Jer Patch
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Chapter 23: Progress
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 16:00:04 +0000 UTCAs everyone else napped, I snacked on some more meat, staring at the blue sky overhead. I wanted to make sure my stomach was nice and full before whatever fight was the capstone for this path. We still had whatever challenge came first, and I figured it’d be easy, since it led to the last part. We knew that last part had to be a fight.
Eventually, I got up and moved over to the fire as the grass under me felt more and more uncomfortable. The wood smoke smell strengthened, even though no one had tossed wood into the fire. Dungeons were weird, especially things like this, or how the path could block us or open up based on what we had accomplished. It was just freaking strange. The world didn’t work like that back on Earth.
I didn’t want to think about Earth, and focused on the campfire.
The empty wooden pot sat nearby, upside down after I’d cleaned it once we’d all downed the turtle soup. I blinked and then yanked out the eggs I had stored away from what seemed like forever ago.
The idea of eating anything else made my stomach rumble, and not in a good way. I was definitely too full, which was a first since I’d gotten my class, and I put the eggs back into my inventory with a frown. I needed to use them before they went bad, and I didn’t know how long my inventory kept things fresh. My hope was that my Adaptive Body would improve from devouring them.
Instead, I pulled the crystal ring off my belt and studied it. The usual warm energy filled the stone, pulsing in my hand. Hammy’s armored suit stood next to a log, and small voice in my mind suggested I should use bits of it for his mittens. The other, louder part of my mind argued that I could do that once we found more crystal to work with.
Lenna shifted from the grass and sat up before joining me on the log. “You don’t need to use that on him,” she whispered. Hammy still snored. “The crystals are priceless within my clan. It’s why you don’t get one until you have proven yourself.”
“I understand that.” I let out a sigh, twisting it back and forth in my hands. “What’s more important, though? Our team, or keeping this to level up my profession?”
“Levelling up your profession,” she replied almost instantly. She leaned back on the log, her eyes shifting to the sky. “You can complete this dungeon without us, and this team will not be around forever… Once I finish my quests, I want to explore the various worlds of the System. See the megacity for myself. All I know is the jungle, and my people's stories.”
Lenna glanced back at me with her brown eyes. “You’ve seen so much more than I have. I want that for myself.”
“And all I want is to find a place to call home.” I chuckled, staring at the flames. “Two peas in a pod.”
“What are peas?” she asked, leaning forward. “That’s what I mean.”
“Peas are a type of food that grows on a vine. They are from my homeworld.” I frowned. “Not that I’ve actually had peas from a pod, but it's a saying. I meant it sarcastically, since we both want what the other has.”
“Peas in a pod,” she whispered to herself.
Hammy’s snoring cut off.
“Shoot, did I oversleep?” He sat up rubbing his eyes.
I chuckled at the sight. His hair was all over the place, and he looked absolutely ridiculous.
“No, we’re just talking, though we should get moving,” said Lenna, shaking her head. She pointed to the sky. “The sun hasn’t moved the entire time we slept.”
“I don’t think I like dungeons,” muttered Hammy as he rose and moved toward the fountain. After splashing his face with water, he suited up.
Dengu climbed to his feet and joined us at the campfire.
Finally, once everyone stood ready, I marched to the archway and stepped inside.
As soon as my foot crossed the threshold, the darkness vanished showing a stone room with symbols chiseled into the far wall.
[I am a path hidden,
By human eye or beast unbidden,
The fierce, the strong, the bold,
May find me, a story to be told.
Of claws that tear and teeth that bite,
A testament to primal might.]
The notification surprised me. For once, I didn’t have a chance to use insight.
Lenna whispered something to herself while Hammy frowned. Dengu sniffed the air in a few different directions.
I studied our surroundings. Two archways branched off from the space, one on the left and one on the right. Both were the same shape and style. Two torches burned on either side of each of the archways, providing the only light sources in the room. After bringing the notification back up, I took a few moments to think about it before stepping closer to the archway on the right. This time, I focused on seeing if anything stood out.
Dengu sniffed the air again, then slowly padded to the one on the left. He didn’t go through the opening, but breathed deeply, distracting me.
Though, after a moment, I did the same thing. Stale dust and the smell of dirt met my nostrils, nothing else. As I turned to study the other side, Hammy spoke up.
“Don’t tell me this is a puzzle room…”
“Then I won’t.”
“It’s a story we need to follow,” whispered Lenna. She nodded once, then began searching the room as well.
Once I got to the other side of the room, the second archway appeared the same as the first. Again I sniffed, but the same smell came to me of stale dust and dirt. Yet, I moved closer to stare at something on the floor. A small indentation, like a scratch, sat near the bottom left of the threshold.
I knelt and ran a finger over the edge to ensure it wasn’t just a flicker of shadow.
“I found an impression. Maybe we need to follow the marks of claws and teeth…?” I said, standing up.
Lenna spun from the corner she’d headed to, skirting by Hammy who just stood in the center of the room. She squatted down beside me.
“This is the way.” Then she stood up before going through the archway.
I waited a second to see if anything happened.
