The first thing Seventh noticed when he woke up was the earthy taste and gritty dust coating his tongue. The second thing was pain in his neck and back. Falling asleep in a weird pose on a pile of rocks and rubble wasn't a good practice.

  Nevertheless, he felt great. Groggy but great— like he had slept for a week straight.

  Still lying on his uncomfortable bedding, he wondered how he had fallen asleep. Did he use meditate? No, that skill didn't grant any benefits for sleeping. Something else? He wasn't really sure, there was a fight with Bob and—

  He sprinted to his feet. He was unarmed, his spear lying in the courtyard, but he readied himself to blast Shadowbolts at anything dangerous.

  His eyes darted around the courtyard, searching his surroundings. Massive doors on the right, someone had made markings with white and red paint all over them.

  A well in the middle of the yard, buckets scattered around, and coils of rope.

  Guardhouse— or maybe a tavern, an inn? There was a sign hanging over its door— at the other side of the yard.

  Tiles next to the walls, but the well was surrounded by gravel.

  No Bob, only his party surrounding the well, and his spear on the ground.

  The undead stared at him. He stared back.

  “Did any of you— see anything unusual? Where did Bob go?” Seventh asked his party.

  He didn't get any answers.

  Seventh tried to spit his mouth clear. There was a lot of dust there. “The... the guy who looks like me— alive me? We fought?”

  There was a series of almost unnoticeable glances shared between his party. Ratkin stood still. Waiting for orders.

  “I saw that,” Seventh said pointing at the others— especially George— before continuing. “Have you or have you not seen anybody, or anything else moving— around this yard?”

  Six heads slowly shook.

  “Well that's a shame. That means I'm losing my damn mind,” Seventh said and picked up his spear.

  The dust was grinding on his nerves so he marched to the well and promptly threw a bucket tied with a rope down. It made a small splash, and was lifted back up.

  It was filled to the brim with clear, cool water. He drank a mouthful, sloshed his mouth clear of muck, and spat everything on the gravel.

  It looked like mud made of earth and blood.

  The second gulp was more flavorful and Seventh savored the cool liquid before swallowing it down.

  Satisfied, he offered the bucket to others. “Anybody else?”

  Unsurprisingly, there wasn't any answers— not even a small moan.

  Without anybody taking the offered drink, and Seventh being undead not needing any sustenance, he lifted the bucket high, dumping the water on himself. Most of the dust and fresh grime washed away, but the oldest stains held stubbornly onto his clothes and armor.

  But being just a little bit cleaner helped.

  Control over something.

  The dust had come from a shattered mosaic, pieces of it still laying around, and dust disturbed by Seventh's awakening. He walked closer to inspect the work.

  A substantial part of the art was missing— a body hitting the mosaic had that kind of effect. But the piece seemed to revolve around a scene of... chess? There were five faceless figures in a circle, all holding a carved figure— like a chess piece.

  One of them— a figure cloaked in a green robe— was extending an arm to place a piece on a board. Or at least, that's what Seventh assumed was happening. There was a hole where the figure seemed to be placing something.

  , Seventh thought, wincing.

  The other figures were dressed in red armor, black robes, yellow robes, and white robes— all ornamented with flowing patterns of golden thread. It actually looked like one thread, swirling around and jumping from figure to figure, stopping at the green one and its extended arm. The other figures were also looking at the hand holding... something.

  The hole had destroyed the hand from the wrist.

  The wall itself was, surprisingly, made of wood under the plaster. Every other wall here was stone. Seventh looked over his shoulder at the inn. Its walls were also wooden, so maybe it was a quirk of this yard? An echo from above remade inside the dungeon?

  Seventh peeled himself away from the mosaic. He liked the picture even though there was a piece missing. There was color in it.

  The large doors— a gate really— were similar to the doors up the stairs. Only these were intact and barred with a thick slab of wood. The wooden bar looked like someone had used a full-sized tree to make a drawbar, and painted it full of red and white skulls, and gaunt faces of dead men. At least that’s what Seventh thought the Xs drawn instead of eyes meant.

  He brushed his fingers among the wood. Warm, grainy, living material. Knocking on it gently made a sound like tapping on iron. There was no way he— or even his full party— could lift anything this massive.

  Maybe they could burn it? Smash the brackets holding the bar? Looking at brackets wider than his palm and thicker than his arm— Seventh abandoned that idea.

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  Even if he could open the doors would he want to? The symbols were clear warnings.

  The tavern— or is it an inn?— looked weird. Wooden beams for basic framing and clean, whitewashed, walls for aesthetics. Windows were just thin slits on a wall, framed with wooden shutters in case of bad weather. Not that there was any weather inside the dungeon.

  Looking up Seventh could see wooden shingles on the roof, and a chimney ending inside dungeon wall. The building looked like it was partly melded to the dungeon itself.

  The inn was clearly built for a moderately rich area. Looking up the stairs, the mosaic, and barred gate— it actually tracked. The dungeon was mimicking some kind of rest area. Or had there been a teleportation accident?

  Before going in Seventh glanced at the wooden sign over the door. A stylized man resting, eyes closed on a meadow next to his rucksack. The man looked like a wizard or a priest.

  To his surprise Seventh actually recognized the second word on the sign, 'rest'. The second word was gibberish. The letters looked normal, but since he couldn't read... well he had been to multiple inns and taverns with the name including res—

  His thoughts ground to a halt.

  He hadn't been in any inns or taverns. had.

  Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, Bob howled in laughter when Seventh marched inside.

  Everything was covered by inches of dust. Collection of small circular tables, simple chairs, the floor, and especially the bar counter. Even the hearth to the left, across the stairs to upper floors, was filled with dust.

