I’m back. I had a nice little nap, but it didn’t do much for me. I feel rested, but still slightly weak and hurt. I’m just going to wait here for a bit until I can go on.
Wow. That worked. I really need to get used to how time works down here before I go crazy. Anyway, that closed door I mentioned last time. Well, it’s stuck. I even kicked it out of frustration. It finally opens, and there’s just a long hallway ahead.
I see a goblin in the distance ahead. I grabbed a dart from my quiver and throw it in his general direction. It misses, so I grab another one. I take a breath and carefully aim at him before I let it fly.
Score. A direct hit. One more dart and he’s dead. Something strange is happening to me. I feel healthier, and my mind feels stronger. I can do more magic now, and I think I can survive a bit more abuse.
I still feel a bit off by the changes, so I let Aurora eat the corpse while I think about what this means. It happened as soon as the goblin died, maybe the more I kill the stronger I get. I’ll have to keep this in mind.
I’m just walking around, searching the empty rooms I find, when I hear a door open. The noise cuts through the silence, and I have to admit, I jumped. I know I’m not alone, but the thought of doors opening and closing around me makes my skin crawl.
I continue my journey, and hear a few more doors creaking open. I still can figure out where it’s coming from. It’s impossible to judge direction and distance down here.
Ouch. What the fuck. Another dart trap. Ok, this one is a bit harder to disarm than the other traps. Some of the darts fall to the ground after hitting me, but others just kind of melt away.
Ok. Now I’m in a bad mood. I’m full of holes, leaking blood all over the floor, and when I finally finish with the trap there’s only a handful of darts left. Most of them are the ones that hit me. I go off to the corner to wait a bit.
The holes are closing up on their own, and in no time I feel ready to tackle the world again. The rest did nothing for my mood though. I’m ready to kill, and can’t wait to meet the fucker who has been messing around with the doors.
I’m stuck. I’m at a dead end, and there are no other corridors for me to explore. I start to look around the dead end for some clue, when out of nowhere I feel clumsy. I had no idea that could happen. I’m going to need to work on my reflexes down here.
Ah, finally. I knew this wasn’t a dead end. One of the pebbles I touched triggered something. The entire wall slid open, revealing a path behind it. Once it stopped moving, I examined the wall it had slid into, and couldn’t see any trace of it. I hope that means it won’t close again later.
I’m still in a bad mood, and have not found anything to take my anger out on yet. I enter a room, and the first thing I see is a beautiful white stone fountain. There are three round tiers full of water, and a beautiful naked woman standing at the top. She looks just as realistic as the statue I saw earlier. Every detail is carefully carved. Her toes slightly curved over the edge of the disc she’s standing on. Her long legs, thin but not without muscle. She is holding a bowl in front of her, strategically placed to cover her female parts. A stream of water is flowing from the edge of the bowl into the top tier of the fountain.
I walk around it, and see that her rear end is completely uncovered. Finishing my circle, I look up higher. The statue has a pair of large breasts, with erect nipples. Above that is her face. If I thought the statue was detailed before, I was wrong. The face is breathtaking. She has a playful expression. Every feature, her lips, cheeks, even her eyes add to it. I consider climbing up to see if she even has lashes, but the stone gaze warns me against it. Her hair can only be described as a controlled mess.
I finally manage to tear my gaze away from the beauty, and step up to the bottom basin of water. I cup my hands and take a refreshing drink of the cool water. I notice that I’m not as hungry. Wanting more, I fill my hands again and drink deeply.
Wow. I feel great. I suddenly feel tough. A wisp of vapor escapes, and I wonder if the fountain had been touched by magic. I’m about to take another sip but Aurora bites at the hem of my pants. I look back up at the carving and wonder. I think it’s time to make a phone call.
I was half expecting the phone to give me some kind of error message when I try to use it, but it connects without a problem.
“Hello? Spoiler?” I ask.
“Faylen! It’s great hearing your voice. The whole town was gathered in the square, waiting for your first post. All of us are glad you made it safely.”
“That’s um… Nice.” I said, not sure how to respond.
“We won’t be doing that every day, of course. Just the first one, to make sure you were on your way safe and sound.”
“Thank you.” I replied.
“There must be a reason you’re calling.” Spoiler said.
“Oh, yes. There is. You see, there’s this fountain.” I said.
“Stop!” He yelled in my ear. “Get away from it. Don’t even think about touching it, and for Anhur’s sake don’t even think about drinking the water.”
“It’s too late for that,” I admitted weakly.
“Well? What happened?” He asked.
“It was refreshing, and I think it made me a bit tougher.”
“Thank Anhur for that,” he replied. “You found a magical fountain. Did you see the vapor? That means it’s just a normal fountain now. Nothing bad happens when it’s magic, but all sorts of hell can break loose if you try touching it now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“See that statue on top? That’s a nymph. They’re attracted to fountains, and you drinking from it is like an alarm. One of them might come running. You might also attract the attention of a water demon, and there are some fountains infested with snakes.”
“Oh. Is that all?” I asked sarcastically.
“No,” he replied simply.
“Well, what else?” I asked.
“That’s all you need to know for now,” he said.
“For now? What do you mean by that. It’s not like I’m going to change my mind later and suddenly start trying to drink from them again.”
