We slowly walked down the stairs, making sure to not make too much noise. Michael was concerned about our location, there wasn't much that could be done now that we were already here. To him, we were still inside a haunted mansion, but the rest of us understood that the world was just weird. There was something around here that could be the real cause of all those noises we were hearing.
Even the moan should just be something strange but not supernatural. Not in that sense. Still, that didn't make our situation completely fine. The area inside the mansion was weird, the noises seemed to come out of nowhere. The skeletons that we found were also signals that there was really something killing people nearby, not just people but even animals and creatures.
The one thing I was almost sure of was that there should not be an Eater doing those kinds of things. After all, a creature like that wouldn't leave the bones behind. They always devoured everything living.
Every. Last. Piece.
Not even bones were safe.
Which meant that whatever was here was something different. Then again, we had just seen an Eater I didn't know existed before. Maybe this was a new variation. Those thoughts were floating in my mind. The possibilities of the types of creatures that we were about to face. Eaters with strange bodies, skills that made them blend into the environment, maybe the entire house had become an Eater and we were now stepping directly into it.
But eventually, we all stopped, forcing me to get back to reality.
We had reached the end of the staircase and were now facing what came next. Beyond it was a corridor with a large door at the end. A door with a circular latch, but it was open. But something told me that this wasn't how this place was supposed to be.
As a matter of fact, I was confident that this was meant to be a bunker. Something that people in the old world could make to protect themselves in case of disaster. Although the actual type of disaster that could use something like this wasn't something that I was entirely sure of.
Pops mentioned that people could be living in places like that to avoid interacting with the world. Using self sustainable gardens and generator, but that just felt strange. If there were any type of energy source there, there was nothing that would stop those monsters from digging and burrowing into the ground in order to find it.
"What do we do now?" Michael whispered.
It was pretty obvious that he was just trying to make us leave this place. Yet, the rest of us had only one idea in mind. We stepped towards the entrance. In just a few moments, we were all crossing the threshold into the bunker itself.
Inside was very different from what I was expecting. The place was completely made out of a mixture of metal and concrete. Almost completely isolated from the outside. We also noticed some air vents, but they seemed to be going deeper into the structure, not leading into the walls or ceiling.
In a way, that felt even stranger since without air, I wasn't very sure how someone could live here. After that initial passage beyond the door, we found another entrance, this one made out of wood and prettier despite it's state. It was very similar to the doors that we were seeing outside back in the mansion.
But this one felt stranger. The wood was partially rotten, and there were some vines growing around it. We all exchanged glances and started to step through that one entrance before there was a scraping sound coming from deeper into the compound.
It was very hard to see what was beyond this as, so far, we were still counting on the sunlight that was shining through the staircase behind us. The steps were made of some sort of reflective material that wasn't quite a mirror, but it was able to bounce the light enough to create some illumination to let the sunlight reach out here.
But now we were starting to step into almost complete darkness. There were small shafts of light coming from the cracks in the walls, but that was about it. It was hardly enough to give us a decent look at the environment.
"Should I light a torch?" I asked my companions, who nodded in agreement.
I reached down to my back and grabbed a couple of pieces of cloth from inside a can. Those were given to us by the Rodenti in the village we left. And they were covered in an oil-like substance that could be used as fuel for light. As a matter of fact, without {Firestarter}, this was the type of thing that they would be using to start fires and make food. Especially since there was a large tankard that had beached itself near their home, and to this day it still had some oil in the barrels inside it.
I had no idea how or why Eaters were not going after it, but maybe it was just a case of not being aware of the possibilities or the existence of fuel. Then again, it made sense in a way.
Eaters were attracted to fire and to electricity. To pure forms of Energy. But they were not running down forests, devouring every piece of wood that existed. Even though when ignited, wood was a very good source of Energy. Which meant that unless there was something to actually lit them on fire, it was likely that the Eaters wouldn't go after such things.
My thoughts were brought back to reality once more another noise came from deeper in the bunker. More scraping sounds followed by the same moan, but this time it echoed. It didn't seem to be coming from only one place but from the walls themselves.
"Is there someone trapped in there?" I whispered.
"I don't think so. But this is weird," Riley replied.
I quickly ignited the torch so we could have a better look at our surroundings. The moment I turned around, there was a skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Michael shouted while I just jumped with the scare before taking a step back. But Astrid took a step forward and shook her head.
"A child," she said with a saddened voice.
We approached and by all accounts, that was the skeleton of a child. That was now completely wrapped in vines that seemed to be growing not just out of the walls or ceiling, in this case, but even from the bones themselves. As if the vines had somehow taken root in the bones.
