Chapter Text
Me and S heroically did not immediately die on contact with the ground.
That’s the extent of the good news here.
We landed directly on top of each other. Unfortunately for me, I landed first, and S is easily six feet and way heavier than me. My life flashed before my eyes for a few brief seconds before I registered that I was not dying, just being crushed by a weirdly tall human. I shoved him off and he rolled into something that made a clunking noise and groaned.
“Okay, ow.”
He then fumbled a torch from his inventory and lit it. The room suddenly became visible, and I firstly noticed, through my double vision, that we were in some sort of temple. It was decorated with beautiful bronze braziers and murals, sort of things that would take years to create. Beautiful artistry covered every wall, showing scenes of what I assume were religious rituals.
I gaped for a moment.
S ruined this by immediately throwing up into one of the nice bronze braziers.
“Dude,” I called, as he stumbled back from it and barely managed to sit down without falling over. “The damn brazier? Really?” He coughed and shakily mumbled, “I did not want to desecrate a holy site this early in the morning either,” before looking at me and frowning. Awkwardly, I realized I was also sitting in a brazier and quietly got down from it.
“Glass house much?”
“Shut up.”
He tried to laugh and broke out into coughing, “God, I hate those kinds of entrances. They suck so badly it’s not even funny,” before going off on a rant about proper dungeon design and the principles of someone called the Builders, still clinging to a brazier for support. Specifically, how they would spit on this particular design and exactly which ways they would.
“I think we should focus on getting out,” I told him. He ignored this in favor of continuing to talk.
Deciding not to engage him on his angry design rant otherwise, I started looking for an exit. After looking around the entire dungeon, my eyes eventually rested on the very closed chute, positioned above us. Grade-A, perfect shutness, completely impenetrable. I continued to observe how very, very shut it was with a sense of dawning horror.
Yeah, we weren’t getting back out the way we came.
Eternally helpful, S then explained, “The chute isn’t open,” like I did not happen to be staring directly at it. “Thanks for your profound powers of vision,” I sarcastically told him. “Really. Verryyy helpful, buddy.” He didn’t seem to get that and just informed me once again that the chute was indeed not open, making me want to slam my head into a wall until he shut up.
Attempting to ignore him, I concentrated on the basics. I then woefully realized I needed information from him.
“So,” I reluctantly began, glaring. “Explain how this even happened.” “Adamant cave. Redstone trap,” he says, as the dungeon mice begin scrambling at once to the sound of him walking toward me. “Chute. We fell through it. Nuff’ said. This stupid dungeon was probably modified to become a trap.” Holding up his hands, he then mumbles, “We’re not too screwed yet, but…”
“That means we’re only, what, mostly screwed?”
S counts on his fingers, before looking over at me and grinning awkwardly, “No more than like, seventy percent screwed, yeah.” His voice rings out flatly. “Helpful,” I tell him again, which earns me a mutual scowl. Then, as we study the chute again in silent contemplation, it hits me. “Wait,” I said to him. “You can’t mine in a dungeon, right? So how is the cave here?”
He responds by staring at me like I’ve said the stupidest thing I possibly can.
(Ouch. Did I really go that wrong?)
Stoically, I resisted the urge to crawl into a dark corner of the dungeon and try to get out minus him. After a few moments of working out what I mean with an expression of utter and complete disdain, he seemed to light upon it and nodded at me distantly. His eyes seemed more trained at space above my head than my actual eyes.
“Not the same biome. Should have gone over that.”
Finally, I thought. Something I understand.
“So it’s like,” I attempt to find a comparison in my vast and specific knowledge of cave biomes. “Like, uh, lush cave beneath a regular plain biome?” “Basically,” he responds. He did not seem impressed by the attempt at thinking of a cool cave biome. Frowning, he then leaned back. “The enchantment that makes a dungeon unmineable isn’t going to affect the cave, because it’s not the same biome. So no, you can’t mine here like you can in the cave. You can affect items due to the tampering, but you can’t quite mine.”
“…so no digging out.”
“Nope.” He then points up at the chute and says, “Unless you feel like rappelling up that wall and trying to open the chute, we’re not getting back as we came.” “I don’t.” He nodded. “I don’t either, don’t worry. Let’s scout around, okay?” He turned, torch high in hand, then the walls of the dungeon became visible as he waved it closer to them.
And, uh, wow, am I right?
Apparently, we’d dropped into some sort of temple. Beneath us were small arrangements of red and orange tiles, dotted with small suns and moons. Old tapestry stretched across a nearby wall, and I tried to place the events on it and realized it was in a language I definitely couldn’t read. Then my eyes came back to the brazier, and I winced.
“You think we should clean that up?”
“No need. The braziers will come on at dawn.”
“No, I mean…” I waved at the general destruction we’d caused. “We screwed up.”
The brazier we had landed in had tipped over completely, spilling the ashes in it directly on top of a relief of a glowering man. To add insult to injury, we had apparently dented the bowl almost in half by falling on it, then made the feet of the thing indent into the relief. I stared at it in the silent horror of someone about to be smited, while my companion casually and completely ignored the brazier. He proceeded to immediately begin looking at the tapestry with apparently no concerns about being annihilated. Oh, to be that unbothered.
Turning to face him, I awkwardly ask, “How much of this is heresy?”
Pro tip, any kids who find this: when you have to ask that question, you most likely should be running away from the temple.
A thoughtful look came across his face. “Maybe not heresy, but definitely sacrilege.” With a shrug, he continued waving the torch around. Apparently S is way more blase about divine smiting than me. “It’s fine, seriously,” he called as he bent down to read a plaque. “Nobody worships any of the gods this temple could belong to anymore. I like to keep these intact as historical sites, but nobody will care about the destruction but the poor souls who get trapped here. Destroy all the altars you like.”
“I don’t want to destroy any sacrificial altars,” I told him. “The gods don’t need to hate me more.”
Weird look from him. “Nobody has sighted any of the pantheons this temple could belong to since the second Great War. You don’t have to worry.” I roll my eyes at him and respond, “That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re dead.” “Yeah,” he responds, “in the same way that missing people aren’t technically dead until found.”
For lack of better response, I glare at him coldly. He sighs and rolls his eyes in return before finally deciding to not argue. “Fine,” he comments, shrugging, “I’ll pick it back up if it bothers you.” He bends down to begin awkwardly trying to pick up the altar, which instantly falls on top of him, neatly pinning him to the floor. Curses immediately pour from S about his new brazier friend.
Hmm. Maybe I should explore around the temple a bit while he’s…busy.