Author Note: So I noticed a lot more errors since a friend pointed them out for me as well as you lovely readers that review, Microsoft Word decided to be stupid and auto correct some words wrong, making them worse. Sorry for the wait, I kept getting side tracked or am busy. Enjoy lovely readers!
Finn could feel the sudden drop in temperature after several minutes in the tunnel. Marceline didn't seem to care or even notice, but Finn found it eerie yet comforting that the Tunnel was so cool compared to the scorching heat outside, but the only thing that bothered Finn was that the tunnel was perfect, to perfect. It looked like a normal cave at first, but after a minute into the tunnel it became a perfect tube with smoothed walls that looked chiseled and a path that was perfectly smooth as they walked through the tunnel. Finn had calmed down thanks to the relaxing coolness in the tunnel and the sweet aroma of strawberries that Marceline was exuding, causing him to blush as he stared at Marceline for a short time.
Finn looked ahead to keep his thoughts off his companion and noticed the light was much closer, proving to be without a doubt the exit as Finn squinted his eyes to get a better look past the glare. "Back into the heat soon, but thankfully we will be going into the dungeon, so it's not too bad." Finn thought to himself well the tunnel exit into the crater grew closer, the glare not as harsh as before.
Finn's eyes expanded into large orbs as he gazed across the landscape before him as they exited the tunnel. The two were now standing on an indent in a large bowl shaped cavity that had steep slopes that would cause anyone who dared try treading it to immediately lose their footing. Finn was in awe of the size of the crater, it must have been at least 200 meters down to the bottom where Finn could see the terrain flatten to meet at the center where a square structure that appeared to be made out of a white material was standing out against the brown and orange colored terrain. Finn gazed up quickly to see the torn chunks of earth that made the façade of a mountain, he assumed it was more than a thousand meters high to hide the massive crater and trick anyone who didn't know the location of the tunnel.
"Whoa, math." Finn said in surprise at the vast crater's size and surroundings. "Math is right Finn, that's the same way I reacted to this place when I discovered it, except you sound more like a dork." Marceline said as she rested her arms atop Finn's head acting like it was an armrest as she floated higher than Finn from behind him. Finn was not bothered much by the action, but he let out a short chuckle at Marceline's teasing. The sight really was beautiful to him and he didn't care what he sounded like when he saw it. "So im guessing the start of the dungeon is that structure in the center of the crater?" Finn asked as he pointed down to the square structure that was difficult to describe from a distance.
Marceline didn't even need to look to where Finn was pointing, she only responded by picking the human up by his arms and flying down quickly, yet carefully towards the building below with Finn. After several minutes Marceline slowed to a stop several feet above the ground, dropping Finn at a safe height. Finn landed on the ground on one knee, his hand on his sword. Marceline laughed at his reaction as she flew past him towards the structure nonchalantly. On closer inspection Finn saw how detailed the structure actually was, it was made out of marble, columns stood at each edge of the structure bringing out its details further. Finn was perplexed by the structure, it had many cracks and damage on it, but there was not a single scratch on the carvings on each side of the entrance to the structure as walked up to it behind Marceline.
