DUNGEON FILE 001:
"DEATH'S NOT EVEN A GOOD EXCUSE"
It seems I have had the misfortune of waking up alive.
How terribly inconvenient…
My eyes fluttered open, gritty and sore. It would seem I woke up in a cavern, which can only be described as an endless misty ravine I cannot see the surface of.
The cell I was currently in clung to the cliff's edge like a stubborn barnacle, and behind the bars, other ruined cells all just as rusted as my own stretched on for fathoms. Cold, silvery light filtered through the cracks, like moonlight filtering through a shattered sky thousands of miles above.
Honestly, it was beautiful.
Like the elegance in the way a corpse is beautiful after its final breath—Brutal, pale, motionless.
Oh. That's right.
Speaking of corpses,
I was meant to be one!
I had died in the summer today. I remember this because the leaves had curled inwards as though cowering from the heat, and the sky was cracked open into a mournful grey from Mt. Popōca's ashen plumes on this particular day.
This day, the Golden Sun Temple in our capital city burned brighter than the rest, not in temperature, but in tension from the announcement: A noble was to be executed in the midday.
Yes, this noble… was yours truly.
In all the countries upon the Continent, including the Obsidian Empire which I hailed from, people who were sentenced to death were executed by hanging. Hangings were public ceremonies, and strange as it may seem, there was a carnival-like atmosphere to those types of events, as the Continent was typically a peaceful place and violence or death of any kind was more… exciting than dreadful.
My name was cheerily stripped from the Temple walls. My crimes were read aloud. They bound me in golden cords like common livestock, shoved me in the back of a rickety horse-drawn cart, and took me to the execution site. Prayers were offered, sermons and confessions were made. Then, I was made to kneel and branded with a hot iron (as is tradition for one deemed a heretic) before being taken to the gallows. The obsidian altar was warm with old blood, yet when the rope at last let me go…
…It did not grant me peace.
My last memory was of that noose around my neck... I died a shameful death under the gaze of the other nobles of the Obsidian Kingdom who had once bowed before my crest. I remember the laughter, the jeers, the people deeming me a 'heretic', my fall, and finally my ignoble end.
But if that was the case, if I truly had died,
Why in the name of the Gods am I still breathing?!
Shakily, I rose to my feet. Trying to make sense of that thought gave me no answers and only a terrible headache, and I clearly had much worse things to worry about.
My limbs felt like fragile twigs, and my once crimson gown was now torn and tattered beyond repair. The delicate silver hairpins that had once held my beautifully lengthy crimson hair in place were gone, leaving strands of damp hair sticking to my face in an ugly tangled heap. I pushed it back in an attempt to at least keep some of my dignity in tact here.
Right.
Assess the situation.
I glanced this way and that, but the situation still didn't make any sense: The rusted grates of my cell. The silvery light rubbed from the cracks above. I inhaled, and a putrid smell that pierced me like broken glass wafted through the air.
And then suddenly, despite my confusion, I had quite a clear idea of where my men might have dumped my body…
The Great Well—or a Puticuli, as the Marble Land's haughty scholars liked to call it—was the Continent's trash can. A final resting place for those society deemed unworthy of burial. Bandits. Heretics. The contiguously sick. In short, those who were no longer needed.
It was easier to dump them all in this hole in the middle of the Silver Country than to occupy space on the rest of the Continent's limited amount of land to give them a decent grave. We only had so much land to work with, after all.
Perhaps they thought this was justice.
Let the traitor rot, let her suffer, I'm sure they would claim. Let her beauty be spoiled in the dirt where she belongs.
Even with my former status, my 'treason' had earned me the same burial as the lowest dregs. Charming.
There could be no living thing here.
There should be no living thing here!
Truly, the Gods have a twisted sense of humor; Allowing me to live only for me to end up in a pile of criminal's corpses 10,000 meters beneath the ground until I inevitably died myself.
…Apart from the muttering of my unpleasant thoughts, not a sound can be heard from outside this damned cell. Actually, why was I in a cell at all? The bodies were just dropped down the hole, weren't they? Shouldn't I have landed in the open?
None of this makes any sense!!!
Well, realistically, my body should have smashed into pieces on impact. Perhaps I'm applying way too much logic to this…
I exhaled again into the acrid air and coughed so hard my ribs hurt. Every muscle in my body gnawed violently, as if it hadn't yet processed the sensation of this terrible fall—and given the way my head throbbed, perhaps it has not. My back ached especially badly.
Ah, yes, the brand. As if just to make sure if it was there or not, I reached for my scapula, my fingertips brushing against the raw, uneven pieces of flesh on my shoulder blade.
"...Still there, huh?" I sighed to myself.
