Today’s Earth date: October 15, 1991
Horcus is missing again. The others said he was talking about adding the cult’s magic to his abilities, so he’s against attacking the cult directly. If they all die or if they destroy the books they may have with them, he won’t get new spells.
He said the hostage didn’t get killed in quests like these, so we could take our time and rescue the girl any way we liked.
There was enough disagreement for him to justify going alone, I guess. He’s still pretty far ahead of the rest of us in levels, so maybe he’s right he can do this without us.
-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin
***
Advancing to level 5 unlocked the spell Cure for Armond. So far, his cleric spells matched the healing spells he learned as a military medic, but the cleric versions seemed to be faster–nearly instant–and significantly stronger than this world’s regular magic.
Fergus unlocked a spell called Rot. No one had an idea of what that meant exactly but it sounded gnarly.
Neither Hector nor Margo earned a new skill, and they were visibly disappointed by it, a feeling made worse by Armond and Fergus discussing their new spells.
They did, however, get stat boosts. Hector unlocked “Broad Axe,” which gave him +2 to his strength. Margo unlocked “Bow” which added +2 to her agility.
Wayne switched the party from Ultima III to Phantasy Star II, told them he did so, and added that he hoped it would give Hector and Margo something new to use on their next level up. He couldn’t say for certain what would happen with this change, however. They hadn’t tried it before.
When Wayne arrived at the dorms, Margo asked if she could speak to him in private, so they stepped outside to talk.
“I don’t think the others like me,” Margo said. Outfitted in dark leather armor with her hair pulled back–only a gray hair or two–she looked nothing like the soccer mom Wayne met in Teagaisg.
“Why do you say that?”
“I feel like a tagalong everywhere we go, and they don’t really talk to me outside of our work.”
“I can say for certain that myself and Fergus are awkward as hell in social situations,” Wayne said. “I think Armond and Hector are similar, which gives me the feeling that they aren’t intentionally excluding you. That still sucks, but I don’t think they mean to be rude.”
“Okay… I don’t want to tattle or anything like that.”
“No, of course not. I didn’t take it that way. Maybe try to be a touch more outgoing and see if that helps? I’m not saying it’s your fault you feel excluded. I just think our boys need that little bit of input, you know?”
Margo nodded.
“You’re doing great. I’ve only heard praise for how you carry yourself in the field.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Penelope waved to Wayne and Margo as she approached. Margo thanked Wayne for the time and quickly excused herself.
“I missed most of the excitement,” she said. “What I did see was pretty incredible. Smart too.”
“Surprised?”
“Yes. I was wrong to believe the rumors about the Zero Hero not getting the Diary of the Gods.”
Wayne said the rumors were true. He didn’t get the same access as the Chosen Heroes and only recently started adventuring.
“I didn’t want to mention this in front of the captain,” Penelope said, looking around to confirm no one was listening, “but we know a little bit more about the ruins than I shared.”
Wayne tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.
“No, no, no. I was telling the truth as far as layout and such is concerned. We really don’t know anything about the inside, but we have reason to believe there is a set of tablets in there written by the first dwarves.”
“Okay?”
“After seeing your… dynamic approach to combat, I thought you should know. If the tablets are inside, we want them to be intact.”
“Understood. We have similar goals,” Wayne said. “Fergus and I are doing a research project that seems to involve the first dwarves, so I want to preserve what’s inside as much as you do.”
“What’s your interest?”
“Trying to learn more about Chosen Heroes and their abilities.”
“And you think the dwarves connect to that?”
Wayne shrugged. “We don’t have anything definitive, but we’re curious enough to see if there’s anything to it.”
“Perhaps we could compare notes when this is over?”
“I’d like that. Fergus would too.”
A moment of confusion crossed Penelope’s face. “Right. Fergus. Yes, he can come too.”
***
The next morning, Wayne found Outlawson sitting where he left him. The soldiers on watch reported seeing ratmen approach but retreat when they saw the giant bug. That wasn’t a lot of data to go on, but it was enough that Wayne didn’t change the plan.
Insect Flute.
