DD Ch 2 (Patreon)

Gunnar existed in darkness so complete it had weight.

No body to move, no breath to draw, no heartbeat to count the seconds. He floated in the void between one moment and the next, except the next moment never came.

He screamed without sound and thrashed without limbs, raging against the nothing until the nothing swallowed it whole.

Where is Valhalla?

The thought came from somewhere deep, the part of him that still remembered what it was to think. He'd died with iron in hand. He'd earned his place. The golden hall, the mead, the einherjar waiting to greet him—his father, his brothers, the crew he'd lost over thirty years of raiding.

Where is my reward?

The void gave him silence.

WHERE ARE MY GODS?

And the void didn't care.

Time passed, or didn't. He had no way to measure it, no way to know if he'd been screaming for heartbeats or centuries. The darkness was absolute, unchanging, eternal.

He tried to remember his wife's face. The shape of her jaw, the way she'd looked at him that last morning when they both knew he wasn't coming back. He'd kissed her forehead and she hadn't cried, because she was stronger than that, and he'd walked to his ship without looking back because looking back was for men who weren't sure.

He'd been sure.

He'd been sure.

The memory started to blur at the edges. Her face became a smear of features he couldn't quite hold onto. Brown hair or black? Had her eyes crinkled when she smiled, or was he thinking of someone else?

Gunnar screamed again, and again, and again, and again.

He stopped screaming eventually, because rage needed fuel, and he had nothing left to burn.

He floated in the darkness, waiting for something to change, existing because he didn't know how to stop.

The Christ-god, he thought, and the bitterness was sharp enough to cut. The monks always said their god was jealous. Maybe he caught me. Maybe this is their hell, their eternal punishment for a man who burned their churches and took their silver.

It would be fitting. All those monasteries, all those soft-handed priests begging for mercy in a language he didn't speak. He'd killed them anyway—practical, dead men don't raise alarms—but the Christ-god probably didn't appreciate the distinction.

So this is it. Darkness and nothing, because I raided the wrong holy men.

He waited for despair to take him, but despair was for men who'd given up, and Gunnar had never given up on anything in fifty-three years of living.

He waited.

Years passed. He was certain of that now, though he couldn't have said how he knew. Something about the texture of the darkness, the weight of his own thoughts cycling through the same paths over and over until the grooves were worn deep.

He'd stopped fighting it, even if he hadn't stopped hating it. If this was eternity, then eternity would have to tolerate him.

He thought about his crew. Bjorn, who laughed too loud and fought like a man who didn't believe he could die. Kjartan, quiet and steady, who'd saved Gunnar's life at least three times and never mentioned it. Erik, whose bad jokes made the long voyages bearable.

They won. He knew that somehow, felt it in whatever passed for his bones. They burned the hall, took the silver, sailed home. They were drinking to his memory right now, or had been, or would be. Time meant nothing here.

Tell my wife I died well, he thought at them, knowing they couldn't hear. Tell her I'm feasting with the Allfather.

The lie was kinder than the truth.

Something changed.

After years of nothing, Gunnar felt it immediately—a shift in the darkness, a presence that hadn't been there before. He turned toward it, though he had no body to turn, and looked, though he had no eyes to see.

She was beautiful in the way a storm was beautiful, or a well-made blade.

That was the first thing he noticed, and he hated himself for noticing. A warrior should see threat before beauty. But she was—there was no other word for it—beautiful and terrible and ancient all at once.

She wore armor that gleamed like moonlight on water, fitted to a form that was almost human but stretched wrong. Too tall, too perfect, with proportions that belonged to something other than a woman. Wings folded at her back, white and silver, like they belonged to a creature that had never learned to fear falling.

An angel. One of the Christ-god's servants.

So I was right. The jealous god took me after all.

"No," she said, and her voice was music and knives at the same time. "Not that one."

Gunnar stared at her. Tried to speak. Found that here, in her presence, his voice worked again.

"What are you?"

"A servant of powers you'll never worship." She tilted her head, studying him with eyes that held no color he could name. "You're not what we usually catch."

"Catch?" The word came out as a snarl. "I am Gunnar Red-Axe. I am jarl of four ships and two hundred warriors. I have raided from Northumbria to the Frankish coast. I have earned—"

"Yes, yes." She waved a hand, dismissing fifty years of glory like smoke. "A warrior. We get those sometimes. The ritual calls to violent souls, and yours is certainly that."

"What ritual? Where is Valhalla?"

She laughed. The sound hurt in a way he couldn't explain.

