Vince's Class Schedule
Leveling (with guide) - “Dungeon 1 E”
Leveling (without guide) - Guide’s choice
Spell Practice - “Classroom 5”
History of Laria - “Classroom 8”
Dungeon Diving - “Classroom 10”
End Mid-Afternoon
The next morning, Saphira and I found ourselves in our first dungeon. Memories of MMORPGs, slaying dragons, questing for loot, and giant raid fights caused me to smile as I entered the portal. I forgot, for the briefest of moments, about “grinding”.
Trees surrounded me as I blinked the harsh sun from my eyes as my pupils adjusted to the light. I was in a forest, very similar to the one I had found myself in when I first arrived at Laria. A status window popped up.
A rat infestation has found itself in a neighboring village’s forest! The woodcutters are from a low level village, unable to deal with their scourge of vile rats! Kill 10 rats, and slay the Rat Queen!
Jesus, pretty dramatic for some damn rats.
“Morning.” A soft-spoken female voice spoke behind me. A woman, wearing a red uniform unlike my own, stood before me. Rings covered all her fingers but her thumbs, and her storage bracelet was decorated with different stones and gems.
“Uh… morning. I suppose you’re my guide?” I asked. Murdock had explained to me that a student in their last three months of school would watch my first dungeon run, and determine if I could hold my own, or if I needed more training first.
“Yes.” She answered shortly.
“Okay…cool.” I replied awkwardly. A quick analyze showed that her name was Jessenia, but all other information was hidden from me. “Any advice for this dungeon? I suppose you have run it before, right?”
“No advice. Pretend I’m not here.” she said dismissively.
“Really? No help at all?” She was turning out to be a sub-par dungeon guide so far.
As if reading my mind, “Guide is a bit misleading. I’m here to make sure you can handle yourself on your own in a beginner's dungeon. Giving you all the answers would defeat my purpose.”
“Alrighty then, thanks for making sure I don’t die, I guess.”
She nodded. “Of course, I have only had one wizard die on my watch before, so we should be fine.” she answered evenly. I turned my head toward her, expecting a grin at her joke. She wasn’t grinning.
“Awesome.” I muttered to myself. I looked toward Saphira, who was at my side, sniffing the air and gazing around the forest. “Smell some rats?” I asked.
“Yes. This way, I believe.”
I followed behind Saphira, our footsteps echoed slightly as small leaves and branches snapped beneath our feet. The only way we were sneaking up on any rats was if they were deaf. As it turns out, they weren’t.
“One is coming!” She said eagerly in my head, her hunter’s instinct kicking in as she grew excited about the fight. I was a little nervous, but having played MMORPGs plenty of times, I wasn’t too worried about a low-level rat killing me. Plus, we had Jessenia, and she had only let one wizard get murdered on her watch. I should have asked what the exact ratio was of her alive students versus dead were…
A rat exploded through the bushes 50 feet in front of us, and my anxiety kicked up a notch. Not the kind of rat I was thinking I would see.
Giant Bile Rat
Level - 3
Disposition - Anger
Analyze showed he wasn’t too far behind me in levels, but the most frightening thing about it was what the beast looked like. It was at least the size of a golden retriever, with patches of fur missing and a green liquid oozing from cuts along its body and mouth. The rat had an enormous overbite, with six teeth poking out from its lips that resembled more like snake fangs than rat teeth.
Saphira reacted immediately, sending a Lightning Bolt right at the beast just mere moments after he landed. Her cast time was one second, so she must have begun casting right as she saw the monster.
The lightning traveled faster than I could see, which wasn’t surprising since it IS fucking lightning, and the spell struck the beast straight on.
Saphira deals 25 damage!
The rat was knocked back a few feet, and gave a shiver as it shook off the feeling of being electrocuted. Saphira has already begun sprinting toward the rat, and leaped over the beast, landing on the other side. They begun a small dance as they snarled and circled each other, but Saphira was careful to keep the rat in my direct line of sight.
“Vince!” Saphira shouted in my head. I realized I was watching with my jaw hung open, as I saw my companion in action, wrapping my head around the situation. This was another moment where my old memories served as a hindrance. I had gotten used to fighting, but being introduced to my first monster fight had caused me to freeze at the crazy fictional scenario being played out as my new life.
