Chapter 9: Chapter 9 – Ash and Alex’s Adventure

"Hurry it up!" Ash called out as he gritted his teeth and held the six ambushers down with his Mist-projected shield. The Mist was like a muscle in the body, and Ash was starting to feel the burn from the strain of keeping his shield strong against his attackers. 

"I'm ready!" Alex quickly moved toward Ash while carrying two liquor bottles stuffed with burning rags. 

The ambushers shouted, "RETREAT!" when they saw the flaming bottles. But only the men in the very back could get up the stairs unharmed. The rest of the group wasn't as lucky. As soon as the bottles smashed into the wall behind them, the group was showered with shards of glass and liquor and quickly set ablaze. 

"Fuck," Ash groaned, he was protected from the fire thanks to his shield, but he could still feel the heat and smell the burning men. He was forced to back away once the fire started to spread.

"Let's get out of here!" Alex quickly made his way to the door as Ash ran to his basket of fruit on the table. Alex pulled the door open when he saw Ash go for the fruit. "Leave the fucking fru-" Alex was cut off mid-sentence and forced to dive away from a sudden hail of Mist bullets.

A second group of ambushers stood outside the saloon, firing their guns at the door and through the walls. Alex was forced to crawl away while getting rained on by wooden shards. "MY BASKET!" Unfortunately for Ash, his fruit basket was in the line of fire. It was ripped to shreds by the Mist bullets.  

A moment later, the gunfire suddenly stopped causing silence to fill the air. Ash quickly moved to the wall next to the door and peeked through one of the bullet holes. "I only see four," Ash called out as he watched one of the men giving orders to the other three. The four men then turned and started carefully walking toward the door. As the men moved closer, Ash reached over and broke off a chair leg, gripping it like a club. He tensed his legs, ready to strike, once the door opened. 

The door let out a loud creak as it was slowly pushed open. "MOVE!" Alex's sudden shout forced Ash's body to move on reflex. He quickly jumped back as a flaming liquor bottle flew through the air. The bottle slammed into the leading ambusher's chest, exploding and causing him to scream in pain as the fire covered his body and then spread to the door. "Let's go!" Alex called out while standing next to a door behind the bar.     

~R~o~a~O~

"Fucking Jasper, can't believe that rat bastard set me up," Alex grumbled as he and Ash made their way through the Saloon's basement. "Come on. The back door is this way. Been working with this bastard for so long. I know about the hidden back door he used to sell drugs."  

"From what I hear, you like to make people fall in love with you and break their hearts for fun. I'm surprised no one has tried to kill you before." 

"Did that crybaby Jack tell you that? It's not my fault men are so easy to fool. Why do you think I dress up like a woman? Give a guy a wink and a smile, and he'll tell you where his mother keeps her life savings. Dressing like a woman is great for information gathering. Plus, I'm freaking beautiful, don't you think?" Alex turned and gave Ash his best smile. 

Ash scoffed. "That stuff doesn't work on me, I don't fall in love, and I don't care if you are a guy; I'll still bend you over if you test me." 

"Yeah yeah, come on, here's the door. Let's go." Alex carefully pulled the door open. The door led up to the alley, and after a quick scan to ensure it was empty, Alex walked out first. "This way back to the parking lot." 

Ash silently followed Alex as they moved to the end of the alley. "The car's finished," Ash said as he peeked out and scanned the parking lot. The jeep tires were slashed, and the ambushers were nowhere to be seen. But as the smoke from the saloon was starting to rise, Ash could see another group of people heading their way. "That looks like the city guard. We got to get out of here." 

"Let's go this way. I know where we can lay low."

~R~o~a~O~

"So where are we going?" Ash asked as he and Alex walked through a peaceful neighborhood at the mesa's base.

"Lloyd's house. He's a retired Hound who moved out here once he got too old to fight. He moved out here to be closer to his kid. Too bad she hated him and moved up north." Alex explained as they walked. "Here's the house, be on your best behavior. This guy is a good friend of Otto's and just as cranky." Alex started banging on the door as soon as they reached it. "Lloyd! Open up! It's me, Alex!"

"Maybe he doesn't like you. Did you break his heart too?" Ash asked after a minute of Alex banging on the door.

