Chapter 39: Rise of the Primordial Dungeon

  I patted Bori on the head affectionately. “Don’t worry, Hun. This is adult stuff. I’ll find a way to…”

  She cut me off. “Daddy! I’m a dungeon, remember? I can make a nice dungeon to hide it in. You just need to give me your mana.”

  After one last look around for any obvious hiding places, I gave in. “Okay, just don’t use all of my mana at once. Let me recharge when I get low.”

  “Oka~ay,” she chirped as she reached up to take the dark heart from me.

  I held it away from her. “Don’t touch it. This thing is dangerous.”

  “It’s just slimy,” she said, making an ick face before turning to work on her task.

  Her human avatar vanished, and in its place, a rather large gopher appeared. She gave me a toothy grin before beginning to dig. Bori disappeared into a flurry of kicked up dirt and stone as she burrowed deep underground.

  “You know,” I called after her. “If you wanted to make a hole, I could have done that with earth magic.”

  “Now as deep as me,” her faint voice replied from deep in the hole.

  I had waited several minutes, wondering what she had in mind, when she suddenly popped back up.

  “Daddy, I need my core,” she held out a paw. “I can only go so far away from it.”

  “Is that safe?” I asked, hesitant to give her something so precious, even if it was her soul.

  “Daddy!” she squealed. “Weren’t you the one that wanted to leave my core in a mountain back in Albion? At least this way I can help save the world, too.”

  “But what if nobody finds you out here? Won’t you die without mana?”

  “Why do you think I’m borrowing all of yours?” she asked. “I can hold out for several months while you and your shadow friend save the world. Just come get me when it’s over.”

  “Um, okay.” I couldn’t think of any objections. It was a good plan.

  Gently, I scooped her core out of my stone arm and handed it to her. Bori took it in her mouth and disappeared back into the hole. She was gone much longer that time. I sat on a rock and looked closely at the heart of darkness. It felt an evil power when it beat in my hand. No blood or anything came out thankfully, but the whole thing was just gross somehow.

  I wondered what the apocalypse ritual was supposed to do, make a body for the thing? Also, why couldn’t there be a ritual to destroy it as opposed to just sealing it away? Some things weren’t meant to exist.

  The second time Bori appeared, she came out of a new hole. Once again, she held out a paw. “Okay, Daddy. Now give me the heart. I’ll bury it so deep nobody will ever find it.”

  I was more reluctant to give her the heart than I was her core. The first felt like letting my baby leave the nest while the second was sending her out into the world with a loaded shotgun.

  “You bury this thing deep and then get away from it.” I refused to let go of the heart while maintaining eye contact.

  She nodded and tugged at it for several seconds before I finally let her have it.

  “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she comforted me again. “You can count on me to do this. Now, go save the world so you can come back for me.”

  “On it!” I said, my heart swelling with emotion as I now had even more on the line.

  Once Bori disappeared back down the hole, I sprinted off through the forest, unsure of where I was going exactly. The one thing I knew was I needed to get as far away from her as possible. I desperately missed Pi’s red lines. He would know exactly where I needed to go.

  I skidded to a halt when I got to the edge of the forest. I remembered I wasn’t alone. Iris was still with me.

  “Iris,” I called to out. “Tell me about the ritual to seal the heart.”

  She uncoiled and appeared above me in her full goddess form. “Take out the cookbook.”

  Page 999

  Seal Away Various Evils (SAVE)

  Do you have a random body part of a bygone era you need taken care of? Look no further!

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Required ingredients:

  1 Cursed Item

  5 Drops of Primordial Blood

  1 Mortal Sacrifice

  1 Divine Binder

  Take the cursed item, wash it in Primordial darkness, and encase it in a Divine Binder. Have the sacrifice and only the sacrifice chant the spell.

  Chant Clausum Tenebrae Aeternum, Lux Invicta Vincat.

  “Looks easy enough,” I mumbled. “But, Iris, what is this about a mortal sacrifice?”

  She chuckled. “You didn’t think you’d emerge from this unscathed, did you? The corruption has to go somewhere.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “Can I at least choose the mortal? There are a few people I wouldn’t mind seeing cursed.”

  One blacksmith, in particular, came to mind. Boy, could I hold a grudge!

  “The mortal has to be willing,” Iris sighed. “That is the only way to conjure such powerful magic.”

  Suddenly, a system message popped up that changed everything.

  The Puzzle Dungeon, Borealis Krup, has evolved. Be the first to challenge the fledgling Primordial Dungeon.

  That wasn’t Pi. Had the system just announced the corruption of my daughter like it was a special event in a video game?

  “Bori!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  She couldn’t hear me, and it wasn’t like I could fix her by rushing back. I knew the fastest way to help my daughter was to seal the heart.

  I turned to Iris. “We need to go!”

  While she wasn’t Pi, Iris did a decent job of giving directions. It turned out we were in Celestea and not too far from Yew. I traveled on foot for half a day before getting an idea.

  “Cordelia?” I called out, hoping we were still being broadcast. “I need a ride and I need it quick. To anyone else watching the show, you have skin in the game too. If the primordial succeeds, the entire universe will be destroyed.”

