Calvin slowly extracted himself from the hard stone floor, exhaustion seeping out of every pore. Freya bounded over to him with the perfect remedy to his predicament. She tackled him back to the stone floor and assaulted him with a frenzy of revitalizing and slobbery licks. He gave her a quick wrestle, which was much less fun when she was armored, and peeled himself up from the floor again.
“You alright Cal?” Marshall asked, giving him a hard slap on the back. Amy swooped in for a big hug.
“Geez guys! I’m good. You’d think I almost died or something.” he said, hugging Amy back.
“Newsflash pal, you almost did die back there. If Seth here didn’t have such a big brain, you’d be toast. Shit, we’d all be toast.”
“Yeah, Seth, good thinking out there.” Calvin said, giving Seth a pat on the shoulder.
They made their way over to the giant stone head. Seth examined the stone surrounding the crystal, suspecting that this might make for a pretty decent material. He made a mental note to try and recover some once they finished up their task of relinquishing this crystal of its huge stacks of treasure.
Calvin, same as last time placed his hand on the citrine crystal and was greeted with a welcome system message
YOU HAVE DEFEATED THE STONEBOUND SENTINEL. FINDING YOUR EQUIPMENT AND SKILLS INEFFECTIVE, YOU MANAGED TO SUCCEED THROUGH QUICK WIT AND INTELLECT. UNDERSTANDING THAT YOUR EQUIPMENT AND SKILLS ARE NOT SUFFICIENT ALONE IS THE SECOND TRUE TEST OF THE TUTORIAL.
REWARDS:
Stonebound Sentinel’s Pendant: This pendant is a miniaturized replica of the stonebound sentinel’s shield. Infusing this pendant with nanites will create a momentary barrier that can absorb and redirect a moderately powerful attack. This effect can be utilized once every two hours.
Stonebinder’s Staff (Silver): This staff is a remnant of the Stonebinder that created the stonebound sentinel. This staff grants the wielder increased control over earth-attuned skills. Earth-attuned skills will deal more damage and cost less MP to activate. (Control +3)
Runescribe’s Scalpel (Silver): This tool finds its place in many artisans’ toolkits. The Runescribe’s scalpel has utility as a material harvesting tool while retaining minor combat capabilities. While not suitable as a primary weapon, its destructive capabilities should not be ignored. (Control +3)
Base Rune Upgrade Token: This token, granted within the tutorial will unlock additional features of an established base rune. This token must be placed inside the rune to initiate the process.
Seth looked over the loot, “Looks like they forgot your birthday Marshall.” he picked up the Runescribe’s scalpel and examined it more closely, “They didn’t forget mine though. This thing looks sweet.”
Seth aimed the scalpel away from the group and depressed the activation button. A short cutting beam extended out from the tip in a white-hot flash.
“I had an idea a bit ago, seeing that stone head there. We really should be keeping our eye out for materials in here. We get one shot to clear this place and it doesn’t sound like we’ll get to come back. Anything not nailed down should come home with us. I don’t have a whole lot of recipes at the moment to create stuff, but I think I might be able to learn them through experimenting. So, for now, let’s scoop up anything we can get our hands on. Starting with that bastard right there.” Seth got to work slicing up the head into more manageable chunks.
“Sounds great to me.” Ian agreed, “I’m feeling the love in this place for sure.” he picked up the staff, gave it a few small swings, and looked back at the pendant on the ground, “Honestly, I say we strap that thing to Freya’s collar. A few more defensive options for our little warrior can’t hurt, can it?”
Freya’s little tail wagged so hard she might take flight if it kept up any longer.
Calvin, seeing that the group had no issues with that plan clipped the pendant to her collar.
You know how to use this thing?
He received a very excited affirmative back through his link.
Ian bent down to give Freya some well-deserved scratches under her collar. Sure, she didn’t do a whole lot during the fight, but she always deserved scratches under her collar.
Most of the group was content to spend a few hours relaxing, petting the pup, and discussing not only their progress so far but also their path ahead.
Seth however, was busy demolishing everything in sight. Sections of the stone wall, the illuminated panels, the remainder of the titan’s head. It all went into his pouch. A large part of him wanted to march right back up to the first room and begin dismantling everything in there too. Hell, he still might get the chance to on the way out. He had picked his class based on his analysis of their situation. Sure, it didn’t totally match up with his previous career as a police officer, but he felt it suited their group very nicely now. They had been short on gear at the time, and this was his short-term solution to that problem. Now, seeing the types of things offered by the system, he felt much, much better about his choice. It might be a slow burn now, but he expected that before this tutorial was over, they were going to be flush with some really neat artificer gadgets.
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The group decided to spend a little extra time on R&R here. It wasn’t exactly a great camping spot, and they were pretty eager to get moving, but they also knew that getting rest, properly decompressing, and getting some food in their stomachs would be critical to staying at peak effectiveness. They had blown through the first two sections of this dungeon and they had plenty of time remaining on the clock. It didn’t take long before most of them were contentedly dozing away.
