Dungeon of Doors

~ Lord Fredrick, Dungeon ~

I follow the dungeon's creator with a solemn frown. She's a strange one, clad in a black cloak and bearing a glittering amulet. Speaking to her feels eerie in some ways while ordinary in others. Her voice is a chorus rather than a single speaker. Her manners are oddly human.

She leads me to a door cut into the wall. I step through it, finding myself in a deserted settlement. A dreary wasteland stretches all around us. Occasionally I feel a breeze pass through me. If I was forced to walk I imagine the ground here would feel coarse and dry.

"We're here. This is the accommodations I've set up for you, Lord Fredrick."

My disapproval doesn't show on my face. While it does superficially resemble Daywark it is distinctly abandoned. There are nearly no plants here. Those that are here look dead and worn from lack of water.

"This will do. Now, onto the main event, Vivian?"

"Yes... For this part I will need to leave. You'll see my actions once I begin."

"I understand. I'll wait here."

Confusion creases my brow as she turns and goes back the way we came. The fact she can't resurrect them in person is very odd to me, but I've still got a lot to learn about Vivian. Perhaps her powers can't be activated under direct observation.

It only takes a few minutes for the resurrection to begin.

I'm hovering lazily above the ground when I see it. Odd motes of greenish blue light start to appear in the air. They coalesce, swirling into a messy blob of translucent green matter. It is as I'm watching this gaseous blob twist violently that the process begins anew. More green light and strange abstract blobs form hovering in the air. I watch in fascination as faces begin to twist from the glowing green masses. Each one twisted in emotion. Some look to be in agony, others ecstasy. Their haunting screams send a shiver up my spine.

"Fascinating... Is this how it looked when I returned from death?"

I watch each amorphous cloud start to tighten up into the shape of a humanoid. Their faces move and twist into the correct configurations whilst their limbs and torso fill out to the correct size. Clothing and other details make themselves clear as each phantom adjusts to their new existence. I watch closely as the first ghost is brought back from the brink.

"Fuck! What in the world just happened?"

In front of me is a thin man with sunken cheeks and a fearful look in his eyes. What is most striking about him is the large holes in his legs and torso. It looks like he was impaled several times over by some kind of weapon or spike. His face isn't familiar to me.

"You've been brought back to life, after dying in the dungeon."

"The dungeon? So I was caught by those damn guards?"

"Guards... Wait a moment, were you one of the first to discover the dungeon?"

Another one of the gaseous humanoid figures finally finishes materializing. It is a man of similar age to the other, with several nasty scars cut across his face. In his hand is a rather sharp looking knife made of the same ghastly green stuff we're all comprised of. He holds it like he's ready to fight, a scowl on his features.

"Shanks! You're here too!"

The scar faced man turns to the sunken faced man with a look of bewilderment.

"Skinny? You're alive? But you fell into that pit-"

Shanks, the one with the scars, suddenly holds his head as if in pain. His body looks to be intact if you don't count the scarring on his face. No obvious injuries like Skinny, the sunken faced man. Shanks wipes shimmering tears from his face as he gets his bearings.

"Damn it, I died as well. To the same damn trap."

"You mean we're really dead?" Skinny murmurs.

"Isn't that obvious? Look at us. We're all floating and see through!"

Their morbid conversation halts when a third phantom comes into being beside them. This one is a hunched old man missing several teeth. His head floats slightly above his neck where a nasty sword wound clearly beheaded him. He blinks at me dumbly before turning to look at Skinny and Shanks.

"We're in Hell, then?"

The old man's first words lay an eerie quiet over the group. They all look to me as if I'm going to give them the answer to their question. The look in their eyes tells me they most certainly believe they belong in hell. I sigh, shaking my head.

"This is not Hell. We're in the dungeon, a structure made not by man but by something else entirely. Now, I believe you three were the first to discover it?"

The old man looks perplexed by my words. None of them seem to understand what I mean by the dungeon. I suppose none of them survived to hear that name being thrown around. My eyes linger on a particularly unique blob of green that's forming into a person. The greenish hue of their body is shifting to a bright red occasionally, and when they appear they're wearing the armor of a soldier of Daywark. When I see his face I'm taken aback.

"Dirk? Is that you?"

Several other figures wearing the same armor materialize around Dirk at the same time. I don't pay attention to them, as I'm shocked to see my most competent soldier here alongside me after death. His grim visage glares down at his own green body before he looks up to me with a strange look in his eyes.

"Am I in the afterlife, Lord Fredrick? Are you truly here?"

"Not the afterlife, my friend. This is the dungeon. It has brought us back from limbo."

Dirk's green softly glowing body suddenly flashes a bright angry red. My brows raise as a snarl of rage crosses his face. He draws his sword with a flourish before turning to look at our surroundings. He largely ignores the others who are being brought back from death. His eyes are on our environment, the facsimile of Daywark.

"Hey! That's the bastard who killed me!"

"Easy, Toothy, we're already dead. No point getting worked up now."

"Well it serves him right he died too. That's karma, hah!" Toothy guffaws.

There's a dangerous look in Dirk's eyes. The way his body glows a red hue is unnerving, and I calmly reach a hand out before placing it upon his shoulder. He stops upon feeling the contact. He turns to regard me with a lost look in his eyes.

