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EC Book 4, Chapter 18 - Trains
🕑 Added 2024-03-18 16:38:42 +0000 UTC"Okay, okay," Sev said. "Knowing that it's a train doesn't actually help us. Does it?"
"You still haven't even explained what a train is," Misa said dryly. She'd stopped with the pushups and gone back to leaning against the wall and tapping the head of her mace against her palm impatiently.
"It's like... a bunch of wagons linked up and guided on rails," Sev explained vaguely. "Powered by a mana engine of some kind, usually. There's one in Anderstahl, actually. We can go see it later. Or you'll see it when we find the dungeon."
"You're telling me Anderstahl's Prime Dungeon is a vehicle?" Misa asked. She sighed. "Guess weirder shit's happened."
"I mean, kind of." Sev shrugged. "It's a train and the stuff around the train. It's hard to explain. You'll get it when you see it, trust me. I'm just... not sure how this helps us." He squinted at the stairs, as if looking at them for the millionth time would somehow unveil the answer to him.
The problem was that in the context of the dungeon, a staircase didn't make sense as a trap. Anderstahl's Prime Dungeon was a peculiar one—the train was the only part of the dungeon that was safe. It stopped in stations that would require something from the adventurers delving the dungeon before the train would move on; sometimes, that was a boss fight, and other times, it was a puzzle.
In no situation that he remembered had one of those stations ever been a simple staircase. It was possible that the station itself would have a stairwell as a trap, of course, and that getting out of the stairwell would let them find something that would let the train move on. But then what would the dungeon be testing?
And also, where was the rest of the station?
"Misa," Sev said. "Let's go back up the stairs."
"Back up?" Misa glanced at him. "I feel like that's the opposite of the direction we're supposed to go. And we also already tried it."
"Let's try it again," Sev insisted. They had tried it again, to see if they could exit the stairwell from the rooftop door they'd originally entered; no surprise that the door was gone. It wasn't that easy to get out of a dungeon trap.
But. But.
Presumably, the dungeon wanted them to get somewhere. He didn't know what direction it wanted them to go in, but that was fine. He just had to look out for something that changed, in whatever direction they went.
Up was first. He climbed the steps with Misa, stopping every so often to look at the walls and the railing again. Other than the typical deterioration of the dungeon's trap mechanism, he didn't notice anything unusual.
"Now back down," he said. Misa just stared at him skeptically, but acquiesced.
Sev stopped after they moved down a flight of steps. "There," he said. "This brick's different."
"The... brick?" Misa glanced at where he was pointing. "Sev, that's just a brick."
"It's shaped differently," he insisted. "Look. It doesn't fit in with the rest of the wall. Like it's a little smaller."
"Huh." Misa frowned at it. "...I guess you're right."
Sev walked over to the brick, but Misa grabbed his hand. "Hang on," she said. "I don't think we're supposed to touch it."
"...Shouldn't it open a secret passage or something?" Sev asked. "That's how it works in every dungeon."
"I know, but..." Misa frowned again. She stepped forward and pressed on the misshapen brick experimentally, then winced slightly; Sev saw her health drop by a fraction. "That's not what [Intuitionist] is telling me. It's telling me we should turn back. And quickly, actually." She paused. "...The brick's leaking. Definitely quickly. Actually, now."
Before Sev could protest, she physically grabbed him, tucking him under her arm like he was a ball she was carrying and not a five-foot-nine human. Then she raced up the stairs—one flight, two—and stopped again.
"You're right," she said. "It's got something to do with the way the staircase changes when we go down. Almost like we're trying to find the right iteration of the stairs to go down, and it changes every time we try."
"Shifts?" Sev frowned. "I guess that makes sense. And if it's just going to be stuff like a brick being out of place—"
Sev stopped mid-sentence, staring at the next flight of stairs. There was an unsettling feeling coiled in his gut, and he couldn't identify what it was; the stairwell looked exactly the same...
...no. No, it didn't. It was subtle, but there was the faintest impression of a face marked into every brick of this particular iteration of the stairwell.
"Well," Misa said. "I guess that means we're making progresss. I think."
"This still isn't the right staircase," Sev said, hiding a shudder. He didn't even want to turn back around — turning his back on the faces gave him a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. "We're going back up."
He walked backward up the steps. Misa watched him, then shrugged. "Ain't gonna hear an argument from me. I don't want to go down the creepy face stairs. Plus, you were about to step on one."
"And you didn't warn me?" Sev glared.
Misa grinned at him. "I'm kidding. But I did want to see your face when I said that."
Sev just grumbled. The sensation of fear slowly uncoiled from his gut as he moved up one entire flight of stairs; sighing, he turned back around, looking back down the seemingly-normal stairwell.
