“I wish I could come.” Katrina sat faux-pouting nearby as the five of us checked our gear.
“You’re not even Level 10 yet, Kat.” Nick gave a smile as he doubled checked his profile menu. Nick was doing well, but had been held back a bit due to being preoccupied training Katrina and the other lower levels.
I was still about half-way done with Level 23. Cain was nearly done with Level 22. Theresa was Level 21 along with Graham, who had been spending a lot of his time working on his Cartography lately. Crafting skills gave experience, but far less than combat. Nick was the only one of the five of us that was still at Level 20. He was making an even bigger sacrifice in powering up the rookies, and we couldn’t be more thankful for that.
“Is everyone good to go?” I looked around at my four party members. Cain seemed to be doing a little better, but still had those dark circles underneath his eyes. Graham seemed like the stoic cop he always was. To his credit, Graham hadn’t brought up how royally fucked we all were in several days. It was nice to get a bit of a break from his concerns. Theresa seemed ready to go.
Nick was the only one of us who seemed truly excited to delve into a generated labyrinth underneath a graveyard from which there was always a chance we wouldn't return. “I’ve been ready.”
I gave a nod as the others affirmed that they were ready to go. As we got outside the room we were meeting in, Frank was already standing by with our horses. Frank was one of the men from Breckenridge who had little interest in fighting. This was partially due to him being upwards of 60 years old. Luckily for us, he had decided on a role that was quite helpful. Frank had always liked animals and elected to be the stable hand for Harehill. He was in charge of our horse force, a name happily chosen by Nick, which now held about 15 adult horses and 5 foals. The foals took a month or two to grow to full size, which was considerably faster than prior to the start of the game. Unfortunately, they seem to eat just as much as before. Due to this, we were hesitant on expanding the ‘horse force’ much more than it already was.
“Thanks for saddling them, Frank.” Graham had gotten close to the head of stables due to his own fascination with horses.
“Ya sure ya wanna take Gretchen on this one, Sheriff?”
Graham gave a shrug. “She’s made it through everything else.”
The whole group let out a collective exhale as Graham spoke those words. Graham seemed to pick up on the group-level superstition as Nick knocked on his wooden staff. “Sorry.”
Theresa sighed. “Say sorry to Gretchen, not us.”
Graham pursed his lips and patted his horse on the neck before getting on the saddle. The rest of us followed suit and we trotted through the gates of Harehill that were opened by the guard-rabbits who dutifully closed them after our exit.
Just as we were out of earshot of the town, Nick decided to ask the questions he had been dying to ask since that morning. “So you really just walked up to the Termite and gave it a peace treaty?” I had chosen this group four because they were my core, even if they all weren’t the highest leveled. Elsa had reached 21 and was above Nick, and Lincoln was higher than all of the rest of my party, but I only trusted a select few with my conversation with Tikan. Besides, if anyone was getting high-level loot and experience, I wanted it to be those closest to me.
I rubbed the back of my head as I considered Nick’s question. “Pretty much.”
Cain rode next to me and punched me in the left arm lightly. “Idiot.”
“Hey! It worked didn’t it?”
Cain gave a laugh. “You’re lucky you weren’t Termite lunch.”
“I’m telling y’all, that [Diplomacy] thing worked wonders.”
Theresa sighed. “I still don’t understand why we all didn’t get it. There were a lot of us at that fight.”
Graham looked back at Theresa. “I think it’s because of he’s the Guild Master.”
Theresa rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying…”
We rode the rest of the way to the crypts. As we got near the town, we could see the occasional Termite mound ontop of the buildings and the faint white shapes of the crawling insects. Cain looked over at the town and frowned. “I feel like we could have taken them. Seemed a little unnecessary to do all that with Tikan.”
I shrugged. “Safe than sorry, Cain.”
Graham laughed. “I don’t think you were playing it very safe in that situation.”
The decision had made the Termites neutral with us, gotten rid of nearly every threat in Shackleford besides the Kobolds who stayed in their own area, and allowed us unimpeded access to the dungeon. Additionally, it leveled my [Diplomacy] skill. Everyone else just seemed to think it was stupid, but whatever.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
We got to the entrance of the dungeon and that’s when things got odd.
Albany Crypts (Dungeon)
Recommended Level: 20+
“What?” Nick rode up as if getting closer to the dungeon would change the profile. “This was supposed to be a Level 18 dungeon.”
We all had the same idea and checked our maps. They all said the same thing: Level 20+.
Cain closed his map out. “Is this some Mandela Effect thing?”
Graham shook his head. “I am positive it was 18+ before. Something changed.”
Cain grinned. “More experience for us.”
