"Now what?" Jack asks after going through the tunnel that appeared before him, looking around the simple room filled with countless books and bookshelves while a window is opened at one of the of the room, curtains softly billowing in the strange breeze blowing across the landscape creating a strange contrast to the hellish endless black-water like experience he went through prior to this.
Xueli appears outside the tattoo, slithering down his arm to look closely looking at the ring while Jack looks through a book he has pulled from the shelving, a hard bound serious looking book but upon opening it up.
All the pages are blank.
Jack pulls out countless more blank books out from the shelving while Xueli continues to look at the ring but after pulling out 20-30 books that are all blank, he gives up in defeat looking at the desk not too far away that also have several books on them before walking over to it.
'I can't make sense of why the thing hiding in the ring can do that and it seems to be hiding now so what shall we do?'
It's a desk that has a stack of books while two are opened with writing in them, Jack looks at the first open book on that isn't on the stack of book, it contains a drawing of herbs and writing that he cannot understand while Xueli takes a quick look at it before moving onto the next book.
"I don't know what to do, these books look interesting but... what are we doing here? I thought we would see some secrets yet... where are we?"
Jack looks over the book that Xueli is also looking at, her snake tongue is flickering as the pages turn with pressings of herbs contained within each page. Jack looks through the pages but cannot see anything that truly interests him but still stores the book, hoping it won't be absorbed into the dirt.
Mai should be able to grow these herbs from the dried pressings or perhaps he can find someone to read them at some point, Jack looks through the rest of the books quickly but they're also filled with handwriting with precise values and numbers causing him to give up reading the books.
'Maybe if the thing inside the ring was a bit more helpful' Xueli knocks on the ring with her snout while Jack walks around the rest of the room ensuring there isn't something that he's missing but turning up nothing, this seems to literally just be a room filled with shelving and empty books, a desk, a window and a door on the other side of the room.
"I don't know what to do about it but it hasn't been a hinderance yet... Do you see anything interesting in this room?"
'No it just seems to be a strange room filled with empty books but it's clear, I don't see any dust'
"Are you able to tell anything else like if there's anyone around?"
Jack walks over to the door quickly sticking his head out of the partially opened door while Xueli joins him, her tongue flickers a few times while Jack looks at the surroundings. Outside the door is a weird wide hallway that looks far bigger than any house Jack has lived in previously, the hallway has two doors on either end while the door he's looking out of is in the middle.
'Umm.... I can smell something through the left door'
"Anything more than that?"
'Well it also smells like that through the right door but it's stronger through the left but they both smell like treasure...'
"Great so is it safe to move around? Also how can you smell treasure I thought your body was a snake?"
'RUDE! Even in this body, I have a nose far better than any other Dragons!'
"You smell with your nose? Aren't you flickering your tongue like a snake though?"
'Shut up or I won't help you find anymore treasure!'
Jack lets out a sigh as he walks to the doorway to the left, the double doorway has incredibly intricate carvings made from materials that Jack can't identify but he's certain that it took a lot of time and effort to carve the strange feathers, leaves, flowers and grasses from the stone-like material.
The doorway silently opens up as Jack looks around the room, it looks like an older style living area with a two large sofas that surround a low table, while toward one side there is a fireplace that has uncomfortable and old-fashioned chairs placed around it, it looks like the sort of area that can be seen in 70s magazines.
Jack walks around the area inspecting what he can, there's a large doorway on one end that looks like the entrance to this area but there some smaller doors in other places but as he's walking around, Jack walks into the first small doorway that ends up being an empty storage room but after entering the next smaller door, he's greeted with the next signs of life.
A room filled with dirty equipment but nobody is within it, a stone room filled with various tools to process herbs such as things to crush them and bottles. The smell of crushed herbs fills the air as Jack slowly walks around the room checking out the various tools, the pestles have crushed up herb juice on them while containers have spilled fluid near them.
'A herb processing room... What about over there?' Xueli points with her snake body toward a small doorway not too far away before she disappears back into the tattoo. The room has two small doorways that looks like they lead to storage areas, Jack opens up the door Xueli was pointing at where he's greeted with a large waft of bad smell herbs.
Jack starts to cough after the smell enters his nose but he doesn't close the door as he looks around the small storage room that is filled with stacks of wooden barrels with loosely fitted coverings, "What is this stuff?" he asks while partially opening up one of the barrels before coughing again.
Xueli is snickering within his mind, 'It's a treasure'
Jack shrugs before storing away a few of the barrels quickly leaving the storage room, all he can smell is the weird plant smell from the crushed up herbs within the barrel he walks over to the other doorway which reveals a storage closest filled with clean herb processing tools.
