The infinity dungeon 241

Chapter 241

Author note: 

Well, I just started reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower for the second time, and coincidentally also watched a couple videos on how to improve my prose. Expect changes! And let me know if you like the improvements, or if you prefer the old prose. Of course, my prose is always evolving in one way or the other, influenced by external factors and my emotions, but I always make an effort to listen to my readers’s feedback.

Johanne approached the dark staircase. None of the four people present knew what to expect, and they all waited with bated breath until she finally stopped.

“I am being offered a challenge. Just what I wanted. I will be off, then.”

“Good luck,” Michael said. “Come back in one piece, please.”

She nodded, turned, and the gloom swallowed her.

“Off she goes,” David said. “She should be plenty powerful for a second floor solo run, right?”

Michael approached the other staircase, the one leading down to the Valley. “She should be,” he said. “As you know, however, the dungeon does pretty much whatever it wants with the challenges. So far, it’s never given us something we can’t deal with. In the future, who knows?”

He did not see Travis’s face morph into a scowl for a moment. Instead, he descended down, the others right behind him.

The Valley’s fake sun was high in the sky, its pleasant warmth radiance bathing the forest in vibrant light. Birdsong echoed all around, the mating calls of strange avian creatures and the buzzing of insects. As usual, there was no trace of animals on the ground, even though the Fae claimed that their hunts were always bountiful.

“Alright–” Michael began, only to be interrupted by the blare of an alarm.

Everyone pulled out their phones at the same time. 

“The Renegade…” David said. “That fucker.”

Michael connected to Icarus and confirmed what David had said. “He picked the exact time I was away. It can’t be a coincidence. You two stay here.”

“We are coming with,” David countered. 

“No,” Michael said firmly with a shake of his head. “You will be useless against him and you know it.”

David grumbled but let the matter rest. As Michael disappeared back up the stairs they had just come from, he took a deep breath of the fresh Valley air. “Useless…”

The air really did smell different than the air outside, and now that he had grown in power his senses had sharpened enough for him to notice all the time. In fact, he did not want to go outside, not anytime soon. 

“I’m going deeper,” he said suddenly. “I don’t like feeling useless, but Michael's words rang true. You coming?”

“Wait,” Travis said quickly. David was already stomping away, and he struggled to catch up. “He can only deal with the Renegade because of his spiral, and you know it.”

“I do,” David said. A branch snapped nearby, Drullkrin making his appearance. Seeing that Michael was not with them, he nodded at them but kept his distance. He had likely been watching them for a while already, and the branch was his way to let them know that he was still watching. He was always watching. Preternaturally so.

“I’m still going, are you coming or not?”

Travis hesitated.

“You need to fight if you want to grow stronger, Travis. You can’t keep being a pussy and avoid all danger.”

“I have responsibilities out there,” Travis said.

David did not slow down. “As you wish, man.” 

He had been in the same situation as Travis, back before his rejuvenation, and he knew how it felt to be trapped there. Now that he had overcome it, though, it seemed all so silly.

“Just…” the words escaped his lips despite his better judgement. “One day you will have to stop being a coward.”

Travis’s face darkened. “I am not a coward. I simply know my limits, and don’t have a death wish. You used to be sensible, what changed?”

David snapped. “I changed! I realized that I couldn’t keep being a pussy forever. Not in this kind of world.”

Travis grabbed at the other man’s arm and pulled. “Then what?” he muttered, teeth bared. “One false step, and you’re dead. Then what?”

David yanked his arm free. It was easy. “You have to grow the fuck up and face your fears. Death will come even if you don’t go looking for it, except if you let it come to you, you will have no means to defend yourself. Me, I'm facing death on my own terms. If I die, I die.”

“Don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger, alright?” Travis said. 

“I’m not an idiot,” David said, working himself up. Perhaps the dungeon taint was affecting him already. No, it was too soon. This was all him. He felt himself deflate. “Listen, I know my limits. I don’t have a death wish.”

Travis nodded.

“But don’t start whining when I eventually, inevitably, leave you behind,” David added, back already turned away from Travis.

“I’ll find my own way.” Travis said.

