A-attack it? Are you sure?

You shut your eyes hard and shake your head. No time for indecision!

Rushing into the cell, you leap into action, the thing still recoiling from the fire as you bring down the blade.

Chained to the wall, it is completely unable to dodge.

Tearing of cloth ensues. A hard crunch ricochets off the walls at it finally hits and snaps the neck, and the next feeling is the ting of metal hitting stone.

Beheaded in one strike, it collapses still leaning away from the chains.

“Well, about time to find out what this was…”

Grabbing by the cloth, you shuffle about the body to get a good view.

It’s good you’ve started adjusting to seeing the twisted things down here.

What seems to be human, only there are burns covering one half of the body, the left eye looking like it's popping out due to the crisp, deflated skin. Long, crooked fingernails with just as much dirt under them as the rest of its body. Bones such as ribs and forearms obviously protrude due to starvation, and scars from being flayed are displayed for all to see. A sunk humpback and a few other details are apparent as well.

Probably someone who was also held here. Whether it was sentient being or a viscous monster at that point was anybody’s guess.

It didn’t seem to have anything of value.

However, now that you are in the cell, you can just barely catch another corpse, picked to the skeleton, wearing that guard uniform you saw earlier. In its hand is a cat-o-nine-tails. The armor, at least, portrays signs of being melted.

Was it the right decision?

Again, you shake your head.

Well, nothing to do about it now.

Standing up straight, you leave the torture implement there. Something doesn’t feel right about touching it. Maybe the pain it brought on others. Gives the shivers.

Moving out the cell and getting out of the small forming blood puddle, you move back into the hallway, glowing with the familiar blue, well, glow. There was one more room you haven’t explored.

Seventh down. The dead room.

It’s the same as last time, the moss or whatever it is having evolved when consuming the nutrients the deceased provide. Some become packets of strange liquid ready to be popped, while others grow from said packets into alien flowers of admittedly great beauty.

Beautiful usually means dangerous though.

Getting the armor though, it just might be worth it. Plus whatever else you might get to scavenge.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Do you enter this area, or move on to somewhere else?

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What the room's previous description was from chapter 4:

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?

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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. You've got a few gashes, but nothing too bad. Not much else can be inspected due to the fact that you not only have thick clothes and on, but armor as well.

You currently carry an old, rusted broadsword in your right hand, and a shield & lit torch in the other.

Attatched to your belt loop is a small pouch to the right, waterskin and shortsword to the left, and a homestitched quiver on the back.

Items:

Torso: Undergarments, Thick Clothes (Dirty), Chain Shirt (Rusted, Dirty, Damaged), Shortbow

Legs: Thick Clothes (Dirty), Thick Leather Armor (Worn, Dirty), Side Pouch, Small Quiver (3/5 Iron Arrows), Shortsword

Feet: Wool Socks, Thick Leather boots (Worn, Dirty), Utility Knife (Rusted, damaged, dirty)

Hands: Thick Leather Gloves, Old Broadsword (Right Hand, Rusted), Heater Shield (Left Hand, Excellent Condition, Tough, Fancy), Torch (Left Hand, Lit)

Inventory -

Waterskin (Full), Tinder (One use), Flask of Oil, Matches (5), Rations (Small Meal, one use), Keyring (Key, Rusted Key), Silver Ring, Coin Purse (Copper (11), Silver (7), Gold (1 1/2))

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."