“Wait! Why?” Jeremy said, backing away, careful to keep the table between them. “I don't want to fight you.”
“Because it's time, little adventurer.” Clown Lord rumbled.
“Wait! Time out!” Jeremy pleaded.
Clown Lord shook its head. “No more time outs.”
“Wait!”
Clown Lord hesitated, looking exasperated.
Jeremy grabbed the half-full mug of monster blood Clown Lord had served himself earlier. He flung the blood into Clown Lord's face, grabbed the cloak from the table, and ran, putting on the cloak as he did so. The cloak fit him perfectly.
This was a fight he felt no guilt about running away from. When Clown Lord wasn't trying to kill and eat him, the monster had been kind.
The door out of The Fun House was locked. He fought to open it, but it wouldn't budge.
“Clever, little adventurer, stealing my cloak. But it won't be enough.” Clown Lord came down the stairs, holding his battle axe and spinning it around like it weighed nothing. “I am very hard to sneak up on, and that door won't open until one of us is dead.”
Jeremy activated Sneak and ran into the shadows, hiding behind the cannon. Then he crept away, silent. The tiniest noise would be his death. He was also careful not to look directly at the clown. Even with the cloak, if he could see Clown Lord, there was a good chance Clown Lord could see him, or at least his eyes.
There was no way he could defeat Clown Lord in a fair fight. His only chance was to set a trap.
Clown Lord walked slowly, up and down The Fun House, looking around. Alert for the slightest sound or movement.
Jeremy pulled the spider silk thread from his wrist with the utmost care. He tied the two strands together, creating a longer thread using a square knot, something he'd learned in Boy Scouts during the two meetings he'd attended before one of the larger boys decided he didn't like Jeremy and stuffed Jeremy's head in the toilet.
Then Jeremy tied one end of the thread to the middle, creating a makeshift lasso which he laid out on the floor. This wasn't easy to do with an invisible thread while remaining silent, and it took many tries. He tied the other end to one of the throne's legs and, with difficulty, set the lasso on the floor next to the cannon. He hid next to the throne and waited.
Clown Lord seemed content to methodically walk back and forth through the room. Approaching the cannon, he slowed down, alert for the slightest sound or movement, axe ready for the kill.
From behind the throne, Jeremy threw a dungeon ration bar at the opposite side of the room. He knew Clown Lord was too clever to go investigate, but he would hold very still, trying to determine what had been thrown and the location of the thrower. This gave Jeremy the chance to pull on his spider-silk thread, carefully tightening the lasso around Clown Lord's large feet.
Trap in place, he ran away from Clown Lord, pretending to panic.
Clown Lord turned and swung the axe.
Jeremy felt the wind go by as the axe missed him by millimeters, smashing into the floor next to him, sending stone chips flying.
The spider silk thread around Clown Lord's legs caused him to trip and fall to the floor.
Jeremy knew he'd get one shot at this. Using all the speed he possessed, he drew his knife and attacked.
Clown Lord let go of his axe, grabbed Jeremy's leg, and squeezed so hard Jeremy felt like his bones might break from the grip alone.
Clown Lord pulled him, viciously slamming him against the floor. The hood of Jeremy's cloak fell back, leaving his head completely visible. Clown Lord looked down on him, Jeremy's knife protruding from his middle eye socket.
“Hrrrrrrrr, little...” Clown Lord started to say, before collapsing on top of him. By the time Jeremy pulled himself free, there was pounding on the door.
Clown Lord's subjects wanted to know what had happened. Jeremy waited beside the door, slipping away when the clowns forced the door open and rushed inside. Being invisible had advantages.
Killing the rest of the clowns was simple. He waited for the night when they were asleep, then, one at a time, he slashed their throats with his sword while muffling their cries. The clowns woke twice and milled around, not seeming to know what to do without their lord. Each time, he waited in the shadows for them to go back to sleep, and he'd start killing them again. By the morning, he was very sick of killing clowns. But he'd gained four levels, becoming a child rogue, Level 8.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
He sat on Clown Lord's oversized chair, his dungeon backpack next to him. “It's just you and me, dungeon backpack,” Jeremy said to himself when it was over, with a laugh that bordered on hysteria. “I guess we're in charge of the clown gang now.”
Jeremy stared at the wall for a long time, unable to bring himself to do anything. He kept expecting Clown Lord and the clowns to respawn and hoped that when they did, they wouldn't be mad or have hard feelings about him killing them. It wasn't like they'd given him a choice in the matter after all. But they never appeared.
An eternity later, he pulled up his stat sheet.
