Chapter 8: Baby’s First Dungeon
TRISTAN
As it turns out, the dungeon seemed to want to show Tristan just how bad it could be.
Once through the massive black arch that both marked and housed the entrance portal to the dungeon, the small party found themselves in a long linear series of tall rectangular rooms and hallways. Theoretically that lent itself to controllable battles and easy chokepoints, something perfect for a beginner like Tristan. Even the quest he received seemed to agree.
[Quest available: Baby’s First Dungeon]
Complete the dungeon in one attempt, without anyone leaving and returning.
Rewards: Achievement, Smart Loot
But Tristan’s group had gotten ‘lucky,’ and their instance of the dungeon was populated by the hardest set of all possible monster variants.
Oozes.
Giant, reeking puddles of semi-viscous, highly-acidic snot that wanted nothing more than to devour everything that moved. And everything that didn’t. Anything they could get their slime on would make them grow larger.
Tristan quickly grew to hate them.
The oozes moved with a relentlessness that bordered on insanity, especially given their ability to change shapes. As Tristan quickly realized, oozes didn’t really care about doors, and they hardly bothered with walls. They just went under or around them, or through the tiniest cracks, corroding them as they passed. They were completely unfair to fight in melee, as they attempted to dissolve everything they touched--or that touched them.
Worse still, because he was not a combat Class, Tristan got diminished experience from killing them, as every notification repeatedly rubbed in his face:
You have slain [Stinking Gray Ooze, level 1]
Minimum experience gained due to no combat Class.
Over and over, he got similar messages. The only variation was in the oozes’ names, which varied mostly by color, never by adjectives. They were literally all Stinking Oozes. Not that Tristan would argue that.
And they were, apparently, the only monsters in the entire dungeon.
The only evidence he ever saw of the oversized rats or goblins that usually filled this dungeon were the nearly-pristine skeletons left scattered about throughout the halls. Some of them still clutched their decaying weapons. Bones were clearly the one thing oozes didn’t have a taste for.
The most common oozes were grayish-green in color, which made them that much more difficult to see in the dimly-lit rooms built entirely of gray stone. So then Tristan thought to use their odor as a way of confirming their presence, but that didn’t work because it was everywhere. It permeated every room as soon as a door opened, no matter how many oozes were within.
He literally stumbled into three before he started taking new rooms more slowly. In fact, the only one of them who could spot the oozes regularly was Chessa, as enhanced perception was apparently “a Hunter thing.” Naturally that led to her becoming the spotter, often walking right beside Tristan.
“There’s one right in front of that door,” she said, nocking an arrow.
Tristan couldn’t see it at all, which was how it always was with oozes that were completely still before being pulled. At least they’re always alone when they’re hiding like that, Tristan thought, preparing his shield as he moved forward to engage.
The trio functioned fairly well as a group, which was probably to be expected since beginning dungeons couldn’t really ask too much of starting groups. Chessa did great damage from range, especially when using a skill to enhance her arrows. Tristan even found that his damage wasn’t as awful as he’d feared. With his above average Strength and very high Endurance, he was able to function fairly well as a tank, though he worried that when things got harder, he’d miss having the [Taunt] skill that actual tanks learned. For now, it was fine, since all the enemies died before they got to his friends. Opie barely needed to heal at all, often only throwing out spells because he was full on mana.
Which, of course, Chessa frequently commented on, “You know, the oozes really aren’t that big a deal if you don’t let them touch you.”
“I can stop tanking if you think it isn’t needed,” Tristan shot back.
Chessa tsked. “If you call that tanking, we might be in trouble with the boss! Though no matter which we get, it’ll all be worth it when we finish this place. A variant this hard is bound to earn a better reward at the boss!”
Once again, he felt the burning on his fingers as his best dagger was sucked deeper into another disgusting ooze. “Hey Opie, can I get another heal when I grab this? They’re dissolving my good dagger again.” It was a challenge (and a pain) to pull his dagger out of each squelching gray mass, but his 13 Strength always enabled him to break the suction and pull the blade free eventually.
