Dungeons Of Secret

The air on the fiftieth floor of the Whispering Labyrinth tasted like copper and rot. High above, the jagged stone ceiling bled a foul, damp condensation that dripped onto Orion’s trembling shoulders, soaking through his pristine white and gold vestments.

He could barely breathe. His lungs burned, and his knees shook violently as he leaned heavily against his wooden caster’s staff. The small, pale blue crystal mounted at its crest gave off a pathetic, flickering light.

“Please, Thorne,” Orion gasped, his voice cracking with a mix of exhaustion and rising panic. He wiped a streak of sweat and grime from his pale forehead, looking up at the towering figure of their vanguard leader. “Just five minutes. If I can just sit and meditate, I can cast Sacred Aegis again. My mana... it regenerates slowly, you know that.”

Thorne didn’t even look back. He stood at the edge of a massive, yawning chasm that split the dungeon floor in two, his massive greatsword resting casually on his pauldrons. “Five minutes?” Thorne scoffed, his voice booming in the enclosed cavern. “Five minutes in the deep levels is an eternity, Orion. We’ve been dragging your useless ass through three floors already today. Every single time a pack of shadow-stalkers lunges at us, your barriers shatter like cheap glass.”

“He’s not wrong, you know,” Jessica chimed in. The high mage was casually swirling a sphere of intense, crackling crimson fire in her palm, her elegant robes completely untouched by the filth of the dungeon. She looked at Orion with a mixture of disgust and pity. “A nineteen-year-old priest is supposed to be entering his prime, Orion. But your divine capacity is pathetic. I’ve seen novice acolytes in the capital city hold a barrier against an earth-golem. You? You fainted after a single goblin scout threw a rusty dagger at us.”

“That dagger was poisoned!” Orion protested, tears pricking the corners of his large, expressive eyes. He looked desperately at the third member of their elite alliance party. “Hugh... please. Tell them. I healed your leg yesterday when the iron-tusk boar gored you. I gave you my last mana potion!”

Hugh, the rogue, was leaning against a stalagmite, tossing a silver dagger into the air and catching it. He finally looked up, his eyes cold and devoid of the camaraderie they had shared just days prior. “Yeah, you healed it, Orion. It took you three hours, and the scar still burns. If we had a real priest from the High Temple, it would have taken three seconds, and I’d have a strength buff to boot. You’re dead weight. The deeper we go, the more you feel like an anchor dragging us down to hell.”

Orion shrunk back, clutching his staff closer to his chest. He felt incredibly small. He was only nineteen, chosen by his village because he possessed a rare, pure affinity for the Light. But affinity didn’t equal raw power. His reservoirs were shallow, his physical stamina frail. He had thought this elite alliance would help him grow, but instead, he had been nothing but their punching bag.

“We made a mistake recruiting a country church boy,” Thorne said, turning around. His face was set in a harsh, unforgiving grimace. He walked slowly toward Orion, the heavy thud of his armored boots sounding like a death knell in the silent cavern. “We’re approaching the nesting grounds of the high-tier monsters. The rewards are legendary. But the split is even among party members. Do you honestly think you deserve a twenty-five percent cut of the legendary loot we’re about to fight for?”

“I don’t want the loot!” Orion cried out, backing up until his heels hit the uneven, crumbling edge of the stone cliff. He looked down over his shoulder. Behind him was nothing but a pitch-black abyss, a bottomless drop into the uncharted, forbidden depths of the dungeon—a place from which no adventurer had ever returned. “I don’t want anything! Just let me use an escape scroll. I’ll go back to the surface. I won’t ask for a single coin!”

Jessica laughed, a cruel, melodic sound that echoed off the damp stone walls. “An escape scroll? Do you have any idea how expensive those are, Orion? I bought three, and they are strictly for essential party members. Using one on a failed priest who hasn’t contributed anything but complaints? That’s a terrible return on investment.”

“But... but how am I supposed to get out?” Orion’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. The realization of what they were doing began to dawn on him, cold and suffocating. “You can’t just leave me here. The upper levels are crawling with monsters we bypassed. Without a vanguard, I’ll be eaten alive!”

