93 – Triumphant Exit

Alexandra stood in front of the dungeon’s massive metal doors, her throat sore and her stomach empty. She had thought she’d be free from hunger after clearing the malediction. She had also thought she’d packed enough supplies for her dungeon run.

Turns out, she’d been wrong. Something that was happening a tad too often for her liking. Next time, she vowed, she’d overprepare.

She tapped her fingers on the metal. It was cold.

Of course, there was no way to tell time inside this place. She’d been waiting for what felt like a long time, but even half an hour would feel like that here.

Determined not to waste her day, she got to work on unraveling the sickness of empathy. Following the pattern she’d identified when lifting the curse version of her sickness, she looked for a membrane coating the interior of her core.

But try as she might, she didn’t find it.

It wasn’t lost on her that her malediction issue had solved itself, rather than her solving it. Maret was only a Platinum, and if maledictions were as advanced as Tristan claimed, it was already close to a miracle for the alchemist to create one.

Malediction of infinite hunger was faulty. A failed product. In its endless desire to improve, it had consumed even itself.

Not that she was complaining. It was a good thing for her. But it meant that locating a sickness would be more complicated. After all, her sickness of empathy came from Life Curse. So, as far as Alexandra could tell, it came from the system.

No shame to Maret, but the system was naturally better at making curses.

When the curse of cold blood naturally dissipated, she started having trouble staying focused. There was only so much introspection she could take before growing bored, and perhaps a little restless.

She stepped away from the closed door and opened her journal.

Quest Journal

Daily Reset: 06:00 | Streak: 36 Days | 2% All Stats, 2% Skill experience

Next Milestone: 50 Days

Daily Quests:

• Talk to ten different people (0/10)

Easy quest, right?

Except she was alone inside this stupid dungeon instance. Hopefully, the group of Bronze from yesterday would still be outside. Then she could run to Kator and finish her quest. It would be night, but surely, they’d allow her to enter. She was a student of the Iron Library.

Maybe she should have taken one of those class perks that would help her protect her streak. Having to scramble every day was starting to exhaust her.

When it was just a game, daily quests were quick. Only in the later days of her streak did they start taking a lot more time, and that was because she couldn’t find other players to help her.

Maintaining a streak in real life was proving to be a lot more involved.

She looked at her streak. Thirty-six.

Alexandra smiled. Thirty-six was not nearly as good as 3,841. But it was thirty-six quests she’d fought hard to complete.

“Thirty-six,” she repeated, playing with the number in her mind.

Maybe someday she would stop. But for now, she wanted to see what awaited her at the fifty-day milestone. It’d be a shame to stop so close to the goalpost. Today’s quest was simple enough. She just needed that damned door to open.

The gates were tall, reaching all the way to the ceiling. Taller than any gate she’d seen, even on Earth.

Not that Earth doors were particularly tall.

She walked around the room, examining the mushrooms to pass time. The trolls seemed to be eating them. Maybe they were edible.

She licked her lips. “This isn’t a good idea. However…” She had only explored a single tunnel out of the three leading out of the entrance chamber. There had to be more trolls down there. If need be, she could drain some healing in the event that the mushrooms were not meant for human consumption.

Thinking about more trolls made her wonder if she really had killed the chieftain. What if that large troll had just been that: a large troll? What if the real chieftain was waiting somewhere at the end of a tunnel she hadn’t explored?

A metallic crack rang behind her, saving her from the mushrooms. She looked back. The door was moving.

She stepped closer, but waited for the gates to open fully. With the size of them, she didn’t want to risk being crushed.

Behind the gates there was only darkness. It wasn’t night. Night was dark, but it wasn’t pitch black like what she was seeing. It was like a wall where reality stopped existing. There was the cavern, then the gates, then nothing.

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Slowly, she stepped forward.

Walking into the dark was intimidating, but there wasn’t another way out.

She probed the wall of darkness with her foot. It went through. Then she pushed her leg inside. Then the rest of her body, and her head.

The first thing she saw on the other side was the quiet flicker of a campfire burning in the base camp. Then, a row of armed orange-robed students, waiting to enter the dungeon.

She blinked, but she wasn’t the most surprised of the lot.

“You entered the dungeon?” a boy shouted. It was Perrin. “And you’re alive. How?”

“She doesn’t even look injured,” another boy said. Alexandra didn’t recognize him. He hadn’t been there when she entered. “Where is your team?”

“She has no team, Wally,” Yenne said, locking eyes with Alexandra.

“Bullshit,” the boy continued. “An Iron cannot clear the chieftain alone.”

Nobody answered.

“Hello,” Alexandra said, an awkward smile plastered on her face. Fuck, what do I say? There were at least twenty Bronzes here.

“A—Alexandra? Is that you?” A girl’s voice rose from behind the group. She pushed between the front row, appearing before her.

“Haste?”

She smiled. “It’s you! I knew I recognized your voice. Whoa, your scars are gone! What’s going on? You still have white hair, though, and a missing finger. Oh no, sorry! I’m running my mouth again.”