A few hours later, Iena and her group arrived with crestfallen faces. "What's wrong?"
"Master! You have no idea! We walked and walked and walked for hours on end, and then suddenly, we found ourselves at the entrance of the dungeon again! I hate this place!" Iena whined and stomped her feet, causing me to chuckle.
"Thank you for the hard work," I said with a smile as I walked up to her and patted her head. "But everything was not in vain. We have found something interesting." I said with a smile. My words caught everyone's interest.
"There is what looks to be a wheatfield in the back of one of the houses. But when Grace went to touch the wheat, we found it seemed more like a barrier of some kind. Let's go investigate what it is." I was hoping this was the key that the dungeon had gimmicks like these that you had to find in order to progress.
With everyone a little more excited now, we made our way back to the wheatfield. We now stood right in front of the barrier. "How should we cross?"
"Hand in hand. Everyone will hold each other's hand to pass through the barrier. If, for some reason, we get split up, try to backtrack if you can. If you can not take a single step backward and return to this point, then do not move. Do not move from where you are unless you are under attack." I had no idea what would happen once we crossed the barrier. I just did not want everyone to get split up.
When I checked to make sure everyone was ready, we locked hands. "On the count of three!"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
Everyone stepped forward as one and into the barrier. And I must say that the feeling that I was feeling at this time was stomach turning. I never felt so much motion sickness in my life as I reappeared on what looked to be an open field of some kind. The wheat was no longer visible.
"Blergh!" A sound came from my side. Adel was hunched over. It was not just her either. Many of us were doing the same. I reached over and rubbed her back. "Let's hope we do not need to do this more than once."
"Gah! That was horrible! Who the hell made this thing!" Sei yelled out as she held her stomach. She kept dry heaving as well. Luckily I was able to keep my lunch. But I was just as close as the rest of them to puking as well.
We took a small break to allow us time to recuperate. Only when everyone had their wits about them again did we begin looking around. "Looks like a farm, maybe?"
"It does, but there is nothing here but grass and the house off in the distance." Steven and Amanda were chatting with one another while I was sending out my detection magic to see if I could pick up on anything. I tried with both regular magic and soul magic and got nothing, which left me feeling a bit disappointed.
"Let's go to the house. Watch your surroundings." I said as I took the lead once more.
The trip to the only house we could see took almost five hours, give or take. It was hard to tell with a sun that did not seem to move. Not that I should expect a sun like object in a dungeon to move. The house we arrived at was not as run down as the houses on the previous floor, I guess you could call it. There was an old broken down wagon outside with overgrown grass and large dirt patches all over the place.
There were even a few wooden barrels with holes in them that looked very worn, showing that they must have been here a long time. There was no wind, no birds. It was like the whole area was a void where time did not move. But everyone in her team was here, walking around stirring up the dust that had long settled.
We decided to split up into two teams. Iena and her group would search more around the area while I went into the house with my group. The inside of the house was not empty at all. There was a table with a cloth over it with wilted flowers that had dried up a long time ago. Old trinkets covered in dust lay in the cabinets that were against the wall. The old wooden rocking chairs, although dusty, had a rustic feel to them. And this was just the first room of the house as we passed through the entry.
"This place looks much more lived in than the last place," Sophie said as she walked over to the cabinet. She opened it up and pulled out what looked to be an old picture. "A family of four. Two girls and a husband and wife. The girls look around eight and fourteen, maybe?"
"Anything peculiar in the pictures?" I asked.
"Ummm… not really. The husband is hugging his wife's waist with one arm while his other is resting on his oldest daughter's shoulder. The young girl is leaving against her mother with the back of her head. But what I do find strange is the clothing." Sophie said as she brought the picture over to me. What I saw was something more akin to a North American farmer from Earth clothing wise. Something you would have seen back in the 1920s. "Hmmm…."
This was very interesting indeed. I took the picture and put it into my inventory. It was something to think about for the time being after I found my father. Maybe a clue to how these dungeons came to be. If these dungeons have something to do with Earth, then I want to know exactly why they do and what is their true reasoning for being here. But I can not assume much of anything just from a photograph.
