| As a dungeon grows and becomes established, the more obvious a destination it becomes for the wild animals of the region, who are innately drawn to the high-magic zones surrounding dungeons' exteriors. Following them, come monsters on the hunt, who are chasing after the animals. In turn, the people of the civilized world, humans, elves and so on, will be drawn to the area in their pursuits of wild monsters. This is generally how a dungeon is discovered. Given the danger involved in such places appearing around villages and cities, once marked, a never before-seen dungeon is able to be reported back to a local adventurers’ guild for a considerable reward upon confirmation of the claim. From this point on, it will be determined by the local councils and regents of the domain if the dungeon is a threat to their people, or if it offers a potential boon for their prosperity. Many cities find their wealth flowing from dungeons, which adventurers from that region regularly plunder as their source of income. They thereby provide the city with incredible amounts of materials, both mundane and rare. Should the dungeon be considered a greater threat than a help, a professional extermination team of adventurers of an appropriate rank will be sent out to destroy the dungeon-core, thereby removing the source of the dungeon’s magic. |
~ Expert from Clericia Salvador’s ‘Lay of the Land’, chapter three, ‘of dungeons’
Isaiah sits on its roost, staring down at the figure laying there atop the tower, leaned against the very-big-tree.
Water pours down from above and Isaiah pulls its wings in tighter. Rain.
Lifting its gaze, it stares towards the distant, dark clouds that linger above the world. They seem so heavy and large. It almost feels like they should pull the sky down closer to the ground. But they don’t.
It doesn’t really know what to do with the dark-elf.
The original idea would be to just have her thrown out into the forest again. But then the rain had started and Isaiah got a bad conscience. It would be rude to throw somebody out into the forest during a storm.
That someone is an intruder, sure. But Isaiah gets the feeling that the dark-elf isn’t really too aware of her surroundings or her actions. She’s just some stumbling drunk, who probably got lost in the forest.
— This can hardly be called an intrusion, right?
Thunder cracks loudly and rolls across the sky.
The other idea was to just put her in the hot-spring again. There’s at least a roofed section there. But Isaiah gets the feeling that she would just end up in the water. The woman has an odd tendency to -
Isaiah turns its head, staring at the stranger. It blinks. “Red!” sighs Isaiah.
“Yeah?” asks the red-uthra. “What? Oh.” It follows Isaiah’s gaze, looking at the dark-elf. She had been leaning against the very-big-tree, but now she seems to have slid and flopped over sideways. Her face lays in a collecting puddle of rainwater. Bubbles come out from the sides of it, as her body tries to breathe without her input on the matter.
The uthra sighs, flying down and propping her back up again.
“There. Can I get back to work now?” it asks.
Isaiah nods, thinking for a moment. What was Red even doing again? It had told it to stop collecting food and then to go do its own thing, but ever since then, it hasn’t heard a peep about its progress. “What is your work?”
“Well at first I was taking a break,” it says. “But then I saw White starting to make some tunnels, so I’m digging out a food-storage area, beneath the river.”
“Kitchen,” says Isaiah, nodding in approval. A food storage area is a good idea. It will be a shame to always have to throw away so much, especially as they expand. Plus some monsters will need to eat now and then too, right?
“A kitchen? Sure, whatever,” replies Red. “That'll count as an area upgrade for the fire-pit.”
Isaiah nods, sending it away.
The storm continues, howling, as a furious wind rises in the north, tearing through the forest, tearing through the pouring rain and the limbs of the tree. Thunder shakes the world.
Isaiah watches as the dark-elf rouses from her latest sleep.
| ~ [Rorate] ~ |
She hates it here.
Rain roars all around her. She hears it crashing against stones and wood, hammering against the world with a force that is unfortunately not enough to simply wash it all away.
Rorate doesn’t really know where she is, but that isn’t unusual. She doesn’t really ever know why she’s anywhere, or why her clothes are damp and wet, or even why she’s woken up again.
