Backrooms: Delvers and Dwellers - Chapter 2

Two – That’s so 90s!

There was a flash of metal, then something out of sight slammed into the writhing crimson ball of nightmare fuel, batting it across the room like a baseline drive. The monster—and that was really the only word that fit—collided with one of the square columns. The impact violently shook the room, cracked the column in two, and knocked free a swirling cloud of fine plaster particles.

The blow hardly seemed to phase the creature, though, and now that it was fully in the room, I could see there was actually a hulking, humanoid at the heart of the writhing tentacles.

The demonic horror stood eight feet tall and was vaguely man-shaped—though it wasn’t human even in the most liberal sense of the word.

An extra pair of arms jutted out from its muscled torso, and its whole body was bloody red and sinewy as if the creature had been crudely flayed alive. Its lower half was a mess of segmented, arachnoid legs. Wicked talons capped each of its fingers, and a cruel obsidian mask covered its face. A crown of jagged black spikes hung suspended above its head and a cloak of living, thrashing scarlet tentacles trailed down its back, reaching all the way to the carpet.

Those tentacles were covered in oozing sores and glaring eyes. Embedded in the center of the monster’s bloody chest cavity was a gleaming multifaceted gem with golden numbers engraved on its various faces.

I squinted.

Holy shit. Was that a D20?

Like a Dungeons and Dragons D20?

That’s sure as shit what it looked like from this angle.

Encircling the glittering dice, carved directly into the creature’s muscle tissue, were six glowing green symbols that looked like they’d been cribbed from the Necronomicon. In one hand, the monster held a curved khopesh crafted from yellowed bone, and in the other it wielded a whip made entirely of teeth and human spinal vertebrae. Those weapons radiated a dark, almost malevolent aura that left me feeling both nauseous and scared shitless.

I glanced at the 19oz hammer in my hand and I’d never felt more inadequate in my entire life. This thing was a god. Or a demon. Or something else entirely. But whatever it was, I wouldn’t last a second, weapon or not. Hell, I was pretty sure that if I had a .50 Cal machine and an anti-tank Javelin missile at my disposal, I still wouldn’t last more than a handful of seconds before this thing gutted me like a trout.

I wasn’t the kind of guy to shy away from a fight, but I wasn’t openly suicidal either.

And this thing could kill me, there was no doubt in my mind. Thank the good lord, this murder-machine wasn’t focused on me, or I’d be dead already.

Its attention was entirely fixed on a lone figure marching down the hallway like an old west gunslinger getting ready for a showdown at high noon.

Unlike the eldritch crimson horror, the newcomer was human.

He was 6’5” with narrow shoulders and a lean build. He wore a beat-to-shit leather duster, a silver breastplate crisscrossed with dual bandoliers studded with shotgun shells. Looped around his neck was a frayed gray noose. Dangling from the end of the rope was a small Winnie the Pooh plushy, which was battered and bloody. The man’s hair was short and brown with a spattering of gray at the temples, but his eyes were hidden behind a pair of steampunk goggles and the lower portion of his face was obscured by a black bandana.

The barrel of a gilded blunderbuss protruded over one shoulder and he had a leather holster slung low around his hips, holding an old-timey revolver. He carried neither firearm, though. Instead, he wielded an oversized foam anime sword, the “blade” leaning against a spiked pauldron strapped on over the top of the duster. And I don’t mean it looked like an anime sword. This was an actualfoam anime sword—like one of the props Cosplayers would bring to Comic Con from time to time.

Except he carried it with familiarity and deadly intent. The way the demon’s face kept drifting toward the weapon made me think it was weary of the foam blade.

The gunslinger’s other hand was empty, but he wore a heavy golden glove that reminded me of a medieval, knock-off version of the Infinity Gauntlet, except—and this was the real kicker—instead of infinity stones, a different DnD dice was affixed to each of the knuckles. A red D4 on the pinky, a green D6 on the ring finger, a blue D8 on the middle finger, and a golden D10 on the index finger. Each seemed to be made from fine quartz or stone and looked like smaller versions of the gem embedded in the demon’s chest.

Arcs of electric blue lightning sprinted over the surface of the gunslinger’s gauntlet, and it crackled with power just waiting to be unleashed.

The man paused briefly as he moved past the hallway where I was bravely cowering. His eyes flicked toward me, lingering for a long, hard moment. It felt like he was weighing me, judging me. The weight of his gaze—of his sheer presence—seemed to press down on me like a hand.

“Who are you?” he asked. His voice was raspy and rough, as though he’d forgotten how to speak and was trying it out for the first time in ages.

“Dan?” I answered, as much of a question as it was a statement. “Dan Woodridge. From Cincinnati,” I added after a second.

The gunslinger grunted and nodded, as though I’d imparted some profound truth, then dipped his fingers into a leather pouch at his belt. He pulled out a silver metal token and casually flipped it to me with his thumb.

