Curselock

Chapter 79: Dungeon

Leland’s breath hitched as he viewed pearly white. He didn’t let himself stare, in fact he spun on his heel the moment his mind finally caught up. Before him was the exit to the dungeon, along with it the green glow of a one minute timer. He glanced to his left, finding Jude and the cub, weapon and claws out and ready. He glanced to his right, finding Glenny doing his best to look serious.

The rogue’s head was bobbing in an odd fashion, one that mimicked the shaking blinks of his eyes. The young man could hardly stand, all of his weight on a single leg and his head about to burst, but he held firm. He collapsed the moment the exit turned red.

“Glenny!” Leland screeched, rushing over.

Jude followed the cry, both boys falling before their friend. They positioned his head on the soft part of a pack, like a pillow.

It was bright, very bright. The sun’s reflectant rays shone down against the endless white . Snow as far as the eye could see, a flat plane of fluffy cold snow. A clash of blue sliced across the horizon as the sky took, doming above the boys without clouds or birds. Only the yellow golden light of the sun broke up the pristine blue, and even then the sun felt small.

A wonderland, desolate, a void.

There were, however, two structures. The first was the dungeon exit, a now red spiraling whirlpool of teleportation magic. The second, and more pressing, was a glacier of immeasurable shape. It only took up part of the horizon in a single direction, yet from the way the ice reached and splintered for the sky, it was all the boys could focus on – Glenny withstanding.

The glacier, if it could be called that, was a collection of pillars, each scraggly and inorganic as a drawn depiction of lighting. Hard angles, strict edges, and more than a few sheer drop offs, the glacier grew through the air like an explosion ripping shrapnel through a dust cloud.

Chaotic.

“What is that?” Leland asked, his voice hesitant and low, like if he spoke too loudly the spires and pillars would crack.

“Hmm?” the cub yawned. “That? Oh, that was Mother”

Even Glenny opened his eyes to look at the young bear. Jude was the one who spoke for everyone, “What?”

It was a simple question, one that Leland wasn’t sure if he could ask any better. Still, he looked out at the glacier with a different view. Obviously the ice wasn’t natural, magical surely, but not any spell he knew of. But then again, the cub – and presumably her mother – were magical beasts. Intelligent ones at that. Humans and beasts used different magic, that much was well documented. Lords and Legacies for the Humans, instincts and primal calls to the ancient elemental powers for the beasts.

“It’s the aftermath of her repeated killing of the dungeon core.”

Now that was not what Leland expected. He let his confusion be known.

The cub frowned, as much as a bear could, at Leland. “Mother wanted the dungeon to herself, so she killed the core and made our den.”

“I-I thought destroying a core rendered the dungeon unusable. I’ve only ever read that dungeons simply cease to be when their cores are destroyed.”

“The core wasn’t destroyed. Mother’s not dumb.”

Leland sputtered. “No, of course not. I just don’t—”

“She broke into the core, by killing it over and over again. Then took its powers and sentience,” the cub said.

“That doesn’t—”

“Leals, let it go,” Jude interrupted. “We’re guests here. No point in interrogating the resident about her home.”

Leland sulked but nodded.

“Speaking of which,” Jude continued, now turning his attention to the cub. “What’s your name? I’m Jude, this is Leland, and Glenny is that one.” He pointed to the resting rogue.

Before answering, the cub shook out her fur like a wet dog. Specs of red-dyed water misted off of her, freezing instantly against the snowy floor. She took a few steps out of her red silhouette and shook again. This time her blue-white tipped fur stuck fully out, no longer matted down with stale cave water and blood.

“Gelo,” the cub said to Jude before shifting her gaze to Leland and finally Glenny. “Thank you for helping me, all of you.”

Jude scratched the back of his head at that. “Thanks for showing us the dungeon entrance.”

“And not ditching us when the poachers arrived,” Leland quickly added, nodding toward the two bodies piled up and quickly growing cold. “Saved Glenny’s life.”

Gelo sniffed the air, hoisting her nose toward Leland. “You three smell different, Jude especially.”

“What does that mean?”

Turning to look at Jude, Gelo continued, “Mother always protected the humans. I thought her soft… now I’m not so sure. Humans, like the poachers, would kill for my pelt and parts. I thought every human was like them. Mother said otherwise, I just didn’t believe her.”

“You know,” Jude said tenderly, “the town just outside the dungeon celebrates your mother? We watched a play of her meeting and protecting the town’s founder.”

“Play?” Gelo asked, her snout twisting at the odd use of the word.

“A reenactment. Children, human children, in customs running around on a stage telling a story,” Leland said. “The town cares about your mother. They are not like those two.” Again he nodded toward the dead bodies.

Gelo went quiet at that, yet her eyes didn’t leave the poachers. “They tried to kill me.”