But that all also isn’t unusual.
This is simply what her life is at the moment, rain or shine. Her body fails her often and her mind continues to do so as well. She has no idea where she’s been or what she’s done for the last few days and it’s really better that way.
Those things are all fine. That’s the point, after all.
She still has enough mushroom juice left to get through the rest of the week and by then, her body should have burned through its fat stores and she’ll starve, if the elements and monsters don’t get to her first.
The dark-elf lifts her weak hand, lifting the bottle again. Its effects are enjoyable, to say the least. This mushroom-brew, that she had bought from that witch on the other side of the forest, is certainly a pleasant solution to her problem of being alive. The best part is how it makes her laugh about it.
It’s a strange thing.
Maybe a day, maybe two more at most.
She holds it to her lips, taking a small gulp of the several day’s old mushroom-brew. It tastes like sour dirt. It’s like someone rubbed a lemon on the bark of a tree and gave it to her to chew.
Opening her eyes, Rorate stares up at the sky, waiting for the giggles to kick in, so that she can survive another day in joy, before she finally succumbs to weakness and dies.
The storm clouds offer little humor.
But as the tepid liquid hits her stomach, as the surge of exhausting warmth pushes through her body from her gut, rising to her eyes, which dilate, staring up towards the clouds, she sees the most hilarious thing imaginable and lets out a wild howl, pointing at the odd cloud.
— It looks a lot like a duck.
How ridiculous!
She flops over, holding her stomach, the bottle at her side as she looks and laughs. The cloud shifts from the shape of a duck to that of a goose.
The joke is that both of these are clearly inferior birds to the noble chicken.
She wishes that the cloud would have been a chicken and the fact that it isn’t is the funniest thing in the entire world for her right now.
Heavy rain pours into her open mouth, as she stares up towards the sky, which starts to spin and to warp, twisting together and coming apart again in a collage of thousands of collars and movements. Shapes begin to swirl and flow and so do her perceptions, as she feels her body begin to float.
— Something rustles in the trees.
Rorate turns her head. A goblin? A mush-mush? Maybe something is finally going to eat her and end this?
As she looks, Rorate realizes many things, all at once.
Her hands, limp, graze the odd grass of the elevated surface that she lays on top of.
Rain pours into her eyes, stinging like nettles and fogging her vision constantly. She isn’t in the forest. There is only one, single tree here.
A presence.
She really isn’t alone.
Her eyes look at the thing hovering above herself. A thousand colors converge and condense, a thousand shapes move and sway, as an otherworldly creature looms over head. Its image is disturbed by the warping of her mind, imbued by the witch’s hallucinogenic mushroom-brew.
A pale, porcelain monstrosity sits on an otherworldly tree, catching the storm above her body. The creature, for her muddled perception, has a thousand wings and a thousand arms and all of them move in a strange, flowing synchronicity. It lifts them all at once, gesturing towards her in a slow, passive movement.
Lightning flashes behind it, exemplifying the silhouette of the divine entity.
It croons, letting out a bird-like, but deeply resounding, calm voice. “Be not afraid,” says the creature of ten-thousand faces.
Rorate is clearly afraid.
Her body shakes. Her fingers twitch. Her throat clenches tightly shut in a quick spasm, causing her breathing to fail. She chokes, drowning in the rain, which continues to pour into her gaping mouth.
The entity lowers itself down from the tree, seemingly unbothered and a swarm of beautiful lights of many vibrant colors hovers just behind its terrifying and magnificent wings, which are as many as the branches of the trees in the forest.
Water has collected beneath herself in a puddle, mixing in with the leaking of her flask and her body.
A pair of strong hands grabs Rorate, lifting her from the baptizing pool.
“I am Isaiah,” says the voice, coming into her spinning head with a deep reverberance. “— Be not afraid.”
