Dungeon Wreckers Chapters 5: Dungeon Patrol (Dungeon Poll included) (Patreon)

A/N: something weird happened this monday. I had that chapter ready for a while, but I've grown so used to publishing CE chapters on Tuesday that I completely forgot to publish that one today. Better late than never I guess.

In any case, like with Gunsoul, this chapter ends with a poll for the next Dungeon. I'll post a second DW chapter tomorrow and then three Gunsoul chapters from Wednesday to Friday.

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Previous Chapter

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The rest of the day happened without incident. Matthew ate his lunch, sleepwalked through math class, and forced himself to listen to Social Sciences because Mr. Franquin was a psychic who could hear a snore from ten leagues away. At long last, the bell rang with the sweet sound of deliverance. The weekend had finally started. 

Alas, Matthew already knew he wouldn’t get to rest much. The Doc had sent the team a message, saying he would pick them up in a few minutes for their daily patrol. 

“You were a real slowpoke this afternoon,” Matthew told Kari as they exited the class. “You didn’t raise your hand to answer even once.”

“You’ve noticed?” Kari let out a sigh. “I cast Premium Thoughts in the Dungeon.”

“Ah, I forgot.” The spell temporarily improved the user’s cognitive processes, letting them think faster, learn better, and remember more sharply. In short, it made the caster smarter… for a time. After being worked into overdrive, the brain machinery slumped for a while. “I thought you had found a way around that?”

“I streamlined the spell to mitigate the aftereffects, but I couldn’t erase them entirely.” Kari smiled sheepishly. “I wish I had your Flux reserves. Then I could be smart all the time.”

“As they say, the grass is greener on the other side,” Matthew replied with a shrug. “There’s so many spells I want to pick up, but can’t because of my shoddy control.”

Kari’s Flux reserves were pisspoor, so she had to ration her spells. She only ever used them in dungeons or in emergency situations. What she lacked in firepower, however, she more than made up with in control. But Kari never wasted Flux and had an easy time molding it as she wished. This allowed her to master spells extremely quickly, even those belonging to other colors. 

Matthew faced the opposite problem. He packed larger Flux reserves than anyone else in the association, to the point he could keep his passive spells on at all times, but he struggled with fine-tuning his Flux into powering sorcery outside his core color. He knew the fewest spells among his team and found it easier to invent his own techniques rather than learn those of others. 

Only John managed to balance both power and control. He didn’t excel at anything, but he could adapt to most situations and tinker with his spells.  

“Besides, you’re already smart,” Matthew reminded Kari. The two of them made their way to the school’s metal gates, a masterwork of Gothic architecture giving way to the nearby street. Hordes of cars carried the happy students away into the hell of city traffic. Matthew pitied the poor drivers. “You don’t need a boost.”

“Thanks, but you’re giving me too much credit.” Kari smiled slyly. “The Doc said he would teach me the Peak spell soon, to keep me in top shape. We could practice together if you want. It’s a Green spell, so we should both share an affinity for it.”

“Sure!” Matthew never said no to learning new spells. “I’m working on a new spell of my own too.” 

Since it didn’t exist four years ago, sorcery was a fresh new field where everyone worked hard to figure out what they could or couldn’t do. Even Doom Sense was a spell Matthew invented himself, after… after the Mall. 

Merely recalling that incident made his hollow eye socket itch. 

“Oh?” Kari joined her hands in interest. “Come on, on tell!”

Since she asked so nicely… 

“I call it Lucky Star,” Matt explained. “Here’s my theory: luck is like a flow of pluses and minuses. Good fortune, misfortune. If you accumulate bad luck, eventually it’ll swing back to good luck.” 

“I don’t think that’s how luck works, Matt.”

“That’s how it works for my spell,” Matthew insisted. One day, Kari would understand that all Yellow spells involved rewriting reality according to their own inner logic. It still amazed him that she struggled to grasp the concept. She was too much of a thinker. “So here’s my plan: filter out the good luck to keep only the bad, store my fortune, and then release it back in a pinch when I need a boost.”

“Wait, so you’ll suffer only misfortune for a length of time?” Kari squinted at Matthew. “And you don’t see any way it could go wrong?”

“That’s the neat part, I intend to practice the spell at the dorm’s football match tomorrow.” When his classmate failed to grasp his genius, Matthew helpfully provided more details. “Think it through, Kari. I’m an art student. My species has evolved to survive in comfy studios, not on a sport’s field. Any good luck I receive playing football would be all the more precious while the misfortune remains manageable.”

She crossed her arms in disapproval. “You’ll risk injuring yourself at the game.”

“I’ll avoid the worst of it with Doom Sense,” Matthew insisted. “And if I break a bone, a trip to Florence should patch me up in no time.”

“That… that’s a halfway decent plan, I suppose,” Kari conceded, albeit with heavy skepticism. “Just don’t hurt yourself, alright?”

