Underground, but Unfashionable – Chapter 7, Prologue 44

Phew. I think it’s safe to say that the greatest danger has passed. Ad’nanapart is definitely not a hipster legendary city. Its dungeon may be pretty underground, and way behind the times, but it’s also way too monotonous and unoriginal for a hipster place. For our friends that means that they could get engaged in combat by some abundantly tentacled and fanged thing any moment…but at least they don’t have to fear getting engaged in conversation about music, lattes or vaping*. If the internet is to be believed, that would be way worse.

Aside from that moment of relief, the dungeon is rather underwhelming…although the city above it probably sufficiently lowered the bar, as far as expectations were concerned, for the dungeon to still clear it easily. And it’s a matter of perspective…youngsters like K’ip and Si’ri might consider that dungeon extremely basic, but Sir Gianfor has seen much worse. He’s been around for quite a while, you see (ref. the advanced state of his male-pattern baldness)…so while he’s been to much more elaborate dungeons recently, he also still remembers what dungeons used to look like in his youth. Here’s an exclusive pic of Sir Gianfor (known as SIRGIANF back then) exploring the Temple of Apshai at age 15 (notice full head of hair and virgin kill counter):

So, yeah, he’s made his way through high-contrast, low-detail 2-bit dungeons that were only recognizable as such when somebody had told you. By that standard, the faux-brickworked, square-patterned Catacombs of Ad’nanapart are already a pretty good approximation of a dungeon.

They look rather deserted, though, up to now…but that’s another thing they share with the city above, so perhaps it’s supposed to be that way.

More on Mon…uh, Thursday.

*Well, some abundantly tentacled and fanged things might be into music on the side (like Azathoth, for example), but they’ll probably not be inclined to discuss the subject with random adventurers.