CHAPTER 3 – INTO THE WIDE BLUE YONDER, WATCH THE TEETH


    The Endless Dungeon


    ***


    This transport was a lot less invasive than the one that moved him from Earth to the safe Zone and actually was devoid of pain. It only took a breath before he went from gray stone room to suddenly being in a small tunnel that from what he could see opened into some large cavern. He held tightly onto Bose’s collar whispering to him to stay quiet. The last thing they needed was one of his hammer barks to bring some hideous monstrosity down on their asses.


    Bose seemed calm though, unusually so for the hyper pooch. Jeb looked down and got a serious doggy stare coming right back at him. It was strange as if Bose had more understanding there as if he knew the situation but that was crazy. He must have just been picking up on his Pop’s energy. Bogie broke the reverie with a whispered shoot of words.


    “Stay quiet and still. Give me a minute to access my maps and information to pinpoint where we are.”


    The small ghostly Gremlin floated a bit forwards to get a better view of the cavern up ahead. Jeb followed, inching his way the few feet to the opening. The cavern was at least empty or seemed so. It was huge, probably half the size of a football field, most of it filled with a shallow layer of brackish water that looked to be coming out of the far wall, a small stream of the water dribbling down from a hole near the ceiling which was about a couple hundred feet up. There were two huge opened spaced tunnels book-ending the same wall leading who knew where.


    It should be pitch black in an underground cavern but there was some kind of moss and mushrooms on the walls that both emitted a good amount of light making vision a bit dim but nothing keeping him from being able to see the entire cavern and a bit into each tunnel. Though his limited view of the tunnels was more a matter of angle then anything else as the moss and mushrooms seemed to be growing everywhere. The water at a glance seemed to be shallow, maybe a few feet though he knew enough from his time in the army that looks could be deceiving. The water came almost to the edge of the cavern on every side.


    Jeb stayed low and still with Bose following suit, sitting back on his haunches, his head in the air, sniffing, getting a good sense of the area through scent. Not that he was a hunting dog but he could imagine Bose’s senses were still a lot better than his pops, especially smell. Bogie finally came out of his google search eyes which was what he was coming to think of it.


    “Alright, about as good as it will get. We are near Blood City and only a few miles away from an exit that would get us into the place. The bad news is it will be a tough haul as it’s tunnels with not a lot of room to hide or sneak. The area were in is called the Primal Caves, mostly because of the inhabitants it’s known for, Vor. And before you ask, Vor are big ass lizards with hides as tough as the stone you see around you, insanely strong, aggressive, and very very territorial, even with each other.”


    Jeb thought about it for a second. Big ass lizards didn’t seem to so bad, depending on how big and how fast but most lizards he’d seen, if they were the same, were real fast going in one direction but not the best with lateral movement. Right as his mind was fathoming strategies on how to get him and Bose a few miles around big lizards, thinking big meant, maybe Komodo Dragon size, an endless stream of roars thundered out of one of the tunnels along with the sounds of a vicious fight.


    A mixed blow-horn of growls, meat slapping meat of what had to be two titanic beasts slamming together, followed. Jeb could feel the actual vibrations of the big bodies crashing into each other in the ground he was kneeling on, intense shaking in the stone itself, a few pieces of stone falling from above. He froze, hand on the haft of his axe, beginning to shake, darkness and memories creeping into his head. Not now. Not now. Please, please.


    He felt Bose pressing into him licking the side of his face as Bogie’s words seemed a mile away.


    “Stay very still and make no noise, not a peep. We have a bit over a minute till we can reenter the safe zone.”


    The ground and pound cacophony of noise pummeled Jeb’s body, ears, and mind, children, old women, young mothers assaulting his head. His axe slipped from frozen trembling fingers making a clacking sound that was absorbed by the overwhelming storm of battle when suddenly two massive creatures came tumbling from the right hand tunnel, going at it, blood and wounds covering both of their mammoth bodies. His image of them being Komodo Dragons was as far off as one could get.


    They were both easily ten feet high and at least twenty feet long, not even count the massive tails that doubled that length. Add in jaws filled with rows upon rows of jagged teeth and he thought he was looking at some form of prehistoric dinosaur.


    Every movement, every tumble as they rolled, locked together, sent small earthquakes through the cavern almost sending him over. He was so shocked by what he was seeing it snapped him out of most of the encroaching PTSD.


    The creatures were going for kills. Both of them looked heavily fucked up. The slightly larger one grabbed the other in it’s jaws and slung it across the floor throwing it tumbling across the stone. They were getting far too close and his hands began shaking again, the darkness resurging like a tidal wave over his thoughts. He closed his eyes, the pounding sounds of battles shaking his world. Bose started hammering barks and growling pressing himself against and in front of his Pops.


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    The two giants went at each other again, Jeb only knowing this by the sheer wave of force that came off their collision that had him falling on his ass and skidding back followed by Bose being tossed across his chest and rolling past him. Bogie was in his ear in a hot second screaming.


    “NOW!!!! GET UP!!! GET UP!!!! GET INTO THE SAFE ROOM!!!”


    Jeb worked like a mannequin or an android stumbling to his feet and subconsciously reaching for Bose with shaking hands his mind overwhelmed with corpses dancing in his brain screaming guilty, killer. Another blast of roaring beasts and colliding bodies that weighed many tons sent shock-waves that hit him in the back pushing him towards the gray fog a few feet away, his axe left forgotten behind him.


