The Impeccable Adventure of the Reluctant Dungeon

It was said that in life-threatening situations, people tended to see their life flash before their eyes. Specific details were sketchy and often contradictory, but the belief held true in multiple universes. In the case of Theo, it was only half true. When a wall of marble shapes surrounded his avatar on all sides, the entire existence of Baron d’Argent flashed in his mind in the form of an event log.

In fractions of a second, the dungeon could see all major—and minor—events, monster kills, skill acquisition, ability use, and even conversations held all in text format. The color coding was an especially nice touch, allowing for better readability.

As things stood, the avatar had reached the respectable level twenty-four with strength, speed, and mind traits being fifty-five, forty-two, and seventy-seven, respectively. Interestingly enough, he had managed to acquire twenty-four skills and four ultras. Not at all bad, for a few months’ work. Still, Theo would be lying if he wasn’t disappointed in the loss. For all his grumbling and complaining, he’d grown fond of his avatar. There was a time when he would have laughed at the notion, but walking in the baron’s shoes had allowed him to experience the world in a rather unique, be it intense, way. He definitely wouldn’t want to keep doing it for a living, but it definitely had its moments.

I should have taken pictures, the dungeon thought.

The avatar’s life reminded him of the nature trip he had gone on in his previous life. The idea had been suggested by Theo’s direct corporate superior, so attendance was obligatory. It had been a week-long event, making most of the office dwellers more miserable than usual. Theo distinctly remembered the torture it had been the entire time there. In fact, he had refused to take photos, talk, or even think about it in the hopes it would be removed from his memories. Then, less than a few weeks later, he had regretted not having a memento of the occasion.

One could always recreate a painting from memory, depicting several emblematic scenes of the baron’s life, but they would be inaccurate. Maybe Spok would be able to help with a few that took place in Rosewind during the final battle? It wouldn’t be anywhere nearly as exotic as a scene in Mandrake Mountain, but better than nothing, and—

“Baron!” A faint sound came from outside.

The dungeon sighed. Eight seconds remained until his aether sphere lost its invulnerability. After that, the marble fragments would crush him like a grape and, if worse came to worst, infect the rest of him.

“Baron!” There it was again. Someone was definitely shouting his name. There could be a multitude of reasons for this; and since Theo had nothing else to do, he activated the eavesdrop skill of his avatar and listened in.

The first thing he heard was the constant sound of tapping, like a long-nailed turtle scurrying along a glass surface. Focusing more, he was able to determine that it wasn’t tapping, but chipping.

“Do you think it’s here?” Ulf asked, his voice muffled due to the wall of marble.

“Theo!” Liandra shouted. “Where are you?”

Seven seconds left.

The dungeon couldn’t determine what the fuss was about. Clearly, they were trying to find him. His cynical part speculated that they had messed up in something and desperately needed him to assist in something. That would be typical of them—pester him to the very end. If they had any decency, they’d at least let his avatar die in peace.

Casting a small fireball, the avatar looked around. Despite the variety of shapes, there didn’t seem to be a single crack between them. Not even the light could sneak through. Potentially, he could use his ice magic to create an ice lance, though even that seemed unlikely to achieve anything. Thus, there was only one option left.

“What is it?” he shouted, using ten energy to boost his avatar’s voice.

To his surprise, it worked.

“I heard him!” Amelia shouted, seemingly from far away. “There.”

“Are you sure?” Liandra asked. “We can’t get this wrong.”

“I’m positive! I heard it right there.”

“I’m here!” the avatar shouted again. Leave it to his group to waste a second arguing that they couldn’t waste time. “I’m here! Here! Here!” he kept on shouting.

“I think he’s there,” Ulf repeated. “Baron, can you hear me?”

“Yes. I hear you.”

“I heard him as well!” Avid said. “That has to be the spot.”

Spot? That sounded both encouraging and terribly bad. Normally, the dungeon would say that things couldn’t get worse. But it was a known fact that when someone uttered the phrase, the universe always found a way to prove them wrong.

“Theo.” Things went back to Liandra’s voice. “I don’t know what state you’re in, but hang on tight. I’ll create an opening. After that, you must get out. We don’t have much time.”

With three seconds of invulnerability remaining, they could have been faster about it. Good thing Liandra was there. If he had to rely on the comical trio and their stupid bird, he’d—

A terrifying thought popped into Theo’s mind, born from a dungeon’s deep sense of self-preservation. Liandra was a hero, and when heroes said “create an opening” they usually meant a very specific skill—one that drilled through multiple defenses, puncturing through reinforced walls, waves and minions, all the way to the dungeon’s core chamber.

“Wait!” he shouted, trying to come up with a means to defend himself.

