Chapter 173: You have got to be joking
They encountered 4 more ’swarms’ of undead before the direction they were going became murky.
Unlike the times before, Lucian wasn’t able to just use his nose to move forward down the fork in the road that they had encountered. Not only was it a fork, but there were three options and according to Lucian, two of the three had fresh or flowing air. It was also getting late, but as they had gone through these passages, fighting undead over and over, they hadn’t found a nice place to stop that was tucked away.
There were no alcoves, there were no variations. They hadn’t encountered a single chamber. Everything had been a straight shot of mossy, aged bricks and a slightly damaged, slightly slippery marble stone path. It felt like they were in older style sewers from Cass’ world, but he didn’t say anything. He kept everything to himself.
He knew he wasn’t doing well. Each time they encountered undead he felt an eerie calm overcome him and he felt ill once Lady Ava activated her powers. Knowing what he knew, the book that Sam had packed him burned in his bag. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there, and that alone was haunting him.
Something was staring him in the face, and he was encountering more than his first corpse in this dungeon.
At the same time, Cass could tell that killing or cutting down undead humanoids was really taking a toll on Lady Fiona. She was doing her best to keep her composure, but she wasn’t doing okay. He could tell by the way she was moving and whenever he caught a glimpse of her face, her eyes were hollow. He was sure all of them looked like that, except Lucian.
Must be nice. Cass wasn’t bitter about it at all. Damn geezer.
"What time is it?" Cass asked quietly of Vespertine, who had remained at the back of the party. What that meant is that Cass kept looking behind them, practically walking with his back towards the others when they were in movement. Lord Ridgewood had become their defender on the front side of things, so Cass kept his eye on everything else.
Vespertine blinked a few times, before his face brightened slightly.
"It’s getting close to sundown." He told Cass and Cass nodded. He was sure Lucian at least heard their conversation, and he wasn’t disappointed when Lucian spoke up only a few seconds later.
"It’s nearly sundown, Fiona. We should rest. At the very least, take a food and water break. We’ve practically been on a straight shot going left, with only one deviation to go right so far, and haven’t encountered any of our marks yet. We should go left instead of straight. If I’m honest, I don’t like the feel of going straight." Lucian told her, his hands on his hips.
Cass had noticed this before, but Lucian didn’t carry his weapon. He magically concealed it, probably in a level of magic that Cass or Vespertine wasn’t at yet, and yanked it out whenever he needed it. That meant his hands were free, his waist wasn’t weighed down by a weapon. It was a good thing too, since it was a huge ass sword. In fact, both Lady Fiona, Lord Ridgewood and Lucian all favoured swords.
It was a good thing they had some mages to round out the rest of the party. Acting as archers and healers and others to make up for the close combat that they had to engage in.
Lord Ridgewood stepped towards Lucian and Lady Fiona, glancing around him still as they hovered in the fork. They had taken their time with the other ones too, making sure that if they were going to get ambushed, they had the most space to move. They had been here for a long time though, and no undead had arrived.
That in itself was suspicious, since at every other fork they had been swarmed. It was clear that Cass wasn’t the only one who had noticed the trend and it might have been the reason that Lady Fiona had been hesitating for so long.
"I agree with Lucian. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll know relatively quickly. I also don’t suggest splitting up to check both paths." Lord Ridgewood’s voice was clear, even if it was quiet. Lady Fiona sighed.
"Alright. I understand. I’ll grab the chalk." She muttered.
"Lady Fiona, should you and Lord Ridgewood switch positions for the next little bit? Give yourself a rest?" Cass found himself speaking, and everyone turned to him. Lady Fiona seemed shocked.
"What?" She said, confused, while Lord Ridgewood glanced at him, nodding in approval.
"I agree with Cass. Lucian seems fine at the moment, and I should be useful. With the three of us, we should have been rotating more than this." Lord Ridgewood said and Lady Fiona still seemed in shock.
"But I’m fi-"
"You’re not." Lucian piped up. "This isn’t a pride thing, Fiona. If Cassian noticed, you aren’t well. Sorry Cassian." Lucian said, turning towards Cass with a smile. Cass shrugged. Lord Blackburn had probably never said anything when others were pushing themselves, but Cass didn’t want to see a real dead body. It was purely selfish.
"You should let Gideon take over, Fiona. It isn’t like you’re far, you’re just stepping back to protect the others. Us." Vespertine piped up from behind them, and Lady Fiona knew she was outnumbered. Muttering something that had Lucian chuckling under her breath, she and Lord Ridgewood switched places and she passed him her little bag of magic chalk. He took over her duties, leaving Lucian to his own devices.
Soon, they were off down the left hand side again, and it was another straight shot of a narrow, bricked in hallway with a faint musty, damp smell and the sound of dripping water. Cass was getting pretty tired of the whole thing, but he knew he wasn’t alone. Like Lady Fiona, Lady Ava had also been overexerting herself. She was sweating as they walked, her face looking a little pale.
Cass wished that they would find somewhere they could rest soon. It wasn’t benefiting them in the slightest to keep going on this slog of a walk. The girls were having a hard time because they were pushing themselves so hard, and Cass could feel the chill entering his body again.
With Lord Ridgewood at the helm, they continued into the darkness in silence. The background noises were enough to fill the void. Everyone was listening hard, trying to hear any sounds of undead shuffling. It was what felt like another 20 minutes before something changed.
They came to a chamber. The first they had encountered, and Cass nearly gave everything up.
Was this some kind of sick joke?
The chamber was a mini mock up of a construction site. A construction site from his world. It was a huge, expansive space, looking as if they were in the process of building a large tower. Bright orange mesh covered areas where it looked like they had sectioned it off. Metal beams stuck out of poured concrete and flats of wood and other things littered the dirt ground. Crumpled bodies laid strewn around, clearly going to wake up once they entered the room, but Cass was too shocked to move.
There was one particular crumpled body that had him shaking.
This was the construction site. This was the one where he’d...
Those mother fuckers. Those damn mother fuckers. Whoever made this dungeon was going to get a fist from him personally? Going to worship the demons? Ha! They were both awful! Pulling up someone’s trauma like this? What a bunch of fucking fuckers.
He could see the confusion on their faces as they looked around, unable to tell what everything was while Cass was caught in between a whirlwind of emotions. He was flipping between boiling rage and shock and horror until they finally coagulated into a giant, overwhelming emotion.
"What is this?" Lady Fiona asked. "This feels...I’ve never seen anything like this before." She muttered. Cass raised a hand, pointing to what was assumed to be ’his’ crumpled body.
"Aim for that one. Probably a mini boss." Cass declared, his voice steady as he vibrated with emotion. He was pointing at himself. It was the same brown sweater he had worn to university, but torn to shreds. Lady Ava glanced back at him before she did a double take.
"Cass? Are you alright?" She asked carefully and Cass let out a shuddering breath.
"I will be once this fucking room is cleared." Cass muttered darkly. Lord Ridgewood gave him a look.
"Language, Cass." He muttered, but there wasn’t as much weight behind it as there had been when he’d told Lucian off. Cass knew why. He could tell he wasn’t having a normal reaction. He knew it wasn’t normal. He’s scramble to think about an excuse after, but right now, he was not about to let some fucking dungeon make a mockery of his death.