Chương 15: Fearing the Key

"Whoa… that's different," Dan said, as he stepped out of the tight corridor they'd been traveling down for the past twenty minutes. Oscar squeezed himself out of the corridor and saw what waited ahead. This room was wide and featured four large doors in a row. Aside from being fashioned out of some unique amber colored stone, there wasn't much to commentate on. The only true thing of note was that each door had its own unique gemstone slotted in the middle. Perhaps it'd be good loot?

Then again, looting from a dungeon created by Calus sounded like a poor idea.

"It's different from what we're used to seeing so far, but I'm not too sure I like the feeling I'm getting," Oscar said.

"But looks like we have to open one to progress. Since I like the color purple, I'm going to open the purple door. Do you object? No? Okay." The whole experience with Dorian and now this painfully boring dungeon had left Oscar's social battery close to being empty. Just like Dan had said earlier, the dungeon did in fact prevent backtracking. So, with the only option being to go forward, why waste time debating over what to do? Oscar approached the purple gemstone door and pushed at it as hard as he could.

Which had to be said wasn't very hard at all. Even still, he couldn't feel the door even offer the slightest promise of being moved.

"Hmm… Looks like there's another way to open it," Oscar muttered.

"Do you see anything that might be a mechanism for opening these doors?" After a few moments of both of them looking around, Dan called out that he couldn't see anything. Oscar hadn't seen anything either. As wide as the room was, it didn't feature a lot of interesting things in it. The only thing remotely noteworthy was the gemstones themselves, which he'd already decided on leaving alone. In a world full of magic and skills, it seemed like he was being forced to do a goddamn puzzle.

Maybe he could cut through the wall with his shadow, or… oh, right. Oscar cursed under his breath and returned to the purple gemstone door.

"[Erasure]" he said, opening his pinched hand to create the most destructive hole. He swiped his hand down and across the door and wiped away more than enough space for them to walk through. Dan whistled in response to the skill, clearly amazed, but after a moment his eyes narrowed at him.

"What class do you have? Last I checked [Erasure] was a [Painter's] skill. And while that's not the normal [Erasure] skill he had, it's not too common for a skills name to be repeated. And that's not to mention you being able to mold your shadow into a damn spear… So, what class is it?" Oscar tensed up at the accusatory tone, a little ashamed that in the back of his mind he was already preparing for a fight.

"C'mon Dan, let's not waste time talking about classes. Can we just investigate this room?" The sound of a bowstring being pulled back made Oscar completely freeze.

"Call me crazy, but I need to know who I'm traveling with. And don't lie to me, I know no normal class would have skills like yours."

"Lower the weapon and I'll tell you. I promise," Oscar said.

"Trust works both ways, and I assure you that I want us to trust one another."

"Fine, but if I see that shadow of yours begin to snake up your body… Believe me when I say that you've never seen as quick a shot as mine." Slowly and ensuring his body was as stiff as possible, Oscar turned around to face Dan.

"My companions and I didn't stumble upon this place by pure chance. We had a—""Don't believe I asked for your fucking backstory, Oscar," Dan grunted.

"Class. Now."

"You need the full story, Dan. Just shut up for a second, please," Oscar replied. He waited for Dan to protest, but when none came, he continued.

"Your friend, Dorian, was in Ascot. We were just stopping by on our way to Dynarus, but he'd taken control of the whole town." Dan spat on the ground and snarled at Oscar." Dorian took over a whole town? Do I look stupid to you? Why are you trying to craft a lie just to get out of telling me your class?" God, he desperately wished he were better at soothing people. As it was right now, he felt his anger rising at having to deal with Dan. But they were stronger together, so he might as well try and soothe his fears.

"This dungeon did something to him. He painted a whole creepy mural of those archways in one of the offices in town hall. Whatever happened to Dorian in here messed him up pretty bad. He killed tons of people in Ascot, and I… I was there when someone broke free from his control and killed him."

"H-He's dead? You lie!" Dan spat, and honoring his promise, in a flash of movement, armed and raised his bow once more.

"None of that happened! No way Dorian would hurt anyone, he's a gentle guy. All he cares about is his art! He… he wouldn't."

"I believe you, Dan, I do," Oscar said gently.

"I don't believe the Dorian I saw was the real Dorian. It was a… corrupted version. In his painting, it featured him cowering in fear in front of the dungeon's archway. We came here to investigate because none of us wanted to see someone else to become whatever Dorian had become." Dan cursed once and then lowered the bow.

"You're not lying are you? Fuck!" he cursed again.

"You're lucky it was me you told this to and not my sister. No telling what she'd have done to you…"

"We'll have to find her first, and in order to do that…"

"We have to keep moving, yeah, yeah," Dan said with a sigh.

