My First Dungeon
I sit down next to Evan. Sarah stands up as soon as my butt
hits the bench. She takes her—half finished—meal and dumps it in one of the
bins.
Evan turns towards her. “Hey,” he says, reaching for her.
Sarah pushes him away. “I’m sorry. I’ll be working out at
the gym.”
Evan sighs, facing me. “I’m sorry about her behavior.”
I smile as best as I can. “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m useless,
after all.”
Evan seems to be deep in thought. His eyes light up. “But I
heard you have a genius IQ,” he says.
“Genius?” I say. “No one ever told me that.”
“What, you didn’t get you intelligence stat when you got your
card?”
“I did,” I say. “I even made a comment about it during my draft.”
“Your stat is fifteen,” says Evan. “That’s means you’re as
smart as a genius.”
“I …” I say. “That won’t help me in a dungeon. My strength
and dex are much lower than average.”
Evan takes a bite of his chicken patty. He chews, thinking
for a moment. “Some day that intelligence might save you.”
I shake my head.
Evan shrugs. “Well, it’s good to be humble.”
I turn towards my food. It’s a Salisbury steak garnished
with mashed potatoes and canned beans. I start picking at it. I’m not that
hungry, but I force myself to eat.
I notice Evan has finished his food, yet hasn’t gotten up. I
get the sense that he wants to keep talking to me.
“You’re young,” he says. “I was seventeen when I got accepted
here.”
I hadn’t noted the ages of the people around me when I was
awakened, but I did notice that there were a considerable number of people older
than me at the draft. “Does that make me special?” I say.
Evan raises one shoulder. “It’s up to you.”
I shake my head. “I think that just gives me a handicap. I
don’t have as much life experience as everyone else, and I also haven’t received
the same schooling.”
Evan puts his hand on my shoulder. “I understand you. I’m
the youngest person to ever receive a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo
from my studio. I really felt that weighing on me for years.”
I feel a little better, though “impressed” better describes
my mental state. “What club are you in?”
Evan finishes the last of his chicken and places his spoon down.
“The Taekwondo club, of course,” he says. Then he looks at his watch. “Speaking
of which, I have to be there in fifteen minutes.” He gets up, sliding his tray
off the table. “If you ever want to talk about anything, you can reach me in
room 4013. Just knock before you enter.”
I nod. “Thanks,” I say. I really am appreciative of his advice.
I feel like, among the members of the Riding Valkyries, I will get along with
him best.
I finish my meal in silence—Rick refrains from speaking to
me—and get up to head to Dr. Barrimore’s lab. Rick gives me a single nod as I pick
up my tray.
After cleaning up, I take the elevator to Dr. Barrimore’s office.
It’s a nondescript room on one of the floors dedicated to housing faculty that
used to be a chemistry lab. I knock on the door.
“Come in,” says Dr. Barrimore.
I enter.
“Ah, yes, you’re just in time,” says Dr. Barrimore. “I heard
you were selected by the Riding Valkyries.”
I nod. “I don’t know much about them. I’ve never even heard
of them before.”
Dr. Barrimore raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t do your
research?”
“I, er, I guess I just neglected it. I didn’t feel it was necessary
and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Well, I did give you a very positive letter of recommendation.
Perhaps I should have told you about it?”
I smile a bit. “No, I liked it better as a surprise. I’m
just happy that any guild accepted me. The one before me wasn’t selected. She
was really messed up about it.”
Dr. Barrimore’s perpetual frown softens. “I really don’t like
the draft format, but I can’t do anything to change it.” He turns to the door
to the lab. A wall separates it from his office. He opens it with a key.
“Well then,” he says. “Shall we begin where we left off?” He
smiles a little—I’ve only ever seen him do it in his lab. The comment about the
draft system seemed to be weighing on him, so it wasn’t as bright as usual.
I know what to do; I’ve been doing it for a month. I get
into my lab gear and approach the far side of the lab.
This wall is lined with terrariums containing the dungeon equivalent
of lab mice—red slimes. The slimes meander around their little homes, absorbing
the last of the little bug bits I fed them yesterday. I reach into a sack
containing more bug bits—ick—and feed the whole wall, one terrarium at a time. When
I am done I turn to Dr. Barrimore.
