Dungeon Champions

Chapter 8: There’s Loot. We Promise.

I led the way across the narrow stone bridges. With my heightened attributes, balancing on the three-foot-wide stretches was effortless, even with the uneven bumps and bits missing.

The thirty-foot drop beneath should have scared me. I know it would have set most men’s guts churning. But it didn’t bother me in the slightest.

My new companion made a noise of exasperation and rushed to follow.

I almost turned to offer her assistance, but remembered she was a catgirl. She would likely be fine on a path this wide. Still, I murmured, “Skullie, if she starts to fall, tell me. I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

Click-clack. Skullie’s jaw worked in agreement.

At Skullie’s abrupt movement, the cat on my head jumped down to my shoulder. I heard the sound of nails on armor before she settled back down and began purring again. She leaned over, nuzzling my ear.

“Stop scent marking him!” the catgirl called from behind. “Traitor!”

We made quick, uneventful work out of crossing the bridges and went straight to the tunnels on the other side. None of the veritable horde of goblins I’d had to slaughter to get to the cat girl and Sadie remained, which was a shame.

Part of me very much wanted to see the fruits of my labor.

It’s not that I want to be a bloodthirsty bastard, I reasoned to myself. Just, when I put real effort into saving someone, I’d like to see the results. It was an odd thought, but one that resonated with my forgotten past.

“My name is Nym,” the woman said as we traveled down a long, rough tunnel lined with red rock. “Sadie and I are both very appreciative of you coming to help us.” Her words sounded at the same time genuine and forced. Perhaps she was simply in disbelief that someone had saved her.

I gave her a disarming smile. “It’s no problem. I’d have done it regardless, but I made an agreement with the Dungeon Core. It wanted you rescued and taken out of here.”

“It did?” Nym asked, sounding confused. “That doesn’t make sense.”

I gave her an abbreviated summary of events, including my rescue of Merielle and Skullie’s revelations. Nym listened carefully, asking for clarification on a few parts.

She frowned after my explanation. “All of that is awful, but…” She trailed off, her lips pursed as she thought.

“But?” I asked.

“It certainly sounds plausible,” Nym said carefully. “I mean, it makes sense when everything is laid out. However, I just have one question.”

The corridor abruptly opened, revealing a cavern. Three tunnels, carefully cut and shaped, led off from the space. Goblin debris was everywhere, including several stacks of crates. There were no signs of any surviving monsters.

“Go ahead.” I walked over to the crates, intent on inspecting their contents. Certainly, something useful would be in there.

“Why do you have an animated head stuffed in your armor?”

Skullie rasped a laugh. “I’m his friend! He’s named me Skullie. We’re best friends!” The lich sounded desperate, and more than a little fearful.

Glancing over my shoulder, at both Nym and the lich, I shrugged. “He offered to be helpful. As long as he is, I’m going to keep him around. Why not?”

After all, only a fool turned down good help. Especially in a dungeon.

The catgirl hesitated, her silence earning more of my attention. Pausing with one hand on the stack of crates, I turned. As I waited for her reply, I took her in completely for the first time.

She was short, maybe a few inches over five feet tall, with a lithe build. Her torn, dark burgundy robe clung to her figure, providing evidence of a ripe lushness that was more than a little distracting. Nym had improbable curves, except perhaps compared to some celebrities back on Earth. She had long, slightly curly white hair that sweat had matted to her forehead in places, and a pair of tufted ears that sprouted high on her skull, above where a human’s would. Large, gemstone blue eyes returned my regard with an inquisitiveness that reminded me, appropriately enough, of a cat.

“I, uh, I can’t think of a reason.” She flushed at my attention. Dropping her eyes, she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “It’s just not something I’ve ever heard of.”

She looked up at me again, and I smiled back. The shy smile she returned was radiant.

At my look, she seemed to relax. Moving toward me abruptly, she adopted a prancing, hip-swaying dance. Brushing against my arm, she pointed at the container I’d leaned against. “Show me what’s inside?”

“Sure,” I said as I turned back to the crate.

I called my axe to my hand. Combat axes weren’t very similar to wood axes, but it would get the job done.

“Stand back,” I said to Nym. “I don’t want splinters to hit you. You too, Sadie.”

The cat reluctantly obliged, jumping from my shoulder to Nym’s.

A single swing hacked deeply into the wooden crate. I twisted the axe, splintering the wood, and used a second swing to break the top of the chest open. I reached down and pushed the scraps of wood away and revealed a neat stack of clear, diamond-shaped crystals.

