Trials of a Dungeon

Chapter-Eight

Trials of a Dungeon

They settled on entering the dungeon to map out as much as possible before they needed to head to town for resupply. I was actually excited to see an honest-to-gods dungeon.

Horus led everyone to the entrance.

It wasn’t exactly what I’d expected. It looked like a hole in a large boulder, but the edges shifted slowly, fractal patterns lazily crawling along the stone.

As I walked around it, I could see the tunnel inside. The light seemed to roll, almost like I was looking through a heat haze, then fell off suddenly into darkness. The contrast between the lit stone and the dark beyond was way too sharp.

I cast Illuminate Area and anchored it in front of me, but the light from it didn’t reach much farther inside. It would be nice if this spell could move, I thought, then paused.

Actually, I could probably make it move if I changed the control frame.

Emiri walked beside me and gave me a quizzical look. “What are you doing?”

I looked at her, thrown for a second. “Right. I haven’t seen anything like this before. I wanted to light up the tunnel, but the darkness inside seems thick, like the light is pushing against it.”

Horus seemed to just appear on the other side of me. “Looks pretty normal to me, though I wish we could see farther in. I hate dark dungeons.”

I flinched a bit and turned toward Horus. “Hold on a moment. Let me see if I can illuminate what’s inside,” I said with a chuckle.

I leaned my staff against my shoulder and began recasting Illuminate Area. The pattern flared in front of me, and I studied the control frame. With my left hand, I pulled the anchoring control out of it, surprising myself when it actually worked.

I wasn’t really pulling it out, though. I was anchoring my visualization to the movement.

Then I tried to put a direction control into the frame and realized I didn’t know how to make it slow down. I collapsed the pattern, pulled out the Spell Shaper book, and turned to the control pages.

After spending a moment searching, I found controls for speed, but I also found a more complex intent-based control. Seeing them gave me a better idea of what I really wanted to do. Looking further, I realized my frame had to change as well. Not drastically, but it couldn’t be as simple.

With that, I looked at the group.

They were all staring at me.

“Hold on,” I said. “I think I almost have it.”

Lyris sighed dramatically. “We could have already figured out what was in there if we had just gone in.”

Emiri crossed her arms. “Lyris is right, but I’ve never seen anyone alter a spell mid-cast. Please continue.”

Bhoarn patted Lyris on the head. “The dungeon isn’t going anywhere.”

Lyris smacked his hand away with her staff. “I told you not to pat me on the head like a child!”

I ignored the group and began casting again. This time, I started the frame alterations first, then placed the intent-based controls into the control frame and pushed mana into it. The spell wobbled and flickered before snapping into place in front of me, and a ball of light floated above my hand.

Spell Illuminate Area has gained a modification.

Guided Illuminate Area.

I blinked at the sudden notification, wondering if the arbitrary spells were meant to be templates. Maybe that was why they hadn’t made sense.

Emiri clapped beside me. “Very nice. You did all that for what, a light that looks exactly the same?”

I startled and turned toward her, and the ball of light launched into the forest before popping out of existence against a tree.

“Whoops,” I said, then glared at Emiri. “Now I have to do it again.”

After a few more attempts, I managed to control the light well enough to move it slowly down the tunnel. Once it crossed the threshold, the darkness seemed to react properly, and I could finally see that the tunnel curved left and upward.

I looked back at the group, who seemed pretty unimpressed. Horus finally gave me an exasperated look. “Are we done playing now? Let’s just go in.”

I frowned. “Well, at least we know nothing is going to jump us.”

Bhoarn laughed. “Yeah, and nothing jumped us while you were doing... whatever that was.”

I sighed as Bhoarn passed me and slapped my shoulder hard enough to nearly knock me over. “Come on. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

I pulled my light back, and it timed out, popping out of existence like a soap bubble. Bhoarn and Emiri were the first to enter, with Horus slipping in behind them. Then Lyris grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the hole in reality.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll protect you, so don’t worry so much.”

I chuckled. “I’m not worried. I’m just cautious.”

As soon as I passed into the cave, damp heat hit me in the face. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was like going from the temperate forest straight into the tropics.

I turned and saw Horus placing some kind of small flag down. Confused for a second, I realized he was marking the entrance to the cave.

Behind me, the cave wall was flat where I had walked through just a moment ago.

