Dungeon Goddess Prologue and Chapter One

 This is a new one from me, folks. It will be published in April, I believe, and I'll be looking for ARC readers as usual.

Note: it is not related to Cherry Blossom Girls, but Gideon will be discussing it some in the final Cherry Blossom Girls book.

It's a bit risky (and risque ha!) to launch a pen name, but I wanted a brand solely dedicated to my men's adventure/pulp/harem stuff because Harmon Cooper books are moving away from that. So if you enjoy those works, like Cherry Blossom Girls, House of Dolls, We Could Be Heroes, please check this out when it is live, review it as soon as you can, or better yet, join the Advanced Review Copy team by commenting below. I'll send out copies about a week before release...

Prologue: Shadow Dragon

It had been three days since Jake Goodman had been able to rest peacefully, five if he counted the weekend.

Jake was nearly on the verge of breaking down and doing something drastic when sleep hit him so harder than it ever had before.

Finally.

A chance to rest.

He was out cold, dead to the world, and within moments Jake found himself standing at the entrance of a cave, a sword in his left hand and a leather whip in his right.

He had been here before.

The last time he’d visited this world, Jake had explored the cave until he ran into a beautiful woman with the body of a spider, Jake quickly discovering that along with a crippling case of insomnia, he also suffered from arachnophobia.

Hoping to avoid the spider woman this time, at least until he got a better understanding of where he was and what he was capable of doing here, Jake turned away from the entrance of the cave, noticing that a mountain pass curved off to the left, the pathway large enough for a half-crumpled statue of a goddess to be erected on it, one of her breasts still intact, moss growing out of the space where her pubic hairs should be.

Upon further examination of the pass, Jake discovered steps carved into stone.

Perhaps this wasn’t just the random dream location, perhaps there was something else was here.

Jake took the steps as he glanced out over the side of the cliff, the valley shrouded in darkness. 

It was night, the moon a red orb in the distance. There was an occasional bolt of purple lightning in the sky, the scent of soil in the air as if it had recently rained.

By the time he got to the top of the stone steps, Jake was past the point of wondering if this was some sort of lucid dream. 

He was past the point of trying to understand how such a vivid hallucination played into his abnormal sleeping conditions, and he was past the point of caring for that matter that he didn’t exist in this dream world, that this was all a figment of his imagination, perhaps stemming from the extra spicy Kung Pao Chicken he had in Chinatown for dinner and currently broiling in his gut.

Perhaps...

Jake’s eyes fell upon an abandoned fortress carved into the rockface, its turrets still intact, a strange flame glowing in its center and providing a silvery light to the setting.

Movement caught Jake’s attention.

An enormous shadow swelled out of one of the turrets, forming into the body of a colossal dragon, its teeth made of sharpened metal, a set of seven eyes moving up its snout.

Jake barely managed to get his sword up in time.

The shadow dragon gnashed its teeth as it tried to sweep Jake off his feet with a clawed hand, Jake cutting it away, suddenly taking to the air, moving in a way he’d never moved before.

It all came naturally now, Jake flipping backward to avoid another swipe, sending his whip forward and cracking it against the dragon’s face as it spit a silver ball of fire at him, the beast hissing, flames trickling out of its terrible maw.

He swerved right, avoiding another burst of flames as he swatted one of dragon’s claws away with his sword.

Narrowly missing another fireball, Jake dropped to the ground and leaped back into the air, taking complete control over gravity this time.

And while he was suddenly all-powerful, Jake able to fight in a way that he had never fought before, he was also too preoccupied with the shadow dragon’s claws and razor-sharp teeth to notice it also had a barbed tail.

Jake was instantly swept off his feet, the tail hurtling him into one of the turrets, huge bricks of stone falling onto him as everything settled, dust billowing into the air, accented by the silver light that continued to glow within the abandoned fortress.

The tail lifted him again and yanked Jake out of the turret, driving him straight into the stony ground.

The dragon landed before Jake and held him with its claws as it tore slivers of flesh from his back.

And that should have ended the dream.

Jake should have woken up at this point, his heart a drunken snare drum in his chest, beads of sweat drenching his sheets, that first sweet gasp of air immediately calming him, letting them know that it was a nightmare.

That’s all it was. It wasn’t real.

But Jake was forced to suffer.

He was forced to feel his body torn apart limb from limb, everything but his neck and skull.

And at the end of all of it, after his body had been devoured, Jake was nothing more than a severed head resting against a rock.

He noticed the shadow start to shrink. 

As it did, Jake caught the glimpse of a nude woman with long dark hair, nacreous eyes and wide hips, a faint pink energy glowing about her.

She morphed into the shadow dragon again, and finished him off.

Chapter One: Sleeping Ugly

Jake Goodman was running late for work.

His phone’s alarm sounding off, he rolled out of bed and nearly got caught in his sheets as his bare feet met the cold wooden floor, Jake momentarily forgetting about the intense dream he had just lived through.

The scent of deep fried chicken met his nostrils as he turned off his phone alarm, the device strategically placed on his dresser to force himself to get up.

The chefs in the Chinese restaurant below his shoebox-sized apartment were going full throttle with their woks, making him regret the leftovers he’d eaten last night.

No time for coffee or to grab a snack, Jake slipped into a pair of jeans and a loose fitting Guggenheim T-shirt that he’d had for a year now. He stepped into the bathroom to run some water on his face and his beard.

Once he was done brushing his teeth, he laced up a pair of work boots, stuffed his phone and his keys in his pocket.

Jake reached the front door and returned to his nightstand grab his wallet, jamming it down to his back pocket.

Upon taking one more look at his ultra efficiency apartment in New York’s Chinatown, Jake noticed he still had a box of takeout sitting near his bed. 

Not wanting to attract rodents, he took the takeout box with him, disposing it in the public trash can outside his building.

It was night, and Jake needed to get to the museum.

He hardly paid attention to his surroundings as he rushed to the Canal Street Station, where he hopped on the 6 Train heading toward the Upper East Side.

Lucky enough to find a seat on the train, Jake plopped down, finally able to catch his breath.

The train picked up speed, and he took his phone out to check his sleep stats.

