Dungeons of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #1) - A LitRPG series

by G. D. Penman

  “When the sun rises, you will come back down into the dark. You will face the least of my favored children and you shall be found wanting. You will fall at my executioner’s feet with joy in your heart. With each rebirth you will become a little more mine. With every death, you will carry a little more of my life within you. This is not corruption, it is rejuvenation. Through me, you shall live forever. Through you, I shall be free of my shackles. We shall have eternity, my pet. My beloved.”

  Martin’s eyes snapped open and he gasped for air.

  What the hell was that?

  Light filtered in through the frosted glass of his apartment’s only tiny window. Dawn had arrived hours ago, but this was still long before his alarm was due to wake him.

  He shuddered in the sudden cold and pulled his blankets tighter around him. Wherever he had been in that dream, it wasn’t cold. It had been as warm and comfortable as the womb. Perfect body temperature, so perfect you couldn’t feel a thing. Even the tiny tickle of air from under his ill-fitting door was enough to make him shudder now that he was out here in the real world again.

  Lindsay had said something about the NIH, some warning about strange dreams. He’d paid no attention at the time – why would he, when there was such a rich bounty of game spread out in front of him? – but now he wished he had listened a little closer.

  Did that dream mean that the game was giving him some sort of brain damage? Was he going to end up going the same way Jezebel had?

  He pushed that fear aside. This was hardly the first time he’d dreamed about a video game. It didn’t matter that this dream had been a little bit intense or strange compared to the usual “whack-a-monster” dreams Dracolich used to give him. Strata was a strange game; of course it would prompt strange dreams. There was nothing wrong with him.

  If anything, he was feeling better now than he had all week. Every session spent playing Strata felt like a much-needed rest, like a much-needed reward after years and years of misery in the rat-race of his everyday existence. He wasn’t going to abandon that over one silly little dream that probably didn’t mean anything.

  The chill seemed to abate and he managed to fumble his way into some clothes that were probably clean. Everything felt awkward. He missed Skaife’s nimble little fingers. After a moment of hunting around for his keys, he realized that he missed having an inventory system that worked at the speed of thought too.

  He scooped up his phone and searched for a player called Jezebel on any of the Strata forums. Nothing came up. He did the same thing on the Dracolich character registries and had the opposite problem: hundreds upon hundreds of Jezebels as far as the eye could see.

  There was no way he was going to find this particular one. And even if he did, the anonymity that protected players from real-life weirdos coming after them for what they did in the game also prevented him from sending any help her way.

  The next time one of the Masters came by to dunk on him, he’d have to ask them to look into it. Pride was one thing, but this was someone’s life.

  Out of curiosity, he flicked over to what seemed to be the biggest auction site for Strata goods, the only place where real life and the game really seemed to intersect. There were no Jezebel listings, but while he was there Martin tossed the useless shield that he got from Celaphox up for a 24-hour auction.

  He had no details on what it did, just the name, origin and [Knight Only] but that seemed to be sufficient. As soon as that was done, he promptly forgot about it and turned his attention to food.

  A quick run to the store gave him some fairly gross edible supplies to last out the day, and he still had a solid half an hour before meeting back up with the guild to start planning their next move. It wasn’t a lot, but he’d made bigger decisions in far less time.

  With as much preparation done as he could muster, he slipped on the NIH and let out a little sigh of relief as it stripped his senses away and he sank back down into the blessed darkness of Strata.

  The crowds around the corpse of Celaphox seemed to have dispersed for the most part, but there were one or two players still lingering around. They were the competition to watch out for, in Martin’s estimation; the ones who were willing to backtrack to try and decipher how an unbeatable boss had been beaten.

  He could see them all separately trying to conduct a forensic investigation of the dead monster, to work out how it had been done.

  Martin kept the smirk off his face and set out to do some investigation of his own. He had no intention of roaming the tunnels around here alone. Not when he was still out-leveled by practically every enemy. But in all the excitement last night, he had completely forgotten about Speckles.

  First he worked his way around the ruined columns that Celaphox brought down, hunting for a froggy little corpse. Then, when that proved fruitless, he tried shouting into the entrances to the tunnels, though he doubted a timid little frog-man would even consider running that way.

  Eventually he gave up and wandered back to the waterfall, which was, almost inevitably, where Speckles had been hiding all along.

  Speckles’ mouth protruded from the water first. The bitching started before Martin could even see the little frog-man’s eyes.

  “Me no like waterfall. Bonk head real good. Why leave me?”

  “Sorry, buddy. With all of those other pl – uh – crusaders around, it wasn’t really safe to come find you. It‘s quietened down a bit now.”

  His lips flapped again. “Bad people make hurt?”

  Martin couldn’t help but smile. “That was my concern, yes.”

  There was a brief lull in the conversation, then Speckles asked, “I come out now?”

  Martin sighed. “Just hang in there for a little bit longer. I think I’ve got a plan to get us out of here.”

  “Gods below,” Speckles grumbled. But he went without any real protest back into the flood of water.

