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“C’mon! We are going to be late!” Baby Squid zooms across the sidewalk as fast as their little legs can go, wearing a little white collar and black bow around their neck.
“I’m so glad I didn’t wear heels for this!” In tow, out of her girl scout uniform and donning a more formal red poofy dress with white stockings to match, Madison is also trying to haphazardly hurry up to one of the most awaited events in both their lives! Carrying a red beret with her white gloves, she runs with Baby Squid to the annual get-together party at the Dungeons.
As they enter the entrance they are greeted by the Gargoyle and Cornelius. Giving their invitations, the hall opens to them and everyone is present and chatting amongst themselves. Aoife seems to be bored at the punch table, not enough fighting at this event. Scathach stands with her as her battle sister. Robobot, Space Marine and Magician are helping out at the catering for others, Lady Luck needed some extra hands after all. (At least, they're being paid for overtime this time.) And all the winning contestants are here, Warrior, Thief, Robot, Inventor, Witch, and Jester.
The stage is set, and out comes none other than our hostess for the evening, Lady Luck. She steps out in her fancy red suit as usual, and everyone looks up in anticipation.
“Welcome all of you, to the annual Dicey Dungeons party! A celebration for our lovely contestants and all of us here at the Dungeons. This is a time to remember the valiant effort our heroes put into realizing themselves, working together, and fighting despite how the odds were stacked against them. This party is as much as it is for them, as it is for all of you who have made the Dungeons as treacherous, but also fought alongside our heroes; placing your differences aside to beat yours truly.”
Some of the party-goers are tearing up… Oh wait, that’s just Sneezy.
“I, Lady Luck, am happy to see you all here again and I hope you will have a splendid time.”
The crowd claps at her opening remark, and so the party really begins.
Lady Luck busily manages the party, ensuring that everyone has a good time.
Banshee is killing it on stage as a main vocalist, despite what you might expect. Singer providing the backup vocals and the soft piano tunes, Stereohead on the sax he’s fell in love with since coming to the dungeons, with Beatrice assisting with her double bass that she keeps for occasions such as this and Bully on the drums to round out their merry little band, the jazz is simply sublime.
The atmosphere is so pleasant, as all the minions, Ned, Yolanda, Val and the champions intermingle in a buzz of laughter, banter, and chitter-chatter.
Lady Luck does her duty and thanks all the party-goers, catching up with them and their time in the dungeon. It’s exhausting work, but she puts it behind a smile. Making the rounds between table to table, until she reaches the guests of honor, the dice! Except! They’ve all gone back to their human forms!
“It is still such a wonder you were all able to turn back!” Lady Luck addresses their table.
“We’re lucky Inventor figured out a formula to bring us back from our dicey form.” Warrior pats Inventor’s back.
“Oof! Yeah, it was no biggie. Looking at how you did your spell Lady Luck, I thought it might be-” Inventor starts going on a tangent, filled with complicated explanations and theories. They let her keep murmuring.
“Me and Alchemist, helped her out to get the ratio exact, so don’t count us out.” Witch winks. “By the way, is it okay to vlog this event?”
“Please do, we’d be happy for more attention to the Dungeons.” Lady Luck replies.
“Sweet.” She pulls out her camera, and preps herself for her viewers.
“An event dedicated to us, and not a check to our name? You skimpin’ out on us, Luck?” Thief looks hurt at the lack of monetary compensation.
“Don’t be rude, Thief. You’re lucky you got invited after you tried to sneak into Lady Luck’s office with Keymaster.” Robot reminds him.
“The gold coins were coming from somewhere! I just thought maybe there’d be some spare change in her office.” He shrugs in defiance.
“She wouldn’t hide it in a place you could lockpick.” Jester laughs. “They’re in her purse, so she can give them out to minions when they get defeated!’
“Wait, the minions aren’t paid in gold coins?” Warrior looks up after viciously eating his steak.
“Well, they said it would be better if they were paid normal salaries, it’s kind of difficult to trade coins for usable currency.” Lady Luck explains.