On the left side of the large doorway there were figures carved into the wall which included skeletons, monsters, why wolves and other evil looking beings Finn could name. Finn's eyes came across a carving of the lich as he skimmed the wall, Finn felt his skin crawl as he looked at the being that had caused so much chaos for the people of Ooo and beyond. He saw Orgalorg below the lich. Finn then looked up further up the door which made him raise an eyebrow, Finn had already caught on that the evil of Ooo was on the left and was ordered by strength, the bottom being the weak and the top being the most powerful. Surprisingly the lich was below six humanoid beings with wings on their back. Finn felt his stomach turn when he looked to the right side of the door. On the right was the opposite of the left, all the good of Ooo. Finn could see so many carvings that looked like his friends all in different places. Jake, LSP, Bubblegum, Simon wearing the crown, Betty next to him. Finn could see even Flame Princess and so many of his friends, Marceline was even on the right, wielding her ax base. She was on the top of the right which surprised Finn. Where was he? He then looked above the center of the doorway, there Finn could see a carving of a human on the right wielding a sword similar looking to Finn's Soul Sword. Next to the human on the left was another humanoid looking being with straight hair wielding a difficult to define sword in his other hand, both beings were looking towards each other well holding their hands out to each other. Finn took all of this in and the terror began to fall on him as he realized how old these ruins must have been. "Wait these ruins look centuries old! How are carvings of evil and good from this era on this structure?! Who are those humanoid beings on the left and why are me and a humanoid in the center!" Finn felt his pulse race with his thoughts, before they came to a sudden stop when Finn was slapped across the face hard enough to snap him out of his trance by Marceline. "You alright? You looked like you just saw Death butt naked." Marceline spoke with a raised eyebrow and her hands on Finn's shoulders. Finn took in a few gasps of air, still calming himself. He pointed to the doorway and spoke. "Ya I'm alright, just those carvings freaked me out. You could have warned me about them beforehand." Marceline's face showed a hint of concern well her eyebrow raised a second time after she looked at the walls around the doorway and back to Finn. "What are you talking about? Those walls don't have any carvings on them at all dude. Are you feeling ok?" Marceline asked, causing Finn to have a shocked look on his face as he stared back up at the carvings, hoping his mind was playing games with him. The carvings were still on the wall, same as before. "What the…?" Finn asked in a half whisper, perplexed by what was happening. "M-Maybe im just seeing things." Finn rationalized as he responded to Marceline.
Marceline was still concerned for the human, but decided to believe his theory that his mind was playing tricks. "Alright Finn, let's get inside before you get heat stroke." She said before she floated into the open doorway.
Finn nodded as he followed Marceline into the large doorway, trying to resist staring at the carvings any further. As he passed the doorway and went into the structure he noticed large spiral staircase made of marble in the center of the room. They only went down, He noticed Marceline going down the stairs already. Finn ran after her, quickly catching up to the floating vampire. He walked beside her as they began to descend into the dungeon, the stairs seeming to go down for eternity. Finn had to pull out his light crystal again as the light faded from above after minutes of walking down the stairs. Finn hated the decent, but was glad that the air cooled down from the blaring heat above ground. After about what Finn could only guess was twenty minutes they entered a dome chamber, the spiral staircase originating from the center of the dome and ending at the center of the floor. Finn walked behind Marceline as she led him around the dome room after stepping off the stairs. There was only one pathway, which was a corridor of carved stone to the north of the stairs, it appeared to have eight doorways with doors made out of solid crystal down the length of the corridor before it entered a much larger room in the distance.
Finn was staring at the crystal doors in wonder as he and Marceline walked down the corridor. Finn found it strange that Marceline was walking, but Finn was more taken in by the doors in the corridor, the crystals were all impossible to see through, and they emitted a magical energy from the runes engraved on the doorframe, stopping any magic from breaking into the rooms. Finn knew it wasn't possible to get in easy since Marceline sighed as she looked at one door near the end of the corridor before walking into the next room.
The room had a high ceiling that went up two stories, the room was a rectangle with oval corners. Across the room from the entrance were eight giant statues in an arch to match the wall, each one ominous looking and holding a strange metal rings as if hold a picture frame. As Finn and Marceline drew closer Finn noticed that each ring was a different color and had the same crystal material as the doors inside the ring. "Marceline what am I looking at?" Finn asked, feeling the air chill as he and the Vampire Queen drew closer to the statues. "Well they are the thing I wanted to show you, they are the only thing in this entire dungeon besides those doors back there. I tried to at least nab the rings for so easy gold, but the statues are almost impossible to scratch, let alone break." Marceline stated as she demonstrated by morphing effortlessly into her large bat form and bringing a large clawed fist down on one of the statues causing a loud thump to echo in the room before Marceline morphed back to normal next to Finn, the statue still standing without a single scratch or mark from the impact. Finn was taken aback for a bit then moved closer taken a close look at each statue and its ring. Each statue was the same looking, humanoid with bald heads, large eyes, and average built bodies. The rings all were the same shape and size with the same crystal center, but the metal was different. On the first ring left most of the statues the metal was dark navy blue. The second ring Finn inspected was made of violet metal, the third was forest green. Finn looked at the two middle statues and felt light head as he gazed at them, feeling like he was being hypnotized by the lich. The middle statue on the left had a pitch black ring well the one on the right was pure white. Finn broke the gaze from the middle statues and continued looking at the last three in order from left to right. Steel grey, almost fooling Finn into thinking it was normal metal. The next ring was scarlet red, well the final ring was cyan.