"Oh, little warrior. Your Valhalla is nowhere I've ever seen. Your gods are silent in this place—if they ever spoke at all." She leaned closer, and he wanted to flinch back but had nothing to flinch with. "You're mine now. Or rather, you're theirs. I'm just the one who delivers."

"Whose? Who has taken me? Tell me their names so I know who to kill."

Her smile widened, amused the way a cat was amused by a mouse that still had fight in it.

"You'll have plenty of killing to do. That's rather the point."

"I will not serve. I will not be a thrall to foreign gods or foreign kings. Release me or—"

"Or what?" She tilted her head the other way, still smiling. "You'll rage at me? Scream in the dark for another few decades? You have no leverage here, Gunnar Red-Axe. No crew, no axe, no body." Her smile faded slightly, and something almost like respect flickered in those impossible eyes. "But you didn't break. That's... uncommon."

"I am a jarl. We do not break."

"No," she agreed. "You don't. That's why you might survive this."

"Survive what?"

She reached for him—or he thought she did. Her hand moved toward where his chest would be, and he felt pressure, force, something vast and cold pressing against the core of whatever he'd become.

"Good luck, warrior."

Her voice lost its amusement. For just a moment, she sounded almost sincere.

"You're going to need it."

She pushed.

Stone was the first sensation—not touching it, but being it.

Being walls and floor and ceiling, being the cold weight of earth pressing down, being hollow spaces where air moved in patterns he could feel like blood through veins.

Gunnar tried to scream and had no throat. Tried to thrash and had no limbs. He was aware of everything and could move nothing, a mind trapped in rock, in darkness, in something he couldn't name.

He forced himself to stop. To think. Panic was for men who couldn't afford to wait, and whatever this was, he needed to understand it before he could fight it.

He was... a space. A small room carved from stone, deep underground. He could feel the earth around him, the weight of it, the density. He could feel air moving through a passage that led somewhere up, maybe toward a surface he couldn't see.

In the center of the room, something pulsed.

He focused on it, and the sensation was like turning his head to look at something, except he had no head. The pulse was him—a crystal, roughly the size of a man's fist, sitting on a pedestal of raw stone. It glowed faintly, a dim blue light that illuminated nothing.

That's me. That's what I've become.

The thought should have driven him mad. Maybe it would, given time. But right now, all he felt was the same cold clarity he'd felt in a hundred battles when the situation was bad and getting worse.

Assess. Adapt. Survive.

Blue light flickered at the edge of his awareness.

Not light—something else, something like words hanging in the darkness where his eyes should be. He focused on them, and they sharpened into meaning.

WELCOME TO ELDARA, TRAVELER

You have been bound to this realm by sacred ritual. Your soul has been anchored to a Dungeon Core. 

Select Your Name: ___________

Gunnar stared at the words. They made no sense and perfect sense, both at the same time.

Traveler. The word sat wrong. He was no traveler—he'd been taken. Dragged across whatever void separated his world from this one, shoved into a crystal like a sword being shoved into a sheath.

But the sorcery didn't care what he called it.

Select Your Name.

He thought about lying. Giving a false name, the way he might have given a false name to an enemy who'd captured him. But what would be the point? This thing already knew what he was. It had called him traveler, which meant it knew he wasn't from here.

Gunnar, he thought at it. I am Gunnar.

The blue light flickered.

STATUS

Name: Gunnar Race: Natural-Born Dungeon Tier: 0 Specialization: —

Health (Core Integrity): 100/100 Mana: 100/100

Bound To: Kingdom of Valdros

SKILLS:

Summon Creature (Tier 0)

Shape Stone (Tier 0)

Mana Absorption (Passive)

TRAITS:

[Valhalla's Hall] — Worthy souls slain within your domain may be claimed and bound to your service. Claimed souls retain their memories, skills, and personalities. They serve until released or destroyed.

Gunnar read the words twice, then three times.

Natural-Born Dungeon. He didn't know what that meant, but something about it felt wrong. He hadn't been born as anything except a man, a man with a body and a ship and a crew, none of which he had anymore.

Bound To: Kingdom of Valdros. There it was. His new master, his new jarl. Except a jarl earned loyalty. A jarl led from the front. A jarl may have slaves but he earned them himself. They didn’t do…this.

[Valhalla's Hall].

The words hit him like a blow.

They knew. This sorcery, this magic, whatever it was—it knew about Valhalla. It had taken his faith, his expectation, his afterlife and made it into a tool. Souls bound to his service. Their memories and personalities intact.

Not einherjar feasting in the golden hall, but einherjar serving him. Fighting for him. Trapped, the way he was trapped.

Is this a gift or a curse? He was no Odin All-Father.

He couldn't tell. Both, maybe. The chance to build a new crew, a new warband, from the souls of the worthy dead. The horror of condemning others to his fate.

