I arrived at the archaeological dig site. Well, I think I arrived at a different one. I didn't bother remembering where I found the last one. This dig site was actually inside an actual village. These people do crazy stuff just to dig in the sand. I used some dragon vein to create some water for me to drink, which was a mistake.
“A water user!” Oh shit! I spent the rest of my day evading thirsty people. I’m not a living tap! I escaped and found a small inn. I wasted a whole day running around. But lucky for me I’m skilled in illusions so by now they have no clue anymore how I look like so I should be fine tomorrow.
“Hey, did you hear about those archaeologists? It seems half of them got struck by some mysterious illness.”
“Those are just rumors.”
“I’ve seen it myself! 2 of them slowly turned into water and evaporated in the midday sun!”
“Does that have anything to do with that water user that was spotted today?”
“No of course not! But he might be able to help!” I didn't feel obliged to help random people but I was curious, and if the archaeologists were evaporating then I couldn't ask them about this ancient language. I approached the 4 men who were talking. Excuse me, I’m new in town, and I overheard what you were saying, is it true that the archaeologists are turning into water and evaporating?
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes! But who are you? Quite young to be traveling alone.” I showed him my adventurer ID. “Whoa C-rank that’s quite an achievement, wait you’re a water user?” Yeah, I was wondering how I could assist, I might need an archaeologist for something so I can’t have them poof out of existence on me.
“I see, I’m quite curious too, I’m Alfredo, do you mind meeting up with me tomorrow at 9 in front of the dig site?”
“Hey, I wanna come too! I’m Gilbert”
“Count me in I'm Timmy”
“Ehh, I’m out! I don't want to get cursed!” Random dude number 4 ran away. Aha, I'm Agnis. Cya tomorrow then! I waved at these 3 weak-looking guys and went to my room. The bed seemed quite uncomfortable. I can't believe they're asking for 3 silver per night for this garbage… I created an illusion and rolled up in my fluffy tails.
The morning of day 231 was nothing special. I brushed my tails, broke the illusion, and headed to the dig site. There was nobody there yet so I waited while inspecting what they were trying to dig up. It didn't seem to be something ancient that they were digging up just something old, something from within the last 3600-3700ish years. Anything that recent wasn't of immediate importance to me.
“Yo, seen anything interesting happen yet?” One of the guys appeared, I had already forgotten his name. I shook my head at his question.
“Because the ‘Curse’, the excavation has stopped.” Is it really a curse or just some exotic disease they dug up and that's killing them?
“A disease that turns you into water?” While it sounds unrealistic it could be a disease that awakens water affinity and forces the user to use [Water Body].
“Hmm, that's interesting but it could also be a curse that does the same.” Fair point. I saw someone who looked like he could be an archeologist and he was walking weirdly and he seemed in despair.
“H…help!” I inspected him and there didn't seem to be magic at work. His molecular structure seemed to be turning into that of water. I checked him for curses. Vica’s curse eh, never heard of it.
“What?” I needed to come up with something because this guy would soon turn into a puddle of water. I didn't have any techniques to deal with this so I just started to freeze him.
“T…t…thank you!” Don’t thank me yet, you will melt eventually. What can you tell me about how you got this curse? He told us some stereotypical story of digging for stuff and hitting the structure they dug up. Despite the warnings that were clearly written in Kaledonian they ignored them and swiped some treasure hidden there. The first one that touched something instantly turned into water and got soaked up by the sand, after that someone turned into water every day. He is the 5th person and there are 3 more after him waiting for their demise. So how about you like, I don't know, heed the warnings?
“For science!” Yes yes, then you should accept dying for science then.
Random adventurer #1 shook his head. “Hey come on don’t be so cold, was there anything that indicated on how to reverse the curse?” Why would whoever made this structure put down how to counter the curse if the point of the curse is to ward people off?
“Hey kiddo can you stop making sense so much, there must be something!”
The other 2 adventurers arrived. “Sup are we late? Whoa?! Did the curse change and is it turning people into ice pillars?!”
“Nah, this kiddo froze him so that he wouldn't turn into vapor.” Adventurer #1 said.
Hey does someone here know the skill [Transmute]?
Adventurer #1 looked at me as if I was insane. “And why would someone with a skill so rare be here? Moreover, that person would need to know what this guy was made off of before he ehhh turned into a popsicle.” He doesn't need to return him to normal just to turn him into a stable compound that doesn't disappear in the sun.