"When we get out of here, I want to hear more about what happened with Dorian. I can tell there's more to it, but I won't press you on it for right now. We need to work together. For now." With that dispute now resolved, the two finally ventured into the purple gemstone room. The lights didn't extend inside there, so Oscar had to rely on Dan to light all the torches and candles. As light slowly began to unveil the rooms contents, neither of them were able to believe what was in front of them.

"Holy shit…" Oscar breathed out.

"What could've possibly done this?" Piled in a massive heap in the back of the room was bodies on top of bodies. Both human and monster lay together, with each sharing a common trait: not a single body in that pile had their eyes. Most of the bodies were completely devoid of anything in those vacant sockets, but there were also some with large chunks of stone jammed in. The stones chosen were far too large, resulting in ruptures in the skin around the socket.

It was like an angry toddler had gotten pissed at a shape-matching game and had just jammed shit in wherever it pleased. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Dan, who had been puking from the sight and the stench, finally recovered.

"Do you think the other rooms are the same?"

"I don't want to find out… but I think we have to," Oscar said. Using [Erasure] on the two of the other doors, they saw a similar sight in each one. One was worse than the other, but that didn't diminish how revolting the sights had been. One thing that he had noticed was that each room's ceiling feature a massive gaping hole. Gaps in the walls wasn't abnormal for this dungeon, but this one was way larger than the others. And having it be in each room signified that it wasn't just basic erosion.

Something had done that and if he had to guess… it was likely Peeper. He hadn't felt much of anything in regards to Peeper up until now. After all, he didn't know if Calus had been truthful or not. But after seeing those bodies with their eyes removed, he was beginning to believe. The last room featured a yellow gemstone. The first thing that he noticed was how much more clean this room felt. However, there was a sickening, pungent scent that lingered in the air.

As they lit the room up, they saw that this one didn't have any bodies in it at all. It did have cells, so there was that. Whatever had created that smell had long since been removed.

"Look, no ceiling hole either," Dan said, pointing up.

"With so many cells in here, I think this might've been the room that was used to contain all of those people… and monsters."

"Contain them for what?" Oscar asked.

"Until they were ready for consumption," Dan replied, his face solemn.

"I don't think they were meant to be ate, Dan," Oscar said.

"It makes no sense to just eat their eyes. If those people were being fed to… something… then it'd have devoured far more of them than just that." Dan just shrugged at him.

"I could be wrong, I know. There's a lot of weird monsters out there. Maybe the eyes are just a part of its diet?" Oscar knew he might be right, but it just didn't sound like the correct answer for this dungeon. There was also not going to be any answers in here either, so might as well continue forwards. Which, thankfully, there was another path forwards in this last room. How convenient.

"Huh, stairs. Haven't seen that yet," Oscar remarked.

"I don't wanna stay here any longer, let's go." Dan shivered once and jogged up towards where the stairs where.

"You don't need to tell me twice. This place feels less like a dungeon and more like a prison, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I can see that, but for who?" Oscar replied as he looked around the room once more. Just as he was about to begin going up the stairs, he noticed a flash of a sickly yellowish green in a hole on the wall nearest to him. His heart stopped, a slight tremor shook his knees, his brain was unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The color was so putrid he had a hard time looking at it, but he also found himself unable to look away. That was until it blinked. Oscar scrambled away and shot up the stairs."

Dan, run! There's something in the walls!" he screamed as he flew up the steep stairs. Dan didn't need to be told twice apparently as he ended up overtaking him on the stairs. The two climbed at a pace that didn't feel physically possible for two men of their size. As Oscar's lungs demanded him to slow down a bit, he chanced a glance down and saw that nothing was following them. Whatever he'd seen, it wasn't following. Confused but thankful, he went to continue up the stairs and saw Dan had stopped.

"We have to go down now? What the fuck is the place?" Dan complained.

"I hope you didn't see whatever it was you think you saw, because I need a moment to rest. Even if going down is easier, I need a breather."

"Nah, it's not following. But that just makes it feel like I'm stuck in a dream," Oscar replied.

"The way nothing makes sense and how the halls seem to be folding over on themselves at random. This place just doesn't make sense…" Dan let out a pitiful laugh suddenly.

"You know, it's funny because right before we reached the top of the stairs, I was dreading thinking about having to go down them." Oscar came to a halt and turned around to look at Dan.

"Wait, didn't you say you also imagined those spiders showing up and then they did?"

"Yeah, but this is a dungeon. Having foreign monsters isn't uncommon. I mean, having them be the only monsters that I've seen so far is odd, but…" Dan stopped speaking, seeming to have remembered something, "Before Emily and I got separated she kept complaining about my speed. Even though it was a straight corridor, she kept worrying I'd somehow lose her."

