Jay stood with Red at the entrance of the tower, waiting for his skeletons to clear out the inside.
A few moments passed and no exp notifications came through, and soon enough the skeletons returned.
“Alright, let’s get this root cut, it won’t cut itself.” Jay turned as the skeletons came out.
Blue was the last to exit, and instead of helping to cut the root, it presented something to Jay.
“Hmm? Oh…” Jay was surprised, as he had told the skeletons to take whatever they wanted for themselves.
Blue held out a tattered-looking diary. It’s original leather bindings did not do well at withstanding the test of time, and only a few pages had survived, as they were coated with a waxy substance.
“Where did you find this?” Jay said, flipping through the worn-out, tattered pages.
Blue simply pointed its sword up to the top of the tower.
“Nice work.” Jay nodded at Blue.
Blue bowed respectfully, and then went to help with cutting the root; it had since found its own chest plate of armor and started to make a few clinking sounds as it moved too. At this point its armor suit was more complete that Red’s, though Red carried the shield.
In the meantime, the knight which was pushed into the pit had died too, giving Jay some more exp before he entered the tower.
[115 Exp]
“Red, let’s go.” Jay said, and Red went in front of Jay, leading him to the top of the tower. Jay was getting quite accustomed to not going first and giving orders instead of doing tasks himself.
This particular tower was in much better condition, and its internal wooden stairs were supported by various stone blocks, making the climb to the top as uneventful as it was safe.
Looking around, Jay found the place Blue had grabbed the diary from.
A corpse - well, a skeleton as it was fleshless.
“Nice coat.” Jay remarked.
The skeleton wore a white coat of some sort, and Jay guessed they must have been quite rich to have such a pristinely white piece of clothing.
Dead for some time, its bones were clean of flesh and it was lying against a wall with an empty glass vial loosely clasped in its hand.
It was obvious to Jay how it died.
“Seems like a better fate than what’s out there.” Jay frowned.
Another part of the room had a table with some scraps of paper and some odd instruments which seemed to be similar to butcher and blacksmith tools except much smaller.
“Odd…” Jay scratched his finger across a rusty spoon, but decided not to take any of them with him.
There was a dark pile of mush covered with a coating of green mold which Jay guessed was once a food pile, as next to it was a large cauldron with black stagnant water at the very bottom.
Jay decided to search the pockets of the white coat, and found a strange needle-like dagger which Jay guessed was a sort of letter opener.
“I wonder what they were doing here. No weapons, in a tower surrounded by knights… why leave the castle?”
Another pocket contained a strange flat-rope tied around a tear-drop shaped object which was like a squishy sort of wood, or perhaps a sort of mineral-filled sponge.
“Very odd…” Jay squinted at it as he squeezed it gently.
Analyzing it offered no clues, and he guessed it was a necklace of sorts. Perhaps an amulet, or perhaps it was nothing more than trash.
Jay stashed it in his bag along with his black cube, which he had been carrying this whole time.
“…Is it bigger?” he thought, looking at the cube in the bottom of his bag.
“Surely not.” He shook his head, closing it as he put the bag back on.
Jay headed back down the tower. He would have liked to rest but how he spent his next ten hours was crucial as the knights would be on the move.
As he exited the tower, the skeletons were still chopping the root, so Jay pulled out his chair and sat down, deciding to finally read the diary that Blue had brought him.
Of all the pages this diary contained, only the waxy pages had survived the test of time.
~
[The results were promising… Too promising to keep from prying eyes. Some corrupt fucker took an egg with them and some serum… I bet it was Anderson, but it doesn’t matter now. One egg was all it fucking took….
We went too far, we cut corners, we let this happen... Our desire to live has led to our destruction. There is no future for humans anymore, probably not even humankind. They escaped and spread too quickly.
I locked myself in the compound while my colleagues were taken or turned. After my food ran out, I left the safe room. Nothing but empty rooms, flipped desks and papers strewn everywhere - it was empty, gutted of life. The emergency lighting barely lit the hallways after weeks had passed.
Somehow I made it to the portal… now the only safe place left is here, inside the experiment of all places… in this damned crucible.
The experiment continues, not that they know it. But I won’t warn them. All of their fates are sealed anyway… now, many of them are turning too. The fruits aren’t growing anymore either, so there’s nothing to stop them.]
~
“Yeah, fuck Anderson.” Jay chuckled, not knowing any other details about this person.
“Alright, so the fruit is meant to stop them - them being the parasites most likely, as he referred to eggs… but this is basically saying that this is one big experiment? This whole valley enclosed by cliffs?” Jay shook his head in amazement.
Red’s shield seemed to make sense… at least the part of its design with the brown jagged outside did: it was the cliffs surrounding them.
A part of Jay was jealous, and to do experiments of such a grand scale was now subconsciously added onto his list of priorities.
“But how does this tie in to my quest? Who is innocent? Who is untainted?” he wondered, “Not only in this dungeon, but the real world too?”
“Being tainted doesn’t mean you are infected either. I wonder if it has something to do with innocence? But innocent of what?”
Jay took out the needle of hunger and gazed closed at it.
“Maybe these are two separate ideas that I’m just trying to force together. Maybe the needle is just to help me figure something else out… needle of hunger…” he scratched his chin.
“Hunger for what? Food? It can’t be that simple… Blood? Revenge… war? …lust? Well, if it was a hunger to murder, then sure, you could say they aren’t exactly innocent… at least their thoughts aren’t.”
“Hmm, ‘our desire to live has led to our destruction’… could it be a hunger for immortality?”
“Do the innocent not hunger though?” he pondered.
“It surely can’t just be hunger for food though, as it tells me people are tainted by something… even myself - even after I fill my belly with food.”
Jay sat silently for a moment, letting his thoughts mix and sink in while the skeletons diligently hacked away at the writhing root; much of the green fluid had since poured out and filled some of the pit below.
Finally the root separated.
Jay stashed his chair away, and the group began to march back towards the castle. Lamp was sent further ahead - much further this time, as it would give Jay enough time to prepare an ambush for whatever response force may come.
As Jay walked, he felt like he was about half-way back, yet there were no signs of any knights coming.
Something about it was unnerving.
“Hmm… no response force?”
It didn’t make sense.
It was eerily silent, the only sounds were the marching of his bone soldiers, and at this point Jay actually preferred the enemies to send something than nothing at all.