He has set up the spirit ring reader. It’s a complicated device
covered in open wires. Installed laser technology reads the effects of spirit and
psion interactions. A paper talisman containing Chinese characters sits in the
center of the device’s operating table. The talisman is a substitute for a human,
an inanimate object that is capable of absorbing spirit circles. Dr. Barrimore
is the only one in this school who uses one. It’s not a secret; it’s just that
most research done here doesn’t require a human substitute in this capacity.
Dr. Barrimore encountered this system of magic while on a
furlough in Japan.
With our very tight budget, it is useful that all a talisman
takes is a piece of paper and some Kanji lettering.
“Find me a six-year slime,” says Dr. Barrimore, already immersed
in the output filling the console screen.
I look at the labels on the terrariums and find the one that
says “Six-year.” I use a special pair of slime tongs—kind of like noodle strainers
attached to long chopsticks—and pick up a six-year specimen. I bring it over to
the talisman and place it in a special holding tank.
I’m not exactly sure what Dr. Barrimore is trying to prove
here—it’s too technical for me to understand—but I do know that what is about
to occur will be amazingly cool.
The slime bumbles around for a bit, before settling down at
the east corner of the holding pen. Dr. Barrimore makes some notes. He then
turns a big dial on the side of the machine. A high-power laser shoots out from
a divot on the machine’s interior, vaporizing the slime in a puff of goo.
A kernel of light rises out of the remains.
“Oh great light in the heavens, please allow my proxy to
absorb this gift from the gods,” says Dr. Barrimore, holding his hands out in
prayer.
The kernel of light turns into a ring. It is about a foot in
diameter and is decorated with ancient, inscrutable lettering, as well as complex
webbing that pulsates with light.
It’s like watching gold glitter, or the aftereffects of a
Disneyland fireworks show. Explosive energy radiates from every rune, twisting
through the webbing in veins of bright light. And, this is only a six-year spirit
ring! Any good adventurer would turn their nose at it in a dungeon setting. The
only thing it’s good for is spirit cheese.
Even so, I can’t get enough of it. I watch as the circle is absorbed
by the talisman, becoming a rotating Saturn-esque adornment.
Dr. Barrimore nods, appearing pleased, and the experiments
continue.
Six hours later, at midnight, Dr. Barrimore allows me to
leave.
I take the elevator down to the sub floor where the shooting
club makes its home. When I arrive, Rey is leaning against the wall. She motions
toward me. “So you really came,” she says.
I nod.
She sighs. “I made a bet with my brother about whether or
not you would come. I guess I owe him twenty bucks now.”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t come?” I say.
Rey shrugs. “I dunno. I really haven’t worked with anyone crazy
enough to sacrifice sleep for practice. I’m pretty much the only one who cares
enough about the sport for that to happen.”
“So you’re used to working nights?”
“I’m a champion. I have to defend my title.”
I nod. This is one girl I can empathize with. Hard work makes
everything better. “You can teach me,
then,” I say.
Rey nods. “I can.”
We spent the rest of the night, until the wee hours of the
morning, practicing our shooting.
I go up to my room to sleep for maybe three hours before
class starts again.
Two weeks pass. I spend most of my time between class, Dr.
Barrimore’s lab, and practicing on the range. I’m getting maybe four to six hours
of sleep a night. Since I don’t have to study much to get information to stick,
I have more time free for the stuff I want to do.
Two weeks after I get drafted, the Riding Valkyries get a
dungeon assignment. It’s a D-class, which I learned about in General Spirit
Theory.
Basically, dungeons are classified by how much spiritual and
psionic interference they put out. The classes go from F to S. The scale is a logarithmic
one, meaning that a D class is ten times as powerful as an E class. It’s called
the Mallory Scale. The more powerful a dungeon’s emissions, the more powerful
its monsters and traps.
Usually.
After gathering in the staging area on the alley side of the
Association Headquarters, our little group of eight adventurers plus six
apprentices—including me—heads towards the dungeon. It’s not too far from Central
Park, tucked away behind a little office block. Not prime real estate, but not
a bad neighborhood either.
