Random Portals

“Shirem?” Steven asked in confusion.

The Naga was trying to break from the roots when he just stopped and looked at Steven in horror before redoubling his efforts to no avail. The next moment, Silvia was next to him.

“Where did Sorin go? And how are you on the throne?” Silvia asked light flickering. “Also, where did that Naga come from?”

“More importantly,” Steven said, “I saw Blank, the one that’s bound to the Elder wisp in my inventory.”

Silvia’s light flared wildly. “What! Now of all times.”

Now that the dust had mostly cleared, Steven spotted a prone figure on the ground. His eyes widened when he realized it was the old wizard. He was bleeding from his mouth, ears and eyes, or at least where his eyes were. They looked to be burned out husks now. He hadn’t done any damage, so he couldn’t see the old wizard’s health bar, but he was surely dead. Steven was surprised by how much damage Sorin could do. He would have thought the old wizard was much stronger.

“My King, We have located Sorin.”

Both Steven and Silvia looked at the drone.

“Show me!” Silvia said as several wisps began pouring out of Steven’s chest.

Now that he thought about it, why didn’t they all come out and attack Sorin when he first seen him? Probably had something to do with all the angels. Steven shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Tell Nev where Sorin is.”

“Already have my King, The Queen is on her way towards him at this very moment. He was unconscious when I last seen him. It is likely he still is.”

Movement from the center of the room drew his attention. Several bones began flying around the room and Steven quickly realized that it was the skeletal knights reforming from the blast. He took one more glance at the old wizard on the ground. “I’m sorry it ended for you like this,” Steven said before he turned towards the drone. “Take me to Sorin.”

He needed to deal with Sorin first. Steven had the drones wrap up Shirem with webs to deal with that later.

It wasn’t long and Steven was standing in front of a bound and gaged Sorin. Standing next to him was Nev in her human form, with a wide smile on her face. “This was much easier than I expected. All I had to do was wrap him in webs. When I got here, he was already unconscious.”

As Nev Spoke a few wisps floated over and blew up on Sorin, tearing some of the webbing that was binding him.

Steven was about to tell Silvia to stop that when she started chastising the remaining wisps and making them go back into Steven’s inventory. A couple more blew up on the unconscious vampire. But the rest did as Silvia asked.

The sound of fighting brought Steven back to reality. “I need to send him to inventory. Sirus is fighting those unkillable knights.”

Steven quickly walked over and sent Sorin to inventory. Immediately, he felt a tremendous relief. He had been afraid he wouldn’t be able to send him to inventory or something else would go wrong. But he received notifications, letting him know he had defeated the Dungeon Lord. He had expected a notification asking him to gain control of the dungeon, but he supposed that’s not how things worked.

“It doesn’t feel satisfying without Sorin being conscious.” Silvia said.

“I have to agree this was almost too easy.” Nev said.

“You two can rub it in Sorin’s face later. For now, let’s get out of this dungeon. I want to see the sun again.” Steven said.

No sooner than Steven said that, a massive light shot down from the dungeon ceiling, looking as it came from the heavens themselves. The light came down directly over the old wizard.

The light was almost blinding, Steven could just make out Blank’s body float up before it vanished. Then the light was gone, along with Blank’s body. In his place stood the most beautiful being Steven had ever seen. The wings and halo only added to her beauty. “Mr. Odling, could I ask a favor of you?” The Angel asked while taking a few steps towards him.

“Yes, of course, anything.”

“Could you please release the Elder Wisp from your soul space?”

Steven pulled the wisp from his inventory before he even realized what he had done. The wisp quickly shifted into her cat form and looked as if she was going to give Steven a piece of her mind, but the Angel spoke first.

Or at least Steven thought the Angel spoke. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear anything. This went on for a minute as the Elder Wisp looked over at Steven with anger written on her face. Then she looked back at the Angel. After a bit, she looked back over at Steven with a defeated look in her eyes.

The Angel then vanished, and time resumed its normal speed. The flying cat glared daggers at him. While he heard Silvia’s voice scream into his head. “What did you do!”

“Oh, calm down, little one!” The Elder Wisp said.

“Steven, listen to me very carefully. Send that Wisp back to your inventory immediately. She is dangerous!”

“Its far too late for that! But you are right about one thing. I am dangerous.”

Steven reached up and grabbed his head. “Could you two stop screaming into my head?”

The cat glared at him. “First off. Wow, Steven, you have really grown in the short time you have been in this world. You even have a Queen as your servant. Though that was a bit foolish. Anyway, I have been instructed to help you with the domains before I leave.”

“He doesn’t need your help!” Silvia said.

