Oliver held his breath as they watched Rose walk into the chamber. When she was about halfway across the large, root-walled chamber, sixteen of the now-familiar rabbits emerged from hidden alcoves around the roots.
Rose turned and sprinted back as soon as the rabbits appeared, Barton’s speed buff helping her to move like an Olympic sprinter. When she was still a half-dozen meters away from Cora’s waiting twin shields, Rose dove, headfirst, in a high arc that carried her over the waiting group. She rolled when she hit the ground and popped back up, chirping, “Did it work?”
Barton’s Cry of Strength and Oliver’s rocket-launched spear answered her. Oliver grinned when he saw the spear pierce through four rabbits from his first throw. The rabbits had charged after Rose, completely ignoring the obvious trap set up for them in the narrow hallway. Oliver had worried that the rabbits would return to the wide-open chamber and force the group to fight at a disadvantage, but the furry fighters didn’t seem to care about having a home turf advantage.
The group adjusted a few times until they found their ideal set-up. Cora crouched, mentally holding her tower shields against the walls to her left and right, which left a gap in the center about a meter wide. Silas knelt in front of her, the ten-year-old constantly streaming lightning out of the gap, stunning any rabbits that got too close for comfort.
Oliver was like an artillery cannon behind their fortifications. His spear launched out repeatedly between Cora’s twin shields, taking at least one target every throw. Oliver learned how to guide the spear’s return so that it flew over the defenders and didn’t accidentally injure one of his teammates as if flew back to him. Within less than a minute, all targets lay dead in a heap before dissolving into dust, leaving a few credits falling to the ground in their wake.
“Feeling pretty proud of yourself?” the ring asked Oliver into his mind.
“Oh. I mean, I guess? We’ve taken out quite a few of them without taking any serious hits,” he whispered back.
“Your strategy is adequate.”
Oliver felt the ghost of a smile. “High praise-”
“But,” the ring interrupted. “You have an entire party member that isn’t contributing.”
Oliver looked around before his eyes settled on Trinket, the slime crawling around behind the group, its gelatinous body bopping around to a melody that only it could hear.
“What could Trinket do?” Oliver asked.
“Already you’ve forgotten the whole point of switching what type of creature it is?”
Oliver mentally facepalmed. “You mean that Trinket can still use earth magic and could be another ranged attacker.”
“He can be taught!” the ring exclaimed.
Oliver explained the new strategy as the group gathered the few credits from the rabbits and moved to the passage to the next tunnel. Unfortunately, Oliver was having a hard time deciding where to place Trinket in their new formation, since they were already pretty tightly packed together.
“Slime hat!” Rose chimed. “Trinket can ride on your head and shoot rocks from there!”
Oliver desperately glanced around, searching for any alternative, but came up empty. “Fine,” he grunted, reaching down and hefting the watermelon-sized slime over his head. Trinket’s skin kept him from being drowned in goop, and resulted in Oliver feeling like he was wearing a plastic bag full of warm hair gel.
“You good up there?” he asked and received a burble in response. “Okay then...” he muttered.
The group repeated their strategy from the last chamber, all feeling a little concerned for Rose when thirty-two rabbits emerged. Thanks to a well-timed [Minor Electrical Bolt] from Silas, she made it back in one piece, if a little bruised. Thanks to Nada, even the bruises were soon squared away.
Oliver hammered his spear, over and over. Nada occasionally refreshed his stamina, which relieved the physical strain of so many full-powered throws, but not the mental strain. The dungeon was beginning to take its toll on the group. Eventually, with Trinket adding flying shards of stone to the spear and lightning barrage, the rabbits all fell. This time, there were a few copper-colored chips among the iron, leaving the group wondering about the currency of the Tutorial.
“It’s base ten,” the ring explained. “Ten irons to a copper and so on. You’ll be fairly wealthy, compared to the rest of humanity. Not so much to the Collective as a whole, still paupers there.”
The group moved on to the final chamber and its sixty-four enemies. Now that the group had found their groove for this set-up, the fight felt more like a slow-and-steady marathon than a sprint. Oliver launched his spear, calling it back immediately. He learned that if it embedded itself in the root walls of the chamber, it took longer to call back, so he took to calling it back mid-flight. Their tunnel was a kill-box. The rabbits charged them with reckless abandon, not caring for the carnage in front of them. The only risk to Oliver and his team was being overwhelmed, which dictated their rapid pace.
Soon enough, the last rabbit fell and the bodies turned to dust. The group collapsed to take a breather.
Dungeon Complete!
You have completed The Burrow, and are the first in your tutorial to complete a Dungeon! A Title will be awarded on your exit from the Tutorial for this accomplishment. Please collect your rewards before leaving The Burrow.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“It’s so weird to be physically refreshed, but mentally exhausted,” Nada complained.
“Amen to that,” Cora added.
Rose hopped to her feet and began scooping up the credit chips from where they had fallen around the room. “I’ll handle clean-up,” she announced. “Feels like you guys did most of the work.”
Nobody argued, and soon the group clustered around their stacks of chips.
Oliver stacked the chips in groups of ten and gave the group the total. “Seventy-three iron and seven copper. So, one-hundred and forty-three iron equivalent.”
