413 Barren Room

Alex watched Hera move away from the map room. She waited until the explorer turned to another corridor and was out of sight before turning to Kirouhebi, "What is going to happen with me?"

"As I have said, hopefully, nothing. You should just feel an urge to learn more about the curse and its effects. The reason for that will vary. Some might think that there is a hidden strength behind the curse. Others will say that it can give them an answer they seek. In the end, it is all part of the curse itself. It will latch on to your desires, your wishes, and twist what you see to match them. If you lost a loved one, the curse will show you that it can bring people back from the dead. If you want to be stronger, the curse will give you some strength, and the more you give yourself to it, the stronger you will get. If you want to live forever, it will give you a glimpse of eternity and make you feel better, almost like a drug," Kirouhebi explained.

"What if you want something impossible? Like bringing people back from the dead or traveling to the past?" Alex asked.

"The curse will show you those things. It won't matter if it is possible or not. The curse will show you ways of achieving your goals. But, the answer will never be complete, even if it seems close to the final result. There will always be something missing, a small piece that will send you deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, as they say."

"This is all the good option, right?"

Kirouhebi nodded with a sad expression, "It is, although that is also an entry point to the bad option."

"Please don't be cryptic now. What was going on? What is going to happen to me?" Alex asked.

"What do you remember of the painting you saw?"

"Everything was weird. The ground seemed to be part of a swamp, the trees didn't have any color, and there was that weird mist surrounding everything. I think there was something in the air too, but I can't remember. Maybe I could look in the painting again to confirm that," when the mention of the painting came, Alex forgot completely that she shouldn't think about it.

"No, you can't. That craving, that's what the curse does," Kirouhebi stared at Alex, trying to see if she was going to try to run for the painting.

"Craving? No, no, I'm not craving anything; I'm just thinking about it. I can stop anytime I want…" realizing that she was using the classic line of an addict, the assassin stopped and literally took a step back, "No… I… I can see that. This is… I didn't even realize that I was like that. Fuck, this is a really bad drug."

"Do you have experience with that?"

"Not personally, but I have a cousin that struggled with addiction."

"Then you might be better equipped to deal with what you will go through. You must fight against that desire to see the curse again. Luckily, in your current state, knowing more about what the curse does, how it acts, and its origin won't have any detrimental effects."

"Really?" Alex asked.

"Yes. Those details carry the infection, but that is it. They can't increase the curse beyond a certain threshold. In fact, my experience says that if you clear up most of your doubts, it becomes harder for you to succumb to those cravings. So ask, and I'll do my very best to share my knowledge," Kirouhebi continued.

"Anything?"

"About the curse, yes."

"What will happen in the worst-case scenario? With me, I mean."

"If you succumb to the curse, it will break down your body. Your skin and bones will become what you saw in the painting. You will still be alive. I cannot say for sure if you will be suffering or not, but you will no longer be considered human. Instead, you will be just a moving mass of curse whose only goal is to spread and consume."

Alex shuddered with the notion, "Is there a way to reverse that? Or to stall the process?"

"No and yes. If that process starts, you will slowly lose your human form. It will take years for you to completely change into the curse. What happens is that, in essence, the curse will change how your body decomposes, forcing you to stay alive for the entire process. I suppose that in a way, its promises of power and immortality are not a lie," Kirouhebi looked up in deep thought.

"I don't consider that life. How do I stop that? And is that going to happen with me either way? Should I try to get killed before I die of natural causes?" Alex was feeling overwhelmed. All she did was look at a painting. Now she had a death sentence?

"Calm down. That won't happen quickly, and the madness will take over you before you reach that point. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to physically see the curse's progress. The only thing that can tell you how far gone you are is your mental state. What I saw many people doing during that period was to write journals. The most important part is to see if you are losing any time. If you start noticing that, you can look for a healer or someone who has a curse breaker spell. It won't be enough to remove the curse, but it can hold it back."

"How did that all start? Where did that curse come from? It seems too much of a mess for it to be just a spell or something natural."

"You are correct. Let me show you one thing," a transparent waterfall appeared behind Alex with images of other paintings showing. In that picture, she could see the Waperath Kingdom being besieged by an army of ants. Thousands of bugs were climbing on top of the walls, making bridges around the moat with their own bodies while the people in the top of the walls were fighting back, "Living in a jungle, where monsters are free to grow and expand as they wish, is a difficult thing. The beastmen were able to survive for eons being the apex predator, but one day they met with an enemy that was much more dangerous than anything they had seen before."

"Ants?" Alex asked.