Rorate loses herself to the mushroom-brew and her eyes fall into darkness.
| As a dungeon grows and becomes established, the more obvious a destination it becomes for the wild animals of the region, who are innately drawn to the high-magic zones surrounding dungeons' exteriors. Following them, come monsters on the hunt, who are chasing after the animals. In turn, the people of the civilized world, humans, elves and so on, will be drawn to the area in their pursuits of wild monsters. This is generally how a dungeon is discovered. Given the danger involved in such places appearing around villages and cities, once marked, a never before-seen dungeon is able to be reported back to a local adventurers’ guild for a considerable reward upon confirmation of the claim. From this point on, it will be determined by the local councils and regents of the domain if the dungeon is a threat to their people, or if it offers a potential boon for their prosperity. Many cities find their wealth flowing from dungeons, which adventurers from that region regularly plunder as their source of income. They thereby provide the city with incredible amounts of materials, both mundane and rare. Should the dungeon be considered a greater threat than a help, a professional extermination team of adventurers of an appropriate rank will be sent out to destroy the dungeon-core, thereby removing the source of the dungeon’s magic. |
~ Expert from Clericia Salvador’s ‘Lay of the Land’, chapter three, ‘of dungeons’
Isaiah sits on its roost, staring down at the figure laying there atop the tower, leaned against the very-big-tree.
Water pours down from above and Isaiah pulls its wings in tighter. Rain.
Lifting its gaze, it stares towards the distant, dark clouds that linger above the world. They seem so heavy and large. It almost feels like they should pull the sky down closer to the ground. But they don’t.
It doesn’t really know what to do with the dark-elf.
The original idea would be to just have her thrown out into the forest again. But then the rain had started and Isaiah got a bad conscience. It would be rude to throw somebody out into the forest during a storm.
That someone is an intruder, sure. But Isaiah gets the feeling that the dark-elf isn’t really too aware of her surroundings or her actions. She’s just some stumbling drunk, who probably got lost in the forest.
— This can hardly be called an intrusion, right?
Thunder cracks loudly and rolls across the sky.
The other idea was to just put her in the hot-spring again. There’s at least a roofed section there. But Isaiah gets the feeling that she would just end up in the water. The woman has an odd tendency to -
Isaiah turns its head, staring at the stranger. It blinks. “Red!” sighs Isaiah.
“Yeah?” asks the red-uthra. “What? Oh.” It follows Isaiah’s gaze, looking at the dark-elf. She had been leaning against the very-big-tree, but now she seems to have slid and flopped over sideways. Her face lays in a collecting puddle of rainwater. Bubbles come out from the sides of it, as her body tries to breathe without her input on the matter.
The uthra sighs, flying down and propping her back up again.
“There. Can I get back to work now?” it asks.
Isaiah nods, thinking for a moment. What was Red even doing again? It had told it to stop collecting food and then to go do its own thing, but ever since then, it hasn’t heard a peep about its progress. “What is your work?”
“Well at first I was taking a break,” it says. “But then I saw White starting to make some tunnels, so I’m digging out a food-storage area, beneath the river.”
“Kitchen,” says Isaiah, nodding in approval. A food storage area is a good idea. It will be a shame to always have to throw away so much, especially as they expand. Plus some monsters will need to eat now and then too, right?
“A kitchen? Sure, whatever,” replies Red. “That'll count as an area upgrade for the fire-pit.”
Isaiah nods, sending it away.
The storm continues, howling, as a furious wind rises in the north, tearing through the forest, tearing through the pouring rain and the limbs of the tree. Thunder shakes the world.
Isaiah watches as the dark-elf rouses from her latest sleep.
| ~ [Rorate] ~ |
She hates it here.
Rain roars all around her. She hears it crashing against stones and wood, hammering against the world with a force that is unfortunately not enough to simply wash it all away.
Rorate doesn’t really know where she is, but that isn’t unusual. She doesn’t really ever know why she’s anywhere, or why her clothes are damp and wet, or even why she’s woken up again.