The dungeon’s portal shimmers in the center of an alley. Dungeon
portals only appear where there is enough space—which is usually outside on the
street. This one is no exception.
Mary, who happens to be the thief class role, stands in front
of our group. Mr. Tuffman, a tank, stands in the center of the full-fledged
adventurers.
The apprentices are: me; Evan; Sarah; Rick; Blake; and Tom.
Each of us carries a large backpack that will eventually get filled with loot.
I haven’t taken any practical classes yet, so I am placed in
the middle of the formation. Once I learn how to fight and “crawl” properly I
can join the actual formation.
For now, I am just dead weight.
The dungeon we enter is covered in ice. Sounds bounce around
clear, glacial walls and echo far into the darkness ahead. The air swirls around
in flurries of ice-cold gasps.
I pull my jacket closer to me. It had been hot, wearing it
in the New York summer, but now I was grateful to have it. My breath clouds in
front of me.
Mary holds up her hand. “Contact,” she says. A couple ice
golems approach. I know from Spirit Circle Id-Rep that these are low-double-digit
monsters, perhaps between ten and twenty. No adventurer in their right mind
would absorb their circles.
Our two DPS members put an end to the monsters’ existence. A
couple of magic bullets later and all that is left are item drops and floating
circles.
It’s the first time I have experienced actual combat. Despite
the monsters’ harmlessness, my hands are still shaking with adrenaline.
It is the apprentices’ job to collect the item drops and help
our technician, Bismark, vacuum up the circles. It only takes a few minutes and
out party is on the move again. The drops are split among porters; I carry a
single radiant icicle in my backpack. It’s a lot heavier than I would have
expected, but it’s not more than a thick textbook. Heavy, but just light enough
to be carriable. A complex feeling.
“Items” are crystalized forms of a monster’s physical essence.
“Circles” or “rings” are concentrated spiritual power. Spirit circle id-rep
pretty much covered everything I need to know about spirit circles in order to
deal with them. Not to mention what working with Dr. Barrimore taught me.
Any ring below fifty or so that is actively absorbed into an
adventurer’s psyche will destroy any potential their companion spirits have. It’s
like opening with the Paris Defense in chess. A total misstep. These unwanted spirit
circles are processed into “spirit cheese” by adventurers. “Spirit Cheese,” or
pureed spirit circle, is a powerful industrial product. It has both physical
and psychic properties when refined. It can be turned into a variety of useful
products, including industrial lubricant and low-cost, high-energy nutritional
shakes.
“Items” are the physical manifestation of dead monsters.
They have special properties that make them different from any physical object
originating in our dimension. Their origin and composition are mostly a mystery,
despite decades of research.
However, they are very valuable. A drop from a twenty-year
monster can go for over a hundred dollars on the wholesale market.
It seems hardly worth it to risk life and limb for any somewhat
trivial amount of money, but dungeons have to be cleared anyways. Items
generally help reduce the operating costs.
The party continues through the crystal ice dungeon. We
fight a couple more trash mobs and go deeper and deeper. We are looking for the
“boss,” the monster who is connected to the portal’s dimensional bridge and
thus, if defeated, will negate the portal.
Double doors mark the end of the long maze. They are formed
of crystal ice, blue veins tracing through carved bas-relief.
Mr. Tuffman places his palm against the doors.
“Apprentices, stay back,” says Mary. “Fera, take point.
Andrew will draw fire. David—you know what to do.”
The doors open with a dramatic flourish. Blue fire erupts
from at least a hundred torches placed in ice sconces, radiating chill. At the end
of the hall sits a guardian of immense proportions, a monster to top monsters. A
goat-like head, covered in blue fur, sits atop a boar’s torso and a dragon’s
legs. Six arms extend from the monster’s sides, four on one side and two on the
other. A pair of bat’s wings springs from the monster’s gnarly back.
The monster stands, bellowing.
Four smaller monsters—kobolds—appear out of mist and charge
the party. The big boss trundles forward, behind them.
“Gilly! Magic missile—level seven!”
