JESSIE : LEVEL 2
DAY 7 : G-DAY, FIRSTWEEK, AGNI, YEAR 1
OUTSET 3 : RUINS DUNGEON 2 : FORESPOKEN
Now there’s no way in hell I’m about to just stroll back into town. Not after that exit, not without a katana, and certainly not after so nearly fucking it up within sightlines of that bench. But it was only after leaving that I remembered something important. Vital, even. It just slipped my mind until my thoughts started centering around liquid, and…
Anyway, RPGs have potions. Not only that, but I’ve got a whole $32 to spend. More if I want to dip into the other currencies. Which I don’t. It’s safe to say that I need money. But there’s one thing I need more. Not to die again. Not before beating that fucking dungeon at least once. That’d be even more humiliating than going back to town right now and walking right past Bench-Guy while I know he’s still there. I might just end up walking straight on into the quest hall and signing up with the cheapest resort that’ll have me.
So if I have to spend all my cash on potions just so that doesn’t happen, then that’s what I’ll do. And to that end, I saw a Rest Zone on the map around here. The Adventurer’s Guild Guy mentioned that rest zones all have system-automated vending machines.
Eventually, I find myself in front of something closer to a barricade than anything. If the minimap is to be believed, my goal is just on the other side of this ‘fence’. Flush with it, in fact. I don’t know if I trust something this mislabeled. But I still jump the thing.
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
Dropping down, I do a quick 180º and access the thankfully unoccupied vending machine that looks like nothing so much as a floating tablet. At least the menus are simple… I add a few essentials to my cart, and make myself destitute with a few last-minute purchases. I was wondering where this floating rectangle deposits its stuff. Turns out, it doesn’t. And thankfully, I don’t have to deal with a bunch of loose bottles as they all transfer directly to my Inventory the instant I buy them.
[ ITEMS GAINED: 32 — COMMON POTION * 16: MINOR HEALTH — COMMON POTION * 8: MINOR MANA — COMMON POTION * 8: MINOR STAMINA ]
Thankfully, it’s only then that one of the bandits notices me. I saw from the outside that they seem to have set up one of those bullshit toll scams to charge people to use the ‘free’ rest area. They can’t keep me from using it without paying. They can wall it off though, the immediate surrounding space apparently being free-game.
But that also means it’s free-game for me to circumvent. And so I did.
But this guy’s not too happy about that. “HEY YOU!!! YEAH, THE GINGER BITCH!!! STOP RIGHT THERE!!!”
But I don’t stop right here. Instead, I stay still long enough to make sure my blessing is recharged, flip the guy off, and brace for a standing high-jump.
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
As I crest the barricade this time, I take a moment to enjoy the view. The ever-expanding landscape looks a lot like it did from atop that hill I started on. Only different. Somehow, it’s even more beautiful than it was then.
But as soon as I land back where I started, I notice that I am, in fact, already surrounded.
Nobody makes a move. They seem to be waiting for something.
Do they want me to surrender? Or maybe attack them first? With the penalty Bench Guy mentioned? Nah, son…
[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]
Already on the other side of that asshole, I book it for the dungeon. Damn, Mich was right about the blessings too. It may only be good for quick bursts, but this dash feels less like a boost to my current speed, and more an escalation of my maximum.
Also, ‘Ginger’? My hair’s crimson. Doesn’t ginger imply more of an orange than red? Definitely not edging towards purple like mine. And speaking of stray thoughts, I was a little nervous about showing up to ‘steal’ a use of their monetized free rest space. But here I am, already getting away with it. And the experience didn't even manage to induce anything like the panic I still remember like it was moments ago.
Although my stomach does clench as I hear some of them start to chase after me through the proceeding line of trees. But all worries that they might actually catch up are quickly ameliorated by the sound of them slamming into stuff over and over trying to match my pace. Most of them don’t last half a minute. A couple do, though.
