Chapter 6: A glass apple a day will not keep the dungeon crawling away.
“I think she skinned her knee or something. That Camu dude was kind of a jerk.”
“Yeah. She had to stand around. Didn’t even get a chair to sit on.”
“She wasn’t even tied up, though I guess with the ‘only one person with fighting skills’ per city limit, it’s already covered with you.”
“Apparently, you’ve forgotten that I can fight too.”
“Yes, you can. Still, you aren’t.”
“Well, someone has a store to run, you know.”
“I know. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not holding it against you that you chose to run a store, but it does leave me as the sole person who actually goes out to fight. Hence, the one person per city thing.”
“Oh, fine! Have your moment of glory.”
“Heh. Heh heh. Heh heheheh…”
“Dude, you OK?”
“Oh, I’m just fine and dandy. Fine fiddly figgety fine. Yepyep.”
“OK.”
“That’s… that’s it?”
“Well, it has been a long day. And being a hostage has to be pretty tiring.”
“And boring. He wasn’t even interested in her for anything. He was just baiting you to arrive, because someone needs a little more convincing than ‘just go and fight’.”
“Well, she was right, wasn’t she? There really is a huge evil out to… uh, destroy the world. I think.”
“That’s ‘knew’, Maxim. She knew how to get rid of the magic cast on that door.”
“Thank you very much, teach.”
“Don’t make me whip out the grammar nazi on you, Maxim. It’s not going to be pretty.”
“So, the answer to the question ‘who’ll destroy the destroyers’ is… us?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I can’t miss out on this. I’m coming with you.”
“OK. I mean… this town losing their sole protector won’t end in tragedy, right?”
“Nah, it’ll be fine.”
“What’cho talkin’ ’bout, Willis? All the women are pretty in this game.”
“What? How could you…”
“But that’s true, isn’t it? I’m pretty, you’re pretty, everyone’s pretty. It’s like some kind of popular culture curse or something. I’m sure that mysterious woman you’re talking about is pretty too.”
“Sure is.”
“HEY!”
“But anyway, that didn’t answer the question.”
“Oh, really? Did he sweep you off your feet? How did he confess?”
“Aaaactually, I… uh, kind of… seduced the hell out of him.”
“You what?!”
“Well, he’s kind of a dense guy, so I came to the conclusion that if I wanted this relationship to go anywhere, I had to take action.”
“That’s… not what I wanted to hear.”
“Well, you can’t really just sit back and expect anyone to do what you want.”
“Doesn’t look like the lesson’s sinking in.”
“Well… yeah. I mean… he just said so, didn’t he?”
“Ah, that must have been right before I came up.”
“You are so awesome at taking care of people.”
“I know. I’ve had lots of practice.”
“This… feels like some kind of inside joke the two of them play just to see the confused expressions of people not in on the whole thing.”
“I concur.”
“Oh, yes, you are.”
“…I stand corrected.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. I’m coming with you. I’m going to wait as long as I have to.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that won’t backfire or anything.”
“Guess who’s sleeping and win a prize.”
“What the… they’re BOTH sleeping.”
“Right you are.”
“So… what did I win?”
“Um… that was just a facetious statement.”
“So… you got your little weed garden here in the corner, Guy?”
“Uh… it’s just a regular pot plant.”
“Say no more.”
“No, I meant… oh, screw you. Let’s just go.”
“Well, never mind that, then. Let’s loot this place now. The damn events we got into the last time we were here kind of stopped us from that.”
“Even though… say, shouldn’t this tower be buried or whatever?”
“Yeah. I mean… she was in such a rush to have us all leave, and everything here is just fine? I dunno, man, it makes her whole spiel a little untrustworthy.”
“What?! No, it doesn’t. This sounds totally awesome. Hell of a lot better than just sticking around some town killing pudding for a living.”
“I thought you said jello.”
“DOESN’T MATTER! END OF DISCUSSION!”
“Camu armor? I ain’t wearing that thing. It smells.”
“Ooh. A fire dagger. It’s like a dagger, and it’s made of fire.”
“Isn’t it kind of dangerous to make rings out of glass? That’s like a glass cut accident waiting to happen.”
“I don’t care. It is lovely. That’s all that matters.”
“Eeesh. Gotta suffer for beauty, I guess.”
“You know, it just occurred to me that every place we go to has exactly TWO paths out; the one we came from and the one we’re going to. And, of course, some asshole has to block the path onwards. It’s like some stupid plot to stop us from progressing with efficiency.”
