Dungeons and Noobs

by Ryan Rimmel

  Jarra the Healer looked determined and was trying to keep pace with SueLeeta. SueLeeta was a bit taller than Jarra and walked with a striding step that made keeping up a bit of a challenge. Thankfully for Jarra, she was no slouch in the determination department.

  Bashara waltzed past me, grinning. “It's beginning to look civilized.” Badgelor hopped off my shoulder and started following her, growling slightly. I still didn’t like that Bashara was coming. I didn’t like it at all, but she was probably necessary. She better be necessary. She had, however, betrayed Badgelor, and there would be a reckoning for that. I was willing to bet she would not enjoy such a reckoning. If it wasn’t for the fact that Badgelor was likewise convinced she was needed to help him find Charles, I doubted I could have talked the little monster into letting her come.

  The hallway opened into the same room that the Dungeon Door was located. However, the room had been repaired. Torches were affixed to the walls, illuminating the place nicely. The glyphs on the floor were glowing far more impressively than when I’d last been here as well.

  Of course, the door was still shut.

  “I was under the impression the door was going to be open,” said Sir Dalton. He was, unsurprisingly, standing closest to the door. He wanted to be the first one in.

  Glancing at my character sheet, I saw I was under the effects of the buff:

  ● Phoenix Moon: You are now subject to the spirit of the Phoenix Moon. May your spirit be ever vigilant.

  “That’s cryptic,” I said, considering the buff’s wording. “Bashara, magic the door open.” I completed the order with an airy finger wave that made her frown at me. She did not look cute.

  She grumbled at me, the door, Sir Dalton, back at me, and then spent a good minute frowning at the door. “It should be open,” she said finally.

  “Dalton, she says it should be open,” I said.

  There was a loud zapping noise before a smoking Dalton stepped away from the door. “She is in error. The door is still closed and warded.”

  “Sir Dalton says-” I began.

  “I understand that,” hissed Bashara. Her eyes flicked blue and amber as she looked at the runes. “It says that the door WILL open when the Phoenix Moon rises and shines down. It says WILL, not might.”

  I glanced over at the burning duck that was Ordinal’s version of a phoenix. Then, I looked above it. “Sir Dalton, stand over there,” I directed. The big man gave me an odd look but did as I said. I strolled over to him and leapt onto his shoulders, reaching the ceiling.

  He made an odd choking sound. “I am not furniture!”

  “Hush, overly talkative ladder,” I said, looking at the ceiling for anything unusual. I would have missed it except for my Perception. Taking my dagger, I slid the weapon across the roof. The sharp metal scarred a small piece of stone directly over the doomed duck.

  “Badgelor,” I called. The badger rushed across the floor, climbed up Sir Dalton’s front, spent a glorious moment with his furry little butt pressed up against Sir Dalton’s face, then climbed up me to rest on my shoulder.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Dig until you find the moon,” I said, grabbing him from behind and pressing him against the ceiling. He would usually have protested, but his desire to kill Charles had overcome his cantankerous streak.

  His front claws buried themselves in the stone, but his back claws scratched against a magically enchanted surface with an awful nails-on-chalkboard sound. With me holding him in position, he was able to dig upward, causing an impressive amount of debris to fall down. Most of it landed on my head.

  I went to drop down, but Sir Dalton had reached up and grabbed me by the ankles with his unbreakable grip. “Wouldn’t want you to fall!”

  Touché...

  None of the rocks were large enough to hurt me, so I just bowed my head and let them pelt my skull for about twenty seconds. Suddenly, there was a flash of moonlight peeking through the hole Badgelor had exposed. By the time I turned my face up, the blinding light had stopped, leaving behind a pale, peaceful ray of light. For an instant, I wondered what had happened.

  Then, I got a face full of badger, causing me to nearly lose my balance. Sir Dalton was strong, but I had leverage. My sudden jerk caused him to step around awkwardly for a moment, before he recovered. His hands released, and I hopped down. I brushed off stray bits of stone, as Badgelor scrambled back onto my shoulder.