"The way I got separated from my people was from something I was thinking about as well," Oscar said.

"Every thing that has happened to me has seemingly been in response to my thoughts. I think that's the key to this place… or at least a part of it." It sounded insane to think that they were capable of summoning forth anything in here just by thinking about it. And clearly Dan felt the same, because he just awkwardly laughed at him in disbelief.

"It's a good theory and I do understand why you'd think that, but I mean… that's impossible. If that were true, then this would be the most advanced dungeon in the world, perhaps the most advanced thing in the world," Dan said. Oscar didn't mention who the creator of this dungeon was. Even for Calus this seemed far beyond him. Not that he really knew anything about what that man was truly capable of, but still.

"Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. Let's just try both imagining the same thing," Oscar said.

"What about a room with a mirror? That's simple enough to envision, yeah?" Dan reluctantly nodded.

"Fine, let's try it." Both of them closed their eyes and actively pictured the pathway ahead morphing into the room with a mirror. After a minute of intense thinking, he heard Dan sigh. Slowly, he lifted one eye and saw… nothing had changed.

"See? Theory disproved," Dan said, throwing his arms out as if to say 'I told you so'.

"Disproving a hypothesis requires more than just one approach," Oscar said.

"Maybe our thoughts only manifest if they have enough…" he paused thinking about what the answer could be, until finally he thought he had it." E motion!"

"What the fuck is a hypothesis…" Dan muttered. Ignoring him, Oscar continued.

"The spiders came because you had a deep fear of them. I fell because I feared the groundbreaking. Emily got separated from you because she feared it. The answer is fear."

"Oh… I think that's actually it," Dan admitted.

"We just need to imagine a room full of stuff that scares us to test it, right?" Oscar nodded and flashed a grin at him.

"Are you scared of goblins?" Only after speaking did he realize that maybe this world didn't have goblins, but given how Dan shuddered, they must be real.

"Only in large groups, but yeah, they can be nasty. I was thinking more like a chimera."

"A chimera? What the fuck?" Oscar asked in disbelief.

"Why would you go for something so drastic if we are manifesting it?"

"I don't know! I read a book on a pack of them attacking this city once. Just one chimera alone is capable of so much destruction. They require a highly leveled fighter to be taken down," Dan said, becoming visibly more distraught the longer he went on.

"The snake tail whipping around and striking anyone with such speed… gods, they're scary."" Stop. Thinking. About. Chimeras," Oscar hissed, but it was too late. The walls shifted, the ground quaked, and the lights flickered off for a brief moment. And when the lights turned back on, there was now a massive chamber ahead. And unfortunately, that meant that his theory had been right. Amidst around thirty or so goblins, each armed with crude weaponry from chipped swords to rusted maces, stood one singular beast.

The chimera was standard to the one Oscar had grown up with. It had the long serpent as the tail, the goat's head that protruded from the back, and the lion's head as the regular one. It was immensely more terrifying seeing it be manifested into reality than in his games. The chimera roared and swiped a paw at a goblin, completely eviscerating the body into a red mist. The tail hissed and snatched up a goblin in its maw, and the goat spewed an intense trail of fire out of it's mouth.

Dan fell backwards and began to scoot away.

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!" he shouted, "We can't kill that! We have to run!"" Dan, cool it!" Oscar whisper shouted.

"It looks like you've made it so that we were locked in with the chimera, so calm down and lets figure something out." Internally he was panicking as well, but it'd do no good to show that right now. Dan slowly rotated his head until he saw that they were in fact locked in with the monsters.

"Shit! I think that maybe I should have told you prior to trying your theory out that I'm kind of a coward…"

"I should have known that already because of that spider," Oscar said, his voice filled with resignation.

"Stand up, Dan. I'm not dying here, so I need you to lock your fears away. You don't want your sister to be alone in here, do you?" Dan picked himself up with shaky feet, but Oscar saw a bit of determination kindle itself in his eyes.

"No, I don't. She cant lose both Dorian and her brother… Not today, not ever." Oscar had a feeling that Dan might've thought that he sounded really cool and heroic, but unfortunately his voice had cracked at the end, which ultimately undermined his word's potency. Regardless, he looked somewhat more prepared for a fight now… and so did the chimera. As the chimera swatted at another goblin, the direction it had positioned it's body had made it so that the goat's head was left staring at them.

The chimera's goat head let out a grating baa, which alerted the lion's head to turn it's focus away from the weak goblins and instead onto them. Oscar felt his heart hammer away, but he did his best to push his fears away.

"[Malleable Shadow: Essence of Sword]" he said, and then he charged into the fray.