Outlawson disappeared. Hearing a yelp from the wall, Wayne realized he should have warned the soldiers on duty before doing something dramatic like removing a massive monster from existence in a snap.
His party waited at the front gate, their rucksacks packed and ready. Fergus walked the party through a checklist of supplies to ensure everyone had rations, water, and eight vials of healing potions. When Fergus re-read the list, he said they were missing one item.
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“Might you grab us a bottle of wine?” Fergus asked Wayne. “Nothing too expensive.”
Wayne didn’t argue. He opened Goods Storage and gestured for Fergus to take his pick. When he closed Storage, he saw half the camp staring at him, mouths agape.
“Perhaps we should be less flashy about our capabilities,” Fergus said, noticing the astonishment as well.
“Less flashy than riding Outlawson into town?”
“Ha! Point well-made. There’s no hiding him, so at that point, why bother?”
“Exactly.”
Once Fergus stuffed the bottle into his bag, the party left out the front gate and walked the perimeter of the palisade to the access road.
Probe.
Four red dots were at the entrance to the ruins. Wayne didn’t want to get overconfident, but his plan seemed to be working so far. The ratmen were on their heels. After weeks of being the superior force, they were suddenly down sixty ratmen or more. Their numbers seemed significantly higher than what the captain estimated, though.
One of Margo’s arrows scored a headshot, but Fergus’ fireball went wide when the ratmen scattered. The three still living ran into the ruins, squealing.
The party formed up against the door, preparing to turn the corner to go in. If the nest occupied the whole of the ruins as they suspected, the rats were most likely to make their stand here. Anywhere else would put the whole of the nest at risk.
Insect Flute.
Outlawson landed a few feet from the door, facing the ruins. The giant bug would be the first thing a ratman saw if they poked their head out. The con might not last forever–as Outlawson represented no danger whatsoever–but discouraging rats from escaping or attacking the camp even for a few hours was worthwhile.
Wayne cast Defense on his party. When each had an ethereal shield floating in front of them, they made their entrance, Hector leading with his shield, followed by Wayne, Fergus, Margo, and Armond. Armond held a long torch intended to give the party more light than the spells Wayne and Fergus had.
As soon as Hector rounded the corner he yelled, “Contact!” The sound of rats crashing into his shield began before he finished his call.
The room was the size of a basketball court, its length extending away from the door. It was carved from a blue-grey stone, a color that felt artificial to Wayne rather than like a material found in nature. The second half of the hall was up a set of stairs on a raised platform. At the base of the platform, he saw doorways leading to either side. He couldn’t see what was deeper in the room because of the line of ratmen standing at the platform’s edge, readying their bows.
He estimated that twenty rats with claws and clubs met Hector at the door, trying to overwhelm the party before the battle could begin.
Hector bashed forward, using his shield more than his sword to make room. Wayne helped beat them back, but stepped away the moment the ratmen hesitated.
“Archers!” Wayne warned and sent Skycat buzzing forward.
He did his best to split his attention between piloting Skycat and dealing with the rats immediately in front of him. Skycat strafed the archers, unleashing Missiles. Before the pass could finish, Wayne felt teeth in his arm.
His hitpoints fell to 112 and a referee whistle blew. Yeah, Wayne was certain now that this was his Personal Foul skill in action.
The rat released its bite and covered its ears. Wayne stabbed it in the chest, hearing Skycat smash into the dungeon wall in the same moment. Armond put a hand on Hector’s shoulder and kept himself behind the protection of the tank, popping up to stab over Hector’s shield before returning to cover.
Margo targeted the remaining archers at the back while Fergus dumped fireballs into the group in front. Wayne slashed at rat after rat as more poured in from the side doors. A few arrows bounced off the party’s ethereal shields. Before Wayne could say it, Armond called for Fergus to target the archers.
Wayne felt another system notification but ignored it. He saw a new rat every time he swung his sword, their numbers filling the front third of the room as they pressed in to surround the adventurers.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Hector, Wayne had the strange sensation of his body moving more quickly, the feeling becoming more pronounced with every kill. At the same time, the red outlines around the enemies grew thicker with each kill. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but as his speed picked up and the kills continued, he found himself moving at twice his normal speed.
