Nomi's Dungeon - Room 1 (Patreon)

Yang woke to the sound of something dripping. Groaning, she sat up and looked around.

Dark bricks; iron bars. The scent of mold. A single candle, flickering azure in the cool draft wafting past her ankles. Four walls, stiflingly close. A coppery smell, like blood, in the air.

Yang’s heart started to pound. Her wrists were stuck behind her back, and she felt cold metal on her wrists. Manacles? Otherwise, she was naked. Swallowing, she tried to stand, and in doing so confirmed her suspicions: jangling, the chain binding her to the wall snapped taut.

Hissing, Yang struggled to her feet and leaned aback against the damp wall behind her. What was going on? Where was she? The last thing she remembered, she’d been–

Memory flashed like lightning in her brain. She gasped. Ruby! Where–?

A boom like a tremendous hammer rolled through the cell, followed by the distinctive clunk-clunk-clunk of gears biting into each other as they turned. The cell shuddered, and Yang almost lost her footing as it began to descend like some kind of awful medieval elevator.

Face dripping with sweat, she clung to the wall for safety, till the cell ceased to fall with a terrible crash. Instead, it jerked suddenly to the left. Somewhere below, someone shrieked in pain.

Startled, Yang jerked back and caught her head on the wall, filling her eyes with stars. Groaning, she breathed deep and struggled to stay upright. Several seconds passed before the cell stopped moving completely.

Something dripped; Yang bit her lip.

Hundreds of tiny letters flashed blood-red on all the bricks to her front and her sides, and as she watched, eyes wide, the walls parted like a pair of stage curtains. Magically, they disassembled themselves, bricks climbing down themselves to the floor, where they shuffled away like so many rats to the tune of the piper. Clackclackclack.

Yang stared, jaw agape. Wh–what? What’s going–?!

Someone screamed to Yang’s left, and she found herself face to face with a naked brunette with enormous bangs, like the antennae of some giant furry insect. They stared at each, stunned.

“Nn~!” A squeal from Yang’s right dragged her attention to a naked blonde, who bit her lip and flushed, suppressing an outright moan. Kneeling on the harsh brick floor, she slammed her legs together and shuddered in what could only be lust. Yang didn’t know how to react to her.

Around them, the bricks continued to fall, revealing the dark expanse of a dimly-lit torture chamber. Yang saw iron maidens and spiked chairs and pliers and shackles and other things she didn’t even dare to guess the purpose of. Each one she saw made her heart pound a little faster.

Among the instruments of torture hung an elaborate bronze shield patterned with bats. As the last bricks fell away, Yang saw a line of women, all naked and chained to the wall, reflected in its surface. She counted eight in total, including herself. No one looked as if they had any more idea of what was going on than she did.

The macabre collection also included a puppet: a life-sized marionette with a pale skin and blank red eyes and a frilly black dress. And a cat’s ears and tail–Yang wondered if it was meant to be a Faunus.

As she stared, the puppet jerked as if someone had seized its strings. Snapping upright, it spun to face them, joints squeaking as it clasped the folds of its skirt

Spine creaking, it curtsied. Someone squealed.

“Good evening,” said the puppet, mouth opening and closing robotically. “My nyame is Nomi, nya. Welcome to my dungeon. I’ve invited nyou all here so we can play a little game.”

The eight of them, Yang included, stared at her in stunned silence.

“Ahead of nyou lies a challenging journey,” said the puppet. “To survive it, nyou will nyeed to push nyourself beyond nyour limits mentally, and do things nyou nyever imagined nyou’d want to do.” She paused, her mouth a little open, as if in imitation of a smile. “I have a feeling most of nyou will fall short. …Nyot nyecessarily through any fault of nyour own–after all, nyou might nyot have any say in the matter.” Raising a wooden hand, she snapped.

Yang’s head jerked to the walls, just in time to see eight harsh metal collars flash red and fall free, snapping open and flying through the air towards them. Yang tried to leap aside, but the manacles around her wrists kept her from moving. The collar slammed onto her neck, cold and harsh. She screamed, as did all but one of the others.

“Fate is a harsh mistress,” continued the puppet. “These collars are nyour reminder of that.  They are also nyour first and hardest challenge: do nyou think nyou can survive when nyou don’t even control nyour actions?” She chuckled darkly. “Nyot that any of us do.”

“What does that mean?” cried a red-haired girl with blue eyes.

“Nyou’ll see~.” The puppet turned. “In five minutes, nyour nyext trial will begin. In the meantime, why don’t nyou all get to know each other, nya? Better to do it nyow than to have it forced upon nyou later.”

The puppet’s mouth clacked shut, and she slumped like her strings had been cut.

