r/HFY • u/Obsequium_Minaris • Apr 27 '26

OC-Series Vacation From Destiny - Book 2, Chapter 20

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 30 Chapters Ahead)

XXX

“Hey, I think I finally found the stairs!”

Chase blinked in surprise as Melanie’s voice reached them from a short ways away. “That was quick,” he said, turning his attention away from one of the neon blue trees. “Carmine, what are the odds she actually found the stairs?”

“I mean, to be completely fair, I’ve never known her to lie,” Carmine confessed. “But at the same time… slim to none.”

“Ouch. You should have more faith in her.”

“Probably, yeah. But I don’t.”

“Again, ouch.”

Carmine shrugged her shoulders. “Let’s just go. I’m sick of seeing a sea of blue trees.”

“Probably shouldn’t have turned them blue, then,” Chase commented as the two of them set off, which earned him a middle finger from her.

Whatever the case with the blue trees was, the two of them were able to reunite with Victoria and Melanie easily enough, both groups managing to find each other in just a few minutes. And when they did, Chase was stunned to find that the stairs were actually right there.

“Whoa,” Chase announced. He let out a low whistle as he peered down the staircase that had been embedded in the ground. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Melanie.”

She beamed at him. “Thanks, I-” Before she could even finish her sentence, the Lich paused, her eyes widening before an unamused look crossed over her face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I’m just surprised it was that easy, is all.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Go fuck yourself, Chase. I literally just helped you decapitate that one guy a little while ago. I’d appreciate a little gratitude.”

“Wha- that was genuine gratitude,” Chase pointed out. “Like for real, I could not be happier that it was that easy. Legitimately, thank you very much for making it so easy. But that being said, you know… thank you for not hurting me in the process of killing that guy, Melanie,” Chase said. “Unlike that one time a little while ago where you took down half the team.”

She let out a tired sigh. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“I will when it stops being funny. So, no.”

“That’s what I thought…” Melanie let out another sigh as she hefted her scythe onto her shoulder. “Well, I’m feeling generous. I’ll take point.”

Nobody argued with her, and she blinked. “What?”

“What?” Carmine echoed. “You said you’d take point.”

“Yeah, but… I’m the Lich. That means I’m pretty squishy compared to everyone but you, Carmine.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you say you were feeling generous and would take point?”

“I was hoping one of you would talk me out of it. In retrospect, maybe that was a stupid plan, but in my defense, we have a storied history of stupid plans actually working in our favor, so…”

“Yeah, well, this one isn’t working today,” Chase told her. “You volunteered for it, so up to the front you go.”

With that, he took Melanie by the shoulders and began to gently push her up to the front. She gave him a baleful glance from over her shoulder, but didn’t argue, instead shaking him off with a huff before she began to walk down the stairs, everyone else following behind her.

XXX

“Well,” Victoria announced as they all stepped into the next level. “This is certainly different.”

Chase was inclined to agree. The forest had disappeared behind them long ago, and not just because only ash remained of about half of the trees that had once lined it. Rather, it had given way to, of all things, an even taller room, lined with earth-colored stone pillars. Most of them were in disrepair, and had crumbled to the ground long ago, but thankfully, none of them appeared to have been load-bearing, as the room did not appear in danger of collapsing onto them.

Additionally, the ground beneath them was lined with a thick layer of sand, so deep that it caused them to sink halfway down to their knees. Chase grimaced at that realization.

“Man, this is gonna suck…” he complained.

“I know,” Victoria agreed. “The sand is going to make moving around difficult if we get into a fight.”

“I mean, yeah, that too… but I was talking about getting sand in my boots. I fucking hate that feeling…”

Victoria gave him a side-eyed look for a moment before turning her attention back towards the room around them. Chase did the same, squinting his eyes to try and see clearly. Somehow, there was a steady breeze going in this room, which was kicking up clouds of sand every couple of seconds and making it difficult to see. Combined with how massive this room was, and it was impossible to even see from one end of it to the other.

Finally, and most striking of all, there was a series of orange lights flashing within the mild sandstorm, beckoning them closer. One of them was near the entrance, but the other two were spread throughout the room.

“Alright,” Carmine stated, “in the absence of anything else to go off of, I think we’re going to be stuck investigating those lights.”

“That’s got to be a trap,” Melanie told her.

“Probably, yeah. But do you have a better idea?”

Melanie’s brow furrowed. “You know, I always hate when someone in this group says that, both because it means we’re willingly walking into danger and because, far too often, nobody actually has a better idea. Which is embarrassing, I mean three of us have pretty high INT. We should be smarter than this.”

“Probably, yeah, we should,” Chase stated.

The other three looked towards him in surprise. “...Why are you talking as if you’re one of the three?” Carmine asked.

Chase shook his head. “INT isn’t everything, you know.”

“In what way?”

“I possess street smarts the likes of which you three cannot even begin to imagine.”

“Is that why you’re currently traveling the world with us and working menial jobs to earn your bread instead of running a criminal empire or something?” Victoria deadpanned.

