The dummy was relentless. The soft cushioned impacts of its feet were all Patrick needed to hear to know it was right behind him. The damn thing was fast. Even with the new speed Patrick found he could move at, he just couldn’t shake it. Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he saw it was only feet behind him. The way it moved was so unnatural; its stubby rounded legs took tiny steps, but it just took so many of them. Its body was rigid, with arms held up in a boxer’s guard protecting its head as it continued to mercilessly pursue Patrick. It was around the fourth lap of the airship deck before it got close enough to throw out a jab and connect with the back of Patrick’s head causing him to stumble.
He turned to face the dummy, expecting it to continue the attack but it had stopped. It stood a few feet away from Patrick bouncing on its feet maintaining its guard before it snapped forward with another jab rocking Patrick's head back before he had a chance to block it. As he stumbled back a step, the dummy casually moved forward to maintain the space.
“Come on Patrick, give it a punch!” Marius’ voice called out across the deck.
A glance across showed Marius was now joined by Svenja, Grunt, and Ulman who were all watching him intently. Svenja turned her head to Ulman and muttered something, before nodding his head. She then turned to Grunt, who also nodded. All three of them took out coin purses and placed a stack of coins on the table.
“Patrick my fine fellow. A bet has been made by Svenja and Grunt that the dummy shall prevail. I have allowed them to increase the odds on the provision I can provide moral and tactical coaching support.” Ulman yelled across the deck.
The dummy jabbed forward again but Patrick managed to block. Even with his new Strength, he felt the impact shoot through his arms.
“You are a [Brawler] my fine fellow, nay a [Tank] or dare I say a [Masochist]. You best get on the offensive sooner rather than later lest I lose my 50 gold.”
Patrick scowled as he dodged a third jab from the dummy. It had thrown the same punch three times and wasn’t appearing to vary the attack at all.
This is a bloody novice dummy. Screw Grunt and Svenja for not thinking I can take it, thought Patrick as he mirrored the dummy’s stance.
Dodging a fourth jab, Patrick tentatively threw out a soft jab of his own that connected cleanly with the face of the dummy as he tried to circle around it. The dummy tracked him smoothly, not missing a step. How was the dummy even tracking him since it didn’t have eyes?
Magic. Of course. Patrick shook his head knowing he needed to stop trying to make sense of stuff that just didn’t make sense, or at least begin realising that things make sense in a nonsensical way.
A fifth jab was easily dodged, but this time Patrick turned his hips and countered it as hard as he could with a left hook before the dummy could retract its arm. This punch had a much bigger effect than before, as the dummy stumbled ever so slightly before regaining its footing.
Dodging a sixth jab, Patrick's confidence began to grow. It was at that moment, he felt all the air leave his lungs as the dummy struck with a ripping punch to his body. He doubled over wincing in pain just narrowly managing to avoid another punch from the dummy. The dummy seemed to have exited whatever warm up protocol it was in. Was it maybe because Patrick had begun fighting back?
“Patrick, you need to chain your strikes together to activate your Quick Flurry Skill.” Ulman suggested.
The dummy was still on the offensive, throwing jabs and hooks at what felt like every part of Patrick’s body. Whenever he tried to cover his head, it would target his body, and vice versa. The blows were beginning to wear Patrick down as he struggled to find any opportunity to get back into the fight. Memories flashed through his head from the Dungeon remembering when it felt like his body was moving on pure instinct to capitalise on the weaknesses of the Dungeon Boss, but now he felt heavy and slow.
The strikes from the dummy didn’t feel particularly strong. They definitely hurt, but apart from the one to the stomach that had caught him off guard, the individual punches seemed like blows that he might be able to take if it meant getting to trade with some of his own. Patrick endured another few strikes trying to get the timing down, and deliberately moved his left hand up to cover his head trying to invite the dummy to hit him in the body.
Taking the bait, the dummy unleashed a hook to Patrick’s ribs, allowing Patrick the opportunity to get a clean elbow to the dummy’s temple, throwing it off its rhythm. Following it up with a cross, he began to push forward continually throwing punches and elbows forcing the dummy back to the cheers of the group watching. The more strikes he consecutively landed, the lighter his arms felt, yet harder they seemed to hit. He took a leaf out of the dummy’s book trying to target areas the dummy wasn’t covering, and even though he was hitting something filled with straw, it felt satisfying hearing the thump of each hit.
