There were no doubts in my mind that this Dungeonborn couldn’t be contained, so there was only one real option. My adrenaline was pumping from the moment I made the decision to go onto the offensive. I swung my flaming blade with as much power as I could muster with such a quick, impromptu swing.

  The look on CC’s face shifted unnaturally fast, but my combat focus seemed to slow time down for me and I caught each expression. When the blade started coming her way, she appeared confused. As if she wasn’t sure why I would want to attack her.

  Then, there was excitement on CC’s face with a smug smile tugging at her lips. She began raising her hand to block my sword. The speed at which she could now control her new body was a little terrifying, and that feeling in the back of my head only got louder.

  My sword made contact. I felt the weapon slow on impact, but its momentum didn’t stop. Her excitement swiftly changed into surprise as I lopped off her first finger. There was no blood since the fire cauterized the wound as it was made.

  CC started pulling her hand back by the time my blade was halfway through the second finger. There was no pain in her expression, though she still looked surprised. It flew across the room like the first, my sword still going.

  All at once, a palpable fear fell over the room just as the third finger went flying. I believed I could still cut off her head, that had been my intention before she put up her hand to block, but her foot lashed out with blistering speed. Mid-swing as I was, I couldn’t do much more than shift to reduce the impact of the blow.

  I went flying backwards into the door with enough force that it should have broken, but it held firm. Pain flowed through me, but I could deal with that. My feet hit the ground, and an aura of rage seemed to push me down. The feeling in the back of my head wanted me to kneel, to supplicate myself against a superior and ask forgiveness.

  That was completely different from what it was before. Instinctual caution in the face of an unknown enemy was one thing, but the urge to cower and beg for my life? I recognized it as something that didn’t belong to me. Years of training bolstered my mind, and I ignored this new sensation.

  “How did you do that!?” CC yelled as I planted my foot and spun after her. She wasn’t looking at me, but her damaged hand. It was easy to see the anger, confusion, and fear in her expression; she was not good at hiding her emotions. “You’re not supposed to be able to hurt us!”

  There was no way I was going to stop and talk this out, but I put that little nugget of information away in the back of my mind. Now wasn't the time to dwell on how unexpected she found her injury to be. Launching myself forward, I saw CC quickly back off. She didn’t move with that unnatural speed anymore, but I didn’t trust that she couldn’t access it again.

  Instead of blocking with her body, the woman made a sweeping gesture. The metal chair she had been sitting in changed its shape. Its back elongated and came towards me with a dangerous point. I ducked and raised my free hand to push it out of the way, aiming for the smooth sides that couldn’t hurt me. It went flying over my head, embedding itself in the wall.

  Even though I succeeded in dodging the furniture’s deadly tip, my wrist came away bloody. For some reason I couldn’t see, simply touching the metal had cut through my jacket and skin as if I pressed myself against hundreds of razors. I hadn’t expected it, and my fingers were hard to control, refusing to flex when I wanted them to. They were borderline useless.

  With a roar of anger and pain, I swung my sword again. CC jumped backwards, and I narrowly missed by inches. Her back hit the wall. Cracks split the bricks as she dove to the side, and I forced myself to look away from the worrying, almost casual destruction she had caused.

  CC rolled into the corner out of her dive before she pushed off against the wall with her feet. More cracks, and she slid to the opposite side of the room. Pivoting again, I was about to go under the table to reach her with cover when I thought about the chair. I immediately stopped.

  It was the right call. At CC’s gesture, the table shifted and bucked for a split second before it folded in on itself and became a sphere. If I had gone that way, I would have been trapped inside, and I had the terrifying suspicion that the inside would have been just as dangerous as the chair had been. Thumbing the rune on my Hilt of Holding, I recalled the flaming blade before turning the knob on the bottom.

  “You asshole! You hurt my beautiful body!” CC yelled from the other side of the room.

  The sphere shot towards me by the time I thumbed the rune again. A slim, elegant blade popped out of the top of my Hilt of Holding. The half-basket design, made to look like leaves protecting my hands, complimented the rapier perfectly. Time slowed down as the speed enchantment bolstered me in both body and mind, and I jumped.