One guy even lasts through the stretch of trees. To my horror, he actually starts gaining on me through the ensuing open flowery field. My stomach clenches again as my Radial Awareness picks up a knife and attached arm starting to materialize about a diagonal foot behind my head. Oh hey, there’s that panic I was missing…
I don’t give myself time to think any further than that. Instead what I do is hold my breath, panic, and press all the buttons the instant I register what the forming shape implies.
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: CANCELED ]
[ COMMON TOGGLE OFF: RADIAL AWARENESS ]
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]
Before I know it, I’m soaring midair far above the open field. Woah… This is really pretty. Wait, no, fuck. I scramble to reactivate the only Skill that let me get this far to begin with. But it’s on a cooldown. And that doesn’t change by the time I land. My midair detour took me further and faster than I’d been running. But that’s over now. The rest is up to my own two legs.
Much less sure of myself, but with even fewer choices, I use that momentum for all it’s worth and sprint for the nearest line of trees. As I do, I have to devote most of my attention to running anything like I’d been absentmindedly doing with the skill turned on. It’s like night and day. But I’m at least fast enough in this diminished state to not lose all the ground I gained on my apparently actually dangerous pursuer.
Then the cooldown ends.
[ COMMON TOGGLE ON: RADIAL AWARENESS ]
It’s with a sigh of relief that I vow never to turn that off ever again no matter what. Now that I’m used to it as a full-on crutch, getting it back feels like suddenly regaining the edges of my eyesight. I can feel myself involuntarily relax and unconsciously limber up, even as I crest the treeline.
Less than a second behind me, I hear the guy tripping all over and through and into those same trees. Not slowing in the least myself, I hear him do it again from even further behind. This repeats for a while. All told, my final pursuer lasts about five minutes before I can’t even hear him anymore. That’s not to say he stopped. Nor is it to say I’m safe. Although I do wish I’d been able to spare a second to turn around enough to target him at any point during all that. Maybe while I was in midair? Fuck… Yeah, that would’ve been the time. And I’d feel a lot better knowing he was out of target range, along with hearing.
At least I don’t have to worry about him catching up. Not when I still have over an hour left in my run back to the dungeon. Helping my assurity is the circuitous route I led them down through the most complicated tree paths I could spot from their little fort. It took me pretty far off-course, but that’s a small price to pay for the catharsis of hearing them fall all over themselves like that. Apparently, not a lot of people have Radial Awareness or an equivalent in their own CLASS. To be honest, my escape just now was almost entirely thanks to that Skill. I can’t help shuddering a little as I absentmindedly Vault over a beaver dam remembering my first time running through trees a few days back.
But I’m well over it by the time I make it back to the ruins. At this point, I’m pretty damn confident that I lost them. Confident enough not to bother with traps. Or anything else for that matter. I don’t even bother resting. No need. Not from that. Not anymore. Instead, I adjust the sword’s position on my waist, practice drawing, swinging, and resheathing it a few times, nod to myself, and head right back inside.
As soon as I enter the dungeon, I stand there. Then I keep standing. Hesitantly, I take a step forward. Then another. On my third, I hear the same skittering from before. But this time, instead of running for it, I grasp my longsword’s hilt. Taking my self-taught-just-outside battle stance, the first movement I spot is a different stone slab falling from in front of all four exits at once. Seriously?
Then, the skittering intensifies as four Spiderwolves drop into the courtyard, one from each cardinal direction.
Seriously?
There are more behind those. But they just wait up on the wall.
“SERIOUSLY??? IT’S JUST FUCKING WAVE-BASED???” My mood takes a sudden turn for the depressive as I have mental flashbacks of all the shit like this I dealt with in practically every video game I’ve ever played. All that experience… And I still just panicked and died anyway… But my scowl gradually becomes a manic ear-to-ear grin as I watch the spiders approach.
Oh… Would you look at that? Something to take it out on. I just wait for them to close the distance. My heart races. But I don’t budge an inch. Not until right, about… Now!
