Elegy For An Epilogue

Bluey’s ability was interesting to the point where Cecillia tried to shove her entire bag down its mouth. She figured that if it could swallow and spit out whole objects without any change, she might as well let it carry her stuff.

“Bluey,” Cecillia growled. “I told you to stay still.”

With one hand clutching her bag, she tried to grip the slime with the other. But to her frustration, her fingers kept slipping on its slick, smooth and blue body. After some time of continuous failure, she finally gave up.

Cecillia heaved a sigh and glanced down at the bag. Maybe she was abusing the poor thing by trying to get it to eat something nearly double its size.

“...Is the bag too big for you?” she asked softly.

Bluey nodded sagely and its gelatin wobbled. It turned to the bag and gave a single hop, then faced the core and hopped twice. Understanding what it meant, Cecillia rubbed her temples.

“Can you do anything useful?”

As her words echoed faintly, they were like crashing thunder to the slime. Its body shivered in fright and it bounced around frantically. Cecillia’s piercing eyes followed the creature as it hopped up to her quiver. Bluey hesitated for a moment before its maw opened wide, air being suctioned into the abyss as the entire quiver was swallowed whole.

Cecillia stared at the creature awkwardly and even glanced back at Blackie who was still acting depressed. At this point, she was starting to feel like a mother with two dysfunctional children. Shaking her head, her gaze returned to the slime that was bouncing at her feet. Her mood had already turned sour, and as she narrowed her eyes, this slime better not make it any worse.

Bluey quivered beneath her eyes, but it was determined to serve its new master. Slowly, an arrow was pushed out of its mouth and Cecillia raised a single brow.

“Can you push one more out?” she asked.

Bluey nodded and a second arrow appeared right next to the first. Cecillia smiled, an idea was beginning to form in her mind. Perhaps this slime wouldn’t be as useless as she thought.

Thirty minutes passed as Cecillia practiced with Bluey. They repeated the motions where Cecillia would shoot and the slime would spit the next arrow into her empty hand. Scenarios were created where she ran, walked, jumped, and even flipped in midair and Bluey completed every single one of them with flying marks.

The technique saved about a second per arrow which was massive, but the thing that Cecillia appreciated the most was that she didn’t have to wear the quiver. During the fight against the aohr, her movements were restricted slightly. But with the slime, all it had to do was sit on her shoulder.

Now, Bluey had settled into a comfortable position on the top of her head. Cecillia didn’t mind the slime, its weight was barely noticeable. On the other hand, Blackie had watched the two for the entire time with growing disgust. The wolf held its snout high and closed its eyes to not match her gaze.

Cecillia chuckled, no matter what though, it had to listen to her commands as per the contract’s agreement.

“Blackie, come,” she called.

Regretfully and with drooped ears, the massive wolf trodded to its master. Cecillia ignored its qualms and swung herself onto its back. She felt Bluey tense above her, but it soon calmed down. Scanning the surroundings one last time to see if she had left anything behind, they were off.

The sun was hanging at the apex of its path and Cecillia knew that they had around six hours until nightfall. But with Blackie’s speed, she figured that she could cut the corners a little. A laugh escaped her lips as the wolf’s muscles contracted, the odd family shooting through the air. The water beneath them splashed at their feet, then they landed on the other side.

Cecillia spurred Blackie into the Elendar forest and the world once again became a blur. Trees flew past them and she noticed that the bark was changing color the further they went. She also noticed small critters and insects hiding in the undergrowth to avoid the three, but luckily for them, they weren’t even worth the time of day.

Soon, Cecillia slowed the wolf and her body was placed on its highest level of attention. She was eager to find a monster, but the area they had entered was eerie in a way. A shallow mist rolled on the ground and Cecillia was a little apprehensive.

The part of the forest they had entered was strange. There were no buzzing flies, chittering animals and the graying leaves attached to withered branches didn’t do much to ease her mind. The only reason why she hadn’t turned around and left was because if there was anything to kill, it would be here. The mist grew denser, clinging to the air as it limited visibility to a few meters. But Cecillia’s gaze was like a hawks and Blackie’s ears were perked to their limits, she trusted that they could avoid any ambush.

The only sounds that broke the uncanny silence were the soft steps of Blackie’s legs that occasionally crunched a leaf. Bluey on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind a thing as it wobbled on her head.

Cecillia was eager to find a monster, and as she heard a rustling from the side, her head snapped its way. Her bow was already drawn and an arrow was prepared by Bluey.

[Deer - (Level 2)]

It was only a deer, nothing of interest. She breathed in deep and they moved on. Some would assume that the quickening of her heartbeat was fear, but really, it was only the excitement of the hunt. A smile flitted onto her face and the feeling steadily grew.

Coming into a clearing of the forest, Cecillia looked around and narrowed her eyes. The blue sky should’ve been just above them, but instead she only saw dark clouds. The trees surrounding them were gnarled and faded. They lacked color almost as if the scene had been captured in a black and white photograph. However, the smell of a recent fire was unmistakable.

Blackie sniffed it out as well and they were already headed for the direction. Thirty seconds had passed and it was found. A small fireplace, thrown together with a couple sticks, only cold ash remained. Although, there were bones of a small animal laying to the side, the meat being completely gone.

Cecillia checked her surroundings but all was silent. She was curious about who had prepared the fire and maybe she could receive some useful information about the area—that is if they were human. In this type of world, it wouldn’t be odd that something other than a human would use fire to cook their meals.

