Soulforged Dungeoneer

Galveston Wharf's Dungeon is actually over water. In fact, it was deemed one of the most inconvenient Dungeon locations in the state. Not because it was difficult to get to, but because it was dead smack in the middle of the Galveston Ship Channel, which feeds a number of docks between Galveston Island proper and Pelican Island. When the Dungeons had appeared, before we knew that they were mostly harmless, they'd moved a large floating platform under the Dungeon entrance and secured that, cutting off shipping through that part of the Channel.

It wasn't so bad anymore, but some Dungeoneers had also made a more permanent island under the portal with Earth- and Metal-type magic and building skills, and once they got started the military insisted on expanding the controlled area enough that it had remained something of a navigation hazard. They'd deepened and widened what remained of the Channel, where they could, and there were plans for some raiseable bridges, but suffice it to say, all of the docks were grumpy that it was still there, and none of them were happy for the business it brought to the area.

The 50-to-100 level Dungeons, like the Wharf, were the lowest level Dungeons that were typically used for grinding massive amounts of money--my experiences in the lower dungeons with getting lots of rare drops and perfect corpses were an aberration, both due in large part to my status as a solo diver, and a lot of the value of my goods was their rarity more than quality.

The lowest level loot you could get out of a dungeon like the Wharf was considered pretty good, and by the time you left to go to higher level dungeons, the difficulty of the early floors was nothing. If Pearland and Armand Bayou were introductions to being a Dungeoneer, this was your introduction to the business of being a Dungeoneer.

For those who were interested in that sort of thing, anyway.

Pelican Island itself had been mostly undeveloped, swampy lowlands, and the only reason that the Pelican Island side of the channel became home to the facilities supporting the National Guard and the Dungeon was because the Galveston Island side already had stuff built, and nobody wanted their businesses torn down. So, again with great assistance from Dungeoneers and their magic, a large stone foundation and some bridges were now there to give you access to the Dungeon entrance, with the National Guard keeping control over both the Dungeon itself and the entrance to the facilities.

Where there was profit, there was crime, of course.

Susie was waiting in the parking lot when I got there, and Louise was a little after me. On the other side of the parking lot from the controlled area was a bazaar that I'd long since been warned about, but I had no interest in it. Susie was sitting on top of a trash can in full glass-brass-and-leather Steampunk regalia, swinging her legs and checking her phone like a teenager. When Louise, once again replete in her white silk Priestess clothes, finally met up with the two of us, I felt distinctly underdressed.

I put on a copied version of my new sunglasses and pretended I didn't care.

"You two ready?" asked Susie, and we nodded. She hopped off the trash can, finishing a text message or something before putting her phone away. She didn't seem particularly concerned with anything, just kind of strolling into the controlled area like it was a boring day-job.

As we'd kind of expected, even though I was given assurances over the phone, my and Louise's low levels did attract some interest.

"You know you can't come in here, right?" The guy at the gate put out a hand to stop me. "Levels fifty and up, only."

"I know." I had the Dungeon Pass already ready to toggle on, and displayed it immediately. "I'm allowed. The Priestess, too."

The guard kind of blinked at me a few times, smiling like he was duty-bound to do so even as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to actually do.

"Don't worry about it, Bob," said Susie, patting him on the shoulder. "It's already taken care of."

Bob looked from me to Susie and back again, and dropped his hand, looking confused.

That happened two more times before we finally stepped into the Dungeon.

This time, even though we'd just more or less randomly picked a time, we weren't alone going in, plus there was already another party on the first floor. The first whole biome, though, was dedicated to quantity-over-quality, clearly leaning into the fact that the dungeon had been designed with money in mind. It made me wonder what the thought process of the Administrator was, given how the earlier Dungeons had been fairly hostile.

Not that this wasn't.

We found ourselves at the bottom of a long grassy hill, and at the top of the hill, a permanently setting (or rising?) sun hung, blinding us to the hordes of men that charged down the hill, screaming violently. Further up the hill, a wood picket wall waited, and more men manned that wall with muskets, though they were currently fighting another group of Dungoneers. I shielded my eyes to get a better look at the charging men and women, matching the description I'd already heard from Susie to what was I was seeing.

They looked vaguely Nordic, which didn't fit in my head with the muskets at all. They had hatchets and round shields like I would expect from a Viking mythos, but without the stereotypical horned hats, and all the men had gemstone armor and all the women had gemstone wings--of various colors. And there were a lot of them--probably five had spawned for every person that entered the Dungeon, by my rough count. Their species name varied by their gem color--things like "Ruby Viking" and "Emerald Valkyrie"--and I actually had a fleeting moment of sadness that the names were not all that interesting. No puns, no stupid nonsense, just a straightforward, boring description.

