The Dead Speak
The Ant Cave was a sprawling dungeon built atop the ruins of an ancient kingdom, now overrun by giant ants. While exploring, a random event triggered.
This appears to be ancient script.
Would you like to interpret it? (Unlocked by the [Erudite] trait.)
(Warning! This knowledge seems extremely dangerous. Danger can be neutralized with the [Seeker of Truth] trait.)
Ah. I knew exactly what this was. A random event that sometimes occurs while exploring dungeons. When a party has an Erudite, they occasionally discover ancient knowledge and trigger a knowledge acquisition event. Success grants positive traits or temporary stat bonuses. It looks good on the surface, but this event is practically exclusive to Dungeon Seekers. Betting on it with only the Erudite trait carries far too much risk of failure. Better to walk away cleanly from what you can't have.
This script appears too dangerous for you to understand.
You have abandoned the attempt to decipher the text...
However, it may still be possible to infer its meaning using your background knowledge.
You possess a rich understanding of death and souls. (Unlocked by the [Necromancer] trait)
You have long pursued knowledge. (Unlocked by the [Erudite] trait)
Would you like to infer the meaning?
If you declare surrender, the event moves to the next stage. Extracting new knowledge or quest-related information from ancient script is genuinely valuable. Most Overseers with a Dungeon Seeker in the party choose to interpret the text. Without one, however, it's wiser to take the low reward and move on. Attempting the gamble and failing usually inflicts a semi-permanent penalty on the character. They typically gain the trait Intellectual Madness—in other words, the character goes insane. If a low-level character loses their mind, you can slowly roleplay in town until the trait is removed. It takes time, but it's manageable.
But the one who would go mad here is me. Would I really read ancient script just because I'm crazy? Inferring the meaning, on the other hand, is entirely possible. Characters who start with the Erudite trait—Necromancers or Alchemists, for example—get this kind of help clearing early dungeons. For other characters, this event only becomes accessible after obtaining Erudite much later.
You slowly focused your mind on the ancient script...
You discovered dark traces carved into the mural!
The power of darkness calls forth new knowledge!
You have finished investigating the ancient script.
Whew. Success.
“Jangcheok! Sion! Roa!” I called out to the resting party members.
“What’s going on?” Jangcheok approached, scratching his shiny head, his belly fat poking out between the links of his chainmail. Sion, helmet tucked under his arm, also showed interest.
“I just saw this.” I pointed at the mural with my thumb. The two illiterate men glanced at each other and blinked.
Yeah, what would you two know anyway.
“What is it?” Unlike the completely uninterested Jangcheok, Roa startled and threw off her robe.
“You... read this?”
“Yeah.”
“Why...” Roa seemed about to say something, but when our eyes met she quickly pulled the robe back on. She’d been brave for all of three seconds before shrinking back into her shell.
“...”
She looked sulky.
“W-well, if a Necromancer investigated the ruins, there must be a reason... E-even if ghosts appear... I-I can’t do anything, so...”
She was probably thinking of those traps where investigating ruins summons undead. Those events do exist sometimes. Reading the carved letters aloud causes undead to pour out from every direction. This game really did implement every kind of ridiculous event.
But what could I do? I had every undead-related event memorized. Since this wasn’t one that added enemies, I’d gone ahead with it.
“Roa.”
“...Yes?”
Roa peeked out timidly from under her robe.
“Are you scared of ghosts?”
When I grinned and asked, she let out a strange “hiik” and buried her face. Ah~ ghosts, they’re really nothing special~ Of course, that’s only because I’m a Necromancer. In Dungeon Overseer, undead are a pack of deranged lunatics crammed full of every filthy, petty, and disgusting trait the game could implement. That’s exactly why Necromancers grow stronger in the late game. When undead start appearing, they become easy to handle. That single advantage keeps the class’s stock rising.
“N-no! I swore an oath to the Twilight Tower! The eyes of the secret-keeping Guardian never sleep! Ghosts are... if ghosts appear...”
Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said,
“The Necromancer... will help, right?”
I closed my mouth and pretended not to hear. There were plenty of other people who could help besides me. Glancing around, I noticed even Uncle Jangcheok was desperately pretending not to hear. So he didn’t like ghosts either.
“It’s not a necromantic ritual. The letters are so old that I can’t read them in detail. If you look here, you can see these pictures are functioning as part of the script. They’re hieroglyphs.”
