A Trap

Long dark corridors, lit by a pale white glow that seemed to come from no specific source. At regular intervals the corridors would branch off, or momentarily leave them walking through large empty halls. It was as though the inside of Altoria Dungeon had been designed to purposefully lead people astray. Wind them around in circles. Souma tried to keep track of where they were, but it was practically impossible. No matter where he turned his gaze, everything looked exactly the same. There were no landmarks. Any given stretch of corridor looked identical to any other.

They maintained a tight formation as they walked through the corridors. Norrik and Reiny in the lead, Souma and Selina after that, and Yurial bringing up the rear.

"There are power nodes are on the tenth level down," Norrik said offhandedly as they made their way briskly down yet another of the featureless stone corridors.

"Ten levels?" Souma couldn't help repeating. It somehow seemed like a lot deeper than he'd been expecting they'd go this time around.

"Aye lad, ten levels," Norrik replied, not bothering to look around. "Don't worry, there won't be anything to cause us worry until we're past the barrier."

"The barrier is a big door on the eighth level that keeps anything from deeper down coming up closer to the city," Reiny explained.

"So we're not even going to see any monsters until the ninth level?" Selina asked.

It had, truth be told, occurred to Souma that they seemed to be the only ones in here.

"Used to be different, about a hundred years ago," Norrik answered. "But after Altoria started getting too big they closed everything up after the first big junction." The dwarf sighed. "Back in those days we'd already be chopping our way through all manner of beasty. Ahhh, Altoria's become so boring."

"Aren't you one of the adventurers who plugged it up in the first place?" Yurial prodded him from the back of the party.

"Aye, but I'd take it back. A dungeon without monsters is about as boring as a brothel without-"

"Shh!" Yurial hissed, and held her hand up, fingers clenched.

Everybody froze, and for an instant, Souma had a flashback of the moment at the river when the fallen had ambushed him and Selina. From somewhere up ahead he could hear something. Indistinct, but definitely there. Something wet. His grip tightened on his staff.

"There really shouldn't be anything up here," Reiny said quietly, and drew one of her swords. "Are there any other parties in the dungeon?"

"Just us," Yurial said quietly from behind Souma.

"If there are entrances opening above ground, stands to reason there'd be changes to the dungeon geometry as well. Maybe there's a little wriggle room on the barrier now." Norrik readied his hammer. "Take it slow until we know what it is."

Souma looked across at Selina, and found she was looking back at him.

"Can you feel it?" She asked quietly.

Souma nodded. Ever since they'd come here, he'd felt something, like a pull at the back of his mind, urging him forward.

"Y-You look pale, human. Afraid?" Selina forced herself to smirk.

"Kind of. Yeah. What about you, gremlin?"

Selina's eyes darted back ahead and she bit her lip. She held her spear tightly in front of her. He could practically see her sweating. "Of course not. The D-Demon Lord is..." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Maybe a little. I'm not a gremlin."

"Quiet you two," Reiny hissed over her shoulder. "Whatever we run into, don't get caught up in the fighting. And absolutely do not touchanything."

"Yes Miss Reiny," Souma and Selina said in unison.

"Don't you forget it," Reiny turned back ahead, and the small party crept forward. The wet, gnashing sound slowly got louder as they advanced through the corridors, until they came to a small doorway leading into a large dark chamber.

Souma put his hand over his mouth.

Spread out over the floor were dozens of thin, twisted, mangled bodies. Small monsters, green skinned, with grim twisted faces, all motionless. Crawling over the floor, latching on to any exposed inch of skin they could find, were fist sized black slugs. As they sunk their ring shaped teeth into the monsters, they made a wet tearing noise, pulling up chunks of flesh, gorging themselves.

"Dungeon leeches... And imps?" Norrik looked over the scene with obvious distaste.

"Neither one of them should be up here," Reiny surveyed the dungeon floor.

"Let's just keep moving and hope whatever killed these imps doesn't-"

Norrik was cut off by a howl from somewhere deeper in the chamber, where the light didn't quite reach.

"You really don't know when to shut up, do you, dwarf," Yurial hissed, stepping in front of Souma and Selina. She held her bow up, arrow nocked.

