Chapter 73 – Sorry but the room is fully booked.
Neither Newmill nor I knew how to respond to that answer. It filled me with a warm and fuzzy feeling that I hadn’t felt for a long time. I didn’t want to speak for fearing of changing the topic and being unable to enjoy this pleasantness longer.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” said Penrin. The softness with which she spoke her last sentence had all but disappeared. “Shouldn’t you be telling some stupid joke right about now?”
“Not this time.” I patted her on the head. “I enjoy your company too.” Despite her thorny personality, Penrin was quite a sweet girl underneath. I wondered how different she would be if her circumstances were different.
She swatted my hand away. “I’ve already told you before to stop patronising me.”
The moment was interrupted by the rattling of bones in the distance. The next group of skeletons appeared and were dealt with quite handedly by the team. Employing tactics, Penrin and Newmill were able to dispatch all the coming adversaries without my help. Not that my help would’ve done any good.
With the skeletons defeated, we entered a nearby room. It was about as spacious as the main hall that we Earthlings resided in. There were books and booklets on bookshelves and bookcases. I buckled up to look through the room of books for anything that took my fancy, with any luck.
“Hey, I found a chest!” said Newmill.
The three of us gathered over to inspect it. A large wooden chest was tucked away in the corner. A metal lock kept it firmly shut. Before picking the lock, I asked Penrin to see if she could smash it open. She put her entire might into a blow but couldn’t even cause the wood to splinter.
“Everything within a dungeon is much sturdier than you would think,” explained Newmill. “The dungeon creates these chests, so the wood is not normal. Even these crumbling walls are difficult to break through, despite how weak they look.”
What Newmill said did answer many questions I had in my mind. Like who kept the torches alight in the dungeon, since it didn’t seem as if they were fuelled by runes? Why were there so many human skeletons? If they really were dead humans, wouldn’t their families want the bodies retrieved? Wasn’t it possible to dig other entrances?
If the answer was that the dungeon created it such, then it all made sense.
I put my Lockpicker title to use and unlocked the chest. A lock of this easy difficulty was not a challenge for me. Upon opening it, white gas shot directly into my face. I didn’t have the reflexes to dodge and I ended up inhaling it. I coughed to get it out of my lungs, but it was too late.
[Status effect: Senseless]
Newmill and Penrin were thankfully out of the gas’ range. They still covered their mouths. “Oh no!” said Newmill. “This is senseless smoke.”
“Are you alright, Yarm?” asked Penrin.
“I’m fine,” I said. The gas had afflicted me with something, but I didn’t know what it was. I scrolled through my System to find the status effect menu.
“I know what this is,” said Newmill. “It’s called senseless smoke. When someone is hit by it, they lose all common sense. Luckily, it looks like Yarm immediately used his Cleanse skill, otherwise he would have no common sense right about now.”
What was he talking about? I didn’t use any skill, and I didn’t feel any different. Slowly the realisation clicked in my mind. Did I not feel any different because I had no common sense in the first place? I verified that the status effect did as Newmill said and then became saddened.
“That’s some good quick-thinking, Yarm. Well done for using Cleanse so fast,” she said.
The praise fell on me like hail. To distract myself from the pain, I cleansed myself and then rummaged through the chest. Inside it there was 120 GP, a skeleton hand holding up a middle finger, and a magic wand.
It was an understatement to say I was disappointed. “I guess we can split the money equally and whoever wants the rest can have it.”
“You want to split the money?” asked Penrin.
I held up my hands. “I know I didn’t help in the fights, but I did pay the entrance fee. Can’t I have a little something?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Penrin picked up the skeleton hand and inspected it. “I have no need of the money. You can have my share. I’ll be happy to take any cool weapons though.”
Newmill said, “Same here. I don’t really need the GP, but the wand looks nice. I’ll take it if no one else wants it.”
“That works for me,” I said. I sort of felt bad that I was taking the fruits of their labour, but if they didn’t want the money then there was no helping it.
Newmill gave me some encouragement by saying, “Also, don’t count out your contribution, Yarm. If you weren’t here, we could have never even opened this chest. And if we did, we would have lost our common sense without your skill.”
“Please stop mentioning me using the Cleanse skill.” It was getting on my nerves. The three of us explored the rest of the room. There was nothing else of worth anywhere to be found.
“I suppose we should move on,” said Penrin.
“Don’t be so hasty,” I said. By my estimation, there were around 40 or so books in this room. Some short and a few long. It would take approximately 10 minutes for me to read them all, so I did. “Let’s take a rest in here while I read.”
Penrin and Newmill got to munching on their snacks and curiously watched me read through book after book.
The first one I read was a logbook of an adventurer that came to explore the dungeon. They detailed that the skeletons were weak to bludgeoning weapons. There was also a crude map scrawled onto a double page. Most of the book was the adventurer reminiscing about their life outside the dungeon. The last page was coated in blood.
The next book was a series of dungeon related riddles. I told a few of them to my teammates, but they didn’t have as much talent in answering them as I did.
Another book described the anatomy of skeletons and their movements. The part concerning their movements was exactly what I had figured out by watching them. But it did teach me a little more about the intricacies of their movement patterns.
The next book was scary. The entirety of it was the exact same. The left page had the word ‘GET’ written on it, and the right page had ‘OUT’. I flipped through the pages quickly. ‘GET OUT’ ‘GET OUT’ ‘GET OUT’. I was treating it like a flip book, but when I flipped past a certain page there was the face of a man, twisted and contorted in agony. I threw the book away in surprise. I looked over at the curious faces of my teammates and calmed down a little.
I picked the book back up and tried to find the page, but strangely, it wasn’t there anymore. I had sworn I had seen a face when flipping through the book. Where had it gone?
Another thought came upon me. Were all these books written by real people? Or were they written by the dungeon? Logically, it had to be the latter. What kind of person would step into a place like this to start filling the shelves of a random room?
When I finished reading everything, I had much greater knowledge pertaining to this specific dungeon. I had a strong mental image of all the important locations on the first floor. I went to my map menu to see if any markers had appeared. However, more than that had occurred. The entire first floor of the dungeon was mapped out. I could see every location. There were several sets of stairs leading downwards to the next floors that we could go to.
But to me, there was something more important. In one of the books, I saw a hidden message telling me of a hidden passage that was close to the dungeon entrance. On the map, there was a marker showing me where it was, and also superimposed on top of it was the marker of the Church’s mystery.