For what felt like eternity, no one spoke. The only sounds were the sounds of the storm, the wind sounding almost like laughter in their ears. I used this time to check the details of the curses. I couldn’t reveal Pride, so there was a distinct possibility that I would need to fake the curses, so I would need to know what they were exactly.
Curse of Dehydration
You are unable to drink water.
Can be resisted with sufficient [Willpower]
Strengthens over time
Curse of Madness
Causes hallucinations and loss of reason
Can be resisted with sufficient [Willpower]
Strengthens over time
“Back to the dome!” shouted Otto, finally breaking the silence.
Wordlessly, the group obeyed, trudging back to the clear ice dome I had made earlier that had thankfully avoided the wrath of whatever had split the iceberg. Once inside, the wind and rain became nearly inaudible, and the silence returned.
“Did anyone manage to avoid the curses?” asked Otto tentatively.
For a short time, I debated whether or not to tell the truth. I could try the same excuse I had used for blocking Envy’s [Memory Reading] skill, but that could also be dangerous. Mental skills in general were rare, and skills that blocked or removed status effects were rarer. If I revealed that I conveniently had a skill that covered both, it would raise more suspicion than I would like. However, if I lied and said I was affected, and later it was revealed that I actually wasn’t, that would be even worse.
The curses did say they could be resisted with [Willpower], and I likely had the highest [Wil] on the team. In the worst case, if I lied, the others would be too deep in madness to notice. However, I didn’t know the specifics of Otto’s abilities, so he might prove to be more resilient than that, as would Humility. I decided it would be best to remain silent. If I somehow got caught faking being cursed, I would deal with it later. Perhaps we would be able to clear the Dungeon by then.
“Humility, can you cancel the curses?” asked Otto when nobody spoke.
The masked man shook his head, then spoke in his jarringly inconsistent voice. “I can only cancel skills, not status effects. And I did not know what skill applied these curses, so I was not able to block it. I have been afflicted, and while I can resist it for now, it is likely that I will be the first to be incapacitated.”
“Well, it’s not like he was any help anyways,” grumbled Liliane.
“You’re useless too,” said Maxine.
“Stop,” said Otto, raising his hand.
“Don’t you paladin have purification skills or something like that?” I asked.
“Purification skills are exclusive to high level priests and the Saintess,” replied Otto. "While all paladins are required to spend a year as a priest during our training, very, very few ever reach the necessary level to learn the purification skill.”
“Damn,” I said.
“Yes, it is very unfortunate,” agreed Otto. “However, for the present, this changes very little. We already needed to clear the Dungeon as quickly as possible. While we now have another reason to, it shouldn’t affect our plan. For now, we can all resist them. Forget about the curses for now, and let us focus on clearing the Dungeon. Lucy, do you remember anything else about the poem? The albatross came, and killing it had dire consequences, like you said. If you can remember anything else, it could be the difference between survival and failure.”
I took a moment to rack my brains trying to think of whatever information I could. “Sorry, I can’t. Well, maybe… I think we need to get out of the ice. I’m pretty sure the Mariner makes it to warmer waters.”
He nodded. “Then let us make that the focus for now. Did you notice warmer waters in any direction when you were scouting?”
“I think that there was less ice when I flew in the direction of the moon,” I said. "I didn’t have time to make it far enough to confirm that, though."
“Good. When the storm clears, go check that direction again.”
“Alright,” I said.
“For now, focus on recovery though. The rest of us will try to think of anything we can do to help.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, somewhat sarcastically before walking to the edge of the dome to meditate.
By the time I had recovered my mana, the storm was weakening. The rain came down softly, the wind was no more than a gentle breeze, and in one area, the clouds had even parted to reveal the still-starry sky.
An hour later, the moon finally became visible again, and I resumed my scouting trip. I had remembered correctly, and the further I flew toward the moon, the less icy the water became. Given the ever growing nature of the curses, we had decided to do away with the two hour time limit on the scouting trips. Instead, I was to go as far as I could, then make an iceberg, and a portal to transport the others to me. Once the other had crossed over, I would sit down to meditate while Barnabas flew ahead, and then when he reached his limit, he would signal with his communication stone, and I would repeat the iceberg-portal process and set out scouting again.
