Dungeon Noble - Squire

After Felix’s chilling statement, they made their way back to the inn where they were staying, rejoining with everyone else.

Jake felt battered and exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep it all off, but even so, he felt like he was in better shape than his friends.

Nepthys looked the best off, and she even managed a small smile as she saw Jake walk in. In contrast, Rhew looked the worst, her skin being so pale that Jake was concerned she was bleeding out even as he watched.

Ari was sitting with them, feet up on a chair as he munched on a sandwich, with a familiar satchel placed next to him.

“How’d they do?” Felix asked as he and Jake joined the group.

“Two complete runs. I had to step in a couple of times each run, and we ran out of potions, but otherwise, not too bad.” Ari gave Jake a measuring look as Felix shrugged his satchel off and placed it on the floor, the remaining potions clinking together loudly. “How about you?”

“Two runs, better than expected. I’ll take Borvon through the forest tomorrow. The rest of them will do a run to completion for both the others.” Felix paused, his eyes flicking around the table before he nodded to the kitchen. “Things are growing complex. We need to speak privately.”

Ari nodded and followed Felix through to the kitchen, presumably to be updated on what they’d been doing during the day.

“So, was your day as rough as ours?” Alan asked with a tired laugh.

“It was pretty tough, but it was worth it,” Jake said, thinking of the Wyrdgeld he’d gained and the conversation with Felix. “Felix had me delving on my own. All he did was give me potions when I needed them.”

“Same for us, though we were working as a team. I can’t even imagine going through one of these alone,” Alan said with a slight shiver.

“Is that what he’s going to have me doing tomorrow, do you think?” Karl slumped slightly as Jake nodded. “I’m not looking forward to that, not at all.”

“It’s worth a lot of Wyrdgeld, though,” Jake said, a genuine smile crossing his face. “Enough that I paid my Triarchy tax already.”

“That’s almost enough to make me want to do it,” Rhew said with a forlorn expression. “But I don’t hate myself like you two, so I’m fine with our normal delves.”

“I never thought I’d see the day you turned down the chance for more Wyrdgeld.” Jake gave the ice mage a surprised look, well aware of how eager she was to earn more.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be great, but I’m a caster. My skill set isn’t exactly tailored to fighting alone.”

“Not yet, but give it time,” Nepthys said, a hint of a smile quirking her lips at Rhew’s surprised expression. “A few ranks and a few Skills and these Dungeons will be entirely possible for you to complete alone. Not easy, but possible.”

Rhew fell silent as she considered Nepthys’s words, with both Alan and Karl looking thoughtful as they sipped their drinks.

“By the way,” Jake said, clearing his throat to get their attention. “I met a crafter Classer today, and he’s asked if he can stick with us. We’ll give him some of the materials we find, and he’ll make us items we can use. There’ll be Wyrdgeld costs to some of it, but no doubt he’ll be cheaper than buying things.”

“A crafter just for us?” Nepthys echoed with evident surprise. “That’s not something we should turn down. Not at all.”

“Are they that rare?” Alan asked, a familiar look of curiosity in his eyes.

“There are far less of them than combat Classers. It does balance out by them having a far lower mortality rate in each tier, but even so, they’re hard to find.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Karl said with a slight shrug. “What’s his name?”

“Varin. I sent him some of the wood I got from my delve, so we’ll see what he can do with that. I wanted to get your okay before accepting his offer, though.”

“You’ve got my approval,” Rhew said, somewhat reluctantly. “As much as I don’t want to give away resources, a crafter will be incredibly useful. Especially when we want to start getting better equipment.”

Ari and Felix took that moment to come back into the room, cutting off any further discussion. The two older Classers had little to discuss, however, and sent them off to rest, ready for a day of delving.

-**-

Jake woke early the next day, eager to get to grips with the third Dungeon and bind it. The Boon he had already was powerful, so the opportunity to claim a new one had him impatient to get started.

Part of Jake warned that he had to be cautious and careful, but at the same time, he knew that if his friends had completed the Dungeon already. That meant it was doable, and his experience with the damned flowers had taught him not to underestimate his own power.

Karl was equally conflicted, albeit for different reasons, about his own agenda for the day. Thankfully, the lingering injury from the fire Dungeon had faded overnight, along with his revival sickness, so Karl was in as good a shape as he was going to be.