“Eeeh, you’re just being paranoid.”
“Yeah. Let’s just go find out which dungeon we have to traverse so that the people in this town will let us continue.”
“I do believe in destiny, but this is just silly.”
“Oh.”
“Well, at least we know where to go.”
“Well, we could just go right to the cave and get that ruby apple since we know, but hey, gotta follow proper procedure, right?”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
“Um… I was thinking of the rich guy. Not the arts & crafts store.”
“Don’t blame me. I felt a disturbance in the force.”
“Like a… uh, something shouting out in some manner and then silence?”
“No, Tia drug me over here.”
“I did not.”
“Jeez, OK, we get it. I’m sure he’s in that cave we’re going to, because reasons. And because you don’t just mention someone in this world and then not have us meet that person.”
“Well, at least it makes sense that she mentions him, since he’s kind of integral to this store.”
“I detect a… slightly bigger house than normal.”
“This must be the house of a rich guy.”
“Or at least slightly more wealthy than anyone else here.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard this tune before.”
“And you will hear it again. Deal with it.”
“Hey, I’m all for hearing that tune some more.”
“Yeah, it’s not like it would be good to help this city prosper or anything, when you can use all your money on things that look pretty.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with using money on pretty things.”
“No, it’s not, at least not as long as that’s not your first priority. And judging by this guy, it’s his ONLY priority.”
“Or fleecing the town dry.”
*sigh* “Which is the exact opposite of what I suggested.”
“So you thought the best way to make this town profitable to you is to basically bring it to the edge of bankruptcy. You, madam, are an economical genius.”
“And you are a genius of sarcasm.”
“I wonder what’s stopping these people from just moving shop somewhere else.”
“Because the guy is apparently holding the gate closed? And we just opened the other one, so yeah… they were basically trapped.”
“Well, whatever. Northern dungeon, here we come.”
“Bring on the battles.”
“Web spider. Doesn’t that kind of go without saying?”
“Not all spiders spin webs. This being the same size as a small car, you’d think it wouldn’t need to.”
“I’m more puzzled with how these very different beings apparently sees no problems with working together. A hedgehog, a butterfly AND a spider?”
“Well… at least the beetles are solely exclusionary.”
“Lava pits. This place has lava pits.”
“Man, you’d think we entered this place from the outside of Mordor or something, and not a lush forest area on an island surrounded by the ocean.”
“And in reality, we should have burst into flames by now, BUT WHATEVER!”
“Big bee. Which reminds me; did we ever face a small bee? Or do we just assume these are much bigger than regular bees? Or the same size, just differently colored.”
“How should I know? I’ve spent all of my life fighting for this one town.”
“Yeah, story of my life too. Does the store in your city buy all the crap you kill?”
“Yep, they sure do.”
“A PUZZLE! HALLELUJA!”
“You gotta be the first guy I’ve seen who’s tired of fighting.”
“Not as much tired of fighting as just murdering the same animals over and over again for all eternity. I would have enjoyed our fight.”
“Oh, OK. That makes sense.”
“Is this one of those ‘male bonding’ situations?”
“Yes, it was either that or a tea party.”
“Eeeh, that was too easy. I need more. MORE PUZZLES! I NEED IT REALLY BADLY!”
“Dear Lord, get this man a Professor Layton game, stat!”
“Uh… OK? I guess I didn’t have to go through some kind of test in this case. Or maybe approaching it is the test.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, we got this… capsule monster in a small tree back before we met up with you. Basically, they presented it as this huge test, but all we had to do was walk up to it, and they were all ‘YOU PASS!’ So… I guess they just couldn’t wait to foist a pile of foam that can fight on us or something.”
“Uh…. right.”
“HOOAAAA! I don’t need a bow to hit that thing with an arrow.”
“Well, I was kind of expecting a crossbow, but you… you threw it?”
“It’s the manly way.”
“Fo sho, bro.”
“You’re… just trolling me now, aren’t you?”
“Nonono.”
“Is that a BLUE bat, or am I just stupidly colorblind?”
“It will be red when we’re done with it, though. I’m guessing they’re just saving us some time.”
“And you’d think that they would at least go for the first appropriate time to refer to an enemy as ‘big’ something, since the red bat IS bigger than the… uh, regular bats.”
“Actually, I think it’s just burnt.”
“The scam casket. Let’s get some Snake Oil while we’re at it.”
“What’s on the Nigerian shelves?”
“Rich princes, mostly. And plane crashes.”
“Yup. It’s a set of stairs descending into what has to be a lava pit. Should we really walk down here?”
