After the Dungeon Core had done its work, the lizardmen were once again milling around as they awaited their inevitable demise.
Three of their number were missing from the village, as Bob, Ted and Suzy were engrossed in a game.
Bob was shuffling around cautiously with his arms extended outwards, his vision obscured while he relied on his other senses. A torn piece of cloth had been wrapped around his face to cover his eyes.
Ted was keeping a fair distance from his brother, staying at the edge of the forest with the aim of using the trees as an obstacle for Bob.
His precautions were not needed, as Suzy was the main focus of the blindfolded lizardman, as she stayed extremely close to him.
The pink-skinned female lizardman had drool escaping from her mouth and a mischievous look on her face.
Keeping low, Suzy reached out a hand and tenderly stroked Bob's tail, making him spin around and lunge at thin air.
Steadily becoming agitated, Bob shouted out.
“LIZARD!”
Upon hearing Bob's shout, an answer came from Ted and Suzy at the same time.
““MAN!””
Bob immediately ignored Ted's shout, as it was relatively far away, whereas Suzy's shout was practically in front of him.
Lunging forwards, Bob thought he had got her that time, but all he grasped was air, while he heard her laughter and felt a warm hand caress his chest.
“ARGHHHH!”
Bob had had enough; he simultaneously stamped his foot on the ground and removed his blindfold.
Upon his vision being restored, he looked down to see a nervous-looking Suzy, crouched down directly under him, her quivering hand reaching for his nether regions.
Suzy looked up at Bob sheepishly and greeted him.
“Hello, Bob.”
Out of all of the reactions that were to be anticipated, Bob's action was more akin to a blushing damsel.
The bulky, towering lizardman who had a body designed for battle cupped his groin with his hands and leapt backwards, all the while emitting a high-pitched shriek.
“EEEEKKK!”
Bob felt both of his hearts pounding within his chest.
He knew Suzy had been using the game as an excuse to grope him, but he did not think she would have gone as far as to attempt to violate him, and all the while his brother looked on from behind a tree.
Directing his ire towards his brother, Bob shouted out to him.
“Ted, you pervert! I expected this from Suzy, but my own brother to just watch from behind a tree.”
Ted quickly joined his brother and Suzy. While he was flustered, he hurriedly sought to get his side of the story across.
“Bob, Bob, you know that's not right! I was just playing the game you made up; Suzy took advantage of you.”
“Hmmmm and you just watched?....Ted!”
Suzy had taken the most prudent choice to keep quiet and let the brothers quibble between themselves.
Bob finally turned his attention away from his brother and directed it to Suzy as well.
“Let's make a few changes to the game then. Now you'll be blindfolded.”
Suzy's face lit up at Bob's suggestion, her tail unconsciously wagging away while she spoke.
“You want to blindfold me, Bob? You can tie me up as well if you want; actually, I insist!”
A quiet madness was steadily rearing up within her eyes, as saliva drooled from her open mouth.
Realising the need for clarification, Bob quickly poured water on her words as he replied, a deadpan expression covering his face.
“Suzy, I'm sure you're constantly in season......We're all going to be blindfolded and try to catch each other. Anyone can shout 'LIZARD' at any time, and the other two shout 'MAN'....Sound good?”
Ted stood nodding away, knowing full well why his brother wanted to do the game that way; meanwhile, the cause of the change looked dejected.
Suzy was pulling her face, thinking of any way she could turn the game to her advantage. After racking her lizard brain for long enough, she relented and agreed to the changes.
Suzy brought out a large piece of cloth that an Adventurer had left by mistake; their cloak had become torn while they traversed through the wooded area.
Ripping the material in two, she handed a piece to Ted and proceeded to blindfold herself while staring intently at Bob, her thoughts running wild as her vision faded underneath the cloth.
With everyone blindfolded, Bob spoke up to give the instructions.
“Suzy, Ted, everyone spin around ten times and then walk forward five paces. That's when we'll start.”
The trio began to spin around, with Ted's rotations becoming less and less stable.
Upon completion of the revolutions, Ted had fallen over from dizziness. After clambering back to his feet, he walked five paces forward and then heard Suzy's voice call out.
“LIZARD!”
““MAN!””
Suzy immediately honed in on Bob's voice and ran towards it, only to be stopped dead in her tracks as she collided with a tree.
<SMACK>
"Eurghhh...."
The other two had fared no better, with Ted also slamming into a tree and Bob tripping over a fallen log.