[ MONSTER TARGETED: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE HATCHLING ]
I try to ignore what the second part of the monster’s name implies about potentially bigger spiders, along with the first part altogether. Just like I practiced outside, this time with feeling, I devote all my focus on drawing my longsword and prepping my Skill in a futile attempt to banish all stray thoughts. I still like ‘Spiderwolf’ better…
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
Nonetheless, I swing at the red-outlined Spiderwolf. But unlike my outside practice, I’m actually targeting something. I can only brace myself for impact as the flat of my blade bends and curves in midair before thwacking itself against the furry carapace. With a surprisingly competent swing, the longsword that might as well be a bat sends the spider flying across the room, and into the ruins wall with a chitinous-metal crunch. As it falls to the ground, two dizzy-looking numbers making a transparent red ‘21’ rise up and away from the point of impact. The spider tries to get back up, but it doesn’t have enough time before I resheath.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW BONUS DAMAGE: 62 ]
A red gash flashes into existence on the spider. It traces an exaggerated arc across my sword’s line of impact. Both numbers of the red ‘62’ rising from that spot look like they’ve just been cut in half. They start to slide apart in midair before disappearing like the others.
So based on Iai Quickdraw’s Skill Description that makes ‘31’ the optimal damage for a normal hit? I wish I could celebrate landing two thirds of that without Skill assistance. But I can’t shake the feeling that the numbers are skewed in a way that makes the missing third indicative of a truly dogshit performance on my part.
That’s when I belatedly notice that the big hairy spider is still alive. But at least it doesn’t seem to know how to move with two fewer legs thanks to the ethereal slash.
With a grin, I get as parallel to the ground as I can balance.
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
I fly across the courtyard. My cheeks puff out and ripple from the airspeed just before I slam my longsword down on the struggling thing. Sliding past it from the latent kinetic energy of my jump, I try to use some of that momentum to resheath the sword. But I flub it, missing the goal entirely. “Fuck!” In a motion that would’ve torn several of my old body’s arm and shoulder muscles, I fight that same momentum to make sure its edge is actually inside and at the correct angle before ramming it home. Then, my still-sliding feet leave the ground as I’m blasted even further away as another ‘62’ rises from the now exploding Spiderwolf.
The moment it dies, its limbs disconnect and clatter in all directions like if I’d just thrown a fully assembled Mr Potato Head at a wall.
The Spiderwolves are fast. In short bursts, at least. Their jumping speed could outrun me no problem. But after each jump, they have to pause before taking another. They can do their skittering during that time. Which, while profoundly unnerving, is actually slower than my own walking speed.
It also helps that their effective range is far less than my own. Although that’s not saying much. Even unarmed and trapped beneath a slab, I beat them in that department. In terms of striking distance, the longsword is overkill. The little wolf heads look dangerous. And they are. I know that from the same experience. But I was trapped, then. And the dangerous heads just happen to be situated on short little nubs at the ends of their bodies. Apart from making them easy to hit and avoid if I’m careful, it also makes landing a headshot incredibly satisfying.
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The fact that their effective weight is about that of a bowling ball, especially contributes to just how fun it is to knock them around. They look scary and sound scarier. But as I get used to fighting them, and the pseudo-arachnophobia their very existence inspires, I can’t help but think of them more and more like eight-legged punching bags. Speed balls to be specific. Not wanting to ruin James’ workout equipment, I never actually tried mercilessly pummeling one with a big stick. Turns out, it’s more fun than I ever imagined.
So it’s with a light heart that I refuse to board that train of thought. Instead, I give my undivided attention to the golden number floating out of the disassembled spider corpse, giving the same 1 XP as the last one I killed.
Standing still, I point to the spider like a deer in headlights. “Did I just do that?”
I blink. “I did not just do that.”
I shake my head. “I just cut shit… With my sword.”
My mouth gapes open like a frog. “I just cut shit, WITH my sword.”
I jump up and down. “I just cut shit. With my fucking sword! Ha, ha!”
