by Aaron Jay
Twisting to start working myself free from the magical plant, I also pulled out the scroll. Luckily, as a game object the scroll sidestepped my ridiculous casting style. I was filled with jealousy for typical casters when all I had to do was point and cast. So easy!
“Charm!” I grunted as I yanked on my left leg. Multicolored sparks and glittering motes erupted from the scroll, flew down the tunnel to Aabid, and spun around his head, entering his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
He stopped what he had been doing and stood there swaying slightly. The spell had worked. For the next few minutes or until I attacked him, he was under my thrall. If I asked him to do anything too outrageous he’d get a chance to break the enchantment. Given our level disparity I couldn’t force him to do anything the game thought was too far from what he should want to do anyway.
This worked like—I beg your pardon--a charm for me.
“Aabid. Go kill Grumth the Kobold Chieftain. He can be found down this tunnel,” I commanded him.
There was almost no chance that the system would allow Aabid to fight free of this command. He was a member of my party in a dungeon that he was specifically re-allowed back into to “help” me. Well, that is just what I commanded him to do. If your vengeance can be ironic, it is even better than if it is cold.
At first with some staggering and then with more even steps he made his way down the tunnel. Soon I heard a growl and the clash of weapons and the hiss of fire. I doubted that Aabid would last any longer than Meijas against the boss. I didn’t think there was any chance that Aabid would win. My only regret was that they both couldn’t lose the fight.
I had some massive scratches on my legs by the time I managed to pull free from the thorn covered vines. The plant disappeared as soon as I was free.
Sighing, I drew the dagger I had prepared and waited. I knew Jude would be showing up soon. My dagger knew it too. It seemed to know everything I knew about Jude. Thinking back on when I last used the enhancement gem, I shuddered.
Forgive me, I decided to use the enhancement gem to create a PvP weapon. I had obvious explanations and excuses, but in the end I made a weapon to use against another player, not the nano. I almost threw up looking at it. In our society, the object in my hand was an obscenity.
I don’t know if what I went through is what happens when you make a weapon designed to kill another player or if this was just one more wonderful benefit to my hardcore mode, but it was disturbing. I hope it is awful for anyone who does it. Killing each other weakens us all. The idea of using one of these weapons just to gain experience or loot is vile.
The dagger gave off emotions. It was happy to be unsheathed and gleeful that its target was drawing nigh. The same rules about specificity and power ruled the gem. The more specific I made its enhancement the more powerful the enchantment. And so I crafted a weapon designed to kill my best friend. To anyone else or anything else the dagger was a poorly crafted, crude piece of metal. For Jude, it was his doom.
The blade had turned black after it had been enhanced. It pulsed in my hand to a heartbeat I knew was Jude’s. It pulled slightly in his direction like a nail towards a magnet. I wiped my hand and placed it back on its terrible grip.
When I attached the gem, the Game had forced me to think about Jude. First it had taken me back through his betrayal and his leaving me to the Eastmans. How he had been one of the people to drop me in this hole. But soon after that I had been forced to recall all that had come before. All the good times. All the things we had done together. The games we had played. The sparring matches. The laughs. The fights. The gem drank it all. I stood in a daze as it ate my memories, making me recall things I had forgotten. Things I hadn’t consciously noticed. It forced me back to when we had been friends and I loved him like a brother. It took my love of him and crafted a weapon out of it.
I didn’t have to look up to know when Jude came around the corner. The dagger let me know.
“Miles,” he said.
“Jude,” I replied.
“Aabid?” he asked.
“He is getting acquainted with Grumth.”
He almost smiled at that.
“Have you thought about my offer?” he asked.
“Sure, I did,” I told him.
He sighed. He knew what my answer was. We both knew each other too well. My knowledge of him was a weapon. But, it was how well we knew ourselves that really forced this fight to happen.
I ran at him. He began casting a spell. I hurled the dagger and it flew unerringly into his throat, breaking his casting and taking a bite out of his hp. I tackled him and the blade seemed to leap back into my hand, eager to be used again.
Jude and I had fought and sparred for fun and in school too many times to count. He usually beat me two out of three times. He had almost twice my level and better gear. He is also taller than me and a touch quicker. He should have been taking me apart.
The dagger made up for all of it.
The blade knew what he was going to do before he did. It found gaps in any defense he tried to establish. My time using Wyrmmdigger’s Bane had trained me in how to meld and mesh with a sentient blade. His armor might as well not have existed. He tried to get distance from me to get away from me and my knife. Maybe try a spell. I didn’t let him. I stayed with him, slicing and jabbing. His face and arms became a mass of bloody gashes. God, I wished he would just die already and put us both out of this misery. I wish I could just get away from him. But he kept the fight up right to the end.
The worst was when I finally managed to get the knife up under his rib cage. He slid down and looked at me with his bloody mess of a face. He looked at me with love.
Blood leaked out from his lips as he spoke his last.