  As I looked down at the moonbeam now shining onto the stone engraving on the floor, it started to glow. I was used to magic on Ordinal now, but the stone looked almost like it was burning. As I continued to stare, the poor duck - er, phoenix - spread its mighty wings. The magical connections running through the floor began to glow a bright orange, and the arcane lock started to unravel. A bluish light ran down the doorway in a perfect line, before the Dungeon Door started to slowly open, revealing a purple portal hiding within.

  Everyone was momentarily awestruck by the glorious tear in space that led to an unworldly path into the beyond.

  “First,” yelled Sir Dalton, as he charged into the doorway.

  “Moron,” yelled Glorious Robert, dashing in behind him. A surprised Zorlando followed on the heels of the Fisherman. Fenris followed them with a disapproving air. Bashara looked annoyed, as she dove into the portal next. That left just SueLeeta, Jarra the Healer, and myself with my companions on the outside.

  “Wait,” I said, as Badgelor suddenly leapt off my shoulder and ran toward the gateway.

  “YOLO,” screamed the badger, diving in.

  SueLeeta started toward the door. “Those idiots are going to get us all killed.”

  “There isn’t any danger in the room they are in,” I replied.

  “How do you know that?” asked Jarra.

  “Party interface. None of them are listed as taking damage or in combat,” stated SueLeeta, watching me carefully. I nodded.

  “Oh, I don’t have access to that,” said Jarra. After a moment, she continued quietly, “That means it's going to be a lot more dangerous for me, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, “Yes, but you are still planning on coming anyway.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I won’t back down. I can do this,” she said with determination.

  I placed my hand on her shoulder. “For Wind and Windfall.” I activated my final party invite.

  Jarra’s expression turned to shock as she looked up at me. “Are you sure? I’ll be getting a share of the experience that I can’t use and the loot.”

  “There will be plenty of both. I’ll not have our healer going in without as much protection as I can manage,” I said calmly. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  SueLeeta rolled her eyes and grabbed Jarra. “Jim, we are going to talk later,” she said, dragging Jarra into the portal. I was left standing outside with only my thoughts and a butthole demon.

  “They aren’t going to like that,” stated Shart. “That’s two dead weights stealing experience points that could be going to the Chosen who need them.”

  I was just about done with all the second guessing and backhanded comments. I glared at Shart until the little demon frowned. “Well, look who finally grew a pair,” he said, before poofing off my shoulder. I heard his voice in my head as he continued, “If you’d waited until SueLeeta walked in, Jarra the Healer would have smooched you again!”

  I stood for a moment, alone. The little shit was right. Damn. Sighing, I strode into the dungeon.

  Chapter 25: Inside the Dungeon

  The initial room of the dungeon was about as dungeon-like as anyone could reasonably expect. It was cold, dark, and damp. A musky odor that seemed to carry the underlying scent of rot and death filled the room. It was great. It was like walking into a haunted house and being terrified right off the bat.

  Glorious Robert and Sir Dalton had formed a human barricade at the only doorway out of the room. They were vigilantly watching for signs of trouble. Everyone else had spread out. Fenris and SueLeeta wer
e examining the walls of the cavern, and Bashara was looking at a sigil at the entrance. Badgelor was standing on his back paws and aggressively sniffing the air. Jarra was flanking SueLeeta, doing her best to act as a guard. Zorlando was shadowing Sir Dalton, ready to come to his aid at a moment’s notice.

  “Recognize it?” I asked the Wizard, catching a slight wrinkling of her brow.

  “Not exactly,” she replied hesitantly. “It looks familiar, though.” She pulled out a book from one of her pouches and started furiously scribbling down notes.

  “HOLD ON,” Glorious Robert yelled, causing everyone to nearly shit their pants. We all turned to look at him. “Did we get another party member?”

  “Seven seems a bit much,” said Bashara offhandedly, as she continued sketching.

  “It's Jim. He’s weird,” replied SueLeeta, before looking directly at me. “You should go scout.”

