Pov - Celestia

I sat at the edge of the lake, huffing, and puffing. I am completely exhausted, with not a once of energy in my body. My vision is now full of rapidly appearing black spots, everything is also just overall darker. My legs still screaming bloody murder at me for what I just put them through. Lips chapped and destroyed, my mouth dryer than a desert. Sweat sticking to me as if it were a membrane. Yet, I could not bring myself to care about any of it.

My Temporary party was just annihilated without the slightest sign of what did it to us. Ziorie who was the first of use to die probably had it the easiest in some cruel, twisted sort of way. The next to go was Jerry, in the same way as Ziorie, but instead of being quiet like Ziorie, he was screaming without end. Before he completely disappeared, he screamed, that ‘this was his world’, ‘he was the protagonist’, and ‘this was not meant to happen’ so on. I did not understand any of it in the slightest, but from what I could gather he had a major hero complex, which is not uncommon.

The next to go was Fath, who also happen to be frozen in fear. The death of Jerry snapped her out of it, from what I could tell. Fath then proceeded to fumbly grab a glowing talisman and rip it in half. A tear in space appeared behind her, most likely with the goal to whisk her off to some unknown place. It succeeded for the most part, but it started to close way faster than it was meant to, or at least that's what I thought because it was stitched together with golden thread and cutting off her arm before it was able to enter the tear. The thread itself was made of some sort of energy that was so incomprehensible that it gave me a migraine, which happen to shock me out of my frozen state.

This caused me to instantly start to book it away from the cave in what seemed faster than my stats indicated I could go. After that point, it is all just history, because I just ran and ran until I got to the lake. Now that I am actually able to think about what previously happened, where did Tavarious end up? Did he perhaps also get away or was he eaten, I did not see him on my run out or when I originally look around the cave in shock?

I finally brought my head out of the crystal clear lake from drinking as much as I could, I don't even remember when I originally shove my head into the lake. I noticed something that I originally did not notice on my frantic run towards the lake. My eyes have changed from radiant gold to the blackest of blacks. I try to rack my head on how this is possible when it finally clicks. It was because of my new skill [Abyss Sight] or something along those lines. Though what is the abyss though, I have never heard anything about it before? Yeah, I can piece together that it was that weird element that took hold of my vision before, but what is it really? Guess I have to do some research, my favorite hobby. Even when I say it in my mind, it still comes out sarcastic somehow. “Why am I stalling, this is not the person I am. Let’s see what my prized skill Mana Vision mutated into”, I say out loud, the words full of bitterness.

Skill

Abyss Sight

[Active]

You who have looked so brazenly into the abyss. Have been rewarded and punished for Idiocy. Now for a small price, you will be able to see beyond all veils and into the truth of the world, but with each activation, your abyssal corruption will increase.

“What the fuck is abyssal corruption, I meant what the hell… Just tell me what is abyssal corruption!” I finally scream while trying to stand up, and failing, my legs just being too tired to even try to give some effort. This action finally opens the door to all the pain from my legs, that I have been keeping shut, and I scream out, my voice becoming raw. After a short while of the black spots expanding, and then everything just goes to black.

Pov - Sylmare

I paced back and forth outside the interrogation room, yeah sure it's called the ‘inquiring room’ but everyone just knows it for interrogation. People who are dumb enough to believe it is a nice, safe place will have a rude awakening when they're dragged in there for questioning. I slapped myself in the face for getting off track.

Let's do a recap, first an adventurers team suitably low level is called in to explore the dungeon after the briefing from the finder party. The called-in adventurers found the priestess and after learning she is a rare class that is able to heal, they ask her to join them. The priestess being naive joins them, and they all make their way into the dungeon for about two days. A few hours into the third day, the priestess comes out with an unnatural calmness for someone who just lost their entire parting in front of them. She was quickly rushed up the chain of command to me and the two puppets from the kingdoms. When we came face to face with the priestess, I noticed that she had a change in eye color, so we had to run another set of fucking tests to determine that she is not an imposter. Like what the hell system, you give us skills that can see race, level, and name, but you also give out skills that can perfectly counter them. I swear the system is just here to fuel conflict. Wait Symare focus you're getting off track, now where was I. Ah yes, so after the tests, we were able to determine that it was from a substance that she came in contact with in the dungeon, and finally, we were able to start the debriefing. We learned from her that all explorers either died or escapades she did and one went off and disappeared, currently being presumed dead.

Upon more intrusive questioning, we learned that the substance she came in contact with was actually an affinity called Abyss, what a menacing name. Plus, I knew this would happen eventually, because no matter what the guild thinks there are always dangers that we cannot expect, and we should send in far higher-level people. Yeah, sure it can make the dungeon far more dangerous in the short-term, but even those cases were rare, I just don’t understand this fucking limitation they are putting on us.

As I was spacing out and trying to somehow recap the previous events, I crash face-first into the open door of the interrogation room, which causes me to face plant into it. You would expect me to crash right through it, but no, everything in this political building has to be so damn hard. This one time I tried to break my table but just ended up breaking my hand, that's not meant to happen, the table is meant to shatter into pieces, and I am meant to be all intimidatingly. Wait, focus, I need to know the current information.

I cough into my hand out of embarrassment, “Were we able to gather any new information.” I say in a commanding tone, that causes the interrogator to pause.

“We were not able to gather any new information on the creature that apparently killed the party, but there was a sign down the tunnel that led them towards the creature.” the interrogator announces, completely formal.

“So some theories might have merit,” I say out loud, musing to myself.

“What theories?” A pompous voice says to my left.

I turn my eyes to see Norrias the totally not a spy and diplomat sent by the Ambrosius Kingdom. Likewise, I take a look around, expecting to see the other not spy Wilace sent by the Ortus Kingdom, but I don’t see that overly cheerful halfling. I then realize that I have been completely ignoring the pompous ass.

I look back at Norrias and say in an annoyed voice, “The theories about how it was either a library of captured moment in time or a demigod personal demi-plane Library.”

Norrias ignoring my attitude to shoo him away responds, “Ah, those theories circling around the staff. Do you want to know my own theory?”

I almost blurt out, No I don’t want to hear your fucking useless theory, but I was able to calm down and keep myself to etiquette. “Yes, I would very much like to hear your own ideas on the subject.”

Norrias face turns into a snide grin, “I believe that it is a resource to be exploited.”

That fucking grin is asking to be punched, no, his whole face is just so punchable. But no matter how much I wanted to punch him, he still represented a kingdom. So I say to him, failing to keep the anger from my voice, “Both you and I know that is not a theory. It also can’t be that easy to exploit it.”

As I was about to finish my tirade on the diplomat, a cheerful voice interrupts me, “My own theory is that the stories in the books have been here so long that they turned into their own plane of existence.”

I turn my head to see Wilace standing near us, I almost reflexively stab a rapier into his eye, but was able to stop myself once I see that it is Wilace. Even till now, I don't know how he's so quiet when moving around.

Once I acknowledge that a ton of important people are here, I say, sadness leaking from my voice, “I guess it's time for a meeting.” I stop myself from cursing out because it has been meeting here, meeting there. All these fucking none stop meetings, endlessly rolling into my lap. I haven’t had a good sleep in ages thanks to the stress and all these meetings. Fuck my dad, fuck the kingdoms, fuck the guild, I yell these types of things in my mind never going to voice them ever.

By the time I was able to recognize my surroundings, I was sitting at a meeting table with all the important people coming in, with the guild representative sitting across from me. I felt like slapping myself, not because of distress or anything of the like, but because this meeting was going to be so long and so stressful. This meeting will make or break this town, I am hoping for a break.