014 - A LEVER TO MOVE THE IMMOVABLE
Fever dreams. That was what the world had become. He was back in his shop, nauseous, trying to open the door to get outside. It was impossible and he knew it - he was in the dungeon! Wake up, Chaos take it!
But the vision persisted.
He tried to will it away, to see whatever it was that he should be seeing but around him was only the shop. Blurry, familiar and yet wrong in that way that only dreams can be.
“Even crooked paths sometimes need to be walked,” Conrad said, embracing the churched up version of a saying common among adventurers when no other options presented themselves.
He pushed at the “door” again and found his arms too weak. Found it hurt. He felt worse, felt vomit leaking out of his mouth as he even lacked the strength to double over in a proper heave. He also wasn’t sure why he needed to open the door so badly but the fever hallucination was everything now and ignoring the impulse just frustrated him.
Leaning with his whole body, pinpricks stabbing into him at every exposed section of skin and even pushing through what clothes he had on, the door yet again refused to budge.
A prompt appeared to him through the delirium:
Advanced Attribute Discovered!
Poison Resistance
Poison Resistance? Why now? Maybe his Herbalism skill was a prerequisite?
Through the brain fog he awoke to a dim consciousness. It was not the shop around him, it was the jungle.
His body ached, nausea pressed at him and his stomach spasmed almost continuously, but it had nothing left to give back to the forest from his plant eating spree.
His body was covered in scratches that oozed pus. Where had he gotten all of these? He had passed out… then he was in the shop and… oh. He had known the fever dream for what it was and yet the reality of what he had been doing was so stupid.
In front of him was one of the Midnight Arrow bushes obviously damaged by the fever and poison addled delirium that had gripped so tightly in its grip.
He checked his status just to confirm what he already knew.
“Yep,” he said, too poisoned even to muster up any fear, “I’m dying.”
But the notification? It was new and expensive for a general skill. For a moment a lifetime of frugality with his invested XP almost got the better of him - what a waste it would be to invest it only to die.
He shook his head to try and clear it. That was a stupid line of reasoning. The poison was making it hard to think.
It made sense to him now why adventurers, when out of options, chose the shortest, strongest, most to the point saying that in its short four words carried all the power of an axiom that commands man to live at all possible costs. And here in the dungeon, even in his state he could understand that that was the only possible goal of any human life - to live.
“Fuck it,” Conrad rasped aloud, nobody to hear him but himself, “We live.”
He found the icon for Poison Resistance in his progression interface and willed the requisite 250XP into it.
Advanced Attribute Earned
Name: Poison Resistance
Classification: General/Passive/Advanced Attribute
Description: It takes a brave man to ingest the unknown plants of the wild. It takes a lot of brave men to discover which of those plants killed the others before them. But it takes the grace of an iron stomach and incorruptible blood to be the one to laugh at their pain and indecision. Laugh on.
Unlike with Toughness he wasn’t graced with any immediate starting levels, likely due to Poison Resistance being a general skill and so it was discoverable by anybody with the appropriate circumstances or training. But it did start to level up almost immediately.
Conrad still felt terrible, but watching that notification pop into his vision, advancing to level two, then three, and on and on, it became the very embodiment of his struggle to continue living.
As he broke through level fifteen he moved himself into a sitting posture and willed the poison to take no hold on him. He treated his nausea like an enemy and stuffed some leftover sap covered lilies into his mouth, clenching his mouth shut and forcing his stomach muscles not to contract and spit up what he was swallowing.
Fuck it, we live.
It was his mantra. And the steady rise of his resistance was his meter for success.
Puss oozed from the cuts on his arms and body, faster now, and tinged with a sickly green the exact color of the vines the Midnight Arrow thorns grew from.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, but at level thirty he realized there was no more pain. Poison was no longer among the indicators in his status and Conrad went ahead and did what the description had said - he laughed. Laughed at his brush with death. Laughed at his circumstances. Laughed at the sheer relief of feeling normal.
As an added bonus, he noticed his Toughness had gone up a level. Not bad.
He could still do this. He could still get out. And the nagging sensation of the compulsion of the magical contract wouldn’t let him forget that to get out also meant heading straight back to the Seekers.
