Warmth lingered in the darkness past the door and somewhat pleasant smells entered his nose. A pair of glowing crystals hung off the ceiling a dozen feet away and shined down a light directly on figures below it.

It’s so frustrating that I don’t even know what’s happening to me -- I’m so conflicted.

I need to calm down and get my mind into place...

...Though most importantly, I need a good meal.

...If a good meal is even possible down here. Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s gray mushrooms and warm ale, I’ll take it nonetheless. Just. Need. Food.

“So this is really a damn bar,” Jack said awkwardly.

“The Dinnerbone,” Hunter said. “What do you think? Deads and humans all have the needs of eating and drinking. That’s not true. Deads don’t feel pain or hunger, but that doesn’t mean they’re your zombies from bards’ tales.”

In the middle of the cave, under the light of the crystals, a bar counter stood and a few chairs lined it. A deadman--in an undertaker’s cloak--served a sludgy liquid to three deads who sat.

Jack instinctively took a step back, but then reminded himself -- not all deads were out for him. Even knowing that, he still couldn’t push himself too close to them.

The old man murmured something in their tongue and drinking deads spun on their chairs. They nodded at him, clinked glasses with one another and downed liquids that made their skin even paler.

“Coranaba zacora,” Hunter said to the barman.

The barkeeper crouched under the counter and took out two pints filled to the brim with sludge. The deadmen who drank turned around again and growled.

“Cora asara v’blogisare, Hunter!” they all jumped to what remained of their feet.

Fear gripped Jack, but he unsheathed his dagger and raised a grin of confidence.

Holy water is a done deal for you, he assured himself.

Hunter lowered Jack’s weapon and shook his head. “We’re not here to kill! Just… get them out of the way and bind them somehow!”

Jack put his dagger back into its sheath and rolled his eyes.

One dead slumbered after Jack while two picked on Hunter.

Jack struggled, in the darkness, to walk and not be caught by the creature. Every few steps he stopped, let the dead get near and jumped out of the way.

How am I supposed to bind you? And why are we even doing this? Will this get me food?

An idea popped into his mind.

The dead lunged at him, mumbling something under its breath.

Jack dashed to the side and grabbed the deadman’s arms from behind. He pushed the thing forward until it hit the door. He opened a small gap and put the thing’s head in. He closed the door, locking the dead in place by its neck.

The deadman squirmed, screamed and banged on the ground, but found no way of breaking out.

Jack grinned and turned back to the only place lit up in the cave -- the bar. He trudged through the darkness until he reached ground lit up by the crystals above.

Hunter put chairs over the two deads who’d chased him. He waved at the bar and sat down. He took a stone pint and breathed the smell.

We got beverages… One step closer to food.

Hunter knocked thrice on the drink in Jack’s hand, put his lips up to his own then stopped. “Wait, no!” he said. “It’s bad luck to drink the same thing as the man before you.” He turned to the barman.

“Cora Boggo,” the dead said. “Cora Boggo.”

“Sure, sure… I knew it.”

Ugh, when will I get anything into my stomach?

Hunter spoke in the tongue of the dead and translated it. “Well, what--apart from this sludge--do deads drink, Boggo?”

“Cora Boggo,” the deadman, whose name Jack guessed was Boggo, crouched and brought out two cobweb covered bottles. He pointed at one then at the other. “Cora Boggo, cora Boggo.”

“Curious.” Jack scratched his chin. “I don’t like drinks too much. I want food. Really badly. Though if I have to get something to quench my thirst, what's the lightest and fills you up the best will work.”

“Sure, sure… Those two words together don’t make any sense.” Hunter laughed. “You’ve got to pick a drink yourself. Bad luck if I do it.”

Jack jerked his finger from side to side until it landed on the bottle with a crimson liquid inside.

Boggo frowned.

“Is that bad luck too?!”

“Cora Boggo.”

“Not at all bad luck. It’s awful taste.”

“Does anything taste good here?”

“Taste doesn’t matter when you don’t feel pain, emotions or your tongue. What he meant is that you picked… the most simple drink there is.”