The brand. The brand burned into my back. It depicted a coiled serpent crowned with thorns—the official seal of heresy in the Obsidian Empire. A symbol burned onto condemned criminals before their execution, as if death with dignity were too lenient a sentence.
My fingers stroke the mark. The edges of the mark are softer than the rest of the skin, the raised tissue sensitive to the slightest pressure. It is not so much painful as it is intrusive, really, but it's still so embarrassing!
Then, my hand drifted upward, to the nape of my neck. My fingers felt a new scar, one that wasn't there before my death at all. It was a thick ring of fused tissue, slightly puckered, jagged in places. A grotesque collar made not of silk or steel, but of mutilated skin.
I can feel the contours, the raised tissue, every tiny indentation.
This scar is no ordinary wound. It must be the indentation of a noose! No, had I been beheaded by the rope the moment I fell?! This mark was now a disgraceful, repulsive collar completely visible around my neck!
I want to scream. I want to shriek until my throat tore, but I can't.
No sound except a pathetic, choked sob escaped.
My legs move, but they feel heavy and awkward. My trembling legs adjust forward, stumbling on their own, through the rusted cell gate that opens as easily as a yawning jaw.
Clang.
With each step, the stone floor scrapes against me. My knees buckle, and I reach for the jagged wall for support, but there is no balance, no ground.
I just... desire to fall off of this edge. Just keep falling.
I couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't breathe. My lungs went numb. It was as if I had forgotten what it meant to be human. My chest cried out with pressure. I knew then how much I had been holding, from the way my chest ached with the effort to breathe. So much, for so long—the grief, the fear, the sickening horror of having survived.
My body couldn't contain it any longer.
Blood seeped through my fingers, and I was hunched in my arms, trembling, unable to feel my nails harshly pressing into my skin. My breath wouldn't come. My heart wouldn't slow. My hands balled into fists, my nails digging into my flesh. I wanted to claw my way out of my body, to be free of this pitiful, unnatural existence.
The edge of the ravine stretched on and on.
I might fall. I might be swallowed up.
I wanted to disappear.
Please, please, just let me disappear.
And for a blissful split second I thought I was gone, that I'd come so close to the edge that the darkness had swallowed me whole.
Unable to bear the weight of the sky, the vastness of it all, I closed my eyes and hoped that when I opened them… There might be nothing left to see.
But then I heard a calm, soothing voice.
"I would not."
Gloved fingers gripped my waist with force.
"Step any further, that is. You wouldn't find the end you crave, nor would I bother retrieving your remains again."
I squirmed, a choked, violent cry escaping my throat, but the hand held firm, relentlessly pulling me back. My body slammed into cold metal, the weight of the man in silver armor pressed against me. Before I could resist, before I could force myself away, something thin and sharp slid into my wounded throat.
"Be still!" the man commanded. "If you continue to thrash around, you will throw yourself upon my blade."
I stopped moving, for I had no other choice. My breathing became heavy and broken. "Then kill me!" I hissed.
A pause.
"What was that?" he muttered, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Wow. You seem awfully prepared to play executioner. But now that the chance is here, you falter?" I tilted my chin, ignoring the blade.
"Wait. You... just found out your alive, and your first instinct is you want to die...?" The stranger stiffened, and gripped my shoulders slowly and heavily. He stood, staring, thinking, hesitating, he seemed to be studying me for a while, then finally he dropped this strange hesitation and spoke again. "I see... you really don't know anything."
"Huh?"
He exhaled like a tutor for a failing student and shook his head dramatically. "I should have realized when I dragged you out here and saw your crumpled little body, wrapped in cotton and silver that could be mistaken for royalty. Honestly, how does a noblelady like you survive a day on your own?"
"I didn't," I facepalmed. "That's rather the point. You're speaking far too brazenly for someone I've just met, do you think we are familiar or something? It's quite annoying!"
He ordered me around with an odd sort of familiarity, like he already knew I'd argue but also expected me to eventually comply. It was strangely… predictable?
Ugh, maybe I'm just easy to read.
Maybe he's just a sadistic control freak.
"Well yes…" the stranger squinted his eyes, as if trying to read my thoughts. "...I'm the one who dragged your pâté'd corpse from the bottom of this ravine here to this lovely little gaol until it regenerated. Now, you don't want to die. Not really. You want peace. You want closure. You want a reset button. And you think death will give you that. But…"
A bitter thought pierced my hazy skull. This the bastard who dragged me to that accursed cell!?
Was he waiting for me to wake up, and then planning to cruelly kill me himself?
A sigh swirled around my stomach. Resisting the urge to collapse, my hands pressed against the solid rock, trembling.
"So that's your intention! I don't care if you don't think that's what I want, just kill me!" My voice trailed off. I pressed my neck against the blade of the man's sword. "Do it. End it. Or let me go, and I'll throw myself off of this ledge. The world has already taken everything—why not this last scrap of dignity? Either way, just do it! I don't care anymore, and you damn sure cannot know what I want."
