Dungeon in the City 02 (Patreon)

Darkness surrounded Inez.

She could feel nothing.

She could see nothing.

She could sense nothing.

She was nothing.

Just a thought admit the vast black. She choked and gasped and shuddered as the realization of what she was gripped her.

She was dead.

She tried screaming, but nothing came out. She tried thrashing, but she had no limbs. She wailed with her soul, but there was nothing.

This was hell.

She tried grasping at the prayers that her mother had attempted to instill into her. The faith that her mother so devoutly followed, a god that hadn’t been kind to her family. Inez fumbled, trying to remember the words, but they died on lips that did not exist in a void that began to consume her thoughts.

She would wink out and become nothing. Her consciousness lost in this vast black space, this endless void. Was that something she wanted? Inez didn’t know. All she understood was that she did not want to stop existing, she did not want to cease being. She was still young, she had much to accomplish, she would not fade quietly into the darkness.

She screamed, she clawed, and she pulled every thought, every feeling, every emotion that was becoming unbounded, fading, diluted by the darkness.

Inez screeched and gnashed and then the darkness responded.

Blood, fire, and sulphur, they coursed through her. She screeched again, but this time from the fire that burned around her and the chaos that presented itself before her.

The sky was flame, pocked by untold millions of wailing mouths, broken toothed and frothing. They wailed and sobbed and gnashed, blood and saliva dripping from the heavens.

The unholy rain splattered upon a barren land, devoid of anything that could be called life. Instead, great and hunched back creatures thundered and boomed across the landscape, their ebony and crimson skin bled and cracked beneath the flaming sky as they dug into the ground, shoveling convulsing bodies into their many mouths.

Great arms burst froth from the gaping mouths in the sky, massive claws, tentacles, and needle sharp appendages that lashed out, snatching up the hunched back creatures and pulling them into the air. The creatures screamed and wailed and the gnashing mouths rend and tore at the monsters, their constant wailing ceasing as they feasted.

Gouts of blood and viscera rained down from the sky and as they struck the ground, twisted and broken bodied men and women crawled out of the stinking mud and salvia covering the ground and pulled bloody chunks into their mouths. Madness gleamed in their eyes as they fought and tore at one another in their quest to eat the flesh of what once had hunted them.

Inez wanted to retch, she wanted to faint, she wanted to die all over again. She clamored for the endless blackness that she had been in, she ached for it, anything beyond what was thrust before her. Yet, she could do nothing. She could not close her eyes, she could not turn away from the sights, she could do nothing but notice all and everything that was occurring.

Just as the darkness sought to break her, the horrors that she looked upon threatened to do the same. It cracked her psyche, the horrors tried to turn her mind into mush, it tried to break her and turn her into a screaming madwoman.

At the realization, Inez gripped at her being. She pulled herself back together once more, the horrors did not vanish away nor was she not able to notice every infested wound, broken bone, and bloody stump that graced the depraved denizens of this place, but she could put up a shield of sorts. She could stop herself from drinking it in, from breathing it in, from letting it scorch her entire soul with its horridness.

“Let us be done with this,” A voice suddenly said. Inez nearly screamed at the sound, it was so… normal. No, it wasn’t just normal, it was… heavenly. As if healing feathers suddenly began falling around her, Inez clung to the simple words and she could feel her mind began to reform. The cracks and splinters sealing up.

“I detest this place, demon. Show me your champion so I may know what to slay and we can be done with this foolish play.”

Inez tried to focus on the voice, its mere presence allowed her to withstand the horror she was seeing. She clung to it, gripping and grasping at it to save her mind and soul.

Inez looked up at the visage of the figure that had brought her back from the edge of insanity. She blinked and if she could gape, she would have. What stood before her was no human being, nothing about it was human, from the strange white and gold light that poured out of the being to the constantly moving clockwork head of gears, glass, and gold.

