Feral Beast Master: A Gamelit Adventure, page 9
Trella didn’t mock him. “For the first month, every time I turned around, there was silver coin here. A stack of copper there. A gold piece on my pillow. Then the other Sisters would hand me coins as I passed, and still, I couldn’t help myself. And it must have been a month in, I came back to my room and realized I didn’t have any place to put more coins. I wanted what they could buy, yes. But...it fixed what was wrong with me. I gave them all back, except for my training bonuses. And not even Senior Sister ever criticized me.”
“I would have thought Assassins were trained in blood and beatings,” Eve said.
Kaden ducked out to avoid the coming lecture. She needed to have a scroll inscribed on the differences between Shadow Blades and Assassins. It would save her a lot of breath. But that reminded him. “Trella!”
She [Shadow Step]ed to him. He took the Heartsblade from Inventory. “This was holding Remembrance’s old handle on. Mr. Dervish seems to think that an Assassin and an UnAliver are basically the same thing. I’m wondering if your Shadow Blade class is similar enough?”
Trella banished it to inventory. “No. But I know someone who could use it for raw materials. Not here at the Guild, and I’m not allowed to go back until next month, but I’ll make a deal. I’ll get you a good price.”
That reminded Kaden of the first lesson Mr. Dervish taught. “This person, do they stock your kind of weapons?”
“She makes them.”
“See if she’s open to a trade for something you can use,” Kaden said. “The right equipment is more valuable than coins.”
Sara whistled as she exited the Guild, with Eve in tow, and Vip dashing in circles. “All right. Let’s get introductions over.”
“Kaden!” The woman shouted. Mara, the [Ranger.] “You don’t need to introduce us. I see you used Zeek’s advice on Mana Dart? And Brutal Blows? I didn’t figure you for the sort of person who’d get Brutal Blows.”
“Nothing wrong with wanting to inflict a little agony on your enemies,” Said the [Shield] who came up behind her. “Been working on it myself. I don’t hit often, so I better hit hard. Call me Ban. I’m a Stone [Shield].”
Sara held up both hands. “Introductions were for all of us. But I supposed we may as well meet the rest of your party?”
“Might as well.” Mara gave Kaden a wink. “The skinny boy in yellow is our Healer, Davos. Our Rogue is slinking around here somewhere. Roon? Where are you?”
Davos looked like he’d wilt away under the attention.
In the space of a heart-beat, Trella spun, stabbing at the air. The empty air, as a man shimmered into existence behind her. “A new Sister! You girls are the most fun! See, all us [Sly-Foot]s have to do is imply that we’re behind you!”
Kaden stepped in front of her before there was a murder. “I’ve never seen a Rogue like that.”
“We’re all about illusion. Cover the sound of our footsteps, even the scent of our armpits, which someone here could use help with!” The [Sly-Foot] man was only five feet tall, but with wild blond hair that stuck out in a tangled mess, and he wore a cloak that was covered in glittering sequins and gems. “There’s better ways to be stealthy than the whole ‘I am darkness. I am the night! I am—”
“Enough fun,” Mara said. “Stop poking at Kaden’s girlfriend. Or is that her? Or her?” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.
“Very funny.” Kaden shook his head.
“No, not funny at all,” Eve said. “I’ve watched you two and I simply don’t understand. Sara said she considered a fling with you. Then you and Trella—you call her a ‘Room Sister’ but trust me, no sister should look at a brother the way she does you. And you share a bed. And—”
Trella cut her off. “We were both raised in the Saint’s Hall. Orphans are paired off early. You live together in a room smaller than our quarters here. You share a bed. The conditions are harsh. The Priests encourage stronger orphans to take from weaker ones. They teach from the moment you’re old enough to learn, you are worth what you can earn for the Saint.”
Eve’s playful smile had fled. She looked shaken. “The Hall is in every city. They can’t all be this bad. I refuse to accept that.”
Kaden shrugged. “I only know what I lived. No one cares what happens to classless orphans in a small city. If a couple got along well, the Priests would marry them on their eighteenth birthday and kick them out.”
