Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 38- Third Weeks Maliciousness

I woke up on the Monday of the new week. I didn't have to go far to find people whispering snidely about myself. No one dared to come up to me and in a way that was enough to see their behaviour as a blessing to me.

I had just dreamt about a nearby dungeon in detail. Currently it was all that was on my mind, as I found out that the route to the dungeon won't take so long and I could apply to go in sooner than later.

Tonight I might dream of another dungeon. It made me wonder if it would be another dungeon with a helpful item or ingredient for my health. Thankfully most of the plants or things Emma took from the dungeons were well hidden. She'd get them by venturing deeper into the dungeon or whilst she was moving things to check out some information on a wall or something within the dungeons. So I wasn't flustered much on the likelihood that someone would have taken them, especially since not a lot of people knew the languages in the dungeons like Emma had learned. It was highly unlikely that people would start moving things in a dungeon haphazardly and suffer at the possibility that they might die to poisonous plants or the likelihood of causing an accident.

Moving into the day I enacted my plan.

I focused on studying and visiting the dungeon I dreamt about alongside the nearby dungeons if I had time. It wasn't difficult and the dream had taught me how to work out how time was calculated in dungeons. It slightly stunned me when I found out that the first memory of the dungeon in my dream had that information written on the walls in it. It even explained the more complex calculations to understand how to calculate time in more complex dungeons.

Some calculations also included the habit of different species and how their urine reacted to the atmospheres in dungeons.

It was a lot to study, even if I did get spoon fed most of the information in my dreams in the time I spent in the dungeon. It was still imperative that I study everything that I could in the dungeon before it gets destroyed when I complete it.

Like that a little less than a month was spent in the dungeon where I survived on medicinal herbs in the dungeon and the clean water from the water fountain it had retained in the middle of it. Sadly the dungeon wasn't one I could claim, but I still came out and found that only 50 or so minutes had passed out in the world's time.

My clothes weren't keeping up very well with what used to be sturdy outdoor trousers and layered tops becoming pitifully reduced into thin broken layers of what used to be an acceptable outfit. It made me embarrassed to walk out like that. For one thing it showed how lacking my skills were when trying to take care of things like clothes and for another I wasn't willing to not go into other nearby dungeons. It was just a shame that technology didn't work in dungeons and I couldn't practise or choreograph for this week's assessment.

In this way I spent another three hours going into nearby dungeons. 7 dungeons were cleared and studied by myself. Only 4 dungeons broke and the other 3 didn't transfer the ownership to me, but I received money for transfering the unhelpful dungeon harvest in those 3 dungeons to the administrator's on site.

It took a further 20 or so minutes to travel back to the dorm. When I arrived I saw Felixe lying on my bed again with a laptop on his knee that he was typing on. He might have been in here for a while as the coffee scent in the room seemed to linger in the air.

Without looking up Felixe greeted me.

"My uncle told me that you were a dungeon bug, but this really is a lot more than I had expected. I hope you'll get along with the other people in your group."

"I will."

"Will you?"Felixe, not caring much about anything, got up and left the room without explaining why he was in my room again. Wait! Did he tell me why he was here last time?

Jumping slightly when the door was slammed shut I went to take a long shower.

It was a little late, but since I had already gotten my group to finalise, on which days we'll be teaching who's choreography I decided to think more about the choreography that I produced. We only had a day to learn each piece of choreography that another member of the group teaches and mine was going to be taught the day after tomorrow.

I had to think more about my simple choreography, because the members in my group seemed to have found out that they had some deep seated vendetta about me ever since they heard about my existence- which was about a week ago.

Soon I fell asleep and had another dungeon dream.

...

I woke up the next day. I had a group full of members who had each been named after different brands. We had all got to create a basic dance that we'd teach each other in the subsequent days and thankfully most groups only had between 4 to 5 members where the level of the choreography didn't matter much. It was an assessment to test everyone's execution of the created dances and team working skills.

When I showed up to the room we were assigned, no one was there.

A full 2 hours passed and no one else had appeared. It didn't matter much to me, but I was aware that if no one turned up soon then we'd all be in trouble. Although I'd like to simply sit down and study some of my courses I had to send a detailed text to complain about the other members via a message on the number of the moderator.

Immediately a reply is sent back to me stating that the situation will be investigated and from the initial investigation the other members seem to be skipping the dance class for the day. I was allowed to leave early and proceeded in the direction of the dungeon in my dream that happened to be near my university.

I arranged more clothes to take with me and left. Next I came out and entered my university for my classes. Finally ended the day with my final dungeon crawl before I went back to my dorm room and processed what I had eaten in the dungeons.

It was on the third day that the moderator acted, when I was supposed to teach the other members my choreography, but was met with an empty room. I didn't have to wait for ten minutes when the moderator made an announcement.

"Unfounded on rumours... that are designed to be malicious and not aligned with the goals of this show will have those that intentionally make to spread them be punished by the overlookers of the show. If you're sent a message and hear your name in the following announcement you are to listen in to follow the instructions..."

The announcement went on for a while after that.

Many members of different groups were kicked out for intentionally being uncooperative in their groups. My own saw every member other than me being kicked out.

After the announcement was finished we were all once again placed into groups of 3 or 4, except for the rare groups that didn't have their numbers drop below 4 members once people began to be kicked out.

On the same day I completed my choreography with a new group of strangers.

Choreography, study and then dungeons. That process repeated itself over the week.

The last day of the week was when a victory event took place where a number of surviving participants freestyle danced to songs in different large groups in the building. I only danced to one and ended up sleeping early that day.

...

On the screen in a viewers home the comments passed by on the screen quickly.

Some lamented over the naive Aeon for being annoying.

Others were disgusted at most of the other participants who were still fixated on Aeon's group being one of those that had the members being kicked out.

As the comments progressed a few interesting links appeared.

The links sent the viewer to a list made by the public, which had the title, List of Toxins, at the top of the document. Below followed a list of toxic people and their past aggressions most of which included those that were spreading malicious rumours about Aeon Nether.

Safe to say that most of the public seemed to have chosen who to hate at this point.