Drip-Fed
Trauma Monster 5 – Noises

It was a constant, high-frequency hum.

The noise had first made itself known to Apexus and Reysha, shortly after they had left the city. It had come in and out at the time, growing in strength and persistence as they travelled closer to the edge of the Trauma Influence Zone. By the time that they stepped out of the area that was officially classified as ‘tamed’, they all heard it without pause.

The noise sat in the depths of their ears. It drilled itself into their thoughts and their nerves. It did not make a big hole, just one large enough to be noticed. It grated against their thoughts. It gnawed away at their patience.

They marched the entire day in the noise’s shadow.

“Are we sure about this?” Korith asked and looked at the tent they had put up.

“As per the encyclopaedia, if we isolate ourselves from the noise, we will not grow accustomed to it,” Aclysia answered. “It will only grow more intense as we advance. Without any tolerance, we will be subjected to steady nausea inside the Dungeon.”

“Urgh,” Korith groaned. “Not sure if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

None of them got more than light sleep. The noise buzzed inside their head. It even killed any libido that might have helped exhaust them for rest. Unrelenting, the high-frequency buzz bothered them. It always and endlessly made them feel like there was a wasp in the room, as if there was something behind them.

Sometimes, something was.

Reysha poked the campfire they had made to transform their ingredients into something more edible. The tip of the stick caught fire of its own. The rogue pulled back the thin, wooden thing and watched the flames dance. After a few moments, they went cold. The branch was too fresh to remain alight on its own.

Bored, the redhead cast it into the fire. Her gaze wandered to the small cauldron that they had moved out of the Mobile Estate. The cast iron thing sat above the fire, its bottom occasionally touched by the product of wood and heat. The soup within was steaming, the ingredients turning slowly towards a cooked state.

Korith, Aclysia and Apexus were all keeping their hands busy in one way or another. Aclysia traced the lines of a little prayer book, whose contents she silently lipped to herself. Korith polished her Hoardcoin, assuring the small stone disk was as clean as the day Hoard made it. Apexus moved his hands in esoteric circles, meditating all the while.

Reysha turned her head just enough that she noticed something in the corner of her vision. Red hair and a tall figure. She whirled around, to fully see the figure of Apotho.

The warlock’s long, red hair was combed backwards. A simple brown robe clad him and his face was youthful and haughty. “You didn’t think I had relinquished your soul, did you?” he asked, powerful, old and yet young – rejuvenated by her fault. “You drank the potion. Your mind is mine.”

“REYSHA!”

The Rogue’s head snapped to the side. Apexus looked at her, his face alarmed, his mouth parted in a shout. A moment later, she realized that she clenched a drawn dagger. She had stood up at some point. She turned back to where Apotho had stood.

 There was only a gap in the trees.

“What did you see?” Aclysia asked.

“…Him,” she muttered.

“…Who?” Korith asked.

“Apotho,” Apexus answered, while Reysha turned back around. She clenched her eyes shut when she saw the fire. The fire was behind her closed lids as well, flickering a bloody crimson and a noxious green. Lives ended changed the colour from one to another. Her left arm burned all over. She forced her breathing to remain even. It kept the panic attack at bay.

“Just give me a minute,” she muttered and sat down. The noise kept rubbing up against her thoughts. Annoyance mingled with regret and fear. The mastery she had gained over those feelings since the day that her actions had doomed a city was tested. After a few minutes, she was calm enough to open her eyes again. “Alright… I think I got it now.”

“Want to sit with me?” Apexus asked.

Reysha did. She crawled over to him on all fours, then got comfortable in his lap. “Thank fuck you’re enormous,” she joked.

The humanoid chimera buffed himself up to look extra impressive. It was a simple trick, bloating the space between muscle fibres with some extra liquid. It made him not one bit stronger. It also made him look ridiculous and limited his mobility. He deflated to regular levels after Reysha had a laugh at it.

Aclysia took the cauldron off the fire and began to distribute the meal.

___________________________________________________________________

Trauma was an odd Dungeon twice over.

First was the matter of its Influence Zone. Although being on this Leaf had accustomed them to the matter, it was not actually normal for Dungeons to have such sweeping areas of influence over the landscape.

Second was that there was no monster affiliated with Trauma, except one – the boss monster itself. The land, the Dungeon, all of it existed only as a trial for those who wished to claim the Loot behind the boss.

That was all the party knew about the Dungeon.

Aclysia closed the encyclopaedia again. She had read the entry on Trauma several times each day, to check if there were any hidden details within those 3 brief pages. Besides how bothersome the noise was, the only thing that could be said with any certainty was that the adventurers travelling the area would come face to face with their most intense regrets.

To make it through Trauma was not a question of combat prowess or strength. This Dungeon was a task of persistence and of will. To continue even while the infernal noise grew louder with each passing step. Visions of memories grew more frequent every day, until, at the edge of the dungeon, they flickered in and out of their field of view without pause.

Apexus saw three men circle him.

“It is your fault that I am free,” laughed Apotho.

“It is your fault that I am dead,” accused the guard.

“It is your fault that I am like this,” stated Maltos.

Aclysia saw two men and one woman whenever she looked over shoulder.