  Seventh waved his hand to the party to follow, and they diligently started to approach. Inside, he walked to the small counter and checked if there was any food or drink left behind.

  Nothing. Just empty bottles.

  He didn't know if he needed to eat or drink, but there weren't any problems with the water and he had slept. What other signs of life he had the other undead didn't? Hopefully his mind. If others were like him, locked in, scratching for freedom—

  So, no food. Empty bottles, Seventh cut his other thoughts short.

  “I'll check the upstairs, make yourselves useful, and check for useful gear,” he said out loud.

  George gave him a nod and gently tapped Dylan on the shoulder, pointing to the back with his sword. Others seemed to follow their own instincts, and started to shuffle around the inn.

  Seventh stopped at the stairs to look at the scene of undead horde slowly raiding an inn. Some other time, at another lifetime, that would've been a start of a joke. Now it was just his reality.

  Upstairs was just a narrow corridor with a line of doors to five small rooms. Inside the rooms were rudimentary wooden beds, burlap sacks filled with straw for pillow and mattress. Small sidetable for a candle and barely enough room to turn around. Seventh only found dustbunnies from the first four rooms, but the last one had something interesting.

  There was a small window above the bed, but Seventh couldn't see out from it. The window was a recess with similar blue and white mosaic imitating the sky above. It looked like a recess for a candle or small icon, but Seventh had a suspicion it was just a window and the dungeon tried to make some sense to it. Hence the weird sky mosaic.

  On the sidetable was a brown leather satchel with some meager travel gear, and a shortsword leaning to the wall next to it. Perusing the satchel, Seventh found parchment, inkpot, quills, small bundle of thin rope and dry rations.

  The sword had a dark-brown scabbard and a simple leather belt.

  The

  blade itself looked like freshly forged. He could still smell the oil

  and grindstone on it. He even recognized the maker's mark, a stylized

  letter S inside a simple circle.

  The System had made the sword. Dungeon loot. Probably everything in the inn was spawned or generated by the System.

  So was it still under construction? Was that the reason why half of it was inside rock wall?

  Seventh shrugged. No reason to think about that. Loot was loot. New weapons kept the party going. If George or Adam broke their sword, they had a spare.

  After securing his new satchel over his armor, Seventh walked downstairs sheathed sword in hand— and paused midway down.

  Charles the elf was stringing a hunting bow, and one of the axemen— was that Eric or Frank?— was standing next to him, holding a quiver full of arrows. Both turned to look at Seventh, but Charles continued his work, and by the time Seventh was standing in front of him the bow was strung and ready to use.

  “Where did you get that?”

  Charles turned to point at the mantle of the fireplace.

  “Do you... know how to use it?” Seventh asked with a hint of suspicion.

  Charles gave him a blank stare. Turning his head slightly his pointed ears became more visible below his long chestnut hair.

  “Hey! I didn't want to presume!”

  Charles kept his head cocked and blinked slowly.

  “So... your shield?”

  A wooden thunk drew Seventh's attention from the silently snarky elf and he saw Dylan with a new shield. Seventh gave him a small smile and a nod. This was a good place to loot. Seventh had already thought that, even before George waved him over to see what the others had found.

  The other axeman— Seventh was quite sure it was Eric— had used his axe to reduce the floor behind the counter to splinters, and discovered two boxes of bottles.

  The first one was clearly wine. Simple wooden box with six long, slender deep-green bottles filled with sloshing liquid. Sealed with a cork and finished with melted wax on top. A familiar stylized S was carved into the wax.

  The other box was small, like a large jewelry box. Four small bottles, filled with vibrant red liquid, lay on silken cushion. Healing potions. Real, honest-to-gods, uncut healing potions.

  “How— how did you find these?” Seventh asked while holding the box with healing potions reverently in his hands.

  Eric answered by rhythmically shifting his weight to his legs and back up. Like jumping without legs leaving the floor. The mutilated floorboards gave ungodly screeching.

  Seventh raised an eyebrow. “You heard the floorboards— what?— creak a little so you decided to axe them?”

  Eric gave him a toothy grin before continuing his work with the floor.

  Leaving the axeman to unearth more loot, he walked in front of Dylan. He offered him two of the potions. Dylan nodded, understanding Seventh's intentions, and drank both of the potions.

  Observing the PARTY

  Knocking on the counter, Seventh drew his party's attention. “Alright people! We got some good loot here, a sword and two potions— also wine, but that doesn't matter much. You all are wounded so one of the potions goes to the most wounded, that's Adam now, and the sword goes to George. This is not any swordman bias, just simple survival, and distribution of gear.”

  Seventh hoped nobody would raise an issue with the last potion, and continued.

  “We'll continue back up to the ratkin castle. There's a barred gate, and I want to get as far as possible from that. Smells like damn trouble and I don't want to risk anything. We kill the ratkin. We raise the ratkin. We use the ratkin.”

  He cast a glance at his three ratkin undead minions. There was a twang of regret about using them as fodder, but when in dungeon...

  “Now that Charles has a bow we can use long range tactics. Bigger bow equals longer range and with my Shadowbolts we have advantage as long as we don't walk into ambushes. IF we go into melee, ratkin will scatter and flank, everybody with a shield will hold formation and I do my best to poke at the enemy from the rear. Feel free to attack, of course. Use your heads.”

  Seventh's eyes moved slowly from Adam to George and to the ratkin.

  “Questions?”

  Everybody with a shield raised it to their chest and slammed the wooden surface with the blunt ends of their weapons. Charles pounded a table with his fist.

  Seventh echoed the gesture by tapping his spear on the floor.

  “Good. Let's go get some ratkins.”