Dungeon Goddess Read online

  He made his way to the far end of the warehouse, where he came to a stack of flattened boxes.

  Jake found the pillow he had left on the shelf above him, the pillowcase smelling like whatever Gerome used to clean his dreads.

  Jake was fine with that.

  He’d been working with Gerome for a while now, and if they needed a nap, they had a pillow. Every now and then, one of them would put a clean pillowcase on it.

  What was important was that they had a place to crash out if they needed it.

  Jake used the secret nap spot if he was feeling like he could get some rest; Gerome used it if he’d accidentally gone too hard at happy hour, and needed a place to doze off before he worked the overnight shift.

  Their system worked. Gerome was a good friend, and it pained Jake to think that he had been keeping a secret from the man for some time now, something Gerome could never know, something that could very well ruin their friendship.

  “Just a quick nap,” Jake said, yawning, secretly hoping that he’d appear at the entrance to the cave again.

  This time, he had a plan.

  {*_*}

  Try as he might, Jake couldn’t fall asleep in the darkened warehouse.

  He started with counting his breaths, imagining sheep jumping over a fence.

  A few of the sheep morphed into nude women with big milky udders, Jake shaking his head, again smelling whatever product Gerome put in his dreads on the pillowcase. He thought he heard something in the far corner of the warehouse, perhaps a rat.

  Or a ghost.

  There was a rumor that a museum preparator like him had committed suicide in the space a couple decades ago.

  No one at the Guggenheim was able to verify this information, but it was something some of the ‘art grunts,’ as they lovingly refered to themselves, liked to elaborate on, one that their manager, Dorian, claimed wasn’t true.

  “Come on…” Jake whispered, feeling like there was a clock bearing down on him, each second ticking away, marking him.

  He knew he had about thirty minutes, give or take ten minutes or so.

  Gerome wouldn’t bust his balls or anything if he came back late, but they did need to get the piece up by midmorning.

  Jake focused on his breathing, trying to count each inhalation and exhalation, hoping to keep the number at about five before switching.

  He forgot about doing this as he remembered the Asian woman on the train.

  I really should have gotten her number...

  “Focus,” Jake whispered to himself, feeling stupid for trying to talk himself into taking a quick nap just so he could once again take on the shadow dragon.

  But this was what he had to deal with.

  And getting to that world, whatever that world may be, required him to exit this one.

  So Jake tried something else.

  He began visualizing the entrance of the cave, his plan of attack formulating at the back of his head.

  He knew there was a woman with the body of a spider in the cave, something he could handle later, once he’d dealt with the dragon.

  He couldn’t recall what the spider woman looked like, but he did remember that she was naked.

  Because of course she was.

  Or was she?

  He also seemed to recall her having dark skin, a thin torso like Nevaeh…

  As Jake tried to recall how the spider woman from his dream had looked, he found himself yawning, the vision in his mind’s eye starting to blur.

  He did it.

  Jake was suddenly standing in front of the cave now, a sword in one hand and a whip the other.

  After looking down at his weapons for a moment, he shrugged, tossing the sword and the whip over the side of the cliff, hearing the sword clink against the rock.

  Jake looked at his two fists, strangely confident that he would be able to tame the shadow dragon with his bare hands.

  This confidence came from his MMA background and the fact that he’d never actually wielded a sword or a whip outside of a video game. While he understood the physics of it, and it made sense in this world, he wanted to give his bare fists a try.

  Maybe next time he could conjure up something else.

  Speaking of which…

  Jake wondered if he could actually conjure something in his current state.

  To keep things simple, he imagined a baseball bat, its length, what it would feel like in his hand, its grip covered in tape, darkened from grime and sweat. He then imagined wrapping some barbed wire around the end of the bat, turning things up a notch extreme wrestling style.

  But that didn’t work.

  Try as he might, even straining a bit, he was unable to create a weapon out of thin air.

  But he still had his fists.

  Turning to his left, he took the stone steps of the mountain pass, ignoring the statue, the rolling thunder, the purple lightning in the distance.

  Wherever this world was, he could explore later.

  Jake reached the abandoned fortress that had been carved into the stone, noticing the faint silver glow inside.

  It wasn’t long before shadows swelled toward him, the tendrils twisting together as they formed the terrible dragon with razor-sharp metal teeth and seven eyes moving up its snout.

  Jake sprang into the air, his power sending him forward.

  He cracked the dragon in the snout with a straight punch, the beast thrown backward into the wall of the fortress, some of the bricks crumbling, hitting the dragon and kicking dust up into the air.

  The dragon sent its tail forward, Jake able to jump just in time to avoid it.

  Roaring, silver fire spraying out of its mouth, the dragon lashed its tail at Jake again.

  This time, Jake latched onto the tail, yanking the dragon toward him.

  The maneuver worked, Jake able to pull the dragon out of the cloud of debris.

  He scampered up the dragon’s body, avoiding a sudden burst of silvery flames.

  Jake used his momentum to spin himself around, so that he was now on the dragon’s side, where he was able to deliver a few jabs to its neck, the great beast making a choking sound.