At that moment, the worst thing possible that could happen decided to happen.
The lizardmen felt their reasoning begin to vanish; underneath their blindfolds, their eyes turned bright red.
Bob frantically shouted while he went to remove his blindfold, only to find out his hands would not obey him.
“QUICK, TAKE YOUR BLINDFOLDS OFF, IT'S HUMANS!”
It was too late; the Dungeon Core had taken hold of their minds and reduced them to monsters, with the mental faculties of a beast.
One problem, though, had occurred: the lizardmen were not smart enough to take off their blindfolds, and they also did not know which way to charge.
Emerging from the portal were a fresh batch of Adventurers, as well as a seasoned guide provided by the Guild in charge of the area.
The man wore the attire of a Mage and was well into his twilight years, and as such, his vision was poor. To compensate for this, he wore a monocle over his left eye, which was connected to his clothing with a gold chain.
The Adventurers all stood in disbelief at the sight they were witnessing.
The Mage could not believe his lying eyes, even going as far as to repeatedly take off and put back on his monocle.
Three lizardmen appeared to be blindfolded and were running forward blindly in random directions.
Every few seconds, one of their number would either slam into a tree or fall over and then start the act all over again.
To witness such large monsters acting so comically resulted in cognitive dissonance among the Adventurers.
One of them sought clarification on whether this was a normal occurrence.
“Errr excuse me, Mr Guide, is this normal for a Level 1 Dungeon? Is it a way of making it easier for our first time?”
Without taking his eyes off the lizardmen, he replied to the question.
“No, no, not at all....I have never seen anything like this before....It would seem that some prankster has blindfolded the lizardmen and then made their escape....It's too dangerous for me to remove the blindfolds without killing them. I will vanquish them, and the Guild will reimburse you a small portion of your fee.....Hopefully it is just these three buffoons.”
Everyone heard his explanation and nodded with understanding. At that point, a thought occurred to a woman in the group.
“But old man, why would someone do it as a prank? That sounds a bit dangerous.”
Letting out a deep sigh, the Mage dropped his shoulders and replied.
“Tsch, old man......Back in my day, we did not have electrical games and such, so we made our own fun.....One of those was cow tipping, pushing a cow over without getting attacked....Now, with the advent of Dungeons and monsters, I would wager it is something similar....It does sound rather fun now that I think about it...If only these bones of mine were not so old.”
While listening to the Mage's lecture on the good old days, all of them had vivid memories of their grandfathers droning on about their youth.
The woman, though, had no such fond memories and spoke up again, her face contorted with anger.
“Old man, that's animal abuse ya know! What did that poor cow ever do to you!?”
Everyone else rolled their eyes after hearing her preaching; even the Mage was so taken aback that he stopped watching the lizardmen, so he could look directly at the moron in front of him.
“Animal abuse? Yet you have come into these creatures' natural habitat to slaughter them? You are okay eating meat from animals that were killed as well, I presume? What about those leather boots!?The youth of today really are hypocritical....Tsch.”
The woman's face had turned to one of shock; never had someone spoken back to her and put her in her place before. Attempting to save face, she spoke again.
“Actually, I'm vegan.”
A chuckle escaped from the Mage's mouth as he finished her off verbally.
“Ha Ha. So the little girl is a vegan. I am surprised you did not tell me immediately upon meeting you. Congratulations on the self-restraint...I am guessing you also do CrossFat as well?”
“Tsch, actually, old man, it's 'CrossFit' and no, I don't anymore. I do Hot Yoga instead!”
Before the conversation could become any more heated, the man who spoke at first pointed towards the lizardmen and spoke up.
“Excuse me, Mr Guide. That one's coming this way. What should we do?”
Wasting no time whatsoever, the Mage gripped his staff tightly and prepared for battle while instructing the rest of the party.
“All of you stand back; I shall handle this beast.”
Charging across the open grassland, the red lizardman had heard the humans' voices and was zeroing in on his prey, all the while his vision was completely obscured.
The Adventurers moved out of the way and left the fight to the Mage.
Standing in front of the Dungeon portal, the Mage repeatedly tapped his staff against the stone circle that formed the Magic portal.
The tapping noises caught the attention of the lizardman and drew him straight towards the Mage, pulling him slightly away from his original course.
Bob had picked up on the sound of the humans talking, and it drew his monster instincts towards them.
A tapping noise then caught his attention, making him charge towards the new noise with renewed vigour. With his vision obscured, Bob was solely relying on sound and smell; with those two senses, he knew a human was somewhere in front of him.
