Chapter 53 – Twice we drink, before the visitor rests

Dusty tomes and debilitated bookshelves were the predominant part of the layout of the treasure room before us, a room cleverly hidden behind the mural of the volcanic eruption.

“Is… is it safe?” Rosalia thought out loud, looking slightly apprehensive at the prospect of stepping through all the rubble into the newly revealed room.

I looked back at her and shrugged, shaking my head. “No idea, but this is the only path forward. We can’t go back.” With that said, I stepped through the crumbled wall that once displayed the volcanic mural with blood rain dripping down onto the ancient city below, and into the musty room itself.

Actually, even though I was putting on a brave face, my dungeon fears and claustrophobia alarms were ringing in my head like crazy, telling me that this could be a bad idea. Maybe it was just my overly anxious personality with a penchant for overthinking things speaking, but I didn’t trust anything in this room, not even the treasure chests.

I hesitantly walked over to the chest and looked at it from a safe distance of three feet away. What if it was a mimic? That would be an ultimate cliche, wouldn’t it be. Imagining the chest opening up to reveal a set of teeth and arms like a human spider, I took a book from one of the dilapidated shelves and cocked back my arm, ready to intercept the imaginary toothy chest with all my offensive abilities once the book hit.

“What’re you doing?” Bjorn asked in a low grumble, confused at why I was loading up an ancient book like I was prepping a fastball.

“Just being safe,” I replied. “The chest might be a mimic.”

“A mimic? What’s that?” the dwarf responded.

I frowned a bit. Were they not aware of what mimics were in this world? They were a huge video game trope back in reality. In case you didn’t know, they were a type of monster that disguised itself as an inanimate object like a treasure chest.

“They’re a kind of monster mimicking a treasure chest to kill adventurers that carelessly open them. I fucking hate dungeons, and I’m not taking any chances.”

And with that bit of vulgarity out of my system, I chucked the book at the worn out treasure chest.

Thud. The book hit the treasure chest and fell to the ground rather undramatically. Still not trusting my eyes, I put my other hand on my adamantite poleaxe and poked forward with a bit of strength, stabbing the side of the treasure chest.

Thump. The pointed tip of the poleaxe hit the wooden chest with metal bindings unceremoniously, yet again. Just to be extra safe, I gave the inanimate chest another stab. And another. Fucking mimics, they weren’t going to get me this time.

“Em… Spoon, are you okay?” Rosalia said in a slightly worried voice. From her perspective, she was just watching me stab a wooden chest over and over again from a distance with my poleaxe like a maniacal psychopath.

“Yeah… just making sure…” I replied, giving the chest one last stab until there was an open wound on the side of the wooden chest that revealed a golden glint. Wiping a bit of sweat off my brow, I walked forward towards the chest, and heaved it open.

Inside the chest was a sizable pile of glinting gold coins, several scrolls and tomes, a few vials of some sort of dark red liquid, and a locket.

“What the hell is this?” I murmured, picking up one of the vials of dark liquid and turning it around.

[You have obtained Vial of Unknown Blood]

“Er…” I started. “It’s blood. Could be human, could be dwarf, or even elf. There’s no way of telling, and I can’t even imagine how long it’s just been sitting here for.”

“Bloody hell, what is this place?” Bjorn said while shaking his head dismissively. “Vials of blood, trapped puzzle rooms, perception warping space…”

“Well, anyway, let’s discuss how we split the loot?” I offered helpfully. In the face of so much chaos and unknown, it was reassuring to bring the conversation back to something concrete and universal, the topic of loot sharing during dungeon exploration.

“You can keep your coins, I’ve been on this Thor forsaken island for so long that all I want is a way out,” Bjorn replied. “I have no use for gold coins when there’s nowhere to spend them. And plus, you’ve already given me a few of your adamantite weapons. We’ll call it even.”

“Alright,” I replied. “Rosalia, let’s spit the gold fifty fifty. As for the tomes and scrolls, whoever needs it the most gets it? Does that sound fair?”

Rosalia nodded. “Yep, that’s fine with me~”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“And for other loot, we’ll just do it on a case by case basis. I’ll be generous with my half, since we’re in this together.”

“Sounds good~”

With that settled, we began to sort out the contents of the first treasure chest. After all, we weren’t pressed for time right now were we? Siege Tank Golem’s health was still relatively high as well despite being continuously showered by that caustic acid rain. Even if he did hit zero health, I could just put his core in the dimension room’s storage space before we got off this island.

I carefully pocketed the two vials of unknown blood. I had a feeling that they could come into use later, especially because they were carefully nestled in a small pouch in the treasure chest next to other valuables.

The gold coins came out to about one gold and nine hundred silver worth, which wasn’t bad at all. Half went to Rosalia, and half went to myself. I wanted to split it a third way with Bjorn, but he insisted that our presence was already worth its weight in gold, and gave him additional hope to live on and know that he wasn’t alone in his plight.