Lights, like small fireflies, danced around it, sizzling and popping in the intense heat of hell, yet the being didn’t seem to even notice it. Yet for all the alienness of the being, Inez felt a deep and profound joy and love within its presence. She wanted to bask in the being’s presence forever, to be cradled by it, hugged by it, and suffocated by it. The only word she could describe it was Angel.

A deep and thunderous screech cracked the heavens. The screaming mouths in the sky stopped their cries and began whimpering, the skittering hunched back monsters ran, and the writhing humans in the muck screamed and dug their way back into the muddy wallows.

WE HONOR THE OLD WAYS, LIGHT BASTARD. A voice of death and pain boomed from the flaming sky. A creature out of nightmares and horrors ripped open the heavens itself and descended, a monstrosity of too many limbs, too many mouths, and blackened flesh that dripped and poured off of it like water.

“A thousand thousand millennia we have faced one another, equal in strength and equal in power, and forced into this foolish song and dance for a creation we both agreed to.

“We may be bound to it, but that does not mean I enjoy being in your disgusting realm.”

ONE DAY, LIGHT BASTARD. I SHALL RIP YOUR LOCKS OFF AND TEAR YOUR SOUL INTO A MILLION PEICES.

“I’m sure,” the Angel said, a look of distaste on its face. “Now, let us proceed. By the Ancient Laws, you have broken through the boundaries of dimensions, you have sent forth a Harbinger to begin the conquest of a new realm. By the Ancient Laws, that land shall become a Battleground, that we may also enter it and protect the souls there.”

BY ANCEINT LAW. I HAVE BEGUN THE CONQUEST OF A NEW REALM. TO BE ADDED TO OUR DOMAIN SO THAT OUR POWER STRETCHES FOR ALL ETERNITY.

“Yeah, yeah. Get on with it, demon. Who is your champion?”

HOTHAMORIA. COME FORTH AND BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD.

The Angel seemed shocked. “You have sent Hothamoria? Your greatest general?”

The demon laughed, a terrible noise of pain and suffering. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO DETESTS THE STALEMATE WE ARE IN, LIGHT BASTARD. WE HAVE FOUND A NEW DIMENSION, ONE OF GREAT POTENTIAL AND POWER. ONE THAT WILL TIP THE GREAT WAR INTO OUR FAVOR.

IT IS A WORLD THAT REQUIRES THE STRENGTH OF A GENERAL TO CONQUER.

HOTHAMORIA. COME FORWARD!

Inez looked around, wondering who Hothamoria was.

HOTMAMOIRA. YOU DEFY ME? Inez could feel herself, her entire being, pulled forward. She tried to stop herself, but she was nothing more than a puppet. Inez wanted to scream, to shrink into non-existence as the horror’s gaze fell upon her. It hurt, the look, like a searing light that ignited her tinder soul. Sickness, depravity, and a vileness that had no words poured out of the monster before her, its untold number of eyes latching upon what she only imagined was her soul.

WHAT IS THIS?

“Eh?” the Angel asked, looking at Inez for the first time. The cool and gentle attention was a balm against the fiery storm of the demon before her.

WHAT IS THIS?

“It is a mortal soul,” the Angel said looking her over. Inez wanted to weep in joy at the being’s attention.

A MORTAL SOUL? WHAT IS IT DOING HERE! WHERE IS HOTHAMORIA!

The Angel scoffed. “You are wasting my time, demon. Bring froth your champion as the Ancient Laws demand.”

The demon roared with tremendous fury, shaking the skies and pulverizing the earth beneath its claws. The demon stalked to Inez and she could feel her soul being gripped by a great and terrible might. It pulled her toward the demon and she cried out in terror once more.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

Inez wailed and felt herself being shaken. She had no physical body, but she felt the jerk and snap of something within her.

“You fool, you cannot injure a mortal soul. Find its body and torture that if you want to cause it pain,” the Angel said. “Why did you bring a mortal soul here?”

I HAVE SUMMONED HOTHAMORIA AS PER THE ANCIENT LAWS!

The Angel was silent for a moment and looked to Inez and then back at the demon. Suddenly it began to laugh. A sound that caused Inez to sag with relief and joy.

