BXBX NOVEL Chapter 79: Odd
The explorers had already been the only source of sounds for a while now, their narrowing surroundings only forced them to repress themselves, no one said anything, all of them subconsciously tried to be as small as possible, somehow fearing that they would alert something.
Iritim silently casted miracles upon everyone periodically, keeping their minds in the right place, preventing anyone from suddenly starting to freak out, the travel across this wretched dungeon soon reached a greater place.
A wide, open room, rot was still present all around but not nearly as oppressive, the ground was the familiar lustrous metal rather than abject grass of rot, they had all been moving around, contorting themselves to avoid the decay and getting its special, showery surprise.
Those that had gotten marked by its filthy embrace had required excessive healing, despite not being outrageously powerful in its varied effects, the injuries it did manage to leave vehemently fought against their removals, the few healers had expended way too much energy compared to the sort of wounds.
"Let’s take a rest here" Marlene spoke the awaited words, everybody sighed in relief, brightening up when she tapped on a ring on her index finger, bringing out necessities out of thin air.
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The morose mood was quelled just like that, the five girls moved away, the two elves appearing rather concerned about something, in fact, Tilke also appeared with a frown on her red face.
"There is definitely someone missing…" Irgot started first, installing a cold shudder into everyone as they turned and tried to see for themselves, absolutely unable to notice anyone missing.
"It must have been one of the solo adventurers, otherwise a teammate would have alerted us already" she continued before Ariandnel took the lead.
"I heard some sort of whooshing sound at some point, like something was quickly pulled away, but in those tight tunnels, impossible to see anything happen, though, it’s pretty weird that this was the only noise I was able to hear, or that no else noticed anything despite the absolutely silence we were in" she shifted uncomfortably, it was rather obvious what had happened to that missing member.
"I didn’t notice any of that, but I have to admit, it feels like something has been watching us for a while now, I supposed it was just the feeling of being so close to the rot, since it’s apparently one big thing from what I heard" Tilke shrugged, looking at the unsuspecting, enrolled adventurers, feeling quite sorry for them, the tunnels of decay weren’t gone for good, more would be snatched up for certain.
"Hum, I’ll set up a barrier with scriptures then, at least for now, I don’t know whether it would be best to force through and hope not too many are taken away, or to remain still for now and try to lure out whatever is hiding inside the rot" Iritim rubbed her nape, they had went directly in because they had considered staying put as dangerous, did it apply here as well though?
"Alright girls, look at me and don’t react okay?" Marlene spoke in a suspiciously low tone, even placing herself so that Tilke obstructed the sight of her to the rest of the adventurers and putting one hand in front of her mouth.
"We haven’t gone down in numbers actually"
"Huh? But I am certain that someone is missing, like, I can’t tell who exactly, but it just seems obvious" Irgot was rather confident in her earlier claim, which was supported by the sound Ariandnel heard.
"I mean, don’t you think it’s not that we are missing someone, but that someone looks completely different?" no one turned to take a look at the group, everybody just acting like they were thinking deeply about something, even though beads of sweat were running down their faces.
"Actually… Yeah, but how the hell are we supposed to know? We just dragged in whoever, we didn’t ask their names, we barely looked at their faces and such, there are groups and loners, if it was a loner that was replaced, then no one will know!" it was a rather difficult situation, they had conscripted so many people to help them, but it was coming back to bite them.
"I mean, this dungeon is filled with living armours and undeads, unless a third type of monster showed up, our imposter should be one of those, right?" Tilke rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
"She’s right, we could just look around, or, I could add specificities on my barrier" Iritim smirked, a glint in her eyes as she pulled out the necessary equipment for her to put a barrier.
Normally, a holy barrier shouldn’t permit for an undead to remain in, but considering that there was the possibility that it could be something else, the priestess simply had to add conditions on her barrier, she had the qualifications to do something like that.
Without wasting any second, she naturally began the process, inscribing scriptures on the floor with a paste diligently, having done this action plenty of times before, it didn’t take her long to finish the foundations for her barrier.
Some of the adventurers were already sleeping soundly, exhausted from all that exertion and pressure, the group of five paid close attention to the loners in particular, but couldn’t notice anything too suspicious about any of them.
With a clap of her hands, Iritim erected the barrier, there was no way for her conditions to be bypassed, she had only allowed inside the people that had entered the dungeon with them, excluding monsters as well for good measure.
Yet, nothing happened.
"Huh, has anyone left the premises? Marlene, count again"