There was no crack. There was no reaction from the troll. She moved forward and stepped into the indentation. Her steps made no sound, neither did her breath. It felt eerie, strange and uncanny. She walked slowly, despite the spells feeling it more cautious to place her weight considerately and with care. Her breath was slow, as if she, just as said troll, was meditating. She eventually reached the other side and inspected the troll. Generally, inspecting anything in a dungeon gives you very strange information, because it is not the real thing. It is the dream of a dungeon core, who might not ever have seen it in real life. However, attacking this creature that was just meditating silently felt wrong.
Image of an infected troll: This is an image of a troll that had been infected by the image of a Sinasya mushroom colony. While under its influence, it will fight anyone hurting the crystalline-looking mushrooms.
She breathed in sharply, grabbed the only healing potion that she had. She heard others scream to go and attack, to dispatch the thing already. She made a gesture that could mean “calm down” or “not so fast”, but while under [Nightly Sojourn], she was mute to everyone around her, even if she spoke.
She uncorked the potion, put it to the lips of the troll and slowly fed it to it. She kept inspecting the troll waiting for any changes. Nothing happened for several minutes while she waited. Then, the troll opened its eyes, looked at her, growled, stood up to twice the height of Kiresula, turned around and walked into a rockwall as if it didn’t exist. Kiresula tried to follow but was repelled by the rock.
The others screamed loudly, but she couldn’t understand them as they all screamed at the same time. Kiresula looked back and shrugged.
She investigated the fake crystals now that she was alone:
Idea of Sinasya-shrooms: These mushrooms try to infect another dungeon-construct to force it into a guardian role. Weak to fire.
Kiresula ended her ongoing spells and shouted at the group: “Throw a torch into the crystals!"
Kedsel did so immediately and the crystals caught fire as if they were made out of tinder. A few minutes later, only a thin layer of ash remained. The group crossed the indentation to reach Kiresula. Tamijet looked as if she wanted to kill the glitchling with her looks. “What in the green hills was that?”
Kiresula shrugged: “Infectious mushrooms. These crystals were not crystals but fungi. I inspected the troll before attacking and tried healing it instead. It woke up and scurried off to wherever dungeon-construct trolls go.”
Makit looked surprised: “Was that your plan?”
Kiresula shook her head: “I just inspected the troll because attacking a seemingly asleep creature felt bad, and I needed to steady myself. After that, it was all ad hoc.”
Makit shook his head: “It was some crazy stunt.”
Kedsel asked: “Did you get the notification?”
Kiresula shook her head. “I didn’t see anything.” She noticed at the edge of her vision a small symbol, looking like a calligraphically written word that she couldn’t decypher. She concentrated onto it and a message appeared:
Dungeon Achievement: Fungicide. You solved the fungal infection and saved the troll. Better rewards upon completion of the Dungeon of the Bridge.
Discovering the behaviour of the Sinasya fungi gives you class progression in the Seferian Mage class.
“Wait, I see it now, yeah. What does yours say?” Kiresula corrected.
Kedsel read: “It says: Dungeon Achievement: Fungicide. You solved the fungal infection and saved the troll. Better rewards upon completion of the Dungeon of the Bridge.” She looked at Kiresula: “Does yours differ?”
Kiresula hoped that her literal three points of cunning would help her: “Not really. I just wanted to know as you obviously are in a different state.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Kedsel raised an eyebrow silently.
Kiresula fibbed again: “You are not a glitchling, so I thought you might get a class related message as well. You know, sometimes I miss my old class and want to suffer.” she tried to grin.
Kedsel nodded: “I see. No, nothing for me.”
Tamijet looked at the both: “I didn’t get any messages. Did anyone else?”
The others shook their heads.
Kedsel responded: “I guess Kirey and me had both worked on handling that particular threat. Maybe there are more achievements to get. I mean, we’re only on the second level!”
Kiresula agreed: “If you want to try things out, I can gladly stand back. No issue at all!”
Tamijet grimaced at her, but then nodded: “I absolutely would like you to stand back!”
