“I… I plink… plink… plink... d… d… d…. rummin… umming… in… pound… ound… nd.” Sounds echoed incoherently throughout Rebecca’s skull as she struggled to open her eyes. Was she in heaven? Hell? Did she go back to Hel? It took Rebecca several attempts to shake off the thick lethargy that had enveloped her, before she finally managed to open her eyes and stare dumbfounded at the overgrown mushrooms and vines that surrounded her.
“She is coming around,” someone whispered excitedly. Curious to see who the speaker was – her mind felt like it was covered in a thick foggy haze that made it almost impossible to concentrate – Rebecca struggled to turn her head to the left to see Jennifer sitting beside her, doing the talking.
“How mabby flingers am I hoooooooolding up?” Jennifer’s voice seemed to ward, distort, and then slow down as the world spun and Rebecca’s eyelids got too heavy for her to keep open any longer. Exhausted by the effort of just opening her eyes and trying to look around, she let darkness wash back over her and surrendered to sweet unconsciousness once more.
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“Is she going to be okay?” Concern was obvious in Jennifer’s voice as she stared down at Rebecca’s sleeping form. Pale to the point of being called ghastly white, all the color had drained out of Rebecca. Her hair was pure white and so long now that it laid in layers, blanket-like, underneath her as she slept. Her fingernails and toenails were the color of a virgin snow, as was what used to be the gentle pink of her most private areas. Lips full and with just the slightest hint of pink to them, she looked nothing like she had when Jennifer saw her first that morning.
“She’ll be fine,” Matthew said exhausted, sitting with his eyes closed and his head down on Rebecca’s other side. “I’m not entirely certain what happened to her, but she’ll be fine. She’s alive now. She isn’t under any negative statuses. There’s no poison, dot, disease, or curse on her. I don’t know what the hell happened to her, as I was too busy fighting to notice as she claimed the dungeon core, but she’s going to be fine.”
“Dot?” Jennifer repeated, not certain what he was talking about.
“It’s the name for any effect that caused Damage Over Time,” Matthew explained wearily. Stretching out on the stage of the auditorium, he slid over and gently tucked one arm underneath Rebecca’s head. Snuggling up tight beside her, he gently wrapped one arm protective around her while resting his head upon her breasts. “Go get the other students,” he commanded, closing his eyes and half stifling a yawn. “You’ll find the way to the new dungeon behind the curtains, where the door in the stage used to be.
“But I’m still naked,” Jennifer protested.
“Don’t give a shit,” Matthew mumbled. “Blame the screwy gods and this screwed up world. I can’t give you clothes we don’t have.” Tired and not wanting to deal with the hassle of dragging out a crap load of things from his ring again – especially when whatever she couldn’t wear would just end up in a pile on the slimy stage floor somewhere and get stained or ruined – Matthew didn’t bother to mention anything about the wide assortment of women’s clothes he had stored in his ring.
“If you want food,” Matthew mumbled, “and if you want the others to have food, you’ll fetch them and take them into the dungeon with you. If you’re more embarrassed than you are hungry, then just starve.” Raising his head, Matthew glared coldly over at Jennifer for a few moments. “Just one thing though,” he warned icily. “If you wake us, I’m going to toss your ass down and rape you for a week. If anyone else wakes us, I’m going to leave chunks of them laying around to fertilize the mushrooms.”
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“You wouldn’t rape me,” Jennifer snorted indignantly.
“Try me,” Matthew warned. “I’d never kill you since you’re our teammate and companion, so I’d have to find some other way to make you pay for your mistake. Since you seem to hold that special, that’s the price I’d extract from you.” Laying his head back down on Rebecca’s breast once again, Matthew closed his eyes and gently stroked her body for few moments before seemingly going to sleep.
Trembling, Jennifer sat silent and stared for several long minutes, watching them both sleep. Uncertain what she’d gotten herself in to, she slowly got up and started to ease out of the auditorium. She was hungry, and she knew the others would be as well. She didn’t like being forced to traipse around without any clothes on, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that now.
Frightened, embarrassed, nervous, determined, elated at still being alive, horrified by the things she’d seen, grateful for being rescued, in awe of the magic which she could now work, apprehensive about Matthew, worried about Rebecca -- Jennifer’s emotions where twisted in what felt like an endless layer of knots and confusion.
Shell-shocked and overwhelmed to the point that it seemed like everything was lost in a haze of white static, Jennifer decided to simply focus and worry about one thing at a time. She couldn’t help Rebecca. She didn’t know how to deal with Matthew – rather than simply not waking him right now. She didn’t understand what all had happened to the world. Wasn’t certain why she couldn’t wear anything. Didn’t have any clothes any more to even try to wear, so really it was all just a moot worry anyway. Her magic both baffled and amazed her...
Looking at it, there were simply so many things she didn’t know. So many things she couldn’t do. So many worries and uncertainties. She’d go mad if she tried to sort them all out on her own! So for now… For now, she decided, the best thing for her to do, would be to simply focus on just doing one simple thing at a time. Just one thing that she could deal with, with might improve things even the tiniest fraction.
Taking a deep breath, Jennifer shook her head several times to try and shake her doubts and worries away to deal with later, before heading out into the hall and down towards the gym. She might still be naked – there wasn’t anything she could do about that at the moment – but she didn’t have to stay hungry, and neither did the others. If there really was food in the dungeon like Matthew claimed – and for all his faults, he hadn’t lied to her yet that she knew – Jennifer was going to let the others know. After that, it’d be up to them if they wanted to follow her down below the stage it they wanted to eat or not.