“Exactly,” Thorne said, standing merely a foot away from Orion now. He towered over the slender, delicate youth. Thorne reached out, his gauntleted hand wrapping tightly around the shaft of Orion’s staff. With a brutal jerk, he ripped it out of the boy’s grasp.

“Hey! No!” Orion lunged forward to grab it, but Thorne casually backhanded him across the face.

The heavy metal gauntlet split Orion’s lip, sending him sprawling onto the rough, jagged stone floor. The metallic taste of blood burst in his mouth, and he cried out, clutching his bruised jaw.

“You won’t be needing this,” Thorne said, tossing Orion’s only weapon and magical focus to Jessica, who caught it with a sneer. “The crystal is worth a few gold pieces at least. Consider it tax for us carrying you this far.”

“Please...” Orion sobbed, looking up from the ground. His white robes were now stained with dirt and his own blood. He looked pathetic, a broken lamb at the feet of slaughterers. “Thorne, Hugh, Jessica... we swore an oath at the Guildhall. We promised to protect each other.”

“Oaths are for winners, Orion,” Hugh said, walking over to stand beside Thorne. He looked down at the weeping nineteen-year-old with a smirk. “And you are a born loser. Look at you. Crying like a virgin girl before the monster even touches you.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Jessica said boredly, turning her back. “The air down here is ruining my skin, and the pheromones from the lower levels are starting to drift up. It smells disgusting.”

Thorne nodded, a dark, wicked glint in his eyes. He stepped forward, his heavy boot pinning Orion’s slender leg to the ground. Orion let out a sharp cry of pain as the metal digs into his shin.

“You know, Orion, if we let you walk back, you might make it to the surface and complain to the Guild. That would ruin our perfect reputation,” Thorne whispered, bending down so only Orion could hear him. “But if you ‘accidentally’ fall into the forbidden depths... well, the dungeon claims another victim. It happens all the time.”

Orion’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror. “No... no, please! Thorne, don’t! I won’t say anything! I swear by the Light, I’ll disappear! I’ll leave the city!”

“I don’t trust the word of a weakling,” Thorne grunted. He lifted his boot from Orion’s leg, and before the priest could crawl away, Thorne kicked him squarely in the chest.

The impact was devastating. The heavy, armored boot cracked against Orion’s ribs, knocking the remaining breath entirely out of his lungs. The sheer force of the kick lifted his light, fragile body off the ground and propelled him backward.

For a terrifying, weightless second, Orion hung suspended in the air. He saw Thorne’s cold smirk, Hugh’s indifferent gaze, and Jessica’s turned back.

And then, he fell.

Into the Forbidden Depths

Orion screamed, but the sound was instantly swallowed by the roaring wind of the abyss. He plummeted through the darkness, rushing past jagged rock walls and thick, weeping roots that tore at his clothes and scratched his skin. He braced for the impact, expecting his body to smash against the stone floor and end his short, miserable life.

Thwack!

Instead of hard stone, Orion crashed through a dense, tangled canopy of thick, fleshy vines. They slowed his descent, snapping under his weight one by one until he finally hit the ground with a dull, wet thud.

For a long time, there was only darkness and agony.

Orion lay on his side, gasping for air that felt thick and heavy, like hot velvet. Every bone in his body ached, and several of his ribs were definitely cracked. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking through the tears and dirt.

He was alive. By some miracle, the strange, rubbery flora of the deep had broken his fall. But he was completely drained, stripped of his staff, and deeply injured. He was a nineteen-year-old priest, entirely defenseless in the deep, forbidden zone where no human had ever set foot.

Desperate for even a glimmer of the Light to comfort him in the terrifying dark, he tried to call upon his inner magic. He held out a trembling hand, trying to squeeze out a basic illumination spell.

A single, pathetic spark of golden light appeared above his palm, flickering weakly for half a second before snapping out of existence. In the middle of his vision, the cruel, cold magical interface of his own status bar flashed in a dim, fading red:

STATUS: Critical Inversion Imminent MANA: 2 / 120 (Insufficient for casting)