Chapter 5 - Spooky scary skeletons
Scarlett looked down the ancient stone stairway that had been hidden beneath the center of the gathering of old rocks. A streak of excitement passed through her. She had been afraid this little excursion wouldn't lead anywhere or that she would have forgotten how to find this place. But it seemed like she could consider herself lucky this time.
There had been lots of small dungeons spread around in 'Chronicle of Realms'. The area around Freybrook had at least six that she knew of. But of those she had only been relatively certain in how to find two of them. Finding one's way in the game world was very different from navigating in real life. She couldn't just press M to have a map of the area appear with location markers and all. Instead she had to rely on what landmarks she knew from the game to navigate. Thankfully this particular dungeon turned out to be rather simple to find.
In the game's lore, the Zuver was an old race that had reigned over most of Tanrelia—the continent that the game took place on—several centuries ago, but they had essentially died out after a devastating cataclysm. Zuverian artifacts were heavily sought after though, and occasionally old Zuverian ruins were still found. In the game those often had some kind of puzzle you had to figure out first before entering, usually by finding relevant passages in books and NPCs' dialogues, but they were a good source of experience and equipment throughout the game. The puzzle for this particular crypt wasn't especially hard—it was relatively low-level, after all—and only required you to find and press a few runes etched into the stones in this Stonehenge-like formation. Nothing that required any special preparation.
Scarlett turned to Kat — the Shielder that she had hired to help clear this dungeon. The woman probably wasn't too far off from Scarlett's age—somewhere in her mid-twenties—and had light blue eyes as well as sun-bleached gold hair that hung in a rough braid above her shoulder. She wore what looked to be a thin sort of gambeson beneath a light set of metal armor and part of her forehead was covered by a red-white headband. Scarlett was actually relatively tall, but Kat was taller than her and it was clear that the woman was in good shape. And although Scarlett wasn't really an authority on the subject the Shielder looked like she had experience with danger. Which made the woman's current shocked expression a little amusing to watch.
"Are you ready?" Scarlett asked, gesturing towards the stairs in front of them.
Kat gawked at her for a moment longer before turning towards the ruin's entrance. She let out a short sigh and shook her head. "Alright. Fine. Just make sure to stay a fair distance behind me at all times. If it's too dangerous we're going back."
The Shielder started to slowly make her way down the stairs. When she reached the door situated between the two metal statues of ancient zuver she turned around and looked at Scarlett. "On second thought, it might be better if you stay here. I've heard there are lots of traps in these places and I'm not sure I can protect you the whole time."
"There is no need to worry. I will be fine," Scarlett said. While she didn't actually have a way of protecting herself just yet she was moderately certain there wouldn't be any problem with this dungeon. She'd cleared it recently in her last playthrough and still remembered its layout. Up till now it had seemed like the game's world translated relatively well to this world. The largest difference she'd noticed was some changes to distances. However if there truly turned out to be major discrepancies in the layout of this dungeon compared to what she knew she would retreat.
Kat appeared unsure whether to trust her word or not but eventually she acquiesced and turned around to try and open the dungeon's door. It shifted with a loud creak to reveal a wide and dark stone hallway. After a moment small sconces with dark green crystals in them slowly lit up revealing more of the corridor. It was lined on both sides by zuver faces carved into the stone and led to a large room that looked like a kind of mausoleum. As Kat cautiously moved through the hallway Scarlett stopped her before the woman could enter the room ahead of them.
"Wait," she said. She pointed towards five sets of stone tombs at the center of the room. "Throw something at those."