  The creature managed to swipe him away with its tail.

  Jake was tossed toward the edge of the cliff, not able to stop himself from going over the side.

  He reached for the ledge at the last moment, holding strong, his legs dangling, nerves tingling as he got ahold of himself.

  “You’ve got this,” he said, conjuring the strength to flip himself up, where he landed on his feet.

  Jake charged toward the dragon again, taking to the air with a couple steps, his right fist connecting with one of the dragon’s seven eyes.

  He went backward with the beast, Jake able to land on his knees, the dragon gnashing its teeth at him, a silver ball of fire forming at the back of its throat.

  Even though he knew it was risky, Jake reached his hands forward and grabbed the dragon’s open maw, its metal teeth tearing through his palms, the creature’s claws landing on his back, wispy shadow tendrils curling in the air around him.

  Jake pulled the dragon’s jaw open, using his foot as leverage, finally able to snap it backward.

  The dragon let out a final guttural sigh as it went limp.

  “I did it…” Jake said to himself as he tried to stand, the pain from his wounds spreading down his body. “I did it!”

  He looked down at his hands to see they were completely crimson, dripping blood onto the ground.

  Jake winced, noticing the scratch marks on his back, trying to ignore the pulsing pain.

  He dropped to one knee, and looked to the creature, wondering what happened next.

  Where was the woman that he’d seen last time?

  Maybe it really was a dream…

  Jake had to laugh at this last thought.

  Of course this was a dream. None of this was real.

  And as if thinking that was akin to whispering a magic incantation, the shadowy form of the dragon began
to shrivel.

  Jake forgot about his wounds as the dragon’s face morphed into the face of a beautiful woman with dark hair and pale skin, the woman in what resembled an armored bikini, and leggings that went up to her knees.

  “You…” she said, her throat quivering.

  Jake kneeled before the woman, helping her sit up, his bloody hands leaving red streaks wherever they touched.

  “You saved me…” she finally managed to say as she licked her lips, a pink energy radiating off her body.

  “Who are you?”

  But Jake would never hear the answer to his question.

  Shadows swelled around him, latched onto his legs, and flung him backward, off the side of the cliff.

  And to make sure that he wouldn’t simply fly back to the top, a shadowy spike tore through his back and out the front of his body, driving him into a ledge below, the hard rock giving way.

  Jake tumbled down the mountain as the shadows wrapped him like a burrito, killing him before he could reach the bottom.

  He awoke with a gasp, back in the warehouse at the Guggenheim Museum, a bright light shining on his face, momentarily blinding him.

  {*_*}

  “Damn, dude,” Gerome said, the dreadlocked man beaming his phone’s flashlight on Jake’s face. “You look like shit.”

  “I’ve got to get back to sleep...” Jake mumbled.

  “I hear you, man, but we still have to put up this Dungeon Goddess piece. You know they will bust our asses if we don’t get this up before the museum opens.”

  “I know,” Jake said as he took Gerome’s hand, his coworker helping him to his feet. “It’s stupid, too. It’s not like the exhibit is open yet.”

  “There’s still like what? Another week or something? Longer?”

  “Something like that,” Jake said as he followed Gerome out of the darkened warehouse.

  Every now and then he would look into the shadows, expecting something to move toward him, ready to engage if it did.

  You’ve got to get ahold of yourself, Jake thought.

  He blinked several times, lightly tapping himself on the cheek.

  “You doing all right back there?” Gerome asked over his shoulder.

  “I just haven’t been sleeping well, and then…”

  “Nightmares?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You know what you should try? Acupuncture. I know this dude on the Lower East Side. His place is pretty legit. It’s not too expensive either. I mean, it should be, but I think he’s practicing out of his uncle’s rent-controlled apartment. Something like that. Anyway. I'll hook you up with his information.”

  “Right, that sounds like it could be nice.”

  “It’ll be more than nice. Hopefully, you’ll get some sleep. If not, just trust your old homey Gerome to think of something. I’ll see about that study at Yale too. There are definitely some ladies up there that need a muscled dude like you, rather than a pudgy professor-type, if you get my drift.”

  Jake laughed as they reached the main floor of the Guggenheim, the seven-story spiral letting in light from the top, which told Jake that the moon was out.

  The smell of coffee reached his nose; Jake looked to see two fresh cups sitting precariously on a banister.

  He took a sip of the coffee, nodding at its taste.

  “I’ve got skills, right?” Gerome asked.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, his focus returning to the art installation piece.

  Jake hadn't known what an installation piece was until he moved to New York and got this job.

  An installation piece was the name for an unconventional piece of art, like a bust of a woman that the artist had carved using nibbles from their own teeth, or something that could take up an entire gallery space, such as a piece that Jake had done work for at the MOMA, which involved filling a room with dirt.

  There was always something “new” and “provocative.”

  And while some of the pieces were easy and predictable to the point that Jake couldn’t understand how people made money doing them; others, like the Dungeon Goddess exhibition, were incredibly unique, otherworldly even.