From a human point of view, the attack could be seen as a good thing. Liandra was probably going to use a blessed strike, which would harm anything but uncorrupted humans. Thanks to Theo’s quick reaction his avatar wasn’t corrupted, but it wasn’t human, either. A hero strike could well end up destroying him. More alarming, the moment she did so, she’d probably hear a large amount of core points and be made aware that he was a dungeon avatar all along. If that happened, there would be no hiding; Theo would be destroyed faster than any possible corruption could.

Less than one second remained.

Pulling up enough energy from his main body to create half a dozen ice elementals, the avatar filled up the entire sphere he was in with ice. A split second later, several things happened all at once, culminating in a dry explosion that sent hundreds of marble pieces flying all over the chamber.

On her part, Liandra was shocked, though also impressed. In her attempt to free the baron, she had resorted to her hero strike. The attack was powerful enough to drill a hole through an armored dungeon, kill a dragon, and even monetarily cripple an archdemon. In this case, it had drilled through the body of the abomination only to meet an even greater force.

The greater force, of course, was nothing else than a massively oversized ice sphere. In his moment of panic, the dungeon had filled up the aether sphere that held his avatar with ice. There was no deep plan in it—ice magic was the only spell, other than the aether shield, that had any chance of providing protection. Theo’s logic was that the more energy he put into the spell, the greater his chances of survival would be. Sadly, he hadn’t taken mass conservation into account. With his aether sphere losing its indestructibility when it did, the ice not only froze the avatar like a pea in a freezer, but kept on growing indiscriminately in all directions. Under normal circumstances, the abomination’s body would have been able to hold it back. It couldn’t have foreseen the heroine’s strike, though.

When an opening was created, the obstacle for the ice sphere’s growth had been removed, causing all of it to rush in that direction and pop the surrounding walls like a balloon pierced by a needle.

A multitude of chunks split the air, causing everyone to duck for cover. Octavian twisted in the air, relying on his razor-sharp reflexes to avoid being hit, while on the ground, Liandra parried several fragments flying her way like a world series batter. That left Ulf, who had instantly jumped on the floor, avoiding a near fatal encounter with a marble pyramid that flew inches from his head.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, the chaos was over. Everything went still. Most surprising of all, somehow the frozen avatar had managed to survive the aftermath. Had he been human, he’d have long been dead, killed by his own spell. Instead, he stared straight forward—the only direction the ice would let him—trying to figure out what had just happened.

“Everyone fine?” Liandra asked, lowering her new weapon—a broadsword covered by a warm, white glow.

No one was capable of a response, dealing with the aftereffects of the sudden adrenaline rush. Even the griffin maintained its complex flight pattern, fearing a second explosion.

“Let’s get the baron!” The heroine rushed forward, taking the silence for confirmation. “We don’t have much time.”

“I survived?” Theo asked, back in his main body, flabbergasted by the fact.

His avatar, along with the ovaloid of ice it was encased in, was halfway out of the abomination’s body. Not only that, but a fine mesh of thousands of aether strands covered the monstrosity, keeping it to the ground. Most astonishing of all, the ice had managed to protect him from the hero’s attack. Apparently, ice insulated against blessings as well. Who knew?

“Theo?” Liandra started hacking the ice using standard attacks. “Are you okay in there?”

For anyone else, the question would be absurd. People didn’t just survive being frozen solid. Having witnessed the baron’s capabilities firsthand, she took it for granted that he had.

Not willing to disappoint her, and wanting to get out of his predicament as quickly as possible, the avatar cast two fireballs. Orbs of fire appeared in both his palms, quickly growing as they melted through the ice in the immediate area. They were followed by two more, which quickly increased the area, changing the baron’s status from frozen to soaked.

“Good thinking!” Liandra smiled, watching a bubble of water form within the giant ice chunk.

Fearing that she might attempt another heroic strike, the avatar waved his hands for her not to attack. Unfortunately, that caused the woman to completely misinterpret the silent message. Barely making out both of his arms moving, Liandra assumed that he wanted her to quickly perform a cross slash. Taking out another sword from her dimensional ring, she did just that.

The ice crust burst open, causing its melting core to flood the chamber. Thankfully, that was all that happened. The attack, while devastating to a normal person, wasn’t anything for the dungeon to be worried about. Even so, he had no intention of risking it, so casting a flight spell, the avatar quickly flew out to freedom.

“Theo,” Liandra said in relief. “I knew you’d do something insane.” She grinned. “Taking the monster from the inside was crazy, even for you.”

“Taking it from the inside?” Theo repeated. Only now did he turn around in an attempt to evaluate the situation.

What was left of the abomination lay suspiciously still on the floor with a giant hole where its chest was supposed to be. An enormous chunk of ice was still there, in a state of melting.

“What happened?” the baron asked. As someone completely clueless of any events that occurred in the last ten seconds, he was eager to fill in the gaps in his knowledge.

