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A Letter from a Dungeon
My Dear Master,
I write to you from the thirteenth level of a dungeon. The dungeon has
a name, but I will not disturb you with it, for it sounds ridiculous
and made up. My companion and I have stopped to rest and heal
ourselves before going on, and I felt that as you have not heard from
me since I left the School, you might care to know how your pupil has
fared.
If I may say so without impertinence, our adventures have had an
altogether different character from what I was led to expect at
school. There we were of course taught of many different heroes - King
Arthur and the knights of the Round Table; Beowulf; Siegfried;
Salah-el-Din; Robin Hood. I fancied that someday I should come to be
like them. I was trained to be a warrior by your esteemed self, and we
live in a world seemingly designed for heroes and their deeds and
yet I find myself on a quest, or series of quests, so unheroic as to
make me wonder if I ever had a proper understanding of the meaning of
the word.
But let me begin at the beginning. My companion and I arrived at the
town (it has a similarly ludicrous name), and were immediately
introduced to a group of folk: a blacksmith, a healing-woman, a
grocer, a thaumaturge, and the like. Each of these people sells an
array of goods and services at a wide range of prices, yet oddly
enough my companion and I seem to be the only customers they ever
get. The townspeople themselves are neither warriors nor wizards, for
they welcomed us with open arms and immediately began to importune us
to undertake errands of various sorts for them, for which they
promised rich rewards. Indeed, having achieved several of these I know
they do not lie, for with each success they gave us great sums of
gold. We have no use for it, however, except to buy overpriced goods
at their own shops. While they have no other customers, they also have
no competition.
Exploring the countryside around the town, we soon came upon the dungeon in which we now find ourselves. What a strange place this is! I cannot determine who made it or why it is here. It seems to consist of room after room of chests, crates, boxes, barrels, jars, vases, and other containers; most empty, but some containing food, weapons, or magical items. A few of these vessels have been booby-trapped, though for what reason I cannot imagine, since the booby-trapped ones seldom contain anything more valuable than the others.
The rooms themselves are built in a variety of architectural
styles. We have seen many types of stone, and arches, pillars,
cornices, balustrades, and other interesting elements, but all have
one thing in common: they are uniformly rectilinear. Not a single
curve have I seen to relieve the stark uniformity of the place. The
floors, too, are curiously level and even; laid by master craftsmen no
doubt, but without a step or platform anywhere. There are stairs which
lead from one level of the dungeon to another, but that is all. And
these levels themselves are curious also: the layout of each bears no
relation to the one above it, and the style of the stonework changes
suddenly without apparent reason; yet level upon level, the place
seems to be little more than a vast storehouse, a storehouse with no
rhyme or reason, organization or plan.
Yet a storehouse it is not, for the dungeon is inhabited. The
creatures that live here could not have built it - ugly, misshapen
brutes with crude weapons and cruder clothing. I can only conclude
that they moved in after it was constructed. That is what one might
expect of a very ancient building, long-abandoned; yet in all its
particulars this place seems nearly new. Never a crack in the stone;
never a chip; mile after mile of geometrically perfect corridors,
shaped as if by a mathematician rather than these lumpen creatures. I
tell you frankly, master, if this is a dungeon it is the strangest I
have ever heard of, and bears no resemblance to the places spoken of
by the Nordic bards.
The creatures could perhaps be servants of a single overlord who built
this place to be their dwelling. Upon rare occasions we do find
tables, chairs, and beds, but never enough for all the monsters we
encounter. Perhaps they are only for the use of a middle grade of
nobility, and the remainder sleep on the floor and eat with their
hands. In any case the dungeon is clearly not a barracks or a
dormitory; it does not give the impression of a place where someone
lives; it is merely a place where things are.
The beings who live here... what shall I say of them? Firstly, that
they are uniformly hostile. We have released a few prisoners, who
always flee without offering to assist us... a shabby, ungracious way
to treat one's benefactors. Yet apart from these churlish wretches,
all others that we have encountered have attacked without challenge or
parley of any kind. And so we kill them.
Oh, God, how we kill them.
Dozens, hundreds of beasts have I slain, in considerable variety of
species; but each individual is identical to all its fellows of the
same species. There is none of the variation one expects to find among
living things, and I find myself wondering if they are not creatures
of machinery or magic, all conjured from some template somewhere. They
attack in groups of four or five, seldom more, and although there are
obviously hundreds of them in the dungeon, they never mass in
overwhelming numbers. They are clearly extremely stupid, possessing
neither any organizational skill nor a communications system to summon
their fellows. They attack blindly, marching towards us, taking no
advantage of cover or tactical opportunities. And so we mow them
down. The simplest expedient is to stand in a door and slaughter them
one by one as they approach.