"Well it was smelly, what was it? I hope you're not playing a joke with me because of the snake thing"
'No... Never...' Xueli snickers a couple more times before she explains, 'If I can remember correctly that stuff is called 'Moons Wart' or 'Moons Goldenthread' it can be used in any sort of pill creation to enhance their qualities or even enhance the grade of pill, wasn't it smelly?' she snickers a few more times.
"What's the difference?" Jack asks ignoring her prodding, he has smelt stronger and worse before.
'They both start out the same but they become different after drying out, it's called Moon's Paradox Weed, and it's usually told with a story that goes like this; While the rabbit tends to the gardens on the moon, her heart must remain pure for even the smallest sorrow of the heart can taint the purest of beings.'
"Why is that story important?" Jack looks around the room but can't see anything more that's interesting, he leaves the room thinking about if he should go through the large entrance door or the other remaining door back down the previous hallway.
'It was told during my childhood... It's just a story they tell children but... rabbits?'
Jack can't follow what Xueli is saying so just leaves her to her quiet mutterings as he walks through the living area back towards the hallway he left previously, the door to the study room is still open but the door leading elsewhere is still closed.
There's a subtle medical smell in the air as he walks down the hallway, he opens the door which reveals more medicinal smell but it's just another room filled with countless bookshelves and books that look similar to the other ones, taking a quick look around he can see that there's a large bay window open while there's another smaller doorway leading elsewhere.
The walls aren't entirely filled with books as between the shelving are paintings placed around the room, looking at them each of them has a common theme; a rabbit and a moon.
Jack enters the room and quickly spots an opened book that has the same symbol with a rabbit and a moon behind it placed on a shelf, he walks over to it and starts to flip through the pages filled with writing that he can't understand but it's slightly more understandable than the previous lot of books with picture descriptions of parts of herbs.
He places this book down before opening up another one, a picture with two rabbits before a moon appears. A dark coloured and a light-coloured rabbit sitting before a moon but as Jack traces the picture with his finger, he's able to feel that the pages are slightly crumpled in spots.
He turns the first page and attempts to read the first page that seems to be in a language that he can almost understand but unfortunately he doesn't detect the small door opening up not too far away from him where someone appears in the doorway.
A young woman that appears to be getting out of a bath stops in the doorway as she pats part of her body down with a towel, a towel covers her head hiding her hair and anything else while she is holding a towel covering the rest of her body but also slowly drying her body while her eyes are closed.
Jack looks up from the book and nearly drops it when he is able to recognise what's going on as one thought enters his mind, "Who is this woman dressed in a towel?".
The woman steps out of the doorway closing the door behind her then opening her eyes up while softly sighing and muttering to herself, "Guess it's my turn to show up soon and replace Maid Georgina" as she doesn't notice Jack while walking over to a bed.
Jack is afraid to even move in case this woman thinks something else is going on while he's cursing Xueli in his mind again, there's no way she wasn't aware of someone else within this room. Slowly and carefully Jack replaces the book before taking very careful steps, ensuring that he doesn't make any noise toward the entrance door.
He walks the few steps toward the door but as he turns the door handle; it squeaks, causing him to freeze instantly.
"AH! WHAT?! WHO...!?"
The girl almost screams but her voice cuts off as Jack can feel a strange twitch on his finger where the newly created shadow ring is, Jack winces as he prepares for the scream but the woman is strangely quiet as he turns his head to look at her.
Jack looks at her, her blue eyes look entirely unfocused but Jack pauses as he's almost breath taken with her beauty, her beautiful almost purple silver hair poking out from under the towel while her perfect figure is poking from behind the towel. She softly exhales through her nose breaking the weird tension between the two as Jack looks over her cute but strangely flushed face.
The two make eye contact but the young man is the first to look away because for some reason she has dropped the towel covering the front of her body revealing its naked glory as Jack's eyes quickly peek over her body but something about the situation feels off to him so he turns around to give the girl some privacy.
"Sorry ma'am, I'm sort of lost and don't know what's going on"
The girl doesn't respond but Jack isn't given time to ask anything else as he can hear her make some quick footsteps toward him like she's running at him, Jack turns around to see what's going on but he's greeted with the sight of the mostly naked girl jumping at him giving him a fright.
Jack prepares himself to catch her as he looks over her body again, a perfect and pristine body is leaping at him but her body is strangely red in spots while her eyes are still mostly unfocused. Her hands and legs make contact with him but he isn't given any time to realise what's going on as his vision shifts to darkness, away from the brightly lit rooms that he was just located.
