Chapter 56: Bat Signal

Chapter 56: Bat Signal

"Wish there was some exposition NPC to explain the plot of this dungeon, it's weird having this lavish court filled with undead, and I demand an explanation," said Akshel light-heartedly.

"Why should this game have a plot?" Crucis laughed. "Reality doesn't have a plot. If you want plotting, go and find the Illuminati or something. Here, there's a lot of different stuff scattered around, and we have to make something of it. You can't pursue things freely if you're stuck to a railroad."

"Good analogy, but isn't it a bit depressing if we're stuck in a fantasy game and can't be heroes of a story? I always wanted to be, like, Hercules or something."

"Now you're just taking the piss. You're in DeathGang, you ain't no hero."

DicingDevil nodded and laughed. "You're just our peon anyway, why would you think you're allowed to even think about going off on a heroic adventure? I'll report you for thoughtcrime."

"This is just like 1984," Akshel exclaimed.

"Oh, you lot always trot out that tired comparison. What I said has nothing in common with Big Brother, it doesn't even sound similar. Can't you see that us DeathGang leaders just want what's best for you?"

The group had reached the top of the stairs, and found several vast, adjoining castle rooms, with dark grey walls that had a faint blue glow. There was no sound nearby, so the group had taken to chatting while inspecting the rooms for any items. DicingDevil and Akshel were both trading facetious barbs, but this was interrupted when Grisier picked up a large, silver key from a drawer.

"Found the key," Grisier said, "there's also a few written notes in here, but I can't read it in here."

"Why not use Conjure Light?" Crucis said, "No need to save MP here, there's no enemies around."

"Ah yes, of course. I barely need to use that spell usually, but this seems like a good place."

A bright light began to emanate from Grisier's right palm, and the rooms around here were lit up clearly. Crucis glanced around, and spotted a tattered skeleton lying in one corner. Dionarcy followed his gaze, and stepped back slightly in surprise after seeing the skeleton.

As Crucis crouched down to inspect the skeleton, Grisier began to scan the pieces of paper in front of him. "I can't make out the language of this text, but there's a few drawings. One shows, like, a spider standing over a broken sword, the sword has something like blood spilling from it where it's broken. There's also a drawing of an angel, but it seems to have lots of wounds across its body, and a scar across its face. A part of its torso is missing."

Crucis raised his head slightly, and replied, "There was also a painting of an angel like that on a column, in the area where we fought the Statue Faux. That angel was also battered, it had lots of wounds."

"Are you sure?"nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.

"See for yourself."

Crucis lowered his eyes back towards the skeleton, and began looking for any items among the small pile of bones. In the meantime, Grisier had walked over to the room where the staircase had led, and looked out across the courtyard.

"Yeah, I see it. Interesting. But the staircase seems to have disappeared, guess we're trapped up here until we defeat the boss," Grisier said.

"That staircase always disappears," DicingDevil replied calmly, "It's OK, we can take this boss. There's also another escape route. But the angel drawing was quite an interesting detail, maybe scribble down the rest of the writing and we'll see if any NPC in town can translate?"

"Oh, sure. I also saw a few weird drawings, let me check." Grisier walked back to the written notes in the drawer. "There's a large, watching eye with, I think, a dead bird instead of a pupil. Also a bizarre drawing of a man being attacked by a pen. The third piece of paper has a woman pursued by a ghost who looks exactly like her, and a swarm of fish - they look similar to piranhas - devouring a man. I'll write the text, but I'm not good at tracing images."

"So something like enchanted writing?" Crucis asked.

"Probably something like that. But that doesn't allow you to make text or drawings move like this. That would require some other spell."

"That's true. I'm not sure how exactly that could be done. Actually, looking closer at the drawing, I'm not sure if it's enchanted at all. You're probably familiar with enchanted gear, etc., does this have the same kind of mana aura as those?"

"Good question." Grisier lightly moved his palm over the page. "No, it doesn't. There seems to be some mana, but it's some kind of weird, elusive magic spiralling across the paper, I can't make out exactly where it is. But definitely nothing emanating out from the drawing, like there is in enchanted materials. It's not enchanted."

"How peculiar. Is there enough mana for someone to be using it to track or spy on us?"

"No, fortunately. It can't be scrying magic. However, the mana does seem to ripple occasionally, I'm not sure why."

"By the way, the bird-pupil of the eye was pointing towards the side earlier, but now it's facing us," Dionarcy interjected. "Anyone know why that might be?"

"Yeah, that is weird," Grisier said. "I have no idea what's going on there."

"It looks like a bad omen. Maybe we should try to get a move on, if you're finished with copying out the text," Crucis said.

DicingDevil turned to begin walking. "Yes, let's go."

The group travelled quickly to the left of the stairs, passing through a few empty rooms. Eventually, they came to a large, wooden door, with bright silver hinges and an ornate red, black and green coiling snake painted on it. This door was contained in a small, round room, with a barred window letting in faint hints of sunlight.

Without hesitating, Grisier placed the silver key into a lock on the door, and began to turn it. However, the key seemingly jammed, and refused to turn fully. Grisier had to fidget a bit in order to get the key back out.

"Haven't seen this before, the key didn't work," Grisier said, agitated.

"I'll try." DicingDevil took the key and tried to open the door. He soon gave up. "No, there seems to be a problem. But it's not because of the key. I think someone placed something in the lock to disrupt it."

"Who? They'd have had to do it from this side, the lock is only accessible from here."

"Maybe after the eye began to follow us, something was triggered?" Crucis speculated. "It wasn't scrying, but maybe it didn't need to. If someone familiar with it could sense its mana in flux as it moved, then they could tell that there were intruders. But we should look out, it might still be nearby."

DicingDevil carefully poked around in the keyhole, and found a small piece of paper rolled up into a thin cylinder not larger than a matchstick.

"Talk about origami," muttered DicingDevil.

As he unrolled the paper, he saw a few words scrawled across it. As he began to read this, he was interrupted by a loud, high-pitched shriek.

A man, stooped low towards the ground, trudged up to the doorway of the round room which the group was in. However, in the dim sunlight, Crucis could see that this man wasn't in ordinary condition. The man's hands were covered by scars and burn marks, and a sheet of torn, charred skin hung down beneath his arms like wings. The rest of his body also seemed to be disintegrating and falling apart, with parts of his skin torn and hanging to the side across most of his legs, head and torso. His skin seemed diseased, and was tainted a thick green-grey colour, as well as stains of red and black from the crusted blood and charring respectively.

The creature's name hovered over its head: [Syphilitic Man-Bird]. It was level 60. As it entered the room, it shrieked again.