Forced to be a penny pincher due to the cost of living in New York City, Jake had sprung for one of the cheaper knock-off sleep tracking devices. 

Pressing the button to open the app, Jake quickly noticed that he’d actually gotten a pretty good amount of sleep in the four hours and thirty-five minutes he’d been out, which was probably why he actually felt well-rested.

The blueish purple bar indicated his solid chunk of sleep, its beginning punctuated with turquoise chunks that were listed as ‘restless’ and red chunks listed as the dreaded ‘awake.’

Awake.

Jake had been awake for so long over the last five days that they had blurred together.

He blamed it on a new art installation piece being installed at the Guggenheim Museum, Jake working the overnight shift.

The installation piece was known as Dungeon Goddess, and the woman who had conceived it had all sorts of insane instructions for the museum preparators. 

But Jake was used to that sort of thing by now. 

He had been moving works of art, helping with the larger installations, and carefully taking down the pieces whenever it was time for them to go for several years now.

Hailing from Austin, Texas, it was the first job that Jake had obtained when he moved to New York.

It sort of fit him in a way. 

The job as a museum preparator allowed him to be physically active, some of the pieces requiring some pretty strenuous lifting and climbing, as well as other athletic feats that reminded him of some of the MMA training and fitness regimen stuff that he had been into back in Texas. 

He didn’t really have time for training now, especially as he picked up a part-time preparator work around the city, but he hadn’t lost much of his muscle mass, Jake still pretty chiseled.

An Asian woman with a cup of coffee in her hand and sat down next to Jake, sipping from her coffee as she typed on her phone with one hand.

The train started up again and stopped suddenly, the paper coffee cup leaving the woman’s hand and cracking against Jake’s knee.

Most of the hot coffee landed on the floor, but some of it splashed onto his leg, Jake wincing at the pain.

“Oh my God,” she said, dropping her phone too as the train picked up again. “I’m so sorry!”

The woman reached towards Jake’s leg like she was going to pat it with her hand, realized he was a stranger, and stopped herself just-in-time, offering him a toothy grin.

She had an accident, English clearly the second or third language she spoke. As Jake took her in, he noticed that she was wearing a pair of black contacts that made her eyes look larger.

“Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Jake shook his head. “Sorry, yeah, I’m fine. I just spaced out there for a moment.”

The woman started to laugh. “Even after someone spilled hot coffee on you?”

Jake looked down at the brown liquid, noticing how it had already start to spread toward the exit door.

“It wasn’t too much.” 

“I’m sorry. Please don’t sue me.”

Now it was Jake’s turn to laugh. “It happens. Most of it landed on my boot anyway,” he said with a shrug, nodding toward his thick pair of leather Timberlands.

The train came to a stop and the woman stood. “This is it for me.” 

“Just one stop?” he asked her with a smile.

“Sorry about the coffee. I’ll tell someone out there.”

“Yeah, tell someone,” Jake said as he watched the Asian woman leave. 

She was shapely, wearing a pair of yoga tights and a shirt that showed her midriff, a jacket that barely reached the bottom of her buttocks.

“Should have gotten her number,” Jake said under his breath as the door slid shut.

“No, you should have tried to sue her,” a man sitting across from him said in a thick New Jersey accent, cracking up. “Easiest way to get her number.”

Jake hadn’t noticed a man before, the guy in a suit that looked like it had been worn all day, the collar loose, his tie hanging from his neck, bags under his eyes.

“Next time.”

The man snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Jake came to his stop, and as he exited the train, he admired some of the old-school tile work on the walls of the crowded subway station.

He grabbed a hotdog outside the station, regretting his purchase as he paid for it, knowing that it usually gave him stomach troubles later on. 

To compensate for this, Jake dipped into a bodega and picked up a protein bar and a kombucha, figuring that the probiotics would help fight against any stomach issues caused by the hot dog.

He made it to the back entrance of the Guggenheim and scanned himself in, walking past a series of pallets, the room dimly lit.

As he did so, Jake noticed something move in the shadows of the room.

He paused, suddenly recalling his dream from the previous night, the shadow dragon and the beautiful woman that he could have sworn he’d seen at the end of the dream.

He shook his head. 

It seemed so real at the time, unlike any dream he’d had before.

“My dude,” a voice came from his right, startling Jake.

He turned to see Gerome also in his Guggenheim shirt, the man’s thick dreads tied up into a topknot. His coworker wore a pair of clear work glasses that were strapped to the back of his head, Gerome giving Jake a funny look once he saw that he was holding a kombucha.

“When did you start drinking that shit?” he asked.

“Had a hot dog. Figured it would help,” Jake told him.

“What would help would be not having that hot dog.” Gerome came forward and clapped hands with Jake. “Anyway, dude, we got to get working on this. It’s getting crazier.”

“It is?”

“This shit is going to be giving me nightmares.”

Gerome led Jake through a back door that opened onto one of the levels of the Guggenheim.

Jake barely paid attention to the museum’s spiral architecture anymore, accustomed to it by now. 

When he first started working here, he always took a moment to take in the views, most of the museum visible from each level, the art taking on different forms if he looked at it from a level up, or a level down as it moved along a cathedral-like space. 

There were a couple other wings too, ones that generally contain rotating pieces and another that had a bunch of postmodern works. 

But Jake rarely went into those.

He sipped from his beverage as they took the spiral to the next level up, coming to the start of the Dungeon Goddess installation.

It wasn’t the first time Jake had seen an artist trying to do this, make two dimensional artwork in three-dimensions hoping to provoke some type of conversation.

“Just take a look at this,” Gerome said, handing him a piece of paper. 

“Man,” Jake mumbled, noticing how the portrait was supposed to spread onto the floor, intricate directions as to how it was to be arranged laid out on the paper step-by-step. “This thing has to be twenty pages long.”

“More like forty.”

Jake mumbled as he sifted through more of the directions. 

At first it didn’t make any sense, like most of the stuff that Jake helped set up, especially the installation pieces. But after flipping through to the finished concept, he noticed that when viewed from certain angles, it almost looked like…

“Damn, that’s sick,” he said, laughing to himself.

