Chapter 111
By the time Michael and Stephan reached the boss chamber, silence had befallen the duo. They each fought with their own goals in mind, and nothing more needed to be spoken between them. When they were done clearing the last room, Michael simply looked at the threshold leading to the boss chamber and sighed.
It had taken a single sentence from Stephan, after Michael had explained the challenge the boss room represented, to once and for all disabuse him of any illusions he might have had about his sensei. A single sentence, a single ask.
Michael stepped through, entering the boss room mere moments before Stephan. In that short amount of time, pressure and power radiated outwards from him. It was the culmination of his power, a mix of all his skills, all his mastery over aura and raw magic manipulation. In less than a second, a dozen monsters were reduced to a pulp. The monsters were all overpowered versions of the first floor's already-seen mobs, powerful enough to challenge any Silver-rank user with their sheer number, unless that mage had an advantage they could use to overcome the odds.
They were reduced to decaying magic before Michael's might faster than a person could blink, without him even breaking a sweat. Then, a powerful suction force swept the room, draining its mana and replenishing most of the magic Michael had expended. Not all of it, for such overwhelming power was unsustainable at such shallow dungeon layers.
The reward for clearing the room materialized. Yet more magic, in the form of coins, and a couple of trinkets. Magical items were starting to appear among the dungeon drops, following the expected rank-rarity progression, and these were nothing more than common-rank items. They would fetch a fortune in the outside world if sold, yet Michael looked at them like they were trash. They would be sold, he thought, amending his initial assessment. There was no shortage of collectors willing to keep quiet about magic if given the opportunity to own a magic item.
Some would even be used to further Unity's agenda of slowly exposing the world to magic and magic-aligned ideas. Already, many online forums were gaining traction, discussing holistic medicine and all sorts of unusual concepts that would play a crucial role when Unity finally decided to introduce truly magical items to the market.
"What now?" Stephan inquired.
Michael breathed, "Now we can go to the Valley and rest, if we want."
Stephan nodded. "Or," he began, "if I choose to stop now, will you let me?"
"Of course," Michael responded immediately.
"You won't keep me against my will or take away my powers, will you?" Stephan pressed.
Michael shook his head. "I won't. I only ask that you at least come to the Valley with me. Aren't you curious?"
Stephan shook his head with a smile. "Of course, I am. I want to see what sort of place could be good enough for you to spend months at a time without getting bored," he admitted.
Two weeks later, Stephan was laughing with the Fae at one of their feasts.
"Man," he exclaimed, waving a glass of Fae wine at Michael. "I understand now. I understand everything. This place… it's magical!"
He was clearly inebriated, despite his Copper-rank physique. In the past two weeks, Michael had given him the remaining skill stones he'd selected: [Air Step], [Air Shot], and [Air Shield], which, along with [Wind Rush], completed his magical kit nicely. Stephan had also achieved mastery of the Air element and had trained against the Fae in multiple spars. It had been challenging at first to find the right sparring partner, but it had been smooth sailing afterward.
Most would call Stephan’s gains very solid. Indeed, even compared to the Operators, he was already—after a single delve—more powerful than most of them. And yet, neither Michael nor any of his close circle would agree with such a statement.
Furthermore, Michael was feeling rather grumpy. For the first time he was having trouble shielding someone from the dungeon's Gaze. It was as if the dungeon disapproved of Stephan, pushing harder and harder against Michael's protections to the point it was becoming uncomfortable. Even some of the Fae were starting to look at them sideways, their wariness mostly directed at Stephan, clearly under the dungeon's influence.
"We can go down a floor, see if that helps," Stephan suggested after Michael explained what was happening.
"Are you sure that's wise? You're still low Copper-rank. You haven't trained much against real opponents," Michael cautioned.
"I'm a grown adult; I can make my own choices," Stephan stated. "Besides, you can protect me, can't you?"
Michael nodded, not entirely happy about it.
"If we clear it, then won't the dungeon let me stay longer?" Stephan reasoned.
Again, Michael wasn't sure it was wise. Stephan had a family and a job, both of which he hadn't seen for two weeks. In the end, though, Michael caved. It wasn't his life, he supposed, and Stephan was a grown-up, capable of making his own decisions.
