Chapter Text
The dungeon felt…wrong.
Well, to Marcille, it always was wrong, wrong in the way of needing to be fixed. God , if she could only pinpoint exactly what was wrong with it, maybe she’d be able to reach in with her magic or, hey, even her bare hands, and try to hold it together again, like the shells of a splintered egg, fix it just right. There was an omelet metaphor to be made there, and frankly, she’d eaten too many eggs of unidentifiable origin to feel comfortable saying it.
There wasn’t much to eat on this floor.
Level Three. Moldy. Gross. Ghosts and bones and paintings that blinked. Lion head fountains and stingy toilet paper. Stale air. Always too stuffy, too cold, too humid. The distant rumbling steps of golems. The faint, furry scent of something else . Eerie torches. Two more to go, and Fallin would be home safe. One could consider this the halfway point then, yes, the moment where everything changed .
“Hey, guys. I’m getting a bad feeling,” Chilchuck spoke up. He rarely complained, someone who’d seen his fair share of shit and knew not to waste nerves. But, as the others looked over at him, it was plainly and adamantly clear that something was wrong. His brows were furrowed, his face pale. They were halfway down a long, empty stone hall, with wooden doors on both ends, torches wavering irregularly.
“But you said we should go this way to begin with!” Marcille pleaded, frustrated. They’d been walking since they woke up, and the last turnoff point was hours back! If they were going to retrace their steps, ugh!! So much wasted time, effort, food! She tried to squash down her feelings, but they still simmered, and that simmer turned into a boil as he failed to elaborate.
“Well...” He shook his head, scowling. “I just don’t think we should.”
“Hm. This is unlike ye,” Senshi commented, thoughtful, his dark eyes reflecting the firelight.
“I know, right!” Marcille thought for a second, before waving her staff at him, “Maybe a ghost’s got hold of his mind-”
“Oi-” he scowled.
“Hey, Marcille-”
“No, no, none of that.” Senshi just calmly dismissed her. “Chilchuck here is concerned for our safety. Dwarves have kept canaries as mining companions for centuries. The little birds are receptive to miasmas and bad air, and so their signal is the most vital part of a healthy expedition, even if they don’t have the words to explain it.”
Chilchuck squinted at the comparison. He wasn’t a little bird.
“Ughhh. Okay, fair. But I don’t see or sense anything! I’m also super sensitive. The dungeon is just as dark and miserable as it’s always been, right Laios?” She jabbed him and her elbow clanged against his armor. His eyes were distant, he’d been zoned out, staring at the door at the end of the bleak dungeon hall. Eventually, clang clang clang , he refocused with a sharp breath.
“I’m hungry.”
Marcille scowled. “Seriously, do you think about anything else?”
“No, it’s…worse than that,” he brought a speculative hand to his chin, then his brow, “I feel weak, honestly. Almost a little anemic. My head’s been cloudy since we started down this hall…and I’ve just had this strange itching sensation, almost as if my insides were clenching in on themselves.” He paused, gazing over at the other’s somewhat disturbed expressions. “Ah, maybe that’s what Chilchuck was getting, too!”
“When you put it that way, I guess I’m also a bit hungry,” Chilchuck muttered, which to him roughly translated as, Ohh, I feel so starved I’m sick.
“Let’s retreat, then,” Senshi just said, in a voice that commanded no argument. “I have a few theories, but I think it would be best for the group’s health if we started back as soon as possible and talked on the way. I’d hate for those symptoms to get worse.”
Chilchuck nodded, frustrated, a Yeah, told you so. Laios seemed more baffled than anything, as if his own admission of unwellness startled even himself. Marcille glared daggers at the end of the hallway, before finally announcing, “It may just be a spirit that’s feeding off our life force, don’t you think?”
They hesitated in their retreat, Laios’s eyes suddenly glowing, “Such a thing exists?”