This is not the way Beowulf fought Grendel. In this business I am no
hero, no warrior; I am an exterminator, a dog killing rats in a
crate. If we fight on enough to get tired, they can eventually get the
better of us, but for another thing: we have a magic door which allows
us to return instantly back to the town. There we may rest as long as
we like. I have no fear that this letter may never find you - will rot
away beside my body here in the dungeon, for in ten seconds I can be
back in safety. And as if that were not enough, we also have spells of
resurrection! Yes! The greatest miracle of all, which I had thought
solely the province of God, is available in this place for the price
of a few gold coins. I myself have died half a dozen times, through
want of attention to my body's condition in the heat of battle, and in
a moment my companion brings me back to life. I sip a healing draught
and we proceed as if nothing had happened. Death holds no terrors for
me here, and in a place where there is no death, can there indeed be a
hero? Courage is the conquering of fear, yet I have no fear; no reason
to fear, and therefore no need for courage. The stirring stories I
read as a child in school are meaningless here; they provide no
example to guide me. Richard the Lionheart did not cast a spell and
fly home to England whenever he felt tired! He is no adventurer who
returns upon a moment's whim to sleep in safety every night.
Indeed, master, I am no adventurer. I no longer know what I am.
And now I come to my companion. I had been warned at the beginning of
this affair to seek a mage to accompany me, someone whose magic would
complement my sword. Heeding this advice, I chose the sorceress
Divandra.
Master, I scarcely know how to describe this woman. Her appearance I
know well enough, but her character remains a complete mystery. She
almost never speaks. I know nothing of her history, her people, her
reason for being here... and yet we do everything together. I have
seen her in furious battle; I have seen her poisoned; I have seen her
dying. We have experienced nearly every extremity the human frame can
endure, and yet for all that she remains a cipher, a stranger.
When she does speak her words are short, nearly monosyllabic,
commands: "Cover me," "wait for me here," "help me!" and the
like. Right before my own death I have heard her say, "Oh, no!" which
suggests that perhaps she feels some affection for me - as indeed she
must, or she would not resurrect me - but that is the extent of her
emotional range. She follows me through the dungeon (or sometimes I
follow her), killing creatures and hacking open crates with the same
wordless, fixed intensity. We never walk side by side; we never sit
and tell each other of our hopes and aspirations; we never discuss
this bizarre undertaking that engages us.
Periodically, as we travel, I can feel myself growing swifter and
stronger... not in the normal way one does in a training regimen, but
in strange jumps at unexpected times. Divandra, too, experiences these
sudden surges of strengh, and from time to time she learns a new spell
from old books that we find. I know with numeric precision every
detail of her abilities, as she does mine. If we were in a novel we
would be boon companions, soul mates, yet here we are silent and glum,
always together but utterly apart.
And so we march on in a waking dream, smashing boxes and slaughtering
beasts, hour after endless hour. We collect up gold and armaments,
robbing the bodies of our enemies until we can carry no more. From
time to time we find curious bits of jewelry or metalwork; we take
them back to the townspeople; they praise us and pay us. The arms we
sell at the blacksmith's shop, and use the proceeds to buy others. We
spend an extraordinary amount of our time engaged in commerce - more
than ever Sir Lancelot du Lac did, I am sure.
Where it all leads I do not know. The townspeople talk vaguely of an
evil overlord who threatens their land, but every time we return to
the town there is no more evidence of his presence, and the people
seem to have done nothing to strengthen the defenses.Occasionally some
of the objects we are asked to find are said to be useful in delaying
or destroying him, but once we surrender them we never see or hear of
them again. For a people under the shadow of doom they are strangely
complacent about it.
Divandra and I have now returned to full health, and it is time to go
on: hacking and slashing, looting and robbing, opening every box and
barrel in the hope that we may unearth a clue as to what this is all
about. God send that it is not a vain hope.
I said above that I do not know what I am. For sure I am not a hero; a
greedy and bloodthirsty mercenary, perhaps. Yet when this is done, I
have sworn to regain my pride and my self-respect. I shall study again
the virtues of the legendary heroes of old... between the covers of a
book.
With respect and affectionate memory, I remain, sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
TSEN-RE