Nada raised her hand and pointed to the far end of the final chamber. “I’ll ask, since nobody else has: What’s down the hallway if this is supposed to be the end?”
Oliver listened to the ring and relayed the response. “Loot. Rewards.”
Everyone perked up at that, even silent Silas.
“Ah,” Nada responded, “then let's go see what we’ve won.”
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The reward chamber was smaller than any other in the dungeon except for the hallways. Light streamed down from between the roots, creating glowing rays amongst the tangle. The top of the room could not be seen, disappearing up into the misty twilight. In the center of the room, stood a long, formal table, surrounded by mismatched chairs. On the table were five bottles, each with a paper tag tied to the neck with twine. Oliver had a suspicion what was written on the tag before seeing it.
Nada confirmed it by picking up a bottle and reading, “Drink me? I think not.”
Cora laughed. “Rabbits? Drink me? Smack my hind-end, we’re in Wonderland.”
“And this is our reward?” Nada huffed.
Rose pointed at one of the chairs. “Well, there’s a hat.”
Sure enough, there was a large felt top hat with a tag sticking out of the band that read ‘In this Style 10/6’ resting on the back of one of the chairs.
“Hah!” Cora barked. “Who gets to play Mad Hatter?”
Oliver tuned out the joking to listen to the ring before relaying its comments. “Ring says the drinks give a permanent plus one to Constitution and you can only drink one from this dungeon, so everybody gets one. The hat can become any basic clothing item to bind, plus it gets two perks right off the bat.”
Nada suddenly perked up. “Does that mean...”
Oliver nodded. “Yes, get your shoes.”
Without reservation, Nada strode up to the hat and picked it up. A few seconds later, the hat went through the reality-fuzzing distortion that the others had come to recognize as the sign that an Entity was changing, and then she held a simple pair of sandals in her hands. Nada slipped them on and sighed, flexing her toes in the simple leather and rope sandals.
“Any tips on the Perks?” she asked Oliver.
“Yeah, it says to take [Feather Steps] and [Feather Fall]. The first makes it so that your feet barely impact the ground, so you leave no footprints, and the second lowers your terminal velocity when you fall to the point that you can fall from any height without taking damage.”
Nada tilted her head to the side. “The falling one makes sense, but why the first? I’m not exactly sneaking around anywhere.”
“Ring says that it's part of a prerequisite. There is a Perk later that will work well for your build, and you have to take these Perks first.”
Cora stepped up to the table and grabbed a bottle. “Well, she’s got her toys to play with, I’m takin’ mine.” The older woman threw her bottle back like a shot of whiskey, then let out a satisfied breath and wiped her mouth with the back of her hands. “Tastes like a nice Kentucky bourbon.”
Rose was next and exclaimed, “Mmm! Mango juice!”
Silas gently took his bottle and drank, but kept his thoughts about it to himself.
“Very nice coffee,” Nada commented after drinking hers.
Oliver picked up his bottle and tipped it back gently. A fizzy, sweet flavor rolled down his throat and he chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Nada asked.
“Root beer. Haven’t had one since I was a kid. My parents let me have one at an amusement park, came in a brown glass bottle. Guess it really made an impression.”
Cora glanced around the room while she asked him, “That it, tour guide?”
Oliver nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Then let’s skedaddle. It’s got to be nigh on mid afternoon. I’m famished.”
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The group had no problems traveling back out of The Burrow. They hiked back through the forest to the clearing where Scooter had dropped them off, and the giant manta ray came softly gliding down a moment later. None of the group talked on the way back to the inn, each contemplating what they had accomplished.
Scooter dropped the group off right at the door to the inn they had come out of that morning. The merchants provided by the Tutorial didn’t react at all to the giant manta coming down out of the sky, but the other Tutorial-takers all ran for cover. The group noticed a plethora of looks thrown their way as they hopped down and headed for their inn. Fear, jealousy, and more than a few glares of anger.
Most of the other Tutorial-Takers wore only the piece of clothing awarded from clearing the interview Stage plus their choice clothing from surviving the free-for-all, but none of them had weapons.
“Hey! Where’d you get all the fancy stuff, huh?” one especially brave voice demanded.
Rose turned with a smile and started to answer, “Well, we just-” but she was cut off by Cora grabbing her arm and dragging her along with the rest of the group.
“Rose, honey,” she lectured. “Some of these folks are just lookin’ for a chance to rob us, and then we’d have to ask Oliver to put a few new holes in ‘em. You don’t want him to have to do that, do ya?”
Rose shot Oliver an apologetic look and mouthed, “Sorry.” Oliver waved her off, noticing that Cora’s warning had gotten the message across. Some of the more unsavory looking characters had all taken a step back at Cora’s words.
He thought they had avoided trouble until a scraggly-looking group stepped out to block the door to their inn. There were seven of them, and they looked like a university fraternity party that had gotten lost in the woods for a month. The leader, a guy in his early twenties with blonde hair that was growing out to expose dark roots, spoke up. “Don’t think so, grandma. Why don’t you all hand your toys over to some men who can actually use it?”