The Infinity Dungeon [LitRPG]

When Michael turned his gaze back towards where Infy had been standing, all he saw was the copse of trees and the sparse undergrowth of the clearing. The sun was high in the sky, its warmth a welcome change from the cold that had crept into his bones.

His jaw hurt, and his hands were bloody. Pulses of pain radiated through his tissues, deep in his muscles and tendons, and pus oozed from his wounds. The respite from pain he felt while he was talking to Infy had been temporary, it seemed, and now his body was weak and feverish. The sweat he had worked up while walking made his clothes stick to his skin, and every gust of wind sent waves of cold into his body.

With stumbling steps, he made his way into the shield surrounding the city of Sitea, no real plan in mind. It sealed shut behind him the moment he crossed the threshold. The wind disappeared, and all that was left was the smell of flowers, concrete, rust, engine oil and the warmth of the sun, a clear indication that he had been separated from the outside world by an unbreakable barrier.

He didn't even test whether the barrier was truly unbreakable. He didn't have the strength to.

Looking around, his priorities were finding medicine, water, food and shelter. Only after those necessities were met could he even begin to think of a way to reach the goal of the challenge. Infy had not revealed where the Demiurge Particles were stashed, but she had mentioned a control room in the central Spire.

Looking up, he could see the towering construction, white stone and sleek metal with mirror-polished windows. While Sitea was huge, some parts of it spilling out of the shield where they had been subjected to the elements and had broken down far faster than the buildings inside, the tower was so big that all sense of scale was lost. Looking at it, its tip piercing the sky close to the zenith of the shield, it looked no farther than half a mile away.

Michael knew it was not the case.

The garden was big. Patches of grass were brown and wilted, while in other places weeds had overtaken the flowers and neat grass. Most of it was still pristine, however, with trimmed hedges and rows of neatly distanced flowers. Bees buzzed around, and a fountain occupied the center of a crossing of gravel paths, the water bubbling with the sound of the rushing river. Tasting it, Michael found it to be chlorinated.

That explained why the fountain is so clean despite the cracks in the concrete. He could not safely drink that water, although his mouth was so dry that perhaps in a day or two he might find himself forced to reconsider his stance.

Wandering, his unsteady steps brought him to a greenhouse-like building. The gigantic glass windows were framed by ornate columns, and at the centre of the wall of glass a grand door was slightly ajar.

"Orangerie," the sign read, plus some more unreadable text faded by solar radiation. This was some sort of park, or a recreation of a kingly European court. Inside the Orangerie the air was warm and moist, but the space was made cramped by the presence of thousands of pots and vases of all sizes.

All the plants in them were dead and wilted, their moisture completely evaporated leaving behind husks so dry they wouldn't even rot. There was a faint film of dust in the air and on the windows, but as Michael wandered deeper inside towards the back of the building, he found what he was looking for.

In a corner, dark when compared to the blinding light of the rest of the greenhouse, a garden hose was still attached to a pipe in the wall. He turned on the spigot. Water sputtered out, the hose spitting out air and then brownish water that smelled of iron and rot for a while. Then it started to clear until eventually crystal clear water flowed out of the hose.

Cheering inwardly, Michael let the water flow for a good while before tasting it. He spit it out, but there was no strange taste to it whatsoever.

"The plumbing still works!" now he did cheer.

He meticulously washed his hands and face, cleaning the wounds as best he could. They were infected, and painful, but washing them with copious water felt good. Then he detached the hose, fumbling with the connection with hands not working how they were supposed to, and drank straight from the tap.

The water was fresh and heavenly.

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Looking around, he found some containers which he washed and filled with water. Several liters of it, which he stashed in the shade just in case the plumbing gave out on him all of a sudden.

With a water source secured, he kept exploring. The building was empty, large hallways that cemented the idea that this part of the city was some sort of park built in the style of French or Central European courts. There were signs of modern design, electrical outlets hidden in corners or behind furniture, LED lights that sometimes still worked when he flipped the switches, plastic folders with unreadable documents inside.

But most of the place was empty, and there was no trace of digital technology. Perhaps this city had been plucked by the Dungeon from a timeline where technology evolved differently, but Michael doubted it. Everything he had seen so far was utterly familiar to him, down to the design of the garden hose.