"Oh, real funny. Well, do you know how to pick a lock?" 

"No, but I can break it." 

"Break it then. We have to get off the streets. We can always buy a new lock later." On Alex's orders, Ash reached for the doorknob, projected his Mist into the lock, and shattered it from the inside. Once the lock was popped, Alex stepped forward. "I'll go in first. Lloyd doesn't know you, so he might shoot you if he's in there."

"Boys dressed as ladies first, then," Ash said as he stepped aside and let Alex move to the door.

Alex rolled his eyes as he walked past Ash and gripped the doorknob. "Lloyd, you in there?" Alex called out one last time as he pushed the door open. A sudden snap could be heard, and Ash reacted in pure reflex, pushing Alex away as a steel spike stabbed through the air. "What the hell!" Alex shouted as he fell to his hands and knees. 

"Looks like Lloyd is a paranoid guy. Even I wouldn't set up a trap on my front door." Ash poked the steel spike. It was centered directly where Alex's neck would have been if Ash didn't push him away. "Then again, this isn't a bad trap." 

"That crazy bastard." Alex quickly stood up, dusted off his hands, ducked under the spike, and walked into the house. "Hey, you crazy old bastard, are you in-" Alex stopped talking and quickly covered his nose after only taking a few steps. 

A smell hit Ash's nose as soon as he entered the house behind Alex. It was a familiar smell, a rotten smell. The smell of death. "Well fuck." Ash ripped the spike off the trap and pushed the door closed. "I'll go first."

Ash moved away from the door, scanning the living room and holding the spike like a spear. Ash was looking for the source of the smell, but he didn't have to look long. "Got a body here." He called out as he saw the body of an elderly man lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. The man held a double-barrel shotgun in his death grip.  

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"Shit, Lloyd!" Alex quickly moved to the body, dropping to a knee and placing a hand on the man's shoulder. One look and Alex could tell the man was long gone. "Who did this to you, Lloyd? It couldn't have been the Mountain Breakers, they ambushed us, but they couldn't have known about him."

Ash put the spike down and moved to observe the man. "This couldn't have been done by a person, the door was locked, and his trap was set." Ash used Lloyd's shirt to clean some blood off his wounds. "Look, these are bite marks, and these gashes were made by claws. There's no doubt about it. This man was killed by a monster."

"But how's that possible? This is the middle of the city; like you said, his house was locked. No monster could have gotten in, attacked him, and vanished."

"That means the monster is still in the house." Ash reached down and gently pried the double-barrel shotgun out of the man's hand. The shotgun barrel was caked in dried blood, but checking the two gemstones, one in each barrel, he saw them in perfect condition. "Sorry old timer, I'll be taking this. I hope you don't mind me modifying it a bit. It's just a little too long for me." Holding up the shotgun, Ash sliced off most of the barrel with a Mist blade projected from his hand. He then flipped the gun over and cut down the stock as well. The double-barrel shotgun was now left no longer than his forearm from grip to barrel. "There, nice and compact."

"Great, steal a dead man's stuff and break it. Anything else you want? His shoes, maybe?" 

"Relax, if there's a monster in this house, I don't need to be swinging around that long barrel bumping into walls. Let's go find this thing." As Ash stood up, he pushed his Mist into the two gemstones in the barrels, 'loading' the weapon. He was about to turn and leave the kitchen but stopped once he noticed a small trail of faint blood drops. He nodded to Alex and then started following the trail, only taking a few steps before he reached a door in the kitchen. "What's in there?" He asked while keeping the shotgun trained on the door. 

"I don't know, the pantry probably. Do you think Lloyd managed to trap a monster in there? Maybe it's dead by now." 

"I don't think so. If Lloyd had trapped a monster there, he would have fought it here. But there are no signs of fighting, just his body." Ash looked around the kitchen. Everything was clean and organized. Either Lloyd was a neat freak, or he never cooked. "But his blood drops do lead to this door. So stand over there, on my mark, pull it open. If there's a monster in there, I'll handle it.

Alex didn't say a word as he quickly moved into place. He gripped the pantry's doorknob and turned to Ash, who took aim. There was a brief pause, then Ash nodded. On Ash's mark, Alex pulled the pantry door open. 

