AN: Magi,The Labyrinth of Magic and Magi characters are property of Shinobu Ohtaka. Only Zara and Kat are mine.
Chapter One
Once upon a long time ago in a land far, far away…
The first dungeon in history appeared in a large country in the South West. Almost as if from another world, the dungeon defeated thousands of challengers until the day it was captured by a young boy. Fifteen years had passed since the first appearance of the large mysterious structures. In that time more of these dungeons sprouted around the world with thousands having attempted to gain the powers of these dungeons. People had tried all sorts of methods to come out with the treasures and power, even going as far as to use the lives of others all with the intent of coming out on top.
"Mother, Mother," a young boy called as he enter the chambers of a powerful witch. "When will I get to capture the dungeon?"
"Soon my son, the spell to guarantee your success is almost complete," his mother assured him.
"But I want to go now! I want to be King now!"
It had taken the woman three years but before the day was over she would have the final component to make sure that her child conquered a dungeon, giving him the power to take over the region ruled by the boy's father, giving him command instead of his older brothers.
Looking into a mirror, the reflection revealed the face of a young woman sleeping soundly unaware of the events that would proceed that same day.
"Who's that mother?" the boy inquired as to the brunette in his mother's special mirror.
With a smirk on her face the woman answered, "That my little lord is what we need to complete our spell."
++++++ A New Reality ++++++
Autumn brought change to the campus of an English University, as student filed into their classes ready to start a new semester. One such person was a young twenty-three year old American archaeology student starting her third semester named Zara Rivera.
Said woman sat in her usual spot upfront of the lecture hall as the doors opened and a professor walked in chalk in hand and writing on the chalk board.
"Alright people, settle down. I know your all in a hurry to get out and wake up with hangovers from your fancy dress parties, but even on Halloween this is still architectural history."
Zara was one of the few people who actually laughed, earning the university senior an appreciative smile from the professor and some mocking glances from the other students. Despite being in college some of the others still went as far as too tease her for being a teacher's pet.
Once the auditorium calmed down the man who walked in continued, "For those who don't know me I'm Professor Hugo, normally I'm in the science department but for the next couple of weeks I'll be filling in for Professor Solomon who is away on an excavation."
'I wish I could go away and discover some ancient artifact,' Zara though wistfully.
"Now since you'll have no classes these upcoming weeks, Professor Solomon has assigned a research paper. You'll also be working in small groups of three or four." Professor Hugo picked up a pile of papers and handed it to the nearest student to pass around. "Once you have your groups set up, please turn in the paper with the name of your group mates and the subject or your paper."
All of the students began to move around as they gathered into their cliques. Zara attempted to find someone to partner with but it was to no avail. Everyone she asked either had four members and those that didn't would either give her an excuse or outright say no even when she offered to do most of the work.
"Maybe we should ask that yank, Zara, to join our group," a young woman said to her two friend as she saw the woman asking to join the group. The male in the trio couldn't help but nod.
"She seems to know what she's doing most of the time. Not to mentioned I wouldn't mind having a little eye candy to stave off the tedium of all this research," he commented thinking that the brunette was one of the loveliest women he had ever laid eyes on.
The third member of the trio couldn't help but find herself feeling jealous from the way her fellow group members were talking about the foreign student. "Do not invite her into out group!" she said angrily not liking the idea of having competition.
"Do you guys need a fourth for your group?" Zara asked as she approached the trio.
Before anyone else could answer the envious woman denied her admittance. "No! We don't want someone like you in our group. Besides I couldn't bare the thought of being associated with a freak like you. I mean look at you, we can't tell if you dressed like a kindergartner or a grandmother," she said with a haughty laugh as the other two gave a the Latina a look that said they wouldn't be going against the wishes of their group leader.
In the End Zara sat by herself in a corner staring at her sheet of paper with only her name written. 'Well, what else is new," she thought as a feeling of melancholy washed over her.
An hour later the lecture hall cleared out as the students went on with the rest of their day. Zara got up and dragged her feet as she planned to stop by the library. If she was going to work on her own, she would have to get started as soon as possible to do all the work.
"Zara, can I have a word with you?" The professor called her over as the other students passed by the desk where he was seated. "I couldn't help but notice that you weren't listed as part of any group."
The young woman couldn't help but stare awkwardly at the teachers not expecting him to pay enough attention to her to make such an observation.
Although she was a top ranked student, Zara wasn't very popular. It didn't help that her shy nature was mistaken for being awkward or haughty.