"Here it comes!" The dwarf shouted, and planted his feet firmly on the ground, raising his hammer over his shoulder.

As the adventurers readied themselves, Souma saw something galloping out of the darkness towards them. It ran like a bird, on its hind legs, but its head and body were distinctly more dog like.

Even before the monster was fully in view, Yurial had drawn and loosed an arrow. The long wooden shaft fired with a terrifying speed into one of the monster's eyes. Reiny stepped into its path and with a crisp movement of her wrist, it lay in two at their feet.

More howls echoed around the chamber.

"There's an exit up ahead!" Reiny yelled.

The party ran in the direction Reiny was pointing, over the floor filled with dead imps and giant slugs, through an open door and into a smaller room.

"You two! Get back!" Norrik commanded Souma and Selina. At the others he barked, "how many of those raptors are there? Get the door closed!"

"I need a few seconds!" Yurial shouted back, and started messing about with a dull black orb built into the wall next to the door. As soon as her slender fingers brushed against it, it began to glow pale green.

Meanwhile, Reiny and Norrik stood shoulder to shoulder at the entrance, where more of the strange wolf-bird hybrids had emerged from the darkness and were snapping their jaws. Reiny kept them at bay with her sword, and Norrik used the head of his hammer as a shield to push them back, but the creatures were tenacious, and had no intention of giving up.

Souma stared at the scene unfolding wordlessly, his mind shutting down, as Selina slowly backed up behind him, spear held in trembling hands, towards the rear of the room.

Is this for real? Is this what it's like exploring dungeons? Isn't this all a little too much? What are those things called? Raptors? What the hell is that? What the hell is going on? Why am I here?

"I got it!" Yurial called out. With a deafening metallic crash, a huge iron portcullis fell from the top of the doorway, smashing down onto the stone floor and putting an impenetrable barrier between the party and the creatures outside.

"That should keep them out of here for a..." Yurial's words died off.

The room was much brighter than it should be.

Souma felt a familiar tingling on the back of his neck. Fearing what he was about to see, he slowly turned around.

Selina was standing in the middle of a small glowing circle made up of dozens of small runes, all crackling with blue energy.

"A teleporter? Here?" Reiny gasped.

Selina looked up at him, her face seized by terror, as her body began to glow, small motes of light dancing about her.

"H-Human!" She cried.

Souma dropped his staff and sprinted. He dove at Selina, wrapped his hands about her waist. His vision went dark, and there was a wrenching feeling, as though he had been pulled upwards on the end of a very long string...

You are dead

Souma looked out the window of his room. It sure was dark out there. What time was it? His room was dark too. When had it gotten this dark? He looked back down at his hands, holding a controller, cord sneaking away towards a little grey game console, everything lit white by the television at the back of his small room. On the screen, a maze of grey and brown tiles. Creatures shuffled from square to square like clockwork.

You are dead

Ah, that's right. He died. He watched the words flash on and off, taking up the whole screen. He'd been playing this game, and he died. That made... Quite a few times tonight. How many times? It was hard to keep track. His character lay motionless on top of a small red puddle. He'd almost made it to the boss chamber this time and everything. This game was too hard. Just way too hard.

You are dead

Souma sighed, and put the controller down. Was he hungry? He wasn't sure. He'd been playing for a long time now. His throat felt raw. Maybe he should go outside and buy something from a vending machine? It looked late enough he wouldn't run into anybody. He leaned forward and clicked off the power button on the console. The television went dark.

You are dead

He sat in his dark room, staring out the window. He could still hear the game in his head, tick tick tick, the monsters moving from tile to tile. He'd been playing too long. If he closed his eyes he could practically see them. Imps always followed the most direct line toward you, so you could trick them into walking through trap tiles. Raptors were smarter, they waited in dark parts of the map and swarmed you. The worst were the fallen. They didn't have patterns. Everything they did was always surprising.

You are dead

With the game turned off, Souma realized that he could hear something coming from outside. A hum? A soft buzzing, from outside his window. He stood, legs stiff from hours spent not moving. There was definitely something outside, light hitting the trees near his house at an unfamiliar angle.

