Chapter 8

We’d been using the healing potions a lot on rogues, mages, anciennes, and warriors. Mostly on warriors. We’d been allowed an infinite supply of potions leading up to the next dungeon run. However, we were only given 10 at a time.

None of us could manage more than that--we simply didn’t have room to carry them. A few students had tried but lost almost half to dropping them. I’m not sure who it was that figured this out, but we had been able to sell the potions at the guild post. Word had spread among the healers and we all sold as much as we could. Unfortunately, most of us didn’t get to make it to the guild post in time. The merchants were satisfied with the flood of potion inventory and had begun to drop their buying price until it was literally 1 copper per potion. Meaning: It wasn’t worth the footwork to go from the Alchemist’s Lab, to the guild post just to make 1 copper per potion. Someone had tried though, to their merit. The merchant had lowered the buying price to 1 copper a dozen after that.

Pelle and I had gotten the idea to simply hoard as much as we could. Our room looked like a dragon’s hoard of potions. They were stacked along the walls and in the corners and shone like giant liquid jewels in the gold of afternoon sunlight. Needless to say, Inventory was a problem. We knew we would continue to loot a ton more stuff from dungeons, with nowhere to put anything.

Then Pelle had a brilliant idea. “Check this out,” she’d said and handed me a book. I flipped through it. It was blank.

“I don’t get it,” I’d said.

“Since selling the healing potions is moot, and since we literally cannot fit anymore into our room, I’ve started doing something else with them. Trading them.”

At first, all of us healers were very hush hush about entertaining what we thought were loopholes in the guilds system of letting us have infinite healing potions to train with. We hoarded them, we sold them, and we traded them.

Turns out, the trainers had made bets on how creative we could get.

“None of you have a way to manage impossible inventory,” Garmar had said, “so there’s only so much you can do. The merchants have a way to profit off of you, and there’s only so much you can trade. They’re not loopholes. As adventurers you are looking at the different values an item holds. That’s a fundamental understanding of looting.”

After that, it was less hush-hush. By that time there wasn’t much else we could do. I don’t know how Pelle was able to get her hands on a spell book. I’m not sure how fair a trade she’d managed.

“It’s empty,” I said.

“I traded up for it. One of the anciennes had gotten it from their loot and I had to trade some artifact for it--don’t ask me what it was, I have no clue.”

“Ok, so how does this work?” I said, turning the book over and over, looking for direction.

It was bound with thick purple leather sheared from the back of a monster. The book buzzed in my hands and the wrinkles in the monster hide began to shift.

The binding was creaking and coming to life the way a caterpillar moves. The pages were ruffling from an unseen, unfelt wind. The air around the book was fish-eyed and the volume's weight increased double. Light hesitated on touching the volume.

Pelle knew nothing of the spell book. Neither did I nor any of the healers. One of the anciennes told her “The pages are blank because they’re meant to be written on,” and looked at us like we’d been born with half a brain.

Were it not for Pelle’s laughter, I would have been swept up in feeling insulted. The ease at which she handled the slight made me realize the ancienne was only trying to help. Just stating the obvious--is all.

The days came and went, with less healing to attend to, the closer we got to our second dungeon run. I met up with my trio partners Arris (an ancienne), and Klin (a warrior) and we spent an afternoon going over inventory, strategy, and trying to figure out what our next dungeon would be like.

We all took a different path towards the new dungeon this time. We traveled down into the valley. It got muggier and warmer the further we went. We were eventually beneath a canopy of dense vibrant green foliage. We passed 20 dungeons before our trainers stopped at the first open one. The others were left fallow to re-strengthen.

A wooden sign was overgrown with moss. A trainer scraped off the moss and revealed the name “Sepper’s Crops,” etched crudely into the soft wood.

Trio by trio, we began to enter the dungeon. Pelle and her group were ahead of us and I waved at them as they passed through. My wave went unseen, but I wished them good luck regardless.

It was our turn to enter. The path ended at the maw of the dungeon. Bramble and barbed vines interlaced to form a giant dungeon’s mouth. There were heaps of corn and squash and beans and bones and pumpkins to either side. A brief glimpse of the entrance would have made anyone think it was screaming. The interior tunneled into pitch black. The voices of the students stopped abruptly as we entered.

We were alone now. Arris led us forward after spending 1 mana to light a torch he’d looted. Arris didn’t talk all that much and I assumed that was just part of being an ancienne. Klin, on the other hand, was eager to slice and dice.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“We’ll be fighting spiders, I’m guessing,” he said as we trod on.

The dungeon walls were thick with roots and brambles. Earth crumbled from the ceilings every now and then, sprinkling with soft pittering crumbles.

“I heard we’d be fighting insects or something. Like I said,” Arris said.

“Well whatever it is, I’m eager to stab and chop!” Klin lunged forward with his spear, stabbing air. He twirled in a leap and brought the spear down in a brutal chop. The spear tip shrieked through the air.

“As long as we keep to our strategy, we’ll be fine,” I said.