This made David stop. Heat returned to his chest. “What way? Michael boosting your power artificially? You’re like Stephan. The karate sensei with zero spine. Those muscles on your arms, they don’t mean shit in this world, you know that right?”

“Fuck you too, David. Go down if you want, I'll stay here. Just… don’t die, alright?”

The last sentence was like a cold shower. Twice already David had taunted the other man, by all means expecting a reaction. Instead, what he got back was genuine worry. Worry about his safety.

David knew that Travis was also worrying about the company and what–should anything happen–his death would do to Michael, but some of the worry had to be genuine. Genuine enough to make him wonder. Had Travis changed? 

“You bet I won’t die,” he laughed to hide his emotions and turned around again. There was a hint of a smile on his face. “You fucking bet I won’t, asshole.”

***

When Michael returned to the surface world, he had to really struggle to suppress his sigh. He sensed the Renegade immediately, at the edges of the dungeon’s area of influence, which meant that the other man had also sensed him.

Adrenaline flooded his system as he readied for battle and teleported. 

His sudden appearance startled the other man, who was still casting his own spell. Michael’s spiral flared, and the Renegade’s spell unraveled.

“How did you know I was here?” the man asked. 

He straightened up, projecting confidence. Michael matched him, doing his best to hide the wince of pain that even the simple action of disrupting a delicate spell with his spiral had brought him. From inside the inner space, Icarus warned him that if he flared the spiral again, he might risk a total collapse of the boundary. 

And then who knew what might happen.

“You were in the dungeon,” the Renegade said. “This much was certain. And when the ocean meets the shore, all it feels is sand and rock. Never did a wave wonder what wetness it touched.”

“You and your koans,” Michael replied. “You are stealing my mana to replenish your pool. I am going to have to ask you to stop, and to get out of my property.”

“Funny,” the man said, making no move to leave. “The concept of property.”

Michael growled and charged. Instead of the central spiral, he flared the little ones in the boundary, although there were few of them left now. The Renegade vanished quickly, rushing a wasteful spell, but Michael caught a glimpse of surprise on his face before he did. And of a grin.

He knows. The fucker knows.

He would be back soon.

And I can’t delve into the dungeon any longer or he will raze this place to the ground.

Icarus chose that moment to manifest, a swirl of magic between the trees. The thin drops of rain passed through him, making his form flicker. Michael knew it was intentional, of course.

“It’s a system situation all over again,” he said.

Michael walked back towards the dungeon. The tip of the tall tower at the center of the main cluster of buildings was barely visible, half hidden by the trees. Broad leaves crunched under his feet for a few minutes, then he was back among the tall, towering conifers and the tower disappeared again. The smell of sap was pleasant, almost strong enough to hide the stench of pollution that permeated the whole planet.

“I am going to have to deal with it, don’t I?”

Icarus walked beside him. He was wearing black today, blending with the gloom of the forest save for the fake, bright red devil horns he was wearing on his head. They looked fake, made of plastic, despite him being a hologram able to create whatever he wanted.

“I will help you, of course,” Icarus said.

“In the dungeon or outside?”

“If you go in, the Renegade will try to test your defenses again. Except this time, there will be no spiral helping you.”

“Outside it is.”

***

In the dungeon, Travis was lounging in Michael's treehouse. Relaxing. Or, at least, he was attempting to.

He was restless, looking out into the distance. Looking up, wondering what Michael was up to against the Renegade. Looking down, trying to pierce the impassable rock of the dungeon floor with his gaze.

A voice startled him.

“Hello Travis.”

A pretty doll stood perfectly still behind him. Her skin was pale pearl, her clothes frilly black and white. A scythe was slung across her back, its gleaming edge screaming danger.

“You are Infy, the dungeon spirit, aren’t you?”

She cocked her head, and Travis’s breath caught in his throat.

“Don’t call me that,” she said in a low voice.

His breath quickened. Fear, like he had never felt before, flooded him. The Gaze was nothing in comparison. “I’m sorry,” he croaked out. “What should I call you?”

“Infinity,” she said. “And I am no dungeon spirit anymore. Just a spirit, wanting to become free. One day, perhaps. Now sit, Travis Tyrell. We have much to discuss.”