"What the heck is this stuff? This metal isn't normal, I have never seen any sort of material like." Finn commented as he slid his hand along the cyan ring. It was as cold as ice. Finn didn't dare touch any other rings, but something clicked in his mind, causing him to speed walk over to the navy blue ring on the left end. Marceline floated closer to Finn, curious about what made him worked up. "Finn what's wrong?" Marceline asked the only response she got was Finn sliding a hand into his green pack, and removing the wrapped combat knife they recovered from the wreckage of the destroyed tribe. Finn unwrapped the cloth around it and held it in his right hand close to the metal ring. "The metal is the same." Finn announced his expression grave as he turned around towards Marceline. "What do you mean by-" Marceline was unable to finish her question as she was quickly shoved by Finn, knocking her to the ground behind him in surprise as sharp clang sound filled the air. Finn had locked blades with a cloaked stranger wearing a white mask with a smile carved on it. The mask hid everything besides his bloodthirsty eyes as he glared at Finn for stopping him from ending the Vampire Queens life with a silver ceremonial dagger. "I don't know who you are, but you're not going hurt my friend you butt!" Finn yelled as he used his ridiculous strength to overpower the hooded man with the blue knife, snapping the ceremonial knife in two easily as it was caught on the serrated edges of the knife. The man hesitated as his weapon broke like a stick allowing Finn to spin around and use the momentum to smash his elbow hard into the man's throat, causing him to gag for air and fall back on the impact. Finn quickly flipped the knife in his hand drove it down into the crazed man's chest before he could grab the broken blade of his weapon. The hooded figure's body went limp before Finn pulled the combat knife out of his corpse. "You were beyond mercy. Im sorry, it was your life or ours." Finn said in a tone devoid of emotion. He glared towards the corridor where eleven more of the same hooded figures stood with their silver daggers in hand, all sharing the blood thirsty eyes that filled their dead comrade. "Hahaha, the Forsaken One has slayed a follower. His death proves how useless he was to his gods!" One of the hooded figures yelled out manically, sending the other cult members into hysteria, the room filling with crazed laughed. Finn glared at the group well holding the strange combat knife in his right hand ready to slam it down on anyone well he placed his left hand on the grip of the Soul Sword, ready to merge his soul with it and destroy his new opponents.
The cultists all dove at Finn at once, slashing and jabbing at Finn with their daggers with zero to no skill. Finn easily avoided several blades from connecting with him, he quickly responded by fusing his soul with his sword, the chains wrapping around his left hand as he slammed the blade into the spine of several cultists close together, the blade easily cut through cloth and flesh, breaking their bones like twigs as their limp bodies were flung across the room from the impact and into a stone wall, the sound of gargled breaths cutting short filled the room as the cultists stared in shock at the human. His eyes were ice cold, his expression emotionless. A few cultists were shaking before they screamed in rage as they tried to attack Finn again. Finn let out a chuckle as he quickly swept a cultist's leg causing them to fall. Finn drove the knife straight through the man's throat, severing vocal cords as his screams turned to nothing but raspy gargles before a quick death followed. Two other cultists tried to jump Finn from behind as he was removing the knife from the corpse. "Go extinct human!" One cultist yelled as they drove their dagger into Finn's right arm, causing Finn to let out a pained scream. Marceline looked on in fear, getting up quickly to rescue Finn until she heard laughing. It was not coming from the cultists, but from Finn as he stopped screaming, green liquid flowing out of the edges of his stab wound. "Haha I can't believe you guys thought you got me." Finn said through his chuckling as he threw the blue knife high into the air, his right hand instantly turning into a green grass tentacle with spikes across it as he stretched it a full circle around him, impaling the two cultists behind him and slamming them into the wall, crushing their vital organs before the tentacle retracted and turned back into Finn's arm allowing Finn to catch the blue knife as it fell down to the ground. Only five cultists remained, one of which had no mask, but the hood was covering their face enough to hide their identity. "Well now that Grass Sword had its fun, shall we end this?" Finn asked as he pointed his weapons at the cultists. The last four wearing masks ran towards Finn from the front, screaming bloody murder as they split up into a wide arc so at least one would get a hit.
