“Well, this is awful,” I say, staring up at the dark clouds overhead. My hair sticks to my face, strands of dark red cover my vision.
“You seemed excited about the thought of a dungeon earlier this morning,” Macille says, pulling himself to his feet next to me. The man’s heavy armor beats like a drum in the rain.
“Not that,” I say, looking through my inventory window as I stand as well. “Did she have to make it rain on us? I understand that it is dramatic and that Glis’Merinda is known as a Goddess of Storms, but this is just unpleasant.”
I speak loudly to make my voice carry over the rainfall. I’m not all that cold, but once my heavy clothing, armor, and Dire Bear skin have been thoroughly soaked through, I’m sure that I will be. I find what I am looking for in my inventory and pull out a package of fish filets wrapped in brown paper with twine out of my inventory. I pull the twine off before shoving the fish back into my inventory, tying my hair up behind my head with the twine to keep it out of my eyes.
“Can I have one?” Macille asks me.
I look askance at the man. “Your hair has never been out of place in your life.”
“When it’s dry,” he glowers. I can’t help but snicker at the put-upon frown he gives me, not that Macille can keep a straight face for any length of time either. I snag him a bit of twine from my inventory to tie his own hair back with. Exeter, does his coppery hair have even more luster when it’s wet? Damn elves and their being beautiful all the time.
“Did you see where Jess and Samielle went off to?” Macille asks me. He holds his shield over his head in a makeshift parasol, giving me another thing to be jealous about not having.
“She snuck off with him to the grass fields a little while ago,” I say. I look around the stone courtyard, trying to pick the lizardkin woman out from among the people standing around and talking with one another. I would think that it wouldn’t be all that hard to find a lizardkin among all of us, but I am proven wrong.
“They seem like pretty good friends,” Macille comments. “I wonder if they knew each other before the competition.”
I stare at the man, at a loss for words. Has he seriously not noticed her practically drooling over Samielle when the winged man isn’t looking?
“I think I am starting to agree with you about the rain,” Macille says after letting the thunder from a nearby lightning strike die away. “I know that it might be a bit blasphemous to say, but we could do without the rain.”
“Is it blasphemous to badmouth someone that is impersonating a goddess?” I ask.
“A good question.” Both of us turn to see Dovik striding over. He wades through the thunderstorm looking as miserable as I feel. “This is just ridiculous,” he comments.”
“Then, let’s get inside already. We just need to find--”
My words falter as a horrific ringing noise strikes out from the top of the stone building. Just a few months ago I would have been completely unable to see, but my new magical eyes can easily pierce through the haze of the rainstorm to see a group of five shadowy figures climbing up the staircase on the side of the building.
“The first team enters,” I hear Dessa Coril whisper into my ear and jump away from the voice. The woman portraying Glis’Merinda continues to hover above the building, a subtle blue light shining away from her to make her visible to all in the stone courtyard below. She holds her hands up in exaltation, a manic smile turned towards the falling rain. “For their courage, they will receive my Boon of Bravery! No other parties may enter the dungeon for five minutes after the prior group. Be safe on your travels adventurers and be victorious!”
“Damn,” I hear Dovik mutter. “I wanted to be the first in.”
It isn’t until I strain to hear him that I notice that maybe I don’t need to be raising my voice to be heard over the rain. Everyone here are magicians after all, and with most of them having higher levels than me, their senses are probably better as well. I feel the heat of blush rushing to my cheeks.
“If you want to enter quickly, then we should find Jess and Samielle,” Macille says. “Though, I suppose that there isn’t a rush now.”
“No,” Dovik says, turning. “I was only on the lookout for the two of you. I don’t plan on bringing either of them into the group I am forming, too many roles converging on one another. The balance would be thrown off.”
“You don’t want to bring Jess?” I ask. I can understand leaving Samielle behind a bit, both he and Dovik kind of fill the same position, but Jess has been incredibly competent every time that I have seen her do anything. With only five slots for any one group, I suppose that competition must be tight.
