Yenna lead him down path after path in a rush, before stopping within sight of an empty-looking house that stood a little bit closer to the wall than those around it. It was more than just that that marked it as their destination to Lucas. There were a couple kids--both old enough to have unlocked--standing guard just outside, trying to look inconspicuous.
"That's the place, right?" Lucas asked for clarification.
"Yeah," the girl confirmed, "that's the place."
"Feel like telling me what sort of danger Quinn is in, now?"
She held up her hand to pause him of a moment, as she caught her breath. Whatever Yenna was apprenticed to, he sincerely doubted the job called for a heavy investment in physical stats or Skills.
"It might be quicker to tell you," she finally said. "Then, maybe, you'd be able to get a guard here before anything happens."
"Why do I have to get a guard--why can't you?"
The girl seemed to wrestle with her sense of urgency and his questions before deciding to quickly answer Lucas. "I've tried. No guard will take it seriously, but you hang out with one of them, don't you? They'll listen to you," she started pulling him toward the house.
The two kids playing at guard noticed them a few moments after they walked out into the open. To their credit, they didn't leave their post and simply waited for Lucas and Yenna to approach. He took the chance to [Identify] them.
[Laborer]
[Laborer]
Once again, not the most helpful information. But the two of them looked old enough to have a few levels under their belt, and [Laborer]s generally invested in their body more than [Apprentice]s like Yenna. The only way he was entering the building was if they allowed it, but maybe the girl had a plan.
"What's the hermit boy doing here?" [Laborer] number one asked, clearly not directing the question at Lucas himself.
"He wanted to join in," Yenna told him, leaving Lucas to wonder what exactly he 'wanted to join in' on.
The two kids looked Lucas over appraisingly, then the one that spoke shrugged. "Ok. Head on in, I guess," he said while moving aside from the house's door. "Make sure he knows the rules, Yenna."
"I will." With that, their entry was clear and she started pulling Lucas along once more.
That was a lot easier than I thought. We didn't need to sneak in at all.
Lucas stared at the back of Yenna's head in mild suspicion. Sneaking into the building would have been better, if the plan was still to call in a guard later. That way no one would no who it was that exposed whatever was going on here. Did she not think it through, not care if kids later suspected him, or was he unwittingly walking into something else.
He wasn't left to worry for long, as their trip through the house and down into the basement was short and enlightening. They passed one or two kids on the way, though it was dark enough that he couldn't tell who, and took the deceptively long flight of stairs below the ground level. At the bottom, there was a stone loft lit up by hanging lanterns, with a railing on the far side that opened into a much darker and expansive cellar--from which many disquieting noises reached his ears. Between there and Lucas waited nearly a dozen kids, a few of which turned to take in the new arrivals.
An older girl left her place looking out over the railing and approached the two of them. She was much taller than everyone else present--more of a young woman than a girl, really--of a noticeably muscular build, and walked with a confident and purposeful gait. If she was a [Laborer], Lucas would eat his socks.
[Hunter]
Called it.
"Back already, Yenna?" The leader of this pack of kids asked her, though she was looking at Lucas the same way the two outside did. "And with a new contestant too."
Lucas suspected betrayal, but before he could say anything, Yenna leaned back and quickly whispered into his ear. "I'm sorry, but just play along--it's the only way I could think of to actually help Quinn."
Lucas hesitated for a moment, then gave a slight nod to show he understood.
Once she saw that, the girl turned to answer the [Hunter]. "He trains with a guard too," Yenna gestured at him, "and went through his System unlock a few days ago. I thought he'd do better than a pre-unlock kid."
"Who are you?" Lucas asked the young woman, tired of all the mysteriousness.
"Hermit boy wants to know who I am," she spoke with a bit of amusement, a few chuckles sounding out from the lackeys filling the room. "Well, I'm the boss around here--the name is Regan, but now that you're here, you will call me Boss." She stared at him as if in challenge, but for his part, Lucas hardly reacted at all to her arrogant proclamation.
"Look," he started, "I'm really just here looking for Quinn, I don't care what all this is at all. I'm busy, and need him for something."
"Ah, ah, ah, hermit boy. You haven't been tested, you can't leave yet! But if you really want to see Quinn," Regan turned to the side to make space and waved Lucas over to the railing, "go take a look."
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Whatever Lucas was being motioned toward, it caused Yenna to stiffen beside him. He'd had enough of the lack of explanations and if what lay beyond the railing would reveal things to him, Lucas had no problem following along for a moment. He left Yenna behind near the stairwell and pushed through the crowd. Regan moved back to block the way behind him as he passed, making it clear that leaving this basement would not be as easy as entering it.
Lucas saddled up to the railing, and all thoughts of the people around him and his eventual escape immediately left his mind. On the other side, the ground dropped nearly ten feet to an earthen floor and extended about twice the distance from his position to the stairwell. A small boulder rested at the far end, from which trailed a rusty chain of medium length fastened to the neck of one the cellar's occupants: a rabid, monstrous rat nearly half his size.
