Among the scattered bones and rags blanketing the base of the staircase ahead, a hefty chest emerged and flipped its lid. Jack and Torick readied their daggers, but instead of a new foe, a bound scroll floated into the air, stopping just a few feet in front of them, its edges shimmering with purple light.

It hovered for a few moments before Jack instinctively tapped it. The scroll unraveled, and Jack read its words.

You have entered a dungeon!

Dungeon type: Tower

Dungeon Quest: Tempering the Tower

Objective: Defeat the tower's trials and end its master.

Reward(s):

Staff of Conjuring OR Wand of Conjuring

5x Potion of Basic Healing

Schematic: Potion of Basic Healing

22x Gold Coins

Note: Dungeons of any kind cannot be departed until outcome [Success] or [Failure] has been achieved.

‘Success or failure,’ Torick spoke, reading the scroll carefully. ‘Success meaning we depart with the rewards, and failure meaning that we depart dead. Dungeons do not play well with adventurers.’

‘Wait, you can see this too?’

‘Indeed I can. Dungeons existed back in my world, Jack. It appears to be bestowing a quest upon us.

Jack quickly considered the situation. This was the first time that both he and a member of the group could see an element of the system.

And then there was the overlapping nature of the previous quest he had received:

Quest: A Mage’s Purpose

Objective: Help Torick reach the top of the tower.

Reward: Receive the perk [Dialog Prompt]

Quickly it made sense: objectively they were both separate quests. Helping Torick get to the top of the tower via A Mage’s Purpose was a companion quest, while Tempering the Tower was an entirely separate quest specific to the dungeon.

Either way, he and Torick would gain double-XP for largely accomplishing the same task.

But he had to wonder: if he hadn’t almost abandoned Torick in his mad quest, would the system have even given him the companion quest in the first place?

Can the system read my mind? If I play hard-to-get with every crucial turning point will that motivate the system to incentivize me? Or will it know that I’m pretending not to care?

Already he was wondering how much free will he had in this place. He would have to keep a watchful eye on it.

But still, double XP? He couldn’t argue with that deal.

Not that arguing was even an option, of course.

There was no point in debating whether they were going to accept the quest or not, and it wasn’t just because of Torick’s determination to acquire a staff through which to channel his magic.

Behind them, the dull, white-noise drumming of the kobolds was strong against the tower’s door. The fiends wouldn’t be able to enter until Jack and Torick were done with the quest.

‘Even if we succeed in completing the tower, we still have to head back outside and face those lovely folks,’ Jack frowned sarcastically. ‘How are we going to fend them off?’

‘Once I have my staff, it won’t be a problem,’ Torick replied confidently.

‘I thought you said that you struggled to control your magic.’

‘I do, but against enemies that is sometimes a strength.’

No choice. They had to persist onwards.

Jack tapped Accept. The scroll wound itself back up tightly and plunged into the chest. The lid slammed closed and slid aside, granting them passage up the tower’s first flight of stairs.

‘One question,’ Jack spoke. ‘Are we sure that daggers and a bow alone are going to be enough to get us through this?’

‘That is not all we have upon our sides,’ Torick smiled optimistically.

‘You can still use some of your magic without a staff?’ Jack asked hopefully.

‘No – we have fate on our sides.’

Jack sighed.

‘Well, I guess there’s that.’

Even if Torick’s Magic skill score stood at an impressive 14, that didn’t mean the gnome was competent with it. The Magic point only pertained directly to the extent of the power that he could conjure.

But he was one of the group, and Jack needed him.

Exchanging a nod, Jack and Torick started up the staircase, followed it right as it snaked along the tower’s circular wall and arrived at the first floor.

The circular, open-plan room possessed shelves that covering every inch of the walls, stacked with a hefty combination of books, vials and herbs of dozens of varieties.

The one thing they all had in common were their movements; like paper birds on invisible strings, the items moved about along straight pathways, sliding onto patches upon shelves just as other items vacated where they landed.

In the center of the room a lone potion table resided, upon which laid just two items: a cauldron and a piece of parchment.

Jack and Torick checked the room for potential traps but could see none.

‘No way out,’ Torick frowned. ‘Where are the stairs?’

‘There’s our way out,’ Jack replied, wagging his finger at the round hole in the ceiling ten yards overhead. ‘The only question is how we get up there.’

They checked the room for any immediate threats before starting into it. As they reached the potion table, the parchment on the table unraveled and hovered before them.

Convergence Cauldron

Compose the Potion of Gentle Levitation to escape the first floor

Advice: Read labels carefully.

Advice: Be mindful of vermin.

Advice: Only take what you must, or bubbles bursting shall bring unwanted visitors.