I showed off a bit of what I’d learned. The system had told me everything, of course.
“Roughly speaking...”
Drawing on your rich necromantic knowledge, you feel the souls engraved in the letters.
You hear the voices of the dead...
“There’s an ossuary in the chamber below. You can reach it quickly by following the tunnels the ants have dug. The souls that haven’t yet returned to the afterlife are still bound there.”
While anyone with Erudite could clear the ancient script event, a Necromancer’s interpretation took this form.
“Let’s go find ourselves a local guide.”
A Necromancer could obtain necessary information through the souls of the dead.
“Y-you mean we’re going to meet ghosts?”
Roa looked adorably startled at my words. So did Uncle Jangcheok. It hadn’t been cute at all. Only Sion remained calm.
“You want to ask the ghosts something?”
“Yeah. Usually, ghosts bound to dungeons are all earthbound spirits. Since they’re stuck in one place, they’ve probably seen everything that passes by.”
“We’ll know where the carriage is, then.”
Sion clearly agreed with my thinking.
“Oh. That’s actually pretty useful. So Necromancers do have their uses.”
Was this guy a jerk or what? His tone was annoying, but Sion had agreed with me. Jangcheok and Roa would obviously agree too.
“Anyone have an objection?”
Jangcheok and Roa both shot their hands up at the same time.
Ah. Wrong question.
“Anyone have a better idea than mine?”
When I asked again, the two slowly lowered their raised arms like wilting plants, looking extremely depressed.
Good.
“Then let’s rest a little longer before heading down.”
Next came mapping out the dungeon’s structure.
Winning a battle but having no loot to collect was always deflating. The only usable part of a giant ant’s body was its chitinous carapace. But harvesting every single one would take an entire day. And unlike goblins, killing ants didn’t earn any money from the guild. If there had been a bounty on them, explorers would have become filthy rich. There just weren’t enough ants.
In the end, the only thing we gained during the rest was nothing. Weapon maintenance and journal writing were all we accomplished. Let’s be grateful for even that much.
“So, where are we going?” Sion asked. I spread out the map and pointed to our next destination. The hidden ossuary within the ruins was our target.
The Ant Cave dungeon had a peculiar structure. The underground city built by the subterranean people and the tunnels dug by the ants overlapped halfway. Sometimes we explored the underground city, other times we had to crawl through tunnels. This time we would descend straight down the stairs the subterranean people had built.
“Up to here.”
Sion, holding the torch, took the lead. The formation was the same as before. Sion in front, followed by me, Roa, and Jangcheok. Using the information gained from inferring the ancient script, we found the hidden staircase. It looked like an escape hatch set into the floor. When we opened the door and went down, a deep, spiraling staircase like the one in a spire appeared. There was no railing on the dilapidated steps, and below lay pitch-black darkness. Only the sound of the torch burning through old spiderwebs echoed loudly.
After descending for a long while, we spotted a doorway in the middle of the wall.
“Stop here.”
At my command the party halted. I had no idea how deep the staircase went, but there was no need to go all the way down.
“Here?” Jangcheok said. He was still holding the torch and sweating profusely as he walked. He looked like a department head who’d just come out of a sauna.
“Yes. Just a moment.”
I examined the door but found no suspicious traces. The dungeon interior was filled with traps created by paranoid deviants. Some traps were so bizarre their purpose was impossible to guess. The most absurd trap in Dungeon Overseer was probably the basket trap. Opening a door would cause a steel basket installed on the ceiling to drop and restrain a party member... Why would anyone even make something like that?
Anyway, the absence of traps was good news.
“Nothing unusual. I’ll open it, then.”
When I pushed with force, the long-unused stone door slid open with a grinding sound. Sion entered first, torch and shield raised.
“This place...”
Sion stopped mid-sentence, at a loss for words.
The chamber was filled with coffins covered in dirt and dust, like the tomb of an ancient pharaoh. Just like the plaza above, the walls were covered in bas-relief murals and hieroglyphs resembling geometric patterns. Faded censers of unknown material—rotted or rusted—hung from the ceiling. At the far end of the room, on an altar-like raised platform, a broken tombstone emitted a faint glow.
The air was thick with earthy dust and heavy silence. Sweat poured down like rain under the torchlight. Four explorers set foot inside the ancient ossuary, long abandoned by the living.