They’ve decided to go and get the key immediately, if only because whatever room it was in sounded like a place where potential loot could be found. And this is what they needed to obtain right now.
They resumed their march forward in their earlier formation. Uraraka with a torch, and Toga ahead of her, close to the edge of the light zone, as their vanguard, having enough light to vaguely see but hopefully not enough to be seen.
Still, despite their caution they only managed to get to the intersection right behind Aeonia’s sanctuary before they were attacked.
Toga’s quiet steps and quick reflexes allowed her to dive behind the intersection a moment before two arrows flew past the place where she was standing. They hit the wall and bounced off, landing on the floor, having chipped a slight bit off the wall.
Toga immediately clings to the wall behind the intersection, just as Uraraka approaches it from the other side. Without exposing herself to enemy attacks.
“Just the two of them, I think.” Toga immediately reports. “Too far for me to see, they’re on the far end of the corridor.”
Dungeons and other underground structures not being appropriately lighted? heresy
I wouldn’t expect the undead to be concerned with JISHA, Shigaraki.
JISHA? What’s that?
…Not funny.
No, seriously, what’s that?
…
Let’s just focus on what’s happening.
“Think I can throw the torch far enough to light them up for you?” Uraraka asks. Izuku finds himself deeply impressed by her ability to actually work together with Toga.
“Sure!” Toga nods enthusiastically. “But it might die down. You know, the torch.”
“We’ll take that risk.” Uraraka replies. “We can’t dodge or shield ourselves if we don't know that an attack is coming, right? Get ready.”
“Uh-huh.” Toga nods quickly while jumping back to her feet. “Just give me a sign and I’ll be onto them in a moment!”
Uraraka-san, won’t she get shot? I get that she’s fast, but…you know.
“That’s a risk that I’m definitely ready to take.” Uraraka replies dryly while putting her spear by the wall, before using her now free right hand to hold the torch. Yeah, that sounds more like the Uraraka he knew. “Alright, Toga, get ready.”
Toga nods again, her knives in her hands. She was clearly ready for it.
Uraraka goes past the corner, her shield raised up. Almost immediately an arrow hits it, the arrowpoint exiting on the other side, coming to a stop right in front of her eyes. If the shield didn’t stop it…
The second arrow fails to pierce the shield entirely. Uraraka lowers her shield just long enough to throw the torch as far as she can towards the other end of the corridor, before grabbing the spear and charging forward as quickly as she can.
Toga passes by her before she could even start moving, sprinting down the corridor before leaping off and bouncing off the wall to approach the enemy slightly from above.
There are two skeletons, both of them carrying bows and with quivers on their backs, both of them currently busy pulling new arrows from the latter.
Izuku and Tomura are simultaneously surprised by how their strings somehow still exist, despite being here for centuries. Magic, probably. Should they ask Aeonia on their way back?
Toga leaps at one of them before he can fire his bow again, slicing through their neck with [Sharpen Claw] buff on, decapitating the skeleton, and making it collapse into the pile of bones that she finishes by nailing the skull to the floor with her knife.
The other one manages to fire another arrow directly at Uraraka, who stops it with her shield. And then, before it can do anything else (or before Toga can steal her kill) she blasts it into the wall with a [Shield Bash].
That one didn’t even need to be finished off, the blow was strong enough to crush its skull completely.
By the time both of the skeletons fall to the ground and stop moving, Toga was already on high guard, intently listening in to any sounds predicting an incoming enemy.
“Nothing.” She reports. “No more enemies around.”
“Alright.” Uraraka lets herself breathe a sigh of relief. Seeing the arrowhead just pop out of her shield right in front of her face was… really intense. “Let’s go look for that key.” She starts by picking up the torch before it burns out completely.
***
At the distant end of the corridor they find a set of locked doors. Thankfully, it’s not the same kind of doors as all the others inside this place. Just a plain old set of wooden doors that managed to survive all that time in decent condition.
“Alright then, time for me to shine.” Toga announces before kneeling before the door and pulling out two small, metal sticks out of her belt that…
Uraraka blinks at the sight. Yeah, that was surprisingly logical in hindsight. And would let them know if the skills they came to this world with could be used, or if they were limited to whatever the Dungeon system has given them.
Think you can do it?
“Well, I might not have a fancy lockpicking skill recognized by the system…” Toga replies while carefully lockpicking the doors to their destination. “... but I know my way around locks, okay? And I dealt with ones much more complicated than this one.”
Her words ring true when the lock opens up with a loud click. Well, time for some pillaging.
