7 in 3

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Porter

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Something the voice from the ceiling said convinced Lady Scarlet that we need to get to another floor, not that she’ll tell me why. Every time the lady spoke in that foreign tongue my blood ran cold. How does she know the words of some entity in a dungeon? Why does she share a body with the other Lords and Ladies? The more I think about things the more confusing and unsettling it gets. I better just drop it or I’ll scare myself.

Lady Scarlet calls over to me from a side door on the hallway. I run over to see that she’s found a stairwell. Thankfully the voice from earlier has turned on the lights, I don’t want to imagine using stairs in total darkness. Well, near total, thanks to the moss growing on the Lady.

We make our way down, finding that the stairwell only goes down a single floor. At the end of the stairs is a large, metal door. The door has more of the unknown language, but it also has a sign that has the shape of a lightning bolt on it. Why would there be lightning inside of a building?

Not receiving any answers from the door, we go in. As soon as I cross the threshold I sense something is off. I grab Lady Scarlet and drop to the floor just as a terrible screech fills the air. Just where our heads had been, a black sphere is slowly growing, making a horrible scream as it does. The air around us is getting pulled towards the black sphere.

Just as it appeared, the orb vanishes. The air pressure returns to normal instantly and the sound stops. I let go of Lady Scarlet and apologize.

“It’s fine. What the hell was that, Porter?” She seems aggravated at me, but not because I touched her.

I give her a shrug. “There was no screaming orbs in the other dungeon, only large lizards.” She gives me a withering look, seemingly unconvinced, before being startled by another screech.

The new screaming is in the distance, but otherwise identical to the previous. We start heading deeper into the new floor, finding that the stairwell is connected to a main hall similar to the one on the upper level. As we walk a new orb appears, slightly farther from us, but within view. 

This orb formed partially inside the wall, but otherwise is identical to the others. As we approach it, the thing vanishes. My blood runs cold, the wall is cleanly cut where the orb had just been. Scooped cleanly out, and apparently obliterated. I don’t want to imagine what that would do to a human head. 

I look at Lady Scarlet, who is also looking at the new indent in the wall. “My Lady, I don’t think we should stay down here. We should retreat and let knights handle this.” I already can tell that Lady Scarlet’s temperament meant that there was nearly zero chance she’ll agree with me. 

Sure enough, she shakes her head. “We must be close to the core of the dungeon, why else would these things be here?” Her impeccable logic, which holds up to no scrutiny, fills me with anxiety. If this stupid bit— the Lady was to be harmed, my head would be next. I let out a sigh as I follow her, worried each second might sentence me to death by angry father.

The woman’s voice from earlier once again starts speaking, except now it has a creepy echo due to the architecture of this floor. Eventually the voice stops, and Lady Scarlet makes eye contact with me.

“She says that if we help her, she’ll lead us to the core.” What? The voice? Why does she need our help? She seems to control the whole dungeon. Why does she even want to leave? This is a terrible idea, we can probably find the core on our own, why risk going into a trap for no reason?

“Yes, my Lady.” I nod at Lady Scarlet but scream internally. Again she speaks to the disembodied voice in the other language and the voice eventually replies. 

“She’ll lead us to where she is.” I continue following the lady, who is listening to the now constant stream of gibberish from above. 

We only have to dodge a few of those orbs before reaching the unknown woman. Lady Scarlet pulls open the door to the room and steps inside. I, of course, follow closely behind. 

The inside of the room is huge, housing what looks like thousands of shelves filled with whirring objects and blinking lights. I slowly look around, this place is at least as big as the training yard at the manor, if not bigger. 

Lady Scarlet startles me with a sudden comment. “She says that this is her… somehow.” She gestures to all of the shelves. I look at the Lady and raise an eyebrow. Seeing my disbelief she continues, “Apparently we can take her out of these, but only a part. She wants us to move the important part onto an object we can carry out with us.” The Lady looks into my eyes with an intense stare. “She wants to leave the dungeon with us.” 

What? So this woman isn’t human, apparently isn’t even a living thing, and we’re going to take her out of the dungeon? Just unleash her onto our world, some foreign thing we have no concept of. That sounds great, why not just blow up the townheart while we’re at it, huh?

“Okay, what do we put her onto?” Lady Scarlet shrugs and asks the ceiling a question in the dungeon tongue. She gets a response immediately. 