“I already have a healer with Adrius,” Dovik says. I haven’t thought about the man since the we fought on the slope a few days ago. I am still unconvinced about him; he didn’t seem nearly as effective in the battle there as Bali was in Halford’s team. “So, I was looking for a Guardian and a Mage.” Dovik points to Macille and me in turn.
“That is four,” Macille says. “We could still bring Jess with that count.”
“Perhaps,” Dovik replies. “Two guardians is certainly a configuration that is workable. I have used it a few times before, but what I was really hoping to find is a Scout.”
“Have you gone into a dungeon before?” I ask.
“I have,” Dovik says. “More than a few times. That is typically the way young city magicians are trained up. The high populations of cities causes the etheric density of the surrounding wilds to be too dense to typically spawn anything that rank one magicians can deal with. To even enter the culling team typically requires rank two.”
I look at Macille and he nods to me, confirming the information. The more that I think about cities, the more that I want to explore them. All I need to do is survive this competition, and maybe I will get my chance. If not, then I just need to train myself to the bone to reach rank three, participate in some deadly kind of competition between multiple guilds, and then I should definitely be allowed to visit one. How many competitions does one girl have to compete in to make it to the city? At least two.
“Charlene.”
Macille’s voice snaps me back to reality. I realize that I have just been standing there, staring into the middle distance for a few seconds.
“Sorry,” I say. “Can you repeat that?”
“I asked what you think about joining Dovik’s group. I would go with him or Jess. They both seem to be pretty competent and would likely help to form a strong party,” Macille says.
“I agree,” I say. I look around the courtyard once again. Already there are three groups of five standing at the bottom of the steps that lead up into the building. Again, I don’t spot any sign of Jess. “I think we should go with Dovik.”
“Great!” Dovik’s frown disappears for a moment as he claps Macille on the shoulder. “Now, we just need to find us an excellent Scout.”
“Ah!” I jump, and I am not the only one. The crashing sound of metal pulls me out of the stupor that I slipped into, the lulling sound of rain oddly relaxing. I blink and actually spit out some water that has polled in my mouth. “Tits and honey,” I swear. I look around at the rest of us that have gathered at the bottom of the stairs leading up into the building.
Confusion and glassy eyes are everywhere, and one woman is sitting with her back to the staircase looking completely out of it. I spot Dovik standing partly up the staircase, looking down on the rest of us waiting in line with a disappointed intensity I thought only my mother could manage.
“Are you coming?” he asks. A hand slaps into the middle of my back, compacting the water-soaked fur skin down onto me, stinging more than a little bit.
“We’re coming,” Macille drolls, marching past me and starting up the stairs.
I shake my head, more than a little fuzzy, but follow along up the staircase. Casting a glance behind me as I take the stairs, I see Adrius and a woman that I still haven’t been properly introduced to yet. She is the Scout that Dovik managed to find, a short elven girl that is some distant relation of Adrius’. Her normally platinum blonde hair is matted to her neck, and she keeps blinking her big ruby eyes as Adrius leads her up the steps by the hand.
Before I realize it, I am already at the top of the steps, ducking into the passageway that disappears into the building. Outside, I can hear the muted voice of Dessa Coril extorting something over the sound of the rain, but my focus is all off.
The darkened passageway into the building leads on for more than fifty feet. I stagger out of its shadow into a cubic room of carved stone, twenty feet on a side. Four torches placed on sconces in the corners of the room give us light, the only shadows left being the single passageway that leads out of the room and the one we entered from. I stumble to the nearest wall, taking a seat, and trying to clear my head. Even inside the building, the sweet smell of the rain stalks us.
“Spells out,” Dovik says, looking at Macille. He needs to repeat himself after Macille continues to stand, staring blankly at the torchlight.
“Right,” Macille says, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment and tossing his magic out onto us, reinforcing our armor.
“Good,” Dovik says, looking around the room at the four of us. “The first thing--”
“Hold on,” I say, cutting him off. I blink a few more times, trying to focus. “Something is wrong.”
“Yes,” the elven girl says, nodding as she slumps down against the wall as well. “I’m feeling off.”
I activate the Eye of Volaash to tell me about her, wondering why I haven’t done so already.
