Chương 68: 68 Loop 2, Part 22

It took us about twenty minutes to make it back to Flag. Unfortunately, the barrier on the balcony had reappeared after the fight. I couldn't just hop down and have Finn cast [Bounce] on me. I was also so far in the red that I couldn't even really afford to cast [Stride]. So I was stuck doing things the awful way. I walked. It was the worst twenty minutes of the entire dungeon. My legs had spent the last hour keeping a very detailed record of every step I had forced them to take.

And now was the time they chose to complain about things. My calves hurt. My knees hurt. Something in my left hip was beating out a drum of protest. And there were a lot of dead treants we'd had to climb over. The dungeon had also failed to provide basic quality-of-life features, like railings, or benches, or moving platforms, or any other basic accommodations for the physically exhausted. I checked my mana again, and it was still in the red.

I checked it a minute later, on the off chance mana regenerated faster when you were miserable. There still wasn't enough to cast [Stride]. I sighed. Finn was quiet the entire time we walked back. He carried the crank over his shoulder, but he floated behind me. And the only thing keeping me from glaring daggers at his stupid floating back was the fact that he was the one staring at mine. By the time we made it back down to Flag, the ground had gone from soaked to muddy to squishy.

My boots were covered with ash and gunk and debris, and the trees weren't doing much better. Most were blackened all the way up their trunks, while others had been knocked sideways or ripped out of the ground entirely. And then there was the crater. It took up a good chunk of the entire clearing. There was an enormous hole where the battery had gone off, surrounded by broken stone, exposed roots, and several trees that had ended up much farther from where they'd started.

Flag was waiting on the other with the golems. We picked our way around the edge of the crater to reach them. Water had collected in its lowest part, forming a small, muddy lake. Smoke still curled off one of the fallen trees nearby, but there wasn't much to worry about fire-wise. The fourteen golems stood together on the least destroyed patch of ground. Perfectly fine. Against everything else in the room, they looked normal.

"Thank you for saving our golems, Flag."

"Oh, no problem. I like being helpful." I paused. I didn't want to have this conversation, but I figured now was as good a time as any.

"When did the dungeon start talking to you?"

"When we came in," he said. Flag looked between us and our shocked expressions. He was learning fast that this was serious.

"Is that a bad thing?" I thought back to the entrance, when Flag had said hello to the dungeon. I had thought it was just Flag being Flag. Apparently, the dungeon had said hello first. I felt like that was information I would have enjoyed knowing ten hours ago.

"Flag?"

"Yeah?"

"When an enormous, ancient dungeon talks to you, well, that's the kind of thing you mention."

"Oh." He paused, thinking.

"I didn't know, and you didn't ask." Finn made a strangled noise behind us.

"Flag, nobody thinks to ask if the dungeon is talking to you. It didn't talk to any of us." I said.

"Maybe we should start asking." I hated how reasonable that was going forward.

"Does the voice sound like the dungeon announcements?" Finn asked.

"Oh, no. Those are much louder."

"Then what does it sound like?" Flag considered this seriously.

"Old and wise. He's sort of everywhere when he talks. But it isn't loud." Flag was as still as… well, a mannequin.

"More like when you're in a cave or alone, and someone talks, and the sound echoes. Echo, echo." He cupped his mannequin hands and mimicked making the echo noise.

"And he's been doing this the whole time?"

"Mostly. He just asks questions."

"I see. What sort of questions?"

"Oh, it's been grading you. Both of you." We glanced at each other, and then back at Flag.

"It's been grading both of you since the water tunnels. Before that, it was mostly describing things to me and telling me where to go. It's why I chose the tunnel I did. But he wouldn't tell me what the root meant. But after we left, it started giving grades." His mannequin hands came up in front of him, and he started playing with the digits.

"Would you like to know what he's given you?" The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"No," I said immediately—but at the same time Finn said, "Yes."

"Finn, we don't have time for this."

"I want to know how I did, Laz."

"You're a straight A student and never once have you needed to know how you performed."

"He wants me to talk about Finn first," Flag said, ignoring both of our questions.

"He says Finn is performing above expectations, and received an A-, which I think is very good. I'm so proud of him." Finn smiled and asked, "What did I do to earn an A-?"

"The dungeon didn't expect you to use mobile wards the way you did. But he thought using the fireball was a waste. He also said that with all of your talents, you should have been able to more easily handle those monsters without using that spell."

"Did the dungeon say what I could've done instead?"

"No." Finn's ears went red, which was something he did when he was either embarrassed or frustrated. Given the situation, I was sure it was both.

"Oh. But Lazlo. He's mad at you, you know."

"I've decided I don't need to hear this. Let's keep walking. It's been a long day and I think we've all earned some rest," I said, hoping to skirt the discussion.

"He's giving you a failing grade."

"Okay." I shrugged and kept walking.

"He says the way you've solved every room has been a repetitive cheat. Oh, and that you could have been more creative with that cheating."

