Chapter 33. Black moal on my toung

Chapter 33: 33. Black moal on my toung

"Look, muffin. I can only be serious for a few minutes, so don’t ask me — you know what, let’s just say I have my own motives."

"Okay..."

The walking simulator began again. I recognized some chunks of corridor, and some I didn’t. Because of the shifting, there were extra beetle buds on the floor, meaning we couldn’t avoid stepping on them.

"What kind of motives?"

"The ones Silver won’t like. Don’t ask what it is."

Dr. Rhiannon said, leaning slightly forward, her hair falling to form a curtain around her face, highlighting it, making her even hotter. She giggled, getting ahead of me.

"It’s a secret."

Secret? She wants to make a move on me? Nah, Mark, quit daydreaming. She’s barely cracking jokes or making innuendos right now, her mind is set on beetle biology.

I need to act now, make things turn toward me, into her pants. But how? Kinky Scent? Let’s try it once we get to the data hub.

"Dr. Rhiannon, are you sure you marked all the traps this time?"

Dr. Rhiannon looked back and said "huh!?" like she didn’t hear me the first time. Which she hadn’t, apparently lost in her own world. Then her brain processed it with a delay.

"That wasn’t a trap. It worked like a trap, an earth spell that changed the structure’s layout. That’s all."

She went right back into her own world again, giggling and making random hand gestures like a teenager.

And yeah, the spell was different, but it still worked. There are things her Steward’s Eye can’t see, then. I wonder if there are more shells like that.

Speak of such, we stepped right into one.

"Again!!"

We both looked at each other in horror as the magic circle beneath us lit up every inch of us.

We didn’t even have to wait for the effect, I was falling somewhere, it didn’t start suddenly, it happened naturally, that’s the part I can’t put into words. The light slowly faded and I spotted Dr. Rhiannon falling with me, below me.

Looking around, I saw we were still in the dungeon, in some kind of long pit with odd, vertical brick placements. With beetle buds, of course.

I shifted to the important question, how were we going to survive the fall?

My heart was racing and I felt so useless in that moment. I was going to die like this? Fall damage is a pathetic cause of death.

God was listening and decided to troll me. The bricks on the floor we were about to land on shifted, and metal spikes shot out. My eyes didn’t want to believe I was about to look like a slice of cheese in a second.

Dr. Rhiannon cast a spell mid-fall, levitating herself and catching me right in time. My heart was redlining, the spikes just inches away, a drop of my sweat falling onto a sharp point, splitting in two.

I didn’t move my body, didn’t even think about what would happen if I did. Dr. Rhiannon slowly carried me to a safe spot and set me down on the floor.

"You okay, muffin?"

Dr. Rhiannon cut the spell and her body dropped, she took a heavy, deep breath, mouth wide open.

"Oh God, that was too close."

My body didn’t want to move, I lay there without responding. After my conscious self decided it was alright to move, I let out a breath of relief.

"What just happened?"

"We were falling to our deaths, that’s what happened."

Dr. Rhiannon, breathing heavily, replied, but didn’t really answer it. Turning onto my back, I asked myself the same question again.

"No, just look around."

Dr. Rhiannon caught the unease in my voice and took in the surroundings. There was a corridor on both sides of us, but the bigger picture was in the smaller details.

"All the bricks are vertical... wait– that spell changed the gravity!!"

Dr. Rhiannon exclaimed, after noticing the gravity had shifted sideways. Navigation was ten times harder now.

Whoever had the idea of placing this specific spell, I’m going to fuck their mother–

"How are we going to get to the data hub? I can’t fly forever! It’s not fair."

Dr. Rhiannon threw a tantrum, genuinely frustrated, not more than me. This whole dungeon had just turned into a platform game now. What were we going to get next!? Moving hazards, a mini boss?

"Hey muffin, stand up. I just heard something."

"No, please no. What did you hear?"

I sat back up, complaining, frightened, and ended up scaring Dr. Rhiannon with my performance.

"I don’t know, an echo, bones settling. From there."