“I’m proud of you, Miles. I always knew you would be an amazing player.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I looked at the dagger.
“It’s PvP.”
He chuckled.
“Three on one after we nerfed your character. You actually think you didn’t earn this victory? Ok. I forgive you. Can you forgi…”
I watched as his avatar froze.
Which do you think is worse? To love someone who betrays you so you have to love and hate them at the same time, or to love someone and be forced to do hateful things to them? Even with all my pain and weeks trapped in the dungeon, I think he had it worse.
It didn’t matter if I could somehow forgive him. He was playing for someone else. He was my opponent. How were we supposed to have a friendship when we couldn’t hope for the best for each other? When we couldn’t talk about anything important in our lives? When we couldn’t trust the other person to help? The fact that he couldn’t see this was just another tragedy.
I reached down to close his eyes. He shattered into dust. His last drop was a health potion. Nice to have, but nothing that was going to change my life.
I took a shuddering breath. I didn’t have time to wallow. I needed to try to take out the chieftain before he healed from whatever damage Aabid had managed.
Sheathing Jude’s Death, I drew Wyrmmdigger’s Bane. It was time to end this.
As I strode down the tunnel towards my final foe for what I hoped was the last time, my opinion of Aabid kept shifting. Aabid had beaten Grumth down to 48% hp. I didn’t think he had it in him. I hadn’t seen what Grumth’s special abilities were. Typically, at 50% and at 10% end bosses unleash some new ability to make the big boss fight more of a challenge.
Jude was my end boss fight. I won. Hooray for me. Grumth was just a collection of nano and a stupid game AI.
Grumth looked up at me and sniffed the air. I could see that if I waited any longer he’d start healing up.
“Come on big boy. Let’s finish this.”
I chanted and buffed myself. Moving faster than I ever had before, I leaped into battle.
If Grumth got his claws into me I was done for. Wyrmmdigger’s Bane kept him off me. The blade wove a razored barrier around me. Grumth was too fast
for me to get the chance to riposte or attack. Even with my dexterity increased I couldn’t get an attack off. Grumth threw a never-ending stream of attacks by claw or axe. Without the blade and the buff, I’d have died in moments.
It turns out that if you have the right blade, the best offense is a good defense. Every time a claw would swipe at me or the axe would come at me, Grumth took a sliver of damage. My parries left shallow cuts on Grumth’s arms. The faster he attacked me, the more I defended and the more hits Grumth took. They were only for one point each. They weren’t every strike. But bit by bit I wore him down.
The health bar over Grumth hit 10%. I braced. I had no idea if I could handle whatever came next. Grumth stepped back and howled.
A game notice appeared.
The Chieftain Calls!
Grumth has summoned his clan. Any kobolds you left alive in the dungeon will come to their leader’s aid.
Now I knew why this dungeon wasn’t much use. You couldn’t farm the boss without clearing the entire thing first. Grumth looked confident waiting for me to be blindsided by his clan. He looked confused and disappointed as Wyrmmdigger’s Bane leaped out and opened a slash on his thigh. A spin to the right and a jab with my blade and the last of the Wyrmmdiggers left anywhere in the instance fell. I had done it.
You have vanquished
Grumth, Chieftain of the Wyrmmdigger Clan level 11!
900 EXP rewarded.
Congratulations!
You have cleared
The Mines of Madness!
All exits from the instance are now available to you.
Your contribution to the clearing of the instance: 99.05% of all kills, trap discovery and disarmament, secret discovery.
You are rewarded 100% of the clearance bonus. Dungeon was set at 2.25% your experience level. Clearance bonus is doubled.
Reward 8,000 xp
Congratulations!
You have gained a level!
5,000 Exp to next level.
Congratulations!
You have gained a level!
6,000 Exp to next level.
Two entire levels. That was almost unheard of. The Game wasn’t the kind of endeavor where you could just fly up to epic levels of power. Developing your character took years. Even for Party members. Decades if you weren’t connected. But for me in hardcore mode, with zero luck, soloing an instance set to over twice my level jumped me up two levels. I don’t recommend it as a game strategy, but if you can actually succeed at it, the Game will give you more experience points than straight play.
How long would the levels be mine? As soon as I left the instance I’d be grabbed by the Eastman clan. They would camp me back to level 1. If anything, my level six was worse. They could set me up in an instance with—let’s see, five levels over mine is 11. So, three times eleven plus six divided by four. They could camp me back to level 1 in an instance set for level 10.
No point in getting pessimistic yet. There is always hope.
First I looted Grumth. His war axe looked pretty good. Also, there was Aabid. I touched Aabid’s remains. He dropped a ring.
Ring of Spell Storing
Store one spell for later release.
I wished Aabid’s kobold hacked corpse was still here so I could kiss it. He dropped me the best stuff when he died. This was as good as anything I could have hoped for. I could cast at least one spell in combat now. This was a game object. I would have to jump through my usual hoops to store the spell but to release it? I now had one spell I could just point and shoot in combat. Things were looking up.