“I know, right? I mean, it’s crazy. But, all this shit we set up is crazy. But this is like something else, man. I mean, look at this.”

“We’re supposed to set all this up tonight?” 

“Yup, and a different one tomorrow night. They’re given this lady the next two floors. I’ve never seen the museum do anything like this. I mean, some of these are permanent pieces. They had us box them up, if you remember.”

“I remember,” Jake said, looking from the directions in his hand to the current state of the installation.

“We just got to follow the directions perfectly,” Gerome said. “Shit is like Ikea or something.”

“Have you ever actually tried to put something together from IKEA?”

“Too many times,” Gerome said with a nod. “My ex always had me putting things together.”

“How’s that?”

“Man, she worked at IKEA. She was always using her employee discount to buy stuff for friends, and her family members. And who’s the guy to set it up? Me. Motherfucking Gerome. The things we do to get some ass, am I right?”

“You aren’t wrong,” Jake said as he turned back to the first page of the instructions. “Let’s do this.”

Over the next three hours, Jake and Gerome carefully connected the strings to the nails on the floor, and set up the walls around the piece that allowed for the lighting to play with the shadows.

It was starting to look more like the diagram, Jake still not able to believe how it would turn out in the end.

What bothered him more was how much it was starting to match the vision from his dream.

“You said you were having nightmares, right?” he asked Gerome, just as they were planning to take a lunch break.

“Nah, not yet. I just said these pieces were going to give me nightmares. You?”

“I don’t really sleep well,” Jake said, not mentioning the strange dream he’d had earlier.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Gerome said, his voice lowering. “You should do a sleep study or something. Easy money, man. I think you can go to Yale to take one, and like stay there for a week or something. I had a buddy that did that. Said New Haven was all right, good pizza, bunch of Yalies you could get lucky with.”

“You think?”

Gerome shrugged. “Why the hell not?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to eat something real quick and try to doze off for a minute or three. Do you mind?”

“Have at it, sleeping ugly. I’ll come get you when it’s time to wake up,” Gerome said. “I got to make some calls anyway.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

Jake went to the warehouse attached to the back of the Guggenheim Museum, where they kept some of the lesser valuable works of art. 

It was dark, the rows lit by ground lighting and an occasional light triggered by motion. 

He made his way to the far end of the warehouse, where he came to a stack of flattened boxes.

Jake found the pillow he had left on the shelf above him, the pillowcase smelling like whatever Gerome used to clean his dreads.

Jake was fine with that. 

He’d been working with Gerome for a while now, and if they needed a nap, they had a pillow. Every now and then, one of them would put a clean pillowcase on it. 

What was important was that they had a place to crash out if they needed it. 

Jake used the secret nap spot if he was feeling like he could get some rest; Gerome used it if he’d accidentally gone too hard at happy hour, and needed a place to doze off before he worked the overnight shift.

Their system worked. Gerome was a good friend, and it pained Jake to think that he had been keeping a secret from the man for some time now, something Gerome could never know.

“Just a quick nap,” Jake said, yawning, secretly hoping that he’d appear at the entrance to the cave again.

This time, he had a plan.

{*_*}

Try as he might, Jake couldn’t fall asleep in the darkened warehouse.

He started with counting his breaths, imagining sheep jumping over a fence. 

A few of the sheep morphed in the nude women with big milky udders, Jake shaking his head, again smelling whatever product Gerome put in his dreads on the pillowcase. He thought he heard something in the far corner of the warehouse, perhaps a rat. 

Or a ghost.

There was a rumor that a museum preparator like him had committed suicide in the space a couple decades ago. 

No one at the Guggenheim was able to verify this information, but it was something some of the ‘art grunts,’ as they lovingly refer to themselves, liked to elaborate on.

“Come on…” Jake whispered, feeling like there is a clock bearing down on him, each second ticking away, marking him.

He knew he had about thirty minutes, give or take ten minutes or so. 

Gerome wouldn’t bust his balls or anything if he came back late, but they did need to get the piece up by midmorning.

Jake focused on his breathing, trying to count each inhalation and exhalation, hoping to keep the number at about five before switching.

He forgot about doing this as he remembered the Asian woman on the train. 

He really should have gotten her number...

“Focus,” Jake whispered to himself, feeling stupid for trying to talk himself into taking a quick nap just so he could once again take on the shadow dragon.

But this was what he had to deal with.

And to get to that world, whatever that world may be, required him to exit this one.

So Jake tried something else.

He began visualizing the entrance of the cave, his plan of attack formulating at the back of his head.

He knew there was a woman with the body of a spider in the cave, something he could handle later, once he’d dealt with the dragon.

He couldn’t recall what the spider woman looked like, but he did remember that she was naked.

Because of course she was.

Or was she?

As Jake tried to recall how the woman had looked, he found himself yawning, the vision in his mind’s eye starting to blur.

He did it.

Jake was suddenly standing in front of the cave now, a sword in one hand and a whip the other.

He tossed the sword and the whip over the side of the cliff, hearing the sword clink against the rock.

Jake looked at his two fists, strangely confident that he would be able to tame the shadow dragon with his bare hands.

This confidence came from his MMA background and the fact that he’d never actually wielded a sword or a whip outside of a video game, and while he understood the physics of it, and it made sense in this world, he wanted to give his bare fists to try. 

Maybe next time he could conjure up something else.

Speaking of which… 

Jake wondered if he could actually conjure something in his current state.

To keep things simple, he imagined a baseball bat, its length, what it would feel like in his hand, its grip covered in tape, darkened from grime and sweat. He then imagined wrapping some barbed wire around the end of the back, turning things up a notch extreme wrestling style.

But this didn’t work.

Try as he might, even straining a bit, Jake was unable to create a weapon out of thin air.

But he still had his fists.

Turning to his left, he took the stone steps of the mountain pass, ignoring the rolling thunder and purple lightning in the distance. 

Wherever this world was, he could explore later. 

Jake reached the abandoned fortress that had been carved into the stone, noticing the faint silver glow inside.