We moved onward with Klin leading the way. Arris was nearly at his side to provide torchlight. I followed from the depths, just beyond the circle of light. It was important that our warrior stayed in front.

We’d agreed to both of them carrying a single potion in case something happened to me and my inventory. The other 8 bottles I kept in my bag.

It was such a treat to have torchlight this time. We moved at a swift pace until we were nearly jogging. Arris reminded us to slow down and take it easy. We needed to be on the lookout for traps, hidden corridors, and all manner of dungeon artifacts.

“Arris is right,” I said to Klin who was eager to ignore us and move forward.

“Come on guys,” Klin said, “Let’s just deal some damage and kill the boss! It’s gonna be easy!”

We argued for a bit, trying to calm Klin down. He was getting way ahead of himself, and Arris and I shared the same concern that our warrior might get out of hand if we didn’t temper him.

I think it was the endless empty tunnel that was unnerving him. His enthusiasm settled a bit as the tunnel curved around and spit us out at a grotto. We had exited a section of the tunneling system. We knew this because bits of sky flashed between the swaying limbs and leaves of trees overhead. The area was wide and marshy. Mulch and rocks and straw and pine needles provided a path through the grotto. There was a small pond that held half submerged boulders. Fish leapt into clouds of gnats by a slow trickling waterfall.

Klin charged into the water with his spear extended. He chopped at the water vigorously while Arris and I exchanged a sigh and a roll of eyes.

“They’re the fast kind of fish!” Klin said, wading back out of the water and laughing kind of obnoxiously. “If they were normal fish I’d have caught them.”

“They are normal fish,” Arris said.

“Nah, they’re too fast to be normal fish. This is a level 3 spear. I would have gotten them.”

Arris knew there was no point in arguing. I knew it too.

“Onward?” I said.

Arris spent another mana point to light his torch as we entered another length of tunnel.

The tunnel was wider, taller, and the shadows were deeper. The root system that formed the dungeon was more gnarled and twisted.

We came to another grotto. This one was more cavernous with white trees that glowed from the absence of sunlight. The trunks were spindly and the leaves were stunted and almost translucent. Around the base, parted by a simple path, were patches of albino squash and pumpkins. All the ghostly whites were creating a bizarre lighting effect which pitched the grotto into a sharp contrast.

“Whoa,” Klin said after we stood in awe at the sight for a moment. A trickling under-cavern brook appeared at one far wall. It snaked with a white reflective skin across the grotto to another section of wall, disappearing beneath it.

Pfth Thth Thk Cthk Tfiht!

“Spiders?” I said.

“Rhinoceros beetles!” Arris said, pointing at the back of the cavern.

Black gleaming forms descended towering stalagmites. They chittered with fervor as long spindly legs gleaming black brought them upon us. They bounced in their gait, throwing their head horns in a wavering threat.

Ckk Kck Kthh Pckk Kck!

Arris speared the tip of his torch to the ground and brought up his mana bar. It floated quickly and easily before him. The light of the blue gleamed purple off the shiny exoskeleton of the beetles.

“Garden spider!” Arris called out. He called out his conjuring spell as a heads up to Klin and I. We’d discussed being vocal to let each other know what we were doing and when.

Half of his mana fell away into mist that coalesced on the ground before him. From the mist of mana emerged the matte black legs of a spider. It crawled out of the cloud of mana, as though turning the mana inside out. The spider was black and striped with jagged strikes yellow. It came to Arris’s knees and sprinted forward at a terrifying speed.

Klin thrust his spear forward and pierced the first rhino beetle through its face.

Reeeeeeeee!

It squealed in its death as Klin pushed the spear all the way through the elytra near its butt. The spear tip broke through and shards of its shell flew like wingless black birds into the grotto. There were half a dozen more. When the first died, they rushed us.

Klin was overwhelmed. He was kicking two away as he started chopping at another one. Arris’s spider rushed to Klin’s side and lunged, biting viciously at the limbs of the beetle. Beetle limbs began to amass beneath the spider’s efforts. Klin took three head horns to his side and back simultaneously. He cried out in agony. His spear dropped from his grip and he scrambled for it. Arris’s spider reared back after receiving a headhorn to its side.

Reeeee!

“Potion incoming!” I said.

I lobbed a potion at Klin, then one at the garden spider, and brandished my mace, charging in to help Klin. The glass of the potion shattered on contact and burst into infinite dust. The cork flew off and red potion coated each of my targets with healing.

I bashed the elytra of one beetle. My mace smashed right through it and splashed in its guts.

Ruueeeuahhh!

My cover provided enough of a gap in battle for Klin to recover and find his spear. He was back on his feet in a rage of thrusting and slicing motions.

Ahhhh! Whaaaaa! Rahh!

Arris’s spider joined us from behind the remaining beetles, lopping off limbs one at a time. When Klin and I exterminated the remaining beetles, we turned our attention to the limbless ones thrashing on the ground. In short order, we killed them all off.