I settle into a shit-eating grin. “Yeah, okay. That is something I do now. I swing swords, talk to guys on benches, kill jacked-up spiders… You know what?”
I turn around to face the wall. “I’ll probably fly next.”
[ HP: 245/256 ]
What in the-oh. I snap out of my reverie as one of the Spiderwolves jumps right into a valiant attempt to bite entirely through my ankle. It doesn’t hurt. But I still feel like a shackle just got rammed onto my leg. Despite what Oars would have you believe, turning off pain doesn’t actually remove all feeling. Which is why I look down at it, raising my sword. “Oh, that’s too far? Good to know there’s a line.”
I slash it in the face.
It rudely comps down again.
[ HP: 234/256 ]
I glare down at it in affronted dignity. “Um, did you not just see me take out that gnarly spider?” That said, I pivot on my other foot and and use all my minmaxed Physical Strength to kick the thing across the room.
I watch with satisfied approval as it careens straight into the new spider skittering in to replace the one I just killed.
I grab my sword as the two prepare to jump at me. “Oh, bring it, you mangled monsters!”
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
Not so much in a flash as in an excited flurry, I draw my sword and smash them each twice, once horizontally and once vertically, as though with a long, thin, metal baseball bat. This earns partially opaque, dazed and bleeding representations of ‘26’, ‘24’, ‘21’, and ‘27’ to respectively float off the spiders with each hit. Not missing a beat, I dodge a lunge from one of them, Dash to an unoccupied corner of the courtyard, and resheath my sword. The instant I do, four things happen at once. First, a notification.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: BONUS DAMAGE = 248 ]
Second, a jagged ethereal cross appears over both spiders, tracing the exact placement and direction of each strike. Third, a transparent, red ‘124’ floats up out of each before sliding into two separate pieces and fading into the air. Fourth, both spiders explode in a shower of green goop and chitin.
Almost in a trance, I look unblinkingly upwards, directly into the shower of monster parts. A few seconds into that, I wince.
[ HP: 212/256 ]
I stiffly pivot my head down to glare at the two spiders I’d just knocked over.
They answer my gaze by scrambling upright, skittering over here, and rudely biting into my left thigh and right shin while I’m having a moment.
Glaring down at the assholes, my eyes move to two more spiders crawling in to replace the ones I just exploded.
By now, I’m all but sure that monsters in this place aren’t actually sentient. If they were, I have to believe that the ‘welcoming’ smile I’m giving them would force at least one of them to react with something. Fear? Maybe rage? Amusement? Anything at all? But no. They don’t hesitate in the least. And seeing that only makes me feel a whole lot better about the fact that neither do I.
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
Jumping clear across the courtyard, I whip-kick the spiders clamped onto each leg down at the two newcomers. I don’t have quite enough leverage to throw the one on my thigh, so it just kind of drops.
But shin-spider is another story, crunching into its kin like an unreasonably soft pinball.
Then, landing behind the confused scrabbling cluster of tangled legs and dented pinballs, I go to town. I wail on them, sheathing, drawing, cutting, resheathing, and sometimes even doing all that without getting hit myself.
I don’t know how long the next part takes.
I feel like I should be standing on a mountain of neatly disconnected spider parts by now. That’d be nice… But as fast as I can make them, all the corpses keep turning into little pouches, each shining from their opening in a tiny pillar of light. Unfortunately, that happens at the same rate as I kill them. So there are never quite enough monster parts littering the courtyard to form the image of desolation and mayhem I feel I’ve well and truly earned.
Instead, once I sheathe my sword to explode the last one into hard, meaty chunks, I hear what I’ve been waiting for. The wonderful, intolerable, inner-ear-grating sound of stone-on-stone as the slabs covering each exit lift into the archways they’d fallen from.