We only got through a few days of this though before the members of the group began to succumb to the curses. It was subtle, and Humility was already a quiet, unobtrusive person, so I almost didn’t notice it. One ‘night’ while Sylvester was keeping watch, Humility had curled up into a ball, and was gently rocking back and forth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fuck off,” he replied. “Wait, no- I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said.
“This is not good,” said Sylvester. “It’s progressing more quickly than we thought it would. The twins should be starting to go soon too.”
Just as Sylvester predicted, not 24 hours later, Liliane started to exhibit symptoms of the curse as well. While I was meditating in between scouting trips, she awoke with a start, and almost attacked me while moaning about her leg. A wake-up slap snapped her out of it, but from then on, we all kept a close eye on her.
Maxine was next. I was not present for this incident, but after a teleport Ingrid had told me in a tone of disgust that when Otto had woken Maxine for her shift on the watch, she had embraced him tightly and asked him to “be gentle.”
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The next few days went by without too much incident. The three weakest grew steadily less coherent, but they didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy. A week later, however, while I was scouting, I was suddenly summoned back in an emergency, only to find that it was a false alarm called by Sylvester who thought he had seen an Ettin charging across the water.
A day later, Ji-Soo started to go as well, though much more quietly. Like Humility, she curled up into a ball and remained silent. Unlike Humility, instead of lashing out at those who approached her, she would cower in fear.
“I cannot continue scouting anymore,” said Barnabas when he saw Ji-Soo. “I know that my [Willpower] is not much higher than theirs. I’ve already noticed myself slipping at times. I expect it won’t be more than a few hours before I am no longer reliable, and I’d rather not be over the water when that happens.”
“That is a wise decision,” agreed Otto. “I fear I may not be of much use for long either.”
“Same here,” said Ingrid, melancholy.
Just as they predicted, within the next three days, all three of them began to show signs of madness, and my role changed from Scout to babysitter. It was no longer safe to leave them all on their own, so I changed from flying ahead and teleporting to simply using [Wave] and [Water Jet] to propel our iceberg.
Fortunately, for the most part, the group was relatively easy to handle. The twins, I could just switch their control type to [Perfect Control], and they would remain stationary, and unresponsive. Humility and Ji-Soo, sank deeper into whatever dreams they were having, occasionally muttering, but rarely moving. Otto became obsessive about his temperance, and began hyperfixating on making sure he had the exact right amount of food, exercise, and sleep at all times. Sylvester was mildly annoying, as he repeatedly tried to protect us from monsters only he could see, but because of this, there was 0 danger of him straying from the group.
The most difficult ones actually ended up being Ingrid and Barnabas, who steadily grew chattier and less intelligible with each passing hour. Ingrid would go on and on about terrible men she knew, and Barnabas told nonsensical stories about his younger days. Although it was annoying, I had to let them talk to me whenever I could, because when they talked to the others, it caused problems. Otto started shouting when his daily routine was interrupted, Ji-Soo would panic when approached, Sylvester put up his shield at anyone who came close, and Humility would start ranting about pride and its consequences whenever they heard anyone else talking. I had had to set up walls of silence around Ji-Soo and Humility to keep things from getting out of hand.
On the bright side, the [Curse of Dehydration] ended up being nothing. It was a mental curse that only affected them trying to drink water themselves. I could force water into their mouths and into their stomachs without issue to keep them alive. When I originally discovered this, I was excited about finally seeing what was under Humility’s mask, but to my dismay, the mask was intangible, and could not be removed, so I had to just siphon the water through the mask instead.
At times, I was tempted to just make them all into my thralls. Maxine and Liliane being my thralls made everything so much easier. However, this option had too much potential to go wrong. I doubted that the other would take to kindly to being enslaved, even if it was to save them, and in addition to that, even if they did accept that, I would be stuck needing to explain why I was unaffected by the curses, and able to think clearly enough to do something like that. As it was, as long as I got the Dungeon cleared relatively quickly, I could pass off the extra time as them misremembering due to the curse.
