Of all the arrogant and patronising! Claire raged. Who does he think he is, calling me a ‘little baby dungeon’! What does he know. I had a plan. And I saved Lily. And did you see the way that… that… hussy was clinging to him? All ‘oh, my hair is so pretty’, ‘oh, I would hate to get my hands dirty’; how is she even a shield maiden?! I bet she flirts with every warrior she comes across. And he’s like ‘Look at me, I’m the alpha male. Ladies fall at my feet to worship me!’ I bet he just loves it.”
Rick watched Claire’s core cautiously as it angrily shimmered in different dark shades of pink while she continued her tirade. His dungeon elemental training was thorough and substantial, but did not cover this particular situation. The main reason was that most normal dungeon cores were completely disconnected from their previous human experiences, if indeed they had any at all. What did he know about humans that could be helpful here, he wondered as he searched his limited knowledge for something useful. Ah, he knew just what to say.
“You know Claire, there’s no need to be jealous of Tamrin. You’re a core now, so you can’t mate with Layne anyway.”
The tirade cut off, filling the cavern with a potent and deadly silence. Rick flickered nervously. “Did I say something wrong?”
<>
Elsewhere on the island Lily sat on her father’s bed, watching him. He had tried to talk to her, but struggled with shortness of breath. Now he was asleep again. His skin felt clammy and she could feel his pulse racing as she held his hand. Agnetha would come again soon, but Lily worried that it was already too late. It may be time for the butcher to come and amputate his leg.
Silent tears rolled down her face as she reviewed the class notification she had received earlier.
New skill unlocked: Deception 1/20
You have gained enough compatible skills to qualify for the following general class:
Rogue
Qualifying skills
Basic herbalism 1/20
Deception 1/20
Eavesdropping → Spying 0/50
Petty theft 1/20
Sneaking 5/20
Do you wish to accept this class?
Yes/No
To add insult to injury, she then gained even more suitable general rogue skills, as shown in the notifications she received afterwards.
General rogue class
Additional qualifying skill gained
Pickpocketing 4/20
Pickpocketing must have been when she swiped the compass from the man with the calculating eyes on the beach. She didn’t even know why she did it, except that it was the same tiny part of her that helped her with her deception which had nudged her to quickly grab the compass while the man was distracted.
General rogue class
Skill increase
Sneaking +2 → 7/20
The increase to sneaking was probably when she ran away unnoticed while everyone else was focused on the dog man disappearing into the beach. Thinking about it, the idea that you can just be swallowed whole by the ground was terrifying. Lily didn’t know if she would ever think of the beach the same way.
But back to the source of her misery. Any other villager would be ecstatic if they qualified for a class, any class. Without even trying for it, to boot. Lily, on the other hand, was drowning in disappointment. She desperately needed to gain a healing skill, and what does she get? A class that has bloody nothing to do with it. What even is a rogue supposed to be? Villagers knew precious little about classes, and the ‘rogue’ description sounded very shady to Lily.
More than that, her father was going to lose his leg, and she won’t even be able to help him afterwards because she’ll be chained up in the capital city of High Plantation’s prison for the theft of the pendulum. Which she stole from a seer, so there was absolutely no way that she’ll get away with it. And they’ll discover the compass on her as well, which obviously can’t be hers. She’ll never see the light of day again and her father will die alone.
She fought hard not to sob in her misery as hut walls were notoriously thin. The door to their hut creaked open and Lily quickly wiped her face with her hands. Agnetha, however, wasn’t fooled.
<>
The tears on Lily’s face were readily apparent to Agnetha. After decades of working as an herbalist healer, her eyes didn’t miss much.
“Lily, has your father worsened so?” Agnetha said and rushed over to check his temperature and pulse. Then she grimly nodded, “Aye, tis bad.”
“I tried to help, Agnetha, I tried. But it just made everything worse,” Lily quietly sobbed. Agnetha looked at her in alarm.
“Lily, what did you do? You were supposed to just give him the tea four times today.”
“No, no, Agnetha I did that. I only gave him your tea, like you showed me.”
Lily’s stomach clenched at the realisation that she said too much. She couldn’t tell Agnetha more, not if she didn’t want to make trouble for her as well.
“It’s nothing, I meant nothing Agnetha,” she managed through her tears.
