Chapter 279: 280: Excursion

Having walked over the walkway towards the half-submerged dungeon-gate, Fresh stands in front of it and pokes a finger into the blue fog. She doesn’t enter through it, she just kind of leaves her finger there.

It doesn’t feel like anything at all really, the fog. It’s a little damp, a little cool to the touch, but that’s about it. It feels like fog. As for the ‘blueness’ of it, she can’t really say much about that. It’s probably just dungeon-magic. Then again, all of these ‘cut-off spaces’ have blue fog.

Jubilee had explained to her that the magic in a dungeon-gate is essentially the same as the cut-off space from an adventurer’s guild. Though she doesn’t really understand the logistics of it, honestly.

A dungeon is an ancient, stone construct, made in aeons past. Basil had told her they were made during a time when the gods still lived on the world, together with the people. Jubilee called Basil a kook, saying that never happened.

Fresh likes the idea though, but she doesn’t see how it explains the adventurer’s guilds. They were buildings made up out of wood, out of mortar and human-laid brickwork. So how did they ‘trap’ the fog there, if a god made it? And more importantly, what gave them the right to charge admission for people to enter into it and use it if that was the case?

It would be as if someone set up a toll-booth outside of the dungeon gate.

She sighs. Might makes right, she supposes. It’s the same everywhere. The adventurer’s guild controls the ‘resting area’ cut-off spaces, even if they’re a natural resource, simply because they do. That’s basically the only reason.

As for the dungeons, there have certainly been attempts to control them as well, but most have ended in brutally violent insurrections. Plus, closing them down and slowing down traffic hurt the economy more than it helped it.

In the end, it really is all about numbers, isn’t it?

Fresh continues on with her sighing.

“So are we going to go inside?” asks Basil, staring over her shoulder from behind. It’s late, after the store had closed again, after another busy, full day. “I thought you wanted to go to the dungeon?” she asks.

“We’re at the dungeon, Basil,” replies Fresh, looking back over her shoulder towards the priestess’ close face.

Basil blinks, staring at her. “No, I mean… into the dungeon.”

Fresh turns her head back and looks at the blue fog. “I dunno. You think we should?” she asks.

“I figured that’s why we came here,” sighs Basil. “Did you just want to look at the fog?”

Fresh nods. “Actually, yeah,” she admits. “Dungeon-magic seems really neat, Basil,” explains Fresh. “I was wondering if there was anything we could do with it?”

Basil frowns. “I don’t think this is a wise idea, honestly,” states the priestess. “Dungeon-magic isn’t something that people should play around with. It’s godly magic.”

“Then why does the adventurer’s guild get to?” she asks.

Basil continues to frown. “Because it’s their job.”

“Says who?” asks Fresh. “The adventurer’s guild?”

“They’re church sanctioned,” answers Basil, as if this were obvious.

“So was you getting killed, back in the north,” says Fresh. She stops, turning her head around as she realizes what she just said again without thinking. “I’m sorry, Basil. That was mean. I didn’t mean to say it,” she apologizes, looking at the priestess who isn’t looking back at her right now. “Sorry,” she says again, turning back to the fog.

“People aren’t perfect,” answers Basil. “We’re weird, gross, messy, confusing things,” she explains. “Come on, let’s go inside. Maybe we’ll catch up to Shamrock?” Basil grabs her hand and the two of them go in. Shamrock had already gone to the dungeon earlier. Jubilee had rejected wanting to go with them, saying that they’ll be glad to finally have some alone time.

The fog envelops them, covering them with a cool aura as they step through and into the dungeon. It’s such an odd, spacey sight. The other side of the dungeon gate looks just like the outside of the dungeon, but less cultivated. It’s like a wild-land. But it’s fake. The sky looks fake, the ocean looks fake. It’s like they’re in a big doll-house, that somebody had tried their very best to make look convincing.

“I’m really sorry, Basil,” says Fresh again.

“It’s okay,” says Basil. “We all die eventually, right?” she jokes. Fresh squeezes her hand. “I still think about sometimes.”

Fresh nods. “Did it hurt?” she asks. So far, every death of hers has been pretty quick.

“It hurt a lot,” says Basil. Fresh frowns. “I still dream about it,” admits the priestess. “A lot. That’s why I miss the mountain,” she says. “The sheep were really nice, you know?”