"I'm not part of the in-crowd, I've never fit in," she mumbled, even at the age of twenty-three, she couldn't catch a break and was treated as an outcast and nerd. When Zara had received her acceptance letter to Cambridge University, she had hoped that in an intellectual atmosphere her treatment would be different instead she received the same treatment from her fellow students as she did from the teenagers in high school.
"Sorry I didn't catch that," Professor Hugo said.
Quickly waving her hands, she tried to change the subject, "Nothing…"
Picking up his notepad, the professor scribbled down some numbers and letters and handed her the slip of paper. "Normally I wouldn't get involved but since it seems you'll be doing a solo project why don't you check out this book, it might help you pick a topic."
"Dungeons and Labyrinths?" she read out loud. Zara couldn't help but give the man a questioning look.
"Just because I teach computer science, doesn't mean I don't know a thing or two about history," he said in a jovial tone showing he wasn't offended. He was about to say more, but stopped as he did a double take having seen what appeared to be a moving shadow but checked if off as a trick of the light.
"Thank you Professor Hugo," the young woman thanked the man and ran as quickly as she could out of the room.
In truth Zara didn't want him to see the blush on her face. Although he had to be at least ten years older, she had a sizable crush on the fairly young University professor. Although most people couldn't see past the glasses and scarf he always wore, Zara though the man was good looking. It helped to fuel her crush that she had once seen him outside of school wearing only swim trunks as he came out of the water. Not many knew that underneath the knitted sweaters he was tall and muscular.
Rumor had it, that Professor Hugo was single and had trouble talking to and being touched by women. Though when asked about his relationship status, the man usually replied that he was too busy with his research to focus on romantic pursuits.
Zara had taken a one of his classes when she first transferred to the school, and he had been one of the first people to treat her nicely even stopping to talk to her when they passed by each other on campus. Seeing how nonchalant he was with her, made Zara wonder if perhaps Professor Hugo didn't think of her as woman. The thought made her frown slightly as she walked to the university's library; the last thing she wanted was for her crush to think of her as "Just one of the guys."
Things were quiet in the library as Zara gave a small wave to the girl at the reference desk and headed up the stairs to the third floor where the history section was located.
"Dungeons and Labyrinths, Dungeons and Labyrinths," the woman repeated, as she looked over the book titles on the bookshelf where the piece of paper in her hand indicated her book was located from the numbers on the cover.
"Dungeons and Labyrinths sounds more like a fantasy novel then a history book," Zara muttered, a habit she had developed for whenever she talked to herself while slightly upset.
'I'm probably just adventurously frustrated', she thought as she passed by the books of different historical era in the library's historical section. As a little girl, Zara had always been envious of the characters in her fantasy novel. Now here she was practically an adult and no magic powers, no slain monsters and no evil empire to defeat.
Looking at the slip of paper, Zara hoped that no one had checked out the book in question. After a couple more minutes of searching she found the reference number. "Here it is," picking up the book she read the title. "Dungeons and Labyrinths. Does he expect me to write about Muppets and bisexual rock stars, ha-ha…Why is it I'm only funny when no one's around."
Just as the book was about to be opened, her cell phone buzzed alerting the student that she had a text message.
In her surprise Zara had accidently dropped the book. As she bent down to pick-up the reading material, the university student dodged a large shadow-like hand that had appeared from a dark empty space on the book shelf in attempt to grab hold of her.
'Here's another book I can use,' Zara thought as she found a book on one of the topics she thought of using for her research paper. In that moment a few books above her fell out of the shelf space, causing her to move further away from the shadow hands. By the time she stood back up the hand had retreated back into the shelf space making the girl none the wiser.
Reading the text, it had been a message from her roommate Kat, telling her to come back to the dorms due to an urgent matter. Zara sent her a reply asking for more specifics on the matter, praying that some random pipe hadn't burst and flooded their room or a wrecking ball hadn't knocked over a wall.
Again she sent her a text message telling her to hurry back adding no further detail. Zara grabbed her books and headed to the check-out desk.
"Dungeon and Labyrinths? You sure you want to check this one out love?" the librarian asked before scanning the barcode.
"What do you mean?"
Leaning in the librarian waved Zara closer, "It's just a rumor, but it seems that everyone who takes this book out of the library ends up experiencing some rather odd events. The last time someone checked out this book, they disappeared for three months and when they were found the person had no memory of where they had been all that time."
The skeptic that she was, Zara chose to laugh at the story. After all she doubted that someone like Professor Hugo would recommend something dangerous to her. "I think I'll be okay. You can go ahead and scan it."