“On it!” I replied quickly as I cast Flaming Daggers on the rat. Although it was my first time casting the spell, Laria’s weird-ass memory probe made me feel like I had cast the spell several dozen times before, perfecting the motion and the feeling of the mana within myself.
My fake-wizard book flew out from my storage ring and flapped open, glowing slightly. My mana took shape, and I extend my arm like I was throwing a physical dagger toward my foe. The mana turned hot and a flamed shape dagger erupted from my extended arm, three projectiles flew toward the rat in a span of half a second.
You deal 8 damage!
You deal 8 damage!
You missed!
As the daggers slammed into the rat, it made an instinctual lunge to the side as it narrowly avoided the last dagger. It was curious to see the daggers plunge into the beast, only to see them disappear as quickly as they entered the animal.
Thankfully, Saphira had seen the daggers and had shifted slightly to avoid any wildly thrown magic. The burning weapon flew just over her left shoulder, but she leaped at the advantage my attack had caused. She swiped her massive paws at the rat with two quick swipes as she balanced lightly on her two hind legs.
Saphira deals 5 damage!
Saphira deals 5 damage!
Giant Bile Rat has died!
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You earned 30 experience.
The rat flew a few feet from the force of her swipes, and blue mana began to trickle out of the beast as it disappeared in front of my eyes. In its place was a small blue mana particle that looked similar to the ones that had shot inside of us during our orientation.
“Our loot.” Saphira commented, seeing my puzzled expression as I examined the blue orb. I approached it and now remembered what I had learned about looting from one of the history books. I mentally probed at the object to open.
8 copper received! Deposited into your storage bracelet.
I let out a mock whistle. “Wow, eight copper, rolling in it now.”
I small chuckle from my guide, and I shot her a quick glance, her smirk disappeared just as quick as it came. “See? I knew there was a personality in there somewhere.”. She rolled her eyes.
Saphira padded over to me and gave a very disappointed stare.
I sighed and spoke aloud “Yeah yeah, I know.”
She exhaled forcefully and said, “Why did you delay?”
A quick glance over my shoulder at the guide found her not interested at all in our post-battle rundown, I thought back to her, “From my world, well, killing things was uncommon for most people.”
She blinked in astonishment. “You never had to slay a beast from Earth?”
“Uh, some people did slay beasts for food and for sport, but I never did anything of the sort. The closest thing in this world you would relate to would be that I had a merchant class. I sold things for a living.” I shrugged. “Just need to get used to this new normal.”
She nodded in return, but added “Just… learn quickly, please.” She added the please half-a beat later, trying not to admonish me too much.
Our next few fights went a little bit better, we figured out they must have had just around 50 HP each, based upon the fact that some damage totals being just under fifty wouldn’t outright kill them. With our current spells, it was pretty easy to track them down one at a time and team up on them.
That is, until the last two rats Saphira sniffed out were grouped together, and had heard our approach. They were in the middle of a flat clearing within the forest, and us, just emerging from the treeline. The rats were about 25 feet in front of us, and as soon as we saw them, they saw us too.
“Shit!” I said quickly to Saphira. “Focus the one on the left!”
Saphira shot her lightning bolt directly at the first one, and I followed up with my flaming daggers. My first one missed, still not used to the slight knockback my partner’s ability created, as the dagger hit just in front of the rat. My next two found their target, however.
Saphira deals 25 lightning damage!
You miss!
You deal 8 damage
You deal 8 damage
Up until this point, if I landed all three daggers, it was an easy win as we waited out my burn damage over the next few seconds to finish up the last few hit points. If I missed though, Saphira would take control and play bully for the last bit of damage. She never even got hit, being slightly faster than her adversaries.
As the undamaged rat approached her, she found herself in a battle with a fully healthy enemy, much different than her earlier fights. She hit the rat with two paw strikes, and let her guard down for a brief moment after they connected, having been used to that finishing the fight, or at least knocking the animal down.
The rat attacked back, taking the hits, and plunged his fangs into the upper part of her leg where it connected to her chest.
