I continued to stare at the mural for a solid minute, a frown on my face.

What is it? Carmine asked. Some army? The demons attacking the skeletons? This is known.

I shook my head. This is the demons surrounding this fort. This mural depicts the demons attacking this fort with the expressed intent of reclaiming you well, the princess.

So?

So, the last mural had the Demon Prince come in and rescue you from that noble and then spirit you off to the capital. That didnt happen. In other words, the lore that was revealed in the previous fort didnt happen. This mural wouldnt have come true unless I had already prevented that mural from coming true.

What are you saying?

Either, the story somehow already anticipated my actions, or the murals are being created upon discovering the safe rooms. Perhaps, the lore of this dungeon has already degraded too much that the story is no longer cohesive. Maybe the story is being written as we act it out.

What about this last part? She asked, pointing to the end of the mural.

If Im right, then the story will continue to twist and change as we participate in it. It wont just be me and you, but the others who had entered this dungeon as well, such as Bernard. Every one of our actions could cause the lore to change. When we look at a mural, were seeing what will happen next, presuming there is no interference.

In this case, the fort will fall tonight, and you will be taken. I pointed to the flaming fort, and the princess seemingly being carried away by a crowd of demons.

I see She spoke quietly. Is it that way for all dungeons? I mean, that the mural doesnt generate until the safe room is seen for the first time.

In my old world, there is a game called telephone, I answered instead. One person whispers a word into the next persons ear who whispers into the next persons ear. Eventually, someone misunderstands the message or gets something wrong, and then it becomes diluted. By the time the last person delivers the message, it no longer was what the original message meant.

Your children play strange games. We just liked to battle with sticks or throw balls.

I ignored her and continued. Lore, or the dungeon curse, or however you want to see it, might work on a similar principle. Like souls, when its not solidly bound in place like when a soul sits in a body or a story is written on a page, it is prone to alteration, degradation, and destruction. New lore gets incorporated into the old, and things become half-remembered, exaggerated, or glorified. If this dungeon is as old as they say, its possible that the lore degraded to the point that it doesnt even remember its own story.

In other dungeons, people visit them, and they visit the safe room, and once the story is written in a mural, its recorded, and those recordings dont change.

Im not sure I get it.

They have a saying if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Im just saying if no one is there to learn the story, does it exist? Perhaps, that is why unfinished stories become a blight on the world, so they become known. Those that arent known are forgotten. As for this one its so old that it has to fill in the pieces with our actions, hence the karmic curse.

I see I have no clue what youre talking about.

Yeah in the end, its just words. Dungeons are a force of nature in this world. You might know basically why a tornado works, or how the rain falls, but being able to predict every weather anomaly with accuracy is a fools game.

Someone once told me that rain fell because of water sprites and tornados from angry wind gnomes. Thats correct. Right, master?

yeah, exactly

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