“Hey! Don't I have something to say about this?! I want to go back to normal!” The archeologist protested.
I understand that but here's the thing, if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. I can dispel curses but this is way above my level.
Adventurer #2 raised an eyebrow. “You can also dispel curses? At your age?” Very limited, only 6th and 7th-grade curses, this is a 3rd-grade curse, you would need an expert or a witch to deal with this. Or the one that cast the curse but judging by this guy's profession, the guy that cast the curse is most likely dead and in one of those coffins down there.
“Who are you? C-rank, skilled water user, and can dispel 6th and 7th-grade curses, why have I never heard of you?” I’m just a privileged brat, I’m not that important, now back to this guy’s problem. I can’t think of a way to realistically deal with this. I can't even sense any magic at work here, whether the curse is weaved expertly or something else is going on, that’s why I was wondering if it was a disease.
“But you said that before you met this guy, and they are dying one by one with a day apart, how can that be a disease? And didn't you say yourself it was a curse?” Adventurer #1 said but I ignored him and directed my attitention to the archeologist.
Say can you be more specific, did you all touch the treasure or did just one touch the treasure, where were you standing when it happened, was there a flash? A magic pulse? Anything? There are so many details missing from your story.
“Hey, can you refreeze me? I feel like I’m melting.” I will consider it after you start remembering and give more details.
“Hey, I asked a question Don't ignore me!” Adventurer #1 said impatiently.
Well, if it was really a curse it would have some mana signatures which they don't have, I've been here since yesterday and I’m quite observant if it's about mana. I wasn't looking for curses but if someone had a powerful curse on them, I would've probably noticed. And about me calling it a curse. You know what [Appraisal] does right?
“Yeah, did you use it?” Doesn’t matter, assume I make a disease that gives you a special status condition, the flu would give you [Influenza] condition for example. But what if the creator names the status condition [Something something Curse]?
Adventurer #1, whose name I slowly started to remember, looked as if he had a revelation. “Everyone who would use [Appraisal] would think that person is under a curse. I see your point.” Now I’m starting to have doubts about it being a disease, it would have to be extremely contagious for one of the guys to get hit and die on the spot, all of us and most of the people here would've been infected if that was the case. This startled everyone.
“So, what do I have then? If it's not a curse and not a disease?” I have no clue, maybe you should just embrace your fate and turn into a puddle.
“Nooo!”
“Hey, come on be a bit nicer to him.” Adventurer #1 said, whose name should be something like Alburto. What is in it for me?
“Uhm, well nothing really but can't you do that for someone who’s about to die?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I’m dying? Noo! Save me!” I held the paper on which I wrote the symbols on, in front of the archeologist's face. Can you read this?
“Huh, what’s this? Where did you find these symbols? I’ve never seen them before! If you save me, I will find out I promise!” So, you don't know… I walked away.
Abuerto stopped me. “Hey! Wait! You can't just leave him here all frozen!” Do you want me to thaw him?
“Noo! I want you to try and help us to see if we can save them!” Ugh, how bothersome, fine, so what’s your plan?
“Uh, I was hoping you could come up with one.” …Unbelievable, listen here, you will bear responsibility for anything that happens, I’m a minor anyways. What self-respecting adult asks a 16-year-old to deal with a mess like this… Well then, you’re melting! Fess up give us more details! The more you remember the more you get closer to having a 0.005% of making it out alive.
“Hey come on why are you like this?” Alburto said. He was slowly and successfully pissing me off.
Unrealistic promises breed unrealistic expectations. I don’t want to give him hope because as I see it in this situation, he’s toast.
“You must have no friends…”
“Uhm we got in the treasure room and that's where we read the warning but Romy ignored it and touched the golden casket, we heard something click and no magic wave or pulse or anything but it felt more like a heat pulse and Romy instantly turned into water and got sucked up in the sand.” The archeologist recalled.
Hmm, heat? So, in what order did it hit you? The archeologist thought deeply and then seemed to realize something.
“I got hit by it after 4 others! Because I was the 5th closest!” There we have it, it’s proximity-based and you got hit 5th, which lines up.
“So, if we stop him from turning into a puddle, we save the rest?” Adventurer #3 asked.
“Won’t it just skip him and continue with the other?” Abuerto theorised.
