The Gift of Loot Chapter 19: Chapter 19: The Creepy House Dungeon

Read chapter 19 of The Gift of Loot by Jack_Golightly on NovelPedia.

Thomas walked into what was probably the creepiest old house in existence, which did not help his mood at all. The floors and walls were gray and rotten-looking, with furniture scattered everywhere. Half of it was covered in old, moth-eaten sheets, and all of it was coated in what looked like an inch of dust. The air was stale and smelled of rot. On the plus side, unlike the chipmunk forest fire dungeon, nothing immediately came hurtling toward his face. So Thomas considered that a minor win. Zach stepped in a moment behind him, and the entrance door creaked shut. The moment it clicked closed, absolute darkness swallowed the room. Thomas couldn't see anything, not even his hand in front of his face. "Nope," he muttered. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope." He took one step backward, then another, reaching for the door they had just come through. It wasn't there. Flailing an arm back and forth, he turned, then turned again. The darkness was so complete that he felt unmoored. The only thing he was completely certain of was that his feet were still on the floor. Or were they? His stomach lurched sideways, and for one horrible second, he thought he might actually be falling without realizing it. "Hold on, dude," Zach said. Then there was a flash of light. Thomas blinked as a piece of paper turned to ash in Zach's fingers. Zach caught the spark, and it became a living ribbon of flame that he easily bounced from hand to hand. The light illuminated maybe four feet in every direction before darkness swallowed the rest. It was as if the dark was eating the light as fast as Zach could create it, but at least they were seeing something . Thomas finally breathed again. "You can conjure your own flame now?"he asked. Zach hadn't been able to do that in the last dungeon. "No. Just flash paper. It's an old magician's trick," Zach answered absently while he scanned the room. "It's what I use to start my juggling act. I just need a spark, but I can't keep this up forever." He glanced around again. "We should probably figure out what we're doing." "Good idea. Where's the door?" Thomas demanded. Zach turned, took a step to the right, then held out his arms. Just at the edge of the light, the door appeared. "There it is." Thomas didn't think he had moved that far, but somehow he'd gotten so turned around that he completely lost track of where he was. "Okay," he breathed out. "I don't see any dungeon monsters, but... I think it might be a good idea to regroup. We need to see. A flashlight probably won't work thanks to dungeon limitations on technology, but if we can find something to burn, a real torch would likely help." "Yeah," Zach said quickly. His voice had lost some of its easy surfer-bro cadence. He actually sounded a little shaken by being plunged into the dark. "Yeah, that's smart. Let's—" He moved toward the door, and as he did, Thomas saw a ghostly afterimage on the surface of the door itself. Blue-white lines split apart into rows of fangs that chomped down. Thomas grabbed Zach's shirt and yanked him sideways while raising his axe in pure, graceless instinct, just as jagged teeth unfolded from the door. The axe struck, and Thomas wrenched the blade sideways, carving through the flesh disguised as wood. He must have hit something vital because the thing suddenly collapsed inward and melted into a puddle of dark goo that steamed faintly on the floor. Behind it was... the door. Thomas stared at it. "I hope that's the real door," he said. "What the hell was that thing?" "Mimic," Zach breathed. "Oh shit, dude. That was an actual mimic. They take the shapes of other things." "Like in D&D?" "Yeah, basically." His voice climbed an octave. "Man, those are supposed to be some really high-level dungeon monsters. No way they're in a level one dungeon—but the entrance here was definitely level one-sized. I don't get it." Thomas looked at the door he now deeply distrusted, then his gaze swung to the room full of furniture: the chairs, tables, the hatst