Dungeon Champions

“Britney, here!” I tossed her two of the mid-grade mana stones before circling the creature. My Tablet provided a simplified map of the area to help me direct the team. On it, the monster was a huge purple dot, suggesting the device recognized the creature as special.

I mentally re-labeled the thing as “Hugo” just to make tracking easier. The Tablet accepted the update, adding white text with the designation above its shape.

Hugo charged, swinging like a drunk boxer. I slashed at his arm, baiting him while backing away to avoid being backhanded into oblivion. As I moved, my stomach clenched. A quick glance down showed where several of the cuts I’d suffered had begun to redden.

Now I knew what my status meant.

“I hate status effects,” I snarled, summoning my axe. Wielding each weapon one-handed, I backpedaled around Hugo, drawing its attention as I used telepathy to blast orders to the group.

Jordan: Merielle is low on hit points. Britney, heal her as the top priority, once you’ve got mana. Then use Thorns on me and her so we can take this thing down.

Both women acknowledged my directives.

Nym: What should I do?

Jordan: It has a head. Bubble it.

Nym: On it!

Jordan: Zuri, I want you to prepare Black Wash if you have enough ingredients. We need to purge whatever disease this place has infected us with. I’m betting the fifth use on this monster could do something useful.

Zuri: Of course I have the ingredients.

She backed up to the far side of the room, spreading her hands. An ethereal pot and fire manifested as ingredients rained down.

Krack!

Hugo spun, moving faster than a creature that ungainly had any right to, and slammed two limbs against my chest. He timed it so the central, partially amputated, tongue hit me at the same time.

I went flying, slamming into the wall. It was still covered in meat, although far less than the tunnels, and it absorbed a portion of the impact. Not enough to prevent damage, however.

Scrambling to my feet, I charged Hugo, who’d turned his ugly mug toward Britney and Merielle. The women were ten feet away, the celestial holding a large gem against her forehead with one hand, and keeping the other on Merielle’s arm to apply healing magic.

At the last second, right before the creature struck them both, Britney brought Thorns into play around each of them.

THWACK!

Britney screamed as claws raked across both of them, the impacts releasing holy light across Hugo’s hands, but not stopping the attacks. They fell back, clothes torn, bodies bleeding. Any healing Merielle had received was wiped away in that slash, and Britney looked awful.

I closed the distance before Hugo could attack them again, leaping and landing on his misshapen, hairy back. My sword sank deep next to his spine as my axe head lodged in a shoulder joint.

The wounds should have been devastating, but I’d seen how these monsters operated. His regenerative capacity far exceeded anything I knew was possible. The wounds closed around my weapons, holding them in place.

Hugo roared and spun like a malfunctioning carnival ride. His central tentacle reached for me, but had already suffered too much damage to do more than lash ineffectively at my sides.

Holding on for dear life, I was about to scream something else when a bubble of water appeared around the monster’s head. The spell wavered, becoming semi-transparent, then opaque, as Hugo tried to fight the spell off. He’d gone still, focused on pitting his will against Nym’s.

Spell resistance applies, I reminded myself, twisting my sword with all my might.

Hugo roared, losing focus long enough for the bubble to solidify.

Although the monster was incredible by any definition of the word; it was not, apparently, very bright. I could hear and feel Hugo inhale to roar.

Nothing came out.

Spinning and lunging wildly, the monster reached for anything it could get to. Nym, Britney, and Merielle were forced to back away as it moved around aimlessly, all while I continued to dangle. I wasn’t only holding on for my life, however. With one hand on the axe handle, I used the other to dig the sword deeper, adjusting as I sought vital organs.

If it can’t breathe and it has a head, maybe it has a heart, too.

CRACK!

One or two of my ribs popped as Hugo backed into a wall. My ears rang as my vision blurred, nearly losing my grip. On the plus side, his attempt shoved the long sword past a bit of gristley resistance I’d found somewhere past his spine.

Merielle, despite being wounded once more, came to my aid. Extending her hammer to its full size, she brought it down onto Hugo’s feet, then against his stomach. Bubbles rippled through the water surrounding his head as he roared, inhaling even more fluid.

He leaned forward, giving me room to work as he swiped for the darting elf, missing her by a mile and opening up more of his back for me to work.

There!

