Chapter 12

Tosin: Healer; Level 2 Fist of Wind.

Arris: Ancienne; Level 3 Conjured Garden Spider.

Lep: Mage; Level 3 Fire Spear.

Jeuhm: Rogue; Level 4 Long dagger.

Keebe: Warrior; level 3 Longsword.

My first 5 class party. We were nervous. Our plan was to dive into a level 5 dungeon. It made sense. With a party of 5, it should be just difficult enough. While other parties were dead set on going through level 10 dungeons, we wanted to be on the safe side.

“Mana is going to be a problem,” Lep said over the din of dozens of adventurers at the guild post.

It was the day before our run, and everyone was coordinating last minute selling and purchasing. Mana rings were intermittently bobbing in mid-air among other parties, and more often at the booths.

“I’ve got extra Pyrrhon’s potions to trade if anyone’s got mana potions,” I said.

I was able to trade 3 for 3. Until I had a way to regenerate mana during a run, I had to carry around these potions, and listen to them clink about in my bag.

“Just go to the alchemist,” Jeuhm said, “and sell some of those extra potions. Then buy some mana potions.”

“Yea but I lose the value in the trade. Half a silver to sell, then at least 1 silver to buy. It sucks.”

“They’re 2 silver today,” Arris said and shook his head.

Jeuhm grunted, expressing that it did suck to make poor trades like that.

“Well I don’t know about you guys!” Keebe said, “but I’m all set to go!”

I guess we all were. There was nothing more we could do. I had already leveled up Fist of Wind, leaving me with a remaining mana pool of 26, including the cost of the Life-steal enchantment. Was it foolish not to just level things up and be left with a smaller mana pool?

I think that was a question everyone was debating today. Pelle had even brought up her indecision. In the end, it was experience and need that would impact those decisions.

“Yeaaa I’m just gonna level up my longsword one more time,” Keebe said. “Just in case!”

He flew open his mana bar and his longsword floated to the center of it. A large bracket fell away like a blue sigh from his mana bar and entered his long sword like light was being forced through the object.

Our plan was to crawl through one of the dungeons at the top of the valley. On dungeon day, we set out. Pelle and her team were going through a jungle based dungeon. My team and I were marching up the valley to the cold and windy summit. We found the dungeon entrance with ease.

It was nestled at the foot of a pile of boulders. Cairns were lit at the entrance. They burned with a white fire that flickered with ghostly faces. The Five of Gryf flapped in the eternal wind. The cold scraped at our faces and pulled tears from the corners of our eyes.

The dungeon plaque read: V. Bekbah’s Dungeon.

“Level 5. This is it,” Lep said.

We entered the maw. The dungeon tunnel. The cold was stagnant and stank of brine. The wind howled at the entrance of the dungeon. It thrashed against the boulders as though angry that it was too big to come in with us.

Lep lit a torch. It flared with high leaping flames that bent at a right angle on the ceiling. As we walked on, it left a trail of soot.

The dungeon tunnel wound deeper and a sense of unease rattled all of us.

“I feel an ominous spell,” Lep said.

“I’m not afraid!” Keebe said.

Lep’s observation was a good one though. As we carried on, he made some guesses.

“Fear, fright, unease, ward, terrify. I don’t know. Could be anything.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Jeuhme said.

Chtktkt! Chktkthththtkttktkt!

“Maggots,” Arris said, and flowed his mana into a ring. “Garden Spider!”

“You guys got this?” Lep said. “I’ll keep the torchlight up for you guys.”

A dozen large maggots crawled from the shadows. Their mandibles chittered as they approached. Large bubbled bodies glowed as a ghostly white in our light.

Chtkthtk! Chkhtkhtkht!

I brandished my flagstaff. Five of Gryf trailed the swooping flagstaff as I swung it around. Gold veins marbled the wood from the Life-steal enchantment.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Arri’s spider sped forward with a hissing “Eehhhhhh!”

Keebe swept his long sword in a wide arc, low to the ground. His blade swept cleanly through 3 of the maggots. As the giant bugs split in two, they gurgled death throes. Innards melted out of them and pooled with a sickening slurp across the dungeon floor.

The maggots were faster than last time. Arris’s spider was now missing a leg and battling two maggots at once.

I flowed my mana ring to monitor everyone’s health bars. At the bottom left were all the red bars. Arris’s spider was missing a fifth of it.

“Five of Gryf!” I said and slammed the flagstaff down. 5 points of my mana flowed from the bar to my flagstaff. The rune triggered and I felt a shockwave travel up the flagstaff. The Five of Gryf ribbon thrashed against an unseen wind. It’s chain and clasp fought against the eyelet of the staff. The ribbon curled back and struck like a whip. A pair of small silver bird’s wings manifested just above the spider’s form. Wings that seemed to be born from winter clouds and silver ore and tundra-stone and silver suns. They flapped into oblivion and the spider’s leg materialized back into existence. It’s health bar filled counterclockwise until meeting at the top with the other end. Full health again.

“Rahhhhhh!” Keebe shouted, swinging his long sword in another low arc. 2 more large maggots were divided lengthwise.

His sword finished it’s arc and slammed into the dungeon wall. Jeuhm sprinted to Keebe’s left in a burst. His black cloak snapped in the air and fluttered behind him. The hood lifted off his head and trailed behind him.

He was leaping, brandishing his level 4 long dagger, snarling and descending, impaling a maggot through its brain, smashing the hilt against a gurgle of innards. The maggots back half curled upwards, then slammed down, smacking it’s kin. Jeuhm withdrew his dagger from the maggot along with a spray of white gloop. He fell into a crouch and his cloak fluttered to catch up. He was leaping, arcing over Keebe’s returning sweep of his longsword, clearing fifteen feet, landing in a tumble, and slicing thrice in a surprise attack against a far maggot.

