Chapter XLIII – Mortals in the midst of a mystery.

The room was ever so silent, even after Brown’s question as it received no answers. Vines still coiled, the green fluid inside the glass sphere pulsated and old Brown sat and pondered. Everything he had seen up to that point, even Ayomide’s seemingly miraculous healing magic, had made a modicum of sense to him. This place? This place was a whole different thing compared to magical catgirls suddenly healing John Brown’s arm. It just made no sense, with the giant death robots and the odd green liquid, it was as alien as little green men from Pluto or the modern incarnation of Mac-and-Cheese.

While Brown was most busy with trying to sort out his befuddled state, Shinasi was making rounds around the room while searching for loot. He found the place to be alien too, but that was to be expected out of a dungeon. Such exotic rooms usually meant exotic loot, or so he had heard. Shinasi’s luck with loot wasn’t exactly great, evident from the debts he had racked up before escaping Azdavay. Thinking about it, he did hope he’d find something to sell in case he encountered one of his old ‘friends’. Buying that big jug of rakija for his trick back in the copper mine had only been possible with a fair bit of pleading and debt-making, not to mention everything from the past… It just made Shinasi’s head hurt, so he stopped thinking about it further. He always managed to make ends meet one way or another, so he thought it was futile to make his head ache for something he would manage anyways. Perhaps the old man wouldn’t notice a few groschen missing from his bag of cash?

Fortunately for our adventuring friend, it seemed that the Lord, or whoever was in charge of Gemeinplatz, had decided to grant His grace upon his sullen face. The center of the room only contained the large orb, but the corners of it had various bits of equipment… along with scattered bits of bone that Shinasi did his best to ignore. Like any good adventurer Shinasi carried a knapsack with him, and he stuffed a few small and valuable-looking items to treat himself after the fight with the giant death robot. Rings were the best, they were commonly enchanted with something-or-another that made them valuable if not for the ring itself, followed by other items of jewelry. The bits of bone on the ground didn’t need them anyways, and respect for the dead wasn’t an article of the adventurer’s code. Shinasi even begun humming a little tune while he did his collecting, which would make any outside observer think he was some sort of psychopath for being so cheerful around the fleshless remains of his fellow adventurers.

As for the catgirl in the room, she had been focusing on the green orb in the middle of the room. It looked quite mesmerizing, hues of dark and light green coming off of the liquid swimming inside it. Ayomide found herself slowly taking steps towards it out of sheer curiosity, inching ever so closer to the orb. She hesitated a bit, hovering her hand over the orb, before being unable to resist her urge to give it a gentle touch. The orb reacted to that gentle touch with a violent outburst of green light. Everyone in the room, except for Shinasi who was crouched towards the opposite direction of the orb while looting, found themselves temporarily blinded as if the fantastical equivalent of a flashbang had gone off.

The light slowly subsided, Ayomide slowly opened her eyes, and slowly she noticed that the orb was no more. In its place was a shining green gem of a similar green color, lazily floating around and bobbing up and down. Ayomide hesitated once more before grabbing this odd gem. Thankfully no fantastic flashbangs went off this time; on the contrary, the room was quite dark now that there was no odd green orb to give light.

“Who turned off the lights?” said Shinasi, turning back from his bout of looting. “I quite liked the… odd green orb.”

Brown rubbed his eyes, still unable to see properly from his eyes being so suddenly fried. He found Ayomide holding a green gem that seemed to have spontaneously appeared. “What is that, that thing in your hands, young lady?”

Ayomide shrugged. “Do I look like I know what this is? I just touched the orb.” She was already tired from all the previous magic she had done, but having light seemed really important to her. “[Luminate].” As expected, a ball of light came out; as unexpected, it came out of the gem and not her hands. It was also a whole lot brighter than it would usually be, too bright in fact. Ayomide had to focus a bit to lower the ball’s brightness down. “What the?”

“Oh, I think it’s one of those things that the magic people use to buff their spells.” Using gems and other precious materials was common amongst mages who could afford it, as Shinasi was currently attesting to. “Apparently stuff like that helps you conduct your magic better.”

“Right, right. I’ve seen those mages with their wooden sticks and orbs.” Ayomide had forgotten to ever make herself a staff, with all the other work she had to do. “Though, I think that precious gems are usually found in mines, are they not?”

All the loot in the room, the vines and the odd green orb, something finally clicked within Shinasi’s mind. “Ah! I think I know what this room is?”

“Is it a mine?” Ayomide hadn’t exactly gotten the chance to observe many mines within her lifetime.