“Mana crystals!” Eyes wide, Nym plucked one up out of the thick padding within the crate. It was about six inches across, from tip to tip, and half as wide. I thought it looked a bit like a Christmas ornament and would have mistaken it for plastic had my skills not informed me otherwise.

“How much do you think these will store?” My inherited memories and skills told me what mana crystals were, but not the specific details. I wasn’t a mage, after all.

She eyed the gem, brow furrowed. A little flicker of white, smokey flame appeared in the center of the stone. With another visible effort of concentration, she drew the flame out of the container. The white, curling power entered her skin with no visible effect.

“I’d guess two or three times as much mana as I naturally regain in a day.”

Oh, right.

Without a Tablet, she wouldn’t have access to her stats. The realization was a stark, clear reminder of one reason Tablets were considered such a commodity. With them, the average adventurer could become great, and the great could become legendary.

“That should be worth a decent chunk of change,” I said with a grin.

“It should.” Nym nodded enthusiastically. “It could also be really useful to mages, or in making magical gear.”

“Really? I didn’t know that. I thought it took Cores.”

“Well, Cores make the top-grade stuff,” Nym clarified. She ran her hand across my arm, fingertips trailing across the elaborate symbols covering the bracers sheathing my forearms. It was a gentle, almost intimate touch. “These gems can make limited-use items, or lower-grade magic items. The sort with just one or two enchantments. Plus, a mage can bond one of these and use it as a personal Mana Battery. That can make a huge difference on adventures, or so I’m told.”

She put the gem back, her eyes lingering on the pile for a moment.

“So I’ve got a question for you,” I said, turning to her. “When I first got to the cavern, I thought I saw the goblin with the sword fighting a broom. Do you want to tell me about that?”

Reaching into the box, I tried adding the contents to my personal storage, reasoning that I might be able to use the gems in some sort of training exercise. My logic worked. The contents vanished and my Tablet flashed.

Extradimensional Storage: 7% Full.

I opened the next crate. This one had three significantly larger mana gems inside. I tucked that one away before she could say anything. The weight of the gems didn’t reduce my storage capacity, which made me quite pleased.

Having portable storage would be incredibly useful.

“I, ah,” she looked from the opened crate to the cavern. Shuffling side to side, she continued in a soft, embarrassed voice. “I come from a poor family. We didn’t have much money. I used cleaning magic to help pay the bills. The Sisterhood offered to teach me more, but they charge for the spell scrolls, so…”

“They charge to teach their own battlemages spells?”

I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but it came out like a whip crack of disbelief.

Drawing away at the sharpness in my tone, Nym’s ears curled forward meekly. “Yes.”

She’s scared, I realized. Why is she scared? I’m not mad at her.

Reaching out, I reflexively stroked her head. I wouldn’t have usually touched a person like that, but my new memories told me that it was okay. The only place on her body that seemed to have the soft cat fur was her head and subtly tufted ears, and the hair was positively silky. She leaned into my touch, purring as loudly as any house cat.

Sadie made a low, threatening growl until I used my other hand to pet her as well.

“I’m sorry, Nym.” Keeping my voice gentle, I tried to explain. “I come from a place called Earth. The knowledge I’ve gained about this world surprises even me. When you said that about the Sisterhood, it felt so wrong…”

I inhaled, trying to steady the heat that rose in my chest at the thought of just how awful this “Sisterhood” was.

“It felt so wrong, I just wanted to go out there and avenge you. You and Merielle. And, from the sounds of it, the other women you came here with, too.”

Nym looked up at me with her big eyes, all vulnerability and adorableness. Her bottom lip quivered. “You mean that? It’s not me you’re angry with?”

“Of course not. Why would I be?”

“Yay!” Nym clapped her hands, then hurried closer and wrapped her arms around my waist. “You’re officially the nicest man I’ve ever met!”

I didn’t ask her how many she’d interacted with.

When she finally released me, I turned and used my axe to open the next few crates. One had more of the small gems. Others were full of odds and ends, none of which seemed particularly valuable in comparison. Two of the crates were stacked high with metal sculptures that chimed when I inspected them. They weren’t magical, so I left them behind.

My Tablet appeared when I summoned it, showing an updated inventory list.

Updated Inventory: 3 high-grade mana gems, 20 mid-grade mana gems, and 50 low-grade mana gems.

With that done, I pointed to the hall that would lead us to the closest exit. Taking the lead, I said, “I’m going to get you to Merielle, so I can get the rest of your party. Speaking of which, how did you all get so separated?”

Nym blushed as she explained. “There was a puzzle in one of the first rooms. It took all four of us to unlock it, but each piece of the puzzle was on a different side of the room. Monsters came out of nowhere in the middle, so we all fled in opposite directions.”