And arranged opposite the rat, with his back turned to the railing, was Quinn with a primitive wooden spear in hand.
Lucas understood what this all was now. These kids had made a pit arena and some genius, probably the self-proclaimed boss of this arena, had brought an actual monster down here. Someone was going to get themselves killed, and seeing who was closest to the danger, Lucas knew he had to do something.
Despite their conversation up on the loft, Quinn still hadn't noticed Lucas's presence. From the state the boy had shown up at his house in the previous night, he could hardly blame him; this thing was probably what put him in that state in the first place, and anyone that went through that sort of thing would develop a more than healthy wariness of its cause. What Lucas could blame him for, however, was his apparent stupidity. Why the fuck did he return to this place after yesterday?
As Lucas watched, the boy advanced on the monster and took a thrust at its side. Even through its mania, the rat displayed a concerning level of intelligence by staying near its boulder, where the chain still had plenty of room to extend, and luring Quinn in. It easily lunged past the boy's thrust and attempted to sink its teeth in him. Quinn caught the creature's jaws with the shaft of his spear but was pushed to the ground by its heavy weight.
"Looks like you'll get your turn sooner than I thought," Regan said from over his shoulder.
Lucas didn't waste any more time and swung his body under the railing, hanging on to the edge of the loft before dropping down. He'd seen a slanted, wooden ladder leading down but this way was faster. He found a small pile of various wooden imitations of weapons at the bottom and snatched one at random, his hand coming up with a short sword. It wasn't a spear, but in his rush Lucas decided he'd make do.
He dashed toward the monstrous vermin and his fallen friend. Shouts rang out from above him but Lucas was far too focused to make out what words were spoken. Besides, he had officially abandoned all considerations of what they wanted. He'd deal with the consequences shortly.
Quinn's struggle was not looking good under the rat's rapid assault, but Lucas arrived before anything truly consequential could happen. He didn't slow his sprint in the slightest when he finally arrived, instead throwing himself back so that he crashed into the monster feet first. A strike from the wooden sword might have succeeded in freeing Quinn as well, but this way the rat was thrown back and stunned, giving the two boys time to get up and back away. Unfortunately, the sudden force also ended up snapping Quinn's spear in two.
"Lucas?" Quinn appeared a bit stunned. "What are you doing here?"
"Saving you, clearly. Come on, we need to get out of here."
The boy shook himself as he came to his senses, looking first at Lucas, then the rat that was just starting to get up, his new staves, then back at Lucas. "I'm not going."
"What do you mean, you're not going?" Lucas asked somewhat dumbly.
"Now that you've unlocked, you're going to pull ahead of me," he said, as if that explained anything. "This is how I keep up."
Of all the misguided, stupid reasons to put yourself in danger...really??
Then again, Lucas also understood his friend's attitude completely. He had, after all, been doing something similar when he tampered with his mana currents. He'd be a hypocrite if he tried to tell Quinn off for his actions now.
The world would not wait for the two boys to come to some kind of consensus, however, and the shouts Lucas was ignoring were getting louder. Just then, a discordant shriek filled the air, immediately followed by the rat's squeal of triumph. Everyone currently occupying the basement moved their attention over to the boulder in horror, to see the monster now free--its chain snapped a little less than halfway to its anchor.
"I changed my mind," Quinn broke the sudden silence, "it's time to leave."
"Go, I'll be right behind you."
Quinn ran off without any further encouragement and Lucas was left with a choice to make. He needed to stall so that everyone could get out of here and in his current state, his ability to do so wasn't looking very optimistic. That's why in the moment the rat left its celebration and turned toward him, Lucas quickly opened up his status and dumped his free stat points into the distribution he'd decided on: 13 into WIS and INT, nine into VIT and DEX, and six into STR.
[Lucas]
[Free Stats: 0]
[HP: 220/220]
[MP: 330/330]
[STR: 18]
[DEX: 24]
[VIT: 22]
[WIS: 33]
[INT: 31]
[Class: Child of Mana]
[Level: 10]
[Skills:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
[General Skills:
* [Identify: 4]
* [Healing Arts: 5]
* [Basic Combat Training: 10]
* [Vigilance: 1]
* [Stealth: 1]
* [Cooking: 4]
* [Fitness: 10]
* [Learning: 9]
* [Regeneration: 5]
* [----------]
A surge of energy passed through him, leaving his body changed in its wake. It was a change for the better without a doubt, but the sensation was new and foreign. It was also borderline intoxicating, so much so that Lucas nearly lost focus on the fight that lay before him.
The rat was stalking toward him now, hunger and fury in its eyes. From the sound of things behind him, not all the kids had fled the basement just yet. It didn't sound like any were coming down to help him, either, despite nearly one and all being older than him. He thought no more of it, though.
Lucas had a monster to slay.