***
image [https://i.imgur.com/xoATLBq.png]
1. Entrance, 2. Collapsed Passage, 3. Partially Collapsed Passage, 4. Aeonia's Chamber, 5. Storeroom.
***
The room in question turned out to be a storeroom, storing things that were used for burial to spare the old owners of this place from having to carry everything with them. Or, even more likely, something to replace damaged elements of the decor.
Like, say, being able to put your grandpa in a new coffin after discovering that the old one for some reason completely broke into pieces. Or just decayed in general. Without having to deliver a completely new coffin to this place.
Which would require visiting this place again, which they were trying to keep the location of it a secret to avoid graverobbers and probably necromancers. That was probably an important concern as well.
They’ve found ten whole coffins just resting by the wall. A number of torch stands likely used to illuminate the interior of the burial chambers. A number of what might have been some sort of ritualistic paraphernalia (strangely shaped cups, a few short blades and so on), and a number of things that have clearly decayed into uselessness long ago.
“Well, this is a bust.” Uraraka sighs as she stops looking through the contents of the large cupboard. At some point in the distant past it contained neatly arrayed textiles of unknown type. Perhaps altar cloth, perhaps some ritual garments. Whatever it was, it decomposed long ago. “I expected at least some treasures here. Toga, found anything?”
“I found… a cup!” Toga says cheerfully, prompting Uraraka to glance at her. She was standing in the middle of the room, facing the ceiling, balancing carefully with a very flat cup resting on her forehead. It looked like one of those cups that older people drank sake from. “It’s gonna be mine and Slimy-chan’s new friend!”
“I don’t know why I expected anything useful out of you.” Uraraka shakes her head with an expression of pure disappointment on her face. “Aside from opening the door, I give you that much. Put your new friend down and go look for the key. There has to be some secret door, small or big, in the walls. Start looking.”
***
It took them a lot of time to finally find it. It was so well hidden that without knowing that it was in that room, they’d definitely overlook it. It really required knocking on every single piece of the wall to find the one sounding hollow.
And where exactly was it? So high that one had to step on a table to reach that place. So unless the creators of this place were giant, it was just one more intended safety measure to keep the key away from potential graverobbers.
And inside it was the key. One of its ends looked like a tough metal door handle, the other one had some really complicated shape that was likely supposed to fit inside the lock. Not the usual key design, but definitely what they were looking for.
To Uraraka’s slight disappointment, they’ve found nothing else in the small alcove behind the false wall. Really? The owners of this place couldn’t leave even a single piece of treasure for them to find?
Then again, it made sense. You weren’t supposed to make treasures easy to reach. But it was still annoying.
“Let’s go back for our backpacks.” Uraraka decides. They’ve cleared the route to this place, and could now easily and quickly go back and forth. “We’ll pack as much of the stuff here that we can carry.”
Yes! We should try to unlock the Burial Site as a biome and this could help us a lot.
Yeah, it’ll be 20 or 30%, let’s be real
This is a highly complex location, I don’t think we can get there without finding something major , the sort of thing hidden in the burial chambers
It’d kill you to be even a tiny bit optimistic, wouldn’t it?
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It’s less about me being naturally pessimistic and more about me hating seeing others succeed
Sigh
Uraraka, I think that I have another question for Aeonia.
***
“Have you found the key?” Aeonia’s voice comes through the door the moment they approach it.
“Yes, yes we did.” Uraraka replies. “Can we go back and have the Dungeon assimilate it? We’ll be able to replicate it afterwards, right?”
“That is correct.” Aeonia replies calmly. “Found anything useful in that storage room? I don’t know what state that place is in after all those years.”
“Empty coffins, some ritual stuff like a few daggers and some cups, and a lot of signs of decomposition.” Uraraka replies. Aeonia responds with a loud sigh.
“This place has become a pale shadow of what it once was.” The daemon replies with sadness filling her voice. “It was so beautiful, once. This is what occurs when you leave the cycle of life and death, of growth and decay, to continue. Eternal stagnancy and preservation of what was is preferable to this.”
“R-right.” Uraraka clearly decides not to engage the daemon in a religious debate. If that is what it would be, to begin with. They’re on uncharted waters here. “Can you answer one, no, two more questions?”
“Sure, go on.” Aeonia replies calmly. “I hardly have anything better to do.”
“Some of the skeletons fired arrows at us.” Uraraka replies with a question. “Shouldn’t their bows, you know…”
“...decay?” Aeonia finishes for her. “They should, if not for the touch of the Breathless Tide upon them. The undead are Nex’s answer to entropy. It's very antithesis. Whatever they possess, whatever they hold, the entropy loses its grasp on. But the ones you’ve encountered are faulty in design, and so the entropy has partially reclaimed its due. But only partially.”