“Tell me about it.” Thief rolls their eyes.
“In any case, it is such a pleasure to have all of you here once again.” Lady Luck waves politely. “Don’t be strangers now!”
The contestants beam at her hospitality and the group bids her adieu as she walks away. The Inventor snaps out of her trance and confusedly looks around the group. “You guys have to stop me when I do that.”
Back in her office, she gets a break from the party before needing to end with her closing remarks. The room is dark and stuffy, she should have had Vacuum come take a look. The light peeking out from her curtains, leaving a luminous streak on her desk. She slowly swipes at her desk, dust clings onto her finger, she REALLY needed Vacuum to clean the place up.
“Feeling nostalgic, are we, Boss?” Jester leans in the doorway, arms crossed.
“Jess, how is it going, did they need something?” Lady Lucky faces him, with a strained smile.
“Hmm, maybe a more sincere smile.” He presses his fingers on his cheeks to form a smile.
“Haha,” She says in a deadpan manner, giving way for her weariness to show. “Always the joker.”
She pulls out the swivel chair, and plops herself into it, resting her elbows on her desk and slyly looks up to Jester. “What can I do for an old minion?”
“Can't I pop into my ex-boss’ office to say hi?”
“Without anything else in mind? I’d expect that of Robot, you? Not so much.”
“Well, guilty as charged.” He welcomes himself in, closing the door and casually sits on the sofa near the desk. It puffs up with smoke and he coughs. “You’ve really let things go since I left.”
“Didn’t really see the use in sprucing up the place since preparing for the party made me terribly busy. Besides, you’re the only one who sleeps there during dungeon hours.”
“All I'm hearing is I got exclusivity on this bad boy.” He slaps the cushy seat.
“Yes, like a dog bed.”
“How mean!” He brings his hand to his forehead in mock offense. She chuckles, giving him a slight smile, as he peers from under his palm.
“Not going to see what Inventor, Witch and Alchemist have in store for the intermission?” Her head rests on her arm, which is straightened out, lying on the desk. The moonlight accentuating her half-lidded black eyes as they stare at him.
Jester stills for a beat, his gaze tracing the way the light catches her eyes, before shaking it off. “Nope, I’m not sure what kind of act requires a chainsaw, a bear potion, and a cauldron.”
“Enjoy the party, I’m a little… frazzled. As you could tell.” Her hair loses some of its poofiness.
“It’s not a bad look, y’know-”
“Hmmm,” She bats her eyes at him. “And why is that?”
“Well, sometimes you’re so high and mighty, I forget even you have times like these.”
“Usually, luck is on my side. No one ever gets the chance to see me like this.”
“Lucky me, then.”
“Lucky you.”
The door bursts open with Madison and Baby Squid in a frenzy. In the background, screams and whirring of a chainsaw can be heard.
“Something’s happened to the Inventor!” Madison yells.
In the hall, things have gotten out of control. The stage curtains are torn, the ground tattered in shredded debris, standing uncontrollably on the stage looks like the Inventor. But, chainsaws seem to protrude from her forearms and forehead, with a signature orange metallic frame acting as a head. It swings viciously at the bosses who are trying to contain the threat. Aoife is finally smiling at how this party is turning out, but both her and Scathach have sustained debilitating injuries. Drake and Beatrice are up in the air, keeping it from pouncing on the other minions. Audrey has Warrior in her arms, beaten up.
On the opposite side of the room, all the other minions are stationed. Buster puffs smoke from his nostrils, with Thief and Robot beside him for support. Alchemist and Witch are frantically brewing something to turn back this mess.
The exhaustion dissipates from Lady Luck, as she marches over to them followed by Jester. “That’s a mix to turn her back to normal, right?” Plan now, questions later, that’s always how she has run this place.
“Yeah! Inventor told me the formula to turn us back to our human forms, if we could just get the proportions right!” She adds ingredients into the pot, as Alchemist stirs it. The concoction is about to burst out the cauldron when she hastily places a lid over it, nervously laughing back at them.
“Alright, we’ll restrain the Inventor.” Lady Luck turns to Jester, determined.
