by Dakota Krout
“Hey!” Joe started indignantly, pausing and thinking about what Bard was saying. As he parsed the accent, Joe realized he had actually been complimented. He finished with a grudging, “Carry on.”
“In my opinion, the issue isn’t with fighting the Ghouls, it is with fighting all of them at once,” Jaxon stretched forward, cracking his knuckles. “We either need to split them up or get them into an enclosed area where their numbers are meaningless. Heck, bring them into here.”
“If we can get them into an enclosed area, my poison would be more effective.” Alexis nodded along with Jaxon’s words. “The issue in that instance would be that there is no other exit from these buildings that I have seen.”
“Unless we had another way out, that would be ah death sentence.” Bard looked at his axes then the back wall.
“Cutting through the walls would take a long time, alert the ghouls, and reduce the effectiveness of Alexis’s poison,” Poppy was quick to say when he saw the decision forming in Bard’s eyes. Bard simply sighed and leaned into Alexis for comfort.
“This building has two floors; we could hop out a window if we needed to,” Jaxon offered cheerfully.
“That opens us up to true damage from falling. Terrain damage.” Alexis shook her head, sighing as she realized that surviving this dungeon was becoming more and more unlikely.
“I might be able to help with that…” Joe slowly stated, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Do any of you have the skill ‘jump’?”
“This should be good. Look how he’s blushing.” Alexis smirked at the uncomfortable look on Joe’s face. “I don’t have it; is that an issue?”
“No, actually. That’s a good thing.” Joe made everyone stand up, his face bright red. “I’m going to try to teach you all how to get the jump skill, alright?”
“Do we just jump?” Jaxon crouched, but Joe quickly stopped him.
“No, no, listen to my instruction before doing anything, ok?” Joe looked at the others, who had various versions of a smirk on their faces. “Alright… point your hands down and put them slightly below your hips, bend your knees… and straighten them as quickly as possible. Repeat as necessary.”
“Are ye messing wi’ us?” Bard grumbled with a snort.
Jaxon followed Joe’s instructions right away, jumping lightly into the air and landing easily. “Huh.” Joe blinked as a notification filled his vision.
Skill gained: Teaching (Novice V). While others are content to simply learn a skill, you never stop until you are good enough at it to teach that skill to another person. Anything worth doing is worth passing on to someone else, am I right? What amazing altruism! Oh, wait. You are going to start charging for this, aren’t you? Effect: Boost the speed at which a person you are teaching can learn a skill by 10%. Based on your own rank in the skill, your student may acquire the skill at a higher ranking than normal.
“I just gained the skill ‘jump’ at Beginner zero,” Jaxon spoke thoughtfully, tapping his fingertips together. “How intriguing. The notification tells me that there are benefits from learning from ‘a Master’? Do you have the jump skill at the Master rank, Joe?”
“Yeah.” Joe smiled as the others began jumping, expressions ranging from delight to wry annoyance. “Keep going guys, bend your knees and straighten them out quickly.” Jaxon began jumping in place along with the others, and Joe repeated his words every once in a while. Each time he did so, the people rolled their eyes at him, but he knew that ‘instructing’ them would boost their learning speed and boost his teaching skill. By the time they stopped, Joe had increased his teaching skill by a surprising amount.
Skill increased: Teaching (Beginner II). Effect: Boost the speed at which a person you are teaching can learn a skill by 20%. Based on your own rank in the skill, your student may acquire the skill at a higher ranking than normal. Extra effect: Passionate instruction. As you have not been teaching others for profit but simply to help them, when you initially teach a person a skill, the boost to their starting rank will be significantly higher if you do not charge for your services.
“And just like that, my dreams of making a profit vanish once again,” Joe grumbled good-naturedly. He didn’t really need extra money, but it would be nice to have the option for once. “How is everyone feeling?”
“I got to Beginner nine. Nine.” Poppy shook his head, a goofy look of glee on his face. “I got an extra effect that reduces fall damage by twenty percent because my ‘instructor’ has something similar.”