Walking from the library to the student dorms, Zara perused the pages as she looked at the pictures of maps and blue prints of the ancient buildings. Engrossed in the pages of the book she barely noticed where she was going with many people moving out of her way. Zara was brought back to reality when she felt her foot sink into water.
'Strange, it doesn't look like it rained today,' she thought as she jumped over the remaining puddles in her path. Despite the childish act, her actions once more helped her avoid danger. From out of the small puddles the same hands that appeared from the shelves of the library, arouse from the water in another attempt to grab the girl.
One of the hands latched on to the skirt of Zara's dress. Just as it looked like the hand would pull her back towards the puddle, another student zoomed by on his bike cycling over the puddle that hosted the hands disrupting the shadow and making it let go of the girl's clothing. Hearing the ringing of the bike bell, Zara jumped out of the way.
'That explains the tug on my skirt,' Zara thought.
At that same moment that the university student was walking home with her nose in a text book, in another realm a woman was pacing in frustration.
"Argh!" The Witch yelled as she grabbed the nearest object, a jar of powder, and threw it at the head of her nearest advisor. "How is it that this girl has escaped my grasp twice already!"
Her son got up from his chair and approached his mother's magic mirror. "Mother! When is the spell going to be complete? I'm bored from waiting! I want to capture the dungeon now!" the boy whined.
One of the witch's servants tried to placate the child. "Please young master, be patient a little longer. One shouldn't rush in blindly when it comes to getting the power of a dungeon."
"How dare you tell me what to do! You're nothing but a lowly commoner!" the boy yelled at his mother's servant before taking out a small dagger and preceding to stab the man causing the witch's other servants to keep quiet around the young lord.
"Now, now, Kabuto mother has never let you down. This time I'll make sure she doesn't escape even if I have to bring her here in a less than pristine condition," the witch assured having calmed down from her previous annoyance and once more watched the woman from her enchanted mirror.
"Achoo. Achoo." The sneezes happened quickly and suddenly. 'Someone must be talking about me,' the brunette mused, remembering a superstition she had once over heard.
"Sneeze once means someone's thinking about you, twice and someone's talking about you. Three times and you have a cold," she repeated the old superstition to herself.
When Zara got back to the dormitory she greeted Kat Sampson, her dormitory roommate and one of the few friends she had at the university, who was waving at her from the third story.
The archaeology student had been surprised that the petite young woman with short blonde hair and a cute face and lady-like demeanor would show any interest in being her friend and roommate.
"Where have you been? We need to get going if we going to hit every spot on the fancy dress pub crawl," the tiny blonde shouted from her window.
Zara looked up in confusion, she had heard Kat mention that she was going on a pub crawl but thought she was joking when she said she would make her go along. Zara entered the building and headed up to her room, hoping Kat would forget about her going and leave the brunette in peace to start researching for her paper.
"What's with that sigh?" Kat asked coming out of her room when she heard Zara's footsteps as she opened the door to their dorm room.
"I got rejected again," she said putting her down the library books before taking of her coat and putting away her backpack. "Over thirty people in that class and no one wanted to work with me," Zara clarified while taking off her high-tops and trading them for her orange carrot slippers.
"Well I know one place you won't be rejected, the Rose and Duck, the Fox and Hound, the Bull and Rooster, etc., so hurry up and get changed," Kat ordered.
Zara knew the other woman was used to getting her way but tried not to give in to the blonde's whims. "I don't know Kat, I'm not really into the whole bar scene, so I don't think I'll be much fun and I don't even have a costume…"
"I took care of picking out our costumes, I'll be dressing as Harley Quinn and for you, since you're an American I decided to dress you in your nation's colours, as Wonder Woman," Kat informed her.
"I still don't know…"
"I heard professor Hugo's going," Kat added.
"Wh-What does that matter…" Zara sputtered her face flushing at the mention of the Computer science Professor.
"Please, it's so obvious you like the man, I can see it every time he comes up in conversation. All you talk about is how cool and handsome he is, frankly I hate it," Kat said in a barely veiled envious tone directed towards her roommate.
As much as Zara would have preferred to change into her pineapple print pajamas and work on her history project she knew that her friend wouldn't stop until she got the answer she wanted to hear.
While Zara had been thinking it over, her roommate had gone and returned from her room holding two garment bags with their names attached. Zara couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of the barley five foot tall woman carrying both items. Kat opened up her bag to show Zara her costume only to see a look of confusion on the taller woman's face.