    A high pitched dying wail screamed across the cavern before utter silence landed. He pushed himself another step refusing to let go of Bose’s collar, his entire body shaking now, lost in the past, in bloody unforgiving sins. He stopped abruptly as a ghost of a Gremlin appeared directly in front of his face screaming something he could no longer hear, too overwhelmed in his PTSD.


    It was only Bose appearing in his vision as his Pup kept leaping up to try to take a chunk of the tiny ghost in front of his face, attempting to remove anything that was causing stress to his Pops, that snapped him a bit in.


    His pup, Bose, his anchor. It bitch-slapped him out of the long shadows enveloping his mind to register what the Gremlin was saying.


    “Kill it!!!! Go back and Kill it, now!!!! Hurry!!!!!! It’s at critical Health and it’s Bronze (3)!!!! Kill the fucker Jebediah Stone!!!! C’mon Soldier!!!! Snap out of it and go kill that beast!!!! Go take your mind back!!!!!!”


    The words slowly penetrated the haze chewing his head. He forced himself to turn around, did his best to ignore the severe shaking he was experiencing in his entire frame. He stumbled a step, two, three back towards the tunnel entrance to the cavern then stopped, going to a knee, the shaking overwhelming his motor skills, his brain. Bose pressed against him licking his face but he was further gone then he’d been in a long long time, the maggot riddled corpses spinning out of the dark of his mind, accusing dead faces, children with half their faces blown off by Vlad, Grandmothers with their chest cavities broken open by the same. Words once again slammed his ears.


    “Get up Soldier!!!! The war isn’t over!!!! Your men need you!!!!”


    It was the last statement that dug into something deeper than the horror show, deeper than anything else. His men needed him!!!! They were getting slaughtered!!!! Withering fire cut them down like a scythe from the building they’d just slipped past on foot patrol, lobbed grenades and Molotov’s obliterating boys he’d practically raised, making others walking pyres of oil and flame. His eyes snapped forward, an inferno of rage racing past the shaking and memories.


    “Kill it Soldier or it will kill what’s left of your men!!!!!!”


    The spur kicked off!! It would not take anymore lives of his men, his boys!!!! He took off like a rocket leaving behind horror shows and twitching limbs, hand scooping up sharp edged axe as legs exploded him across the cavern, a looming blur on four legs hammer barking in his shadow.


    Two massive beasts were sprawled in bloody water that came up his knees, one unmoving, another, barely so, laying on it’s side, a raspy shutter of strained breaths coming from a bellow of lungs, it’s throat ripped up, eyes roving, insensate.


    The axe came down on the side of it’s massive head and barely creased the thick skin. The creature attempted to lift itself, a low timbre growl slipping from jaws that could cut him in half. He didn’t care. He saw only red, only death.


    “You won’t kill anymore of my boys fucker!!!”


    The axe went up and down, up and down, up and down!! The vague image of a canine worrying at it’s already opened throat. His mind wasn’t on but he knew in his gut, the dog was one of his, one of his boys. The axe went up and down like a piston, like machinery, relentless, inevitable and finally blood started splashing up into his face, the blade finally finding something beneath the armored flesh. His shadow kept tearing at the throat while he slammed his axe again and again into the beast’s skull.


    A few minutes later the Ghost Gremlin was in his ear.


    “It’s dead Soldier!!! It’s dead!!! Now grab the glowing gems on the ground!!! Grab them now Soldier then run back to the Safe Zone!!!!”


    It took him a minute, the swing of the axe slamming down a couple more times, another last blast of blood and brain matter splashing up in a sluice. He couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing but his anger had simmered down.


    “Hurry Jebediah!!! The smell and carnage is attracting another Vor!!!!”


    Another Vor? Everything was slow in coming, his brain in a daze, a cloud of confusion then a hammer bark hit him and his eyes focused to the shadow that had been helping him, one of his boys, a part of his unit, Bose. As soon as that name clicked his mind became his own again.


    A cavern? The Endless Dungeon, the Gremlin, Bogie. A roar echoed down the opposite tunnel the original beasts had come from followed by another. It seemed far away but the second one moving closer at a hard pace. He shifted eyes down at himself, his axe and both arms, chest, pants, covered in blood and chunks of flesh, below him, a shattered skull and pulped meat that used to be a massive lizard head. Bogie floated closer checking Jeb’s eyes followed by nodding his head.


    “Good, your back!!! Now hurry the fuck up!!!! Get the gems and get your ass back to the Safe Zone, now!!!!”


    He took a breath. Gems? His eyes scoured the ground around him and floating in mid-air were three glowing things that kinda looked like gems if gems glowed a dim white. Bogie hit his ears again.


    “Will them into your Inventory then go!! Hurry the fuck up!”


    He did as the Gremlin asked just as another thunderous roar echoed down the far tunnel, a hell of a lot closer than it had been which elicited some barks and growls out of Bose whose muzzle was covered in blood and flesh, his chest and front legs bathed in it like he’d dug himself halfway into the lizard’s throat. He bent down and rubbed Bose’s head who leaned into it.


    “Such a good boy, such a good loyal fucking boy!!! What would I do without you Bose?”


    Another heavy bark and a doggy grin came back at him. He could see the floating Bogie about to scream at him again and raised his hand, turning, and jogged back towards the small tunnel that led to the gray fog. Within a few seconds he was stepping into it, his Pooch at his side where he belonged, where he would always belong.