“Why would a heat flash do this?” Adventurer #2 asked. At least someone is asking the correct question.
“Oh, do you have an answer?” Alburto inquired. Nope, go figure it out.
“How?!” I don't know, go poke the casket or something!
“Kiddo, are you sure your head is alright? You seem bright in some points but on other points…” Alburto seems to want solutions but not put in the work to get there.
Well, you want me to help them against my will so not sure what you’re expecting, if you want to save them you will have to risk dying to find out the secret.
“I… I don't want to!” Adventurer #2 panicked
“Uhh, I’m sorry I think my goldfish caught on fire, I need to go!” The 2 others ran away and onlybAlburto was left. I guess it’s only you left, don’t tell me you want to send a 16-year-old to poke a casket and possibly die?
“There must be another way!” I sighed and wrote a letter. I signed it and gave it to him. “What is this? Give this to the Adventurer’s Association and explain how you let a 16-year-old C-rank adventurer risk his life because of your selfishness. Let’s go, just stay far from the casket. It’s time to solve this mystery. I refroze the archaeologist and jumped down to the dig site.
“Wait! There must be another way!” I’m open for ideas, I can't keep refreezing this archaeologist for the rest of his life and tomorrow another archaeologist will turn into water, you want me to keep freezing them too? You want me to spend days of my life to do with that in the event that someone finally figures it out? I have things I want to achieve too! Do you know how long research into new curses takes?
“5 to 10 years…” Yes, and I don't have the luxury of spending that much time waiting until they figure something out. I walked into the structure they dug out.
“Wait ok, I was wrong, come back outside!” I know you mean well but people need to realize actions have consequences, these archaeologists ignored the warnings and are dealing with the consequences, I told you multiple times I didn't want to deal with this and you kept insisting, so you need to deal with the consequences too. Is this the casket?
“Okok! I get your point! I was wrong! Now come out of there!” I looked around. I saw the text that warned anyone who read it that if they touch anything they would get hit by a powerful curse. I inspected the casket with my eyes. Nothing seems to be wrong with it. Does this mean there is nothing mana related at play here? I did find a secret passage. I decided to mess with the casket later and covered my hand with ice and activated the secret passage. Nothing seemed to happen, no blast or wave of heat. And I went into the secret passage.
“Hey, kiddo? Kiddo? Where did you go? Oh no, don't tell me you turned into water too! Nooo!” It seems the guy freaked out and ran away. The secret passage brought me to a large dark room. It was quite suspicious it reminds me of a room where cultists would do their shady shit and something seemed to be sealed in the middle of the room. I inspected it but my eyes told me that it shouldn't exist. Great, just what I need. What even is this thing? After a more thorough inspection, it seemed to be of a similar makeup as the dimensional fabric and Isi.
Does this belong to her? What even is this and why is it sealed? I read some text and it seemed this thing was a Dimsha. It sounded familiar. I went through my archive and took a step back. Items that directly interfere with reality… Is this the cause of the so-called curse? It’s in no way connected to the casket though, maybe its effect gets linked to the casket.
The seals on this thing suggest that it shouldn't be active though… and then I saw it. A strange creature glaring at me. I didn't notice it and my eyes didn't notify me. It was completely black and blurry and had 2 round yellow eyes and was looking at me.
And what the fuck are you supposed to be? I inspected it but it didn't seem to be any creature that I know of. So, this is probably similar to that giant lobster Raishin and I fought. It only reacted when I approached the Dimsha. I didn't feel like fighting so I kept my distance. This thing was honestly creepy. It didn't possess mana and it didn't seem to be alive as far as my eyes could tell me. I kept my distance from the thing and the Dimsha and tried to read what was written on the wall. Some of it had broken off but most of it could be read.
Apparently, this Dimsha could turn anything into water. There was one problem; it doesn't discriminate. It got sealed away because it was uncontrollable and randomly turned houses into water, animals, people you name it. It had turned a large part of the desert into a lake. The part that got turned into a lake eventually turned into a jungle.
Oh, so that's where the jungle came from.
Whenever it got turned off, it took more water away than it produced. This area was quite dry but not a desert. Misuse caused floods, people dying, and all kinds of problems, and then when it got turned off the area got dryer and dryer. But water is valuable and human greed kept causing history to repeat. It only took 120 years of this happening for the creators of this temple or whatever it is, to seal it away as is found here. Nothing is talking about this creature here and there are some details missing but I think I’m starting to get the idea here.