  It took another several hours, but she did eventually show up just before nightfall.

  “What do you mean, the universe is getting destroyed?” she asked, eyeing Iris wearily. “Those shadow creatures and the goddess speak in languages we can’t understand.”

  “What about the rest of us talking about it?” I asked, wondering how they were still in the dark.

  Then again, most of that conversation took place in Xanadu where broadcasting was blocked.

  “Never mind,” I went on. “I need to find a divine binder. Iris, do you have any suggestions?”

  Iris shrugged. “You need something of the gods that the heart can’t destroy. I do not possess any such artifact.”

  “Do you know any god who does?” I asked hopefully.

  She rubbed her chin. “If any god would know, it would be Deductus.”

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. As the patron god of a certain clan of orcs, he accompanied them to Albion.”

  “We need to get there as soon as possible,” I said, turning to Cordelia.

  “Where?” she asked. “I still can’t understand her.”

  “Oh, right,” I chuckled. “We need to get to Albion.”

  She nodded and knocked on the wall behind her. When a muffled voice replied, she said, “Take us to Albion, quickly.”

  “It’s too bad our team doesn’t have anyone who can teleport,” I sighed.

  Cordelia nodded sadly. “Unfortunately, the other team that had one no longer does. I’m not sure if there’s something going on off-world or if nobody wants to come to Gaia anymore.”

  “It makes sense that they don’t want to come here,” I mused.

  Fast travel was something I’d come to take for granted, ever since…

  “Hey wait!” I yelped so loud I made Cordelia jump. “Xanader! Please tell me you’re here. I need you.”

  Nothing happened. I groaned. The Grimling always turned up when I didn’t want him. Was it too much to ask for him to come when I actually needed something for once?

  “Don’t worry,” Cordelia moved closer to comfort me. “We should arrive at the coast in a couple…”

  “My Lord?” the gravelly of Xanader voice spoke from the shadows. “What do you require of your humble servant?”

  “I need your help.” I knelt in front of the tiny, dark creature. “I need you to take me through…”

  “I am sorry,” Xanader surprised me when he cut me off. “My lady forbids the transport of that particular relic. Others from the high house have already petitioned her to hide the dark heart.”

  “That’s not it,” I explained, holding up my hands in front of him to prove I wasn’t hiding the evil relic anywhere. “I already hid that thing. I need to get back to Albion to speak to Deductus.”

  Xanader bowed deeply. “In that case, it would be my honor. Will your escort be joining you?”

  “Do you want to come, Cordelia?” I asked. “It could be dangerous.”

  To my surprise, she smiled. “I was waiting for you to invite me to live in your new home.”

  I spluttered. “Live? Don’t you have a home in Dabia…somewhere?”

  She chortled. “If you could call it that. It isn’t much larger than that hovel they afforded you in Hellquist. To be honest, I felt more at home in this carriage.”

  “Well, sure,” I replied. “We got plenty of room in Albion.”

  “Great!” she exclaimed. “What about the carriage?”

  “Can we take it?” I asked Xanader.

  The tiny grimmling looked around for a moment and nodded. “We transported a ship before, so a carriage shouldn’t be any different. Just don’t hold me liable should anything be damaged.”

  I leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in Cordelia’s ear. “Should we warn the driver or surprise him?”

  She slapped my arm playfully. “Don’t be mean. Give me a moment to ask Oliver if he wants to come.”

  “So his name’s Oliver?” I muttered as Cordelia stepped out of the carriage.

  She turned and gave me a mock scowl before trotting off to the front of the carriage to speak with Oliver. A moment later, she returned and climbed inside.

  “He’s going to stay for now,” she explained. “He wants to come, but he’s worried traveling through the netherworld will startle the Ruffalo. He’s going to unhitch them and take a boat. I hope that’s okay.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  The carriage shook as the ruffalo were unhitched, and we soon heard Oliver galloping away.

  “Are you prepared?” Xanader asked, bowing once again for good measure.

  “Yes,” Cordelia and I said at once, though I felt her nerves by the way she squeezed my arm.

  I patted her hand reassuringly. Then we dropped. Gravity lost its power over us as the carriage fell freely into the depths. Then, the force pressed us into our seats as we slowly stopped and rose again. The experience was unique inside the carriage. While it wast still dark, I didn’t feel like I was flying through nothing. It was more like an out-of-control elevator.

  Then, light flooded the cabin once more, and we landed gently on the ground. Xanader opened the door, revealing we’d arrived in Albion, or more specifically, the courtyard just outside of the above ground Camelot Castle.

  Several knights stiffened and saluted as Cordelia and I stumbled out of the carriage.

  I drew a deep breath and shouted. “Orcs! I need orcs. Where are the orcs?”

  “Orcs, my lord?” the knight asked.

  Sir Palamedes appeared from one of my rings and pointed to a nearby mountain. “The orcs took up residence in the caves beneath that mountain.”

  “Lead the way,” I insisted.

  A familiar voice made me stop in my tracks. “Wait a moment, Chonu. If it’s Lord Deductus you’re looking for, he’s in the castle. He anticipateded your arrival.”