I tried to map this encounter out in my head. If the Crypts were Level 20+, that meant the basic monsters could fluctuate anywhere from 18-22, at least from the data we had from the Shattered Mines. If the regular monsters were 18-22, that meant the Elite would be a Level 24 or a Level 25. God forbid it’s a Colossal. That would put it at Level 25 or 26…maybe even 27. Tikan was a Level 23 Colossal and we were struggling to scratch it before. Sure, we had all gotten leveled up a bit since then, but a Level 25 Colossal would be an insanely challenging fight at best. At worst, it could wipe us out.
There was no point in being anxious right now. We had a plan and we needed to make progress. I looked around and spoke to the group. “Alright. So the game wants an average level of at least 20 to take this thing on. With the five of us, we’re averaging 21.4 levels a player. We’ve all got decent-ish gear, at least I think we do. If this system is at all balanced…we should be good.”
Graham gave a nod. “We just have to be careful not to lose our energy too quick. We need to save the heavy skills until we really need them.”
That meant no [Multi-Shots] from me or [Summon Phoenix] from Nick until absolutely needed. It also put Theresa in a bit of a bind. Even as high level as she was, her minor skills still took a bit out of her. Healing seemed to be more of an energy drain than dealing damage. That’s not even mentioning her group healing spells.
Cain got off his horse with a thud and patted it on the neck. “Well come on guys, we all spent a while riding down here. Are we really gonna turn around because the dungeon is a little bit more difficult than it might have been? We don’t even really know how much harder an extra level is. Shit, I don’t know about you guys, but I can barely tell a difference between a Level 17 and a Level 18. It all kinda bleeds together for me.”
As overly-confident as what he said was, he did kind of have a point. Without any hard numbers for HP, Energy, or anything like that…this was all just sort of a guessing game. I got off my horse and drew my pistols to spin them a few times before re-holstering them. Graham raised an eyebrow at me and I chuckled. “Just warming up, old man. Come on, get down from there before you hurt yourself.” He rolled his eyes with a smile before dismounting.
As the five of us entered the dungeon, we could feel the air shift. Everything felt twenty degrees colder and the air went from smelling like the summer air it was outside to a cold and wet wintery aroma. The stone walls obviously shifted in design as we moved from 21st-Century human construction technology to the medieval fantasy buildings of the system. Even the floor we were standing on seemed moist and unsteady. Several of the stones had moss covering them and the rest had trickles of lightly reflecting water slowly moving down the uneven slopes of the flooring.
Nick kneeled down next to a patch of moss on the floor with an odd look on his face. “Footprints?”
I walked to over to where he was kneeling and activated my [Tracker] ability. The footprints showed little more than the faintest yellow tint. “It was a while ago. My ability pretty much caps at 48 hours, so it was sometime around 47 hours ago. I can’t tell what they are exactly.”
Graham walked over with a grin. “Gotta do this the old fashioned way.” Graham knelt down, looking down at the faint footprints on the ground. His eyes squinted as he tried to analyze who or what could have caused them. He put his entire 20-odd years of occasional detective skills at work and stood up. “Yeah…no fucking clue.”
Cain waved us on towards the staircase that led directly down to what was presumably the first floor. “Hey dumbasses, how many Level 20s does it take to identify a footprint?”
Nick muttered something about the answer being more than 3, apparently.
We all walked forward, behind Cain, and began to move down the stairs. The faint glow of the fire produced by the torches on the wall casted long shadows across the stones as we reached the first floor. It was odd to see the stone floor was a square that was much smaller than the room. Around the floor was a moat of water around 5 feet long that surrounded it. The water was a blueish-green color and was not transparent. The only paths across the water, besides the staircase, were two stone bridges that led out from either side of the platform.
Cain tossed a pebble into the water, hearing not just one splash but several. “Anyone wanna take a guess at what’s in the water?”
Theresa sighed. “Probably piranhas or some dumb shit like that.”
We all nodded and carefully made our way across the bridge on the left side. Cain opened the door to the second room and revealed a single Skeleton Knight. The Skeleton turned and gave a hiss. His profile identified him as a Level 20. The Level 22 Spiders in Breckridge weren’t much of a threat for me by myself. Between Cain’s [Charge] and Nick’s fireballs, the Level 20 Skeleton was fodder. It collapsed quickly and I checked to see my experience bar filling 1%. Good. At the Skeleton’s death, another bridge opened up to the right of the new platform, a similar moat of water filling the sides of this room as well.
As soon as the bridge finished rising out of the water, the stone walls to the next room opened and two Level 19 Plague Hounds charged towards us. Myself and Nick downed the one on the right as the one on the left went for Graham. Graham gave it a slash and Cain used [Charge] to slam into the dog and send it flying into the wall. Its profile was still red as it slid down into the water.
The yelping sounds of pain from the water filled the chamber as we watched the hound be torn apart in the dim glow of the torches. Red blood filled the water as the beast was munched upon by what looked like dozens of small fish.
Theresa gave a groan. “I didn’t actually think it’d be piranhas.”
Graham gave her a pat on the back with a funny look. “Who’s jinxing us now, Tess?”