Despite Master Dagg's rather intimidating guise, he was quite the gentleman, ensuring that my needs were taken care of. Perhaps, this was merely his way of making me gain his trust. One would not think someone like him possessed such charisma. He gave me a ‘room,’ consisting of merely another small, hollowed-out cavern; a makeshift bed to sleep in, which was nothing more than a nest of hay; clothes which were obtained from the corpses of his previous victims; and food — perhaps the only good thing that came out of this little ‘bargain.’ He allowed me to wander his home freely, much to my surprise. I feared the possible consequences that would follow for attempting to escape, which probably explained his permitting my limited freedom.
For the remainder of the day, I explored the rest of the caverns to learn more about my new — and assumingly permanent — home.
The dank caverns I traveled through snaked in many directions — a well-crafted maze that one could easily get lost in. They reeked of the same fetid water and rotting vegetation scent. The moss-covered stalactites above were constantly moist and dripping with rank liquid that seeped through from whatever sat above the cave. Small puddles of greenish-brown, algae-infested water formed in certain spots of the cave floor from where it dripped above. Life as I knew it had no place here.
I continued my trek onward and deeper into the twisting tunnels. Emerging into another open cavern, the smell of rotting flesh immediately hit my nose as I discovered several empty cages lining the walls. In the center of the cavern, were two tables, upon which various types of tools lay. Approaching one of tables, I picked up a tool and examined it closely, noting its foreign craft and the sharpened edge which was covered in fresh blood. Realizing the tool was probably used very recently, I promptly returned it to its place. As I resumed my explorations, I spotted several chains hung from the ceiling, with severed corpses attached to some. My eyes burned and I cupped my hand over my nose and mouth to suppress the overwhelming stench of the corpses, but it barely helped. I carefully maneuvered my way around the area, almost stepping in small puddles of blood on the floor in the process.
What is this place? I thought, gazing up at a hanging corpse. I slowly approached the corpse and examined it from a modest distance.
The carcass had rotted so much that the blackened, feathery skin barely covered its exposed bones. The lower torso of the unidentified creature was naturally-severed from aging decomposition, leaving only the faint entrails of skin and bone. The half-skeletal face of the creature gazed at me with its piercing death stare. The eyes had been removed; leaving only two, empty sockets.
I stepped back from the thing, unable to look any further. This place was ridden with a certain kind of death that was foreign in my eyes and thus, disturbed me.
As I began walking away, I heard the faintest sounds of chains rustling. Stopping in my tracks, I looked over my shoulder at the rest of the room — more closely, the hanging corpses — feeling my own paranoia overwhelming me. Turning back around, I hastened my steps out of the room and the sound of the chains clattered even louder. As I glanced over my shoulder again, the hanging corpse I had examined earlier had fallen to the ground in a heap, its body having rotted beyond the chains' ability to support it. There was something else that had caught my attention, however. Those same, blackened sockets were now replaced with two, red-glowing orbs of dark energy. The thing had come alive before my very eyes.
When the two orbs caught my own gaze, the creature suddenly let out a familiar, ear-piercing shriek, which, once again, triggered a painful memory….
I sprinted out of the room as fast as I could with my hands cupped over my ears in fear. I didn't get too far, however, before I blindly crashed into Master Dagg and fell backwards. His tall, intimidating frame stood before me like a solid wall. I looked up at him fearfully, gazing into his intense, ebony eyes.
He huffed, annoyed, then shuffled off towards the larger cavern to investigate the commotion.
Silently, I followed him at a safe distance and observed.
Upon entering the room, his attention was immediately drawn to the reincarnated creature on the ground which continued to helplessly writhe and screech in terror. He walked over to the rotting thing and picked it up fearlessly.
In retaliation to Master Dagg's firm handling, the creature snapped its crumbling jaws just inches away from his face.
Unintimidated by the gruesome thing's violent attacks, Master Dagg narrowed his eyes and let out a low, threatening growl at it. The creature recoiled almost instantly and ceased its forceful resistance. Master Dagg spent a few moments carefully studying the thing before looking back at me, intrigued. He drew closer while carrying the creature, which now regarded me hungrily. The closer Master Dagg approached, the more violent the creature became.
I wanted to run away, but my muscles were frozen from fear. My heart was racing as I stood helplessly between him and that ravenous creature he held in his hand.
Master Dagg grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to a table where he also placed the creature facing upwards. He was not at all disconcerted by the series of high-pitched screams the creature gave in protest when he opened its mouth and revealed its yellowed fangs. Carefully, Master Dagg managed to force the creature to puncture its fangs into the skin of my wrist and feed upon the blood that oozed from the wound.
