We ran up with haste. Every moment that we would waste looking at the staircase and bantering about my magic was part of a ticking time bomb. Somewhere on the Third Floor were two people who were probably fighting for their lives.
Up the stairs, I was the first one to finally reach the floor that had been blocked off for so long. And as expected, every part of it was covered in mold tendrils. From the floor to the ceiling, looping around in circles along the walls, were slimy branches from wherever the root of this rot was.
No time, though. I wanted to check out more of the Third Floor, but finding these two was of primary importance. The moment we reached the top, we found ourselves in a very small room that had a single corridor leading out. That corridor then turned right to reach the rest of the floor.
Jumping and hopping through the few tendril-free zones on the floor, we followed the corridor’s floor. That was until we turned right and had the entire floor available to us. There, we decided to stick with moving forward. And forward, thanks to our luck, just happened to be the correct direction.
“There!” Bella cried the moment they came into view.
In a slightly open, lobby-like common room, were two bodies. I say bodies because I wasn’t even sure if they were more than that. A lean, tall man with an eccentric haircut lay on a couch. His impeccable formal clothing, which I guessed was his uniform, already had some of the mold crawling on top of it. That was who I went for.
Bella, meanwhile, went for the girl. With long, brown, plaited hair, she had a way more innocent look than I expected the Chief of Staff Operations to have. But lying face down on a table, seated on a chair next to it, she also seemed to be unconscious. The elf pulled her out, ripping apart the mold’s gluey surface from her clothes. I did the same with the man and put his arm over my shoulder.
With that, and no time to waste, the two of us moved back the way we had come. I wanted to look at the Third Floor, obviously. I wanted to check every corner to find more clues. But the small peek I got before getting out would have to suffice for now.
A medium-sized, square room occupied most of the floor. Behind it were other smaller rooms that I could not see much of, primarily due to the mold. Somewhere towards the left of the square room, I would probably find the upper opening of the shaft from the second floor. But that was not yet visible, and I had already moved past that area and back into the corridor leading out.
By the time we reached the stairs and started to move down, people had gathered on the Second Floor. By which I mean the twins. Trev and his brother were waiting for us at the bottom, confused but willing to help.
Putting his arm on the man’s shoulder, Trev decided to help me drag him. Bella was helped by the other twin. I noted in my mind to thank them for their help later. As you might see…I totally forgot to actually do it. But it’s really the thought that counts. If you think about it. I was nice enough to worry.
Poltrick was back on the First Floor and instantly started complaining the moment we showed up.
“Who are they!?” He shouted. “Where have you got these people from, innkeeper? And why in the name of Don are they covered in that black mold? A-are these the monsters that attacked us?! This is what they look like on the inside, I see.”
A frustrated clapback did come to mind, but I held back. I could not disrespect this dwarf until I had apologized to him first. Only once that was done would I gain the right to chastise him once more. Until then, he was safe. He was also safe because he ended up giving us a hand with the two staff members when we reached the Ground Floor, but let’s not focus on the good deeds when it comes to Gregson.
Taking them right to the Bar and Restaurant, all five of us laid them down on different tables and took a breath.
“Earnest Blest,” I whispered, panting as I pointed at the man. “Head Chef. And that’s…Carol Dalesia, I think? Chief of Staff Operations.”
“H-head chef?” Trev gasped. “You’re telling me that you were not the one who was supposed to be cooking for us this entire time.”
“Well, I think I’ve made that part quite clear multiple times. What are you on about?”
“No, I just mean that that root vegetable soup was quite good last evening. So, you know, just imagine how much better the actual chef’s food will be.”
Poltrick laughed, smacking his stomach. “True! Good one, Trev. Very good one. If even the innkeeper can manage to make a good enough meal, then we’re in for actual treats when this Blest fella wakes up! Thank you for the assistance, innkeeper.”
Alright. Now I was really considering just making all their food every single day. A thought that I had to calm down and file away as egoistic garbage. There was no way in hell that I was going to be cooking for these people ever again. Earnest Blest, my hero, would be the one to handle that.
