Power Leveling (Part 2)

“Get ready. Use Psych Up, and hit me with a Recover. I want it topped up every time it runs low, even if I’m not hurt. This is going to get messy,” Idris said, not bothering to explain.

“Idris it’s fine! She’s just going to add rooms, improve her control and make some other small changes. There will be more to explore!” Eana said, shifting to a cajoling tone “More treasure!”

In front of them the echoing of impish cries was reaching a fever pitch. The reverberations and echoes of the cavern making it impossible to discern how many of them were coming. It couldn’t be too many more than they had already faced in the cavern where they fought the shaman… but it sounded like more. A lot more.

“Dungeons expel monsters when they level up, Yahn. They can only manage so many so they get rid of the old types to make room for the upgrades!”

Eana just shook her head as she replied, “No. Shimmer would have told me that.”

Idris just turned away and took up a ready stance in front of the cave.

“Yeah? Tell that to them,” he said, as he invoked Radiance again and lofted the ball of light into the cavern. The screaming grew in pitch and the first wave, dozens of the creatures, cringed back at the sudden brilliance.

Idris quashed the fear that began to pique inside him and decided now was not the time to hold back on abilities. He opened his interface and began investing.

Skill Earned

Recovery Block

Level: 1

Activation Chance: 10%

Stamina Recovered: 5%

Skill Earned

Adrenaline Rush

Level: 1

Speed/Perception Increase: 25%

Duration: 15 seconds

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Skill Earned

Weapon Proficiency

Level: 1

Select Primary Weapon

Available Choices: Heavy Iron Sledge Hammer | Basic Belt Knife | Unarmed

NOTE: Only one primary weapon may be selected at a time. Proficiency levels for weapons not selected as primary will not increase.

Idris selected his hammer as his primary and tried not to think of the 450XP he just spent on all these skills. The next goal was to see if he could get each of them to the next level in this fight.

“No,” Idris mumbled, thinking better of it, “The next goal should definitely be not getting myself killed.”

In a rush the imps were on him. There was no more time for preparation.

As the first of them came into range he activated Adrenaline Rush. The imps’ movements, at first seeming so fast and confusing, suddenly became perceivable and ordered. Despite their speed, he felt suddenly much faster than them, like they were engaging in a warmup sparring match, not a life or death fight. But most importantly, he could tell which of them was least prepared to dodge his attack.

He struck, killing his target instantly. Spinning, he turned the momentum of the strike into an additional attack, bringing down a second. He raised his hammer for a third attack but found that the creatures were rushing around him - avoiding the fight.

“No!” He leapt after one of them and crushed the back of its skull with a downward strike.

He needed them to attack him! Needed them to stay here. If they escaped into the surrounding countryside… he forced the thoughts down and brought his focus back to the fight.

Kill as many as he could, that was his only job.

As Adrenaline Rush wore off he spared half a moment to check on Eana who, like him, was like a rock in a river as the things just flowed around her. She looked ready to strike, but unlike him, was not taking advantage of the imps’ focus on escape rather than defending themselves.

He was about to shout at her to get into the fight when the second wave hit and he was bowled over by the sheer weight of numbers rushing out of the cave. A few of the sneakier ones struck down at him with rocks, stone daggers and stone pointed spears but thanks to his enhanced toughness his injuries were only superficial.

He rolled to his feet and began swinging again, taking down every imp he managed to strike.

He thought of what Jibs had said that morning, “You don’t have to kill an enemy to win the fight,” and he transitioned from precise strikes at the relatively small heads of the imps to longer, sweeping swings at the legs of the passing monsters.

They stumbled and fell all around him, some with broken legs, others simply tripped, but all of them more vulnerable. He wouldn’t have time to finish them all, not the ones who had just tripped at least.

This time he did yell at his sister, who was still standing there uselessly. She hadn’t even healed his wounds!

“Get in the fight, Eana!”

She stepped forward a moment and raised her staff then, hesitating, lowered it again, “They’re not attacking us!”

“I don’t give two points what they’re doing! Finish them off!” Idris snarled.

Following his own advice he continued laying about him like a madman. He noticed the shaman was one of those caught by his wide attacks and took an extra moment to end him. No resurrections out here.