I put my hand against the wall, and it passed through with a ripple. No light from outside came through at all. Looking up, I noticed something that looked a lot like milky quartz glowing above me, giving off the same light I had seen from outside.

No wonder my light wasn’t doing anything, I thought as I pulled my hand back. I was never shining it into the cave.

Then a window appeared.

Dimensional instability detected.

Planar duplication found.

Type: Trial dungeon.

Biome: Underground.

Monsters: Unknown.

Region: Unknown.

Level: 30-45.

Sentient core likely.

Likely Core Type: Newly formed.

I stared at it for a moment before deciding to ask the veterans what it meant.

“Hey, uh, guys,” I said, still looking at the window. “What the hell is a... well, where do I start? Let’s start with planar duplication.”

Emiri was looking down at a notebook she seemed to have suddenly produced, writing something in it. When she looked up at me, her expression was quizzical. “What do you mean?”

I pointed at my window, then realized I probably looked stupid pointing at nothing. “Damn it. Is there a way I can show you what my window says?”

Lyris snickered. “Of course. Just think about who you want to share it with, and we’ll see your window.”

I turned to look at Lyris, who was looking up at me. “You know, you wouldn’t have to look so high up at me if you stood, I don’t know, six feet away.”

Lyris raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “Nope. I have to stay close if I’m going to protect you.”

I rolled my eyes and thought about sharing it with everyone. The window was about a foot in front of me and followed where I looked, so the group huddled around me, all closing into my personal space at once.

“Hold on,” I said, trying to escape the sudden claustrophobic feeling. “Is there a way I can... never mind.”

I thought about pushing the window away, expanding it, and locking it to a spot. It complied with the thought.

The group turned to look at the window, and Horus walked up to it, rubbing his goatee. “What is this? My window only shows type, biome, monsters, and level range. What does dimensional instability even mean?”

Bhoarn laughed. “Did you not pay attention when you were learning about this stuff? We all know dungeons are parts of other worlds that get attached to ours somehow. The interesting part here is that your window is calling it a copy, not an actual piece of a place.”

I just stared at Bhoarn, and then a spine-chilling thought hit me.

Was I just a copy? Was the reason my friends never came looking because I had never actually vanished?

Emiri looked at me, her expression softening like she could read my mind. She placed a hand on my shoulder as she stepped in front of me, then looked up and spoke quietly.

“You are not a copy. You are not a dungeon monster. Most things that can speak are real. The Eurathi have confirmed this.”

I focused on her. “And how would they know? If it can copy a place, why not a person?”

She poked me in the chest. “Because this place cannot copy a soul. That’s why dungeon monsters can’t breed. Every monster you see in here is made by the dungeon. They can’t duplicate themselves. If they could, we wouldn’t have survived at all.”

“So,” I started, then looked at the flat wall where I knew the passage was, “how did they know? What made them think that if you didn’t know dungeons were copies?”

Emiri looked to the side for a second, then back at me. “They didn’t state it directly. It was concluded because they went home, and something about their system allows them to speak to their people across the planes.”

I nodded. “Did they mention how they returned?”

Emiri shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, they did not.”

I shrugged and forced a small smile. “It’s fine. Maybe this world is better for me anyway. I only had a handful of things I cared about back home.”

I noticed Horus and Bhoarn quietly looking at me as I stepped back from Emiri. Bhoarn nodded once, then started walking deeper into the cave, with Emiri and Horus following.

I recast my new Illuminate Area spell and sent it ahead of Bhoarn, keeping it as high as I could so I didn’t blind him.

We rounded the corner, everyone stopped abruptly, and I could see why.

The cave opened into a large cavern. Intense light cut down randomly through holes in the ceiling, falling in bright shafts across the stone. Small trees grew throughout the cavern, their strangely webbed, semi-transparent leaves catching the light in spots. Wherever the light touched them, the leaves glowed and scattered it through the air.

Something in one of the trees seemed to move, and my eyes flicked toward it, but I couldn’t see anything. After a few moments, I continued surveying the area.

On the right side of the cavern, a steaming lake formed a jagged half-moon against the wall. A large stream of hot water fell into it from somewhere above, splashing down from the ceiling in a constant rush. Clearly, there was some kind of underground aquifer or drainage system keeping the cavern from filling.