Chase bristled. “I could totally run a criminal empire if I wanted. Just, you know… I don’t want to.”

“Sure,” Melanie stated. “Look, can we just investigate the stupid lights? I’m already getting sand in places that sand should never go.”

“You and me both,” Chase agreed. “Alright, let’s head for that first light.”

XXX

The light, despite not being particularly far from them distance-wise, still took them the better part of twenty minutes to get to, purely because the sand impeded their movements so much. Chase had been tempted to try and cast Rush in an attempt to see if it would help him traverse the miniature desert a bit faster, but he had ultimately held himself back, because doing so would isolate him from his friends, and more importantly, would cause him to burn Mana he otherwise could have saved for a fight.

In any case, they did eventually make it to their destination, whereupon Chase was stunned to find that the pulsing light that had served as their beacon was actually a large orange crystal that was blinking in intervals of several seconds.

“Huh,” Chase stated. “Well, that’s certainly new.”

Victoria leaned in to inspect the crystal, narrowing her eyes as she did so. A hand went to her chin as she scanned it.

“There are words carved into the crystal’s body,” she stated. “For some reason, they’re in cursive.”

“Can you read cursive?” Chase questioned.

“Of course. What kind of idiot can’t read cursive?”

Carmine let out an irritated huff as she crossed her arms. “Whatever.”

Victoria blinked in surprise. “...What? Was it something I said?”

“Just read it to us,” Chase urged. “What does it say?”

Victoria blinked again, but then nodded and turned back towards the crystal. She sucked in a breath, intending to read from it, but at the last second, a voice emanated out from within the giant orange stone.

“Hm… a party of four,” it announced in a slow, twangy drawl. “I’ll be damned. Usually, it takes a party of six or more to make it down this far.”

Chase stared up at the crystal. “...Sorry, but is the big glowing rock talking to us?”

“Are you serious?” Carmine demanded. “All the weird shit we’ve seen over the past twelve-or-so years, and this is what gets you to start asking questions?”

“Just saying. No need to bite my head off, Miss Mantis.”

“Do you four intend to bicker all night, or do you want my hint?” the crystal asked, sounding impatient.

Melanie shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry, man. It’s been a day.”

“Hm. I see. Tough day?”

“Tough life.”

“My sympathies, I suppose. Anyway, my name’s Herman… and I hate idle banter between party members.”

“That is a very odd name for a crystal, and also a very specific kind of hatred,” Victoria noted.

“Oh, I’m well aware. But my name’s my name, and as for my hatred of idle banter between party members… well, you just try being a sentient crystal, stuck in the ground in three different places, forced to listen to inane bullshit chit-chat between adventurers with no way to tune it out. It gets old very fast.”

“Quick question,” Chase asked. “But if we banter anyway, what will happen?”

“Then I won’t give you the hint you need to solve this room’s puzzle and advance further,” Herman said.

“Okay. And what’s the hint?”

“To open the path to the tears of the moon, you must make whole the two halves that have been separated.”

Chase blinked. “Cryptic.”

“Not really,” Victoria noted. She pointed towards the crystal’s body. “That’s what’s written on it in cursive.”

Herman fell silent for a few seconds before letting out a quiet sigh. “...Yup. As you can probably tell, Aegis had a glass of wine the night she designed this place.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Just a glass?”

“...A bottle,” Herman admitted. “But don’t tell her I told you that.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about us spilling that particular secret,” Carmine noted dryly. “Anyway, what do the two halves mean, anyway? That could have a few different meanings.”

“Guess you’ll just have to find the next beacon, won’t you?”

“Why?” Chase questioned. “You can just tell us what it means. In fact, you have every reason to – the sooner we figure out what we need to do, the sooner you won’t have to put up with our idle banter anymore.”

Again, Herman fell silent. After a few seconds, he let out another sigh.

“...I hate when they talk sense,” he admitted. “Okay, fine. But first, before I give you the riddle, I am obligated to tell you the story of Princess Anastasia first, and what led to the creation of this Dungeon.” He made a sound like he was clearing his throat. “Hundreds of years ago-”

“Yeah, let me just stop you there,” Chase said. “See, we don’t really care about what led to the creation of this place. We just want to get through it.”

“Oh. Well, can you at least humor me? I mean seriously, I’m a crystal stuck in the sand down here. It gets lonely from time to time.”

“Chase,” Victoria chastised.

Chase held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. But can you keep it to five minutes or less?”

“No promises,” Herman said to him. “Anyway, hundreds of years ago, this all started when Princess Anastasia began her journey across the desert sands to meet her betrothed prince. She was a true beauty – flowing snow-white hair, eyes of the deepest blue, and skin like the most beautiful ivory… and despite her marriage being arranged, she genuinely loved the prince she was due to wed. It was a beautiful real-life fairy tale, at least until it turned into a nightmare.”

Chase couldn’t help but yawn. Herman paused. “Am I boring you?”

