This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 161

[This chapter's a bit later than I planned because I needed the extra day to come up with an idea this stupid.]

Chapter 161 - What Do Undead Do All Day?

As Eve cast the light of her eyes around the dark tunnel, four more notifications blazed into view.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Break Into a Bank!
+ 4.288t exp!

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!
Active Ability - Mana Burst
X Mana
Fire external Mana within your area of influence without directly absorbing it!

The first three made Eve blink. She’d expected a milestone and level-up—the bank job was exactly the sort of shenanigan that generally turned into a quest milestone—but the ability upgrade was an interesting one. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

Eve assumed it had something to do with the distinction between Mana she’d absorbed and Mana she had the ability to absorb if she wanted to, but the vagueness of the description and her inability to discern any actual use for the upgrade made her question it. She’d have to play with it later. Either way, the fourth and final notification that crossed her vision took her full attention.

You have entered a field of the accursed. Upon death, any formerly-living body with sufficient integrity will rise as an undead of comparable strength.

Eve relayed the message to Lumy.

Well that explains all those undead Annie mentioned, the phantasmal remnant replied. Somebody’s cursed them.

“But who?” Eve asked aloud, no longer worried about alerting the guards now that they’d made it into the cave. Asking the defensive enchantments to block out sound too had been trivial. “I thought these field curses were meant for battlefields, why is there one underground?”

Maybe this place was a battlefield once, Lumy offered. Or maybe someone just really didn’t want people to come down here.

“That makes more sense,” Eve said. “Maybe whoever built the vault placed this field down to keep people away.”

Fat lot of good it did them, Lumy replied. Without all the undead, the Zandith never would’ve put in those defensive enchantments, which means they never would’ve built the bank here, which means we never would’ve found this place.

Eve nodded. “Hordes of angry undead do tend to attract attention.”

Without further ado, Eve glanced left, then right, then set off.

The tunnel they’d landed in stretched out in both directions, but considering one of those directions came to an abrupt end at a giant willow root nineteen feet away, Eve’s choice was easy.

The worst kind of dirt lined the ground, soft and loose and dry enough to kick up dust with every step as the solid structure of the bank above prevented water from seeping down. The stuff had practically coated the entire lower half of Eve’s armor by the time she’d walked far enough to get out from under the impermeable floor of the bank and onto moister ground.

The unlit passage stretched eight feet in diameter, its entire surface arched as if it had been bored by some great drill. It curved this way and that, bending left and right with seemingly no regard for any intended destination other than down. Lumy’s first instinct was to question it.

Annie did say this was a cave system, right?

“She did,” Eve said. “And the dungeon notification agreed. We’re in the forgotten caverns.”

Except this isn’t a cave, it’s a tunnel something dug, Lumy argued.

“It’s not exactly forgotten, either,” Eve added. “The man of the mists remembered it was here, and the Zandiths certainly know about it.”

Maybe your Questing Stones are just terrible at naming things.

“Oh, they are. Before I replaced it, I used to have an ability called Fate-al Blow.”

Wes told me, Lumy replied. He’s still mad you replaced an ability with such a great name.

“Wes’s definition of ‘great’ is… unique.”

Lumy laughed. That’s one way of putting it.

Almost an hour of careful exploring in, the two came across their first monster of the dungeon, a level eight vengeful mole, according to Appraise. Despite the vast size and level difference, the thing screeched and charged at Eve, trying and failing to sink its decaying teeth into the leather of her boots. She kicked it off.

You have defeated Level 8 Vengeful Mole: +0 exp!

“Not exactly the most deterring of defenders,” Eve commented, “but I guess when that field of the accursed says everything, it means everything.”

She went on to fight zombified earth worms, skeletal bats, and even a vampiric weasel, all of which low level enough to be worth no exp to the level ninety-seven Defiant. Still, the promise of greater threats lingered. Annie had mentioned that over a hundred Zandith had died in these caves, and from the look of it, something had dug this tunnel.

“You know,” Eve said as they walked on, “I always wondered what dungeon monsters do.”

What?

Eve shrugged. “I mean, the ones that are animals just do animal things I suppose, searching for food, finding mates, all that, and the intelligent ones do society things like the Alvin’s former cult or those vampires at Avendreth Manor, but what about everything else? I guess, the Burendian constructs just sit on standby. Outside of that, though. Things like undead. Unnatural enough not to have instincts, but not intelligent enough to really socialize.”

What are you talking about? Lumy asked.

“What do undead do all day?”

I’d imagine most of them sleep.

Eve rolled her eyes. “Sure. Nocturnal. What do they do all night, then?”

Spooky things? Go bump in the night? Eve, I don’t know.

Eve snapped her fingers and pointed up at the phantasmal remnant. “But now you’re curious.”

A silent moment passed before Lumy sent back an aggravated sigh. Okay, fine. I’m a little curious. But don’t get disappointed if we find out they just sleep until some passing adventurer disturbs them.

“That can’t be right,” Eve said. “Annie said they see undead on the other side of the enchantments all the time. Unless there are adventurers wandering around regularly in these so-called ‘forgotten’ caverns, clearly they move around, at least.”

