The enraged aura around the ogre faded as it went into recovery mode. In better circumstances, this would be where Levi went berserk on it in turn, slashing through its health with his team.
But his team was down, and he was limited to one-legged crawling.
“I don’t suppose you want to submit to me?” Levi asked wearily. “I promise, the benefits package is better than what you’re getting now.”
The ogre got to its knees, shrugging off the broken chunks of stone. It moved slowly, almost drunkenly, but it wasn’t helpless.
Tame cost 5 mana and 5 stamina to activate. The mana wasn’t a problem, but his stamina was entirely depleted. At one per minute, he couldn’t afford to wait for his stamina to recover enough to try properly, not in this condition.
Levi couldn’t outlast the ogre without stamina’s extreme mobility. His health was draining fast enough, even if the boss didn’t manage to slice him open, he’d bleed out himself before recovering enough stamina to activate the ability.
As much as he’d been hoping in the back of his mind to tame it, he had no choice. Back to plan B: Just kill the thing.
He dragged himself toward the ogre as fast as he could, then started stabbing it in the legs, making the cuts as jagged and damaging as he could manage.
The ogre grunted in pain and staggered upright, grabbing its cleaver as it wavered unsteadily.
Levi stabbed faster.
1%. 0%.
The ogre raised its cleaver to strike one final blow, then toppled to the side instead. Its massive body landed atop one of the corrosive puddles with a faint squelch.
Congratulations, Levi Morrison! You have reached level 3.
You have 1 level available.
Applying to default class.
“Aaah, wait! Not yet!” Levi gritted his teeth and hastily shifted to straighten out his leg, fighting the power that tried to repair it.
The levelup process wanted to force his body back to full health but repairing things wrong could be worse than leaving them broken.
It required some quick and messy emergency surgery with his dagger to cut away the already-sealing skin around the fracture and force the bones back into their proper places. Twice, he had to stop, when the pain threatened to break his hold over the level up. Holding it in abeyance was so much harder than he’d imagined, several orders of magnitude higher than regular health.
Tamer level increased to 3.
+5 health, +5 mana, +5 stamina Unassigned Stat Points: 1
For a moment he lay there, panting with the aftereffects of the fight and leveling and the relief of being alive and whole and well.
He’d barely survived the ogre, and then barely controlled his level up. He was fairly strong-willed and fully competent at system navigation — as much as any human could be with something so innately alien — but that much power would be overwhelming no matter who you were.
It almost made him thankful to be so low level, though he’d much prefer being strong enough to avoid being injured in the first place. At higher levels the influx of system energy would be impossible to control, even for him.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He didn’t rest for long. His training wouldn’t let him relax in enemy territory. He wouldn’t put it past the dungeon to spawn a horde of gremlins and throw them in at the last moment.
Levi got to his feet and crossed to where his minion had fallen. The gremlin hadn’t disappeared like the boss had (taking his giant cleaver with him, unfortunately; Levi wanted that cleaver), Skarm’s body still lay crumpled on the ground.
Skarm: Level 2
(Horned Gremlin)
Dead
Revive
Unbind
Revive. So it was an option, even if locked. He thought he’d heard about it, but he didn’t know the requirements to use it. He’d feared Skarm might be gone for good, and he was done letting people who fought beside him be abandoned and forgotten. It didn't matter whether it was a level 84 veteran or a one-day-old minion.
If there was a way to get Skarm back, Levi would find it. He picked up the gremlin’s spindly body, looked around for something to carry it with, then finally tucked it under one arm. He had only the hand-size pockets of his belt to store things in. Skarm wasn’t large, but he wasn’t that small.
With one last look around the destroyed boss room in case he’d overlooked something useful, Levi made his way between hissing bubbling puddles and fallen pillars to the exit door.
The small treasure room beyond held two health elixirs, another of mana, a single Destruction token, and a pair of shoes.
He stashed the restoratives immediately, then examined the shoes. Basic footwear with no special abilities, but they'd still be sturdier than anything humans manufactured. Dungeon gear, being mana-formed, innately resisted everyday damage.
The Destruction token he turned over in his hand for a moment. Dungeon tokens could be used in crafting, to upgrade items or to create new ones. Within a few years, they’d become a primary global currency. They were useful for everything from charging equipment to crafting upgrades… all of which required additional items Levi didn’t have at the moment. He slipped the token into one of the belt’s pouches for now.
Returning to his own stats, he put his stat point into Spirit. Stamina depletion kept getting him in trouble and he needed to fix that ASAP.
Being slow and limited to human levels of agility, vulnerable even to mundane injury... no thank you. It made him twitch. He wouldn’t start to feel secure for at least another dozen levels, but he had to begin somewhere.
His minion limit had increased with his level, now showing ‘1 of 2,’ which confirmed that the “Tamer level divided by two” formula rounded up.
Between the level increase and assigned stat point, his stamina pool reached 70 and regenerated 2 per minute. Double the base speed would cut his time spent waiting around for it to refill in half.
Satisfied with his choices, he had nothing more to do for the moment. He left his uncomfortable work shoes for the dungeon to eat. He'd not need them again.
Instinctively he began running through the standard sequence of cleaning and repair spells after leaving a dungeon, but —
Insufficient mana.
Right, everything about him was too low level. Even simple 50- or 100-mana spells were far beyond his current reach.
Shaking his head, Levi stepped out the final door. He wouldn’t be staying low level for long.
With the familiar momentary disconcerted lurch of wrongness, he emerged from the patch of shimmering air out into the evening park.
Streetlights — working streetlights — greeted Levi as he exited the dungeon, lighting the park in a warm and comfortable glow.
He stared out in wonder at the cozy, relaxed, peaceful scene. How long had it been since he’d seen real streetlights, not the pale mana ones that barely did the job?
When running and hiding and fighting for survival, any illumination above the barest minimum was a dangerous waste of energy. Demons provided their own fire and dungeons were always illuminated, so such things as streetlights were needless.
For a long moment he simply stood and watched the flow of city life, letting the peace of the area flow over him. The distant hum of cars. The soft murmur of voices. No horns signaling the inevitable approach of death.
No one in pain. No overwhelming scent of fear.
It struck him all over again. How long had it been since he’d seen this many people together without being driven by grim determination and desperation?
----------------------------------------