‘Day – 9th moonrise of winter
Year – 9863
Brimnar city – Day 2:
20 hours, 20 long long hours, staring at this bloody big egg.
No change, absolutely no change and I have to keep looking, oh Sun God have mercy on my soul.
I just want to leave.
I just want to leave.
I just want to leave, I just want to leave.
I just want to leave.
‘Day – 10th moonrise of winter
Year – 9863
Brimnar city – Day 3:
Back in this room, again.
But at least I could leave.
It was still boring, all I saw was an old granny fall over and guards beating a slave at the gate.
The new fish food arrived through the hatch, and guess what a me, Julia did.
I put the fish food in the capsule and am now staring at it.
What an exciting life I have.
Already 15 hours.
Ohhh guess what, it’s been another 2 hours.’
Flo having a sneaking suspicions went back to looking at the stray pieces of paper and his theory seems to have some ingredients:
‘FD – 23 hours
AL – 18 hours’
Both of them at the very top of the same paper.
Hours of reading and shuffling later, Flo finally made it to the end of the first diary and circled all the mentioned times with the initials.
As the times got smaller, the less circles there were on the page.
As Flo was about to move onto the next diary, an elegant voice interrupted him, “You know Flo, you gain nothing in doing this, there is nothing you will learn from this activity, so why keep going?”
A small chuckle escaped his lips as he replied:
“Because I want to do it.
If I don’t do it then I will live with the regret of thinking what happened if I did do it.
I will live with the regret of not knowing whether this single act could change my life.
And I don’t want to live with such a silly regret.
Why live with the thought of whenever I return home and look at this diary, thinking—I wonder what’s in there when I don’t need to wonder.
So by just doing this, I eliminate the regret and I will be happy that I did so.”
The voice seemed to dissipate from the room and Flo spear-headed his way through the circling.
Many, many hours later, the sun had already set and the moon, though not visible from his window, was somewhere in the sky.
All the stacks of paper were neatly ordered and both diary’s completed and set aside.
Flo began to pace around the room his hands making awkward gestures:
The ‘fish food’ might be a substance to either create, lure, trap or kill something or someone.
And the time needed to do what they wanted has decreased significantly before finally reaching a satisfactory time of 2 minutes.” He cleaned his glasses as he walked backwards and forwards in the attic bedroom.
“Now why is the sun cult doing this and why do it in the city instead of outside it, well most likely they want to take over the city or destroy it.
And why do it in the city, it could be because they want to lure something towards the city to commit the act on their behalf.
Julia talked about a shaft that delivered the ‘fish food’ and the substance inside the capsules.
I won’t be able to investigate that shaft any time soon,” Flo sighed as he gazed out the window where the coats hadn’t moved from.
Realising how late it is, Flo headed to bed.
…
The next morning, Flo arrived at the Union building and headed straight to the front desk, “Emily, have you seen Max today or yesterday?”
“I wasn’t working yesterday and today,” she yawned, “you’re the first person I’ve looked at.”
“Helpful,” Flo replied sarcastically.
“I know I am.”
Flo left Emily hopelessly and went to the quest board.
Many of the quests were odd and not fit for Flo for example there was even a quest to join a circus in the capital or a job to build a kid’s swing.
Making a decision, Flo decided to just go hunt some monsters.
Walking to the city gates, Flo looked at the coffee stand and then at his plink screen:
[Currency – 0 Shards 0 Sols 0 Eclipse Shards (Owes 250 shards to All Gunnery to be paid within 87 sunrises)]
The queue to leave the city was much smaller than previous days and the crowd inside and outside the gates was a lot smaller.
Entering Greywood Forest, Flo began his hunt for some beasts.
Not having a specific target, he walked in whatever direction he felt like.
Gradually, the grey trees became thicker and the number increased, their branches entwined slowing down Flo.
The grey bushes and brambles were much more numerous and much larger.
The sounds and croaks of birds, insects and small beasts echoed through the forest.
It was peaceful—too peaceful.
Even after an hour of walking towards the core of the forest there isn’t a single hostile beast.
Just a few rabbits and woodpeckers.
The grey flowers were stagnant, nothing was moving.
Flo pulled out both his pistols and released a few e-bullets at a group of rocks stabbing out of the ground.
Bang!
Crack!
The rock shattered from the bullets.
Flo put back his pistols into their holster and stood as if he was a standing corpse from where he shot the rock.
Only a few whistles and hawks from fleeing birds irritated Flo’s ears.
There wasn’t a single beast that came at Flo, “I mean like really?
Flo kept on moving towards the core of the forest downtrodden.
His ears perked up as he heard nearby chatter that sounded like other humans.
Heading in that direction, the voices grew and he could even begin to smell them, definitely humans.
Appearing from a bush, Flo spotted a large gathering.
A group that he recognised.
The same class of kids only a year younger than him he saw a few days ago at the Union building.
There were also others, like a few adventurers and a few stands selling gear, equipment and food.
Mixing in with the adventurers, Flo made his way to a table that had stacks of leaflets on it.
Grabbing a leaflet, it was information on the dungeon right in front of them.
Not noticing it at first, a regular brown door was built into a small hill that leads down to the dungeon.
The dungeon itself was a plant core dungeon at the iron core level with a bronze stage boss.
At the very bottom of the letter was a large warning:
‘WARNING:
THIS IS A PRACTICE DUNGEON OWNED BY GOVERNING OFFICIALS, IF YOU TAKE THE BOSS CORE OR OPEN THE DUNGEON VAULT AND TAKE THE DUNGEON CORE, YOU WILL BE REPORTED AND HUNTED DOWN BY THE AUTHORITIES!’
Taking heed of the warning, Flo put the leaflet back down onto the pile.
A gentle hand grabbed the back of his cloak, tugging it with grace.
Turning to look—it was Catherine.
But how is she here?
Wasn’t she in the Sun Cultists camp all chained up?
How did she get out?
Of course Flo knew none of this and only recalls the girl from bumping into her when he first got his core checked.
“Ummmmm, can we do the dungeon together, please?” She looked up at him with pleading eyes.
Her messy long black hair and bangs that covered her forehead gave a shy look.
Glasses decorated her nosebridge and dark red pupils endowed her sclera.
Not wearing any armour, she was only in her school uniform composed of long black trousers, a black blazer with a golden emblem neatly sewed onto the left side, a white shirt and black tie along with a grey jumper worn between her blazer and shirt.
“I’m sure you would much prefer going with your friends, no?”
“Maybe I should, but even if I did want to, I can’t because when they were assigning the parties I didn’t make it in time, so either I go in alone and die or you help me, so lets go, please?”
“Fine, so just us two then?”
“Just us two,” she held out her left pinky, “And promise that you won’t abandon me, ever.”
They joined pinky’s.
Cath withdrew her pinky and grabbed onto Flo’s cuff, pulling him along to the dungeons entrance.
But Flo stopped her just before they went in as his head shifted to the right.
“Is there someone you know?” Cath asked and the answer was yes.
Off to the right of the gathering of students and adventurers was a boy just a tad bit shorter than Flo with brown hair and green eyes.
And by far the most significant feature being a massive halberd poking out from his back splashed with red and yellow colours.
The boy was, of course, Max or ‘Maxwell’.
“Yes, there is, but don’t worry, let’s just go in,” Flo walked ahead of Catherine and tugged the dungeon’s door open.