Samissa Bol(Rank One)(Level 32)
Rabbit Conflux
Adrius looks down at Samissa, concern clear on his face. His hand lights up with radiant white light as he brings it close to her, putting his palm on her forehead. “She is poisoned,” he says.
“I’m feeling a little poisoned too,” I comment, raising a finger. I had thought that with my Recovery specialization, I wasn’t going to have to worry about that going forward.
“Maybe me as well,” Macille says. “A little fuzzy.”
Dovik quirks an eyebrow as he looks around at the team he has put together. “What happened?”
I feel it through the ground before I even hear it, the grinding noise of impossibly heavy stone moving against itself. The noise echoes out of the passage we just entered through, a long moan of the stone, before a massive crash informs us that the passage is sealed behind us.
“Great,” Dovik says, sighing. “Can you cure the poisoning Adrius?”
“Of course,” he says. The light of his hand grows brighter for a moment as he continues pressing his hand against Samissa’s forehead. The man’s hand continues to glow for a good ten seconds before he pulls it back with a huff. “I cured it, but then it just returned again.”
“Exeter’s Balls!” Dovik swears.
“It’s the rainwater,” I say. Everyone turns my direction, and it takes me a couple of seconds to pull my thoughts together enough to explain. “It smells odd, doesn’t it?” I lift up the soaked sleeve of my undershirt and smell the hem. There is an undertone of something I can’t place, sweet like a pear, but putrid as well. “That bitch outside poisoned us with the rain.”
Clear and violent anger flashes over Dovik’s face and he squeezes his hands tight like he wants to strangle someone. “When I make it out of this Passage, someone is going to hang. I swear on all that is holy.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Why would they poison us before going into the dungeon?” Macille asks, sniffing his armor and scrunching up his nose.
“Because they’re assholes!” Dovik yells, kicking the wall.
“Maybe,” I say, using the function of storage ring to pocket all my armor in my inventory before taking it back out again and letting it fall to the ground, leaving myself sitting in my soaked through underclothes. I call dragonfire to my hands and hold them over my armor, trying to over channel the fire to the point that it will dry out my armor quickly. “I’m going to go ahead and bet that we will keep getting poisoned until we get all of the water off our clothes.”
“That makes sense,” Adrius says, standing and starting to unstrap his own armor. The elven man doesn’t stop there, stripping nude before anyone can say anything and running his hand over himself. “Looks like I was poisoned too, I mostly passively resisted it,” he says, standing there and letting everything hang out. “I think you were correct Ms. Devardem; the poison is not returning. Wait... there it is. Perhaps I need to completely dry my hair out as well.”
I throw a bear pelt at the man to give him something to cover up in. Looking sideways, I see that Macille is almost fully out of his own clothes, still working on laces for his breeches.
“Slow down!” I say, pulling out pelts for everyone to wear. Samissa already has her top off by then, and looks my way, confused.
“It’s a human thing,” Macille explains to her, kicking off his soaked pants from beneath his Dire Bear fur.
Dovik takes a seat near one of the fires, shaking his head and looking at me like he is the most put-upon man in the world. “Got another fur?”
I am sure that my face is as red as a tomato. I put several furs over top of myself before I even think about stripping out of my wet clothes in front of all these people.
Ten minutes later, we all sit around a constructed fire in the center of the square room, all of our clothes resting on the warm stones that we set up above the fire. When I really focus on it, my dragonfire can turn the stone red hot in a few minutes, taking about half of my mana with it, but I don’t do that for long. No one is looking to have their clothes set on fire.
“It’s been a while,” Dovik comments, looking back the way we came. Despite everything earlier, I don’t think that he was ever at risk of being poisoned, making me think that the poison must have been magical in nature. I don’t know much about the man, but I know that he is a Magic Defense Specialist. “No one else has come in.”
I look toward the passageway we entered through as well, remembering that we should have seen another group come through five minutes ago. “Odd.”
“Do you think we went through a rift gate?” Adrius asks. The man sits around the fire combing his long hair. The comb he holds looks as if it was made from the bones of the bears that we killed the other day, which is strange, considering that I disenchanted all the corpses and there shouldn’t be any bones left.
