Dungeon Menagerie 1 (Patreon)

Tags: Danmachi, commission, OC, not self-insert

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 1

-VB-

“KYAAAHHHH -!” Splash! “OOF!”

She whined a little where she fell into the stream and then pushed herself up. She didn’t want to be in cold water any longer than she needed to, especially with her new dress!

Vanessa shivered a little as she got out of the knee-deep water, and then whined when she saw her wet attire. The white and brown puffed shoulder and plaid skirt hung on her skin, completely soaking wet. At least the water looked crystal clear and smelled clean.

… But why did she fall into water in the first place? How did she fall into knee-deep water in the middle of Denver? 

She looked up from the water and around her.

And completely lost herself as her brain took in the sights and couldn’t compute. 

She didn’t find herself in a city park with trees, low cut grass with patches of crab grass, dirty water fountain next to the dirty restrooms, and people walking their dogs. Instead, she found herself looking around at a knee-deep crystal clear pool within cobblestone ruins overrun with moss, weeds, bushes, and general decay and neglect. She looked up and saw a bright blue sky with little bits and bobs of clouds here and there, and it wasn’t the kind of sky that was foggy with dirty white haze near the horizon that it was everywhere humans lived. It was clear blue sky.

She should have noticed earlier that she wasn’t in a city park because there was no way that a city park could have a pond this clear. 

She climbed out of the pond and sat down on nearby steps, wringing the water out of her hair and clothes as best as she can in the warm breeze waffing through the walled ruins. 

“Where the heck am I?” she muttered to herself with not a little bit of apprehension. 

America didn’t have cobblestone ruins like these. Especially North America. And anywhere that could have these wouldn’t have skies so clear to the horizon because of all of the automobile smog.

She rose up and -.

“Wait, what is that?” she muttered as she looked up.

Because floating above her and the pool was a green oval portal that was spinning lazily in the air, hovering in the air without any form of support or buoyancy. And she saw her home of Denver on the other side. 

Then the portal snapped shut into a ball of light … and then shot toward her. 

“No no no!” she screamed as she ran for the other way, but just as she turned to run, the ball of green light slammed into her and sent her tumbling down to the cobblestone floor with the force of the attack. She tumbled once, twice, and then thrice until she found herself resting on her back, looking up at the empty blue sky in confusion.

She definitely got hit with the light and it was strong enough to make her roll on the floor like a ball, but it didn’t hurt? 

Vanessa pulled herself back up and looked at herself. She also felt around her back and didn’t feel anything. Since she couldn’t explain it, she decided to ignore it for now. For all she knew, she could’ve hit her head and that had all been a hallucination.

God, her brother was going to laugh at her hard if he ever found out that she ran away from a hallucination…

With a grumble, she stood up. She didn’t have anything on her. The purse, her bag, and smartphone were all missing. She looked in the pool, and confirmed that they weren’t there.

Alone in a place she didn’t recognize with conditions of the environment that clearly said this wasn’t Kansas. 

Stranded and bereft of any and all tools, she whimpered as the hopelessness of her situation settled in. 

… But she couldn’t stay here. If she was stranded, then her situation was already dire. Even if she could drink the water in front of her, she was left without a source of food and warmth. The ruins couldn’t be her shelter, either; who knew when any of hte stones that made up the walls and floor would give away? 

She needed to get out there and find … something. Anything.

So with a gulp, she looked around and then felt a hope light up inside of her. There! Hidden behind a wall was a dirt pathway. It looked packed, though unused as of late if the weed in the road was anything to go by. 

“Roads lead to cities,” she muttered to herself as she took a step forward, but then her heart suddenly thumped in her chest and ears. “What now?!” she almost screamed as she whirled around while touching her sternum and head. The thumping became a thrum, and made her entire body quake every other heartbeat. She whimpered as she fell to her knees and then -.

“Caw.”

The pain disappeared and her heart stopped beating like it was about to explode. Half-dazed and still in a bit of pain, she looked around for the source of the sound. It sounded like a crow or a raven. 

Vanessa froze when she looked over her shoulders. Her eyes slowly drifted up at the black mass of furs behind her and then stopped when she found herself looking up at a red-tip ear-feathered head of the beast with bandages around its eyes and a golden balance hanging from the crook of its long neck. It looked like a caricature of an ostrich, and its wings had “fingers” that flexed and relaxed.

“Caw.”

She flinched and reared backward … “Hi?”

“Caw.”

It sounded like it was responding to her-?

She yipped in surprise when it suddenly moved its head down and pressed its forehead against hers.

Then her eyes widened when she felt something blossom inside her. It wasn’t a bad feeling but one that made her feel safe and … connected? 

The weird bird - Judgement Bird (wait, how did she know that?) - pulled back and crooned. This time, she understood what that meant. It was satisfied with her. Happy with her? 

Whatever it was, it was here because something had pulled it out from where it was before, wherever before was. And that something was inside of her. 

Her eyes widened even wider than before as she realized what that something could be.

The portal and the light that hit her. It wasn’t hitting her; it was going into her. 

Her shoulders drooped as she loosened up.

Vanessa felt … off. In the span of half an hour (but probably less than that), she went from Denver, Colorado to this place that wasn’t America, got hit by a portal-turned-light, and that portal gave her a “friend” to keep her accompany. 

She whined.

“I just bought my house, though! What about my mortgage?!”

Judgement Bird just tilted his head to the side in confusion. 

She sat there, feeling just a teeny tiny bit upset at her life getting upturned by a portal of all things, but she knew better than to sit still.She glanced up at Judgement Bird, who squawked, and sighed.

At least she had friend to protect her? 

She stood back up. “Okay. We need to go and find people.”

Judgement Bird squawked. It sounded like condescending “Why?” He pointed to the forest with his beak. “Caw.” The forest was safe. He could keep her safe there.

She squared her shoulders and shook her head. “I’m a human. We need other humans around us or we go a little crazy,” she said before pointing to the road. “So let’s go.”

Judgement Bird stared at her before shaking his body, including his feathered wing-arms, in a disjointed and ragdoll-loose manner. Then he nodded. 

Vanessa let out a sigh of relief before turning around and took three steps. She heard him follow her, his feet talons clicking and clacking on the cobblestone, and having confirmed that, she walked forward again and around the corner of the wall.

And came to a stop.

Because she saw a city less than half a mile from where she was.

“... I guess I was closer to people than I thought,” she muttered to herself. 

But what confused her were the tightly packed timbered houses and the non-European skyscraper tower in the center of the city. 

It was … 

It was familiar.

Judgement Bird crooned as he walked up to her side before he too stared at the tower and growled. Vanessa jolted a little when she heard him growling, because she didn’t know birds (weird bird or not) could growl.

She looked back to the tower.

Then her eyes widened as she recognized it.

“Hey Birdy, I’ve a feeling that we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Because that tower? That was the Tower of Babel in the fictional universe of Danmachi. 

… She whined again.