#ab.aeterno

Felps had asked him if he wanted to see something cool and—maybe against his better judgement—Pac had said yes. 

They’ve been adventuring together for a little bit now, anyway. If Felps really wanted to kill him, Pac’s sure him and Cellbit would’ve found a much easier way to do so down in the dungeons. 

So, he follows after Felps as Felps leads him through a forest. And tries very hard not to think about the fact Felps had taken his hand to do so. 

Felps is relaxed as he walks. Nothing tense in his posture at all, and a small smile on his face. 

Pac, however, probably looks like the living embodiment of anxiety. He’s being taken—alone—to an unknown place in the middle of a thick forest on the outskirts of town by someone who kind-of-maybe watched while his leg was eaten. And to top it all off—that person is hot and is holding his hand. 

Mike would laugh at him for the latter. Or chastise him for holding it to the same level of stress as the former. But he doesn’t get it. 

“Here.” Felps diverts from the path he was on and tugs Pac over to a bush filled with red berries. “Are you hungry?” 

“Are they—Are they even safe to eat?” 

Unfortunately, Felps lets go of his hand to pick a few. 

“Yeah, I think so.” He shrugs, and pops one into his mouth before offering his handful to Pac. “I mean—I’ve been eating them.”

“Um… okay.” 

Hesitantly, Pac takes one. He just holds it, though. 

“I’m not dead yet, right?” Felps jokes, before eating another. “I’ve eaten worse, probably.”

And Pac has, too. Probably. Assuming this isn’t poisonous. 

But him and Mike had to get creative while they were kids. And then again when they’d just escaped prison and didn’t have any money. 

As a sign of good faith, Pac eats the berry. And it’s worth the whole fearing for his life thing when Felps beams at him.

Felps takes his hand again and leads him back onto whatever path he was following before. 

“A few years back,” Felps starts anecdotally, “I got lost. So I had to eat cigarettes.”

“What?” 

Okay Pac doesn’t feel so good about eating the berry now. Not if that’s Felps’ measurement for whether something’s edible or not. 

“It was all I had on me!” Felps says—his voice rising in pitch a little as he tries to defend himself. “And it’s fine, see? I’m still alive. And I made it back to civilisation a few days later, so it wasn’t for long.”

“Felps, you—you don’t even smoke!”

A frown crawls onto Felps’ face, and he takes a moment to respond. 

“They’re good for bartering, you know?” 

Oh. Right. Pac had almost forgotten why he knows that Felps doesn’t smoke—cigarettes and the like were traded a lot throughout the prison. But even if Felps wasn’t bound to Cell, a pack of cigarettes wouldn’t have won him over. 

Although, Pac is sure he does other things. 

“Oh!” Felps speeds up a little, and Pac stumbles to adjust his pace to keep up. “We’re almost there!”

There turns out to be some hole at the bottom of a hill. Standing a metre or so away, Pac can’t quite see down into it. 

Felps lets go of his hand again to crouch by the opening, and Pac feels his heart rate spike.

“Felps!” He hisses. “What are you doing? It’s probably, like, a bear cave or something!”

Felps looks back at him, clearly amused. 

“It’s a dungeon. But only a small one—come take a look.” 

At Felps’ beckoning, Pac slowly inches closer. 

He’d say his self-preservation is usually better than this, but curiosity has always won out over it. That, or pretty faces. In this case there’s both, and Pac is helpless but to play the role of the cat—he can only hope the second half of the saying is relevant here, too. 

Pac crouches down next to Felps. The opening is certainly big enough for a bear—which means it’s easily big enough for both of them to crawl into. 

It’s not particularly dark in the dungeon. There must be some opening up the top allowing the sunlight to shine through a bit. There’s water throughout it, but definitely enough land to comfortably stand on—a small slope down from where they’re standing which turns into a patchy pathway leading to a large bit of ground in the middle. 

“Should we go in?” Pac asks. 

A small dungeon like this seems like it’d be perfect to study from. He’s only ever been in ones that are way more developed—which have a lot to offer in the way of learning, but these early steps are some of the most important ones, right?

“Sure.” Felps shrugs and sends him a smile. “I already have a few times.“

Still… despite his burning curiosity—despite how this could advance his theories—he hesitates. Felps is already ahead of him. He turns to look back at Pac. 

“It’s perfectly safe.” Felps assures him, holding his hand out for Pac to take. “There’s plenty of sunlight, you know? And we’ll be able to see if anything shows up. Just stick to the dry parts and you’ll be fine.”

