My Dungeon's Keeper - Chapter 5 - No Place Like Home (Patreon)

“Ugh, I can’t believe they police taped our front door shut,” I grumbled as I fished my house keys out of my pocket before stabbing the front door key into the bright yellow warning tape to break it.

“I know you told me the house had been wrecked, but I was really hoping that you’d exaggerated,” Nicole whispered. “Replacing that window is really going to cut into our savings.”

“I’m sorry, I know you were planning to buy a car with that money, ” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “It's my fault the window got broken, and I’ll replace the funds as soon as I find another job.”

“Look, I may be disappointed, but you’re not to blame. Neither of us ever expected a rabid wild animal to find its way into the house,” Nicole replied.

“Actually…” I said, hesitantly, as I slid my key into the deadbolt and jiggled it back and forth to loosen up the lock. ”While I may not be to blame for all the carnage inside, I’m one hundred percent responsible for the window. The reason it’s broken is that after that thing started scratching me up, I hit it so hard with my bat that it sailed straight through the front window.”

“You hit an animal with a baseball bat? Mirror Lake’s top animal rescue advocate?” Nicole snorted.

“Yeah, well, it turns out that even I can resort to violence when some strange animal attacks my cats and cuts me up so badly that I needed to go to the hospital,” I said, holding up my heavily bandaged arm. “While I’m all for saving animals, I’m not going to risk my life, or that of another to do it,” I told her. “I just wish I’d realized how dangerous that thing was before it cut me up.”

“You are okay though, right?” Nicole asked cautiously as she reached out to touch my arm. “I’ve seen you come home covered in scratches dozens of times, but you’ve never needed stitches.”

“That thing’s claws cut a lot deeper than I expected, but it’s nothing serious. The doc patched me up, and after a couple of weeks I’ll be as good as new again,” I declared.

“You’re not just saying that so I won’t worry about you, right?” Nicole asked.

“Well, I’m not going to lie, I needed a lot of stitches, but I’ve had my vaccinations, and it didn’t hit anything vital, so I’ll be fine. I just need to avoid putting too much strain on it.”

There was a faint click as my key finally turned over. The door came open with a quick turn of the handle and a gentle push, but I didn’t step inside. Instead, I held the door open for Nicole. 

“Well, that’s fine. It’s not like we’ll need to haul around furniture or anything in the next few days, just clean up the mess, right?” Nicole said as she stepped past.

“Uhhh… about that. We might need to do some minor furniture adjusting,” I said wincing slightly.

“I thought you said most of the damage was caused by this creature chasing Frizzy around. How bad could the damage be?” she Nicole said, looking up at me suspiciously as she unlaced her shoes.

“Well, let’s put it this way. Did you ever see one of those old cartoons where a cat chases a mouse around furniture, and everything comes tumbling to the ground?” I asked.

“Of course, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life,” Nicole replied.

“If you’d asked me first thing this morning, I would have agreed with you,” I muttered. “But unfortunately it’s no joke, apparently that sort of thing can happen. Especially when cats are involved.

“Please tell me you’re exager…” Nicole started before stepping around the corner. “Sarah. There’s no way our cat did all of this,” she hissed.

“Well, technically, it was the chicken thing,” I said, before receiving a scything glare. “Now, before you get too mad I want to let you know I did everything in my power to limit the damage. The only reason I didn’t stop them from knocking over the lamp, and the bookcase, was because I was busy holding up the china cabinet.”

“Please tell me they didn’t damage the china,” Nicole whimpered.

“No, I don’t think so anyways, I managed to get under the cabinet before it toppled, and it didn’t tilt too far; I didn’t get a chance to check everything before leaving through,” I told her.

“Well, that’s something,” she muttered as she slowly surveyed the carnage. “So I can understand the broken lamp, the toppled shelf, and the broken window, but how did the steamer trunk get moved from the living room to the front hall?”

“Oh. The police helped me move it over there once they arrived,” I said.

“Why would you need to do that, though?” Nicole asked as she slowly turned back towards me. “It was behind the couch; it couldn’t have been in the way.”

“Uhhhhh… did I not mention the closet during our call?” I asked awkwardly.

“What’s wrong with the closet? Don’t tell me that you’ve trapped another one of those things in there?” Nicole exclaimed.

“Well, maybe?” I said hesitantly. “But it’s not what you think!”

“Not what I think?!? Sarah, you just told me there might be a dangerous creature in our broom closet,” Nicole hissed.

“No, I said there might be one in there,” I said defensively. “You see the real problem isn’t the creature. The problem is that it came out of a stone staircase that appeared in our closet!”

Nicole just stared at me for a minute. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking? The police said they weren’t equipped to explore some unknown crumbling tomb, so they helped me move the trunk in front of the door to keep it sealed,” I explained. “I told them to just nail the thing shut, but they claimed that they were going to call an expert, and might need access.”

“Sarah, are you telling me that not only did some unknown creature wreck our living room and claw you up so badly you needed stitches, but there’s a hole in our closet where there might be more of them?” Nicole huffed. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be safer for us to stay in a hotel for a few days, until the police could investigate properly?”

“I’ll be honest, I’ve been kind of preoccupied and didn’t really have time to consider it,” I admitted. 

“The only problem is that I don’t know if we have enough to both replace the window and spend a few days at a hotel, I doubt it’ll be enough to hire someone to fill in a strange tunnel underneath the house, and I somehow doubt our house insurance covers wild animal attacks or random tunnels,” Nicole declared, before nervously chewing on her bottom lip. 

“Lets worry about that later. For now why don’t you go pack a suitcase, while I attempt to wrangle the cats. Once we’re out of here we can call a couple of our friends to see if anyone has a room they could lend us for a couple days. That’d be better than an indefinite stay in a hotel,” I said.

Nicole hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Right, it doesn’t hurt to ask, and anywhere is better than here right now,” she said. “Let’s just confirm that the closet is blocked off properly before we start running around, I’d hate to run into…” 

She was interupted by a firm knock on the door.

“Someone chose one hell of a time to visit,” I grumbled. “Do you think we should answer it?”

“I think it’s better to talk to whoever it is now, then have them keep coming back while we’re not here,” Nicole answered. “What if another one of those things get out?”

“Then someone knocking at the door will probably be the least of our worries. From what I’ve seen it’ll terrorize the entire neighbourhood,” I said.

The knock repeated, slightly louder this time. 

“Just answer it,” Nicole said. “What if it’s the expert?”

“Fine,” I muttered, cracking the heavy door just enough to look outside. At first I didn’t see anyone, well… there was a young girl in a neat business suit standing by a dark sedan parked on the street, but no one close enough to knock.

“A-hem!” I jumped in surprise, and looked down to find a little person standing on the stoop, a fine sliver cane gripped tightly in his hands. “Good evening. I’m from the department of infrastructure and I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time,” the older, balding gentleman asked politely.

“I appoligize, but we’re in the middle of a crisis right now, could you give me your name and number and I’ll call you once we settle into a hotel or something,” I replied.

“You’re leaving?” he asked surprised. “Well in that case it’s a good thing arrived in town early. I really think we should sit down before you leave, and have a little bit of chat.”

“Why…?” I asked perplexed.

“Because you’ve recently had a dungeon spontaneously manifest on your property,” he said. “And I’m probably the only one in a thousand miles who knows how to deal with it.”