“Simple? He means that I’m a wife of a wine trader?”

“Sure sure… With such a drink on your tongue, my friend Boggo definitely sees you like that.”

“Ugh, I must eat something right now.” Jack’s stomach throbbed for a moment. “I’do anything for even an undercooked rabbit.”

“I got you struggling through those tunnels for different reasons than you might think.” Hunter emptied all Jack had looted on to the counter. “Sure, sure… Like money doesn’t make sense to a wild dog, so does the currency of the deads make no sense to us.” He pushed it all towards Boggo.

The barkeeper took the loot, pushed Hunter Jack’s old drink and put Jack’s new drink in his hands.

“Cora Boggo? he said.

“Eda,” Hunter responded. “Now we’ll get food. If you crawled through more tunnels, that food could have had the chance of being tasty.”

Oh, that’s a shame, but really, how good can deadmen food get?

“Can I drink? Or am I still missing a part of zombie alcoholism tradition?”

“You’re missing a toast,” Hunter said, knocked on Jack’s pint and pointed at his own.

Jack tapped the old man’s drink. “I hope for a good meal.”

“And I hope we don’t die.”

“I see our wishes as of equal importance.” Jack grinned and took took a big sip of the drink.

The taste of blood, gunpowder and rot mixed in the liquid.

Jack’s smile dropped as he gagged. His hand jerked up, covered his mouth and pushed the filth down his throat.

As the liquid travelled through him, it bit the inside of his neck and his stomach.

His side stung, but then, a moment later, the pain disappeared, along with a lot of the other things he could feel. He swayed from side to side, but managed another sip of the filth.

“Sure, sure… Slow it down. This ain’t your usual drink. It’s pure poison. That’s why it tastes of rot.”

“Isn’t alcohol poison as well?”

“It is, though only a kind that won’t kill you after three sips.”

Jack’s eyes widened and he spat his mouth’s contents into his pint. Then, he put the pint back on the counter, far from his reach.

His mind slowed down to a manageable speed and his emotions turned into two simple blobs.

It’s not just the cabin fever... I’m conflicted because this is an incredibly interesting place, but it’s also damn suspicious. I can run away from the troubles of normal life and reveal incredible secrets, but I also might get myself into a terrible situation.

I can’t get out of here, anyway.

Ah, if only it would be possible to break the Gunpowder of the Deal -- I might feel less like a puppet.

“Well… how you holding up?.”

“I… I don’t know how to feel. This is a new place. All my life I followed orders. I wore the same clothes, ate the same food and did the same things. Even though I was almost like the son of my commander, I was equal to all the others. Having only lived like that, how can you handle anything different?”

“Put a peasant in your place and you’ll see -- you’re not doing too bad,” Hunter said. “Though that thing about your commander…”

“Guardian. He’s an evil man who did everything for company. He’s… kinda like you. Though you’re better. You don’t punish me for all I do.”

“Punishing you means taking away from my own chances of achieving my own thing. Still, don’t you dare see me as some saint.”

“I don’t and I won’t.”

“Good, good.”

If I make it out, I could write a memoir about this place and its oddness. No one knows this exists and it might just shake the world...

Scratches and bangs sounded from behind. “Cora asamo, coraferas!” A dead garbled.

“Why… why didn’t we kill them?”

“Because they aren’t hostile and--most importantly--don’t serve Everia,” Hunter said.

They aren’t hostile?! “They attacked us!”

“Though they never meant to harm us.” Hunter plopped his drink down on the counter. “See, the more customers there are at the bar, the more food and drink is bought, the higher the prices rise. It’s… simple economics. You should understand that.”

“Economics in a cursed underground castle filled with deadmen?”

“Sure, sure… They just see us as competitors who make their feelgood sludge too expensive.”

Jack laughed. “That reminds me of a quest I did five years ago. A small town hired the Swords of the Guardians to fight another town because it was stealing their business.”

“What’s so funny about that?”