Rat deals 10 piercing damage to Saphira
Saphira is poisoned!
“Saphira!” I shouted, and ran toward the other rat before she interrupted me.
“I’m fine! Finish the damaged one!”
With a grunt, I changed my trajectory toward the downed rat who had managed to stand back up and begin running toward my mana beast.
“HEY!” I shouted, trying to get the rat’s attention. It turned it’s head, saw me waving my arms like a lunatic, and changed course to head toward me.
I had about six more seconds until I could cast my spell again, so I instead cast Enhance and felt the rush of mana again. I hadn’t tried it since my stats increased, and I found that it was much easier to control my mental and physical changes now that the boost in power was not quite as big of a jump.
I now was faster than any human could ever dream of being on Earth, and I made it to the rat a lot quicker than I had expected. Having no time to slow my momentum or think of my next plan, I lowered my shoulder and planted it into the rat’s chest, just as it sank some of it’s teeth into her upper back.
You deal 6 damage!
You take 8 piercing damage
You are poisoned!
Being poisoned instantly made me lose my concentration with Enhance, grabbing my wound with my left hand instinctively. I pulled my hand away and noticed very little blood, and that the wound was much smaller than what I figured the fang should have done. I remembered reading that Laria based the physics of your wound based upon the amount of damage it does, usually.
I felt my heart beating heavily as I noticed my health bar turn a sickish red-green, and my hitpoints dropped by one every second. The debuff timer showed it would last for thirty seconds, so I wasn’t in a hurry to have Saphira cast Mend on me.
A roar brought my attention toward her, finding Saphira in a jumbled mess with the rat, each clawing and biting at one another. My damage feed was littered with different damages being done by one another. I brought my attention back to my opponent, who I knew was on its last bit of damage left. Not wanting to waste my spell, I rushed the animal.
As it came toward me, it leaped into the air, trying to go after my face. I instinctively did a baseball slide, legs first, and kicked upward at the rat, which flipped it over on it’s back.
Rat takes 4 damage
Rat has died!
“Saphira, move!” I shouted as I waited for half a beat before casting flaming daggers. Since it was an instant cast, I needed to time it right so I didn’t hit her. Having gotten used to each other’s commands over the last eight fights, she trusted me immediately and disengaged, costing her a swipe or two of the rats pointy claws.
My daggers flew true, and all three landed on the target, causing 24 damage and leaving my target burning. Saphira then did her best to focus the attention of the rat, dodging this way and that way, while letting my spell do its work. A short time later, we could breathe easily.
Rat has died!
You have leveled up!
Saphira has leveled up!
I rushed over to Saphira, as she was immediately casting mend on herself, while I cast droplet of healing that came from my index finger, like water from a shower dripping down my arm. She licked it up eagerly, getting the relief from the spell.
A grunt escaped my lips. “Any chance mend has a small cooldown?”
“No… It is three minutes. I’m sorry, I should have used it on you first.” she answered guiltily.
“Absolutely not, you took that rat head-on like a badass!” I answered back proudly. I gave her a quick pet and scratch behind the ears. “Seriously, all good.”
She purred and nudged my hand, asking for more pets. I’d have to remind Amanda that she produced this attention-loving monster.
After a few minutes of healing up, we decided to have Saphira scout quietly to find the Rat Queen and report back. I wanted to get a new spell, and assign her latest skill point, but I wanted to know what could help us the most with this final boss fight. I was leaning toward getting every base spell at the minimum, so I could see how the spells branched from there. Plus, after Saphira had explained base spells evolve well into a good, low cooldown spell, I figured it would be best to get them all before I focused on which branches I would focus my attention on.
A few minutes later, Saphira came padding back. “She is several times the size of the rats earlier, but I can’t tell how fast she is. She hasn’t moved, but she looks very strong… and very venomous.”
I looked over her stats, and put her point into agility, trying to keep her advantage of speed. I looked at my spells and decided to go with Murky Ooze, reducing my opponent's movement speed by 50 percent for three seconds. If the rat was slow, great, I’ll make it slower. If it was fast, that extra three seconds might help get Saphira and me away to safety to reset.
I looked toward my mana beast and nodded. “Let’s go kill us a boss monster.”