“Gregson?” I called out to the dwarf, and he turned. “I am sorry about what I said earlier. I really didn’t mean it, and I wasn’t completely aware of the entire…situation with the dwarves.”
“Oh?” He stroked his beard, letting a smile slowly come up on his face. “Good, good. That is very nice, innkeeper. I heartily accept your apology, and please ask you to never say anything like that again. We all make mistakes, kiddo.”
“Kiddo? What do you mean by ‘kiddo’? How old are you, Gregson?”
“Oy, that’s not for you to know!”
“It’s, uh,” Bella nervously tapped me on the shoulder before coming in to whisper. “It’s also very rude to ask a dwarf their age.”
Of course, it was. I was very obviously in the wrong here to even consider thinking that I could ask a dwarf their age. Because, you know, it wasn’t dumb enough to hold weird standards about aging in our world. There had to be an equivalent in a fantasy world, too.
All I’m trying to say is…if you think it’s rude to ask a woman her age, then you’re weird. And what I’m trying to say after that is that I take full responsibility for what I now told Poltrick Gregson, and you can freely sue me for it.
“Why? Would that explain the reason he’s so dumb?” I shut the elf up. “Do all dwarves get dumber the more they age?”
“What!?” Poltrick snapped. “How dare you insinuate that? There is no such thing, and do not say that again. Dwarves only get smarter the older they get. There is wisdom that cannot be gained from anything other than experience.”
“Yeah, so get to it. How old are you, Gregson? Or do you prefer me asking how many years you have spent earning that wisdom of yours?”
“I…I am seventy-six years old. And that is quite normal for a dwarf. It is the equivalent of a thirty-five-year-old human being!”
Everything became so much clearer now. The dwarf had issues, very clearly. I did feel bad about the fact that a living being would ever be called a ‘defective product’. But when you took all of that out, and just considered his grumpy nature and self-serving attitude, things made so much more sense.
Poltrick Gregson was just going through a midlife crisis.
“See? Not that difficult, was it, Gregs-”
“Innkeeper!”
Bella stopped me mid-sentence to point at one of the tables. The brown-haired Chief of Staff Operations, Carol Dalesia, had started to stir. With her hands slowly gripping the edges of the round wooden tabletop, her eyes had begun to flutter open. She was fine. And that meant that her fellow staff member was probably fine, too.
“What happened?” Carol mumbled, slowly pushing herself up into a seated position.
“Hey!” I rushed to the girl, pushing the chair closest to her aside so that I could check her eyes. “Are you alright? Should I get you some water?”
“Yeah…but what’s going on? We w-were on the Third Floor. And then we were j-just sitting in the Common Room. Who…who are you?”
“I’m the-” I wanted to say innkeeper, but I wasn’t sure if she actually knew an innkeeper before me. Saying it right now would only get her more confused, so maybe it was better for her not to know anything at all. Keeping that in mind, I just stuck with the best option possible. “It doesn’t matter. I got you out. You’re safe. Water, right?”
“N-no. Earnie?”
Carol looked to the left, and her gaze stopped at the chef. Gulping, she turned and tried to get off, but only stumbled and slipped off the table. Bella came forward, giving the girl a hand before she completely lost all balance. Using that support, she walked to Earnest Blest and traced his mold-ridden face.
“Earnie. Are you alright? Hey…”
The chef did not move. Carol repeated herself, a little louder this time. And even then, nothing. In all fairness, her voice wasn’t very loud. The rasp because of her time covered by the mold, was still prevalent. Every word she spoke was basically a whispered shout and was barely audible.
“Earnest…wake up. We made it. Hey, wake up!”
Bella held the girl back as the pleas got desperate. Her raspy voice turned sour, and a shriller cry replaced it. Carol’s eyes grew moist, widening with shock at the lack of any acknowledgement. As the shakiness in her voice grew, the elf did what she could. Putting her hand below Earnest’s nose, she held it for an extended period of time.
A dozen seconds later, she nodded and held the Chief of Staff Operations in place. All the while, all I could do was watch.