Each time it would emerge slimy, more than a little corroded, and smelling like literal crap. It was a good thing Tristan had brought all three, because very early on he’d decided he was not going to risk ruining his hammer for a single dungeon run, and he’d stowed it in his loot pack for safekeeping.
As they progressed deeper and deeper into the dungeon, Tristan quickly found out that he was not built for dodging, but that he--and more importantly his shield--could take a lot more hits than expected. He ended up taking lots of damage, honestly, but Opie always managed to heal him back up again. Tristan was always astonished when he saw his wounds just closing like that in real time. It felt odd. Especially since there was always another ooze trying to dissolve, devour, or otherwise digest him.
Needless to say, Opie’s healing spells got quite a workout, and they had to take breaks regularly to replenish his mana with some mana water. Drinking mana water was a slow process, especially when compared to chugging a mana potion. It often took ten minutes just to replenish Opie’s small mana pool. But as fledgling adventurers, mana water offered one huge benefit: it was dirt cheap.
Opie outright refused to use even inferior-grade potions during their rests for that very reason. He also pointed out that they triggered an hourlong cooldown, and “who knows if I’ll need it more in a battle later?”
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Tristan couldn’t argue the point.
As they progressed, roughly every three or four rooms, they found a chest containing a few pieces of loot or consumables. The first chest had two mana potions and a pair of common cloth gloves that boosted Opie’s Intelligence slightly. Without [Identify], they were only able to figure that out by the subtle shift in stats on his Status display. A common workaround for first tiers.
The next chest held a pair of black boots that didn't match Chessa’s color scheme but definitely increased her damage output. She’d said they didn’t feel cursed, but Tristan knew that wasn’t a proper way to tell. Without a proper [Identify], they were going to have to wait until they returned to town to figure out exactly what they did.
While Tristan wouldn’t be able to wear any gear they found right away, if at all, he did manage to pick up a lot of old and broken weapons. It was an absolute haul for him. There was so much salvageable scrap that he would probably be able to level at least once just off of what he’d found. He wondered if dungeon explorers often let all this stuff just vanish when their run ended, which would genuinely be a huge waste. Maybe at upper tiers having magical storage helped with the need to carry so much, but even now he felt they could afford to take the scrap with them.
Chessa may have given him an odd look every time he stuffed another dull blade or bracer into their loot bag, but Tristan knew they were valuable.
True to character, Opie always had something to say about it.
“You just run around grabbing every hard thing you see, eh?”
Tristan had thought Opie might stop after the third or fourth time Chessa smacked him in the head, but no. If anything, the constant attention just pushed him further.
The path forward continued to be fairly linear, and the two times it split, the branches quickly merged back together a few rooms later. The first time, Opie had opened the second door accidentally, not realizing a simple touch would do it. He’d just been trying to keep his distance from the first blob of death, only to then find himself nearly swallowed by another.
While Tristan and Chessa liquified one ooze, Opie actually managed to survive the other by chain-casting heals on himself. When Tristan then tried to pull the additional ooze off Opie, he'd been completely unsuccessful. Clearly this was where [Taunt] would have helped, but would he ever be willing to take a tank Class as his secondary, even down the line? He didn’t know.
Regardless, the train of thought was interrupted by a ding! as Tristan not only hit level 3 but also earned a new skill:
[Repair Item] An active ability allowing a user to restore durability, restore charges, remove negative statuses, and return a basic item to its original condition. Item eligibility can be limited by Class level, item rarity, and user experience. Requires materials, which will be consumed in the repair process.
The skill couldn’t have come at a better time. Tristan had been forced to stop using two of his daggers, including the better, common one, because of the highly corrosive nature of the gods-forsaken oozes.
Chessa’s sword was also showing a fair bit of wear, despite how little time she spent in melee, as were most of her arrows. Tristan was worried at first about working on her bow; he didn’t want anything she needed to become Soulbound. But he remembered how much he’d had to work his hammer after his Awakening to infuse a bit of himself into it. With some testing on non-essential weapons, he felt confident that [Repair Item] on its own would not count as “crafting” for his Core.
He just had to keep his soul to himself.