He thought for a moment that perhaps they too were looking for him? But as soon as the thought coalesced in his mind he banished it with a sudden, vicious bitterness and anger.
This was what they had wanted. They wanted him dead down here in the dungeon. He was meant to be bait, fodder to feed the dungeon and help it grow a little bit more rich so they could harvest just a little more wealth before getting out.
The only reason a woman like Karina would want to find him down here would be to parade his corpse in front of his mother and to torture her as a final act of petty revenge.
The voices in his head, brought in by the magical nature of the compulsion screamed at him that this was dangerous territory, but through the alien guilt and fog of his brain bent to the will of somebody other than himself he growled out three words.
“I’ll kill her!”
His jaw clamped shut then and the voice in his head screamed over and over, KARINA IS GOOD! KARINA IS GOOD!
He let it wash over him down there on the eighth floor, dimming his rebellion in favor of a clear mind so he could get the hell out of here. That was first, that was everything. He had to live.
Unfortunately, that meant he had no choice but to find the Seekers.
If they had survived. If they had been killed… would he still feel the pull of the contract? Conrad wasn’t sure but he had no other option but to live and find out.
He had somehow managed to penetrate deeply into the thicket of Thorny Midnight Arrows and would need to get out - requiring yet again that he get pricked by them. Taking one thorn he jabbed himself as a test.
Ten seconds… thirty… nothing. The poisoning had happened quickly before, so he figured he must have reached a point of immunity. Taking a deep breath, he pushed through. It was uncomfortable, but nothing he couldn’t handle. And with his toughness where it was, if he was careful, the thorns couldn’t even break his skin.
And once he re-emerged he had a thought. The Lizard King was likely still down here. The Seekers would want to come back, but better prepared. Likely straight to the 8th floor via the spiral staircase. But how long would it take them to get prepared, and what kind of edge would they want before they tried it?
They weren’t thinkers. Schemers, maybe, but not thinkers. They wouldn’t try to come up with a clever plan for killing the King on their own - using Conrad as bait had been their best attempt at that and it had failed. So they’d want somebody else to do the thinking for them.
That meant hiring somebody, which seemed unlikely with how cheap they were, or waiting around in the bar and listening for some chance bit of information that could nudge things in their favor. To hear the plans of somebody better and to rush in and capitalize on them before anybody else had the chance to do it, that was their way.
There was one other option, however.
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Conrad was here. Conrad had explored parts of the eighth floor they had never been to, and in getting out he was likely to explore a good deal more of it. What if he was the source of knowledge they wouldn’t be able to resist? Could he twist this into some kind of edge that favored him?
Shoved into one of his pockets was the plan he had made days earlier. The thin paper had held up surprisingly well against the water and wear, and though some of the ink was runny he could still make out the idea he had written down.
Get leverage he had written. Down here in the dungeon there were no rules, and Conrad had seen the extent to which the Seekers were willing to go for the sake of treasure. An entire band’s lives meant nothing to them next to some extra loot.
He could expose them… but how much would they even care? And what if nobody else cared? Conrad had been adventuring a grand total of a couple of days, maybe this kind of thing was commonplace.
He didn’t want it to be like that but… he looked over the rest of his list and settled on the option to buy his way out.
At the time he had been thinking of treasure. Something the Seekers couldn’t say no to, but the contract loot clause would have had him give up whatever he found that the Seekers wanted anyway.
But when he considered the idea of leverage, it didn’t have to mean blackmail. Leverage was having power, a lever to lean against to improve one’s negotiating position. And Conrad had a feeling he knew just how to get the leverage to make it so he, the Merchant, was the one with the most negotiating power.
There was something the Seekers would negotiate to get… or keep, rather. Exactly one thing.
He would buy his way out of the Contract.
As a Merchant that sentence would mean something so much simpler. Gold allowed men to trade value for value, it was clean.
But to adventurers? They didn’t only trade in gold. The truest of all currencies with them was that of life and death.
If Conrad went down that road, he would be changing forever.