You are dead

Souma's eyes shot open, and he sucked air into his lungs, sitting bolt upright.

It was freezing. He had been lying on icy cold stone. He was in a little room, dimly lit by a pale yellow light. One of the lanterns the dwarf had given them. There was something soft in his lap, fluffy white hair.

Had he been dreaming? He felt as though he had seen something important, but he couldn't quite recall what.

"Where are we?" His voice felt raspy.

Selina looked up at him, her eyes red.

"Human," she said, voice muffled. "I thought you were dead."

Souma winced. "Don't just randomly assume people are dead. At least check if they're breathing or something." He shook his head. "What just happened? I saw you glowing-"

"It's not my fault!" Selina cried, and sat up. She quickly wiped her face with her sleeve, leaving a smear of snot running sidewards across one cheek. "I didn't touch anything! I just... How was I supposed to know there was a teleporter there? And... And when I stepped into it..."

Souma held his hands up to calm her down. "I get it. It's fine. I don't suppose you know where we are?"

"No, but I heard something moving around out there," Selina pointed out of a portcullis that was sealing them in.

"Great. Just great."

Seeing that iron grate holding up the exit, Souma realized this room looked a lot like the one they'd been in before they were teleported. The walls, the stonework, everything looked the same. Which meant at the very least they were probably in the same dungeon. Maybe if they just stayed here, there was a chance that Reiny and the others would come to...

No, that probably won't happen.

If it had been possible for Reiny and the others to follow them, they would already have done so. Realistically, there was no way of knowing where they'd been sent, or if the others even could follow them. The teleporter might not function any more, and it might have sent them to a location that wasn't accessible any other way. There were too many variables.

"Here," Selina interrupted his train of thought and passed him one of the bottles Reiny had packed for them. Souma took it gratefully and lifted it to his lips. The cool liquid inside felt rejuvenating. He started calming down.

"Do you still have your spear?" Souma asked, handing back the water.

"Yes, it came across with me."

"At least we're not unarmed. I don't have my staff, though, so we'll have to make do." He stood, and pulled on his backpack, which apparently Selina had crammed under his head as a makeshift pillow.

"You mean we should go outside? To fight those things?"

Souma didn't want to fight. He didn't want to die. He knew deep down Selina didn't want to either. But he also knew they couldn't just stay here doing nothing.

The world won't change unless we're moving.

It was a strange thought, and he wasn't sure where it came from, but somehow it seemed applicable. They had to do something.

"Don't tell me a couple of mobs are too tough for the Demon Lord?"

"W-What are you talking about?" Selina jumped up. "Foolish human! O-Obviously I was just testing you! To... To see if you are still worthy of being my minion!"

"That's more like it," Souma grinned. There was no denying this gremlin was an idiot, but at least she had the right kind of enthusiasm when it counted. "How many outside?" He asked.

"I think two. Imps, the green ones."

"Easy. They just come straight at you."

"W-what?" Selina turned to him.

Souma frowned. What had he just said? He shook his head. It didn't matter. "We can take them."

"Should I use my unique skill?"

"Not yet, I don't think. Reiny told us we should keep that available until we really need it. I'll use mine, but only a little. You'll have to fight them, but I'll try make it easy."

Selina nodded. "Right. So what do we do?"

Souma walked to the closed portcullis. Selina was right, he could see two of the imps wandering about outside. Short little green skinned monsters, dressed in rags, carrying crude wooden clubs. Right now it was almost like they were ignoring them. Was it because they really hadn't noticed the two of them in here? Surely they could hear them talking. Were they really that stupid? There was something strange and hollow about their movements.

"They look like zombies," Souma muttered.

"They kind of are," Selina replied. "Monsters in dungeons are... Not normal."

Yet another thing to put in his rapidly overflowing box of questions to ask somebody who was better at explaining things.

Beside the door, he could see a dull black orb set in a small recess. The same type that Yurial had used to manipulate the portcullis.

"Alright, stand in front of the door and get ready," Souma instructed Selina. "We'll do it just like the wolves."

After she had done so, standing with her feet set and spear pointing toward the entrance, Souma placed his fingers on the orb. Immediately, as though the information had been passed directly into his brain, he could see how it worked. He reached out with his mind, and turned the mechanism. With a loud, rapid clanking, the portcullis quickly rose off the ground, until it was high up in the door frame out of sight.