“Same here,” Alexis stated, followed quickly by the others. “How in the world did you get your jump skill to the Master ranks? I’ve never even seen you jump.”
“I’d really rather not say.” Joe quickly killed that awkward conversation. “But I jump all the time. You’ve seen how I walk? How it seems that I go further than I should with each step?”
“You mean skipping counts as jumping?” Jaxon had a look of glee on his face. “I can’t wait to work on increasing the rank of this skill!” The others had a sudden vision of the Monk skipping down the road with a skeletal smile on his face, fingers wiggling as if he were gripping a handful of snakes. Also appearing in all of their premonitions were angry guards with drawn swords chasing the man.
“You know, I think that will be fun,” Poppy snickered evilly. “I love that I joined this group.”
“We should get started setting up some traps and figure out how not to get caught in them.” Joe coughed into his hand, hoping that he hadn’t just made life harder for Jaxon. “Who here can run the fastest? You are going to have to be bait for the Ghouls. Not Alexis, though; she and I need to work on traps.”
“I’ll do it!” Jaxon happily stated, turning toward the door. “Just tell me when!”
“Wait a bit,” Joe instructed as he turned to Alexis. “What do you need from us in order to make this work?”
“I need a vat of some kind,” Alexis told them. “I’m going to dump the majority of my ingredients into it, then when Jaxon comes back through here he can toss in the final aerosolizing agent into it. The entirety of the first floor will quickly be filled with a choking poison, but it is heavier than air so most of it shouldn’t filter into the air upstairs. We need to be really careful though; once the air is filled with this stuff, it will explode if it comes in contact with an open flame.”
“Can we use that as a part of the trap?” Joe inquired right before Poppy could ask the same question. Poppy caught his breath, snorting because he had been beaten to the punch.
“I mean. If you want to go kamikaze?” Alexis rolled her eyes. “If you are close enough to light it on fire, you will be caught in the blast. It’ll be indoors remember? That amount of force would blow the roof off, and we will be between the blast and the roof, so…”
“Ah found ah bathtub o’er here!” Bard called from another room. “Will that work as ah vat? It’s moveable, an’ has no drain!”
“That’s perfect sweet- *ahem*, that’s perfect!” Alexis’s face turned crimson. She looked around at the others. “Um. We’re dating now.”
“Got that.” Poppy chuckled at her murderous glare. “No need to be embarrassed, I wish I were as lucky.”
Before Alexis could say anything, Jaxon nodded and agreed with the Duelist. “Yes, we would all be lucky to have a partner as competent and caring as Bard. He was an excellent choice of mate, Alexis.”
A half-snort, half-laugh came from both Joe and Poppy at his words. Alexis simply covered her face with her hands and tried not to throw something at the Monk. “I hate you all,” she groaned weakly.
“Alright, coulda used ah hand wit’ this, that’s fine, I’ll just do it alone,” Bard grumbled as he dragged a copper bathtub into the room. “Where do ya want me to put ‘er?”
Joe couldn’t help himself. “Put it over there, shnookums.” The crossbow bolt in his foot made him screech, but he considered himself lucky that she used a non-poisoned projectile. He healed his foot over a few seconds, ignoring the glare on Alex
is’s face and the shock on Bard’s. “Worth it,” he stage-whispered, locking eyes with Poppy and winking.
“We are going to want it near the stairs.” Alexis directed the placement of the tub, then Joe channeled his healing water into the tub to fill it up. After a few moments, the magical component of the water faded and left behind regular but very pure water. Alexis tested the water with a strip of something that she pulled from her pack. “This is a perfect base for potions and especially for poison. This is strange; I’ve never run into water with such a high affinity for darkness before.”
“Is that good for what you do? Making potions and such?” Joe examined the water with interest; he hadn’t known it would keep any properties.
“Good enough that I’d really like to use this water in the future whenever I’m making poison,” Alexis informed him with a pleading glance.
“Hmm. Maybe don’t shoot me then?” Joe countered the puppy-dog eyes easily. “How long will this take?”
