My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1608-1610

Chapter 1608

After defeating the boss, both doors opened back up. Whatever the Fae had done to keep the door closed had seemingly reset itself upon the death of the dungeon boss. I just which I understood how they did it. The Fae seemed to have a better understanding of dungeons than even I did. I supposed that made sense in some ways. After all, they had been dealing with dungeons as their mortal enemy for many years. They had to have picked up a few tricks along the way.

I left most of the group in the boss room while I went into the safe room. As long as they stayed there, the boss room wouldn’t reset. Once we left, the doors would close again and would open in a few hours after the boss regenerated. I wasn’t sure if the door to the safe room would reopen, or if whatever trick they used only made the exception in this particular instance of the boss being defeated.

Thus, I decided I would hurry. It would be a shame if the door closed behind us and I was stuck on the wrong side permanently. The door wouldn’t be able to open again until another moonlit night. Just looking at the entrance to the safe room, I could see that the night was nearly over and the sun would be coming up soon. I made sure to register with the kiosk just in case, and then my eyes landed on the mosaic. It was the mosaic that was the main reason I told everyone to wait up.

“That’s pretty,” Cici spoke up next to me.

Chance and Cici had been the ones to follow me into the safe room. I admitted that I was quite curious about this dungeon. Now that I knew it held so many secrets, I was more eager to learn about them than I had been original. Since I had to go through all of the bosses anyway, I wanted to make sure I understood as much of the story as I could.

“What does it mean?” Chance asked. “It’s confusing.”

The dungeon mosaics were just one or more images referring to a part of the story. They didn’t necessarily exist in order, and most of the details on them had been lost with time. The people were often faceless, only providing you enough context to get pick out the kind of person they were. Even their sex was often obscured unless they were wearing a dress or something obvious.

After that, it was all guesswork. I had found I was particularly good at guessing, but even if I guessed the lore being told from the dungeon, there was still another problem. The dungeons were sometimes wrong! Their very nature corrupted lore, so it only stood to reason that the longer they remained, the more degraded the lore would become. Things that were once princesses became giants, and honest men became foul beasts.

I wondered what that spider we had just killed represented. It could have been a house spider someone accidentally stepped on, which with time had grown larger and larger until it was as big as a horse. These kinds of exaggerations, inaccuracies and even deceit came with any story. It reminded me of a few chain letters. One person would send the letter, and each retelling caused the story to be grander and more abstract. It was just that in dungeons, these kinds of stories became reality.

“Master, what does it mean?” Cici asked.

It had been some time since I had last articulated my thoughts on a dungeon story I had encountered. I remembered a time when Lydia, Miki, Celeste, Terra, and Shao would all sit down and patiently wait as I weaved a story out of a hand full of images. With these literal children, I’d guess I had to give it another go.

“Let’s see… it starts with a war.”

Chapter 1609

I started by explaining the beginning of the war between the fae and the humans, or at least what I knew about it. None of that was in the mosaics, but I didn’t think the mosaic would make any context without the context the story is being told in. I was pulling together things I had heard from many different sources, and even then, it was just my best guess.

This mural started by showing a growing group of dark shadowy creatures pushing back the Gaia’s people, the fae, over and over again. Those dark shadowy creatures would be humans and any other creatures that crawled out of dungeons. The fae had fled to these islands, where they started digging for something. They had seemingly found that thing. One of the fae, a woman with long blonde hair, was holding up some kind of glowing white light. It was impossible to tell what it was, but I guessed it was the power.

“To change the course of the war, she knew she must use this power on her enemies. In using that power though, she would destroy herself in the process. She had to choose to become the very thing she despised.” I finished.

I had added that last part for effect. I assumed that using the power would have some kind of bad end, or there wouldn’t have been a dungeon here. She might have never got to use the power, but if she didn’t use it, why didn’t it fall into human hands?  As for the talk about becoming what she despised, that was just fluff talk. No one wanted to be a mass murderer, right? Sometimes, you had to make a choice you’d regret.