Bob blindly ran forward and slammed face-first into a solid object.
The Dungeon portal that acted as a two-way gate for humans to enter and exit the Dungeon completely barred the exit to the lizardmen whilst the Dungeon Core was intact.
This was a feature of Level 1 and Level 2 Dungeons, a fact that made them the best places for new Adventurers to train.
Electrical discharges raced across the surface of the portal, with many arcing outwards and scorching Bob's flesh. The pain from the electrocution, mixed with the impact, hardly registered with him, his mind completely subjugated by the Dungeon Core.
Bob bounced off the portal and unknowingly came face to face with the Mage.
The blindfold that covered Bob's eyes had been dislodged by the initial impact and now revealed to him the scene before his eyes.
Bringing a hand up towards the Mage, his instinctive action caught the Mage by surprise, as his claws made contact with his face.
The chain securing the monocle was severed, causing the circular lens to tumble to the ground. The Mage was enraged; with a swift movement, he bonked the lizardman on the head with his staff and cast his Magic.
“Explosion!”
<BOOM....SPLAT!>
Bob's head exploded.
Later that day, after the Dungeon Core had respawned the lizardman village's inhabitants, Bob was on his hands and knees, crawling along the ground, his attention focused below him.
Periodically, he would reach a hand to his head and massage it tenderly; the feeling from his last death still weighed heavily on his mind, as well as what he saw.
Standing beside him, Ted and Suzy were talking between themselves, each proposing increasingly preposterous ideas to alert the humans to their intelligence and subsequent friendliness.
A sudden shout went up from Bob that startled the other two conspirators.
“Ha! I found it!”
Bob was grinning as his eyes stared intently at the small glass lens, nestled between several blades of grass.
Extending his hand, he went to reclaim the monocle, but struggled to grasp it, his claws fumbling with the lens.
As the scratches on the lens increased, Bob did not let that dissuade him from retrieving his prize. With the monocle safely between two of his claws, he then saw a shadow come over him as Ted and Suzy peered over his shoulders.
It was Ted's voice that reached his ears first.
“Bob, is that the human's eye you told us about?”
“Indeed, indeed, Ted! With this eye, now the humans will have no excuse for not realising we are intelligent! We're even smart enough to wield a human's eye!”
Just as Bob was revelling in the words he spoke, an excited Suzy hugged him from behind and made the monocle attempt to escape from his claws.
A few seconds of comically grasping at thin air, and Bob had safely reclaimed his prize.
“Oh Bob, I'm sorry. Should I hold you from behind to make sure you don't drop it again?”
A silence lingered while Bob and Ted both repeated Suzy's words internally, desperately trying to picture what she meant and how it would be of any aid.
At the same moment, they both came to the accurate conclusion that it was just one of Suzy's terrible attempts at flirting.
Shrugging the lustful pink lizardman off his shoulders, Bob set off walking back towards the fallen logs, with Ted and Suzy following.
“Did both of you come up with good ideas to convince the humans?”
Both of the lizardmen started chuckling to one another as Ted answered his brother's question.
“Yes, Bob! If all our plans fail, then I don't even think you with your longer tail could convince them!”
Suzy nodded away whilst Ted was talking, only becoming active at the mention of Bob's tail. Her eyes were now firmly fixated on his tail, as it swayed back and forth with every footstep.
“Your brother is right, Bob. Even with your big, long, beautiful tail, not even you could convince them if our plans don't work!”
Choosing to ignore Suzy's ramblings, Bob halted and spun around to face his kin.
The sudden movement forced Ted to stop walking for fear of bumping into his brother, but Suzy decided to feign ignorance. Forcing herself to keep walking, she bumped into his chest and wrapped her arms around his body.
“Ohh, Bob, I didn't see you there. Why did you stop walking? Did you want to cuddle?”
Bob let out a deep sigh and then held the monocle aloft.
“Behold, Ted, Suzy, I will use the human's eye!”
Ignoring Suzy, who was pressed up against him, and his brother Ted, who was watching nervously, Bob began to follow through with his words.
Lowering the monocle downwards, he carefully went to insert it over his eye.
Not understanding exactly how the lens was to go in or be secured, Bob believed it to work akin to a contact lens. Just as he was about to wedge it under his eyelid, the unthinkable happened, and he started down the road to destruction.
“ACHOO!”
Suzy let out an almighty sneeze that took Bob by surprise and made the monocle slip between his claws.