The blue light flickered again.

SELECT STARTING CREATURE TYPE

Scroll to view all available options.

Note: Natural-Born Dungeons have access to expanded creature selection.

A list unfolded before him, dozens of creatures scrolling past faster than he could read.

Cave Slime — Acidic, slow, highly resilient. Dissolves organic matter.

Hel's breath, what is a slime?

Giant Rat — Fast, numerous, weak individually. Swarm tactics.

Rats. They wanted him to command rats.

Dire Spider — Ambush predator, web-spinner, venomous.

Carrion Crawler — Scavenger, multiple legs, paralytic tentacles.

Tunnel Worm — Burrowing, blind, tremor-sense.

Gunnar scrolled through the list, his disgust growing with each entry. These weren't warriors—they were vermin. Creatures that crawled and slithered and bit. Hel's monsters, the things that waited in the dark places of the world.

Shambling Corpse — Undead, tireless, slow. Requires corpses to generate.

Skeleton (Basic) — Undead, fragile, wields simple weapons.

The dead. He could command the dead. There was something fitting about that, and something horrible.

Goblin — Small, cunning, cowardly. Trap-makers.

Kobold — Small, numerous, serves larger creatures.

What in Odin's name is a kobold?

He kept scrolling. More vermin, more monsters, things that slithered and crawled and had too many eyes or too few legs. A menagerie of horrors, and he was supposed to choose among them like a farmer choosing livestock.

Then he saw it.

Varangur (Lesser) — [NORMALLY UNAVAILABLE — UNLOCKED VIA TRAIT COMPATIBILITY]

A warrior race born for battle. Oath-bound by nature—once pledged, they do not break. They live for combat, die for glory, and serve with honor until released. Averaging seven feet tall, heavily muscled, tanned skin marked with ritual tattoos that chronicle their victories. Intelligent, capable of speech and tactical coordination.

Gunnar stopped scrolling.

Oath-bound. Die for glory. Serve with honor.

He read the description again, and again after that.

These weren't monsters. These were warriors. Men—or something close enough to men—who understood what it meant to fight and die well. Who valued honor. Who kept their oaths.

Trait compatibility. His [Valhalla's Hall] had unlocked them somehow. The system recognized that he and these creatures were kindred in some way he didn't fully understand.

He didn't need to understand it. He'd spent fifty years making decisions with incomplete information, and he'd learned to trust his instincts.

Varangur, he thought at the blue light. I choose the Varangur.

STARTING CREATURE SELECTED: Varangur (Lesser)

You may summon Varangur using [Summon Creature]. Cost: 50 Mana per unit.

Note: Varangur are elite creatures. They require more resources than common dungeon spawns but offer significantly higher combat capability and tactical flexibility.

The screens flickered and faded, and for the first time since he'd awakened in this place, Gunnar could see. An awareness that spread through his domain, feeling every crack in the stone, every pocket of air, every grain of dirt.

His domain was small, a single room, maybe thirty feet across, carved from raw stone. A narrow passage led upward, twisting through the earth toward an opening he could feel but couldn't see. Towards a surface and a world above.

And there were people in his domain.

The awareness of them hit him like a wave. He could feel their weight on his stone, the heat of their bodies, the strange pressure of their power. Their sorcery, he realized. They carried magic inside them the way blood carried life.

Five of them. Four standing near the passage, armed and armored, radiating strength in different frequencies. One kneeling closer to his core, young, exhausted, hands still trembling with the aftermath of—

The ritual. He's the one who did this to me.

Gunnar focused on him. A young man, maybe twenty winters, with dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Robes that had probably been fine once but were now stained and rumpled. His hands were covered in chalk and something darker.

His eyes were locked on Gunnar's core.

Not the blank stare of a man looking at a tool, but something searching, probing. The boy was looking at him, and Gunnar had the uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing more than he should.

Careful with this one.

The ritualist—Caden, something whispered in his mind, though he didn't know how he knew—opened his mouth as if to speak.

"It's done, then."

The voice came from behind him. One of the armored figures stepped forward, and Gunnar's awareness snapped to him like an arrow finding its target.

The man moved like a predator, weight perfectly balanced, each step deliberate. His armor was ornate but functional, every piece designed for war. Religious symbols adorned his pauldrons, his chest, his gauntlets. A god's soldier who had done his own killing—Gunnar could see it in the economy of motion that came only from years of real combat.

A commander who leads from the front. 

"It's done," Caden said. His voice was thin, tired. "The binding is complete. The core is... active."

The commander looked at Gunnar's crystal the way a man might look at a new sword, assessing its edge and balance, deciding if it was worth the coin.

