A Dungeon’s Survival

Alan

My shaking knuckles were turning white from the force I was gripping my knife with. In hindsight, that wasn't surprising. After all, my blade was about as fit for combat as I was. That was to say: not at all. I was no fighter, and the tool in my hands wasn't even a proper weapon. It was a plain, everyday utility knife, but it was what I had and felt the most comfortable with.

Despite handling the blade on a daily basis, I had no confidence in swinging it. I was no Rogue, and it wasn't like the class I did have provided me with anything useful here. All I ever used this sharp piece of metal for were simple things, mundane tasks like cutting ropes, carving wood, and other stuff that was distinctly not related to combat.

I made my living doing odd jobs, not risking my life. That meant my current situation was about as far from my comfort zone as it could get, and I was in no way equipped for it, not that that could stop me. Turning back now wasn't an option.

It didn't matter how many times I jumped at my own shadow out here; I continued to march on through the wilderness all the same. By no means was it confidence that drove me. Neither was it the self-preservation instincts I was clearly lacking.

I held no delusions that I would survive this trip. I wasn't even sure I'd live to see the hour through, yet every time my resolve faltered, all it took was for me to think of her to force myself to keep moving forward. Oh, my dear Glenda, how I feared what had become of her.

As desperately as I may have tried to, I couldn't keep the worst case scenarios from racing through my mind. It spoke volumes to the situation at hand that I actually found myself hoping she was dead, carried off and eaten by some manner of creature I couldn't even begin to imagine. The alternatives were as horrific as they were impossible to know for sure. Worse, the uncertainty of it all only inspired my mind to conjure up more extreme and nightmarish images. It just wasn't fair.

“This damned Dungeon,” I muttered under my breath.

It was all the Dungeon's fault. Everyone knew Dungeons were supposed to bring prominence and prosperity to the cities near where they formed, yet ever since this one appeared, all it had brought us was pain and suffering. Our city wasn't thriving. No, Castallia was crumbling, dying a slow, agonizing death as everyone was driven mad with fear and paranoia.

The signs of something being wrong had been there from the beginning. I knew I should've packed up my family and moved once some of the more concerning rumors began to circulate, but how could I? Our lives were rooted here, and with our finances, it wasn't possible. Had we packed up and abandoned our home, we'd have been left stranded, destitute in an unknown part of the kingdom with nothing to our names. Looking back on it, though, even that would've been preferable to how things had turned out. At least then, we would've still had each other.

I shook my head at the thought as I carried on. That was in the past now. Regrets wouldn't bring my wife back, not regrets about staying here and certainly not regrets over my own inaction yesterday. Had I only tried harder to convince her to wait until tomorrow to go back to her workplace for the bag she'd forgotten–oh, the bag she'd forgotten!

It hadn't even had anything important in it, just a some fabric she'd needed to patch up our son's shirt. There was no reason she couldn't have waited until morning. People hadn't taken to boarding up their windows and hiding away in their homes during the night for the fun of it. Too many people had gone missing in recent weeks to count. It had only been sunset, though. It should've been fine.

No, I thought as I forced my mind away from such thoughts and toward more productive things, What all do I know? What do I actually know that could give me something to go off of?

Obviously, there were the simple, commonly known things no one would dispute, stuff like Dungeon monsters never nearing mortal settlements. Some things, even to laymen, were impossible not to have heard tales of. Even if we lived near the edge of our city, by all means, we should've been safe. Clearly, that hadn't been the case.

As much as everyone believed there were things they knew about Dungeons, how could anyone be sure it was actually true? That information only came to us from rumors and those who stood to benefit from them, after all. Who was to say they hadn't fudged the truth a little, and if they had, the implications would be immense. In that case, what could we actually be sure of?

Other than that, I just had the same clues everyone else did, nothing that could shed any real light on the situation. There was a reason the city was torn between various theories. The way people vanished suggested it was the work of kidnappers, not monsters at all, but the tracks left behind said otherwise. Then, there was the fact that the Adventurer's Guild had confirmed the existence of the Dungeon. Trust them or not, I doubted they'd be wrong about something like that. As for what I believed myself, I wasn't sure.

Criminals or monsters, either option seemed just as likely to me, not that either felt quite right. Kathrine, my sister, was still convinced it was the native monsters and animals that'd been forced from their homes by the Dungeon. Even if the local hunters said the tracks matched up, I considered that to be ridiculous, though, and I'd told her as much. Surely, if it was just the things they hunted regularly out there, at least one of them would've made it back after attempting to follow the tracks, but none of them ever did.

