DungeonCultist

Chatper 216

Whispering shadows surround us like a permeating aura, stemming from darkness that fills the whole breadth of floor sixty-six like ink in a jar. But it’s not like the floor that skitters, no, this place is different. It’s not just dark, it’s as if we stared at the sun for so long that our eyes can perceive nothing else but darkness. As if they were burnt through by the blinding light. I see nothing. I hear nothing.

I float.

But I’m not dead. Well, dea...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 69: So below

Fresh rubs her tired eyes, yawning as she stretches herself out in her bed. The girl’s lower back pops and she yelps, the tension in her body falling slack as she stops her stretching and sinks back down into her mattress, exhaling a long breath.

Taking a moment to breathe in again, the sore girl gets up and takes a second deep breath of the morning air, realizing something. It feels unusually crisp inside of the house right now. She sits upright, listening to the noises of...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 68: As above

Midnight moonlight shines in through the caked, dust painted windows. The dull glow that barely manages to creep in, intermingling with the light of the lantern that the girl has dulled by half closing the shutters on the small device. She holds it up above her head, shining it around the room and wiggling her nose, doing her best not to sneeze. Her presence here seems to have disturbed the long since sleeping dust, rousing it into the air. The whole room is filled with dust. Dust covers ever...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 67: Three

Fresh stands outside, just next to the dungeon gate. But her eyes don’t look towards the dungeon, rather she scans the ring of houses around the plaza, looking for what it is that’s bothering her. It’s the middle of the night. The rest of the last day was quiet and uneventful, but she was happy that Jubilee relented and they shared what was left of the fruits for dinner. Basil had taken a few for herself, on top of the ones she ate during her shift. Apparently, the priestess has a real ...

Chapter 215

The eclipse shines up above us, the fake sun and the moon of the dungeon layering over one another as they spin around the ceiling. Intersecting beams of pale light shine out from the both of them, soaking the world below in a strange, mystical hue. Two great, radiant objects attached to the roof of the dungeon floor, as if we were on the stage of a theater. As if it were a mobile hanging above a baby’s crib. I look up to the shadowy face of the spinning moon above and it looks down to me, ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 66: Ju-Basil-eeee~

“Basil! What’s it like to be a priestess?” asks Fresh, standing behind the counter on her way to collect another load of armor to bring upstairs.

Basil thinks for a moment, before answering with a smile. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding,” says the woman.

Fresh tilts her head, speaking without thinking. “Weren’t you broke, though?”

The priestess flinches, twitching together at the question that stabbed straight ...

Chapter 214

We stand there, four eyes transfixed on the shimmering mirror of the large, reflective crystal we stand in front of. A sharp ambient light seems to shine around us, yet there is no visible source. I tilt my head, looking at the visage of the armored skeleton shining back out towards me, who does the same and I watch as an aquamarine face copies me, both it and its reflective doppelganger mimicking my movements. Lifting a hand, I pinch my skull. Did I gain some weight? I look a little chubby h...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 65: Hunter's moon

Fresh looks at the ectoplasm and then down to the bundle of spring-green slime that she had asked Basil to buy for her. Goo from slimes, which were apparently common enemies just past the graveyard down in the dungeon. Popping the corks off of both small bottles, she pours the contents into a pot together, watching as the two liquids separate. The surprisingly fatty ectoplasm floating on top and the dense, somewhat acidic goo sinking to the bottom. Picking up her grimoire and her ritual-knife...

Chapter 213

By somewhere to belong, I obviously didn’t mean inside of me.

But that doesn’t stop the slime-girl that is sloshing around inside of my hollow armor, from slipping in and out of my bones as she… does whatever it is that slimes do when you aren’t watching them. I’d prefer to get her out of me, but -

I leap the left, moving out of the way just as a fireball rushes past where my head was a second ago. An eruption of scorching flames lashes out from ahe...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 64: Back to work

Fresh looks at the mountain of teeth in front of her. “Jubilee, I don’t know if there are enough goblins in the dungeon for us to keep this up,” says the girl.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, with all the daggers and the new weapons and now this sword, we’re using hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Jubilee shrugs. “Well, we get more every day. But if we run out, then we run out.” They wave her off and return to the ledger. “Besi...

Chapter 212

Somewhere to belong -

I kick off of the next wall, doing my best to not ever touch the disgusting goo that covers the floor. Doing my best to avoid the lurching bodies and the outstretched hands that rise up from the slime to reach for me, my mud-stained, wet, tattered cape billowing behind me as I propel myself further. As I watch as the secretions collect and I listen as the humming grows louder, as the encroacher encroaches. I watch as mindless, frenzied bodies fall into e...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 63: Repaid

I edited the last two chapters to make the transition to paying off the debt a little more gradual

------

Repaid - {4998} Obols] !

-{ 0 Obols Remain Due}- !