“Unless, like me, you stab your Room-Brother to death because he thinks he owns you,” Mara said. “He wasn’t making enough money, so the priests didn’t mind, as long as I disposed of the body. What they did care about was me not getting pregnant. Babies don’t earn coins for the Saint.”
Sara swore softly.
Mara offered Trella and Kaden a fist bump. “We’re survivors. We make damned good Adventurers because of it. I wouldn’t wish what I grew up with on anyone, but I’ll use it to put Dungeons and Beasts in their place.”
“That goes double for me,” Kaden said. “Is that why you took the job guarding the Rolling Fortress?”
“It’s why I volunteered.” Mara looked them over. “You’re all low on levels, but that’ll change. This is just Guild policy for new dungeons, always have a rescue team ready.”
They were low on levels, Kaden knew. Mara’s party—he stopped and stared. Not one of them was under level 27. The Guild guidelines said 25 was a solid guideline for fighting monsters in the dark, though some classes could and did at around seventeen. “Level 27. Sounds impossible.”
“You’ll get there. Gyre says hi, but I’m not bringing her out for dungeon runs unless it’s a plains type dungeon.” Mara waved to them. “How about we take a portal to the dungeon rather than walk?”
“Please?” Eve asked.
Zeek intoned a deep chant, and a portal snapped open, focused on the orchard gates. “The magic wagon’s leaving now. Get going!”
Kaden recalled Vip and dashed through with Trella at his side and Sara right behind him. Eve brought up the rear, followed by the [Shield] and the rest of Mara’s party. Kaden wondered what happened to the swordsman she’d partied with. It might be hurtful to ask.
The last time he’d stood there, it was after fighting a pack of Ice Wolves.
Now he was sure the Ice Wolves would find someone easier to attack.
“That wasn’t there last time.” Trella pointed to a light stone carne which flashed orange, and another, and another. “You marked the way to the Dungeon door?”
“You bet they did,” The [Shield] said. “If it turns out this Dungeon is stable, we’ll want to let teams run it at night. Nothing puts levels on like fighting your way all the way from a city to a dungeon in the dark, then back again.”
Kaden couldn’t help marveling at the sheer size of the man “Are all [Shields] built like ogres?”
“It’s a perk of our class. You don’t have to grow in size, but the weight’s handy when you need to wrestle something back. And I don’t carry a true shield, I make mine from the earth. If we get out late, I’ll bring in a few night monsters and show you.”
When Kaden reached the edge of the orchard, the tunnel where the Corpse Tunneler had emerged lay sealed by a round wooden door. The wood was polished smooth, with three circles around the edge filled in with silver. In the center of the door, a clear crystal sat, pulsing soft green.
“Rank three, just as reported,” Mara said, tipping her head to Kaden’s party. “Rank 0 are proto-dungeons. Rank 1, you’d better be at least level five. Level ten for rank two, fifteen for rank three, and so on.” She looked to the [Shield]. “You’re in charge once we go in. Ready?”
“Ready. We’ll have ten to twelve levels on everything inside, so cut loose, kill it all, take notes, and we’ll give a scouting report to the Guild. Line up. I go first, Mara, you’re after me, Sly Guy, you’re free to do what you want, except, leave that core. Never smash a normal core.”
“Hey, Party Leader!” Mara shouted. “Hold your post. This is political bullshit, the Guild leader’s seeing if you’ll follow orders or if you’re going to try and do your own thing. We’ve got orders to map the dungeon. If it’s a labyrinth, it could take hours. Don’t leave.”
“We’ll be here.” Sara said, the determination in her voice palpable.
Kaden watched them line up and march in. The spindly healer guy grabbed the door and swung it closed behind him. The crystal in the middle turned bright red. But the door didn’t latch. It stayed mostly shut, and from inside, the Shield’s voice called out. “Standard Undead. Oh, it’s got ghosts. Cute ones! And skeletons. Come to Papa, I’ve got more than sticks or stones to break them bones.”
After a few moments, the voices grew quieter, and quieter, as the Party moved deeper into the dungeon. And the reality of dungeon sitting became apparent. Vip had shifted her internal world to a warm fire with blankets while disembodied hands petted her.