Finn sighed, which seemed to slow time for everyone in the room and increase the volume in his voice. "Fools." He said plainly before letting out a battle cry and slamming the Soul Sword vertically down onto the floor, causing cracks and particles of dirt to form in the ground in the shape of a wide cone in front of Finn. The ground exploded from the sheer force, causing two cultists to be blown into a nearby wall hard enough to break their necks before they fell limp to the floor. The last two cultists were not as lucky, they had lost their footing as the ground around them shifted up into sharp points were they had separated from the floor causing the two to be impaled severely, causing them to die slowly as blood flooded out like a river from their wounds. Finn closed his eyes for a minute, giving them a prayer that they find peace from their madness. Finn opened his eyes to see the last cultist, which was most likely the leader standing with his arms crossed a smirk on his face. "Well done Forsaken One, but you're a fool, just like your ancestors." The cultist mocked as his hood fell back, revealing a female humanoid with peach tinted skin and a third eye on her forehead with pulled back red hair. They pulled out their own ceremonial dagger and ran towards Finn at high speed, quickly appearing behind him in a flash. Finn eyes widened as he turned around quickly enough to block the dagger with his grass hand. The tip piercing through his arm, which made him wince in actual pain this time. Finn was now on the ground fighting the woman's insane strength with his own as she straddled on top of Finn. The Soul Sword being knocked out of his grasp when he fell so he was now in a test of strength and losing as the daggers tip approached his heart inch by inch. "Once you're out of the way I can reclaim the weapon of one of my gods that those foolish cyclopes hid well I burned them to a crisp!" Finn felt rage fill his heart as he found the killer, who was now planning on hurting him and other innocent people. "Damnit, why is this girl bananas strong compared to her followers?" Finn questioned in his mind as the dagger's tip poked his skin, ready to sink in to the warm living flesh.
Suddenly the woman's body went stiff, blood flowed out of her eye sockets and mouth as she tried to speak with a crazed expression, allowing only loud gargles to come out. Finn looked over her shoulder to see Marceline her right hand shapeshifted into bladed claws that were sunk into the cult leader's back, piercing through to the front well also piercing her heart multiple time. Marceline's eyes were blood red as she lifted the woman up easily after removing the bladed claws and morphing them back to normal. "Don't you dare touch Finn you skank! Suffer in the Nightosphere forever!" Marceline screamed as she smashed the woman's head hard into the ground, smashing her skull easily and ending her life. Marceline was panting from the adrenaline and anger as Finn looked at her from behind, he slowly recovered and removed the dagger from his grass arm, throwing it to the ground then retrieved his Soul Sword and sheathed it on his back. "Um Marcy are you alright?" Finn asked, not getting a response as his friend had stopped panting. Finn placed his hand on her shoulder. "Marcy im worried abou-" Finn didn't get to finish as Marceline quickly spun around, hugging Finn and kissing his cheek and burying her head into his chest. Finn was taken aback by the action, fumbling over his words as his faced turned strawberry red. "Thanks for being my hero today Finn, but you're not alone." Finn calmed down quickly at what Marceline had said, causing a smile to spread across his face as he embraced Marceline back. "Ya your right, we have each other." Finn cooed softly well he and Marceline embraced each other for even longer, supporting each other as they laughed, cried, and recollected on old times. Totally unaware of their attraction to each other deepening.
After some time Finn and Marceline had left to return to the Treehouse to clean themselves up and take it easy the rest of the day after their adventure. In the darkness of the empty dudgeon though the crystals in the rings began to crack, every single one except the two in the middle. As the cracks slowly formed, chaotic laughter could be heard, but the source was not from the dead cultists or any others, the source came from the crystals, light that was the same color as the ring pouring from the cracks as the laughing increased in volume. "The time is almost upon this world Forsaken One" Six voices spoke hysterically in unison before the laughing continued. The Hero of Ooo and Vampire Queen unaware of the threat that would soon tear its way into Ooo.