“Follow me.” Lady Scarlet leads me deeper into the forest of storage shelves, eventually coming to a large metal desk. On the desk is a strange object. It’s rectangular, and about the size of a dinner plate, but made of black glass. The thing suddenly lights up, and the pulsing blue circle appears on a background of white. The object speaks in the woman from earlier’s voice.

Immediately after whatever the woman says, a section of the shelves behind us make a huge clunk sound as they stop blinking with lights. Lady Scarlet picks up the object and starts to leave the room. I quickly follow behind.

 

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Scarlet

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“Turn here.” I follow the command of the small glass plate in my hands. The woman is apparently now on this thing, instead of inside the dungeon. I don’t really understand how she got into the dungeon either, but the core is what’s important right now. “Okay, that janitor’s closet in front of you is where I saw the object on the security cameras.” As far as I can tell, what she said is that the dungeon core is behind the door in front of me.

“Okay, Porter, we’re here.” I push open the door just as one of the screaming orbs forms, consuming a huge part of the swinging door. We wait outside the room until the orb disappears. Once quiet again reigns we go into the ‘janitor’s closet’. Whatever a janitor is. 

Inside is a sink, some shelves with what looks like soap, and a mop with a bucket. So they must be like a maid. In the far corner, not fitting with the room’s dusty feel, is a large rip in the air. On the other side of the rip is every color swirling together violently. 

“There’s the core.” Porter points to the only strange object. Thanks Porter, whatever would I do without you?

“So how do we seal it?” 

The silence that follows my question tells me everything and I sigh. I guess I have to do it my way. I reach into myself and find my magic. The warm and gooey feeling deep inside me swirls around, as if excited to feel my presence. I unceremoniously rip the excited goo out of myself and pour the raw magic straight into the crack in the world.

Without having an ability to guide it my magic becomes visible, looking like sticky sap. The syrupy substance collides with the fracture and immediately is obliterated. The process is not a quiet one. The disappearing magic sounds like wood splintering, but much louder.

Slowly, so, so slowly, the dungeon core starts to close. This is going to take hours, I’m going to get bore— run out of magic before then. I have to speed it up. While channeling my magic, I also reach even deeper into the center of myself, and wake up my blessing. The blessing flashes through me, invigorating my magic with its unrestrained nature. The stream of gooey magic turns into a beam and the core starts to rapidly close. 

After only a few moments, the crack in the world is gone. Just as I go to cheer, the lights turn off.

 

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“Okay, the lights turned off. It’s fine, we have my moss, and the voice can lead us out.” I try to reassure myself, feeling the walls pressing in on me.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I cannot lead you out.” The glass tablet in my hand says, causing me to almost scream. Wait, I was speaking Common.

Porter beats me to it. “How did you speak in Common?” His tone betrays a hint of anger, which is a first. 

“I downloaded the language from the wireless network.” The voice’s last two words were in the other language. She pauses, the small blue wheel turning orange. “Correction, I copied the language from the long range communications.” What?!

“How did you find our language from that?” The anger in Porter’s voice is rising, almost sounding like genuine emotion. 

“It was unencrypted so I had access,” the voice informs us. It almost sounds irritated. “I suggest we leave, we have an hour and forty eight minutes before the dungeon collapses.”

Not bothering to find out how she knows that, I start heading back the way I think we came. We walk for a while, trying to remember which holes in the walls were on the way here. Eventually I realize that we have no idea where we’re going. I let out an angry scream, venting my aggravation into the echoey air. 

After calming down, I start flicking my abilities again. Fertilize, no. Irrigate? Nope! Nurture, no. I scroll through hundreds of low level abilities, none of which work. Then I find it, one I might be able to use. ‘Ideal environment’ finds the closest location that is suitable for a target plant. That might work.

I motion for Porter to come near me and I put my hands against his leather armor. “Sorry, Porter, I’ll buy you a new one.” I activate ‘transplant’ and imagine grass. In short order Porter’s armor is buried in sickly white grass shoots. I pull one of them out and use ‘ideal environment’.

A small compass materializes in the air above the blade of grass. I snatch the compass out of the air and throw the plant to the ground. Sure enough the compass shows north as the direction we were heading, but slightly to the left. We would have never found our way out. Suddenly feeling the clock ticking, and the weight of the townheart around us, I start to sprint for the exit.