At first, small talk was easy. Then boredom began to grind on nerves. Food was easy, Kaden and Trella had both stashed hot meals, and Eve had orange juice. Kaden spent the time making mana darts and exchanging them with Eve and Sara.
After lunch, Eve pulled a glowing crystalline messenger bird from her Inventory and spent a few minutes talking to it. Instead of flying away, the bird formed a portal the size of Kaden’s fist and disappeared through it.
“What was that?” Trella asked.
Eve hadn’t been able to look at either of them, but now she did. “I’m here to grow on my own, without my family’s advantages, or expectations. But I won’t tolerate what happened to you happening in my city. If the Saints Hall is caring for orphans with compassion and providing for their basic needs? Nothing will come of it. If not? You’ll hear their lamentations of regret from around the world.”
“Don’t think you and Varun would have gotten along, Eve.” Trella laid back with her head in Kaden’s lap, eyes closed. “I know, you look at Kaden and I and think we’re weird. Really, we’re lucky. We found each other.”
“But you told him to have fun with me!” Sara said. “If you’d just explained—”
“Fun,” Trella answered. “You think Kaden got jealous every time I found someone attractive? No. If anything about my life was normal, I would have spent three years with the Sisters, seeing Kaden at most every six months. He wouldn’t want me to be lonely. I didn’t want that for him. Not that he’d recognize a woman’s interest unless she held up a sign, and probably hit him with it.”
“I would notice,” Kaden said.
Sara shook her head. “You really wouldn’t.”
Kaden couldn’t help laughing at that.
But as midday turned to late afternoon, Sara began to pace.
When late afternoon became early evening, she dispatched Messenger bird.
A few minutes later, one returned.
“Everyone, get ready. There’s a possibility the Dungeon had a one-way door and no proper exit spawned. We’re going to head inside. The door doesn’t lock, so we’ll stick together, find where Mara’s party is, and help them out.” Sara led the way to the door. “Wait. This…this can’t be right.”
On the surface of the door, seven circles of silver lit up. How long it had been that way, Kaden couldn’t pretend to know. As Sara touched the door, it faded back to three circles.
“It’s erratic,” Trella said.
Kaden’s blood ran colder than the wind through orchard trees. His parents had taken an erratic dungeon run, aiming to bust the core. He’d never seen them again. “Send word to the guild?”
“Done.” Sara released another messenger bird. “But we have another problem. We’re too far from the city to make it back before dark. And too low a level to fight the Night Monsters.”
“Then we go in.” Trella took the lead. “Monsters from outside won’t go into dungeons. The other party is already in there, and I like my odds with them around better than my odds of survival out here.”
The dungeon door warped, and single hollow circle appeared.
“Proto-Dungeon,” Sara said. “I’ve read about this kind of dungeon. Its difficulty changes. We’re not going to get a better chance than a proto-dungeon.”
So they went in, Sara leading and Kaden bringing up the rear. Kaden stopped at the door, dropping his old battle hammer from Inventory in the door. The door wouldn’t be closing because it couldn’t. But he’d made it two steps, when the sound of cracking wood filled the air.
He looked back, and the Dungeon door had slammed shut. And from the inside, four silver circles shone on the door.
11
ELEVEN - ADAPT OR DIE
The first thing Kaden did was try the dungeon door. The second thing Sara did was try it as well. Trella and Eve watched them without moving, as Kaden took out Remembrance and smashed it on the door until the hammer rang over and over. The black spots didn’t just undulate, they swam everywhere.
But the door didn’t budge.
“That’s not going to happen,” Trella said. “How about we stay calm, let me scout, and then we can panic in an educated way?”
The Dungeon had dumped them in a large, circular room with lava surging around the edge. Teeth the height of a man grew up around the edges to form a ring, but the only exit was a rusted iron door that led out of the room.
“Not very imaginative,” Eve said. “And no monsters.”
“The entrance room is a place to stage, there’s almost never monsters,” Sara said. “Kaden, you’re on point, I’ll be behind you. Open the door, if nothing rushes, we let Trella scout. If it does, pull to this room, beat it down, and repeat.”
