“Every step of life shows much caution is required."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
==POV: Tarrae==
It had taken them longer than they would have liked to arrive, but the dungeon was not yet ready for them regardless. None of them had ever done this before. Anaath could have provided information, but he stayed mostly wrapped up in his own thoughts.
Most of the shelter had been left up to me. My heat abilities had proven invaluable. Having an area of concentrated warmth was also a relief amid the bitter cold.
Above them loomed the lances, and beyond that Twisted Tip, the tallest mountain in the range. Anaath had at least indicated that Twisted Tip, or rather beneath it, lay the dungeon. The mountain had an unusual appearance. For the most part it went up as usual, but then it sheared off and an enormous section rose another couple miles into the air and leaned west the entire time. So much so that most of the lower mountain rested in its own shadow as the rocks were straight above them. The stone of the tip was odd, too. It looked almost like someone had leaned a mammoth spear tip against the mountain. A spear tip that was still molten from the forge, enormous sections of stone looked melted and had dripped from the top before freezing into place.
I was at least glad to be resting. The journey through the canyon road had been simple enough, the road had been carved into the walls of the caves generations before, and they were more than capable of handling an extra group of four without any crowding. Especially this time of year.
Our journey after the tunnels had been miserable. We were given slogi to help with the trek, but the wind coming off the Wither Salt Flats was biting. We had passed encampments where they mined out the salt. No doubt the unusually long Freeze had been a boon to them. When it ended, the salt flats would flood again. I suppose that was one good thing. We didn’t have to take the longer high road like we would later. Of course it would be warmer then… so I guess it was a wash.
We could have climbed up closer to Twisted Tip, but Anaath had told us to stay in place. This was where the dungeon entrance would be. No one was going to gain say an Adar about dungeons, so we waited.
==POV: Zidaun==
We had arrived at the proper place to enter the dungeon after only a few days. We had used the ancient lava flows, now covered in snow, to forge a relatively smooth route up. I had expected the journey to require us scaling farther up into the mountains, but it had proven unnecessary. The signal was peaking here.
Admittedly, since we had traveled over snow, the slogi had helped immensely. Without their ability to walk on the snow so easily the journey would have taken much more time. Honestly, with snow this deep, I wouldn’t want to even try without one. There was a reason people avoided travel in Freeze as much as possible.
The slogi were nowhere to be seen now. They had created their own burrow beneath the snow. They would continue in their pseudo hibernation until the snows melted or we woke them up again. Honestly, I thought this was probably one of the reasons people liked them as mounts during the winter, they would be ready when we were.
Arriving with time to spare had its own difficulties. Cold, boredom, cold, anxiety, and cold. Did I mention the cold?
I had been able to excavate a small cave beneath the snow and ice, but even that much taxed my abilities. Outside a dungeon my abilities were minor. Firi had added a blessing to help keep warmth in, but it was still very cold.
Naturally, I had spent very little time enjoying the relative warmth. I meditated and prayed just outside where I knew the dungeon would emerge. The voice of the dungeon called out to me and I echoed it back. The two gradually got closer together, the melodies merging.
The dungeon had covered many miles as it expanded through the stone to reach us. It was actually moving fairly quickly through the stone. Considering the distance it was reaching us very quickly. The strength of its voice and the speed with which it approached had given at least one fact away. It was not a simple new born.
Now as I meditated, my thoughts would turn to my home periodically. I missed it every Freeze. I had even taken a few opportunities to return to Blaze Blossom Swamp. It was named for what happened during Freeze. Every year, just as the water was getting cold enough at night to leave panes of ice on the surface, the blaze blossoms bloomed. The deep orange flowers were underwater, and they burned with light and heat as they opened.
The heat transformed the entire swamp. Mists rose from warming waters. The entire swamp was soon filled with sheets of glimmering mist. The starneck trees with their five long trunks arched up above the water and then down toward the water. They would keep their deep green leaves just above the surface of the water. The long arches of their neck, where moss grew at other times of year, would freeze. The mist in the air accumulated there and froze, until long curtains of icicles hung down toward the water.
I had taken a boat through the swamp many a Freeze. The light from below the water shone off the ice and mists. And all the world looked like frozen fire, reflected above and below. And with the mists, it was rare for the sun to break through.