“A magical entity might be capable of it,” she continued, pulling from her knowledge of the archaic and dark, “something similar to a curse! If we slay the monster, we’ll be able to push ahead without backtracking, hey, we might even clear the path for the next party!”
She didn’t know that as an elf, she was exempt from the unwell feelings, or at least, very very resilient to them. If anything, it just felt like the two hard-headed boys were being stubborn for no reason, Chilchuck because he was young (hah!) and Laios, probably because he ate something that didn’t agree with him. She ignored the obvious answer (they were eating the same food) and turned to run down the hall, wielding her staff.
Whatever’s up here, I’ll just turn them to ashes with my explosion spell! Yes, yes, yes, finally! She was sick of doing nothing to help her friends on the first two floors. Now was her time to shine, as she shot a look over at her concerned, feeble-willed companions, flashed them a bold smile, and grabbed the handle of the massive wooden door, their only portal forward.
“Wait, you idiot!” Chilchuck called out, wary of traps.
Please. This is a normal door. She thought, tugging it, and if it isn’t, I can fight whatever’s on the other side, no problem!
However, smugness washed away in an instant, she was wholly unprepared for the sheer force and weight of a suit of armor ( and the skinny woman inside that suit) to come tumbling out ragdoll-style, like someone had just emptied an iron maiden of its corpse.
Eh?
Flat on her back, on the stone floor. “Marcille!” She heard her companions shout, their voices distant.
“Augh…” she pushed against the weight of the armor, struggling to get free. The woman’s head lolled, cropped ginger hair clumpy and unwashed. No help whatsoever. There seemed to be almost no life left in her, which just made Marcille shout out in alarm. A corpse! There’s a corpse on top of me! No!!
Her hands closed on the wood trunk of her staff, incantations swirling together in her panicked mind. Marcille was about to blast this scrawny body to bits when Laios appeared over her and tugged the woman off. To everyone’s surprise, she managed to stand, arm slung around his neck. She was breathing too – it sounded awful, faint and uneven, each note painful to hear.
“Hey! Why’d you knock me over like that!” Marcille hopped to her feet. She felt disgusting – that other adventurer looked worse. Not only was she unnaturally pale (cracked porcelain, like a doll ) but she was also filthy. A layer of grease and sweat coated the exterior of her armor, and her whole body reeked of putrid filth. Not unlike the heaviness of the air here. “Are you okay ?” She tried to sound tough, but couldn’t help her own voice dipping in concern.
The woman gasped. “My party. Gh–” She was so close to Laios, Marcille could practically see him losing his appetite. Her face pinched and she gagged, “They’re– lower your weapons! I’m…okay! Stay down!”
She wasn’t talking to the little group, no, rather, her eyes were set on the still-open door, commanding back some attack. Marcille felt her gut twist as footsteps grew louder. An awful, long snouted animal padded into the torchlight. It appeared to be a warg, but larger , the color of pure ash, its teeth cruel, and it's dark eyes insect-like. A snarl came from it.
Laios cooed, “So awesome!”
Chilchuck instead flinched, “Whose this ?” as Senshi brought a thoughtful hand to his beard.
Following the wolf-thing, two more figures appeared. A human a head shorter than Laios, with stringy black hair and a hollow face, but eyes that gleamed with at least a little bit more life than the other had. To his side, his opposite, a wraith of a man with long, gray-white hair, and a tattered black habit. They were holding weapons and, with a horrified squeal, Marcille realized the taller of the two was nursing a bloody stump where his right arm should have been.
Behind them, taking up the rear of the party and shutting the door as soon as he entered, was an absolute brute of a man. Older, haggard, russet ginger hair and deep set eyes, huge shoulders and a thick neck. In his arms, a small girl. No! That was a gnome or half-foot, right? No one would be stupid enough to bring a child into this dungeon! She was glass-eyed and exhausted, clinging to his neck as he supported her small body effortlessly..