"You needn't fight, Dirk."

Dirk's face twitches. He breaks down, his expression twisting with grief as he starts to cry. I watch the normally stone-faced man wipe his eyes with an arm. The other newly resurrected soldiers around him look shocked to their core by the display.

"Lord Fredrick, forgive me!"

Dirk's anguished apology lifts my brows. I don't know what to say to the man. He must have taken my death quite hard for him to be acting this way, but if he didn't die the same way I did then what killed him?

"Calm yourself, Dirk. It is alright. You did all you could to aid me."

"No, Lord, I failed you when you needed me most. Now we're both banished to this confounded dungeon! I died trying to find and slay whatever created it, all for naught..."

"Slay? You intended to kill Vivian?"

All the emotion boiling in Dirk fizzles out when I mention the name Vivian. He glances up at me with a bewildered look, his jaw slack.

"I'm sorry, but who is Vivian? Do you mean to say there really is someone in charge of the dungeon? It's not just something unfathomable?"

"He is referring to me, Captain Dirk."

Three voices threaded into one boom out across the town. The ghosts assembled turn their attention to the speaker. She's floating now, a pair of strange faintly glittering boots adorning her feet--they are new. Her hood obscures her face so that all we can see is her mouth.

"Hear me, deceased! You may have lost your life in my realm, but you have been given a second chance! Lord Fredrick, former city lord of Daywark, is here to help guide you."

All eyes turn to me. I float up a little higher, adjusting my posture in a bid to ensure I'm presentable for such a large crowd. The amount of phantoms gathered here is a little worrying. Most of the ghosts have very obvious signs of what caused their death, but a few are like myself, fully intact despite being killed violently.

I start by introducing myself to those who aren't familiar. There are a few. Some people claim they were adventurers, an occupation created by Miss Hawthorne. Information is lacking when all of us have died at different times.

"Let us form a timeline before we begin making plans for the future. I require everyone to line up! Let's go over what each of you know."

My orders don't quite land for everyone. While Dirk and all of the soldiers from Daywark are quick to follow my lead, there is a particularly large crowd of men in intricate armor standing aside. They eye everything with a stern glare. Their leader is a tall man with a bald head. In one hand the large man holds a morning star. There's something off about this group. Their translucent bodies are not green, but a golden hue.

"We'll be doing no such thing, Fredrick."

One of the men in armor speaks for their oddly quiet leader. The group is well armed, their ghostly golden weapons all finer than anything my soldiers bear. Most of them bear signs of violence from their death. One is cut into pieces that float loosely together, another beheaded, and one is lacking his entire face--it floats in front of his head eerily.

"And who might you be?" I inquire.

"We're paladins of The Enclave! Have you no knowledge of God, former city lord?"

"Paladins... What brought you to the dungeon? I don't recall there being a church in my city."

The paladin is growing a bit frustrated with me. He starts boasting about the recent events of Daywark. Apparently a cleansing was enacted on the dungeon, and these paladins were a part of it. Some of the paladins chime in to clarify that they actually died during the scouting mission prior to the cleansing. The whole lot of them is very prideful, albeit their leader has yet to actually say anything.

"I see... Well, I cannot let you do as you please. Vivian and I have an arrangement."

Finally stepping forward, the leader of the phantom order of paladins speaks.

"Where is Claymore?"

It is not me he is speaking to, but Vivian. She is hovering above us some distance with an aloof frown. She brings a hand to her face as if deep in thought. She shakes her head as she speaks down to the ghostly paladins.

"I'm sorry, but I brought back everyone I could. If this Claymore fellow isn't here then it means he either didn't die or he died out of my reach."

The bald man with the morning star clenches his fists. It is clear he's frustrated. He doesn't say anything as one of his men whispers to him. With a curt nod, the paladins turn and ready their weapons. They're all glaring right at Vivian.

"You were a fool to resurrect us, foul devil! Face God's judgement!"

The crowd of ghosts look aghast as the paladins zoom through the air with their weapons raised. Their bodies glide as they lunge, rapidly approaching the unarmed creator of the dungeon. Of course they never reach her robed figure.

Instead the one in the front stops in the air, his face twisting with agony. His limbs twist, contorting and bending like wet noodles as he screams. Within a few seconds he falls to the ground in a puddle of golden glowing goo.

"Y-You monster! How dare you!" One paladin shouts at Vivian.

Clicking my tongue, I blink and upon opening my eyes I'm hovering directly in front of the paladin who just spoke. My hand is on my book, yet he stiffens as if someone just stabbed him. I hum softly at the fascinating power of mana.

"That was my doing, you see. This mana Vivian has taught me about is quite the useful tool... Everything is made of it, including you."

The paladin lets out a howl of pain as I fold him like a pretzel with a tug of his mana.

"All of you are my responsibility for the foreseeable future. I was a just lord, and I will continue to be so as long as no harm comes to Vivian or any of her creations."

Silence reigns. Quiet wind blows through the town as everyone stares in awe of my frightening ability. I have to admit being shown such reverence is a little intoxicating, but I'd rather not become some kind of tyrant.

"Is that understood?"

A chorus of affirmations are given as replies.