As the corpses disappear, so do the fluids, viscera, and general mess I made of the things. This leaves me way too clean for my own liking, standing with a pristine sword in a pre-ruined courtyard. It looks rather festive, in fact, covered as it is in little glowing bags of free stuff. As a teenage girl, I feel this should really be more up my alley than the whole pile-of-corpses thing. But it’s not. It’s really, really not. Still, never one to do anything else with loot, I make sure to clean the place dry. The light shining up out of most of the pouches is white. And boring. So I pick those up first.
[ ITEMS GAINED: $76 USD — COMMON MATERIAL * 31: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE LEG — COMMON MATERIAL * 20: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE CARAPACE — COMMON MATERIAL * 24: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE FANG ]
“Fuck yeah!” That’s the longsword nearly paid off right there. Goddamn, either these spiders are literally walking bags of money, or that salesman was actually honest about it being easy to come by. As for the rest of the drops? Meh. I mean maybe that’s good? Not like I know otherwise, right? Although the sheer number I got of each thing doesn’t say much for their value… But I lick my lips as I eye the four slightly bigger pouches with green lights that I purposely saved for last.
[ ITEMS GAINED: $8 USD — UNCOMMON MATERIAL * 2: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE CORTEX — UNCOMMON MATERIAL * 1: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE MANTLE — UNCOMMON WEAPON * 1: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE DAGGER — COMMON LIGHT ARMOR * 1: LEFT GREAVE OF THE DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE ]
I’m really not trying to use daggers over here… More of a step back from a longsword than anything. I still don’t quite get what the spider parts are for. But I’m not about to say ‘no’ to armor. Especially when I have none.
[ LIGHT ARMOR EQUIPPED: LEFT GREAVE OF THE DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE ]
Looking down at my new equipment, I notice something strange. It’s so ornate… Was the spider just ‘carrying’ the thing around? Did it use its last moments to weave its own body parts into elaborate patterns on a boot? That doesn’t seem right. But who else would’ve done it? And why is this bothering me now and not in every RPG I’ve ever played? Grumbling at the lack of a ready answer to any of my questions, I briefly wonder which of the three branching paths I should go down. Well, I’m closest to the left one… So I go left.
At the end of the hallway is a room with a switch.
I trepidatiously walk up and press it.
Nothing happens.
Shrugging, I retrace my steps back to the courtyard and turn to face the middle path. The one I got stuck in last time. I squint at it, trying to discern some trap beyond what I already disabled by beating all the spider waves. I can’t see anything more off about it than the left hallway that I just went in and out of with no problem. Still though…
[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]
Determined not to be as stupid as last time, I put on a burst of speed so fast I might as well have teleported to the other side.
Nothing still happens.
With an ever-lightening heart, I beat the ever-loving shit out of the few spiders littering the hall with only a little cathartic malice. After all, I don’t really know which of the identical creatures killed me last time. So, it’s not like I just slaughter them indiscriminately for the crimes of one. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? That’s exactly what I do.
One impromptu therapy session later, I find a door at the end of the path. Half of it is lit up in a blue, distinctly unlocked-seeming glow. Guess I know what the switch did…
With all the thrill and passion normally reserved for taking out the trash, I trudge back to the courtyard. Then into the right hallway, all the way to its end, press the switch, back to the courtyard. Finally, I groaningly trudge my way back down the center path to the now entirely blue, distinctly open door.
I grin.
[ COMMON POTION USED: MINOR HEALTH ]
[ HP: 256/256 ]
[ DUNGEON BOSS TARGETED: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE MATRIARCH ]
I don't even bother thinking about what to actually call it. As soon as I see the big gross multi-headed drooling cerberus-spider, I immediately want it not to exist. Just as immediately, I try to make that happen.
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
Before it even centers itself on me, I jump in and smack the thing four times in one face or another.
[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]
Getting out of its range just as quickly after smacking it around, I resheathe.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: BONUS DAMAGE = 248 ]
As the outlines of my strikes flash into midair gashes, an equally red bisected ‘248’ floats up out of the three-headed spider-cerberus. That throws it backwards to ragdoll across the big central chamber’s rough stone floor.