“All of you but the guide?”

“Yeah. She ran back out without a word. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. It…makes a lot of sense now.”

I shook my head. The more I heard about this Sisterhood, the worse they seemed.

“Listen, one of the reasons I’m freeing you all is part of an agreement I made with the Core. There’s a rival dungeon out there, and I’ve agreed to claim its Core. I don’t want to pressure any of you into anything, but my class is called a Battle Scholar.”

I went on to give her an overview of how my abilities operated.

“Ooh! An epic Tablet? That would be amazing.”

Sadie made a mrrr of agreement.

“I don’t want you or Merielle to feel pressured. I just rescued you, and I know Tablets are highly valued. But the furthest thing from my mind is forcing anyone to join my group or work with me.” I tried to inject as much sincerity into my words as I could.

I wasn’t lying, either. The idea of anyone being around me and not wanting to…it made my stomach clench.

What happened back on Earth to make me feel this way? The thought came and went, vanishing as the tunnel took an abrupt, sharp turn. It widened to another one of the long corridors lined with Dungeon Growth runes.

In the roomier space, Nym bounced a few steps so that she was walking beside me. She bumped her shoulder against my side. “If the Sisterhood is evil…”

Sadie growled low in her throat just before leaping from Nym’s shoulder back to my shoulder, and then scrambling up onto my head. Skullie adjusted, jaw flapping open and closed in what I thought was a greeting.

“Hey!” Nym snatched at the feline but missed. Her fingers slid through my hair and rebounded off my armored shoulder. “Ouch.” She jerked her hand back, eyeing her fingers. The sharp tips were intact. “You’re lucky you didn’t just cost me a nail, you fickle cat.”

“Meow.”

I chuckled. “I swear that sounded like she laughed.”

“She doesn’t have the best sense of humor,” Nym said, shooting a glare at her cat. Waving the distraction away, she went back to our previous topic. “As much as I’d love a Tablet and to join a real adventuring party, if the Sisterhood is evil, I can’t just go with you. Not when others are in danger. I appreciate you clarifying that you’re not trying to force either of us into anything. Maybe after we figure out what to do about them… What? Why are you smiling at me like that?”

“I may have left something small out,” I said.

“What?” She batted at my arm. “Tell me!”

“Merielle already offered to work with me if I agree to take on the Sisterhood.”

“What?!” Squealing delightfully, she bounced up and down. “That’s perfect!”

Despite all my elevated discipline and focus, it took every bit of willpower to keep from looking over at Nym’s bountiful chest as she jumped. Even in the corner of my vision, it was impressive.

Sadie nuzzled the top of my head.

“I think she agrees with you,” I said with a laugh, pointing up at the cat.

“She does.” Nym glared at her cat again. “I’ll talk to Merielle, and we’ll need to discuss with Britney and Zuri, too. But I can’t see how anyone would turn this down. We have an obligation, and you’re offering an opportunity we couldn’t get anywhere else.”

I nodded, still feeling a wave of relief. It was critical for my moral sense to not deliberately manipulate Nym. Knowing she’d have gone off to fight the Sisterhood on her own anyway was the very thing I’d needed to hear. We’d make a perfect team. She might not have the bravery of Merielle—at least, I hadn’t seen it yet—but her moral compass was pointed squarely in the right direction.

We came to another set of heavy doors that I recognized as the dungeon exit. This time, the outlet was next to a rocky, forest-lined grotto. A series of waterfalls tumbled down over sloping rocks, leading to a clear, blue pond at its center. Merielle stood nearby, one hand on a tree as she looked out at the water.

At the sound of our arrival, she spun around. Seeing us, her face brightened.

“Nym!” The redheaded warrior ran over, pulling the short catgirl into a fierce embrace.

“The next outlet won’t be far from here,” I said, helping Sadie to the ground. The cat didn’t seem quite as reluctant to leave this time. She walked over to Merielle and wound herself between the elven woman’s legs fondly. “If things go well, I’ll just have the next members of your party head this way. It seems safe, plus a good supply of water is a useful thing to have nearby.”

“Sounds good,” Merielle said with a smile. She definitely seemed more at ease out here than she had back in the dungeon, which made sense.

Nym shot me a warm smile, then frowned slightly as I turned and went back into the dungeon. My Tablet appeared with a gentle buzzing sound. It hovered there with a glowing “Notices” button on the front. I focused and text appeared.

Notice: You have been awarded combat experience proportional to your level.

Experience Gained: 50

Experience to Level 11: 450