Sixteen red arrows form above Gilly’s head and fly across
the room, four impacting each kobold. Not much happens—the kobolds power
through, screaming and waving spears.
“Andrew!” says Mary.
“Right!” says Andrew. He plants his shield between the party
and the kobolds.
“Lorenz!” says Andrew, a blue spell growing in his hands.
“Blast of lightning!” yells Lorenz, sweeping his hands. Pink
lightning rockets forth, striking the boss monster on the snout. Trails of
electricity jump between the boss monster’s hairs.
The boss monster raises its Warhammer and roars.
Ice crystals spike outwards from the boss’s feet, jutting
ten feet up, speeding towards the party.
Andrew finishes his defense spell. The ice slams against the
wall of magic, spraying cold sparks everywhere.
Two kobolds go for a flank.
“Turner!” yells Andrew.
Turner throws several shurikens, which grow exponentially in
size as they fly. One of them takes the head off of a kobold. The other kobold
dodges, and the car-sized shuriken slams into the ice wall, spitting shards of
glittering blue frozen water.
The dodging kobold leaps for Turner.
“Fera!” yells Turner.
Fera sweeps her staff around. “Block!” she yells.
The attacking kobold rams into a green force field. Stunned,
for a moment, it staggers backwards.
Turner steps through the force field and points his palm at
the kobold. “Chill touch!” he says.
Black sludge spews out from Turner’s hand and covers the kobold.
The kobold screams in pain. Miasma rises from the kobold’s thrashing body.
The second to last kobold takes a magic missile to the face,
splattering blood all over the icy ground. One drop touches the boss’s snout. With
an evil look in its eyes, the boss wipes the droplet of blood off.
The fourth kobold backs up towards the boss. The boss raises
its Warhammer and slams it against the ground.
Waves of icicles race towards the party.
“AOE!” yells Mary.
Andrew pulls off an emergency local block, but Gilly and
Bismark are not behind it.
Bismark whips out a small metal plate that spirals out to
become the size of the front of a house. The ice rips into the metal, tearing
it up. By the time the ice has shredded the metal, Gilly and Bismark are out of
the AOE attack’s range. Stray ice spears shoot out of the ground just a couple
of meters from where I stand.
“Hey,” says Evan, looking concerned. He points behind us,
back in the corridor leading to the doors. “Looks like we have company.”
I look. A couple of ice slimes are approaching us.
“We must have missed them,” says Sarah. She turns to me. “This
is something you can handle, right?”
A tinkling explosion reverberates from the boss room, punctuating
her remark.
I pull my bow out from my pack and string it.
Sarah holds her hand out in front of me. “You’re not strong
enough. You’ll just hold us back.”
I lower my bow.
Evan takes off his pack and takes a marital stance. He is a
monk-class, meaning that he fights with his fists and feet. His spirit is,
conveniently, bone.
Sarah pulls out a staff. She is a sorcerer—she fights with heavy
attack magic. Her spirit is a Venus flytrap.
Rick materializes a gigantic metal shield and a spear. He is
a paladin, mixing defense with magic. His spirit is a type of shield known as a
“buckler.”
Blake holds up his hand. A wolf steps out of a portal, a manifestation
of his companion spirit—which is, of course, a wolf. Blake is a beast master.
Tom’s hands begin crackling with electricity. His spirit is
the most esoteric of all of us—the concept of amperage. Unlike his cousins, voltage
and resistance, his power is strong enough to kill. He is a technician/mage
dual class.
I have no class—they are assigned after one semester of Practical
Party management. The only thing I can do is “turn on” my anima vision. Blue
and green shapes fly around, giving me info like wind speed, monster strength,
and hints at future movements. I’ve been practicing withstanding the barrage of
information and interpreting it. I angle my bow downwards, though I keep an
arrow knocked.
Evan gives a “kiyap” and does a turning kick.
Tom holds up his crackling hands. “Lesser lightning!” he
yells. Tesla coils zip from his fingers and encapsulate the slimes.
These slimes are between twenty and thirty years. For a
full-fledged adventurer, they might not be a threat. But for us, they are. There
are seven of them.