“They both ran blindfolded brothels where instead of women serving the customers, they had pigs. They stuffed the poor animals’ mouths, tied them to the bed and had some sort of crone moan.”

Hunter looked at Jack sideways. “I… I did not need to hear that,” he said. “If that makes you laugh, is genocide a damn comedy for you?”

“No, no,” Jack said. “It’s funny that something like that or economics in the Hall of Ceremony even exists. And… killing’s never been fun for me.”

“Well, you’re a companyman and you’ve seen the Hall of Ceremony. By now, you should be sure everything you can think of exists.”

“That took me long enough to realize and even longer to come to terms with. After the things I saw, especially after the family wars, I tried running away so many times. Every time I came back and every time I faced more whippings.”

“That’s the type of life you chose.”

“I never chose it. It was chosen for me.”

Hunter stayed silent.

The barkeeper slammed a head with a carved out top on the counter. Inside, there was a red mush in which moss, mushrooms and bits of bone floated around. The deadman grabbed another head and moved it towards Hunter, but the old man raised a hand and said.

“Coradifero eda.”

The barkeeper put the head back under the counter.

Jack frowned. “Coradifero eda?” he uttered.

Boggo looked at him and shook his head.

“It’s bad luck to get something and not eat it,” Hunter said.

“Really?! Ah, be careful what you wish for,” Jack murmured and tried fishing out a mushroom. He grabbed it with his index finger and his thumb and let the red mush drip down from it. His stomach rumbled, but he could barely look at the mushroom.

Yay, I got something to eat, even though it’s uneatable.

I’m so hungry, he eyed the mushroom and licked his lips. Eh, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe this will be the best thing I’ve ever tasted?

It wasn’t.

He closed his eyes and quickly chewed. The food in his mouth turned to particles that all had a sour taste.

In front of Hunter, the barkeeper placed another meal -- a pile of moss. Hunter grabbed a chunk and munched down on it with a grin.

“Can we switch?” Jack repeatedly swallowed, trying to get the awfulness away from his tastebuds.

“Guess what?” Hunter said.

“Bad luck?”

“You must finish what you got.” The old man nodded.

Jack groaned then grabbed another mushroom. He struggled to stomach it as well. Once it was down, his starvation eroded. After a few minutes of torturing his mouth, he was satiated and ready to go, although drunk as a drunk. Also, he came to terms with the thoughts in his mind. He’d continue descending down the Hall of Ceremony, continue figuring out its secrets and continue learning normal trust.

“Ready to go, but where?”

“We open that door in the chamber above and… you’ll see... “ Hunter waved at Boggo and stood up.

“Why will I see?” Jack followed.

“Because… you’ll see.”

They walked back to the entrance. I forgot about that, Jack stopped by the door, grabbed Hunter’s shoulder and pointed at the dead locked below.

Hunter could barely see in the dim light of his lantern.

This isn’t a tragedy, right? Just gotta push him out of the way.

Jack opened the door and--before the old man said anything--grabbed the deadman. He pinned the dead against the wall and jerked his head as it started whispering something.

Hunter passed through and held the door behind himself.

Jack let go and ran after Hunter, then slammed the door shut.

“Walking out of a bar shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Since the beginning of mankind, I bet those words have been spoken at least a thousand times.” Hunter laughed.

They walked until they reached the end of the pit.

Now this is an issue.

“How are we gonna get out?”

“That I didn’t think through,” Hunter said.

I didn’t think about how we could get out through that door when I trapped the dead, you didn’t think of how we could climb out of a massive pit, injured and drunk.

Jack jumped as an idea came into his dazed mind. He crouched by a wall.

“Get on my back, climb out and give me a hand,” he said.

Hunter nodded.

Jack groaned as the old man got atop his shoulders and paid no regard if he caused any pain.

Hunter clambered out with his lantern and left Jack in the darkness.

“Alright, give me a hand.” Jack rubbed his shoulder.

Silence.

He waited for a moment. Then, his foot started tapping as his worry grew. “Hunter,” he muttered then shouted. “Hunter!”

Finally, a hand dangled down.