The Cabin Is Always Hungry (A Dungeon Core Horror Slasher)

LAST RESORT

Part 23

SCENARIO 4

12:30 PM

6 Hours Until Dawn

7 Delvers remaining…

I looked down at poor Roy, buried under the heavy shelf, his blood mixing with the pooling wine and broken glass. He made a soft croak in his open pierced throat while the werewolf tried to break down the basement door not far from him. He made an effort to get up, but barely could hold it for a second before he collapsed under the shelf’s weight; a long hiss escaped his lips. His eyes went blank and distant.

I snapped back next to Duke Henry at the garden. “Soooo…your butler is pretty much dead.”

“Hm. What a shame.” Henry shrugged and took out a pocket notebook and a black pen from his jacket. He started writing on it then slipped it back.

“What did you write about?”

“My notes.”

“You’re taking notes?”

“In how my minions are performing, yes.”

I chuckled. “Are you seriously giving them performance reviews? One of your employees is dead. I don’t think he cares anymore.”

“At least I can see for myself how they can take a beating. Consider this a test.”

“So they are test subjects.”

“Correct.”

“Well, they don’t die easy from a serious injury.” I pictured the corkscrew in Roy’s throat. “Roy remained standing for five minutes while his throat was open.”

Henry took out his notebook again and wrote more stuff in it. I caught the words Blood Sorcery circled at the very top.

“Sorcery?”

“It might improve their constitution and stamina, if I learn how to harness it.” Henry thinned his lips. “May I make an odd request, my lord?”

“Based on what I’ve done and seen in the past few months, Henry, nothing is ever odd.”

“On your next archetype upgrades, perhaps we should expedite the inclusion of a sorcerer or a powerful archmage in your dungeon. You have covered the offensive and defensive capabilities of your domain, but we are lacking in the magical front. I request to learn blood sorcery in order to enhance my reach and help you.”

“Technically, I am magic.”

“Right you are, sir. But not during a delve...unless you are willing to break the rules.”

“And bring the Administrators to us? You know I am not allowed to cast spells that directly influence a delve.”

Henry rolled his eyes. “Yes, the faraway hot pockets behind the screen. Do you want my personal opinion, sir?”

“Go ahead.”

“The Administrators are just as mortal as the humans inside that manor. They work for and manipulate the loopholes of the System, but mortal nonetheless. For all Cores, they are fair game for you to offer a delve and feed on.”

“They didn’t give me those vibes when I spoke to them.”

“It’s probably because they don’t want the habit of Cores eating them. They’re an odd lot who fancies themselves above the System’s cycle of life.”

“They also eat dungeons who disobey.”

Henry smiled mischievously. “That is…if a DEATH CORE allows them to. And everyone in the universe knows Death Cores are not to be fucked with. And besides, who do you really work for? The Administrators or The System?”

“The System demands balance.”

“The System demands balance because mortals demand balance.”

And Death Cores demand chaos, I wanted to say. All the rewards that surviving delvers could have would tip off the balance of a world to those who knew how to ask for such power. Humans on Earth did not have that luxury of foresight except for a select few.

If anyone survived tonight’s delve, I wondered what they would wish for.

I turned to Henry. “Best not speak ill of them when those people you dislike so much are watching and paying us.”

“I don’t dislike them, my lord, no,” Henry said. “They’re paying you so that they can get high from a fraction of your power.”

I didn’t say anything. Right now, I didn’t want to risk offending the Administrators since I’m still a juvenile Core.

Henry added, “And besides, I often wonder what aliens taste like.”

Kevin and the others were still holed up in that upstairs room, debating themselves in circles whether they should stay or go like a bunch of hens clucking in a coop while the wolf pawed at the fence. I let them stew and bicker for another few minutes. My many-eyes followed the real action: Lope, Kate, and Vivian coming up from the cellar steps like rats driven out by floodwater.

The basement door was still holding, though Christ only knew how. Xavier hit it again and again with those new big shoulders of his, and every slam sounded like a tree snapping in half. Still, it held. For now.

After running through a couple of hallways, they spilled into the dining room. I drew the lights down another notch for mood lighting (A dungeon lord’s allowed to have his little amusements) and watched the shadows stretch in the corners. The delvers didn’t seem to notice. Lope jammed a chair under the knob as a barricade, like that would do a damn thing against the freight train hammering around downstairs. They all stood there for a beat, listening. As they looked around the room, they found it empty. Safe, at least for a few minutes. And that was when all the adrenaline drained out of them and pushed their emotions to the surface.

Vivian’s soft cries came first. Kate and Lope started squabbling. Lope got practical about their survival, the way a man does when he’s trying to keep all the gears in his head turning in the same direction. Kate just came apart in fits, like someone frantically trying to tape back together a broken vase, but it just kept falling apart in her hands. It took five long minutes of back-and-forth before they both reached the truth they didn’t want to face: they were being hunted by a werewolf.

No, they were TRAPPED with a fucking werewolf.