The human man – the one that looked the most normal of the group – flashed a weak grin to Marcille’s party, “I see D’arce fell for you, haha.” He staggered a little bit, clapping a gloved hand to his mouth as if to keep from vomiting. The whole group seemed out of it, all except for the tall man at the back, whose fur overcoat was splotched with blood, his eyes glinting.
Not getting enough calories can have disastrous, party-wiping effects. Marcille remembered Senshi saying. Exhaustion, weight-loss, poor emotional regulation, brain fog…as well as a compromised immune system. She cast a nervous look over at the dwarf, realizing that for once they were thinking the exact same thing.
“Nice to meet you,” despite herself, Marcille nervously held out her hand, “I’m Marcille…Uh. The half-foot is Chilchuck, that’s Senshi, and the one who caught her…that’s Laios.”
“I must’ve died and gone to heaven,” the man caught her hand with his other one, still speaking through his palm to keep from puking. His gloves were sweat-tight, “To think someone so kind would be in this shithole.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“I’m Cahara,” he tried to bow, teetering on his heels, “The skinny thing’s Enki,” Enki had been eyeing the party with a look of supreme, "What in God's name is this , what are you doing talking to it?” Which was kind of funny, considering Chilchuck was giving his own friends a similar look. A cardinal sense of unease, only apparent to those two. “The lass you caught is D’arce, and that’s Ragnvaldr back there, I call him Rags but between you and me, I don’t think he loves tha t.”
Cahara’s humor was a desperate attempt to bridge the gap between seinen comedy and gruesome horror. Behind them, the wall of a man just grunted, wrinkling his nose at the small party.
“What’s your warg called?” Laios demanded, suddenly, his eyes sparkling with untold glee. The woman leaning on him – D’arce, that was her name – had enough strength to lift her head.
“She’s Moonless.”
“That’s the perfect name!” He announced. If he wasn’t supporting the weight of an entire person, he’d probably kneel down to try to embrace the hideous thing.
“Hey, do you need help getting to the surface?” Marcille asked.
“We can’t go up yet. We…can’t,” D’arce replied shakily, despite her neglected condition.
Ragnvaldr added, sternly, adjusting his hold on the girl, “There are things we still have to take care of.”
“We’re not turning back, be serious,” Enki added, which was odd, considering he was the one who looked the closest to death.
“I’m overruled,” Cahara gave a weak chuckle, but it was evident even he wanted to keep pressing forward. Why , Marcille wanted to ask. What could be worth such a horrible toll on their bodies? If they encounter any more monsters, they’ll be too exhausted to fight properly!
It’s a losing battle. You can’t keep going if you don’t take care of yourselves.
“You can’t keep up at this rate,” Senshi said, as if summoned by her thoughts. He approached the party, five sets of eyes falling to him with a mix of awe and suspicion and, even, relief. Something about him settled their troubled spirits. He had that effect. Marcille had the sudden thought of how they must look to this exhausted party: their bright eyes, their bodies just as strong as they’d been on the surface, their drive to keep going coming from love, not desperation.
“Oh?” Ragnvaldr tilted his head. While he took up the rear, it was evident that he was the leader of this haggard army.
“Ye come from deeper in the dungeon, I know,” Senshi continued, “Please, allow us to give ye a warm meal, and in exchange, pick yer brains for information.”
“Wh- what?”
“Hey- you’re-”
Chilchuck and Marcille both rounded on him. They were, of course, at their cores, wanting to help this group of wrecked adventurers, but at the very same time, it was hard to imagine that was a fair trade!
“Think about it this way,” Senshi continued, unphased, “These five, six ,” he looked over to where Laios was ‘discreetly’ petting the coat of the wolf-thing, “have done an abysmal job of taking care o’ themselves, and yet they’ve still made it into the depths of the dungeon.”
“Imagine how powerful they’d be with your cooking!” Laios agreed, like a child gazing upon some story-book hero. The woman at his side looked on the verge of passing out.
