"Be careful Zane!"
Yes Karson I know to be careful you dick this is the tenth time you've told me to be careful.
Karson was currently waiting on the ground operating the Ferris wheel whilst I was in a cab at the very top trying to climb out and onto it's roof so I could grab the arrow.
My time loop skill was in full effect and until now every single attempt had ended with me hitting the ground rather horribly. I managed to grasp onto the slippy roof with both my good hand and my broken hand and hoisted myself up successfully.
I could now see that they were very flagrant with the use of the word arrow it was a green spear with rubies trailing down the sides and a nice leaf detailing on the blade.
I turned back on the loop and grabbed hold of the spear with both hands trying desperately to pull it out but it seems like it has been really wedged in there.
The first couple of times I pulled it out I lost my footing and flew over the edge hurtling to the ground but on the third attempt I managed to put it into my inventory.
It then took an embarrassing amount of loops to get back into the cab but once I did I shouted down to Karson to get me back down, the slow way this time.
Whilst I was on the way back down I took notice of the fact that none of the 3 rollercoasters were running let alone seeing Skinny, Clarisse and Steven whizzing by.
Touching down on the ground the first thing I said to Karnon was, "We need to find Clarisse and Skinny!"
We vaguely knew which rollercoaster they had gone to by the direction they had left in when we first entered but found no signs of it even being touched let alone used.
"Do you have any skill or anything that could locate them? Like a guild leader skill?"
"I do have the guild management skill but it doesn't help to locate them."
I was beginning to get frustrated and angry, I was just starting to get used to this new life and now it was just gone!
"Woah Zane! Relax ok? They'll turn up." Karson said patting me on the shoulder.
I knew he was right so why did I react like that. I need to keep a level head if I'm going to find them.
I retraced the steps they would have taken and used focus to the maximum and right outside of the merry-go round they just disappear.
"Karson you work the merry-go round. I'll loop a couple of times and see if I can make sense of it."
Another time I'm sure I would have laughed at Karson sprinting to the control switch in his heavy armour that clanged with every twitch, but not this time.
I turned on the loop and went around, nothing happened. Repeating it did the same. Then Repeating it once again nothing happened.
I worked the controls this time and had Karson get on the merry-go round.
He went around once and he flung himself off the horse he was straddling and walked over to the circus tent like he was in a trance.
I took my new shiny green spear out of my inventory and followed closely behind.
I knew that there wouldn't be any animals left around because they would have been eaten and I was right. But what were they eaten by? There were no monsters that we could find and we had been everywhere.
Well everywhere but the rollercoasters and the circus area I guess.
Karson walked into the big top tent and I followed behind I had been activating Time loop with every step just in case anything sprung out and tried to kill him or me.
Immediately the sound of circus music rung in my ears and I laid my eyes upon a giant swan. It seemed to emanate some kind of light that my eyes had to adjust to and right in front of it stood a snake man wearing a ringleaders outfit and quite a giant muscular guy standing behind it dressed as a clown.
"Ah so nice of the lassst two guesssts to join us" The snake man called out to me and Karson but I was the only one taking notice. Karson had already walked and found a seat next to the others.
"You mussst be so confused!" he called out specifically to me giggling maniacally.
"I was but I think I just figured it out!" I called out to him stepping closer.
"Oh really?!" he said delighting in this big moment.
"Yup you're Loki which makes the swan Balder and the clown his half blind brother Hodr right?"
"Ssspot on! We all knew that you'd be good but you're exceeding expectations!"
"We?" I asked suddenly honing in on the fact that they're may be more enemies around here, but none came.
"Oh that was jussst a ssslip of the tongue."
"Ok let's get this over with! So you'll let them go and Hodr, I guess, if I make him kill his own brother with this?" I summed up whilst motioning to the Arrow of Mistletoe in my hand.
The myth of Balder's death cements Loki's character in mythos. Balder was told he was going to die so his mother begged every part of creation to spare his son and they all agreed. But she forgot about mistletoe as it was so small and insignificant, Loki, learning about this makes an arrow from mistletoe and tells Hodr, Balder's brother to kill him with it, he believes nothing can kill his brother so he gladly does it and doing so kills Balder.