They went down to the third floor, the one with the mummies, and then down again to the fourth after Michael explained its challenges to Stephan. Stephan had become hooked on the dungeon, the Fae feasts, and the thrill of magic, but he never wanted to face the harsh reality of what the dungeon truly meant. If this was what having a normal friend meant, Michael was starting to think, then perhaps it wasn't worth it. Perhaps, he mused, normal people and he no longer had enough in common.
On the fourth floor, they didn't go to the scorpion arena. There was no point, not when Stephan refused to put his own life on the line, making any fight either a practice against dummies or a slaughter where Michael eliminated any danger before it could even reach them. Two things had become clear: Michael was strong, very strong, and most people were better off without magic. Travis's way of doing things might have some merit.
They met the dwarves during their stay in the hut. This time, they didn't fight. Instead, the many wagons stopped by the hut, and a single stout man, shorter than Michael's waist, simply invited them to join the caravan.
"Where are you headed?" Michael asked as he sat by Trylfir, the dwarf who had invited them. They were in the lead wagon, heading down toward the valley at the base of the mountain.
"To our old, frozen halls, lad," the dwarf replied. He didn't seem to acknowledge the height difference, simply treating Michael like a normal, albeit lost, dwarf. "It is our last hope, as you well know, to reclaim the deathless throne, where the fire of our forges still burns bright. In memory, at least. Alas, 'tis nay true in reality anymore, for the forges have long gone cold."
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Stephan, sitting behind them, grinned. "Don't worry," he declared, "we'll help you reach your ancestral home."
Stephan was an avid player of tabletop games, or at least he had been in his youth. While killing goblins and sparring with the Fae had been enjoyable, it had been nothing but the appetizer. Seeing real dwarves, on carts carried by mythical beings, full of ores and strange tools, really lit a fire in him. But where Stephan saw adventure and fun, Michael saw danger and the sadness of the dwarves' existence—reduced from a mighty race to pawns in an endlessly repeating cycle. He had seen them at their worst, attacking him and Drullkrin simply because Drullkrin was a goblin, even though Michael doubted they had ever seen one before.
Yet, the goblin had been an intruder, someone who should never have left their floor, and was met with hostility. Michael had killed them all back then, prompting the eventual reset of the entire floor. Perhaps this was the difference between him and Stephan: he had killed and would kill again, while his friend was relaxing on an adventure. Although, to be honest, it was Michael who allowed his friend to relax.
"Thank ye, lad," the dwarf rumbled, turning to Stephan with a large smile and lifting his axe. "That does mean a lot to us. To see that youth is not lost, and ye're eager to help the clan. Ah, centuries of war have left us…"
Suddenly, there was a cry from far above. Trylfir's head snapped up, and a frown colonized his bearded face. "A raven in the storm," he muttered, and the clouds above were dark and ominous, swirling like a gigantic hurricane with them directly below where the eye would form. "'Tis but a harbinger of the rising cold. Naught we can do against the silent enemy, what reduced even the fire of war into nothing but buried embers, holding on but barely. We all feel it, the tremor in our blood. It keeps us awake at night."
Michael sighed while Stephan looked transfixed. The dwarf is explaining lore! his face seemed to say. Michael had not only heard it all before, but he'd heard it so many times it had become meaningless, especially coming from the same dwarf who would gladly see him in pieces after seeing him with a goblin. There was a harsh truth beneath the façade of fun and games, one that only Michael seemed to grasp.
They were led to the ancient halls of the dwarves, as promised. It was a grand gate in the mountains, crumbling after eons of erosion and time. Yet, even though countless years had passed and the stone was crumbling, the gate was still magnificent. It stood against the mountainside where the forest gave way to a clearing. It was not only huge and majestic, but ancient magic seemed to radiate from within. Lingering traces of elemental energies could be felt from deep beneath the mountain.
The caravan was attacked as they approached the gate and tried to figure out how to open it. Once again, what was a mystical adventure to Stephan was, to Michael, rote repetition. He'd been through this too many times. The attackers were monsters, mutated wolves, and enemy dwarves. Michael dealt with them mercilessly, killing them with ruthless efficiency.