  The piece Jake and Gerome were currently working on started off as a large portrait of a woman with a sword sheathed at her side.

  From there, strips of canvas extended toward the ground, attached to nails via strings, the entire piece outlined by a doorway-like frame that was lit in a way that cast light across the strings.

  The interesting part was what the shadows formed.

  The light pressing through the strings formed a silhouette of a woman with her sword drawn.

  Looking straight at the painting, one was almost presented with a barcoded version of the woman on the portrait, but observing it from the sides allowed for the shadows to play out, the framework built around the piece making the shadow work visible even during the day.

  Occasionally sipping from their coffees, and only taking a break once, Jake and Gerome finished setting up the piece about an hour before the museum opened.

  There were still technically on the clock, so the two busied themselves in the warehouse, mostly just hanging out and occasionally chatting with the daytime museum staff who were just showing up for their shifts, all art nerds in some shape or form.

  It wasn’t even an hour later that Jake was back in his closet-sized home above the Chinese restaurant in the Bowery, practically diving onto his bed and hoping that this was the chance he would get to finally figure out this reoccurring dream he’d been having.

  If only he could fall asleep.

  {*_*}

  Jake didn’t know how long he stared at the ceiling of his cramped bedroom, his stomach grumbling once the smell of Chinese food reached his nostrils.

  He ignored the fact that he was hungry, that it was nearly noon, and that he was trying to get a full night’s rest even though that rarely happened for him.

  He now wore a black sleep mask, earplugs in, his room cold due to the radiator pipes not working so well.

  Jake was fine with that.

  Even though he was born and raised in Central Texas, he actually enjoyed the cold, as long as he had more blankets to pile on top.

  Jake didn’t know how long he lay there waiting to fall asleep, but something did start to happen.

  The blackness of the inside of his sleep mask started to crumble, his vision washing away.

  Jake found himself lying with his head on a thick root, his whole body in pain.

  He looked up to see the canopy of a tree, and from there more trees, a solid slab of rock behind them illuminated by the faint orange glow of a setting sun.

  “You’re awake!” a woman said, scurrying over to him.

  “What?” he asked, startled.

  “You need to rest,” said the woman, who had a marmalade sweet voice with a bit of hardness to it, as if she’d been through a lot.

  She wore a hood over her head, and from the small piece of her face that he could see, Jake noticed her skin was covered in blackened smudge marks. He started to move and she placed her hands on his chest, pressing him back down.

  “Hey…”

  “Relax,” she purred.

  Jake tried to take in her features again, but she was now in front of the source of light, her hood covering her face with a dark swath of shadow. Her cloak stretched all the way down to her knees, her feet encased in thick leather boots with matted fur sticking out the tops.

  As his vision finally came into focus, Jake noticed that the exposed part of her body had been covered in grime and mud, which also made it a little difficult to see her considering there wasn’t much light in the forest.

  “You fell from Lisim Mountain. Were you trying to clear the dungeon? Are you a dungeoneer?” she asked him, bringing a small stone bowl of liquid to his lips. “Please, drink.”

  “I’m alive?”

  “I don’t know how you survived.” The woman extended her hand behind his head and helped him drink.

&nbs
p; “I don’t even know where I am,” he admitted.

  “The Orange Vale,” she told him in a tone that barely hid her disbelief that he didn’t recognize this place. “But surely you knew that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said as she brought another bowl of liquid to his lips.

  It tasted like water, but it was satiating anyway, just a hint of lemon to it. With the second bowl, Jake noticed something start to stir in his stomach, a warmth spreading down his arms.

  “You need time to heal before you go up there again.”

  “Why am I down here?” Jake asked. “Last time I died, I reappeared up there.”

  “Last time you died?” The mysterious woman laughed quietly. “Who talks like that? You are alive, and you’re lucky to be alive. It’s not going to be easy to get back to the top of the mountain. You’ll have to go through the dungeon again.”

  “Dungeon? Wait, how did I get to the top in the first place?”

  “I was wondering that myself,” she said, now running her hand through his blonde hair. “You’re so clean.”

  “I am?” Jake asked.

  “I was going to take you to the hot spring, as long as there’s still daylight. But I guess we don’t need to go there now.”

  “No,” Jake said, trying to sit up again.

  The woman pushed him back down. “You need to rest.”

  “I could always rest after we go to the hot spring. That sounds wonderful.”

  She laughed again, just a little louder this time. “Most people don’t volunteer to go to the hot spring, even though they should. It’s pretty far from anything anyone would want to see.”

  “Are there more people here?” Jake asked.

  “In the Orange Vale? Yes, there are a few scattered tribes, hamlets, an academy, and a larger city known as Marjask. I’m from Marjask, but I’m not affiliated with anyone there...”

  “Why not?”

  She paused, steeling herself. “I guess you could say I’m a bit of an outcast.”

  “You seem kind enough to me.”

  “My family hoped I would be a dungeon maiden, but that wasn’t in the stars for me. So here I am,” she said, looking up at the foliage above them.

  “That’s it?”