Since this Dimsha is similar to the dimensional fabric I should try observing it with the correct filter. I’m hoping there isn't some dimensional tear here and those disgusting maggots and stuff.
I opened the dimensional filter and saw nothing special, just that the Dimsha was leaking energy and for some reason, the casket was collecting it. Touching the casket would probably release it. It didn't seem the casket was holding on to a lot of energy at the moment, probably because those idiots released its energy.
Is this something I’m supposed to fix? I don’t think I can counter the effects of a Dimsha. If the information I have about them is correct, only a god or another Dimsha can counter its effects. I might be able to reverse its effects if I wield it but turning it off might make this desert an even shittier place. I approached the Dimsha and noticed some text on the ground under it.
Ha! The Dimsha’s name is Vica, named after the person who found it and thought he could bring prosperity to this area. The creature was on edge. I am not skilled in lifting curses but I do know things about sealing individuals and objects. Azu’s crash course made us skilled in deciphering barriers and seals but this can be reversed to create barriers and seals.
I got my tails out. This would be the first time I would actually seal something. I know the theory but I have 0 practical experience. I ran simulations in my tails first. This thing is dangerous so I don't want to cut corners and do a good job sealing this thing. I read the runic structures of the seals already in effect. Quite simple and effective but because of its simplicity it was failing now.
I spent 2 days sitting on the floor opposite of the Dimsha simulating the best way to seal this thing, all while keeping an eye out for this creature. Normally I take sleep seriously but as a mythical beast I don't need to sleep every night, it’s just boring to stay awake during the night and mostly I wear myself out. I would have to break my rule of not using magic but it can't be helped in this situation as I don't know if it's possible to seal things with leyline energy.
I came up with a seal that would encase it frost magic and has a thin layer of fire inside, the frost would absorb all the energy this thing would be leaking and pass it on to the fire which would radiate the energy back into the Dimsha. It would be unbreakable for anyone that's unable to use lost magic. I would then cover it in a seal that would cause the frost-encasing seal to be unable to be found by individuals that have access to lost magic. Similar to the illusion I put on me and my buddies but this is very specific. And the seal I would place on top of that would be a seal that can only be broken by individuals that are of the age of 16 years or younger in human years.
The last seal would be more of an invisibility spell. The deal with seals is to make them extremely weak to something so that they are extremely strong against anything else. The frost encasing has as only weakness that anyone with lost magic can break it so the following seal needs to cover that weakness so people possessing this trait will be unable to find it but normal people will be able to find it, but they won't be able to break through the frost seal so that helps. To add on to that I put a seal that's extremely easy to break if your age is 16 or lower.
Why I am doing this is… there are hardly any if no humans of the age of 16 or younger that can break this seal. Meeting the requirements and having the skill to lift them are 2 different things. And just an invisibility spell for safe measure. It's a basic principle of seals, barriers, and defensive skills that to make them strong you need to give it an obvious weakness. A block-all-element shield will block everything but won't be sturdy, it could block 10 damage from every element and break if anything exceeds 10, a shield that only blocks fire will be useless against any element but it could very well block fire attacks that do 80 damage. I just used random numbers here but that's the principle.
Making the [Frost Encasing seal] was easy, the other 2 were quite challenging but because of my simulations, I succeeded. It just took longer than a skilled person would take.
All seals were in place after 4 hours. I sat down and looked at the creature. It was still looking at me but its glare turned into something softer. As if it was thanking me. It still creeped me out though. Now that I had no business here, I got out as fast as possible.
Ugh, that was tiring, I should stop doing things I’m not used to… I hid my tails and reached the room with the casket and inspected it. It was still holding some of that energy. I touched it but nothing happened. Heh, thought so. I walked out and went to the inn.
“He would've been still alive If I didn't insist on him helping the archaeologists! His death is my fault!” Abuerto was crying on a table with some ale in his cup. The 3 other weak dudes were sitting next to him. Did someone die?
“Yeah! You did! Eh? Wait what? You're still alive!” Am I now? The curse claimed my life and now I’m going to haunt you! I talked a bit spooky and it freaked out the 4 men and they ran off.
I asked the innkeeper what happened to the archeologists and it seemed they all evaporated. I went to my room and fell asleep. I lazed around till day 238 and decided to continue looking for someone who could read these symbols.