Dungeon Noble - Squire

Jake’s awareness came back to him alongside the sensation of a part of him being pruned and eaten. It was hard to define exactly how he knew that’s what he was feeling, but it didn’t change how every part of him ached.

It was the oddest feeling to have every part of him aching at once, and it was made all the worse by how stiff and uncomfortable he felt. Even simply sitting up and looking around him required significant effort.

Jake rubbed his eyes and blinked furiously as he looked around him, but his vision was too blurry to make out any details.

Thankfully, his vision slowly began to focus over the next minute, and eventually, Jake could see well enough to realise that he was sitting on a stone slab and was dressed in a grey tunic that was entirely unfamiliar to him.

It was odd to see himself wearing different clothing than he remembered, all of it felt like it had been mere moments ago, and he should still be down there fighting.

Jake fought off a shiver as his mind wrestled with the problem. It felt like there was a blank space in his memory, and he couldn’t help but focus on it, which made his dissociation from his surroundings all the worse.

Jake stopped and shook his head, wincing as the motion provoked a throbbing headache that seemed to go deep into his head. He’d died. Those damn bugs had sucked enough blood out of him to kill him. He’d known it was coming; he just needed to get his head around it.

Taking a steadying breath, Jake pushed off the bed and got to his feet. He was unsteady, but he was mobile, and that was the important thing.

The room around him was mainly featureless stone, the only exceptions being the slab he’d woken up on and a wooden door.

Opening the door and shuffling out through it, Jake found himself in the foyer of the Dungeon once more.

The small amount of movement he’d managed so far seemed to have helped with the aching in his body, and Jake was able to move more easily as he recovered.

Feeling better by the moment, Jake headed toward the Dungeon’s entrance, glancing back over his shoulder in time to see the door to the room he’d woken up in swing shut and seemingly vanish into its surroundings.

Feeling lost and exposed, Jake lingered at the entrance, unsure if he should leave or stay where he was for his companions. There was a chance they’d already gone ahead, but Jake decided to wait, just in case.

Fortunately, another hidden door opened shortly after Jake arrived, with a pale-faced Alan stumbling out. The Scholar looked relieved to see Jake and gave him a tired wave before heading his way.

“Anyone else, yet?” Alan asked in a raspy voice.

“Not yet,” Jake said, clearing his dry throat and wishing for a drink, preferably something strong.

Alan grunted and slid down the wall Jake was leaning on to sit on the floor, resting his head against the cool stone with a sigh.

The next door opened before Jake could follow suit, and a knot of tension in him unravelled as he saw Rhew walk out. She looked as much a mess as the rest of them, but she was alive.

Her death had been messy and painful, a good part of which Jake felt was his fault. When he saw how extensive her wounds were, he shouldn’t have tried to keep her alive with the potion.

Karl emerged mere moments later, and Jake pushed up from where he was sitting as they all started to head out of the Dungeon.

“Gods, I feel horrid,” Rhew said, her voice raw and strained as she rubbed her temples, Karl grunting something that sounded like agreement.

“How much further did you get?” Rhew asked as Jake pushed the doors open, revealing a scene not too different from what they’d left behind when they went in. The sun was further through the sky, though. Jake judged that they’d been gone for maybe three to four hours from its journey across the sky.

“Not much further, we killed those bugs and got to the next cave, but that was it,” Jake said as they headed outside, his gut clenching as he remembered the feeling of those giant insects landing on him.

“So halfway through the third floor, not so bad for a first attempt,” Rhew said before wincing and pinching the bridge of her nose. “How are we going to get the Wyrdgeld we need, though?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, frowning a little as he considered her words. She had a point, they wouldn’t be able to improve themselves until they beat the Dungeon, but they had to beat it in order to earn the Wyrdgeld to improve themselves. “Let’s find Ari first, see what he says.”

They lapsed into silence as they headed out of the Dungeon and back into the small settlement that had grown around it. They were all equally uncertain of what to do next, and Jake was about to suggest they head for one of the taverns to check for Ari when he spotted their instructor already heading toward them.

“Good job on not dying all the way,” Ari said in a cheerful tone, passing each of them a square of wrapped paper as he joined them. “Eat this; it will help with the revival sickness.”

“What is it?” Jake asked as he unwrapped the square, revealing a segmented white block of something.

“Moiran mint, it’ll do the trick for you. Come on, walk while you eat,” Ari said, leading them toward one of the taverns they’d passed on the way in.