For all that, though, it was kind of a visual spectacle. The sunlight glinting off of the gemstone armor and wings was not only distracting, it was honestly pretty goddamn awesome. One of the Valkyries, a Sapphire, got immediately between me and the sun and her blue gem wings shined like... well, I had no comparison. It was a heck of a thing.

"Here they come," said one from the other group next to us, and they settled in for a fight. Given that they were well above the entrance requirements for the Dungeon, if they expected the fight to be tough... well, I had a moment of worry that I might have bitten off a bit much.

Susie caught her massive brass Gatling gun with one hand as it fell out of her inventory, and squeezed the trigger. I don't know how she got used to aiming it, since it was an underhand gun--the pistol grip was at the top, and although it was counterweighted so it pressed up against her forearm from below, a big chunk of metal was hanging out beyond her hand. It spun up with a sharp whirring noise and a whistle of escaping steam, and then began to fire.

It was an impressive sight, but it was a more impressive sound. I had expected that the brass machine would have a tinny noise, or else it would sound exactly like a more contemporary minigun, but it had a sound all its own--it was slower firing, and each bullet left with a deep, bassy doom that sounded like she was firing shells a lot larger than the ammo casings that fell from her gun. Somehow, she also didn't seem to feel any recoil from it, or else her Strength was fantastic.

By my count, two bullets was enough to kill one of the charging gemstone Vikings, though of course it varied based on where each bullet landed. Either way, she got her hits in pretty reliably, and a bunch fell.

When the field had been thinned a little bit, she let off the trigger and nodded. "Okay, boys and girls, I won't hog all the fun. Go to it, and yell if you need support.

The other group was looking at her, but nodded thanks after a moment and charged.

I turned and gave Louise a grin, then stalked forward myself towards the three left on our side of the field, saving myself for a burst of speed as I prepared the Executioner. Thanks to my practice, I was able to slip into my Telekinesis trance without Merry's help, and just as I got to the first of the Vikings, I jumped into the air, twisting so that when I was completely inverted, head to the ground and heels to the sky, I was also able to swing a two-handed overhead vertical swing directly into the fact of the nearest enemy.

No extra damage from style points, alas, but it helped me put all of my momentum into his face.

The rebound from hitting him in the face also spun me end over end, but with all my use of Telekinesis, I wasn't going to be bothered by that. Now, of course, I was in the middle of three vikings, and that meant going on the defensive. The Executioner, fortunately, was large enough to be a shield-sword, while being weightless to me, as my equipment always was. The two that hadn't just gotten hit in the face came at me with their hatches first, while the other recovered, and I blocked both just by putting my weapon about where I expected them to strike. Both hatches bounced off easily.

Quantity, not quality, on this floor.

I dropped the Executioner on the my previous victim's head again, just as he was recovering, then jumped over his head and slashed open his back. I was doing well, of course; the Executioner had the Hero's Bane enhancement on it, and with the level difference, I was getting good damage, especially out of the headshots. Still, even common enemies here were taking their hits and staying up.

I made several quick strikes, adding telekinetic sharpness to the blade and extra force behind every swing. It only took one more crit to get rid of the viking, but three crits and four body blows was a lot of fighting for what was definitely not a one-on-one fight.

The surge of experience was nowhere near leveling me up, but I didn't care. I blocked the hatchet coming in on the right, dodging the other, and then transitioned to another blow to the face of the guy on the left. Now that I knew about how much punishment he'd take, I put a bunch of effort into making three more fast strikes to the head, and I was down to one.

The last viking put his hand to his mouth and blew a whistle. Two of the Gem Valkyries abandoned their fight with the other party to try to come to his aid, but... well, I didn't exactly wait for them to arrive before opening the guy's skull.

The two shrieking women with glittering wings dived at me, and I rose to meet them, grinning.

Before long, this part of the battle was over. The other team seemed to have gotten through it unharmed as well, though I think they were expecting to get overwhelmed before Susie intervened. We all looked up the hill, and found that the group ahead of us had finished their assault on the fort walls, and presumably moved on to the third part of the floor.

The other team looked at us, and the leader said, "You going right away?"

I checked my experience total and grinned. "You can go first. We'll wait until you're done and follow."

Susie raised her eyebrow at me, but I waited until the others had gone before materializing a book out of nowhere and handing it over.

"Enhancement sage. Hmmm." A grin spread across her face. "Awesome. Let's see what we can do with this."