It wasn’t long before shadows swelled toward him, the tendrils twisting together as they formed the terrible dragon with razor-sharp metal teeth and seven eyes moving up its snout.

Jake sprung into the air, his power sending him forward.

He cracked the dragon in the snout with a straight punch, the beast thrown backward into the wall of the fortress, some of the bricks crumbling, hitting the dragon and kicking up dust in the air.

The dragon sent its tail forward, Jake able to jump just in time to avoid. 

Roaring, silver fire spraying out if its mouth, the dragon lashed its tail at Jake again.

This time, Jake latched onto the tail, yanking the dragon toward him.

The maneuver worked, Jake able to pull the dragon out of the cloud of debris.

He scampered up the dragon’s body, avoiding a sudden burst of silvery flames. 

Jake used the momentum to spin himself around, so that he now was on the dragon’s side, where he was able to deliver a few jabs to its neck, the great beast making a choking sound.

The creature managed to swipe him away with his tail.

Jake was tossed toward the edge of the cliff, not able to stop himself from going over the side.

He reached for the ledge at the last moment, holding strong, his legs dangling, nerves tingling as he got a hold of himself.

“You’ve got this,” he said, conjuring the strength to flip himself up, where he landed on his feet.

Jake charged toward the dragon again, taking to the airwaves with a couple of steps, his right fist connecting with one of the dragon’s seven eyes.

He went backward with the beast, Jake able to land on his knees, the dragon gnashing his teeth at him, a silver ball of fire forming at the back of its throat.

Even though he knew it was risky, Jake reached his hands forward and grabbed the dragon’s open maw, its metal teeth tearing through his palms, the creature’s claws landing on his back.

Jake pulled the dragon’s jaw open, using his foot as leverage, finally able to snap it backward.

The dragon let out a final guttural sigh as it went limp.

“I did it…” Jake said to himself as he tried to stand, the pain from his wounds spread down his body. “I did it!”

He looked down at his hands to see they were completely crimson, dripping blood onto the ground.

Jake winced, noticing the scratch marks on his back, trying to ignore the pulsing pain.

He dropped to one knee, and looked to the creature, wondering what happened next.

Where was the woman that he’d seen last time?

Maybe it really was a dream…

Jake had to laugh at this last thought.

Of course this was a dream. None of this was real.

And as if thinking that was akin to whispering a magic incantation, the shadowy form of the dragon began to shrivel.

Jake forgot about his wounds as the dragon’s face morphed into the face of a beautiful woman with dark hair and pale skin, the woman topless and wearing armored panties, and leggings that went up to her knees.

“Armored panties?” Jake whispered, looking from the woman’s waist back to her face.

“You…” she said, her throating quivering. 

Jake kneeled before the woman, helping her sit up, his bloody hands leaving red streaks wherever they touched.

“You saved me…” she finally managed to say as she licked her lips, a pink energy radiating off her body.

“Who are you?”

But Jake would never hear the answer to his question.

Shadows swelled around him, latched onto his legs, and flung him backward, off the side of the cliff.

And to make sure that he wouldn’t simply fly back to the top, a shadowy spike tore through his back and out the front of his body, driving him into a ledge below, the hard rock giving way.

Jake tumbled down the mountain as the shadows wrapped him like a burrito, killing him instantly before he could reach the bottom.

He awoke with a gasp, back in the warehouse at the Guggenheim Museum, a bright light shining on him and momentarily blinding Jake.

{*_*}

“Damn, dude,” Gerome said, the dreadlocked man beaming a flashlight on Jake’s face. “You look like shit.”

“I’ve got to get back to sleep...” Jake mumbled.

“I hear you, man, but we still have to put up this Dungeon Goddess piece up. You know they will bust our ass if we don’t get this up before the museum opens.”

“I know,” Jake said as he took Gerome’s hand, his coworker helping him to his feet. “It’s stupid, too. It’s not like the exhibit is open yet.”

“There’s still like what? Another week or something? Longer?”

“Something like that,” Jake said as he followed Gerome out of the darkened warehouse. Every now and then he would look into the shadows, expecting something to move toward him, ready to engage if it did.

You’ve got to get a hold of yourself, Jake thought. 

He blinked several times, lightly tapping himself on the cheek.

“You doing all right back there?” Gerome asked over his shoulder.

“I just haven’t been sleeping well, and then…”

“Nightmares?”

“Something like that.”

“You know what you should try? Acupuncture. I know this dude on the Lower East Side. His place is pretty legit. It’s not too expensive either. I mean, it should be, but I think each is practicing out of his uncle’s rent-controlled apartment. Something like that. Anyway. I will hook you up with his information.”

“Right, that sounds like that could be nice.”

“It’ll be more than nice. Hopefully, you’ll get some sleep. If not, just trust your old homey Gerome to think of something. I’ll see about that study at Yale too. There are definitely some hunnies up there that need a muscled dude like you rather than a pudgy professor-type, if you get my drift.”

Jake laughed as they reached the main floors of the Guggenheim, the seven-story spiral letting in light from the top, which told Jake that the moon was out.

The smell of coffee reached his nose, Jake looking to see two fresh-cut sitting vicariously on a banister.

He took a sip of the coffee, nodding at its taste.

“I’ve got skills, right?” Gerome asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said, his focus returning to the art installation piece.

Jake didn’t know what an installation piece was until he moved to New York and got this job.

An installation piece was an unconventional piece of art, like a bust of a woman that the artist had carved using nibbles from their own teeth, or something that could take up an entire gallery space, such as a piece that Jake had done work for at the MOMA which involved filling a room with dirt.

There was always something “new” and “provocative.”

And while some of the pieces were easy and predictable to the point that Jake couldn’t understand how people made money doing this; others, like the one the Dungeon Goddess installation, were incredibly unique, otherworldly even.

The piece Jake and Gerome were currently working on started off as a large portrait of a woman with a sword sheathed at her side.

From there, strips of the canvas extended toward the ground, attached via nails to strings, the entire piece outlined by a doorway-like frame that was lit in a way that cast light across the strings.

The interesting part was what the shadows formed.

The light pressing through the strings formed a silhouette of a woman with her sword drawn.

