Level One God

“Hey ho,” the white-robed cleric said. He was still squinting up at me. As a kid, my grandma had a pet chihuahua, and I was never sure if it was thinking about biting me or about to fall asleep. The grommet hero gave me the exact same impression. His voice was even more scratchy and wobbly than Grimbo’s.

“Hi there,” I said, trying to inject some respect into my tone. The grommets obviously thought this guy was something special. Maybe he was? After all, I couldn’t quite imagine what would lead a grommet to gaining two levels. Poor tunneling skills that caused a collapse and led to the demise of an unlucky monster?

The hero grommet wore a white robe trimmed with green that was clipped to his shoulderless, buoy shaped body with hair pins to keep it from falling off. He also appeared to be missing a tooth—maybe a sign of his extensive combat experience. Or… maybe a sign that he was ancient?

Grimbo turned toward the hero. “This one is called… Timbo.”

“This one likes… just Tim,” the grommet said, smiling from behind his hairs.

“Alright. Nice to meet you, Tim. I’m… very impressed. I’ve never met such a powerful grommet.”

There was happy womping to my left and right. The grommets liked me complimenting this guy, it seemed.

“Are you needing… a healer?” Tim asked. He spoke like a fragile old man. I honestly just wanted to ask him if he needed a comfortable place to sit and rest, but he seemed like he really wanted to help.

“Uh…” I said, searching my arms and finding a small cut on the top of my hand. I must have scratched it at some point after waking up from the bedroll. “Yes. That would be great. Thank you all so much for bringing your hero…”

Tim approached as the grommets gave soft, reverent womps.

He bit the top of his root staff, turned it over, and smeared some combination of his saliva and the juice of the root on my cut. It burned and made the cut hurt worse. I smiled and nodded my head. “Much better. Thank you.”

Grimbo raised his hands, eyes shut in blissful celebration. “This one feels… accomplishment. Today, our gromville has helped.”

“So much help,” I agreed. “Thank you. There’s actually still a favor I hoped to ask. A very important job you could all help us with, actually.”

Grimbo shuffled forward as if he hadn’t heard me. He was looking at something behind me. “Who is—” Grimbo said, noticing Pebble for the first time. Grimbo’s wide eyes strained, as if he was trying to open them even wider. “This one feels… awe.”

Pebble gave a nervous wobble, but stayed still and let Grimbo scoop him up in his hairless, three-fingered hands.

I sighed. A quick check of my map confirmed nothing had really changed and we weren’t in immediate danger. I supposed I could let the grommets be weird for just a couple minutes before explaining the details of what I needed from them.

Grimbo muttered something quiet to Pebble as the rest of the Grommets—Timbo included—gathered around and womped at him.

Pebble, the little attention-whore he was, seemed to be eating it all up.

#

The horde of grommets wandered around the boss chamber. They were deeply curious about everything. They waddled up to the giant boss’ corpse, touching it, wobbling, and occasionally fainting. One of them nearly took a bite of the blown-up Eclipsed, probably mistaking it for a root. A fellow grommet stopped him and they both shared a few laughs, only to stop yet another grommet who was about to nibble on the Eclipsed.

It felt like we had released a few classrooms of rambunctious kindergarteners into the room. Even Timbo was busy trying to rip a large root from the wall, maybe hoping to replace his now-bitten staff.

Zahra helped him with the root, earning a smile and squinted eyes from the grommet hero. The two spoke softly about something I couldn’t quite hear.

“What is even happening right now?” Lyria asked.

“I think we just need to let them get the excitement out of their systems. They were spying on this place through tiny eye-holes. I don’t think they expected to get to explore the actual battlefield.”

Thorn, Sylara, and Ramzi were surrounded by small mobs of curious grommets. The creatures seemed particularly interested in the sekmeti. They kept reaching up their stubby fingers to touch the golden freckles on the sekmetis’ otherwise deep, purple skin.

To their credit, Ramzi and Zahra seemed amused by the attention, rather than bothered.

Thorn was being asked questions about his shield chain ability. Sylara was watching the grommets distrustfully, as if she expected a sudden ambush. I supposed she didn’t realize they were all level 1.

To the grommets, I realized we were like characters on a TV show they very much enjoyed. It felt like hanging around a convention while fans made their rounds, inspecting the set and interacting with the actors.

“Did you really advance without an ascension token?” Lyria asked when nobody was near us.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to deal with Rake before we can finally get out of here. I needed to find a way.”

“Okay, but how?”

“I just kind of did what I always do… I went on instinct and hoped it would work. It honestly wasn’t quite as complicated as I thought it would be.” I spent a little while trying to explain it, but it seemed like I lost Lyria when I tried to describe how I manipulated the mana. Either I was doing a bad job explaining, or she couldn’t interact with mana and the spiritual realm like I could, making my words sound like nonsense.

She gave me a long look, then shook her head. “I’m just glad you’re on our side,” she said.

I gave her a small smile. “Always.”

