be watching him, it would see that hand swaying to the beat as the precious, dense, and enchanted stone explodes and gouts of blood erupt from the once solid walls.

The skull remembers when it was killed by that ability. Not even its massive body could withstand such a force. The skull still doesn’t understand how Fallen does such a thing. And so, with nothing but time, and orders to ‘watch our flanks’ the skull tries to think about the power that defeated it, the /Bloody Titan\, forerunner amongst its peers for inheriting the Throne /of the Demon King\.

All the while, Fallen simply hums his tune and sways to the rhythm of his own music.

Meanwhile, alarms go off once Fallen crosses past the ruptured wards meant to keep him contained. The pair of demons at the Scrying Shrine look at each other, both weary and panting from pain as blood pours from their ears. Neither wishing to be the one to report the containment breech to the Overseer. When along comes a lowly imp that happens to walk into the chamber, drawing a glance from each and inspiring a shared cruel smile.

~An odd pairing of mice, of men.

“Hey Beryl?”

“Yes, Garnet?”

The first whips their tail forward with a crack, “Why don’t I know how to fight with my tail?”

The other ratkin sighs, “What do you mean?”

Garnet goes through a few more sweeping motions with their weapons and adding tail whips, “I mean. We’re both upper Epic, we’ve fought for years together, closing on a decade. Despite all my weapon familiarity, why haven’t I used my tail before?”

Beryl glances at the other’s antics, before scrunching up his face and whipping his tail too, “Hmm. I guess it’s got something to do with the Quest we were given.”

The larger man leaps on the new topic, “Speaking of the Quest. By the Divines, did you see the body on that Mouseling? Her expressions were so innocent and embarrassed. You think when we claim our rewards we can ask her out?”

Beryl just shakes his head, “She was a Dungeon Scion, dummy. You can’t date monsters.”

Garnet just laughs, “That’s where you’re wrong, Beryl. There are plenty of instances of dryads, nymphs and even the celestians from the Silverlight Stronghold instantiating enough to pair up with a ‘worthy’ adventurer. How do you think the big Families keep their affinities so strong and pure, eh? Even just as nannies, playmates or pets, the Mako from prior dungeon monsters is especially effective at influencing youngsters.”

Beryl just blanky stares at his companion, “And how do you know all this, Garnet?”

He smirks, “You know Ruby? Hangs out with Alex and her crew. I’ve met other fire starters like her before. One of my old hook ups brought me back to her family’s mansion once, saw a whole lot of hellhounds and a couple of Ifrit servants that were a little bit too casual with certain members of the family to be servants, if you catch my drift.”

He taps his temple, “You see, I notice things like that. It’s why I got my job as a-“ He flinches and a hand goes to his head, though after a moment, he shakes off the pain, “Fuck, that sucks. Anyways, as I was saying. All the large, older Families have at least one great Tamer in them. There’s more to it obviously, but I’m sure that’s one of the key things for making a real Clan.”

Looking like he already regrets continuing this topic, Berly asks, “And what does that have to do with wanting to date Cutest? You want to raise a litter of kids all at once? She’s not a Mousekin, she’s probably not even a Mouseling. I tell you, that dungeon is weird.”

There’s another whipcrack as Garnet goes back to his motion training, “Hey, I’m just thinking about the future. Both of us are really close to becoming Legends, man. Gotta start looking at the big picture.”

Beryl joins him on tail exercises, also mystified and annoyed at his lack of proficiency with his natural weapon, “Legends are copper amongst gold for the big families. You think we’ll be any different?”

Shifting from simple movements into an actual sparing session between themselves, “If we get in good with the dungeon as its growing? Legendary will give us plenty of time for them and even a city to grow up nearby. I can tell, this is going to be one of the big ones. Besides, Cutest is a great name for her. She’s super hot. You know, I think I am going to ask to kiss her paw at least. Be all gentlemanly and shit.”

The soft sustaining green glow of Beryl’s nature magic keeps his breathing even as he has to push hard to keep up with Garnet’s creeping aggression and power, “You? A gentleman? How has- how’s that worked out for you in the past-!” The light wounds on their bodies ignored by the dueling ratkin as weapons are put away and they sink into a more primal state of fist, claw, fang and tail.

The larger one laughs again as he again steps up the challenge between them, “C’mon, you know my motto. Fake it till you make it. I’ve made it pretty far, what’s one more thing, eh?”

With a swift move, capitalizing after making Garnet stumble on an exposed and empowered root, Beryl leaps onto his back. Gripping and pinning both arms with his full weight while binding the other’s tail in roots and using his own to encircle his opponent’s neck, “How many times have I told you. That overconfidence is going to get us kil-“

The spasm from the smaller ratkin is enough for Garnet to free himself and reverse the pin on his companion. It takes only a few moments before Beryl says, “I yield, damnit! I had you that time. Blasted migraines.”

Letting go of him and then offering him a hand up, “Sure. Blame the migraines for your loss. C’mon, let’s get back to this Quest. The Shifting Sands is far, far away from this place. Speaking of, have you ever heard of dungeon’s trying to trade with each other before?”

As the two set off on a gentle run through the sparse forest beyond the phoenix’s territory, Beryl responds, “I mean, not really. I’ve certainly seen instances where a certain favored monster from one dungeon will suddenly make an appearance in another. But that’s usually on account of one of the Families making a deal to get around the tariffs on a particular set of monster parts. We’ve fought hellhounds together, but have you dealt with the stormwolves over at |Thunderpeak|? Don’t know why, but lightning is so much worse to deal with than fire.”

Garnet spares him a glance as the foliage whips at them as their Epic speed flashes through these lower tier woods, “I haven’t, but I can imagine it. Yeah. The pain flinch from burns is something you can push past with experience and a good healer. But without the right protection, shocks can be brutal, even if they don’t deal as much immediate damage. What about these so called ‘Djinn’. Ever dealt with them before?”

Beryl’s green shimmer is stretched out in front of them to ease their path, “Once. They aren’t so bad. Basically, just an ambusher. Quick reactions can put them down simple as anything else, harder to spot though. But the desert’s a bad match for my Nature magic, so I never ventured deep enough to encounter the bigger ones. Much less Passage. Now, that is a scary ass dungeon. We’ll need to go through several towns most likely before we can get someone to act as a Guide.”

Each of the men find themselves picking up more and more speed as their running continues. Once again, it’s their tails that grant them greater potential, which is utterly bizarre that they hadn’t already mastered it by this point.

But the migraines are enough to keep either from pushing against the Gaes too strongly. The promise of power from a fully-fledged Quest as well as their destination being a powerful dungeon in its own right are great pieces of motivation. The system assurances of answers allow them to sink into a new familiarity as they race to complete their tasks.

Despite their light-hearted banter, neither are particularly satisfied by the memory blocks in place, and both wish to take control of their lives once more. Whatever it takes.