Adrien winced as Vera pulled the bandage tight around his torso."I really wish they'd remove pain settings from this game," he muttered, his voice strained. "Just because I can tolerate it doesn't mean I want to."
Adrien then turned toward the ghost lounging on a nearby chair—one currently occupied by a pile of skeletal remains.
"Greetings, Senior," Adrien said, offering a sincere nod. "I'm Adrien, and this is my friend, Vera. It's an honour to meet you. Also… you have an absolutely magnificent beard."
The spirit let out a booming bark of laughter. He proudly stroked the spectral hair flowing from his chin. "Well, thank you, young ones! My name is Lovegrove, and the pleasure is mine."Adrien and Vera exchanged wide-eyed glances. The name hit them instantly. After all, the dungeon they were currently standing in was called Lovegrove's Rest.
Lovegrove caught the sudden shift in their expressions immediately. "Oh? You've heard of me."
"Yes, Senior," Vera said slowly, stepping forward with caution. "We learned about you from the spirits of your students."
Lovegrove's smile froze, and the warmth drained from his face instantly, replaced by a deep, crushing exhaustion. "You met them here, in the dungeon? How many?"
"We met Princess Jefimiya and Lord Gavrillo," Vera replied.
"I see."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room before Lovegrove spoke again. "Young ones, would you care for a piece of advice from a failure of an old man?"
"Senior, you aren't a failure, you—"
"No!" Lovegrove snapped, cutting Adrien off. His voice dropped to a low, deliberate gravel. "If I am not a failure, then why did I lead my own students straight into a trap that cost them their lives?"He leaned forward, his ghostly eyes locking onto theirs.
"Children, remember my words. Once you have defeated your enemy, it doesn't matter how much they beg for mercy. It doesn't matter if society pressures you to forgive them. If you do not utterly erase them from existence, you are simply committing suicide."
Lovegrove drew in a long, shuddering breath, visibly forcing the raw agony and centuries of resentment back beneath a mask of hollow cheer.
"Well," he said, his spectral voice forcibly brightening as he clapped his hands together. "Let us leave the morbid affairs to the dead, shall we? Tell me, how many years have slipped away since my demise? Do you have any inkling?"
Adrien and Vera exchanged a glance, mentally tracking the game's lore timelines.
"From what we've been able to piece together," Adrien said cautiously, "it has been at least twelve hundred years. Give or take."
Lovegrove leaned forward, the sudden movement causing his ghostly form to ripple. "Truly? Over a millennium?"
"Likely more than that, honestly," Adrien added, scratching the back of his neck. "We'd need to dig up the deeper historical archives to give you an exact number."
Lovegrove's gaze drifted downward, lingering on their equipment. His eyes scanned the equipment, and he opened his mouth, then closed it, his brow furrowing as he clearly struggled to find a polite word for what he was looking at.
Vera let out a soft, defeated sigh. After having already survived a scathing critique from Gavrillo, she knew exactly what the old man was thinking.
"Senior, you can say it," Vera spoke up, a wry, self-deprecating smile tugging at her lips. "Lord Gavrillo already informed us that our gear is an absolute disappointment. He assumed crafting standards would have evolved over the centuries, but… well, this is top-tier stuff for our current era. It's not cheap, either. Normal people have to save up for years to afford a set like this."
She was exaggerating the market prices a bit to save face, but the hyperbole had an unintended side effect. Lovegrove slumped back into his skeletal chair, looking thoroughly despondent.
"To think the future devolved instead of progressed," the old spirit muttered, rubbing his temples. "What an absolute tragedy. Next, you will tell me that the world is still reliant on those dreadful, clanking steam-powered contraptions, and that no true arcane breakthroughs have been made."
"Oh, heavens no," Vera interjected quickly, eager to offer a shred of comfort.
A flicker of genuine relief sparked in Lovegrove's eyes—only to be instantly crushed by her next words.
"Steam engines are far too expensive and a nightmare to maintain," Vera explained earnestly. "Most people just use horses."
Lovegrove's spectral jaw dropped so low it looked ready to detach from his skull, his eyes glazed over with a hollow, shell-shocked stare. Seizing the moment, Adrien—ever the compassionate and respectful person—quietly opened his system interface and snapped a few screenshots. 'Perfect background material, ' he thought.
"This… how could our kind fall so low?" Lovegrove whispered, his voice cracking with disbelief.