Pac takes Felps’ hand, and lets himself be led down into the dungeon. 

It’s beautiful. Pac has always loved gardens. And while this is more mossy cave than garden, the air swarming with sparkling sprites certainly adds to the magic of the place—quite literally. 

Pac takes a moment to just stand there and soak it all in. It’s nothing compared to the absent hum of power from a grown dungeon, but it’s definitely something. 

“What do you do here?” Pac asks. 

“Oh, I just sit.” And when Pac turns to look at him, he already is. “And I nap sometimes. It’s a nice place for a nap.”

“I—Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

He should probably take samples. Of the water, and the dirt—anything he can get his hands on. They won’t be in town long enough for him to study it properly, so he’ll need to make sure he gets some of everything he could possibly need. 

Starting with the pond, he pulls a couple waterproof vials from his bag as he approaches. The water isn’t exactly crystal clear, but it’s not worryingly murky, either. 

The sunlight doesn’t quite reach it, but Pac thinks he can see enough to note a bit of a drop-off. Nothing too serious—just that even right by the edge he could probably submerge his hand up to his wrist. Which makes it a little more difficult to grab samples of whatever the waterbed is made up of. 

Mostly just because he’s a little worried about the consequences of sticking his whole hand into an unknown dungeon pond. 

But this is for science. And the science is for an important cause. 

He kneels down by the edge of the water and—

“Oh—My god!”

—throws himself back, fumbling for his staff. 

“What?”

“There’s a slime!” Pac throws an arm back blindly to protect Felps, and readies his staff to fire. “Stay back! I’ve been practising atta—“

“Woah, wait, Pac!” Felps tugs on his arm with the staff, effectively throwing off his aim. “Calm down! It won’t come into the sunlight, see?”

“What?” 

As Felps promises, the slime doesn’t advance. It curiously pokes at the edge of the sunlight before sinking back into the water. 

“Oh.” All of his tension drains out of him as the word does. 

And he feels a little silly for the overreaction. 

“Mhm, see?” Felps lets go of his arm, but urges him further away from the edge of the sunlight. “We’re safe here. It’s okay.”

“Right.” Pac laughs self consciously, face warm with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Felps’ face blanks for a moment, before he smiles. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s sweet, you know? That you wanted to protect me.”

It sounds like he isn’t saying something. But Pac doesn’t want to think about that right now. 

It’s not like they haven’t all protected each other while adventuring, anyway. Felps’ magic in particular has saved them more times than Pac can count. Surely that makes up for… 

He’s not thinking about it. 

“Anytime, you know?” 

Maybe the wrong answer. Felps quickly turns his face away, looking towards the ceiling of the dungeon. He points up. 

“There’s bats up there.” Felps says. And sure enough—Pac can just see glimpses of them huddled together among the stalactites. “I think the slimes eat the bat shit—what’s it called? Guano?—and then they convert it into magical energy. It’s what keeps the dungeon alive.”

“Really?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Felps shrugs, and throws an easy smile his way. This one seems a bit more normal. “I’m just guessing. Haven’t really been here long enough to know for sure, you know? But it makes sense, right?”

“It does.”

Felps sits down, and after a moment Pac does the same. Samples can wait. Maybe he just needs to sit for a bit—take it all in properly. 

There’s a whole ecosystem at play here. Pac had suspected that a little, of course, but this early dungeon—without all the bigger distractions—really highlights how much is interconnected. How intricate it all is.

The bats have to eat, too, after all. Maybe those berries Felps picked earlier. And for the bats to eat the berries, the berries have to be able to grow, which is probably its own whole mini-ecosystem.

Out of the corner of his eye, Felps shifts—lying down. 

“Wake me up when you’re ready to go, alright?”

“Okay.”

How did Felps even find this place?

Well… it is Felps. It’s not totally surprising. It probably doesn’t even have to do with his skill with magic—if anyone was going to stumble across a budding dungeon, it’d be him. That’s just the kind of person he is. Something about him invites this kind of stuff.

It’s been nice getting to know this side of him. It was there in prison, of course, just… suppressed. 

He smiles a lot more now. And not just when it’s only the two of them hiding away together. 

And Pac should probably tear his gaze away from Felps before Felps opens his eyes and catches him staring. 

He pulls his notebook from his bag and writes down what he’s already learned. Writes Felps’ theory, as well as his own. 

He has a long way to go before he can reach his goal, but this is a good next step.

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