Dengu chased after her.
Nothing changed in the room, and I pursued the others. A short narrow hallway opened up into a slightly smaller room, this one with three other archways off of it.
More symbols stood out on the right wall.
[A hidden mark, a secret sign,
Where danger lurks and shadows twine.]
This time a chip on the upper corner of one of the arches indicated the path to follow. I only caught sight of it because of the torchlight. The archway opened into an even smaller room, with just enough space for us to fit. The temple's stone walls grew more rugged and plants crept through cracks. Vines trailed down walls and hung from ceilings. The symbols this time were carved into the floor. We each needed to stand pressed against the walls to read it. Dengu tried his best to keep his tail out of the way, and managed well enough.
[Follow this trail, if you dare to roam,
To a place unseen, a hidden home.]
All of us were happy that Lenna noticed the cut vines near the corner of a doorway. Each room took longer and longer to spot the marking, until we reached one that stumped us. Only two other doors opened from it, but nothing we could detect marked them as different from one another. The words this time were carved into the ceiling, covered in shadows.
[Where secrets lie and wonders gleam,
A lesson learned, of shattered dreams.]
Hammy stood in the center of the room staring at the ceiling with a frustrated expression on his face. He had added little to the journey through the temple. During a moment of frustration, he’d tried to leave the way we’d come. Instead of letting him pass, the archway had grown dark and wouldn’t let him pass.
“So, what’s our plan for the big fight?” asked Hammy.
“Same as always, I guess.” I didn’t know what he was looking for. “Lenna shoots things, I try to jump on it, and you punch it or slam your club into its face. Dengu will join the fray with you.”
“That’s not a very specific plan,” he mumbled, looking away. A hand crept up to his shoulder.
“Plans get tossed out the window in the middle of a fight. We need to plan to our strengths, but the opening shot is pretty important.”
We had to find the solution to the riddle, not talk about a fight we hadn’t made it to yet.
Running her hands along the walls for a second time, Lenna kept trying to spot what we were missing. Dengu lounged on the floor after the first twenty minutes in the space.
Meanwhile, I studied the floor. Vines trailed across it in a weird pattern between cracks in the stone that made up the surface.
Nothing had led us upward or downward so far in the temple, but that didn’t mean something new wouldn’t show up. The words hadn’t been on the ceiling before this, either.
I turned in a circle, staring at the center of the room, right beneath the carved symbols. The torches didn’t shine as much light into the center of the room, and the only reason the others knew the symbols were on the ceiling was that I’d pointed them out. My night vision made them easy to spot, and then the notification had translated them for me.
The poem nagged at me. We all understood that we had to find the path to get out of here, which led to the final challenge, but this last set of lines concerned me. I repeated them several times to myself.
Something about this wasn’t just a direct fight.
Stepping back, something kept drawing my attention to the area where Hammy stood.
“Can you step away from the center of the floor?” I asked, quietly.
Hammy stepped back a few steps, almost tripping over several vines.
“The vines…” I whispered, practically leaping forward. The only place cleared of vines sat directly underneath the carved words. I knelt and yanked at the vines growing between two stones. They tore, revealing a thick crack between the center stone and the one next to it. As I yanked up more of the vine, the crack became more pronounced. It circled around the stone.
Once I’d freed the stone from the vines, it shuddered and then disintegrated. Dust drifted down, leaving a dark hole in the center of the room. I leaned forward to get a better view, spotting the floor several feet below.
Lenna and Dengu joined us, standing around the hole in the floor.
“Are we going to jump down there?” Hammy spoke up first as he glared at the hole. “I’m unsure if I could make my way back up.”
“We haven’t been able to backtrack so far, I doubt we’ll come back this way.” At least I thought so. That jump was easy for me, and I wasn’t going to stop now. “Let’s get this show on the road.” I leaped down into the hole without waiting for a response. Wasting additional time bothered me. We’d all signed up for this when we’d entered the dungeon. Hammy’s attitude was starting to grate on me, and I hoped he’d get it together soon, or the rest of this dungeon was going to be rough.
Dirt provided a softer landing on my feet than stone, and the distance was more than it looked — at least ten feet, if not a little more. But what drew my attention were the torches that flared to life after I landed. The flickering light showed off reliefs carved into the stone. A two-legged dinosaur like Dengu stood in the center, with smaller dead dinosaurs around it. In the next picture, the raptor looked a little bigger, with more dead creatures around it. This continued for several scenes.
When I realized I’d left the others behind, I could smell something: dried blood, dust, and a musky smell. I paused as Dengu and Lenna caught up. Hammy brought up the rear.
“We found our fight…” my voice trailed off as I realized what was in front of me.
The tunnel opened up into a dark cavern. Light beams shot down from above from holes in the ceiling. Another tunnel opened on the far side, light shining from the far end. In between us and the opening in the middle of a cavern slept a giant creature. Its side rose and fell with harsh breathing. Even lying down it was taller than Dengu and stretched several people long, counting the tail that curled around its side.
[Greater Raptor, Level 35, Predator, Tasty, Starving.]
