A hand gently nudges me from behind. I jerk and turn toward the source.
"You alright?" It's Arin. The man is looking at me as if I'm an injured animal.
"Wha-" I blink rapidly, and shake myself. "Yes. I'm fine."
"You froze up." He offers me a slim smile.
"I'm. Fine." I was hyping myself up. That's completely different.
"Best be." Kael sighs, as be pushes past me. "I'm not helping if you freeze up in the dungeon."
That. Is not what happened at all!
I grit my teeth in annoyance and push past Kael and Elara both, marching ahead into the cave without another word.
A narrow stone passageway greets us. It's barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through, and the floor slopes downward into the darkness. Despite Kael and Arin crushing the vibe a few moments ago, I can't help but feel a sense of excitement as I look ahead into the darkness. Everything about the situation screams 'this is the beginning of a scary game', but this is a deep-held fantasy come true. A true challenge unlike anything before. It's thrilling to step forward into this unknown challenge, even if I have nothing to record it with but my own memory.
"So..." Elara begins, "Let's have Arin and I take point with you in the middle-"
"Wait." I cut her off, my hand lashing out to grip her forearm and hold her still.
For a moment she gasps in surprise and stares at me. Then her face goes red, and I realize, belatedly, that I'm gripping a little too tightly. I let go. "Sorry, I just-"
"I-it's alright!" Her voice is slightly strained but she nods, encouraging me to continue.
I hesitate a moment, trying to figure out how best to explain why I manhandled her in the first place. "There's always traps near the entrance in a dungeon like this."
It's what always happens, but I have no idea if the systems work the same here. It's enough of a danger to be careful, though.
"Master, you're correct!" That annoying voice has been quiet so long now, having said nothing since the start of the trip, that I nearly startle when I hear it in my head all of a sudden. "There's a dead-weight trap just around the corner, waiting on someone to step over the tripwire located just at the turn of the hall!"
I roll my eyes. Damn it. I can't even solve a trap without this voice getting in the way!
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. "...You know what, never mind."
There's no point now in trying to figure it out.
Kael speaks suddenly, standing next to me. "He's right." The man nods. "I can see something on the ground over there." He points. "I would have walked into it, too, if I hadn't thought to look a bit closer."
Elara blinks and looks between myself and Kael. "Wow...there's almost never any traps this early in a cave. There must be a huge treasure chest! A really huge one!"
I seriously doubt the treasure's that great in a beginner dungeon, but it's not my place to say anything. She hurries forward, putting a hand on the wall, and ducking slightly to peer around the corner.
As I watch, her expression shifts from excited to serious.
"Alright. I see what it is. Looks like if we set it off carefully it won't hurt us." She waves her arm and motions for Kael to come closer. "You're the expert, so what do you think?"
"Looks like a simple trap. Just an axe suspended on a rope that comes down, it'll cut you in half, but it'll only go off once. Just move out of the way and set it off and there's no lingering danger."
Right. That's all I need to hear. I shove past the two of them, not waiting to listen anymore, and walk forward, ducking to the right of where the axe will swing down. I don't set off the trap, obviously. I'm not so heartless as to pointlessly hit party NPCs with traps. I mean, if they walk right into them anyway, that's not my problem, but I'm not going to intentionally set them off. I'm not quite so petty about forced escort missions. Attacking or harming my allies is just not something I've ever enjoyed doing in games, and I don't intend to start now.
The path ahead stretches on what seems like forever, fading away into the darkness. I guess I can't really expect there to be torches on sconces when we're going deep into a cave, even if the traps are very dungeon-esque.
When I glance back at the others, I watch Elara hold up a hand in the air. A small tongue of flame flickers to life over her palm, scattering warm light across the rough-hewn walls and floor of the tunnel ahead of us.
"Careful going too far ahead." She gives me a cheeky smile. "You'll stumble into the darkness."
She makes a good point, so I let her pass me, and she moves to the front of our line again, using her fire magic to light the way as she walks slowly along the dim passageway. For whatever reason, we go to the alignment we had in the forest, as Arin falls behind me and Kael walks quietly at the back,
It's not long before the ground below my feet crunches as though I've stepped on something dry and brittle, and I pause, looking down. A human skull. I take a closer look around at the walls, noting the various skeletons littering the floor and the edges of the passage.
Actually. In a video game I wouldn't think twice about it, but in this world, I can't help but wonder why there's suddenly a bunch of corpses piled up together like this deep in a cave tunnel, but past any visible traps. Did they just have some kind of a fight over who got to own the tunnel? Was there once a king who held off an army in here?
"Answer: the necromancer Fayn-El-Tine gathered them all here to defend his treasure~!" The cheerful voice in my head chirps unbidden.
What.
"Just wait until you get to the necromancer to find out! I won't spoil the plot just yet but you'll really enjoy it~!"
I will crush that annoying voice.
Who ever asked about the necromancer?!
"But you just did!"
At no point have I ever asked about him!
"That's not true! You just did, and I'm here to guide you and answer all your questions~"
...Damn it. Was this voice programmed solely to be useless and bother players?!
"Master, how could you?! I'm Cissy, your cute System Helper!"
Ciss-...
At what point did the System Helper voice get to choose its own name?
"My name has always been Cissy, Master! I tried to tell you before. You've just never called me by it yet!"
And I never will.
Elara stares at me. "Are you okay? You look distracted. I know it seems boring now but it's really gonna-!"
I hold a hand up to interrupt her. "No. I'm not bored. That's not it."
"Wh..." She hesitates, blinking rapidly. "Then what is it...?"
"Nevermind. It's nothing important." I'm not about to tell her about the annoying voice in my head.
The red-haired girl stares at me for a long moment, as if processing, before she summons a smile that looks a touch strained, and nods. "Right."
As we move deeper into the tunnels, the air gets staler, and colder. Soon I can see my breath forming small clouds as it rises into the air.
"Warning! Master! You're about to be attacked!"
Dammit, don't just spoile the-!
Bones crash into the ground ahead of us. Just in front of us, one of the skeletons that appear to be decoration has wrenched itself off of the wall and collapsed onto the ground in front of Elara. It takes only a moment before it straightens up to its feet, clutching a crude looking spear in its bony hand. It lunges with surprising speed, given its clumsy movements.
The young woman lets out a loud gasp and reels backwards, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have impaled her, stumbling backwards, next to me.
Another skeleton, with a cracked skull, charges from the shadows. I move to intercept it, but there's a loud crashing sound as more come down from the ceiling, swinging axes. Our simple exploration group is under siege. There's so many skeletons it's impressive.
Elara shrieks and slashes at one of the attackers with her sword.
"Fall back!" Kael shouts. "We can't fight them like this! Even with Arin we'll be overwhelmed!"
The young woman nods frantically and begins to back up quickly out of my sight.
I'm not about to run just yet. This is obviously a forced failure battle - but I still want to at least try to get my feet wet on the combat. I drop down and grab a club - it might have been a torch at one point - and swing it up toward one of the skeletons.
It collides with the undead creature's skull with a satisfying impact. And the creature shatters into dust.
"--Huh?"