Makes sense.
Now ask the other question, please.
Uraraka does so. She relays the description of the creature that days ago ended Ekana’s life, and asks what it was. Aeonia stays quiet for a few seconds, before finally speaking.
“Your master asks the most curious of questions.” The daemon eventually says. “From the description, it seems to be a shadowlurker. One of the daemons serving Luna. If the old and largely forbidden myths are to be believed, Odius corrupted Luna and Sol when the three of them were still in their mother’s womb. When they were born, they both excised that corruption from their bodies, minds and souls. Luna threw her own away, bits of it scattering throughout the entire Creation. And whenever they landed, shadowlurkers were born. The one you’ve encountered was a lesser one. The stronger they are, the more human they look, but the more inhumanly sadistic their minds are.”
We’re missing a lot of backstory for that, but it’s good enough for now.
… Actually, I have another question.
What now?
Uraraka, ask her if she wants us to unseal her sanctuary right now.
What?
Are you fucking insane?
Sometimes people are locked in a jail for a reason
…
Wait did I really say that
I just want to check her reaction to that.
“Do you want us to unseal your sanctuary?” Uraraka ends up relaying his words. “If something happens to us before we can host you, you might as well stay locked in there for a few more centuries.”
“I’ve already allowed you to ransack this place.” Aeonia replies dryly. “If you want to pillage the leftover offerings from my sanctuary, you just have to ask. But if you want me to answer your question seriously: do whatever you want. The seal on this place makes sure that nothing creeps in just as it makes me unable to leave. I’m in a rather vulnerable state right now. So if you do want to unseal my sanctuary to pillage my possessions, you’re free to do it, but please reseal my chamber afterwards.”
She manages to act consistent. You think she’s serious about it?
You actually ask me for my opinion on people
No, I’m asking you for your opinion about edgelords.
She might not be reaching the level of All for One and seems much more helpful to begin with, but she’s definitely keeping up an image.
I admit that her story is holding up
And she doesn’t get to the same pizza cutter level of edgelordism that AFO operates on
Hmmm?
It’s literally a blade in the shape of a circle
All edge, no point, get it?
Oh, right. It’s actually pretty funny.
We could use whatever’s inside that sanctuary… but we could also unleash something horrible upon the world.
Unlikely, because she offered to be a Floor Boss of ~15lvl.
The beastkin elder mentioned that the deepest Dungeon in the world is 200lvl deep, and the deeper you go, the stronger the things become
It’s not exactly an apocalyptic-level threat
Right. And if it was an apocalyptic-level threat, I don’t think such a lousy graveyard could hold it inside to begin with.
But it can definitely be a threat to us.
Only if it can track us back to the Dungeon. Otherwise, we’re hours away from this place, good luck finding us
…
Fuck you, Midoriya, stop silently bringing back the USJ
Or, in this case, the Training Camp & Kamino
But we could definitely use whatever it’s keeping inside its sanctuary.
I admit that much
Uraraka-san, do you think that we should pick it up on that offer?
“Honestly, I don’t know.” Uraraka replies while looking away from the door. “I’m lacking a lot of information and context for this decision. But thus far, the things she’s telling us seem consistent. And, well, she doesn’t know what we don’t know, right?”
“Your master is actually asking you for your input on decisions?” Aeonia picks that moment to speak. And she sounds genuinely surprised by it. “Usually they’re rather… egotistic. Growing up with total control of everything within your domain has its side-effects on their mental growth.”
“Y-yes, he is… a bit special to me.” Uraraka replies before glancing at Toga. “Your opinion?”
“I want to know what she looks like.” Toga replies while grinning cheerfully. “I’m in!”
Well, here’s hoping that we’re not making a giant mistake. Because I really feel like it’s a good idea.
You’re just pathologically heroic and want to release the imprisoned woman, completely ignoring her being, you know, a daemon.
***
They get their backpacks back and decide to get the sanctuary opened first. There might be enough stuff there to fill their backpacks, and they do not want to fill them in with some low-quality stuff and then be forced to partially empty it.
They’d rather spend as little time in a single room with Aeonia as possible. Just in case.
And so, with her doubts and worries still there, Uraraka pushes the key into the sanctuary lock… and turns it around a few times, the metallic grinding noises informing her that the mechanism was working.
And when the key is fully pushed in, it locks in, and she gets to open the door. They open with a metallic cacophony informing her immediately that those hinges need to be oiled.
And once the doors are opened, they get to see the insides of it.