"What? What the fuck is going on?"
'SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT - For physical contact with another during event, 'Jade Palace Easter Event Beggar Bonus' you have been placed within the containment chamber to await further judgement'
"What? Jade Palace? Easter Event? Physical Contact? What? What the hell?" Jack's mind replays the series of events, he was looking at a book when a girl appeared in a nearby doorway, she didn't notice him until after the ring twitched after which she dropped her town and jumped at him...
'This is some dungeon, I wonder who that was...' Xueli speaks with a strange calm.
"This is a dungeon? I don't really feel like staying here awaiting judgement from something that blames me for what just happened, is there a way out?" Jack is strangely also calm in this situation, he has come across this situation many times recently so being stuck in an entirely black room is nothing to panic about.
'To your right there's a door but unless the thing within the ring feels like helping again, I can't open it up'
Jack uses his divine sense to look around the room, it's entirely smooth with no openings at all but as Jack drags his hand along the wall, the ring softly vibrates once he touches a particular area, holding his hand there the shadow figure within the ring does its usual thing that Jack isn't able to understand and the doorway opens up revealing a dark hallway.
Looking left and right down the hallway, it's softly lit with torches as the straight hallway continues as far as Jack can see with enough holding cells to hold at least 50 people. He steps outside the doorway preparing for another system message but nothing comes letting him breathe a sigh of relief.
"So... can your treasure seeking nose find which way to go?" Jack looks up the identical hallways that go in either direction.
'Both directions smell the same, maybe they go into the same area that has treasure?'
"That's not much help... Oi ring, you going to help at all?" Jack shakes the ring but nothing happens causing him to shrug and walk down one direction but strangely, the ring pulls him in the opposite direction which he follows down the strangely lit hallway.
The hallway feels like it lasts forever as Jack travels past the 100th door as he's following the ring that is pulling him down the hallway when it tells him to go through a side door which leads to another hallway that looks strangely similar to the last one.
The ring continues doing this as while Jack feels lost, like the ring has led him into some sort of a maze area as he takes a break from following the ring and opens up one of the random doors along the hallway but it's just an empty storage room. He opens up another nearby door, and it's exactly the same.
"Is this a maze? I haven't been keeping track of which way we have been going, I hope you have..."
'No, it's not a maze, there are markers everywhere but you seriously entered something you think is a maze without any sort of plan or keeping track of where you went?' Xueli asks almost exasperated.
"Well, what the hell is this place?" Jack continues following the ring while it takes him down another hallway.
'If it's where I think, you'll like it' Xueli leaves Jack with that mysterious line while he passes through another storage room entering another hallway but this one looks different to the previous several, this one looks much wider while along the walls there are countless paintings of herbs with an actual herb below the painting.
The lighting is much better than the sparsely torch-lit hallways previously as the ring continues to pull him in a particular direction, strangely not going down anymore more rooms but continuing down this hallway while Jack takes each of the herbs away from the decorations. If this is the 'Jade Palace' then the Prophet said for him to mess it up and he's kind of pissed off about being teleported to the dungeon suddenly.
The ring suddenly stops before a large blank section of the wall, the hallway continues but the ring is pulling him in the wall's direction. Running his hand along the wall, the ring has a similar reaction to the previous times as strange inscriptions flow from it and sink into the wall causing it to split apart revealing what's inside to the excitement of Jack.
Elsewhere within the Palace, a girl with a towel wrapped around her head with nothing else on is staring blankly at the spot where Jack left when the room's door swings open loudly and one of the numerous attendants within the Palace claps her hand, "all right Princess, it's time for your appearance, the godly entity said he wants to you to perform the sacred refinement ritual for them but I wonder where that other person went.... Princess?" the maid looks at the almost naked girl dragging her out of her daze.
"Other person? The last person who received the invitation still hasn't shown up?" she drops the towel covering her head revealing long straight bunny ears as her silver almost purple long hair dances in the wind after being freed.
"The last person arrived roughly 10 minutes ago according to the barrier but they didn't arrive in the welcoming plaza..." the maid gathers some clothes from somewhere to help the bunny eared girl to get dressed in traditional shrine maiden clothing, red and white robes.
"10 minutes ago...?" the girl softly mutters in a daze again as her eyes look again to where Jack disappeared, he left with an important book to her.
"Yes, now you must finish getting ready, I have to go check out the dungeon perhaps the missing participant is down there"
"Oh" the bunny eared girl responds then quietly dresses herself while another maid replaces the one that was just talking keeping a close eye on the bunny girl they call 'Princess'.
Melkord· Jul 6, 2020
