Dungeon World 3 -- Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Fred…what’s going on?” Eisa asked, her head a little fuzzy from whatever just happened. Did I hit my head or something?

“Uh…yeah, that’s what I’d like to know.”

A voice she had never heard before echoed in her head, shocking her in its intensity and clarity; it was so clear that it sounded like whatever woman was talking was sitting right next to her.  “Whoa – who was that?” she asked, even more confused after just seeing Fred and Deecy nearby.

Fred looked shocked and happy at the same time as he looked at Eisa; at the same time, though, his overall appearance looked bedraggled and his clothes were practically non-existent. It was actually worse than when he had been burned to near-death in his dungeon; at least then, the clothes were melted in patches to his skin. Here, however, what scraps that were left on his body made it appear as if he had just barely survived an explosion. 

It was dark even with a few flames floating in the center of what appeared to be some sort of camp in a cleared area, so she couldn’t see anything…inappropriate…from her position. Regardless, it was hard not to blush a little as she looked at his form sitting so near her. 

Silence descended over their campsite as Eisa still struggled to figure out what was going on. Fred looked at Deecy in confusion, before turning back to Eisa with a smile on his face – and then he got up and approached her.

Whatever the darkness had hid was entirely gone as she got an inadvertent look at everything, before turning away for politeness’ sake. Fred crouched down next to Eisa and wrapped his arms around her; she froze there in surprise at his awkward display of affection as he said, “I’m so glad it worked! I was starting to miss you. Fortunately, my Sentient Mana-formed Object Creation skill was able to bring you back to life.”

Eisa continued to sit immobilized in disbelief as Fred’s arms embraced her, his surprisingly hot skin warming her up on what she realized was a cold night. The disbelief she was experiencing wasn’t from the little nugget of knowledge the half-human/half-dungeon core dropped on her regarding her apparent death and miraculous resurrection; instead, she was trying to come to terms with the fact that – with a quick glance down at herself to confirm her suspicions – she was completely naked.

“Wh-why don’t I have clothes on!?” she screamed out in shock, causing Fred to jump as she shouted, and he quickly let go of her. She was a little disappointed when he retreated a bit; one part of her enjoyed the embrace on an intimate level, while another part of her missed the heat he was giving off.  She quickly tried to ineffectually cover herself up with her hands as Fred looked on with amusement. Infuriating man.

“Please keep it down – there are still roaming patrols of Earth dungeon defenders out in the forest looking for anything alive to take out their frustration on. I’d rather not have to run again so quickly; I’ve only had a short time to recharge my energy.”

There’s that voice again. She looked around in confusion another time, though there was still only Fred and Deecy near her; she was beginning to suspect that she was hearing the Dire Wolf Pup talking to her, though that seemed preposterous. Maybe I have some damage to my brain – which might be why I didn’t realize I was nude until now.

“Sorry about your old clothes – they were destroyed in the explosion. Here, let me Create you a new dress; I should probably get something for myself, as well,” Fred said, bringing Eisa back to her current undressed situation.

Within seconds, a warm black dress materialized in front of her and floated down into her lap, where she immediately held it up to better cover her modesty. A pair of comfortable-looking black shoes followed quickly thereafter. “Turn away, Fred – you’ve already seen plenty, now be a gentleman and let me dress in peace,” Eisa said, after the man just stared at her without giving any indication of turning away.

“Oh…sorry. I should probably finish with my own clothes anyway.” So saying, the hybrid human/dungeon core got up from his crouch and turned towards the darkness surrounding their little camp. Already, she could see he had brand-new clothes in his hands that were conjured up from nowhere, and he began to dress himself. 

Not wanting him to finish and then stare at her while she dressed, Eisa quickly stood up and swayed a little as dizziness hit her all of a sudden. Fortunately, it was short-lived, and she managed to maintain her balance before she slipped her new dress over her head and brought it down, covering her from head to just above her ankles. She slipped on her shoes and felt warmth suffuse her from the extra layer of protection against the cool night air.

Surprisingly, the dress and shoes fit even better than her old accoutrements; they were comfortable and seemed to conform to her body in ways that was difficult to achieve unless she altered her clothes herself. It was slightly disturbing and at the same time endearing that Fred seemed to know her body well enough to custom-make her dress to fit so perfectly.

