Advent of Eternity - Chapter 106 (Patreon)

His crew was waiting for him when Knell limped into the alley, his teeth gritted in pain as every single move sent a small arc of pain through his leg. Stix hurried over to give him his staff, and her eyes went to his head for a moment before she peeled them away.

“White hair?” Knell asked.

“Yeah. You’ve got streaks of it now,” Stix replied worriedly. “Is that bad?”

“That remains to be seen,” Knell replied. “I’ve determined that something happened with one of the dungeons near Rosewood several years ago, and it’s probably what your brother was sent to investigate. I believe some sort of monster or artifact within the dungeon has escaped. There were massive amounts of damage done to the town around the same time as when the dungeon was abandoned.”

“Abandoned? That’s it?” Cyll asked. “It’s not closed off or protected or the like?”

“I’m not sure about that part. I didn’t see anything to indicate the dungeon would have protection or not, but nobody has gone into it in a long time – not according to the town records, at least. That means the Adventurer’s Guild isn’t sponsoring any expeditions there. Unless there are other pirates in the area, the dungeon is out of use.”

“So what does that mean?” Maya scratched at her chin, then pursed her lips. “If something was strong enough to damage the city, would the Adventurer’s Guild want to send more people at it, not ignore it?”

“Not if the local Guild is making moves of self-preservation,” Knell replied, shaking his head. “Based on the fact that it doesn’t look like this was reported, I suspect this anomaly may be intelligent to some degree.”

“It’s got something to do with the streets being clean?” Stix guessed.

Knell nodded. “That’s my suspicion. I think there’s something in that dungeon that periodically leaves and travels through the city, cleaning it of organic matter for… some reason. I’m not exactly sure why yet, and that bothers me.”

“Well, only one thing to do,” Cyll declared. He rolled his neck and cracked his fingers, letting out a content sigh. “Killing time. The more intelligent, the more fun.”

“That is a very disturbing mindset to have,” Maya said.

Cyll rolled his eyes. “My greatest apologies, Pirate Queen. I prefer dropkicking small, stupid puppies rather than smart, dangerous opponents.”

“Enough,” Knell said before his crew could start arguing any more. Mildly amusing as it was, he didn’t know nearly enough about the dungeon entity to understand what its goals were. If they ran into it while traveling to the dungeon, it could be problematic.

There was no time to waste. There never was.

“We’re going to the dungeon, then?” Stix asked. She swallowed, a flicker of hope passing through her face. “Do you think my brother might be there? Or is it more likely he’s somewhere in the city?”

“If he’s anywhere, he’ll be in the dungeon,” Knell replied, turning away and starting back down the alley.

But if the city’s nighttime problem is really linked to the dungeon… I’m sorry, Stix. I don’t think we’re going to be finding much of your brother.

The Rose Pirates left Rosewood without further ado. Knell had memorized the trip to the dungeon, and the several hour trip passed without any trouble. All that greeted them were sloping hills and scattered, dying foliage.

As they grew closer to the location where he believed the dungeon to be, the hills grew larger and more numerous. It made determining their exact location troublesome, as the horizon was often blocked off by other, larger hills.

Several times, he had to take an arduous detour up a taller hill to try to situate himself in regard to the town. But, after about an hour after he had hoped to arrive, Knell spotted a stone tower nestled in a small valley between two earthen mounds.

The valley was deep, which served to hide just how high the tower was. It stood as tall as a three story building, the carvings covering it long since faded. If it hadn’t been so deep in the valley, it would have been impossible to miss.

I really need to get an actual navigator.

He raised his hand, bringing his crew to a halt. Before they approached the dungeon, he wanted to scan the surroundings to see if anything was amiss. Several minutes passed. A faint wind rustled his hair, making him more aware of his aching body, but nothing was evidently out of place.

“Cyll, what do you think?” Knell asked. “You’ve got the most experience here with dungeons.”

He received a shrug in reply.

“Looks like a dungeon. I can’t say my memories of these things are really that fresh, but I’m not feeling anything overly ominous from it. It’s just a fairly difficult dungeon. I’ve done stuff far harder with far worse men.”

“Thanks, I think. That was a complement, right?” Stix asked.

“Don’t get used to them. You should have seen what I had to work with,” Cyll replied with a snort. He paused, his eyes growing distant as an old memory passed through them. Then he shook his head and the serious expression was gone. “What’s the plan, Cap?”

“We’ll investigate it with Anchor to start. Cyll you’ll be up for this one.”

“Isn’t Stix faster?”

“She is, but I’m not going for fast. I’d like to avoid using Haste as well as Anchor, and you’ve got more experience in dangerous dungeons than she does. Look to see if anything is out of place or odd. Do not get involved in a fight or wake anything up. If you run into a monster that you feel is odd, do not engage it. Understood?”

“As clear as the sea, Cap,” Cyll replied. “No kicking any bears in the gonads. I’m with you. Anchor me.”

