There was a lot to admire and curse about the Australian outback. The beautiful and brutal landscape, the untouched wilderness, the feeling that you couldn't get more lost if you tried. It was a place where a single distraction meant you were probably going to die.
The movies just never could do the place justice. There were few places in the world that seemed to want to kill you as much as Australia did. Oh, there were mountains, and deserts, and oceans that were a pain in the arse, but they didn't give you hope and then smash it like the Never Never could do. It was as if everything was designed to kill you in the most miserable way possible. The ants, the snakes, the unbearable heat, the flies. You get bitten by a spider or your car broke down and you were basically screwed.
“Do you want to go out again?” David asked.
“No. The flies are bigger than I am,” the fairy said, forgetting that she was trying to sell her services as a mascot.
The ghostly form of the dungeon leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at the Disney reject, “Then why the fuck would I want you?”
For a tiny instant, David thought he saw the fairy's face morph into something not nice indeed, something with fangs. But it must have been a trick of the light as the cute thing let out a stream of tears.
“I can show you how to make monsters.” The fairy insisted, still trying to think of a way to prove her usefulness. “First you need a creature to get within your domain.”
The dungeon turned his head to the dead ikky goran. He didn't know why but he thought of it as a Barney. A big, colourful bipedal dinosaur that annoyed the shit out of him. Yeah, Barney was a good name for it. “Like him?”
The fairy looked to the creature and shook her head sorrowfully and David knew why. He couldn't claim monsters that another dungeon made without permission. It was sort of like brand names. He could steal the idea and make a knock-off version, but he couldn't take Barney.
His eyes drifted to the fairy and he considered a different approach. And somehow he just knew. It had nothing to do with how he knew about Barney or some dungeon sense. No, this was more like a loser high school boy sense that had been cultivated by working in a soulless corporate environment. In other words, his bullshit meter had just flared up.
He tried to look at the thing that he was dealing with. She was beautiful, that was if you were into Thumbelina. Blonde and slim. The type of woman who wouldn't give David the time of day. Just how had she gotten here so fast? And for that matter, how did she get in here? No, David wasn't liking this. She was just too cute, and she wanted this enough to put up with his abuse.
His thoughts drifted back to the cave. What was a RPG dungeon doing in the real world? Yeah, something was wrong here.
As for the fairy, he got the sense that she was trying to fuck him over. He thought about interrogating the midget, but if his body were able to get his fat arse up, David doubted that she was just going to let him catch her. He needed a different angle.
His eyes turned to the back of the truck, “Could you please get something in there for me, and I promise I will think about letting you squat here.”
Pleased to finally prove her usefulness, the fairy nodded enthusiastically. David couldn't move things in the traditional sense of the word that was what monsters were for. He could absorb or mass produce items but that required energy, which he replenished over time. Or he got when he managed to kill something in his domain, i.e. the cave. This all meant that if David wanted to do some physical labour he was going to need minions.
It took some time but the fairy managed to pull out an object the mean dungeon told her to. She had never seen the like of it before; it looked like a lamp, only this lamp had a metal cage encasing a dark glass pillar.
“Is this what you wanted?” she asked.
“Yes. Now, there is a switch on top, I want you to turn it.”
The fairy flew up and looked at the device, curious as to its functions. She found the switch almost instantly and flipped it on, “Like this?”
The device let out an electric hum as it began to power up. Frightened, the fairy flew away from the device, then, seeing a cool light within the odd construct she went back in for a closer look, “What is it?” she said in awe.
“It's a magical lamp.” David said.
The fairy stared deeply in the white glow of the lamp and her skin tingled from the gentle humming. Though David couldn't see it, the fairy's eyes had become dilated and thick drool started to gather on her mouth. “It's so beautiful,” the fairy said. Hypnotized by the glow, she put her hand inside the lamp's cage. She needed to touch the beautiful light.
In his mind David was counting down. 3, 2, 1.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” The fairy screamed, and it was very easy to picture every girl in the universe lamenting.
Smoke started to spew from what had been the fairy's golden hair and her painful scream died in her mouth as a ghastly amount of volts fried her internal organs. That's when David saw the real creature that hid underneath the glamour.
“Damn,” David said at the repulsive little grifter.
Though it was difficult to see behind the burns, the fairy or whatever it had been was a hideous thing. The dungeon could clearly see that he had been dealing with some kind of devil insect. Its head looked like it belonged to a mosquito, and what David had first thought was a dress of leaves was in fact a shell made out of what looked like human fingernails.
He looked down at the now burnt and twitching remains of the fairy. The fairy was not created by a dungeon, he had not made a pact with it, and he had killed her on his home turf. “Lawyered bitch. I just got my first monster.”
1
1 Chapter Three
David opened his eyes. He had just had the weirdest dream. He dreamed that he had turned into a dungeon. Like a resource gathering/city building game. He had even killed evil Tinkerbell by tricking it into a bug zapper. It was awesome.
He had even dreamed that he had made one of the little shits and told it to heal his body. That had been where the dream had cut out.
Feeling slightly better, the overweight call centre attendant sat up. His truck was fucked. Broken glass was everywhere, his windscreen had a hole in it big enough that he could stick his head through and what looked like a… “Oh no,” David said as he saw Barney's arm sticking out of the windscreen like he was posing for an action movie poster.
Oh yes. Came the voice David realised was his own.
Some people think that they would recognise their own voice when they heard it, and some people might, but for most they are astonished when they hear themselves for the first time.
David managed to bang his head on the Beast's roof as he tried to get out, “Son of a bitch.” he cursed.
Hey, watch it with our body, arsehole. I just got around healing it.
“What?” David said while rubbing his head. “Did I just call myself an arsehole?”
Yeah, well, we are used to putting ourselves down. How are you… Oh, don't start hyperventilating.
David couldn't help it. He looked around, trying to find a paper bag to breathe in. Damn stores using plastic and hemp shopping bags. It was real, it was really real. David was a dungeon. Or part of him was.
Yo, snap me out of it. The Dungeon said.
Something sharp slashed David's cheek. He hopped back and waved his hands around wildly, “What the…”
“Did I do good, Master?” came a piercing, yet, quiet voice.
David touched his bleeding cheek and saw blood on his fingers. Horrified, he looked up and held in a girlish scream.
Floating above his nose was the evil little dungeon fairy