Fred finished dressing around the same time and turned around with that smile again on his face; she wasn’t going to let that distract her, though, because now she needed some answers. Before she could ask anything, however, she was interrupted by that voice again.

“If you’re done with whatever mating ritual you’re doing, I’d like to know what you did to Eisa’s corpse, Fredwynklemossering.”

My corpse? Now this, Eisa wanted to hear. She blushed at the inference to a “mating ritual”, but she looked at Fred with a questioning expression on her face – copied almost exactly she was sure by the Dire Wolf Pup sitting across from them.

Fred looked a little sheepish as he started to explain. “Well…it’s a little hard to explain, actually. First, Eisa, let me tell you about what happened…”

Eisa listened as Fred talked about her coming back to Gatecross with an Earth Dungeon Core – of all things – and how he wasn’t expecting it to be anything other than Nature Core. Her memories of anything past leaving Gatecross to look for Plant (or as Fred called them, Nature) Cores for him to absorb were quite fuzzy; they were so disjointed and irretrievable that it was almost like they hadn’t been fully committed to memory like everything else she could remember before that.

“—and then you yelled out, ‘I WILL NOT let the man I love die again!’ and reached for me, but the Earth Core exploded using its Mana Combustion skill. A shard from the Core shot straight into your heart, killing you instantly – before burning the upper half of your body. I, myself, was ‘killed’ as well, but I was able to reform myself over time and with a generous helping of my stored Mana.”

Horror shot through Eisa as she heard his recounting of the tale and of how she practically professed her love. She doubted he was lying, but she couldn’t remember anything at all regarding her words or the explosion. Her embarrassment and mortification were so great that it was only after a few moments that the rest of his words sunk in and paired with something that he had said earlier. Wait a minute…I died? How am alive, then?

Her questions were only marginally answered as Fred continued. “When my Core managed to put me back together and I woke up, I found your bottom half buried underneath a collapsed wall, and your upper half had been burned beyond almost all recognition. When I managed to repair the damage done to my internal Cores, I was able to extract you and escape the closed-off room underground – only to find Deecy was here waiting for me.

As I laid your body down, started some of my Fire Mana here to keep Deecy and I warm, and watched Deecy resting lethargically as I tried to come up with some sort of direction to take, I had an idea. You see, Deecy didn’t just find me and we became friends; I, in fact, Created her – albeit accidentally. By consuming the shards that were my only remaining representatives of my parents, I inadvertently created a Dire Wolf that was a manifestation of their memories and elemental attributes. 

“With less experience on my side at that time, Deecy’s Creation almost killed me; I didn’t have a lot of Unconverted Mana at that time and it practically drained me of almost all of it, which was the only thing keeping me alive at that point in the cold snow without clothing. Fortunately, I was found and brought back to health quickly – but that’s not the important part,” Fred said as he started to get off-track.

“The notable thing that I took away from Deecy’s Creation was the fact that she consumed the two large shards of my parents as a…catalyst, of sorts. When I saw the shard of the Earth Core that was destroyed imbedded in your chest, I thought I could use the same skill that I used to Create Deecy on you, but I wasn’t sure if it would work. 

“But I really wanted it to. As I sat there, looking at your deceased body, I realized how much I missed you and I felt…incomplete…when you weren’t around. You had been an important part of my new life here in the human world, and without you I felt lost. Not only did I miss your smile, your no-nonsense attitude toward the world, your courage, and your resolve, but I missed the way you made me feel around you – like I could be myself and you would accept me no matter what. I don’t know if that is what you would define as love, but it was something that I wanted to find out.

“So, I activated my Sentient Mana-formed Object Creation skill on your body, as I focused on what you looked like and all of my memories of you. Using the Core shard in your body as a focus I pumped a lot of my Unconverted Mana into the process – but it wasn’t nearly enough; I’m not sure if it was because the sliver of the Core was much smaller than the ones I had of my parents, but it took nearly three times as much Mana for some type of result. After a blindingly bright flash of light that seemed to emanate from your body, you appeared in place of your desiccated corpse, as it appeared that it was consumed in the process.”