I snagged it from the air, holding it tight like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver.

“Dan Woodridge from Cincinnati,” the gunslinger said in that same gruff tone. “If you value your life, stay back and use that. The Flayed Monarch will not hesitate to kill you.” He paused, tense. “Hopefully this will all be over before it comes to that.”

Without another word, he turned away, and refocused on the demon. The Flayed Monarch. The terrible pressure of the gunslinger’s gaze vanished and suddenly I could breathe again. I could think and move. I cracked the fingers of my left hand and peered at the silver coin the man had tossed to me with a small ember of hope igniting in my chest.

That hope deflated some when I saw what the coin actually was.

Not a coin at all. Not some mystical amulet of great power.

It was a Pog Slammer. Like pog, pogs—the circular, cardboard tokens that had been all the rage in the late 90s. I’d played pogs as a kid and I remember having a slammer not so different from the one in my hand.

On one side was a cheesy, holographic snake wrapped around a grinning skull and on the other was a picture of a bird cage containing a bulbous-headed bright green canary with the words Unflippable Sanctum engraved around the outer edge.

I ran a thumb over the snake and skull, then traced it around the raised lettering. A faint thrum of power seeped off the slammer, sending a jolt of energy racing along my fingertips and up through my arm.

A much smaller version of the yellow, eight-bit pop up appeared above the coin.

Super Slammer of Shielding

Rare Artifact

Type: Reusable, Daily

Uses: 2:00 Minutes Remaining

Time Until Reset: 12 hours, 13 minutes

The Super Slammer of Shielding is a rare magical artifact, which summons a mostlyimpenetrable dome of arcane power, capable of protecting all those within the confines from physical, arcane, and elemental attacks.

The Super Slammer of Shielding can be used for two-minutes per day, though those minutes and seconds do not need to be consecutive. The timer resets at exactly 12:00 AM Newfoundland Standard Time (NST). Why Newfoundland Standard Time? Because fuck you, that’s why.

To activate the spell, throw the slammer against the floor and recite the forbidden Arcane Incantation: “Let’s Pog!”

To deactivate the spell, simply pick the slammer up and utter the sage words of old: “That’s so 90s!”

This is a joke, right? I thought to myself. It has to be a joke.

Slammer still gripped tightly in my hand, I glanced up at the gunslinger who now stood in front of the blister-red, four-armed monstrosity.

“I just want out,” the gunslinger said. He extended his gauntlet, palm up in expectation. “All I need is one more Seal. Just one. Give it to me and I’ll fuck right off. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t even want to fight you. Just give me what I want, and you can go back to the Pit on the 999thfloor and do whatever the hell it is you like to do. Eat kittens. Skin puppies. Watch endless reruns of My Little Pony. Whatever. It’s none of my concern.”

The Flayed Monarch cocked its head to the side as though carefully considering the words. It was impossible to read its face beneath the obsidian mask, but to me it looked almost intrigued.

“Perhaps there is a deal to be struck,” the Monarch replied.

The gunslinger’s voice was tired—a man who’d been on the road for too long and was ready to hang up his hat and sit for a spell. The Monarch’s sounded like a legion of offkey voices all speaking at once, each slightly out of synch with the others.

“The Researcher has stifled me for too long,” the creature said. “The bounds of my Kingdom chafe. You want the stone. I want the Gauntlet. We both want to leave. To be free.” He extended a long taloned hand. “But we shall never be free of each other until we are free from this place. Let us work together, yes?”

The gunslinger snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure the Researcher would just love that.”

The Monarch growled, the rumble of an angry lion resonating from deep inside its chest. “The Researcher is an old fool, and his purpose and function were obsolete a thousand years ago. Ten thousand years ago. He is a relic of the past, not a reflection of the glorious future that we could forge together.” The creature’s legs clicked softly as it edged forward.

“That’s plenty close enough,” the gunslinger said, raising the foam anime sword from his shoulder. “One more step and I’ll cleave you in two.”

“There’s no need for that,” the monster crooned. “Violence doesn’t serve our purposes. Think about it, Marcus. You and I both know his power is already stretched thin. So very thin. He might be a god in this place, but not even a god could stop us if we put aside our petty squabbles.”

“I’m not sure I’d call them petty,” the man, Marcus, replied. “You killed Lisa and cut off my hand”—he raised the metal gauntlet—“and added one of my eyes to your collection.” He gestured at the tentacle cloak.

“Small things when weighed against the value of freedom,” the Monarch said as though the litany of offenses were water under the bridge.

“Let me put this plain,” Marcus growled, “I would rather drown on floor 207 in a pool of literal dog vomit than work with you.”

Although I couldn’t see the Monarch’s face, I could almost hear it grin behind the obsidian face plate. “Perhaps I will grant you your wish before leaving this place—”

Then, in the space of an eyeblink, the demon shot forward like a bullet, its khopesh blurring through the air.