I looked around me trying to find some sort of solution while spinning my bangs in my finger.

Well, I suppose I could just write on the… never mind, you can’t really see anything in this.

I didn’t know what to do quite yet, but I’d try my best. So, I walked up behind Ismund so I was barely avoided stepping on his heels. He didn’t seem to want me so close. Although, with how close Abs was to him already it was kind of like he was being surrounded.

Whelp, nothing I can really do about it.

I took a good look at the situation before I did anything. The parasite was obviously sucking up all of the corrupt energy in the area, which, surprisingly, seemed to make the air around him a little warmer.

I wonder how much of this environment is enhanced to make it worse. What’s in charge of that anyways?

The tentacles were still in the knot I put them in, but thanks to the energy now available to them they were out of their stasis, tugging and trying to unwind. What I’d done before wouldn’t work so well anymore. It was temporary to begin with but this won’t last very long. Not even a few minuets.

I let out a brief sigh that was snatched away from the wind.

I think it’s going to be a while until I can talk to someone again…

I glanced at Abs and his wolf pelt shawl.

It was fun while it lasted.

Taking some of my free floating energy I re-tangled the tentacles coming free of the mass of grey flesh. It started with one, three soon after that, unraveled further and went up to twenty.

It was too much for me to handle. I wasn’t even re-tangling anything anymore I was just getting them away from his soul best I could.

The internal damage must be bad.

I winced at the thought.

At least the dungeon gives a quicker recovery time?

The parasite was able to attack his soul at this point. The little guards standing there in knights armor were helping somewhat, but there was just so many, it didn’t matter. One tentacle reached out and tried slamming itself into his soul’s shield. It didn’t break anything quite yet, it would take a bit. but given enough blows, it would break something. It did last time and it didn’t have access to this energy all around it.

You know, is it even worth keeping this thing here if he can heal quicker in the dungeon? Maybe we should just try to cut it out? No, no that wouldn’t work. We would miss chunks, I’m sure, and I don’t know if those can regenerate new parasites. It might be like a potato or something with vegetative reproduction. I mean, it looked like that guy at the “doctor’s place” was completely infected.

I pursed my lips.

I really hope that doesn’t happen to Ismund. Would that thing take over his entire body or something?

I was just getting more anxious.

Maybe I could, I don’t know, chop off it’s tentacles? If I do it often enough I could remove them before they’re long enough to reach his soul… that could work. It better anyways, I can’t keep up at this rate.

* * *

ISMUND

Breathing was uncomfortable and my back hurt. Probably thanks to a small lung puncture of some sort. It was that stupid “cure” again.

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I frowned deeply.

We need to get rid of this thing and also somehow kill it or whatever so I can get the parts of my soul it stole.

This dungeon was making it worse, and while Drifa was trying, It wasn’t enough. At the same time, I wasn’t about to tell Abs a weakness of mine, I just met him. Heck, I wouldn’t even tell Drifa if I thought I had other options. But here we are.

While I was wrapped up in my own thoughts Abs’ massive hand grabbed my head and started analyzing me by making me look this way and that against my will.

“Hey!”

I reached up and tried to remove his hand to no avail. Since Abs was, well, Abs, he started talking again.

“… What… ah, what creature did you mixsh wieth?”

“I know you can speak properly, stop acting drunk.” I said frustrated.

I had seen him speak with immense clarity and precision before when he was describing his necklace, pork chop. But, for whatever reason, he just defaulted to acting more drunk than he was.

Then again, he did have a really high BAC.

I didn’t know what to think of him honestly. Was he drunk, was he not? Who could say.

"Ahhh, but I am drunk!”

He removed the jaw of his mask just so he could smile at me, self satisfied.

Great.

I rolled my eyes.

I wasn’t sure why, but whenever that thing was attacking my will got really strong, and then it just… broke. I was hoping I didn’t have to experience the breaking part again.

“Anyways,” he said in a sing-song voice, “What is it?” he looked at me directly, clearly more interested than he had been with other things.

“Probably something cold, eh? My hand would’ve been frosty if it wasn’t for me being that good.” He smirked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“About what? I’m obviously amazing, c’mon.”

He flexed his enormous bicep right in front of my face.

Please.. just stop.

“What you slurred.”

“Oh, pfft, don’t tell me you don’t know anything? Anyone who’s going to go dungeon diving has merged with something. How else are you supposed to get through these with a decent chance at winning? And your head is chilly,” he ruffed up my hair, I wanted to stab him or something so bad. I wouldn’t though.

“That’s not natural, unless you have a frostbite and you’re near death. So… ?”

Weird.

“… Fine.” Abs immediately focused all of his attention on me, “It has to do with ice.”

“What else?”

“You haven’t even told me about yourself. No.”

He slapped a hand over his mouth, briefly covering the strong alcoholic smell that he was spreading all around him.

“Ah, I wanted to tell you a while ago…” I actually wanted to know what he was going to say for once, so I listened carefully. “I..." he laughed, "Well y'know how there'sh dungeons?”

I nodded briskly.

Get to the point.

“I went with these dudes that didn’t seem very trustworthy because… right! I was inebriated. So—”

I don’t want to miss out on details.

“How old?”

“Oh that?” he gave me a large grin, “Guess.”

Fine.

“Twenty three.”

Abs laughed in my face with spittle flying and pointed at me.

“That’s a funny thought! Ohhh,” he wiped a tear from his eyes, “I’m not that weak.”

He stroked his beard and raised an eyebrow.

“You can do math, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Well, divide your answer by two and subtract one.”

I looked him in the eye, “What.”

No way he was that young and drunk. What are people doing now days?

“I thought you said you can do math?”

He obviously wanted a reaction, so I carried on.

“Yes. Just tell me what happened after.”

“Sure! Wheel… well, I was destined to be a sacrifice or something because they couldn’t sober me up and didn’t need to keep me around. Fun times that was… anyways, they led me over to this dungeon and wanted to sacrifice me as they were setting up another area to merge one of their initiates with a monster. That was before their methods were more… referee, no… sounds like coral reef—I do like fish—right, refined.”

“So, before they could kill me, ckkkk!” he pulled a thumb across his throat, “I got them first! I had a bottle opener on me and I stabbed one of them.” He playfully imitated stabbing with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, “Anyways, I ended up getting shoved into the ritual circle they had set up after some brawling and got trapped in there via some sort of force field magic. In the end, they decided to just carry on with the ritual with me instead of their initiate.”

“The guy was sacrificed instead of me because they needed someone.” he shrugged, “he seemed fine with it though, and he decided to get involved with the cult in the first place.”

“Back to the hero of the story,” he confidently combed his thinning hair back with his fingers, “they thought that I would just die in the process while I was getting fused with the toa—” he shook his finger, “Ha! I wont tell you what it was quite yet. You almost got me!” he tapped a finger to his head once.

I didn’t say or do anything you meat head.

“—but they didn’t know that I liked having fun too much to die. So, the ritual didn’t cast iron pan out the way they wanted seeing that I did better than any of them did— You can hardly tell I’m not just a human—and I killed them all and got out of the dungeon.”

Okay, so he will just kill people, good to know. That’s also interesting with the bits of the cult I caught…

Also, how did he clear a dungeon on his own at 10 years old? I wonder what kind of hangover he had…