Chapter 277: Chapter 277

How do you think you get someone to like you, guy?

 

Is it by being nice? Or do you have to be pretty? Maybe you have to be interesting? Or maybe you just have to be really, really cool?

 

“Psst-“

 

I swing my arm out, shooing away the gribbler. But as my appendage swings out, I hit nothing but empty air. Shoo-shoo, gribbler! Get lost! Why are you even here?

 

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, friends. How many friends do you have, guy? I have you and I have eyeyoume. Oh and I have the stranger! So that makes three friends! Sure, two of you aren’t really real and the other one hits me sometimes, but it could be worse, right? Yeah, I think so. At least I’m not alo-

 

“Psst!”

 

“Shut up!” I yell at the gribbler, turning to look towards where the ‘psst’ came from so that it doesn’t get me. You gotta look at the gribbler now and then, you know? If you just ignore it, that’s when it gets you. The gribbler doesn’t like being ignored, but it also doesn’t like being looked at. It’s a weird situation, but I kind of sympathize at the same time. I would sympathize a lot more though, if it wasn’t trying to eat me and my new best-friend. Stupid gribbler. Anyways, where was I again?

 

I turn my head, looking back forward. I have no-one to watch the path for me and to distract the gribbler at the same time, so I just have to do both things. My friend is glowing with a bright fire, so it doesn’t want him. It just wants me because I’m back here alone in the dark. It’s a little risky, but back here he can’t see my ugly face, so it’s for the best really. Maybe the shadows even make me look mysterious and interesting? Oooh, I hope so. I hope he looks at me agai-

 

“Psst-“

 

“Psst yourself!” I spin around, yelling at the gribbler, watching as the edge of its strange, long hand disappears into the darkness as I turn to look at it. The gribbler isn’t really anything that I can describe to you accurately, guy. You need eyes to see it, real eyes. But what I can see are five, long, spindly fingers sliding back along the stones of the dungeon floor, as the gribbler pulls its hand back into the shadows where the rest of its body is hidden. Each of the fingers is giant, as large as a full man, but only as wide as a goblin is in width. They’re long and stick-like and the yellow skin that dresses them is pulled so tightly over their bony frames, that his knuckles bulge out like disturbing boils. His nails, giant and cracked and unkempt with dirt caked beneath them, drag along the stones, scraping and breaking off more chips of themselves as he drags them back into the dark.

 

That’s right, you get out of here, gribbler. No gribbling allowed!

 

You might be wondering, guy, why is the gribbler still alive? The answer is because the gribbler can’t be killed. The wind blows. The tide comes in. The moon rises. The gribbler gribbles. It is what it is and you really shouldn’t waste your energy on trying to change it, okay? Not everything has to be killed, sometimes you can just let things be as they are because that’s the way the natural world wants it to be. I get it. Apparently the hero-party gets it. So I think you can try to understand too, guy, okay?

 

There are a few floors like this in the dungeon. Consider them puzzles, or challenge floors rather than the typical ‘kill everything and keep going’ floors. The dungeon-master, in his infinite wisdom, decided to spread a few of these around in order to keep the adventurers on their toes and it works great as far as I can tell. But it’s a problem for me right now. Then again, maybe I’m just the problem.

 

I turn around, looking for my friend. I see nothing however.

 

Friend?

 

It’s dark. I can’t see his fire anymore. Where did you go, friend? Did you walk on without me? Oh no, I’m sorry! I’m the worst, I wasn’t paying attention. Fearfully I look around the darkness all around me, searching for a tiny spark of fire that could reveal his presence to me, for a tiny glow that could prove to me that he’s still here, that I’m not alone with the gribbler who goes ‘psst’.

 

Which way was the path?

 

Uh…

 

I scan the darkness. Wasn’t it this way? I just turned around because of the gribbler, that means if I turn around again, I should be going straight, right? Yeah, that makes sense to m-

 

“Psst-“

 

“Shut up!” I yell at the gribbler as I spin around again.

 

Shit.

 

I look around the darkness, now having totally lost track of which way I was going.

 

Hello? I look around the darkness. Where is everyone? Where did everyone go? I blink my eyes, trying to see if I can see anything. But there is nothing here but me, it’s pitch black. I’m alone in the void, if my two feet weren’t firmly planted against the rock, I would be sure that I am floating in limbo. Limbo…

 

I clutch my head as something pulsates inside of it. Wasn’t I in a place like that before? In a limbo? In a void? Keeping my palm over my left eye, I lift my head and take another peek at the darkness. Or have I always been here? Have I ever left? Where am I?