“You’re asking too much of him, Matsumoto.” Matthew and Kari turned around to find John sneaking up on them with a leather mallet. For an obscure reason, the show-off refused to carry a schoolbag. “I’ve toured the academy’s facilities, and it seems no other dungeon popped up on the campus. Saddening.”

“Was it blood or ketchup?” Matthew asked. He couldn’t get that question out of his head. “On the knife?”

“Blood, I suppose,” John replied, his gloved hand brushing against his coat’s lapel. He probably hid the knife underneath. “I’ve thoroughly cleaned it, but you can probably find residue on its blade if you want to lick it.”

“I still don’t understand how you can smuggle weapons past the metal detectors,” Kari said, her eyebrows creasing with unease. “I feel like I should report this.”

“The school’s security system functions properly,” John replied calmly. “I simply use a Red spell of my design to alter the magnetic permeability of objects until the detectors fail to pick up on them. I doubt a would-be school shooter can do the same.”

“The detectors never picked up on my finger guns either,” Matthew quipped. “Also, you’re paying for dinner.”

“Must I?” John scoffed. “Technically, you’ve only killed the Boss and a few mooks. All the other monsters perished from the Dungeon’s collapse.”

“Which I destroyed,” Matthew pointed out. Of course John would try to weasel his way out of a sacred bet! “Those kills are mine.”

“But you didn’t kill them directly yourself,” John insisted with a wicked smirk. “If a building collapses due to a structural defect, who can we blame? The architect? It’s quite the gray area, don’t you agree?”

“I’ll pay, you cheapskates,” Kari said with a small giggle. “I’m just happy everything ended without any victims.”

“Suit yourself.” John’s head perked up at the road. “It appears our lift has finally arrived.”

A Mercedes class E stopped in front of them—after narrowly missing a boy running out of the school like a hunted animal. The front window lowered to reveal the Doc’s smiling face.

“Sorry for the wait kids, the traffic is terrible at this hour,” he said with a cigarette burning between his lips. “I’ve got chocolate in the back.”

One of the two co-founders of the Dungeon Wreckers Association, Doctor “Doc” Finn O'Conner was a man straight out of a dandy movie: casually elegant, refined, and with that strange mix of friendliness and cultured charm you couldn’t help but fall in love with. He was tall, thin, with a light stubble adorning his jaw. Though he was hardly thirty years of age, his shorty curly hair had prematurely grayed. Matthew thought it made him look like George Clooney. His attire was a tasteful blend of comfort and classic fashion: a blue sleeveless waistcoat, bone-white shirt, dark whiter trousers, and a pair of black glasses meshing well with his kind black eyes. 

And best of all, he never came empty-handed. 

“First,” Matthew said as he climbed at the Mercedes’ back. As promised, a bounty of Swiss chocolate candies awaited him there in a tightly packed box. “Free food!”

“I shouldn’t eat too much sugar…” Kari said as she sat next to him, but she lacked the strength to resist for long. Her hand swiftly snatched a handful of snacks off the box before Matthew could devour them all. “I’ll make an exception this time!”

“Children,” John commented. That bitter, chocolate-hating monster climbed at the front. Matthew didn’t mind; it meant more for him. 

“Now, now, Matt, there’ll be enough for everyone,” the Doc lightly chided him before cramming his cigarette into the car’s ashtray. He always minded his students’ health. “How was your first week of school?”

“I blew up my first Dungeon of the school year,” Matthew boasted with a mouth gorged with sweets. “Oh, and we saved a life.”

“That’s the important thing, Mathew,” Kari replied. She looked through the window at the road outside, her chin resting on her hand. “I can’t believe a Dungeon popped up in our gymnasium of all places…”

“I’m afraid that’s only the beginning, Kari,” the Doc said as he hit the accelerator, broke out of the jam of parents’ cars, and drove away. Whether through magic or talent, their Mercedes swiftly left the school in the dust for asphalt lanes. “Today’s patrol won’t prove easy.”

Matthew watched through the open window with his Flux Sight. Much like its university, Evermarsh’s Lycée Français was located on the city’s western side. Locals called it Temple Road, because it housed most of the city’s religious sites; with the notable exception of Umar’s mosque. The sprawling Cathedral of Saint George towered over all other buildings in this prestigious neighborhood, from its Art Nouveau mansions to Evermarsh’s only synagogue. 

To optimize Dungeon hunts, the Association had split the city into nine areas and assigned each one to a team. Since the four of them were tasked to oversee Temple Road, the Doc took his students on a car tour of it each day. The last few months had been so quiet that they hardly noticed anything. 

Today though? 

Today, the district was infested with Dungeons. 

