Dungeon Noble - Squire

Ari gave them a moment to get ready before hustling them forward and into the Dungeon.

Jake was second through the entrance, his eyes drifting along the carvings of the doors as he walked through. This close, the detail of the carvings was exquisite but no less confusing to the eye. Every shape he could discern seemed to shift and fade as soon as he stopped focusing on it, and then he couldn’t find it again, no matter how he tried.

The slight tugging sensation that Jake had felt since they arrived disappeared as soon as he crossed the threshold, which made sense, he supposed. Perhaps he’d be able to control it more directly in the future.

Focusing on his surroundings, Jake looked over the interior of the Dungeon, finding himself at a platform with two stairways leading down. Each set of stairs ended at a door, one of which was firmly closed.

The other door stood open, revealing a shadowed interior that seemed to turn from worked stone to rough rock.

The satchel from Ivaldi contained a few essentials alongside what they were shown, including a pair of torches each. Seeing the darkness ahead, the group quickly discussed who should carry the light, ending with Rhew and Alan drawing out their torches and lighting them.

The flames illuminated the dim interior, casting sharper shadows around them and making the whole thing more ominous. Something about lighting the torches had made this real for Jake.

They were going in.

Jake wanted to have his own torch out and lit, but he and Karl used shields, so they needed both hands to fight, whereas Alan and Rhew could fight with just one hand; Rhew with her wand and Alan with his shortsword.

Prepared as they were going to be, the foursome set off down the stairs and through the open doorway, the door slamming shut behind them with an echoing boom.

“Well, we’re in it now,” Jake muttered, looking at their new environment with wary concern, wondering where the first danger would be.

From what he could tell, they were in a ten-foot wide tunnel, with the ceiling an easy fifteen feet above them in places. The walls were irregular, but thankfully, the floor was smooth from what he could see.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but a tunnel wasn’t it,” Karl said, poking the wall nearest him with his hammer before peering into the darkness.

The light from the two torches illuminated the path for a short distance, but with Rhew and Alan standing behind them, it didn’t go far.

“Come on, no point waiting here,” Jake said, taking a few steps forward with his shield held protectively in front of him. He was damned if he would let the Dungeon get in his head and scare him off before they’d even started.

“Here we go,” Karl muttered, adopting a similar post on Jake’s right, the two advancing together in unison.

A blur of motion from the left was all the warning Jake had as a small creature sprang from a hidden alcove in the tunnel wall. Fetid claws slashed out at Jake’s leg, but he had just enough time to twist and get his shield in the way, blocking the attack.

What had been a blur of movement turned out to be a rat the size of a small dog with short grey fur and nasty-looking long claws. The creature glared up at him with hateful red eyes as it bared its teeth and lunged forward, trying to bite at Jake’s legs.

“Got it!” Karl barked as he came past Jake, hammer swinging down to catch the rat mid-lunge and send it into a nearby wall with a crunch.

“Thanks, Karl,” Jake said, giving the other Classer a nod.

“No problem, I hate rats,” Karl said, reaching out to reluctantly nudge the corpse with one foot to ensure it was dead before bending down and touching it with a grimace of distaste.

Grey wisps swirled up from the rat’s corpse and into Karl. A moment later, Karl opened his hand, a flicker of energy congealing into a single Wyrdgeld in his palm.

“Got to admit, that’s satisfying,” Karl said, grinning at them as he absorbed the coin back into himself.

“What are we going to do about money?” Jake asked, gesturing to the dead rat and thinking of the loot its brethren would provide. “We left the rest with Ari, so how do you want to split it?”

“A common practice is to split the loot once we leave so everyone gets some, even those who may have died. In our case, that’s probably going to be all of us, so it doesn’t matter anyway.” Alan said with a half-shrug that didn’t quite match the nervous tremor in his voice or the way he was shifting from foot to foot.

Jake had to wonder just who Alan was. Between Ari knowing his mother and his casual knowledge of how loot distribution was done, Alan seemed to have a closer tie to this life than Jake.

That wasn’t a problem in Jake’s mind, but he was wary of anyone whose motivation didn’t make sense, and Jake couldn’t figure out why Alan was in the Delvers Guild if he had connections to call on.

Alan’s mother might have been part of the Guild, and Alan was following in her footsteps, but why had he been surprised by Ari knowing her?

Jake shook off the question, it was none of his business, and he had enough going on right now.

“I agree. That sounds reasonable, and this is our first attempt, after all, so we can’t expect to get too far,” Rhew said, drawing Jake out of his thoughts and back to the matter at hand.

They resumed their previous formation and continued onward, though both Jake and Karl were far warier of the tunnel’s walls and what danger they might hold.

Part of Jake’s mind noted that the walls of the tunnel were craggy and filled with hiding spots, but the ceiling and floor were perfectly smooth. They still had some of the texture of a tunnel, but there was nothing present that could trip him up.

Jake filed away the detail, unsure how it would help but certain that the more he could work out about the Dungeon, the better.

The tunnel around them changed as they carried on, with more alcoves appearing and what seemed like small passages that ran for a short distance before rejoining the main tunnel. They were too small for any of them to use but were ideal for oversized creatures.