Knell extended his staff, casting Anchor on Cyll with a tiny spark of green light. The immortal man gave him a sharp salute, then slid down the side of the hill and strode into the entrance of the dungeon at the base of the tower.

“Isn’t the sea usually pretty hazy?” Stix whispered to Maya. “From what I remember, it wasn’t all that clear at all.”

“It usually isn’t,” Maya muttered, casting a glance down at the entrance of the dungeon.

“Cyll isn’t an idiot,” Knell said, not quite as confident in his words as he would have hoped. “He pretends to be a fool, but he’s an incredibly dangerous killer that isn’t going to risk destabilizing our position for something worthless. Probably.”

They didn’t have anything to do but wait, so Knell strained his ears to listen just in case Cyll stumbled into something. However, nothing changed. A minute passed, and Cyll snapped into place on the hill beside them. He stumbled, letting out a silent curse before he caught his balance on Maya’s shoulder – nearly taking her down with him.

“That is so blasted disorienting,” Cyll muttered, ignoring Maya’s glare. “Neat little trick, though.”

“Well?” Knell asked.

“It’s weird all right,” Cyll said. “The place is empty. I didn’t see anyone. Or anything, for that matter. It’s like someone polished the entire place. I didn’t get all that deep into it, though. There could be something farther down.”

“How deep did you get? Was it more than just a floor or two?” Stix asked.

“A minute really isn’t all that much time, you know. Once I determined the first floor looked pretty empty, I poked my head into the second. I might have missed a few rooms, to be honest. But the second one looked just as barren as the first.”

“That lends more credence to the theory that the dungeon is somehow related to what is happening to Rosewood at night,” Knell said, chewing his lower lip. “But I don’t know any monsters that would intentionally go around cleaning things out. And, if it was an artifact, I don’t see why it would destroy the city or why the dungeon would just get shut down afterward.”

They sat there for a few more moments as Knell mused. He broke the silence with a sigh and gestured for them to start moving.

“Keep your guard up. We’re going to investigate. Cyll, take the lead, and make sure to point out any rooms that you skipped checking the first way through. We don’t need to find something behind us.”

They descended the hill quietly. Cyll and Maya drew their swords as the reached the bottom and entered the hall leading into the dungeon. Knell focused on his hearing, trying to see if he could pick anything up, but like Cyll had said, the dungeon sounded completely empty.

His eyes lit a golden yellow as they stepped out of the hall and into the dungeon proper. Smooth, almost shiny stone made up their surroundings. The room they emerged into had two doorways, both lacking a door, that led into areas beyond.

Everything almost looked natural. If it wasn’t for the sharp angles, Knell would have thought that the dungeon was just a natural, oddly shiny cave. Cyll crept through one of the doors, then gestured for them to follow.

There weren’t even any actual doors – just openings.

It’s like we got here before the gods filled the dungeon with monsters and items.

The expressions on his crew’s face told him that they were thinking the same thing. None of them risked making even a single noise as they continued through the first floor. Their sweep revealed nothing. Like Cyll had said, it was empty.

Silently, Cyll led them over to a short stairwell. Just by peering through the cracks, the floor below was visible. It looked identical to the first. Cyll sent a curious glance to Knell, who nodded in response.

The four descended deeper, heading down the stairwell. As they continued to search the dungeon, they found more of the same. Empty, polished walls and nothing to greet them. It really did feel like the entire place had been scooped clean.

The second floor was larger than the first, and it took them just over ten minutes to thoroughly sweep it. There was only a single thing out of place with the rest of the dungeon in it – a door.

It was so flush with the wall that they nearly missed it as they passed. Stix was the one to catch it, grabbing Knell’s arm and pointing at it in the dim light emitting from his eyes. The door had faint, almost imperceptible runes running along it in a tall archway.

Knell glanced at his companions, but it didn’t seem like any of them understood them. He pressed his lips together and considered the door for a few moments. Then he pointed to Cyll and gestured for him to wedge his blade into the thin gap of the door and try to pry it open.

Cyll nodded his understanding and carefully raised his blade, placing it against the thin line between the door and the wall and slowly wiggling it deeper while putting his bodyweight behind it.

It made a faint squeaking noise as he pushed, but it wasn’t much louder than their footsteps had been. Once it was deep enough, Cyll grunted and pulled on the hilt of his blade. The door started to shift. Knell cursed as his foresight warned him of what was about to happen.

He didn’t even have time to warn Cyll. He threw himself out of the way as the door pitched forward, crashing to the ground where he’d been standing with a loud crash that echoed through the room like the shot of a musket. A cloud of dust rose up from where it had landed and Stix rushed over, helping Knell to his feet.

“What are you doing, Cyll?” Stix hissed.

“It just fell over! Why would a door just fall like that?”

“No hinges,” Knell said curtly. “It was just standing there.”

A faint gurgling noise reached up from beyond the darkness before them. All of them immediately turned toward it as the sound grew louder.

“Get ready,” Knell said, gathering his magic. “Like it or not, I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”