“No,” Dovik says, shaking his head. “I would have noticed.”
Not wanting to expose my ignorance, I whisper to Macille and ask him about rift gates. He explains to me that naturally occurring dungeons can have rift gates, but that they are incredibly rare in constructed ones. Apparently, when the magical energy pervades the surroundings strongly enough, the dungeon begins to create separate instances of itself, overlapped upon the same location. A rift gate is where those separate instances intersect with the outside world, meaning that parties that venture inside could end up inside of two different, identical, versions of the same dungeon. He explains a bit more after that, but honestly, I can’t really follow past that. The more I learn about magic, the more complicated it seems.
Forty minutes after first entering the dungeon, everyone is once again in their armor, dried now, and no longer poisoned. We even have Adrius check each of us over again to make certain that nothing is lingering.
“I’m sorry,” Samissa says, hefting her pack and adjusting how the straps lay over her shoulders. “If it weren’t for my low Magic Defense, we would have been able to venture forth sooner.”
“No,” I say. I am about to comment that I probably have the lowest Magic Defense in the group but hold my tongue about that at the last minute. For a second, I almost forgot that we are in contest with each other. Giving away my weaknesses strikes me as a bad idea. “It was better that we stopped sooner rather than later.”
“I just don’t understand why they would poison us,” Macille says, tightening the strap on his shield. He swings it back and forth in the air, audibly slicing the air with the heavy plane of metal. “It seems like a bad way to start a dungeon.”
“They designed all of the dungeon,” Dovik comments. He stands at the doorway leading out of the room, peering into the darkness. “Evidently, participating in this dungeon while under the effects of some kind of debilitating poison was the intended path. Don’t get me wrong, I hate that we had to spend so much time dealing with it, but it was the right thing to do.”
“Perhaps it was the first obstacle we were supposed to overcome,” I comment. I am still a bit miffed that my threshold bonus for being a Recovery Specialist didn’t prevent me from being poisoned but considering that it was a rank four woman who did the poisoning, I am more amazed than anything that Dovik was unaffected. “If you look at it that way, then we have already succeeded.”
Dovik snorts and turns back to look at me. “I like that optimism, farm girl.”
“We ready?” Macille asks, moving to the passageway that leads us out of the cubic room. When he receives a nod from everyone in the room, he takes a deep breath, and plunges into the darkness.
“Wait,” Samissa calls to him. “I am the Scout!”
It is already too late, however, Macille has disappeared into the shadow. I summon fire to my hand and follow along after, taking position behind Dovik who charges into the darkness after Macille. The shadows of the passageway press in on us, almost trying to snuff out the light of my fire. We leave the sweet scent of evaporated rainwater behind us, and the smell of long-dead stone sticks in my nose, drying my throat.
I stop dead in my tracks less than ten feet into the passageway, Dovik’s back looming at me out of the darkness. My wan firelight reaches just past him to show Macille standing at the edge of a bridge that extends out over total darkness toward a huge stone pillar. The five of us inch toward the end of the passageway, and I push magic into my dragonfire, lighting the surrounding area.
We stand at the edge of a massive cavern, the largest indoor space that I have ever seen in my life. The walls around us race into darkness in all directions, the light coming from my right hand not nearly enough to illuminate it all. A bridge of stone, almost a hundred feet long and four feet wide, extends away from the passage we stand in toward a cylinder of stone as thick as a mansion. At the end of the bridge, a doorway has been cut into the stone, the telltale curve of a spiral staircase hinted at in the curved wall that I can see.
There are more bridges in the cavern. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of stone bridges extend away from the curved wall that we look out of, scattered above, below, and to the sides of our own bridge. I spot a light down in the darkness, another group on a bridge maybe six hundred feet below us, the sound of battle muted and barely audible to us.
“Maybe we should let me to my job,” Samissa grunts as she pushes past me, squeezing her way to the front of the group. “I happen to take my job as--” She cuts off her own words as a horror spawns into the air over the bridge in front of us.
