I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

They walked through the muddy earth of the garden until they reached the corridor visible through the front steps. Felix found the statues on either side of the pathway rather familiar in some odd sense, just like those he saw before in the chamber, a few days ago.

Now that I think about it. How were those statues brought there in the first place? None of them I recognise either.

He shook the thought away, and turned towards Dune, as he was approaching the entry point.

"Now listen up,"

"I’m always listening." She pulled her gaze away from the mansion and looked at him.

"The client wants this place in its original state. There is some valuable stuff in here, for sure," Felix observed the girl nodding at his words. "So please do not destroy anything, okay?"

"Yes. Valuable stuff. Not destroy."

"And if you meet some ghosts, do not panic and take a deep breath. Hope for it to be harmless."

"Understood."

"Do not let go of the orb under any circumstances. It will not kill the ghost, but it is powerful enough to prevent them from getting close to you."

Dune squeezed the orb tighter in her hands. "I will always hold it."

"Excellent." Felix turned to the large door in front of him and took a deep breath before channeling a tiny bit of Numen into his orb. It glowed with a gentle yellow hue. He turned back and repeated the action on hers, and she looked at it as it filled her hands.

He advanced and pushed the door with both his palms. It gave way to him after a little resistance with a loud noise of its hinges, which seemed even louder than the creaking sound of the gate heard earlier. They were greeted by the foul air consisting of dust and decayed wood.

The entrance hall lay ahead, its ceiling high enough to eat the orb light even before it made it to the top. There was a staircase with a curved design on the opposite wall, complete with vines carved into the banister that looked like those strangling the garden; at least half of its steps were already rotting. Most of the furniture was covered by dust sheets, with the objects beneath them too vague for Felix to look away from them before making sure that nothing moved under the sheets. Portraits decorated both sides of the walls, with all their frames and faces tarnished with dirt, each one turned slightly toward the door as if the person who hung them there wanted everyone entering the place to be watched from the very moment they entered.

Felix led the way, his orb sending out soft light on the floorboards. Behind him walked Dune, holding her orb with both hands.

"Stick close," Felix whispered, his tone softer now that they were in. "And mind your steps. Some of these floors don’t seem as if they want to support anything at all."

"I’m sticking close." She matched her stride perfectly, their shoulders brushing together on every other step.

It felt colder than it should have, colder than the night outside even though the building stood between them and the breeze, and he saw his breath briefly before it vanished. He shrugged, reasoning that the problem was just poor insulation, and kept going towards the corridor that branched to his left, orb lights playing across dust-covered picture frames and the black hallway awaiting him beyond.

The two moved down the hallway, with floorboards creaking loudly each time their feet hit the wooden planks, and the sound echoing ahead of them through the darkness rather than behind.

"It’s just the house settling," Felix commented to himself. "That’s how old houses behave."

"The floor is talking," Dune observed as she looked down to her feet. "It repeated the same word four times."

"Floors don’t talk, Dune."

"It just did."

Felix decided to not argue and kept moving forward. When they were halfway along the corridor, a picture of a stern-faced man wearing a high collar came into view, and the position of the head bothered him sufficiently to make him look again at it. The eyes now gazed at him directly, while he could have sworn they were staring straight ahead only a minute before.

"Dune, does the painting seem to move to you?"

"Indeed. Now it is looking at you specifically. Before, it was looking at the wall."

"Well, that’s not making things better."

"You asked."

He quickened his pace, and after a couple more steps, realized that the cold struck him so intensely that he was forced to stop walking, because he could see clouds of vapor emanating from his mouth due to the change in temperature. He felt warmth return instantly whenever he resumed walking, as if he had stepped through an invisible door into winter and out again.

"Did you feel that?"

"Yes. It was cold and then it was not cold anymore," said Dune, stepping backward then forward again to test the difference. "This spot is only cold. Strange."

"Don’t test it, just walk past it."

"I walked past it four times already."

Felix scrubbed a hand down his face, moving onward and convincing himself that none of this meant anything individually, cold spots existed in old houses, paintings didn’t move, and floorboards made a creaking noise because of their age, not because of what they were trying to tell him. He almost convinced himself that it was all meaningless until a groan rose from upstairs.

"And that one, that was definitely the house too," he mumbled.

"This one sounded angry," Dune pointed to the ceiling. "The first one was tired. This one is angry."

"You’re not helping here, Dune."

"I am only saying what I hear."

In response to the first groan came a second one, higher pitched, but originating from a completely different place, to the left of them instead of above them, and Felix gripped his orb tighter, causing it to flicker.

"There are two houses," Dune stated. "Or two floors, and they are both angry."

"It’s only one house," Felix began walking again, moving much faster, not wanting to look at the portrait as they walked past it once more. "It’s just walking. We are only walking."

"We are walking quickly."

"We are walking at a normal pace."

Dune silently matched his pace, although she spared a glance at the portrait, whose eyes, Felix was now sure of it, were looking at them again and following them down the hall.

The sound of a delicate chime reached their ears, coming from ahead of them and seeming out of place here. Felix stopped walking in his tracks.

"Just the wind," he said, already walking again. "Old house. Somewhere there’s an open window."

Once again the chime rang out, getting ever closer with each ring, ringing out yet once again until the pattern couldn’t have been discerned even by a gust of wind, just a straight on march down the corridor straight towards them. Felix’s mind gave a whole bunch of logical reasons for this sound, maybe it was a hanging ornament, maybe a loose curtain rod but none of these calmed his nerves when the noise rang out a fourth time seemingly coming from three feet away from them.

He leaped sideways and seized the nearest object, turning out to be Dune as he wrapped both his arms around her before his mind caught up with his body’s decision.

Mother God! I swear I didn’t do anything wrong. I go back. Keep the silvers. The job isn’t for me.