But it didn’t matter, they kept coming, his efforts doing nothing to stem the tide. They streamed past him wave after wave and escaped into the forest. The few he could reach he dispatched quickly enough and all around him were wounded and moaning imps with broken and sprained limbs, but so many more got away.

A blow from something fell hard against his back, causing him to stumble away from the entrance. He turned to see a new imp, a kind they hadn’t encountered before.

It was close to three times the size of the others, approaching his own height. The thing looked less like an imp and more like a large, muscular and exceptionally ugly man. It carried two massive thigh bones from a creature that could only have come from whatever passed for an imagination in the dungeon and struck them together in a fighting challenge.

Idris tried to straighten but a sharp pain across the back of his ribcage kept him bent over. Had the thing actually broken one of his bones?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Not fighting us huh?” he said, “Little help…” he turned, back still bent, to look at his sister.

She healed him and cast Assess in the same instant on the new creature.

“It’s a Cave Imp Brawler. He’s strong!” she said.

“Yeah,” Idris said, directing the characteristic, alien anger he felt back at the big imp, “Figured that part out on my own.”

Back to fighting strength, Idris charged the brawler. It charged right back at him. Moments before they clashed Idris invoked Adrenaline Rush again. He slipped the first strike and, were it not for the enhanced speed and perception of his skill, would have been taken right across the face with the attack from the second club. He held his hammer in a two handed cross guard and felt his Recovery Block engage. Relief from fatigue flooded his body as if he had had a solid ten or fifteen seconds to just relax and focus on breathing.

He let go with one hand and backfisted the brawler, using the hard ridges of his bracers to enhance the damage of the blow. As the brawler staggered back Idris struck with his hammer but the thing was fast. It parried his attack even as it stumbled backward, striking again with its second weapon which Idris, again, would not have been able to dodge without enhanced speed.

And then the skill faded and the brawler was on him. He dodged, blocked, parried and struck back but the thing was slowly overcoming everything he had. If it had weapons more suited to killing than the bones of some giant creature he would already be dead. Thankfully it was going to have to beat him to a pulp before it actually managed to kill him.

They traded blows back and forth before, mercifully, the cooldown elapsed on Adrenaline Rush. As he invoked it a prompt appeared and he just had time to see what it was before he subconsciously minimized it:

Proficiency Level Up

Skill: Adrenaline Rush 2/5

As the skill took effect the world seemed genuinely slowed, the brawler now looking as though it moved through water while Idris danced freely.

Had this been a fight before? It was almost hard to imagine as he dodged and blocked blows, enjoying another activation of his Recovery Block skill.

Despite enjoying the feeling of sudden dominance, Idris eyed the remaining time on his Adrenaline Rush warily. It was time to end this.

He shoved his hammer hard into the thing’s chest, forcing it backward and, with a speed enhanced leap forward, thrust the haft between its backpedaling legs, sending it sprawling.

Before it had time to react, Idris invoked Imbued Strike and brought the full weight of the hammer down on the monster’s head.

Gore and stinging bone chunks flew out from the ruin left by the critical strike and Idris noted the 50XP reward for only a moment before checking for additional enemies.

The world sped back into motion as his skill ran its course, and Idris, breathing heavily, realized it was over. He looked around the clearing at the mouth of the dungeon and saw there were still half a dozen wounded imps writhing on the ground.

He recalled the second half of what Jibs had taught him earlier that day, “...handle whatever else needs doing, and come back later to collect that XP.”

So he got to work.

“Idris… don’t! You don’t need to..” Eana said.

He ignored her. It surprised him to note that, just a few days before, he had killed his first monster.

And it had sickened him.

But as he moved quickly from one prone, helpless monster to the next, he realized he no longer thought of them as living things at all. They were just XP.

He checked his total earnings for the fight. After the fifty from the brawler he had brought in an additional 66, not bad, but his reward for killing imps had reduced after the first five or six kills from five to three.

Eana tried to talk with him again but he just ignored her and continued his grizzly work. While he did, his mind continued running the numbers and going over the notifications he hadn’t had time for during the fight.

Proficiency Level Up

Skill: Adrenaline Rush - 2/5

Progress: 10%

Description: At level two, the speed/perception bonus increases from 25% to 50%.