  Martin’s gamble could come to nothing if it didn’t work, but it could also completely change the race to the bottom of Strata for them if it did, transforming the work of years into one thirty-day sprint.

  He had weighed the odds himself and found that it was worth the risk, and he was convinced that Lindsay probably wouldn’t let him get past the phrase “wild gamble” without saying yes.

  With all his other loose ends attended to, and a plan in mind, there was nothing left to do except administration. He pulled up the menu and sent the knight-only shield off to the auction house’s agent, then he turned his attention back to a more pleasurable activity. Leveling up.

  [LEVEL UP]

  Skaife Murovan Exorcist

  Strength: 12 Agility: 8

  Endurance: 9 Willpower: 7

  LEVEL 6

  You have 3 points to assign.

  Before, his course had been clear: dumping everything into strength for a direct increase in damage. But with the new ability that popped up last time, willpower had become a viable way to push up his raw damage too, even if it didn’t have the synergy of his Celestial Strikes yet.

  More than that, he was finding himself using his spells more often the longer they played. Swinging a sword around was all well and good, but the class abilities were how you won fights, and all of his seemed to draw on willpower.

  Beyond that, endurance and agility were tempting him too. There was always some perverse part of his brain that wanted to create a balanced character instead of hyper-specializing the way that RPGs rewarded, but in Strata there wasn’t any one stat that didn’t serve a purpose.

  A bit more agility and Celaphox’ attacks might have missed him entirely. A bit more endurance and he could have shrugged them off. He knew he’d been lucky and smart in equal measure up until this point, but eventually he was going to run head-on into a straight fight that he just couldn’t think his way around.

  Judging from the fuss that was made about the Archdukes, he suspected that they were going to be the gatekeepers for the lower deeps, the hard stat and skill tests that ensured none of the l
ow-level dregs made it through to the high-level content.

  It was classic game design, and it could completely wreck his plan to rush ahead through the deeps and backfill the leveling they had missed out on using a few clever wins.

  Thinking on his team, it seemed likely that Lindsay was always going to be their go-to for damage. Jericho was always going to be the tank to soak up enemy punishment and Julia was always going to heal.

  He didn’t have a role in that triumvirate. He was left floating outside, adding a little healing here, a little damage there, taking the odd hit so it couldn’t down someone softer.

  The exorcist was a jack of all trades, master of none, and he had known that going in, but somehow it still grated having no clear path to progression.

  To hell with it. He dumped it all in willpower.

  Skaife Murovan Exorcist

  Strength: 12 Agility: 8

  Endurance: 9 Willpower: 10

  Health: 45 Stamina: 58

  You may select 1 new ability.

  Smite – Your next successful melee attack deals an additional 10 light damage.

  [20-second cooldown]

  Lay on Hands – Restores 100% of an ally’s health. Reduces your stamina and stamina regeneration by 7% for 5 minutes.

  [60-minute cooldown]

  Rite of Consecration – Increases all healing effects within the 11ft area of effect by 50% for 30 seconds. Increases all light damage within the area of effect by 25% for 15 seconds.

  [60-minute cooldown]

  The new ability was pretty juicy in a way that honestly might only appeal to statistic geeks like Martin. Just one or the other of those effects would have been spectacular, but the combination, and the utility of being able to apply it to two completely different situations, made it even tastier.

  Nonetheless, he selected Smite. Celestial Strike was great, but it was costing him the benefit of his strength score on every hit. This ability combined the best of both worlds, and he could slot it into his rotation in between Celestial Strikes to keep his damage potential high, even against armored foes.

  His only regret was that he hadn’t been able to buff up his health. He didn’t want to end up as a glass cannon; the game environment wasn’t forgiving enough for that, and with one of the Masters gunning for him personally Martin knew that the first sign of weakness in his build would be the moment a figurative truck full of alligators got dropped on his head.

  With all of that busywork done, there was nothing left to do but wait as Lindsay came leaping and bounding down the waterfall stairs, shouting into the guild-chat.

  “Give me the new stabby! My stabby stabby stabby!”

  He knew her well enough to wait until she was actually down in the main chamber to turn the kris over to her. It wouldn’t have been helpful if she’d stalled out on the stairs.

  She danced around in a circle, kissing the sinister looking blade in between outbursts.

  “Oh, my precious stabby. I shall love him and squeeze him and call him stabby.”

  “I hope the two of you will be very happy together,” Martin deadpanned. He couldn’t find it in his heart to actually be annoyed with her antics anymore. Not after everything that he’d put her through yesterday.

  “Don’t worry Martin, if it all falls apart, I will still come back to you. Keep looking for that rat tuxedo.”

  She was already taking practice slashes with the dagger, so she had to shout back over her shoulder.

  “Hey, what did you get? Jericho said he got some weird whip that he can’t really use, and Julia was all hyped about her new robes, but you never said what calamari grandé dropped for you.”

  He sighed. “Nothing. Vendor trash.”

  “Ah, don’t worry, dude. There’s always another boss. Another loot drop. At least you get to keep the cash. Cash is good, right?”