Not a single allied dwarf was harmed, nor were they needed to defend the caravan when the one-man army Michael represented was more than enough. Stephan frowned afterward, saying Michael wasn't embracing the spirit of the adventure. Clearly, he had forgotten where they were and what they were doing. But then again, Michael thought, perhaps he was the one looking at it all wrong. He had brought Stephan to the dungeon for an adventure, to have fun like friends, not to train. He was the one looking at it all wrong, projecting onto Stephan. He was judging Stephan unfairly, he realized, as he watched his friend talk to the dwarves, trying to learn why the other dwarves had attacked and what their history could teach them. Michael doubted the dwarves' history was even real. While things in the dungeon were sometimes real, this floor didn't feel like the others.
This was the difference between him and Stephan. This was why he felt disconnected from everyone on the planet except the few people in his organization. He was too far gone to be normal anymore. And, most importantly, he shouldn't judge normal people by his standards.
Realizing this, he looked at Stephan with different eyes. Now, he saw that his friend was trying to have fun but was also scared, feeling at the mercy of the one person who could protect him: Michael. He realized Stephan might be missing his family. But he'd stayed in the dungeon because he wanted to spend time with Michael and felt guilty about how he'd treated him at the dojo.
Or maybe none of that was true, and Michael was simply making it up. If anything, Michael felt that this switch in mentality would do him good in the real world. He would no longer try to bridge the gap between himself and the normal people, but simply treat everyone with respect while acknowledging their differences.
Stephan was having fun, and that was exactly what Michael wanted for his friend to experience of the dungeon. Up until now, he had been grumpy because in his mind Stephan was not appreciating the titanic effort Michael had put just so Stephan could have fun.
This much was true. But, he realized, what did it matter? Did Michael want Stephan to hate the dungeon and every moment he spent in it? Because that’s what happens when someone who isn’t a total lunatic is made to see what the dungeon really is. Only people like himself, and his friends in a lesser manner, who were all dysfunctional people in the real world, could experience the dungeon differently.
No, the truth was that he was feeling grumpy, and this feeling was accentuated by the stress and the pressure of having to protect Stephan from the Gaze, for reasons that had nothing to do with Stephan or his behaviour. Michael was feeling grumpy because he wasn’t being validated. His efforts were not awarding him any prestige. Stephan wasn’t in awe of his abilities. People weren’t prostrating at his feet, swayed by his power.
When had he become like this?
He shook his head. He had fostered an environment that was slowly and subtly accentuating flaws he had always had, but that had always been suffocating by his more powerful self loathing and guilt. Now that he was breaking free of his old chains, he must be careful not to lose himself to new, more vicious bindings.
Why was he seeing this now?
There is only one possible explanation. The Truth facet is forcing me to see the truth for what it is.
Unity level up!
Huh. To think that introspection can be this valuable. I should do it more.
In a way, this dungeon run ended up being the opposite of the fishing trip, when Michael had imposed his desires on Stephan. Instead of having fun, they'd ended up in a weird, awkward situation. Now the opposite had happened.
He shook his head. This floor… he didn't like it. It was time to end this farce.
He walked toward the great door and punched it. It wasn't enough to open it, but it was enough to create a hollow space where he could materialize a [Distortion Field]. That got the door open.
"Come on," he said tiredly to a dumbfounded Stephan. "Let's go. I'm getting tired."
"But why?" Stephan complained. "This was fun!"
"Yeah, but I'm protecting you from the Gaze, and it's getting on my nerves. I know you're having fun, but I'm not," Michael explained.
Stephan nodded, suddenly serious. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed you were enjoying this as much as I was. Let's get this done. It’s time for me to return to my family. I've had enough fun for a while," he conceded.
Michael was left thinking. What was the right thing to do? What was the healthy balance between family time and dungeon adventures? What did it mean for a normal person to spend weeks or months in a peaceful valley, surrounded by strange, not-quite-monsters, eating wondrous food?
It was easy to impose his views on others. It was much harder to see things from their perspective. Especially since the dungeon opened up such strange possibilities, deviating so far from normal life that it threw common sense out the window.
Was Stephan wrong to be a coward? Was he wrong to enjoy the adventure while Michael did the heavy lifting? After all, Michael had offered to protect him. Michael had agreed that Stephan wouldn't face danger while they adventured. In fact, Michael had hoped he could enjoy the adventure as much as his sensei, even though he had found himself unable to, due to the nature of this floor, or perhaps the dungeon itself, or perhaps his own nature.
In the end, he walked through the frozen halls with more questions than answers. But perhaps having questions was good, because it led to deeper self-discovery. And with magic, who knew if a deeper knowledge of oneself actually did lead to more power?