Warbreaker's Risk: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure (The Connected System Book 2), page 35
Stepping back, Loch looked at Davis and Piper, seeing the same question in their eyes.
Brian just looked like he always did. Solid, not bothered by anything, just accepting and moving on. The perfect soldier.
“We don’t know what happened to anyone,” Loch said, talking about the Coach but also meaning Kelly and everyone else. “We can’t worry or speculate about their fates. That’s just a waste of time. All we can do is worry about the people that are here now. The ones that we need to help keep alive.”
He knew it wasn’t what they wanted to hear, especially Harper and Piper. It was all he could say.
It wasn’t an answer but they had no real answer.
Maybe never would.
It had been Sunday when the Connection happened. The coaches and teachers would have been at home. Some of them lived in Northwood, but many didn’t. If anyone knew where they lived, and there were probably records still in the school, then they could go to the towns and streets, find the houses and see if the person was there.
But after the amount of time that would pass? The person would have moved on. Found a group setting up a new community. Just wandered solo. Lots of different reasons not to be there beyond dying.
They, all the survivors, had to accept the fact that they may never know what happened to the people they knew.
“That’s new, right?” Brian said, his steady voice bringing everyone back from their thoughts.
He was halfway down the ramp, leaning against the half wall, looking down at the bottom. Loch walked up next to the large man, eyes widening in surprise. He had expected to see the tunnel that led under the street with a glowing portal. Or just the tunnel with the portal halfway down. Or nothing at all, similar to the arch that led into the Chelsey Graves Dungeon.
What he saw was a stone arch built into the wood and concrete walls of the building. Gray stone blocks with a large keystone at the top. Carved into the keystone was a strange symbol, faded and ancient.
“Yeah, that’s new,” Loch said.
Loch and Brian stood a couple feet back at the lower landing, looking at the arch. Harper and Piper were at the middle landing, sitting with their backs against the mural. Davis was at the entrance, keeping an eye out.
The arch looked old. The stones were pitted and cracked. The floor leading up to it was the gray of concrete, just like it had always been. Beyond the arch was the gray of the tunnel floor, the curving concrete walls painted white. Before, Loch had been able to see through the tunnel. Now the end was blocked, the piles of stone and metal from a guardrail visible.
There was no visible evidence of a portal, but Loch knew it was there.
He could feel it.
He avoided the urge to reach out and touch it.
Cerie hovered in front of the rune, about a foot back.
Her eyes glowed green as she studied it.
“Well?” Loch asked.
She waved an arm at him, dismissing his comment.
Loch sighed, leaning against the wall behind him.
Cerie continued to fly around the arch, examining every inch before settling in front of it, staring at the space beyond.
They had been like that for what felt like a half hour. Without a watch, Loch had no idea about the passage of time anymore. He was just guessing. He remembered that growing up, there had been a concrete sundial in the family’s garden. There had to be some existing somewhere nearby. Something they could take back to the camp so people could start getting a sense of time back.
Butterfly wings flapping, Cerie flew backward, not taking her eyes off the arch.
“And?” Loch prompted.
Still hovering, Cerie turned around to face him. Her face was confused, shocked.
“I do not understand,” she said. “It should not be possible. Not this early.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Dungeon is a spawn Dungeon, but it’s a shifting Rank. Such a thing should not be possible.”
“What does that mean?”
She glared at Loch like it was his fault. Her gaze softened, her glowing body taking a deep breath. Even as essentially a hologram, the habits of a living person were hard to get rid of.
“It does not happen often, but sometimes an older Dungeon can change its Rank. Rising to a higher Rank. It tends to happen with those Dungeons far out in the world, where few Connected venture. Ones that have not been delved in centuries. That is still more common than when a Dungeon can vary its rank depending on the Levels of the Connected that enter. I know of only three such Dungeons, and those are all on ancient Connected Realms. It is thought that very high Leveled, or even Divine Beings, had a hand in changing the Dungeon so that it would shift. Such a thing would be extremely valuable to a Clan.”
She turned back to the Dungeon.
“I now know of four.”
Loch looked at the arch. If he was understanding Cerie correctly, the Dungeon before them was extremely rare. He could understand what would make such a thing valuable. From what Cerie had said, Dungeons were fixed. At some point, a Connected would out Level a Dungeon and would need to find new ones to delve into. It forced the Clans to continuously raise new low Leveled Connected to keep a steady stream going through all Dungeons.
Large Clans with many Dungeons in their territories would have Administrators whose sole job was to monitor the Dungeons and the Connected, assigning Connected parties to Dungeons, scheduling delves, and knowing when it was a party’s time to move on.
It was almost like a business.
“How does a shifting Dungeon determine its Rank?”
“I do not know,” Cerie answered, turning back to look at Loch. “It could take the average Level of the party and use that as the determining factor.”
Loch nodded, hoping that was true.
“Or it could base the Rank off the highest Leveled person.”
Of course it wouldn’t be the lowest, Loch thought bitterly. He just knew that the Dungeoncore would base the Rank off the highest Level.