Combine the following ingredients, bring to a simmer and drink:

Lion’s Bane

Elderglow Blossom

Wisproot

‘So no stealing any resources from this place,’ Jack said. ‘The dungeon is evidently smart to have that covered.’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

‘No, look closer,’ Torick said, wagging his finger at lines 3-5. ‘Those aren’t instructions, they’re advice. If we follow those suggestions, the dungeon will likely be easier to complete. We are permitted to steal whatever we would like from here for our own personal use, though doing so may make our task more difficult.’

‘Difficult how?’ Jack asked.

‘That’s for us to find out, but… I mean, there is a reasonable chance that we shall die in here anyway. Why not take everything that isn’t bolted to the ground?’

Jack wanted to argue, but at the end of the day he was the one who had followed Torick. It was his choice.

‘Let’s focus on completing the challenge,’ he resolved, ‘then we can shift our focus to any useful herbs and potions. You got any experience blending potions before we start?’

‘Yes, actually. Having lived in the forest on my own for so long, I had to find solutions by which to make my own way. But I have never heard of this before.’

‘Hold up a second – what about the other two pieces of advice?’

‘What about them?’

‘Did you seriously only pay attention to the one that said you can’t steal anything?’

‘I told you Jack, I lived in the forest. I may not be a scavenger at heart, but I know how to do just that.’

‘That makes sense. Read labels carefully – we need to make sure we don’t use the wrong ingredients.’

‘Alchemy rule number one,’ Torick nodded.

‘Then there’s Be mindful of vermin. This floor takes the form of an ancient apothecary, and if it’s ancient, then we’re not alone.’

‘The damn dungeon is taunting us.’

‘Then let’s get it done before it has any more of a chance to mess with us.’

Jack and Torick immediately took to the shelves, working their way over the hundreds of disorganized stray ingredients.

Dozens of names met Jack’s eyes; when it became hundreds he ignored the prospect of trying to remember their names, simply scanning the herbs and vials for any sign of what they needed.

‘This would be much easier if those vials weren’t moving of their own volition,’ Torick said.

‘Ain’t that the truth.’

Finding nothing at the ground level, Jack set aside his bow, quiver and satchel and took to climbing the shelves of the tall bookcase, scanning the rows as he went.

Suddenly he found it. Lion’s Bane.

But it wasn’t a vial or a herb – it was written over the spine of a book.

Jack steadied his feet and slid the book from the shelf. He tipped it open and found the book to be hollowed out, containing a vial of glowing orange liquid with the label tied around the lip.

‘Lion’s Bane,’ he smiled, pocketing the vial in his back pocket and moving to snapping the book shut. ‘Gotcha.’

He moved to return the book to its place on the shelf, but something obstructed his path.

And it wasn’t another book.

‘BLAARRR!!!’

‘WOAH!’

A tiny blue creature leaped out and screamed in Jack’s face with a high-pitched wail.

Down was inevitable, but how he landed wasn’t.

Jack turned in the air and landed hard on his front, sending surges of pain up his arms.

Jack loses 3HP.

But the vial of Lion’s Bane was safe in his back pocket.

Be mindful of vermin.

Suddenly it made a whole lot more sense.

The creature leaped from the shelf and landed next to Jack, immediately scrambling for his back pocket. It stood no more than a foot-tall, a wiry, purple-skinned creature with sharp, gnashing teeth and insane eyes.

Being: Sprite

HP: 8/10

Nature: Aggressive

Consumes: Anything

Jack swiftly drew his dagger, rolled over, raised the blade and threw himself forwards.

The dagger sliced straight through the top of the sprite’s head, puncturing its skull with a ripping crunch. He pried the dagger from the floor and found the sprite’s body still clinging to the blade; with a messy shake it slid away and fell limply to the floor with a thud, leaking green blood over the floorboards.

Another window suddenly flashed before him:

Being: Sprite – Knowledge update!

Weakness: Iron, Natural Fire

Kill one of its kind, and the system would provide Jack with details of the being’s weaknesses.

That was useful.

Even more useful was that these things possessed both low HP and a weakness to the very thing his dagger’s blade was made from.

‘That’s one,’ Jack grunted, pushing to his feet and retrieving the vial from his back pocket.

‘And another!’ Torick shouted over from his shelf four yards off the ground. ‘Elderglow Blossom. It’s in herb form and the leaves will need picking from the stalks, but- WAHH!!!’

Torick suddenly fell from the shelf. Jack watched in disbelief as his gnome companion tilted forwards in mid-air deliberately aiming his head towards the ground.

Torick landed skull-first with an oof and a thud so harsh that Jack cringed.

Torick loses 8HP.

A sprite identical to Jack’s landed on the ground before Torick and snarled wildly.

Before Jack had a chance to reach the sprite, Torick scrambled to his feet, shook off his dazed state and drew his daggers, spinning them deftly between his fingers.

‘Make yourself scarce, pixie!’

The pixie spun around and leaped at Torick. The gnome swept his daggers fiercely before him in a twin-swipe, taking off the pixie’s head clean from its body and sending both sliding into the corner, carried by its leap.