Most of the room was occupied by two lines of busts, likely picturing the people that were buried in this place. Each and every one of them rested on a separate postument by the wall, on a colorful flowing banner reaching all the way to the floor and covered in rather exquisite embroidery.
Each of said embroideries seemed to picture completely different events, likely the achievements of the people in question.
Before each and every of such ‘shrines’ was a small burning candle, surrounded by what looked like the offerings. Some old coins, some (usually pretty small) jewels and even a few rare weapons.
Behind the sculptures was a marble altar, and behind it a giant burning hearth surrounded on both sides by a short staircase heading up and converging in front of a throne, elevated to the point where the person sitting on it could look down on everything in the room.
And what a person that was.
A tall but extremely pale woman with neck-long white hair, looking down on them with a pair of red eyes frozen in an expression that Izuku could best describe as ‘vague amusement’.On her hair rested a black laurel wreath. The last part of her head to be mentioned were her pointy ears, angled slightly up and pretty long.
To call her clothes ‘scarce’ would be a massive understatement. Her clothes were composed of perhaps the most scarce black loincloth (that somehow managed to cover everything that really mattered), a robe(?) and a cape(?).
Izuku wasn’t sure if it could be genuinely described as a robe, because it was just so revealing that it felt like an absence of clothes more than clothes. It went beyond having a cleavage window - the robe has merely covered around a half of her breasts, leaving the rest - including abdomen and stomach, literally everything above her loincloth - completely revealed.
The cape wasn’t any better, covering her back and looking like a second robe, just one behind her arms. Both the robe and cape came together at a sort of decorated necklace-like area on top of her chest.
The final parts of her clothes were some sort of black textile bracelets on both her wrists and ankles. Her feet were otherwise completely bare.
Uraraka and Toga (who was peeking over her shoulder) end up staring at her for a few seconds, clearly taken aback by her looks (and by how little she was wearing). This lasts until Aeonia clearly has enough of it.
“Have you finished gawking?” She asks them, raising an eyebrow. “It’s flattering, but I’m sure you have better things to do. Like, say, satisfy your master’s endless greed for new things to assimilate?”
Well, looks like she’s still friendly, despite being free. Technically.
I still can’t believe that you’ve actually took the risk, holy shit
…
On second thought, what I just agreed to was incredibly stupid and dangerous, and could easily spell our doom.
As you can tell, risk management isn’t exactly my strong point, and you should probably call me out on that in the future.
You’re telling me this now?
I’ve charged at you and Kurogiri to save All Might during the USJ, breaking both of my legs and likely rendering myself unable to defend myself, meaning that I’d definitely die to you if the teachers didn’t arrive.
Without thinking.
What makes you think I’m qualified to make serious decisions concerning risk avoidance?!
All Might quite literally became my mentor after I leaped at a highly dangerous villain with my bare hands and without a quirk!
I’m going to fucking kill you
“You’re very pretty!” Toga picks that moment to speak. “Though not bloody enough for my taste.”
“Thank you, child.” Aeonia sighs. “Your compliment is a welcome one, even if the part about blood implies that your tastes aren’t identical to mine. Pick everything you can carry, everything here is yours. I have no use for those things, and after staring at this interior for several centuries, I’d say that the concept of change becomes… almost understandable.”
“Oh, uhm, sure.” Uraraka takes that moment to wake up. “We’ll take you up on that offer.”
***
Aeonia doesn’t end up attacking them once they lower their guard. In fact, she seemed vaguely amused by seeing them pillage her own sanctuary. Was it something that happened when you ‘fell’? She mentioned falling from the status of a deity into a daemon, so maybe she enjoyed seeing her old throne room being pillaged?
They still missed out on so much knowledge about this world. They had to work on that as soon as possible.
The stuff that they’ve gotten from her has likely weren’t going to be directly useful to them anytime soon, if only because they likely required a much higher AML that they were currently capable of.
However, they were going to get a lot of stuff to be used later. A lot of unlocks. Perhaps their second biome? They had so many options to consider… once they’d have a short while of peace and calm.
But for now it was the time to head back. And give Uraraka and Toga a time to rest. And, maybe, get used to living together (which might be a greater… adventure than their second dungeon crawl).
Uraraka still breathes a loud sigh of relief when she reseals the sanctuary, and Aeonia doesn’t do anything.
***
I actually did get a halfway decent Aeonia picture, and it covers the most important things but it's still pretty close to being really awkward to explain when teachers/coworkers see it over your shoulder, so... I'm putting it in the spoiler. Be advised :v
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/03/09/imageab619c793e2ccfbf.png]