Which would be him.
Normally that wouldn’t be a problem since most delving parties would be in a similar Level range, according to Cerie. Done that way so that each member got the maximum amount of Spirit as possible without a higher Level messing it up.
The problem he saw was that he was so much higher than any other person in the camp. Harper was next, and she was four or five Levels higher than Davis, the highest Leveled person outside the three Bradys.
If Loch went into the Dungeon, it would base the Rank and the threats off of his Level.
But he couldn’t see a way for him to not enter.
“Could I enter solo?” he asked Cerie.
“Dad, no,” Harper said, standing up.
Neither sister walked down the ramp, they just stood at the top and glared down at him.
“No,” the fairy answered. “You and the girls were lucky to survive the Challenge Dungeon as a three-person party. I still do not know how that was possible. Going into a spawn Dungeon, especially a shifting one, would be suicide. If it was a normal Dungeon, with a set Rank, it would only work if you went into a Rank 1 at Level 25.”
Not the answer he wanted, but the one Loch had expected.
This was going to complicate things.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
We’ve done this before, Loch thought. We got this.
They had completed the Challenge Dungeon with only three, not five. And most of the time, it had just been Loch and Harper fighting. Cerie was amazed they had done it, but they had done it.
So doing this Dungeon, with its Rank based on Loch’s, should be easy with a full party. Even if some of the party was Level Five and below.
Loch knew he was trying to convince himself.
It wasn’t working.
He had hoped the Dungeon would have been Rank One like Cerie suggested most that appeared near Clanholds were. Not that they had a Clanhold, but this Dungeon should have still been Rank One. That would have been the safest thing for the group Loch had with him.
Lower Levels with him along. Their Spirit gains wouldn’t have been great, but they would have gotten a chance to get some in relatively safely. Cerie had said that a Rank One Dungeon would have been difficult for Loch to solo, but with Loch and a full party, a Rank One would be relatively safe.
But now it was all going to be based on Loch’s Level.
It had been bad enough going through the Dungeon with Harper and Piper, but now Loch was going to go through a Dungeon with other people.
People that trusted him to protect them.
People that were extremely low Leveled for anything but a Rank One Dungeon.
Some had argued that they didn’t need to run the Dungeon. At least not yet.
They could go out into the woods to find monsters to fight. Or head east toward the intersection with 43 and 202 to fight the hobs.
Loch had been one of those that felt it was too soon. He hadn’t been that on board with running the Dungeon even though they needed to know what it contained, especially with it so close to the school.
Others, convinced by Cerie, had persuaded him that it made more sense to run the Dungeon and learn about it than to start sending the other people into its depths. The overall strength of the monsters changed, not the layout or type of monsters.
Go in, learn the traps and monster locations, and map it out. Come out and prepare the other teams.
It sounded like a solid plan.
Until it hit the snag.
His Level.
He turned around, looking at the small group of people behind him, the ones on the middle landing and the ones on the upper landing. All were looking at him.
Behind him was the rest of his party.
Five people total, including him.
Brian, Harper, Piper, and Julia Montgomery.
She was a slightly higher Level than Brian. Loch wouldn’t have brought her along, but she was the Healer. No way was he bringing a lower Leveled group into a higher-Ranked Dungeon without one.
It had been a question between Brian and Davis. The younger man had hit Level Six while Brian had just gotten Level Five and his Class. It might have made more sense to bring Davis, but for Loch, it came down to Classes and party make-up.
He would be the tank, Harper the DPS, and Piper the caster. Davis and Harper would have performed the same role. Brian was a different type of DPS, an off-tank. Julia was the healer.
Davis was on the middle, landing with Jenny.
Ed Turner and his wife were on the upper landing.
Loch had thought about bringing Susan as the healer but knew that would just cause issues with Ed. The man was already having to swallow some pride in agreeing to move the camp to the school. Asking his wife to come along on the first Dungeon run would probably be too much.
She would have to go eventually. But not the first run.
Loch turned back to the arch.
He hated bringing Harper and Piper, especially Piper, but they were both needed. Harper because of her high Level and Abilities. Piper was because of Cerie. Loch wanted the fairy in the Dungeon, and that meant bringing Piper.
He hated that he was choosing his daughters’ usefulness over their safety.
He hated himself at that moment.
He was even choosing to bring Julia into a dangerous situation, risking her safety because she had to Level. What kind of man was he? What kind of leader?
Of course there were logical reasons for all of it.
Didn’t change that he hated all of it.
Brian was a soldier in temperament and Class. He would go where ordered.
“And you’re sure we can leave when we want?” Loch asked Cerie.
“Yes,” she said, the exasperation evident in her tone. She had answered that particular question over a dozen times. “Unlike a Challenge Dungeon, a spawn or Resource Dungeon can be left at any time by going back to the entrance.”
That made Loch feel a little better.
He turned to Davis and Jenny.