  My body even seemed lighter, and I easily cleared the dangerous metal projectile. It collided with the wall and stayed there, the top opening as if inviting me to fall in and be captured. Unfortunately for CC, I didn’t just jump. Shifting in the air, I put my feet against the wall behind me and launched myself with all my might.

  I cleared the small room in half a heartbeat, my rapier extended along with my arm. The Dungeonborn shifted, but not to get away. She twisted into an unnatural position and let my blade pierce through her. I heard it slam into the wall behind her. Instead of attacking me, she grabbed the weapon in both hands. Confused, I looked at where I had landed the blow and understood.

  CC had threaded the blade into a single scarred dot on her body. I assumed that, miraculously, she did the same on the other side. Her conglomeration of magic circles was still intact. I heard movement behind me, and looked back long enough to see the table shifting again.

  “You will not set me back,” she seethed. The aura of rage was still affecting me, trying to push me down both physically and mentally. Her eyes held anger and desperation far beyond anything I had seen before. There was no trace of the confusing Dungeonborn she had been before. “I will turn this building into my dungeon. I will take over this continent. I will burn everything to the ground so that I can fulfill my destiny!”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I didn’t answer. While she was talking, I was attempting to move my sword. Retrieve it, shake it, spin it, anything to do more damage and disrupt the dungeon she had carved for herself. It hadn’t been my intention before, but now I knew what to go for, and exactly what I needed to do.

  “Destiny?” I scoffed as I looked up into the Dungeonborn’s eyes. “Destiny makes you fragile, short sighted, and cursed to be defined by your beliefs. It doesn’t work, clearly, because it put me in your way on my week off. Now, get the fuck off my continent.”

  The hand on my torn wrist didn’t want to work, but it wasn’t completely useless. I tried to turn my fingers into a spear, and two of my digits struggled but complied. It would have to do. Without pulling my arm back, I thrust it forward.

  Pain shot through my wrist as the two fingers collided with the same place my sword pierced through her. They slipped into the hole, the blood acting as lubricant, and I got the best grip I could. Her eyes shot open, realizing what was about to happen. I pulled.

  “You—”

  That, along with tearing flesh, was the last sound I heard from her as I ripped through her skin and the ritual circles. The corpse exploded with magical energy, sending me across the room. My back slammed into the wall, and I groaned in agony. Attempting to stand, I found that I couldn’t move without causing pain to spasm through my body.

  “Badger!” Libby yelled as she kicked in the door. Her hand was covered by a purple flame that matched her eyes and hair. The moment she laid eyes on Carimella’s body, she raised her arm. The Elf’s body was scorched but, miraculously, still in one piece.

  “Stop,” I croaked. That single word caused me to start coughing, sending more pain through my body.

  Justisius grabbed Libby’s arm before she had a chance to throw the fire, and the spell dispersed. “Check the body,” he ordered before coming to me.

  “Fine,” she replied, and I could almost hear her rolling her eyes.

  “I’ve got something for you right here, Badger,” the man said, pulling a large vial of green liquid from his pouch. I recognized it as a rare and potent health potion, but knew I wasn’t in the position to deny such a powerful gift. He administered it, and I swallowed the foul extract.

  I only had to resist the urge to cough at the flavor for a few moments before my back magically healed enough that doing so wouldn’t hurt me. Pain still traveled freely through my wrist, but that was to be expected. I was only mostly healed.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking Justisius’ proffered hand so I could be pulled to my feet. “Libby, what happened to busting through the wall to stop her?”

  “Blame the boss for saying that, not me,” the Gnome said absently, still checking the body.

  “The window stopped working just as the ambient magic settled,” Brackenhorst explained as he walked in to observe the mess. His eyes lingered on the cracked walls. “We didn’t know what was going on until we reached the hallway, and at that point the door wouldn’t yield to us. What happened in here?”

  I glanced over at the open door. The side I had been slammed into had been fine, but their side was covered with gouges and scorch marks. It certainly seemed like they were doing their best to break through, even though I hadn’t heard any of it.

  “CC possessed Carimella’s body,” I reported, nursing my sliced wrist. The room went silent as everyone turned to face me. I gestured towards the corpse with a nod. “The circles turned her into a dungeon, and the Dungeonborn was able to take over. She was looking to take over the DoD.”

