The Fruits of Misfortune

"Alright, perfect, this lighting is perfect." Mary stood in front of the walls of the abandoned structure that surrounded Marcus. Behind her was the majestic green trees that swayed away the day as the sky turned pitch black. In front of her was Gerald, who held a mechanical camera with a crank on the right side of it and purple crystals that swirled around the left side of it. His huge figure blocked Marcus's view of Mary. To the right of Gerald was Hailey, who held a ring light, shimmering a bright white light at Mary, radiating her round face. Charles and Dave stood on the outskirts of the abandoned structure. Charles's shoulders were relaxed as he stood with a book in one hand and a flashlight the other. While Dave's shoulders were tight as he stood with a longsword in one hand, and a dagger the other.

Marcus attempted to go back to sleep, he felt as though he hadn't gotten much sleep at all, despite sleeping for apparently 3 days. "Mom, why does time dilation feel like this?"

<"Your body is native to the human world and therefore age with the human realm's time. Your mind and magical core will continue to age with the time of whatever dungeon you're currently in. Your body on the other hand will age with the human world's time. So far you've mentally aged 80 hours, but your body has aged only 6 hours and 40 minutes. On top of that your circadian rhythm is extremely confused. Not to mention you're now part stone.">

"Ok! Ok! I think I get that. What's my circadian rhythm?"

"Whaaaaaat is up," Mary shouted out at the camera. "It's Mary Cox back with another dungeon run!" She twirled around, and sung, "Dungeon run." She got close to the camera and whispered, "Dungeon run." Then backed up, crouched, extended her right leg to her right side, stretched her right arm out in the same direction as her right leg, bent her left arm then stretched and pointed it over her flat chest and towards the direction of her right arm and leg, then followed it up by twisting her neck in the same direction, and finally screaming out while grimacing at the pain of stretching more than she should have, "Dungeon run!"

"Today," she groaned as she got up, "We have an exciting night ahead of us. First we're going to take on a bunch of mobs inside of a village near here. Next we're going to be showcasing all the loot. Charles is going to talk about some strategies for taking on the mobs of this dungeon. Gerald is going to show off some tanking techniques and possibly a new spell he discovered. Dave is gonna show off a new sword art he created. Hailey, has some new cooking recipes. And I have some new magic spells and behind the scenes of new Nahi Crystal tech. But before we go through all that. We have discovered the rarest thing ever!" Mary clapped her hands together, locked her fingers, got close to the camera, grinned, and squealed.

Gerald stopped cranking the camera and Mary's face dropped. "Alright I feel like my energy was too much there. Hailey what do you think?"

"You could have been a bit less Jas the Healer, and a bit more Mary the Group Leader." Hailey responded, slumping her arm to the side, producing a bright light that reflected off of the marble ground stained with red marks below them.

"Damn. I guess we can record the intro a bit later then." Mary waved her hand in the air directing Gerald to turn around and put Marcus in a perfect frame. "Hailey if you could take over the camera while we are at the village-"

"Wait," Hailey intervened changing Mary's demeanor to that of a pissed off brat, "don't you barbarians need a healer?"

"You didn't let me finish. Charles already scouted the area, all of the mobs in the village are relatively low leveled," Mary moved in front of the camera and leaned against Marcus, causing the whole stone pillar to shake. "Besides I had this badass idea, where we burn the village after looting it, and I'm like standing in front of the burning village- fire roaring, maybe a little blood smeared on my face or something- not too much or it'll be fucking disgusting. Hailey you can give me one of your cigarettes. I'm like smoking it and dancing around, kind of like that one clown movie everyone raved about. I bet with that as our intro AND our little stone boy here. Easy million views on Youtube."

"Wow, that's a little fucked up," Gerald whispered sighing. He began cranking the camera again. As Hailey raised the light back onto Mary and Mary begun her act, Marcus came to a stark realization.

"These runners aren't going to help me, are they. Augh! What did you expect Marcus? Look at them! You can't see them clearly but you can see them for what they are. These people won't dare to even think of a way to get me out. I've listened to them talk, they speak as though they need soap lodged into their mouths." He paused as the thought of Sam's head exploding entered his mind. "These people who think they can just make a video on an innocent boy like me. Half couch, half stone, full human! Oh, but this is just how life is." He paused, "Just accept it Marcus," he said in a slimy voice that forced the stone to ooze out blood. "Stone boy! If my voice wasn't so strained I would tell them that my name is Marcus Aeon. Son of a mom and dad who love only two things, their son and dungeons. I hope they can guess which one is their favorite though! Remember what dad used to say. Everything dies, they're only working to make sure I can live better after they die. Remember what mom used to say. Everything can come with a question, you just have to search for the answer, it will come eventually. Remember what the soon to be great Marcus Aeon will say in front of all those cameras if he had just a moment to speak in between his adventures. It will all pay off in the end."

As Marcus finished his ranting thought, he realized that the group of runners had all left. He was once again alone with his abandoned structure, blood stained marble floor, the rest of the world around him was way too dark for him to really see. So he began drifting back to sleep, "I'll think better once I've actually slept," he said to himself as he heard rustling in a nearby bush around him. It snapped him out of this drifting sleepiness as he darted his eye towards the bus. "Whose there," he yelled with his strained voice that weakly shook the pillar.

"Xeg'ha Zondomini," an animalistic gargle growled at Marcus.

"Who am I kidding, no one can hear me. Just another mob."

<Foreign human-like language spoken with a non-human tongue detected>

<Commencing automatic Verdhi translation spell, this spell will last until you run out of mana>

<MARCUS AEON do you accept the usage of your own mana to cast the spell?>

"What does using my own mana mean?"

<"Honey, it means that you'll feel like you ran a marathon or something. Mana is directly tied to your stamina, the bigger the spell the more stamina you'll lose.">

"I haven't moved in 3 days, I have plenty of stamina. Yes! Use my mana! Translate that."

<Casting spell>

Marcus's heart began to race. His forehead became sweaty as he desperately gasped for air.

<Translating... "Xeg'ha Zondomini">

<Translation complete: "I am Zondomini">

Between his gasps, he weakly screamed, "I am- Wait would she even understand my language? Xeg'ha Marcus. I need help."

The creature chuckled and laugh, it's words being automatically translated to Marcus, "You talk like a person, stone man."

"Well can you help me? I need lots of help!"

The creature walks its way in front of Marcus, he could somehow feel it touch him. His fingers twitching at the slightest touch from this- what he now saw- a woman-like anthropomorphic royal blue creature with majestically orange horns. "I'll free you, but you have to promise to help me," she said with a tender gargled tone.

"Yes! Yes! Whatever I have to do, I'll do it."

"But first I must tell you my story. My people love stories, I hope you love them too. If you don't love my story I'll have to kill you, no questions asked. Such is the forest."

Marcus paused and thought to himself, "Mark. What did you just agree to?"