Even the strikes that were glancing off the raised arms of the dummy, or the ones that didn’t connect cleanly seemed to be having more of an effect than expected. A particular punch that glanced off its chin caused it to stumble back, its head jerking to the side as if Patrick had connected cleanly. He could hear Ulman still yelling in the background, but the only thing that existed for Patrick at this point in time was the dummy, and he zoned Ulman out.
The dummy was unsteady on its feet, and Patrick relented for a split second to re-balance his stance. As soon as he stopped throwing punches, he felt the fatigue creep into his arms. The realisation dawned on him that Quick Flurry would only work as long as he kept throwing punches, and like the way a hangover is borrowing happiness from the next day, he would burn himself out if he wasn’t able to finish the fight quickly.
Not wanting the dummy to go on the offensive again, Patrick leapt forward. Feeling the fatigue in his arms, he gambled on using Second Wind, and felt fresh energy flow into him, he felt as good as he did before the fight. The dummy threw a punch, but knowing he could take it, Patrick tucked his chin as it collided with the side of his head and used his momentum to turn it into a headbutt on the dummy.
Patrick began tearing into the dummy’s body, losing focus on what punches he was throwing, knowing he needed to seek the knock-out punch. Eventually, the pressure rewarded Patrick with an opening as the dummy bent over after a particular gruelling body shot. Patrick twisted his body and put everything he had into a vicious uppercut to his opponent’s exposed head, lifting it off the ground and throwing it on its back. Knowing that he had to prove a point, he approached the dummy.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
It might have been two stomps on the head too many, but the life deflated out of the dummy as it lay crumpled on the ground. Patrick turned with his hands raised to Marius and Ulman who were cheering. Grunt just gave him a thumbs up and Svenja stood there with arms crossed, clearly unhappy about being twenty-five gold down.
“Haha, I did it! Take that, you stupid catapult dummy. Nobody throws me through the air and gets away with it.”
Grunt stepped forward cracking his knuckles.
“Except you Grunt, that’s what I meant. No one throws me through the air and gets away with it, except Grunt.”
“An excellent showing, looks like we can skip the stationary dummies after all! Let’s run it back. Novice dummy, your opponent is Patrick, selenda.”
No no no.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“I also want in on the bet this time. Twenty-five gold on Patrick but no more coaching.
----------------------------------------
Several hours later, Patrick was lying on a deck chair on the top deck of the airship holding a bag of ice to his eye, watching the others begin their training. His arm was trembling from exhaustion from the day as Marius had, for several reasons, insisted he go a number of rounds with the dummy.
Firstly, he claimed it was just to get Patrick used to sparring with the dummy.
Secondly, he wanted to get an idea of Patrick’s technique which he said was ‘sloppy’. Between each bout, he would offer advice and help him adjust his stance.
Thirdly, he wanted an idea about the cool down of Patrick’s Second Wind ability, which was available every ten minutes or so. The consensus amongst the group was that ten minutes was a fair time to say a fight was ‘over’ before the next fight could begin.
Next, he told Patrick that it was training for real life experience. Marius remarked that both life and Dungeons are very rarely one and done encounters, but a constant struggle with encounter after encounter, and Patrick would need to be able to rise to the occasion of each one.
Finally, Patrick just thought Marius got a bit of glee out of torturing him, and torturing Svenja about the gold he had won off her.
Marius only called it a day once Patrick began truly struggling to finish the fights with the dummy from exhaustion, with even his Second Wind ability no longer able to remove the burning fatigue from his arms. Patrick gladly collapsed into the deck chair that was offered to him and groaned as he hurt all over. At least he got to watch the others train, and it was interesting to see the different approaches.
Ulman sat off to the side, at a table surrounded by books and scrolls. He would frantically scribble into his personal notebook as he referred to the personal library around him before he fired a spell into the sky or at one of the dummies. The spells all looked the same to Patrick, and it was incomprehensible as to why Ulman would either sigh and shake his head, or excitedly hurry back to make notes in his book.
Svenja stood off to the side, firing at flocks of birds. Growing bored of direct strikes from hundreds of metres away, she began firing trick shots, shooting almost straight up in the air, causing arrows to rain down hitting the birds directly from above.