I thought we’ve already established that what we’ve seen so far is neither forgotten nor a cavern.

“Good point.”

Another half hour passed in relative silence before Eve’s sharp ears caught the high-pitched sound of lightweight items colliding into each other in the distance. She stopped short. A minute later, the noise repeated. She glanced up at Lumy. “Any idea?”

No, but I can take a look.

Eve nodded. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “Don’t be seen.”

Without reply Lumy floated off down the tunnel, dimming her lights to beneath the brightness of a candle. Eve waited patiently where she stood, keeping a careful eye on the way forward. The crashing sound repeated twice more before Lumy reached out.

You’re gonna want to see this.

Show me, Eve replied.

It’ll be better if you see it for yourself, Lumy sent, a rare hint of humor in her tone. Trust me on this. They won’t be able to see you from here.

Unwilling to hold back her curiosity for long enough to argue the matter with Lumy—and not one to let basic safety stop her from exploring—Eve crept along the passage, rounding two bends before stopping at the tunnel’s end. She found Lumy floating there, where the tunnel opened up into a cavern vast enough that what little light the phantasmal remnant gave off failed to breech its distant shadows.

The base of the opening was nearly forty feet above the floor of cavern, leaving Eve and Lumy with the perfect position to gaze down unseen at the goings on below, and by Ayla were things going on.

As she lay on her stomach to avoid notice, Eve’s gaze didn’t linger on passage to the cavern’s left from which a distinctive white glow and familiar roar of a leyline emanated, nor did she pay much heed to the ten-foot tall circular vault door built sturdily into the far wall. Something far more interesting than a quick and easy means of egress and near limitless power and her secondary quest objective put together took place at the cavern’s center.

A snakelike skeleton suspiciously the same width as the tunnel in which Eve lay sat straight along the ground, its arced ribs forming the walls within which a group of humanoid zombies and skeletons stood. Other than a single skeleton on the opposite side, the entire group stood beneath the rock worm’s head.

Before Eve’s eyes, the lone skeleton pulled its head free, tossed it to the group, then allowed its bones to fall upright into a very particular, triangular pattern. One of the zombies then proceeded to roll the aforementioned skull down the length of the rock worm skeleton until it collided with the upright bones, knocking some number of them over. Once everything had settled, the lone skeleton would reform, toss its head back, and repeat the process.

Eve couldn’t believe it.

“Are… are they bowling?”

It would appear so, Lumy replied.

Eve stared slack-jawed as another skeleton took its turn rolling the skull down the makeshift bowling lane, only for it to miss the carefully laid bone-pins by several feet. “They’re not very good at it.”

To be fair, Lumy sent, skulls don’t exactly roll straight.

Sure enough, the next zombie to go launched the skull almost forty-five degrees off target, only for it to awkwardly bounce around and land dead on. The assembled undead let out a chorus of happy groans and chattering bones at the strike.

“Okay, maybe they’re pretty good at it.”

I guess this answers your question, Lumy sent. What do undead do all day? Apparently, they go bowling.

Eve blinked. “That… is a way better answer than anything I could’ve hoped for.”

Yes, Lumy put plainly. Yes it is.

Not strictly in a hurry, the two spent the better part of an hour up there watching the zombies bowl. For fairness’s sake, the skeletons took turns playing the part of ball and pins, a task that, for obvious reasons, the zombies were spared. Of course, their set up made actually bowling a spare impossible, because having a second undead on the other side to return the skull without its owner reassembling itself and thus resetting the pins seemed beyond them.

About ten minutes in, Eve and Lumy started placing bets.

“Alright, on dangling-eye’s next turn, what’re the odds he gets at least seven pins?”

I’ll give you five gold if he hits five.

“Done.” They couldn’t shake hands, of course, so Eve instead telepathically sent the image of an extended hand, to which Lumy replied with one of another hand shaking it.

The zombie missed the pins entirely.

Pay up.

“How? You can’t carry gold.”

Doesn’t matter. Pay up.

“Double or nothing?”

Name your bet.

“Ummm,” Eve paused to think. “One arm-ed skeleton hits at least 6 pins?”

You’re on.

An unrealized sum of gold owed one way or the other shifted up and down as the betting game continued. Bowl after bowl, Eve found herself growing more and more invested in the success of particular zombies over others, continuing to develop a sense for their individual skill levels. An hour in, she found herself quietly cheering them on. Two hours in, she found herself not so quietly cheering them on.

That’s what got her.

As the skull collided with the pins in a clean strike, Eve let out a cheer audible enough to echo down into the open cavern. The game stopped. Two dozen skeletons and zombies turned to gaze up at the opening in the wall where Eve and Lumy hid.

The massive rock worm reared up, snarling as it raised its circular mouth at the spying adventurers.

“Well, shit,” Eve cursed.

Shit is right.

“Guess I forgot about the other thing undead do all day.”

And what would that be?

“Resent the living.”

Ah. Yes. That’d be it, Lumy sent.

A rusty iron arrow shot from a skeleton’s bow buried itself in wall to Eve’s left. She sighed. “Alright, alright. No more fun and games.” Eve stood, untying her bone club from her back.

“Time for some violence.”

Next