Dungeon Builder's Harem Book 03 Ch. 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

I decided to put the salamanders in a trap room I dubbed the Hellfire Room. I placed it on the second floor on one of the paths that bypassed the Frozen Room where the yuki-onna were stationed. Hopefully, at least one of them would be encountered if adventurers managed to penetrate that far into the labyrinth.

The Hellfire Room would be a place of extreme temperatures. The heat would be blistering. Around the room, I added flame vents that erupt fire across the entire room. It was the perfect place for Engana, Malvada, Astuta, Dolor, and Horca to haunt.

I also added smaller flame vent traps around the dungeon. One more hazard that would have to be negotiated.

After two days, Isatu reverted to her human form. I wanted to investigate the dungeon. There should be no other dangers in it, so I took just her and Fara to explore. I wanted the others here in case Anguin returned. We could beat him, but we needed to have overwhelming forces. I had ideas. Feya and Smerta would evacuate the entire first floor and we would hide them in the labyrinth. Feya would come to the throne room. Her light wand would be very useful.

The three of us took the elevator ride down to the dungeon. Isatu stepped in and looked around. She stared at the walls for a long moment then shook her head. "I don't think I ever came in here. Even as a hatchling."

"Did you just stay in that large room?" I asked her as I led the way.

"No. I only started going in there when I got big." She padded at my side, her wings folded around her. "I would spend most of my time where my parents lay. Just watching them. I must have spent a lot of time sleeping."

"Three thousand or so years," said Fara. "You have been absorbing mana for a long time. It's why you can get so big."

"I don't need much in this form," she said, staring down at her hands. "This is a nice form. It's fun. It doesn't make me get all sleepy."

We moved through the tunnel and eventually came to the room where we fought. It was as far as we had gotten. I hadn't even explored it properly. The ball of light I conjured floated before us as we moved through it. The evidence of the fight was everywhere. No one had reset the dungeon.

No one was alive down here to do that.

Fara trailed behind us as we moved around. There was a throne at the far end. That explained much. There was another chair beside it and twelve more behind it. I frowned at that, seeing these chairs.

"Did Meskalamdug have all twelve glyphs?" I asked. "I thought he had Death and gained Fire when he tamed Isatu's mother."

"I cannot say," said Fara as she examined them. "There is the death glyph on the chair right behind him. The one beside that has Earth. Here's Metal. Ice. Fire. Thunder. Water." She moved back down the line. "Yes, yes, Lightning, Wind, Dark, Life, and Light. If these thrones are for his companions, then he must have had one of each."

"How did he get other glyphs?" I glanced at her. "Were there a lot of dungeon builders?"

"I don't know." Fara tapped her cheek. "It was thought he was unique at the time. That there were no others until after his death."

"So how did he get the other glyphs? He only tamed one dragon."

Fara frowned. "There must be other ways to gain them."

I rubbed at my chin. "When I killed Ziamili, I could tell that he had gotten his Metal glyph by killing another dungeon builder. He had two different level 1 Metal monster girls. But Led did not. Light was his second glyph, but he only had one. I didn't understand that. I thought he had kept the companion, and she never fought against us. Only I didn't get to inherit her. But maybe there was something else."

"Maybe," Fara said. "What we know about you dungeon builders is scant."

Isatu opened the door. "This way. The room I hatched in is not far."

She headed down a hallway. I went after her. It came to a flight of stairs. We descended them in a spiral a floor. She opened another room and it was a sitting room. There were old-fashioned couches and a table. Backgammon was set out on the table. The pieces showed they were in the middle of a game. Black looked to be winning.

"I heard this is the oldest game in my world," I said. "Backgammon. Played in Ancient Egypt and Sumeria." I touched the spot of my robe that covered the cuneiform glyphs. "Sumeria is where the cuneiform writing comes from."

"Interesting," Fara said. "This is a game that has many variations, but this version is said to be the original. Did dungeon builders bring it to my world? Or is it another of those strange coincidences?"

"Like how our mythological creatures are found here?" I rubbed at the back of my head.

"I hatched in here," said Isatu. She opened a door that led off.

Curious, I followed her into a bedroom. A narrow bed had two skeletons on it. A man and woman, one in robes, the other unclothed. I swallowed at the sight of Meskalamdug and his wife, Girru. There were dark stains around their bodies.

Ancient blood?

Before the foot of the bed was a heart with old charcoal. Fragments of a red shell were scattered about. Isatu picked one up and smiled, showing me a piece of her egg. Then she glanced at the bed. At the figures.

"I hatched and found them like this," Isatu said. "They used to have flesh, but every time I slept and woke up, there was less and less of them. I remember hearing them talk while I was in my egg. I was so loved." She smiled. "We are going to have a hatchling. Isn't that wonderful?"

I nodded, wondering if she was actually pregnant or however it worked.

Then I noticed the door beyond. A stouter one. A Vault door. I moved around the bed, my heart hammering against my chest. I pushed open the door to find a Void Crystal humming away. It drew in mana. For all these centuries, it had been absorbing energy. I moved towards it, staring at the crystal.

From out of it rose a Soul. Not my Souleen, though similar. This was more like the woman I remembered in my dreams. She stared up at me, this sad look on her brown face. She then bowed low to me.

"Finally, a conqueror has arrived to free me from my failure," she said. It was in perfect English.

"Conqueror, huh? Is that what I am?"

"One must be strong to protect the Soul of the Word." she smiled. "Are you strong enough to protect your Soul? Meskalamdug was not. He failed."