Grunt and Marius started their training separately. Grunt hit the weight section, pushing and pulling weights that Patrick just knew shattered any record on Earth. Grunt wasn’t even breaking a sweat despite. Marius on the other hand, was cycling through forms with a different assortment of weapons. He would flow from stance to stance as if sparring with invisible opponents, and once he seemed satisfied with the stance, would pick up a different weapon and repeat it all over again.
At an indiscernible cue, both of them stopped and met in the cage in the middle of the deck. Patrick couldn’t hear what they were discussing, but they both nodded in agreement. Marius took a training sword from the rack, while Grunt went in empty handed. Patrick couldn’t help when the cage rippled and expanded to three times its original size.
I have to stop getting surprised by magic. Of course, the magic fighting ring changes in size.
“Ah, just in time for the show to start,” Ulman approached with a bottle and a tray of glasses.
“Are they going to fight?”
“Oh yes. It is Marius’ obsession to beat Grunt. It will not be a true fight, but they will have agreed on rules along the lines that if Marius hits Grunt ten times, and doesn’t get hit in return, Marius wins. I believe the record is 34-0 for Grunt.”
“Marius hasn’t won once?”
“He has come close a few times, but alas I fear not. His ego may be unsustainable should he win.”
Ulman uncorked the bottle.
“What’s that in the bottle?”
“Ah, a fine vintage this is. This is an enchanted mead made from the hive of Star-bees.”
“Magic mead?”
“Enchanted mead. You will wake up feeling as fit as a fiddle in the morning. They say the more you drink, the less of a hangover you will have.”
Patrick took the glass offered to him and tried a sip. Ulman laughed at Patrick’s expression.
“An exceptional vintage. The complex layer of honey alongside what can only be described as the taste of sunshine. Exceptional indeed.”
It was one of the best things Patrick has ever tasted. He had tried mead before, but this was simply on a different level. Each sip warmed him in places he did not even realise needed to be warmed.
“Now watch, it is beginning. Care for a wager? Twenty-five gold that Grunt wins.”
Feeling left out from the gambling earlier, and a slight buzz from the mead, Patrick grinned.
“Deal.”
----------------------------------------
“I almost had him that time” bemoaned Marius.
Patrick was not sure exactly how close Marius had been to beating Grunt. He had scored a few hits by darting in and out and using Grunt’s size to his advantage, but eventually Grunt managed to grab his foot, and dangled him in the air until Marius conceded.
Marius was lying on the couch dramatically with one arm over his head, while his other hung off holding a tumbler glass that held some ice cubes and an amber liquid.
They had all moved downstairs to the living area of the airship. Each person claiming a couch to themselves. Ulman had broken out bottles of various drinks for individuals. Patrick and Ulman continued with the mead, while Grunt was holding a comically large bottle of wine. Even Svenja was lounging, drinking from a normal sized bottle of wine.
It was the first time since he had arrived in this world that Patrick felt the knot of stress and tension in his chest and back begin to loosen. He was incredibly thankful that the first group of individuals he had run into were so generous and had taken him in. He knew that he had only known them for a couple of days, but there was something genuine about them that made him feel safe. Well, safe might be the wrong word after having a dummy let loose on him, but as safe as he could be in the situation.
His thoughts drifted back to the book he was provided. He still couldn’t believe it was written by Amelia Earhart. She had written that it would be possible to return home once he levelled up enough, but he did not know how long that would take. A heaviness opened in his chest as his thoughts drifted back to his mum. She was inconsolable after his father had died, and now she was going to be worried sick about him.
Every Sunday he would go to hers for dinner, and every Sunday it was the same. Patrick would groan as she would fuss over him or make inappropriate comments. They would squabble over incredibly minor things, and she would nag him about items in his personal life. Every single time Patrick would feel the growing frustration, but by the end of the day when he would leave, it would all wash away as he hugged her goodbye, as she would confirm the plans for next Sunday.
He felt tears threatening to well up in his eyes as he thought about it. He needed to get back, or at least let her know he was alright.
You’re also probably going to miss work on Monday.
An errant thought broke through the grief that almost made him smile. His work was, well, work. It was an adequate job. He was well paid as a workplace investigator, but ninety percent of the job was just reviewing investigation reports. At work he was just ‘reliable Patrick.’ Never missed a day, but never stood out apart from his commendations for high accuracy with his reports.
