Draft: 43 Drunken Dungeon Escapades

James was enjoying herself. Hiccup. Properly enjoying herself. With things other people would enjoy too, so she wasn’t even being weird. Turns out old wine bottles had high alcohol contents. And they were pretty tasty. So, James was enjoying herself in this dungeon she found.

It had taken her a while to get drunk though, but James had proven herself determined. It was probably a byproduct of her high vitality stat, so really, she could call this System experimentation.

Sprawled out on the fancy cream couches with her feet resting on the pearl inlaid coffee table, James didn’t have a care in the world. Tutorial or not, she was still alive, in a cottage, in France. Could life get any better? Objectively, she wasn’t sure. Granted, she wasn’t really sure if she could be objective.

Getting a fish from her storage item she started to clean it with her fingers so she wouldn’t eat any of the fish bones, getting the cream sofa stained every time she laid her hands to rest. They were heavy. Putting a piece in her mouth, she spit the room-temperature fish back out. She forgot to heat it!

Stumbling her way over to the kitchen, which was thankfully close, she turned on the gas range and took out a pan. Flipping her fish around on it for a few minutes and somehow not getting hurt at all from any of the sizzling, she started eating it again. It was much more manageable this time, if a bit overcooked.

Her vision was doing weird stuff, maybe there were psychedelics in the pan? She giggled; the cottage owners weren’t very upstanding citizens if that was the case. The ground below her filled with a tie dye of light grey and beige mana, swirling and swirling, it was grand!

Gathering a bit of her wit, a very, very, small amount, she went to the bathroom next to the kitchen and splashed her face with some water from the sink. Psychedelics were bad! She should clean out her eyes to be safe.

The ground, however, continued to swirl and fill up with mana no matter how much water she splashed. And she was determined, so it was a lot of water. Maybe she should try to get out? The dungeon didn’t seem to care if she completed all of it. And she was starting to feel sick.

One leg after the other, and sometimes tangled in between, she started to make her way to the entrance. The short fifteen-foot walk seemed to take forever as she couldn’t conclusively understand where the ground was due to the mana moving in it. Finally getting to the door, she tried to open it.

You have entered a Dungeon. You may not leave it until you have completed it.

The notification had changed. She hadn’t even gotten a quest alert. Was it supposed to do that? The rattling of the door grew louder. She thought the hinges were loose when she got to the cottage! The ground started to warp itself, the wooden panels contorting and making her fall. Probably looking like a horror movie in the upscale cottage with her boutique dress, James franticly looked around for solutions from her sprawled position on the ground. She wanted out.

Reaching for her Skill, she let out a mana blast, but it didn’t seem to really register in the swirling ground mana, making it pause for less than half a second at best. Checking her mana, she had less than half left, and only three quarters of both health and stamina. Something was really, really, wrong. And she only just registered it properly.

Getting up on shaky feet, her alcohol addled thoughts becoming increasingly sober with the influx of adrenaline. She started pounding on the window next to the door, all the while trying to stay upright with the changing ground beneath her. It was surprisingly durable, and she wished she had something hard she could throw at it.

The ground’s shaking continued to get worse, and parts of the floor started to fall down, to where she couldn’t really say. The mana seemed to consume it, whisking it away within its swirls beyond the reach of her Mana Sense. Her attributes continued to drain themselves, and she let out another panicked mana blast. It was all she could do, really.

Using the short pause her mana blast caused, she got out a paperweight she had collected from the boutique and kept in her earrings. Throwing it at the window with all her might, she heard the sweet sound of a crack as the window shattered. The glass shards still in the window frame stared at her, but James refused to think any more about what she was about to do. The ground itself was fighting her.

Climbing over the window frame and getting glass pieces lodged all over her legs and thighs, another notification.

You have entered a Dungeon. You may not leave it until you have completed it.

You have entered a Dungeon. You may not leave it until you have completed it.

Ignoring the notifications, she set her feet down on the porch. Hearing a terrible roar, she started to run for all she was worth. Or maybe it was the grumblings of the ground. Did it matter?