Ivy ran her hand over the wall in front of her, the porous stone rough and cool under her fingertips. The building looked like something that belonged near the Mediterranean, with white stone, wooden shutters and a flat accessible roof. For all she knew those buildings might even be made of limestone too, of course even if that were true the reasoning for it here was quite simple, it was cheaper. The fourth floor was going to be a huge maze of similar looking buildings so any mana they could save from using the bonelike rock would mean construction could progress that much faster. Keeping costs down and rate of progress up, it was like a mantra stuck in the back of her head.
The whole building process felt weird, it reminded her of her summers working for… she couldn’t remember; but by process of elimination, she thought it was a family member. The materials and her ability to shape them made the processes so different yet there was something comforting in the familiarity of the goal. Whatever experience she may have, it became quickly apparent that there was still a lot she didn’t know about constructing buildings, particularly of this style, but she enjoyed the challenge. It gave Ivy a sense of satisfaction, which turned a little sour as she realised, she was stalling.
She didn’t need to make houses, she just needed a maze and thought buildings would be an interesting way to achieve that without making it immediately obvious. Play into the whole undead apocalypse vibe for some fear factor. The fourth floor was important but really, she should be coordinating with Evelyn. However, while her friend seemed to be doing better after her panic attack, Ivy didn’t want to push her. If she was honest though Ivy knew that while that was true, she was also using it as an excuse, Ivy had her own thoughts she needed to work through and didn’t think it was fair to trouble Evelyn with them.
She might have gotten this whole [guide] thing totally wrong. While a lot of her feelings towards the deaths of delvers were muted, she’d undeniably contributed to people’s deaths. The first floor seemed effective for training but Twrch seemed like too much of a jump in difficulty, at least without the ability to retreat, and that mechanism was all on her. It felt like a dull weight in her chest. More and more people were being let into the dungeon, foreigners paired with those from Timberhollow but while many grumbled, none had been allowed past floor one. The denizens of Timberhollow had a well-earned caution of everything past that point.
The third floor was another matter, she’d toned down the lethality of the fire trial but Evelyn had urged her to keep the others the same. She wanted to disagree with her but she also felt like she’d overstepped on that floor already. Most of the ideas were hers and while Evelyn had helped, and her carvings were certainly iconic, this was supposed to be Evelyn’s dungeon. Ivy was supposed to be the one helping. Maybe that was part of why what happened with the beastfolk struck such a chord with her, because it was on what she considered ‘her’ floor? Was that why she was pulling back and telling Evelyn she would work on the environment for the fourth floor but she’d leave the creatures to her?
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Ivy sighed. She didn’t want the responsibility for what happened on this floor. Intellectually she knew it was dumb. She wouldn’t be less responsible just because she washed her hands of it and chose inaction. The rat-man’s actions weren’t something she could have stopped even if she knew they were coming. Most of all, people knew they risked death every time they entered the dungeon. She knew all these things, but it didn’t change the way she felt.
The dull weight of lives lost. The worry twisting in her gut as she watched delvers get injured and felt numb. She didn’t want to feel numb, she wanted to care about people, but she didn’t know if her heart could handle the worry for every delver. Was this numbness what Div did or was she just protecting herself against the pain? And if it was just who she was, did that make her some sort of psychopath? Not caring when people got hurt. Her feelings felt so ravelled, like she didn’t know where one began and another ended, she just knew it all hurt.
Ivy felt her shoulders start to shake as her breath caught. Something ran down her cheek and as she reached up and felt… it was damp? Alone on the fourth floor Ivy began to let out shuddering sobs.
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Evelyn was distracted from her experimentations in the bone strewn [core room] as a noise echoed through the dungeon. It took her a moment to place it, but she was faintly aware of everything happening in her dungeon. It seemed that Ivy had completed a building and had started to shake. Evelyn quickly pulled her awareness back as she realised what the sound must be. She had seen Ivy chuckle to herself in the past when she had some great idea, if she was about to descend into full body laughter then the girl must have thought of something truly wonderful that she’d no doubt want to be a surprise. It would be rude to spoil it.
Evelyn felt a little tension leave her as she turned her attention back to the Lich. Privately Evelyn had been a little worried about the young woman, she hadn’t seemed quite the same since Evelyn had her ‘panic attack’ as Ivy put it, wanting more space. Evelyn had no idea how to fix things and thought it best to respect her wishes, but it was encouraging to hear she was back to her usual mirthful self.