"Yes," Kirouhebi changed the image to show an anatomically accurate picture of a large ant. It had detailed information about each of their body parts as well as notes about their behavior and natural defenses, "The beastmen believed that the ability to use tools would put them on top of the food chain. Even after having encounters with tigers, hawks, and other predators, they always managed to push them back thanks to their ingenuity. For their hubris, they failed to notice the changes in the jungle and how one species was growing ever stronger. It wasn't something that changed in a day. The Wood Ants grew over a few decades. Each generation was more powerful than the previous one, and in a couple of hundred years, the ants grew enough to become a kingdom capable of overwhelming the beastmen."

The picture changed again, showing the fight between the beastmen and the ants one more time. People were fighting in the ziggurat, and the rest of the city was in ruins, swarmed by the ants. On the top of the painting, there was a single person floating above everything, surrounded by a purple aura. Alex followed the lines created by the energy until she noticed the ants affected by that. They seemed corrupted and were fighting against the attacking ants, almost like they were mind-controlled.

"At a time when the onslaught of the ants was so strong that it seemed like the beastmen were about to lose. Someone appeared with a powerful legacy that revolved around curses. He managed to push back the ants and even control some to patrol the area around the city, but even with his help, they couldn't make a final push to the colony to destroy the queen. Together, with some of the mages in the kingdom, they worked night and day for years, developing a curse that would finally be enough to reach the heart of the ant colony and stop that war once and for all. To do so, the mage would have to use his own legacy as a source of power, and the best way to get it close to the queen was by giving himself up to the ants. Despite their strength and development, the ants were still ants and would bring the food with the most nutrients directly to their ruler. Making the ultimate sacrifice, the mage let the ants attack him, and by using a spell that would simulate his death, he was carried to the queen, where he started his plan. He used his legacy to create a curse that would eat away at every ant in the forest, but the magic was too strong. Instead of simply destroying the ants, his curse took hold of everything that came in contact with it," Kirouhebi continued to explain as Alex stared at that picture.

"But… Why is the curse stronger now? Shouldn't it have been destroyed when the mage died?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. Some theories say that the mage is still alive to this day, trapped inside the curse he created. While others say that the curse became the legacy holder itself. What I know for sure is that that mage is no longer in this room. Or at least what the system considered to be him no longer exists," Kirouhebi stopped the waterfall, "The rest of the story you already know. The curse spread, and eventually, people had to flee this room, allowing the curse to consume everything here before starving to death. All records in the city were destroyed and all knowledge of the curse was removed from everyone's minds by another noble soul who was willing to stay behind. The initial curse would only last until the target's death, but, ironically, its evolution made it stronger and more resilient, but also made it require food to maintain itself and spread, and without it the curse would perish. When the entire room became a land of curse, it had nothing else to devour, and after 200 years, it finally died out. I kept the room closed during that time, so no one could enter and allow it to spread beyond here. When I was certain that this was safe, everything was barren. It took me years to revive the jungle, and if I'm being honest, I still don't know how the animals and creatures returned. I can only think of it as a blessing from the system," Kirouhebi smiled.

"For something so big to happen. Shouldn't there be dungeons about this? And wouldn't those dungeons also spread the curse?" Alex asked.

"Not exactly. Dungeons are under the protection of the system. The ones related to these events do not share the curse. In fact, even the actual effects and details are considerably different than the actual events. If you are curious, try doing the hard mode of that dungeon you've been doing these past few days," Kirouhebi explained.

"How did you know that?" Alex gasped.

"I know what happens in my room. Don't take that as me being able to watch what everyone does, but if needed, I can look up what someone was doing. I am the one who watches from beyond after all."

"What about the other one? The one about the curse?"

"That one is located in a different place, and it also is something you can only do in the hard mode."

Alex and Kirouhebi talked for some time, discussing the details of what happened, who was the mage, and how was life in a barren room. Until the dragon stopped and looked away, "It seems like your friend found what she was looking for. Apologies, but I must go to her for a moment. Would you mind walking away from the map room? I admit that even if you seem to be someone who won't be enthralled by the curse, I rather not give that foul disease any leeway."

"Sure, I understand," Alex nodded and walked out of the room while the dragon jumped into the air and vanished beyond the cloud ceiling of the temple.

Alex was just a few meters away from the map room when she stopped. She understood all the dangers, but in the end, the curse was a legacy, and there was someone stuck inside it. Maybe there was a way to free the mage from his eternal prison. If she was in his shoes, she would want someone to at least try to help him. And Kirouhebi told her that since she already had seen the painting, it would take more than just some superficial knowledge to increase the effects. Nothing would happen if she just took a quick peek, and if she used her [Hide], Kirouhebi might never know.