“Basil…” says Fresh. Honestly, she had never considered that that would be why the priestess is always kicking and flailing at night. She’s a little ashamed of herself that she never figured it out before, seeing as it’s right there to see. Every one of them is different and processes their troubles differently than the others and Basil has had just as many bad-times as any of them. It makes sense that she liked the anti-bad-dream sheep. But they don’t work here without the magic of the mountain.

“I’m sorry I never asked you about it,” says Fresh. “I’m a really bad friend.”

Basil shakes her head, looking around. “We all are, aren’t we?” asks the priestess. “Ah, look over there!” she says, pointing to an oddity. Out on the beach, there are several doors simply standing there, in the middle of the sand. “I bet those are the shortcuts that Shamrock has unlocked.”

“Mm!” says Fresh. She kind of wants to get Basil to stop so that they can really talk about it, but she also kind of wants to change the topic. Deciding not to overwhelm herself and the priestess right now though, she opts to change the conversation. “Can I ask you something dumb, Basil?”

Basil smiles, pulling her towards the doors. “You can always ask me something dumb.”

“What does the church actually worship?” asks Fresh. “Like… what do you believe in?”

“Huh?” Basil looks back at her. “Really?”

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“Mm,” nods Fresh. “I never really figured it out, honestly.”

“You all never seem to want to talk about religion,” says Basil. “I thought you weren’t interested.” She lifts a finger, pointing at the last door in the row. There are five doors, each one being a short-cut for eight floors. Which means Shamrock is down on floor forty, at the very least. “Is it weird if I say that I always feel a little out of place, because of that?” she asks.

Fresh shakes her head. She supposes that it makes sense. Basil, as an extremely religious person, having grown up and lived her entire life in the context of a priestess who lives in the northern cathedral, must certainly feel like a fish out of water in their group. Especially given the nature of all of their existences. Not for a lack of trying, she recalls Basil having asked her or the others several times if they want to join her in prayer. As far as she knows, nobody has ever actually taken her up on the offer though.

“Hold on,” says Basil. “Let me look first,” she instructs, letting go of her hand and stepping through the shortcut. A few seconds later, she comes back. “Okay, it’s clear, let’s go,” she says, pulling Fresh along behind herself again.

“Is it dangerous for us to be here, Basil?” asks Fresh.

“For us? Yeah, actually,” replies Basil. “Let’s trust in Shamrock though. I’m sure he cleared everything on the way.”

“Mm!” she replies. She supposes Shamrock is religious too, actually. Just in a different way.

“Neat,” replies Fresh, looking at the ‘free’ window that has appeared for both of them. Now she just needs to finally level up again.

“It sounds a little grim, honestly,” laughs Basil. The two of them look around. There is a gate behind them that presumably leads to the boss-arena on the last floor. Fresh has absolutely no idea what the boss here could be, especially on a floor this deep. But maybe it’s best not to look.

“Shamrock!” calls Basil down the hallway, her voice echoing as it carries along.

The floor layout has changed. The open-beach area from the first floors is now entirely gone. Rather, this part of the dungeon looks like some ancient ruin or temple, hewn out of brown, vine covered rock. The walls are covered in fading depictions of monsters and odd glyphs.

No response.

“Maybe he’s further down?” suggests Basil and the two of them carefully begin creeping their way through the floors.

Ahead of them lie several chambers that have been, for a lack of better words, destroyed.

But ‘destroyed’ isn’t really strong enough to describe the result of what must have happened here. The chambers are utterly ransacked and desecrated. Walls are shattered, odd creatures that she doesn’t recognize lie strewn about, cut and torn and maimed beyond recognition. The floor is shattered, the roof is shattered. In one room, there is literally a dead monster, some kind of odd, frog-like creature, stuck in the ceiling, its limp legs dangling down from above. It looks like Shamrock had literally thrown it so hard that it not only died, but that it got stuck in the rock of the ceiling. Its skull must have broken into it on impact.

“Sheesh…” sighs Basil. “He really does have a lot of energy, huh?”

“Mm,” nods Fresh, looking around at the carnage that even Jubilee would find impressive. She looks at a frog-monster that has been torn in half by what she assumes was the man’s hands alone. “It’s good to have something to believe in, huh?”

“Mhm,” nods Basil uneasily, as she looks at the goo dripping out of the dead frogs.

Razmatazz

Dungeon arc?

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