I was still upon the stone as if rooted in place, my thoughts turning this way and that, like leaves in the breeze. Though thoughts of home entered my mind every now and then, I was excited to be where I was. Well, excited for the dungeon to open, even if I was often bored for the moment. However, all the waiting was about to end. I opened my eyes, the dungeon was here.
Before me the stone of a mountain cliff transformed into a blank stone facade. I called to the others and they joined me. We all waited and were eager for an end to our monotonous wait, even if that would mean danger. Perhaps especially since it would mean danger.
The dungeon failed to open. Honestly I had expected it to open almost immediately. I had felt the sudden rush as the dungeon connected the entrance, but apparently it wasn’t ready yet.
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We waited impatiently. The dungeon could open at any time, and that was dangerous. Anything could happen when it opened. With most, nothing would, but assuming that was a fool’s game and few fools survived dungeons.
As the minutes changed into hours we began to wait in shifts. Being so close to Twisted Tip, the sun and the maw had long been out of view, even while it was technically still day. Now true night had begun and the vast glorious face of Yamash cast pale light down onto the world.
Eventually I could feel something different start to happen, and we all returned to the entrance. Behind the blank stone I could feel more stone flowing and changing shape. Over the course of a few minutes those changes stabilized and the blank cover dissolved away.
They left behind a series of pillars that rose from the earth. A single massive stone triangle capped the entrance above them. The pillars were made of snowy white marble with black veins, and each pillar was ridged by vertical parallel lines. The triangular face above was recessed and contained figures. A frieze of ladies and men with curly hair and draping robes danced, laughed, and reclined.
I used my identify skill in an almost unconscious reflex. It told me that it was Greek, whoever that was, and that the entire structure was an imitation of the Parthenon. Well that wasn’t particularly helpful. The dungeon was imitating the art of people I had never heard of. This confirmed my initial belief that the dungeon wasn’t new at least. Some scholar would need to determine how old the dungeon actually was, for now our job was simply to enter.
Entering was a relief after the anxious waiting. With my senses, I naturally entered first.
I breathed in rich mana as awe and contentment blossomed inside me. I forced the habitual feelings to the side and then started to pay more attention to what my senses were saying.
“Alright, we are good,” I said. “It’s a safe zone.”
The others nodded and settled a bit farther back as they slightly relaxed.
My most powerful gifts had already started awakening as soon as I entered the dungeon’s aura. I connected to it and I became aware of everything within fifteen feet. Here in a dungeon I became more than myself. My senses expanded to cover everything and I could feel so much more. Years of practice kept me from being swept away, and it was now second nature to tune out excess information.
The pathway was wide with a slight incline that lead up farther into the dungeon. The dungeon pathway was perfectly straight and seemed to continue forever. That was normal enough.
It was the other things that were starting to creep me out. Everything was too perfect. The decoration on the wall was another historical style called an infinity knot, from the Celts. Another unknown people. The design wove in and out of itself, creating an ever shifting pattern, and the colors were different enough from each other to be noticeable, but not glaring. The floor beneath our feet was textured to allow easy purchase for walking. The wideness of the pathway, was combined with a good, though not ridiculous amount of head room, and perfect lighting. It was too normal.
This dungeon was not just the rebirth of something ancient; it was ancient in its own right. Dungeon's tended to built without quite understanding people. It took them a very long time to understand even the basics of how people thought and saw the world. Even then, dungeons almost never lost the feeling of the uncanny. They would have proportions that were slightly off. Angles that worked, but felt wrong. The statues and art were too perfect or subtly flawed in perspective.
Everything here was perfect for the comfort of the dungeon’s guests. The artwork was soothing and beautiful, but could easily fade into the background. The lights were at the perfect level of brightness and hue. The temperature was comfortable. Together, it was unnerving.
The last straw was the bathroom.
We saw a simple handle of bronze protruding from the stone a hundred feet into the corridor. The wall looked no different, but the obvious handle made us all cautious. Safe zone could still be dangerous.
I crept forward as the room behind it entered my perception. The room had a small curved and hollow stone seat. To one side of the stone seat was a roll of fine cloth, it was weakened with many tiny cuts that separated it into squares. Nearer to the door was a basin with a curved handle of its own above it that attached to protruding spout made of steel. Crystal and silver made a mirror above the basin. A towel was neatly hung over a rack to the side of the basin.