“We tried,” she muttered, her gaze unfocusing.
“I was more so thinking, know-how. Knowledge. I don’t want to hold anything above their heads…they don’t have to help us, but if we're heading in the same way, well...” Senshi continued, “A meal is a perfect opportunity to converse, to break the ice and establish some trust. Does that sound decent enough to you?”
He addressed Ragnvaldr, whose jaw tightened just a little bit.
“Pleaaaaase, Rags,” Cahara turned, tugging on the bearskin of his armor, “They seem harmless, and besides, I think I blacked out a little when they said meal.”
“Mh?” the little girl agreed, plaintively. The brute of a man sighed.
“Enki?”
He just shrugged, sedately fiddling with the bandages that wrapped his gone arm.
“So. We’ll take you up on the offer,” Ragnvaldr looked down at Senshi. The rest of his party tried not to go limp with relief. And despite the feeling of wrongness, Marcille couldn't help but be a little glad, as though this was a problem she could fix. And hey, if she hadn’t been so stubborn, they wouldn’t have gotten here, now would they? Yeah, this was her doing, alright!
Fallin’d be proud of her. She warmed herself with that thought.
–
They hobbled back down the hall, D’arce insisting on staggering herself and the others following in a tense, almost paranoid file. Eventually they reached an empty room, with only a few barrels and a bubbling lion’s fountain.
As Laios and Senshi began taking inventory of their supplies, Marcille boiled water from the fountain. “Come over here, wash up,” she signaled the wary crew, “No offense, but seriously, you guys stink.”
“Don’t you think monsters are going to come in at any second?” D’arce asked. “We don’t…staying in one place is a bad, bad idea.”
“But there aren’t any monsters in this area,” Chilchuck replied, like it was obvious, “we’ve already been down here, we know it’s safe. Besides, we’d know if they were coming.”
“They’d have to be really stupid to want to attack a party of…six, seven, TEN adventurers, counting the dog,” Marcille added with a smirk. This seemed strikingly bizarre to the others, who exchanged nervous glances.
“I feel the darkness fading. Maybe I am losing my mind,” D’arce commented, as Marcille handed her a wet washcloth doused in soap. She wiped down her face, pausing to peer over the rag. Her eyes were the color of the winter sky, “like the warmth you get when you’re freezing to death.”
“Eh, better to be comfortable,” Cahara gladly washed his face, too, “Even if that means we’ve completely lost it.”
She didn’t seem to see Marcille, saying instead to herself, “I want to take off my armor.”
“That’s a good idea,” Senshi was saying, from where he and Laios were doing something that involved pushing the wolf’s salivating snout out of the way. “Yer armor is much too heavy for ye right now. Yer burning excess calories just trying to keep up in it, no wonder walking was so difficult.”
“You’re right…whatever that means,” she began to peel it off, perhaps too exhausted to be scared. Ragnvaldr watched her, before flicking his gaze to Senshi, sizing him up like a beast in a trap.
“Hrm. I don’t believe we have enough Living Armor mollusks for this recipe,” Senshi mused.
“Oh no! Want me to get some more?” Laios stood up straight, hand on his sword sheath, “We’re not far from the last hall, and I know I can take at least a few of em on my own!”
“Wait – are you eating the monsters?” Cahara looked up from where he was helping D’arce remove her leg-guards. “ Why ?”
“Because they’re delicious-”
“It’s a reliable method of maintaining yerself.”
“Those two are completely insane.”
Laios, Senshi, and Marcille said at the same time. Chilchuck just sighed with mild exasperation as they all tried to elaborate. One at a time, next time.
“But you’re normal humans, aren’t you?” It was Enki who asked, looking up from where Cahara was adamantly offering him the washrag, smearing it against his gaunt face for him, “How fascinating…tch, don’t do that-”
“You’re filthy.”
“You can take off your armor and wash them here,” Marcille was saying, wrinkling her nose, “Seriously. It’d do us all a favor.”
