We cleared the rest of the dirt more carefully, revealing a wooden chest bound with corroded metal. After heaving it up and out of the hole, we set it on the grass. The lock had long since rusted through and fell apart at the slightest touch.
We lifted the lid.
"Um," I said.
The only thing inside was a silver tankard, set on an old cushion.
-
[System Notification: Artifact Acquired — Blackwater's Tankard!
Effect: All alcoholic liquids placed within are transmuted into potable water.
Would you like to access associated lore?]
-
Wait— What?!
"Yes?" I said, baffled.
What the hell?
[System Notification: Captain Blackwater was infamous throughout the seven seas for never losing a drinking contest. Pirates would challenge him in every port, watching him down barrel after barrel of rum without swaying. His secret: he only drank from his own tankard and thus never touched a drop of alcohol.]
"…"
Was the System serious?! I couldn't believe we went through all that for, like… designated driver equipment!
Llewellyn picked up the tankard, examining it. "I'll take it if you don't want it."
"All yours!" I said, annoyed, throwing the shovel aside. "What are you going to do with it anyway?"
"Outdrink Tiernan," Llewellyn said immediately. I snorted. "I might just give it to TAPESTRY afterward, I think."
Huh? "Why?"
Llewellyn hummed. "They do a lot of intel gathering at the Rusty Chalice, but sometimes overdo the drinking part. And they'll probably just love it. They take their alcohol very seriously, but not as seriously as their artifacts."
Fair enough.
"I have no objections," I said. It was a useless artifact as far as I was concerned.
I went to retrieve my coat.
Although—
"Didn't the System say that, despite the modding, the rewards of this Dungeon had remained unchanged? Surely this can't be what that guy wanted?"
Penguin chirped from his rock perch, sounding equally skeptical.
Llewellyn shrugged, vanishing the tankard into his inventory.
"Who knows. Maybe he was experimenting with the Dungeon shop, to see if he could make the System create something he wanted."
I mean… Any theory was equally baseless and crazy at this point, but I seriously doubted it.
That'd be like... say you wanted a cake. Instead of finding a bakery that sells it, you pick one at random and pour fifty people's worth of magic into it until they make the cake you want. It was a completely backward way to go about it. Though I suppose it could make sense if the type of cake you wanted didn't exist at all.
The moment the tankard vanished, the air changed and the itch in my chest flared.
Then the trees around us shuddered and a Knot appeared in the clearing.
It was small, barely the size of a basketball.
It looked almost… polite.
"That's it?" I said, surprised.
Llewellyn materialized his sword and sliced through it cleanly. I watched the Threads unravel in a burst of harmless light.
…And that was it.
"Well," I said, staring at the spot where the Knot had been.
That was almost disappointing.
But I supposed that might be the point? Whatever that guy had done to this Dungeon, he'd clearly not wanted to fight.
Llewellyn sheathed his sword.
[System Notification: Mission complete! All conditions satisfied!]
[System Notification: +1,500 Coins awarded!]
I scratched my head. We just had to wait for the Dungeon to vanish now.
Still, I had fun.
I kept my eyes on Llewellyn.
"System," I said. "Can you add this Dungeon to my preferred locations too?"
Llewellyn snorted.
[System Notification: User preference for Gilded Bay noted. This location will be included in future Dungeon configurations when possible.]
I grinned.
"So," Llewellyn said after a moment, turning to me. "About my prize."
Oh. Right. The bowling bet.
"I haven't told you what I want yet."
Um. "Well? Go on."
"Dinner," he said. "After we get back."
I blinked. "Dinner? We've had dinner multiple times already."
"I wasn't done," Llewellyn said, raising an eyebrow. "While we have dinner, I want to see your attributes, abilities, skills—the lot."
Huh?
I narrowed my eyes. "That's two requests."
However, that wasn't the problem. The problem was, should I show him my stats? I know I'd been the one saying no complaints, but! Wasn't that something System-awakened people normally didn't share with each other?
Not that I had any reason not to. I trusted him. He had no reason to use them against me. In fact, that'd likely help if we kept up with our training.
Still.
I thought it over, quickly.
"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours," I said.
Llewellyn looked amused. "That wasn't what we agreed on," he said. "You lost."
