Chapter 5

  Dearth

  It had been a few hours since the plant vulture was taken care of, Eostre was mended but ordered to take it extra easy for a couple days. Magic healing could work wonders, as evidenced by the completeness of Eostre’s legs, but it took a bit of time for bones to settle and the mind to accept that everything was good to go. One could try to power through the mental fatigue, but the dissonance between expectation and reality could cause problems as the brain was a powerful organ and could easily override function when an injury was too great.

  A camp had been set up and Chadwick was just returning from scouting the raised portion of the cavern that the flying plant monster had inhabited. “It seemed the creature had a small treasure hoard up there” Chadwick said as he upended a spacial bag next to the party’s resting space. A few thousand dungeon coins tumbled out, making a satisfying clinking sound as each coin hit the ground. After the coins finished falling the man reached into the bag and pulled out three rune stones, a whip that appeared to be made of vines and a lightweight fibrous cloak.

  “That’s quite the haul, these dungeons usually don’t give that much at once.” Dearth commented, impressed.

  “Yea, didn’t expect to find much up there, the thing was nesting in that recess though, lots of bones. Probably collected drops from other monsters over who knows how long.” Chadwick stated.

  “Pass me the gear, I’ll figure out what it is.” Eostre said.

  “Sure, kid.” Chadwick responded as he passed the haul slowly over to Eostre, laying it out in a way that she wouldn’t have to move much. She grabbed the rune stones first, and activated her *Analysis* skill on each one.

  “Whoa, this first one is pretty high powered. *Flare* – it’s a non-elemental spell that does very high damage. Sends a beam of energy at a target, mage stuff.” Eostre relayed. “This next one is *Ravage* - it’s a dagger skill that does high damage. Wulf, that would likely work well with your setup.”

  “Aye, I don’t think any of the rest of you use daggers, any objections to my claiming it then?” Wulf asked.

  No one spoke up saying they were against it so Dearth replied saying “Go for it Wulf, Eost – you should probably take the *Flare* ability, you’re best with the black magics. What’s the last one?”

  “A *Lancet* ability, I think you’ve already got one of those – right Chadwick?” Eostre asked.

  “I do, we could probably add it to the pile of things to sell off.”

  “Sounds good.” Dearth stated.

  “This whip is neat, but I don’t think any of us have the training for it. It looks like it will spawn vines to wrap around anything that gets hit with it, tying them up.” Eostre added.

  “Stash it to sell then.” Dearth responded.

  “Let’s see, finally the cloak.” Eostre *Analyzed* the cloak for a few moments and then said “An agility boosting cloak, helps with dodging and has a response ability that triggers when the wearer gets attacked. It will strike out with some thorns on a vine and try to hit the attacker.”

  “Helps with dodging huh? Elven or Eostre should probably take that.” Dearth contemplated out loud.

  “Lets give it to Eostre, something like that could have helped in that last fight.” Elven said.

  “Good call, cloak’s all yours then Eost.” Dearth directed while smiling.

  “Oh, thanks guys – yea, that could have helped quite a bit.” Eostre said while scratching at her legs.

  “No scratching! Might cause damage to healed wounds.” Leoma reprimanded Eostre.

  “Uhg, but it itches so much!!!!” Eostre whined.

  “No, you make it worse.” Leoma commanded while Eostre pouted a little.

  “Alright, foods ready. Snake and plant archer parts.” Wulf informed the party. He had put together some collected snake from the previous trapped room with a side of plant archer vegetables. The archer’s actually had root vegetables growing inside of them as if they were organs, and Wulf’s culinary skills detected nothing toxic about them – any chance to get vegetables should be taken as the nutrients made a big difference in ones health.

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  The snake was sauteed in a little bit of cooking oil that Wulf carried on him after being lightly breaded and sprinkled with some light sizzle seasoning, the vegetables had been prepared with snorth and roasted over the open campfire flame. Wulf prepared and handed a plate to Eostre as everyone else claimed their own food. Wulf pulled out a little bottle of homemade sauce that he was working on, a concoction made from a berry local to his hometown that he occasionally had imported to Zrora. He was still tweaking the recipe but it was a sweet fermented sauce with a bit of tang, a thick black color that he drizzled slowly onto the breaded snake.

  Dearth thought it was a bit too sweet so he didn’t ask for any and it seemed the rest of the party agreed with him. “The food is great, as always Wulf” Dearth complimented.

  A chorus of agreement rang out as the rest of the party chimed in, Wulf was a great cook, and had a skill that gave any food he made a small buff which seemed randomly applied. It wasn’t something he could consciously determine, but that little extra bit it gave seemed to push his cooking over the edge from good to great.

  “Still wanting to turn that sauce into a business?” Eostre asked of Wulf.

  “Aye. One day it’ll make me and my town a lot of money, just needs that little something more.” Wulf responded.

  “What will you do with the extra pay?” Dearth questioned.

  “Open a restaurant that I can cook at between dungeon trips. Something to keep me comfortable and busy in the off times.” Wulf replied with longing smile.