"I thought you said you were dressing as Harley Quinn? Why do you have a red and black full body suit?" Zara asked. Not familiar with comic book characters most of her knowledge came from the films that Kat had taken her to see.
"I'm going as the version from the animated series. See I have the black domino mask and I'm even going to paint my face white. Everyone is going to be dressing like the one from the movie. Same with your outfit, so I got you one that looks like the one from the animated Justice League series."
Kat opened up the second garment bag and showed Zara the Wonder Woman costume.
"That looks a little small, are you sure that will cover everything?" Zara asked a little intimidated by the costume. While Zara was on the thinner side of the spectrum she was a bit worried how she would squeeze into what was basically a leotard.
"Don't worry Z. I wouldn't have picked it out if I didn't think you could pull it off," Kat assured her approaching the other girl. "With your dark brown hair, those long legs and hourglass figure and not to mention your large rack, I'm sure you'll fill it out just fine," the blonde teased as she poked Zara's chest, being unable to reach her face.
The young woman couldn't help but slap the English girl's finger away before blushing and crossing her hand over her breast in embarrassment.
"Do you know how hard to was to find a costume for you. There aren't many places that have costumes for women six feet tall. It was either this or dressing you up like the Sophia Loren," she added, having teased Zara for the uncanny resemblance the girl had to the movie star from back in the 1950s. "Plus I went to the trouble of having it fitted to your measurements, Thirty ni-" her friend ranted.
"I get it, I get it, you can stop, I'll put on the costume" Zara had placed her hand over the girl's mouth, her face red that Kat knew that much personal information in the few months they had known each other. She took the garment bag and hung it on her closet door before pushing the Brit out of her room to get some privacy before she changed. Unzipping the bag she took out the Wonder Woman replica and even found it came complete with accessories and a pair of boots.
'Why did Kat pick this version? Couldn't I have gotten a costume that came with pants?' The woman thought as she took of her pink overall dress and gray top . It took a bit of work to zip the back of the one-piece but Zara finally got to see how the article of clothing fit. Much to her dismay, Kat had managed to actually get her the right size.
She did find that it was a bit more form fitting than she was used too considering most the clothes in her wardrobe consisted of dresses, cardigans and overalls.
Once she donned the one-piece, she zipped up her boots and added the accessories of the bracelets, tiara and belt with gold colored rope. Zara looked at herself in the floor length mirror. She had to admit, the costume did suit her even if she lacked the muscles of an Amazon.
Unnoticed by Zara, the same hands that had appeared over the course of the day had manifested themselves once again. This time they had appeared from beneath the woman's bed. Zara was in front the mirror putting on her star shape earrings when the hands shot out and grabbed her ankles pulling her before she could react to the sense of touch.
The sudden pull on her legs caused Zara smash head first into her mirror. While the girl managed to avoid getting cut from the glass shards, the hit to the head temporarily dazed her enough that the hands began dragging her along the floor towards the bed on the other side of the room.
Snapping out of her daze, Zara let out a loud yell of fright. "Let me go!" she cried grabbing on to one of the legs of her desk hoping to pull herself out of the entity's grasp. Zara let out a gasp when she looked to see who it was that had gotten hold of her only to find instead of a person, the shadowy dark hands that looked more like an animal's than a person.
"Help! Kat!" She called out, as her fingers began to slip while the creature moved its grip from her ankle to her legs.
Hearing the woman's pleas, Kat burst into the room, her jaw dropping at the sight of her roommates abode. Glass shards and knocked over items and furniture but the most shocking was the monster arms coming from under the bed.
"What is that thing?!" Kat asked as she took out her cell phone to take a picture momentarily forgetting the other person in the room who was hanging on for dear life.
"Never mind that, just help me!" she yelled as her body was being lifted causing her to let go of the desk.
The girl in the Harley Quinn costume rushed towards Zara and grabbed her hand in what looked like a losing game of tug of war. Due to Kat's small stature she was being pulled along with the other woman.
"Kat go get help!" Worrying that Kat would be taken by the shadow Zara made the decision to let go of her friend's hand. In doing so the hands dragged Zara under her bed.
Kat rushed to the piece of bedroom furniture. Lifting up the bed skirt she looked under for Zara or any sign of her or the shadow monster. There wasn't a trace of either making Kat worry over the well being of the Archaeology student.
"Zara! Zara!" She yelled hoping there would be a response of some kind.
"Where did she go?"
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Edited on 8/12/2017