Finally, the imps took notice. Souma heard them hiss and growl, and then the sound of their bare feet slapping against the stone floor as they ran towards them.

"They're coming!" Selina called out.

The first of the imps burst through the doorway.

"Restrain!"

The imp stumbled, falling forward, as the second imp crashed into it from behind. It tripped and stumbled back to the doorway. As Selina rammed her spear into the first imp, Souma released the portcullis. The punishingly heavy grid of iron slammed back down into the ground like a guillotine, cutting the second imp into half. Both enemies were dead.

"Not bad, human."

"Not that bad yourself, gremlin."

"I'm not a gremlin."

They slapped their hands together in a quick high-five.

Souma raised the portcullis again. The dead imp was momentarily lifted along with the spikes on the bottom of the iron frame, before falling back down to the floor.

"Well that was gross. Do they have anything we can loot?" Souma looked distantly at the dead bodies.

Selina picked up the crude cudgels the first imp had been carrying. "Not much of a weapon, but it's better than nothing," she said, tossing it over.

"It'll have to do. Let's get going. I'd like to say we could finish our mission turning off the power nodes or whatever, but right now, I kind of just want to get back out of here alive."

"The Demon Lord agrees with your plan, but if we meet your other human friends..."

"I know, I know."

The two of them left the small chamber, walking into the room where the imps had been. It was mostly empty, or maybe it would be better to say it had been picked clean. At some time, this room might have been some kind of armory, with all manner of weapon and armor racks lined up along its edges. But now, all the racks were empty, covered in dust. There was a large crack in one of the walls, where maybe the imps had gotten in. The air felt stale.

Across from them, there was a single other doorway. They could keep going, or go back into the broken teleport room.

"Just one exit?" Souma muttered, not liking how this was playing out.

The two of them kept moving forward. Through the doorway, they found themselves in an overwhelmingly large room, more like a natural cave than part of a man-made building. The door led directly onto a huge stone bridge, wide enough that you could have marched ten people abreast down its length. It stretched out over the bottomless chasm, until, in the middle of the massive empty space, it connected to a giant tower, looming up out of the darkness below and vanishing into the void above. There, where the bridge met the tower, was an immense door.

Souma was reminded of the tower he'd been summoned to in the first place.

"This cannot be a good thing," he said quietly.

As they got closer to the door, the scale of it slowly dawned on him. It was easily larger than the door up on the surface that guarded the entrance to the dungeon. And when they got closer still, he could almost make out a massive relief carved into the surface. The ambient light was not bright enough to make it out clearly from where they were, but as they got closer, their meager lanterns helped cast some light on the carved stone. Souma felt his body tensing up. Upon the door was carved the likeness of a man, a flaming sword above his head, grinning maniacally. Beneath him cowered all manner of creatures. Those with horns, those with pointed ears like elves, small statured dwarves, and even smaller beings with delicate wings.

"What the hell is that?" Selina breathed.

"I'm not sure, but... I think it's a warning about what's inside."

"Do you think maybe we should not open this door?" Selina asked.

Before Souma could answer, there was a thundering crack. As though it had reacted to their mere presence. And throwing up a cloud of dust, stone that had remained in place for over a century began to move. The two of them watched with dread as the giant doors slowly rumbled inward, revealing the inside of the circular tower, as big as a football field.

And as though it had all been prearranged, across the giant room, they saw another equally large door opening at the same time. As it parted, Souma saw the outlines of a group of maybe twenty people. The ones up front carrying weapons, staring with a ferocious intensity at them from across the arena.

Souma's mouth felt dry. He felt his stomach churning. He knew them. Not very well. For the most part, they were people he'd only seen once, and then only for a few minutes.

And standing right at the very front of them, her sword held forward, tip pointing right at him, there she was. The reason he had decided to go through with this insane quest to begin with. The girl with whom he had only ever exchanged a dozen words.

Even though she only spoke quietly, her voice carried all the way across the vast, silent chamber, as though she were right in front of him.

"Souma? Is that you?"