It was my turn to scream — not from the pain, but from the traumatizing experience. As the creature was latched firmly onto my wrist, I could feel my precious blood being sucked away and I was unable to escape Master Dagg's iron grip.
He allowed the creature to feed for several minutes before tearing it away from the wound and examining it thoroughly.
My eyes regarded Master Dagg weakly, not wanting to know what he would do to me next.
His pensive gaze suddenly twisted to an expression of revelation, as though he had made a new discovery. “Yes … YES!!!” his rasping voice exclaimed in approval. “You have no idea how long it took me to test this theory!” He grinned down at me and showed me the struggling creature once more.
The entrails from its severed body had now begun to heal rapidly, melding the broken, rotting skin together over the bone with newly-formed tissue. As the face of the creature healed, it reshaped itself into the harpy it had once been — the very same type that attacked me and my family.
“That … That thing!” I exclaimed. “It's —!”
“Alive?” Master Dagg interjected with a smile. “You could say that, My Dear. This harpy has long-since passed the realm of death and has entered the realm of the undeath. It feeds on the essence of life — much like your blood. It can become invigorated just by the smell of fresh, flowing blood. Harpies are vicious creatures, you know. They will prey upon anything and everything. They will strip its victim down to bones in mere seconds.”
I paled and attempted to withdraw my hand from the table, but Master Dagg continued to hold it down. It was these types of creatures that Father had feared for so long; now one of them had just taken away a portion of my life's essence.
“How could you do this?” I glared at Master Dagg. “These very creatures — harpies — killed my entire family in a matter of minutes!”
“Death is not fickle, Jasmine,” he said simply, then shifted his eyes back to the struggling harpy once more. Finally letting go of my wrist, he raised his hand, from which tiny claw-like points extended from his fingers.
I stared at his hands in awe, trying to convince myself that my mind was playing tricks on me.
His clawed hand swooped down towards the harpy's neck and tore through the thin tissue of its throat, severing and pulling out part of its spinal cord. My precious blood spilled from the creature and curdled into a small puddle at Master Dagg's feet. The unnatural healing had stopped and the harpy was once again reduced to a heap of bone and rotting flesh. The dark magic that had once possessed the creature was now long gone.
Master Dagg placed the harpy corpse onto the table and withdrew his hand, his ‘claws’ retracting.
“You are mad….” I shook my head with eyes widened in horror.
“Those who do not understand the Art of Death call me ‘mad’.” He smiled. “However, there is a reason for my ‘madness,’ Jasmine.”
“Care to tell me this reason?” I retorted in a bitter tone.
He took a moment to consider while he casually wiped off the excess blood and gore from his hands onto his dark robes. “When I'm in the mood, I might feel inclined to tell you. In the meantime, do not ask me again, or I shall re-animate this creature to feast on the rest of your precious blood.”
The sadistic tone in his warning was more than enough for me to dismiss any further thoughts and arguments on the matter.
He led me out of the dungeon and into the ‘hospitality’ portion of the cave. There were some cabinets and a pantry lining the wall of this small cavern. A small table with two chairs was placed in the center of the room. This was perhaps the most inviting of all the rooms I visited.
“Here is where you will eat,” Master Dagg explained with a simple hand gesture.
Despite all of the grisly scenes I had endured, I never lost my appetite. The thought of food immediately roused my hunger, as I could not remember the last time I had a good meal.
“Have you had any trouble finding food around here?” I inquired. “The drought took a heavy toll on the countryside. I'm curious to know if this area has been affected, as well.”
Master Dagg gave me a light shrug. “It is not too hard to find food,” he replied. “Sometimes, I find rare delicacies like eel around the swamps which lie just above this cave. I am not particular with my food and neither should you be.”
“Oh! Of course, not!” I shook my head quickly, though the sound of eating anything from the fetid swamps was not exactly appealing, either. “So, um … what are we eating today?”
“That depends on what you catch,” he said, then flashed me a fanged smile. “As for me, I feel like eating bream tonight.”
My jaw dropped. “Do I really have to catch my own food?!”
“You do, unless you wish to starve to death,” he said, nodding once. “Though, I do hope you can stomach raw seafood, because that is all the swamps have to offer — and that is the way I like it.”
There was no time for me to protest any further on the matter, as he had already left for one of the tunnel exits that led to the outside world. As I proceeded to follow, I suddenly realized that the day was not yet over and I had already found Master Dagg hauntingly intriguing.
With hastened steps, I followed Master Dagg out of the cave and was graced with the darkness and cool, refreshing air of the outside world. It was a stark contrast to being down in the rank caverns below.