“This is a simple poison with limited usage. A plant killer, mainly, so it’ll only take about ten minutes to steep and integrate the reagents. We are counting on it being highly concentrated so that the wooden armor eats the Ghouls as they wither; I think the Ghouls are largely immune to my poison, being undead, so I am maximizing this against their armor. All Jaxon will need to do is dump in the powdered beast Core when he comes through.” Alexis fished out a small bag from her satchel. “Then poof. Within ten seconds, the contents of the entire tub will have turned into a fog. It’ll fill this space really thickly, so you are going to need to move scary fast, Jaxon.”
“Run up the stairs as fast as I did when I was a child and had to turn off the basement lights. Got it.” Jaxon was limbering up, the cracking of his joints making Alexis wince.
Joe shifted the conversation to the next talking point. “Poppy, any information on an emergency exit point?”
“I snuck out back, and we have two options. We can either jump to ground floor or if we are feeling really lucky we can try and get over onto the roof of the next building over. Not sure if it’s clear, so I say we go to the ground and around that building.” Poppy waved his hands as he spoke, obviously thinking that the wild motions were helping them understand what he was saying.
“Works for me. Anything to add, Bard?” Joe looked over at the last member of the party.
“Ahm gonna add a buff ta ol’ creepyfingers here; it’ll boost his aggro rate. That way he should be able to get all the Ghouls instead o’ just ah part of ‘em.” Bard chanted a short incantation, and a red film descended over Jaxon.
“Thanks!” Jaxon got into position by the door. “Are we all ready?”
Alexis stirred the tub of purple liquid with the broken-off leg of a chair. “Ready over here. Just make sure to push this bowl into the tub when you come back and run hard up the stairs.”
“Got it.” Jaxon took a deep breath and threw open the door. “Here I go!” He skipped out into the hazy late-afternoon light.
The remaining members of the party watched the spot he had just vacated, hoping that they hadn’t just invited their doom to visit. Also, watching Jaxon skip away had been just as disturbing and hilarious as they had imagined it would be. The general consensus was that there was nothing else to do at this point, so after a minute, they simply filed up the stairs and waited. From the noises outside that were quickly approaching, the wait would not be a long one. “Tasty, tasty Monk! Come get me while I’m warm, yum-yum-yum! Hey! Anything I may have missed! Over here!”
“We’re dead,” Alexis whispered, paling at the sight of the platoon of Ghouls chasing after Jaxon.
“Let’s get ready for plan B.” Joe opened the back window just in case they didn’t understand.
“A little faith in the plans you concoct would ease my tension significantly,” Poppy joked halfheartedly. “I don’t suppose you have any advice for when we jump out of the window?”
Joe looked directly into Poppy’s eyes and nodded. “Do a flip.”
“Wow.”
“It’ll give you a skill; I’m not being a terrible person!” Joe huffed at the shocked looks that were thrown his way.
The door on the first floor was slammed open, and thundering footsteps announced Jaxon’s return. “I think I got their attention!”
“Get up ‘ere, ye weapons-grade idjit!” Bard shouted down the stairs when Jaxon didn’t immediately run back to relative safety.
“One moment, please!” Jaxon called back. “Where did you put the powder?”
“It’s on the nightstand next to the tub!” Alexis called down impatiently.
Smashing sounds filled the air as the Ghouls began entering the building. Jaxon called up to them in a sing-song voice, “I don’t see it!”
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Alexis slapped the wall. “To the left of the tub, on your way up the stairs! It’s in a bowl! It’s purple! Filled with shiny powder!”
*Crash* *Tinkle* “I found it! Adding it now!” Jaxon practically flew up the stairs, Ghouls on his heels.
“Does that taunt impact teammates, or do I just naturally want to hurt him?” Alexis wondered as she glanced out the window and saw the last few Ghouls forcing their way into the building. Bard just shrugged as Jaxon–looking much the worse for wear–burst into the room.
“I think *gasp* we’re trapped. *Wheeze*. There are dozens of them!” Jaxon almost fell to the ground, stamina completely drained. Joe threw a healing spell at him to take care of the few injuries he had gained; both Bard and Poppy were already completely engaged with the enemy, doing their best to hold them off at the doorway.
