Dungeon Noble - Squire

Jake rose early the next day through sheer muscle memory. He was down the stairs and heading out the door before he was even fully awake.

Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one to fall into the routine, and Karl joined him only a minute or two later.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this when Felix isn’t ever here,” Karl grumbled as he walked over to Jake, the two of them continuing on together to the usual meeting spot.

“Do you really think he’d take that as a good excuse not to train?” Jake asked, hiding his smile at Karl’s downcast expression. “Don’t worry. I’m definitely not going to be pushing as hard today. We won’t recover as fast as we do when Felix is here, after all.”

“True enough,” Karl nodded before cocking his head to one side in confusion as they came around the corner. “Alan?”

“In the flesh,” the Scholar said with a grin that only looked a little forced. “I said to Jake that I’d start joining you.”

Surprisingly, Nepthys was also waiting with Alan at the usual meeting spot, though she looked far less nervous than he did. Perhaps that was down to the fact that she was still armed, though.

“Huh, well, I think that’s a great idea, really,” Karl said with a shrug before turning to Nepthys. “You must be Nepthys. I’m Karl. Good to meet you.”

“A pleasure. Jake has told me much about you already,” Nepthys said, her accent giving Karl pause for a moment before they shook hands.

“I don’t know that accent. Where are you from?”

“My family has moved around quite a bit. We call many places home these days,” Nepthys said somewhat evasively.

“Right, let’s get into the stretches then, shall we?” Jake cut in before things could get more awkward, moving into the first of the stretches that Ari had shown them.

Jake fully intended to tell Karl the full story at some point, but now was most definitely not the time.

Karl took the time to show Alan what they were doing and helped him with his stretches. It had just been the two of them for a while, and Karl seemed excited that the Scholar would be joining them for the run.

The four of them set off at an easy pace, though Jake noticed that Nepthys was clearly higher ranked than them, but not to the degree that he’d think she was in the next tier.

Karl and Jake had both improved considerably since Ascending, but it was humbling to see how much further they had to go. Not that it was a fair comparison, considering that Nepthys had been doing this a lot longer, but life wasn’t fair.

Looking over at Alan, Jake could tell that the Scholar was struggling a little, despite their slower pace, and looked exhausted already.

“How’re you feeling?” Jake asked Alan softly, dropping back a little to let Karl and Nepthys take the lead.

“I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well. I kept playing the things we saw over and over in my head. Those poor people, Jake, they could have easily been us,” Alan said, looking over at Jake with wide eyes.

“But they weren’t,” Jake said firmly, reaching out to nudge Alan and make sure he had his full attention. “We couldn’t save them, but we stopped those two from doing anything else, which is almost as good.”

Alan nodded, but the silence stretched out between them for a minute or two, only broken by their breathing and the steady rhythm of their jog.

“I hesitated, you know,” Alan said finally, his gaze firmly on the ground in front of them. “I had a shot when she first attacked you. I could have stopped her. You might have been able to get close enough without her blasting through your shield. I just couldn’t do it.”

“You did, though,” Jake said, remembering how an arrow had diverted the Corrupter, letting Jake focus on closing the distance.

“Only because I thought she’d got you with that shot, the anger pulled me through,” Alan said, shaking his head before looking up at Jake once more with a guilty expression. “I almost got you killed.”

“But you didn’t,” Jake said, pulling Alan to a stop and gripping his shoulder. “Most people would hesitate in that situation. What matters is that you got through it and helped me.”

“You didn’t hesitate, though. I saw you charge straight in at them.”

“Well, the stakes and the reasons were different, but it’s not the first time I’ve dealt with something like that,” Jake said, memories of a dark alley and a bloodied knife coming back to him for a moment.

“I guess I’m just trying to get my head around everything,” Alan sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. “They were still people, you know. I’m trying to pretend it’s the same as the Dungeon, but it’s not.”

“I know,” Jake said, one hand rubbing an old scar along his left arm. “I know.”

“Hey, come on,” Karl called out from the top of the next hill, waving impatiently for them to catch up.

“Look, just take things a day at a time for now,” Jake said as they set off once more. “We can talk things through if you need to, alright?”

“Yeah, thanks, Jake,” Alan said, the ghost of a smile touching his face for a moment before they turned their focus back to their run.

-**-

They took some time to cool down and get some food after the run before stopping off at Ivaldi’s to deposit their Wyrdged. It felt strange, and the ten percent fee hurt to pay, but if this all went wrong, it was worth it to have money to come back to.

“Are you not going to deposit your Wyrdgeld?” Jake asked after he noticed that Nepthys wasn’t going to head inside.

“I’m confident enough in my own abilities for a tier one Dungeon, especially being part of a supporting group,” Nepthys said with a laconic shrug, her hands resting on the hilts of her blades.

“A confidence I wish I shared,” Jake said with a grim laugh. “This is one of the weakest Dungeons we’ll ever face, and we can’t even beat it without help.”

“A feeling that all delvers get at some point or another. The trick is to remember that you’ll gain in strength too,” Nepthys said, giving Jake a meaningful look. “Even if you fall in the fight today, we will simply finish it tomorrow. One way or another, we will complete this Dungeon.”

“This is it then,” Jake said, mostly to himself, as he looked over at the Dungeon.

“It’s not too late. While we will most definitely win, we can wait for your mentors to return,” Nepthys said softly, leaning in to keep their words private.

“No. I don’t know how long I have until the Triarchy notices me or even how long until some Corrupters find me. No, I have to start pushing hard if I want to get to tier two and get a normal Class.”

“Is that what you want, to cast this aside?”

“Yes,” Jake said flatly, giving Nepthys a hard look. “Right now, I have all the downsides and none of the benefits. People want to kill me for a Class I know nothing about. If I could trade it for a standard fighters Class, I would.”

“Even knowing what we discussed earlier?”

Jake sighed and rubbed his face as he considered her words. “It’s hard for me to really take all that into consideration. It’s not like I’m making a difference or helping anyone anyway.”

“I see,” Nepthys said with a slow nod. “All I ask then is that you keep an open mind as you progress towards your next tier.”

“I can do that much,” Jake said, pleased that she wasn’t trying to force him to commit to the Class. “Come on, let’s go find the others.”

-**-

Despite Rhew’s reservations, they gathered outside the Dungeon, ready for their first delve without the watchful presence of Ari.

It felt odd not to have the older Classer watching over them, but Jake could feel that they were ready to win this now. The murk hounds had been the final obstacle, but the Enhanced creatures were less problematic than they had once been, and Nepthys brought a lot of power and versatility to the team.

Lighting their torches, they entered the first floor of the Dungeon, the close-in tunnels a familiar experience by this point for most of them.

“This is somewhat unfortunate,” Nepthys said as they moved through the first floor, dispatching the rats that attacked them with practised ease. “My preferred fighting style is best with more room to work with. I’ll stick to a single blade for now. Does it get any wider?”

“In places, mainly where the wasps or the final fights are,” Jake said as he flicked the blood from his sword and drew the Wyrdgeld from the rat he’d killed.

“Very well, please don’t judge my skills too harshly in the meantime.”

“We won’t,” Jake promised, shooting Rhew a warning look before she could do more than roll her eyes.