He looked around him at the dungeon, the jungle, and somewhere in it, all the monster killing he had done to get here. Things had already changed. Gold and silver were the currencies of his old life. They had utility here, but the only thing that really mattered to adventurers was living one more day. He understood that with a clarity now that would never had been possible before.
The last piece of his old life that was left was the piece that still looked on killing men and women, no matter how deserving, as the wrong course of action. There had to be an alternative, some way to reason that could prevent the use of lethal force. But looking around at this jungle, thinking even of Troy, Mara, and Karl, and the body of the poor woman they may have left behind to die… how the Seekers too had wanted to leave her to be forgotten and absorbed by this dungeon, just a little more XP for it to grow stronger.
Attempting to still hold to that old code and believe that this kind of person could be reasoned with in a language other than that of violence was naive in the most extreme sense.
Even as he considered everything, behind it all that alien sensation urging him to find the Seekers was screaming at him to move, irritating and torturing him. Karina is good.
Enough was enough.
Fuck it, we live.
That was what the saying was really about. We live though others die. We live though the price is heavy. We live because we’re men and that is the only true course available to us.
And if something or somebody gets in the way of that?
Fuck it. They die.
He moved off. He’d fight the sensation as long as he could, get the lay of the land, try to figure out the best course of action. It was the best he could do. For now.
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The eighth floor was massive. The jungle sprawled out for dozens of miles in every direction but, days later, banged up, bloodied, and sporting a full set of chitin armor and some reasonable weapons for once, Conrad found the staircase. He had managed to push in directions other than directly up the stream, forcing himself to dumb his reason down to the capacity of a child. It had been an active process, day after day of telling himself that he wasn’t guaranteed to find the way out by following the stream since he might miss the site of the battle and still be lost. And over those hard earned days he had pushed himself to improve and grow.
But seeing the staircase there brought the compulsion with renewed fervor and so he climbed the spiral staircase that was a direct line to the surface. Minutes later, he found himself taking in the cool air of night fallen on the city of Edge.
Back in the relative vicinity of the Seekers home base, he breathed in a sigh of relief as the screaming in his mind to get back to them finally, mercifully, went silent. Now though, the necessity of sleep and putting the rest of his plan in motion was still sending him back to where they stayed.
He entered the Inn and caught the eye of the bartender who gave him a look like he didn’t quite expect to ever see Conrad walk through those doors again. Respectful nods exchanged, Conrad headed to the second floor.
Through the temporary walls that gave some privacy to guests he could hear Karina talking loudly with Buck about nothing while Joy mumbled along. He almost went over to join them, almost, but decided if he could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, that was a better use of his time than relating any portion of his tale to an inebriated group. He returned to his room, removed his ruined clothing, and collapsed onto his bed and into a dreamless sleep.
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“Wakey wakey,” a man’s voice stirred Conrad awake. Buck, Joy, and Karina all stood around his bed, wearing armor and fully prepared for a dungeon dive.
“When Joy told us you were back well, we had to come see it for ourselves,” Buck said.
“Expect you were worried sick,” Conrad said, rubbing his eyes and getting up. He eyed the sunlight coming through the window, “Thanks for letting me sleep in though, did I miss breakfast?”
“Joy sleeps late. You gave him a terrible shock when he woke up to see you sleeping there. How the big dumb bastard missed you coming in I’ll never understand,” Karina said, “But I confess, swindler’s son, I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again.”
“Getting back took some doing,” Conrad said, voice deadly, “But I didn’t really have a choice did I?”
Karina gave him a sardonic smile, “True enough. Cough it up then, all of it. Everything you took from the dungeon.”
Conrad sighed, he knew it was coming but he couldn’t help but hang on to one tiny hope he might be able to keep something of what he found. Especially the dagger from Mara, it was a good blade and using it felt right.
He did as he was told though, and emptying his inventory soon the ground was littered with various plants, herbs, lizardkin weapons and armor, and a decent stack of coins. When it was all on the ground he turned to Joy’s bed before removing the last thing in his inventory.
The body of the female adventurer they had found manifested gently on top of the covers.
“You Chaos taken piece of –” Karina set in, but Joy interjected much louder.
“Not my bed!”