The glass lens went sideways and stabbed directly into his eye. A spray of blood and a clear, viscous fluid shot out from the wound in his eye, the lens proudly sticking out and leaving his left eye utterly useless.
“ARGHHH FUCK MY EYE!....MY EYE......DAMN....FUCK....SHIT....MY EYE!”
Suzy's eyes went wide when she saw the sight. Jumping backwards in surprise, she threw up the bile in her stomach and continued to retch at the sight of Bob's damaged eye.
Ted attempted to calm his brother down, reaching out a hand to remove the lens, but he only succeeded in making it worse.
“Calm down, Bob, it's okay, I'll help!”
Just as Ted was about to grasp the monocle from Bob's eye, a sudden movement by the injured party made Ted's hand bang against the lens and drive it even deeper.
“ARGHHH, HOW IS THAT HELPING!?”
The gruesome comedy that was unfolding suddenly acquired new participants as the portal activated, and a group of humans entered the Dungeon.
The first person froze in place, causing the ones behind to bump up against him.
Now all of them were staring at the three approaching lizardmen.
Out of the three monsters, the smaller pink one had a green stain down its chest from some sort of liquid; the smell it was giving off had pricked the noses of the humans immediately.
Whereas the larger red one had made the humans all grimace in disgust at its horrifically injured eye.
Before the charging lizardmen could get close enough to attack, one of the Adventurers shot out from the back of their group.
With rapid movements that showed no signs of hesitation, the black-clad teenager decapitated all three monsters in a matter of seconds. Even so, he had killed the enemies and showed no fear; a single shout from a woman in their party made him nearly jump out of his skin.
“CURSE YOU, BOBBY!”
“Ah, oh, I'm sorry, Shelly. The red one looked weird, so I was worried it would hurt you.”
The four-person party had been split in two; the other members, a man and a woman, stepped to the side to let the enraged girl get through.
Shelly stood in front of the boy, the monster's blood pooling around her feet.
Dressed in similar black attire, her long golden hair shone proudly in the light. Placing her hands on her hips, Shelly bent over until she was at eye level with Bobby.
“I know you're trying to protect me, Bobby, but I'm your older sister; I'M SUPPOSED TO PROTECT YOU!.....You really think a measly lizardman with a wonky eye is a threat to me?.....Mum, Dad, tell him!”
Bobby, who had been looking sheepishly at the ground while he received his tongue-lashing, had now crouched down and was fiddling with one of the decapitated heads.
The siblings' parents, who were about to admonish their child, saw that he was not even listening and had actually found something of interest.
Appearing at Shelley's side, the woman stared intently at the lizardman's damaged eye, joining her son on the ground, whereas the man whispered in his daughter's ear.
“Go easy on your brother, Shell-Shell, you know he only did it because he loves you.”
Whilst Shelly was pulling her face in fake disgust at her dad's words, her mum rose back up to her feet holding the lizardman's head. Now the whole family was standing, examining it, with Shelly voicing what the others were thinking.
“What is it, Mum? Were the monsters fighting with each other before we came?”
Looking at her daughter while she pursed her lips, she suddenly stared at her son and spoke.
“Bobby, what's the answer? If you get it right, you don't have to do the laundry this week!”
A massive grin spread across Bobby's face, the answer about to roll off his tongue and save him from washing the monster blood off the family's clothes.
“Mum, the monsters don't fight with each other, so it had to be another Adventurer.”
“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct, little Bobby! So then, no one else should have been in here. We rented this Dungeon from the Sword Guild, so it should be immaculate, as per the contract....We will inform the guards when we get out.”
Listening to their mother's words, Bobby and Shelly nodded along, although Bobby was slightly unnerved about complaining to the Guild.
“Hmmm, Mum....Won't they be angry if we complain? It's not that big of a deal, is it?”
Bobby's dad gave him a reassuring pat on the back, while his mum went into full-blown explaining mode.
“Now then, little Bobby, for that statement you are doing the laundry for two weeks!.....You're only a little child, so you may not realise yet......”
“Mum, I'm 17!”
Bobby instantly regretted his words, as his mum stared at him with eyes that made his soul wither.
“Exactly, LITTLE Bobby, you're still my baby......Now, if we went to a restaurant and the table had dirty plates on it, would you complain?......It's rhetorical, because of course you BLOODY WOULD!”
Her statement was enough to end the entire conversation, with the family preparing to finish off the Dungeon as more lizardmen began to appear.