Chapter 6: The Living Dungeon

The trip to the town near the living dungeon Hearst. During the trip I also thought it would be a good idea to clarify just how much of their bodies my party can transform. Currently they are only able to transform their arms and it takes a large amount of mana to even maintain that much. When Lily had transformed back in the throne room she had only been in full form for 10 seconds and that she wasn’t even trying to go full form. In fact had she been in the form for 5 more seconds she would have run out of mana, have her form get dispelled and fall unconscious. The different stages of mastering our transformations are hands, arms, feet, legs, body and finally head for a full transformation. You have to be able to maintain the previous level for 30 minutes before you start working on the next and everyone has only been able to do the arm transformation for a month. Also since you have to practice each mana type individually and to the same levels it’s harder to master transformations for multiple affinity demihumans. The only exceptions to this rule are dark and light mana if you don’t have a rare duel type transformation. Also we were warned to not try a full transformation before we were ready since not only can it drain us of mana quickly, there is also a chance of losing ourselves to the form and going feral. Demihumans who have gone feral are mindless beasts that are no longer considered demihumans, but monsters.

Cameron: “Well we are almost to the village of Hearst and when we get there let’s get some food since I’m starving.” When villages form near living dungeons, mainly to profit from raiders going to the dungeon, they name themselves after the dungeon. Demihumans are so clever, aren’t they.

Natasha: “Shouldn’t we check into the inn first and see if the dungeon is even open right now? I’m pretty sure we can get food after that.”

Cameron: “Well since I’m the leader of the party we have to do what I say so mmh.” As I said this I stuck my tongue out at her, which caused her face to go red from anger. When you reincarnate you also tend to lose your original personality by the time you are 2 ½ years old, except for any quirks you might have had before like my sarcasm. So I had the personality of a child again and almost no memories of my old life. I just knew military tactics, some cooking skills and how it felt to take a life.

Natasha: “You’re only the leader because you got lucky in our duel the other day. You have just more wins against me than I have against you.” We were staring each other down and there easily could have been sparks flying between our eyes. “It’s also probably also just because it’s your birthday.”

That just reminded me that I only had about 10 of those left before I would be forced to fight another demihuman hero, possibly to the death. Yeah really great birthday. This thought also caused me to cave in to her demands and look at the ground then turn away.

Cameron: “Fine we will go with your idea.” I was in front of everyone so no one saw the sad look in my eyes and I didn’t see the looks on their faces.

xxxxx

The night seems to stand still with all of the thoughts going on in my head as sleep eludes me while I lie on the bed of my room of the inn. ‘Why do I have to fight someone who is most likely going through the same stuff I’m going through? Just because we were both reincarnated and had memories of our past lives, is that any reason to make us fight? On top of that I don’t even get to spend one of the big three birthdays with my family. Normally at 5 you celebrate being able to start training and going to school as well as being able to bond, at 10 if you have passed the exam you graduate and at 15 you hit sexual maturity. Great I get to enjoy being able to get it up for a few days before I most likely die if I don’t learn how to use elemental mana. Why me? I can’t even remember the life before this one anymore, so why do I have to go through all of this?’

Cameron: “This is all thanks to you, whichever god of chaos decided to bless me and cause this. Why am I even talking to you, it’s not like you will answer since you haven’t before.” I quietly say to myself.

Just after I finish my internal, and slightly external, rant there is a soft knock on my door which causes me to sit up.

???: “Hey are you still awake Cameron, if you are can I come in and talk to you?”

It sounds like one of the princesses through the door and I get curious which one.

Cameron: “Yes I’m still awake so you can come in.”

In walked Natasha, who was wearing her nice sleepwear, and she closed the door behind her. She walked over and sat down on the edge of my bed and looked at me with a sympathetic look. This was the same look she gave me whenever she saw me having trouble trying to utilize my elemental mana so it just pissed me off in the current situation.

Cameron: “Don’t give me that look, it just makes me feel like I’m useless since I can’t use my other affinities yet.” I snapped at her. “I mean the only reason I beat you is because my dark mana skill is equal to being at the foot level of elemental forms.” I said a bit calmer.

