by Eric Ugland
Too close.
One leapt, grabbing onto my foot. The rakemaws were heavy, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t moving nearly as fast. Still, with two hands and one foot, I could remain upward bound
Twenty feet left to go.
The next rakemaws to get to me climbed on my back and started pushing off the wall with his feet, trying his damndest to tear me from the wall.
Then the next.
And the next.
Until I was covered, and they started biting into any exposed flesh.
I couldn’t hold on.
So I kicked off, grabbing all the rakemaws with me, and fell back towards the ground, hoping I’d get enough horizontal movement to cover the empty space where the rakemaws had climbed from.
I sailed through the air with all the grace of a pigeon tied to a brick. We landed with a hearty thud and a sickening crunch of the various monsters on my back, those poor bastards’ insides erupting to the outside, kersplooging with force all over Emeline. She was the only one who got mussed over because she was the closest to the tower, shooting arrow after arrow into the mob of goblins at the top. (Moblin?) Unfortunately, now that she was liberally covered in goop, she couldn’t see. And if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t shoot.
Rolling over to my feet, I stomped one of the rakemaw’s skulls in, and then beheaded the other. Ragnar was there with a spear, stabbing another to death.
I turned to look at the tower.
The goblins at the top were jeering at us, making lewd gestures, and attempting to hit us with rocks. Sometimes all of it in that order.
Rakemaws swarmed the outside, not quite enough to cover all the surfaces of the tower, but enough that climbing it would be nigh on impossible.
“Thoughts?” I asked Nikolai.
“No,” Nikolai said, looking away from the tower. “I am currently terrified beyond the capacity for rational thoughts.”
I turned to follow his gaze.
The collapse of the labyrinth had gotten to the edge of the circle. In fact, it was a bit false to call the place a labyrinth any longer, given that the entirety of the labyrinth was gone, and what little space we had left was disappearing.
I looked up at the tower, thinking about my skills, my abilities. I needed to have something magical come to me. And then, well, a really stupid idea came into my head. Gloriously stupid. No way it could go wrong.
“Ragnar,” I shouted, “time for the hirð to help.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I grabbed Ragnar by the tail before he had time to object, and I started spinning around like I was doing the hammer throw. I’d never really done a hammer throw before, but I understood the concept of it: generate force, let go at the appropriate point in the circle, thing goes flying in a straight line tangent.
Ragnar, oddly enough, was not exactly keen on the idea, and let me know by screaming.
But I was out of ideas and time. So, well, it was this or death.
Round and round, spinning him as fast as I could, hoping he wouldn’t pass out.
A quick look at the top of the tower, measuring the target, and most importantly, gauging where I needed to release Ragnar in order for him to avoid the goblins, grab the gem, and make it back down to us on the other side.
“When I let go— ” I yelled.
“Don’t let go!” Ragnar screamed back.
“We all run to the other side to catch him,” I continued. “And Ragnar, grab the gem.”
I released Ragnar, and immediately started sprinting around the tower and the de facto moat, looking over to the side to keep track of Ragnar’s trajectory. I don’t know if it’s because of the points I put into intelligence, but damn if I wasn’t spot on.
The Lutra sailed through the air, definitely screaming a little more than I would have liked. But he sailed perfectly through the arch with just enough room for him to grab the gem but miss the goblins. Now I just had to put on the jets to make it all the way around in time.
Perhaps this was a foolish assumption (most assumptions are), but I’d thought the collapse would stop as soon as we grabbed the gem. I thought the rakemaws and goblins would disappear, or de-aggro at least, and we’d have a second to breathe. But instead, the collapse continued on, maybe even a little faster than it had been before. The goblins intensified their stone-throwing efforts, and the rakemaws launched themselves from the tower at all of us, attacking with fervor.
I had to make a diving catch, laying all the way flat out like I’d never quite managed to pull off in baseball. But I caught my hirðman in something like a diving slide. I immediately shot out my one healing spell to mitigate some of the damage he might have sustained in this nonsense. Then I shoved my hand onto the gem.
Do you wish to travel to the third floor of The Dungeon of Ancients or do you wish to Exit?
“TRAVEL TO THREE!” I yelled.
The ground opened up below me, and I fell.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
As it turned out, holes opened under everyone in my party, and we were all falling. Falling that turned into sliding, that wound up with us going through something along the lines of the second-worst waterslide I’d ever ridden. It was leagues better than the poop-chute, but with the lack of water, it was just really smooth stone, and the turns and bumps and everything hurt. There was a bright flash, and then we were falling through open air. Finally, we splashed down in a big lake.
The water was cold, painful. I had to fight to keep my muscles moving; everything really just wanted to contract. Ragnar had no problems with the water, pushing off me and making his way to my right.
A notification popped up.
Congratulations unto you, traveler, for your party has bested the second level of the Dungeon of the Ancients.
You gain 3000 XP.
You gain the second ring of the Dungeons of the Ancients Indicium. Complete the Indicium for a bonus.
Warnings unto you, for each level is more punishing than the last. But the rewards are greater.