“Oh, yes. Yes, he does.” The Elder wisp said before turning back to Steven. “You are still anchored to the domain in the swamp. I have been instructed to show you how to use the domain’s ability, along with helping you extract the one from Sorin.” The winged cat’s expression turned to one of curiosity. "It’s interesting that you can hold things in your soul scape but that’s not relevant, and I wish to complete my task and leave. Blank is injured, and I can’t see him until I’ve completed my task, so let’s be off.”

“What are you talking about? He is the domain.” Silvia said.

“Let’s get one thing straight, little Wisp. You tried to eat my light and succeeded in taking some. I have not forgiven you! I don’t care what the council of Wisps has done to you. It doesn’t give you the right.” The Elder Wisp began to glow before the light faded. “Now let’s go so I can complete this task and leave.”

“Why are you helping me?” Steven asked.

“Because I was ordered too.”

“Okay, well, I have things I need to finish up here, so you will have to wait.”

The Elder Wisp Narrowed her eyes at Steven but said nothing.

Sirus hesitantly walked over, eyes wide. “Is it over? The skeletal knights just stopped fighting and are just standing in place.” Sirus didn’t take his eyes off the flying cat as he spoke.

“Yes, it’s over. You can go inform your people that we can leave this place.” Steven said. "We should be ale to travel between floors freely now."

“Nev, could you send out some drones to scout the way back out of the dungeon to make sure there are no surprises on the way? Also, get the Sphinx. We shouldn’t just leave him here.”

“Master could I...”

“And don’t eat him!” Steven added, cutting Nev off.

“Yes Master.” Nev said as she took off.

“We can’t just ignore the Elder Wisp!” Silvia said.

“Yes we can. I don’t think we will have a problem with her, at least not right now,” Steven said. He still wasn’t sure why he just did exactly what the Angel asked. But he felt as Gideon was still nearby and this was still all part of some plan. He was still a bit irritated that he was used to help set free Jabriel. If they would have asked, then it would have been different. But no, they just kept him in the dark.

Steven sighed and walked over to send the knights to inventory when he froze. Several drones were surrounding someone. Was that the guy from Mr. Chen’s Wok Express? There was an older woman with him. They looked scared to death. Well, Mr. Chen did. The old woman had her shoe off, hitting one of the mimic drones who was ignoring the old woman but was starting to look annoyed. Steven walked over, but before he reached them, the Elder wisp flew over to him.

“Ill deal with them.”

“Wait, did you bring them here somehow? What’s going on?”

“Ill explain later. I need to speak with them. You just finish up whatever it is you need to do.”

Glancing at the knights, and then remembering Shirem, not to mention the chained humans, he decided he would just figure out what was going on with Mr. Chen later.

Steven sent all the knights to inventory. Then his attention turned to all the chained females. Instead of dealing with them himself, he sent a drone to fetch Fidah. It would probably be best if they delt with another female. There was no telling what Sorin did to them.

After that, Steven walked over and sent all the chests around the throne to inventory. He wondered why the vampire kept his treasure in front of his throne like that, but quickly decided he didn’t care. The chests were filled with gems and gold. There was no silver in sight, though he supposed that made sense: Sorin was a vampire after all.

He couldn’t wait to get out of this dungeon. Though he still needed to deal with the vampire, but he wasn’t going to do it in the dungeon. “Hey Silvia, are vampires weak in the sunlight?”

“Absolutely. If they are exposed for too long, they will begin to disintegrate.”

“Good, we will finish Sorin when we are out of this dungeon.”

Steven quickly found a drone and had him go tell Sirus he needed to talk with him. He was hoping he could let him deal with Shirem. He then had some drones search the side chambers for anything useful.

Steven’s mind felt cluttered. He thought the reason was because he had so much random stuff in his inventory: dragons, a vampire, an unknown number of little wisps, and an assassin. Not to mention sentient undead warriors, along with several dungeon monsters. He wondered if the dungeon monsters would obey him when he absorbed the domain from Sorin. If so, he had just gained an enormous advantage. His musings were interrupted when some drones brought a group of six people to him.

It turned out these were Sorin’s gofers and maids, one of which was a vampire, in what Steven assumed was a butler suit.

Silvia said she knew them all and told him they were all just as sadistic as Sorin, aside from the Vampire butler.

Steven took Silvia’s advice and let the drones deal with the others. He didn’t like the idea of killing people but, if they were anything like Sorin then he was doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.

Steven had a quick discussion with the vampire butler. He was confused when the vampire wished to take an oath to serve Steven as his new master. Steven tried to tell him he didn’t have any vassal slots left, but that didn’t seem to deter the butler in the slightest, and Silvia told him to accept his service.

Steven agreed, but had some drones keep an eye on him. He didn’t like the idea of having a vampire roaming around while he slept, but Silvia seemed to like him.

Next, Fidah came and informed him that the chained women wanted to thank him for saving them. They remained chained. When he asked why, she said that Sorin had the key and the chains were enchanted so they couldn’t pick the lock.