Natasha: “I’m sorry it makes you feel that way, I guess I make it since I watch you struggling and I can’t help you learn how to do it. Also what’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting pretty moody on the way here, and it’s not like you not to do the sensible thing first when you enter town. I mean why did you want to eat so badly? We got dinner you just ate as much as you usually do.”

I thought about telling her about everything that had happened earlier today. She had always acted like a big sister to me, even though I was supposed to support and protect her, it sometimes seemed like it was the other way around.

Cameron: “Well the reason I wanted to eat first was so that I could have a feast with you all on my birthday, since I won’t be able to celebrate it with my family till after we get back.”

Natasha: “Then why didn’t you want to have a feast after we had our argument?”

Cameron: “Since you talking about my birthday also made think about what I was told after you left.”

Natasha: “What did you find out?”

Cameron: “Well it turns out that there was a raptor who was also born a Hero of Chaos and who has the same blessings I do, and who also has the broken soul effect. I also learned that the reason they never told me was because the lords were deciding on what age the two of us are to fight each other for the right to become Demon King. Since we also happen to have the same birthdays, they decided that we are to have our possible fight to the death not long after our 15th birthdays. So I didn’t really feel like celebrating after you reminded that if I don’t learn how to start using my elemental affinities to change form then I will definitely die when we fight each other. I mean how would you feel if you remembered you most likely only have 10 years left to live just because of how you were born?”

Natasha had a surprised look on her face when she heard about what her father had done.

Natasha: “Mom and Dad never said anything about this to us, or possibly anyone else. At least not anyone who would be willing to tell me too. If I had known I wouldn’t have said anything about eating first since it would have been fun if we had. But the way you are thinking is more like a mer and less like a demihuman, since you have to live everyday like it could be your last. Especially since here it really could be since everything can kill us if we aren’t careful.” She rubbed my shirtless back as she was saying this.

Cameron: “Thanks for that, and sorry about yelling at you earlier, even though you were right. Guess I just didn’t have the right mindset.”

Natasha: “Glad I could help you out.” Natasha stood up from the bed and started to walk to the door and stopped. “You know I think I should give you your birthday present a little early.”

Cameron: “Really what is i-“ I couldn’t finish my sentence as Natasha had bent over and planted a long kiss on my lips. As she kissed me I could feel a strange heat filling my body when a weird thought came to my head.

You have bonded to Natasha Everroar

As soon as that appeared in my mind Natasha released the kiss and jerked her head back and had what passed for a blush on her face.

Natasha: “D-d-did we just b-b-bond? I mean I thought you might be the one I would bond with but I didn’t think it would be this s-“ this time it was my turn to cut her off with a kiss. I had gotten out of my bed and pulled her into an embrace as I had a strange urge to do so. She at first stiffened then relaxed then joined in as our tongues explored each other’s mouths.

As we were doing this I could feel the heat dissipating from within me and I started to feel normal again. Since I was also hugging her, I could feel that Natasha was also cooling down like I was while we embraced each other. When all the heat was gone we broke the kiss and we chuckled nervously as we also stopped holding onto one another.

Natasha: “Well I guess I better get back to my room and get some sleep before we raid the dungeon tomorrow.” She started to awkwardly walk towards the door when a strange urge caused me to stop her.

Cameron: “Wait Natasha, umm would you mind sleeping in the same bed tonight? I used to sleep in the same bed as my sisters before the citizenship ceremony and ever since then I have slept by myself. I’ve never been able to sleep as well as well alone, so would you mind sleeping together with me?” I knew we wouldn’t do anything except sleep in the same bed since neither of us had sexually matured, and what I had said was the truth.

Natasha: “That sounds kind of nice right now so I will.”

We both lay in the bed as Natasha hugged me with her stomach against my side and I wrapped the arm she was on around her. Her body heat soothed me and her fur was incredibly soft and we quickly fell asleep while holding each other.

xxxxx

That morning had passed uneventfully, mainly because I helped Natasha sneak back to her room with darkness mana, and we decided not to tell anyone until my birthday party back at the castle. There was a little bit of awkwardness on the way to the dungeon, but nobody let on that they thought something was up.