Looking straight at the painting, one was almost presented with a barcoded version of the woman on the portrait, but observing it from the sides allowed for the shadows to play out, the framework built around the piece making the shadow work visible even during the day.

Occasionally sipping from their coffees, and only taking a break once, Jake and Gerome finished setting up the piece about an hour before the museum opened. 

There were still technically on the clock, so the two busied themselves in the warehouse, mostly just hanging out and occasionally chatting with the daytime museum staff, who were just showing up for their shifts, all art nerds in some shape or form.

It wasn’t about an hour later that Jake was back in his closet sized home above the Chinese restaurant in the Bowery, practically diving onto his bed and hoping that this was the chance he would get to finally figure out this dream.

If only he could fall asleep.

{*_*}

Jake didn’t know how long he stared at the ceiling of his cramped bedroom, his stomach grumbling once the smell of Chinese food reached his nostrils. 

He ignored the fact that he was hungry, that it was nearly noon and he was trying to get a full night’s rest even though that rarely happened for him. 

He now wore a black sleep mask, earplugs in, his room cold due to the radiator pipes not working so well.

Jake was fine with this. 

Even though he was born and raised in central Texas, he actually enjoyed the cold, as long as he had more blankets to pile on top.

Jake didn’t know how long he lay there waiting to fall asleep, but something did start to happen.

The blackness of the inside of his sleep mask started to crumble, his vision washing away.

He found himself lying with his head on a thick root, his whole body in pain. 

He looked up to see the canopy of a tree, and from there more trees, a solid slab of rock behind it that was painted by the faint orange glow of a setting sun.

“You’re awake!” a woman said, scurrying over to him. 

“What?” he asked, startled.

“You need to rest,” she said, the woman with a marmalade sweet voice with a bit of hardness to it, as if she’d been through a lot.

She wore a hood over her head, and from the small piece of her face that he could see, Jake noticed her skin was covered in blackened smudge marks. He started to move and she placed her hands on his chest, pressing him back down. 

“Hey…”

“Relax,” she purred.

Jake tried to take in her features again, but she was now in front of the source of light, her hood covering her face with a dark swath of shadow. Her cloak stretched all the way down to her knees, her feet encased in thick leather boots with fur sticking out the tops.

As his vision finally came into focus, Jake noticed that the exposed part of her body had been covered in grime and mud, which also made it a little difficult to see her considering there wasn’t much light in the forest.

“You fell from Lissam Mountain,” she told him, bringing a small stone bowl of liquid to his lips. “Please, drink.”

“I’m alive?”

“I don’t know how you survived.” The woman extended her hand behind his head and helped him drink. “What were you doing up there on the mountain?”

“I don’t even know where I am,” he admitted.

“The Orange Vale,” she told him in a tone that barely hid her disbelief that he didn’t recognize this place. “But surely you knew that.”

“I’m sorry,” he finally said as she brought another bowl of liquid to his lips.

It tasted like water, meaning it really had no flavor but it was satiating it away, just a hint of lemon to it. With the second bowl, Jake noticed something start to stir in his stomach, a warmth spreading down his arms.

“You need time to heal before you go up there again.”

“Why am I down here?” Jake asked. “Last time I died, I reappeared up there.”

“Last time you died?” she laughed quietly. “Who talks like that? You are alive, and you’re lucky to be alive. It’s not going to be easy to get back to the top of the mountain.”

“But how did I get there in the first place?”

“I really don’t know,” she said, now running her hand through his blonde hair. “You’re so clean.”

“I am?” Jake asked.

“I was going to take you to the hot springs, as long as there’s still daylight. But I guess we don’t need to go there now.”

“No,” Jake said, trying to set up again. 

The woman pushed him back down. “You need to rest.”

“I could always rest after we go to the hot springs. That sounds wonderful.”

She laughed again, just a little louder this time. “Most people don’t volunteer to go to the hot springs, even though they should; most people are forced to go there once they become too dirty.”

“Are there more people here?” Jake asked.

“In the Orange Vale? Yes, there are a few scattered tribes, hamlets, and a larger village known as Marjask. But I’m from Marjask, but I’m not affiliated with anyone there...” 

“Why not?”

She paused, steeling herself. “I guess you could say I’m a bit of an outcast.”

“You seem kind enough to me.”

“My family wanted me to be a dungeon maiden, and I was never interested in it and I didn’t have the skills. So here I am,” she said, looking up at the foliage above them.

“That’s it?”

“What’s it?”

“That’s your back story? Your family never wanted you to be a dungeon maiden, as you called it, and here you are. There’s nothing else?”

She peered down at him, her face still covered in shadows. “It’s a common story. But now all the dungeon maidens have been possessed. Speaking of which, why did you jump off the mountain? You weren’t already dead, even though you said you were. So were you trying to die?”

“I was fighting something,” Jake admitted to her. “It was a shadowy dragon, if that makes sense, who could also turn into a woman.”

“Then you know exactly what I’m talking about!” she said, the woman flashing her sparkling white teeth. “That’s most definitely one of the dungeon maidens that has been possessed.”

“It would make sense that she was possessed…” Jake remembered the woman speaking to him before morphing back into the shadow dragon. “You said there are others?”

The woman nodded, her face still partially concealed by her hood. 

“There are many.”

“About that hot springs...” Jake said. “ The water would feel nice right now, to be honest with you. I did, after all, just fall off the mountain. And I’ve got a lot of questions for you. I guess that doesn’t necessitate going to a hot springs, but I’m game.”

“Game, huh?” 

“Yeah, game.”

The woman stood and turned to the north, sniffing the air. “I believe we have enough time to get there before nightfall. We will have to hide in a cave or something at that point. That’s when they come out.”

“They?” Jake asked as he too got to his feet.

“Yes, they.”

{*_*}

The hooded woman led Jake deeper into the forest, occasionally slowing down and grabbing his hand to make sure he didn’t get lost.

There were points where the light was able to make it through the leaves, illuminating the path. 

There also points in which it was too dark for him to see, Jake having to rely solely on the woman. 

