The two returned, settling outside their barricade to watch the legendary sparks dying on their star weaponry. Although the two had returned after each trip through the maze to check up on the killing, they didn’t stay long, returning to the entrance to start killing once more. They decided to camp out this time, resting as they’d completed their day, but Joe remembered they needed another half hour or so for the sparks to finally die. They rested against the walls, enjoying a stupid conversation where Joe told idiotic jokes and Garnedell seemed to politely laugh. After the first couple, Joe decided to confront Garnedell on his polite laughter.
“Hey. You don’t have to laugh at my stupid jokes. If they’re dumb, they’re dumb. Just say they’re dumb.”
“Ah, no. It’s not that, Joe,” Garnedell replied with some seriousness as his face seemed to focus on him.
“Are they confusing? Maybe they don’t translate well… or maybe it’s a culture thing?”
“Culture? What is culture?”
“Ah… it’s the customs, language, interactions… things, houses, temples, religions… everything that a group of people use to make up their lives. It’s just how you do things.”
“Why… Why would you have such a name?”
“Ah, well. My people like to give names for every tiny little thing even if it only differs by a single atom. Too many people want their name on something.”
“Huh?”
“Well, never mind that. Anyway. If you don’t like my jokes…”
“Oh… no… I… I apologize, master Joe. I am just, distracted… um worried… I know you are a strong warrior and I should not be worried. I apologize for doubting you as well, but there are two legendary creatures in that room right there. We could easily die!”
Joe smiled and grunted out a laugh, “Yeah. I guess you’re right. It could very easily kill us. We’d die in a second, but you don’t have to worry. With something like this, you just need careful planning and you’re safe! Even if the spark gets away from its star stake, it can’t get to us. That blocks it,” Joe nodded to the wall of star stakes between them and the room with the legendary sparks. “Besides, worrying doesn’t help any either.”
“So, you… you are not confident?”
“I’m so confident that I’m willing to try it again. Plus, I actually have a backup plan now. We were in a lot more trouble the last time we tried this. Oh, hey… listen,” Joe leaned towards Garnedell and lowered his voice. “We can’t do this all the time! The city reacts too badly to it. But there might be a couple times that I’ll want to do this, so… we’ll see. Um? If we do this another four or five times, what will happen?”
“Uh… they may shut down the dungeon, or station a significant Dragon’s Spear force here to react quickly.”
“Oh… then they’d run in here and find us?”
“They’d try to head deeper, first. But they’d turn around as soon as they made it to the second floor. They would feel the presence of the legendary diminish. They would return and scour the first floor.”
“What would happen if they found us?”
“Um… the great Clans would seek us out? Maybe recruit us. Several of the greater adventure leagues or fellowships would likely seek us out as well. The noble of this city would likely invite us and wish to ennoble us, or you, hoping to tie you to the city. Everyone would seek you out to tie you to themselves.”
“Right… that sounds like a really bad idea. OK. Last time we do this! Um… any advice for what we should do right now?”
“Wait a good twenty minutes or so before we exit? Maybe let a couple adventurer groups pass us first?”
Joe nodded, “Smart… sounds like a good … Oh… hey. Looks like they’re dead.”
Joe and Garnedell stood at the sound of an electrical scream of death. Peering through the forest of iron, Joe found one of the sparks seem to twist in agony, an utterly strange and foreign sight to Joe. How does ball lightning feel, anyway? Joe watched a bit, fascinated, and was able to catch the moment when the second spark also entered its death throes; a strange warping of its body that twisted it in a direction that his eye didn’t seem to want to follow. It was quite a strange.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
With the fall of the last spark, the room silenced and the light dulled to the normal steady glow that the first floor dungeon gave. Joe pushed aside the stack of star stakes and went into the room. The heat from the star stake radiated hot enough that Joe actually had to wait for several minutes before being able to snake his hands through the feet of the star stake to keep from burning his arms. Huh… how come the cores are still so cool? Joe considered, seeing the super-heated iron star stake actually giving of a very dull red light but the cores were cool to his hand even as he slipped them in his core pouch. Wanting things to be cleaned up quickly so they could be on their way, Joe found himself a bit stymied about what to do. This is going to take a while! Joe thought for a minute, then poured some of their water down the iron spikes, cooling them quickly, but still found it hot to the touch. I’m not going to be able to bring enough water to cool them off like this all the time! I’ll just have to save the water for when I want legendary sparks.
