Chapter Seventeen

Things didn’t level out past that last huge hill.

Nor, in fact, was it located ‘about halfway’ towards his destination.

It took him at least three days to reach the spire, or as close to such as he was able to calculate, given present circumstances. Long, mind-numbing hours spent without break or rest. Just him slowly dragging himself along a sea of subaqueous dunes; the structure ahead ever so slowly growing larger.

He contemplated turning back several times during the journey; only to be dissuaded by the fact that he had nowhere to turn back to. Even if he managed, somehow, to find his way back to the hole in the ceiling; he wouldn’t be able to swim up it. Whatever he was made of didn’t seem to be naturally buoyant in the first place; much less at whatever depths the floodwaters had dragged him to.

Upon finally reaching the monolith, he found himself in awe of its sheer magnitude. It seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance above him, greatly expanding his previous assumptions on the size of the underwater cavern. Its enormity made even more intimidating by the uncertainty of how much of it still lay buried beneath the sand.

Unfortunately, that awe quickly turned to fury and despair when he found the structure utterly devoid of doors, windows or any other apparent entrances.

He lingered in the area briefly, digging around the monolith’s edges and peering endlessly upwards in hopes of finding some crack or hole; but eventually he was forced to admit there was nothing he could do there. Staying only a few minutes more to get his bearings before deciding to move on. Feeling slightly despondent and utterly out of options.

After that, his wandering became far less… structured.

With all the monuments seeming identical, Bob figured aiming for them was largely pointless. Unfortunately, they were also the only things tall enough for him to see from his current vantage. Thus, he decided to point himself vaguely between two of the spires instead, hoping to come across some of the smaller buildings he’d previously seen littered amongst them.

It should be unsurprising, given the preponderance of misfortune he had encountered prior to this, that things did not go quite so well as Bob had planned.

In the beginning, he actually managed pull together a bit of enthusiasm for the operation. He’d witnessed one of his seams restitch itself shortly after leaving the spire, which gave him at least some hope for his long-term continued survival. Added to that was a slowly swelling optimism that these ruins, once found, would prove far more profitable than the lake above them.

It was a slim hope to grasp onto, but given the that it was the only one on offer, Bob began to hold increasingly tightly to it. Long hours giving plenty of time to imagine his bag-like body easily slipping past ancient traps meant for human targets. Of stealing away hidden untouched treasures to evolve into greater and more powerful monstrous forms.

At one point he’d been planning to go to the lake’s deepest parts in search of treasure, after all. And it didn’t get much deeper than this. Though at the same time he was concerned it might prove quite a bit more dangerous. The area was screaming ‘high challenge rating’ and he very much doubted the grouper were the largest things around.

Unfortunately, what hopes he had for acquiring power, wealth or even encountering dangerous monsters began to dwindle by the end of the first ‘week’. Slowly ground to nothing by the unchanging scene he was surrounded by.

The spires in the distance grew no shorter or taller, no matter how much time he spent dragging himself towards the space between them. The dunes, similarly, were either identical or ever-changing, depending the state of your mind. In the beginning he would occasionally look back; gauging the distance he’d covered by the size of the monolith he’d left retreating in the background. After a while, however, that too had become pointless; it joining the rest as another static image in a watery sky.

He couldn’t even make an attempt at gaining more Skills or Class options as a distraction. While his form seemed to be slowly repairing itself, he was still far from fixed. Which unfortunately left him clinging tenaciously to the two silver coins held in his ‘mouth’. Unable to engage in strenuous activity for fear of dropping them.

He’d fairly quickly swapped ‘Taunt’ back out for ‘Dodge’ near the start of his travels; fearing what creatures he might meet in the deep. But at this point it was almost seeming like a waste of effort. Even the fish avoided him now. Had done, ever since he’d equipped the title which apparently made him inedible.

He knew he’d really started drifting round the bend when he contemplated taking it off, just for the sake of having company.

At some point, Bob simply stopped trying to keep track of time. Hours either blurring together or lost and buried in endless daydreams. Each more realistic than the last. So much so that when he finally did happen upon a building, cresting the rise of one last mountainous dune to find its many-windowed husk looming above the landscape, he wasn’t entirely sure it was real.

It stood six or seven stories tall above the sand-line, its layout almost reminding him of a residential apartment complex from back on earth. The resemblance played with his mind, fighting against previous sword and sorcery expectations, and for a moment almost had him convinced he was hallucinating. It took actually crawling through one of the empty windows for Bob to believe the building wasn’t a delusion. After which point he found himself, if anything, even more shattered than before.

It was obvious even before stepping inside that nothing within had survived. The building was a shell. All that remained being those pieces of structural importance. Walls, floors, roof, support beams, and a stairway which wound up along its inside edge. Conspicuously, these structures also had identical sigils carved along them at set distances. Parts of Bob’s brain couldn’t help but wonder if these runic inscriptions, or whatever energy was imbued in them, were what had kept the structure intact after however many years it had been stuck down here.

The rest of him couldn’t really give a shit. Too busy dwelling on the loss of what little hope he’d been clinging to.

Not that it was even much hope, he was beginning to realize.

‘Even if it was full of treasure, what then? Would that help me get out of this place? Would it help me get out of this world?’

The thought made Bob hesitate. Made him aware he was running dangerously low on drive and purpose and all the other little incidentals needed to keep a person going. He had no illusions about getting back to his own world; his final moments there making it very clear that wasn’t an option. He’d kept pressing onward, however, in the belief that any life – even one as alien and inhuman as this – was better than no life at all.

The last however-many days had begun to wear on that belief, however. With Bob being concerned this latest disappointment had come dangerously close to breaking it altogether.

Deciding a better view of his surroundings might improve his perspective, Bob made his way towards the stairs. Hoping none of the building’s former inhabitants had sprung for durability magic to be placed on any doors along the way.

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The journey up the steps was a slog, but no worse of one than the trek to get here. The building being as destroyed as it was allowed him to witness his surroundings expand around him as he ascended, the horizon of endless dunes slowly broadening out as he passed row after row of windows.

To reveal further endless dunes. The edges of the cave system still nowhere in sight.

He kept expecting to see them appear at the top of each rise, or for him to at least come within view of the cavern’s ceiling; but it never happened. Not even as he pulled himself onto the building’s roof.

In the distance he could immediately see the silhouettes of three structures standing out along the ridgeline of distant dunes. The sight, having spent so much time in search of them, filling him with a slight burst of excitement. This, despite him knowing they were likely in the same condition as the one he’d just dragged himself through.

What he couldn’t see, strangely enough, was any hint of the location he’d originally entered the cavern from. He wasn’t sure how long the fish had been swimming with him in its mouth – time being a very relative thing at that particular moment – but apparently it had been long enough. Either that or the fish in question had been abnormally quick. Because he didn’t see any other way for a literal mountain of sand to have disappeared from view.

It was a strange thing to be distressed by. He’d already reasoned with himself that returning there was useless. But still, as he swept his eye across the endless sandy horizon, Bob couldn’t help but feel that at least knowing what direction not to go in would have been appreciated.

He stood on top of the ruined structure for some time. Gazing out into the far distance as if some new, better option would eventually reveal itself.

When he finally did move, hours later, it was less of an authoritative decision and more as simply something to do. Randomly choosing one of the three buildings in the distance and marking its location in his mind before beginning to trudge back down the stairs. Deciding it was preferable to have something to be aiming for during his travels.