It was dark where we were, and even though it should’ve been instinctual at that point, I panicked, and it took a beat before I remembered I could just flick on the dark vision. The world lit up in contrasting blacks and whites, and I saw that we were in a large cavern with a beach to one side. There was a crude door carved into the wall along the beach, and, as far as I could tell, no other exits. Putting my head under the water, I glanced around, looking for any larger predators. While I could see some smaller fish in the distance, there was nothing like a serpent or a monster or anything particularly nasty. What I did see, however, were several people who didn’t know how to swim.
“Ragnar,” I called out, “go for Donner. Skeld, Nikolai. I got the girl.”
“Naturally,” Ragnar called back.
Ignoring him, I knife-dove under the water and kicked hard. Emeline was sinking like a rock, the ballgown’s heavy silk dragging her down while constrictions around her arms and all the material wrapping around her legs kept her from fighting it.
I’d never been much of a swimmer during my Earth days, but here, I’d gotten a number of delightful advantages to swimming. I felt like I was straight up shooting through the water, getting deep in mere strokes, and grabbing onto the girl.
She felt hands on her and fought for a second until she realized it was me. Then she grabbed on. Neither of her reactions were helpful, the first because she managed to smack me right in the nose — probably how she realized it was me — and the second because she trapped my arms to my sides.
We touched the bottom, so I kicked upward and felt the stunning amount of drag the dress put into the water, and how heavy the damn thing was. I was having a little trouble with the whole mess. So halfway up, I stopped, forced her hands off me, grabbed her bodice with either hand, and pulled as hard as I could. The dress ripped down the middle, and I managed to extricate her from the garment, then pulled her back to me before swimming up to the surface.
She took in a huge lungful of
air as soon as we broke, then started coughing, and promptly threw up on me.
I ignored it as best I could, rolled onto my back, and leisurely kicked us over to the shore. As soon as my feet touched down, I carried her across the sandy portion of the beach, and laid her on some rocks. Nearer the crude doorway, bricks spread out, as if at some point there was a patio or something along those lines. Unlike the previous floors of the dungeon, however, these bricks weren’t made as well. They weren’t fit together with any sense of smoothness.
I made a mental note to watch my footing in this next floor.
Then I trudged back into the water and helped carry Donner up onto the stone, and then Nikolai. We were, once again, together. and everyone was mostly alive.
“Well,” I said, “that was fun.”
Ragnar punched me in the face.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“What the fuck, Montana?” Ragnar yelled.
“HEY!” I shouted right back. “Calm down.”
“You threw me! By my tail!”
“It was the only way I could get the requisite speed for that arc. And you totally snagged the gem.”
“Can you ask first next time?”
“Did you not see the world crumbling around us? You think there was time to ask?”
He glared at me, then finally nodded. But just once.
“Next time,” he said, “ask.” He spun on his heel and walked away.
He wasn’t wrong. Sure, I should have asked. It would have been much nicer, and he’d probably have been able to prepare more. But we were running out of time, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with convincing him should he say yes. I shrugged, figuring I’d find some way to make it up to him.
We got some candles out of the bag and had light in a minute. A few bits of broken furniture later, and we had a homely little fire cracklin’ away.
I walked up to the crude door, and looked it over. It was wooden, with black iron fixtures. The wood wasn’t lined up well, leaving some gaps between the boards. The iron had pits and even a few holes. It certainly didn’t look like anything I’d seen in Osterstadt. It looked almost amateur.
“We need time to rest,” Nikolai said. “Keep the door closed.”
I put my hands up and stepped back.
“No problem, Hoss.”
He shook his head.
Emeline stood near the water giving me a dirty look and trying to cover her ample jiggly bits.
“Sorry about the, uh—” I started.
“Dress, now,” she glared.
I reached into the bag, snagged another dress and held it out to Emeline with what I hoped was a nice smile. She snatched the dress and immediately turned around, and walked away to the far side of dry land to get changed. I definitely didn’t not look away and cannot comment on the quality of her butt.
Then I unsuccessfully tried fishing in the cave pool, and we got a little fire going using some of the busted furniture I’d rescued from the ruined castles. We ate, then slept, then ate more of the dried rations. Once again, I had no concept of the time we’d spent in the safe space, but I had to imagine it was a lot more this time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight hours.
I also took the time to catch up on notifications and the like. I had plenty of death notices, from the goblins in the original confrontation, to the creature that fell from the ceiling (known as a liggepalur), to the hobgoblins, and then the labyrinth creatures (the flying one is called the bladed korento). I’d gotten a fair bit of XP, and an additional level.
Attributes
Strength: 56
Agility: 31
Dexterity: 30
Constitution: 53
Wisdom: 24
Intelligence: 19
Charisma: 31
Luck: 28
Unassigned points: 6
I poked Nikolai, and indicated I wanted to talk to him with a little privacy. We walked across to the far end of the beach, and he gave me a look like I’d already taken up too much of his time.
“I got another level,” I said.