One of the slimes takes a direct lightning hit and explodes
into cold, grey goo. The six remainders approach in their slimy, undulating fashion.
An explosion reverberates from behind us. Commands, muffled
by walls of ice and fire, zing about.
Sarah makes a sign with her fingers. “Fire Spear!” she yells.
A halo of fire pops into existence around her wrists. She pulls her hands back,
straightening it into a long spear. Like an ancient Spartan, she throws the
spear overhead, sending it flying directly into the center of the approaching
slimes.
An explosion of epic proportions rips a slime apart, damaging
the rest.
The five remaining slimes prepare for the classic slime
attack: tackle. Their wet, sack-like bodies tense backwards, gathering force at
their “feet.”
Rick slams his shield in front of us. A line of yellow force
extends outwards.
Two slimes bump into the shield and undulate backwards. The other
three, though leap over the barrier and land among us.
One of the slimes plops down in front of me. I grab the
first sharp thing I have—an arrow—and try stabbing it.
The slime grabs the arrow and sucks it out of may hand.
Useless. I’m useless.
The other five apprentices are too busy to help.
My hand begins to burn with icy cold. Slime acid—ice type—crawls
up my arm. Frostbite encroaches upon my fingertips. Pain shoots through my
bones.
The slime spits more ice acid in my face.
One eye goes black. The other stings. I can’t breathe for a
moment.
Waving my bow around wildly, I try to get the slime off of
me.
I can’t believe that I am about to be defeated by a lowly
slime.
The slime opens its cavernous feeding hole and prepares to
swallow me.
A blast of fire incinerates the slime, sending ice acid
droplets spiraling through the air. Sarah approaches me.
“You owe me one,” she says. Her eyes are filled with
contempt. “Can’t even face a lowly slime, can you?”
Evan, also covered in ice acid, puts his hand on Sarah’s shoulder.
“All’s well that ends well,” he says. He turns back to the boss room, which has
become silent.
The eight main party members are standing around discussing
something. Mr. Tuffman is pointing in the direction of the four dea kobolds.
Jesus stands before the dead boss monster. From my Spirit Circle Id-Rep class I
can tell that the monster is at least a five hundred year mob. The kobolds are
between one fifty and two hundred each.
Jesus sits down and begins the absorption process. Four
other party members do the same for the four kobolds. Five rings rise out of
the corpses of the five monsters our team defeated, and five adventurers chant the
same mantra. The rings bestow themselves onto the adventurers, rising into the
sky and falling onto them. With a snap, they are absorbed into their spirit.
Bismark walks over to us, holding the ring vacuum. He points
to the dead slimes.
“You killed them, ya?” he says. His accent is clearly German.
We nod.
“It wasn’t much,” says Sarah.
Bismark nods with enthusiasm and turns the vacuum on. With a
sweeping motion he collects the seven rings from the seven dead slimes.
Us porters collect the little geodes that dropped from the
monsters. Then, we head into the boss room to collect the loot from the boss
battle. It isn’t much—it’s a D-class dungeon, after all—but it’s probably worth
a pretty penny.
The whole adventure has lasted about four hours. Most of that
time was spent wandering the maze, killing trash mobs. My backpack is almost
full from all the low-level items we picked up.
Mary directs us to move back into formation. She walks up to
a rather large crystal that is floating where the boss monster had sat before
we arrived. With a regular hardware store hammer, she smashes it.
The world shimmers and we appear back in the alleyway we started
from. The portal is gone. Mary takes out a paper planner and a pen. “Apprentices.
Count your loot.”
It’s been half a minute since we left the dungeon and it’s
already time for business. We are a for-profit company, after all.
The six of us place our packs on the ground and begin
counting, under the direction of Mary. I assume this is standard procedure—I haven’t
taken PPM, so I don’t know for sure—but it makes sense to immediately catalog the
item haul to prevent cheating and stealing.
After we count out our items, we put them back into the
packs and head for the Association building. We go to the treasury and deposit
our items in the guild account, and then we are free for the rest of the day.
We will get paid for our work at the next pay period. Food and living expenses
will be deducted, of course.
And so, life continues at Ixtham Academy.
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