The cave itself sat in the midst of a large area of swampy lands which stretched beyond my line of sight. These wetlands carried their own unique beauty shrouded in the dark shadows that the Blood Moon provided. It appeared to always be cloudy here and raining most of the time without signs of relenting, which, I assumed was the reason for the area's constant, dreary state.
Master Dagg looked at me expectantly, as though waiting for me to initiate the hunt. Tonight, it seemed, I would learn how to become a predator.
I gazed across the wetlands, frowning at my limited choice in targets. My eyes caught sight of various movements of small fish in the murky water and I approached the banks slowly. The vibrations of my footsteps were easily felt by the tiny minnows that swam about and they immediately scattered. I exhaled in frustration and could hear Master Dagg's dark chuckling behind me.
“You do not even know how to catch your own food,” he said smugly. “You truly are a pitiful little child.”
“Then, show me how!” I snapped back, not realizing the thin line I tread from my sudden outburst.
His eyes flickered at me in amusement and he averted his attention back to the water. Perhaps, my eyes were not as attuned as his, because he began traversing the waters, following a seemingly invisible path laid by the fish that swam beneath the murky cloud. Master Dagg's eyes were focused, following the slightest of movements. He sniffed once, then stood perfectly still, watching the waters. As swift as a cat, he suddenly lashed out into the water, pulling out a handful of minnows. I cringed as he showed the abundant, tiny, silver fish to me while keeping them from wriggling free from his grasp. Afterwards, he began consuming their live bodies by the mouthful, practically swallowing them whole.
My eyes widened in disgust at the sight and I finally turned away and covered my mouth as I felt the urge to vomit. The loud sounds of his slurping and lips smacking unnerved me further, practically spoiling my appetite.
“That's disgusting!” I exclaimed.
Master Dagg licked the excess fish innards from his lips and wiped the rest from his mouth with the back of his sleeve before looking to me icily.
“Such a spoiled little child you are,” he replied. “But of course, you can choose not to eat at all and continue withering away to nothing. Alive or dead, I will find use for you.”
I wanted to protest, but my empty belly spoke otherwise. With a long sigh, I turned and resumed to try again. I stared down helplessly into the swamp water, unable to spot anything. Watching Master Dagg, however, he seemed to be catching fish effortlessly. Frowning, I decided to blindly reach down into the cloudy water, in hopes of grabbing at least one fish. After several, repeated attempts, I acquired my first catch. It was but a tiny fish spanning no longer than the width of my palm. I winced as the fish's wriggling tickled my hand and it nearly got away as a result, but I held on to it by its tailfin.
Master Dagg watched my pitiful attempts and laughed. “I doubt that will satiate your hunger, My Dear,” he jeered.
I writhed with humiliation inside. “May I cook this in the laboratory?” I asked.
His smirk faded and he arched a brow at my request. “My laboratory is not to be used for cooking food. You would do well to not have such … particular eating habits.”
I blinked in surprise. “Particular?! I will get sick if I consume this raw fish!”
He rolled his eyes in annoyance and resumed his hunt. “You humans and your ridiculous presumptions.”
“Are you saying I will not get sick?” I asked, my eyes remaining on him.
“I am saying nothing further on the matter,” he hissed.
I watched as he caught another handful of fresh fish and gobbled them down hungrily. Glancing down at the small fish in my hand, which now lay dead, I twisted my face in disgust. Closing my eyes, I slowly brought the fish to my lips, taking a small bite out of its scaly flesh which reeked of the swamps. My body shivered as I felt very close to vomiting, having the slick taste of the fish scales in my mouth. I wanted to chew; instead, I cowered and swallowed the small piece whole, hoping the fishy taste would quickly subside. Another shiver ran through my body as I felt the morsel ease down my throat and leave a small, undesirable aftertaste of the swamps in my mouth. My eyes burned and I felt lightheaded afterwards, looking down to the rest of the fish in my hand.
Master Dagg soon approached me and grabbed the fish in one swoop of his hand before eating it whole.
“The thing will spoil rotten by the time you finish eating it,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Perhaps, later, when your hunger is more severe, you will not be so hesitant.”
I stared up at him, dumbfounded. “Are these disgusting fish really your staple food?”
“Fish are more abundant, but that is not all that can be found here,” he explained. “There are crabs, turtles, snails, mollusks, birds, animals … Pretty much any living creature that treads upon my territory is fair game.”
“Even humans?” I raised a brow.
He sneered. “I do not desire human flesh unlike others of my kind. Humans do make excellent test subjects, however.”
“‘Others of your kind?’” My eyes widened in horror. “You mean, there are more despicable people like you?!”
He simply laughed.