“Allow me to fertilize my fallow field of fucks—” he started, and though I was pretty interested to see where he was going to take that long winded insult, I held up a hand for him to stop.
“I’m asking you where I should put my points.”
He closed his eyes, and I swear I could almost feel him metaphysically touching me.
“Gods,” he said, keeping his eyes closed, “your points are out of control.”
“Good?”
“They are unlike many I have seen.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes?”
“I sense a but.”
“But you are advancing so quickly you do not bother to learn how to use your skills or abilities or even how to capitalize on your attributes. You rely on overpowering everything you come up against. Your fight with the hobgoblins was apocryphal, and had they not underestimated you, you would have died. You slipped by with your health in single digits. At some point, you will find something more powerful than you, and you will have nothing to fall back on.”
“Okay, so I don’t put the points anywhere?”
“It is a waste should you follow that path. No, you must put them somewhere, just where they might go, I am not sure how to guide you.”
He opened his eyes, shook his head a few times, then leaned back on the rock wall and looked up at the cavern ceiling.
“Strength,” he finally said. “That is where you have focused so much already, and it seems to suit what you are trying to be.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He shrugged, and walked away.
I stood by myself there, and kicked a rock out into the water.
Nikolai was right: I had focused a lot on a strength-based build. And maybe he had a good point, that I should just keep pouring everything into strength. It might unlock something ridiculous. Maybe it’d break the game. If that was even possible. Breaking the game might be breaking the world, and then where would I be? I seemed to be strong enough, I mean, and I seemed to be tough enough as well. Smart enough? Maybe not. But I hadn’t really seen what those points in intelligence were doing. People liked me enough, so I didn’t feel the need to bother with charisma. Luck? I suppose I could always drop more in luck.
Tired of running through choices, and knowing the time was running out on the points remaining, I shoved four into strength and two into luck.
Attributes
Strength: 60
Agility: 31
Dexterity: 30
Constitution: 53
Wisdom: 24
Intelligence: 19
Charisma: 31
Luck: 30
Perfect. Ish.
The fire had burnt low. There was nothing more to burn for the moment, which meant it was time to see what the dungeon had in store for us in the third level.
We stood before the door as a group. Waiting.
I reached out and touched the door. It swung open with a solid creak.
Chapter Forty
Inside we saw a tunnel that looked as if had been carved straight out of the rock. The floor was actually brick, but like the ones near the beach, they weren’t put together well. They reminded me of the stretch of cobblestones on Marlborough Street on the East Side, where there were plenty of potholes ready to swallow your ankle. There were large candles tucked up near the ceiling, black soot spots above them.
“See,” I said, “now this is what I’d call a Dungeon.”
I looked around, expecting someone else to agree with me. Or, you know, at least make some sort of disparaging comment about me and the stupid things I said. But I only got back looks of exhaustion or disappointment. I got the feeling no one else was having any fun in the dungeon. I wasn’t exactly excited, per se, but I couldn’t help but be interested seeing what the next challenge might be. I wanted to conquer the dungeon. Everything was complicated and potentially impossible, but it just seemed like there was a
thin path to success, and even though there was a really big part of me that wanted to float on my back in the dark water, thinking about all the horrible shit in my life and how fucked it was, I knew that was just the way we’d die. We couldn’t let sadness overtake us. I couldn’t let it overwhelm me. Cleeve’s death was hurting me, and I knew I needed to deal with it. To feel the emotions. I was conflicted because the logical side of me pointed out that I’d only known the dude a matter of months. That I shouldn’t feel the way I was feeling. But I had accepted him as a father figure. I wanted him to be a father figure, and I thought I’d have more time with him. Perhaps it hurt more because of the timing of it all. The shortness made it all hurt more. Realizing I’d just been standing in the hallway for a time, I knew I was already starting to lose the fight. I was turning inward and allowing my darker feelings to overtake me. Despite wanting to deal with the sadness and the despair, it was better to be upbeat and force the good in our situation to the front. Even if it wasn’t the truth, I couldn’t let myself sink into the dour mood that had overtaken my comrades.
“Alright,” I said, “let’s all just pretend I said something witty, and keep going.”
Not much, but I did get a head shake from Nikolai, so I figured we’d take that minor victory and move on.
I just pushed forward, hearing my bootsteps echo off the stone walls. The corridor was about fifty feet long before it opened up into a chamber. I stopped at the edge and peeked inside.
A big room, split levels with a small staircase between the two, several doors leading off from either level. Huge logs burned in the fireplace, with a pot of stew bubbling over it. Smelled pretty good. A large table took up most of the lower floor, covered with a variety of foods. Plates were stacked around as if this was a buffet, and plenty of shitty cutlery was around for the taking. There were barrels in the corner, crates stacked high against a wall, and a butcher block opposite the fireplace. It looked like it had been used not only recently, but frequently. While bloody remnants spilled off the table, a bucket of dirty water sat to one side and a nasty basket of discarded bits took the other. Smack in the middle of the table sat a trio of girthy yellow candles. Lit. No living creature was there.