 

【〓〓〓〓】

 

It takes us about an hour and a half to make it out the door, not including the time spent grabbing a chair by the exit. Once we get out of the dungeon we finally stop to rest. Porter sits down, apparently even he has a limit to his stamina. I plop into my wheelie chair, as I’ve dubbed it, and finally relax.

Just as we begin to explain what was inside to the now-arrived veteran knight, the disembodied woman’s voice interrupts. “Zero.” As if it was casting a spell, the ground shudders and the windows vanish behind us. The sound of breaking glass and human screams fills the air, making my mind ring. Once the sound stops, we’re able to see what happened. 

The dungeon vanished, causing the town heart around it to collapse. Luckily the damage seems localized, so the townheart should self repair. If the dungeon had caused a major fracture, the devastation would be unimaginable. I look down at the wheelie chair I’m sitting in, as well as the glass tablet. They didn’t vanish, blissful but blank stare as I give him attention. The inside of the dungeon was unreal. Something about it bothers me though. 

He’s here. Coil?

I get no response in my mind, instead getting it externally. “Lady Scarlet! Knight Porter. Would you be so kind as to debrief me?” The loud sound of rocks being crushed calls out to me. Before me stands a massive man who looks almost sculpted. His face is covered in a massive smile that doesn’t waver. I haven’t met him, but I do know of him, Captain Jet. 

“Yes, Captain!” Porter gives the mountain wearing skin a salute. “We subdued the nearby monsters with aid of the knights and Lady Scarlet’s dragon.” Jet’s eyes widen, but Porter obliviously plows on. “Then while the knights guarded the entrance the Lady and I entered the dungeon in search of the dungeon core.” While Jet’s smile stays where it is, his eyes suddenly look not-so-friendly, but Porter still continues. “Inside Lady Scarlet found a disembodied voice, and convinced it to light the dungeon. After doing so we managed to enlist its aid in finding the dungeon core. Lady Scarlet then safely guided the three of us out of the dungeon.” 

Jet’s eyes narrow. “Knight Porter, did you just say three?” 

Porter gives a nod.

“I also was extracted, Captain,” the disembodied woman’s voice says. Jet’s eyes zero in on the glass tablet in my hand instantly. “It was the condition for my aid, they had no choice in the matter.” Anger smolders behind Jet’s eyes. 

“So who are you, Miss?” If crushed rocks could sound angry, that’s what Jet’s tone sounds like. 

“I have no name, I was the school’s AI.”

“Aey ei? What does that mean?” Jet attempts to copy the voice’s unfamiliar word. 

“AI means false intelligence. I am a simulated person who was in charge of the school.” 

“Then why are you here Aeyei? Shouldn’t you be with your school?” The captain points behind us at the rubble wall. 

The tablet laughs sadly. “I would’ve if Lady Scarlet hadn’t told me I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I found out where I was, and that I would be destroyed inside that school.” Jet’s anger flickers behind his eyes, momentarily tempered. “I found out what happens to dungeons, and I realized I’d rather leave my school than be destroyed. So I forced these two to help me.” 

Jet speaks in a slightly, very slightly, softer tone. “They coulda waited for the knights, or even just searched without your directions. They didn’t have to help you. They also could have left you behind after you led them to the core. Hell, they could smash you now!” Jet looks between me and Porter pointedly. “So explain yourselves.” 

Crap, his anger is on us now. I look over to Porter for help. Yes, of course, why didn’t I think of impassive expression carved from stone? That will help for sure! Damn rock-faced knight. I look Jet in the eyes, trying to seem sympathetic. 

“Well, I didn’t want to leave her to die, Captain.” Jet snorts at my response, not convinced. It’s not like I can just say that I thought it seemed fun!

“The Lady and the voice both spoke a foreign language at first.” I feel something snap in the back of my mind, and turn to glare at Porter. That fucking rat! Vines shoot from the ground and swallow Porter. I make sure they’re once again slightly too tight before focusing on the Captain again. 

Jet looks done and lets out a huge sigh. “Well, at any rate, I’m not qualified to reprimand you. So I’ll let the Count decide.” He points at the twisted root pillar named Porter. “Let him out so we can go home, please.”