A humanoid monster, its skin as pale as death and its face as barren as a stone, slides sideways out of the open air on the side of the bridge we stand at the edge of. It swims through the open air like a fish, the very air itself rippling like water at the right edge of the bridge as if it were coming out of water. The monster is long, nine feet of too many joints, foot long fingers that end in strange suction cups. It floats through the air over the bridge, and when it reaches the left side of the bridge, begins to disappear back into the open air, the air itself rippling where it meets the edge of the bridge. After a second, the monster is gone, disappearing once again into the open air.
Blind Hunter(Level 40)
“What in the fuck was that,” Macille whispers back at us, eyes wide. His head whips back toward bridge, but there is no longer any sign of the monster floating over the bridge.
“Something called a Blind Hunter,” I whisper to him. “It’s rank one.”
“Well, that’s nice and all, but what happens if that invisible monster knocks us off this bridge,” Dovik says, stamping on the stone bridge to emphasize his point.
I can’t help but look over the edge, staring down at the vast cavern beneath us, and at the barely visible light of some group battling over their own bridge. The cavern is so large that I cannot even begin to see the bottom.
“There,” Samissa says, pointing at a bridge forty feet away from us, up and to the right of us. I watch as a Blind Hunter swims out of nothingness, barely illuminated by the light I hold in my hand, becoming visible as it passes over the stone bridge above us before disappearing once again into the open air.
It dawns on me that I have no idea how many of the things are in this cavern. I look around at the open air, picturing in my mind an entire school of monsters floating invisibly through the air, too long fingers extended in my direction.
Samissa crouches on the stone bridge at the front of our group, her eyes closed, listening to the air. Her hand streaks out again, pointing at a spot almost toward the end of our bridge. The second that I see the air begin to ripple, a bald white head emerging out of the darkness, I throw my fire.
The Dragonfire Bolt sails across the expanse, exploding in an extravagant plume of orange fire as it detonates against the featureless face of the monster appearing out of the empty air. The bloom of fire lights a considerable amount of the cavern as it expands in that singular instant, casting wild shadows from the stone bridge all around us, before the fire disappears once again. A screech wails out through the cavern, falling away from us for more than ten seconds, before cutting off suddenly.
You have defeated Blind Hunter(Level 40)
We are left, bathed in darkness for a moment before I call fire back to my hand to illuminate us. The five of us look around at each other, waiting for a swarm of the monsters to appear out of thin air, but after a few seconds pass, nothing comes for us.
“Well,” I say, “I killed it.”
Dovik looks over the side at the darkness below. “That’s good.”
“Do you think it is safe for me to scout ahead?” Samissa asks Adrius. The elven man turns to Dovik, who only replies with a shrug. “Well, I’m going to.”
With clear hesitation, Samissa begins to inch herself forward along the stone bridge. None of us move to stop her as the woman inches herself forward. Her shoulders shudder as she moves with silent feet along the bridge, her head whipping about her in all directions, eyes wide. Not being able to perceive whatever it is that she does starts to grate on my nerves. Maybe I should be putting more of my free points in Perception.
Sixty feet along the bridge, Samissa throws herself onto the ground, still as silent as a field mouse. She rolls on her back, looking up at the form of a Blind Hunter emerging out of nothingness above her while she holds her hands over her mouth. The monster rolls lazily through the air, spinning as it swims over the width of the bridge, disappearing in another ripple on the other side. Samissa waits for a heartbeat after the monster’s bony legs have disappeared again into thin air before she hops back up to her feet and races the final distance toward the end of the bridge, still completely silent.
Samissa reaches the passageway at the end of the bridge, falling to her knees, chest puffing air in an out as she looks back at us. After a few seconds of regaining her composure, she beckons for us to follow, holding a finger to her lips to tell us to be quiet about it.
“This is the strangest place I’ve ever been,” Macille mutters as he takes a hesitant step out onto the bridge of suspended stone. He freezes as the loud ringing of metal on stone echoes through the cavern. The scream of a woman somewhere out of our sight pierces the air, falling away from us before being answered with a loud thud and crack.
“Let’s move quickly,” Dovik whispers to Macille.