She pointed to the corridor on our right, all I could see was darkness. The blue soul fires took position, lighting up the space. They moved further out until they hit a drop. It was actually a turn, but the gravity had changed.

There was nothing there.

"Weird, I swear I heard something."

As I stood up, a creature jumped from the drop, made of bones and rotten, greenish-red flesh, barely clinging to its bones. It had six legs with three joints each, and a body in the middle. Its jaw hung off to the left, fangs set at odd angles, saliva dripping randomly, and hair for extra detail.

That was enough to scare the shit out of us. Considering its size was about that of a decent car, I thought it would at least have the common decency to be slow, you know, tank-built. But no, this motherfucker sprinted at us with turbocharged speed.

"Run, muffin!"

Dr. Rhiannon and I turned toward opposite corridors, jumping over the spikes, then ran for our dear lives.

I looked back and found it could crawl on the walls, because of course it fucking could. On top of that, it barely made any sound while sprinting. So we could only guess how close it was by instinct.

Does this thing spawn out of thin air?

"Your magic is spirit-based, right? Can you think of something to stop it?"

Making plans while our legs worked at their best put a workload on our lungs like a manager who won an argument with his wife, but at a cost.

"I wish I could, but I’m out of mana, and that thing is undead. I need at least 10 to 15 minutes before I can do anything."

In 5 minutes we were going to get eaten by our six-legged friend, or fall to our deaths. The corridor would end at some point. We couldn’t just keep running.

"I’m really regretting my life right now. I spent half of it in heat and didn’t do anything significant. That’s actually a pretty good life, to be honest. What am I thinking?"

Dr. Rhiannon spiraled into gibberish about her life, a little overdramatic, considering she’s the Assistant of the Research and Development Department. Can’t blame her, though.

After running, we came to a crossroads, remember the gravity, it was really just one fall with one route ahead. And the corridor leading up toward the heavens wasn’t an option.

"We have to make a jump, okay!! Run faster!!"

Dr. Rhiannon warned me, a trusted adult. We picked up the pace to gain momentum, not stopping until we hit the edge and jumped with full power.

Mid-air, everything slowed down for a fraction of a second. Beneath me, the fall was so deep I couldn’t see the end. This place was definitely built for this, a giant trap, no wonder it was a walking simulator before.

Time sped back up as we landed on our feet. I was slightly off-balance, which slowed my sprint. Turning back subconsciously to check the distance, it turned out to be quite terrifying.

The undead thing was about two meters behind us. A closer look made it even more disgusting, it didn’t have a proper face or eyelids, just pure predatory instinct. Dr. Rhiannon noticed the situation.

"Use your potions, muffin!!"

Suddenly I remembered, I have potions!! I reached into my belt pouch, took out an instant damage potion, and threw it at the undead creature, aiming for its head.

The undead creature dodged it, the potion bottle shattering on the floor, wasted. But not entirely wasted, the creature slowed down, recalculating its approach.

Pure instinct.

"Good job! Try to hit it!"

Dr. Rhiannon praised and cheered me on mid-run, which sparked a little hope in me.

"These are the cheap ones, and it’s hard to aim at a moving target. And I think we’re about to hit a dead end soon."

Dr. Rhiannon pulled up the layout and tilted it sideways to the left. Two yellow dots were approaching a drop. There was a path leading up toward the heavens too, but ignore that.

"You’re right!"

What do you do now? The layout suggested the fall was coming in a few moments. We had no time left. There was no way out of this. The end? I could use the Crimson Vigor potion, but I had no clue how it would affect me. The undead creature was insanely fast. I couldn’t defeat it without help.

"Elias!"

My overthinking stopped when Dr. Rhiannon called out, her face numb and serious, sweaty from the chase.

"Maren specifically said you can come up with the craziest solutions. That’s the real reason you’re here. Now don’t disappoint her!"

Dr. Rhiannon gave me something between encouragement and a warning. My thoughts faded away. Really? Sister Maren said that?

"Alright, then!! I have a plan. And of course it’s a crazy one!"