"That's why I'm letting you get away with two requests. You can even sneak in a third, if you like. But that particular exchange has to be mutual."
Llewellyn eyed me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Alright," he said. "I accept your terms. We'll do that then. And I'll keep my third request for later," he added, suddenly amused.
Damn, he had agreed?! Just like that?! If you told me a month ago I'd be able to see Llewellyn's stats in detail—
I almost dragged him back home so we could check immediately.
…The ground beneath our feet suddenly went from dirt to grass as the Dungeon dissolved into the real Liorim Forest. The transition had been smooth, just a gentle fade.
We stood in the clearing where the Dungeon entrance had been.
The tent was gone, along with any sign of our mysterious magic user.
Llewellyn crouched where the tent had been, examining the ground. "No traces. He cleaned up well."
I hummed. That was to be expected.
"I'll tell Tiernan to keep an eye on the GPS tag," he said after a moment, pulling out his phone. "In case he hasn't found it yet."
As he did that, something bright caught my eye.
Some kind of luminous... shard floated up, hovering in the air just where the Dungeon had been.
Huh.
"What's that?" I asked, startled.
Llewellyn's head had snapped up already and he straightened, frowning. "I don't—"
The shard hovered a few moments longer, then floated toward me.
Huh?!
Penguin chittered excitedly and ran up my arm without even bothering to change form.
He leaned in, almost falling off my shoulder, and… petted it gently.
I was even more confused.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Penguin chirped again.
I collected the shard.
"System?" I called. "What is this?"
[System Notification: Item acquired: Shard of Sleeping Magic!]
What?
[Clarification: A Shard of Sleeping Magic—also known as Shard of Living Magic—is a rare emergence of pure Magic taking form without resorting to creation. Not categorized as artifact or consumable, it contains unstructured, crystallized Magic in its dormant state.]
I stared, shocked. I had no idea this was even a thing?!
"Ever heard of this?" I asked Llewellyn.
Llewellyn shook his head, looking similarly surprised.
Penguin kept trying to reach for the shard. I held it in front of him and watched him stare at it in awe.
"Do you like it?" I asked.
Penguin chirped thrice in quick succession.
I guess that was a yes?
Before I could ask the System what it was for, something in the air suddenly changed. I froze.
I looked around wildly.
I couldn't tell what was going on, but every hair on my arms suddenly stood on end and my stomach dropped.
Then a wave of… something suddenly came crashing through the forest.
It felt like… pure fear. There was no other way to put it. It crashed over us, making us all gasp.
If the first time I felt the itch I thought it felt like a cosmic yearning underneath everything, this was like that, but a million times worse.
Llewellyn stepped in front of me and Penguin, sword in hand, as if looking for something to fight, but… nothing was there.
The shard shook in terror then burrowed into Penguin, who shielded it with his tiny flippers.
Fuck. What was going on?
I wanted to run, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even open my mouth to ask the System to teleport us away.
I felt like I'd forgotten how to be a person.
In front of me, Llewellyn had also gone rigid, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword.
I heard Penguin let out terrified little chirps and when I looked down he was hiding in my pocket, trembling, shard and all. I managed to raise my arm enough to place a hand on his head, but I couldn't tell if that felt reassuring, considering how shaken I was myself.
The wave of fear pressed down, making it hard to breathe. It felt ancient and vast, rolling through the forest like an invisible tide.
…Then, as suddenly as it had come, it passed.
I gasped, reaching for Llewellyn's shoulder. Sweat dripped onto the grass below me.
"What," I panted, "the hell was that?"
Llewellyn was still standing, but barely. His face had gone white.
"I don't know," he said, voice raw.
I forced myself to stand straight, legs shaking.
The shard was still in Penguin's hold. Slowly, they both stopped shaking. I scooped them out to make sure they were okay, and Penguin deposited the shard in my palm before patting it gently.
Llewellyn moved closer and put a hand on my back.
We both just breathed for a few seconds.
As I was trying to string together the words "Let's leave", Llewellyn exhaled, his grip easing.
Then he asked, "Take away?"
Well.
I mean, not only we'd just gone through all that but it was also 5 am. Was this the right time to talk about food?
"Yeah," I said, with some relief. "I'm starving."