Mori's consciousness slowly returned from the sweet slumber.
The smell of bacon brought him back to a time where his mother would cook him some, as he woke up.
The 'classic' breakfast, bacon, eggs and toast.
As he sat upright, the Unkindled slid down his torso, falling on its paws, on his lap.
He massaged his neck and back briefly, Aleesia was cooking bacon and eggs.
She looked in his direction, noticing he woke up.
"Ah, Good morning!"
"What are you doing?" asked Mori.
"As you can tell, making breakfast."
"Yes, I can tell, I just don't understand why you out of anyone would wake up early to cook."
"Well, honestly, I didn't wake up early. Actually, I've stayed in bed way longer than usual..."
"Oh, really..."
"You must've been exhausted."
Mori got up, the Unkindled falling once more, this time hitting the floor.
Using a spatula, Aleesia was moving the bacon around, trying to make it not stick. The eggs, on the other side, were scrambled.
"I saw you do it, last time, the taste is pretty good."
"Yeah. Where I come from, it's extremely salty, you don't really even taste the meat anymore. It's done with really any meat, popular in poor districts."
"You lived in a poor district?" she asked.
"Not at first, but had to eventually."
Mori sat next to Aleesia, she was still concentrating on her task at hand. She seemed stressed from his presence, from the way he watched her handle the pan, but she was in control, still.
"Why did you have to live in such a place?"
"We became extremely poor, we had no choice. That's how I learned about some privileges we had in higher districts. Food is one of them. Everything is greasy and salty in lower ones. There's barely anything of good quality to even cook with. Even the air, I'm sure they had done something to it..."
"The air? Haha, air is air..."
"You would be surprised... How about you? You miss your princess lifestyle yet?"
Aleesia chuckled as she put the pan aside, satisfied with the result.
"I learn something new everyday, I guess. Honestly, I miss my home. It's fun to live this way, but I still would rather have my old lifestyle."
Same, thought Mori, remembering the older days at home.
"Serve me a plate," said Mori.
"Yes, sir."
Mori signed at the Unkindled to come his way. It stretched and slowly walked toward both of them.
Mori threw some of the meat in his plate at it, it started eating right away, one small bite at a time.
"What happens to my cut-off limbs if I'm completing a level?" asked Mori.
You mean if you lose an arm, what happens to it once you kill the boss and leave the level?
"Yeah. What happens to the arm left behind, on the level?"
It disappears as your body heals on its way back here.
It's easy, really. Just do it quick.
He took a string out, and tightly rolled it around his left arm, close to the shoulder.
Looking at the knife for a moment, once he felt ready he tightly grabbed it, holding it against his left arm.
"Okay. One. Two..."
He tried applying the most strength he could, but his instinct kicked in, keeping him from truly cutting his own arm.
The knife was barely a quarter of the way in, and pain was already kicking it.
In a reflex move, he took the knife out of his arm, but then got it back in there.
He couldn't cut it clean off just by pushing it down, he had reached the bone and the pain was overwhelming.
His instincts were in the way, and the more pain he experienced, the less pressure he was able to apply, barely cutting through the bone.
"FUCK."
He started sawing through his arm with the knife, while screaming. He did his best, increasing the speed as much as he could, fighting through the pain.
Back and forth with a knife with no teeth, minutes passed until he had finally made it through.
He screamed even harder, as he sped through the rest of his arm, cutting it clean through.
It fell down to the floor, in a puddle of blood.
Mori quickly looked up, at the door.
He was fine; he had more than enough time before the door would ever open, he just needed to not pass out.
He took his arm out of the blood puddle, putting it next to him on the floor, and inspected it closely.
He rolled it on the ground, and found the biggest sized tattoo, that was holding shut the hexes.
"There you are..."
Using the knife, he started butchering the seal Xannos did. He cut it in all the ways he could imagine, yet all he had was a butchered arm.
"What? How is it not working... is the seal too strong?"
He turned the arm around, looking at the other seals.
He was about to start cutting one up, but quickly stopped mid-motion.
Patterns layered the seals, but one 'main' recurring pattern was how the seals had a straight line going all the way across where the holes would be.
It was like the slit of two shut doors, or a closed eyes.
"Maybe..."
Mori starting cutting through one of the seals, going through that 'slit' that went all the way across, leaving the seal around intact.
He went back and forth, doing his best to not touch the rest of the seal, and he could feel it succeeding.
It wasn't like the other side, where he just hacked at flesh, he felt the knife going through the arm, into a hole, not bones or flesh.
He kept cutting back and forth, until the seal started vibrating on the arm, as if waves emanated from that seal, on the surface of his skin.
He smiled, as he went harder and deeper, until finally it broke.
It opened like doors during a backdraft, the other side a deep dark abyss he would recognize anywhere.
A hole that went deeper than he could even imagine, and through all that darkness something even dark was moving around, he could tell.
Its numerous pointy legs came out of the arm, stretching it open while it was getting out.
Mori was amazed, but quickly got his dungeon menu opened before the hex was completely out, and left the room.