Jake bit into the white bar, his eyes going wide at how sweet the minty treat was. Despite being firm in his hand, the part Jake had bitten off melted in his mouth almost immediately, releasing a strong wave of peppermint and more sweetness.

Something about the sweet-tasting food made Jake perk up a little, just as Ari had promised, and he quickly ate the other three segments of the square.

“That was delicious,” Karl said, looking a little more like himself now. “What’s in it?”

“Basically just sugar and peppermint oil, perfect for the recently dead,” Ari said, smiling slightly at how they reacted to his words.

“So, what now?” Jake asked as they reached the tavern that Ari had pointed out.

“Well, in the long term, I’ve got us all rooms for the next couple of weeks on the Guild’s credit, so we use that time to get you up to speed. In the short term, we get some food down you to help with the sickness. You’ll feel rough for today and a lot of tomorrow this first time, but you’ll learn to manage it better.”

“That’s not exactly an enticing prospect,” Jake said bitterly, remembering the feeling of the bugs draining his blood.

“Not at all, and that brings us to the next part of the conversation, but we need some privacy for that,” Ari said, leading them into the tavern and motioning for them to wait as he went and spoke with the owner.

A few minutes later, they were all in a private room at the back of the tavern, bowls of stew with hot bread in front of all of them.

“Eat up. You must all still be feeling the effects quite strongly,” Ari said, motioning for them to get started as he tore off a piece of bread. “I’m sorry for making you go through all that alone, but it’s the Guild’s policy, and rightly so.”

“Why?” Alan asked, pausing eating only long enough to ask the question before returning to his stew.

“Simple, really,” Ari said with a sad smile. “You can explain how dangerous Dungeons are and what it feels like to go through them, but you can’t explain how it felt to die in there. Everyone dies in the Dungeon at some point, and not just anyone can accept that or have the resilience to deal with it.”

“So you make us experience it first to see if we have what it takes to keep going,” Rhew said, making it more of a statement than a question.

“Exactly,” Ari said with a nod in Rhew’s direction. “We see if you have what it takes to keep going, and there’s no judgement if you don’t. Anyone who becomes a professional delver is a bit mad to start with, and dying multiple times doesn’t help that.”

“I want to keep going,” Jake said firmly, his mind already made up. It wasn’t just because of his Class either. It was because he wanted to beat the Dungeon. He wanted to finish all five floors and walk out victorious.

“Don’t make your decision now,” Ari said, holding a hand up to stop them before they all committed to delving. “Take the rest of the day off, rest overnight, and then see how you feel. If you want to keep going, you’ll head back inside in the next few days. If not, I’ll arrange for you to be on the next trip back to Port Emerald, and you can transfer to one of the other areas for training.”

“But how are we going to make any Wyrdgeld? We’ll just die again, won’t we?” Jake asked, not looking forward to another run through the Dungeon without anything to show for it.

Now they knew what they were doing, Jake was confident they could get further, but it wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience, that was for sure.

“Don’t worry about that,” Ari said, waving Jake’s concern aside with one hand. “We have a system to make sure tier one Classers still advance, but we’ll discuss that if you decide to stay. For now, assume that you’re going to die in there again.”

“Great,” Jake muttered with a sigh, finishing off the last of his bread to mop up the stew’s remnants. He still felt awful, but nothing like how he’d felt when he first woke up.

“Well, take some time, finish your food and get some rest. I’ll meet you in the tap room tomorrow morning. Oh, here are your keys as well,” Ari said, passing them each a key with a wooden tag with a number carved into it. “Rest up, no heavy exertions, understood?”

Ari waited just long enough for them to all nod that they understood before heading out, leaving the four of them alone with the last bit of their meal.

“I need to think. I’ll see you all in the morning,” Alan said after a few minutes, the Scholar getting unsteadily to his feet and leaving the room.

The others followed suit over the next few minutes, with Jake eventually doing the same. His key said that he was in room twelve, and a sign at the base of the stairs said that only rooms one to ten were inside the tavern. Jake was actually staying in a smaller building just behind the tavern.

The building was divided into several sections, each with its own entrance. From what Jake could see, each section had five rooms, which matched the usual five-person delving teams that he’d heard of.

It was slightly interesting but not enough for Jake to stay awake for, so he found his room and immediately took advantage of its relatively soft bed to get some much-needed rest.