Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Insight and Inspiration

*Note: Adventure Academy is now on RR's Rising Stars... So I wanted to THANK YOU readers who helped us get there. I hope you continue to enjoy the novel from here on too! 

 

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Insight and Inspiration

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The dungeon’s interior was a massive crypt with a vaulted ceiling supported by dozens of stone columns stained in the same blackened goo as the mausoleum above. The worn and torn tapestries draped over the walls were embroidered in depictions of corrupt-politician-level cruelty like a line of soldiers firing their guns at a crowd of protesters or people getting dragged kicking and screaming from their homes by faceless authority figures.

Staring at them sent a cold shiver snaking up my spine that had nothing to do with the chilly atmosphere permeating the crypt. I managed to keep this feeling to myself though while Morph was less subtle in his quivering.

“You should stop looking at the walls if you want to keep your nerve, Morph,” Dess whispered.

She was floating right behind me with Morph at her side and the other members of our team not far behind.

“We’ve yet to enter the actual dungeon, and the tank’s already shaking in his boots,” Lohgan commented as he passed Morph by. “Shocker...”

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“Wh-who’s shaking in their boots?” Morph countered weakly.

He’d sent that jab at Morph but I felt like I, the dungeon virgin, had also been struck by Lohgan’s taunt.

“What a tool,” I whispered.

It would be so easy to whack Lohgan in the back of the head and then watch him tumble down the steps to end up as a messy heap of bruised joints and ego. But, as tempting as that thought was, I didn’t want to handicap my team right from the start.

Discreetly, I did my best to follow Dess’s sound advice as we walked onward, but I would sometimes catch glimpses of the fluttering tapestries on the walls and immediately regretted it. Their depressing themes brought out a kind of unease in me that I hadn’t felt in a while. Not since my first gruesome end as a sacrifice on a death cult’s altar.  

Still, we arrived with our spirits mostly intact at the other end of the crypt where the rest of the raid group stood waiting by two giant, intricately carved stone doors. Ominous magical energy leaked out of these doors, one that set my teeth on edge as I drew closer.

“Remind me, there are tiers to dungeons, right?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Dess answered.

She pulled out her status bar and pointed its rear camera lens at the two doors. Yeah, her newer model bar had these interesting extra features my old hand-me-down didn’t possess.

“My ‘Eagle Eye’ app has an energy reader feature that can analyze the levels of corrupted magical energy saturating an enclosed space and it’s a quick way to tell how much danger we’re likely to get into,” she explained in her usual hyper-speed style. “Which isn’t much in this case. See?”

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