Looking around once more, Cecillia’s gaze lifted as her eyes settled on a set of faded tracks in the dirt. The footsteps resembled human, or more precisely, a two legged figure that had the ability to wear boots.

However, following the trail wasn’t the easiest of things. The randomly scattered trees were becoming more and more like a thicket, while hidden roots beneath the rolling mists tangled around Blackie’s paws. The trail continued into another clearing, this time smaller as the trees completely blotted out the sky. Only trickles of light pierced through the canopy and they came to a halt.

In front of them was an enormous trunk of a tree. Its height couldn’t be realized due to the forest canopy, but she assumed that something of its size would be hundreds of meters at the very least. Although, what caused her breath to hitch in her throat was the massive entrance carved into the wood. Shaped like an arch, its height was at least five metres and its length long enough to contain four Blackies if they were stacked from head to tail.

Peering inside, Cecillia couldn’t see anything but darkness. She received a malicious feeling from the sight, but the same feeling was prevalent ever since they had entered the mists. Heading closer, the air that flowed out was stale like it was almost dead.

“Can’t go back now,” she murmured.

Obviously she could just turn and head back the way they came, but the trail led into the darkness and her curiosity won over. Entering the tree, Blackie’s footsteps started to click as the ground beneath them altered into stone. Thankfully, Bluey was able to illuminate several meters ahead, but its light couldn’t pierce through the mist that had grown infinitely denser.

“Thanks, Bluey,” Cecillia said.

After a minute, Cecillia could barely see the trail through the fog and the corridor had narrowed. It led downwards and as she reached out to one of the walls, it was no longer of bark, but of smooth glossy stone.

What was weird though was that her body started to feel chilly. It was barely noticeable, but after diving into a river, it was strange that she just started to feel it now. Letting out a small breath, wisps of white condensation floated before her eyes.

Blackie wasn’t bothered, and the slime hadn’t reacted at all, thus they went on. Another five minutes passed before Cecillia heard the faint sounds of trickling water. The sound gradually grew and the slope of the passage smoothed out into a flat surface. The walls melted away and they arrived inside a room of sorts. It was enormous to say the least, incomprehensibly long to the point she couldn’t see the end and at the bare minimum two soccer fields wide.

Cecillia looked up and saw hanging roots from a ceiling that couldn’t be seen. The sounds of the water were to the right and the trail had continued in that direction. But her eyes trembled as they laid upon a sight that shouldn’t have been possible.

Hopping off the wolf, Cecillia cautiously walked to the water’s source—a little crack in the southern wall. The liquid flowed down and ran into a fissure in the ground, but sitting right next to the stream was a skeleton. A human’s skeleton.

Cecillia carefully approached with her dagger at hand. The skeleton was still wearing clothing, but the signs of decay meant that it had been sitting here for multiple years at the very least.

“That’s impossible…”

With the remnants of the fire and the trail leading into this place, there was only one other thing that she could think of that made sense. That there was someone other than the skeleton that produced the trail.

Cecillia narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. Hanging from the skeleton’s neck was a necklace, the metal rusted. The clothing it wore was faded and covered by a thin coat of dust. It was an image that needed cobwebs, but she supposed that it was far too cold for spiders to survive down here. Reaching out with her dagger, she poked the skeleton and its head clattered to the floor, the sound echoing through the room. She instinctively took a step back and waited to see if it would suddenly attack, but it soon appeared that the skeleton wouldn’t reanimate.

‘Too many movies,’ she thought, shaking her head.

Cecillia kicked the head a distance away, not completely trusting the corpse before lifting the necklace with her blade. The adornment slid off the skeleton and she dropped it at her feet to use her identification skill. There were too many things that could go wrong.

[Aphesa’s Promise]

The information she received was just about useless. And with her eyes, she could see that the piece of jewelry was once beautiful, but with its rusted exterior it was hard to tell what it once represented. With this corpse though, it seemed that Aphesa’s Promise was left unfulfilled.

“Bluey,” Cecillia said. “Can you eat it?”

The slime bounced down from her head and landed in front of the necklace. It sniffed the object and in the next second it was gone.

Cecillia patted the slime. “Thanks.”

Returning her gaze to the rest of the skeleton, she quickly extracted everything from what was left of its body. Inside a pocket Cecillia found a small pouch containing several coins. Eleven of them to be precise, with four being larger than the rest. The metal was devoid of any rust, but it didn’t seem to resemble any minerals she was familiar with. Perhaps identification could help her here.

[Ellin]

[Merid]

The smaller ones came up as Ellins, and the four larger ones returned Merid. Cecillia figured that it was this world’s currency and tossed the pouch upwards. With a rattle, Bluey’s mouth swallowed the bag up. Other than that, there was nothing left of value on the skeleton.

Cecillia sighed. The stream of water trickled along while Blackie came up to her. She wasn’t sure what to do in the room and wondered why people had gone through all the effort to build something of such scale. She rubbed Blackie’s fur as it licked at her hand and prepared to leave the strange place.

Suddenly, her head snapped to the far side of the room and Blackie released a rumbling growl from its throat. A chilling howl blew through the area and the hairs on the back of her neck stuck on their ends. Her bow was drawn and Bluey slammed an arrow into her hand.

Two distinct notifications blared across her eyes, chiming through her skull and her expression hardened. One of them was decent at best, while the other was nothing short of terrible.

[You have disturbed the Tombs of Elendar Dungeon]

[Basic Skill: Identification has reached level 1!]