The barkeeper nods to them both with an unusual smile as she takes the coins they laid out on the counter.

Fresh and Jubilee look at each other, sharing an acknowledging nod between themselves as they walk away, heading up the ...

Chapter 211

I know what I have to do. But…

I look at the entrance to the next floor above me, as I stand on the precipice of the staircase in abject horror at what lies beyond. They’re all dead, right? The hero-party already came through here, so I’m safe, right?

Right?

I’m scared, guy, hold me. But not too closely, because that’s exactly what I’m scared of.

My boot clanks out, a single sound that reverberates through the qui...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 62: Progress

The day flies by quickly and an exhausted, but somewhat less troubled, Basil leaves the store for the night, as Jubilee and Fresh finish up the last of their tasks for the day. The lanterns are all sold out, including the display piece and the shelves are picked clean. The two of them have made a killing today. Though Fresh doesn’t appreciate Jubilee’s calling it that, in light of recent events. By the next day, Jubilee seems to have gotten over their feud, after ‘lecturing’ Fresh on ...

Chapter 210

It is a father’s role, to teach his children to overcome. Strictly archetypically speaking, that is.

I leap to the side, as the great maw of the undead dragon strikes into the ground, shaking the world as his skull crashes into the rock, displacing a flurry of snow, sending it flying up high into the air in an obscuring wall.

A father’s role in the natural world of the dungeon is to secure, to hunt, to scavenge, to fight and it is the responsibility of th...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 61: What-What?

The day goes by fairly quickly as the three of them work. Fresh finishes her projects upstairs, putting Jubilee’s room in order and then finishing her work on their shutters. She isn’t sure if these will stop a vampire from coming in from the outside. But they might slow one down at the very least. Demons and ghosts she isn’t so sure about though.

“Basil?” asks the girl after she comes back downstairs, wanting to ask about such things.

Basil looks u...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 60: What friends do

Fresh lies awake, tossing and turning as the sounds begin to collect outside. The tapping. The rain returning once again. She flips over, looking at the lantern she had made before that is set against the wall of her room and her eyes find their way over to the chain-lock on her door, just double-checking again if it’s really closed. Thunder cracks out and she pulls the blanket up higher.

“Why does it always have to start raining at night?” she mutters into the blanket ...

Chapter 209

The snow crunches beneath my boots as I walk over the metaphorical mountain. You might be wondering, guy, how can there be a mountain in the dungeon? Aren’t you underground?

It’s a small mountain, okay?

It’s more of a… play-mountain, contained in a giant underground chamber. I press my way up the ledge, climbing past the dead undead yetis and ghouls that lay strewn about the ice and buried under fresh snow. Thankfully, the sub-boss here is dead, I gue...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 59: Ghost-Goo

Fresh lays on her back, swirling the bottle of ectoplasm around above her head. Her eyes are locked in fixation onto the faintly glowing white-goo that is sloshing back and forth inside of the glass jar.

“Ghost-goo. Ghost-goo.” She narrows her eyes. “Ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghoost-gh…” She clears her throat and starts over. “Ghost-goo-ghost-goo-ghost-“

“Ghost-shut-up!” yells Jubilee from behind the counter, throwing a wadded up ball of...

Chapter 208

I look at the sphinx blocking the way.

“Get out of the way, Sphinx!” I yell at it, pointing my lance towards the creature blocking the sandstone corridor.

The sphinx tilts its head. Its, or… ‘her’ face - which is that of a black-haired human with pointy features, attached to a lion's body with wings, turns sideways, as she looks at me curiously. I’m guessing here, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘she’. I mean… it’s really hard ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 58: Secure

“Work here?” asks Basil, somewhat surprised.

Fresh leans in. “Yeah!” The girl rubs her head. “Jubilee and I can’t keep up with the work on our own forever. It’s really exhausting.”

Basil fidgets, looking around the store uncertainly. “I’m not really… I’m not really trained in anything like this,” she says.

“Neither am I!” beams Fresh. “We’re just kind of making it up as we go along!”

“Tha...

Chapter 207

It’s just a road.

I run down the way that cuts through the floor which is filled with a thick, dense bramble.  Thorns the size of my head, sprouting out of gigantic, coiling green vines fill the space on either side of the way that I follow.

But apart from that, there’s just the road. Just me and the road and I hurry down the way, listening to the voices talking in the distance behind me, as the hero-party gives chase. They’re fast. How are they al...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 57: Loose threads

It’s the middle of the night and Fresh looks through her grimoire, thinking about recipes for a stamina potion, as she taps her chin with her other finger. The tip of which is wet from opening the book. Jubilee has gone to bed and she sits downstairs alone, thinking about this future project. But she hasn’t come up with anything just yet.

On the bright side, literally, she looks down to the ferns that Jubilee had managed to buy for her.

[Gully Fer...