Chapter 4: Dungeon Crawl

Rebecka felt like she was being crushed and smothered when she woke up. It was difficult to breathe as she was pressed into a cold stone floor. Even opening her eyes was difficult, but she managed to do so, and saw a smooth stone ceiling above her with an intricate steel ring full of symbols inlay. Her blood pumped loudly in her ears as she struggled to roll over.

"Don't bother trying to move," a deep, gruff, voice said with a growl. "You'll only hurt yourself."

"You, argh, speak, English?" Rebecka asked as she pushed herself up from the floor with her arms. She felt like she might black out from the effort, but persisted as her muscles screamed in protest.

"So do the people who brought us here, it's just an older dialect," the grouchy voice replied.

"What the fuck is this?" She asked slowly.

A snort sounded from the direction of the mystery voice. "You're stubborn enough to keep trying to move?"

"Yeah."

Another snort. "Fine. You see that metal stuff in the floor? Try to get as far off from it as you can. The wall will help but you'll still be affected."

Rebecka crawled on her hands and knees to the wall in the direction of the voice. Once she reached it she felt like she might pass out again as the weigh bearing down was lessened, save for where her legs crossed the symbols in the floor. She turned her back to the wall and pulled her knees to her chest.

"Sounds like you made it to the wall," the voice said.

"Thanks. What the fuck was that?"

"Gravity magic."

Magic?

"You can't be serious," she replied.

"Whether you believe me or not is your problem."

Rebecka sat silently, catching her breath while she thought. Now that she could turn her head without feeling like she was being crushed to death, it was obvious she was in the cell of a dungeon. It was larger than she expected a castle dungeon cell to be with a door of heavy iron bars blocking her escape. The ceiling had one intricate metal assortment of symbols set inside a ring, and the floor had a different group in a similar ring. The stranger said the people who had brought them to this place were speaking Old English but magic wasn't real.

Back home it's not. This isn't Texas, Rebecka reminded herself.

"Okay, so, magic's a thing here," Rebecka said.

There was a snort from the other side of the wall behind her.

"How do we get out?" Rebecka asked.

"Ha, you don't."

"I'd rather not sit around for someone to come back here after I shot one of their giants with my shotgun. I doubt they're happy about that," Rebecka explained.

"A shotgun? And how'd that go?"

She felt the dried blood on her shoulder and face. Both areas stung now that she wasn't being pressed to death by the gravity spell in the floor.

"I took some shrapnel."

"What was it loaded with?"

"Buckshot."

"You get hit by full pellets or scraps?"

It was a good question. Her left shoulder hurt way more than her face did. She reached up to feel of it better and grit her teeth from the pain. She could move her shoulder but it certainly felt like something was still embedded in her muscle.

"I...ah, at least part of one pellet in my shoulder. Maybe more. Feels like shit."

Another snort. "If you can get them out I can patch you up."

"How are you gonna do that when we're in different cells?"

"Oh, I can't do it right now."

"Because you'll get crushed if you try to move around in there, same as me. There's no way to get out," Rebecka theorized out loud.

"Ha, no. That's not it. It's just easier to use healing spell if I can see who I'm casting it on. Otherwise I run the risk of accidentally healing your arm on your knee, which is a mess to clean up. Makes it really hard to walk when you have an arm growing from your leg," the stranger replied with a hearty laugh.

That doesn't sound like healing magic at all!

"So, you're saying you can make someone regrow a limb?" Rebecka asked.

"That or grow extras. Healing magic can be real dangerous if you're not careful," the stranger said.

Armored boot steps began to approach from somewhere in the distance. Rebecka wasn't sure where they were coming from, but it sounded like they were getting closer.

"The stuff on the floor and ceiling affect gravity, and you can use magic to heal?"

"Only the array on the floor affects gravity. The ceiling ring is a nullification spell that turns it off."

"Doesn't seem to be working right now."

"Ha, no. Find the door hinge. Follow that line up. There's a gap in the spell on the ceiling. Door swings out and a little flange on the inside slots in to complete the circle. That turns on the nullification magic and shuts down the gravity magic."

She followed the directions and saw where the portion of the ring was missing, and where the door would slot into its place when fully open. There was no way she could stand to shove something in the gap to complete the ring. Even though she was outside of the circle on the floor she still felt like she had another person sitting on her.

"So, again. No way for us to escape."

"It's a pretty good system," the stranger said. "You must be strong to be able to move. The spell is written to double the normal gravity, but the magic of this world is...damaged. If your cell is like mine it's not fully doubled. Still, a lot of weight to suddenly deal with. Most people would black out after a minute."

"Thanks." She thought a moment. "Should we be talking?"

"Why not?"

"They might realize we're trying to plan an escape."

"Oh, they already assume we're trying to plan that."

The footsteps approaching got louder and louder. Rebecka wondered whether the people making them were even coming to the dungeon at all. She also wondered why she couldn't see anything more than four inches beyond the bars and why there was light in her cell with no visible source.

"Why is it dark outside of the cell but not in it?"

"Directional obscuring magic. Works on sound too. You can hear me through the wall."

"Why can I hear footsteps, then?" Rebecka asked.

There was a bit of a shuffling sound on the other side of the wall and another snort. "There's a gap along the wall into the hallway, I think. As soon as they get into the dungeon proper neither of us will hear them. You know, most people don't ask these sorts of questions when they learn about magic."

"Really? What sorts of questions do they ask?"

"Usually lewd ones, unless you're like my last wife. Then they're more practical...like your questions."

"I hope I'm in good company then," Rebecka said.

The stranger was silent. It was then that Rebecka realized the footsteps had also stopped. She strained to hear anything, then a gloved hand reached from the darkness to grasp the door to her cell.

Now's my chance, she thought.

Rebecka pushed with everything she had to get to her feet. Her bones and muscles screamed against the weight from the magic circle that she couldn't help but partially stand in after getting upright. She held her fists before her, ready to fight, as the door to her cell opened. She did her best to aim for where she thought the person's head might be and swung as hard as she could with her right fist. The pressure across her body abruptly vanished mid-swing, which threw her off balance right as her knuckles made contact with the side of a helmet. Free of the extra gravity, the blood rushed to her head which made her vision swim. The knight she had punched looked down with indignation in their eyes as she fell to the floor.

"Wha-"

Rebecka had trouble remaining conscious as the guards picked her up off the floor by her arms. The dungeon itself was even bigger than she thought. Instead of narrow hallway between a row of cells, it was a large circular cul-de-sac shape with a central guard station where two people in armor excitedly discussed something with wonder in their voice. The whole room was surrounded by big cells like the one she had been in, each holding one or two figures laying on the floor, squeezed up against the wall, or in a back corner. Rebecka couldn't see into the cell the stranger had been in, as she was dragged from the dungeon. The two guards carrying her called back to the ones at the station cheerfully as they pulled her into a hallway.

"Onsteppest," one of her guards said, forcefully while pushing her forward.

I understood part of that word, she thought to herself. Thanks again, Steve. Gods, I hope you're back home and safe.

She shook her head as the blood in her ears calmed down, then managed to get her feet under her. Each knight kept a hold of one of her arms as they walked down the hallway together.

"Flett er rikr," one of the guards said with a laugh.

"Thann dreki er meir throttigr," the other replied.

Dreki? Doesn't that mean 'dragon?' Rebecka wondered.

She kept her mouth shut. At least she was out of the dungeon. She could worry about there being a dragon somewhere later.