“No, it’s not something ordinary like a mine.” Shinasi closed his knapsack full of loot before continuing. “This is… what was it called exactly… Right! A ‘dungeon core’!” He pointed towards the place where the green orb used to be. “These places are the heart of a dungeon or something like that. I don’t really know what they exactly do, to be honest. I’ve only heard rumors about such places, not went into one until now.” He looked around the room one more time. “Though, isn’t there supposed to be some big boss monster here… Oh.” He regretted saying that as soon as the sentence was finished. Setting off flags was a big no-no in Gemeinplatz, and Shinasi was sure he had set the biggest and reddest flag of all. The adventurer readied his spear and shield, ready for a boss to dramatically make its grand entrance.

“Big bad monster? I believe we already have slain one, and its corpse is standing right outside this room. Thank the Lord we finished the fight without major problems.” Brown was pretty relaxed, so was Ayomide.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Nothing is going to happen.” Ayomide laughed it away, happy that she wasn’t going to be beaten by another giant death robot or something akin to it.

“People, please…” Shinasi had only gotten more nervous. “You shouldn’t tempt fate.” His eyes were shifting around the room in anticipation of an attack.

“Don’t worry young man, our Heavenly Father is watching over us. Fate isn’t a matter which can be tempted save for the intervention of the Lord above.” Being perhaps the most fatalistic man in the universe, Brown was as calm as anyone could be.

Sometimes, the ‘intervention of the Lord above’ includes giant death robots, added Ayomide. “Let’s return then. I don’t think there’s much more in this dungeon.” All the valuables had been conveniently taken by Shinasi. “Aren’t you coming, Shinasi?”

Shinasi looked around the room a few more times, before drawing a large sigh. “Okay, maybe the robot was the boss of this room.” He put away his shield, took on a more relaxed posture, and intended to follow his party out.

However, things do tend to go south the moment one stops being alert as dictated by the rules of drama and tension. Suddenly the vines behind them began moving on their own, coalescing around the empty space left behind by the green orb. The vines quickly coiled around themselves to take on a vaguely humanoid form, and black miasma began coalescing around the ‘head’. After a while this black miasma became white and formed a plant-like shape resembling an onion with a tulip perched on top of it. This new monster looked very similar to the weaponnapper encountered by Brown and co earlier, though it was a whole lot taller and intimidating with three eyes bobbing up and down from its onion-shaped head. It quickly grabbed the leftover equipment, mostly rusted junk, from the room with its countless vines.

“Okay, what sort of thing is this?!” shouted Shinasi upon witnessing this new monster form in front of his eyes. Their path to escape was quickly blocked by thick vines.

Ayomide pointed her new gem towards the monster. “Nothing friendly, clearly.” The monster slashed a sword towards them as if to confirm her statement. Ayomide dodged to the side while keeping the gem pointed towards the humanoid weaponnapper. Its eyes had caught the attention of the catgirl. After having had her eyes blasted with light, she wanted to take revenge from the dungeon and its inhabitants. Ayomide quickly invented a new name for the spell she had in mind, using the last of her energy to chant “Everyone, close your eyes! [Luminate Spear]!”

The name of the attack sounded like it belonged to a badly-localized JRPG, but that was the norm for spell names in Gemeinplatz. Thankfully the quality of the spell name had no bearing on the spell itself, and the gem shot out a large beam of warm orange light directly towards the weaponnapper’s three eyes. Unlike Brown and Shinasi who could understand human speech, the weaponnapper had not been able to shield its eyes in time for the attack. It thrashed around, completely blind, letting its blocking vines go in confusion.

“Captain, what do we do?” Shinasi instinctively took a few steps back towards the exit with his shield pointing towards the weaponnapper.

“You see, young man and young lady.” Brown pointed his saber towards the monster. “Bravery and honor are important virtues for anyone to hold. Our Maker has sent us here to battle with various hardships in life, whether it be marital issues or giant monsters.” Shinasi looked at the old man as if he was crazy. Was he really about to charge this thing down, with all of them being already tired from the fight with the giant death robot? “But, in life, there is also no shame in noticing the fact that there is a giant onion-tulip beast about to pulverize you. So, as I’ve thoroughly learned while fighting in Kansas,” Brown took a few steps back “there is no dishonor in a tactical retreat!” Thus, old John Brown began running away along with everyone else. He was quite the sane man, and sanity dictated that one shouldn’t fight a giant onion monster after having fought a giant death robot.

Thankfully the corridor leading to the dungeon core was narrow enough that the weaponnapper couldn’t follow them, save for a few vines doing their best to snatch someone up. Shinasi and Brown poked and prodded the vines while running, and Ayomide did her best to conserve all her remaining little energy to running. Eventually they were out once again into the great outdoors, where there was plenty of fresh air and none of giant death robots.