A series of clacks rolled through the room. Yang lurched forward, and looked back with a gasp to see her manacles had fallen open. She rubbed her wrists and looked around uncertainly. With the exception of the blonde to her right, all the others did the same.

“What the hell is going on?!” cried the redhead from before, looking like she’d burst into tears at any moment. “Where the hell are we? Who are all you people?! Why are we all na–?” Asking the question clearly reminded her of her situation. With a horrified gasp, she hurried to cover herself.

“Perhaps our first priority should be finding clothes,” suggested a blonde with an elaborate bun.

“Ah~, you mean you don’t want to stay like this?” said the girl to Yang’s right, voice breathless.

The other girl ignored her. “Questions of modesty aside, I don’t think it’s practical to fight with nothing in the way of clothing. We need protection.”

A round of nods and murmured agreement passed through the group, though Yang had a feeling most of them cared more about the ‘modesty’ issue than protecting themselves.

“There’s clothing in here,” said a tall girl with a long ginger hair, leaning over an enormous chest. She reached inside and pulled out the most fashionable set of rags Yang had ever seen. They looked like a medieval prisoner’s sportswear.

“You just opened it?” cried the brunette with giant bangs. “What if it was trapped?”

“I thought it might be full of money,” said the ginger, pressing her fingertips together guiltily.

Soon enough, they were dressed. Yang tugged at her woolen crop top awkwardly. Not only was it too small, but it itched as well.

As with every group of people trapped in a room together, they elected to form a circle and introduce themselves in a clockwise manner. It reminded Yang of her early classes at Beacon. Urgh. At least they didn’t need to give an interesting fact about themselves.

“What’s our plan?” said Kallen, leaning into the center of the circle like a general over a map.

“Naturally, we should arm ourselves,” said Saber, the girl with the bun, who seemed to want to assume the role of leader. “Give me a sword, and I shall tear this fortress apart myself.”

The rest of them shared a disbelieving look.

“W-what if the Mistress tries to punish us?” asked Darkness, who’d calmed down a little now she had some clothes on. A little.

“‘The Mistress’?” asked May, one eyebrow raised.

“I, um, agree with Darkness,” said Aqua, nervously wringing a long pink lock of hair. “Th-that is, I think we should be cautious for now. N-not that we should go along with everything she says.” She blushed.

“Uwah!” Asuka ran her hands through her hair, looking like she didn’t know whether to punch someone or cry. “How can you all be so calm? We’ve been kidnapped by some mad, cat… puppet-woman!”

“Do you really think panicking’s going to help?” said Yang, a little more testily than she’d intended to. Asuka glared at her. “I agree with Saber.” She slammed her fist into her palm. “I think we should fight!”

Before she could say anything else, a resounding boom shook the room, and to the sound of grinding gears, the entire chamber turned. Yang gasped; Aqua squeaked; Asuka leapt to her feet in shock and promptly toppled over.

The room slammed to a stop, and the bricks of the far wall shuffled aside to reveal a baroque door with a scowling demon’s face.

To its left, Nomi jerked and rose again, hands folded like a host overseeing a hall of happy guests. “Did nyou all get to know each other, nya? I hope nyou’re all good friends nyow, because it’s time for nyour first real challenge. To start nyou off, I’ve picked something simple and tame: use the key to open this door.”

Saber peered into the demon’s mouth, clearly unafraid that it would bite her. “I cannot see a keyhole…”

The puppet clapped. “Ah! I’m glad nyou nyoticed. This door is a little special… Nyou see, its keyhole isn’t located on its person… Rather, it is located on one of nyours. It’s a somewhat metaphorical keyhole, nyou understand, but don’t worry–it will serve as well as any real one.”

“What are you talking about?” cried Nami.

The puppet laughed, a harsh, wooden sound that set Yang’s nerves on edge. “Perhaps it would help if I gave nyou the key.” Reaching into her cleavage, she rummaged around inside and produced–

Yang’s face went red. She couldn’t be serious.

“Here it is,” said Nomi, holding up a large, knobbly strap-on. “All nyou nyeed to do is pick one person to be the ‘key’ and one person to be ‘keyhole’. Simple, nyo?” She tossed the strap-on into the center of the group with a laugh. “Incidentally, did I mention the room is about to fill with aphrodisiac gas?”

With a hiss, pink gas poured from the vents in the walls. Yang gasped.

“…Nyou might want to come to a decision quickly.”

Voting time! As the party travels through the dungeon, both the traps and their effects will become steadily more fiendish… and you guys will get to pick how our protagonists interact with them! This time, your choice is simple:

Who should be the ‘key’ and who should be the ‘keyhole’? Vote below!