FIRST QUEST COMPLETED
SECOND QUEST COMPLETED
THIRD QUEST COMPLETED
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
Name: Jeremy Wilkins
Race: Human
Sex: Boy
Age: 10
Character Class: Child-Rogue
Level: 8
Health: 9
Attributes:
Strength: 7
Endurance: 5
Vitality: 6
Dexterity: 12
Agility: 13
Perception: 15
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Will Power: 4
Charisma: 4
Extra point: 4
Mana: 7 (+17 rapid recovery) Charmed object
Active Skills:
Identify: 3
Sneak: 6 +2 magic shoes
Detect Traps: 4
Charmed Object Activation: 2
Passive Skills:
Pain Tolerance: 3
Poison Resistance: 5
Enhanced Physical: 1
Melee Weapons: 3
Mental Fortitude: 2
Spells:
None
Dungeon Account:
3583.23dc
IF YOU WISH YOU MAY CHOOSE A SPECIALTY!
Child Rogue Thief:
Your character specializes in taking what belongs to others.
Will gain bonuses in Sneak and Dexterity.
Yes/No
Child Rogue Scout:
Search dangerous areas, report to others, and fight if necessary.
Will gain bonuses in Sneak, Perception, and Weapons.
Yes/No
Neither character class appealed.
Despite two of his quests being to sneak around and steal stuff, he had no interest in being a thief.
Though Scout might be more useful for killing monsters, this didn't feel right either. The idea of being a scout was to work with a team to kill monsters, and he was alone.
So he selected no for both.
Jeremy put an additional point into Strength, bringing it up to 8, but since he wasn't sure what to do with the other three points, he left them alone.
Eventually, he got up. Time to gather up the loot the clowns left behind and explore the first floor of the dungeon.
***
Two beings faced each other across a small stone room.
“You should be aware, I've killed tougher beings than you,” the first being said in a calm, business-like voice.
Boggan smiled. “Excellent.”
***
“Hey Clown Lord, I'm home!” Jeremy shouted into The Fun House, only to be answered by deathly silence. “I spent the day exploring the dungeon. Nothing but low-level monsters. I can't believe I used to be afraid of them. They're lousy conversationalists. I say hi and they say squeak, or quack, and try to kill me.”
It had been two dungeon days since he'd killed Clown Lord and the other clowns. He kept hoping Clown Lord and the clowns would respawn and come back.
The monster loot was a bit of a disappointment. He got eight flasks of healing potion from the clowns. From Clown Lord: he'd received a charmed battle axe. But the axe was so heavy he could barely lift it. And a clown nose. The clown nose was also a charmed object that supposedly added one point to his charisma.
You're joking, right? He put it on. The clown nose was surprisingly comfortable. He couldn't resist poking it, making a honking noise. He laughed. According to his stat sheet, it did add one point to his charisma.
From the other clowns, he got low-quality swords, axes, a mace, shields, and several low-quality throwing knives.
The only item of interest was a low-quality recurve bow and a quiver of twenty equally low-quality arrows.
Jeremy had fired a bow once in his life, at summer camp. He'd missed the target and the other kids had laughed at him. Still, the opportunity to attack his opponents without putting himself in the arm's reach of something larger and stronger than he was, was too great to pass up.
With tremendous difficulty, he strung the bow. Something he'd seen done once in his life. It took him a long time. Then he discovered he wasn't strong enough to draw the bow. He put another point in strength, bringing it up to 9. Then he drew the bow, arms shaking from the strain, and fired an arrow at the board the clowns used for knife throwing. He missed the board and scraped his left arm with the bowstring. Ow. Great.
There was a thing archers used to prevent this. What was it called?
He also tried the throwing knives, and as of yet, failed to get a single one to stick to the target.
He left The Fun House the next morning. Without the clowns to guide him, he was afraid of getting lost. He couldn't mark his path, because the dungeon would absorb any mark he made on the stone. He thought about using the low-quality weapons as markers, but was afraid the dungeon would absorb them, too.
He walked cautiously down the hallways. He struggled to visualize the dungeon, wishing he had a map.
Suddenly a rectangle appeared next to his stat sheet with the word MAP on it. The only part of the map visible to him was the bit he'd walked that morning, but still, it was an excellent start. He wondered if he could mark traps on it.
***
“Clown Lord, I'm home!” Jeremy shouted after a day of exploring, three days since he'd killed all the clowns. “I killed you fair and square. Don't be mad, just come back already!”
Jeremy noticed a crystal ball the size of his fist. The Fun House was full of odd knick-knacks. Identify, told him it was a valueless crystal in the shape of a ball, he tossed it up and down, staring at it as it gleamed in the torchlight.
The crystal slipped from his hands and shattered on the floor. The valueless crystal turned into valueless crystal fragments before being absorbed by the dungeon.
“Come on Clown Lord! Respawn already!” For the past three dungeon days, since he'd killed Clown Lord and the other clowns, there'd been nothing but silence. “Well, I guess it's dinnertime. Dungeon rations again. Yay. Then I'll work out...”
There was a clapping sound behind him. “Jeremy Titley Wilkins. Talking to yourself already. Tsk, tsk.”