“What do you think you can even change?” Apotho laughed.

“What do you think you are praying for?” Pronthin mocked.

“What do you think you can deny?” the Progenitor’s Angel inquired.

Korith saw a single entity towering above her.

Wordless, mighty, patient, still, the Hoard beheld its follower. She remembered when she had seen it with her own eyes, clearer than anything. She had snuck in and somehow made it past the guards. She had played with a god. She refused to let the Dungeon stain that memory.

“You’re not real!” the kobold declared loudly. The words cut through the droning in their ears and for a brief moment, the three of them were relieved of their phantoms. They blinked and looked around, only then realizing that Reysha was no longer with them.

The tiger woman crouched twenty metres back. Her hands pressed down on her ears. Her blue eyes stared at the grass. Even the pumping of the rushing blood in her veins could not keep out the noise. It carved its way from her brain stem to her soul, digging deep into the deep well of regret.

An endless crowd of people all pointed at her, droning on in cacophony, speaking two words. “You fault. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.”

“Fear not this trial, beloved.”

Reysha looked up, to find Aclysia’s angelic visage above her. The pale-skinned woman gently removed the hands from the redhead’s ears and pulled her to her feet.

“You can go on. That is your duty.”

The words of demand and faith were what Reysha needed in that moment. She nodded, stepped forwards and rejoined the rest of the party. She clung tightly to Aclysia’s hand. It was the only one that she knew was real among the ocean of pointed fingers.

Alone in her mind, with only that hand to move her along, Reysha had no choice but to turn inside.

The burden of her regrets and poorly informed decisions rubbed up against her desire to be better. It was the only desire that she had that did not come for a position of selfishness and she knew it.

Why had she become an adventurer? To get out of her home of Ragressia. To avoid getting pawned off to one of the patriarchs of her gender-imbalanced species. To become powerful in her own right and filthy rich.

Why was she with this party? Because they accepted her. Because they made her feel good. Because it was working for her.

Why was she doing all of this? To try to alleviate this guilt. To finally make a difference in some small way. If she could not atone at all, then what was the point. Would she just have to feel like this forever?

She wanted to be better. Not for herself, but for them. There had to be a version of herself out there that was not a selfish anchor.

After 8 days travelling through the Influence Zone of Trauma, they arrived at the gates of the Dungeon.

33 pillars rose from the level ground. They were of dark blue crystal. It was their vibrations that created the noise. To step between them was to experience the final spike of mental anguish they provided. After bracing themselves for impact, they all stepped forwards.

In the absence of monsters, it wasn’t any particular physical challenge that categorized the Trauma Dungeon at level 35. It was no combat skill. It was not even any sort of magic resistance that needed to be built up.

The reason why the Trauma Dungeon was categorized at this level was, simply, because adventurers below it seldomly had the discipline to have their thoughts wiped by intrusive magic and to react to it with another step.

The party held onto each other. They grabbed each other’s wrists, forming a chain that kept on walking after the wall of noise broke into what should have been their own minds. Waves of melancholy, annoyance, anger, grief and sorrow washed over them. The noise dug deep in search of anything and everything that it could use. It drowned out everything, to the point that their hearing was so overburdened that their senses of sight and smell shut down.

They stumbled and fell, collapsing in the grass. The pillars continued their horrific song. There was no swell in it, no fall, just persistence.

Aclysia clasped her hands in prayer and sang against the terrible presence. Her voice was a beautiful spiral of hope in a doomed land. The rest of her party clung to it. Crystal clear and strong in her faith, the Priestess hit the notes of the hymns of fortitude. They were no specific songs, no great works of art, yet the greatest works of art that there were. They were prayer songs, popular in the Church the Omniverse over, capable to be sung by every man, woman and child.

“Gods within the Trunk, you wrote,

Of all the times that I would fail,

You sent the prophecy to me,

And signed with my own name.

Only now that I am at the edge,

Do I see what you have done.

It was not an indictment you gave,

But a challenge for a day not yet won.

Gods within the Trunk, you wrote,

Of all the times that I could fail.

You sent that humbling to me,

So that I may prevail.”

Korith remembered the song from her young days, she had sung it before. Reysha remembered it from her young days, she had refused to sing along before. Apexus remembered it from Aclysia’s tales, he had not needed to sing it before.

It was an excerpt of the Hymn of Lothane the Humbled. A simple story for children about a man that thought himself infallible, then was crushed by a singular setback. Only towards the end of the tale did he realize that to succeed without effort in all things was a privilege no one had. The world always presented its challenges to everyone, sooner or later.

They sang the song together, three poor singers around a genius songstress. She did not chide them for the attempt. In fact, she smiled. Their song kept them together, as they made their way to the staircase at the centre of the pillars – and descended.

The earth soon swallowed the worst of the noises.

“Hellroots, that sucked,” Reysha groaned. The noise was still ringing in everyone’s ears, but after the worst of it, the bad no longer seemed that bad.

“Are you fine?” Korith asked.

“Nope, I am one bad breath away from a panic attack,” the redhead answered, between jokes and hysterics. “Can’t help it though, so let’s keep going!”

There was only the path forwards.