It was not long until we made it to the entrance to the dungeon that was near a forest. The entrance to the dungeon was a small stone building that looked like the entrance to a crypt. Instead of a door to enter it actually had a face and the mouth would be open if the dungeon was ready to be raided. When we got to the entrance we had a bit of an issue, the mouth was closed.

Mick: “They said back in town that no one has gone to raid this dungeon in about a month and that it should be open now. So why the hell is it closed?”

Sarah: “Well let give it the meat offering we brought with us and see if it will tell us what the issue is.”

We had been taught that for friendly living dungeons it was customary to give it an offering of monster meat before entering, or if it was closed so that it would be more willing to talk to you. We found a smaller mouth that was open next to the closed mouth of the dungeon. We but in the meat we had brought with us and the mouth closed and started chewing the meat when we said that was all we had brought. Hearst’s eyes opened and looked at us, which was quite startling.

Hearst: “Well hello there children, what can I do for you?”

Sarah: “We were wondering why you are closed, since we heard back in town that you should be open right now.”

Hearst: “Well to tell you the truth children, I have some Mer inside of me that have been holed up on the 4th floor and have been there for 2 weeks. No matter what I summon to fight them they just stay down there, and even when I leave them alone to go to the next floor they still stay there. I got worried they might have some other motive so I would like to ask you to please notify the city guard to come and talk to the Mer to see what they are up to.”

Cameron: “That won’t be necessary because we are royal guards.” I made my royal guard emblem appear in my hand in a similar process to making someone’s ID plate appear. “Will you allow us to enter you and question the Mer about why are have been staying in you so long?”

Hearst: “Wow and you are all so young so you must be very skilled. I will let you enter to question them and I will even get all of the creatures out of your way to help expedite your trip to the fourth floor. If they have no legitimate reason to be in me feel free to kill them. They dug a large hole in part of that floor and I can’t fill it in with them in there and it hurts.”

I turned to the rest of the group to discuss our battle plan.

Cameron: “I’m going to go down and see what the Mer are doing and see if we need to get the city guards to come help us. All of you stay here and make sure no one else tries to come after me.”

Natasha & Lily: “Like hell you are going alone, I’m coming too.” They looked at each other as they said the same thing in unison, nodded to each other, and looked back at me with a look that would make a normal person piss their pants if they saw it.

Cameron: “Okay you can come too, but we need to be careful, Mick, Sarah, Jane and June are on the lookout in case they are slavers. If they are they might have people hiding in the forests to ambush demihumans who enter the dungeon from behind so be ready for anything.” I looked at the friends I had been training with for the last 5 years and they all nodded with our current plan. I then turned back to Hearst and asked him for some favors. “Hearst can you shut your mouth behind us and let the rest of my party here know if something happens inside you? I don’t want to get the city guards just yet in case they are here just to farm your dungeon and don’t know our customs for living dungeons. If they are adventurers then I don’t want to give them a reason to think we are intolerant of them because of where they are from and spark another Great War.”

Hearst: “You are also quite smart and far thinking for one so young, no wonder you are a royal guard. I will do the best I can but I’m only able to detect mana pool signatures within me. If they start disappearing I will let the ones up here know. I can’t tell how many are in me, but I will know when and how many die since I absorb the mana of anyone who dies within me.”

Cameron: “Thank you for your help Hearst. When I have little ones of my own someday I’ll make sure they come to you for their graduation test.” I said making a great show of thanks to a friendly living dungeon. My reward was a lick from Hearst’s tongue before he opened his mouth for us to enter. The best way I can describe the sensation of being licked by a stone tongue was that of a very rough cat tongue that was only slightly wet.

Everyone chuckled at my surprised and uncomfortable look right after the lick which quieted as Natasha and Lily followed me into Hearst.

xxxxx

After the mouth closed shut behind magic stones that lined the hallways lit up and guided us down to the 4th floor. Normally all the stones would be lit up to confuse any raiders coming into the dungeon, but Hearst was helping use out and instead guided us downwards into his depths.

After about 20 minutes we reached the 4th floor which had a very large, wide open room before the stairs to the much smaller boss floor that was the 5th. We quickly saw the makeshift camp with currently lit campfire in the room about 600 meters away from the door of the room. We walked halfway to the campsite while constantly checking for any sign of hidden Mer that we might have passed and saw no signs of any. Once we had stopped I called out to the camp.

