A large band of soldiers in white armor was currently riding on horseback on the way to the forsaken town of Dunbark, the reason why was simple, they had heard tales about the dungeon near there and about the monstrosities that lurk within.

Well that’s all they heard as most who go into the dungeon never come back and are presumed dead and the only ones who survive and intend to go back in are all madmen that spout gibberish, but even the gibberish had some truth since many of them spoke of the same things, halls made of steel devoid of life and light, demons and spirits that are an affront god and if you intend to purge the dungeon of its darkness you will die or go insane trying.

The church had found all these rumors a blatant disrespect to god and sought to eliminate these rumors, but to no avail, as rumors kept coming from seemingly nowhere, it took a while but the church finally figured out that the rumors came from one from one place.

Dunbark a godforsaken hole where only the insane go, it was even later that they found that it was a dungeon near Dunbark that was the root of all these rumors, where even the most devout believer could enter the dungeon and come out a heretic spout profanities god and the church.

The church could no longer take these rumors and sent a force of elite paladins, priests and volunteer soldiers to Dunbark in hopes of destroying the dungeon showing off their power and authority.

(Holy paladin Joshua POV)

“Men we are approaching the outskirts of the cursed town”, I scream at the top of my lungs announcing to everyone the current state situation, as I put my left hand up to signal that they should continue to march while listening.

“You are to be on standby once we reach the outskirts of Dunbark until further notice, I and the other paladins of the holy order will go gather information on this insidious dungeon”, as I say that most of the volunteer soldiers and priests give a sigh a relief, as we have been riding for a fortnight, since they lacked the endurance training all paladins must go through.

As I and several other paladins begin our trek into the forsaken town, we start to divide up different portions of the town to investigate and gather information and as luck would have it I was chosen to investigate the Main Street of town, the longest and largest portion of Dunbark.

Going through the dark empty cobbled streets of town, the foul smell of death and despair lingers in the atmosphere which is upsetting for a paladin like me to say the least, there are absolutely no signs of life nor light to be found in these empty streets and yet the streets are clean to an almost unreal degree, it’s almost like these streets are rarely used even though is supposedly the main street, a source of life for the town.

Walking down main street I notice that all the shops are closed and many of the houses are abandoned or have no light lit showing they’re asleep, strange as it should not be that late into the night, going from door to door knocking I get no response only the hollow echoes of my knocks greeting me, after the tenth building I was starting to lose hope, but that was when I spotted a light out of the corner of my light, it was coming from an out of the way alley but it shine was my beacon of hope for finding information on the dungeon.

I start to walk down the alleyway and towards the light, it was nearly blinding to me who’s been walking in the dark streets for what seems like hours, reaching the front I look at the small sign that has the pub’s name on it.

“Last Hope Pub, huh how cute.” I say to no one in particular, it was just a bar, in this godforsaken town, being it’s only light called last hope was quaint especially in a dreary town like this.

But never the less I had to investigate it to find out more information on the dungeon, entering the pub, I was not surprised to see it empty save for one man, the barkeeper.

“Barkeep, give me some ale.” I say to the barkeep as I sit down on one of the barstools.

The barkeeper just nods as he takes out a bottle of ale and a small glass for me to drink from, with well-trained movements he slides both of them in front of me from the other end of the table, not one to miss a beat I pour myself a cup and start drinking it.

While drinking I observe the barkeep, he has grey hair that runs down to neck which he has tied, his face is scared and well-worn and creased from age, what made the man extraordinary was his build or more specifically his muscles, though it seems to have degraded from age I can tell that if he was in his prime he would even match me in terms of strength.

“Slow day today?” I try to strike up a conversation with the barkeep, seeing his muscles and well-trained movements he must’ve been quite an accomplished adventurer in his youth, he must know a thing or two about the dungeon.

“aye, lad, I seen your type come and go, no need for small talk I’ll tell ya what ya need to know, and the only thing that you need to know is only misery and death awaits you in the dungeon!” the bartender bellows this warning at me, while grabbing me by my shoulders and leaning his face so close to mine that I can practically count the wrinkles on his grizzled face.

Maybe because he sees that am unfazed by his little outburst or that he just came to the realization that nothing he says can stop me from going into the dungeon, he lets a long sigh as he releases me from his iron grip and takes a step back from me.

“Looks like I can’t stop ya lad, so heed my words and maybe you’ll be the one who breaks this curse, there are three things I’ve learned in my years and from my predecessors.” Now, this is what I came to hear, I perk up my ears and listen attentively to his teachings.

