Twelve days until the Duel with Edbert

High Noon

Mere minutes ago, we had entered the Dragon’s Fang Bog Dungeon. It was our second dungeon, but I felt bone weary at the idea of dungeons by now, because once again I found myself treated to the sensations that came with falling to the ground from high in the sky. This time I barely got to take in the sight of myself and my friends rocketing downwards like a volley of human arrows. As we dropped through the canopy of the bog, I realized my attempt at a clever solution was a failure. I didn't know enough about the mechanics of dungeons. As we fell, our bodies snapped branches and leaves, and we occasionally had our plummet slow when rope got caught.

I knew this world had bodily HP and fanciful stats that could allow humans to do superhuman things, but I knew physics existed. Every time we lurched into one of those moments of being caught by a branch, I jerked violently against the rope. If I didn’t, one of my compatriots did.

It continued like this until the three of them rocketed past me. As they continued on their groundward path, I remained steadfastly in place. Caught in the grasp of a wound on a tree branch, which would not even so much as bend or move for the safety of myself or my friends. I would break like a twig before the tree’s limb did.

I had to make a decision. Frantically, I reached out for my rope and focused on the warmth I felt every time I summoned the Vulcan’s Crescent technique. I knew better than using the technique without a weapon to channel it through, but I didn’t have confidence in grabbing Ancestor’s Grasp and using it freehanded to cut the rope in one movement. Why would I? If I even tried, I probably would have dropped the saber.

It required a careful and prepared cut. So I reached out for the rope with the fingers of my right hand and wrapped them around it. With my right hand in place, I pushed my left hand through the leather thong upon the pommel of the Ancestor’s Fang Saber and pulled the blade out from its sheath. As soon as I felt I was as ready as I was going to get, I made my move. Channeling the temperature raising and fire starting technique, Vulcan’s Grasp and let the heat build through my torso, up my arm and into my right hand. Even as the sparks from the technique turned into a full flame on the rope, I held on. As soon as the blaze had eaten at the integrity of the rope enough, I swung and chopped. Three times I did so, and I severed the rope, freeing my friends from a death by hanging.

My plummet restarted and charged interest for the time lost. No snarky comment or quip flowed through my lips. Instead, it was the simplest of words.

“SHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT!”

By all that’s holy, I hope I had not been a genuine top grade clairvoyant.

Because when I came to a landing, it was in muddy soil that was soft enough to make me question it, as opposed to the dirty swimming pool I expected of a marsh.

“Uggh.”

If I didn’t have more self control, it would have something far more vulgar than that. I was in pain, in muck, and nowhere near my compatriots. I was certainly no dungeon genius. It was enough to make me almost mutter rasm frasm as I pushed myself up from the marshland slop.

Despite my brilliant plan to keep myself together with the physically older, and potentially stronger members of my party I found myself in the boggy dungeon alone. My rope was destroyed and the improvised harness across my chest remained as I took the time to find a nearby leaf and wipe off the saber’s fang like blade clean of the muck I had landed in. Then it went back into its sheath.

As my recently cleaned fingers struggled with the rope I thought to myself. What was with the dungeons throwing people like a pinball inside of them when the entrance was activated? Would the rope trick work in a dungeon not dominated by the foliage of ancient trees? Were Moriah, Calvin, and Alek okay? Had I just landed in dungeon dookie?

I focused on the answers I could find solutions to. First, I needed to find solid ground to regroup. I grabbed one of the branches that had been knocked from the trees in my descent and used it as a testing rod.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

This was going to be slow going.

***

Elsewhere.

Outside of the Dragon’s Fang Bog Dungeon entrance, a pair of cloaked figures stood. They had shadowed the party of Wade Calhoun, and moved with precision and insight which he seemed to lack. Where he and his party had been swallowed up by a portal in the ground, they entered the front door growing from the foliage.

***

As I finally came to a stop on steadier ground some twenty minutes of careful searching and moving later, I watched the dungeon around me. Where the screech of Cobluchins had dominated the soundscape of the Tidewarren Dungeon, this one was filled with the sounds of a lakeside or dark forest. Distant ribbits and croaks from what I assumed to be frogs, calls from birds of various types that flew through the air above. Assorted other sounds I couldn’t quite make out were a part of the melodies of the dungeon.

“I had better not see any rat monsters of unusual size.” I grumbled to myself.

I needed light. Why hadn’t I thought to bring a lantern or try to find a magical hekatondronan flashlight? Unconsciously, I rubbed my chin with my free hand as I thought and then I remembered.

I had a stick, I had a fire starting technique. That meant I could make a torch. So my improvised walking stick was sacrificed like so much wood before it. With a focused use of the Vulcan’s Crescent technique into it and up it, I gave myself some amount of light. It would not last forever; for when its fire got too big or too close I would have to toss it and find another branch to transform into light.

The sounds of life around me kept my vision predominantly upward, with only the occasional checks on the damp ground to make sure it was still solid looking and I was not stepping into a pond of mud.

So it was par for the course when I when a pile of fallen leaves I had seen and assumed to simply be detritus proved to not be. I was slammed off the ground hard enough to fly. Coming to a stop with a grunt as I slammed into a tree trunk, I was astounded.

“Do I have a concussion…?” I asked myself as I saw the pile of leaves circle in an all too familiar way. Its leaf pattern made it resemble something I could not put my finger on. As it stalked forward, I instinctively hefted my torch – and focused more heated energy from my core and into the branch that had become torch and then been almost snuffed out. The fire made it slow its approach and I was sure it seemed to even waffle about before moving forward at all.

It was a monster, it had to be. So I analyzed it. If I got no results, I was seeing things and probably had a concussion! My logic was impeccable.

While focusing on the word with my mind and the pile, I tried to make my improvised torch to play double duty as a fiery spear. As I hefted it, the results of my analysis came into view - brighter than even the fire from the torch.

[[Leifiathans are monsters which skirt the line of flora and fauna. These monsters are both the serpent and shark like creature which makes up its inner body of the Leifiathan and the vegetal mass which makes up its outer body. Leifiathans are attracted to the smell of blood, but their main source of sustenance is fish, mosses, and fallen leaves. The mosses and leaves provide matter to help its outer shell to regrow. This leifiathan is female. All liefiathans are nature and water-primarily aligned monsters. This leifiathan has a secondary fae alignment. Its tertiary alignment is locked. It is level 4.]]

If it was the few cuts I had that had attracted it, I was not sure. Either way, I had come here to capture monsters and I loved sharks. Leaf piles were pretty cool too, as both my children and I had spent many a fall season diving into them in between yard work. On top of that, I needed it just to have lasting proof that the system of this world loved itself a good pun. So I was about to see if I could add a fifth monster partner to my party.

With a blind but practiced grab I launched Bedevere’s reliquary towards a tree near the leaf, spinning it as I threw. With a thunk it hit the tree, before spinning several times and eventually landing.

The result the dice-like reliquary came to was middle ground, which meant the third member of my party wouldn’t have any great buffs, but no handicaps from the system either. As the black and gold and yellow furball of a bee monster materialized atop the mystical device, he was already ready to fight.

“Bedevere, hey buddy. Think you can run some interference for me on this Leifiathan?”

The bee hopped frantically before letting out a repeated chorus of “Bzz, Bzz, Bzzaaao.”

Then he charged at the larger monster. As he did, I rifled one-handed in my backpack for one of the few standard reliquaries that I had. As I watched Bedevere the Beelebian fight well above his weight class, I felt one bit of solace.

I might be alone in the dungeon and against hostile monsters again, but at least no one was trying to steal my shoes right off my feet. I hoped that my friends could be at least as lucky.