Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (best way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

Sarah, on the other hand, thought Seraphic Key was at most a loose group of hackers and maybe some netwalkers, taking advantage of the overactive imaginations of legions of forum heads, gamers, and starry-eyed wannabe cultivators. People, she reflected, a bit like her best buddy Todd Hammerfist.

“Well, I’m having a break,” Todd said, heaving himself off the worn sofa. “You want another drink?”

Sarah glanced at her mug. “Sure, why not. Bring me another bottle of that Black Wolf ale.”

Not wanting to turn back to her screen just yet, she watched Todd lumber across to the refrigerator. He was a big, ungainly figure, a halfblood troll Outworlder with a jutting square jaw, dark green skin, beady yellow eyes, and the shoulders of a giant. He was the healer in their small group—even though he looked as if he should have been the tank, he had a genius for regeneration magic. Sarah herself was the tank, though she was only half his size.

Nobody had a faster sword hand than Sarah Windvane, and she had crafted her own armor to match her skills as closely as possible. The armor was just within regulation limits, and though she knew how to make additions that would enhance it further, she was wary of getting shut down by the authorities. Sarah did not want any unwanted attention right now. She had the chance of a lifetime at her fingertips. Nothing could be allowed to spoil that.

“You know,” said Todd thoughtfully, as he came back over with her drink, “maybe we should take a break. Get out of this room for a bit. We could get Josh and go run the Kraken Wakes again?” He lifted Sarah’s bottle of ale and popped the top off using one of the stubby little horns that protruded from his shaven head. The metal cap clinked to the floor and rolled under the sofa.

“The Kraken? Come on, Todd, we’ve beaten that dungeon sim every way there is to beat it. Come to think of it, we’ve beaten every dungeon sim in the city every way we can. I’m fucking bored of sims, aren’t you? If we can just get something to go on out of this code…”

“What if there’s nothing in it? What if it’s BS? You said yourself…”

Sarah grabbed her beer from him and began to pace around the room, waving the bottle in the air as she spoke. “I said that the Seraphic Key was BS. This data leak is the real deal. You can see that as well as I can. I tell you, I’m not leaving this room until I find something about this Dungeon, or until we hear that someone else got there first.”

She heard Todd’s sharp intake of breath. They hadn’t actually said it out loud more than a few times. Even the idea of it seemed too good to be true. It was as if saying it might break the spell.

A Dungeon.

Not an arcade game, not a VR sim, not even one of those plug-in dreamscape dungeons that everyone was so wild about a couple of years back. No, a real Dungeon. For a team of dungeon divers like Sarah’s, it was the ultimate fantasy come true.

They had been trawling through the PentaTech data leak for three days, ever since Sarah had managed to get ahold of the raw data from a contact in one of the Drow elf bars downtown. It had cost her, but she trusted her contact. The internet was on fire with people trying to get ahold of the data, and with outlandish claims from people who pretended they had got it. But there were also a few, Sarah knew, who had genuine copies, and you could bet your last dime that every one of them would be working flat out to find if the leak contained any data about an awakened Dungeon on Earth.

The really tantalizing rumor was that there was a real Dungeon somewhere here in the USA, possibly more than one. PentaTech was the biggest provider of digital security systems in the world—a leak from one of their servers could contain all kinds of stuff, but as far as Sarah could tell this leak was explicitly targeted at releasing information about the Dungeon.

She grabbed her glass, finished what was left in it and then began to refill it from the fresh bottle. Todd walked to the window of the darkened apartment. He took a fat cigar from his pocket and lit it with a chunky vintage Zippo, then hauled the window open and leaned out.

Sarah sighed and walked over to lean on the window frame beside him and take in the view. It was night. The rumble of the churning metropolis drifted up to meet them on a warm current of air. Lights stretched away for miles toward a fringe of dark hills in the distance, painting the clouds with an orange glow. The apartment the adventurers shared was 28 stories up, and the view was pretty much the only good thing about the place.

Todd was drinking Scotch from a pyrex imitation of an old-fashioned cut-crystal glass. Over the past 30 years or so, Scotch whisky makers had worked out how to utilize magically enhanced barrels to make some of the finest spirits that had ever existed. The golden liquid in Todd’s glass was not one of those. On his current income, Todd preferred to keep his costs as low as possible.

Todd’s cigar was as cheap as his whisky, and Sarah wrinkled her nose as he puffed out a thick, rank cloud of smoke. At least he had the courtesy to open the window.

“If we did find a real Dungeon,” Sarah said quietly, “you could afford better cigars.”

Todd huffed with laughter and waved his glass. “And better drink, too. And a better apartment. I wonder if Josh is doing any better? Maybe I should go find