  “And you made her explode?” Libby asked.

  “She did that when the circle was disrupted,” I answered.

  “Think she’s dead?”

  “Gods, if only it were that easy,” I snorted. “Carimella? She was dead before the explosion. CC? I’m going to go out on a limb and say probably not.”

  “Badger, what’s that in your hand?” Justisius asked, pointing.

  I lifted my hand slowly to see that I was clutching onto the piece of skin I had, apparently, taken with me during my short flight. It still looked like it went through an explosion, but it was in better shape than Carimella’s body. I could make out some slight discoloration from the scar tissue that made up the circles.

  “I need to draw,” I announced. Justisius was the first to start pulling things out of his Pocket. He set parchment, ink, and a quill on the ground for me. I knelt beside it.

  Setting the piece of flesh to the side, I closed my eyes and started drawing the pattern I had seen on Carimella’s skin. I prided myself on both my knowledge of magic circles and my ability to remember every detail of a dungeon at a glance and put it to paper hours later. The picture I had in my head was incomplete because I hadn’t seen much more than the front and side of Carimella’s body before the fight, but it was something.

  In my haste, I didn’t strive for the same perfection I always did. It was enough that the shapes were roughly what they were supposed to be and everything was in the right order. We could recreate them later in better detail if need be, but I didn’t think there would be a call for it. There was no reason for us to give CC another body to inhabit. The more I drew, though, the more I realized it wouldn’t be an issue.

  “Good news,” I said, not looking up. “This isn’t likely to happen again. Possible, but not likely.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Libby asked, coming to join Justisius in watching me work.

  I gestured broadly at the parchment. “It’s precise to the point of being detrimental,” I answered before I started pointing out flaws in the design. “This wouldn’t work on anyone below a certain power threshold. Justisius, you said she was a well-respected mage?”

  “One of Athir’s finest,” he confirmed.

  “Then that threshold is high,” I continued. “Not only that, but it’s set up for general body shape, race, age. Even handedness. It’s a lot, honestly. Carimella was groomed to be the perfect vessel.”

  “You think this was tailor fit for her and CC?” Brackenhorst asked, stroking his beard.

  “Almost tailor fit, but not completely,” I corrected. “CC said she was the most perfect vessel she could find, implying that there was something that didn’t line up properly. Carimella seemed to take pride in the fact that she thought she was CC’s only choice, but she could have just been left in the dark. That kind of arrogance might have been part of matching up their personalities. Not that either of their words means much.”

  “If they expected to win, they might have been honest with you,” Libby offered.

  “I can see your point, but they had all the reason in the world to lie. There was no guarantee that CC would win and I have a hard time believing that they would come in here and tell me the truth just because of, what? Arrogance?” I rebuked with a scowl.

  “Sheesh, I was just saying,” the Gnome defended herself, holding her hands in the air. “Don’t have to take my head off about it.”

  “Sorry,” I sighed after taking a calming breath. “There’s just not enough information. The real issue is that CC invented a new form of magic to turn people into dungeons. It seems to take a while to set up. Which makes sense—Carimella’s got the life span for it—but if they have someone even slightly less perfect, then we’re in trouble.”

  “I’ll send a message to the Dungeon Master as soon as I’m out of here,” Brackenhorst stated. “If there’s more like her, then that comes with its own set of problems. I’ll be hoping that there isn’t.”

  No one said anything as they processed the information. We realized just how much of a disadvantage we were in.

  Sighing, I sat back on my legs and looked up at them. “I’ll brief you all once I’m fixed up and given time to breathe,” I said before looking at Carimella’s body again. Then, I frowned. “Where’s my sword?”

  “Sorry, me ferino,” Libby sighed, sounding genuinely apologetic. She pointed at the wall behind me, and I turned to face it.

  My Hilt of Holding was embedded in the bricks. The magic item was very sturdy, something I spared no expense to ensure, and looked fine. The rapier with the speed enchantment, however, was now only a few inches long. It had been destroyed by the explosion.

  “Absolutely wonderful,” I mumbled, lowering my head as I mourned the loss of the blade.