‘Did you just deliberately land on your head?’ Jack asked in disbelief.

‘I told you,’ Torick groaned, blinking wildly as he shook off the last of his daze. 'Gnomes possess remarkably tough heads.'

Jack found the last of the herbs, wisproot, in a dime-a-dozen container. Ironically it was the most common of them all, but it had been the hardest to come across.

Another sprite emerged ready to attack, but this time he was ready.

With a swift jab, Jack speared the pixie straight between its huge eyes. Its body went rigid, and he scraped it off within the shelf before descending with the final herb.

‘Excellent,’ Torick smiled, adding it to the cauldron. ‘Now all we have to do is wait for it to boil, and we can get out of here.’

‘In the meantime, let’s take whatever we can from here,’ Jack opined returned to the shelves. ‘There are plenty of herbs around here that we could use.’

The nature and the use of the herbs right now didn’t mean a whole lot – all the duo cared about was acquiring as much as they could.

They had the basics: meat, water and an endless source of fire.

Farming was Jack’s next priority, but right now as many resources as they could hoard wouldn’t go amiss.

The only problem was the pixies. If he went prying herbs and vials off of shelves, an army of pixies would soon be heading his way in response.

Alone they weren’t much trouble, but then again, the same could be said for everything.

A duck wasn’t much trouble on its own. A thousand ducks, on the other hand, could certainly be classed as a problem.

Jack scoured the shelves and pulled a bushel of something out. The blinking light alerting him to inspect the item appeared, but he ignored it.

Dagger at the ready, he waited for the next pixie – but nothing came.

‘Huh,’ he frowned, shoving the herbs messily into his satchel. ‘Where are you?’

He tried another herb, then a few vials. Still, no pixies emerged.

Before long he was heaping herbs into his satchel without the slightest care for what they were – all that mattered was getting as much as he could. Who knew when one would be of use?

‘How are we doing over there?’ Jack called over.

‘We’re doing just fine. Everything’s mixed and is over the fire. A few minutes and we’ll have a simmering concoction that will hopefully get us out of here. Any more sprites?’

‘Nope,’ Jack replied, ‘but plenty of herbs.’

‘It’s dungeon exploits like this that we need to take advantage of,’ Torick chuckled.

‘I’m kind of shocked that exploits even exist... Wait...'

The thought of the final piece of advice suddenly came hurtling back to him.

Only take what you must, or bubbles bursting shall bring unwanted visitors.

The second part made so little sense that he had barely considered it.

Suddenly it made a lot more sense.

Once the potion simmered, bubbles would burst – and that would bring the pixies.

Shit.

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the cauldron in the centre of the room just as it started to boil.

'We're almost ready!' Torick shouted happily, looking Jack's way before glancing over his head, his face falling with terror. 'Oh, for the sweet love of the Mighty...'

Jack turned back to the sight of dozens of pixies clambering out of the shelves.

The pixies all glanced between each other silently. All it took was a snarl from one, and-

‘NAARRRR!!!’

The rip-roaring chorus of squeals filled the room. Pixies hurtled into the air from all sides, landing hard on the wooden floorboards.

Jack raced back to the potion table as Torick scrambled onto it in a mad panic, hastily stirring the potion.

Jack drew his dagger as the pixie horde closed in. He gritted his teeth and slashed out madly before himself, sweeping the blade back and forth, cutting through lines of pixies.

Jack has achieved Dagger Proficiency – Level 3

HP counters flashed before him everywhere, but he swept them away as he circled with feverish ferocity around the table, keeping them at bay as best as he could.

But even when one seemed to fall from a lucky combination of attacks, another would take its place.

‘Uhh, Torick?!’ Jack shouted. ‘These things are small, but there are a lot of them!

Jack has achieved Dagger Proficiency – Level 4

No surprise with how many of these little jerks I’m taking down.

Jack left behind the swarms of pixies and dashed to the potion table. The dozens of pixies closed in from every direction.

Jack leaped onto the table and joined Torick, booting away pixies for 1-2 damage every time they clambered up the sides.

Torick tossed a ladle to Jack.

‘Don’t we have to use a vial for this?’

‘No time!’

They each took a ladle, dipped it into the potion and scooped a serving each.

‘Do we definitely know it’s right?’ Jack asked.

‘We don’t have much of a choice.’

‘Good point. Cheers.’

‘To your good health, Jack.’

Jack and Torick knocked their ladles together and swigged them back. The liquid was bitter with a faintly sweet aftertaste.

‘What happens n-’

Before Jack could get his question out, both he and Torick suddenly elevated from the surface of the table and floated into the air, hurtling towards the hole in the ceiling.

They ascended through the trapdoor into a darkened space, and the moment they were high enough, the trapdoor slammed shut.

Under the rules of the new room, the potion’s effects immediately wore off; they dropped heavily and struck the ground of the second floor, the tower’s next challenge awaiting.