Chapter 4

  The next morning Tanner awoke and cleaned himself up, performing what would eventually become his normal morning ritual. He gathered his gear from the chest at the foot of his bed, the tent, the bedroll and the rucksack. He had obtained some more travel food from a nearby general store the day before and made sure it was now still in his bag. He checked over his spear confirming it was in great condition.

  Tanner set off upstairs to meet up with his new temporary party, Gage and Skyla should either be up there already or should be there shortly. As Tanner crested the stairs he turned and walked the few steps down the hallway to enter into the Two Worlds adventuring guild’s lobby he saw three people standing around waiting on him.

  “Sorry! Waiting long?” Tanner asked the group as he jogged over to join them.

  “Nope, we just got here ourselves.” Gage replied. “This is Annice Wolfg. She is the healer we were talking about yesterday.” He said while motioning to the third person that Tanner didn’t recognize. Annice was older than the other two, probably in her mid thirties. She was dressed practically in the standard brown leather armor that most adventurers seemed to wear and black trousers. She had a nice pair of rugged boots on and a leather belt upon which 3 wands were attached. There were also 3 red potions attached at the opposite hip from the wands. Tanner assumed these potions were healing potions, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “Hello Annice, I’m Tanner, looking forward to working with you!” Tanner said eagerly.

  Annice smiled, pearly whites shining in the well lit lobby. “Eager, aren’t we – I’m sure we’ll get along great. You’re a freshie too, right?”

  “Yep.. Just activated my first rune stone a couple days ago.”

  “I see, I’ve had mine active for about a year, but I’ve been doing local work. This is my first dungeon delve.” Annice stated.

  “Annice here has been working shifts at clinics, using those amazing healing spells she picked up helping both civvies and adventurers pick themselves back up.” Skyla added.

  “Don’t over hype me there, I’ve only got the one healing spell, and its pretty basic. Though I do have a booster skill for it.” Annice said modestly.

  “Booster skill? I haven’t heard of those.” Tanner said, a confused look on his face.

  “They are 0-point rune stones that affect a skill or set of skills, they don’t cost a skill slot to slot in.” Gage supplied.

  “Skill slots? I feel like I’m missing some important info..” Tanner replied dejectedly, learning there was much more to adventuring than the scraps he was able to get in his little out of the way town.

  “We’ll have to give you a primer or something” Annice chuckled out “We should probably get moving though, can break it down along the way since we have a whole day’s hike ahead of us.”

  “Where are we headed?” Tanner asked.

  “North of Zrora, through the forest. Most of the low level dungeons that pop up around Zrora do so to the north or south of the city, no roads out that way so we’re hiking through forest.”

  The group set out and headed for the northern path out of the city, the administrative center had a path going North/South that they could utilize.

  “So, about those skill slots?” Tanner asked a little after the group had gotten through the northern gate, it seemed the North and South sides of the city had smaller walls and were guarded as a back up in case something made it over the larger wall.

  “Oh, right, Everyone has somewhere around 10 skill slots for rune stones, it differs person by person but usually not by much more than one or two in either direction. You need a greater analyze skill in order to tell what a persons total potential is.” Annice supplied.

  “Do rune stones cost different amounts of slots to, I think the term was ‘slot in’?”

  “Nope, most rune stones are single slotters or are support runes and don’t cost any. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a stone that cost more than one.” Annice further supplied.

  “Same.” Gage added.

  “Yea, me neither.” Skyla chimed in.

  The rest of the day was uneventful and filled with adventuring related questions such as what some examples of support skill were, did the Aerial Knights require any support runes, etc. After a bit it quieted down and the group hiked in companionable silence. After most of a day Skyla pulled out a second compass, she had been the one keeping them on track heading north, and turned the group eastwards a bit. The second compass was smaller and glowed an orange-ish red, the same color as the World Eater.

  Skyla noticed Tanner’s eyes on the compass and before he had a chance to ask she stated “Its a dungeon tracker. Once you get within a certain distance of a dungeon the needle on this compass will point directly to it.”

  “Neat!” Tanner replied, a little tired from the day long hike.

  “Its pretty useful, dungeons sometimes move on you.”

  “They do?”

  “Yea, we’re not sure how, or why, but they’ll be a few hundred feet away from where you left them.. Sometimes much further.” Skyla said while frowning at the thought.

  The group stopped in a small clearing not yet having seen the dungeon and set up camp for the night, wanting to go in fresh and not exhausted. They each had their own tents, Gage and Skyla not sharing one as Tanner had expected, he thought they might be a couple as close as they seemed. They sat around a campfire that Gage had prepared and Skyla lit with fire magic, ate their individually prepared meals and discussed strategy for the dungeon delve.