Liandra didn’t see it that way, though. From her perspective, the genius mastermind behind the second greatest attack she had ever witnessed was asking for a blow-by-blow account of his plan to ensure that everything had gone as designed.

“After you entangled the thing, I performed a wind strike to topple it to the ground,” the woman said. “As long as there’s no physical contact, the entity is rather easy to deal with.”

“I see.” The avatar brushed his wet hair backwards. He remembered casting entangle along with his aether sphere in the moments before being captured by the abomination. By the looks of things, he had been overly generous with the energy used there as well.

“We knew that you had some sort of plan, so we went searching for you once you were down.”

“I heard you chipping off elements from inside.”

“Of course you would.” Liandra tapped him on his wet shoulder, moving the baron half a foot to the left. “I know I’ve said this before, but next time give me a heads up. If I knew you had everything under control, I wouldn’t have used my heroic strike.”

“There wasn’t time,” the dungeon resorted to the common excuse. “Plus, I knew you’d handle it.”

“Baron!” An ear-piercing screech came from above. “You’re alive.”

“What did you expect?” the avatar snapped.

It was amazing that a single source of annoyance was all it took for him to forget the entire experience that Theo had gone through. Ten seconds ago, he was contemplating the existence of his avatar, literally going through his actions in text form. There had been inklings of regret, thoughts on mistakes made, thoughts on how to improve. No longer, though.

“This is no time to relax.” Theo quickly went into grumpy mentor mode. “Just because I inconvenienced the abomination, with Liandra’s help—” He hastily added the last bit, though more as an afterthought. “—is no reason for—”

Before he could finish, the large mass that was the abomination spontaneously broke down to the thousands of components that composed it. The only reason it didn’t scatter all over the floor was because of the threads that it remained entangled with.

Complete silence filled the room, interrupted only by the flapping of Octavian’s wings.

“Lia,” the avatar began in a quiet voice. “Did you do anything?”

The heroine shook her head.

“I thought you did.” She turned to him.

Any other time when a seemingly powerful opponent suddenly rolled over and died, or broke up into pieces as was the case right now, there would be a reason for celebration. Theo, though, remained skeptical. The universe wasn’t always in the mood to grant him favors. In all previous instances that worked in his favor, he could see the chain of events that led to the desired, if unexpected, outcome. In this case he could see nothing of the sort.

“Maybe the ice damaged its core?” the avatar asked.

A short distance away, Ulf stood up, brushing off his clothes out of habit.

“Ulf,” the baron said. “Have a knife?”

“A knife?” The large adventurer blinked. “Sure, but why?”

“Throw it at the pile.”

The reason was quickly made clear. Should the abomination be alive, it would corrupt the weapon, making it clear that the battle wasn’t over.

Taking the knife from the back of his belt, Ulf threw it in one smooth motion. As the blade bounced off a piece of marble, everyone held their breaths. For a moment, even the griffin’s wings seemed to freeze. A second metallic sound followed as everyone observed the knife drop… and it still was a knife.

To be on the safe side, Ulf drew another hidden blade and threw it. The result was the same. For whatever reason, the abomination had died, almost of a fatal heart attack, it would seem. Theo couldn’t say that the victory was satisfying, but given that his secret was safe and everyone was corruption free, he was willing to live with it. And yet, the nagging feeling remained in the back of his mind, like a worm hiding in an apple.

“I guess it’s dead,” he announced.

Given the silence and blank looks from everyone, one would be hard pressed to see them as the victors. For the most part, they shared the baron’s concerns. There were easy battles and there was… this.

“Does that mean that we’ll get out of here now?” he looked at Liandra.

“I suppose,” the heroine replied. “With nothing left to guard, Memoria’s tomb should collapse onto itself and release us. At least, that’s the belief.”

“You’re not sure?”

“People didn’t have you in mind when they created the spell. The only thing known for certain is that it should remain while its occupant is alive. Since the occupant is scattered on the floor…” the woman shrugged.

It wasn’t the most reassuring response, but at this stage, Theo was willing to accept anything. The main thing was that with the abomination gone, the curse should dissolve as well. In theory, it should have already been broken.

An uneasy calm filled the room. For half a minute, everyone remained where they were, ready to get back to fighting at a moment’s notice.

“Maybe it takes a while for the spell to realize it’s not needed,” Liandra said. “Some ancient spells are like that.”

“I didn’t know you knew magic.” The avatar gave her a strange look.

“Oh, I don’t.” She laughed. “I mean, I can’t cast magic. I just know a few hundred of the ones I’m likely to encounter. Demon magic, dungeon magic—” She started enumerating. “—and most of the nasty mage spells.”

“Yeah, I know a few as well.” Ulf approached. “I still get sick thinking of Maxwell’s Compendium.”

“Hmm,” the avatar said. Theo had never heard of that book, but as a supposed mage, he couldn’t just admit it.

