It was dark. It was grimy. It was utterly miserable. To those who’ve only lived in the modern era, where even the poorest of people have comforts, a dungeon is something unimaginably painful. It was a place where no graces were given. There was no light, for it was underground, and only the dim reflection from a crack in the roof gave the slightest of outlines to the cell. The smell was awful, a mix of excrement, sweat, blood, and other unpleasant things. It was thoroughly uncomfortable, with the prisoners toiling in agony as they were shackled to the walls until their wrists turned purple while their rears became numb with how long they were seated on the rough stone.
“So, another one has come?” An old and decrepit voice spoke out. It reached out like a creeping root through the dirt, trying to connect to another. “It is a very sorrowful day indeed, for another is here. Alas, perhaps I may find company in my demise? Heeheehee, heeheehee.”
“W-w-w-w-w-w-w-where am I?” A broken voice stuttered out, pain and the aftertaste of blood and bile causing such a vocal break. “W-who are you!? W-what happened? Where is everyone?”
“Heeheehee, heeheehee, a prisoner who knows not where they are? Interesting, intriguing!” The raised voice came with a series of hacks and coughs that caused the new prisoner’s skin to curl and their muscles to tense in wincing horror. “To answer, we are on death row.”
“Death row!?”
“SHUT UP IN THERE!” A hale and hearty guard’s shout rang out from around the corner, where he was sitting and playing dice with his companions.
“Heeheehee, heeheehee, yes, yes, yesyesyes.” The older prisoner whispered and laughed. “If you are in my cell, you are on death row. Should I ask what dastardly crime you committed? What did you do to end up in this cell? What action did you take? Oh, how rude of I. What is your name, esteemed newcomer to the crypt? Mine is Akaka, though how long I’ve been here means it means nothing at all.”
“I-i-I’m-”
---___---___---___---
Study hall quickly recovered from their shock out of necessity. For one, the heat had worked up quite a thirst, so they didn’t have all that much time to just sit around dumbfounded. They had to attend to their base needs: The topmost priority of which was water. So, they all carefully made their way to the riverside and began drinking, with Pepe and Mina sharing their containers with the rest of the group.
They remained on edge. The appearance of fantastical creatures completely annihilated any of their assumptions. Anything could be a tripwire to a deadly encounter, anything could be lethal. Likewise, they were all thinking the same thing.
They might never see home again.
“...” Teacher was in a thinking pose, hand on chin. They had seen a lot in a few minutes. Numerous fantastic beasts and many more mundane organisms had been spotted and the group considered for a moment that they were hallucinating. Alas, that thought vanished when they all confirmed with each other that they were seeing the same thing. “Way I see it, there are two possibilities.” He spoke up, earning the attention of the entire group. “One: We’re somewhere on earth with a bunch of previously undiscovered species. Two: We’re in a different world with a ton of fantasy creatures.”
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There was silence as the class considered which of the two incredibly unlikely occurrences were actually true.
“We are in the realm of Ner, an epic plane of fantasy where the great lord Mir rules with an iron fist! We are-”
“How ‘bout we just find some locals and ask where the hell we are?” Veni spoke up, eating a bit of his packed lunch as he looked up the stream. “I mean, that was the plan, wasn’t it? Go up and find a village. If we find totally normal people who say we’re on planet earth, then we’re good. If we find goat people or some shit, then we’re fucked.”
“A sensible plan, but what of food?” Talle looked at Vinny’s packed lunch with jealous eyes, but shook it off to say, “Not all of us have food and there are no guarantees what we have will last.”
“I can hunt.” Veni pulled out a compact bow from his bag, causing most of the students to back up in panic, shouting at him to put the weapon away. “Oh be quiet you big babies!” Peaking into the bag, Mina noticed that he also came packed with some arrows. “I was going to do some hunting after this, looks like it’ll come in handy.”
“That’s cruel.” Hailey seemed a bit more disturbed by Veni admitting what they were going to do with the bow than their ownership of the weapon itself. “What if they’re endangered?”
“Well we need to eat and I don’t see any veggies.”
“I think those roots are edible! And those berries! I also think those herbs are good-” Pepe was pointing out various pieces of Flora, really putting his experience to good work.
“More importantly, what if these animals’ flesh don’t mix well with our stomachs?” Yolk spoke up, looking at some of the fauna with curiosity and admiration. “Food poisoning’s a bitch, take it from me. It’s not as simple as cooking out the crap either, what if their flesh is just too tough and we can’t process it? What then? Who knows what new stuff like that could do to our immune system?”
“Got your point, got your point.” Veni conceded, putting away the bow and zipping up the bag. “Think there’s enough stuff in the grass to feed us?”
“Well we have water and people can last a while without food. If we ration what we have, we should last for a while.” Pepe was muttering to himself, taking up the task of making sure they were fed for the time being.
“And what food do we have?” Yolk spoke up just as his stomach began rumbling. “Yeah, I’m a bit hungry.”
“I have some snacks.” Mina opened her backpack to pull out a bag of chips and a bag of gummies.
“Chocolate bar.” Aurum pulled it out of her own pack, though she took a moment to ruffle through her sweaty blazer to get it. Though, there was no doubt that it was half melted due to the heat.
“Gum, but none of ya are getting any.” Carmen continued to chew on her current stick, even though it had lost its flavor and was becoming less and less flexible.
“Jerky.” Pepe opened his bag to reveal four unopened bags full of jerky. He noticed the peculiar and incredulous stares he was getting and said, “Always be prepared! I also have a swiss army knife, a pocket knife, rope, and a pillow!”
“Have a hand grenade in there as well?” Gallows was half expecting Pepe to confirm the joking statement. To be fair, the others wouldn’t have been that surprised if he actually did have an explosive.
“That’s not important.” Teach spoke up. “What’s important is that we continue moving. We’ll have to ration out the food-”
“We can go about five days if each of us only eats one piece of jerky per day.” Mina barely took a second to answer the unsaid question. “We can stretch it out a bit by rationing more and adding stuff we forage, but there’s no telling what could be poisonous.” Though she was muttering, everyone was quiet already to listen to Teach.
“I’m not 100% sure of any of the plants being edible, really.” Pepe sighed in disappointment, but added, “Just to be safe, we’re not going to eat anything bright. Poisonous plants are vivid in order to tell animals that they’re poisonous. Makes it more likely they’d be avoided.”
“Ok, we have a plan, let’s get moving. Keep the umbrellas up and don’t go too close to the river.” The greenery by the water wasn’t too dense, far from enough to make getting separated easy, but there was no telling what forces were present in the woods.