  “Skyla is good with traps, she can usually spot them before we set them off, she can’t always disarm them but more often than not she gets it taken care of.” Gage stated without embellishment. “I’ll be drawing attention and keeping monsters off of the three of you while Skyla and Tanner deal with the threats. I’ll try to get a few hits in here and there but mostly I’ll be defending.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “We’re going to take it slow and try not to make any obvious mistakes, both of you are new so if Skyla or I say stop, you stop. You don’t put your foot down, you don’t back track. You freeze in place. Understood?” Gage asked the group.

  “Understood” Annice and Tanner both replied, understanding that to do otherwise might mean death.

  “Annice will hang a back a few steps and heal any wounds we take, but mostly staying out of combat, right? If I recall you said you only had the one healing ability and nothing offensive?” Gage asked.

  “That is correct, nothing offensive yet.”

  “Then yea, hang towards the back and keep an extra pair of eyes out. Tanner, you’ll be behind me and throwing out thrusts and *Lunge* when its safe to do so. Don’t over extend yourself or you might be targeted.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll stay behind you and use my reach to my advantage.” Tanner supplied.

  “Skyla knows what she’s about, unless you wanted a reminder?” Gage smirked as he directed that comment towards Skyla, who rolled her eyes.

  “I’ve been on enough jobs with you that you know I know. I’ll blast our enemies and keep an eye out for traps while staying out of the front line in combat.” Skyla replied.

  “Good, we’ve got a solid strategy laid out. Stay alert, stay smart, and don’t over extend. Should be a walk in the park. Lets get some rest and we’ll head in tomorrow.”

  The group finished eating about then and settled into their tents for the night, as the aurora from the World Eater seemed much more intense and angry looking than usual with the reds deeper and the purples darker. Tanner and Annice found it harder than usual to fall asleep as they were nervous about their first dungeon despite Gage’s confidence. People sometimes didn’t make it back from dungeons, they’d both heard horror stories about how things could go wrong in an instant. Trying hard not to think about the danger only had Tanner thinking about it more until he eventually started going through his spear forms mentally, walking step by step through them in meditation to calm his mind. An hour of being intentional about his meditation he had success and fell asleep.

  The morning found most of the party well rested, breakfast was eaten, stretches and warm ups were performed differently for each member of the party. Tanner observed his companions warm up exercises while he stepped through his own routine. Gage went through some push ups and squats before picking up his large heater shield and swinging it into place repeatedly, sometimes changing the angle to thrust the shield behind himself suddenly. Occasionally he’d throw out a swing or thrust with his short sword but it was mostly shield work.

  Skyla was jogging in place and performing some maneuvers that looked like she was trying to dodge an invisible enemy that only she could see. She’d occasionally throw her hand out as if casting a spell, but nothing came out – probably didn’t want to tire herself out by actually casting something.

  Annice was looking a little sluggish this morning, looking closer he noticed that her eyes were a bit red and she had dark circles under them. Tanner was alternating between push ups, squats, and light jogging so he maneuvered his way over closer to her and asked “You alright? Looks like you didn’t sleep well.”

  “Yea.. I think I only got a couple hours… Nerves”

  “Oh, should we delay?”

  “No, I’ve shaked the nerves, and I’m not joining you guys in combat, so I should be fine. As long as you don’t let anything back to me.” Annice winked at Tanner as she said that last bit.

  Blushing a little Tanner replied “Of course not! If anything manages to slip past Gage it won’t make it past me, I promise.”

  “Perfect, that’s settled then, you’ll keep me safe, and I’ll keep you all stitched up.” Annice nodded, confirming the state of things.

  Warm ups completed and promises made the party gathered, packed up their camp and continued making their way to the dungeon. About half an hour later they found it.

  “That’s it? I expected more..” Tanner said, looking at the small hill with a old, run down door set into the front of it. The door was made of wooden slats and had a few missing. One of the slats near the top of the door was broken a third of the way through and was barely hanging by it’s nail leaving a dark gap open to the dungeon.

  “They look different every time, never know what you’ll find when you get to one. Don’t become complacent just because it appears mundane, remember the strategy. Stay alert, stay smart, and don’t over extend.” Gage lightly chided Tanner.

  “Right.. stay alert, smart and don’t over extend.” Tanner repeated, mostly to himself a few times as they walked up to the door. They didn’t stop and open the door though, they actually took some time to walk entirely around the hill first. Tanner had the thought that calling this a hill was an insult to hills, it was more of a mound of dirt rising just high enough to fit a normal sized door on it. It wasn’t very deep either, went maybe ten feet back from the door. Tanner was never good at measuring distances with numbers but ten feet sounded about right.

  Finding themselves back at the door a moment later Skyla nodded. “Nothing weird on the perimeter. I’ll check the door.” she said while walking up to the door and giving it a thorough look over. She didn’t spot any strings, springs, levers, buttons or otherwise so she peered into the hole. “It’s dark in there, we’ll need torches.”

