Keeper of the Dungeons. Created 18 years ago2006-04-01 07:37:26 UTC by Tycell

Just a small fan fiction like story I am writing at the moment, just though I would post it here and see what you guys think of it. Constructive critisism welcome.

Keeper of the Dungeons.
By Tycell

Chapter 1: The bottom of the bottle.

Marcus finished off the remaining liquid in his tankard, he had asked for ale and the barkeeper insisted that it was indeed ale but having drunk all of it Marcus still wasn?t convinced. Never the less he had paid for the bottle and had drank it over the course of the night, watching the Mistresses dance and torture each other in their small holding cells mounted onto the stage at the back of the bar. He pondered on how much they got paid for doing this momentarily but soon lost interest, nothing was quite like watching them torture proper victims in the torture chamber of your own dungeon. Marcus cleared his nose with a swift snort and spun the now dry tankard down the table away from him.

A fight broke a few tables away between a Troll and a Warlock, Marcus watched with mild interest as one of the tables flew over his head in a blast of flame from the Warlocks hands. Just as it was getting interesting the bar?s security turned up, a bile demon and a giant pulled the two combatants apart carting them off through a door behind the bar. Marcus would have liked to think it was for a proper beating or a nice lengthy imprisonment but he knew that it was really just so that the manager of the place could fine them for the damage done. Things had become very dull and lifeless in the realms of the underworlds, since most of the good heroes had been defeated all those years ago in the great uprising it seemed everyone had gone soft, caring only to scratch out a living and line their coffers rather than plot to spread the ways of evil to the surface world.

Marcus sighed, if only he could have kept his dungeon. He had spent much time improving his dungeon, fitting it out with all the rooms and traps you could want. He even had a small pack of about fifteen imps busily working away and performing his bidding. He despised the way it had been taken from him; he was lucky enough to come across a gem shaft and was promptly bought out by the powers that be. ?Bought out? he though to himself, anything would have been better than that. An invasion, some volley of powerful spells, even a small militia of imps slowly taking over his land and feebly beating down his wooden doors with their picks would have been more acceptable than being ?bought out?. Stretching awkwardly he picked up his helmet and sword from the floor next to him and began the relatively short walk back to his apartment.

Miserably he slumped back to his apartment, along the wooden bridge over the now stagnant water which had once served as a moat for the hero keep that stood here before it was besieged and crushed. Now it simply served as a place where drunks who weren?t able to pay the bill would turn up in the morning face down. Walking along the streets he felt almost repulsed by the scummy way things had gone in the underworld. Ever since the Reaper had disappeared all those years ago everyone had lost interest in the campaign for the surface world. The Reaper was the only one with power enough to defeat the two stone knights which patrolled the Hero Gate, the gateway into the worlds above. Others had tried, but all had failed. Marcus still remembers hearing about the mass attempts which were made to crush the two stone guardians. A mixture of approximately forty Dark Angles, Vampires, Bile Demons and Black Knights, all level 8 or above stormed the place in one go, none of them walked out, a few were lucky enough to be able to run out screaming but the rest were slaughtered like sheep. Ever since that moment the population of the underworld had just given up and the great darkness of the underworld was now a mere shadow of its former self. The only death and real combat that ever took place were the Hero Hunts that spanned out of purpose built outposts along the outer rim of explored land.

Marcus stopped and fumbled around in his pocket for the key to his door, finding it h he unlocked the door to his small grot of an apartment and stepped inside, kicking the door shut behind him. He threw his helmet and sword down onto the floor and slumped onto his bed. Depressed and miserable he allowed whatever it was the bar keeper had sold him to take effect, and fell asleep.

I think I should add descriptions in about monsters so that people who are not familiar with the Dungeon Keeper serise can relate to them.

Next chapter comming soon, stay tuned.

Update: Chapter 2.

Currently it might seem as though nothing is happening but I am going somwhere with this dont worry. Feedback would be nice.

Chapter 2: Hi-ho, hi-ho, it?s out of work I go?

Marcus half opened his eyes, the alarm trap which was converted into an alarm clock was beating its bone hammer against the skull with a bell inside it. He slowly turned his head to look at the time; it was four thirty seven in the morning. His alarm was playing up again; it had a habit of going off at random some times. Calmly and quietly he rolled and reached down to the floor next to his bed, with lightning speed he rolled back swinging his arm overhead and brining down his sword onto the infernal alarm with a heavy blow. The skull shattered sending pieces of metal and bone flying in all directions. He released his grip upon the sword and tried to be drawn back into the eternal peace of alcohol induced comatose, he failed. Groaning he sat up in his bed, and rubbed his face with one hand.

?Bastard alarm.? He grumbled.

Peeling himself out of his bed he staggered towards the bathroom, drinking the bitter sweet stale water straight from the tap, it woke him up considerably. He shook his head letting his check go limp producing a gurgling like sound. A few moments later he walked back into the main room of his apartment he surveyed the amassment of junk and random pieces of battered and worn armour against the far wall which he referred to as his ?wardrobe?.

?Waking me up so early? ?kin thing?? He mumbled glancing over to the sword now wedged stiff into the cabinet which had once been where his alarm had perched.

Half willingly he slowly gathered and donned his old suit of Black Knight armour, picked up his shield, pushed his helmet over his hair and pulled the sword from the cabinet, which then promptly collapsed. ?Another day in the life of?? he thought. He cleared his throat and made circles with his shoulders, gripped his shield straps and sword and performed his little morning routine.