"Alright," he said. "Let's try this again."
—
Sev was beginning to feel... annoyed. Mostly annoyed. There was some amount of fear here, and an undeniable tension that came from the feeling of being stuck; claustrophobia clung to his mind like cobwebs, though he wasn't normally claustrophobic at all.
But even that was beginning to fade to make way for annoyance.
Every step of progress was accompanied by four to five missteps. They kept going down every time the stairs appeared normal, and stopped and retraced their steps back up a flight every time something seemed off besides the deterioration of the stairwell itself.
Strangely, the changes made themselves more obvious, not less, the more progress they made. A sign they were on the right track, perhaps.
Sometimes the bricks began to leak. Other times, the hazards and traps were more obvious — there was at least one occasion in which the stairs simply faded away into nothing, and another one where a thing made of shadow stood there in the steps, staring at them. They'd backed away slowly from it. There was no indication that it was a monster, or that it was capable of hearing what they were saying. As far as either of them could tell, it was just a hazard placed in their path by the dungeon.
There were times when the changes were more subtle. A change in the smell, for example, from a musty staircase to a slightly-sweet vanilla that rang all sorts of alarm bells in Sev's head. Or a shift in the distance between the steps that Sev wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't inadvertently stumbled.
"This is just so unnecessarily creepy," Sev muttered. He glanced down the next flight of stairs with trepidation, wondering if there was going to be yet another entity standing there, staring at them—and nearly turned back immediately when he did, in fact, see a silhouette in the shadows. But the silhouette didn't seem nearly as threatening as the other ones, and Misa placed a hand on his back, as if to stop him from instinctively turning back.
"Wait," she said. "I think this one's right. Look—there's a door next to him."
"What?" Sev squinted down, finally managing to make out the faint outline of a rectangular shape set into the brick. He stared at it doubtfully. "I feel like calling that a door is a bit charitable."
Misa rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You know what I mean. We're supposed to go through it."
"Are you sure?" Sev pressed, although he relented when Misa gave him a look. "Okay, okay. Look, I just don't want to walk down yet another ominous flight of steps without full awareness of what's going to happen—"
Misa was already walking down. "That's okay!" she called back. "I'll do it for you!"
Sev startled, then scrambled to catch up to her.
The man standing next to the door—and he was, as far as Sev could tell, just an ordinary man, although the smile on his face seemed a little too fixed for him to be comfortable with it—greeted them with a tip of his hat. "Adventurers!" he greeted. "You must be here to explore our dungeon. Congratulations for making it this far! Do you have your tickets?"
"Tickets?" Sev exchanged a confused look with Misa. "Oh, shit. This is the dungeon entrance."
"This is a dungeon entrance!" the man corrected cheerfully. "And you have successfully completed your entrance exam! Congratulations!"
"...Thank you?" Sev said.
"I was kidding about the tickets, by the way," the man with a wink. "You get your first tickets for free by getting to the bottom of the stairs. Good job! Be sure to give it to the conductor, now, or you're going to have some trouble."
With that, he brandished two silver tickets that gleamed in the dim light. Misa took them, examining them just enough to make sure it wasn't a dungeon trap before handing Sev his ticket.
"Don't forget," the man said. "You can only leave once your train has arrived at the last station. Good luck!"
With that, he waved at the vaguely rectangular outline set into the wall. The bricks receded, then moved to the side, blasting them with the scent of coal and... soap, somehow. Sev blinked once, then stepped through the stone of the stairwell and into the cabin of a train.
"Well," Sev said. "I guess we have to give the dungeon points for creativity."
Misa followed him through. "Guess we're just here now," she said, looking around the cabin. "This place is... surprisingly cozy."
"Yeah," Sev said. He glanced around, too, looking at the train cabin. Plush seats lined each side, hemmed in by intricate gold frames; really, each set of seats was more like a booth, with a large table provided in the middle for an adventurer to set down their adventuring gear. He recognized the little circular device in the center of each table, actually: it repaired most adventuring gear, even up to Platinum-ranked ones, provided the adventurer had the mana crystals to fuel them with.
A twin set of metal rails glided along the ceiling. Sev recognized those, too; they were designed to carry food and other items that were purchased through the system. If there was anything this dungeon wasn't lacking in, it was hospitality.
Until you had to get out of the train, anyway.
"Let's get some food," Sev said with a sigh. "We're here already. We'll find the Prime Anchor, fix it, and then get out of here. How's that sound?"
"You had me at food," Misa said. "Where's the conductor?"
"Eh, he'll be along," Sev shrugged. "This dungeon's very particular about how it does things. I wouldn't worry about it. I doubt he'll even show up until we've had our first meal and settled down."
