Gripping the wall with your free hand, you slowly begin to peel out of the room and slide against the wall to the next door.
That is, until you hear something. That same, strange whispering from another language.
It takes a moment to parse through what it might be talking about, but soon enough whatever it speaks comes into focus. To search the dark before leaving. It might have… keys? Yes, keys.
Inching your way back inside, you move through the room over to the deceased. If you were a cleric or religious, you might have issued some last rites. For now, you can only pray that their soul was actually released upon their untimely demise.
It’s not too much of a pain, crouching down that is, despite how heavily clothed you are. Thankfully the cold of this place won’t force you to sweat in your many layers.
Though the leather gloves are cracked and brittle, crusted over slightly with mold, they just barely keep together as they are moved to the side, revealing just as the voice said: A key ring, containing four keys. Two are rusted, one managed to stay in relatively good condition, and another seems to have snapped off before they even started decomposing here.
Searching the rest of the body, there seems to be a knife meant for utility, degraded even further than your broadsword, and a ring on their finger which is possibly the only thing you’ve find in decent condition. Simple in style, and silver.
At least, it seems simple and ordinary? For all you know, it could be enchanted or, even worse, cursed.
Into the side pouch it goes, at least for now.
The knife also slides perfectly into your boot, which seems to have already had a pocket prepared to store small arms.
Now, if you were to continue by what the voice said…
Your eyes turn to the barely visible jail bars and door, and you shake your head. It’s hard to tell by their suggestion if they meant search the body in the dark, or search everything in the dark as well. And considering how just looking in the dark made your hairs raise on end… Yeah, you’ll wait until the directions given are more specific.
It was probably nothing, but an aversion to the dark is a primal fear. Possible to be conquered mind you, but more easily done so with a source of light in hand.
Suddenly, you are shaken out of your thoughts with a slight rumble.
On alert, your eyes dart around, trying to take in every detail. You even pop out into the hallway for a bit to take a peek. However, nothing seems visible. Are tremors common in this place?
Shaking your head, as there was nothing you could do about it now, you continue on to the next wooden door. Thankfully, it seemed to be in better condition, and though the oak happened to splinter more the strong hide your gloves are made of protect you from harm.
You can watch the rivets strain as it opens up with a shrill, high pitched scream. For a second you wonder if something was attacking you, but then you release that no one had oiled these things in ages. It reminds you of your grandmother’s gate when you were little, always managing to scare you on a windy day, or when she snuck up on you silently, she being the only one to tame the hunk of junk apparently.
You pause. Memories? An odd time to start remembering them.
Then again, now that you think about it, you don’t even know who you are, much less your name. Did you get a concussion at some point?
And with all the stuff that’s happening, who can say they’re really yours.
Another rumble shakes you once more out of your stupor.
The entryway, swinging wide open, reveals an almost exact replica of the room you were just in. That is, in terms of construction. There are a few different miscellaneous details.
For one thing, the floor isn’t as rough, smoothed out likely by the small stream of water constantly pouring out from one part of the ceiling. The glowing moss, plant, or whatever it is seems to have reached into this room and surrounded the water source. This leads to lighting up the room a bit more than the last.
The cell, however, is empty, save it be two metal hooks fastened into the wall, and a long rusty chain attached to each. It’s likely there to hold prisoners, but hasn’t been utilized in some time.
Your exploration continues, with that same intermediate rumbling every now and then.
Proceeding through, you search the next room, the second on the right. It shares the same darkness as the first, but not having the dead just strewn about.
The second to the left, or fourth room, is a mimicry of the third, almost exactly. Then again, that is pretty simple when you don’t have any eye popping details to follow up on.
Fifth door down, however, is slightly more interesting.
That glowing plant-fungus-something is all over the place, even on the ground so you can reach it. Iron bars normally in the back of these rooms you are exploring have long since worn out in this one. Clear as day, rodents scurry about, as well as a circle of constant movement about two feet of diameter in the back center, just past the cell door if it were still connected. Corpses of the crettins seem to dot this place and that, taken over and being consumed by the underground plant life, just as they seem to consume it.