?Warfare! Warfaaaare!? He half shouted beating his sword against his shield.

?Shad-dap in dere ya fu?kin idiet!? Came pounding through the wall on the beat of a trolls hammer.

Marcus checked the cupboards of his pantry, but found nothing save dust and that old bottle of ?King?s Wine? he had picked up at that party the one time, but never got around to drinking because it looked so god awful.

?Didn?t think so.?

He would have to buy his breakfast at that ?all day food? shed on the corner of Blood-Rain street on his way to work, again. He picked up his money pouch, noting how light it was, and his keys and walked out of the door, closing and locking it behind him. That was one of the bonuses of working as an attraction at the ?Hero Museum?; all the attractions were magical constructs, you act it out, someone prints your magical signature into a rune, the rune sits in a glass box and when people walk past they can see what is was you did in a type of mist that portrayed you in a moving picture.

Marcus almost enjoyed working at the museum; he stood in a glass box in his tattered armour and allowed himself to be beaten up by some other dead beat who was dressed in polished Hero Armour, meanwhile a warlock used his powers to scribe this into the rune. The problem was however that the rune didn?t always take well to the magic and sometimes did not record the image properly, so Marcus would usually find himself being beaten up and fighting with the would be Hero over and over just to get the right rune recording. On the up side the combat with the other man dressed in Hero Armour had raised his combat level to three and a half. Of course you could raise your combat level to four in a training center but that costs money and they are usually full of ?Hero Hunter Guild? trainees and a few level five and six macho men who get laid by showing off how powerful and strong they are smashing up a training dummy designed for level four combat at most. Marcus really did wonder sometimes if the Reaper had taken intelligence with him when he disappeared.

Marcus bought what could only be described as mashed up worms with meat flavoring in between two pieces of stale bread at the all day ?food? shed and preceded into work. Reaching the large, once impressive, front gates of the museum Marcus gazed upon them in wonder and pity, they had fallen into disrepair over the years but had once been the pinnacle of the underworlds engineering. Passing the gates he walked around the side to a small barricaded door down an alley way, he knocked on the door three times. The shutter on the door opened and a goblin?s small green face stared out at him for a moment, recognizing him the goblin inside unbolted the door and pulled it open.

?Your early today aint? yeh? Well whatever, I dunt wanna know, the boss wants to see yeh right away.?

Marcus didn?t say anything and instead proceeded to walk inside and up the stairs to the Museum Directors Office.

?YOU?RE FIRING ME? You cannot be serious!? He shouted at the boney scribe which sat behind the large desk.

?I work for hardly anything as it is? Why are you firing me?? He leaned forward on the desk in a menacing manner, his sword in hand.

The scribe didn?t even look up, he simply pulled his glasses from his face and began to clean the three lenses with a think silk cloth, keeping Marcus waiting for an answer, having finished he replaced his glasses and spoke.

?It is unfortunate to have to let you go and I assure you it is not because of your pay or your ability to perform the role, its just we are replacing the Black Knight in the scenes you do with a more public friendly character.?

?You?re replacing the Black Knight with a different character??

?Yes, with a mistress, if its what people want they are more likely to come and see it, and who could want to see more than a mistress in combat with the great ?Unther the Bold?.?

?But the legend states that Unther the Bold defeated hordes of Black Knights, he didn?t fight any Mistresses! This is complete-? Marcus was stopped mid sentence by a very firm hand grasped around his throat.

He had only raised his sword a foot in the air, his aim to release anger by smashing it into the desk of the scribe. The Scribes personal security were very effective at managing to stay completely hidden, even if they are stood next to you, you would have no idea they were even in the room. They were exceedingly good at their job, hard to identify as well, as they wore robes. They were large and strong though at any rate, and with lightning fast reflexes to boot Marcus soon found himself face down pinned to the floor.

?Thank you Marcus, your services to this museum are most appreciated, throw him out.?

Marcus felt a cold rush of air and then water seeping in through his suit. When he opened his eyes he was laying on his back, half submerged in the stale stagnant waters of the small river just outside the museum.

?Must have been some sort of teleportation spell? He thought. The large throbbing lump on the back of his head told him otherwise. Angry and a little groggy he stumbled to his feet, water pouring out of the slits in his suit. His feet were uneasy and he looked down to try and find out what it was he was sitting on. Scattered across the bottom of the river were literally thousands of rusty weapons and armour. Daggers, swords, helmets, everything you could think of. It was all worthless of course, no one was going to by a rusted solid helmet with a large, possibly blood stained, caved in dent in the top.

Angry and somewhat humiliated he slogged through the water to the wooden bridge, after a moment to try and drain as much of the water as possible from his suit, he started walking home.

Bump: - Just realised editing my post would not refresh the thread, sorry mods.

Don't worry about it. I'd avoid using fancy quotes, though.

Anyway, fastasty stuff ain't my thing; that's why I haven't replied before.

I'd avoid using fancy quotes

please explain?

I think he means those -> ??

I use them to highlight when a character is speaking, its standard procedure for a novel.

well there are something like these too you know -> "

I'd avoid using fancy quotes

I do know what a quote mark is.

Ahh I see, well thats nothing to do with me, thats just the copy and paste botch from Word to the forums.

Anyway, chapter three is on the way.