"I really don't like this," Michael said, and for the first time in a while I had to agree with him. Astrid and Riley didn't say anything, just continued to stare at the bones.
"A plant monster?" Rex suggested.
We paused for a moment before nodding. That seemed to be a likely scenario. The bunker was somehow controlled by a plant monster, and just as we stepped forward a bit more and crossed into the dark room in front of us, a notification seemed to confirm that this place was something else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You have entered the overgrown bunker dungeon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"So it is a dungeon," I said.
"Seems it is," Rex nodded.
Before we continued moving forward, Astrid tapped my shoulder and asked, "Can we take core?"
"You want to take the core of this dungeon?" I paused, "Sure, we didn't do it in the Ice Devil dungeon."
"What's the core?" Riley asked, while Michael a confused expression, asking the same. Rex shot me a look of recognition, however, he didn't say anything. Instead, he allowed me to explain what I needed to explain.
"It's kind of like the heart of a dungeon. Basically, the place where the particles are gathering to make the dungeon be what it is. And give any of the strange effects that might be happening there."
"Riley's house was one," Astrid added.
"Wait, are you telling me that I lived inside of a dungeon?"
"Yeah. I'm kind of surprised that you didn't know. Back then, we were all inside the dungeon. I figured your System would have warned you about that kind of thing."
"No, it didn't," they grumbled and seemed to start having a conversation with their own System.
"But why would we want the core?" Michael asked. I had explained to him the intricacies of the dungeon before, or at least, as far as I knew about it, but I didn't get to the point of telling him everything about it. The core was a details that I left out. Not on purpose, I had just forgotten about it.
"I'm not sure. We never really touched the core, and my System had told me it could be a good source of particles. So maybe just a few levels or some skills. But most importantly, if we get rid of the core, the dungeon is gone. Or, that's what I can understand of it. You can ask your System about it if you want, but let's have this conversation later. I don't think this is the right place for it," I said.
We were still in the threshold of the dungeon looking into this ruined bunker. Vines and what looked like small pieces of bone or fur completely covered the ground. Whatever was killing the creatures outside was clearly living here.
They all nodded, and we continued to move forward. Being very careful not to make too much noise. There were several rooms in the bunker. From what looked like libraries, to a kitchen, and even a gym. Not to mention the five bedrooms. There was even an area with an indoor pool that smelled absolutely putrid. As if dozens of corpses had fallen inside and rotted away. On this level, we couldn't find anything else. No markings, no signals of movement, no nothing. And that strange sound seemed to be gone.
There were two sets of stairs in this bunker heading down. Deeper into the facility. One of them was open and gave way to a large shaft filled with frames of what once were pictures or maybe paintings. The stairs on that side were made out of wood and, like the rest of the wood in the area, those were now rotting away for some reason. Maybe the fact of the matter was that the place was not as humid as one could expect.
The staircase was oddly empty, and the amount of creaking it did just by us getting close to it, really made it feel like a haunted place.
On the other side, away from the living room and behind the kitchen, was another set of stairs. This one more industrial. Made of metal, which was now rusted and uneven. There was even a small hatch that led to what I was assuming to be some sort of dumbwaiter to move things from one floor of this bunker to another. But not large enough for people to get inside.
On this shaft, we could also see some light coming from above. There was a small gap in the ceiling that allowed a single shaft of sunlight to pierce the darkness and hit something down below. Something that was reflecting the light into a different room.
"Creepy wooden stairs or rusted metal stairs?" I turned to my companions.
"Both sides suck, you know that, right?" Michael frowned.
"I mean, yeah, but that doesn't mean both sides are bad."
"I think we should go down here," Riley suggested, pointing at the metal staircase by the kitchen.
"Any reason?" I asked.
"The dungeon says it's overgrown. Meaning that there is something here that is taking over. A plant, more likely than not. And since we are in the kitchen, it makes sense that they would build some sort of cargo elevator to bring produce back and forth."
"So you're saying that you hope down there will be a greenhouse?" Michael frowned.
"I hope that down there will be hot springs that can give us a billion levels and a skill that will kill all the Eaters in the entire world. But I know that's too much to ask for, so yeah, I'm kind of picturing that there's a greenhouse down there."
Rex nodded with a smile.
"Rex agrees. Greenhouse."
I turned to my Rodenti companion. "Do you even know what a greenhouse is?"
"House that's green," Rex replied, and we couldn't help but laugh at that. His ears flopped behind his head in a way that they only did when he felt either embarrassed or really worried about something.
But we all chuckled.
"Is Rex wrong?" he asked.
"Not really. It's just not exactly the way you're thinking. Come on, let's hope this is really the greenhouse so we can show you what it's all about," I said as we descended this next flight of stairs.