Backwoods Dungeon

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Mundanity Intrudes

Rio

“What the fuck are they waiting for!?” I shouted.

Two days had passed since the cops took over the lower half of our property and made our lives a fucking nightmare. Fifty times, we’d said the same things. A hundred! Over and over, I’d created my traps. Over and over, I’d told my story, and still, I had no word that any of them had been rescued.

Our neighbors were going crazy. There was caution tape blocking the road at the bottom of the ravine, and everyone wanted to know what was happening. I hadn’t been allowed to go back to the university. If this awful cave ruined my chance at my degree, I swore I was going to kill some agents. Most importantly though, was that they weren’t doing anything.

There were people down there, probably already dead because I’d decided to come back rather than stay down there with Theo and take our chances at freeing them, and now the fucking feds weren’t helping them.

“I don’t know, hon,” Theo said.

We were stuck in the house. Thankfully they hadn’t tried to ship us off to a testing facility like lab rats, which I’d been a little worried about when the federal agents showed up and relieved Terry.

They were impersonal and standoffish. They’d asked questions that they seemed to know the answers to already. We weren’t their first interaction with the demons; they were also aware of the powers. None of them were willing to share. They gave no impression that anything we said was surprising, though.

We weren’t technically confined to the house, but pointed questions were asked if we even stayed in Boyerton for a few hours to have some food.

My experience beneath the earth was starting to feel like a dream. Had I really met those people? Had we almost escaped? Our running fight against the skeletons, demon jailers, and the gorilla dogs… Had that happened?

Gorilla… dogs…

I’d think I was going crazy if Theo and I didn’t have definitive proof of our abilities. I could still use the skills. I could make the traps. I could become a damn ghost! Things like this didn’t happen in reality, but it seemed that reality had changed, and not just for us.

“Well, do you have any ideas!?” I hissed. “I… Theo, they’re gonna die. Some of them are probably already dead. They were burning people alive and using their skeletons like a slave army!”

He took a moment to glance at the sliding glass door leading out to the back deck and the armed guard stationed there. Did he have something he didn’t want overheard?

“Let’s… let’s go to the store,” he said.

“I don’t want to go to the store, Theo. I want to go down and save the lives of seventeen people!” I shouted, well aware that there was no way all seventeen of them were alive. I’d seen no less than three die personally.

He gave a sudden sharp glare at the door.

“We can’t do that right now,” he said significantly, “So let's just do what we can and go to the store, okay? Maybe we can stop by the Mins’ place on the way.”

I blinked. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

“Uh. Okay… I guess we can go get some groceries or something…” I said with a frustrated sigh.

He nodded before stepping to the front door, trailed by the ever-loyal Genji. He opened the door, doing the dog-block-shuffle to keep Genji from rushing outside.

“Agent… uh… sir?” he asked. The agents had given us their names, but we’d both promptly forgotten them. “We’re going to go into town. We’re a bit low on groceries.”

“Yes sir,” the guard replied. “When do you intend to return?”

“About five or so,” Theo said. “That should be enough time. We might stop by a friend's house on the way back and stay for a while.”

The guard merely nodded. “If you decide to go anywhere else, please–!”

“Call and inform Agent Flores. Yes, we know!” Theo interrupted, which provoked an involuntary laugh from me. By this point, both of us had Agent Flores's number memorized, as each of the guards would repeat the entire number to us every time we left the house.

Unfortunately, the man didn’t see the humor and scowled at Theo, but he shut the door before the agent could respond.

Poor Genji was probably having a harder time than I was with all these people constantly hanging around outside the house. She was a guard dog and, thus, constantly triggered by all the strangers. Some of them made an effort to get to know the dog, but most seemed to think this whole job was beneath them and wanted to be gone just as much as we wanted them to go.

Someone on high had deemed us and our powers worth guarding for the time being. Meanwhile, they set up a guard post to make sure no imps came out of the cave, and that was all they planned to do. Sooner or later, we’d supposedly be able to return to our lives sans the lower half of our ravine, which we would be handsomely paid for.

Eminent domain and all.

No efforts were being made to enter the cave—at least not from this entrance. We weren’t allowed down there, on our own property, or I guess, the government’s property now.

