It sounded as if his body had gotten through to emergency services. The sound of a helicopter's blades piercing the air could easily be heard and the dungeon could see that the tarp was fluttering.
Seeing no other option, David dropped eighty-two hungry ants on the leprechaun.
He closed his eyes and turned away. He couldn't look as Morgan let out a monkey scream of fear and pain. He hadn't trusted that the bug zapper could kill the little woman. She already proved that she was bigger and stronger than mosquito girl. For all he knew she'd just shake it off. He tried to think of the most professional way to end her life.
He turned his head. Morgan had dropped her disguise. She kind of looked like Gizmo out of Gremlins only her fur was fire red and her teeth belonged to a dog. She screamed and began to pick up ants and eat them but she was severely outnumbered. Just to make sure that she didn't make a run for it, David sent in the air support.
The dungeon again had to close his eyes as the wasps stung Morgan's eyes and her mouth. Meanwhile, the ants were forming a cocoon around the little woman several ants deep. Smothering and biting under their numbers.
It took longer than expected but David felt Morgan's passing. While the ants had been like eating stale popcorn, the fairies' deaths had been like gulping down a red bull. It was no wonder that dungeons killed the crap out of people. He wondered if killing a human was like snorting cocaine, not that he had experience with the stuff.
Still, as much as he disliked some of the arseholes he had to deal with, he wouldn't make a habit out of killing them for a caffeine boost.
Not wanting to look at the ants feasting, David looked down at his tablet. He had an idea before Morgan showed up. This instinct thing was nice and all but being a gamer, he really wanted a better interface. He wanted to see a manual, some stats. He wanted the things like the ants automated. He didn't have the patience to tell each ant to dig there; he wanted to let the system do that shit.
David glared down at his useless work tablet and growled, “Why can't things come with a fucking manual?”
Then a deep voice of some dark alien presence spoke in David's head.
DO YOU WISH TO CHANGE THE DUNGEON'S CONFIGURATION?
“Oh, thank fuck, yes,” David said.
The voice seemed to take this as an agreement and it continued.
WARNING. YOUR INTENDED CONFIGURATION IS CLASSED AS UNUSUAL. IT WILL TAKE TIME, POWER, AND EFFORT TO ACHIEVE THIS. YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO INTERACT WITH YOUR DOMAIN UNTIL THIS IS COMPLETE.
Thinking that this was just a game prompt or the dungeon OS asking for permission to change the display, David was all up for saying yes. Before he did so however, he morbidly looked back at Morgan's corpse.
The ants had been busy alright. What David could see was torn up muscle and bone. What would happen if something popped up while this configuration thing was happening?
As if sensing his thoughts the voice spoke again.
YOUR DOMAIN WILL BE CLOSED UNTIL CONFIGURATION IS COMPLETE. WARNING, ALL THE SERVANTS THAT ARE UNDER YOUR CONTROL WILL BE HARVESTED FOR ENERGY. RESOURCES WILL BE HARVESTED AND STORED. WITHOUT YOUR CORE PRESENT THIS PROCESS WILL TAKE LONGER.
“Cool, do it. Wait. What core?”
Pain unlike anything that David had ever felt before slammed into him.
1
1 Chapter Five
The nurse who was currently attending to an IV drip was given a massive shock as David shot straight up from his bed and let out a loud gasp of air.
“Motherfucker.” Were literally the first words that left the trouble shooter’s mouth as he came to.
As the nurse ran back to alert a doctor, an exhausted David lay back in bed. He felt drained and weak, with his brain feeling like it was trying to bash its way out of the back of his head.
After a few seconds of intense nausea, he turned his body to the side and vomited onto the floor. There hadn't been enough time to aim or check for a bucket or towel, he felt his stomach come back up and there it went.
Hacking his guts up several times more, David returned to his pillow and saw only two vague human shapes in pink and white uniforms standing at the foot of his bed. Whoever they were, David could tell that both of them were disgusted with him.
Keeping his eyes closed, he spoke softly, “Water.”
There was the sound of water being poured and after a moment a straw touched the call centre agent's lips. David's esophagus was coated in stomach acid and it had been dry too long. When the cool water went down his throat it hurt.
“Take it easy,” Came an older woman's voice. “Too much and you will be sick.”
David didn't recognise the voice but guessed that it belonged to a doctor or nurse. Despite having just puked his stomach contents, he knew the smell of a hospital. It wasn't so much as a lack of smell but more janitors using payloads of detergent and cleaning solvents to nuke every germ. It was the smell of human faeces and blood having been sterilized.
David opened his eyes and saw a woman in her fifties or sixties in a lab coat. She had dyed her hair black but there was no hiding the wrinkles.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
The straw was taken away and David was about to express how he felt using his best and most profane language modifiers, but decided to just come out of it. “Bad.”
After the attending nurse had given her ward his hit of water, she looked down on the puddle of bodily fluids that he had just splattered on the floor, just knowing that she would be the one cleaning it up.
Her scream could be heard from outside. “Oh my god. Oh shit.” she shouted backing away.
“What?” David and the doctor yelled at the same time.
What the doctor found would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. Swimming around in a foul smelling soup of stomach acids were five large bull ants and two squirming maggots.
The doctor watched in morbid fascination as one of the bull ants got its bearings and attacked and ate the fly larvae. “Jesus Christ.” she yelled and raised her foot, preparing to stomp the lot of the bastards back to Hell.
“What?” David shouted hearing what sounded like an expensive shoe repeatedly smacking on linoleum.
“Nothing.” The doctor said, trying to keep her patient calm. “Nurse, get a mop and a bucket.”
The nurse visibly retched but queasily obeyed her superior.
Avoiding the nightmarish puddle, the Doctor moved to David's bedside and shined a light in his eyes. “What do you remember?” she asked all the while thinking about the mess on her shoes.
Still a bit freaked out over the commotion, David thought back. “I was in a car accident and got emergency services to pick me up. I remember waiting on a hill and then...” That was funny; he couldn't remember a thing after that. He shook his head, “Sorry.”
“It's alright,” the doctor said and looked down at her shoes. “Do you have any family?”
David thought for a moment, “I have an aunt, but she's in pretty much the same state that I'm in.”
“I'm going to book you in for some tests. Is that alright?”
“I'm not really capable of saying no here, Doctor...” David trailed off, waiting for the good doctor to fill in the blanks.
“Glover.”