After-School Dungeon Crawl

“That’s… almost a third of the ones listed.”

Walking through the marketplace just like yesterday, the girls had been busy.

“Only a third?” Katie was the one upset this time. They’d spent all day working on their “royal duties” while they waited on their new friends to get back from class.

“Mhm. Hey, we can always quit. Are we really even visiting a park if we’re just working the whole time?”

“Not after all that work… it’s not very fun, but this money will let us see more parks, so it’s okay.”

“Still working up the nerve to ask these stupid personal questions… “Have you ever met someone you loved in Everfair?” Why’s he even gotta have this information? What’s he gonna do with it?”

“Find out if his park is sufficiently romantic, I suppose.”

“Heyyy!!”

The time had slipped out of their hands all of a sudden- they were willing victims of this theft, though, when they saw Serah and the others walking towards them, just off from school. At long last, life could resume. The adventure could resume.

“Class was shit, I’m knackered…” Serah had her arms behind her head, playing with her bronze daggers. The six Flames were already walking somewhere, tired but not defeated. Even school was canonized in this fantasy land, the teachers dressing up and classes given a mask of lore compliance. It didn’t make it much better.

“You’ll flunk out at this rate…” Warned Greg, but the thief didn’t seem to care.

“If we conquer the dungeon, it won’t matter if we all flunk out.” Percival asserted, clenching his iron fist. Greg was quite offended by the idea but didn’t have much in the way of a counterpoint. Rocco was decorating his axe with stickers as they walked, decidedly oblivious to the lot of them.

“Beating the dungeon’s that big of a deal?” Frankie asked. She certainly hoped her guildmate was telling the truth.

“Mhm, mhm.” The rogue nodded. “We’d be the first ones, just think of it. We’d be famous, high school dropouts or not.”

“How has no one beaten it?” Katie followed-up. “Even if it was impossible, with this many people trying it.. how has nobody made it to the end?”

“God only knows. But… there have been rumors. Some say if you make it to floor five, there’s a real monster that eats you. Nobody’s ever come back from that point.”

“Nobody’s ever gotten to that point.” Gregory reassured.

“How many floors are there?” Somehow, Frankie was more interested now that she’d heard the implication of danger. She wanted to prove whoever was spreading such B.S. wrong. Whatever was in there, it wasn’t a real monster and it wouldn’t be anything compared to the actual life-or-death situations she’d been in.

“Nobody knows.” Percival bluntly stated. “Oh- not much of a line today.” They’d been chatting so long they hadn’t noticed they were right at the front of the artificial cave already.

The gaping mouth from which extended darkness, only lit by dim orange LED torches leading down a long staircase, it still looked like a theme park attraction. The Pop sisters weren’t scared in the slightest.

It looked like a surprisingly low-effort production, just peeking in from the outside like this. They probably could’ve run right in, with how the ride operator seemed to be distracted counting a frankly ridiculous amount of money- and not coins, either, just hard euros. And here I thought they were sticklers for immersion, Frankie thought. Must be a pretty profitable attraction. 

Oddly enough, all the people going through were still paying with park coins like every other attraction.

Past a short wait, they were allowed to go in- a few groups were allowed to enter with just a slight time buffer, but usually the first group would come back before that even happened. Of course, with that fast-moving line behind them, they were now the ones looking into the darkness. The stairway extended far, far down… into an attraction that was seemingly completely randomized and unpredictable.

“Ready to see the dungeons?” Serah turned to the confident new party members, already knowing their answer.