Stage Ones were the hardest to detect, as these newborn seeds barely possessed enough power to sustain a single entrance, but Matthew quickly picked up a whiff of Violet Flux near a crisscross of alleys. The smell of another Dungeon hovered above that creepy Victorian-style manor house on Sax Street. A third lurked near the university. 

Perhaps Matthew should go pray at the Cathedral someday. Saint George was the patron of monster slayers, or so he remembered.

“That’s worrying,” Matthew muttered to himself. While he loved killing monsters and blowing up Dungeons, he knew all too well that these hellholes would each rack up a bodycount by the time they could destroy their cores.

“I see you sense them too, Matthew,” the Doc noted with a sigh as he took a turn towards the waterfront. “Crypto recorded nineteen cell-stage Dungeon sightings across the city within the first hour following the Timeshift, the one you destroyed included. A brand new record.” 

“We faced less than half of that in March.” John sulked in his seat. “Each timeshift brings a bigger wave of Dungeons than the last. That’s a worrying pattern.”

“And it’s our first year with two timeshifts too,” Kari whispered sadly. 

“Unfortunately.” The Doc scowled as he checked the local seafood restaurants. Thankfully, none of them showed signs of infestation. “Since cell-stage Dungeons are the hardest to spot, I fear we’ve barely scratched the surface of the new infestation. We’ll have to patrol the entire city and check every last corner of it.”

“Uh, can we?” Matthew asked with skepticism. He wanted nothing more than to skip school and clean up Dungeons left and right, but Evermarsh was a big, big city with lots of hiding places. “I know we’re good, but there’s only twenty-two of us for a million-strong metropolis and Kim is too young to join yet.”

“Twenty-four,” John said dryly.  

Matthew froze in place, his hand still in the chocolate box. He let go of the candy he had seized and sank in his seat while Kari gave him a sharp, worried look. He knew the subject would come up. It always did whenever they discussed their manpower issues. 

“I’m just saying,” John continued. “We still don’t have the numbers to regularly patrol the marshes, but we know of two Crawlers who just sit on their asses. It kills me.”

The Doc looked at Matthew’s reflection in the rearview window. “John has a point, Matthew. It might be time to reconnect with your old teammates. See if they’ve changed their minds.”

“Their answer will be the same,” Matt replied. “A big fat no.” 

Maggie still wouldn’t speak to him at school—when she bothered attending it at all—and Ulysses hadn’t left his house in years. Not since… not since the Mall…  

A flash of pain coursed through Matthew’s skull, quick and sharp. His hand moved to his forehead and held it tight, much to Kari’s discomfort. “Matthew, are you alright?”

“I keep painkillers under the seat, if you need one,” the Doc said immediately. He had treated Matthew for his eye and headaches, so he was used to them. 

“I know,” Matthew replied. He didn’t need any. The pain vanished on its own once he stopped remembering that awful place… “I’m fine.”

The Doc squinted at him. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fine,” Matthew insisted, though he could tell the others didn’t believe him. “I guess you can try talking to them if you want, Doc, but I don’t think they’ll listen. Maggie will clean Dungeons on her own at least.”

“I won’t push the subject further then,” the Doc said. John snorted in his seat, but he did not press either. “Still, we need new recruits. The city’s Dungeons will quietly pick up victims and grow in strength at a relatively slow rate. We should be able to contain the infestation so long as we prevent any of them from reaching their third stage, but any new set of hands is welcome.”

Matthew thought the same. Stage-Three—the ‘Spread’ stage—was the moment when Dungeons grew powerful enough to create multiple entrances; an ability that made them exponentially more lethal, especially if they started cannibalizing each other for resources. 

“Why not contact other Crawler groups for reinforcements?” Kari suggested. 

“They’re about as stretched thin as we are,” John replied grimly. “Every large city on Earth must be facing an infestation of their own.” 

The Doc nodded curtly. “I suspect that events will unfold like March’s timeshift. In the short-term, we will be on our own. Once a few weeks have passed and larger teams have cleaned up small Dungeons threatening their blocks, this will free other Crawlers to assist with the most affected areas.”

Evermarsh’s Dungeon Wreckers Association had a loose alliance with similar organizations across Europe. They traded resources and helpers whenever possible. 

“Dungeons are akin to global warming, and should be treated similarly,” the Doc reminded them. “Though the phenomenon threatens us all, we can all contribute to reducing its damage at our level. We’ve prevented the emergence of any large Dungeon around Evermash for over a year, so I’d say we do a pretty good job.”

“Except that unlike global warming, we still don’t know what’s causing Dungeons to show up at all,” John pointed out.  

“True,” the Doc conceded, “but until our investigations answer that question, we can destroy Dungeons as they appear and ensure Evermarsh’s people live long and happy lives.” 

He had a point. Even the Mall had been safely contained so far. The troubles in Panama resulted from the local Crawlers lacking the resources to deal with their largest Dungeon, but Europe’s community was well-organized and better equipped. 