And I'd been walking around with the murder weapon.
"Not ssso fassst. Surely you have some things you want to asssk a god like me?" he was really enjoying this but I wasn't about to give him any satisfaction.
"No I'm ok." I said handing the Arrow to the clown and promising his freedom if he throws it.
"You sssee I can be nice ssso I'll wait until you've 'caught up' with your companions before I dessstroy this place." God I was getting tired of hearing him speak like that.
"Yeah sure." I just wanted this to be over with.
Hodr took the Arrow into his rather impressive arm and javelined it straight at the swan's neck piercing right through it. Then in a flash of green that matched the Arrow they were gone leaving me standing in the middle of the circus tent holding the Arrow by myself.
"Zane!" Clarisse called out from the crowd and I hurried up to meet them.
"You guys don't have to worry I just killed the boss!" I said triumphantly to 3 proud looking guild members and 1 baffled looking surveyor.
"But how? I mean what happened?" Steven asked me.
"It was Loki, the norse god associated with trickery, he got me to give the arrow to Balder's brother."
They all looked completely confused.
"Don't worry about it I managed to beat the dungeon and I have a promise that it will be destroyed when I'm ready to leave."
"But why would we stay in a dungeon?" Steven asked me like I had just said the most stupid thing in the world.
"Well it's a dungeon with no monsters…" Clarisse said.
"It's a theme park with no people." Skinny chimed in.
I knew what Loki meant when he said 'catch up', the OTO quests. They now made sense with all the secrets and lies.
I couldn't figure out why I hadn't fallen into a trance though, I figured it was because I was using the loop skill but I think it was actually because of the truth skill as it allowed me to see through Loki's lies.
I followed on after my guild members but stayed behind a little with Steven, Blocking him from leaving.
"Do you have a secret you want to tell me?"
"N-no!" I used the truth skill on him and of course he was lying.
"You know I've nearly destroyed 2 dungeons almost singlehandedly. Are you sure you don't want to tell me a secret?" I said intimidatingly whilst fiddling with my new spear, just to call attention to the fact I had a weapon.
"Fine. We were all supposed to die in here." He sighed out and finally relaxed. Clearly he wasn't made for lying.
"This dungeon had already been surveyed a week ago when it first opened and everyone that went in didn't come back. So the association was getting rid of you and me. That's why I really wanted you to destroy this dungeon."
"Why does the association hate us?"
"Because of the orc." He said pointing outside.
"Why what did he do?"
"You really don't know? He killed the association chairman's granddaughter."
Well I guess that takes care of 2 secrets in one.
"Skinny's a porter he can't kill anyone."
"When he worked for us he was a very dangerous warrior, he wielded an axe and there's a story that he once cut a boss into 2 with it."
"Really?!" I asked genuinely surprised, he must have really let himself go.
Steven went to try to leave but I called out to him.
"Hey Steven!"
"Yeah what is it now?"
"How would you like a job?"
We went back to the others who were all having a good time Clarisse was making a drink out of every available drinks tap, Karson was tucking into some ice cream and Skinny was trying to stop Clarisse from a future heart attack.
I looked next to me at Steven and saw for the first time that he cracked a slight grin, I think we're getting through to him.
Me and Karson had to go straighten the Steven situation so I grabbed his ice cream and told him to follow me.
"He was going to kill us?!" Karson exclaimed with ice cream in his mouth.
"Yeah but he was also going to kill himself he didn't have a choice, the association's too powerful. So I gave him a solution."
"Yeah and what's that?" he said getting another large spoonful into his mouth.
"Well there's only one place I know for misfits who need to get away from guilds and the association."
"You can't be serious!"
"Yeah I was thinking it would be nice to have an occupation coordination supervisor!"
"…And what's that supposed to be?"
"He gets us jobs."
"Yeah and look at how great that turned out this time."
"I was thinking him and Skinny could work on that together. Steven gets the job and navigates the red tape and Skinny uses his blackmail connections to make sure we don't get killed. It's a win-win!"
"Argh!" Karson exclaimed whilst jumping off of the bench he was on.