"Can it understand me?"

"It depends on the quality of soul—"

"Can it understand me?"

Caden flinched. "Yes. It should be fully aware, but that does not mean fully sentient."

The commander nodded and stepped closer, boots heavy on Gunnar's stone floor. When he spoke, his voice carried the flat certainty of a man who had never been disobeyed.

"You are bound to the Kingdom of Valdros. You exist to serve. To protect and to kill our enemies." He paused, as if waiting for acknowledgment. When none came, he continued anyway. "Your territory lies at the northern border. You will guard this position and prepare for war. For war is coming to you whether you want it or not."

He turned away. Just like that. Orders delivered, tool deployed, conversation over.

"We march at dawn," he said to the others. "The core will need time to establish itself. Leave a garrison of—"

Gunnar barely heard him.

Fifty-three years. Fifty-three winters of leading men, of earning respect, of building a name that made enemies fear and allies proud. He'd been a jarl, a commander, a man whose words moved fleets and whose anger moved mountains.

And now this armored priest was giving him orders like a thrall. Turning his back like Gunnar was furniture. Walking away without even offering his name.

I am Gunnar Red-Axe.

The thought started where his chest used to be.

Gunnar the Quiet, the Saxons called me. The name monks scribbled in margins by candlelight, the name for the silence I left behind. Gunnar son of Erik, who taught me to hold an axe before I could hold my own weight.

It grew.

Husband of Sigrid, who never wept when I left because she knew I would return — and I always did, until now. Father of Leif, of Astrid, of Knut. They will tell their children I feast with the Allfather, and their children will believe it, and it will be a lie.

It became a roar.

I broke the shield wall at Lindisfarne. I burned monasteries while their god watched and did nothing. I killed Lord Aldric on the stones of his own hall. I have raided from Northumbria to the Frankish coast, and every raid I came home heavier than I left.

I am a jarl of the Norsemen. I gave sacrifice to Odin All-Father, who hung nine days on the world-tree for wisdom. I died with iron in my hand and blood on my axe. I EARNED my place in Valhalla.

I am not a TOOL.

The rage came all at once, and Gunnar didn't try to stop it. He let it flood through him, let it fill every crack in his stone, every hollow space in his domain. Let it reach for that reservoir of power the system had given him—

Mana: 100/100

—and pushed.

For one heartbeat, Gunnar's domain screamed.

The stone shook. The air thickened. The dim blue glow of his core flared bright enough to cast shadows, and something poured out of him in a wave of raw fury. It wasn’t an attack—he didn't know how to attack yet—but something older, primal. Something inherently human and pained.

The promise of violence. The memory of blood.

Every kill, every battle, every moment of fifty years of warfare—compressed into a single pulse of mana that emptied his reserves in less than a second.

Mana: 0/100

The commander stopped mid-step.

His hand was on his sword. Gunnar hadn't seen him move, but the blade was half-drawn, the man's body already shifting into a combat stance. The other soldiers had done the same, weapons appearing in their hands, eyes scanning for threats they couldn't identify.

Caden had fallen backward, scrambling away from the core, his face pale as bone.

For one moment, nobody moved.

Then the light faded, the pressure eased, and the stone stopped trembling. Gunnar's domain fell quiet.

The commander stood there, sword still half-drawn, and Gunnar watched him think. Watched him process what he'd just felt. Watched him decide whether to destroy the core that had just threatened him or pretend it hadn't happened.

The sword slid back into its sheath. The commander's face smoothed into careful blankness, and when he spoke, his voice betrayed nothing.

"Leave a garrison of twenty men. Rotate them weekly." He turned and walked toward the passage without looking back. "And someone find out why the core's mana signature reads like that."

The others followed. One by one, they filed out of Gunnar's domain, boots scraping against stone, mana signatures fading as they climbed toward the surface.

All except Caden.

The ritualist stood at the edge of the room, staring at Gunnar's core with an expression caught between fear and fascination.

"What are you?" he whispered.

Then he turned and followed the others, and Gunnar was alone.

Alone in the stone and the dark, empty of mana and answers both, bound to a kingdom he'd never heard of to fight a war he didn't understand.

The orders hung in the silence like a sentence.

Gunnar waited for his mana to regenerate, feeling it trickle back one point at a time. He had nothing else to do, nowhere to go, no crew or ship or axe.

Just stone and silence and a list of enemies he hadn't met yet.

Fine, he thought, and let the cold settle into whatever passed for his bones. You want a war?

His mana crept toward one, then two, then slowly toward fifty and eventually a hundred. Enough to summon his first Varangur. I'll give you a war.