“Well, Garnedell, why don’t we head back and clear our way back while we wait for this star stake cool.”
“Sure, Joe.”
The two took up their remaining star stakes and headed back, finding that the sparks were starting to repop already. They made it to the next room to find the whole room awash with them. Joe considered for a moment and realized they didn’t have enough to clear out the room. They would also end up having another two pop up behind them in another few moments as well. Need to keep two so we can clear our way back to the last one.
“Alright, kid. Let’s use seventeen of the stakes here. We’ll need two for the other two that pop up behind us, right? There are two more that come back between us and the other room, right?” Joe asked as he pointed back the way they’d come.
Garnedell quickly nodded, “Yes. I remember there were two in this corridor. It is a shorter corridor.”
“Sounds good. Let’s wipe these ones out then head back. Hopefully the stake we used against the legendaries will cool enough be the time these ones die.”
Joe and Garnedell wandered the room, burying sparks in their death traps. They were able to start killing all but three before they headed back, each holding on to the remaining two stakes with their wooden shafts through the stake loops. They had the wooden shafts buried into the loops all the way up to their hands to make the weight distribution easy until they came upon the sparks in the corridor. Dropping off the first stake, Joe killed the first, and Garnedell took care of the second. Now it was a matter of waiting for a good ten minutes or so. They made it back to the room and found that the stake had cooled significantly, but still radiated enough heat that Joe could feel it a couple inches away.
“We need to wait another couple minutes for the sparks behind us to die anyway, let’s give this one a bit more time to cool off.”
“Yes, Joe.”
Joe nodded to Garnedell’s reply and decided to open up his stats. How much did I level! Joe’s excitement almost made him rub his hands with glee, but he held himself back, quite certain that Garnedell wouldn’t understand at all. When he looked at what his job had made it to, his grin was downright evil scientist. Haha! Twenty nine! Yes! This seems to be the best way to level. In fact, I should just go to each of the six rooms and round everything up in the room and just leave them all there to die! I’ve got enough star stakes to do it! Greed overwhelmed Joe a bit but then he calmed himself down, realizing it would bring quite a bit of unwanted attention. Not something he was really looking forward to. He knew too little and had too little time to waste on politics. When his year was up, he would be as weak as any basic commoner. Even the most basic of combat jobs like Garnedell’s adventurer could easily overwhelm him. At best, he just might be able to poorly defend himself. Joe’s excitement gave way to a sigh as he realized that despite his wonderful gains for today, they were predominantly useless since the gains were all in his mental stats, which he had now long exceeded. The only really good thing he got was his learning. Even has doubt began to set in, he flipped open his available jobs and glanced through them, counting how many he’d managed to level.
He was quite shocked to realize he’d only leveled up thirty five jobs. The last few days of a job each day had spoiled him, and he expected quite a bit more. Huh… I guess I’m not doing too bad. The plan was a hundred jobs to level ten so that even the crappiest jobs would, with the ten percent, give me one stat point for a total of a hundred base for all my stats. I’m not doing too bad! I’m ahead even on my weakest combat stats. They should only be thirty five, but, I think they’re about forty now? And anyway, I’m doing a job a day and I’ve got over two hundred days left. That gives me another four thousand points per stat even with the crappiest of jobs. That should put even the worst of my stats close to two hundred. Joe’s melancholy shifted to hopeful determination as he realized that he really was still on track, and even ahead since his original goal was simply to achieve the average of one hundred. If his learning stats could hold up with his other horrible jobs, he could get a hundred fifty jobs to level fifteen or twenty instead of his original goal of only ten. That should give him a boost of another two twenty five to three hundred base stats points added to what he already had now. He would have a significant boost.
Whistling with a satisfied smile on his face, Joe turned to head out the dungeon, “Alright kid. I think we’ve been here long enough. The stake should be cool enough. Let’s clear the rest of the sparks on the way out and get out of here. Alright?”
Garnedell’s smile was much larger than before, a greater sense of confidence and ease radiating from him in a way Joe could only assume meant that he was a lot more comfortable fighting the tough monsters. A nod of his head accompanied his reply, “Yes, Joe.”
“We’ll just stop to make sure others have headed out before us, OK?”
“Yes, Joe,” Garnedell replied with an even greater smile.