"I don't really care if I got a failing grade. All I care about is getting out of here."

"Oh, he also tells me to tell you that he's giving you a second grade. That one you barely passed."

"And what's the second grade?"

"Laziness." Finn laughed.

"And I barely passed?"

"He's giving you a C." I was mad. Laziness was my thing, and this washed up, no-good excuse for a dungeon that I could solve with my eyes closed had the audacity to critique me?

"That's ridiculous. I've never earned better than a D in my entire life," I deflected.

"He says you've shown excellent instincts so far, but your commitment to being lazy is terrible. You found a chair so you wouldn't have to walk anywhere, and then used it as a weapon, forcing yourself to be stuck without that chair. You cast [Float] multiple times, and then canceled it, and then cast it again, wasting effort and mana. He says the correct number of times to cast that spell, for someone with your philosophy, was once."

He paused, and then said the last part with all the subtlety of giving a hand crank to a lazy mage—which was, to state, none.

"The dungeon called you a hobbyist. I asked what that meant, because I wasn't sure. And he said you'd know." A hobbyist? Ouch. I didn't say anything. Everyone was staring at me, and I could feel them waiting for a response. So I just kept walking instead. The worst part about the dungeon's whole speaking-through-Flag routine was I couldn't find the lie in it. He was right. I had been lazy about being lazy. A funny kind of irony, if you thought about it. But this couldn't stand.

It was the first time I had ever been graded on my laziness. I prided myself on my ability to laze around, to not put in the work. And here I was, trying to solve a dungeon. Damn, Lazlo, what did you do to yourself? I wasn't going to take this standing up. So I did what I always did when the effort outweighed the reward. I walked away. Flag and Finn continued talking for a while before Finn finally realized I had wandered off.

"Laz. Stop." I didn't stop.

"Laz, I'm serious." Finn floated up alongside me, and then he got in my way. Which was cheating, because I was on foot and he wasn't.

"You can't just walk away from us."

"I mean, I can. And I did." I looked at Finn, and he looked just as tired as I felt.

"I'm exhuasted, and this dungeon's just being an asshole."

"Flag is speaking to the thing that built everything here. It's been talking to him for ten hours, and it knows where the fucking keys are, and what the rooms do. And because it insulted your laziness, you're running away? C'mon, man." He wasn't even angry. He was just done.

"We've barely got twenty-four hours left. And who knows how much more there is to this place? We need the dungeon's help."

"Help? It didn't answer a single question. All it did was hand out fucking grades. If I wanted to be graded, I'd be back on the surface in Professor Mela's class."

"Well, maybe if you had stopped to ask it real questions, it would have helped us."

"So what? We're doing more than fine. I don't know why you're so worried."

"We need information." He was practically pleading with me.

"Fine." I turned to Flag.

"Ask him where the last two keys are."

"Oh, I did that already," Flag said.

"But he said no."

"Okay, then ask him what the next boss is."

"He said no to that, too. He said the point of a dungeon is that you don't know." Flag tilted his head.

"He said he'd tell you about the reward, though. He's been holding on to that information. I think he's excited." Finn shot me a look that I decided to interpret as a good thing.

"He says the reward for this floor is unique to each person. It isn't just your heart's deepest desire. It isn't what you want, but something you need. And he says you should know now instead of at the end, because most people get upset when they can't think how to use the reward they receive. He never likes it when they're upset. It feels like he goes to so much trouble giving people what they desire, and nobody ever thanks him for it."

"So it's not a spell. And it won't fix all my problems. But it's something I need and desire. It's all I desire right now, isn't it?"

"He says that's a cop-out. I don't know what a cop-out is," Flag said.

"Oh. Okay. Thank you, Mister Dungeon." Flag actually waved goodbye—though at what part of the dungeon, I didn't quite know. Finn froze beside me, unsure what to say. And you know what? I couldn't blame him. This conversation felt like a waste of time. Honestly, the whole dungeon felt like it now that I knew the deepest desire wasn't going to be what I really needed. I didn't know why I'd expected anything different.

"Look," I said to Finn and Flag.

"We need to go back to the entrance and rest. And not just because I'm being lazy. Finn's almost out of mana. I'm actually out of mana. And we need to figure out how we're going to clear the rest of the dungeon."

"The dungeon says he's bored of talking. And that he probably won't do it again." I shrugged and started walking to the entrance. Nobody argued, which told me how bad off we all were. Axe, who oddly hadn't said a word during the entire exchange, just followed behind us, silent as a lamb. We went back the way we'd come, golems falling in line behind us. Past the crater, past the door, and out into the entrance hall. Finn set the crank down in the center of the dungeon, like it would break apart if he didn't.

Forest half and flooded half were both still. And serene. It was one of those surreal moments where everything felt so peaceful and disconnected from the chaos the last couple of hours had been. I picked a dry patch of dirt and laid down. I wasn't going to meditate, no matter how much time it would waste. I needed sleep.