I looked down at the egg we were apparently supposed to feed. “How are we even supposed to do that?”

Koren pointed at the blue egg on the stone slab. “It starts with this.” Then he pointed at the egg I held. “That needs three things to hatch. Corruption, then… reverie? Hmm, my Arcturian is quite rusty.”

“Can’t the system help with that?” I asked.

“I imagine it could. It’s choosing not to, however. This is an event, after all.” He didn’t seem to mind this fact. He seemed, in fact, to be enjoying himself a great deal. “Isn’t this interesting?” he said, a playful smile teasing his lips.

“Glad someone’s enjoying it,” Vyrania said.

“It’s an event, Vy. An event.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“A pair of Irons, and we’re in an event.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “just completely leave me out.”

“If you like,” he responded lightly. “It’s disappointing, as I had such plans for you, my boy.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Vyrania said.

“Yes, I don’t know how anyone could turn down my tutelage either.”

She rolled her eyes. “We followed the runes here. Those must have been part of the event.”

“It would seem so.”

“So how do the golem and that giant being undead play into this?”

“I believe,” he answered, “that it was a side-effect, not intentional.”

She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on.

“Recall that this isn’t the first shrine the runes led us to.”

“The empty shrine we found in the forest,” she said.

He nodded. “But, as you say, it was empty. If my suspicion is correct, then the golem stole the egg, and became undead because of it, and the giant, which Noah here just killed, somehow ended up with the egg.”

“The golems I saw weren’t undead,” I countered.

“But they were making the runes.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“I disagree. The real question is, why were the golems and giants working together at all?”

“Maybe they weren’t,” Vyrania said. “Noah only saw them interacting. There were a few golems at the giants’ encampment, but we don’t know what they were actually doing.”

“That’s a good point. Either way, if I’m reading this right, it was that egg that turned the golem and giant undead. What I thought meant life on that other shrine I think now actually was a promise of what would be stolen, rather than what it gave.”

“And did they steal it together?” I asked. “Because both were undead. Was there some curse on the shrine to prevent theft?”

“Not on the shrine,” he answered. “On the egg itself.”

“What?” I asked, looking at the egg in my hand. “This egg?”

Koren nodded. “That’s why I didn’t touch it.”

“If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Well, I wasn’t sure. And you’d already touched it, so it wouldn’t have done any good in any case.”

“So I am going to turn into a zombie!”

“You’re not going to become an undead,” he assured me. He pursed his lips. “Well, I can’t guarantee that. But not from the egg you won’t.” He plucked the egg from my hand, then froze, looking as if he’d dug himself in deeper than he’d intended to.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

After several moments passed and nothing happened, he smiled. “See, nothing at all to worry about.”

“Uh-huh. Then you can carry it.”

“Alas I cannot. No dedicated storage ability for it. You’re the designated carrier on our little team. Perhaps so you have a purpose. You are only Copper, after all.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, the giant must have had a storage ability as well.”

“That’s pretty unusual,” Vyrania said.

He nodded slowly. “Then again, it’s an event. So maybe not. It does seem… I don’t know. Something feels off.”

I looked up through the broken canopy. “Maybe we just climb out instead. We don’t really need the hidden key, and doing this event might be more dangerous than making our way back across the floor.”

“We're not getting out,” Koren said. “You don't simply leave an event. Besides, this is a great opportunity. It might not be for the hidden key, just a regular one. And it's rare to get the chance to participate in an event at such a low rank. Rarer still for it to happen on the first floor of a tower, where we actually have a chance at completing it.”

“And what if the tower isn’t Colossus?” I asked. “What if it’s Behemoth?”

“Then, as I said before, we don't move on to the next floor. But no matter what, we have to complete this one. It’s the only way to leave. Besides, you have nothing to worry about, you still have a resurrection token.”

“I don't,” Vyrania muttered.

“I think I may have a spare now,” I said, realizing my hobby might have given me another one due to entering an event.

Resurrection Token (Event: Chaos, the Lost)

Status: Active

A token that is redeemed upon death, reviving you.

This token is bound to you and cannot be given away or sold.

If you reach the end of the event with this token unused, it will be converted to a reward.

Resurrection Token (Zone: Whitehall Tower)

Status: Inactive

A token that is redeemed upon death, reviving you.

This token is bound to you and cannot be given away.

(Profession note: This item may be sold or traded via your store.)

I nodded. “Yeah. I have two of them. It doesn’t seem I can sell the event one though. And only the one for the event is active. I get a reward if I make it to the end without using it. As if I needed additional motivation not to die.” I shook my head, opening up my map. It was empty of landmarks, the explored areas on the floor above no longer visible. A thought changed the map’s view, showing me it again. I could swap back and forth between them, or even have them display simultaneously.

At least that was still there. Might be useful when we made it out of here.

More interesting was that while the map had no landmarks for the swamp we found ourselves in, there were three dots, one for each of us.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “There’s dots on my map for us. I guess because we’re on a team now. I can see where you are at any time.”

“How convenient for you.”

“Be nice,” Vyrania scolded.

“My apologies,” he said to me, then sighed. “You have maps and resurrection tokens and extra storage abilities. It’s quite the overpowered hobby. I’m simply bitter I didn’t get the chance to have it as my own.”

“What is your hobby?” I asked.

“Being fantastic at anything I put my mind too.”

Vyrania rolled her eyes. “He’s a baker.”

“That is a dirty lie,” he said.

I laughed. “A baker? Like, he bakes things?”

“Can we focus on the event?”

“Sure. Mr Baker. Say, being a baker, you must know how to use that.” I pointed at the egg he was holding. “You have any idea what we’re supposed to feed it?”

“I do, in fact,” he said, tossing the egg back to me.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

“You sure about this?” I asked, egg hovering over the stone slab. I was apparently supposed to feed it by taking something from the blue egg already there.

“No. Do you have a better idea?”

I sighed and lowered the egg.

Before I even got a chance to set it down, the crystal embedded in the blue egg flew out and into the egg I held as though attracted by magnetism.

It slammed into it but rather than cracking the egg, the crystal itself cracked then shattered, exploding into a fine mist which floated as a cloud for an instant then sucked onto the egg like dust to a static charge.

The egg spun in my hand, becoming completely coated. It now sparkled faintly with bits of glistening green.

You have fed The Egg.

It is not enough.

Its hunger grows. It needs sustenance. It needs corruption.

“Uh,” I said, looking to Koren for guidance. I could tell both he and Vyrania could see the message. “Corruption?”

He shrugged. “Let’s look around. I’m sure we can find a spot of it.”

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

But it was quite a bit more than a spot that we came across.

As we followed the runes etched into the trees, not with ice but rot, the ground became less swampy and more solid, the trees around us diminishing, until we reached a large clearing the size—and shape—of an American football field.

What we saw, floating above us in the ‘sky’, stopped all of us in our tracks.

“Well that’s not normal,” Koren observed.