They didn’t speak while they moved through the foliage, the hooded woman clearly a bit tense until the space started opened up, the ground changing from fallen leaves, puddles, and thick roots to a soft gravel and an occasional large rock.

There were still trees in this area, but they were laid out more sparingly than the forest, Jake able to fully see the setting sun.

“Here we are,” she said, stopping in front of a bubbling hot spring, a hint of vanilla in the air.

“That looks great,” Jake said.

“Well?” 

“Well, what?” 

“Undress. Jump in.”

“Right here?”

Jake looked around, used to being in the city and always having to pay attention to his surroundings.

“Where else would you undress?” she asked with a giggle.

“All right,” he said, and for the first time Jake looked down to see what type of clothing he was wearing. 

He soon discovered that he was in a knee-length linen shirt without a collar and a pair of trousers and boots not unlike the ones he wore in the real world.

He removed the shirt, the woman watching him intently as he began undoing his pants.

“Aren’t you going to take your shoes off first?”

“Right,” he said, quickly bending and unlacing his boots.

Once he was out of his boots, he pulled his pants down, and then, after taking another glance at the woman, not quite being able to read her expression, he took off his boxers as well.

She didn’t say anything as he made his way to the shoreline, Jake testing it first to make sure it wasn’t too hot before fully moving into the hot spring. 

The setting sun painted pink arcs across a body of water truncated with ripples, Jake naturally glancing back up to the hooded woman.

“Privacy, please,” she said playfully as she placed her hand on the back of her hood.

“You know, it’s kind of not fair that you made me undress in front of you,” he started to say.

“I had to make sure you weren’t to demon,” she said in her sweet voice.

“And seeing me naked would tell you that?”

“Sure. Demons don’t have cocks.”

Jake snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Have you ever seen a demon with a cock?”

Jake considered this for a moment. “I guess… I guess you got me there. How do I know you’re not a demon?”

“That’s a fair point,” she said. “Especially since I don’t have a cock. I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“Fine,” he said, keeping his back to her.

Jake was just about to dip his head under the water when she spoke to him again. “You can look now.”

Jake turned and she jumped into the water, Jake only getting a flash of her nude body as she did so, noting that she definitely didn’t have a penis.

She came up in a matter of seconds, her skin glistening, suddenly clean. 

The woman had blonde hair, which was pulled into two tight buns, blue eyes, and as he took her in, she began to stand, removing her hair ties.

The water was about three feet deep, which meant Jake could see her breasts now, the woman hardly paying attention to the number of times Jake looked from her face to her chest.

He noticed that she had small nipples and dark pink areolas, her nipples just slightly angled toward each other, that she was thin, her ribs slightly visible. 

Once she was done letting her hair out, the woman smiled at him.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” he asked.

“Are you satisfied I’m not a demon?”

Jake placed his hand over his beard, rubbing it for a second. “I’m satisfied, that’s for sure,” he finally said.

“How is the water?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, it’s great,” he said she moved a little closer to him. “I really needed this, ahem, especially after my fall.”

Of course, Jake didn’t remember his fall, but as far as he could tell, that’s what had happened, so he was going to go with it.

“You poor thing,” she said, reaching for his hand underwater and grazing her fingers against his arm.

The woman led him a bit deeper into the springs, the water now up to their shoulders, the setting sun reflecting off her slick shoulders.

“I never got your name,” Jake told her, enjoying the scene and her beauty.

“Catriona Gezuriya. Yours?”

“Jake Goodman.”

She pondered his name for a moment. “It’s short, I’ll give you that. I’ve never heard a name like that before. And your last name claims that you are a ‘good man,’ which is odd. Where are you from again, Jake Good-Man?”

“You see, that’s the thing…” 

He considered trying to explain to her that this was a dream, or that at least he assumed it was a dream. But he stopped himself, not wanting to get into the details of that just yet. 

Not yet, anyway.

“You don’t know?” Catriona asked.

“No, it’s not that. I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“Well, you must be brave to try to climb Lisim Mountain and tame a dungeon maiden.”

“That’s not the only thing up there,” Jake thought, thinking of the woman with the body of a spider. “There are a lot of nasty things in the caves.”

“I’ll bet. You know, to be honest, I always kind of wanted to go up there and see what the rest of the Vale looked like from so high up,” she said, her nose starting to turn a little red, her eyes a bit watery now.

“From what I could see, it was mostly thunder clouds and purple lightning. At least when I was up there.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that,” Catriona said, her voice a little louder than it had been just moments ago. 

She placed her hand over her mouth. 

“Is everything okay?”

“I just get loud sometimes when I’m excited,” she said, a little embarrassed now.

“And I excite you?”

Catriona laughed. “Yes. It’s exciting to find someone so brave, someone who has made it to the top of Lisim Mountain and lived to tell the tale. If things were more normal around here, there would be songs and poems written about you. I can hear them now: the man who made it to the peaks had a soul so brave, he looked up to the next mountain and vowed to climb it the next day. Or something like that. I’m sorry, I’m talking too much. Sometimes I like to sing randomly too.” 

“No, you’re fine.”

“To be honest with you, I don’t really talk to many people out here. In fact…” She considered this for a moment. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a conversation with an actual human.”

“I have no idea.”

“Neither do I,” Catriona said, her hands gliding through the water. “I can communicate with other things, but there really aren’t many humans and this part of the woods, not so close to the mountains. That’s probably why I’m so chatty.”

“Well, it’s nice to talk to you. And you aren’t talking too much. In fact, you can tell me anything you’d like. I’m still trying to figure this whole place out.”

“The Orange Vale is as vast as it is full of mystery. Life here is hard,” she said, her brow furrowing, Catriona biting her lip. “And the people are few and far between. The land was once protected by beautiful dungeon maidens, mages who were led by the illustrious Dungeon Goddess. But no one has heard from the goddess since well before I was born.”

Jake paused, the blood draining from his face. “Wait, did you say Dungeon Goddess?”

“Yes. Have you heard of her? So much has been lost to tribal wars, and then the spread of…” She bit her lip. “We don’t have to talk about that here. We’re safe. This is a holy place.”