“Oh, but you should.” He said.
“Would you make up your damn mind!” I yelled at him. “Don’t touch the fountain, drink from the fountain. I can’t do both.”
Spoiler sighed before speaking. “When you are strong enough to handle the dangers, you should drink from the Magical fountains, and use the normal ones for dipping scrolls and potions.”
“Ok. But how can I tell if it’s magical or not before drinking?” I asked.
“You can’t. You need to drink at least once, and just that once is enough for bad stuff to happen, so don’t do it until you are much, much stronger.”
“Ok,” I said. “Now what was that about dipping?”
“Yes,” he replied. “You can dip a scroll or spell book into a fountain, and the words will melt off the paper, leaving it blank. If you dip a potion, it will become diluted, and if you do it a second time, it will become plain water.”
“Why would I want to destroy an expensive item like that?” I asked, shocked.
“Take the scroll of punishment we gave you as an example. It’s a useless scroll. We all knew that when we gave it to you. You can sell it for some money, but it’s true value lies in the paper. You can make it blank then write any scroll you want out of it.”
“That does sound useful,” I replied. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this, but there is a small chance that if you summon a water demon, it will grant you a wish.”
“Sweet,” I said. “But I should wait until it’s safe before I go looking for wishes. You’re worried that now I’ll see every fountain as a potential wish granting machine and not care about the consequences. I do have more self control than that.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I should have trusted your intelligence. Is there anything else you need?”
“Well, since we’re on the topic of wishes,” I said. “I did find this antique oil lamp.”
“Let me guess,” he said. “You thought of the old tale, and rubbed it.”
“Yup,” I exclaimed cheerily. “Nothing happened, so I gave up.”
This elicited another sigh from the phone. “It’s true, some lamps are magic. If you rub one and see a puff of smoke, there’s a genie in it. You might need to rub it a few times to know for sure. But don’t go doing that yet. Not all genies are friendly, and a magic lamp will never run out of oil. It might be worth more to you as a source of unlimited light than a potential enemy.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, while taking the lamp from my bag. I gave it a few more rubs to check for smoke, but nothing changed.
“You just rubbed your lamp again, didn't you?” He suddenly asked.
“How could you tell?” I replied.
“Well, you stopped talking for 5 minutes. That was my first clue,” He said.
“Really?” I asked in shock. “It was just a few seconds for me.”
“Yes,” Spoiler said. “Time is different down there. And now you should get on with your quest. I think you’ve wasted enough time talking to me for now.”
“That’s rude,” I said. “Also accurate. Goodbye Spoiler.”
I waited for his parting words before I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket. I looked back at the fountain, this time with a healthy measure of respect, and then turned my back to it.
While I had been occupied, a strange little creature has managed to sneak up on me. I think it’s called a grid bug. It runs up my shoe and bites my leg. I feel a small electric charge, but thanks to my ring it doesn’t affect me.
“Get off me”, I yell, shaking it to the ground. I give it a clumsy kick, but it somehow manages to block me by holding up it’s legs to absorb the impact. Aurora, who is by my side, bites and kills it.
I see an emerald potion on the floor, and pick it up. I decide not to drink it, and hold onto it for later. Aurora walks away, and suddenly gets hit by a dart.
Damn traps. I disarm this one, and add the extra darts to my stockpile.
The next room has a rock lying in the middle of the floor. I walk over and look at it. I don’t know about this, just one rock on it’s own. I haven’t even blasted a statue or boulder lately so I know it’s not Aurora playing games. I kick it experimentally, and it sails across the room. I step forward. Ouch. Fuck. A rock dropped on my head. My helmet helped protect me, but still, that hurt.
I look up and wonder how I can can disarm this one. It’s not long before I give up on it, telling myself that it’s impossible.
I continue looking around, and come to a set of stairs going down. I take a quick look to make sure Aurora isn't nearby and slip down them.
Holy crap. I’m in a huge room, I think it’s a mine or something. The walls are hard packed dirt rather than the stone I had seen upstairs. I see a lot of random stuff lying around the floor, scrolls, gems, weapons.
A second later, I realize I’m not alone. A score of monsters have all stopped what they were doing, and now look at me, hunger evident in their glowing red eyes. There’s a few gnomes, ugly creatures. A gnome lord stands just a few feet away from me. A few dwarfs are standing beside the walls, their pick axes glinting in the light from the magic fires overhead. A single hobbit is standing beside one of the gnomes. I idly wonder if I interrupted their conversation.
Before any of them have a chance to move, I shoot back up the stairs. I drop an arrow beside the stairs to mark them. I know I will come back later, but only when I am strong enough. It’s starting to feel like I’m too weak to do anything. Why couldn't I have trained more before I left for this quest. I remember the feeling that I had earlier. I've never felt like that before, even with all my earlier training.
With that in mind, I go looking for more monsters to slay. I will need the experience. I don’t find any, but I hear fighting off in the distance. Aurora must be taking care of the damn door opener. Good girl.
The last room I find on this floor has a statue of a newt, and another set of stairs going down. I blast the statue, then turn to Aurora who had wandered in from the other door.
“Are you doing ok girl?” I ask her.
She purrs in response, and we both descend.
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