Then the red outlines blinked rapidly. A golden light enveloped Hector, and risking a glance over his shoulders, Wayne saw the light surrounding the others as well. Fergus shot Wayne a confused glance, but they didn’t have time to discuss.
The rats fell faster than they could count after that, everyone in the party moving faster and hitting harder than they were before. Hector and Wayne advanced as the rats began to waiver, and when they finally broke to flee, Wayne chased them down with Blitz. After thirty seconds, the golden light faded, and Wayne felt his speed return to normal.
The room was clear. Margo and Fergus kept watch while Armond started casting Heal. Everyone in the party had been bit at least once. Looking at the party menu, Wayne saw Armond’s health was down by half, and the others were down by about a third.
“I couldn’t draw my bow fast enough,” Margo said between gasps. “There were so many.”
“Aye,” Fergus agreed. “Made aiming pretty easy though. Had to try real hard to miss.”
While the party checked in with another, Wayne opened his system and found he had ignored two notifications, not just the one. He didn’t feel the other in the fray but was just as happy for the gain.
He unlocked this passive skill from Pirates!
Morale – Your hits against the enemy leader, and his against you, change the morale of each side in battle.
And this bonus from Lightspeed:
Accelerator – An accelerator relativistically compresses the antiproton sphere, forcing it to condense faster than normal.
He didn’t know what it meant to relativistically compress an antiproton sphere, but whatever it was, he got a +2 to agility from it, taking his total to 15.
As for Morale, he believed that accounted for the kill-streak buffs he and his party received. He needed a few more fights to confirm it officially, but he was fairly certain he was right.
“That felt incredible,” Fergus said to Wayne. “What was that?”
Wayne shared his theory.
Fergus nodded, reflecting on the battle. “It was like I was in bed with a beautiful woman and could do no wrong.”
Before Wayne could complain about the comparison, Hector said, “What the fuck, Fergus?”
“What?”
“We’re happy for you that you can still perform at your age, but we don’t need the details,” Margo said.
Armond and Hector laughed, and Fergus joined them. Wayne smiled for Margo, happy to see her putting herself out there.
With the party fully healed, they started the tedious process of clearing the dungeon.
***
The halls of this dungeon were similar in proportion to the tunnel dungeon by Teagaisg, as though Wayne could feel the walls wanting to squeeze in on him. This dungeon was no less complex and no less sprawling, but he saw clear indications that dwarves lived here once. These weren’t copy-paste rooms with generic shelves and generic tables. Yet, Wayne saw no treasure worth taking.
The rats had trashed everything, and the dungeon smelled of rat piss and shit, but the party found items like a broken wooden toy soldier, a torn painting, and severa; squat, stocky skeletons–the first dwarves, presumably. Those were harder to identify the deeper they went as the bones from ratman meals piled up in dungeon corners.
Fergus spotted goblin, orc, and human remains in those piles as well.
They found a tunnel on the opposite side of the first floor. It had either collapsed or been filled in, but that seemed to have happened relatively recently. Fergus hypothesized that tunnel was how the ratmen first got into the dungeon, whether they blocked the tunnel themselves or something else did, he couldn’t say.
They fought several more packs of ratmen, but only in batches of seven or eight at most. Their retreats were just as frequent, many of the rats running at the first sight of the party.
The group descended through four floors of the dwarven settlement. The party sustained minimal injuries–Wayne’s Defense spell and Armond’s healing skills kept the party whole–but they had been walking and fighting for hours. They picked a relatively clean room with an intact door and locked themselves inside, bracing the door shut with a broken chair.
“We’re going to rest for a bit,” Wayne said.
“Doesn’t that give the rats time to regroup?” Hector said.
Armond answered, “Yes, but that’s better than fighting with your candle burnt to nothing.”
Wayne agreed with Armond.
As Wayne closed his eyes to get some sleep himself, he was pleased to hear the party recounting memorable moments from the crawl to one another. Fergus, of course, offered everyone a drink of wine.