“And what did she choose?” Cici asked.

“Did she use the power?” Chance added.

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “There are other murals I haven’t seen. This is only the second one from this dungeon that I have observed. As soon as we get to the next one, I can tell you more of the story.”

“M-my lord, we must continue!” Chance cried out.

“Yes, Master, we need to see more.”

Both girls had suddenly become insistent. I didn’t think I was that good of a storyteller, but what was it about girls when I started reading the murals? I gave a short nod, and they voiced their excitement before running back into the boss room. I went to follow them, taking a few steps before I stopped and looked back at the mural one last time. Those murals were never particularly detailed, but there was something about that woman holding the shining bright light. She felt vaguely familiar to me. Was I feeling it with my eyes, or was my mana sense detecting the intent of the lore?

“Did it destroy you?” I whispered, half to myself.

“There are many ways to destroy yourself, Deek.” A voice caused me to look up and see Calypso standing there.

I opened my mouth to say something, but the paladin holding her chains pushed past. “What is taking so long?”

“I’m sorry, we wanted my lord to explain things to us for a bit. I-is that a problem?” Chance spoke from behind, looking up at the paladin teary-eyed.

“N-not at all! It’s all fine!” His moody treatment of me was immediately changed to smiles for her.

He returned to the boss room, dragging Calypso with him, and I followed close behind.

Chapter 1610

After leaving the boss room, the door shut behind us. As soon as it shut, a rune-like inscription on the door I hadn’t seen before started to glow. I could feel it giving off some kind of mana signature. I reached for it instinctively, and when my finger touched it, there was a flash and I could feel some kind of spell settling over us. When the light faded, I did feel a bit more strength and energy.

As everyone was looking around in confusion, I noticed a marking on Chance’s arm. As I reached out to get a closer look, I realized there was the same marking on my arm. I glanced at it, and I immediately recognized what it was.

“A… blessing?”

It looked like the blessings, except this one was incomplete. Where my blessings were written in some strange script that wrapped around my arms, legs, shoulders, and back… this appeared to be extremely short, just a few of those illegible words. This was the supposed buff you got as you went along? Each one was a copy of a piece of the blessing, and only after getting all 6 do you complete the blessing and gain access to it. Did that mean that this power Calypso spoke of was some kind of blessing?

“I dislike being marked by a dungeon. It itches.” Anne scratched at her arm irritably.

“Please bear with it, Prelate. The mark of power goes away after a month or so.” The inquisitor reassured her.

“It’ll go away instantly once someone completes it,” Calypso spoke up. “Only one person gets to keep the prize. I wonder who it will be.”

“What did they dig out of the ground, Calypso?” I asked.

“How should I know?” She responded with a smirk.

I was starting to have some theories, but I didn’t know if they were true. Calypso was the kind of person who relished in misinformation, so who knew what was true and what wasn’t.

“Ground? What ground?” Anne demanded.

I shook my head, letting out a sigh. “This dangerous power… the one the fae are after, I think they tried to use it once before. I think it failed, and that’s what created this dungeon. There was some kind of power they dug up… another dungeon?

“So, this mark is related to that power?” Anne seemed to reason out, looking down at her arm slightly differently.

It was clear by that look that Anne liked power. If she was the one who got the power, what would she do with it? Well, we didn’t even know what it did, but I had a feeling she’d use it on the church of the mother. No, Anne and the church couldn’t get that power. Ever since I met Mary, I hadn’t considered them a threat, but they were still capable of a great deal in this world. The church, even if it was a different church back then, had been responsible for the fall of the fae, and they also had some relationship to that clockwork dragon I had encountered so long ago. No matter how much lore I absorbed, there were always more pieces to the puzzle.

“Let’s just get to the next boss fight.”

I was wasting time dwelling on things when I could just continue and find the answers. It was time to fight the second boss.