Cyn froze for a moment, surprised, before quickly activating her diadem and searching for signs that the extinguished rune had triggered any traps. Seeing no other changes, and feeling her familiar’s concern above her, Cyn began to kick her legs again to make her way back to the surface. Spam also did not appear to be in any danger, and as far as she could tell, its concern stemmed from the surrounding area suddenly becoming dark without the rune.

  She had to set the egg down to get out of the water and, after confirming their surroundings still seemed safe, Cyn quickly checked the new objectives she had received from picking up the egg.

  Madman, or genius?

  Bonus Objective: Discover the crumbling tower’s treasure (Completed)

  Rewards to be dispensed upon exiting floor.

  Huh. Cyn felt almost... disappointed. There was at least one other door in this tower, this egg couldn’t be the only thing here. Right? Maybe in the eyes of the System this was a major find, since it was some kind of magic-infused, forcibly evolved egg of an already impressive creature species. She just didn’t really have any use for it. Hopefully there would be more useful items to be found here after further exploration, even if they were not the treasure of the tower. The flavor text of the objective was a bit odd, but it was easy to presume that it was referring to whomever had infused the egg, and that it would have made more sense if she had explored this place normally. Instead of from the bottom up.

  A helping hand.

  Creature Handler Objective: Hatch the Feathered Solar Serpent Egg

  That was a new kind of objective, one specifically for her profession. It wasn’t listed as ‘bonus’, and it didn’t state the dungeon name above its flavor text, which made her wonder if the objective might not be limited to this dungeon floor. Neat. Too bad I won’t be doing that. She had already promised to return the egg to its mother. Cyn supposed that to get in here, most people would have had to kill or somehow sneak past the serpent outside. Other Creature Handlers might have been able to approach without getting eaten immediately, but she doubted most would have had the opportunity to make a deal with it. Hell, if not for Spam, she also would have been screwed despite being immune to its mental influence.

  Now that she thought about it... why hadn’t the Voidling been affected by the serpent like the other Humans were? As far as Cyn was aware, Spam did not share her skills. Perhaps it just had some kind of natural resistance to those kinds of abilities, since its Inspect description made it clear that Spam was not meant to be in the physical world. The familiar also understood speech, though, and not just from Cyn. It did appear to just ignore people most of the time, but also had, on more than one occasion, directly reacted to her party members’ words.

  Again, though, she couldn’t rule out that just being a skill Spam had. While she presumed the soul impressions inside the dungeon were altered by the System to work with her Dimensional Translator skill, the mentors her party had encountered were from outside dimension 242. They did not seem to have problems communicating, so they probably just had a better version of the translator skill. She could try playing a really complex game of charades with Spam to get answers, but frankly Cyn did not find the questions important enough for that. There were better uses of her time.

  Shrugging away her thoughts and the mild disappointment at her discovered objectives, Cyn picked up the familiar in question to put it on her shoulder before picking up the egg. She planned to hold the precious cargo to her chest, which would make the Voidling’s pouch unusable. That was the easiest place for Cyn to hold anything for an extended period, and she could even hold it one-handed for a limited amount of time with relative safety. After giving the mysterious door a final, remorseful look, she started up the steps back towards the surface.

  As she carefully made her way up the spiral, Cyn found she kind of missed the warm, amber light the rune had given off. Her diadem was extremely useful, but the odd, directionless, pale blue light made everything look much more unnerving. It made Cyn feel jumpy, a response not helped by the fact that for most of the way up the only sounds she could hear were her own footsteps, and occasionally a quiet crumbling as the edges of the stone steps broke into a course dust. There weren’t even handrails on the staircase, forcing her to walk close to the wall out of caution.

  As she climbed, Cyn took note of the lack of doors. While she did pass a few closed ones, similar to the door at the bottom of the tower, there were significantly fewer than she would have anticipated with how deep the tower went. Was this place really meant to create a single item? It just seemed like a lot of work and space going to waste. But what did she know? Not much, since the dead runes that flowed across the walls were more foreign to her than any language of Earth. Maybe it needed to be that big.

  Cyn was about halfway up the tower when she encountered a problem. A very big problem. A section of the staircase had collapsed, falling onto the stairs below, and the rubble prevented Cyn from continuing up the spiral. She might be able to climb around the edges of the debris, but it was a huge risk if the pile ended up breaking apart. She would fall back into the water below, with large chunks of stone falling down atop her. Not to mention, even attempting to go around the obstruction this way was impossible while also holding the egg.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Lacking options, Cyn backtracked to the last door she had passed. She was going to need to find either a different route upwards, or some kind of item to help her continue past the collapse. She did not feel like it was reasonable to try and depend on her party coming down after her, and instead she would be better off trying to save herself. After lingering in front of the unimposing door for a few moments, Cyn chose to set the egg down a few steps away. She had to prop it up with bits of scrap material she was carrying around in her Promising Ring of Holding, since its round shape left it at risk of rolling down the stairs, but it was a better solution than trying to hold onto it while opening a door into the unknown.

  After taking a few deep breaths, Cyn carefully pushed open the simple wooden door. A small puff of dust, accompanied by a horrific, putrid smell, was blown into the air as the room came into view. The room itself wasn’t very large, and it was almost immediately recognizable as living quarters. A large bed was pushed against one wall, a stone vanity adorned with a clouded mirror nearby. On the other side of the room, closest to Cyn and the doorway, was a small table with a single stone stool and some scraps of paper scattered across its surface. At least one of those scraps had writing on it. Overall, there was no sense of decadence or even much in the way of decoration. At a glance, the items looked functional and nothing more. Everything was coated in a fine layer of dust and, between that and the pale light of her diadem, it made the most of the scene appear muted. Cast in shades of gray and dull blue.

