CHAPTER 73: DESCENDING THE DUNGEON

Thud!

Marron hit the stone floor face first. The air was knocked out of her and for a moment, her vision blurred around the edges. She coughed and tasted dust and grit on her tongue. She got up and checked her limbs.

Bunch of bruises and scrapes, but...thankfully nothing’s broken...where’s Lucy?

"Lucy? Lucy!" she croaked, looking at the dark ceiling she’d fallen through. But there was no familiar burble, or warm tendril wrapped around her wrist in comfort.

At this point, I think I’d take the injury over this silence. And it’s so dark...

Her stomach turned to ice. Mokko was gone, too. All of them were above. She was the only one who had fallen.

For the first time since she arrived in Savoria, Marron was completely alone.

+

She sat in the dark until her eyes adjusted to her current environment, and then slowly started to walk around. Marron barely walked ten steps when she stepped on her pack.

It felt miraculously intact, and she picked it up, fingers shaking as she tried to catalog the items inside.

There’s my knives...some ingredients...the tinderbox is okay!

She remembered how the old woman had pressed the silk-wrapped tinderbox into her hands, and clutched it like a lifeline.

One strike.

Two.

Come on...!

On the third, a spark caught. Quickly, she looked at where she landed before the lights went out again.

Looks like a storeroom of some kind...at least no one else is here with me.

She fed it into a strip of oiled cloth until a wavering flame sputtered to life. Marron wedged it into a broken crack of wood to form a makeshift torch.

The light bled outward, revealing her location. It was a storeroom made with wooden slats built into a cavern. The walls were damp, as if the rock itself was sweating. Besides the hole she had made by falling through the storeroom, it looked abandoned.

The smell of mold clung to everything, and beneath it was a sharp undercurrent of iron. Despite that, a faintly sweet odor lingered, like rotting fruit. It told her that the dungeon was alive, and hungry.

Whoever had made this storeroom was long gone, but they had left boxes full of oiled cloth.

Was this place used by a merchant? Or just someone who knew how to cut and oil cloth, and kept it safe...

Marron grabbed as many wrapped oil cloths as she could carry and put them into her pack. Then she forced herself forward.

Each step crunched against gravel, the echo traveling far too long in the silence. Her breath rasped loud in her own ears, and she realized how dangerous the noise could be.

Predators could’ve heard me from a mile away.

Part of her insisted that silence was much worse.

+

The tunnel narrowed, forcing her to crouch, the damp rock brushing her back. The air grew warmer and heavier. She could hear water dripping somewhere ahead, steady as a metronome.

Then she heard a dragging shuffle from beyond the tunnel.

Marron froze. The torch shook in her grip, its flame painting long shadows across the rock.

It sounded like a pair of muffled boots that disrupted the puddles of water on the ground.

And then a soft rip echoed in the tunnel.

Whoever it was snagged their clothing on something.

Her heart hammered.

And then, it emerged from the dark.

A man-shape.

His clothes were ragged, his skin pale as wax, his eyes faintly glowing. There was a blank expression on his face, like an unfinished mask.

Absolutely unremarkable.

A mimic.

The thing tilted its head, staring at her with unblinking eyes. Then it spoke, smiling, and headed toward her.

"Congee."

Her blood ran cold.

The mimic shuffled closer, its voice twisting. "Healing... congee. Warm. Adventurers... satisfied."

Her throat locked.

My food. My words.

He’s repeating things I’ve said before.

The mimic’s face rippled, features melting until she saw her own reflection grinning back. Her pink eyes, her mouth, her trembling jaw—

"No," Marron whispered.

She hurled the torch at it. Fire splashed across its chest, and for one horrifying second she saw its true form—gray flesh writhing, limbs too long, too soft.

It screeched without sound, the vibration crawling across her skin. Then it vanished back into the shadows, leaving only the stink of smoke behind.

Marron collapsed against the wall, knife trembling in her grip.

Ding!

Mimic has been slain.

200 XP earned.

Bonus: 200 XP for a non-combat class landing the killing blow.

Her heart hammered.

Completely alone in a place crawling with monsters.

"And I just killed one with a torch. Great."

[Congratulations on your win, dear chef.]

Marron had the strongest urge to imagine her System was a machine, just so she could kick it.

Instead of doing that, though, she just walked onward.

She could upgrade herself later. There was no telling whether monsters could see the light from the notifications.

+

The torch burned low as she pressed deeper into the dungeon. Gradually, the air smelled less moldy.

Ugh, thank god. I didn’t think I’d last this long with the mold smell...but...now it smells more like dried spices?

A thin haze curled along the cavern ceiling, glowing faintly orange with reflected firelight.

It was the telltale steam of someone cooking.

Her mouth went dry.

She followed the scent until she stumbled into another chamber. A firepit burned at the center, smoke curling lazily upward. Suspended above it, a crude iron pot simmered.

Her legs wobbled.

She knew that smell. Garlic browning, rice breaking down into a creamy porridge. The faint sharpness of ginger.

Her healing congee.

But it wasn’t made by her hands.

Marron approached on shaking legs and looked inside. Rice bubbled, steam rising. It looked perfect.

She reached with the System.

Ding.

[Congee]

It’s better than nothing.

Restores 2 HP.

Pathetic.

Her throat ached. The congee she made healed people and closed their injuries.

This is just sludge pretending to be helpful.

Her cart was in here somewhere, feeding this monster. And if she didn’t reclaim it, this dungeon would consume her identity as easily as it had Juno’s.

+

The path downward grew steeper, forcing her to brace her hand against the wall. Marron nearly slipped and, just before her torch gave out, she lit a new one.

Her feet were screaming for a break, but she pressed on. Every step dragged her deeper into the dungeon. She was thankful she hadn’t run into a monster since the last mimic.

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. The dungeon warped time as easily as space.

Finally, the tunnel opened into another cavern.

Marron’s breath caught.

Wheel tracks. Fresh gouges cut into the stone, pressed deep by Comfort & Crunch’s familiar wheels.

They led directly toward a set of massive stone doors bound in iron, glowing faintly with etched wards.

Marron pressed her palm to the door. The stone pulsed faintly beneath her touch, like the beat of a buried heart.

Her cart was behind this. She could feel it.

And something else was waiting.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She tightened her grip on the knife, lifted the torch higher.

Then, with a shaky breath, she pushed the doors open.