  “This should be funny,” said Glorious Robert. “So, he’s a Rogue too.”

  I sighed but pushed past Glorious Robert and headed off into the dark hallway. Once I got a few paces out, I activated Shadow Walking and started using my Stealth skill. I heard a sharp inhalation of breath as I did so, my Hide in Plain Sight perk masking my transition.

  Of course, this just left me wandering into the dark, dank depths of the dungeon with no light. It wasn’t a totally ideal situation. I briefly considered making a light with my Flameology skill or shifting over to my Sorcerer magical pathways. Either would cause my eyes to glow, but neither seemed appealing. In my cartoon watching experience, I knew glowing eyes would make me terribly noticeable.

  “I can’t see,” I said.

  “Have you tried sniffing?” replied Badgelor, who was now crouched on my shoulder and audibly breathing through his nose.

  I was about to say I couldn’t do that, but it was Ordinal. I took several deep breaths, really trying to analyze what I smelled.

  ● You have learned about the skill, Scent. You are unskilled. You have a nose for trouble!

  The new skill wasn’t all that impressive, at least at my skill level. Unfortunately, it didn’t let me smell walls enough to naturally avoid them. For that, I used the old standby of holding my hand out in front of me while I walked. To properly footpad, you wanted to get a certain distance out, so that you could alert everyone behind you of danger before they got caught unaware. However, you also still wanted to be close enough that, if there was danger, you could just run back.

  Alas, I did not do that. I started walking, exploring the dungeon. I rapidly got much further away from the party than I reasonably should have because I was Jim, and I was one curious puppy. This was all my childhood fantasies rolled into one massive dungeon, and, for a moment, I slipped up. I only vaguely realized that I had turned a corner and gotten much further away from my allies than I should have. I did catch a faint whiff of something that was not stone, just as the floor beneath me gave way. My danger sense apparently only worked if I could see the danger. How is that helpful?

  I was out of arm’s reach of any of the walls in the pit. My athletic skills, like Jumping and Sprinting, required something to move off of. I didn’t have time to get my sword stuck into something. I didn’t even have time to try to call it to my hand. As I started to fall, Badgelor turned 180 degrees and expanded to his War Form. He then jumped from my back at maximum force.

  The propulsion from my badger was just enough. I managed to grab at a small protrusion in the wall and held on with three fingers, my feet teetering over the bottomless chasm below.

  “Hey, this isn’t a bottomless pit,” called out Shart, as he flew down. “It's actually only twenty feet deep! Careful, it ends in a slope.”

  “Really?” I asked. I had fallen around ten feet down and was considering just dropping from the awkward, three-fingered grip I had on the wall. I had the Climb skill. I just wasn’t especially practiced at it. No time like the present. “A slope to where?” I asked.

  “There are two cylinders with sharp spikes on them,” said Shart. I tightened my grip.

  “Explain,” I yelled down, as I heard a clicking sound.

  “Well, the two spiked cylinders are sitting parallel to each other, and there seems to be something stuck between them. Hey, it's magical! Give me one sec, and I’ll remove it,” yelled Shart.

  “Don’t do that! It's probably a trap,” I yelled, but I knew I was doomed. Shart was a freaking magpie when it came to shiny bits of junk. A magical shiny piece of junk was going to captivate him.

  Suddenly, the clicking stopped, only to be replaced by a dull grinding noise. “It slipped,” the demon whispered.

  “I can tell when you’re lying,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah,” Shart responded.

  For a long moment, everything was quiet. I foolishly hoped that was the end of the issue. However, even through the wall, I could feel a faint quiver flowing down my arm.

  “Oh, they are spinning now,” yelled Shart, as the walls began to vibrate. “Wow, they are spinning fast.”

  Suddenly, a shaft of light shot out from beneath the rolling grinder wheels, as the fiery furnace beneath them ignited. The combination of searing heat and the vibrating wall was really doing wonders for my day.