Alex expected Ash to open fire immediately. But when no gunshots rang out, Alex peeked inside. "There's nothing in here but food," Alex said as he looked at the hanging racks filled with dry and canned goods. He was about to shut the door, but something on the ground caught his eye. "Wait, what's this?"

"It looks like a hatch." Ash kneeled down and studied the square metal plate buried into the pantry floor. A handle was welded on the top, and a padlock was lying next to it. "It's not locked. I'm guessing he fought something down there, got injured, and crawled back up. He was too injured to lock the hatch and collapsed before he could save himself." 

"Well, what do we do?"   

Ash let out a sigh and scratched his chin. 'I should lock the damn thing and walk away. No, I should kill Alex and blame it on those ambushers. No, that wouldn't be good. I won't be able to go back to the camp if Alex dies here. Fuck,' Ash let out a sigh and then turned to Alex. "My gut is telling me to throw you down there first, and if you die, I'll just lock it up and leave."

Alex placed his gemstone weapon to Ash's throat. "Try it." 

"Relax, that's what my gut is telling me to do. But if I ever listened to my gut, I wouldn't be in a dead man's house with the smell of burnt bodies in my nose, in the ass end of nowhere." Ash pushed Alex's weapon away and then gripped the hatch's handle. "I'll go in first. I really want to know what's down there. You can stay up here if you like." With those final words, Ash pulled the hatch open and jumped in before he could change his mind.

~R~o~a~O~

'Old man, what did you do?' Ash thought as he landed inside an underground cave. There was another rotten smell in the air, and flickering lights hung on the wall. A soft rumbling could be heard, and Ash squinted, trying to see through the flickering lights.

"What do you see?! What's down there?!" Alex called out from outside the hatch. 

"Can't see shit! But I think that rumbling is a generator! Just give me a moment!" Ash searched through the flickering lights, searching for the source of the rumbling. "Found it!" Ash called out as he spotted a generator shaking in the corner of the cave. He quickly made his way over to it. 'Out of fuel.' He thought as he saw the fuel gauge on the front. Thankfully for Ash, a fuel can was sitting next to the machine. 

The lights shined brighter once Ash poured the fuel into the generator, allowing Ash to finally see. What he saw surprised him. "Holy fuck... That old man was insane!" Ash called out to Alex. "You should get down here! It's safe!"

 "I'm coming, I'm coming," Alex said as he climbed the ladder attached to the hatch. "Did you not see this ladder when you jumped in?" Alex hopped off the ladder once he reached the bottom, but his eyes widened once he turned around. "Holy shit..."

With the generator full of fuel, the flickering lights turned bright and revealed the rest of the cave. The cave was large, slopped down, and at the end, there was a makeshift gate built out of scrap wood metal fencing and chains. But the bodies of serval rat monsters were scattered between the hatch and the gate. The rat monsters were known as dire rats, and they came in the sizes of human children, each capable of ripping anything they set their sights on to shreds. "That crazy old bastard, he really dug his way into the dungeon."

"He must have started digging as soon as the dungeon was discovered." Alex covered his nose as he kicked one of the dead rats. "He was always a tough bastard, great control over the Mist. He even taught Roxy a few things. How far do you think he dug before he reached it?" 

Alex and Ash understood what the cave was and where it led to. Deep underground, dungeons were found all over the world. Dungeons were always filled with relics from the ancient world. From ancient technology, weapons, and knowledge, there was always something valuable to be found. Money to be made. But dungeons came in all shapes and sizes. The smallest dungeon discovered was smaller than Ash and Alex's current cave. At the same time, the largest was the size of an island off the coast of Unity Kingdom. That dungeon was directly responsible for the Unity Kingdom's prosperity and the founding of the Explorers Union. But dungeons were extremely dangerous and filled with monsters. Even the most experienced members of the Explorers Union could be overrun in the dark depths of a dungeon. 

"Well," Ash said as he scratched his chin. "Let's lock up and get the hell out of here."

"Yeah, we still have to figure out how to get back to base," Alex said as he climbed up the ladder.

Ash followed Alex up the ladder. The thought of entering the dungeon never crossed their mind. The dungeon was death, and they needed to find a way back home. 

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