  “Well, that depends if we ever get a chance to spend it. I don’t know if you noticed, but we can’t exactly backtrack to a city from here.”

  “Sure we can, dude.” She pointed up into the dark in the vague direction of the last Deep Gate. “You can give me a boost, I’ll throw down a rope… I really should have bought a rope before I came down, huh. Never mind.”

  Martin shrugged. “I’m trying to sell it online anyway. Maybe get some cash to pay you back.”

  “Dude, your money is no good here. You don’t pay people back for gifts. You just slavishly worship them for the rest of your life. Maybe peel some grapes. Fan me a bit. You know the drill.”

  Martin chuckled. “All right. As soon as I find some grapes, I’ll get right on that.”

  Julia and Jericho arrived within a moment of each other yet again. If they were trying to hide a relationship, they were doing a pretty poor job of it.

  “Good afternoon, comrades,” Jericho rumbled.

  By his side, Julia gave a half-hearted wave, but this was not good enough for Jericho. He took a hold of her wrist and waggled her arm from side to side. Putting on a high-pitched, grating voice, he whined, “Good afternoon, everyone.”

  Julia retrieved her arm and scowled. “There is nothing good in the world until after I’ve had a coffee.”

  Lindsay couldn’t help herself. “Maybe we’ll find some of those deer-men I keep hearing about in the next deep. The ones sent from outer space to bring us coffee.”

  Jericho and Julia both looked confused, while Martin put his face into his hands.

  “The star bucks?” he groaned.

  The other two joined him in his groaning, while Lindsay cackled. Her dad jokes were getting too powerful. She had to be stopped.

  Martin looked around at them – his guild, his people – then he tried to wet his lips and found that the mechanics of it didn’t work right with a rat mouth.

  “Last night was awesome. We did something that nobody else in this game has ever managed. That means that from this moment forward, we are the ones to beat. We are the ones who the Masters of Strata are going to be trying to trip. We are the ones every other guild is going to try to take down a peg.”

  Lindsay pretended to examine her pinfeathers. “Let them try. See what happens when you mess with the Riot!”

  Jericho reflexively barked, “Iron Riot!”

  It was loud enough that the lingering high-level players took notice. Martin had to act quickly.

  “We don’t know how much that fight is going to help us going forward, but our understanding of how we won, that is privileged information. If you share that with someone, you are giving away guild secrets. You are giving them the tools they need to beat the same mechanics and catch up to us. I don’t want any of you sharing this story around.”

  Julia cocked her head. “Won’t one of the developers leak it eventually?”

  “Not a chance.” Martin smirked. “The Masters can’t keep track of everything in the game. They need player reports to understand everything that is happening. They’ve made a game so complex, they can’t even read the back end. That was how I pissed them off to start with. I wouldn’t share.”

  Julia frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Tell me about it.” He shrugged. “But it’s the only explanation for how they’ve been behaving that makes sense.”

  One of the high-level players, a Sythvan knight wearing a colorful, feather-trimmed set of plate, approached them. Lindsay cut him off at the pass.

  “No autographs. No pictures. No exclusive. Jog on.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he moved away as if he’d never intended to speak to them at all. Martin sighed.

  “There is going to be a lot of that, and most of it is going to be a bit more subtle. So let’s just keep our heads down and press on, yeah?”

  “Back to roaming tunnels?” Jericho groaned.

  “Actually, I have an idea. It is a little bit risky, and the Masters might intervene to stop us, but if it works, it will change everything.”

  Lindsay patted him on the back. “You had me at risky.”

  With one las
t glance around to make sure nobody was listening, Martin explained his experiment.

  “The ability that I unlocked, Rite of Passage, it lets me unlock a Gate.”

  “We know this. You explained.” Jericho rolled his eyes. “Every three days, we get to skip a boss. Very boring. My new abilities are much more dramatic.”

  “And I can’t wait to hear all about them,” Martin pointed past Jericho’s hairy bulk towards the pool. “But there is a Gate there. Not a Deep Gate. Something much better. They’ve built skips into the dungeon, so that once you’ve beaten one of the big bosses you can jump back and forth through the previous deeps more easily.”

  Julia smiled. “Metroidvania-style.”

  “Exactly.” Martin grinned back. “So if we can pop this gate open…”

  Lindsay was literally hopping up and down on the spot. “We can jump straight to the big boss and skip the next seven floors of boring!”

  Martin held up a hand, and Lindsay managed to roll back her excitement to merely vibrating on the spot rather than jumping around.

  “There is a real risk with this, though. If we skip too far ahead of the leveling curve, every monster that we face is going to—”

  Lindsay interrupted. “Give us a ton of experience points!”

  “They are going to out-level us to the point that we might not be able to beat them,” Julia sighed.

  Jericho seemed to be weighing all of this.

  “I am thinking we will still crush them all. I am thinking nothing can stop the Riot, yes?”

  Lindsay crowed with excitement. “That is three votes yes!”

  Julia frowned. “Where did you get three? You and Jericho might want to rush ahead, but Martin—”