No matter whether that was the case or not, in the end, it was likely me who was the fool. My sister had said as much in far less kind of words before I'd trekked out here, and I'd certainly deserved it. No one who went looking for those we lost ever came back. It was a simple fact and a fate I'd soon be finding for myself. In spite of that, though, I'd been firm in my resolve.

She could call me stupid all she wanted, in the end, Kathrine had understood and agreed to look after my children for me. I'd entrusted her with our meager savings and told her to get them out here should I fail to return before setting off. I knew she would, and they'd be safe with her. That was the only reason I had enough peace of mind to come out here. Of course, it did pain me, knowing they'd grow up without their father, but the mere thought of Glenda being out there, in pain and alone, was more than I could bare.

Even if I knew trying to do anything about it would be a fool's errand, I had to try. Fighter or not, I'd follow her into the den of a dragon if I thought there was even the slightest chance of saving her from its clutches. That was how I found myself here, trembling and resolved to my fate as I trekked up the hills surrounding the city in which I'd lived for all my life.

By this point, I'd made some distance from Castallia, but if the rumors were to be believed, the Dungeon was still much farther away. Nestled out of sight in the hills, it was supposed to be as defensible as it was hidden. There were even rumors about its entrance changing locations of all things. Worse, I wasn't even sure that was where she'd be. Still, it seemed like my best bet, so that was where I planned to go, not that I expected to live long enough to actually find it.

Taking a deep breath, I paused to consider which direction I should actually be heading in. I was halfway up a steep hill by this point, but as for whether I should keep going forward or curve off to the left of right, I wasn't sure. Before I could make a decision, though, something caught my attention.

Quiet as it may have been, there was the sound of pebbles sliding. That, in itself, wasn't odd. With every step I took, I was dislodging and causing some to roll down the hill. No, it wasn't that that had caught my attention. Instead, it was the fact that the sound had come just a moment after I'd stopped moving, and it had come from behind me.

I was half convinced I was about to turn around startled, only for nothing to be there once again. It wouldn't have been the first time since I'd set out or even close to it, but to my dismay, as I frantically searched for the source of the sound, something all too real caught my eye. Standing directly behind me, staring back, was a massive wolf.

My blood ran cold at the sight, and before I could think, I found myself screaming at beast and wildly swinging my blade around. If I was going to die, I was at least going make it regret eating me. At least, that was what I thought I'd do in my crazed panic. In reality, the thing just continued to stare at me, well out of reach of my tiny weapon. I had to question what I was even foing.

A few long moments of flailing about, slashing nothing but air, later, I managed to regain my senses enough to actually take the creature's appearance in. It was no Dungeon monster. I may not have ever seen a live one before, but I knew a wolf when I saw one, and this was just that, a normal animal native to the area. Still, something about it felt wrong to me, not that I could put my finger on exactly what that something was.

Once I realized the creature wasn't advancing, the seconds began to pass by in an uncomfortable silence. Unable to do anything else, I waited for it to strike, but it made no move. Somehow, that only made me more uncomfortable.

Gritting my teeth, I eventually yelled, “Back!” at it as I helplessly began swinging my knife around once more in an attempt to scare it off, “I said back! Stay back!”

There was no reaction from it. Its eyes, as empty and unfocused as those of a corpse, just continued to stare straight through me. It was as though it didn't even notice my actions. If the thing hadn't been in the exact spot I'd just passed through, I would've found myself questioning if it was even alive or just a corpse that had died in a standing position. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and I knew it.

Firming my resolve, I eventually realized, fight or flee, I needed to do something, so against my better judgment, I took a step toward it. As I did, it took a step back. I raised an eyebrow as I took another step forward, and it took another one back. It was retreating?

I didn't lower my guard, quite the opposite. I gulped, fear growing, at how eerie its movements seemed. Something about them felt wrong. They were too stiff and lacking in control. That was enough for me to give up on trying to chase the thing off. From what I'd heard, cornering a desperate, wild beast rarely ended well, so tentatively, I took a step back instead.

The distance between us remained the same. Just as it had backed away when I'd tried to approach it, it now closed in as I tried to get away. Clearly, it hadn't been retreating after all.

From there, to any onlookers, I likely would've appeared to have lost my mind. I tried chasing the thing down, slashing about and slipping on loos pebbles all the while. That didn't work, and I eventually thought better my actions. Next, I attempted to flee, running as fast as I could and swerving around as I did. In the end, that proved just as futile. No matter what I did, the thing always remained just out of reach, mirroring my every move.

It's trying to wear me down!