"What you don't like it?"
"Nah I think we could take a chance on him. I just got some bad brain freeze."
We came back and gave everyone all the details, minus the almost killing us part.
"Great it'll be good to have another former association member!" Skinny said whilst smacking Steven's back. Steven didn't respond too well too that maybe because he doesn't trust Skinny or maybe because Skinny's backslaps rearrange organs.
"Don't worry we'll fix you so you're not so uptight all the time. Ok Steven?" Clarisse messed up his light brown hair but it was clear by Steven's red face that he didn't mind.
Later on Clarisse and I got to go on a rollercoaster whilst Skinny operated for us.
"…You want to do like a secret exchange?"
"Yeah I think it would bring us closer together."
"OK but you go first…"
I had been trying to come up with a fake secret for a little bit and one finally came to me.
"I cheated on my ex-girlfriend"
{Lie about any of your secrets (2/2)}
I got rid of the notification, I would check them all when we were going to leave anyway.
"Wow mine seems kind of lame compared to yours."
"No it's ok go on."
"I haven't been able to actually use my magic since I left my guild."
"That was a year ago right?"
"Yeah a whole year. It doesn't usually affect our work since most of the time we would scavenge the same dungeon or backup an elite guild but now that we have to take on all these new jobs and destroy all these dungeons I'm worried I'm going to get one of us killed."
"It's Ok. We can work on it together ok? I'm here if you need to talk about this again ok?" I decided to give her a hug like she had given me when I had learned how long I'd been gone.
"Anyway let's get on this rollercoaster!" She said running off.
We had a good day together as a guild, the whole Orion guild having a company outing. I decided it was time to get back so I sifted through all my notifications.
{Truth (Bronze rank) permanently unlocked}
{Truth (Iron rank) permanently unlocked}
{Truth (Silver rank) permanently unlocked}
These were from learning everyone's secrets.
{Trickery (Dirt Rank) permanently unlocked}
This is from lying.
{Arrow of Mistletoe, Trickery (Bronze Rank) permanently upgraded}
{Loki – Norse god of Trickery – Acknowledges your victory}
{Hodr – Norse god of darkness – Acknowledges your victory}
{Balder – Norse god of light – Acknowledges your victory}
Wow all 3 I didn't expect that given that one of them died and the other one had to kill them.
{Loki gifts you a skill: Trickery (Silver Rank)}
{Loki gifts you an item: Laevatein}
{Balder gifts you a skill: Truth (Gold Rank)}
{Balder gifts you a skill: Observation (Dirt Rank)}
Looks like Laevatein is a wand. Maybe it will help Clarisse to get over this magic hurdle she is on.
{Loki will destroy the dungeon are you ready: Y/N}
Yes. Yes I am.
The feeling of destroying a dungeon really is incomparable. An immense feeling of joy and pleasure at shattering the horrible barrier surrounding the dungeon and plunging the whole place back into the natural world.
In total we had spent about 2 hours in this dungeon meaning that it had been about 120 hours since we first entered. Meaning 5 days had passed on Earth not to mention the fact that it was now night time.
We all walked together to the entrance and found a couple of reporters being held back by a guy in a suit and sunglasses.
"Karson! Karson! You've destroyed another dungeon! Would you care to give the secret to the public?" One of them called out.
"You, young man! You were responsible for the destruction of the first dungeon. Can you elaborate on your connection to the terrible Orion guild?" The other called out.
All the while, they were trying to get closer to get in our face and probe for answers but the man in the suit was stopping them.
"Stay back both of you this is Association business!"
I was going to just start walking away but Steven walked towards the guy in the suit. I guess he chose to stay with the association.
"Having witnessed the skill and fortitude of the Orion guild myself. I have decided to leave the association and join them. I truly believe they are the only ones who can save this world!" Steven said to both reporters.
The administration security raised his glasses in confusion when Steven said all this but he walked back towards us and we began walking back to our headquarters.
"All publicity is good publicity right?" Steven said and we all agreed. Sadly it meant he earned a backslap from Karson and Skinny, hell I even gave him one he earned it.