Lyria smiled back, then sighed, eyes falling to my feet and then lifting up to my face. “You know you were already tall enough. Did you really have to grow more? I feel like I’m talking to your chest now.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Next time I advance, I’ll make sure to request a heightless advancement because my partner-in-crime is self-conscious about her height.”

She made a mockingly sour face, but then her expression grew suddenly serious. “Is… the other stuff okay? The dark mana stuff? I was worried we lost you back there, but I know your bedroll supposedly cures it. Sleeping did cure you, right?”

“Not completely,” I admitted. “I can still feel it, but not like before. I think I’ll be able to use it in small doses each day, and then I can feed what leaks out to my bedroll at night. I’ll get a fresh start each day with no dark mana in my body, and my bedroll will get a tasty snack.”

“Does this mean you’re not getting rid of the creepy bedroll and the bed bugs?”

“Probably not. I still need to make sure the dark mana can recharge on its own, though. It’s possible I would need to come to a dungeon to kind of… refuel, somehow? But I have this feeling it doesn’t work like that. I think my body is creating its own dark mana now, somehow.”

“As long as you’re careful,” she said. “When that stuff had you under its control, you were… honestly terrifying.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I could see what was happening, but I couldn’t control it. I would have never—”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Sorry for throwing the bedroll on your head, by the way. I kind of expected it to bite your leg or something.”

“I tried to melt you in half with an elemental laser beam. I don’t think you need to apologize for anything.”

“So what’s this big plan?” Lyria asked. “You always seem to have one. Any chance it involves not facing that murderous asshole?”

She spoke easily, almost as if it was a light subject. But the fear was obvious in her features. She was just putting on a brave face, and it only reinforced my resolve. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Lyria or the others.

“I do have an idea. Once the grommets calm down, I’m going to explain it to everybody. But I think I’ll have to admit I have a kind of map, or none of it will make much sense.”

Lyria looked thoughtful. “You can claim it’s an ability. Some kind of unusual passive, maybe?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Hey,” I said, lowering my voice and pulling Lyria even farther away from the others. “Have you ever heard of a fusion class?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I noticed the giant bone tree vanished. Why do I feel like you’re about to tell me that happened because you used the altar?”

“I definitely used it.”

Lyria looked amused, but not surprised.

I spent a few minutes explaining everything about the fusion class to her while we waited for the grommets to stop doing weird grommet things.

“Gods…” Lyria breathed. “So you have an open space to equip another class again? And you still have all your abilities from the Heart and Soul class?”

“Right. Minus the merged ones. The new fused abilities aren’t that much different than the original abilities, but they are slightly improved. The real benefit is they take up half the ability slots now. I already had more active abilities than slots before this, and I didn’t have any spare passive slots. Now? I’ve got five active skills and still have a spare active skill slot. And I’ve got two empty passive slots just waiting to get used.”

Lyria looked thoughtful, and then her eyebrows shot up. “Wait… Do you realize what that means?” She laughed at herself, shaking her head. “Of course you do. You’re Brynn.”

I smiled. “Yeah. If I find another one of these altars, I can merge another corestone into my fusion class. Assuming each merger bumps the rarity of my stone up by one tier, that means three more fusions. But that also means the final fusion would still leave an open corestone slot. So I’d finish out with nine active and nine passive skill slots, a mega class where I merged all four combat classes and one crafting class. And then I’d still be able to equip a final, non-fusion class in my last slot and level it up as much as possible.”

“Gods,” she breathed. “That’s… I think I can see why a god would start over for that kind of power.”

“Right. I haven’t thought yet about which stone I want to use next, but I do happen to know somebody with a spare Sword stone…”

She lifted her eyes to meet mine. “You’re asking if you can use my Sword stone?”

“Back at the adventurer’s guild in Thrask, Poppy mentioned stones don’t imprint the user’s ability until you reach Tier 2 or evolve a new ability. No offense… but I’m assuming you didn’t do that with your Sword stone, right?”

Lyria gave me a rueful look. “You know damn well I didn’t make a shred of progress with that stone.”

“Any chance I can I borrow it?”

“We both know you’re going to wind up tiering up a skill or evolving one almost as soon as you touch this thing. So let’s call it what it is. You can have it. Not like I could do anything with it, anyway.”

She focused for a moment, then produced the dark red Sword stone, offering it to me in her palm discreetly.

I thanked her with a nod and took it. I doubted I would have enough time to really master any new abilities, but I didn’t have to. Equipping this stone would grant me two new passives and two new actives. I had one spare active skill slot and two open passive skill slots. If nothing else, the passives could give me another edge for the coming fight, even if I wasn’t going to have time to practice much with the new abilities.

Later, I could give it some proper deliberation.

With a familiar hum of excitement, I tried to push the stone into my newly opened class slot, and—

Nothing?

Lyria was watching me. She frowned at my expression. “Is something wrong?”