Steven just accepted their thanks and praises and told them he would release them from their chains as soon as he took the key from Sorin. He put Fidah in charge of them. No sooner than that was finished, Sirus arrived.

He hoped this would be the last thing he had to deal with. He wanted out of this damn dungeon.

When Steven showed Sirus the web bound Shirem, he just froze and looked on at the bound Naga in disbelief. “Have you had him like this the whole time?”

“Well, I mean, he tried to kill me. I’m assuming he came through the portal with Blank from my world.” Steven could see the confusion written in Shirem’s eyes as he looked between Steven and Sirus. But his mouth was webbed and he couldn’t speak.

The drones cared little for those who wished to do harm to their king. At least that’s what the drone Charles told him when he asked why Shirem was bound in such a manner.

“If you would relinquish him to me, then I will take full responsibility for his future actions.” Sirus said.

“I was hoping you would take him. I have too many other things to deal with right now,” Steven said. “Also, could you find out why he attacked me?”

“Thank you, Lord Odling. Yes, I’ll find out what he was trying to achieve.”

Steven wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Sirus just called him Lord Odling. But surely he was mistaken. Sirus was by far his superior and was much stronger than him. He tried to put it from his mind, but he had to admit, Lord Odling had a nice ring to it.

Once Shirem was taken care of, Silvia had him touch some sort of glowing orb behind the throne. She called it the core of the dungeon. He then gained control of the dungeon. When he did, his mind exploded with information. So much so Steven just closed the prompts and told Silvia he wasn’t dealing with that right now. She said she would deal with it. She needed to make some changes to it, anyway. Steven didn’t care and just told her to hurry, as he wanted to leave.

While she was dealing with that, the Elder Wisp flew over.

“Are we about ready?”

“Yes, Silvia is finishing up. She is doing something to the Dungeon core and then we will start heading out. So what are you doing with Mr. Chen?”

“About that. Could I get you to do me a favor?”

Steven narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”

“Well, I won’t be able to take Chen and his mother where I’m going and they work for me. I was…”

“Wait, they work for you?” Steven asked in confusion.

The Elder wisp sighed, “Yes, as I was saying, I can’t take them with me and it is likely I will be there for sometime as Blank recovers. So I was hoping you could take them in for a while. They can stay in your domain there is plenty of rooms in the tree. They are excellent cooks and I would pay you for…”

Silvia appeared next to Steven. “Do you have shards?”

The Elder wisp narrowed her eyes at Silvia. “I do. And I would be willing to trade one.”

“Okay hold up, I would like a shard those things are useful but also I’m going to need some money to travel around in this world and to buy things, also what is your name I’m tired of thinking of you as the flying cat or Elder wisp.”

“My name is Katarina Evershine, and I would trade a few gold coins as well.”

The three talked for a while and Steven eventually ended up getting a couple dozen gold coins and a single shard. Steven knew he was being a bit greedy as he just took all the gold and gems Sorin had, but he didn’t know how much gold he would need. He had been poor in his last world and he didn’t want to worry about money in this one. He would not be working a nine-to-five job. Besides, if they were going to see the dwarves to upgrade his weapons, then he would need something to barter with.

He felt he had come out well on the deal as he now had some cooks, and Kat told him that his domain, along with the tree, could go with him and could be placed on any Ley line of magic. Which would be extremely useful. And solved a lot of his problems. Luckily, he had Silvia to explain what Ley lines were when it came time for that.

When he asked about the old wizards’s domain, Kat told him Blank would not be coming to claim the domain back, but that was a different story regarding the goddess, Life. She was the one that gifted that domain to Blank and she would likely come to ask a favor of him in the future. Steven felt irritated at this, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he decided to deal with that as it came.

He tried to ask Kat what they were even doing on his world in the first place, but she refused to say much, telling him he would find out soon and that it was going to change everything on his home world and likely affect him as well.

It wasn’t much longer, and Steven was finally leaving the dungeon. To his surprise, the Half Naga stayed, saying they would make the last floor of the dungeon their home. It was apparently the deal Silvia made with them. Steven was going to relinquish control of the dungeon to Sirus, but he didn’t have a domain, so that wasn’t even a possibility. Silvia explained he could give partial control of his dungeon to one of his followers or vassals. When Steven said he didn’t have any followers, Silvia laughed and reminded him of the drones that referred to him as their king.

Steven ended up giving partial control of the dungeon to his favorite drone, Charles, who was more than happy to serve his king. Charles could apparently control the spawn of dungeon monsters and what not. Steven really didn’t care at the moment, and just wanted out of the dungeon. He would come back to check on them later, a long time later.

He had Silvia set everything up with Charles, and Steven began making his way out of the dungeon. Silvia saying she would catch up before they made it out.