Kingdom of the Malaise (18)

'So this is the entrance to the Ossuary Strange name?'

A small candle was casting light on the rest of the area, not that it mattered to me as I took out a torch from my inventory.

In the darkness, a familiar archway with a series of steps heading downwards as a bloody red glow came out of the eaves of the archway.

Seeing the name titled [The Ossuary] On top of the archway.

I raised an eyebrow at the name.

Generally, Ossuary's were places where the dead were buried in large amounts and contained several tombs filled with the dead.

I didn't see why in this world it would be any different.

Shrugging my shoulders as the one thought of where the dead corpses would be kept was solved.

I entered the steps.

And just like that a strange sensation covered my body before disappearing.

'The Hell?'

Feeling the strange covering that touched the back of my mind like an unitchable itch linger, I frowned.

Slowly walking downwards.

The long flight of spiraling steps continued to spiral downwards into the man made caverns that man kind had dug out.

Dragging my fingers across the hard stone surfaces of the rooms as te gritty feeling of dust crumbled against my fingers.

Small eaves in the wall containing candles that still burned in this time trapped kingdom cast a light for me to see.

And soon enough.

After positively making my legs hurt from the constant steps.

I reached the bottom of the stairs.

And at the bottom, I met another inhabitant of this island.

A tall figure carrying a giant container filled with bright blue liquid that sloshed around was standing in the middle of the room.

The giant apparatus was connected to a strange device that the figure was using on something, several copper appendages on the top that were supposed to do something to the container of blue liquid.

Hanging on their waist was a chain that connected itself to a lump of glowing pulsing blue orbs.

From what I could see that wasn't hidden in the dark recesses of the black robe, their every body part was covered up and bound in cloth.

From the black coat they were wearing, to the lengths of cloth wrapped around their legs and the grey gloves they wore.

And on the topic of legs.

Their legs weren't single jointed like a conventional human was and was instead double jointed making it look like someone took a human's upper half and a kangaroo's lower half.

As I admired the unknown figure, an incredibly smooth and sonorous voice pulled me out of my thoughts. "Well well well..."

I jolted as I realized that the figure I was looking at was now directly looking at me, turning their body around and showing me the rest of their body.

"...Look who it i- Who are you?"

Interrupting themselves midway of their words, they looked at me with wide glowing blue eyes hidden in the darkness of the hood.

A very unnatural darkness it was.

Hearing their confusion I bowed to the unknown figure in black. "My name is Slade, You probably haven't heard of me yet but I'm an accidental who came to this place"

Narrowing their blue eyes they stared at me dead in the eyes for a few moments as if searching for something, seemingly satisfied at what they have seen.

They spoke. "Well than... Slade..."

A slow soothing voice that tickled my ears came out of the man's voice as the owner of said voice introduced themselves.

"I'm the Collector, and I'm the closest you will find to decent company around here"

They slowly bowed to me in greetings.

"Are you the one who I'm supposed to bring cells to?"

A hint of surprise filled the figures pure blue eyes as they paused for a moment before nodding.

"Correct, bring me the Cells you gather from the others. In exchange, I'll procure a few useful little items for you..."

Hearing their words I smiled secretly before taking out a clump of cells from my inventory and showed it to the man.

Freezing at the sight of the large clump of blue cells that seemed to be alive as they slowly pulsed in my grasp the tall man stared unflinchingly at the cells.

"Is this enough?"

Slowly nodding their head the Collector moved their gaze from my hand to my face "This is... more than enough..."

They shifted their limbs making the chains on their battle rattle as they looked at me. 

"Should you stumble upon a Blueprint, bring it to me and I will introduce you to some more... experimental items I can waive the price of the first three you bring with this much."

Hearing those words I widened my eyes in surprise before smiling even wider.

"Than I don't think I'll occupy much of your brain space since I..."

I took out several blueprints from my inventory and showed it to the man.

"Have a lot of these things"

Blinking in bewilderment, the Collector took the blueprints and cells from me.

---

I learned a few things that day.

For one, the blue prints that I unlocked through the Collector were now unlocked in my crafting menu that appeared in my system.

And to my knowledge dead cells had no form of crafting menu so I learned that this system was more applicable to other areas than I thought.

This function was unlocked when the Sync rate broke through the fifth barrier as well.

[Dead Cells - 50%] 

For two, the appearance of the Collector confirmed for me that there were more people on this island than I had thought.

Because why would he sell is services to find weapons and bring them to me?

I had my suspicions with Guillian but with the Collector it's been basically confirmed.

For three... The main currencies of this place was either Gold or Cells.

That was because gold could be transmuted into various foods that the inhabitants of this kingdom ate on the daily.

Cells were slightly more esoteric but their use was to basically uplift someone's strength past normal limits.

From the outside world that wasn't involved with the Kingdom of the Malaise, I could count on one hand the amount of people that were at the A rank I knew.

Which was one.

And I literally traveled through several places either through death or normal means.

So yeah.

They were rare.

However in this place all the people I have met were at least A rank or at least were at the very limits of B rank.

Not sure about the Collector though.

I recalled the indescribable sensation that appeared when I neared the man and shook my head.

'Focus Slade'

I slapped myself as I took out my new weapons and prepared them in the inventory hot bars.

Taking the last piece of meat jerky to sate my hunger, I walked through the hallways of the place before finally reaching a new area.

A large hole was present at the end of the of the new area, heading downwards into a deep darkness.

An acrid scent of burnt corpses and rust reached my nose, frowning I turned on the flames on my head and burnt the smell away.

Looking down the giant hole I noticed that the red glow that was seeping out of the archway initially was now present here as well.

Frowning even more as at the edges of my vision corpses hung at the edges of the walls in small enclaves, I took out a few of the remaining blocks in my inventory and started to build my way down.

There were no footholds in the wall to use and even if there were they were rather small.

So doing the smart thing, I started to place blocks down and gradually neared the bottom of the hole.

'To the Ossuary I go I guess.'

As I continued to descend into the reaches of the Ossuary, I started to notice a few things.

There were several large eaves in the walls where several corpses were shoved without regard into them.

The walls were covered in a thin layer of ash that gradually got thicker as I went deeper.

Filth infiltrated every nook and cranny of the place making this place rather... disgusting.

And as I descended into the earth's embrace the acrid smell gradually got stronger and stronger to the point of reaching past the level of the Toxic sewers.

'God damn that smell is disgusting'

Grimacing, I continued to build my way downwards and finally reached the bottom.

Seeing that there were no more places to place the blocks down I took the risk and jumped down.

Slamming into the ground with quickness, I quickly observed my surroundings as a thick layer of ash was kicked up due to my presence.

As the ash settled I observed the area before concluding.

I finally reached the starting point of the Ossuary.

+++

The next week is entirely going to be filled with Mocks, hopefully my entire week filled with revision will help me.

Wish me luck and pray for my survival in case I fail.

Don't hope that I'll upload daily though.

Tree