Reward: 5XP

Proficiency Level Up

Skill: Recovery Block - 2/5

Progress: 5%

Description: At level two, the activation chance increases to 15% and the stamina recovery amount increases to 10%.

Reward: 5XP

For his Weapon Proficiency skill, Idris saw two notifications pop up, then merge into one.

Proficiency Level Up

Skill: Weapon Mastery (Heavy Iron Sledge Hammer) - 3/5

Progress: 38%

Description: At level two, the stamina cost of primary attacks is reduced by 10% and at level three, the chance to land a critical strike increases to 10%.

Reward: 15XP

Almost 150XP for the whole fight. Incredible. No wonder dungeons were so highly sought after, the amount of XP you could earn running a dungeon trumped running around in the Chaos Lands any day. And it made working for a living look like an absolute joke.

Then he thought of what the XP gains might have looked like if his sister had helped him. If he had had a party, or they had prepared before this level up by clearing out most of the dungeon before Eana did whatever she had done to level it up.

He turned back to her and asked, “What were you doing in there? Other than ruining this opportunity for us.”

She stared back, not comprehending.

“What? You don’t get it?” he asked, “Because you somehow leveled up the dungeon and all of those monsters escaped, not only is the countryside more dangerous, but we missed out on all the XP of clearing the rooms together, but that’s not even the worst part.

“Have you ever seen a cave imp outside the Shimmering Rocks Dungeon? No? Me neither. The adventurers are going to notice a new type of monster appearing in the area. They’re going to start looking for the source, and when they find it our chance of having this place to ourselves is over. We’re going to have to trade times with professional adventurers who probably won’t even let us run what should have been our dungeon. Do you have any Idea what all this means to me?”

“Maybe..” Eana began.

“Maybe what? Maybe you can convince your new friend to bring back all the monsters? Or use your stellar reputation with the adventurers to convince them not to take all of this from us?”

“No! Just maybe we -“

“Maybe what, Eana? Maybe we can convince another band to let us go in with them? Maybe now, of all times, they’ll decide bringing you is a good idea?”

Idris was ragged, he let it all go. No holding back.

“I should have LISTENED to them! Conrad said you’re a wildcard and I defended you and look at us now! I mean, to anybody and I mean anybody other than me, what good are you?”

Eana looked stunned. Hurt. Good, it was time she felt some of the frustration, took on her share of the burdens.

“You don’t mean it… it’s just… you’re still angry from me using magic.. from that darkness,” Eana said.

“You know? We’ve been so focused on what your magic does to other people we’ve never thought about you,” Idris said, “You’re getting more and more impulsive. You do everything without thinking, and even when you DO think, there’s nobody else involved in the decision but YOU. I literally brought you here to help fix you and-”

“I’m not broken!” Eana said.

“I just spent the day getting healed over and over by somebody who isn’t broken! And Yahn, you? You’re broken.”

“I’m.. I don’t want to be,” she said.

“I don’t have time for this,” Idris said. He walked up to her and reached for her arm. She pulled away and he invoked Adrenaline Rush. With his enhanced speed he grabbed her wrist and slipped off the charoite bracelet.

“You keep ‘wanting’ to not be what you are instead of letting the only person who wants to help you actually do it,” he said, putting the mana imbuing bracelet onto his own wrist, “I’m going to see how many of these things I can hunt down. It might buy us another day or so of working the dungeon. You can help, or you can get out of my way.”

He sat and focused, as well as he could, on recharging his mana to the full amount offered by the bracelet. His frustration at the whole situation was so distracting he worried the method wouldn’t fill his mana any more quickly. Especially with his sister silently hovering nearby. But it wasn’t long before he was back on his feet with a full mana bar.

He cast Radiance and Detect. The many paths of the fleeing imps showed up as white mist along the ground. Hopefully he could catch them grouping back up.

“I’ll help,” Eana said quietly from behind him.

Glancing back he thought a moment. No. He hadn’t forgiven her yet. And he wasn’t sure what she could do to fix this. Not yet.

“Just go home. I got this,” he said.

He tore off into the dark woods and left her there. For the briefest moment he worried about her. That impulsive streak that she had been nurturing was liable to get up to something if he didn’t do the older brother thing, once again, and shepherd his sister through her feelings.

But no. He was tired of trying to manage her life for her. Let her learn some hard lessons on her own.