Agnetha sat down and watched her shrewdly. There was a weight sitting on Lily, more than just her father’s injury and illness. The girl was unnaturally pale, and her hands shook.
“No Lily, you said you tried to help and I believe you. Your father’s illness is very serious and we need any advantage we can find. Tell me what you did, and maybe we can still salvage the situation.”
Agnetha’s gentle but firm words flowed into Lily’s heart, somehow calming the tremors she felt. Was this one of Agnetha’s skills? Lily wondered. Mere words could never have assured her this instantaneously. But she was very tired and emotionally wrung out – she could not maintain her crumbling defences under all this pressure, added to by Agnetha’s perception. Besides, she had no more reserves to concoct yet another deception. So Lily allowed the day’s tale to flow out of her, keeping not a single detail from Agnetha.
Agnetha, for her part listened raptly. And when the last word had fallen from Lily’s lips, she spoke.
“Lily. Recall your class notification once more, and when you do, think of sharing it with me. That will enable me to see it as well.” Wrung out as she was, Lily still hesitated. A person’s notifications were such a private matter, only to be shared in the strictest of confidence.
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Agnetha sighed, trying to think of the correct words to say. It had been so long.
“Lily, did you know that I did not always live in this village?” Lily looked at her in surprise. Villagers were born into a village, and most would live there until their deaths, continuing the trades of their families.
“This is not a secret, although I have become so much a part of the village that most people don’t even think of me as an outsider anymore. But I wasn’t born here. Now, since you have shared your secret with me, I will show you one of my own. Trusting that it will be safe with you and that you will never betray me. In return I hope that you will place the same faith in me with what you have told me and your class information.”
Lily gasped as Agnetha’s status displayed in front of her.
Alias
Agnetha Broombottom
Herbalist Level 7
Base identity
Thagnea Darkblade
Assassin Level 20
Dropping her voice, Lily whispered in disbelief, “You’re an …” But Agnetha placed a finger over her lips before she could finish the sentence.
“No, not anymore. And nobody can see that part unless I allow it. But it still shows as my base identity, even though I have not practised it for many, many years. Now show me yours so that I may know what we have to work with.”
Lily displayed her own notification to Agnetha in silent awe.
You have gained enough compatible skills to qualify for the following general class:
Rogue
Qualifying skills
Basic herbalism 1/20
Deception 1/20
Eavesdropping → Spying 0/50
Petty theft 1/20
Pickpocketing 4/20
Sneaking 7/20
Do you wish to accept this class?
Yes/No
Agnetha spent a few moments quietly studying Lily’s notification, and then she sat back and steepled her fingers. Finally, she continued their whispered conversation.
“Basic herbalism, eh? I guess that came from helping me brew your father’s tea this morning.” Lily nodded in affirmation.
“And you haven’t accepted the class yet?” Agnetha questioned.
Reminded of the injustice of it all, tears started rolling down Lily’s cheeks once more.
“I don’t want it,” Lily very quietly whispered to Agnetha through her tears. “I just wanted a healing skill for father, but I got this dirty class instead. I don’t want to be a common thief, I want to do good.”
“Now listen to me Lily, and listen well,” Agnetha replied. “When someone is stabbed through the heart, is it the knife that is bad? Or is it the person who wielded it?”
“The one who wielded it,” Lily replied.
“Yes, and every class is a tool to be wielded by the one who owns it. A class can be used to sow death and destruction or to save thousands.”
“Even a class like yours?” Lily asked incredulously.
“I once saved an entire county from famine by slicing one lord’s throat. So yes, even a class like mine. It is also true that my own arrogance eventually led to my downfall and brought me here. My class was instrumental in both of these events, but ultimately the use of my class and the outcome thereof were determined by me and the actions I chose to take.”
Agnetha paused with a faraway look in her eye, as if she could see both events playing out again in her distant past.
Then she continued, “The point I’m trying to make is that you shouldn’t dismiss your class out of hand, simply because of what you think you know of it. Even though there are many with a class like this, not one of them will have the exact identical skills bundled into it, nor the same levels, nor will they be using it with the same intent or for the same purposes. It is no accident that you qualified for this specific class at this specific time and place. Think very carefully before denying it.”
“Is there any way this class can help me help my father?” Lily asked, still not quite convinced. Despite Agnetha’s words, the only reason she was willing to even consider taking such a suspect class, was if it could help her save her father.