Though they didn’t voice it at that moment, everyone became individually very aware of the blood on Ragnvaldr’s bearskin and the underlying implication, almost as though a dark gloom had spread over the paneling.
“Before you think we’ve gone completely insane, we cook them first,” Chilchuck just said with a shrug. “I thought it was weird, too, but Senshi here’s able to make anything taste good.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” The wandering party didn’t look like taste was anywhere on their priority list.
“At this point, I just don’t care,” D’arce commented. Smaller without her armor, her arms crossed over her knees and her face half-hidden in them, she seemed lost. Cahara reached over to pat her shoulder and she reflectively flinched, before finally letting him, a moment of glassy-eyed connection ensuring it was only him by her side.
They really trust each other. It made Marcille’s chest hurt a little bit. I bet they’re good people.
Ha. Hahahahahah.
“Do you still have your arm?” Marcille addressed Enki, though she had to admit, of the party he was the one that unnerved her the most. Even counting Ragnvaldr.
“Yes.” He reached into his satchel and pulled it out, barely wrapped in torn cloth, his own limb shriveled and half decayed, claw-like nails reaching out. Of course he still had it. Of course.
“Mind if I try to reattach it?’
“Be my guest.”
Casting a self conscious look over her shoulder at the others in the party, Marcille inhaled sharply. She unwrapped the bandages from his severed stump and lifted the clammy limb. Dried plum-colored blood scraped against visible jutting bone. Trying not to puke, she mustered the magic spell, and in an instant of reaching skin scab and stretching bone matter, the limb had been successfully reattached.
Enki didn’t scream. He merely re-extended his hand and felt blood return to the ligaments of his fingers.
“Do I get at least a thank you?” Marcille pouted, and he shot her a somewhat creepy grin. “...Neeevermind.”
Laios trudged off to go collect more living armor, Ragnvaldr trailing after him with a sharp whistle to the wolf thing, which followed loyally. After a moment, Chilchuck looked up. “I wonder what that guy’s deal is.”
“Seriously, same here,” Cahara laughed. He flashed a look over to where Marcille had reluctantly convinced Enki to derobe so she could wash the disgusting habit in the basin of boiled water (it seemed to be the source of the bad smell, after they’d wiped down D’arce armor). He had a blanket pulled over his skinny shoulders, his scowl back.
“Don’t you travel with him?” Chilchuck frowned, slightly suspiciously.
“Yeah. He saved my ass back there, more times than I can count. Doesn’t mean I know his life story,” Cahara just smiled, casually. “Soooo what’s on the menu? Mollusks? I’m a seafood guy, haha…”
“A light soup would be the best bet, considering yer condition. With mollusks, of course, and greens,” Senshi stated, from where he was boiling the pot. Before Cahara had a chance to reply, he rose, holding out a hand, “Are any of ye capable of helping me to fetch some fresh vegetables?”
“Uh… huh ??”
Marcille stood up, though she didn’t entirely trust this group alone with their campsite. “Chilchuck, you’re in charge.”
“Wh- hey, if they steal, I can’t do anything about it!” He protested.
“We wouldn’t, you’ve already shown us incredible kindness,” D’arce exclaimed, while at the exact same time, Cahara added somewhat unconvincingly, “Awwe, I would never steal.” Enki just continued picking at the scab encircling his reattached arm.
“The half foot can come with us, then,” Marcille addressed the girl, smiling to her, “Right? You’re unhurt, and you don’t seem too weak.”
“Half foot?! That’s a child!” Chilchuck demanded, “A human child! Are you blind ?”
The girl did look a bit older than she should, but that was mostly just due to how hollow her face was, and how empty her gaze seemed, as though she’d endured centuries of hardship. Still, Marcille wanted to kick herself. Her skin crawled, “What? S- seriously, why did you guys have a child with you in the dungeon ?”