“Gods damned rats!” Karl cursed as two of the creatures came rushing out into the light, darting around a wild swing of his hammer and biting at his legs.

Jake was slow to react, his distraction leaving Karl to fend for himself as the rats chittered and tried to swarm him.

“Stay calm. We can do this,” Rhew said steadily, a blast of blue energy catching one of the rats as it tried to get under Karl’s shield.

Cold energy sapped the strength and speed of the rat, allowing Karl to strike it with his hammer, crushing the side of its body with a powerful hit.

The second rat took the opportunity to bite Karl in the leg, its oversized incisors sinking deep before Karl kicked it off him.

“Shit!” Alan shouted abruptly, stumbling past Jake with a third rat clinging to his leg and digging its claws into him.

Jake’s eyes went wide as he glanced behind them, but thankfully no more rats were trying to sneak up on them.

Karl had thrown his rat into the wall and was stomping on its broken body while shouting angrily, so Jake moved to help Alan.

“I can’t get a clear shot at it,” Rhew said in frustration, pointing her wand at the remaining rat, but it was on the far side of Alan and was keeping the Scholar between them.

“Get away from me!” Alan shouted, swinging wildly at the rat with his torch and clipping it slightly, knocking it off balance with a squeal of pain.

Jake rushed forward while the creature was distracted and plunged his blade into it, ending the fight.

There were a few moments of tense silence as they looked around at the poorly illuminated tunnel, watching for any sign of further rats coming their way.

“I hate rats,” Karl muttered, reaching down to withdraw the Wyrdgeld from his kill, Rhew doing the same for the rat she’d shot with her wand.

“Yeah, and I’m beginning to see why,” Jake said, reaching down to pull the Wyrdgeld free from the rat he’d skewered, drawing it into him for safekeeping.

“They’re using the passages to get around us now. Am I the only one who finds that unsettling?” Alan’s words hung in the air as they shared a grim look, each silently agreeing with him.

“Is there a limit to how long we can be down here?” Jake asked Alan as they bound their wounds.

“Not as such, but we aren’t allowed to rest or take a break for too long. A short stop like this isn’t an issue, but apparently, the Dungeon doesn’t like it if we set up camp or start to take more extended periods of rest regularly. That’s only in general, though. I don’t know much about higher-tier Dungeons.”

Jake shrugged, filing the information away as the group started forward once more.

-**-

They suffered two more ambushes from concealed rats before they reached the first true deviation in the tunnel’s layout. With little warning, the tight confines opened into a reasonably sized cave with a familiar-looking door at the far side that was bracketed by a pair of flaming torches.

Mounds of rock and stalagmites covered the ground between them and the exit, and Jake was sure that any of them would be a great hiding place for one of the giant rats they’d been fighting so far.

“I’m so done with these rats. Let’s just fucking do this,” Karl said, hefting his hammer as he all but stormed into the area.

Jake cursed as he hurried in after Karl, the other two stringing along behind him. “Karl, wait!”

The rats were quick to take advantage of their disordered advance, charging forth from concealment to throw themselves at the Classers.

Jake was able to kill the two attacking him with only a few minor scrapes, but a gasp turned his attention to where Rhew had tripped and fallen, unleashing a spray of icicles as she fell.

Most of the icicles hit the rat she was aiming at, skewering it in place, but two of them went off target and sunk into Alan’s arm, making him miss his attack and take a nasty bite to the shin for his troubles.

Karl was quick to return to them, and with the four working together, they dispatched the last couple of rats with ease.

“Shit, Alan, I’m so sorry,” Rhew said as she pulled the icicles free from Alan’s arm.

“It’s alright, it was an accident,” Alan said, wincing as she bound the wound with a bandage from her pack.

“I’m sorry, everyone. I shouldn’t have rushed us coming in like that,” Karl said, drawing out the Wyrdgeld of the rats and passing them out to those who got the kills.

“At least none of us died on the first floor; it could be worse,” Jake said with a shrug.

“I’ll do better. I promise.”

“I know you will, and that’s why we’re doing this. Don’t worry. It’s only our first try,”

“Jake’s right. This was bad, but we knew it was going to be,” Rhew said as she cleaned and bound a slight wound on her leg. “The better way to look at all this is that we’ve cleared the first floor, and we still have all our potions.”

“Besides, you did rush ahead, but at least you didn’t shoot me,” Alan said as he gave Rhew a pointed look, making her flush bright red before shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you there,” Rhew said before pausing, the corner of her lips turning up a little. “I don’t want you to think that I’d do something like that on purpose. I’m not that cold-blooded.” She emphasised the last words with a growing smile, making all of them groan and roll their eyes at her.

“Well, everyone ready?” Jake asked, gesturing to the door out of the room, one that he guessed took them down to the second floor.

“Not at all, but there’s no backing out now,” Alan said, chuckling mirthlessly as he took Karl’s spare torch and ignited it before tossing his almost used-up original away. Rhew followed suit and nodded for them to proceed.

“Alright, let’s do this.”