"Please don't jump off. It would be such a waste if you fell that far and I had to walk to retrieve your body. It would be exhausting."
"Who cares? I'd rather die than live again!"
"Then that is a pity."
"Why? Because you're a weirdo who would lock people in cells? Haven't I suffered enough? You're here in the Great Well too, so you must be a damn criminal! Don't try to act like you're above any of this…"
"That's a pity," the man interrupted coldly. "You still don't understand one simple thing." He took a step back. The blade left my throat. "You can't die in a place like this. This is the 'Deathless Dungeon' beneath the Great Well! …The first layer, at least."
The… huh? I immediately felt something inside me break. A deep, raw crack of thought appeared.
What kind of madness is this?
What kind of joke are you trying to make?!
"You can throw yourself off this cliff again. You can cut your throat, or jump into the chasm, or let me run you through right here and now. You will wake up in this hole again. Again and again and again. You are cursed! Everyone here is cursed. You will never truly die."
What on earth, on earth do you mean, "can't die"?
I tried desperately to push the thought away with the pathetic spite of a child. "You mean a curse to keep someone alive? That's a ridiculous idea. Do you know how many criminals have been thrown into the Great Well over the centuries? Every thief, every murderer, every wretch, abandoned by the world… and you say they're all... all... alive?"
I just could not allow myself to believe it. I couldn't believe that the stranger's voice was true.
My throat was burning and my chest hurt. Fear was clawing at me like a hungry beast. But still... I didn't want him to see me crying.
To be honest, weirdos who lock people in cages might actually enjoy watching such a thing.
"Tch... don't do that," he sneered, pointing at my dejected face. "I didn't bring you here to watch you have a mental breakdown. By Gods, these pathetic antics are why I stab first and explain later. There are other descenders I need to deal with, you know."
What a nerve!
"And just how many people do you have locked up? I still have no idea if you're going to 'kill' me or not, with all those hesitant threats!"
"I still might," he muses. "You're not exactly making yourself endearing."
"If you were willing, you would have done it by now. So what? What do you want from me?"
A short silence followed. He tilted his head and began to study me again—which only made me more annoyed—then he gave me a small, strange smile and turned his gaze back to the endless ravine.
"Go on!" I shouted indignantly.
"It's about time we got introduced. May I ask your name?"
"Excuse me?" I squirmed awkwardly in his arms. "I'm not in the habit of telling people like you my name, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't force me to. In our circumstances, I think such a thing is hardly warranted."
"Oh, Gods…" he protested for a moment, then stiffened and gave a disingenuous smile. "Okay, I can begin. My name is Mendell Gagnepain, what the denizens of this Dungeon call a Hunter. If that means nothing to you, I shall take no offense. It's a burden for someone of my status to remain largely unknown to those who aren't involved."
He tilted his head slightly. "Now, since I've conceded to this introduction, I would ask you to do the same."
"As unpleasurable as it has been to make your acquaintance, I will not."
"You know that." His fake smile vanished in an instant. "You have revealed more than you realize. Your insufferably smug attitude and the way you collapsed in that gown make it obvious you're an aristocrat! And the embroidery on your dress is unique to the Obsidian Empire, as far as I can tell. Your dark complexion and profile further prove it. With all that I have collected, is it really that much trouble to even tell me your name?"
"I…" I choked. His politeness, his relentless persistence, did nothing to calm my anger. "Okay, I don't mind telling you my name, but I will not accept any of the nasty stories you have told me. Here: I am Lady Ayauhcihuatl Tallón of the Obsidian Empire."
How absurd this all was.
How utterly infuriating.
"Well, that's enough prying. I would appreciate you never speak that name nor to me again. I don't want to hear any silly stories about curses and death and…"
"Ayauhcihuatl…" Mendell's eyes softened for a moment. It was as if he had made up his mind to remember the name.
"—Didn't you hear what I just said?! If you insist, at least call me Aya…"
"Ayauhcihuatl…" he repeated again, as if savoring it once more. Then, to my surprise, the pressure of the blade eased, weakening to the point where I could breathe. "Aya. Don't you understand? You fell 10,000 meters. Otherwise, how do you think you've come this far alive and still remain breathing? Accept what I'm about to say. If you can, quickly. Denying it means you have no chance. Whether you accept it or not, you'll be trapped here alive nonetheless."
"Don't say that!" I retorted. No matter how much I resisted, Mendell's words had already began weighing heavily on the back of my mind. "No... no. I... told you, didn't I? I'd rather be dead than alive. I can't…"
"I've already explained to you, didn't I? You were never going to die," Mendell repeated matter-of-factly. The fall—the endless fall, the darkness at my feet—was all in vain. "You physically cannot."