D’arce just stared at the fire, before rising unsteadily to her feet. “We found her. We didn’t bring her. Please, don’t assume bad things about our character. We’re just…trying to do what we can, to protect those dear to us,”
Standing in the grim dungeon, backlit by a flickering flame and the steely shine of the pot, she looked almost angelic. Marcille wanted to believe her, but something just seemed off, perhaps in the thick revelry of the woman’s voice, or maybe it was Cahara and Enki making eye contact below her, the same look she and Chilchuck shared whenever Laios went off on one of his rants.
“I would like to help,” she added, stepping closer, “Without my armor, I’m a lot lighter on my feet, and I feel better. I can help, yes!”
“Whoa there, sit back down,” Senshi dismissed with his hand, “Yer strained as is. Just look yerself. I think the only thing you should do is sit by the fire and drink plenty of water. Not too quickly, but, please. Marcille and I can take care of the rest.”
Defeated, she slumped back down beside Cahara. He offered her a steaming cup.
“It’s tea.” She startled upon accepting it.
“Yeah, the man with the beard made it. It’s good, isn’t it?”
There was no adamant appraisal of its characteristics. No “the aroma is strong but light!” No “ the spices are perfect for settling a sore throat, and I can feel my sinuses clearing already!” No “ despite the depths of the dungeon, the leaves are fresh and crisp!” There was none of that. She just sipped it and nodded and said, “It’s good.”
The girl still accompanied them getting fresh vegetables, which involved a whole ordeal involving the golems. Senshi didn’t have time to replant their resources, but he claimed that he’d come back after everyone had already eaten. He seemed troubled – he was never one to rush a meal, but at the same time, this seemed particularly vital. The girl nibbled a carrot which was a bit too tough for her soft teeth.
“So what do you think the deal was? Why do they look so messed up?” Marcille asked as they gathered vegetables from the condensed earth, where the dirt monster had just stood.
“Ahh,” Senshi’s expression rarely changed, but she could imagine he was frowning, “I don’t think yer suggestion of a life-energy drainin’ spirit is all too unrealistic, now. I had my doubts. We hadn’t seen any of that sort before. But. There can’t be any other way.”
Marcille gathered garlic cloves and gave them to the girl, who was pinching open her skirt to store more things inside it. It felt weird, touching wet, fertilized soil, all the way down here where the light of the sun wouldn’t reach them. “What makes you say that?” She asked, sounding much more afraid of the concept now.
“They look almost as though they’d been starved for weeks. But that can’t be the case, unless they were walking in circles down here. Someone else had to have found them, unless they were trying very hard not to be found,” Senshi paused, “I’m rambling to meself. Don’t worry yer head about it.”
But she was worried. If anyone knew this dungeon, it would be Senshi, he maintained the bathrooms down here for christ sake. And if he thought something didn’t add up – something wasn’t supposed to be down here, something wasn’t meant to exist in this part of the dungeon – then that wrongness pervaded.
“What’s their wolf thing? Have you cooked anything like it?” She asked, feeling her heart beginning to pound.
“No, I have not. I’m fascinated, but it appears to be sentient, so we’ll leave it…her? We’ll leave her alone.” He patted the earth, “Ahh, they came out good this season. Always rotate the crops…We’ll take care of that after our meal. There’s no problem in reordering tasks, so long as you aren’t running away from yer responsibilities.”
They stayed a moment, Marcille gazing back over at the child and the child watching her. Watching past her. Her eyes were vaguely reminiscent of those sentient paintings, the sclera so dull it was in egg yolk oil paint.
“I think, if Laios were to catch some starving curse, like what our new friends have, he wouldn’t be too bothered. It’d give him an excuse to eat even more creepy, awful things.” Marcille crossed her arms.
They returned at about the same time as Laios and Ragnvaldr, who were dragging the enormous shell of an animated armor case. As soon as she laid eyes on the couple, she realized it was a terrible mistake letting those two hunt alone. Laios was chatting his ear off.