“Yes,” Jude said, sitting down and petting the poor cub. Her fur was cold yet pleasant, like laying on a bed of ice on a hot day. “And now they are dead. Killed by other humans. People don’t like poachers.”

Gelo leaned into Jude’s hand, allowing him to brush her. “Mother will like you…” she said, her eyes closing.

Leland and Jude looked to each other with a shrug. They were all tired, and for some reason a nap didn’t seem unreasonable. It was, after all, night time in the real world.

“I’ll take watch,” Leland said, recounting that his friend hadn’t got any sleep tonight at all.

Jude nodded, stretched, and laid down. Gelo, in her sleep, shifted and cuddled up with her new human friend.

Glenny’s breathing slowed as well, and soon Leland was the only one awake. He wondered what to do. His mind kept falling to his newest curse, Soul Fire, yet he knew testing the curse was out of the question. It took lost souls as ammunition, a resource he only had one of – the archer poacher.

Leland wondered about monster souls. They were in a dungeon after all, surely he’d have the chance to try to take a monster soul soon. But that was for when Jude was awake and Glenny could be moved. They had a couple days in the dungeon to recover before too much time passed in the real world to make it back in time for the herb competition.

The average time difference was one to four, and unless Leland missed something very important in his childhood studies, he didn’t think this dungeon’s time scale was unusual.

Four days until we return to an ambush, Leland went over in his mind. Unless we forgo the competition and stay in here as long as we are welcome…

Honestly, that might be their best course of action. At least, Leland thought so. Sure, he’d lose his chance at a parasitic staff, but the risk of walking into an ambush unprepared outweighed an equipment upgrade. At the very least, waiting in the dungeon for a longer period of time might cause the other poachers to grow impatient and leave.

If Glenny could fully heal, and Gelo’s mother could help Jude , then losing the staff would be well worth it in Leland’s eyes. He was still rank one, after all. He needed plenty of time to catch up, an entire curse’s rank in fact. A dungeon might be the place to do that.

Moving over to the poachers’ bodies, Leland started rifling through their pockets. Obviously they had left their packs elsewhere, the lack of general survival equipment proved as much. They probably set up a small camp, one hidden so that the blizzard caster could work undisturbed.

Lightly groaning, Leland stepped away from the poachers after finding nothing of interest. Sure they had warm clothing he could take but that wasn’t important enough for him to lose his morals.

Taking spoils of war was nothing new for adventurers, especially against those that started the fighting. Yet stripping a corpse was usually done out of necessity. Of course greed blinded some, but Leland and the other boys didn’t want the poachers' stuff. They would sell the swordswoman’s short sword , yes, along with the few supplies the pair had, but their clothes would be left alone.

Eventually Leland sat back and rested. His eyes focused on the far off icy battleground and his mind wandered. Specifically, to the soul of the Damned that caught the arrow, saving his life.

Subtly, with as little mana and lifeforce as possible, Leland focused internally. He sent a tiny pulse of magic out, a simple call for his summons. Soon the ground split, unearthing a decrepit skewed hand. It felt through the air, flexing like its “skin” wasn’t on tight enough. It then shoved its elbows through the gap, leveraging itself up before its hands grasped at the snowy floor.

A soul of the Damned finally fully emerged, its green-misty form and all. Leland simply watched it for a long moment, taking in all of its unique features. Souls, as he had come to learn, were all humanoid, yet not all perfectly human. Some had slightly off appendages, some had odd characteristics that were hard to place yet easily noticeable.

They were all human, that much Leland knew from his Legacy, yet it was hard for him to classify them as anything other than monstrous. The one before him was no different. It sat on one knee, its head down and outstretched. It was more feminine than masculine, he noted. Its false green “muscle and skin” was thinner, more lithe, and less broad around the chest and shoulders. Yet it did have a singular bulky hand, the one hoisted out to him.

It held the lost soul of the archer poacher, offering it to its master for whatever he deemed reasonable.

Leland didn’t take the gift. Instead, in hardly a whisper, he spoke, “Look at me.”

The soul did. It lifted its head, showing off its hollow eye sockets brimming with purple flame. It held no emotion, like a corpse, yet looked on with pure devotion. It was his summon, it would abide by his command.

“Copy my movements.”

Leland held up a hand, waving it around like washing a window. The soul mimicked him. He switched hands. The soul switched hands. He tapped the ground, the soul tapped the ground. He reached out to touch it, it reached out to touch him.

For a fleeting moment, they were connected. But this moment stretched on for eternity. Leland’s vision narrowed, the surrounding wonderland of snow and beautiful blue sky turning pure black. The void stretched, passing the horizon a multitude over yet simultaneously never passing Leland’s grasp.

Then there were screams. Horrid deathly calls of those long dead, those tortured, those pleading for a new life.

Leland snapped back to the present, his clothes drenched with sweat. He dismissed his summon a moment later.