He exited the Orangerie from the back. If his memory served him right, this was a garden building, it made sense he wouldn't find anything useful beyond water in here.

A grand path led to an even grander building in the distance, a proper castle. Electrical lights lined its sides, while gardens spanned for two hundred yards until a line of trees cleverly disguised the wall that surrounded them. The trees were not evenly spaced. Some younger and smaller ones had grown between the original trees, which were either dead or dying, or had grown into veritable monsters. Impressively tall, they had to be at least five hundred years old.

The smaller ones betrayed how long this place had been uninhabited for. Given that they could only have started to grow after the automated systems tending this part of the garden stopped working, and that they had to take root and grow, it was safe to assume that a long time had passed since someone last walked this place. At least two centuries, if not more.

Michael crossed the yard under the beating sun, working up a sweat. He stopped by a bench, gulped some water, and tried to regain some strength. His body felt warm, but in the wrong way, the way it does when it's sick from infection. Thinking back to the underwater lab, he wondered just what sorts of pathogens must have lived in the rusted rivets of the access pipe and shivered.

Getting up was hard, but he forced himself to. A small door in the wall led him to the outside, where he was teleported centuries into the future. Here, an asphalted road wide enough for six cars surrounded the walled compound, while on the other side a neat sidewalk with trimmed plants was the prelude to three-story office buildings. Their design was familiar yet strange, with rounded edges and a disproportionate use of steel and glass. Plants grew from alcoves everywhere, and some of them had spilled out of their assigned locations and were trying to colonize whole faces of the building they were in.

The same with the trees on the road, he realized. Some of them were trimmed and manicured, while others had grown wild, well beyond their intended size. Others were dead, dry and poked with holes.

The sidewalk was shaded, but there was a feeling of oppressive heat to the air. The empty road shimmered with refracted light from the superheated asphalt. Nothing moved. No birdsong, no breeze rustling the leaves on the trees.

Michael walked. Crossing the road into another block, this one with taller buildings and some shops, he thought he saw something move at the corner of his vision. When he turned around, he saw only empty lobbies and storefronts still packed with goods.

Above him, he didn't see the blinking red light of a security camera hidden in a traffic light.

Finally, he stumbled upon a pharmacy. The door was locked, and yanking on it only resulted in him swaying and his vision swimming as his body was covered in sweat under the sweltering sun. There was simply nothing he could use to smash the windows and get in. The road was neat, tidy and empty. There was a trash can, but it was secured to the floor. He could see one that wasn't, at the beginning of the next block, but he doubted he could lift it in his current state.

Around him, the lobbies were empty. All the doors were locked.

He thought about walking again, but the sole thought sent a wave of nausea through his body that had him doubled over and vomiting on the sidewalk close to a tree. The filth splashed his shoes, he noticed with disgust, while his eyes were blurry with tears at the effort of expelling the last of his stomach's contents on the ground. The world spun a little, and it kept spinning even after he got up and cleaned the sides of his mouth with his shirt.

While he made his way back to the Orangerie, the only place where he had found anything he could use to smash the windows of the pharmacy, the sensation of something moving at the edge of his vision returned. He felt watched, and his mind became fixated on what Infy had told him about the Lair, the spirit that infested this place.

A breeze picked up out of nowhere, and then the sun dimmed. Looking up, Michael was surprised to see actual clouds inside the shield, not up above.

Thunder split the sky. In a matter of minutes, it was dark and raining. It was cold. Clutching a small pot filled with compacted dirt, Michael hurried back to the pharmacy. The drugs would have surely spoiled, and he was going to have to take them on an empty stomach, but his forehead burned and he felt like he was going to pass out any minute now. He did not have the luxury of choice.

Rounding a corner, he spotted the green sign of the pharmacy. Then his head swiveled to the side as once again he thought he saw something move. A car was speeding on the road towards him. He had not heard it with the roar of rain and thunder. Its headlights drew triangles of yellow and white against the buildings.

Gasping, he threw himself behind an overgrown bush, the old pot discarded and falling to the ground, spilling its contents but thankfully not breaking into pieces.