  Gage pulled open his pack and brought out four torches handing one to each of them. Skyla walked up and used *Spark* and lit the four torches with little effort as the small flame caught easily on the accelerant. “These should last for three or four hours.” Gage supplied. Skyla moved aside after lighting the torches to allow Gage to move up and cautiously open the door. Nothing immediately exploded or caught on fire so he slowly proceeded down the stairs that the door opened up to.

  Skyla overtook Gage once inside and the group moved down the stairs for what seemed like an hour but was probably only 15 minutes, nerves on edge and adrenaline pumping. The atmosphere of the dungeon was oppressive, as if a warm and damp weight pressed down on them, the very walls seemed to be sweating, though that might have been Tanners imagination acting up, did walls sweat? No.. they didn’t, it had to be his imagination.

  The walls changed from dirt to stone within moments of their downward traversal eventually leading to the first floor of the dungeon, a room opened before them which Skyla immediately started inspecting before stepping foot onto it. It looked like she found something this time, a small wire that extended out along the threshold of the entryway into the room. “Don’t step on this, its too taught – I can’t cut it, if it breaks there are spikes in holes along the ceiling that will drop on us.

  Tanners eyes went wide, this was it.. The dungeons first attempt to kill them. The party carefully stepped over the trapped wire and bypassed this first attempt. The room had wooden walls, made of thin looking vertical slats about an inch wide a piece. The ceiling, now that Tanner could get a better look at it, was filled with hundreds of holes. Getting a cold shiver as he stepped into the room after Gage and Skyla and taking his position slightly behind and to the left of Gage. Tanner nearly leapt out of his skin when some of the wooden slats exploded towards the center of the room as four two foot tall bipedal things came running out of the walls. They were squat, made mostly of wrinkled orange-ish skin with wire-y black hairs coming out in small patches on their shoulders, forearms, stomach, legs, and feet.

  Snarling at the party the monsters continued their charge as Gage yelled out a battle cry and started pounding on his shield with his short sword as he activated *Draw Attacks* gaining the focused ire of the four monsters whom altered trajectory to head for Gage. As the first monster was about to ram into Gage’s shield the man slammed it into the monster, causing it to fly backwards from the impact. The three other monsters ran into his shield half a second later pushing Gage back slightly, however Gage then held his ground pushing back against the monsters.

  As the monstrosities clawed and bit at Gage’s shield Tanner and Skyla set to work stabbing out with a spear to the left of Gage and whipping out *Flame* sending a fire-y whip to the right. The spear tore into monstrous flesh, ripping the shoulder of the leftmost monster completely off of its torso. These monsters weren’t quite as tough as they looked, Tanner mused. The fire-y whip slashed completely through the rightmost monster splitting it in half. Gage took the opportunity presented by the loss of the monster on his right to slam his shield left and into the monster without its shoulder sending it flying back and landing on its side where it would struggle to get back up with just the one arm.

  Tanner, seeing his opportunity not to overextend activated *Lunge* while targeting the fourth and only standing monster. He rapidly stepped forward and slammed his spear into the chest of the monster, the tip of the spear easily piercing the thing, the angled expanse of his spear rapidly expanded the hole in its chest extending the damage out in every direction of the monsters torso until it reached the edges and kept going, sending chunk of the monster flying back in every direction away from the strike, an explosion of blood following.

  Tanner fell back and nearly lost his breakfast… He could hear Annice losing hers behind him which did not aid Tanner in keeping his in.

  “Get back in the fight Tanner, a moments distraction could cost your life.” Gage yelled out as the first of the monsters managed to get off its back and resumed the charge towards Gage. Gage, however, was expecting this and had the space so he activated *Strike* as the thing got within range of his short sword. Gage swiftly swung the sword horizontally and cleaved through the charging monster, its momentum slamming the top half of it into Gage’s shield, crimson liquid spilling in large quantities down the front of his shield. With just the single crippled enemy remaining, rolling on its back trying to get an angle to climb to its feet, Tanner rushed forward bringing his spear stabbing down on the things chest finishing it off as it squealed in frustration and pain before going silent.

  Tanner did lose his breakfast at this point, the sound of the things death throes too much for him to handle with all the blood and viscera everywhere..

  “Not what you expected?” Gage asked, as Tanner and Annice were recovering.

  “Its the chunks that used to get me.” Skyla said, commiserating with her companions. “The smell too..” She added while wrinkling her nose up.

  Tanner let go again, losing more of his breakfast at the mention of smell which he hadn’t noticed until that point. The creatures, as most do, voided themselves on death and it was hands down the most foul thing Tanner had ever experienced up until that point in his life, he did not know what their diets consisted of, but Tanner vowed never to eat whatever it was if he found out.

  “Any.. any injuries?” Annice called out, after a short amount of time recovering.

  “No. that was an easy fight, they had no toughness stat at all.” Gage replied. “Well done people. Take a moment to collect yourselves and we’ll keep going.”

  https://www.patreon.com/Lycist for early release chapters.