Duelling Dungeons

“Kass… please say something,” Sylvia whispered.

Kassandra’s body lay limp in her arms, her friend’s blood seeping through the rent, ruined armour, to pool at her feet. Ripping off her heavy gauntlets and helmet, Sylvia quickly put her ear against the girl's chest, listening for a heartbeat; Anything that would indicate that Kass had just passed out, and not died. There was nothing.

“How did this happen? Dungeons are supposed to be one hundred per cent safe?!? You promised me!” Sylvia sobbed, and tears started streaming down her face. “I told you I never wanted to go through this again. I can’t handle having another friend die in my arms.”

As she gently lifted Kass’ body, intending to carry it back into the previous room and away from the chaos and mess of the explosion, she noticed something. She was alone.

Even if Rembrandt and the Revenants had been right on the front line, close enough to Kass to be caught in the same explosion, the Wraiths shouldn’t have been anywhere close to it, as if summoned by the thought she caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of her eye. Raising her head, she caught sight of several wispy forms silently moving through the stands; they were far enough away that she couldn’t get a good look at them. Somehow the ghosts managed to look even more insubstantial than usual, and no matter how much she stared, she couldn’t make out any detail.

“Get down here! I need help!” she called, but the figures didn’t move. In fact, they seemed to pull back and hide in the shadows.

“What are you doing? Our group’s been devastated, the system failsafes have failed, and everything’s covered in blood. Get down here!” she screamed. When they still didn’t move, Sylvia just scowled, gently adjusting her grip on Kass.

“I thought this match was supposed to be live? Why hasn’t anyone stopped the match?” she whispered as she stared down at the Naga in her arms.

The blood was still flowing, slowly soaking through Sylvia’s armour and staining her skin. There was so much blood. Almost… too much… She’d seen people receive mortal wounds before; it was horrible, and there was always a lot of blood, but at some point the blood would stop flowing. And the smell, normally the smell of blood was overwhelming, but right now she couldn’t smell anything at all.

Something was wrong.

The more she concentrated on her surroundings, the more inconsistencies she noticed. She was pretty sure the silk canopies had been purple and gold earlier; now they were black and crimson, and instead of massive braziers, there were several candelabras dotted around the room.

It was almost like this was a completely different room.

The more she concentrated on these inconsistencies, the more hazy and indistinct the room became, twisting until it became something closer to an impressionist’s painting than a real room. When it couldn’t twist anymore, the vision shattered.

Sylvia gasped, her eyes snapped open just in time to see a muscular, scaled, and slightly malformed humanoid trying to bring a crude club down on her head. With a flick of her wrist, she brought her massive blade up, parrying the weapon before bringing it down on the dumbfounded creature’s head.

It didn’t even have a chance to fall back; instead, it just exploded into motes of light where it stood.

She just had enough time to glance around, try and figure out what was going on, before two more of the malformed creatures charged her, trying their best to pummel her into the ground.

“What’s going on?” she growled, smashing the pommel of her blade into one creature’s face so hard enough to throw it back several feet. “Why is everyone lying around in a daze? Rembrandt!”

The Revenant was the only one still on their feet, dancing back and forth in front of the entire team, trying to prevent the wave of Troglydites from reaching their dazed comrades. He was never one for words, and he was quite busy at the moment, so someone else answered her question for him.

“Hmmmm…. I didn’t think you’d recover so quickly,” Nor’Goth announced from the other side of the room. “I figured if I had you confront your trauma, it would leave you crippled for much longer. Pity, I guess I should have more time monitoring your scenario, rather than trusting the initial illusion would keep you trapped.”

“That was an illusion? You’re sick! You convinced me that my best friend was dying in my arms,” Sylvia growled.

“I didn’t choose the scenario, I just reached into your mind and pulled up some of your greatest fears to keep you occupied,” Nor’goth said, unapologetically.

The ghoul ran his gaze over the conflict, never one removing his hands from behind his back, before letting out a deep sigh. “It’s a shame… if you’d just stayed asleep a little longer, my minions would have been able to get around that annoying swordsman and caused some serious damage to your team. Unfortunately, since we’d already dedicated our best troops to other endeavours, I needed to try and make do with whatever troops we had left. I was hoping that dropping you all into an illusion would give the troggs time to work, but I guess keeping you all pacified was a little too much for me.”

“You managed to knock out our entire group?” Sylvia asked, horrified.

“It’s well within my power, but the more I have to spread my concentration, the less coherent the illusion is. I just had to keep you dazed long enough for the Troggs to strike. I was a little surprised that your undead friend was able to shrug off my attack, and that gave you long enough to recover,” Nor’goth shrugged. “I knew this was a long shot, but I’m still a little disappointed the boys couldn’t even get one of you while you were down. I didn’t see anything in your files indicating you had exceptional willpower or observational skills. I guess I underestimated you.”

“You sure did,” Sylvia replied through gritted teeth as she stepped forward and brought her blade down straight through two troggs, even though they had their primitive clubs up to block. Seeing this, the last few Troggs backed up, afraid. “And I’m going to make you pay for it!”

“I’m sure you’d like to,” Nor’goth replied calmly as he watched her slowly batter her way through the swarm of Troggs. “But unfortunately, I still have a role to play in this conflict, and I cannot allow myself to get caught here. Boys, keep the big one occupied for a minute, please? I’ll see that each of you gets an extra helping of fish at the post-match feast.”

The primitive humanoids cheered and rushed forward despite their fear. There were so many that Sylvia was caught off guard for a moment, and pushed back a couple of steps. Even though she cut down most of them, a couple managed to push through and smash their primitive clubs on her armour. As she shoved them back, Rembrandt stepped in and slashed the closest group of Troggs, dropping a pair before cutting into the rest.

Despite the Trogs’ furious attack, they were no match for two talented warriors, and within seconds the last one fell, dissolving into a cloud of dancing lights. As soon as it did, Sylvia looked at the far side of the room, but Nor’Goth was long gone.

“That bastard… I know that Talia said he’d mess with our minds, but that was far more intense than I expected,” she muttered, shuddering slightly before glancing over at Rembrandt. “How is it that you managed to shake off Nor’goth’s influence so easily?”

“Candy,” the Revenant replied, sheathing his blade and returning to check on the rest of their group.

“Wait? You used Talia’s technique, and it worked?” Sylvia asked, surprised.

“Partially. I cannot eat, so I didn’t bring the candy, but I kept telling myself it was in my pocket,” Rembrandt explained. “So when I suddenly found one in my pocket, I was immediately suspicious.”

“And that was enough to break you out of the illusion?”

“That and the fact that my illusion involved my brothers turning on me, something that would never happen,” the Revenant said. “A terrible choice of illusion.”

“But Nor’goth said the illusions were based upon our greatest fears…” Sylvia started.

“Even if being betrayed by my brethren may be my greatest fear, deep down I know that it would never happen. That’s why I knew that what I saw was false.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Sylvia muttered. “It would have made my ordeal a lot easier to deal with.”

“And what did you see?” Rembrandt asked.

“Something I don’t want to talk about right now,” Sylvia muttered. “Maybe later.”

Behind them, Kass mumbled incoherently before shaking her head. “Looks like now Nor’goth is gone, everyone's recovering. We should help them get on their feet and get this floor over with. I want to get out of here.”

Rembrandt nodded slightly. “Let’s go.”