“O-of course!” Jester stiffly assumes a combat stance.
The bosses make way for Lady Luck, as she casts Judgement, these large dice blocks are hurled towards this chainsaw maniac. These attacks are too slow however, as it starts running up the blocks, jumping wall to wall. It flies straight to Lady Luck, snarling with its noisy chains. Lady Luck stumbles backwards, she holds her shoulder which was grazed by the blades, preparing to brace for a hefty attack, until the Jester runs behind it and lands a slap on the Inventor.
The killing machine’s body vibrates, as it feels an indirect attack from the slap after a beat. Pain booms from within her body as it roars in agony. It scutters to the Jester, in a state of disarray, pursuing the source of this pain. They play chase, while others try to follow the fight at hand.
He locks eyes with Lady Luck, and she knows just what to do, concentrating with her affliction.
Springing to his feet in a backflip, narrowly avoiding a chainsaw close to his face, lands another slap on the Inventor. That same pain radiates from within her body as it gets desperate.
It lunges for the Jester, pinning him against the floor for a bite. Until Jester points upwards, to the Divine Rod Lady Luck was casting, this long golden staff with a four clover on top.
“Now, Lucky!” Jester slaps the Inventor one last time, weakening its hold on him as he rolls out from under. The rod slams into the Inventor, rendering her immobile.
Threat neutralized.
The crowd erupts in cheer at the kind of performance they’ve witnessed tonight. Jester lies on his back, panting. He looks over at Lady Luck, who despite having injured her arm, basks in the attention even bowing like this was part of the performance.
“That’s just like her.” Jester raises his palm to him, there’s a gash through his orange glove. It tints the area red.
“That’s… just like her.” He squeezes his fist.
Witch and Alchemist sigh a breath of relief, knowing no one was heavily injured in their performance’s mishap. They treat the unconscious Inventor with the elixir they were cooking up before.
They quickly wrap up the party, the bosses help treat the injured and calm the crowd. Madison runs to Lady Luck holding a first aid kit.
“Your arm.” Her girl scout experience made it easy to fix her wounds. She rinses the wound in water, layering it in bandages, while Lady Luck affixes a smile only slightly wavering from the pain.
“Thank you, Madison, always the useful one, aren’t you?”
“Don’t mention it.” She smugly grins, snapping her first aid kit shut. Heading towards the other bosses, giggling away. A bandage rolls from out of her kit.
Lady Luck goes to pick up, almost calling out to her, but decides against it and pockets it instead. ‘She has plenty of supplies, I’ll give it to her later.’
Thief and Buster come up to her and to look at just what happened to the Inventor. “As powerful as ever, eh Luck? We seriously lucked out when beating ya at your game.” Thief shrugs.
“Well, nothing ever beats the power of fighting together. That is the realization we help cultivate at the Dungeons.”
“Right, right, that no worldly desire can be as good as the friends we made along the way.” He starts scratching the chin of Buster, who starts wagging his tail like a pup. “What a lame excuse.”
“That was a ferocious enemy! Even with all the bosses, we were still struggling to keep her down. Thank goodness you shut her down quickly.” Buster yawns. “I need a nap after this.”
“And you will get one soon after we wrap this up.” She pets Buster, who leans into her touch. There’s a groan, and Inventor gets up from the ground, fine and normal if only severely hurt, supported by Alchemist and Witch.
“What even happened to the act anyway, Thief?”
“Inventor just drank the mix and started growing chainsaws out her arms and head, Warrior was super enthralled, until it went all haywire and he was the first one at the scene.” Thief crosses his arms, furrowing his brow at Inventor slumply walking away. “The rest did their best to keep it away from the minions, while me and Buster were here to make sure it couldn’t get through. The rest, you already know.”
“I see.”
“By the way, you see where Jester went? He’s a tricky guy, but I gotta buy him a drink for what he pulled off there.”
‘Jester…’ She notices that he disappeared from where he was lying. “I have not seen him. He must have been injured, perhaps.”