 

“Pssssst-“

 

Who am I?

 

“Psst-“

 

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I don’t understand. What am I doing? Was I going somewhere? Darkness covers me as if I were being crushed beneath an ocean of black-water and I fall to my knees as its great, endless weight presses me down into the dirt. I hear a rattling as I sink and plant myself firmly down into the darkness. I’m scared, guy. Where am I? Why is it dark? I don’t like the dark. I don’t want to be in the dark. Why are my legs shaking?

 

I clutch behind myself, trying to reach for my blanket, but my fingers grasp nothing but the emptiness that has swallowed me. Help.

 

Dungeon-master?

 

Friend?

 

Guy?

 

Nobody responds. There’s truly, nobody here but m-

 

“Pssssst!”

 

The gribbler who goes ‘psst’ hisses into my ear as I feel his presence next to me in the shadows. I close my eyes, making myself ready to face my fate. I won’t look his way this time to scare him off. I won’t swing my arm to shoo-shoo him away. I don’t know what I was doing. I don’t know who I am or was. I don’t know where I’m going and where I have been and I don’t know the reasons for my having been and wanting to go to those places. I’m lonely. It’s cold. I’m empty. I’m ready.

 

I think I want to sleep.

 

Something nudges my back and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter closed.

 

The finger nudges me again. Can you just eat me?

 

“Psst- !“

 

“WHAT?!” I shout at the gribbler, now annoyed. I spin around, but don’t get up as I stare back at the darkness behind me where I can only see a gnarled, worn, giant hand sitting on the edge of the shadows.

 

The index finger lifts up and points into the air above me and I turn my gaze to follow it. What? What do you-?

 

I watch, as something lazily drifts down through the darkness, carried in a gentle sway left and right by a wind that channels high above me. The thing, the disturbance rocks back and forth as it sinks down to the ground, swaying as if were a child held tightly in the arms of a mother trying to soothe it. A ghost? Some kind of haunting spirit?

 

I hold out my hands, as the thing that falls, falls unto me and drapes around my gauntlets as it sags, falling limp and loose with a heavy weight, as if I were holding a body in my arms, as if I were holding a beloved who has left me behind to go to what lies beyond alone.

 

Closing my fingers, I clutch the cape so tightly in my shaking hands as I gaze up towards the darkness. Is this for me? For me, dungeon-master? I look down at it and then back to the shadows uncertainly. This must be a mistake. The gribbler who goes ‘psst’ nudges me again, pushing against my back and I stumble forward from my sitting position, landing on all fours with the fabric entwined around my hands.

 

A cape…? I rise to my feet.

 

A cape. Haha. Guy, look! It’s a cape! HAHA! I press the fabric against my face, rubbing it against the soft material, imprinting my scent onto it. I flick my tongue. A cape?! A CAPE?! My hands shake as I dig into my eye-sockets, pushing the fabric in with both hands. A CAPE! A CAPE! I’ve always wanted a cape, guy! Look at me, will you?! It’s a little tattered on one end. Some jack-ass janked it up a little, look!

 

I swing out the long sheet of fabric before me, letting it flow in the warm winds of the dungeon that encompass my body, the gentle current having now sunk to my level. It’s perfect! I promise I’ll take care of it, dungeon-master! I promise that I’ll lo… lo…

 

What’s that smell? What’s that… What's that sound?

 

Do you hear it, guy? Do you hear it too? Listen. LISTEN! Sssssshhhh!

 

I stare around the quiet darkness, listening for the sound I just heard. There! It’s coming from that way! You heard it too, right? It sounds like a hum, like a song that doesn’t have any particular tune.

 

I’ll cherish this forever, dungeon-master. I’ll never let it go. I’ll never let it go. I’ll never let it go. I’ll… I’ll…

 

Pulling my hand out of my left eye socket, I grab the cape and fling it around my back, tying the ends of the fabric around the fastenings on the back of my armor. It’s perfect!

 

I do a twirl, feeling the cape billow behind me as I spin excitedly in a circle and as I stop, my eyes stop and see the hand sitting on the edge of the darkness. It lifts a finger that is easily my size and points down towards the left as it shows me the way.

 

I nod to the gribbler. “Thanks Mr. Gribbler!” I say to the gribbler who goes ‘psst’. The hand flashes me a thumbs-up and retreats back into the darkness once again.

 

 

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