With that done, we moved onto the next part of the loot. I dusted off a tome, and looked at the cover, which showed A History of the Natural World. Rosalia looked over my shoulder as I cracked open the book. Out of consideration for Bjorn, who was quite a bit shorter than I was despite being much more muscular, I set the book down on a nearby table so we could all see. Meat Shield jumped up from the floor and landed on the table, curling up as she looked down at the tome with us.

I cracked the tome open, to a picture of a strange winged creature with a twisted looking face. Thankfully, the tome wasn’t written in the ancient language, so the short description in the middle of the page next to the creature’s name was readable.

Rock faeries inhabit mountains enchanted by a nearby source of magic. When their habitat is threatened, they have been known to exhibit aggressive behaviors, including creating a defensive formation of rock debris…

[Your bestiary has been updated.]

Well, that was good to know. My bestiary could automatically update with information I obtained through reading, not just information I obtained by encountering new creatures in the wild.

Flipping through to another page, I landed on a picture of a Mandelava leaf, among other various kinds of leaves and berries and vegetation. The tome seemed to be a detailed scholarly report of meticulously collected descriptions focused on flora and fauna indigenous to the continent, some of which I happened to see before in the vicinity of the tomb. It was actually kind of valuable.

“Let’s keep this in the dimension room to read later. We can use it if we ever run across a creature we need a profile on,” I said.

Rosalia nodded. With that, I opened a rift to the dimension room’s storage unit and placed the tome there.

I picked up the next piece of equipment, then passed it to Rosalia so she could read the description as well.

[??? Locket]

No other information was given about the locket, so at Rosalia’s agreement I deposited it into our storage and moved on.

I picked up a lone scroll in the treasure chest, which was bound by a wax seal and a small piece of string. Carefully blowing the dust off the scroll, I tugged at the string, which came apart and tore the wax sealing.

Unfolding the scroll on the table, I pinned the top and bottom down with a book and my hand, so we could read the contents without the scroll curling back to its previous state.

There was only one line of words on the scroll.

Thofaht awhothd dhgath, nos vboiwet hatweth.

Realizing that it was written in the ancient language, all three of us looked expectantly at Meat Shield.

“What?” she said to us.

I pointed at the scroll. “Translate, cat.”

“Please ask nicely~”

Right before I could smack this stupid cat for not following instructions when we needed her the most, Rosalia stepped in and began petting Meat Shield.

“Can you please translate this for us~” she said sweetly. “I know that Cerebi is working hard today, so I’ll give you a nice massage later~”

Meat Shield’s eyes shone in contentment as she nuzzled against Rosalia’s robes, right below her chest. Looking rather satisfied with Rosalia’s offer, she glanced back again at the scroll and scanned through the words.

Clearing her throat, the cat began to read the ancient script. “Twice we drink, before the visitor rests. That’s what it says~”

What a strange riddle-like sentence yet again. It was structured similarly to the inscription on the doorway that was the answer to the last room’s puzzle. Clearly, it meant that to proceed, we needed to figure this riddle out as well.

Twice we drink, before the visitor rests.

Rolling those words in my mind, I tried to make sense of the words. I had a solid hunch as to what we were supposed to be drinking, in fact it seemed rather obvious in this situation, but the words that made me very uncomfortable and hesitant about doing so were in the second part of the sentence. Before the visitor rests… What visitor was this piece of parchment referring to?

“Any ideas?” I asked the rest of the party.

Rosalia spoke first. “Well, one possibility is that they want us to drink the blood vials. But we haven’t checked the other treasure chest, so maybe there are more clues in there.”

Bjorn nodded his head in assent as Rosalia spoke. “I agree with the gal. We should check everything first before trying anything. It’s best if we get an idea of what this visitor is before we do anything funny.”

Thinking back to what happened in the previous room, he was completely right about that. The riddle for the last room was twice we fall, before the ashes settle. Although this was referring to the mural depiction of the volcanic ashes as the lava broke through the sage’s barriers, there ended up being a double meaning to before the ashes settle.

The double meaning was that the mural itself collapsed, and ashes or dust filled the room. The more I thought about it, the more apprehensive I became about this visitor character. What did it mean?

“Any clue on what the scroll is referring to when it says the visitor?” I asked them.

Bjorn shook his head. “No idea, my friend, although it might not be good news for us.”

Without any other leads to go by, I walked over to the second chest and looked down. It was rather unremarkable, and looked more or less like the other chest. I decided that maybe it wasn’t necessary to stab this chest to death embarrassingly like the last one and make myself look like a psychopath, although, just to be careful… checking just once wouldn’t be so bad.

I raised my poleaxe and poked the treasure chest a bit with the tip of the spear.

The chest shuddered.

Huh?

Did I blink? I could’ve sworn that the chest just shuddered.

…

No fucking way.