Two weeks passed like this, trying to keep my companions safe from themselves, before I finally noticed an encouraging change. Until that point, while we had stopped encountering ice, the water remained just as ominous as before, and I still couldn’t sense more than 50 feet or so deep. However, at some point while I was idly fidgeting with my mana while ignoring whatever Ingrid and Barnabas were arguing about, I noticed that for a split second, I was able to sense past the invisible boundary underwater.
I immediately tuned out everything else, and started spreading my mana out below, prodding at what I had believed to be an impassable barrier for mana, and to my delight, I was actually able to make progress. My mana still got consumed when it went below the line, but it happened more slowly, and it felt more like something was making a conscious effort to destroy it, rather than the mana being passively dissipated. It seemed that whatever was down there had grown weaker.
Another week of travel passed, the moon, which had originally been halfway to the horizon, was now almost directly overhead. Whatever was in the water was weakened to the point that I had gained about half my maximum range in [Mana Sense] back when directed downward. Despite this fact though, I still couldn’t tell what it was. There were strange undercurrents following directly below our iceberg, but I couldn't tell what was making them.
I wanted to go down and investigate, and I probably would have if I were alone. As I wasn’t, I had to refrain, and instead contented myself to constantly trying to push back against the force below.
A few days later, I finally began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The resistance below the water had completely disappeared, and if I pushed [Mana Sense] to its limit, I could even feel ocean bed.
The moon was directly overhead by then, and I had a gut feeling that that was a good thing. Instead of continuing in the same direction, I started making the ice barge circle slowly, searching all around and below for some kind of sign. It only took a few hours before I finally found it. Lying on the ocean floor, half buried in sand, there was a stone box, roughly the size and shape of a coffin. It was the first time throughout the entire journey that I had sensed anything other than rocks, fish, or seaweed, so I knew that this had to be what I was looking for.
I guided my makeshift boat so that it was directly over the box, then extended it up and around to make a new dome to keep the others contained while I dove. This turned out to be an unnecessary precaution. With the help of [Dive], I made it to the coffin in less than a minute, and the moment I touched it I received the System message.
You have found the final resting place of the Ancient Mariner!
Congratulations! You have cleared the Tomb of the Ancient Mariner!
For being the first to ever clear this Dungeon, you will be granted a special reward!
You’ve gained the passive skill [Blessing of the Ancient Mariner]
You've gained the passive skill [Blessing of Life-In-Death]
User Level 75 -> 77
[Archmage] lvl 70 -> 77
You have 60 free stat points available
Blessing of the Ancient Mariner
All stats increased by 5%
Blessing of Life-In-Death
All stats increased by 5%
If you do not leave voluntarily, you will be removed from the Dungeon in 14:59
Happy to finally be done, I quickly returned to the surface. Otto was still the party leader, so I would need to somehow convince him to hit the prompt to leave.
Luckily, there was no convincing to be done. Evidently, when the Dungeon was cleared, the curses were cleansed from the others, because when I returned to the ice barge, they were all waiting for me. Fortunately, they hadn’t tried to wake the twins yet, so I was able to turn off [Total Control] before they noticed, and avoided any uncomfortable questions
“Lucy!” said Ingrid. “You did it!”
“That I did- oof,” as soon as I landed back on the iceberg, I was nearly knocked off my feet by a bear hug from the dwarf. I tried to hug her back, but it was a bit awkward, the top of her helmet only came up to my bellybutton.
“Thank you, Lucy,” said Sylvester. “I don’t imagine we would have survived without you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
There was a short chorus of ‘thank you’s’ from the others before Otto loudly cleared his throat.
"Hermina? Did you learn what happened to her?"
The mood in the group turned dark.
"No. I never saw her," I replied.
"That is unfortunate," he said somberly. "But there will be time for grief later. For now, we need to focus on our next moves. Midhna is not expecting us to return. And he does not know that we know of his relationship with Ophelia. We will need to act immediately once we emerge to capitalize. Is everyone ready?"
“Yes!” shouted Ingrid.
The others echoed her sentiment, with the exceptions of Ji-Soo, who kept her eyes trained on the ground, and Humility, who was back to their original, stoic self.
“Then let us go," said Otto. "Be prepared for a welcome party, though.”
With that, there was a flash of light, and a moment later, we all found ourselves back in the real world behind a line of heavily armored paladins with shields raised against a group of dark-haired spearmen.