  “Shart, where is that thing that was holding the grinders in place?” I yelled, trying to get a solid grip on the protrusion. In the furnace light, I could see it was a small flaw in the otherwise smooth wall. It looked very much like the beginning of a stalactite. The problem was that my three fingers were occupying all the surface area of the lump. I had no room to adjust my grip at all.

  I could feel it starting to crumble.

  “I dropped it into the fire,” the demon replied.

  “Why would you drop something like that?” I yelled.

  “I got scared of the vibrations. Those spinning wheels look like they could tear me to pieces,” yelled Shart.

  “Go get it,” I growled.

  “But I dropped it into the fire,” he yelled.

  “Which does nothing to you, you little zit! Go get it,” I yelled back.

  “But it's all the way down there,” whined the demon, poofing away.

  I considered jumping out of the hole, but, even with my Jump skill, I didn’t think I would make it. Under normal circumstances, it was well under my normal limit, but I’d be doing it from pretty far below the lip of the hole. I would also be jumping from a very awkward starting position.

  Of course, as I ruled it out, my small handhold fell apart in my hand. No other option now. I tried it, anyway.

  ● Jumping skill activated. Maximum distance 5 logs, due to poor starting position.

  I hurled myself through the air, covering just around fifteen feet in actual distance. The problem was that I needed to go about a foot further. I had been stretched out too far, and there was literally nothing I could do to get my hand to move the extra six inches vertically. I very literally slammed, body first, into the opposite side of the wall and began to fall.

  As I reached the slope, I realized just how steep and smooth it was. There was no chance of me making the jump to the lip of the hole from here. The only direction I could go was down, directly into the trap. So, I backflipped off the wall and landed on the grinders.

  Well, grinder specifically. I landed on it and started running like a lumberjack running on a submerged log. It was not ideal. What made it worse was that, as the grinders spun, they continuously picked up speed. I was starting to have to use my Sprint skill to keep up, which was slowly draining my Stamina.

  Shart suddenly reappeared next to me, holding the object. His hands were smoking rather impressively, considering he was fireproof. “You know, it occurs to me that I have a rope.”

  I snatched the object from his hand. “Go tie the rope to something.”

  “Can you say ‘Please’?” he asked.

  “Shart, if I die like this-”

  “All the more reason to be a little polite.” he said. I glared at him as best I could, con
sidering my sweaty sprint. “FINE! How rude!” he said, flying upward.

  The object I had taken from Shart was a small metal ingot, rectangular in shape. There was a large dent in the middle where the grinders had unsuccessfully closed around it. The ingot was also glowing red hot, causing me to toss it into the air as I blew on my hands. What happened next would never be described as heroic looking. I would catch the ingot in one hand, then juggle it over to the other, all the time trying to use my skills to puzzle out a solution to my predicament.

  My Smithing skill didn’t activate, meaning it was above the kind of metal I could work on. It was lightweight and hard, kind of like the metal my Dagger of Wounding was made of.

  As I considered this, my foot started to slip. I wobbled precariously on the grinder for a moment before getting my footing back together. My options were pretty limited at this point. The ingot was going to be tricky to get back into place, but I figured if someone else had managed it, so could I.

  “I tied it off,” yelled Shart. He flew back over the lip of the hole and tossed the rope down. “There was a metal ring attached to the ceiling a little ways in.”

  “That has to be another trap,” I yelled back, grabbing hold of the rope before it fell into the grinders.

  “There isn’t anything else to tie it to,” complained Shart. “You are being very ungrateful.”

  Groaning, I decided to try my luck with the rope. I was pulling against an angle, so it was possible that I’d have enough friction on the line to prevent activating whatever the next trap was. I started climbing up the wall, just like my favorite 60’s crime fighter.

  “Hey, this might actually work,” said Shart. I groaned.

  The rope suddenly went slack, as I heard a loud click. Dropping the rope, I scrambled against the side of the wall. Finding no purchase, I repeated my first trick and backflipped onto the other grinder.

  “Where is Badgelor?” I yelled over the clanging in the hallway.