I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

The city gate opened into the main road, wide enough for two carts side by side, the stone worn smooth from years of foot traffic. The morning market was already running along both sides, stalls selling bread and dried meat and bolts of cloth, the sellers calling out prices over each other in overlapping voices.

A few armoured knights stood at the gate post, watching the flow of people with the bored attention of men who had stood in the same spot too many times to find it interesting. Further in the buildings pressed closer together, two and three stories, laundry strung between windows, children cutting through gaps between stalls. The smell of fresh bread mixed with horse and stone dust.

Felix walked with his hands in his pockets and stopped before the guild house came into view and dropped his pack from his shoulder, rolling his neck until it cracked.

"I’m going to head home."

"What, why?" Mira stepped beside him.

"Well." He glanced back at the girl standing three paces behind them, bare feet on the city road, black markings across her face, watching him. "I’m going to reach out to Anthony. I can’t have her around me all day, it’s getting on my nerves. And you know how Silas and Deren get if they see something they don’t understand."

"Yeah, I get it." Mira nodded slowly.

"Sell the ores and take my share out. I’ll meet you at the tavern this evening."

Mira glanced once at the girl, then swung the pack onto her back and walked away, disappearing between two buildings. Felix stood still and watched the gap she’d gone through until there was nothing to watch.

"Now." He turned around. "What’s it going to be?"

"I will follow you wherever you go."

Felix looked at her for a moment, then turned west and started walking.

Still, Anthony, you have my genuine regards. Mira will tell the others about the girl but the conclusion she’ll land on is you. Even she couldn’t quite believe a dungeon came to life. I’ve seen stranger things used as cover stories.

He turned down a narrower street, the buildings here older, the gaps between them tighter. I told you I was going to take everything this time. Let’s see if you’re actually the fortune my life’s been waiting for.

He reached the house ten minutes later. Two stories, the exterior stone darkened with age, the window frames slightly warped, the front step uneven where the ground had shifted years ago and nobody had fixed it. It had looked exactly this way for as long as he could remember and probably longer. He pulled the key from his pocket, worked the lock open, and stepped inside.

He let the door swing shut on its own and walked straight to the kitchen, her footsteps soft behind him on the stone floor. He pulled a jug down from the shelf and filled it from the water jar against the wall, drinking until the tightness in his chest from the morning finally let go.

He carried the jug back into the main room and dragged a wooden stool out from the corner, scraping it across the floor. She was already sitting in the middle of the room, legs crossed, her eyes tracking slowly across the ceiling and the staircase leading up.

Felix stopped a metre away and sat.

He cleared his throat. "So. I’ll ask you again. Who are you and what do you need."

"I was a dungeon for centuries until you completed the binding ritual and turned me into this." Her voice stayed flat. "I want to strengthen our relationship. It is the only way I can exist now."

Felix studied her. "I’m finding it hard to believe you were actually a dungeon and not part of some elaborate scheme." He paused. "I’ve seen monsters. I’ve heard absurd stories from drunk adventurers. But a dungeon becoming a person? That’s a stretch even for this world."

She considered this. Then she raised her hand to her mouth, opened it, and pushed her fingers down her own throat.

What is she doing?

She pulled her hand back out. In her palm sat his cards, wet, the edges curled slightly. She leaned forward and set them on the floor in front of his boots.

"These were yours."

Felix picked them up between two fingers, his face creasing. "This doesn’t confirm anything."

"You entered me fifty-six times." She said it plainly. "Each time you took out your cards and checked the essence first. When you worked alone you spoke about your pain, your joy. On your fifty-first visit you told the story of a noble’s lost pet. You found it dead and replaced it with a similar animal so they wouldn’t notice. They gave you twenty silver."

Felix said nothing.

"You always believed your grandfather’s stories. The day he died you came in crying. You took nothing that visit. You told me everything about him. You said you loved him more than anyone in your life. You said he left the same way your mother and your father did." She paused. "You tried to cut your own throat that night."

Felix’s hand moved to his neck without him deciding to. The old scar was still there under his collar, faded but raised, the same shape it had been for years.

He sat with that for a moment.

"You’re the real deal," he said finally. "Okay. I get it."

"Yes. I exist. Therefore I am real. An exact replica of a human being."

"So it’s safe to say you’re going to live with me from now on?"

"I will be wherever you are."

"But the human body needs food. A roof above its head. Clothes to wear. All of that costs money."

"Money?"

"Yeah. To buy things. That’s why people go into dungeons or take other jobs. They get bronze and silver and use it to pay for food."

"I existed as a dungeon through natural essence. Your kind calls it Numen."

"That was before. You’re human now. So now you need everything I just said."

"I appreciate your kindness, Felix." She bowed her head and extended both hands forward.

"Wh—" Felix stared at her. *Is she thinking what I think she’s thinking?* He shook his head. "You have to work and earn everything yourself. I have zero on me."

"Then we should go out and work together." She started to rise.

"No. No. Sit down."

She sat back down.

Felix set the jug on the floor and leaned forward. "Since you were a dungeon, don’t you have anything stored? Gold, old relics, anything valuable left from before."

She pressed a hand against her stomach and rubbed it once. "No. Everything I had was already taken by humans who visited over the centuries."

"What. Nothing? No necklace, no rings, nothing?"

"No. My storage was emptied long ago."

"What about ore. Can you make it?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, then opened them. "Yes." She opened her mouth wide.

*Does she want me to pull it out of her like the cards.* Felix shook his head once. *No. Absolutely not.*

"Can’t you just take it out yourself?"

"No. It is forbidden to take something I created myself."

Felix sat with that for a long moment, then stood up.

Guess I don’t have a choice.

He lowered himself in front of her.

She raised her head and opened her mouth wide, her eyes fixed on him.

Felix hesitated, then brought his hand closer.

*She’s a dungeon. It’ll be fine.* He pushed his hand into her mouth and down, slowly. She made a sound somewhere between a cough and a gag.

"Are you okay?" he said quickly.

She nodded, up and down. He kept going, his arm sliding further, and when his elbow reached her lips he felt a faint warm pull around his wrist, weak but present. He didn’t stop. Further down his fingertips brushed something hard.

*Found it.*

He closed his hand around it. Small. Smaller than anything he’d pulled out of the dungeon itself. "Doesn’t matter. Ore is ore. Straight from the source, this should still sell."

He pulled. It resisted. He pulled harder and she made a sound that stopped him cold, her eyes wet, blue and bright in a way that hadn’t been there a second ago. He let go for a moment. Her hand found his other arm and gripped it, and she nodded once.

Felix bit down on his lip and pulled with everything he had.

His hand came free, soaked, and in his palm sat a piece of ore barely the size of his thumb.

"How much will it sell for?" she asked.

Felix watched the glow on it flicker and thin. He closed his fist around it on instinct.

When he opened his hand again it was dust.

"Nothing."

"Then we should look for a job."

He let himself fall backward, flat against the floor. "We definitely should."

"Yes." She leaned over him, her face appearing above his, and smiled. The first time she’d done it. "We will work hard and earn money."

Felix stared up at the ceiling and resisted the urge to scream. Every hope he’d had standing in that chamber, every thought of his life changing for the better, dissolved as quickly as the ore had.

"What’s your name?" he asked.

She thought about it. "Humans called me different names over the centuries when I was a dungeon. But this body has none."

She tilted her head. "Can you give me one?"

Felix looked at her for a moment, already feeling exausted by his running thoughts.

"Dune."