“Beware of the statues that move when out of sight, lest you hear the horrible cracking that comes out of sight.”

“Never follow the voices of the lost and the dead, they only lead to death.”

“Lastly avoid the bird of death least it holds you in its grasp.”

I take note of everything he says and commit them to memory, for as cryptic as they may be, they might save a few lives if I ever figure out what they mean.

As the night grows older I bid the bartender my farewells and head back into the darkness of the town, the light from last hope pub growing dimmer, I make my way to the outskirts of the town and meet up with my companions.

Meeting up with them we exchange and pool the information we got, the information that surfaced was that the dungeon only opens at night and the inside of the dungeon is made of pure steel, cold, desolate and devoid of light and there are no stairs in the dungeon only metal boxes that lower you down.

Apparently I was the only one that brought information that vastly different from the others, while there was some debate as to whether it held truth or not, I insisted that it held some truth remembering the old bartenders eyes as he told me these three things, although his eyes where dull and tinged in submission there was a faint shine in his eye that I can’t explain, but my gut instinct tells me that I should believe his words.

My companions decided to take my assertions that the information I got was true lightly much to my dismay but never the less the only way to find out if the information is true is to go into the dungeon.

“Men rest up during the day for at night we face the demons of the dungeon!” I exclaim in front of all my men to let them know our war will be at night.

(The next night)

Night once again blanketing the town and the moon rises high in the clear night sky, it was time to purge the dungeon, I rally my troops and lead them through the streets, one thing I notice during the march is that last hope pub seems to be closed tonight as there is no light.

Reaching the dungeon entrance, we find nothing out of the ordinary, it looked just like a normal cave entrance.

Since we are still facing the unknown, a decision was made, that we send ahead a few groups to scout out the dungeon.

Hours passed as we waited for the scouting groups to return but to no avail, at this point, I can only guess that they perished in the dungeon, though this would not deter me.

“Men ready your selves, we march into the dungeon!” on my orders we started our march into the dungeon.

Upon entering the dungeon we were met with a narrow path that one would expect from a cave, the further we explored into the cave the more the rocks and stone that used to adorn the walls were slowly transformed into cold hard steel, when we reached the end of the cave we found the box that will lower us down to the next floor.

Entering the box, it starts to let out a monstrous screech and begins descending downwards to the next floor, *Ding* the box stops and let us out at an intersection where three halls meet, the smell of feces is strong on this floor making some people throw up, but we would press on because this would be the true start of this dungeon.

We decide on a direction and start our exploration, wading through the darkness in silence with only the lanterns we brought to illuminate our way, and tensions were high as we had not seen one monster yet so we only had to guess they were hiding to ambush us.

The rhythmic echoes of our footsteps on the cold steel floor is suddenly accompanied by the sound of rock scraping on steel then followed by a sickening *crack*, everyone’s eyes turn to the back of the group only to find a disgusting monster with a bulbous head that looked like a child tried to make a human sculpture out of clay but failed, resulting in something not quite human standing over unmoving the corpse of one of the volunteer soldiers at its feet, his neck snapped and head bent to a gut-wrenching angle.

Without a word, everybody draws their swords and charges at the monster.

*clang* *clang* *clang*

Everybody swords bounce off the monster’s body, it was then most of us figured out that the monster’s body was made of a very hard rock like material, strangely the monster has yet to move since it killed, I order everyone to take a step back so I can approach the monster pulling out my sword I tap the monster with it.

A solid *clang* reverberates through the hall affirming that it was a statue, “Beware of the statues that move when out of sight, lest you hear the horrible cracking that comes out of sight.” The old bartender’s warnings come to mind as I stare at this thing.

“This isn’t a monster it’s a floor trap!” this is the only thing that comes to mind when I try to wrap my head around this situation.

We start to explore again, but this time I take heed of the old bartenders warning and post some soldiers in the rear to keep watch, as we continue on there is now the occasional “eeeep!” or “gasp!” from the rear guards mixed in with our echoing footsteps.

When I peek behind my back I can see why, every time the darkness engulfs the statue and we think that we’ve left it behind it reappears behind us again with its scraping footsteps, like it’s stalking us from within the darkness, although it hasn’t gone in for a kill since the first I decide to treat this thing with the utmost caution.

While pondering the true nature of the statue, voices ring out from the darkness ahead of us.

“please help!”,

“ahhhhhhhhh!”,

“please, I’ll pay anything, save me!”

“Never follow the voices of the lost and the dead, they only lead to death.” The old barkeep's words once again ring in my head.

“Stop!” I scream, but some of the more glory seeking volunteers and paladins has already run into the darkness, lamp in hand.