Everyone’s health remained untouched for the rest of our first battle. Arris’s garden spider gained another kill, while Keebe and Jeuhm finished off the remaining few maggots.

“Not bad,” Lep said with a toothy grin.

Our first battle. We were all smiles. What an awesome camaraderie we just experienced. We worked well as a team so far. Though we’d been most unsure of Keebe—givin our previous warrior experience—he turned out to be a good teammate.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Keebe said. “Woo!”

Even Arris was grinning. His garden spider did a dance and spun in a circle. It stormed over to me in a flash and I flinched in surprise. I was startled. A giant spider coming at you with almost neon stripes of yellow was intimidating. It skittered to a halt, rotated it’s mandibles, and gave a small bow.

Lep led the way again. The soaring torch flame was still tall enough that it bent against the ceiling. The dungeon tunnel was long and dark. We came upon 3 other groups of maggots, all as large as the first. They were sliced and divided with ease. Our party was working together seamlessly. Our spirits were high.

A breeze whispered to us that the dungeon tunnel was beginning to change. Then a wind led us to the broken end of the tunnel where boulders had been smashed apart and piled around the maw of the tunnel. We exited onto the tundra, surrounded by evenly spaced burial cairns. Then a gale screamed at us and whipped us with cold and with howls and with ice and with misery. I donned my sheepskin gloves.

“It’s too much!” Lep shouted into the wind. “This is a bad idea!”

“We just follow the cairns!” I said.

“Tosin!”

It was hard to tell and hard to hear. I think Arris might have been the one warning me that the burial cairns stretched in every direction. The cairns were aligned perfectly. Cairns after cairns after cairns. As far as the eye could see.

“The tunnel,” Jeuhm said, “I can’t see it!”

The gale was angry. It was biting with teeth made of ice and wailing like a tortured soul.

As one we turned to the tunnel behind us. The one we’d just left. The one now gone without a trace. We’d only gone so far out onto the tundra. How could we have misplaced the tunnel?

Then It hit me—just as Keebe reinforced our fears: “We came from below ground! The tunnel exited out at the base of a cairn! They all look the same and it’s impossible to tell them apart! Any one of them could be hiding the tunnel! We’re trapped!”

“It’s this one!” Jeuhm said and bolted off.

“Stay together!” Arris said, just as Jeuhm’s cloak was swallowed by a twisting of the gale, then obscured by sheets of wind and hail.

The 4 of us were simultaneously worried about getting separated. We all bolted after Jeuhm without a second thought. The rocky terrain was slick with building ice and the limbs of the gale battered at us, as though trying to knock us over.

We chased Jeuhm’s trailing cloak as our hands and eyes battled against the storm. As we chased Jeuhm from cairn to burial cairn, I could feel the cold begin to seep through my clothes. Then it would seep through the skin, then into the bones. In the bones it would crawl with fingernails made of ice picks. I clenched my right fist.

“Jeuhm!” We shouted after his leaping cloak. Arris shouted. Keebe shouted. Even his garden spider squealed in the cold, before dropping dead and curling its legs. We shouted until Jheum finally stopped at a cairn.

“You can’t run off like that!” I said, approaching the cairn.

Keebe got there first and he turned to us with an expression of pale horror. He leaned over the cairn to pick up Jeuhm’s cloak. Just the cloak. No Jeuhm. A howling tongue of the storm swept Jeuhm’s cloak from Keebe’s grip. The black cloth sailed through the sky beyond our speed and beyond our reach.

I spread my hands and flowed my mana bar into its ring. Arris’s health bar popped up near the bottom left. Then Keebe’s. Then Lep’s, Then the garden spider’s health bar came up empty. Over it was an X crudely formed by bone-ish marks. Jeuhm’s health bar came up empty with the same X crudely formed by bone-ish marks.

“What’s wrong Tosin!” Lep said.

“Jeuhm must have been saved by a trainer!” I said. “His health bar is—It says he’s dead.”

Though we were slowly freezing, this omen brought a shiver to all of us. This was a level 5 dungeon. Losing one of our party members so early was a huge hit. Especially a rogue.

While we argued amongst ourselves, Keebe grimaced at his hand. The hand that had discovered Jeuhm’s bodiless cloak.

“Guys!” he said. “Guys! This is oil! These cairn’s have been drenched in oil or something.”

Without conference, Lep flowed his mana bar out large enough to step through. He brought up a gnarled hand and said, “Hand of Flames!”

He snapped his hand out, palm up and a chunk of his mana flew before him in the blink of an eye. It combusted into flames, forming a giant hand of ember and fire. The Hand of Flames mimicked Lep’s movement. He flicked his wrist out towards the burial cairn as though it were a throat to choke and squeeze and break.

The Hand of Flames sizzled through the icy gale as it floated over to the cairn. Vapor billowed from the back of the hand against the storm. The Hand of Flames smashed into the cairn and the pile of rocks erupted in a bonfire of blue and purple and green and mauve. Then the next cairn erupted in the same colored flames. Then the next one. A line of them erupted in perfect order. They went on into the distance, beckoning that we follow. Promising warmth and magic.

“Let’s go!” Keebe said. “We’ve got no choice!”

We followed the burial cairns alight with magic and fire and warmth. I think we all began to realize the mistake we’d made in going for a level 5 dungeon. Level 5 was not on the safe side. I only hoped that Garmar or one of the trainers had saved Jeuhm from death. They said they would, right?