Cameron: “Hello, is there anyone we can talk to about what you have been doing down here for so long?” I had spoken in the common language of Mer that we had learned from magic books during our time in school and was the only other language we could learn though magical books. We put our hands on our weapons but didn’t draw them since the Mer weren’t hostile yet, but we at least needed to be ready. We might have been able to sneak up on them, but that would most likely have backfired and gotten us attacked in self-defense thinking we were creatures of the dungeon.

Male voice: “Oh wow, I thought we might never get to meet some demihumans while in this dungeon. We are just here training to get stronger to face the boss of this dungeon and it would be nice to have the help of some natives.” The voice belonged to what looked like a human until I saw his pointy ears and tattoos with my impressive eyesight and realized he was a dark elf. He was accompanied by a human who was taller than me and had a large hammer in his hands. “Why don’t you three come join us for dinner? We just made some fresh stew.” We could smell it in the air, but I wasn’t getting a good feeling from the pair.

As I was looking at him a little closer I saw some leather straps with gems hanging from his belt. It took me a moment to think of what they were and almost took too long to realize that they were magic neutralizing slave collars Mer used to keep demihumans slaves from manipulating mana. ‘Oh shit their slavers and we walked into their trap’ I thought to myself as I started to draw my weapon. The dark elf was not expecting me to figure him out so easily and looked over my shoulder and made a small nod as the large human started to come toward us. Just as I had managed to draw my sword I heard three voices coming from behind us and could faintly make out the words “…stunning bolt…” and realized they had mages using multiple means of concealment to keep demihumans from noticing them.

Since Natasha and Lily hadn’t quite realized what was going on during the few seconds since I had started to draw my blade, I pushed them both out of the way of the incoming spells since I was between the two of them. I managed to get them both out of the way as three lightning bolts struck me since I had taken the girls place. Electricity coursed through my body and I dropped my sword and fell to my knees and could barely keep myself up with my hands. My relief at getting the girls out of the way was short lived as they were both hit by bolts barely seconds later. ‘Shit, the mages are light elves’ since all I heard was the name of the spells they casted.

Dark Elf: “Wow that pretty impressive that you are even still conscious after take 3 stunning bolts since those two girls couldn’t even handle one without being knocked out.” I barely managed to look to the side long enough to see a light elf heading towards Natasha who was out cold. “Davath will you please be so kind as to knock our guest unconscious so that he won’t be an issue.”

The large human nodded at the dark elf and started to head towards me. The stun effect was slightly wearing off because I had built up some resistance to lightning spells during sparing sessions with the others since they used most of the elements on me. I built up as much dark mana I could into my claws and just as Davath was about to get into range to hit me I managed to move my hand with a slashing motion towards the human. An almost invisible dark line headed towards the human who had no clue what was coming in the low light of the dungeon. As soon as the attack hit him he just stopped a bit short of being in range of me.

Dark Elf: “Hey Davath why did you stop, you need to knock him out since we don’t know what he can do and more lightning might kill him. Hey Davath can you hear m-.” It was at this time that Davath upper body moved ever so slightly diagonally causing a large amount of blood to spew from his mid-section. This didn’t last long as Davath fell to the ground in 2 pieces with his war-hammer still having the hand and arm of Davath attached to the hilt while the head rested on the ground. “Daavaathhh” the dark elf screamed as he launched himself at me at an incredibly fast speed using mana to strengthen himself as he kneed me in the chest. I was launched 100 meter backwards and couldn’t even move. “Hey you three, finish restraining the two girls and get to the magic circle and start the spell. I want this one to watch what happens to those two before I kill him.”

The dark elf walked over to where I was sprawled on the floor of the dungeon and made a wicked smile as he picked me up by the scruff of my neck and dragged me over to the pit near their camp. All I could feel was a painful, burning and hot sensation in the center of my chest and could only watch as Natasha and Lily were taken into the pit with the 3 light elves. When we got to the edge of the pit the dark elf raised me up so I could see the magic circle contained within the pit with the girls in the center of it. The light elves were kneeling on the outer part of the magic circle in the shape of a triangle. The triangle started to glow as the light elves fell back on their butts from using what I assumed to be most of our mana. One of them asked if the dark elf was going to join them since they had a minute till the circle took effect.