They make it some ways down the hall to the point I can’t see their figures anymore but I can still see the dim light emanating from their lantern, but suddenly the light from their lamp disappears and their screams reverberate through the steel halls.

When I thought that things couldn’t get worse an unforgettable series of sounds ring out from the back of the group.

*Scrape*

*crack*

*Scrape*

*crack*

*Scrape*

*crack*

*Scrape*

*crack*

Quickly I whip my head around to see the statue now surrounded by corpses, apparently the screams and subsequent death of our companions drew the eyes of everyone in the group leaving the statue free to make a move, everyone was panicking at a lost at what to do as the shadows which killed the group was now heading towards us, quickly I order everyone into a turtle formation.

Hearing my voice everyone snaps out of their panic-induced stupor, now we were in formation everyone back to back in a circular formation nothing escaping our sight.

With our sights now set on the statue it now stops moving, which was a godsend because we had to deal with the oncoming threats that were charging us, there was a momentary pause of silence.

“Help!” another call for help rings out from the darkness, but everybody who had already witnessed what happened to the others was not fooled, seeing that their ruse had been seen through the monsters spring from the darkness biting and clawing at everyone in the front.

I was taken aback by their appearances as they looked like large fleshy dogs, their skin was hairless and moist with what seems like blood, they possessed no face just one huge powerful maw that could crush steel and legs that ended in three large talons.

A few soldiers were instantly killed by the flesh monsters initial assault, their strong jaws had ripped through the poor soldiers shields, leaving them defenseless against the monsters voracious maws, there were two sickening crunches every time the monster attacked, one was the soldiers shield getting destroyed the other was the soldiers head being crushed in the monster's maw.

The flesh monsters were things that could only have come from the underworld as they slaughtered countless soldiers they would let out the cries of the damned pleading for release, who knows how many people have been killed by these abominations as each let out a cry that seems to encompass multiple voices like some sick chorus.

Although the abominations where vicious and powerful they weren’t invincible unlike with the statue our swords could actually penetrate the monsters hide.

Thus began our battle of attrition with the abominations, as a seemingly endless amount of them pour out from the darkness like it was the gates of the underworld, we had abandoned our shields in favor of dodging of their attacks, after the initial wave we found that they prefer to attack the head killing their prey instantly.

This fact made it easier to dodge their oncoming attacks but fatigue was still a factor that needed to be accounted for, quickly I come up with a plan to remedy this and enact it just as quickly, under my instructions whenever a person would get wounded or tired they would make their way to the back to rest and keep the statue in check.

This system worked effectively and after a long tense fight we managed to slay the last monster, taking a head count of the dead it seemed that only half the army is present, but the dead bodies don’t add up taking into account the one that where killed by the statue, the ones that ran ahead and the ones that were killed in the battle we should still have three fourths of our army.

I go through the different scenarios in my head and mumble them to myself.

“Maybe they deserted?”

“No no no that can’t be among the ones who are missing are highly dedicated and pious paladins.”

I’ve known some of them since my time in the academy, they’re not the type to desert their friends when in a pinch.

“Maybe they got lost?”

“No they were with us when the battle started and some even rotated multiple times during the fight.”

A thought crosses my mind, I don’t want it to be true but if it’s this dungeon.

“Maybe something got th-…”

“Zombies!” one of the resting soldiers lets out a scream that echoes through the steel halls.

“I guess that’s what happened to them.” Well with all the noise we made during the battle it was only natural that other monsters were drawn to our location, I think to myself while turning my head to look in the general direction that the screaming soldier was pointing at.

There are hordes of the dead slowly coming towards us, the flesh mutts from the underworld were a surprise to us, but purging zombies is what we trained most of our lives for, quickly I issue the order for the men to get into purge formation.

Purge formation is a three line formation with an emphasis on defense to protect the priests situated in the back row so they can purge the undead without any disturbances.

We get into formation and prepare for the oncoming horde and once they get into range the priest starts their chant, but as always in this dungeon, something’s not right, light descends on the walking dead but contrary to our expectations it only singes them, for the most part, they are unharmed.

“What the hell, this aura of death is way too strong, these aren’t zombies they’re revenants!” The priests and paladins are especially disturbed by this new information.

Revenants are one of the highest order of mid-tier undead, dead bodies with dark spirits inhabiting them, while they act like normal zombies they are a lot vicious and a lot more well-built, also considering the sheer number of them there’s probably also an high tier arch lich close by, which would fucking make my day.