Felix wasted no time in taking Karl away for his specialised training as soon as they finished breakfast, leaving Jake and the others to follow a whistling Ari to their own Dungeon. Ari would be staying outside, so that this delve counted for Jake, but he would be holding onto their Wyrdgeld to keep it safe.

“So, what can you tell me about this one?” Jake asked as they left Casthorpe, heading in the opposite direction to the plant-themed Dungeon. He posed the question to his companions in general, knowing that they’d all likely have different takes on things.

“Well, it’s not what we expected at all,” Rhew said, seemingly hesitating for a moment.

“It’s an urban environment that seems to focus on the undead, the Velj in specific,” Nepthys said, taking over from Rhew.

“Undead?” Jake echoed with surprise. He’d been expecting something elemental in nature after the first two they’d encountered here, definitely not urban undead, whatever that would look like.

“Mostly Velj, like Nepthys said. Ari called the Enhanced creatures we fought Empty Ones,” Alan said, nodding towards their guide, who was studiously ignoring them.

“Never thought we’d be fighting undead,” Jake muttered to himself with a slight shiver. The Velj were essentially zombies, animated corpses that served more powerful undead. The stories called them lingering souls that wouldn’t pass on from this life.

Jake had little in the way of formal education, but even he had heard of these creatures, which made the idea of fighting them so strange.

“So, what do I need to know to fight these things?” Jake asked, deciding to actively take advantage of the fact that his friends had already fought their way through this Dungeon before.

“Well, the zombies are easy enough once you get used to them,” Alan said with a slight shrug. “The main issue is that they don’t feel pain, so they just don’t stop unless you make them. The magic animating them seems to be concentrated in the head and heart, so we target those and hope for the best.”

“Empty Ones are tougher. They’re fast, aggressive and relentless. We beat them by focusing on them immediately and ignoring the zombies. Zombies are slow, so as long as we react quickly, it’s manageable.” Nepthys took over the explanation before carrying on to discuss the strategies they’d employed.

It turned out that the others hadn’t encountered the Challenge room on either of their delves, which wasn’t ideal. They all knew varying amounts of how different Jake’s Class was, but exposure to how things were different when he wasn’t there would highlight that.

Since binding his first Dungeon, Jake had more of a grip on what his Class was, and he knew with a surprising amount of confidence that the Challenge rooms would always appear for him.

Turning back to Nepthys, Jake focused on her words and learning as much as he could about this new Dungeon. He’d deal with the rest as it became an issue.

-**-

“I know you said urban, but this is still weird,” Jake said, looking around the interior of the first floor of the Dungeon with wide eyes.

In some ways, the closest of the other Dungeons to this was the plant-based one with its forests, though this was quite different to that.

For all intents and purposes, the interior of this Dungeon was a city.

The door that Jake and the others had entered through was a large and ornate set of double doors leading into an elaborate-looking building. The path ahead of them was a cobbled street, and though it was the widest path he’d seen yet, the edges were bounded by tall stone buildings.

Port Emerald was an old city, which meant that sections of it were particularly cramped, thanks to generations of new constructions. The worst of those sections felt similar to what Jake was now looking at.

There were no gaps between the buildings, just a long line of grey stone structures with little variation between them.

Jake could imagine that the line ran unbroken for miles ahead of them, but his view was obstructed by a light fog that hung over everything. It was nighttime wherever they were, so the fog was slightly illuminated by the moon, but visibility wasn’t great.

“Ready, Jake?” Nepthys asked softly, waiting for him to gather himself and nod before leading the way down the street.

The first zombie was a dark shape looming in the fog ahead of them, its uneven gait bringing it closer to them as Alan took a shot at its head and missed.

The zombie got close enough that Jake could make out more of what it looked like. The monster had the form of an average-looking man, wearing labourers’ clothes that had numerous rips and tears.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Nepthys said as Alan cursed and drew a new arrow.

For all that Alan was putting the training in and using his Skill, he was still relatively new to using a bow, and the distance to the zombie was twice that of the lizards they’d fought.

The shambling corpse adjusted itself as Nepthys approached, ignoring the blades in her hands as it tried to seize her.

The wet thud of the zombie’s head hitting the floor set the tone for the first of the floor as the four of them worked steadily through the zombies.

Despite the mist and the unnerving environment, it was the smoothest start to a Dungeon that Jake had had. Unlike Alan, however, he wasn’t fool enough to say something like that out loud.