The only obscured areas seem to be three indents going into the wall, about a two and a half foot semi-circle. Nothing grows into the holes, and lingers around the edges. Was it dug out to keep their kids, or maybe they were already there?
Scrunching up your nose as the hairs burn off with the almost acrid smell, you enter the hallway once again. Your fear and confusion from being randomly put in this place, thankfully, has worn off by now. Your white-knuckle grip on the broadsword has lessened, but is still tight nonetheless.
The sixth door, one of the better maintained ones, opens without issue.
Same jail bars, same ground, no corpses, movement in the dark behind the bars, no light-
Freezing up at the rattling of chains and the miniscule flares of movement, adrenaline surges as you quickly step back and close the door entirely, a little out of breath as you let your nerves run their course.
Um, yeah, no thanks.
To even be willing to brave investigating that room, it would either take a strong light, or something else to coax you inside. If that voice that’s been guiding them truly insisted they tried it, they would do it, but even then it was a fifty fifty.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Alright, breath in and out. No need for alarm, focus, just like they said.
Wiping some grimey sweat from your brow, you do just that. A nice breath in, and a nice breath out. For all you know, that could have just been a stupid rat chewing on some rust. You can recall multiple times where they simply gnawed on a chair or something stupid.
The seventh room didn’t even have a door to it, being face down on the floor in front of you. Apparently, the underground plants didn’t have a taste for treated wood, no matter how rotted it may be.
What it did have a taste for, however, was left out remains.
Six, seven, seven and a half, the sight brought bile to your throat almost as much as the dizzyingly bad stench.
The oldest of them seemed to be two in similar garb to the first one you found behind these doors, uniform and all.
Everything else is completely scattered in the times of when they departed from the mortal coil, the most recent of which you can still see the skin sunken in around the eyeballs, which most have dropped into a hallowed out brain. Biggest difference between the uniformed and those of which will be termed ‘adventurers’ is how they seemed to have died.
Their insides have been entirely raked out, almost like their belly was the soup bowl, and a very hungry child had licked the entire thing clean.
Taking a step out to get away from the situation, you are also able to make out their equiptment. Equiptment which, just like their recent decomposition, is also much more recent.
In the back, you can even make out actual armor. Metal greaves, gauntlets, circlet, and breastplate have not yet been tarnished enough to stop it from reflecting the haunting glow of the room.
And you’d honestly and truly love to loot everysingle one of them, if it weren’t for one major problem, and it wasn’t the stench.
It was the strange, glowing plants.
As it grew over the bodies, it seems to form weird, liquidy sacks over their bodies. Strange enough, except on a specific few a strange combination between a soft blue flower and a fungus sprouted. The body in the back as fate would have it, with all the upgrades you could have wanted, seemed to be caked in the most of the stuff.
Now, it didn’t take a genius to know that inhaling spores from fungus was bad for you. Though it wasn’t obvious, there could even be some in the air that you couldn’t see. Heck, with all the things you’ve been seeing, these could be the products of witchcraft! You’ve heard of the terrible things magic-casters could bring upon both man and nature, and even if the stories were over-exaggerated there is a reason there are stories at all.
Of course, there could also be nothing bad at all. In fact, the plant itself is quite beautiful, and it would makes sense to seek sources of nutrition so that it could blume. You’re just assuming it is a fungus at all.
A risk-reward situation. How should you go about this?
Well, it’s been waiting here since forever. It can wait a little longer as you investigate the last door.
As another rumble sets in, now monotonous at this point, you open up the final area.
This… doesn’t seem to be a jail cell room.
Boxes in terrible condition lay broken and bashed in all about, with everything covered in cobwebs and spiderwebs. You can’t help but applaud nature, it being able to craft a web-spinning creature that survives even down here.
One of the last survivors seems to be a chest with a lock on it. Mind you a very fancy chest with a lock on it, likely to contain at least something of good value. Anything else found would be clutter hidden within the proverbial haystack. It would take a bit of searching.
Well, might as well.
But the moment you begin to bend down, you stop, as frozen as a deer in a bear’s den.
Though you might not always be the most perceptive, combat sense, you can feel, is one of your fortes, and your body gives you the blaring message to look up.
