Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

(Sorry about missing a day yesterday, I am currently hospitalized. More info on the chapter's author's thoughts)

In W's mind the dungeon was a very bizarre entity, space was similarly a very strange element. W could not make any guesses on what exactly he was experiencing, but as was normal, his curiosity did not win against his desire to survive.

He cancelled the sixth sense skill.

The red glow of the environment and the blueness of himself and W disappeared. This left Bloody and W surrounded by the fleshy inside of Brennan who was of course not awake during this process of teleportation.

This was worth mentioning because Ed and W would now have to perform a pro blood clot move. Blood integration!

W made sure that Bloody was properly integrated and would survive the dangerous journey before he did the exact same. Apart from the fortified mind skill, which he actually had unfortunately not received, W had no protection for his mind.

Left with little options, he could only try and find a balance between himself, Brennan, and Bloody. That was because there was always the chance to murder Brennan if they integrated too much. Even under these dangerous circumstances, this was something to watch out for. While they would get the body, much of what they were doing would become pointless.

Soon yet not soon enough, body after body stepped out of a pitch black portal and set foot on the dusty and dirty ground. The group appeared inside an extremely large circular room decorated by flickering torches. This was the crypt boss room, just as W remembered it.

'Urgh…' W had never felt worse before but technically, after every merge and new split with Ed he was reborn so perhaps the before was misleading.

Whatever the case, things weren't good. Brennan noticed something was wrong, or was it rather the fact that he could not notice anything that told him something was wrong?

"Wh- What?!" His body stumbled out of the portal and fell to the ground unceremoniously. He was blind and deaf, under the current strange ailments he was only able to cry out his surprise.

"""Your majesty!""" Exclamations emerged from both sides of Brennan.

This screw up could not be missed by the group of people that had gone alongside him. Their sole purpose was to protect Brennan, after all, so how could they miss it? Their first instincts after exiting the portal were to find Brennan and that they had done.

This screw up was just a screw-up, Bloody and W performed some reattaching of nerves and gave Brennan his body back, or rather back to how they had it. He was still deaf from one ear and blind from one eye.

"Your Majesty, are you alright?" Stuart came up and asked with concern. Brennan did not expect the strong backlash, he attributed it to his inexperience with portals and didn't think much of more of it.

Stuart however was a bit more apprehensive. He had never seen such a side effect on any of the other company members when they crossed this same exact portal. It was suspicious to say the least.

"Yes, all is good now" Brennan said propping himself off the ground. It wasn't just Stuart, all the onlookers had a doubtful look in their eyes... but that was the full extent of it. The suspicion never turned into anything greater. They all just waited for a while, ignoring the trip up.

While they waited for the others to come out of the portal, W immersed himself in his thoughts. Not just his thoughts, but also the transmissions of Ed.

'I sensed the spiritual mark became closer, are you in the crypt?' Ed asked W who promptly sent back an affirmative transmission. Unlike before, the communication had at most a few seconds of delay.

'Great' Ed transmitted delighted by this revelation. The emotion and intention hidden behind this single great told W that the plan Ed was making was yet to be complete. Nonetheless, it soon would, and having W nearby could help straighten out some kinks.

Still, W wanted to discuss something else. He promptly transmitted what he had just experienced in vivid images and detail.

Ed was pondering deeply on the possible ramifications of this experience, but he didn't find anything particularly game changing.

'This just helps us understand the dungeon a little more' With such chaotic space surrounding it, creating these paths and portals seemed like a horrible idea. Yet, for whatever reason, creating these was a necessity for the dungeon.

The dungeon was wiling to risk losing health or maybe if the situation was grave enough its life. All for just the chance to break out.

Ed didn't understand the appeal, but he wasn't a dungeon. Heck, he didn't even know what being a dungeon entailed. Ed felt he was very ignorant in regard to dungeons, which was… fair.

His knowledge was based off of his own observations and one book from humanity. What he already knew could be said to be plenty, looking at it from this angle.

'W, just keep me posted' Ed decided to call off the transmission for now. He was still a busy skeleton. He was a busy skeleton with an unfinished plan.

'Wait circling back…' If the dungeon happened to become busy dealing with the chaotic space, then maybe... 

'I could just let them go without orchestrating anything' With the amount of effort Ed was putting into this, one would think he was planning to do a drama.

'Distracting it isn't any easier' If W's experience was to be believed, there was no reason not to believe it, then the space was too life-threatening for consciousnesses without a body to even consider going in.

'With a body time appears to flash by, but without a body, you might die experiencing what is beyond' This was thus no easy matter. But there was one thing Ed had done that this incident reminded hm of... 

'Spirit shards' When he took a spirit shard with spirit insertion! He still remembered vividly when his entry into the safe room was denied. Something was preventing him from entering other parts of the crypt and if that was the chaotic space shield the dungeon made, its actions could be described as reasonably enraged.

'Something durable like that can't come cheap' Ed thought inwardly before finally sighing. While this new discovery opened up using the spirit shard as a way to enrage and distract the dungeon… doing it right now required Ed to go quite far away. The close safe room was destroyed after all.

In the end, he would have to play out the silly drama.. All he was missing was the cast who W was currently in place of managing.