Azaria 27

Evening everyone!

Chapter 27: Seeing Double and Carnage

Azaria

I got everything cleaned up before the first party of the day came. Looking them over, they seemed to be the best outfitted of the parties so far. The main defender guy looked more like tank than a person. Just like every time before, I was pulled into the separate room and began playing my music. I was feeling a bit lethargic today, and that spilled over into my music.

They made it passed Stella and were working their way over to Lucy when I noticed they had some sort of aura covering them. It didn’t take me long to realize they were blocking out my music. For some reason that bothered me more than I expected it would. I glanced at the piano as I was playing the violin today. If only I had a way to play both.

My arm jerked suddenly causing the bow to screech as it went over the strings. I gasped as I felt like something was trying to come out from inside me. I felt something rip along my back and managed to see a pair of arms working to pull another body out from inside me. While it wasn’t painful exactly, it felt extremely uncomfortable.

The next thirty seconds felt like hours as another me emerged. She stood like a doll just staring at me. It felt like looking in a creepy mirror. “What are you?”

“I am your new ability. Mirrored Perception. I will exist until you dismiss me.” The voice was exactly like mine only monotone at the same time. If I could sleep, I might have nightmares about it. 

“You’re not going to try and take me over?” I had seen and read plenty of movies and books that had that happen. 

My copy just tilted her head. “I cannot. I do have a warning. When you dismiss me, everything that I have experienced will be absorbed by you.” 

“I see. What happens if I dismiss you then reuse the ability? Is it you?”

“A copy of the you of that moment will be created. There is no individuality to me. My personality is altered as I am created due to the spell, but essentially, I am you.”

“This is confusing,” I mumbled. “I guess I’ll just call you Zaria for now. You play the piano. I’ll take the violin.” 

My copy nodded and moved over to the piano. She looked at me as I took up the violin and started a piece that had a piano and violin pair. The party had already defeated Lucy by this point and were making their way up to Starburst. The new music washed over them and I was glad to see it actually have an effect this time, though not as much as I was hoping for.

The party was well rounded and knew exactly what they were doing. Starburst gave them a hard time, but the man had intentionally took a blow from Starburst and managed to grab hold of him while the rest of the party dealt blows to him. Seeing Starburst get defeated both made me sad and angry, but I had to serve my purpose. Once Starburst stopped moving, a chest rose in the center of the room that contained a bar of gold.

“Just gold. Great! I got stabbed for nothing!” The armored man shouted.

“Now, now. We’re the first to actually clear the first floor of this house of horrors,” Another man said taking the gold from him. “I’m willing to bet that the dungeon isn’t too happy about that.” 

“You and your idea that dungeons can think. Whatever. The next floor better have more pickings.” The armored man looked around. “How the hell do we get to the next floor!?” he shouted slamming his double-headed axe into the wall.

“Try pulling one of the books of the bookshelf, it might reveal a staircase,” said a woman with a snicker.

The armored man glared at her before he swung his axe tearing three of the shelves from one of the bookshelves. As luck would have it, the mechanism for the hidden stair really was hidden there. The fireplace at the back of the room slid back then up to reveal a stair heading down. 

“Fancy that,” another woman said.

The party moved to the next floor the first party to ever do so. The cave maze greeted them. Though in my boredom, I had painted the walls pink and generally made it look as girly as possible. The party consisted of seven people four of which were men. 

The armored man took one look at the place then turned on his heel. “Nope. I refuse.”

The other men also turned to head back but the women grabbed their shoulders. “No. We’re getting paid!”

All the men groaned, and I took that as a win. They started moving down the tunnel and from what I could tell were soon lost. It helped that my music had a greater affect on the second floor. They had essentially started going in a loop and had passed the same section about nine times already.

They came to a stop to take a break near one of the teddy bears they had managed to avoid so far. It waddled over to them and they jumped to their feet while drawing their weapons. It looked up at them with big button eyes and held out its arms as if it wanted a hug. The women all awed at the action.

“It’s a trap!” The armored man shouted as he brought his axe down on the bear. 

Tenderheart’s bears had never seen any combat, so I wasn’t sure what would happen. The bear leapt back before the axe hit him and dropped its arms. A single tear fell from its button eye before it started to bulge grotesquely. It went from being just under a foot to nearly eight feet with terrifying claws and fangs. 

The now much deadlier bear roared and charged the man that attacked him. With a solid slap, the bear sent the armored man flying down the tunnel where he collided with the wall with blood spraying from several of the armor’s holes. The rest of the party quickly responded by sending spells, arrows, or charging to get within range for their weapons to hit the beast. 

One of the men ran to check on the armored guy, likely the healer, when he stepped on a hidden panel. The wall opened and dozens of spears shoot out piercing through the man in several places. Needless to say, he died instantly.

Watching on as the party was slowly slaughtered by the bear. I found that I wasn’t as bothered by the bloodshed as I was just a few weeks ago. I knew I had slipped a few times when I lost to the dungeon instinct, but I was sure I was in my right mind. I just shook my head and continued to play. 

It didn’t take long for the bear to defeat the party with the main defender lying in a pool of his own blood. As usual, one person managed to escape, though not through any act of mine. The woman had peed herself, then took off running. The rest of the party were soon splatters on the wall. The bear walked down the tunnel to the armored man and picked him up. He proceeded to give the man a bear hug until the man’s head literally popped off. I had no idea that could happen. 

With no more humans in the area, my dungeon absorbed all the bodies and I got a lot of Aether for them. The woman reached the entrance to the second floor, and when she went through it, she was teleported outside. No one had ever gotten this far so I forgot to move the teleport matrix.

I glanced outside to see if another party was going to enter the dungeon, but it looked like they were going to debrief the woman first. I shrugged then moved over to Starburst’s room. After a few seconds, his body reformed in front of me. 

“That was not fun. I’ll need to be more careful when charging,” he said shaking his head. 

“Good work. It will be a minute. One of Tenderheart’s bear tore through the party like it was butter. They are talking to the woman that escaped right now.

“I see…” Starburst said then paused as he looked at me. “Why are there two of you?”

I looked behind me and Zaria was there as well. “Mirror Perception. Thanks to my random ability.”

“I thought I heard both the piano and violin playing. That explains it.”

“Yep.” 

While I and my copy cleaned up the damage from the last party, which I was glad she could help, I felt a large Aether source outside. Turning my gaze, I found the man that was dressed in black was back and appeared to be talking to the people that coordinated my dungeon. I really wish I could hear what was being said.

From the looks of it, people were raising their voices but the man just shook his head. After a minute, it looked like they all calmed down then over half of the people in line started to walk away. Looking at the angry faces, I decided that I should give a better reward for the first floor. I didn’t want people deciding that I was better off destroyed.