Thirteen eyes on the ceiling, all of a peach hue.
Your legs are springs, launching you back hard into the stone near the entrance faster than gravity can bring the creature on top of you. The chain shirt rattles as the wind is knocked out of you from the force of the impact, and yet you manage to scramble to a stand as you hear skittering behind you.
With speed you didn’t even know you could summon, you dash out, digging your gloved fingers into the space between iron band and wood and attempt to slam it behind you.
A small bit of light gets past in that narrow fraction of time, allowing you to see the revolting carcass. Flabs of tan skin rolling over each other stretch out into narrow pointed spikes for limbs, the peach eyeballs from earlier dotted across the surface.
*WHAM*
Holding closed with your body weight and strength, you feel the full bone-shaking collision of a slab of meat charging full force at a wall.
And yet you manage to hold fast. Whatever it is, though surprisingly dexterous, you can feel that you are stronger than it, at least in terms of muscle strength.
It rams the barrier between you and itself a few more times, and you even manage to spot one of its spike-tipped legs it walks on trying to force itself under the door, only to be met with your boot, crunching the tip of it off and letting red blood flow.
Silence.
It all stops after a minute or so.
You breathe hard. Bruised fingers, but you feel relief at it being nothing more than that.
What in any hells was that thing?
A horrible abomination of witchcraft. Maybe even spawn from the demons themselves! You’ve never seen anything like it, nor a demon, but if someone told you that was one, you’d believe it.
It didn’t seem that tough though, it probably relies on ambush to take people down. I might even be able to take it on-
WAIT! What am I thinking? Taking on an actual monster? No way!
...Could I?
A moment passes as you continue to calm down. You try to let fear run its course.
What should I do, where should I go?
You think. There’s only been one person, or, well, thing, that’s been trying to help you this entire time.
But it’s been only contacting me, would it even be possible?
Then again, no one was stopping you from at least trying.
I must be going crazy.
With another inhale, you slowly slide down to the floor to take a breather. You try to connect with that same feeling you felt when they spoke to you. An infinitely complex thing, strange in nature.
Blue lines make shapes and patterns within your mind, being unable to understand a single bit of it, not even the end result. Almost as if you wouldn’t be able to handle it, and you were being shielded from something beyond your comprehension.
He-hello? Is someone there?
You can’t hear a reply, but you continue anyway. Have faith!
I, um, need assistance. I don’t really know what to do, or where to go from here. I don’t know anything that’s going on really. I don’t understand.
Even if it’s just a little bit… please, at least let me know you’re there.
----------------------------------------
Character Description:
You are a human woman, having shoulder-length dirty blond hair (Though whether it's just because it's dirty is unclear.), though you can't quite tell what your features are like without a reflective surface. You seem fit and muscular from what you can tell, and are only slightly battered, enough to look injured but no actually affect anything. Not much else can be inspected due to the fact that you not only have thick clothes and on, but armor as well. You also currently carry an old, rusted broadsword in your right hand, and a small pouch is attatched to your right side, a waterskin on the other.
Items:
Torso: Undergarments, Thick Clothes (Dirty), Chain Shirt (Rusted, Dirty)
Legs: Thick Clothes (Dirty), Thick Leather Armor (Worn, Dirty), Side Pouch
Feet: Wool Socks, Thick Leather boots (Worn, Dirty), Utility Knife (Rusted, damaged, dirty)
Hands: Thick Leather Gloves, Old Broadsword (Right Hand, Rusted)
Inventory -
Waterskin (Empty), Tinder (One use), Flask of Oil, Matches (5), Rations (Small Meal, One use), Keyring (Key, Rusted Key (2)), Silver Ring.
Notes:
Map:
[https://i.ibb.co/n0Gw8HF/Map-3.jpg]
Runes:
[https://i.ibb.co/NT7Bgdv/Female.jpg]Female
[https://i.ibb.co/FK8Y8Q8/Melee.jpg]Melee
[https://i.ibb.co/wLfhHhq/Human.jpg]Human
[https://i.ibb.co/wc4hR5d/Luck.jpg]"I am one who bears Luck."