Kaden pulled open the iron door, which fought him, groaning every inch of the way.
“Hostiles!” Trella called. “And friendlies!”
“Go, push the room!” Sara shouted.
The battle was on. Kaden charged into the room, where Mara stood locked in a battle with an undead sorcerer. Broken pieces of a wizard’s staff lay scattered around the room, and shattered chunks of gems, a burned spell book.
Mara’s bow was damaged, near destroyed, but she used it to hold back the creature’s claws.
Sara reached it first, planting one pseudopod on one side of the sorcerer’s head and one on the other, while she hacked into its back with both swords. Before she could rasp it to bits, the creature let go of Mara, grasped the Horror and tore it loose, losing chunks of his skin.
But he didn’t let go, instead swinging the Horror’s pseudopods over head to slam Sara into the ground. He darted for Kaden, too fast for a supposedly dead creature. His axe skill gave the slightest hint of how to attack, and Kaden swung underhand, catching the sorcerer in the thigh.
Remembrance went perfectly still, but Kaden was already turning to bring the hammer side down. The sorcerer’s claws caught him in the gut, digging in deep.
You have acquired a status condition: Rot of the Grave x1. Your movement, healing, and strength are greatly impaired.
“It’s got poison!” Kaden shouted.
Eve whispered something—and agony burst across Kaden, especially on the wound, but all across his skin, blood bubbled up and sizzled.
Blood Burn has removed (Rot of the Grave). You have taken 1 point of damage.
Kaden gasped as the pain passed. “It burns the disease out.”
Before he could say anything else, the Sorcerer’s attention whipped around to Eve. He lunged forward—and collapsed, shrieking, as a second cut opened in his thigh. Kaden swung Remembrance for a killing shot, but the Sorcerer’s neck bones snapped as its head twisted to stare behind it, and with both hands, it caught the hammer, straining against Kaden’s strength.
It never saw Trella’s Backstab coming.
Both daggers burst through its chest, and it staggered forward, wailing and spraying orange, foaming bile. Sure enough, a status condition. Plague of the Grave. But the boss wasn’t dead. It turned and locked eyes on Kaden, growling even as it continued to spew bile.
An arrow of golden light exploded into its skull, obliterating the boss.
You have assisted in killing the Enlightened Boss Monster: Vigor, Defiler of the Living.
You have received experience.
Across the room, Mara stood. Her bow blazed with a string made of pure mana, a string that winked out as she collapsed.
“Cleanse coming in,” Eve said.
Kaden braced himself as blood oozed from his skin, followed by a jolt of healing from [Life Harvest]. “Sara?”
“Awake. One blow took me to a single HP.” Sara sat up, her Horror manifesting once more. “Why am I covered in blood?”
“We’ve got bigger problems.” Kaden looked to Eve. “Can you get Mara on her feet? She’s more powerful than all of us put together.”
Eve studied the prone ranger. “She’s got something different. ‘Curse of the Grave.’ Stamina depletion, inverse healing, reduced movement. And it’s tier two. Blood Burn can’t cleanse it in a single go.
Inverse healing. He looked to Sara right as she shouted. “Herald of Life! I have to get out of this room.”
Her aura would cause life to increase, which might kill the Ranger.
“South.” Mara’s voice came as a whisper. “[Shield.]”
Sara and Kaden didn’t wait, sprinting down the hallway that led south. The next room, however, was an absolute nightmare. Blazing blue crystal grew up from the ground with thorny spikes on the outside. A pattern of symbols on the floor laid out clear paths.
“A trap room,” Sara said. “My trap sense is showing the paths. But Mara already cleared the room, just stick to the squares that are open.”
Except they hadn’t cleared the room, not in the normal way. Obviously the crystals formed a maze, and the punishment for misreading the paths was to be speared by the crystal thorns. But the mighty [Shield] had done the unthinkable, throwing himself on a trapped square to make a path for his party. Dozens of blue crystals had shot through his body.
But the [Shield] wasn’t dead. He dripped blood constantly, and every breath came as wheeze, but the man’s sheer resistances prevented outright death.