“It won’t…” I sighed, trying again. The corestone wouldn’t slot in. I knew I wasn’t mistaken. I definitely had compressed my Heart and Soul stone into one stone, freeing up a new class slot. But for some reason, I wasn’t able to push Lyria’s Sword stone into the open slot. “Dammit.”

She scratched her head. “Maybe you got it wrong? Maybe it just fused some abilities, not your corestones?”

“No,” I said. “I have no doubt about it. There’s an open slot for a new stone. I just… There must be something I’m not understanding. Do you mind if I hold onto this so I can try again every so often? Maye there’s just some sort of cooldown after fusing stones?”

“Consider it yours,” she said. “I’ll say we’re even if you manage to get us out of here alive. If we die, then I’ll expect my stone back. Deal?”

I grinned. “Yeah. That’s a deal.”

It wasn’t long before Grimbo and Timbo approached us. Grimbo was still holding Pebble in both hands as if he was a priceless artifact. Pebble didn’t have much of a face, but I imagined him giving me a shit-eating grin, like a pet getting way more attention than he’s used to.

Timbo narrowed his wise eyes and all the other grommets who were scattered around the cavern seemed to sense the hero was about to speak. A sudden silence cut through the womps, shuffling, and chewing as they munched on various rocks and roots. All eyes were on Timbo.

“Our gromville is… desiring to save the bearer of the coins. In exchange, you will let us watch. Hm?”

Zahra, Sylara, Thorn, and Ramzi all came over to stand with Lyria and me to face the gathering sea of grommets. Timbo had indeed found a new staff, but this one already had a bite mark out of the bottom. I wasn’t sure if it was a quality-control bite, or if somebody else had needed ineffective medical treatment.

“That would be great,” I said. I was doing my best to be diplomatic. On the one hand, these grommets were kind of adorable, and I didn’t want to be a dick. On the other hand, I actually needed their help. If they wanted to watch me loot later, they were welcome to it. I’d just be happy to be alive by that point.

“I have an ability to see a map of the dungeon,” I said carefully. I noticed a bit of not-entirely-surprised eyebrow raising from my party. The grommets all made a low, appreciative ooh. One of them even fainted.

“And,” I said, pushing on. “Since you guys have been watching us, you know there’s a dangerous man and some people who want us dead. If we try to walk out of here, we’re going to run into him at the exit, and that’s only assuming we survive passing by his half-mad ally and a full-fledged Forsaken who are in the passages between us and the exit.”

This prompted worried looks from my party. The grommets, on the other hand, just looked like television viewers learning that next week’s episode was going to be particularly high stakes.

“Before I get to my plan, I wanted to ask… can you all simply tunnel us straight out of this place and back to Thrask?” Part of me hoped the answer was that they couldn’t. I knew we couldn’t turn down such an easy escape, but I also didn’t love the idea of leaving the clump of adventurers to the losing battle with the spawning room. Maybe it wasn’t our problem, but I knew each of those dots represented real people. Every time I looked, they were being pushed farther and farther back down the tunnel, too. They were losing the fight, and what would happen if they lost completely?

Maybe a colder person would hope they did. The monsters would overrun the exit, meaning Rake would probably be forced to clear out. We could let the chaos pass by and slip away when everybody was too busy to notice.

But that would mean countless deaths and probably a monster attack on the city of Thrask. I didn’t want that on my conscience, especially when I thought my idea might be the perfect way to help them.

“No,” Grimbo said. “Thrask is having… magical bubbles. Tomte don’t like digging in.” Grimbo smiled slightly. “Once our gromville walks into the city… then we dig.”

“Wait… so all of you grommets just walked into this dungeon? And nobody asked questions?”

Grimbo gave a nervous, shaky laugh, then pointed to Timbo.

The gray-beared grommet touched what I assumed was a belly beneath his fur, eyes shining with milky pride. Timbo’s voice was soft and whistled on the “s” sounds. “This one is… a member of the adventurer’s guild. Respected. Feared.”

“And you told them the other grommets were with you?” I asked. I was trying to imagine a squadron of what I had counted to be fifty-two grommets marching into Beastden dungeon with Timbo at their head.

Grimbo wobbled from left to right, as if he was somewhat embarrassed. “Our gromville did make what your kind call… bribes.”

Timbo closed his eyes entirely now, nodding sagely. “Grommets must fight with secrecy. Hmm. Yes.”

“Okay,” I said, deciding it wasn’t really important to iron out these particular details. Apparently, the grommets did just waltz into the dungeon and bribed people so they wouldn’t spread rumors about an army of grommets in the walls. All that really mattered was knowing we couldn’t tunnel straight back to Thrask. “Could you just dig us out of the dungeon itself? Not back to Thrask, but back to the surface so we could avoid the entrance chamber where Rake is waiting?”

Grimbo held up his fleshy, bulbous fingers. “Rocks are tasty, yes, but we are not good at digging through them. This one speaks… apology.”

“So the dungeon is enclosed in rock?” I asked.

Grimbo and a few other grommets nodded.

“Alright. So my plan is our best shot, then. Here’s what I’m thinking…”