“Oh my god, okay, so was the meat tender or was it tough? I’ve heard it tastes like rabbits, but I don’t think that’s very accurate, especially considering the species–”
“It was oddly fishy,” Ragnvaldr replied with a shrug as they set the metal plates down.
“Really? Why do you think so? Ohh, maybe it was infected or ill with something-”
“Wouldn’t have stopped me,” he just shrugged.
“Have you ever gotten a parasite?”
“No.”
They set the thing beside the bubbling pot with a loud clang. “Maybe your body’s evolved in such a way to allow…” he turned, slightly, noticing Senshi, and suddenly calling out, “Senshi! We gotta talk monsters with this guy, he knows everything! He’s even eaten demihumans, which isn’t something I’d do, of course, but it's fascinating!”
Marcille felt that wrongness from before explode inside her. “Oh.” A quick look at Chilchuck and the others in his party (namely just Cahara and D’arce) indicated that they were all on about the same page of being really fucking disturbed, what the fuck guys.
She supposed, once someone had already crossed that moral threshold, it was easier to keep zig zagging over it. It made her want to walk across the room, grab Laios by the lobe of his ear, and drag him away from this guy before he gave him any more ‘ideas.’
They stripped the mollusks of their metal shells and severed them briskly, effectively, little pieces diced and dropped in the pot. The girl gave up the vegetables she’d gathered and Cahara practically cried, “You’re killing me! When will it be ready ?”
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” D’arce murmured. “The darkness of the dungeon. It feels lighter here.”
“What do you mean by that? Marcille asked, as they peeled garlic and trimmed carrots off their stems, rich topaz orange and sharp, crisp scents of herbs, so different from the dreadful mold of the dungeon.
“Every second I was down here, I felt my body become weaker and weaker, almost as if I was bleeding out. But, that’s gone. Or, slowed, I suppose,” her eyelashes were the same ginger as her hair, and they sparkled slightly. “It’s all stopped. Right here, I’m still.”
“Awe, dollface, you’re such a crybaby,” Cahara reached over and ruffled her hair. He smiled back at the others, as though he wanted to give thanks, but that wasn’t really his style, “By the way, I didn’t take anything. The same can’t be said for Enki, though.”
They found Enki sitting a ways away from the group, thumbing through Laios’s cookbook. All that did was cage him into a conversation with Laios about the contents of said book, and to Marcille, that would have been punishment enough. However, even Enki seemed passably interested in the concepts illustrated.
Eventually, the soup was done. They didn’t have nearly enough bowls, so they improvised with cups and flasks.
“Thank you, kind strangers, for this meal,” D’arce tried to give a sort of toast, but her party was too far gone to appreciate it. They set upon their food like wolves to a dear deer carcass.
The mollusk meat was akin to shrimp, sweet and savory all at once, bursting in the mouth with little pushback. It was an explosion of fishy flavor, boneless and easy to inhale, Ragnvaldr had to smack Cahara lightly on the back so he wouldn’t choke himself.
“Savor it. Make sure to chew slowly, or else your body won’t be able to absorb all of the nutrients,” Senshi advised, and they nodded, attempting to slow down just a bit. “There’s plenty. We made as much as we could with the resources provided,” he chuckled, “leftovers won’t do anyone any good here!”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea, what if their stomachs’ shrunk?” Marcille leaned in to ask him.
“How long were you in the dungeons?” He asked instead, to the whole group.
“Three days,” D’arce replied, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. She paused, a bit of her noble self-awareness hitting, “Ah- I’m sorry. This is a friendly meal. To- to get to know one another. I shouldn’t be rushing it,” she straightened, though the urge not to rip into everything was immensely powerful.
“Wait, three days?” Chilchuck narrowed his eyes, “How on earth did you get that low that quickly? I have the first layers mapped out, I know it takes ages to get anywhere fast, so unless you were running like madmen the entire time, I can’t imagine–”
They very well might have been. Nothing about their sorry state suggested anything resembling a plan.