  While Cyn mentally took note of the little details, none of those things truly drew her focus. They were distractions, a mostly subconscious attempt to not see the center of the room. The first thing she saw on opening the door, the part of the scene Cyn’s eyes quickly skittered away from, was a corpse. She needed to actually acknowledge the entire room before entering, and definitely make sure that the... person... wasn’t a threat. But she couldn’t bring herself to look. There was nowhere to run this time, and turning her back to ignore the problem also would not work. Cyn felt stuck in the moment, frozen in place as her heart raced ever faster and her eyes flicked around to study anything else. She was also alone this time, which made the entire prospect of facing the source of her anxiety feel insurmountable.

  Then, Spam let out a quiet, worried warble from its perch atop Cyn’s shoulder. The soft sound, a gentle feeling of concern that existed outside her own emotions, combined with the Voidling’s sticky tongue briefly plastering itself to her cheek, pulled Cyn out of her frozen state. Taking a deep, shaky breath and trying desperately not to gag, she reached up to Pet the familiar and whisper, “Thanks, buddy.” Not alone. I’ll never be alone again. Despite her internal pep talk after meeting the Cadaverous Puppet Bloom, Cyn was still very freaked out by the sight of a decaying corpse. Frustrated at her own fear, and determined to get over it , she forced herself to look while covering her mouth and nose with the edge of her cloak.

  Orc – Level 43

  Considering Cyn’s own overall level was only twenty, that seemed like a pretty high number for her to be able to see. But corpses might follow different logic than the living, or the Feathered Brine Serpent outside was really high level. The Orc had clearly been left here for some time. Long enough for decay to eat away most of his features, resulting in a large, dark stain that spread across the stone floor, but not so long as to have turned to just bones. Both taller and bulkier than a Human, the man had green skin that Cyn was pretty sure was not due to his current state. What skin was left had a great deal of discoloration, but the undertone reminiscent of pine needles remained constant. She could not make out any wounds on the curled-up form that would have resulted in his death, but the decay had riddled it with jagged holes so she found it impossible to really tell.

  Under the stain surrounding the corpse, Cyn could see runes and geometry scrawled over the floor. Compared to those she had seen in the rest of the tower, these runes seemed roughly drawn. Imprecise, or perhaps just done with a shaking hand. Could they have been drawn in a rush, some kind of failed protection spell? None of it was glowing, so Cyn was at least reasonably sure they were deactivated, or were never active in the first place.

  There was nothing visible that indicated the Orc’s class or profession, and his clothes appeared casual, but he was holding onto something. Clutched to his chest with both arms, Cyn was able to make out some kind of book. She wanted to know what it was, since Inspect did not seem to detect it, but... she would have to get very close to grab it. Maybe even touch the body.

  Feeling a light tremor start running through her muscles at the thought, Cyn turned away to look for anything else that could be of importance. Picking up the scraps of paper on the table, they all had varying degrees of writing on them. But much of the writing was scribbled out, as if the writer kept changing their mind about what to say. From what she could make out in the scribbles it appeared to be some kind of apology to someone named ‘Nel’, but there were no details about what warranted the scrapped bits of letter.

  Searching further, she found that the vanity had no drawers, and the mirror did not appear to be anything special after Cyn wiped away the layer of dust on top of it. There was no under the bed to check. That left her with only two options. She could just leave, and try a different door further down the stairs, or... Cyn could try and retrieve whatever was important enough to the dead Orc for him to die still clutching it.

  The entire idea was revolting. The smell in the room had not gotten any better, easily penetrating the cloth of the cloak she was attempting to use like a mask, and Cyn was more than ready to leave. Cyn doubted it was important, but she also had a very hard time shaking the feeling that she should at least try to retrieve it. Creeping forward, she tried to use the tip of her boots to move the Orc’s arms. Unsuccessfully. She only managed to make herself more nauseous.

  Just as Cyn was resigning herself to not seeing the book, the Voidling made an annoyed chirp, and jumped off her shoulder. Right onto the Orc’s body. Spam appeared utterly unbothered by the corpse, and after giving its bonded Awakened a reproachful glare, the small, pink creature carefully climbed down the Orc’s arms and grabbed at the book with its mouth.

  “You are not climbing back on me anytime soon.” Cyn could hear the wobbling tension in her voice, making it almost painfully high pitched, and she hated it. Spam glared at her again before tugging the tome free with little difficulty. Unsure if the stained stones were still wet, and not wanting the pair to fall onto the floor it if was, she quickly reached down to grab both the Voidling and the book before bolting from the room and back out into the ‘fresh’ air of the tower.

  Cyn unceremoniously dumped both of them on the ground before pulling the door shut again. If she had lingered any longer, Cyn was pretty sure she would have been sick. The smell remained, but she was hopeful it would dissipate quickly now that the source was once again sealed away. After a few calming breaths, she reached down to pick up the unmarked, leather-bound tome beside a grumbling Spam, using her cloak like a glove now to avoid touching the object directly. “Look... I appreciate it. But seriously... I am not carrying you until I can give you a bath or something.”

  The familiar’s grumbles only increased, making it clear that it did not understand what her issue was. Shaking her head, Cyn sat down and fumbled the tome open. She barely saw that the first page was filled with charcoal sketches before a scrap of loose paper fluttered out, forcing her to catch it before it went down the steps or over the edge into the water below.