Curselock

Chapter 96: Tears

After a round of Leland touching the two combatant’s with a green glowing finger, everyone sat and discussed.

“The ice cools me while my rage heats me up,” Jude explained. “The effects are a nice touch, also.”

“’A nice touch?’” Glenny said incredulously. “Your crescent strike pulled me into you! How is that only ‘a nice touch?’”

Jude simply shrugged. “Maybe it’s a bit more than nice.” He turned to Floe. “Thank you.”

The giant bear gave a slow nod. “Payment well sought.” She looked at her daughter, giving her the stare.

“T-thank you all for helping me get home,” Gelo sputtered out.

Jude petted the young cub as Leland and Glenny waved off the praise. “Thanks for helping us get away from the poachers.”

Now it was the cub’s turn to look bashful.

Floe cut into the positive feedback loop, “The Incarnation has yet to fully present itself. In time you will grow to control the ice more.”

“Some time,” the bear concluded.

“Right…” Jude then turned to the group. “What’s next? Train some, prepare to exit the dungeon and fight for our lives?”

That spurred a much needed conversation. Entering the dungeon might have been out of necessity, but venturing into its depths sure wasn’t. Meeting Floe, for Jude at least, was important enough to brave the monster and bosses, however. It was their goal, their cause, their reason for everything that had happened over the last few days.

And now that that goal had been completed, the question of what to do next was front and center. They had two more days until they ran out of time to compete in the herb gathering competition, which put them on a bit of a schedule. Luckily the exit to the dungeon was rather close. Just through Ice Castle and across the snow fields.

“There’s another exit,” Gelo muttered into her fur as the conversation drifted.

Floe shifted her weight at the declaration.

“The final dungeon boss, yes,” Leland said with his face scrunched. “Sorry, I assumed that to be Floe, and for obvious reasons we are not going to try to kill her to open an exit.”

“It’s not Mother,” Gelo squeaked out.

“Then what—” Leland took a deep breath. “It’s your father, isn’t it?” he asked the cub.

Gelo didn’t answer, instead nuzzling into Jude, hiding her snout. Jude gaped at that and said, “We don’t have to—”

“No, it is fine,” Floe interrupted. “He is no longer who we wish him to be, and instead is another mindless drone to that accursed dungeon core. A pawn for those above.”

“What does—”

“You may kill him, yes. But I ask you not,” the mother bear continued. “It has been many years since I made my vows. I am the only one who may kill him. To reset him.”

Gelo, through all of this, kept her head firmly planted into Jude’s hip. If she could, she’d have covered her ears and or simply left the conversation. Her father was a trying topic for her to speak about at all, but when her Mother was involved, things only grew worse. After all, how was she supposed to sit around and listen to her Mother talk about killing a loved one. Again and again.

It was why she wanted to leave home, it was why she wanted to run away.

“Sorry if this is a rude question,” Leland declared. “I’m unfamiliar with how the magic of dungeons produces sentient beings. So, can you explain more about ‘resetting’ him?”

“Sentience comes with age. Centuries after a dungeon releases its spawn into the real world, centuries of being uncleared and left alone, enough knowledge is passed between core and monster. Specifically the boss monsters,” Floe said with a deep breath.

She continued, “Like King Everald. He is starting to learn… or rather, was. Him being killed, he now will be reset to primal instincts and thoughts.”

The boys’ faces fell at that. They had reset the King, a monster who could speak and have intelligent, albeit enraged, conversation. A dull gnaw found each of the boy’s stomachs and Jude shifted, pulling Gelo closer.

“We are so sorry, we didn’t—”

“Everald’s intelligence is no issue,” Floe interrupted. “After a certain level of intelligence he always attacks me for dominance over the dungeon core. Killing him early does not create any woe for me.”

“Then why keep him intelligent at all?” Glenny asked. “The worm wasn’t intelligent, right?”

“No, and with King Everald, it is simple. He has tried too many times to kill Gelo. Her father and I used to kill him every time he spawned, but we tried an experiment and found that allowing the King some intelligence allows for Gelo to walk free.”