“The Compendium of Magic Survival,” Liandra said with a note of nostalgia in her voice. “I had to learn it by heart.”

“My uncle was on my back until I could recite the first fifty,” Ulf continued. “The first year after I became an adventurer, he’d forbid me from doing tasks at the full moon. I bet he still thinks that I don’t know the full moon spells.”

“Full moon spells?” Theo couldn’t help himself.

Instantly, Liandra and Ulf look at him.

Uh, oh, the dungeon thought. Had he just said something he wasn’t supposed to?

“Sorry,” Liandra shook her head. “I know that’s not the proper name, but it’s a lot catchier. Thing is, I haven’t been around mages that much, and other than you, most of them are arrogant assholes.”

The avatar’s eyes widened. Just how arrogant could mages be if he was seen as the sensible one? Hopefully, he’d never have to find out.

“Anyway, I’m fairly sure the spell will let us go in an hour, or a day at most,” she added. “You better take care of that wound until then.”

“What wound?” Theo winced. “I’m fine. It’s just the clothes that aren’t.”

Now it was the heroine’s turn to appear confused.

“Are you sure?” She pressed on.

“Look.” The avatar raised his hands. “No wounds.”

“If it’s not you, then what’s that blood there?” The heroine pointed behind the avatar.

Reason gave way to fear, and despite knowing that it was impossible to wound his avatar, Theo checked all the same. Just as expected, there wasn’t a single wound or scratch on him; even his clothes lacked any trace of blood. Taking one glance in the direction Liandra was pointing, though, revealed a discrepancy.

Several of the marble fragments had bright red smears of blood. It wasn’t much—no more than a thimble’s worth—contrasting with the whitish color of the abomination’s pieces.

“Avid, Amelia,” the avatar looked up. “Did any of you get hurt?”

Both adventurers started checking each other.

“No,” Amelia was quick to say.

Avid also shook his head.

“What about the bird?” Theo didn’t give up.

“It can’t be them. The blood would have been on top of the pieces, not beneath,” Liandra noted. “You were the only one in there.”

Simultaneously, both she and Theo had the same thought: what if someone else had been trapped inside as well? Thinking back to the battle against Lord Mandrake, the gnome had fought within a giant mechanical construction. Could this be a similar case?

Casting an aether sphere around himself, the avatar slowly floated in the direction of the blood. Liandra took a step forward as well, only to have the baron make a sign for her to stop.

“Better not,” he said. “There’s no telling what’s there.”

“I survived an abomination,” the heroine said with a frown as she completely ignored him. “I’ll be able to survive that as well.”

Back in his main body, Theo sighed. The positive attitude of the heroine had completely made him forget how stubborn she was. Of course, she’d go straight towards the source of danger. It was a wonder she hadn’t done so earlier. The proper response was to let her risk her life. It wasn’t like he cared. One could even say that if something bad happened to her, his secret would be a lot safer. Sadly, a driving force far greater than self-preservation propelled the avatar forward—a refusal to be outdone.

The closer the pair approached, the greater the amount of blood became visible. Everyone’s first instinct was to search for a body beneath, but there was none.

“What if the abomination had a human heart?” Amelia asked from above. “You must have destroyed it with your magic when you were trapped inside.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” Theo shouted back.

Although he did consider the possibility. Weirder things had occurred in the world—he was an obvious example of one. Stumbling upon an abomination with a core of flesh seemed weird and disgusting, but not completely impossible.

Half a dozen aether spheres appeared in the air, surrounding the avatar. Each had a fireball inside.

Pausing a few steps away from the patch of blood, Liandra looked at him.

“In case it’s a blood spi—” Theo began, then suddenly stopped. “The ruby ring,” he quickly said. “Do you still have it?”

In all the chaos, everyone had completely forgotten about the snobbish item. Given the proclivity of the ring’s husband to escape, it was remotely possible that she had attempted to do so amid the chaos and ended up squished instead.

“It’s here.” Liandra tapped her pouch.

“I don’t hear it,” Theo replied in skeptical fashion.

His suspicions were contagious, for the heroine reached for the pouch with her left hand, and loosened it. Instantly, the ring shot out, kept at bay only by the chain it was attached to. The action was so sudden and startling that a fireball flew right at it, only to be sliced half-way by the woman.

“Sorry, sorry.” The avatar waved his hands. “I thought it was trying to—”

“Mommy!” the ruby ring shouted, desperately attempting to break free from its constraints.

Back in Rosewind, the shutters of the dungeon’s main mansion seamlessly closed shut.

“Mommy?” he and his avatar said in unison while the blood from the chamber erupted like a crimson fountain.

BEWARE!

You have destroyed the guardian of Memoria’s Tomb!

The occupant imprisoned within is now free to roam the world again.

This was, without a shadow of a doubt, a very big oops moment.