“Be alert,” I snapped as I turned to face a possible threat.
I had felt the flow of mana as it moved through my perception. Just outside of it I could see stone shifting deeper in the tunnel. A form was oozing from the stone wall. It was humanoid, and as it resolved into a complete form it became obvious that it was meant to be a human, mostly made of stone.
It was a man, the skin a pale and lustrous marble, and he was wearing strange clothing. Both his shirt, which was crimson with short sleeves, and his pants, blue with tiny flecks of white, and made with a heavier weave, were made of fine linen. Identify called them a “T-shirt” and “jeans.” The man’s eyes were made of stone, the irises were the beautiful blue of a gem, riddled with innumerable cracks to form the proper pattern. The pupils were each an actual hole that lead into a hollow interior coated with rough obsidian, with a perfectly clear layer of stone covering the whole of each eye. His hair was… as best I could tell, actual hair.
The man identified as simply a statue, and left me with no more information than before. It’s movements were almost perfect as it turned and walked toward the door.
All of us prepared to fight.
I could tell a little of how the statue functioned through my senses. It always had at least one of its bare feet on the ground at all times and I could feel how it actually stayed connected to the stone beneath it constantly. As it reached the door it raised its right hand and smoothly turned the handle, opening it. It went through the door and into the room and unbuttoned its “jeans” and its genderless posterior sat upon the seat.
“It’s obviously some kind of… outhouse,” Inda whispered, her brows furrowed. The rest of us nodded in agreement.
The statue broke off some of the squares of cloth from the roll and proceeded to carefully wipe imaginary waste from beneath it. It let the cloth go and it fluttered down into the depths and disappeared. Then it stood up and fixed its displaced clothing. It turned to stand in front of the basin and twisted the handle above it. Clear water emerged and it washed its hands, drying its hands afterward. The statue turned towards us once more and looked at us with a slight smile. Then it slowly dissolved out of existence.
It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen.
“Well… at least it is nice to have a place to relieve ourselves,” Gurek said.
“And that doesn’t strike you as a little suspicious?” Firi said, “Whoever heard of a dungeon wasting resources on something like… this?”
“Not to mention that statue,” I said, “that was more than a little unsettling.”
“I don’t think I have ever seen a dungeon manipulate stone that close to someone. Nothing that wasn’t clearly just automatic, like doors. This dungeon… seems almost intelligent.”
The others nodded and I nodded with them. I wished I could just tell them.
Regardless, our job was to explore the dungeon. Strange bathroom included.
Since my senses were the best I edged into the bathroom. The others made sure the door wouldn’t close on me. As I got close enough I could feel the hole terminate in solid unbroken stone not far below. The cloth was gone as though it had never existed.
It took time, and much investigating, but we eventually decided the room was safe. The water was free of poisons, wasn’t boiling hot (it was pleasantly warm), no contact poisons were detected on the cloth, stone seat, or anywhere else. Firi did most of the poison testing with his magic while I verified there were no magical or mechanical triggers. We also closed the door from outside and made sure it could open again. Then I did the same thing from within. It opened just fine.
After that we all decided to use the room for its intended purpose. Who knew how the dungeon would react if we didn’t? It had obviously taken some time to make sure it was exquisitely clear what this room was for.
With my extra senses and ability to manipulate the stone it was determined that I should go first. We all needed to go to varying degrees, since we had been waiting for the expected warmth of the dungeon once it was obvious it was forming. Everything went without a hitch. I used the available cloth squares, and then washed my hands and left, only taking a brief glance of myself in the mirror.
After this, the team mostly relaxed. When Gurek went third, however, there was an issue. When he attempted to leave the bathroom, he found the door would not open. He immediately pounded on the door and alerted the entire team. However, even as he did this, the handle above the basin turned by itself and water started to pour. Once he washed his hands the door could be opened again. Why the dungeon was insistent that you had to wash your hands before leaving none of us could begin to say.
Regardless, after this, the last member of our party relieved themselves without any further incident. Our long journey along the tunnel continued. Handles regularly protruded from the wall and each was another bathroom. Eventually, after some long hours, we reached the end of the tunnel.