Macille takes a deep breath, nodding. He steps out onto the bridge, trying to muffle the sound of his heavy armor with slight movements. We follow along behind him, a close line of people ignoring the sound of battle and injury that bounds off the walls of the cavern around us. Only twenty feet out on the bridge, Samissa begins to wave her arms frantically at us, making Macille halt, Dovik almost running into his back.
A Blind Hunter swims out of the darkness across the bridge just in front of our group. We hold our breath for the few seconds it takes the monster to pass over the bridge, not making even the barest sound before it leaves our sight. The hair on my arms begins to prickle, my eyes roaming over the open air on either side of the bridge, wondering just how many of the monsters are within reach of me at this moment.
Adrius lightly pushes me from behind, and I realize that I am holding us up. We continue to inch across the bridge, Macille’s slow pace setting the speed for the rest of us. The tension in my shoulders it terrible, and the longer that we are on the bridge, the more I can feel my nerves shredding themselves apart.
It finally ends, Macille reaching the threshold of the doorway in the massive cylinder, almost falling into the open passage where Samissa squats. As I had guessed earlier, we reach the opening of a spiraling staircase that leads up and down into darkness, turning to the right as it descends into the unknown. I sigh into the passageway after Macille and Dovik have gotten out of the way, moving further down the stairs. My back hits the inner wall of the stairway, and I stare back into the open cavern ahead of me, my heart beating loudly in my ears.
“I think it was the water again,” I say between gulps of air.
Dovik snaps his fingers at my words, pointing at me and nodding. “Now it makes sense.”
“What?” Samissa asks in a small voice, her eyes scanning the empty air back in the cavern.
“There was a smell to the water, something sweet,” I say, nodding back to the open air that I imagine is filled with invisible monsters. “The monsters are blind. The whole point of the water was probably so that they would be able to notice us.”
“That doesn’t explain the poison,” Macille comments. He takes a waterskin from his belt and downs a few gulps.
“They’re assholes,” Dovik answers. “I thought that I explained that already.”
Macille, Adrius, and Dovik start to hold a conversation as to whether we should go up or down the staircase. I finally catch my breath, and approach Samissa, who continues to squat near the entrance of the stairway, her eyes roaming over the darkness out in the cavern.
“How are you?” I whisper to her, only making her jump a little.
“I am fine,” she whispers back to me, eyes still roaming over the darkness.
“How can you tell where they are?” I ask.
“I can hear them,” she says, pointing to her ear.
“Point them out for me,” I say, holding up my smoldering hand for her to see. “We were supposed to fight at least a few of them here, I think.”
Samissa smirks at me before pointing up at a bridge above us. “There are a lot,” she says. “More than you would think.”
“That actually doesn’t comfort me at all,” I say, whipping my hand forward and launching my ball of fire up where she directs. The dragonfire collides with something invisible in the air, expanding in a flash before I hear the sound of a screeching monster falling away.
----------------------------------------
“That was risky,” Dovik comments to me.
I sit on the staircase, my back to the wall, chest heaving and heart pounding. My mana is almost completely drained, and a sheen of sweat covers my face. I look up at the man offering me a hand, smiling in a way that I imagine isn’t totally ladylike. “It was fun though.”
“That’s why we’re here, right?” he replies, unable to keep the smile off his own face. He pulls me back to my feet, and I brace myself against the inner wall of the staircase. “Samissa says that it’s mostly clear,” he comments, looking down the winding stairwell.
“Great,” I comment, removing some water from my inventory to drink. Checking my mana, I see it returning at a decent pace. Depending on how long this stairwell is exactly, I might be back at half capacity before we arrive at the bottom. “Unless, of course, that just means there are more invisible monsters for us at the bottom.”
Dovik pats my shoulder and turns, heading down the stairwell ahead of me. “Try not to keep them all to yourself next time.”
“I’ll try,” I say, pocketing the water again and following along after the man.
Galea floats along beside me, the happiest little dragon spirit in the world.
You have defeated Blind Hunter(Level 40)x8
You have defeated Blind Hunter(Level 41)x7
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!