I scanned left, and through the haze I could barely make out some kind of carved pillar that extended all the way to the ceiling. That was when I realized we were standing on a path through the sparse subterranean forest. Grass and odd flowers dotted the ground under the trees, following the edges of the trail.

Emiri pointed ahead at the pillar. “We should go check that out. There may be a sub-guardian monster nearby, and relics are often found around structures like that.”

I turned and looked at her, not believing what I had just heard. “Are you saying these places have mini-bosses, bosses, and treasure?”

Lyris poked me in the ribs with her staff and laughed. “We did say we wanted treasure, right?”

I just turned and looked at her, rubbing my ribs. “You guys said loot. I assumed skins and plants and stuff.”

My eyes caught movement again, and I looked up. A large bear-like creature was gliding from one of the trees toward the lake like a sugar glider. The thing looked ridiculous, like a flying bearskin rug.

I identified it, and rather than a full window, I got a short, non-intrusive name and health display.

Descending Ursa

Health 100%

Then it looked at us.

More importantly, it seemed to lock eyes with me before banking sharply in our direction.

I looked around and saw Bhoarn a few paces ahead of me, looking the other way. Emiri was writing in her notebook, and Lyris was at my side, looking opposite the monster. Damn it, Horus was doing that thing where he disappeared, and I couldn’t see him.

“Heads up!” I yelled, pointing at the monster.

It was coming in fast.

I pushed Lyris out of the way and tried to dive to the side, but the thing banked and swung a claw at me. It hit me in the leg and sent me spinning.

I hit the ground and looked up.

The bear was standing over me, ready to swing down and end me then and there, but an arrow suddenly sprouted from its neck in a spray of blood. A heartbeat later, Bhoarn slammed into it and bowled it over.

The pain hit me a moment later, and I looked down at my leg as a fire lance shot over my head. It was broken. The lower part sat at an odd angle, and my bone was sticking out.

Lyris ran over to me, yelling, “No, no. Hold on. This is going to hurt.”

She reached down and snapped my leg straight as her hands began to glow. I screamed. “Oh, holy shit, that hurt.”

She winced, and I looked back down as the wound closed. That hit had taken fifteen percent of my health, but it was already refilling fast.

I noticed the roaring a moment later and scrambled to my feet once my health hit one hundred percent. Turning, I saw Bhoarn bleeding from his ribs, but he was fighting like he hadn’t noticed.

Two more arrows came from nowhere, and I began casting Ice Shard, only to cancel it when the thing’s health hit zero. Bhoarn had driven his sword up through the bear’s chin, and bone cracked outward as the blade forced its way through the skull. The bear stiffened, then fell onto its side.

The only thing I had done was take a hit.

I watched the experience flow into everyone, and a tiny bit flowed into me.

Your party has gained 43,000 experience for defeating a Level 32 Descending Ursa.

Your contribution share is 500 experience.

I lowered my staff and sighed. What had I done that counted as contribution?

I looked back down at my leg and realized Lyris’s healing hadn’t left a single scar behind. If it wasn’t for the ghost of pain still lingering there, I wouldn’t have believed it had ever been broken.

My robe was torn too, but it was already stitching itself back together as I watched.

Then Lyris shoved me. “Why did you push me? You should have let me take the hit and gotten out of the way yourself, you idiot!”

Then she suddenly hugged me and started crying. “Don’t do that again. I’m tougher than I look, and you scared me.”

I just stood there, stunned by the emotional whiplash, and looked at everyone else.

Horus was already looting the bear, while Bhoarn had pulled a cloth from somewhere and was wiping his blade clean, his ribs still bleeding. Emiri was writing in her notebook again. She looked at me, then down at Lyris, and shrugged.

“I told you dungeons are dangerous,” she said. “Especially for you.”

I tapped Lyris on the shoulder, and she looked up at me, sniffling, tears still running down her face.

“I’m fine. You helped,” I said, then pointed at Bhoarn. “He needs to be healed too.”

She wiped her nose and looked over at Bhoarn. Her eyes widened, and she ran to him. “Sorry. Hold on.”

Bhoarn just shrugged as she reached him and started healing his ribs.

Horus turned and smiled at me. With a nod, he bent over, picked up his arrows, and slid them back into his quiver. Looting the bear seemed to have cleaned them, maybe even repaired them.