“Put her away, Conrad,” Buck said. And Conrad obeyed, sending the dead woman back into his inventory.
“What are you doing carrying that thing around?” Karina snapped.
“Mortuary doesn’t open till dawn so I got back too late. I’ll take her in today,” Conrad said.
“Good, and if nobody claims her and they crack her inventory, whatever she’s got left is ours,” Karina said.
“Always has been,” Conrad replied, “But you all look ready to go - are we in a hurry?”
Buck eyed him cooly a moment before replying, “We’re going back in, just a treasure run, we were planning on hiring a merc or two to fill out the squad. Rumor’s of the King say he’s deeper now. Down near the eighteenth floor.”
Conrad shook his head slowly, “No. No they’re wrong.”
“What do you know about it?” Karina said, crossing her arms.
“Well,” Conrad said, deliberately slowing down his speech. Now was the time for him to plant the seed. “True or false? I’m the latest news you have from the dungeon.”
The trio looked at each other and Buck shrugged, “We heard the King moved the evening after we came out.”
Conrad was in the middle of pulling his boots on when he stopped, “Just how long was I down there?”
“Three days,” Joy said, excited, “Bet you did a lot of killin’ down there!”
Three days? He knew it had been awhile but he must have lost more time than he thought. Or, like Joy said, gotten so lost in the killing and fighting that time stopped mattering. Day and night didn’t really apply down there the way it did on the surface…
“Not what you expected or you just have a seizure?” Buck said.
Conrad shook his head and recovered himself, “Just a shock is all. So if it was days ago you heard that, I’m here to tell you that information is old.”
He observed their reactions and waited. Wait them out, he told himself, make them curious.
“Order’s tits, out with it,” Karina said, “What do you mean it’s old?”
“I mean,” Conrad said, “that your information is old.”
“And you mean you’ve got something better so out with it already,” Karina said, impatient.
“I want to trade. The King’s location for my release from the contract,” Conrad said, “Contract doesn’t demand I tell you. Go ahead and try and make me.”
“Merchants,” Karina said, “Can you believe him, Buck?”
“The stones on him,” Buck said, chuckling, “But traders sometimes don’t see the big picture, you want to fill him in?”
“Conrad,” Karina said, tone taking on the practiced patience of a parent dealing with a child, “Dear, you’re worth more to us as a… contracted man than a free agent. Just look at this haul you brought us without us even needing to order it done? Whether you tell us or not, you have to help us. And whether that means you help us in another hundred delves before we happen across the King again, or you help us find him today, we’re going to use you.”
She bent down and pressed her cleavage together, an act that a few days prior might have sparked some interest in Conrad but now just filled him with revulsion.
“We’re going to squeeze you,” she said, exaggerating the motion, “until it’s like trying to squeeze blood from a stone.”
She straightened up, “But, that being said… you did come back like the good boy you are, so how about this. We’ll put a term on your indenture. If you can lead us to the King. Deal?”
No part of Conrad had expected her to give him his freedom, but for the sake of decency he had had to ask. Now though? His conscience was clean. All that was left was to play his part in the game they believed they had him playing.
“How long?” he asked.
She swirled her fingers in the air, “Oh, I don’t know, how does another year sound? With option to take it up with the board here. After six months of good behavior.”
He sighed, boots on and ready to go, “Let me keep the dagger and a set of that chitin armor, so I can make it the full distance of the contract.”
“It’s a deal, darling!” Karina said, cheerfully, “And as an added bonus, I’ll even let you take that thing in your inventory to the mortuary before today’s dive.”
“You’re a peach,” Conrad said.
“Don’t flatter her, she’ll get a big head on her,” Buck said, playfully nudging Karina who was all smiles.
“We’ll see you back here then, don’t take too long. We’ve got regicide to perform,” Karina said.
Without another word Conrad swept up the belongings she had said he could keep from the floor and quickly fled from the room. It was important that they think him a beaten man. Important that they believed he felt he had a way out.
Conrad made his way directly to the Mortuary, which was just on the other side of The Down.
He wondered vaguely what people might say of him when he returned alone a second time from the depths of the Warren Dungeon.