The Dramatic Dungeon - A Dungeon Core Story

Heading deeper into the Hallway, the lighting becomes better. At the end of the hallway, a series of doors lead off into rooms on both sides. The hallway then bends and turns, so I can’t see what is beyond there.

As we approach the doors, there seem to be a total of six of them. Three of which hang slightly ajar, the other three are closed. One of the closed ones has a sign on it with a star shape at the top and “Juliette” written beneath.

“I guess these are dressing rooms? Where performer’s put on their costumes and makeup?” I posit.

“Sounds reasonable enough. Shall we poke our heads into one of the open ones, one of the closed ones, or ignore them altogether?” Marcus asks.

“I… I think the dungeon wants us to put on our costumes here and participate in its performance. Considering we got these…”, I wave around the costume, “and there are three open doors.”

“While that would be the reasonable thing to do, we cannot be sure of the dungeon’s rationalism. I say we at least investigate one of the open rooms together.” Marcus suggests.

“Sure, whatever.” I haphazardly agree.

No disagreement comes from Baerdur, who still nurses his burned hand, I note with a wicked satisfaction. So we proceed up to the first door that is not closed fully and push it open.

Beyond, a small room with sparse furniture awaits. A brightly lit dressing mirror stands at the edge, in front of which a small desk and chair are positioned. To the side, one of these wooden dolls stands, this time bereft of any clothing. There is a small cabinet to the other side of the room.

On the desk I spot a small stack of scrolls.

We enter, careful to cross the threshold together this time. The door is not quite wide enough for all three to fit so we enter staggered in a sort of triangle formation. The door does not fall closed behind us, so we relax a tad as we investigate the small space further. No traps are visible, and the mannequin does not move as we poke and prod at it.

I grab the scrolls on the desk curiously. Looking over the contents, it looks like… stage directions?

In hindsight, I should have expected that. The dungeon is oddly insistent on being a theater. Not that other dungeon’s aren’t plenty strange, there is the one that shapes everything inside it into trees, no matter its material. There are stone trees, crystal trees, weird glass trees and so much more. There was the one really weird dungeon which is comprised of an entirely upside down castle. It’s monster’s all walk on their hands or are otherwise inverted. I also heard of one that has an unknown number of exactly identical rooms with four exits and they build some kind of infinite loop.

“What’s that ya got there?”, the dwarves' question pulls me out of my musings.

“Stage directions.” I shrug back at him.

“Right, I imagine we would all have to fill a role for that performance. Does it say who it’s for?” Marcus inquires.

Looking back at the contents, I see that it is labeled for a role, but none of our names are on it.

“Just says “The Nurse” on this one. Maybe check the other rooms, figure out who does what that way?”

“Now hold up!”, Baerdur interjects, “I never agreed to nothin’! I still have mah ticket! If yall wanna play dress-up with the dolls, that's fine by me, but leave me outta this!”

Evidently, he is getting cold feet…

“Well then, good luck getting through the maze back. The dungeon will probably just have you run around in there forever.”

That does it. Looking at his hand, he decides a little bit of acting is better than being close to the overly affectionate Mimics, I can see it on his face.

“Now that I think about it, that robe you got there looks an awful lot like a nurse’s. Should we leave you here to prepare for your role?” I say with an evil grin.

He looks down at his costume chagrined, before sighing.

“Let’s just look at the other rooms first. I wanna see what's in one of the closed ones, too.”

We oblige him and move to exit the room. Peeking into the other two rooms with open doors, we find largely identical rooms, though the furnishings are slightly differently arranged in each. The scrolls of instructions are labeled “Friar Laurence” and “Prince Escalus”.

“So, which of the other ones do you wanna check out? The one with a sign on it? Or one of the other two?”

“I do want to see what’s so special about that room.” Marcus says.

“Fair enough, let’s go have a look.” I agree.

We move over to the special door and I put my hand on the handle and attempt to open it. It creaks as it swings open slowly.

Inside we find a room much like the other ones we inspected, except much better decorated. Dozens of dresses and costumes of various colors are presented on wooden dolls or hanging off of dress hangers. On the chair in front of the mirror, a doll-like woman in a long red dress is seated. Her face is serene and her eyes closed. She has no hair and upon closer inspection her skin appears wooden, but at a casual glance it would have been impossible to tell that she is not human.

As we enter, her eyes flutter open and she turns on her chair to face us better.

“Welcome!” her clear singsong voice rings out.“I’m Juliette! It’s so nice to meet you all!”