“Eh, it’s fine. What could go wrong anyway?”
“I think it’s just made out of regular metal.”
“It’s got a pretty neat sapphire fastened to the grip end, though.”
“Well… I guess. At least it’s not a wood key or whatever the hell they called all those other keys.”
“I have already forgotten.”
“So since going down stairs leads to less lava, does that mean we’re walking UNDERNEATH entire lava lakes? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”
“Well, it’s not like we have a choice. We have to get the rich guy his glass apple so that he’ll let us through the gate he apparently controls, because the people on the other side apparently is fine with this?”
“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds really dumb, doesn’t it?”
“And just as we used the ruby key. Maybe that bat we fought a while back was really a ruby bat.”
“And look, here is the ruby spider.”
“Woulda been a big spider, but we gotta go with the flow here.”
“Actually, if we went with the flow, we would’ve been burned to a crisp by now. I’m not putting a single toe into those lava lakes.”
“Oh, it’s a Tarantula. Well, that changes everything.”
“And by everything, we mean nothing.”
“Ah, the great wall of fire. Always effective against… insects?”
“You never played with an anthill and a magnifying glass as a child, have you?”
“Of course not. That’s just cruel.”
“OK, I… didn’t expect THAT answer.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t like we unleashed fire all over the place, right?”
“Oh, like you didn’t just falcon-punch it in each of its eight eyes.”
“Oh, isn’t that convenient?”
“Well, it’s a good thing we talked with the lady in the glass shop, or we would probably be bashing our heads to the wall trying to solve this mystery.”
“Or we wouldn’t care.”
“That’s the thing that we came down here to look for, but it got broken, but you have one anyway. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!”
“Well, hand it over, then, Mr. Wilhelm Tell.”
“Yeah. Hand it over before you break it, Mr. I Have To Balance It On My Head For No Reason.”
“Also, that is one HUGE apple. Where did you hide it?”
“None of your business.”
“….”
“Uh…”
“Maxim, you pick it up.”
“Hell, no! I ain’t touching that thing.”
“Don’t look at me.”
“I was… just joking. I hid it in that greenery on the left there.”
“But if you made one and sold it in the town, how come it isn’t there? And where did either this glass apple or the crushed one in the room back there come from?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“I just… whatever. Let’s just go.”
“Well, it’s kind of odd that it’s NOT a ruby, since that’s what everything else is called here.”
“Even if very little actually had rubies in them. I think the key was the only thing, come to think of it.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s just go give it to the guy so we can move on.”
“I said ‘let’s go and give it to the guy so we can move on’. Do we really need to let everyone here know we got it?”
“Sure, why not? I think it would be a grand idea that the people in this town should know what their big, rich leader spends most of his money on.”
“Well… I guess I can see that. All the better to get the lynching mob riled up, huh?”
“Oh, he should be here soon.”
“And… uh, he made you a ring? That’s… not disconcerting at all.”
“Well… by saying ‘thank you’?”
“That was easy. Can we move on now?”
“GODDAMN IT, MAXIM! CAN WE JUST GET THAT APPLE DELIVERED AND MOVE ON NOW?!”
“Just a sec. I just want to feed our new armor dog with some of the leftover armor pieces. See what happens.”
“Maxim, why would ANYTHING happen? Outside of it getting sick all over the floor, that is?”
“Um… aside from transforming into a flying butt dog. I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes, we’re sure. Gimme.”
“Maxim!”
“Tia, take it outside.”
“I mean.. that guy inside is a serious dumbass, why not take advantage of that like he’s taking advantage of HIS situation.”
“Well, aren’t you quite the Robin Hood? Except for one little detail.”
“Right you are.”
“You just… came up with that, didn’t you?”
“Nonono, that was my plan all along.”
“You also just said that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I believe you now, because you gave me something.”
“Oh, OK.”
“You two are weirdoes.”
“Besides, I have no idea why she’s following me around like this. I didn’t think she liked fighting THIS much.”
“I… seriously? You don’t know?”
“Uh… well, no.”
“Well… I guess it’s OK. I’m sure her waiting for you to come around won’t turn out to be a really bad idea or anything.”
With another trail that led absolutely nowhere, our heroes started worrying that their quest would turn into a long string of fetch-quests. But there’s also one member of their party who’s hoping for something more. But surely, nothing will ever get in her way, right?
“Didn’t we just establish that all girls are pretty in this world?”
“I know. Intriguing, right?”
“Damn straight.”
“Uh oh.”