The sword’s hilt thrummed in my hand as the blade hit paydirt, slicing through something vital with a satisfying shear.

Hugo stumbled, collapsing to his knees, one paw shooting up to try and remove the water bubble, to no avail. He shuddered as I twisted my sword, keeping him from healing through what should have been critical damage.

Wham!

Merielle’s hammer crashed into Hugo’s chest. The impact echoed through my cracked ribs, making me wince.

“Jordan!” Zuri called. She rushed over, a vial of black liquid in each hand. When she was close enough, she poured the stuff onto Hugo, right into the wound cavity my sword had made.

The effect was instant and overwhelming.

Malformed, corrupt flesh rippled and pulsed as it turned gray. Hugo’s regeneration slowed, then stopped. Moving carefully, I angled the hilt of my sword, opening a hole directly into his chest cavity for the Black Wash to enter.

The monster stilled completely.

“Here.” Zuri pushed the potion into my hand. “Quickly, before that infection worsens.”

I followed her gaze to my wounds. They'd gone from angry red to festering purple in record time. Weirdly, I felt nothing.

Remembering how the potion worked, I dismissed my gear and chugged the vile brew.

It tasted so awful that I lost time. When I came to, I was bent over, vomiting up breakfast and a gallon of putrescence. My flesh burned, sizzling and steaming around the infected wounds as Zuri’s concoction did its work.

Even with my incredible Endurance score, it took me several seconds to stand. When I managed it, I saw my team looked like they’d been through a meat grinder.

Nym was on the ground, near a puddle of vomit. She was crying, and Sadie was forcefully headbutting her arm as if it would help. Britney and Merielle were leaning against one another, their clothes mostly ruined.

The treatment left the women pale and weak, covered in noxious bile.

It also saved our lives.

“Thanks,” I managed, wiping my mouth with the back of my arm.

Then I looked down and saw the tissue lining the room peeling away from where drops of Zuri’s potion landed. Even better, it appeared that the concoction had an even greater effect than I’d hoped. Writhing meat grayed, going lifeless as entire sections were purified.

Realization hit me. “Zuri, your concoction purifies when it’s ingested. The magic must be treating this place as if we were inside something.”

“That is what I guessed as well,” she replied. “As much as I’d like the Black Wash to purge this awful dungeon, I doubt we’ll see that.”

It might not be a solution for every problem, but it had carved a clear space around our various messes. Those spaces grew rapidly as the still-potent Wash worked. Feet of tissue turned gray, creating spaces safe enough for us to stand or sit, while we stole precious seconds to recover.

Clearing my throat, I made my way to the team. “You’re going to hate me for this, but if we’re going to continue, I think we need to emergency level up.”

“Emergency level up?” Nym asked, wiping bile from her lips. “What are you talking about?”

“We earned enough experience from completing the escort quest for all of you to reach Level 5. I held off accepting it so we’d have time to discuss and sort through abilities. But time is not on our side.”

Merielle, hair limp around her haggard, pale face, finished my thought. “You think the extra abilities and hit points may be what make the difference here.”

“Right.”

Britney plopped down, wheezing like she’d run a marathon. “We can’t waste time here, so there’s no taking hours to discuss this. If we’re going to level up, I vote we get the basics. I need hit points and mana.”

“And I need strength and hit points,” Merielle said.

I summoned my Tablet. “I can keep it simple, so we can go over new abilities later.”

Zuri bobbed her head. “Perfect. Abbreviated level up, simplified skills and attributes. We review new abilities later, or when we get proper time.”

“Got it.”

I raised my hand, accepting the quest reward from my Tablet and kicking off the level-up process for the team. I allocated their points as requested, with a few tweaks here and there for balance. Britney got another point of strength, just in case we had to perform new flying maneuvers. I also maxed out her Planar Theory, as we’d been dealing with Veil Keys and such lately.

As my choices settled into place, each of the women turned to their Tablets, skimming what I’d done. At the same time, each glowed with heightened vitality and magic.

The level-up process did not fully restore them, but it did provide them with extra health and mana. In my mind, that was nearly as good as healing, plus it saved the party important resources.

Despite agreeing to shelve the ability discussion, we did a quick rundown of our new tricks while Zuri handed out water skins and leaf-wrapped rice and fish.