"A lot have failed. I don't suppose you know what you are. Who the woman is who calls us? Why she calls us?"

"Why does anyone call another? They need assistance."

My heart lurched. "With what?"

"I do not know. You'll have to ask her."

"And how can I find her?" he growled.

The Soul of the Word shrugged again. "Claim the power that slumbers here. You do not have Death yet carved on your heart. Seize it. Be strong. You might find the answers to your questions."

I snorted. "We'll see."

I seized the Crystal, felt it thrumming away. I had an impression of a man searching for his mother. Meskalamdug's last thoughts were on her. How he had lost her. Failed to protect her. Would do anything to see her once more.

Then the power rushed into me. The Void Crystal burst in my hand. The Soul vanished as the shards became powder and then vapor that rose around me. I shuddered as I stole the power of Meskalamdug. I claimed his first glyph. Not the others. Why not? Did the Void Crystal only house that one power? Did the others he'd claimed only reside in himself? If I had killed him, would I have gotten all his glyphs?

I felt the new glyph burned on my chest. I didn't need to see it to know that it was a narrow rectangle. Just like the one that I had seen on the chair behind his throne. I stared at the plinth, remembering the Soul of the Void that Meskalamdug had failed to protect.

Would my Souleen bow to a conqueror one day? Or would she perish with me the moment I was killed by another dungeon builder? Had Led gained his Light glyph by finding a dungeon adventurers had cleared but had failed to find the Vault. That must be how he gained his second glyph. He didn't have to murder.

How many other dungeons were out there with lonely Souls waiting to be released, their protectors long since rotted to the bone? I didn't know. I had known spells echoing in my mind. Magic I could perform by calling upon Lord Nergal and Lady Ereshkigal.

"There's writing here," Fara said at the far end of the room. "The cuneiform."

"Did Meskalamdug write it?" I asked.

Fara shrugged. "I don't know what it says. There are the twelve glyphs, though. He put them in here. Unless those stand for words or letters."

"I have no idea how cuneiform works," I said. "Copy it down. Maybe you can decipher it."

Her ears wiggled excitedly as she did. Smoke rose as her phoenix quill burned the parchment of her journal. I looked around and then at Isatu. She stood there staring at the plinth. Her head cocked to the side.

"Are you sad or angry?" I asked her.

"Sad..." She glanced at me with her golden, reptilian eyes. "Is that what I'm feeling? This pain. This emptiness that fills me up. Is that what is building in me?"

"Maybe," I said. "Your parents are dead. You never got to know them. Be loved by them. And now here we are moving through their tomb."

"You need the Death glyph, Master." She moved to me. "I serve you as my mother served my father. It is right. You have tamed me. If you must be here, then you must be here." She rested her head on my shoulder and held me, her silky hair spilling around those horns thrusting cutely from her forehead. "I'm not angry. But I am sad. You're right. I miss what I never had."

Fara continued copying them as I held my dragon. I rocked her, feeling this strange peace. I wanted to find other abandoned dungeons. Ancient ones, maybe. Ones that had been around since Meskalamdug's age. Those early dungeon builders might have had a better idea of what was going on. The knowledge might have been lost over the eons.

The Woman needed help. That made sense. But what sort of help? Why did she have to hone us into powerful beings? And why had none been powerful enough? Not even Fuegin. He had been around fifty years. He ruled his own kingdom. Why hadn't he figured it out?

"Master!" Smerta shouted in my mind. "Intruders! We have intruders in the dungeon."

My stomach clenched. "Tell me it's not Anguin. Please, god, tell me it's not that bastard!"

* \ * / *

Lana Fulmine burst into the throne room, the rest of the family behind her. She rushed towards the map room and stared at it. She looked to the entrance room where the werebears and basilisks were fighting...

Five individuals. Their red dots moved through the room. Such relief flooded out of Lana. "It's not Anguin. It must be an adventuring party."

"A strong one," reported Bhaaloo, one of the werebears fighting in the room. "Watch out, Piaro."

Piaro's dot winked out.

"They're warded against petrification breath," Skamianiela reported. "But we can get them. Let's go!"

"Damn cleric," growled Daant. The werebear's dot winked out a moment later.

Lana Fulmine and the others watched as the adventuring party moved out of the entrance hall and into the first labyrinth. One of them must have been a rogue because he was disabling the traps. He had moved up to the first intersection when an ooze and two satyrs ambushed him.

The rogue's dot winked out, but so did the ones belonging to Philtara, Ullo, and Seeng. They were dead, but the party was weakened. They wouldn't have any way to find traps, and there were so many of those scattered throughout the dungeon.

The party pressed on, but they lost another member and then turned back. They fled out of the dungeon and were gone. Lana Fulmine let out a heavy sigh. She had been so terrified that it was Anguin for a moment.

What are we going to do about him? she wondered.

Leo appeared on the map coming up the elevator with Isatu and Fara.

"Well, that was a little anticlimactic," said Nina. She smacked Lana on the rump. "Why don't me and you go fuck and relax."

"Adventurers rarely get past the first labyrinth," Garnet said. "It takes a powerful group to take us down."

"More and more powerful groups will come," said Halia. "Words must be spreading about Leo's strength. He's a challenge that many are going to want to rise to deal with. Leo hates it when adventurers die.

"Smerta, have the bodies stripped of loot so it can be added to the chests and then take them outside," Lana Fulmine said. Then she let Nina lead her off.