Sad as it sounded, Matthew saw timeshifts like natural disasters in faraway countries; terrible tragedies that only affected his life indirectly. All he could was help ensure his patch of the world would avoid the same fate. 

“In any case, we’ll likely hold an online meeting to discuss it once Crypto has finished assessing the situation,” the Doc said as he parked his car in front of a familiar building. “Another one.”

Perched on a stone platform near the sea, the city’s old lighthouse stood vigilant against the waves. Its sturdy tower rose like a solitary finger reaching for the sky, with no one to observe its struggle. The Doc’s car was its only company, except for the seagulls happy to shit on its walls. 

The place had been automated for as far as Matthew remembered. Few people visited it nowadays, and the ships didn’t need its help to find their way to the harbor. So it surprised him to see a cloud of Red and Violet Flux floating above its old beacon. 

Some Dungeons just picked the worst hunting grounds. 

The team climbed out of the car to both take a closer look and enjoy the fresh, maritime wind. Matthew basked in the sea’s soft whistle and the smell of fish. Such a shame it was too cold to swim yet. 

“This one will be easy to contain at least,” Kari said upon inspecting the old lighthouse. Its only entrance, a massive iron gate, was tightly shut. “We’ll just have to lock the door.”

John scoffed. “It might starve on its own and spare us the trouble. The lighthouse is fully automated, so nobody is going to enter it.” 

“A stage-one Dungeon requires at least a victim a month,” said the Doc. “We can afford to focus on more dangerous locations.”

“I’ve counted four Dungeons so far,” Matthew noted. “The lighthouse, the old church at the Rubens crossroad, the university, and that creepy mansion near Sax Street.”

Kari scoffed. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, a slight blush on her face. “I always hear it as sex street.”

“Do you misunderstand the word saxophone too?” Matthew joked. 

“You’re horrible, Matt.” Kari put her hands behind her back and looked at the Doc. “Should we start with the university then? Since that’s where you work?”

“That seems reasonable,” John said. “If you have the keys, we can clear the Dungeon this week-end before the university reopens its gates on Monday.”

“That would be optimal, but we should check on the church and Sax Street first,” the Doc replied. Kari covered her chuckle with her hand. “Depending on the Dungeons’ entrances, they might have already begun to claim victims. We should expect the unexpected.”

“About that, Doc, since you know everything,” Matthew said. “When you flush a school’s toilet, where does the crap go?”

“Down the sewers and then to the waste treatment plant in Chemtown.” The Doc arched an eyebrow at him. “Why that question, Matthew?”

“Something triggered my Doom Sense after we closed the gymnasium Dungeon.” Though Matthew tried to shrug it off, his intuition kept nagging at him. “Whatever caused it was flushed down the school’s toilets.

“I see…” The Doc stroked his chin fingers. “I’ll inform Crypto and ask her to keep an ear to the ground.”

“I’m not hunting for a Dungeon in the sewers,” Kari warned them. 

“You would rather explore a haunted mansion?” Matthew teased her. “I’ve heard the one on Sax Street is full of ghosts.”

“Ghosts don’t exist, Matt.”

John couldn’t resist joining in. “With a Dungeon taking residence there, that might change soon enough.”

“Well…” The Doc cleared his throat. “An arson case took place in that mansion a few years ago…”

“Oh come on, not you too,” Kari complained with a sigh. “Can we please avoid the haunted Dungeon house today? I don’t have the Flux reserves left for a new run.”

“I do,” Matthew said.

“Because you’re a monster, Maruki,” John replied. “The human kind. I need to rest too.”

“You kids have a match tomorrow, right?” the Doc asked. “I could pick you up afterwards. We’ll clean up a Dungeon then.”

John nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Matthew was fresh enough to challenge another Dungeon today, but he was mindful enough of his team to go along with their wishes. He wouldn’t endanger them in any way. “Sure.”

“Tomorrow will be fine,” Kari said, smiling. “Plus we’ll get to see how Matt’s new spell fares out in the field."

The mention of spells drew a smirk from the Doc. Magic remained his passion. He and Matthew had that in common. 

“Do you have enough reserves left to practice sorcery for a little while?” The Doc asked his students. When they all nodded in agreement, he joined his hands and let white flux glow between his fingers. “In that case… how about I teach you a spell or two?”

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Next Chapter

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A/N: much like with Gunsoul, this is the end of the first slew of DW chapters and new ones will be building up the backlog for higher tiers (and Commerce Hero tier). I'm ending it with a poll on which Dungeon you would like explored next, except for the Lighthouse.

The Starry Church is a Yellow/Violet dungeon themed after a lovecraftian take on heaven.

The Cyber University is a Blue/Orange dungeon following a cyberpunk school theme.

And the Hellfire Manor is a fire-themed castle.

Up to you to choose which one catches your interest ;)