“Ah, good thinking. I’ll go check with the bosses then, better go see how Warrior is doing. He’s probably thinking about how cool his battle scar is going to be.” He wakes Buster who has been dozing. “Bringing this sleepyhead to his den, thanks for inviting us Luck.”
They leave her while she ponders where Jester could be. Thief was right though, Jester is never so straightforward. Since the event is done and everyone is going home, there’s one place he always seems to go to.
The fountain with the bust of Lady Luck. Shrubbery surrounding it, makes it more of a park than a dungeon set piece. Jester paced round the fountain, kicking a rock or two whenever he felt like it. He stopped to stare at the statue of Lady Luck, that oh so peaceful look sculpted on it.
“What am I doing?” He asked no one in particular.
“What are you doing, Jess?”
He jumped back to see the real thing, Lady Luck looking curiously at him, as she held hip. She chuckled at spooking him.
“Expecting someone?”
“No one actually.” He straightened out with his hands behind his back.
“How wonderful, spending time admiring the scenery I put in. It was quite the chore, I’ll have you know.”
“I know, I was there.” he said softly. He reminisced about the time he was at her side, holding out a clipboard.
“Oh… Right.” She looked at his expression, it was different, forlorn and nostalgic. He’s been with her for so long and he betrayed her, sure. But, he did not want to keep waiting.
At this moment, silence fell between them. Neither knew what to say, how to get out, how to leave it all behind.
“It was a good party, Lucky. I had fun.” Jester broke that silence.
“O-of course! I’m glad you did.”
“I’ll see you at the next one, okay?” He started walking away from the fountain.
Lady Luck felt deja vu. This is exactly like the time he left the Dungeons as a minion and entered as a contestant. When he left her on her own. It didn’t phase her at the time, but all those feelings flooded her now. How she treated all her minions before, trapping them in these Dungeons of perpetual torment. How they hated her, just because she had to be the big bad. That animosity that she thought was all behind her now, is still manifesting right in front of her. So, she said the first thing that came to mind:
“I’M SORRY!”
Jester froze and looked straight behind him as she covered her mouth instinctively. Never has she said that to anyone, never has she stooped low enough to. It surprised both of them. She felt a piercing gaze drilling into her and panicked. Desperately tried to find the words to talk to him.
She dropped her eyes to her feet and noticed a red blotch on the path. Traced it to be right under Jester’s left hand. A drop of blood dripped through his glove. She could barely hold back the tears, but she had to start now.
“I’m sorry… I was a shitty boss who played villain for you all to come and defeat me. Switching to suddenly care about everyone once you all won the Dungeons was naive of me. And, I know it won’t bring back the years you’ve stayed at my side, the endless torment these Dungeons have left for you and the others, to not even be considered my sidekick after so many spins of the wheel I made you do.”
“That last part definitely,” Jester held a serious, pouty expression, firm, but open. He periodically opened his eye to see if she’s being sincere enough.
She shook her head at his antics. ‘Even at a time like this?’ she thought.
“I’m not hearing enough apologizing!”
She gulped, swallowing her pride. She rubbed her injured arm and continued her apology. “I haven’t apologized to you sooner and to everyone. It is a miracle that you’ve dealt with me even up until now. This won’t make up for this, but-” She took the bandage that was kept . “Will you let me help you? Madison has shown me the ropes.”
He observed her nervous demeanor, his bloodied palm and sighed. “I’d appreciate that.”
They both sat next to the fountain, she splashed fountain water onto his wound.
“Is that safe?” He tilted his head at her.
“Trust me, I wouldn’t allow anyone to soil this water fountain. It is as pure as I am.”
He glared at her with a knowing look.
“Look! I- ugh, it is safe.”
She awkwardly removed his glove, slowly bandaged his palm, recalling what Madison taught her. After a few long minutes, it was alright for her first time. He opened and closed his palm, testing the feel. Lady Luck hid her face, lifted a tuft of hair from over her ear.
“Thank you, Lucky.”
He could have sworn steam was coming off her as she hid her expression further.
“You’re welcome, Jess.”