Vivian, the poor little thing, wanted to go back for her brother. Of course she did. She kicked and screamed like a small chihuahua in their grip. Kate finally slapped her—a sharp, flat crack that hung in the room for a long second afterward. I chuckled. You’d be amazed what a good slap can do to rewire a person’s thinking. And that’s exactly what happened: It brought Vivian’s Resolve back to a darker orange. She sulked and sat down on the chair at the head of the table, clutching her reddened cheek.

“He’s not your brother anymore,” Kate told her desperately. “If you go back down there, you’ll die.”

Vivian’s hope was still there though, and I doubted that was ever going to change. “Maybe we can find something to reverse it?”

Lope just stared at her, and you could see him making the decision to be cruel for her own good. “You saw it with your own eyes, girl. He turned into a goddamn animal. He’s a werewolf! Ain’t nobody got a cure for that around here! How are we supposed to find one?!”

“They don’t exist,” Vivian said, her voice cracking. Even she didn’t believe her words.

“Well they fucking do now,” Lope said.

Vivian wiped a small tear running down her cheek with the back of her hand. “Madame Dallaire said I shouldn’t go into the mountains.”

“And who the hell is Madame Dallaire?” Lope asked.

“A…” Vivian paused. She didn’t really know what she was. A witch? A seer? A crazy con artist? She shook her head. “Never mind.”

I turned my many-eyes back at the cabin where Oracle was, but the construct beat me to it.

“Lauren Toomes is in her home asleep, my lord.”

“Good. I don’t want to deal with another interruption from a sorcerer.” Rules of magic were sometimes a funny thing. I couldn’t risk the possibility that merely uttering Madame Dallaire’s name might wake the sorcerer up and sense some trouble in the mountains. She and Vivian had grown awfully close in the past couple of weeks.

“If she decides to drive up the mountains, I’ll disable her car. I have already made a couple of contingencies,” Oracle said.

I remembered Hodge’s last stand at the Core Tree. That was a close call. Maybe Henry was right. Maybe I really needed to invest on recruiting a mage for my dungeon to combat future spellcasters.

Back at the manor, Kate asked the only question left. “So what do we do now?”

Lope scanned the room—doors, windows, exits—and was satisfied by what he saw. “I think it’s safe enough here. You two stay. I’m gonna see if the others are still holed up by the front. That’s the last place I left them.”

Kate stiffened. “No way. I want to see my sister.”

“She’s upstairs,” Lope reminded her, gentle as he could. “I’ll get Daryl, Nina, and Ray first. Better if we move as a group before we find the others. I’ll only be gone for five minutes. Ten, tops. Okay?”

Kate crossed her arms, lips pressed into a thin line. “Fine. But hurry. That door back there is not going to hold forever.”

Lope paused to listen. They didn’t hear the slamming noises beyond the door anymore. “I’ll be right back,” he said and left.

That made me smile.

Folks in horror movies always said that, and they almost never did.

I let my Many-Eyes drift like a bored cameraman craning for a better view, and there, at the mouth of the East Wing, under the flaking portrait of a man who’d once thought himself important back in the Gilded Age, Garth and Luke had gathered.

I flew out of the dining room because curiosity was one of my cheaper vices. Maybe they were giving each other pep talks. Maybe they were comparing their favorite ways to carve a man open. Either was possible. I drifted past the smoking room on my way and the delvers were still in there, bickering amongst themselves, although it was already coming to a consensus that it was time to move their ass and find a way out of this building. As I suspected, the respite gave them a false sense of security.

“Watcha guys doing?” I asked, appearing right next to Garth and Luke.

Luke—Were-Luke, if you want to be technical—blew out a huff out of his snout like someone who’d just found out their grandma died. “We have a problem, my lord.” His voice sounded warped, guttural, and warmly deep. All the werewolves sounded like that.

“What kind of problem?”

He paused, looked sideways as if checking for potential eavesdroppers that weren’t there. “Have you received any notifications on your side?”

Oh, yeah, that little prick of the System and how it kept buzzing me with notifications like a hungry mosquito. I had been watching the action in the basement so I ignored and reduced the tab because of its annoying pings except when it had something to do with earning crystals or essence. I popped open the System menu with a gesture. There it was, stark and official and annoyingly polite about a potential issue in my dungeon. They even colored it a dull red on the bar to let me know it was a very serious matter.

[ A potential recruitable archetype, a werewolf, has appeared inside your domain. ]

[ Warning: All werewolf slots have been filled (3/3). You must create a new archetype or upgrade a trait to increase your werewolf pack! ]

[ Warning: A scenario is in progress. You cannot create a new archetype. ]

“Whoops,” I said out loud. “It’s a delving night, so I can’t create new monsters until after the delve’s done.” Or when all the delvers are dead, I thought.

The werewolves nodded.

“Wait a minute. Does that mean Xavier is not listening to me?”

“He can, but he is untethered to the dungeon,” Luke said. “His werewolf instincts are at an overdrive. Without your guidance and the power of the System’s influence, he is a walking bomb. He will not care about a delver’s Resolve. He will go for the kill. Always. He will always be a Berserker.” ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel-fire.net

A Berserker? I quickly opened the monsters tab and looked at The Werewolf stat sheet.