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
I chase after to follow up, but it’s too far away and my blessings don’t recharge that fast. So, I only get two hits in before I have to jump away and resheathe.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: BONUS DAMAGE = 124 ]
The spider is jostled, but immediately recovers and bites my sword arm even as I try to pull it back. And unfortunately, it does so with all three heads.
[ HP: 143/256 ]
Almost half my health? Okay, not about to do that again… But is there a sweet spot? Not willing to die to that bullshit, I get my jump ready.
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
Three hits and then a resheath.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: BONUS DAMAGE = 186 ]
That knocks the spider right on its three-headed ass-equivalent. But it isn’t thrown any real distance.
I feel a malicious grin coming on. “Perfect…” Before it can fully get back up, I do it again.
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: BONUS DAMAGE = 186 ]
And then I do it again. And again. More.
At the end of the ever-more-depressing loop, the spider explodes, its heads popping off like wet, lopsided marbles once its HP drops to zero.
Good thing, too. Taking my recharge rate into account, I only had enough stamina for another five of those. And I was kinda starting to feel bad for the thing…
Taking a knee to catch my breath, I just watch the corpse in the middle of the room, admiring the kill until it becomes a large-ish pouch with a blue beam of light rising out of it. “Oh fuck yeah…”
[ ITEMS GAINED: $8 USD — UNCOMMON MATERIAL * 1: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE MATRIARCH FANG — RARE MATERIAL * 1: DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE MATRIARCH MANTLE — UNCOMMON WEAPON * 1: HALBERD OF THE DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE ]
Ah, fuck. I mean Halberds are cool… But that makes it even more painful that I can’t use one. I’m basically being hard-carried by that one Skill right now. And I’m relatively sure the system doesn’t treat halberds as ‘resheathable’. Not to mention extremely sure they don’t count as swords. There’s probably a version of every kind of weapon in the loot table, huh? I hope not… Makes my katana chances slim-to-none. How many weapon types are there, anyway?
A little dejected now, I walk towards the glowing Exit Sign. As soon as I touch where there used to be a wall, I find myself surrounded by trees and rocks just outside the dungeon entrance. Then, I get a new prompt.
[ IS THIS A GOOD DUNGEON? ]
Well… I do like the exploding spiders. On the other hand, the dungeon design is objectively kinda shit… but I do still need-
[ VOTE REGISTERED ]
“Fuck!” Freezing in place, my skin erupts in goosebumps as I realize what I just did. With the help of the Adventurer’s Guild recruiter, I found out how to search through everything known about all the System-registered locations in a massive radius around the town. And this dungeon, the one I just voted to destroy, drops the only katana in all of that. This is the only one in… How many hundreds of miles? Thousands? Where would I even look for another?
My throat drops into my stomach as I stare at the entrance to the dungeon. First in a haze of fear. That soon fizzles into a film of worry. But it disperses to let in a ray of hope as nothing continues to happen. Not wanting to give the still-extant dungeon a chance to change its mind, I Dash back in, my heart pounding harder than it ever had against the spiders. Oh thank god… I relax into a sigh of relief as the skittering starts back up and the stone slabs drop back down. With a smile, I unclench something I didn’t know was clenched. “Here we go again…”
And so there I go again. This time, I get a rope dart instead of a halberd. Which is surprisingly cool, being a massive spider fang on the end of a reinforced web. Not that I can actually use it. You don’t get much further from a ‘sword’ than a rope dart. Although I do still snag another piece of armor along the way.
[ COMMON MEDIUM SHOULDERS EQUIPPED: CAPE OF THE DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE ]
And then finally because it clashes with the tarp…
[ COMMON ACCESSORY UNEQUIPPED: RIPPED BLANKET ]
But most importantly, I vote not to destroy the whole place upon exiting. Although it does get more tempting with each repetition. Because afterwards, I do the whole thing again. And again. And again as I keep voting not to destroy it. But all that glitters isn’t gold as I also keep not getting a goddamned katana already.