Eisa had no idea what to say. Much of what he described about Mana-formed Object skills and Unconverted Mana went over her head, but she took two things away from his explanation. One – which was the most obvious – Fred had used his special Dungeon Core abilities to bring her back to life after it sounded like she had been dead for…quite a while. She wasn’t sure what exactly what he did, but she didn’t feel any different than she had before.

Actually, once she concentrated on her surroundings, she realized that – while her body felt the same – her awareness of her surroundings was different. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was changed, but there was definitely something strange and unusual in the way she perceived the dirt and stone around her. Suddenly, almost as if the mere thought of everything being different triggered something inside her brain, a faint multi-colored dome appeared around them, stretching out hundreds of feet in every direction and centering on Fred. It was constantly shifting in splotches of red, blue, green, and brown; she thought that the colors were significant, but she wasn’t sure exactly why – until she looked at the man responsible for bringing her back to life. When she concentrated on him, she could make out a faint aura suffusing his body, colored almost exactly the same as the large dome surrounding them.

Looking at Deecy, she was surprised to see an aura on the Dire Wolf Pup, as well – though instead of four colors like Fred, hers was just a steady half-red and half-blue mixture. That made sense, though, if what he had said about his parents being Fire and Water Dungeon Cores were true – and that they were used in the Creation of the Wolf. 

She looked down at herself at that thought and saw a faint brown aura surrounding her, though it was easier to see in her peripheral vision than straight on. Nevertheless, it appeared as though she somehow had a deeper connection to the element of Earth than she ever had before – whatever that was supposed to mean. Despite many of the things he said about the specific process being a little over her head, she had worked with him over the last few days enough that she thought she understood that the different colors she was seeing were likely the Elemental Mana types that he had described as he worked with them.

Am I a Dungeon Core now? Is Deecy a Dungeon Core, too? While she was glad that she was alive and seemingly healthy, she didn’t know what the changes in her ultimately meant – nor what the future held for her in her new existence.

The other thing that Eisa took away from his explanation was that he apparently reciprocated some of the same feelings for her that she had for him. At least, that’s what she took away from his talk about missing her and “not knowing if he would define it as love” message; if she was understanding him correctly, he was confused at what he was feeling towards her but was interested in developing them further. That was…understandable, considering his upbringing – and it also explained his severe social awkwardness. 

She could work with that.

“Ok…that’s all well and good, and congratulations doing something impossible yet again. Now, however, we need to— hold on, I hear something coming. That woman’s shouting must have alerted one of the passing Earth dungeon defender patrols.”

It must be Deecy talking, Eisa thought. “Deecy, is that you talking in my head?” she whispered very softly, keenly aware of keeping her voice down now that she knew there was danger around.

Fred answered he question, though, and he whispered just as softly in her ear, his hot breath warming the side of her face as he leaned close. “Yes, it is. It must be a side-effect of my skill, though I’m not exactly sure why it works that way. Now, get behind me; Deecy and I’ll see what we can do to fight off whatever comes. We may need your help, though, so save whatever Power you have for the moment.”

Eisa agreed; not because she thought she needed protecting, but because she was still trying to get her bearings and she didn’t quite feel up to fighting quite yet. She moved back behind Fred and Deecy – who had grown into her giant Dire Wolf form again – and waited until whatever was out there came into the light of the floating flames.

For his part, Fred appeared to concentrate for a moment before a large version of the tripping flowers he was fond of creating appeared in front of him – though it looked a bit different from usual. The flower itself was blue and appeared literally frozen in immobility, while the leaves appeared to be on fire. She was about to say that something went wrong, but the fire didn’t seem to harm it.

Listening as intently as she could, she heard some noise coming from the darkness ahead. It sounded like something was walking toward them slowly, but almost as if they were dragging something at the same time. She tensed up as she got the first glimpse of what appeared to be a giant bear, and she jumped again when Fred’s flower monster seemed to melt in front of her eyes and little streaks of colored light zipped into him.

“What happened—” she started to ask, before Fred flashed a smile back at her as he rushed towards the bear.

What is he doing?!