“Look we have a job to do if holy light doesn’t work than we're just gonna have to this the old fashion way!” I say to put my men more at ease and to some extent calm my own nerves, pulling out my sword ready for the revenants to get in range of my blade.

The initial wave came down on us, baring their teeth and claws, although they weren’t as powerful as the mutts there was three times as many, going by counting what I could see and not taking into consideration those that lay in wait within the darkness, sooner or later we were going to be overrun.

Slowly we were getting pushed back, but at least now we had everyone focused on the battle since we didn’t have to worry about that troublesome statue anymore, the statue did not retreat backward like we did and was consumed by the revenant hoard, but I doubt that it sustained any real damage.

Fatigue from this battle was starting to pile up on top of the fatigue carried over from the last battle, people were starting to collapse from exhaustion.

The weird thing was that they weren’t killed and consumed by the revenants, instead a man with a chilling glass like bird mask would appear and whisk them away, he had incredible strength being able to lift them with one arm, the people that he touched would twist and contort in pain than suddenly go limp, dead in his cold grips.

“Lastly avoid the bird of death least it holds you in its grasp.” The bartender’s last piece of advice comes to mind when looking at the man in the bird mask before me.

The man in the bird mask didn’t even bother with shelter or safety, as not even blades or arrows hitting his body phased him, in addition as if mocking us showing that he had not even considered us a threat, he would leisurely bring out medical equipment and start operating on the deceased, open them up and toy with their insides, and inject them with a mysterious liquid before sewing them up again.

Before long they would come back to life as a revenant, this was unheard of the man in the bird mask couldn’t even be called an arch-lich, no it would take an arch-lich at least half a day to make a revenant but this man… no, this thing made a revenant in mere minutes.

This thing was more like the incarnation of death, able to siphon life from the living with just its cold grip, able to play with the lives of mortals like it was nothing and reaping all life that stands in its way.

We really can’t do anything in the face of this death god, can we?

“ah!” am hit with a sudden realization that brought me back from the brink of despair, while I thought that these were the corpses of adventurers, if I look closer I can make out the faces of our initial scout group and the missing people among the revenants, even more, chilling than that I notice that a good number of the dead are wearing paladin armor, too many to be mere coincidence that these many paladins have died in this place.

I can make out some of the faces of those paladins, among the faces were paladins that went missing in the battle with the flash mutts, there were also those of my seniors in the academy, who was supposed to be on a pilgrimage.

“Ah!” the second realization hits me even harder, we’re not the first group that the church has sent into this godforsaken dungeon, we’re probably not even the second or the third they’ve sent on this god damned suicide mission, neither are we going to be the last.

The church must send out paladins to try to destroy this dungeon and if they fail the church covers it up by saying they’ve gone on pilgrimage, Fuck.

Many of the other paladins seem to have realized the same thing I have, their face's are now a deadly pale white color, not from exhaustion but from shock.

The only thing keeping us going was the glimmer of hope that we nearing the entrance and if we can last a little longer we’ll be out of this hell hole.

But of course things in this dungeon could never be so simple, there was another hellspawn sitting in front of the metal box, as if it was waiting for us so it could destroy our last glimmer of hope, it was a small humanoid creature completely made of human ears, I wasn’t even surprised anymore considering everything I witness today.

The hellspawn, seeing us coming gets up and lets out an ear bleeding cry, the people closest to the hellspawn started growing ears everywhere on their body, the ears just kept growing and growing until the people affected dropped dead, even than the ears would continue to grow until the corpse looked like it was made of ears like the hellspawn.

This shit shouldn’t exist.

This shit shouldn’t exist!

This shit shouldn’t exist!!!

If I wasn’t feeling the pain from my muscles dying of exhaustion I could swear that I was going insane.

“ahahahahhahahahahah! FUCK!” I can’t help but let out an insane laugh, used as throw away pawns by the church, faced with abominations and hellspawn that should only exist in the mind of madmen, I swear if I somehow get out outta here alive am gonna quit being a paladin, there’s no way that any god would let this sad situation happen and if there is one FUCK them.

Slowly I turn my back to the revenant hoard and dash towards the back of the group and at the hellspawn sword drawn and at the ready, hoping I can at least make it out of here with my body intact.

(Last hope pub, years later?, Unknown POV)

I slam my fist on the table to let the barkeep know that nothing can stop a paladin order on a mission.

“Now old man, tell me what you know about the dungeon.” I know it wasn’t the most polite thing to do but any information on this dungeon would prove useful.

“Looks like I can’t stop ya lad, so heed my words and maybe you’ll be the one who breaks this curse, there are four things I’ve learned in my years and from my predecessors.”