[Repair Item] was a fairly standard crafter’s skill, and it required basic material components to work. That just meant that all those broken weapons he’d looted earlier were put to use sooner than expected. He quickly learned that he could salvage them even midrun with [Shape Metal] and then infuse the simple metals with his new skill. It was kind of a cool process, watching as the old and broken scraps filled in the cracks and dents of the damaged gear. It was like water filling in a fresh basin. He was happy to prove the usefulness of all those ruined pieces of gear sooner than later.
From that point on, each mana break also became a repair session. Tristen chuckled to himself as his friends also began looking vigilantly for usable materials to feed his skill.
Once all the blades were back in good condition, Chessa started asking if he could remake some of her salvaged arrows, and much to Tristan’s surprise, he could! He didn’t love working with wood in the middle of a dungeon; he wasn’t great with the medium even at home. But for the party’s sake he pushed through. After that, repair breaks took even longer, and the scrounged salvage took up increasingly more space in their inventory. Tristan truly started to understand why noncombat Classes were brought along on so many high tier expeditions and were mentioned as “essential” in exploring the Frontier.
Opie laughed when Tristan brought it up. “So you’re ‘essential’ now? Essentially useless maybe. Though I guess you’re giving my healing a full day’s workout in a handful of hours.”
Tristan shrugged. “You’re welcome? We’re all getting better, you know? Just wait until I make some better weapons. Or we fight literally anything besides oozes.”
Chessa scoffed. “If we fight anything else, I’ll just make you look that much worse.” She sorted through her arrows, handing a few to Tristan.
“Not with these dull arrows you won’t!” Tristan held the points against his forearm. “Without me, you’d have to go back to town every other room!”
“Yeah well, without me this run would have ended long ago, as you'd both be dead by now. So you both need me,” Opie said, wrapping his arms around Chessa.
Chessa pushed away from Opie, rolling her eyes. “What I need is one of those uncommon quivers that turns mana into arrows,” she muttered. “How are you doing with experience, Tristan?”
Tristan checked his Status. “It’s good enough for not being in the forge."
“It’s more fun though, right?” Chessa said with a smile.
Tristan shrugged. “It’s just different. There are definitely moments in the forge I wouldn’t trade for anything. Where hours of work all come together into a final product you can truly be proud of.” He took out his hammer and couldn’t hold back his smile as he gazed at it. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
“The hammer does exist,” Opie gasped. “Why haven’t you been using that to fight these freaking oozes?!”
“It’s not for combat,” he declared. “But I am going to try improving one of the other weapons we picked up. It might take a while though, if you guys don’t mind.”
Chessa gestured to the empty room around them. “I’m not planning to pull anything.”
“Well that’s unfortunate,” Opie nudged her, winking, ducking preemptively as he knew Chessa’s swing was coming. “But sure, I could do with more time to replenish my mana.”
Tristan proceeded to dig through all their salvage until he found something that might work: a decent shortsword that was covered in rust, not really showing any major damage or decay.
He got to work, and time melted away.
As Tristan cleaned off the rust, reshaped the metal, and used [Repair Item] to sharpen the blade again, he considered what Chessa had jokingly asked... and he realized he was actually loving the whole adventuring thing. He loved sharing new experiences with friends. He loved the fun banter. He even loved life and death being on the line. All because he was with his friends, and together they could accomplish far more than he could on his own.
Before he knew it, Chessa and Opie were both standing behind him, admiring the sword as he held it up.
[Repaired Rusted Sword (inferior)]: Soulbound
“That actually looks usable,” Opie quipped.
And it truly was, as the “Soulbound” property had finally popped up on his display. He’d had to clean and sharpen the blade, change its length with [Shape Metal], and adjust the handle and grip slightly. Basically, he’d kept shaping and shaping until it was changed and became Soulbound.
I had to put in more than just a repair. Just as his Core said.
“Ready to put it to use?” Chessa asked.
Tristan could tell by the way she was fidgeting that she was ready to go. He merely nodded, tapped the sword to his shield, just like he’d done with his hammer before they’d entered, and listened to it ring out.
They continued through the smelly halls.