A short time later, Calvin’s eyes drifted open momentarily startled to not be in his bed at home. Oh yeah, abducted by aliens. he remembered.
He noticed a pale glow some distance away with Seth and Freya sitting together nearby. No doubt she was extracting some scritches, as was her right.
Calvin wandered over, deciding that sleep had made a fast retreat and likely wouldn’t return.
“Mornin’” he said to Seth, “Hey pup.”
“Hey Cal. Coffee’s almost ready.” Seth replied.
For just a faint moment, Calvin wondered if Seth had cooked up some magical artificer coffee… but a small smile from Seth shattered that dream pretty quickly.
“You miss it all back home?” Seth asked, fidgeting with his drone-smithing kit as he spoke.
“Of course I do.” he paused, thinking about the life they left behind, “I never thought I’d say I missed work, but damn… I miss work. My boss could be a right pain in the ass, but at least she didn’t send me off into some rotting dungeon on the ass end of who knows where.” Calvin said. He settled down on the ground near Freya who promptly settled her head in his lap. “What about you?”
“I… I’m not really sure. That kind of freaks me out.” Seth searched for his next words in the glowing screen from the kit at his feet, “Like…. I should say ‘hell yeah I miss it back home’ right? I just don’t know if I do.”
Calvin’s lips curled up slightly, “This place is growing on you a bit isn’t it?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. This place sucks.” he paused for a moment and then continued after a heavy sigh, “Back home as a cop, most people either loved me for it or hated me for it. Some people saw me as the ‘Protect and Serve’ guy, which is who I wanted to be. Others saw me as the asshole giving them a ticket for driving too fast or smoking a little weed, which is who I usually was. It was just the job right?”
He flicked over to a new screen on his drone foundry, “Being out here, for even the short time we’ve been here. It all feels so meaningless… you know, before. It was the same routine. Wake up, shit, shave, shower, eat, work, eat, shit, sleep. Over and over and over. For what? To keep enough bread on the table to keep the routine going day after day?”
Calvin nodded at him, listening closely. He could understand his feelings and now that he was hearing it out loud, he couldn’t truly say he disagreed.
“In this shithole, it’s much of the same routine, just with a little ‘fighting for your life against a pack of dinosaurs’ sprinkled in. But it doesn’t really feel the same. We’re fighting to survive, but also to gain power. Our efforts out here have a direct impact on who we become. I could hand out a million tickets for jaywalking, and what would I have become? Employee of the month probably. Out here, if I put down a million raptors, I’d probably end up a God or something. Everything feels so impactful here. Now there’s you, Amy and this beautiful little gal here.” he reached down to give the pup a little pat on her head. “And of course, those chucklefucks over there… we all found ourselves in this shitter together. I’ve known them since grade school, and sure, we’ve pulled each other’s asses out of the fire a time or two. Nothing compared to this. I don’t know man. I’m really not sure what I’m even trying to say.”
“I think I get it.” Calvin said with an understanding tone, “You’re starting to find some purpose here. Your efforts give you a sense of meaning that maybe you felt like you were lacking before, and you’re happy that Amy and I showed up to keep that clown Marshall in check a bit. Am I close?”
Seth chuckled, “Yeah, right on the money. I don’t know if I hate it here. I did when we first got here…. And of course, I hate seeing my friends have to struggle here, but hell… you’ve gotta admit, this is a wild ass ride.”
“You’re not wrong there. I think I get it though. I feel like I’m coming into my own here as well. Hell, a week ago, I absolutely would not be facing down bear-sized spiders and going about my day afterward. I do feel like I have a lot to lose here though. With Amy and Freya, I feel a responsibility to them and I wish I could take them back to our safe little lives before.”
Calvin received a strong rejection of that idea through his link with Freya.
“She disagrees with me though. Maybe that’s my problem. I’ve made everyone my responsibility, whether I know it or not. Who knows, maybe this place is growing on me as well. I sure am glad to have you guys at my side though. Marshall might be a little screwy, but he’s got a lot of heart…. And Ian, is just a walking nuke.”
“That is a fact. That boy scares me sometimes.”
Calvin looked over at the screen in front of Seth, “Whatcha working on there?”
“This little gadget is really, really awesome. I’m just figuring out what neat things I can do with it. Check this out.”
A moment later, a small orb popped out of Seth’s pouch and hovered silently in the air.
“This little baby is a sentry drone.” Seth pointed at the drone. “I don’t think it has a whole lot of oomph behind it, but I’ve got options here in this box. Shit, I could whip up several of these things. They take a while to make though. This one took half a day, and some of the others in here take quite a while longer. Just going through and trying to figure out what might be useful to us right now. Wanna help?”
The two spent the next few hours shopping for drones, chatting about their previous lives, and talking at least a little bit of shit about Marshall.