“Work with Darren on a patrol pattern. Keep two of the Classers at the camp and two at the school. A couple roaming on either side.”
That would be all the Classers left in the camp, with the exception of Susan Turner, who, as a healer, was exempt from the patrols. All just Level Five. Most had Common Classes. Only Davis, Jenny, Darren Holmberg, and Susan had Uncommon Classes. None of them were Epic.
“Right,” Jenny said.
Davis nodded, still a little upset that he wasn’t going to get to come.
His father was still unconscious, another reason that Loch hadn’t chosen Davis. No way would Loch risk another person’s child without permission.
Davis understood that there would be more opportunities, but there was just something about being one of the first. And Harper was going. Loch knew that was part of the reason Davis wanted to go.
And it was another reason that he hadn’t chosen Davis.
Not to keep them apart. He knew there was nothing he could do if they wanted to be together. But he could do something about limiting the distractions inside the Dungeon. Harper and Davis had Classes and had been Adapted, but they were still hormonal teenagers.
“We’ll have everything transferred over by the end of the day,” Ed said from the upper landing.
He sounded eager to please. Loch knew he was still upset about losing control, not that Loch was actively trying to take it. It was just happening. He didn’t intend to take full control. Ed could still have all that. Loch would be happy just being the figurehead at the top.
Cerie had made it sound like it would be a fighting figurehead. The Clan leader, OverJarl, which Loch hated the sound of, didn’t just get to sit around and do nothing. They had to actively still Advance and fight off challengers.
A lot of wars seemed to be avoided by the OverJarls or other high-leveled Clan members fighting it out.
“Thanks,” he said to Ed.
Turning back to the arch, Loch adjusted his grip on Onyx. He’d taken the axe from the hook on his belt, wanting the familiar weight of the weapon in his hands to enter the Dungeon. Who knew what would be inside?
“Everyone ready?”
Brian looked the same as always, his dark face impassive, ready to do what he needed to. Harper was eager, almost too eager. Piper was ready, just not happy about it. Neither was Loch. But he needed Cerie, and the fairy couldn’t get too far from Piper. They needed her spatial bag. Loch regretted giving it to her since it was soulbound and the only one they had. It had been mostly emptied, ready to gather as much as they could from the Dungeon.
The last member of the party, Julia, was the most nervous.
This was all new to her.
She wasn’t a fighter but a healer. Her Class was called Battle Mender. Loch thought the Class might change to be more than just a healer, judging by the name. Julia had said that the few Abilities she got from the Class focused more on closing the wounds and mending them. Susan had another type of healing Ability. They had tried to explain it to Loch. He’d heard but couldn’t really tell the difference. It didn’t matter. Both types worked.
There were far more important things to worry about.
Piper knew her from the middle school. Julia was the nurse there and had been only for a year, which is how Harper hadn’t known her. Piper didn’t spend much time at the nurse’s office, but she had gone a couple of times. What mattered to Loch was that Piper liked the woman.
Mid-thirties, long strawberry blonde hair, she had kept in shape. Apparently, she’d also helped the track and field team.
Loch had spoken to her once or twice at school events and when she’d called once to inform him about Piper having a fever.
He didn’t know anything else about her.
She was nervous but didn’t look panicked.
Not prepared or ready, but accepting.
As a healer, she knew what her duty would be and was prepared to do it.
Loch got some thumbs-ups and nods, even from Julia.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
Loch stepped under the arch. He could see the walls of the tunnel, and then he couldn’t.
It was an odd feeling. One second he saw one thing. The next, he saw something new.
White-painted concrete was replaced with rough rock walls.
A cave.
Loch stepped into the cave, moving forward a couple of feet to give the others room when they appeared. He felt his Core come alive, Spirit entering his body coming from all around. He could feel the energy as it flowed into his Core. He felt stronger, faster, tougher.
After the Challenge Dungeon, Loch and the girls had gotten Achievements related to Dungeons. Their Attack and Defense percentages were increased in Dungeons: more damage, more resistances.
Would Brian and Julia get similar Achievements once they cleared this Dungeon?
Letting his body adjust to the extra energy, Loch looked around the entrance cavern.
It was a large open space with a high ceiling and slightly curved walls. The stone floor was rough with large rocks scattered around. About twenty feet ahead, Loch could see the floor sloping down.
Green glowing moss grew on the walls in patches, large and small, bathing the entire room in an odd tint. It was enough light to see by, not make out all the details, some still lost to shadow.
The others started to appear around him, those with weapons raised and at the ready.
Words appeared across his vision.
YOU HAVE ENTERED THE PAINTED CAVES DUNGEON
THE CAVES HAVE BEEN INFESTED WITH A CORRUPTION, CAUSING THE INHABITANTS TO BECOME VICIOUS AND ENRAGED, GROWING STRONGER BUT LESS INTELLIGENT.
OBJECTIVES:
THE CORRUPTING INFLUENCE
SEEK OUT AND DESTROY THE BEING OR THING THAT IS CAUSING THE CORRUPTION 0/1