  “Food good, I’d eat at your place.” Leoma said and another chorus of agreement rang out.

  Wulf smiled at this but didn’t respond as he kept eating. A companionably silence fell over the group as they all enjoyed the food. The team had refreshed their supplies the prior day back at the main camp and had no qualms about using water to cleanse all their dishes, the water had gotten a little tight towards the end of their first rotation here.

  “Another three days on and we’ve got a week off. We’ll take the rest of today and tomorrow here to rest up from Eostre’s injuries then we’ll see where this cave goes.” Dearth stated, he didn’t like splitting the party because of the very situation they had gotten themselves into so they would wait until they could all venture forth.

  Once everything was cleaned up and the cookware put up Eostre handed Wulf his new rune stone, and grabbed the *Flare* rune stone for herself. She looked up at Wulf and said “Ready? Bet I’ll beat you back.” Wulf nodded at this and they both held out their respective stones, away from the fire and any other people and both activated them at roughly the same time. The two rune stones burst sending stone and dust flying in every direction, coating each of the adventurers in a thick coating of debree. They each had a far away look on their faces, as if they were intently examining something only they could see.

  Leoma reached over and nudged Wulf in the side where his leather armor opened up and was connected by straps, but he gave no response.

  “Huh hah hah, Wulf vulnerable.” Leoma chuckled out as she grabbed an ink well out of her bag and a quill, dipping the quill into the ink and using it to color in Wulf’s mustache while laughing to herself every couple of seconds. After about a minute the two woke up, no noticeable difference in speed and turned to each other. “Hah, beat…” was all that Eostre got out before she completely toppled over laughing leaving Wulf a bit confused.

  Leoma the notorious prankster was not controlling her face and kept “Pfffft”ing and blowing air out of her nose before breaking out with a hearty laugh as well. He pulled out a small mirror examining the source of their merriment and was not himself amused. He turned to Dearth who was pointedly not looking at him and said “I’ll remember that you let this happen.”

  “I’m not sure what you are talking about…” Dearth mostly responded laughter free, but broke out chuckling at the end.

  Wulf looked like he wanted to accost Leoma over the prank but thought better of it as Leoma had a short fuse and far more physicality than he had.

  The party eventually settled back down and thoughts of the dungeon cropped up. “This place is far too big.” Eostre said.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like this dungeon before.” Dearth agreed.

  “Why so big?” Leoma questioned.

  “That is way above my pay grade, we’re halfway to the next centennial though. The bigwigs expect another attack and yet another phase change. Perhaps this dungeon is one of the ways that the World Eater amasses its forces?” Dearth postulated.

  “A good theory, we only lucked into finding this place.” Chadwick added.

  “We did?” Eostre asked.

  “Yea – a scouting party found it and decided it was too much for one team. They went back to Zrora and the guild organized this raid.” Chadwick followed with.

  “You don’t think this dungeon would have migrated over to Rivas, do you?” Eostre continued.

  “I don’t think so, none of the dungeons that move over to infect and cannibalize Rivas have been anywhere near this size.” Chadwick said.

  Eostre followed that line of questioning up with a new one and asked “I’ve never really dug into the history of this conflict… Did the World Eater really just show up one day and bite down?”

  “Aye, records state before hand that Erebus had a capitol city, a king, and a standing army that had united all the cities on the continent under their banner. But that capitol city and a few other larger farming cities were lost when it came.” Wulf informed Eostre.

  “I’d heard we had a capitol… We haven’t heard anything from them since they were separated, right?”

  “Aye, not a peep. They’re assumed lost to the monsters.” Wulf replied a bit sadly.

  “And phase one, before the centennial was a lot easier to handle – from what I’ve heard.”

  “Aye. Most dungeons were lower than level four, a four man party with a couple level ones and a couple level three’s were usually enough to deal with it. Now though they recommend teams of at least six.”

  “Wild, I can’t imagine taking a party that small in.”

  “Aye, me neither. Even in a team of six it can be easy to miss signs o’ the dungeon noticing you.”

  “Whats with the Wound then?”

  “The one between the World Eater’s jaws? Its like it’s sucking some kind of energy out of the planet, no one has really figured it out yet. We can’t get anywhere close to the Wound as any one that does just turns to dust from the amount of energy being released.” Dearth chimed in this time.

  The conversation settled a bit after that as Wulf pulled out a set of dice and Leoma, Chadwick and he started tossing it around – a little light gambling to go with it. Eostre pulled out a book applications of magical skills – she was somewhat studious despite her aloof disposition. Dearth pulled out his flanged mace and gave it some attention.

  Settling in for a relaxing night in the cave the sunlight that could somewhat still be seen at the entrance to the cavern had started to dim and shift to oranges and reds as it started to set. As the party relaxed and laughed and enjoyed each others company they failed to notice the twitching on the ceiling above them. Long after they had all fallen asleep for the night a large slit formed above them in the darkness of the cavern, it opened and the whites of an eyeball bulged out of the opening, a pupil forming and staring down at the party watching them sleep.