Kiresula just did that as the others fought angry water spirits in the next room that emulated a forest including a traversing river. Angry because the group disturbed their river. Kiresula found a place to jump over it and was left alone. While the others fought, Kiresula inspected things around the area and found some fruit which inspecting deemed edible and tasting deemed delicious. She offered the fruits to the others after the spirits had been vanquished. All but Tamijet accepted happily. During the other fights on that layer, Kiresula too stayed back and only assisted by casts of Sunlight. She did however inspect things around her and generally tried to find things out about the dungeon. It seemed that since the dungeon had ways to advance her class and she didn’t want to let any bit of that go. She noticed how much more elaborate the rooms were now. It was not just a simple stone area, but instead, everything looked elaborately crafted: Walls were not just quasi-natural but instead had artistic mosaics and etched ornaments. There was a progression of the art from the very natural initial rooms to rooms in various art styles from the history around Memleket. She noticed the style being approximate and the symbolic language seemed off. She was no art historian, but she knew some due to her work as a teacher. She mentioned this to Makit, but he didn’t seem to care about these kind of things while others found her questions apparently just a waste of time. They didn’t really care about the symbolism, just that there were enemies to kill and experience to get.
Before the last room of the second level, there was a small hallway. Kiresula looked at the mosaics on the walls and asked the group to stop. Tamijet was annoyed: “What is it now?”
Kiresula showed: “Do you notice? The mosaic shows scenes from a battlefield, but there is this particular fighter that doesn’t fit.” She pointed at a mounted combatant, who looked much more vibrant than the others. “All other knights are grey-ish and their horses are rather dull, but this one has colourful armour. Their style is much more realistic. It looks as if this is one element that was added to the mosaic. And its eyes are sparkling.”
Tamijet asked: “What about it?”
Kiresula tried to identify it, but saw only the general identification of the mosaic: “Idea of a mosaic: This is the dungeon’s idea of a mosaic commemorating the Battle for Liman.” She followed the outline of the warrior with her hands. Nothing happened. She pressed it, pressed its eyes and still nothing happened. She looked around, checked the mosaic for other figures like that. She saw two others, one which was a confused rabbit in the middle of the battlefield and another one was the picture of the sun that was illustrated to represent the system. She pointed these too out to an annoyed group.
“So what if these are strange. It’s a dungeon. They are allowed to be artistically inconsistent.” Tamijet insisted.
“It wasn’t before, so why is it here, here, and here?” She put her fingers on two and her knee on the lowest one. “It’s an inconsistency.” In that moment, Kiresula fell forward.
A moment later, Kiresula was on the stony ground. The mosaic covered a door, which led to a narrow hallway. Onto which Kiresula just fell. She clambered to her feet, looked around, pointed into the hallway. “I think this exists to humiliate the curious. Shall we take a look?”
Makit agreed immediately. “Never seen a secret passage in the second level! This is interesting. Maybe there’s something new in here.”
Tamijet asked: “Does anyone sense any broken magic in there?”
Kiresula shook her head: “Since my encounter with the core, I didn’t notice any in our way. It is a bit out of the way, like in the walls and ground though and can be recovered that way.”
Tamijet used the rod to test this fact and confirmed the absence of broken magic after a long, excruciating while. Only then she allowed the others transit.
Walking down the hallway, Kiresula noticed that the walls here decorated in the style of the three elements, that were out of place in the mosaic before. Kiresula now recognised the picture: The Great Battle by Hsean Agit, a very influential image as it had been used to convey information about a spell called [Diminish], a debuff of some warrior mage classes, that was just relevant because of its use as a joint spell, which she never had access to. She walked ahead of the group, using an [Illuminate] to see ahead. As she progressed deeper, she saw a hole containing a metal pole, as if the dungeon wanted her to slide down but not necessarily to get up. She grabbed the pole and was about to jump onto it and put her legs around it, when Tamijet stopped her: “No. I am not going in here! This looks dangerous! Far beyond what we bargained for! Like, turning glitchling kind of dangerous.”
Kiresula shot her a look that meant that she was done with Tamijet’s antics: “Look, Tamijet, I don’t like you enough to spend most of my time in the Glitchling Community around you, so you can be sure that I am doing my best to make sure that you will never be a glitchling. Even if the entire rest of the world is!”
Tamijet and the rest of the group were stunned silent.
Kiresula waited for a moment. Then a moment longer. Only then she responded: “I will ca… create sunlight if there is dangerous broken magic down there. If the coast is clear, I will just scream that, okay?” Not waiting for the others, she slid down the pole.