Dark Elf: “No I’m going to stay here and destroy any evidence” as he said this he raised me a little. “I will meet up with the others before heading back home.” He then held me to a height where his face was even with mine and he looked me in the eyes. “You know those girls are going to be sex slaves for the rest of their lives, constantly getting fucked by whoever can pay my masters price. Just thought you should know their fate before you meet your end.” He then laughed with the best evil laugh I had ever heard after seeing the look of horror in my eyes.

‘Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why can’t I do anything more than this? Why can’t I save the girl I had just bonded with and my sister? If I could use my elemental affinities could I have changed what happened? And why the hell is this fucking heat still spreading from my chest?’ I angrily thought to myself since I wasn’t even able to talk at this point. ‘God damn it why won’t this heat just get out of me to end this pain before I die?’ As I thought this and imagined all of the heat leaving my whole body, I felt as if my entire body had burst into flames as my vision went red.

Dark Elf: “Fuck that burns, what the hell? How can you still m-.”

These were the dark elf’s final words as he was split in two from his crotch to his head. He didn’t even bleed since the heat and flames from my full hellhound form had cauterized the wounds as I melted him in half. I felt myself surge with energy and all I could think about was getting the girls out of the pit and killing the light elves as I leapt into the pit at the nearest elf. My hand went through his chest where his heart was, since it was ash, and burned my arm to my right to free my arm from the elf. As his body was in the process of dropping I was already beside the next elf. I was in a pose as though I had just finished a slash as the elf’s head hit the ground shortly followed by his body.

The last elf has pissed himself when he saw the first light elf die and started trying to climb out of the pit as the second met his end. I still wasn’t able to completely control I was doing but I didn’t mind if I could save the girls. In an eye-blink I had grabbed onto the shoulders of the last light elf and felt slightly hungry. I then somehow managed to increase the size of my mouth and how far I could open it before chomping down on and devouring the elf’s head. I began to feel the power leaving my body and I was close to running out of mana and my head was starting to clear.

Natasha: “You finally did it..” she said very weakly which managed to snap me back to rescuing the two girls.

Since I still didn’t have complete control over this form I knew I couldn’t try to jump out of the pit while holding them or I would burn them to death in the process. I did the next best thing I could think of to get them out of the pit before the magic activated. I grabbed the handcuffs both of them were wearing and threw them out of the pit and in the process melted through the chains holding the cuffs together freeing the girls’ hands.

As I prepared to jump out of the pit myself I felt all of the power instantly leave my body and involuntarily fell to my knees. ‘So this is what running out of mana feels like’ as I looked down at my now normal looking legs and hands. The magic circle started to give off a bright life and I managed to look up into Natasha’s eyes as a tear fell down my face. The last thing I remember hearing was her screaming noooooooooo. As circle released light into the air as it finally activated I was temporarily blinded before I felt my body getting ripped apart.

xxxxx

I was in a white room I felt I had visited before and saw a desk covered in paperwork piles 5 feet high. A woman then poked her head beside piles and got out from behind the paperwork that hid her. She felt familiar, but she was wearing sweatpants, a comfy looking jacket, had disheveled hair and looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

Goddess of Chaotic Good: “Good I finally got a chance to talk to you, and no you aren’t dead. That magic circle teleported you by turning you into magic particles and will resemble you in what will be for you a couple seconds. I can only keep your consciousness here for a few minutes so listen to me carefully. The good news is nobody is going to check the other end of the teleport for a day so you will wake up before anybody finds you and puts magic restraining devices on you. But I have some bad news as well so get ready for it. I accidentally jumped the gun a little bit on your reincarnation and well, not sure how to say this, you didn’t quite die and -…”

Cameron: “Wait, what the fuck do you mean I didn’t die!”

Back to Main Page

xxxxx

AN: Well here is the next chapter so enjoy. Also my first fight scene and even though it is short, let me know what you think. Put a picture of what I imagine the “mouth” of the dungeon to look like on the picture page. Also have a little faith and don’t just hate on the story because of what you assume might happen. I am going to work on the next chapter as fast as I can but since my birthday is next week I can’t make any promises.