From Theo’s regular contact with Dane, we knew that Todd hadn’t returned. This meant that whatever the feds were doing hadn’t involved saving the victims, which was beginning to royally tick me off.

We both went to the garage and got into Theo’s truck before he pulled out of the driveway.

“Okay… so what did you want to say to me without the suits around?” I asked curiously.

“I… held something back. I was worried they’d… y’know. Experiment on us or something, so I figured I’d keep an ace in the hole. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect,” he said.

“You kept something else from me!?” I shouted.

“No! Ugh. I kept it from them. It’s not like I’ve had many opportunities to talk to you without them listening in.”

I sighed. “Okay… okay.”

He was quiet for a minute as we drove.

“Can’t believe all of this. We end up underground for half a day, and suddenly the whole world goes nuts,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied noncommittally. I was mostly just irritated that I’d have to learn more that had been kept from me. “So… are you going to tell me what you kept back, or do you think they bugged the truck?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” he joked. “No. I don’t think they bugged the truck. Annoying as they are, I do think they’re concerned for our safety. It just isn’t their main priority. Nor is helping victims. It’s figuring out what these things are. I think they’re just sticking around because they hope we know something we haven’t already told them.”

“Well. Do we?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. I mean… this is almost like Covid. Instead of wearing masks, we’re all suddenly worried about getting kidnapped by little red men. We buy more pepper spray and guns instead of Purell and bleach wipes. This time though, we have no idea where the threat came from. Why did they show up now? Where have they been all this time? Not to mention, why hasn’t it become common knowledge that they give fucking powers if you kill them? Surely we can’t be the only ones to have done so, right?”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked.

“Spitballing here. Say you’re the government. What’s your main concern? Figuring out the invaders’ weaknesses and learning more about them, or just saving a few nobodies?”

“So they’re just abandoning them?” I shouted.

“Doubt they see it that way, but maybe they can’t get down there. I don’t think they’d have trouble. I mean… they’ve got fucking marines. If we were able to survive down there, surely they could. I think it has to be something else. They know something we don’t. Or maybe they already tried and encountered more dangerous things than we did.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do then?” I asked. “With proper equipment, I don’t think we’d have much trouble busting those people out. That big guy might be a problem but surely a gun would punch through that ancient armor of his.”

“That’s… pretty much the plan, yeah. I have a way to get back down there.”

“Oh, so you’re finally going to tell me?” I asked.

He grinned mischievously. “Yep. Waypoints. There’s a couple of them down there. If you touch one with your blood, you claim it. I have two of them, which means I can teleport down there. It’s how I returned to the dungeon after I rescued Bethany.”

“That’s… that’s great! All we have to do is get prepared, get… get some guns that the feds took, and some weapons that they fucking confiscated and… go on down!” I said turning more sarcastic with each word.

“I know… Trust me, I’m still sore about them taking the morning star. Fortunately, we’re fucking rich. How much did you make down there again? Something like four thousand dollars? So… I figured we could go to the “store” and buy some new weapons.”

My mind was still reeling from that little revelation. Every piece of gold that disappeared from my hands had been transferred to my bank account, as a deposit, and I'd collected over ninety of them. Magic again, but that was magic I could get behind.

“Hate to burst your bubble, Teddy, but they aren’t just going to let us buy guns. Not immediately, anyway. Didn’t you say that Narae had to wait a week before she could pick up the ones she bought?” I asked.

“Thought of that. Not from an actual store. From Dane,” he replied.

“Dane? He has guns?”

“Yeah, he collects. Don’t think he ever shoots them, though. We convince him to sell us some weapons, and then we go get some body armor from… somewhere. Shit, it might be better to just kill a few goblins –err – imps and collect equipment from them. That breastplate I had saved my life more than once. We’ll need stronger skills and more levels before trying to get into this dungeon place anyway.”

“So… so once we get the equipment and maybe some food, you just teleport us down there, and we start leveling up?” I asked.

“Ahh…” He said sheepishly. “About that… I’m pretty sure the waypoints are single-rider trips only. I can get down there, but you can't unless you’ve been to the waypoint.”

“Ughhh! So what do we do!?” I shouted, frustrated.

“I’ve got an idea…” he said hesitantly. “But you’re probably not gonna like it.”