The realization hit me a few minutes later. By that point, I was already starting to feel tired. I was breathing fast, though I wasn't sure if that was from exhaustion or panic. I couldn't keep this up. I needed to do something different, but clearly, nothing I could do would be enough to faze the wolf, so I did the only thing I could. I returned to climbing the hill, my new, ever-present, and unwelcome companion in tow.

As I ascended the incline, my nerves were eating me alive. Several times, I slipped, giving the canine the perfect opening to pounce on me and tear my neck out, yet it never did. It just kept following, watching.

That continued until, at long last, I reached the top of the hill. I didn't know I'd find there. I'd never been this far from civilization before, but out of everything it could've been, what I found at the top had to have been the last thing I was expecting. As it came into view, the terrain around me blurred into the background. I couldn't believe my eyes.

“What the …?” I mumbled as I tried making sense of the sight.

There, before me, stood a towering, misshapen, and vaguely humanoid figure made up of mismatching patches of skin and fur. Before a giant, I was sure this thing's grotesque figure would've looked like, well, the real giant there. To a normal beastkin like me, however, its stature more so resembled that of a building's. On top of that, it probably would've made a pile of rot look–and smell–appealing in comparison.

I wished I could've at least gone out valiantly, fighting an impossible battle against the beast before eventually succumbing to it. Sadly, I wasn't so fearless. As I took in its towering form, I found myself only vaguely aware of the knife falling uselessly from my grasp to the ground below, not that it would've done me much good anyway. Against this thing, it would've been no more dangerous than one of my wife's sewing needles in the hands of a toddler. Were my death not immanent, the creature's form would've haunted my dreams for years to come; I knew it.

After what felt like an eternity, the thing took one large, lumbering step forward. Seeing that, I practically leaped to throw myself off the hill I'd just spent so long climbing. If I was lucky, I'd roll down it to safety faster than the thing could pursue. Even if I wasn't, though, the fall still might've still been enough to kill me, if nothing else. That had to be better than whatever this thing would do to me, and it would at least deprive it of whatever meager experience my death would net it–that was assuming it was weak enough to get anything from me in the first place. Before I could make it that far, however, I found myself hitting something solid and stumbling to a stop.

The sight of the hideous affront to all that was good in the world had momentarily caused me to forget everything else, the wolf from before included. No sooner had I'd turned around than I found myself running headfirst into it. Whereas before it had maintained its distance perfectly, now, in my moment of distraction, it had made its way right up to me, and a moment later, it was sinking its teeth into my shoulder, preventing my escape.

“Good puppy.”

My mind stopped working as I heard the words gurgled out from the massive abomination behind me as though they'd been spoken by a chorus of men choking on their own blood. That thing could speak, and its voice sounded as abhorrent as it looked. More important, though, were the facts that it was intelligent enough to speak and the wolf was obeying it. As those realizations sank in, the true depths of my foolishness hit me like a collapsing building. There had never been a chance for me to save my wife, but at least now, I would hopefully be joining her in death.

In that moment, terror gripped me; as did fingers the size of forearms. They wrapped themselves around my torso, squeezing hard enough to cause me pain but no harder, and yanked me into the air with little care for my well-being. I braced myself to be eaten whole and my senses to be overwhelmed by the thing's rancid breath, no more than an insignificant morsel of food to something that I would fail to so much as sate the appetite of, but again, I was proven to have no idea what was actually going on. Instead of devouring me, the creature just tossed me across its warped and twisted shoulder like a sack to be carried.

“Good. You should make scary boss lady less, uh, scary,” the hulking monster growled out as it began carrying me off somewhere unknown, the rumbling of its words shaking my entire body with each syllable.

Desperately, I tried clawing at its with my nails in a hopeless attempt to escape or, at least, to inflict whatever petty last act of vengeance I could. Maybe if I hadn't dropped my knife like a fool, I could've hurt the thing. Even in the hands of a child, a needle could still hurt, if not cause serious harm, right? I had dropped it, though, and because of that, useless struggling was all I could manage.

“Ha! You's tickle,” the creature commented, and with that, even the will to fight back fled me.

I closed my eyes as I was dragged away, my mind going to my children. I thought I'd already accepted it, but I'd gone and left them without a father. What had I thought I could do where everyone more capable than myself had already failed? My sister had been right. I was going to die, and it would all be for nothing.

Well, at least I might get to see her again before I die.

That thought was the only solace I found as I was dragged off to who-knows-where, my overwhelming emotions escaping in the form of an uncontrollable stream of tears running down my face. I really was a fool.