I almost considered his words for a moment, blood draining from my face, before I leaned harshly against Mendell's estoc along the pulsing vein of my neck.
The cold tip of Mendell's estoc still hovered at the base of my throat, its steel glinting dully in the ghostlight of the cavern.
"You physically cannot die," he insisted, for the second time.
"Then prove it," I hissed.
He blinked, caught off guard. "I just did. You fell and came back."
"No." I stepped forward suddenly, before he could react. "I will."
Before he could pull the blade away, I reached out and seized it, my bare palm closing around the sharp edge of the estoc with brutal force. Mendell cursed, trying to wrench it back, but I held tight.
Steel sliced into flesh, splitting through the layers of skin in my palm. Blood exploded across my fingers, warm and sickeningly bright in a way I wasn't used to seeing.
The pain was immediate—flashing, hot, violent. Aagrgh! Damned Gods, this does hurt!!
Nevertheless, I clenched tighter, driving the edge deeper.
"Are you mad?!" Mendell's voice cracked.
I ignored him. I let the blood drip down my wrist in heavy rivulets, trailing into the dust at my feet.
But then, the air shifted.
A slow, curling mist, black as obsidian and unnaturally smooth, began to rise from the stone. It slithered between my fingers like a vine, swirling in tight spirals around the wound. I gasped, instinctively loosening my grip. The mist pushed through the gashes in my flesh, hissing softly like steam poured on hot coals.
The pain dulled. Then vanished entirely.
My skin began to seal itself. Right before my eyes, torn muscle stitched together with grace. Blood evaporated into black vapor, and the gaping tear in my hand closed—neat, pale, perfect, as if the injury had never been there at all.
I stared. "What in the name of the Gods…"
Mendell sheathed his blade with a sharp motion and crossed his arms, looking almost smug. "There!" he said. "That was stupid… Quite stupid. But now you believe me."
I flexed my fingers slowly, my breath ragged. "It was real. The wound was real. I've never seen anything like this in my life!"
"Yes." His expression sobered. "The wound was real, and now so is your curse. Of course these things don't happen on the Topworld, so please get quite comfortable with pain."
I didn't answer. I just stared at my hand, turning it over again and again. Mendell removed the estoc from its place against my neck with quickness the moment he could.
"I've killed quite a few descenders, but I've never seen anyone who wants to die as much as you do. For an ordinary criminal, life in the Dungeon may be just as bad as life on the surface. Suffering is the same no matter where, so it makes sense to just live through it the same. But you?"
He let out a cruel, mocking laugh.
"I never imagined that even a noblewoman would react so viscerally to losing everything. You're not used to suffering at all. To be honest, I thought it might be fun to wake you up and see what kind of madness would have taken over you. For a moment I thought that looking at you—such a wretched thing—might give me some satisfaction. But I have no taste for it after speaking to you…"
In an instant Mendel grabbed me by the shoulders, his hand clamping between the scar on my neck and the burn on my back. I was forced to turn. Face to face, I saw him clearly for the first time.
His pale blonde hair fell in soft waves and framed the contours of his face with delicate grace. His face was striking, even beautiful. His chiseled features, so nicely carved, seemed soft and almost too refined for his rough countenance.
The man's light eyes, yellow and heavy-lidded, seemed tired. His lips seemed soft but pressed into an unyielding line, and his high cheekbones cast such sharp shadows that accentuated the quiet solemnity of his gaze.
I did not trust his beauty or his feigned kindness. How easy it must be for him, to wield such power over others, to be so pristine in his apathy. How easy is it for him to remain so indifferent to death? The serenity of his face unsettled me more than his cruel words. It was a tranquility that came from having no need to fear the violence that dwelled in others.
That is why, from the moment I saw him and turned my gaze towards him, I felt a sense of disgust well up, bristling in my chest. What an annoying terrible man.
"Hm," Mendell blinked thoughtfully then continued. "Then again, I've never had a taste for taking anyone's [Essence]. You're really unbearable and much less interesting than I thought you would be. Since you were so insistent on ignoring me and pleading for death, I shouldn't make an exception for you, right? Ah, I give up. I'll surrender to your request; I'm quite convinced."
"Wait, what?"
"Very well. Good-bye, Aya~!"
And just like that, in one brutal, unforgiving motion, I was sent tumbling over the edge.
The last thing I saw was his face, still smiling, watching me plummet with the same mild interest one might give a leaf spiraling to the ground. I saw was his silhouette framed in silver light, watching as I disappeared into the black.
But it doesn't matter. Because when I open my eyes, it will not be the end… This will never be the end. I'd hit the ground. My bones will shatter. Flesh split. My skull cracked like porcelain against the stone…
And then I opened my eyes.