Fantasy Cursed Island

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle tilted her head as she considered it before she blinked. “Ah... The door won’t open. Another piece of a memory, I think, but the door only opens to people from the outside. Once inside, it won’t respond.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry's face fell at Shuffle's response. "No, nonononono, hang on, that would- that can't be right! I can't leave here?" Jerry hopped down from the alcove. That couldn't be true, he needed it to not be true.

Sprinting through the parts of the ruins already explored and cleared out, Jerry ran back to the entry hall, to the absurdly large double door. They opened to the outside, right? So if he wanted to open them, he'd have to push. Putting his hands on a door and pushing, no budge. Slamming his weight against them only gave him a sore shoulder. "No, no, no!" This couldn't be happening!

Furious and panicking, he ripped up a brick from one of the fountains and flung it at the door. It was futile, but it felt good to do something to this cursed island. He tried against the door for what seemed like hours, before giving up and slumping against it, tears leaving trails in the dust on his face. "I'm going to die here," he realized. What a fool he was, thinking he could tackle the Mapless Island. He hadn't brought supplies for an indefinite trip. He brought enough for one person for two weeks. This... even if he rationed his food supply and he and Shuffle ate the bare minimum, they would run out of food in just over a week, and then slowly starve to death.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle watched him jump down, pausing for a moment before she ran after him. She caught up to him at the door, watching as he tried to get it open. She sat and waited until he finally seemed to calm down. At that point, she got up on all fours and walked over to him. She didn't have any encouraging words, nothing that wouldn't be an obvious lie, so she simply sat down next to him.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry looked at the patchwork creature girl seated next to him. What was he supposed to do now? His whole reason for coming here, the treasures hidden within had just been negated. There was no point in seeking out treasure if he would never be able to gain anything from it. Gold was useless with nowhere to spend it. "I think..." Jerry blinked a few times before trying to speak again. "I think it's time you start talking. Start to finish, everything you know and can think of about this place."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded and thought for a moment. "There's a curse here. Magic is flowing through the whole place, coming from somewhere deep within. It has an affect on almost everything, from the creatures to the sky. The creatures here are...hungry. Ravenous. Even I can feel it gnawing at me. We want flesh, whatever kind it might be. But eating the creatures means taking in more of the corrupting magic. The more we eat, the stronger we get, but the more we hunger too. That larger hound, Blight Hounds, I think they're called. It had eaten a lot. That's why it was so strong."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry sighed, "How long do you think it is before the corruption gets to me, too?", he asked. How long before he turned into a ravenous fiend killing and eating everything that exists?

 

[Fangs9090]

"I don't know. If you eat the carrion left by the things we kill, it probably wouldn't take long at all. Otherwise, it might just not happen. I can't really say for sure."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"What about you? You said eating meat corrupts," Jerry wiped away some of the mess on his face. "You gonna go beast on me?"

 

[Fangs9090]

"I... I'll do my best to resist eating the corrupted meat. I'm afraid that's all I can promise." Shuffle glanced down at her hands.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry thought about that for a moment. If this curse was keeping him here, then maybe if he could figure out how to get rid of it, then he would be able to leave. He pulled his backpack across and pulled out his food supply, which took up most of the space in the backpack.

"Okay, we're gonna try and get to the source of this curse, and end it," Jerry said as he began parting the food into smaller rations. "I brought enough food with me for two weeks, but for feeding the two of us, we can stretch it out to a week and a half. That's how long we have before we have to eat carrion to survive, okay?" He separated the rations out between the two of them. "Unless we can find an uncorrupted source of food, that's how long we have to explore the ruins and find the source and get back up here so my buddy can come get us." He looked at his partner and patted her on the back. "Either we succeed, or we die. Those are our options, here. I really don't wanna be eaten by a blight hound, so I'm gonna try and fix this. You with me?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle watched and listened to him. She was smiling about halfway through and gave a nod as he finished. "Yeah. I think we can make it. Oh, are we still looking for treasure?"

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Only if it's useful," Jerry replied, "Gold won't help us. I hear tell of magic gems now and again, but magic stuff has a particular feel to it. I once held a Wish ring, it's... you can tell just holding it it isn't normal. It's a good kind of not normal, means it'll help us." Jerry stood up and went to one of the fountains and washed off his bandana in it. "But just in case we do make it out of here, make note of every piece of treasure you find. Gold will help us once we're out of here."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded again and stood up. She glanced further into the ruin. "Ah, another thing, we shouldn't linger near fresh carrion. It attracts the stronger creatures. So, if we kill something, we should move on quickly before something worse appears."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Good to know," Jerry said before fixing the bandana back in his hair. "Alright, let's go back to that room with the herbs, there's two doors left and one of them goes deeper." He started walking.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded and followed after him.

Luckily, the way back was still as they'd left it. Nothing else had come to feast yet. Back at the courtyard, a small flock of birds had stopped to roost in one of the trees.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Okay, the door down there went to the cyclops and the gold, that leaves those," Jerry pointed at the doors Shuffle had pointed out before. "The one we'll have to climb is gonna be the worst, so let's get that out of the way."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded an headed on, looking around for a way up. After a bit of searching, she found a spot where the wall had crumbled away a bit. The fallen rubble made for stepping stones up to the hole left by their absence. With a bit of climbing, one could make it up to the next balcony. Shuffle went ahead and started heading up, using claws to get a grip on the rough surfaces.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

While Shuffle used her claws, Jerry put his feet in the void left by certain bricks for footholds and climbed up behind her. Pushing the door open once at the top, the two continued on.

 

[Fangs9090]

The door took them a room, preceded by a short hallway, as usual. They were at the top of a flight of stairs that led around to the side. Ahead was a large, very open room without much to speak of. It had the feel of an arena of some sort. By descending the stairs, they'd be able to access the main area of this arena. No doors could be seen from where they were, but across from them on the arena floor, three chests could be seen. But of course, getting there wasn't going to be easy. Also on the arena floor were three figures in full armor, standing about seven feet tall. They each carried a large shield and a longsword. Their faces were covered by their helms, but the bits of light leaking from between the sections of their armor suggested they weren't human. Or people at all, for that matter.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry examined the situation for a few moments. "Nope." and turned around. "There's another door, they can keep that mess."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle looked at him as he turned back. She glanced at the arena again before following after Jerry. "We don't want those chests?"

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry looked at Shuffle confused at her reaction. "Did you not see those behemoths? We can't fight those! I can't cut that armor, you can't bite through it, not that we'll get close enough in the first place, we are not capable of dealing with those... things. This isn't that giant, we can't just poison them. That giant wasn't us-proof." He hopped down from the ledge and held out his hands to catch Shuffle. "Maybe we'll be able to handle them later, but there's nothing we can do about them right now. Pick your battles wisely, you'll live longer.

 

[Fangs9090]

“Hm, I guess that’s true.” Shuffle jumped down to him, looking around once her feet were on the grass again. Still peaceful here.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Good, now I think the other doorway was somewhere around", spinning on his heels, Jerry looked around for the final door that Shuffle had pointed out to him earlier, found it, and started walking.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle followed after him as usual. The led to a stairway, leading further down. It was darker down here. There were still torches, but they were spaced far apart and their flames were dwindling. It led down to a fairly small room. It looked like a kitchen of sorts, judging by the rusted tools hanging on the wall. There were counters and tables with dishes and cookware, as well some food that was too rotted to identify. Off in one corner was a pair of bunk beds with hay for bedding. The lower bunks had some deceased adventurers in them, but the upper ones were empty.