Chapter 43. Gauntlet

I had found a way, during long fights, to let my mana regenerate in the middle of a fight. If I didn’t use my mana for five seconds, the regeneration doubled. Which meant that the most cost-efficient way to use my mana was to spend a bunch at the beginning, then let it regenerate while I did something else. This technique was especially with effective with healing over time effects. If only I had something that I could do to help without using mana. Maybe it was time to get better at hitting things with weapons.

The creature died, and Janica began flying around the room mining Dark Iron nodes. She had a little mining pick, and swung it at the ore veins, making a loud clang clang clang. Conveniently, she was able to get to the veins that were up on the ceiling. I imagined that other gamers were staring at those veins in frustration. Maybe even thinking about buying ladders. Or trying to stand atop another gamer’s shoulders, trying to swing a pickaxe. When Janica finished collecting all of the ore, she flew around to the different Glow Vine Flowers. With a surgical precision I didn’t know she possessed, she surgically removed the flowers with a little knife. I had never seen Janica do anything carefully. She was more like a Fairy bull in a china shop. I was impressed.

“You can cut herbs too?” I asked.

“I’m almost 120 years old,” she said. “You learn to do a lot of things in that much time.”

I felt my jaw go slack. “Seriously? I thought you were my age.”

That put a smug look on her face. “I’m aging quite well.” She shrugged.

I looted the bear.

You received Undead Bear Carcass.

You received Ectoplasm.

You received Malevolent Cloth Boots.

You received 50 Silver

Malevolent Cloth Boots

Item Class: Armor

Item Quality: Uncommon

Armor: 1% Damage reduction

+4 Dexterity

+2 Strength

“Anything good?” Janica asked.

“Boots with Dexterity and Strength,” I said. “It would break my set to equip them.”

“Perfect,” Janica said. “You can break them down later for enchanting materials. Let’s keep moving. Two more floors before the safe floor.”

We descended the staircase.

A long straight hallway stood before us with a staircase at the very end. Tiny ghosts were scattered all along the hallway, maybe ten or twelve of them. They looked like giant grubs, inching their way about. Near us, one of the grubs inched too close to another one. They both reared their heads back and hissed, exposing round mouths with sharp teeth.

Undead Grub

Level 13

HP: 64/64

Stamina: 170/170

Mana: 55/55

“Well,” Janica said. “At least they’re not elites.”

I winced. “I don’t think I like this hallway. Let’s skip it.”

Janica chuckled. “Buck up, pretty boy.”

“Pretty boy?”

She pointed to the ceiling. “See that?”

There were little holes in the stone. “What am I looking at?”

“Something comes out of those holes,” she said. “Spikes, poison, fire. Something dangerous.”

“So… you’re saying this is a gauntlet,” I said.

She looked at me, surprised. “You know what a gauntlet is?”

I shrugged. “This pretty boy knows a thing or two about dungeons.”

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll pull every grub to the other end. Then fight them all at once. Do not take aggro from me. Unless you want to die.”

“Roger.”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’m ready.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Janica charged in at the first group of three grubs. Instead of fighting them, she flew forward along the ground and three more grubs aggregated to her. She continued flying to the end of the hallway.

I followed after her, staying as close as I could. She was faster than me, unencumbered by having to run. I chanced a look behind, and green liquid poured out of the holes, splattering everywhere. It reminded me of this children’s waterpark that my Mom used to take us to when we were little. Sofia and I would run around, trying not to get splashed.

I sped up, almost overtaking Janica. Grubs slithered after Janica on my left and my right, their heads up in the air like cobras. But they ignored me. She had aggro, so I was safe unless I did something stupid like attack them or heal. We reached the end, and Janica descended into the stairwell. She stopped on the first landing, waiting for the grubs to catch up. I ran past her into a corner of the staircase. I waited.

The grubs surrounded her. Her health started to fall. Fast.

I lined up a Rejuvenate 2, unable to wait for more aggro. Her health was at 52% within a matter of seconds. By the time I got my Spell Book open and the spell cast, she was at 40% health.

Janica jumped into the air and slammed her mace down into the stone flooring, sending shock waves in every direction. She stunned every grub for two seconds. She immediately followed up with a large, slow swing, cleaving the entire group. Their health dropped to 60%.

My Rejuvenate landed, sending her health to 80%. Instead of casting another healing spell, I placed a Lightning Strike on top of every Grub. The electricity pulsed through me, then released. White and yellow numbers erupted from the mobs, filling my vision with 20s and 40s. Seeing the visual of that many big numbers felt incredibly thrilling. My first taste of power.