“He’s alive, Miss Carol,” Bella assured her. “He’s breathing! Don’t worry. I’m guessing…he’s just unconscious because of the mold.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” The poor girl’s trembling decreased, and she got a hold of herself once more. The assurance of Earnest being alive had calmed her down enough for her to ease back into the quiet tone from before. “There was just so much of it. Everywhere. It kept growing every day, and then…it was so much.”
“Do you know where it came from?” I asked.
Now that I look back on it, the timing might not have been ideal. Carol Dalesia hadn’t exactly had the greatest time of her life just now. Yet, I must still try to defend my actions. Time was running out, and the day would end soon. If they were reset back to the Third Floor with the loop, I would lose a whole day’s worth of progress without the information required.
To my credit, on top of that, Carol did respond. She responded quite willingly.
“The Luxury Suite. I don’t know how or why, but that’s where it was. We woke up, and it was just all over the room’s entrance. There, and the staircase. But then it kept growing from there. We couldn’t get out, and by today it was difficult to even breathe.”
We had gotten there on time, then. We had been able to save them when it was most necessary.
Carol’s legs gave in. Suddenly, she slipped out of Bella’s hand and almost tumbled to the floor. It was her own reflexes that made her catch the nearest table in defense and kept her standing. Even then, the lack of mindfulness in her actions and words was obvious. More than obvious, it was painful to watch.
“I will get you some water.” I started moving backwards. “Maybe some lemonade, even. I think we have some lemons. Would that work, Carol?”
The Chief of Staff Operations turned and nodded. “That would be…wonderful. Thank you.”
“You got it.”
“I’ll help you out if you need any,” Trev said, walking behind me as I got out of the room.
“No, I do-”
Before I could deny his altruism, however, both of us were already out of the Bar and Restaurant. He had pushed me along with him. Out of sight of all the people in there, and closer to the Kitchen, his puffed-up face finally let go of all the stress in it once we reached the other room.
“Whew. Thanks for that!”
“That’s not how gratitude works.” I scoffed, moving to grab the lemons from the nearest pile. “You can’t just push me out of a room and then thank me for getting you out of there. Anyway, what’s wrong? Can’t handle looking at nauseous people?”
“Something like that.” He nodded. “How did you know?”
“Seen my fair share of reactions like that.” I let it go. The expression on his face was enough proof that he wasn’t feeling very comfortable back there. There could be a million different reasons why, though, so I did not dare presume any of them. Everyone had their own thing.
For now, I focused on the lemonade. It was the best thing I could give Carol right now, and it would be easy to make. I had been surprised that lemons existed in this world, that too in their normal yellow form. Though I wasn’t complaining. It was nice to have my old citrus friend in times like these.
While cooking, to make some conversation, I called out to the twin.
“What’s your brother’s name, by the way? You’re Trev, right?”
“Uh, no.” He shrugged. “I’m Tray. My brother’s Trev. You’ve met him before, I think. He told me something about a secret room behind your bookshelves. What’s that all about? You’ve apparently been spying on us?”
I stopped, kept the lemon on the counter, and turned to look at the twin. Not recognizing him for who he was had been an honest mistake. But now, he was the one who had made a mistake. One that I was not going to let slip.
“No, I have not. And I will not accept any such slande-”
Mold Monster.
My words were interrupted the moment another one of them appeared from the side of the Pantry. Stumbling through the corridor towards us, with its hands using the walls for support, the creature groaned and raised its hands towards Tray, the second twin.
One? Just one? That was good.
I raised my hand, imagined the blue blast in my head, and it was already off. Once more, as violent as before, but effective. The monster was sent flying back into the corridor walls and ripped apart into goo.
“What?” Tray looked at me, and then at the mess on the floor. “What just happeeeeee…waaah!”
My triumph was cut short almost immediately. I was just preparing to tell him of my great deeds and how I was super cool with killing monsters like that, but then more appeared. Like from before. From the beginning of the horde.
From the direction of the Pantry came six of them at once. Six, I could maybe handle. But I knew better than to rely on that delusion. Because these six were not the danger at all. They were just the heralds of something so much worse.