“It is?” Jake said, looking at the perimeter of the hot springs and from there to a cluster of rocks behind it, which eventually stacked on top of one another until they formed a cliff lush with vegetation.

He could hear the creatures of the forest, birds, the occasional squeak of an animal he didn’t recognize. And even though he had grown used to it by this point, with each inhalation he got a whiff of vanilla from the surface of the water, which just so happened to be one of Jake’s favorite flavors.

“It is most certainly a holy place, which is why it’s safe for us to come here,” she said. “We don’t have to hide ourselves either. We can sleep in one of the caves up there. I’ve done it before. I don’t always sleep here. There’s other places, but it’s pretty comfortable.”

“How long have you been out here on your own?”

Catriona considered this question for a moment before answering: “Since the start of my menstrual cycle. Several years now,” she said, clarifying.

Jake smirked at her. 

He hadn’t ever heard a woman answer a question about her age using her menstrual cycle, but it at least gave him an indication of how old Catriona must have been.

Whereas before she had covered her skin in mud and grime, her features hard to make out, she was clean now, and he could see her clearly. Jake assumed she was somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, but he was also unaware of how aging worked here in the Orange Vale. 

Catriona moved closer to him, eventually placing her arms around his shoulders.

“You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Jake said as he put his hands on her waist.

She slipped around him like a fish, transitioning onto his back, wrapping her legs around his torso, grazing them against his cock.

“Walk around with me on your back,” she said playfully. “That’s always fun.”

“Sure.” Jake wrapped his arms back, lifting her just a little bit, his hands on her buttocks as he did so.

Jake didn’t know where this was heading, but he was sort of glad they were underwater, that his growing erection not the topic of discussion at the moment. her legs were close enough to it to bump against it every so often, but if Catriona noticed, she didn’t say anything.

He walked back and forth with her, feeling her breasts pressed into his back.

Once he came to a pause, she rested her chin on the top of his head. “It’s nice to be around somebody,” she said softly.

“I agree.”

Jake and Catriona were startled by the disturbance at the edge of the hot springs, just beyond its sandy banks.

A dog burst out of the foliage, yelping, an enormous red-winged bird chasing it. 

The bird tried to dig its talons into the dog’s back and lift it into the air. 

The dog managed to twist its way out of the bird’s grip, yelping again, running even faster as the bird swooped in again.

“We have to do something,” Catriona said, hopping off his back.

“I’ve got this,” said Jake as he quickly swam to the shore. 

Jake took a quick look around and found a large stick on the ground.

He grabbed the stick and charged toward the red-winged bird, beating it back.

“Shoo! Shoo!” he shouted, the bird not yet able to decide if it should stand its ground or not.

Jake swung the stick again, connecting the side of the bird’s coarse beak. The bird sailed to the ground, bounced once, and started flapping its wings against the sand, eventually flying away.

Jake turned to the dog.

Now that he was able to get a better look at it, he saw the canine was built like a pitbull. It’s tail was long, and while it was stout with muscled legs, it was a bit smaller than most of the pitbulls he’d seen, its fur with tawny streaks running through it.

“Come here,” he told the dog as he dropped to a knee, the dog hesitant at first. “Come on...”

Eventually, the dog let Jake pet its head, Jake checking him out to make sure that it wasn’t hurt in any way.

“He likes you,” Catriona said, startling him. 

Jake turned to see that she was now wearing her hooded cloak, which she’d tied around her waist. She didn’t wear trousers this time, her long legs shiny and wet.

“That was some bird…” Jake said, his attention returning to the foliage that the bird had just flown into. 

“There are all sorts of terrible things in the forest,” Catriona said, her voice quivering, “and many come out at night. This poor little guy probably got separated from his pack. Should we ask him?”

“Ask him?” Jake looked from the dog to Catriona.

“I didn’t tell you? No, I guess I didn’t. That’s one of the things I’m able to do.”

“Talk to dogs?” Jake asked, hesitantly. 

“Not just dogs, all animals.” 

Jake smirked. “You should have just called the bird off.” 

“I wanted to see what you would do; consider it a test of your character.”

“And did I pass?”

Catriona nodded as she took a step closer to the canine, her soft blue eyes settling on the dog’s face. “Do you like him?”

The dog responded with a bark.

“Come on,” Jake said, laughing. “That’ll work for me too. Do you like me, boy? Come on, do you like me?”

The dog cocked his head to the left, either playing along, or not quite understanding Jake.

“Well, do you?” Catriona asked in her sweet voice.

The pitbull barked again, followed by two short barks and a grunt.

“He says he likes you, and to stop asking him the same question,” she told him with a giggle. “He’s quite funny. Oh, and he wants to stay with us tonight,”  she said after the dog barked again. “And if we’d like him too, he’s going to stick with us permanently.”

“I’m fine with that,” Jake said, now scratching the pitbull behind the ear, seeing a hint of his own reflection in its dark eyes. “But we have to give him a good name.”

Once he was done giving the dog a good rub down, Jake began dressing, back into his collar-less shirt, his pants, and his Timberland-esque work boots. 

It was getting darker and darker out, the moon nonexistent at the moment, the water now lit by a glitter of stars. Jake figured it was probably better for them to seek shelter.

“Sure, he’d like a name,” Catriona said after the dog barked yet again.

“Bruno,” Jake said, patting his leg. “I had a dog named Bruno when I was a kid.…”

A strange feeling came over Jake as he realized that this dog looked almost identical to Bruno, which was a brindle pitbull that has been missing an eye.

Before he could think too deeply about this, the pitbull ran over to him and attempted to jump into Jake’s arms. 

“That’s a good name, right?” he asked, lifting the canine as it licked his face.

Catriona looked up from wringing out some of the water in her hair. “He hasn’t decided yet, but he says it will do for now.”

Once she was ready, Jake and Bruno followed Catriona to a cave just below the edge of the cliff. The terrain was a bit rocky, but as Jake had experienced up in the mountain, there were steps cut into path.

“I’ll get everything set up,” Catriona said once they reached the cave.

“Let me know how I can help.”

The woman took a bag from the inside of her hooded cloak, the top of the back tied off with a strip of black leather.