Restore popped on Janica in triple from the three critical strikes I had made with that single spell, giving her an extra twenty-nine healing per second.

Overwhelmed by how amazing it felt to lay waste to a huge group of enemies, I loaded up another Lightning Strike. Three seconds later, it landed. Electricity surged. Numbers popped. Grubs fell to the floor. I screamed in delight.

You defeated Undead Grub x 9.

You earned 780 experience.

You earned 780 reputation with Edreru University.

You earned 50 JP with the Restorative Mystic Job.

You earned 45 Silver.

“That was… awesome!” I said. “We need to kill big groups way more often. Did you see how much damage I did? And when I’m attacking that many mobs, I get all kinds of crits and then it heals you.”

Janica didn’t share my enthusiasm. She sat against the wall, looking pensive. Her wings stopped flapping and laid behind her.

I hadn’t seen this in her before. “What’s up?” I asked.

She glanced up at me, then shook her head. “I was about two seconds from death,” she said.

“You only got down to 40%,” I said.

“I was taking damage so fast. If I didn’t have that stun…” She shook her head. “I was reckless back there. I knew better than that and barged in anyway. I need better defensive skills before we take on something like that again. I don’t like to say it, but we need to slow down and grind out levels. Not avoiding the easy groups. That kind of stuff.”

“Smart,” I said. I had played games in the past where death was permanent. Where a single mistake could set you back hundreds of hours of gameplay. It changed a person’s mindset. Instead of thinking about big damage numbers, you had to think ahead. Had to be careful. Had to trust the people around you before you got into danger. I needed to start thinking this way. To get into this mindset. The stakes for me were high.

For Janica, this wasn’t a game. And she wasn’t a normal NPC. I knew that now. This game had created people , not NPCs. I thought back to the relationship between Aimon and Ilrune. They cared so much for one another. When one hurt, the other felt it. And why was that any less real than the way that Sofia and I felt for one another? I looked at Janica, trying to read her face. I didn’t see shame there as I would expect from a tough warrior. I saw practicality. An acceptance of what she could and could not handle without self-judgment.

“Janica, do you have a family?”

“Of course,” she said, looking up at me. “Hundreds. Brothers, sisters, cousins, parents.”

“I mean… if you died here…” I didn’t finish the words. Who would miss you?

“Look,” she said, “I’m here because I want to know why the Great Mistake happened. To clear my family’s name. To free my brothers and sisters from our penance. And… for the thrill of it. Something that I see in you, as well, but that you don’t seem willing to admit to yourself.”

I nodded. “Do we need to go back and grind the upper levels?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I doubt we’ll see another gauntlet before level five. Let’s keep going.” She got up, nodded at me, and headed down the stairs to level four. The last level before the safe area.

The fourth floor had an ominous feel to it. A sort of suspenseful silence. Like the moment in a horror movie when you’re ready for the bad guy to jump out. You’re sitting there in a movie theater, eating your popcorn, and the eerie music builds to a crescendo. You stop eating your popcorn. Everyone does. You wait, and your heart starts to pound. That’s what it felt like. Except that I wasn’t watching a scene with a bucket of popcorn. I was in the room.

We moved forward, slowly. Ahead of us, rows and rows of bookshelves blocked our path. A maze of tomes from floor to head. The stacks. There weren’t any packs of monsters. That was part of the eeriness. Had we seen our enemy or heard a bear snoring, at least we would have known what was coming.

We twisted and turned through the stacks, dusty ancient books surrounding us.

“I’m gonna fly up a little bit and take a look,” Janica whispered.

So she was capable of speaking in a whisper.

“Be careful,” I whispered back. “There’s something off about this place.”

She inched up, her wings fluttering ever so much quicker. Her neck extended, trying to peek over the books. She turned back to me and shrugged.

I motioned for her to go up higher.

She nodded.

She rose again, this time over the top of the book shelves, exposing herself to whatever was out there. She turned, slowly looking around the room. By the time she faced me, her eyes went wide. She stared right behind me.

I turned, slowly. If this was a prank, I would kill Janica myself. A ghost with black, empty eyes looked at me with a hungry grin. A ghost, but also a harpy. Like other undead, she was white all over. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and large wings lay on her back, though she floated like a ghost.

She held a stack of books under one arm. With her other, she reached up and put a finger over her lips. “Shhhhh,” she hissed. I saw a debuff appear on my interface.

You were Silenced for 8 seconds.