But that all also isn’t unusual.
This is simply what her life is at the moment, rain or shine. Her body fails her often and her mind continues to do so as well. She has no idea where she’s been or what she’s done for the last few days and it’s really better that way.
Those things are all fine. That’s the point, after all.
She still has enough mushroom juice left to get through the rest of the week and by then, her body should have burned through its fat stores and she’ll starve, if the elements and monsters don’t get to her first.
The dark-elf lifts her weak hand, lifting the bottle again. Its effects are enjoyable, to say the least. This mushroom-brew, that she had bought from that witch on the other side of the forest, is certainly a pleasant solution to her problem of being alive. The best part is how it makes her laugh about it.
It’s a strange thing.
Maybe a day, maybe two more at most.
She holds it to her lips, taking a small gulp of the several day’s old mushroom-brew. It tastes like sour dirt. It’s like someone rubbed a lemon on the bark of a tree and gave it to her to chew.
Opening her eyes, Rorate stares up at the sky, waiting for the giggles to kick in, so that she can survive another day in joy, before she finally succumbs to weakness and dies.
The storm clouds offer little humor.
But as the tepid liquid hits her stomach, as the surge of exhausting warmth pushes through her body from her gut, rising to her eyes, which dilate, staring up towards the clouds, she sees the most hilarious thing imaginable and lets out a wild howl, pointing at the odd cloud.
— It looks a lot like a duck.
How ridiculous!
She flops over, holding her stomach, the bottle at her side as she looks and laughs. The cloud shifts from the shape of a duck to that of a goose.
The joke is that both of these are clearly inferior birds to the noble chicken.
She wishes that the cloud would have been a chicken and the fact that it isn’t is the funniest thing in the entire world for her right now.
Heavy rain pours into her open mouth, as she stares up towards the sky, which starts to spin and to warp, twisting together and coming apart again in a collage of thousands of collars and movements. Shapes begin to swirl and flow and so do her perceptions, as she feels her body begin to float.
— Something rustles in the trees.
Rorate turns her head. A goblin? A mush-mush? Maybe something is finally going to eat her and end this?
As she looks, Rorate realizes many things, all at once.
Her hands, limp, graze the odd grass of the elevated surface that she lays on top of.
Rain pours into her eyes, stinging like nettles and fogging her vision constantly. She isn’t in the forest. There is only one, single tree here.
A presence.
She really isn’t alone.
Her eyes look at the thing hovering above herself. A thousand colors converge and condense, a thousand shapes move and sway, as an otherworldly creature looms over head. Its image is disturbed by the warping of her mind, imbued by the witch’s hallucinogenic mushroom-brew.
A pale, porcelain monstrosity sits on an otherworldly tree, catching the storm above her body. The creature, for her muddled perception, has a thousand wings and a thousand arms and all of them move in a strange, flowing synchronicity. It lifts them all at once, gesturing towards her in a slow, passive movement.
Lightning flashes behind it, exemplifying the silhouette of the divine entity.
It croons, letting out a bird-like, but deeply resounding, calm voice. “Be not afraid,” says the creature of ten-thousand faces.
Rorate is clearly afraid.
Her body shakes. Her fingers twitch. Her throat clenches tightly shut in a quick spasm, causing her breathing to fail. She chokes, drowning in the rain, which continues to pour into her gaping mouth.
The entity lowers itself down from the tree, seemingly unbothered and a swarm of beautiful lights of many vibrant colors hovers just behind its terrifying and magnificent wings, which are as many as the branches of the trees in the forest.
Water has collected beneath herself in a puddle, mixing in with the leaking of her flask and her body.
A pair of strong hands grabs Rorate, lifting her from the baptizing pool.
“I am Isaiah,” says the voice, coming into her spinning head with a deep reverberance. “— Be not afraid.”
Rorate loses herself to the mushroom-brew and her eyes fall into darkness.