She reached inside, and as she did she pulled out blankets, pillows, and even a pair of pajamas.

“What the hell?” Jake asked as he watched her finishing up.

“It’s a bottomless bag,” she said, shaking the fabric item. “Its interior space is much larger than its exterior. You could fit a lot in here. Even a person. Maybe a couple of horses, as long as you can get the bag’s opening around it. It’s pretty stretchy too,” she said, showing him what she meant.

Catriona turned away from him, dropping her cloak, and revealing her nude buttocks. She proceeded to get into a pair of loose-fitting pajamas. 

When she was finished, she went about arranging a sheet on the rough stone floor of the cave, Jake and Bruno watching her. Jake now sat with his legs crossed at the entrance to the cave, Bruno in his lap, the dog gazing up at him as he scratched behind his ears. 

Catriona reached into her bottomless bag and pulled out another comforter, then another one, forming a couple of layers.

“Okay, it’s ready,” she said, patting the surface of the betting that she’d made. “Shoes off.”

Jake took his boots off at the mouth of the cave and came to meet her, Bruno obediently taking a spot near entrance.

“He’s going to be our guard dog tonight, it seems,” Catriona said. “You’re a great boy, Bruno.”

The pitbull looked over to her, made a begging sound with its throat and then laid its head on its paws.

“But we’re safe here, right?” 

Catriona nodded as Jake laid down next to her.

“We’re safe,” she said, bringing a blanket over the two and cuddling up next to him. She tucked her head on his shoulder, dropping her hand onto his stomach, goosebumps forming on Jake’s skin as she made her way toward his groin area.

“It’s nice to find someone,” she said.

Jake turned to her, smiling at the beautiful blonde, just enough light reflecting into the cave to add a sheen to her blue eyes.

Catriona extended her neck up to kiss him.

She gave Jake a long, hard kiss as her hand slowly moved past his chiseled abs, stopping at the base of his cock. 

She kept it there for a moment as he started kneading her breasts with his free hand, their kisses becoming increasingly more intense, wetter, Catriona starting to bite a little bit, nibble on his lips, and inevitably sucking on his tongue.

Aroused now, Jake’s erection began to grow, Catriona naturally wrapping her hand around his shaft, murmuring in surprise. 

“It’s large,” she said, a sparkle moving across her eyes.

Not wanting to say “thanks,” as the odd courtesy may have ruined the moment, Jake sunk his head a little and began sucking on her nipple.

She moaned a little as he did so, Catriona shifting her torso toward him, angling Jake’s cock toward her pussy. 

“Normally, I’d want to play around a little,” she said in a husky voice, “but let’s just get right to it.”

Jake reached his hand down to find that she was ready to go, his finger stopping at her clit, lightly massaging it as she moved on top of him.

She lowered her face to his, biting at his earlobe, moaning as he continued to touch her, her own arm across and her body as well as she tugged at him.

She positioned his cock in a way that allowed her to rub it against the front of her pussy, Catriona gliding up and down, breathing even harder as she did so.

Jake managed to get a glimpse over her shoulder, where he saw that Bruno had turned away from them, one of his paws over his head.

She gasped as Jake slipped the head of his cock in, Catriona swallowing hard, Jake advancing at a snail’s pace, letting her adjust to his girth.

They started to get the rhythm, Catriona sitting up and throwing her head back, placing her hands in the small of her back, pushing her chest forward as she started to grind back and forth.

She went from moaning to cute little yelps of pleasure, her voice echoing in the cave and heightening Jake’s senses.

Eventually, she lowered her hand to the top of her sex and began playing with herself as Jake continued his steady motion, watching her breasts bounce up and down.

Catriona started to gasp, and as she did so, he noticed a dark force swelling over her shoulders.

Feeling an orgasm coming on himself, he ignored this, closing his eyes, Jake taking a deep breath as he continued to guide her movements.

“Yes, Jake,” Catriona said, her voice no longer her own. 

It was deeper now, almost guttural.

Jake blinked his eyes open to see a woman shrouded in darkness, Catriona now in a wooden mask twice the size of her face painted with red streaks, thick braids jutting out the back of the mask.

“What the fuck?” Jake asked, starting to push her away.

She slammed him to the ground, lowering the mask inches away from her face, and as she did, a slick mouth began to form, tearing at the corners of the mask, revealing a pair of razor-sharp teeth. 

“Come here, baby…”

He pushed her off, Jake rolling away as Bruno started to bark.

The woman crouched, her eyes lighting up she took him in, one of her shoulders higher than the other.

She lunged for him, Jake’s MMA training taking over. 

As she latched onto him, he gave her a smashing downward elbow, the woman letting out a grunt.

He kicked the masked woman with his knee, once, twice, her razor-sharp teeth trying to gnash at him.

He brought his fist down onto her back and she hit the ground.

Moving away, Jake kept his fists up, Bruno standing behind him, barking fiercely.

The woman got her feet again, and looked up, her mask cracked, covered in blood.

She lurched for him again; Jake gave her a straight kick that sent her flipping into the cave wall. 

Seeing a chance to finish this, he advanced on her, dropping with a punch to the side of her masked face, tendrils from the woman’s black outfit lifting, sharpening as he reached for his neck, finally subsiding.

A dark energy began to swirl above her body.

It soon lifted into the air, bursting out the front of the cave, Bruno chasing after it and stopping once he reached the ledge outside.

“J-Jake?” Catriona asked, herself again, nude, not a scratch on her.

“What happened?” He asked as he brought her into his arms. 

“I-I...”

“Something came over you, a dark entity with a mask…”

Her face upturned, Catriona squinted her eyes, looking up at the cave wall, trying not to sob. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“What was that?”

“It’s something I tell you about yet. Sometimes…”

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes, I become possessed.”

“Possessed?”

A noise startled Jake, light pouring into his eyes.

He gasped, suddenly back in his apartment in the Bowery, someone honking their horn outside the window, a dog barking, the smell of frying Chinese food meeting his ears.

“No,” Jake said, looking at his sleep tracking watch and seeing that it wasn’t even noon yet. “No…”

He had been asleep for all ten minutes.