“Well, if we combine what I used to be, with what you can become, I’m sure we can find a solution,” Agnetha answered cryptically.
“Then I’ll do it,” Lily replied, and firmly selected the class.
<>
Ten kilometres away from the village on his father’s land, Layne sat in a bar in the capital city of High Plantation frowning at his cards. He reached for another sip of rum. Not that the rum did much to him anymore, the way his constitution kept levelling up as a knight. Still, he enjoyed the taste and sometimes a man just wanted a way to wind down after a long day. Less enjoyable was the fact that he was going to lose this hand too.
Sighing he threw in his chips and then got up. He’ll probably see his father at breakfast, ready to berate him for another evening foolishly spent. So be it. After the events of the day, he just couldn’t go home and get in bed – not with the excitement still buzzing in his body.
A part of him was tempted to move to the establishment’s opium hall for some induced relaxation, but then the staff would probably insist on sending a young pretty girl to help him ease the tension. Right now he didn’t even want that.
His thoughts kept being pulled back to that beach, like the tide pulling into the ocean. He felt something there, which he was pretty sure was the presence of the dungeon. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Most dungeons had a distinctive atmosphere, or feel to them. What was unusual was the way that presence had established a hold on his own sense of being. It was calling to him, like a siren’s song.
So he walked out to a secluded seat on the balcony and sat down. The bar had a good view of the ocean, and he could hear the waves crashing below him on the sand. The memories of the day that had been nagging at his consciousness became stronger, as the sound of the ocean mimicked the same ocean sounds that formed the background of his experiences at the beach. Tamrin may not believe him, but he was convinced that the new dungeon core had tunnelled that small hole up to the beach. Although what the purpose of the half-formed chamber beneath Stanley was, eluded him.
He grimaced as he thought of Tamrin. He had always known that there was a vain side to her. Hell, he had joked about her dislike of getting dirty as a shield maiden often enough. But today he had seen her distaste of muddying herself almost trumping her willingness to save a man’s life. A very unsavoury man, to be sure, but still a man.
Speaking of Stanley, he still had questions about why that band of people had been there at the beach in the first place. Since the adventurers on the island of Ithica all had to share a single dungeon up to this point, everyone knew everyone else, and he had never seen any of the individuals in that group before. All of them had their identifiers – their name, class and levels – hidden, and he was not levelled high enough to overcome that restriction. They were obviously adventurers, but what were they doing there? And how were they even able to find the location of the new dungeon? If it weren’t for the seer, he and Tamrin would’ve had no idea where to start looking. They would’ve been there even sooner had the seer not misplaced his pendulum. Layne snorted at the irony. Imagine that, a seer losing things.
Which brought him to the girl they had rescued from the band. She knew who he was, so Layne guessed that she probably lived in his father’s village. She had disappeared somewhere during the strange series of events that had taken place on the beach, though. He took another sip of rum, trying to drown the feeling of guilt. What did it say about him that he forgot that she was there in the first place, while he was occupied with Stanley’s rescue? She only resurfaced in his thoughts when Tamrin went back to speculating on where the pendulum had gone, halfway back to their residences on the other side of the island.
But what was the girl doing on that side of the island anyway? It didn’t feel like a coincidence. Could she have had something to do with the pendulum’s disappearance? Was she employed at their mansion? He hoped not. He would not be much better than Tamrin if he did not recognise their own mansion’s servants. On the other hand, there were so darned many of them and the younger ones were forever rotating in and out of service.
He stared back into the night in the direction of where he was pretty sure the new dungeon was located. It had certainly acted quite strangely for a new dungeon. Maybe it really was an anomalous core, like Stanley believed. Who knew where the winds of change from this core would blow.
<><><>
Character sheet summary at the end of Chapter 6
Claire
Type: Life-Mind
Level: 1
Integrity: 100%
Processing speed: 100%
Functional capacity: 80%
Progress to next level
-200/250 LF Performance provision
0/500 Dungeon Investment, consisting of:
0/≥125 LF
0/≥125 ME
16/250 Skill Share Value
Core defence enabled
Cutting thorn barrier
5 LF to initiate
Continuous drain of 10 LF per day
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Lily Hunter
Rogue Level 1
Basic herbalism 1/20
Deception 1/20
Spying 0/50
Petty theft 1/20
Pick-pocketing 4/20
Sneaking 7/20