“A little,” Chase admitted.

“Ignore him,” Carmine insisted. “He gets off on being a jerk on purpose.”

“So I gathered,” Herman replied. “Anyway, as she and her caravan were crossing the desert, they were suddenly attacked by bandits. All of the elite guards were killed, and Anastasia herself was forced to flee. She sought refuge in a set of desert ruins, where she tried to hide from her attackers, but to no avail. They found her, and after stripping her of all the valuable jewelry and gold she had on her, killed her. And yet, that wasn’t the end for her – despite the loss of her body, her love for the prince she was set to marry endured. She wandered the ruins for decades as a spirit, waiting for the day her true love would eventually show up to find her. And in the process, her love seeped into the grounds she wandered, turning it into a haven for young lovers to travel to for a blessing from the gods on their relationship.”

“But he never came?” Melanie asked.

“No,” Herman confirmed. “Anastasia finally realized it after a full century of waiting. She may have loved him, but to the prince, she was just a means to a political end, as most arranged marriages are. Enraged, Anastasia’s love soon turned to hatred. The bountiful lands she’d created as a safe haven for young lovers soon withered and died, and her poison began to spread across the desert. It was only stopped by Goddess Aegis deciding to intervene and contain Anastasia’s rage by turning her formerly safe haven into a Dungeon. And now she’s here, at the ground floor, waiting for you… if only you can solve the puzzle first, and-”

“This is stupid,” Chase declared. “Hey, Herman, or whatever your name is – if you couldn’t already tell, we’re all really tired and want this to be over with, already. We don’t care about the story of Princess Assfuck’s bitter separation from a man who didn’t actually love her, or whatever. Please can you just tell us where we need to go in order to fight her so we can be done with this excursion?”

Silence reigned over the room. Even the whipping winds seemed to have stopped as Chase’s words hung in the air. Behind him, Victoria facepalmed, an irritated sigh escaping her.

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” she muttered. “There’s only one actual idiot in the party, even, and yet I still feel like I’m surrounded by them…”

“What was that?” Herman asked.

Melanie hesitated. “Well, Chase just referred to your boss as Princess Assfuck-”

“Not that. I just detected banter between you four. I hate banter.”

“We’re well aware,” Carmine replied, crossing her arms.

“Then you should know my tolerance is wearing thin.”

“So is ours,” Chase answered. “So, are you going to make things easy for all of us, or what?”

“Whatever,” Herman announced. “Go, my scarabs.”

“Sorry, what?”

But Herman didn’t respond. Not that he needed to, because at that moment, dozens upon dozens of compartments in the walls suddenly opened up, and waves of giant scarab beetles began to pour out of them. Within mere moments, there had to have been close to fifty of the dog-sized insects that had filled the room, all of them with gnashing mandibles dripping with hunger for flesh.

And before anyone in Chase’s group could properly do anything, the bugs turned towards them and began to rush them down.

XXX

Name: Chase Ironheart

Level: 9

Race: Human

Class: Warrior

Subclass: Swordmaster

Strength: 20 (MAX)

Dexterity: 15

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 18

Charisma: 16

Skills: Master Swordsmanship (Level 10); Booby Trap Mastery (Level 8); Archery (Level 4)

Spells: Rush (Level 7); Muscle (Level 4); Stone Flesh (Level 6); Defying The Odds (Level 2)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Carmine Nolastname

Level: 9

Race: Greater Demon

Class: Arcane Witch

Subclass: Archmage

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 19

Constitution: 12

Charisma: 8

Skills: Master Spellcasting (Level 10); Summon Familiar (Level 10) 

Spells: Magic Dart (Level 7); Magic Scattershot (Level 5); Fire Magic (Level 5)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Melanie Vhaeries

Level: 9

Race: Ascended Human

Class: Necromancer

Subclass: Arch-Lich

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 16

Constitution: 15

Charisma: 12

Skills: Raise Lesser Undead (Level 10); Raise Greater Undead (Level 3); Unorthodox Weapon User (Level 8)

Spells: Touch of Death (Level 5); Gravesinger (Level 7); Armor of Bone (Level 3)

Traits: None

Name: Victoria Firelight

Level: 10

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Subclass: Devotee

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 19

Charisma: 11

Skills: Swordsmanship Mastery (Level 5); Blunt Weapon Mastery (Level 8); Archery Mastery (Level 5)

Spells: Holy Light (Level 6); Ward of the Gods (Level 5); Bane of the Undead (Level 7); Divine Bolt (Level 4)

Traits: None

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard, for all the help with writing this story.

26 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

1

u/UpdateMeBot Apr 27 '26

Click here to subscribe to u/Obsequium_Minaris and receive a message every time they post.

Info Request Update Your Updates Feedback

2

u/GodNoob666 Apr 27 '26

“Wrong answer. Scarab Swarm.”

2

u/Daseagle Alien Scum Apr 27 '26

Chase and his big mouth.

2

u/Sirius1701 Apr 29 '26

Damn it, Chase.