WHY DO YOU LAUGH, LIGHT BASTARD?

“Do you not see, you fool. Do you not see that your greatest general was defeated. That the core you sent to conquer a new realm was taken over, by that. By that mortal soul.”

WHAT? NO! IMPOSSIBLE!

Inez felt her soul being pulled forward once again, the hideous eye latched itself to her once more, and she felt her mind being torn apart. She screamed and cried out as her memories, her thoughts, and emotions were strung out before her like uncoiling intestines.

The Angel and Demon peered at them, watching the last minutes of her life unfold before them. Inez wept.

WHAT IS THIS? The demon roared and smashed its fist into the ground, resulting in an explosion of muck and bloody body parts.

The Angel laughed.

ARBITRATOR! I DEMAND YOUR PRESENCE!

I am here. A new voice arose, seemingly everywhere.

WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT!

It is a mortal soul.

WHERE IS HOTHAMORIA!

Dead.

MY GENERAL CANNOT DIE. NONE OF US CAN, FOOLISH CONSTRUCT!

In the absence of Mana one such as yourself may die.

Silence fell among the gathered figures. They looked to Inez and then back at one another.

“An absence of mana? This creature hails from a world without mana?” the Angel asked.

Dimensional planes with low or no mana exist. They are rare.

The Angel looked to the demon and laughed.

“You blasted fools, you and your kind are always seeking to cross dimensional planes, always expanding, always trying to gobble up more mana and souls for your eternal war.  Now you see what has happened, you have reached a plane where we cannot enter. All it cost you was the life and soul of your greatest general.”

The Angle laughed and laughed, the white light blossoming around it.

The demon snarled and snatched Inez once more in its grasp. It tried crushing her and tearing her apart, but nothing it did seemed to actually hurt her.

You are attempting to injure a mortal soul. Such an action is impossible as this soul falls under a different category.

With the death of the martial core sent to this mortal soul’s dimension, it has gained the right to control it and command it. The Infernal Legions and the Light Legions do not have any sway upon unconquered mortal realms.

“Mortal souls do not control martial cores,” the Angel said.

The Ancient Law states that whomever defeats a martial core can destroy, enslave, or subsume the core.

BUT THIS IS A MORTAL.

There were no injunctions against mortal souls destroying a martial core. Although there has been no records of it actually occurring. The Ancient Law states whomever defeats the original holder of a martial core can control it. Both parties have agreed to this.

“So, this is mortal martial core?” the Angel asked.

Yes.

“In a place where is no mana?”

Yes.

The Angel laughed once more and turned to face the demon. “You have brought a smile to my face, demon. Please, continue your plans for domination, it seems that in a thousand millennia of fighting, you are your worse enemy.”

The demon snarled.

“I must return to my people and we shall drink and laugh at the foolishness of our enemies. Then we shall strike, for you have wasted so much mana and energies to create this dimensional portal and sacrificed your greatest general in the process. I feel that the tides are going to be turning soon.”

The Angel laughed and in a flash of brilliant blue light, it vanished.

The demon glared at her. “I shall come for you, mortal. I shall break the bonds of all of creation. I shall seek you out and find you and I shall rend your soul for eternity,” It snarled and in an explosion of blood and gore, vanished.

Inez remained in place, the world suddenly quiet. The atmosphere of agony and horror was suffocated, now a great and terrible fear permeated everything. The skies shut up and the ground quivered with terrified creatures.

“What about me?” Inez asked. Although she hadn’t spoken, the words echoed in the silent world.

Your mortal soul cannot be here, you will be returned to your dimension. Where, due to the lack of mana, it seems you will die once more.

Inez tried to find the figure that spoke, but there was nothing. She could feel a presence, like a weight in her mind, but there was no form.

“Is there a way to live?” Inez asked.

Gain mana, level your core.

“How?”

Kill.

The Arbitrator vanished. Inez felt the bonds that held her release, the invisible chains falling away and with that, the world around her began to swirl and shift. She screamed, but nothing came from her mouth and then there was darkness once more.