"How?"He buried his face in his translucent hands. "I had such grand dreams for the future. I truly believed the next generations would scale the heights our ancestors only dreamed of. But this… we have been succeeded by a horde of primitive, backward, utterly worthless descendants."
Suddenly, the old man snapped his head up. His sorrow vanished, replaced by a sharp, piercing glare that locked onto the duo. "Wait. Looking closely at you two, you aren't even human. Why should I believe a word out of your mouths? How do I know you aren't spinning lies to mock a dead man?"
Adrien didn't flinch as he met the ghost's gaze with a calm, level-headed expression.
"What could we possibly gain from lying to you, Senior?" Adrien asked quietly. "Look around. The two of us are trapped deep inside a deadly dungeon with monstrous creatures hunting us. We don't even know the way out. What do we get by making up stories?"
Adrien gestured toward the grim surroundings. "People risk their lives entering these ruins hoping for knowledge, for treasure, for anything to make their miserable lives just a little bit better. But look at us. We haven't found a single coin. We've lost our supplies, we're bleeding out, and we don't even know if we'll survive the night. Why waste our breath lying to a spirit?"
The fight drained out of Lovegrove all at once. His shoulders slumped, his ghostly form sagging back into the chair.
"And what of the arcane arts?" he murmured, his voice sounding incredibly small. "I can sense the spark within you both. You possess mana. Why do you rely on crude steel instead of casting spells?"
Vera stepped forward, her expression turning sombre. "Because the price of magic is sky-high, Senior. Even the most basic, useless utility spell is locked behind layers of bureaucracy. First, you have to apply for royal approval from the kingdom, a process that takes months. If you're lucky enough to get cleared, you have to pay a small fortune to look at a spellbook. The only alternative is selling your soul to a noble house, but then your entire life and growth depend entirely on the whims of a master."
"Though, there is one other option," Adrien chimed in dryly. "You can raid ancient ruins and cursed dungeons, and pray to whatever gods are listening that you get incredibly lucky."
Lovegrove sat in total, defeated silence. He looked smaller now, the vibrant, proud spirit from moments ago completely crushed by the weight of a disappointing future.
"I think…" Lovegrove whispered, his form beginning to fade into a faint, shimmering mist. "I think I need some time alone."
The moment Lovegrove's form dissolved into the air, the heavy silence of the chamber rushed back. Vera whirled around to face Adrien, her eyes wide with a mixture of anxiety and sheer bewilderment.
"What on earth happened to you after we got separated?" she demanded, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. "Adrien, look at you. Your backpack is gone, your sword and gun are missing, your armour is practically in shreds, and you're covered in wounds. I've literally watched you solo a boss that entire raid party ran away from. Who did this to you?"
Adrien let out a long, heavy sigh, running a hand through his messy hair. He winced as the movement pulled at his bandaged torso. "Did you catch the part where I barely survived?"
"Well, I missed the grand finale," Vera said, crossing her arms. "But Gavrillo mentioned you escaped by throwing yourself down some kind of chute or pipe."
"Yeah, and it dropped me straight into a massive sewer system beneath the town ruins," Adrien said, his grim expression returning. "A place absolutely crawling with the same creatures that ensnared you."
Vera stiffened, a flicker of genuine fear passing through her eyes. "You mean… the things that messed with my mind? The ones that made me see you as a monster and attack you while you were trying to pull me out?"
"The very same," Adrien nodded. "Turns out, those things are deathly afraid of bright light—it can actually kill them, but they're incredibly tough, and when you're being swarmed by dozens of them in pitch-black tunnels, fighting back is a losing game. I had to ditch my gear just to move fast enough to break line of sight. By the time I finally looped back up to the ruins, I found you wrapped up by one of them."
Vera looked down at the stone floor, her shoulders dropping. "I… thank you for coming back for me, and I'm so sorry for attacking you earlier. I really thought I was fighting a monster."
"Don't worry about it," Adrien said, waving his hand dismissively to brush off the apology. "The mind tricks in this place are no joke. But did you actually get a chance to talk to Gavrillo before everything went sideways? My exit was a bit too rushed to ask him any real questions."
A faint smile returned to Vera's face. "Actually, yes. I managed to press him for answers before he faded. I learned a massive amount of lore about what happened to this place."
Adrien leaned against a nearby stone pillar, his eyes lighting up with genuine curiosity. "Well, don't keep me in suspense. Let's hear it."
"Alright," Vera said, her tone turning serious as she stepped closer. "Let me tell you about the Devonians."