As long as I could get out of there. This wasn’t going to get me past the Eastmans at the entrance. They would take all my gear before they dropped me in another instance as well as dropped me back to level 1.
At least they couldn’t come into the instance and get me. The instance of the dungeon was finished but it was still an instance. To make sure that that was true, I brought up the log of the completion of the dungeon once again.
Congratulations!
You have cleared The Mines of Madness!
All exits from the instance are now available to you.
Your contribution to the clearing of the instance: 99.05% of all kills, trap discovery and disarmament, secret discovery.
You are rewarded 100% of the clearance bonus. Dungeon was set at 2.25% your experience level. Clearance bonus is doubled.
Reward 8,000 xp
Yes. The exits to the instance are available to me. The AIs speak very exactly. They would have said available to all if they were available to anyone but me. AIs were often like the faeries of old. They were constrained to speak only the truth but the devil of language is in the details.
My father always liked to quote Karl Popper, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.” He always said that if this was true, and it was, then it was impossible to make an AI speak in such a way that it can’t hide the truth. You had to listen to them carefully and think about other possible meanings.
Or, sometimes you had to see it when their truth was right there looking you in the face. “All exits from the instance are now available to you.” Exits, plural. There was another way out of this place. I just had to find it.
Racing back through the tunnels, I looked for a new entrance or a door: something, anything. A crack or a crevice. A portal. I found nothing. . No exit there either.
Eventually I found my way back to the final room where Grumth had been. Often in a dungeon there was an exit you could take after clearing the last boss so you didn’t have to walk all the way back to entrance through rooms you had already cleared. But there was nothing like that here.
It was just another cavern with the pool, water wheel, and bellows. I looked at the pool. Am I supposed to swim out through the underground river? The water seemed to flow at the same rate as before. I tried to make my way into the crevice where the water flowed away. I couldn’t fit no matter how I tried.
Cold and wet, I lay down to dry off. The bellows sent a faint breeze but happily the air was actually a little warmer than the ambient temperature of the cave.
Of course. I grabbed onto the water wheel and let it raise me up to the tattered giant bellows. I climbed inside. There was a chimney rising up through the mountain that fed air to the cavern and the mine. Handholds and footholds were plentiful and easy. In some places, a thoughtful dwarf from long ago had hammered iron brackets into the wall to make climbing out even easier.
Turning through another corkscrew of the shaft, a spot of light appeared in the distance. Sunlight! My hands scrabbled and grabbed, I barely stopped moving from step to step as I rushed to escape. As I got closer I slowed my ascent. Creeping carefully upwards I listened for the Eastmans or any of Brady’s people. Smitty and Gord would be better than the Eastmans. But really I hoped no one was there.
A system message appeared.
You are about to leave The Mines of Madness. Do you wish to reset the instance?
(Y/N)
I chose no. If I left the instance I could flee back inside and no one could follow me. That would be a comfort.
Crouched just below the lip, I tried not to breathe. Nothing but silence. Disarming the traps had taught me patience though. I waited minute after minute through a half an hour. If the Eastmans were waiting for me, they were more patient than I. I rolled up and out.
A figure flashed out from behind me. I guess whoever was here was a more patient hunter than I. Before I could flee back into the shaft, it leapt on me and my breath rushed out of me.
There was nothing I could do when a tongue began licking my nose.
“Hi Remus. I missed you too,” I said, roughing the fur on his neck.
After ensuring that I was fine and making sure I knew that he had gotten the drop on me, he jumped off my chest and moved a bit away. I sat up looking around. I was on the far side of the rocky hills the mine was dug into. I was standing at the top of a box valley. The same sandy, rocky terrain cont
inued around the three sides. Down below me a tiny trickle of water that must come from the pool down in the dungeon emerged from the hillside. The stream wended along the valley floor and out the other end of the valley. The valley encompassed quite a few miles. There was even a small wood along much of the valley floor and running up one side of the valley.
I couldn’t see past the open end of the valley to where the spring flowed. The other end of the valley shimmered and distorted. At times, the barrier was mirror like. At other times it was a haze. I knew what this barrier was. I had seen images and heard it described so many times. It was the barrier between where the game ended and the rest of the world began. It shifted, hiding and then revealing a few feet of territory. Past that veil lay wild nano.
The sun was setting. I was free. The Eastmans had no idea where I was. I seemed to have discovered a nice little valley accessible only to me. It was time to look to the next Beginner’s Quests. This looked like a good place to build. A place to homestead.
I’d say I got some luck in where I ended up. But, of course, luck is what you make of things.
The End
Thanks for reading Beginner’s Luck. I hope you enjoyed it. I am hard at work on the next volume - tentatively titled Foundation Strength. Look for the continuing adventures of Miles Boone in 2018.
To find updates on how the series is going and to get more LitRPG titles, authors and community:
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