We ate, washing the food down with water. Zuri provided extra waterskins for us to wash off the worst of our stench, for which we were all grateful.

“Hey! I didn’t get a single new class power,” Nym protested around a mouth full.

Britney scoffed. “You just single-handedly blinded, muted, and deafened a freaking miniboss and you’re complaining?”

“Maybe just a little” Nym admitted, pouting and earning muted laughter from Merielle and Zuri. The catgirl huffed and fed a small amount of her fish to Sadie.

Despite a sense of worry about how the rest of this dungeon would go, not to mention concern for the allies we’d entered with, I forced one out too. Humor wasn’t just good for their morale, but mine as well.

Interlude: A Very Quick Level Up

Merielle, Britnayel, Nym, and Zuri: Each team member has earned [100] experience points. They require [62] experience points to reach level [6].

Jordan: Jordan has earned [100] experience points. He requires [387] experience points to reach level [13].

Note: This includes combat experience for the Hugo battle.

***

Merielle Character Sheet

Basic Information

Name: Merielle Nightbreeze

Age: 24

Level: 5

Class: Ballistic Knight (Epic)

Experience to Level 6: 62

Species: Elf

Hit Points (Level X Endurance +10): 95

Mana (Level X Magic): 25

Attributes

Strength: 17 (+2) (You deal 3-4 more damage with melee attacks)

Endurance: 17 (+2)

Agility: 23 (+1)

Cunning: 10

Discipline: 10

Magic: 5

Core Skills

Combat Tactics: 6 (+2).

Field Medicine: 1.

Acrobatics: 5 (+1).

New Class Skills

Level 5 - Shield of Duty: You gain [significant] resistance against any immobilizing or mind-influencing effects while in combat.

***

Nym Character Sheet

Basic Information

Name: Nym

Age: 19

Level: 5

Class: Scouring Tyrant (Epic)

Special: [Cat Familiar] Sadie

Experience to Level 6: 62

Species: Catgirl

Hit Points (Level X Endurance): 75

Mana (Level X Magic +5): 125

Attributes

Strength: 8

Endurance: 15 (+2)

Agility: 16 (+2)

Cunning: 13

Discipline: 6

Magic: 24 (+1)

Core Skills

Arcane Familiarity: 4 (+1).

Spell Memorization: 6 (+2). You can rapidly memorize new spells. You may learn a number of spells equal to your class level + this skill + 3 [Currently 14].

Animal Friendship: 1.

New Class Powers

Level 5 - Your class receives no new benefits at 5th level.

***

Britnayel Character Sheet

Basic Information

Name: Britnayel “Britney” Dawnglow

Age: 32

Level: 5

Class: Thorned Angel

Experience to Level 6: 62

Species: Celestial

Hit Points (Level X Endurance): 80

Mana (Level X Magic): 110

Attributes

Strength: 10 (+1)

Endurance: 16 (+1)

Agility: 11

Cunning: 18

Discipline: 10

Magic: 22 (+3)

Core Skills

Combat Tactics: 4.

Field Medicine: 4.

Planar Theory: 4 (+3). You have gained significant insights into planar theory. Due to your recent interactions with Veil-level threats, your Tablet has been enhanced with relevant information on preserving and protecting the Veil, as it relates to Planar Theory.

New Class Powers

Level 5 - Extended Thorns: The range you may apply the thorns effect increases to 50 feet. The damage/absorbition is increased from [5] to [7].

***

Zuri Character Sheet

Basic Information

Name: Zuri Stonecoil

Age: 108

Level: 5

Class: Surprise, I’m a Chef!

Experience to Level 6: 62

Species: Medusa – Path of Humanity

Hit Points (Level X Endurance): 100

Mana (Level X Magic): 110

Attributes

Strength: 14

Endurance: 20 (+2)

Agility: 15

Cunning: 16

Discipline: 14

Magic: 22 (+3)

Core Skills

Combat Tactics: 3.

Field Medicine: 4 (+1).

Monstrous Chef: 5 (+2). You now have a significantly expanded ability to identify, extract, and use monstrous components in your recipes. Spend time experimenting and you’ll get new concoctions!

New Class Powers

Level 5 - Bonus Meat! When harvesting materials from monsters, including monstrous plants, you get double the normal result.