“It’s better cooked,” Ragnvaldr commented, tilting his cup up and draining the last of it effortlessly.
Laios beamed, “Senshi is an incredible cook…it’s a shame you weren’t able to experience everything else you’d encountered to the fullest! I’d be disappointed.”
“I think we already have,” Cahara commented, laughing, “Oh, but this really is amazing. It’s like…rich people's food. Nah, they just put rich ingredients in, they don’t actually try to make it taste like anything more than money.” He sighed, shaking his head, “I wish my wife was here. It’s damned unfair she isn’t.”
D’arce sighed, too, setting down her bowl, “I feel the same exact way.”
The girl was the second to finish her bowl, probably because no one had been attempting to speak with her. However, she just crawled to the massive dog-thing (Moonless) and lethargically rested her chin against the beast’s blue-gray fur. A small sigh left her.
“Where did you…”
“A cage,” D’arce replied, grimly, “I don’t know who put her there, nor why they did it, but she seemed to have been in there for months, possibly even years.”
The girl stirred quietly, but seemed too overcome with the drowsiness of a large meal to care that she was being talked about, if she was even aware of herself enough to know that.
Marcille felt her own insides twist with discomfort. The idea of something so horrible – happening to a child , no less! She wondered what would inspire someone to do something so heartless. Perhaps she was a hostage, or it was a sort of imprisonment situation this party had stumbled upon. Right, bad people came into these dungeons all the time, simply because it was difficult to report anything that was going on down here to the authorities. There was a saying – what happens in the dungeon stays in the dungeon.
“Enki, you should be kissing these kind folk’s feet by now,” Cahara announced suddenly, prodding him in the side, “Seriously! They reattach your arm and wash your clothes, and now what are you doing? Eating their soup in silence? Stealing their books! Come on, man!”
He continued harassing his priest to the amusement of the small crowd, before Enki finally lowered his spoon and said begrudgingly, “ Thank you for the hospitality.” However hospitality was delivered with such a grim tone it might as well have meant weakness. The group was in too good a mood to really care.
“The oil from the mollusks should be good for your dog’s coat,” Senshi was saying to Ragnvaldr, with the same friendly compliance that Laios had offered. It seemed only Marcille and Chilchuck were put off by that guy, and as the others finished their meal, she felt his small elbow dig into her side.
Some things are not right here. Something’s not right with these people. We’ll talk later.
“That has got to be the best meal I’ve had in my life,” Cahara set the plate down and sighed, patting D’arce and Enki’s shoulders with his two free hands. He was very touchy with those two, and despite Enki’s hostility, he didn’t even bother brushing him off, “I can’t believe we found you guys in our dungeon. God bless, or whatever.”
“Something tells me we're not in our dungeon anymore,” Enki just mused, a statement that seemed innocent enough but ripped through the group like an electrical storm. No one acknowledged it at that moment, but they were thinking about it. Increasingly. The very concept needed a few minutes to simmer properly.
“Food often tastes better when you’re hungry,” Laios agreed.
“But starving yerself is never a good idea.”
“No way, you’ll be weak and uncoordinated whenever a monster appears,” Laios smiled, ruefully, “It happens to the best of us.”
“Why are you down here, then?” D’arce looked up from where she was sitting, her knees drawn up to her chest.
“Looking for someone very special. We need to get to the bottom as quickly as possible, so we can fetch her.” Marcille explained. She paused, then, saying, “You’re the same, right?”
A ghost of a smile pulled at D’arce’s face. “I am.”
Though the Touden party only thought this admission was kind of sweet, a sense of unease ran through the others. Cahara pushed his hair out of his face. Enki pawed at Laios, wanting to page through his dungeoneering book some more. Ragnvaldr finished his second bowl with only a slight tightness in his jaw.