“Hey, hey, Patrick, are you listening?” Marius’ voice broke through his thoughts.
“Oh, sorry. I was thinking of something else.”
His attention brought him back to seeing the group staring at him, and he casually wiped an eye to ensure no tears were visible.
“We asked what you were going to do with your share?”
“My share of what?”
“Oh, you really were not listening! Your share from the money we are going to get from providing the first guide to the new Dungeon!”
Patrick had not been listening. He must have zoned out for slightly longer than he realised. The last thing he had heard was Marius still lamenting another loss to Grunt.
“What do you mean getting paid for a guide to the Dungeon?”
For some reason, which got a laugh out of everyone, including Svenja who smirked.
“Oh, my sweet Wanderer child, I do keep forgetting you don’t have rudimentary knowledge of this world. I apologise for the lackadaisical approach we sometimes take to filling you in,” said Ulman.
“This world is covered by Dungeons, hundreds if not thousands of them spread all over. It is an exceptionally rare occurrence that a new one is found and is quite the talk of everyone when they do. The team who gets ‘World’s First’, as our newly acquired feats indicate, give us the privileged position of writing the first guide to the Dungeon, which we can provide to the Adventuring Guild for a hefty sum. Even better, is that each time a team buys the guide, we get a royalty from the purchase. Depending on the level of the Dungeon and its accessibility, it can quite literally set someone up for life.”
“Does that mean the Dungeons are the same every time you go into one? You can just learn how the Dungeon works?”
“To a point, but yes! The fundamental mechanics of the Dungeon will remain the same. Such as layout, foes inside, traps, and the Dungeon Boss. Higher level Dungeons may have a higher-level reactivity, as you would have seen from the previous Dungeon Boss adapting to Svenja’s arrows lodged in the wall. Lower-level Dungeons are slightly more static.”
“But doesn’t that mean someone can just run a Dungeon over and over again quickly?”
“Correct! It is the main source of levelling when they are open. A Dungeon you have never cleared before will grant higher experience and better loot the first time you run it. Teams will often plan their travel routes well in advance to clear as many different Dungeons as possible, for the best gains.”
“Except Speedrunners.” grumbled Marius.
“Ah, yes Speedrunners. They can be quite toxic depending on the groups you meet. They will instead focus on relevant Dungeons and aim to clear them in the quickest time, granting the ‘World’s Fastest’ feat for that specific Dungeon.”
“Most of them are also world’s fastest in a way that shouldn’t get celebrated.” murmured Svenja, resulting in a laugh from everyone. Patrick was stunned, had Svenja just made a joke?
“Alas, our hilarious Half-Elf is correct. They focus so much on levelling in that respect they probably do not have the time for interpersonal relationships.”
“Is there actually a quickest way to level?” asked Patrick thinking back to his need to get home.
Ulman sighed, pouring himself another drink.
“A topic of much debate. A fantastic argument was put forward by Zalur Grython that the fundamental aspect of levelling is the ability to-“
“No.” Svenja interrupted.
“What Ulman is going to say in a really roundabout way is that there isn’t,” Marius said as he sat up on the couch.
“There are three main groups who use different techniques. The first are known as ‘Purists’, which we are. We tackle as many different Dungeons as possible and vary our skills as possible. This allows us to theoretically level quicker, and we are more adaptable outside of Dungeons. The second are ‘Speedrunners’. As mentioned, they tackle the same few Dungeons over and over. It means they can clear them more often, but at reduced gains, and it also means they have extremely specific sets of Skills. The final group are ‘Passive Levellers’. Non-combat classes. [Merchants], [Guild Leaders], [Blacksmiths] and so on. They level outside of combat but at consistent rates.”
“And when the Dungeons aren’t open? The book I read yesterday said something about war, but it didn’t go into detail.”
Silence took over the room as the question was asked. The group all looked at each other waiting for someone else to speak.
Marius and Ulman both went to speak simultaneously, before gesturing to the other to speak.
“A war against a terrible evil. An unending wave of death and terror. The day the Dungeons close, a tireless evil pours forth with the singular goal to wipe us from this world. In a little less than four years, we shall use whatever levels we have gained to fight for our very existence against them,” muttered Ulman.
“Demons,” spat Marius.