Eventually, the uniform, monotone passages, which feel like they are winding entrails, breaking him down the longer he stays in them, finally come to an end. Canta slumps down onto the ground, sitting on the loose, cold stones beneath himself, as he lets out a long, tired breath. He looks around at the giant, empty room which is laid out before him. It is dark. Entirely lightless. But he can see well enough, thanks to his abilities. It looks like some kind of boss arena, if he had to guess. But there is no boss of any kind to be seen.

“Just another empty room,” he mutters, covering his mouth as he starts to yawn.

“Yes,” says a soft voice from next to his ear, chirping with a sharp, metallic ringing that reminds him a little of a cricket, playing its song in the night. Canta rubs his head, as he tries to remember what the night looks like. It was dark. But was it dark like this? He looks around the room, unsure, as he rubs his aching body, expecting to feel a chill for some reason. But he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers slide over his damp form, which is covered in cave moisture and sweat and a bit of crusted blood.

“Hey, how deep is the dungeon?” asks Canta, spontaneously.

“Dungeons are always one-hundred floors deep,” replies Alleluia.

“Fuck,” he swears, pretty sure that that means he’s at the very, very, very bottom. Though he hasn’t seen a staircase or anything like that yet… Does that mean he’s still on the same floor that he woke up on? After all of these hours?

“There is a short-cut,” says Alleluia. “Here by me.”

“Ah fuck,” swears Canta again, realizing that he has to save her now. Him, climb ninety-nine floors of this size? In a barren, desolate dungeon with probably no food at all? He’d never make it, even if he did get lucky and find the odd straggler monster on the way to eat. “Is that true? Or are you making that up so I don’t just leave you behind?”

“You are not a very kind person,” says Alleluia, sounding offended. “It’s true. There is a short-cut here that leads up and out of the dungeon.”

“So why don’t you use it?” he asks, staring at the pipe incredulously.

“Because I can’t -”

Canta, having seen this answer coming, started speaking before her voice arrived and cuts her off. “- Because you can’t open the door. I know.” He sighs and gets up, walking around the massive arena. “I’m leaving the pipe for a little bit, okay?” he says, walking away.

“Ah, wait!” calls Alleluia. “Don -”

He walks too far away to hear her anymore.

The room is round and lined with giant, jagged pillars that all point towards the center like obsidian knives. In the middle of the room is a shallow, circular indent. It looks like a pool of sorts.

Walking towards it, he looks down at the clear water. There is nothing to see except the brickwork floor below. Climbing down, he taps his foot into the water, trying to get a feel for it. It’s lukewarm.

He drops himself down, the water only rises to just above his ankles. Dropping to his knees, he looks down at it somewhat suspiciously and then, deciding to not bother cupping his hands, he presses his head down fully into it and sucks up a gut-full of the sitting water, sitting back upright with a satisfied sigh, as he clutches his sloshing stomach a little bit later.

Stagnant Water

~1100mL

Questionable - Make Up - Trace Minerals: 3.00% Water: 94.00% Other 3.00%

It isn’t exactly food. But a belly full of water is better than an empty one and he doesn’t feel so hungry just yet. Though he could go for a little snack…

Canta looks around. There doesn’t seem to be anything here either though. It’s as empty as the rest of the dungeon is. A loud noise echoes around him, like the howling of an animal. But as he looks around, trying to find its source, he realizes that it’s just him. He’s yawning again.

Maybe he should go to sleep. That would clear his mind a little and perk him back up. After all, sleeping away his hunger has worked well so far.

“I think?” mutters Canta, rubbing his head as he climbs back up and out of the basin, heading towards the exit of the room. He only notices as he gets there, that the pipe isn’t here on this side of it. Looking back towards the entrance, he traces it with his eyes and sees that it runs into the stones, perhaps vanishing into the jumble of pipes that likely lays beneath the water-filled basin.

He takes a deep breath, wondering if he should go back and tell her, so that she doesn’t worry about him leaving her behind.

“Nah,” says Canta, waving the situation away and walking down further towards the exit, where two large double-doors once sealed the passage. They now lay broken, one is entirely pulled off and the other only hangs by a single metal hinge. Though, the hinge is itself two or three times larger than he is.

Quietly, he steps into the next area, wondering, is this the next 'floor'? His hands rub his eyes, as he meanders on by himself, looking for a place to curl up and die for the night. “Sleep,” he corrects himself, shaking his head, as his wet, bare feet slap against the stones.

Canta stops. His eyes open wide. “FUCK!” he curses for the third time now, looking back over his shoulder as he only just now realizes, that he should have looted Mishif’s body. The armor would have been good. Though, it was probably far too big for him to wear…

He rubs his damp hair in vexation and then waves the problem off, simply turning to keep walking forward. So what if he’s naked? It’s warm down here and it’s not like there’s anyone to judge him for it. Any fabric that the corpse had had on, had long since turned to dust anyway. So there’s really nothing to worry about. Armor? Why bother? His body can regenerate, as long as he can find food.

That all makes good sense in his tired head and he nods with a smugly satisfied motion, as he opens a small door to the side, just beyond the boss arena. To his delight, it is small, but unusually cozily furnished. Almost suspiciously so. It looks like a room that time had forgotten, though the dust hadn’t done so, by the looks of the thick coating that garnishes just about everything. There, in the back-right corner, away from the door, is a single bed with a fitted sheet, pressed against the wall. To his annoyance however, there is a pipe that runs along it.

Canta sighs, walking towards it. “You there?”

No response.

Well. He tried. He shrugs indifferently and looks around the room, double-checking that it is secure. Grabbing a chair, he bars the door with it. Though he suspects that there is truly no need for him to do so. Heading back to the bed, he simply flops down onto it face first and lays there, pressed into the fabric. He takes a deep whiff of the bed. It smells like old.

That’s fine. Something about that seems to make it even more comfortable.

Feeling himself sink into the soft, pillowy mattress, Canta crawls forward on all fours like an animal, knotting and digging up the sheets with his hands and feet, as he loosens the heavy, drab-green blanket and then slips under it. He closes his eyes and feels a heavy satisfaction, which he is sure is deeper than anything he could ever feel in a dream. He quickly begins to fall to sleep, as he feels the warmth of his own body radiating around him in the tight cocoon that he has made.

“Hello?” asks a soft voice suddenly. His eyes shoot open, his fingers clutching the fabric of the blanket in agitation. “Are you there? I think this is the right one,” says Alleluia. “I can hear you breathing,” she explains.

Canta groans. “Yeah, I’m here. I just found a place to go to sleep.”

“Oh! Did you? Thank you for going out of your way to find a pipe too. I would have been really worried all night otherwise,” says Alleluia in a chipper tone.

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, of course, I was waiting here to see if you were going to answer,” lies Canta, pulling the fabric up higher to cover his neck. “- You think I’m some kind of jerk or something?”

“Ah! No, no! I’m sorry,” apologizes Alleluia. “If you move to a different pipe, I have to find the right one here, where I am. There are… there are a lot of them.”

“Great. Great,” yawns Canta. “I’m going to go to sleep now, okay? Good night.”

“Good night!” says Alleluia with a deep sense of relief in her voice. “Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?”

“Please don’t,” replies Canta, burying his head into the pillow like a worm, digging deeper in the dirt. He quickly falls into a warm, cozy, deep darkness. All night, he dreams a happy dream about eating.

First he eats dirt, in the dream. Then, once the dirt is gone, he eats the plants. Then, he eats the bugs. Then, he moves his way up, eating everything, until eventually, nothing is left of the entire world, save for his stomach which finally feels full and warm.

He gets a fantastic night’s sleep.