Leland spoke at that, “I assume Everald controls the monsters in the castle then? So they won’t attack Gelo if he doesn’t?”

“Correct,”

“Then us killing him does create woe for you and Gelo. If he’s going to attack her on sight—”

“She can use the experience.”

“Mother!” the cub yelled into Jude’s shirt.

“It is true, daughter. You must grow stronger. One day I—”

“Mom! Stop!” Gelo screeched, pulling her head away from her human pillow. The cub turned, her white and blue fur waving with rushed momentum. Tears fell and froze down her face as she yelled, “Please! Just stop!”

With that, the cub ran off through the sand and out of the arena. A few seconds passed before Jude got to his feat and chased after her.

Floe let out a pensive sigh. “I apologize that you all had to see that. Gelo is a little…”

“Young?” Leland supplied.

“Well, yes. But she—”

“Is acting exactly like I did,” Glenny interrupted. “I lost my mom not long ago, so I get it. Losing her didn’t just break my heart, but it also strained my relationship with my dad.”

“How do you mean?” Floe asked, shifting into a delicate position.

The rogue thought for a moment. “He always wanted to talk about her. What she meant to him, how much she loved me, how he will always love me, just like her. It grew to be an… annoyance. I knew it shouldn’t have and I knew that he was only trying to help me grieve, but it did. A-and I didn’t know how to not be annoyed with him, so I took out that frustration on him. And pushed him away in the process.

“Even now, I haven’t written to him like Jude and Leland have with their parents. Leland even has special paper and ink, so I know he’d get the letter. I just… I don’t know. After she passed, I just… I don’t know. But I know how Gelo feels, especially when my dad tried to prepare me for a time without him. I can hardly think about losing my mom, and then he reminds me that he’s going to die as well? I ran out of a few conversations before as well.”

Glenny took in the silence, looking at a hesitant Leland and a pondering Floe. “Sorry, that was a little rambled,” he said.

“No, no,” the bear said. “Y-you have given me something to think about.”

They were quiet for a long moment before Leland asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, but how did he die?”

Floe looked up from her blank stare. She exhaled, sending a waft of icy mist out of her nostrils. “Not long after I met the town creator of Frostford, a visitor came to the settlement. A ‘Legacy of Big Game’ he called himself. Is that an actual Lord, I don’t know. But he came upon the windy rumor about me and decided that my pelt was worth more than anything. He found the entrance to the dungeon not long after that, back then it wasn’t hidden and the meeting stone wasn’t destroyed.

“The Poacher, as we came to refer to him, entered the dungeon and made short work of the worm and Everald. Gelo was very young at that time, so small, so frail. He came with a team, splitting our attention. I fended off the lackeys while Gelo’s father dueled with the Poacher. He lost.”

“And the Poacher? What happened to him? You killed him, right?” Glenny asked.

“No, and until this day, it is my gravest mistake.” Floe abruptly stood and stretched, shaking off the year-long nap she had just woken up from. “I stayed with Gelo, expecting more to come. They never did, and I could have helped my husband in the meantime. It took me hours to realize something was wrong. But by then, it was too late… Interestingly enough, my husband’s pelt was never taken, so I can only assume the Poacher was injured to the point of retreat.”

“Was the Poacher ever found? Did Frostford track him?”

“Yes, the founder told me he chased him deep into the mountains but lost him in the snow.” Floe paused for a long second. “I had begun to hate humans at that point. I wanted to do nothing more than to rip apart Frostford and the mountains, especially when my husband respawned. I spent many years in an unending rage not unlike Jude’s own, killing the dungeon core over and over again. As my power increased, so too did my madness.”

“How’d you get out of the rage-loop?” Leland asked.

“Gelo,” Floe said, barely audible. “She became like a guiding star in the night sky. My own little happiness beacon. Cut my rage with nothing more than a silent tear.”

“So the Poacher is still out there?” Glenny asked.

“Indeed. I suspect those poachers after Gelo are part of his entourage. They will surely return to him with information of the dungeon’s entrance. But I am ready.” Floe dipped her head, her eyes hollow and primal. With a cold tone, she continued, “If he enters, he will not live more than a single step into the snow fields.”