“It’s okay, Jaxon. Those dozens of poor suckers don’t know they just walked into a trap. There’s five of us here waiting for them.” Joe pulled Jaxon to his feet.
“Right, the poison. Yes.” Jaxon struggled into a fighting stance, getting closer to the door.
“No, the trap is that there is five of… yeah, the poison.” Joe had been wanting to use that joke all day, and now it was spoiled.
“I’m getting damage notifications, but the poison isn’t doing as much damage as it should be. It isn’t going to be killing them anytime soon.” Alexis looked away from her combat log with wide eyes. “They must have torn part of the wall off down there.”
“They did,” Jaxon informed them, looking around at the group. Bard took a heavy blow just then, stumbling back and opening a hole in the human barrier they had established. A root slammed into the floor below them, penetrating through and opening a small hole. Jaxon nodded sharply as if understanding something. More roots tore into the floor, then the doorframe. “You all need to go out of the window–right now.”
“Jax–what are you doing?” Joe cried as Jaxon pulled an unused torch from his bag and lit it. “That’ll kill us all!”
“No… just me. Go, now, all of you. I think we all knew that this was a possibility. No, that it was likely.” Jaxon seemed determined, the firelight reflecting in his eyes along with his perpetual smile giving him a terrifying visage. “I’m exhausted, my stamina is bottomed out, and someone needs to give you all time to escape. In five seconds, I am dropping this torch down that hole, and I hope you all beat this dungeon. Four.”
Bard pushed Alexis toward the window, and with a glance backward, she leapt. Bard followed closely, but Joe tried to stay with the crazy Monk who continued his countdown, seemingly oblivious to their peril. “Three.” Poppy shook his head and pointed, stabbing once more before turning and going out the window. “Two.” Joe sighed when he saw that Jaxon wasn’t even looking at them anymore. Joe turned and jumped just as Jaxon was overwhelmed.
“One.”
~ Chapter Twenty-two ~
The world seemed to lose all color but white and orange as the building erupted in flames behind them. With the wall being torn open, there had not been enough flammable material in the air to make the entire building explode, but it was unlikely that anything inside the building was going to survive the sudden inferno if th
ey weren’t right next to an exit.
Joe did a flip right before landing, arresting some of his momentum and allowing him to reach the ground without injury. Before he touched down, he got a notification that Jaxon had died. Joe cursed loudly, looking back to see fire flowing upward from the windows like a reverse waterfall. “We need to get ready to cut down any survivors. We haven't gotten any experience yet, so combat must be ongoing.”
The response was muted acceptance, and they hurried around to the front of the building. One Ghoul was standing stock-still, roots buried as it tried to heal through regaining nutrients. Another one–badly charred–was planting itself as a third wobbled out of the building, barely holding itself together. It fell forward, and Joe met the downward descent of its head with a shadow spike, instantly finishing it off by letting it skewer itself. The least damaged one growled menacingly at them, its vocal chords badly mangled by poison, fire, and smoke.
Poppy and Bard circled past that one, their weapons digging into the other as it tried to hurry its regeneration. Arrows buried themselves into the Ghoul’s flesh, and though the poison wasn’t very effective, it still sped the Ghoul towards death. The creature died, still standing upright as the armor it was wearing ate the body for nutrients. They didn’t bother to chop up the living armor just yet, focusing instead on the remaining monster. It watched them without moving, trying to heal as much of the damage it had taken as possible before joining combat.
Joe took the lead, channeling weak acid spray on the Ghoul. Over five seconds, he used one hundred and forty mana to do one hundred seventy-five damage to the Ghoul and five times that to the armor. The wood was melted almost completely off, and it was child's play for Bard to take the Ghoul’s head with a single clean swipe.
They returned to the other standing armor and simply tossed it back into the inferno then waited a few moments to be sure that they had gotten every enemy. The notification appearing in their vision confirmed for them that combat had ended.