Was that some kind of exploit?

Lyris looked up at me. “Sorry about earlier. I was afraid I’d failed you already.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t sweat it. You fixed me, good as new. Besides, I chose to be here. I can’t exactly blame you if I die.”

She tapped me lightly with her staff and frowned. “That isn’t funny. You can’t complain if you’re dead.”

I chuckled and started following the group before they left us behind. “Look,” I said, “I pushed you because I didn’t want you to get hurt either. I thought I could get out of the way. I was wrong. Also, I’d push you again. It’s in my nature. I know I barely know any of you, but I don’t want to see any of you hurt.”

She looked at me, unsure about something I’d said. “In this world,” she said, pausing for a moment, “people are less likely to do what you did. Most of us are looking out for ourselves, you know.”

I nodded. I understood that better than she knew. “Yeah, same with my world. But I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t be like everyone else.”

Everyone walked quietly, heads turning from tree to tree. As we got closer, the pillar resolved into a wall, with the “pillar” being the carved end of it. The wall split in two directions at nearly ninety degrees from each other, and both sections looked less built than carved directly out of the stone, stretching all the way to the ceiling.

It occurred to me then that the ceiling didn’t seem to have any supports.

A large piece of stone fell from above.

Light streamed down from the hole the moment it opened.

Everyone stopped and watched the stone fall and bury itself in the soft soil. Then something roared ahead of us.

I turned and saw another Jagged Ursa.

It ducked its head, exposing the bony spikes along its back and shoulders, then charged straight for us. Bhoarn stepped forward, lowering his stance as he raised his shield. Emiri began casting beside him.

The bear hit Bhoarn hard enough to make him slide back about a foot before he slashed it across the face. Emiri’s spell went off a moment later, and a pillar of flame erupted around the bear.

Bhoarn turned his head, then pulsed red for a second before the pillar of flame died away. The bear roared in pain.

I began casting Push, wanting to get the spell into a quick slot, when the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I turned and found another gliding bear heading straight for us.

Push finished just before it hit. The spell struck the Descending Ursa in the face, snapping its head up and sending it flipping awkwardly through the air. It crashed hard into the ground right in front of us.

I drove the end of my staff into its back as it rolled toward me, but the impact shoved me backward. I tried to jump away and ended up tumbling instead.

Lyris cast some form of offensive magic into the thing. She jumped surprisingly high, maybe twenty feet, and a beam of light lanced out from her staff, striking the bear in the throat and burning deep.

I identified it and saw that, between us, we had knocked it down to ten percent health.

An arrow suddenly struck the top of its head.

The bear stopped moving.

Turning, I cast Ice Shard at the bear Emiri and Bhoarn were fighting. I had forgotten how fast it cast now, and the shard glanced off its back, breaking several of the bone spikes loose.

The Jagged Ursa roared as blood geysered from the broken spikes.

Bhoarn noticed immediately and began targeting them, working his way around the bear. A final arrow and fire lance finished the thing off.

After the usual experience flow, a window popped up. I realized I had gained a ton of experience, but this time my body grew warm instead of burning. There was no searing pain as it ran through me.

The euphoric feeling was almost too much.

Your party has gained 42,500 experience for defeating a Level 31 Jagged Ursa.

Your contribution share is 9,000 experience.

You have gained 10,000 experience from excess experience that could not be absorbed by your party.

You are now Level 14.

You have 6 points to distribute.

You have gained 20 additional Health Points.

You have gained 20 additional Mana.

Your skill Mana Control has gained 5 points.

Your Wisdom has gained 4 points.

Another window popped up under it.

Your party has gained 43,000 experience for defeating a Level 32 Descending Ursa.

Your contribution share is 20,100 experience.

You are now Level 17.

You have 15 points to distribute.

You have gained 30 additional Health Points.

You have gained 30 additional Mana.

Your Long Staff skill has increased 2 points.

Push has been fully integrated. Your spell can now be slotted for rapid casting. You have 4 slots remaining.

I assigned my points quickly, putting one into each stat first. After that, I added two more to Strength, three to Constitution, and three to Intelligence, giving me:

Health Points: 398/398

Mana: 278/380

Strength: 21

Endurance: 21

Constitution: 25

Agility: 17

Dexterity: 17

Wisdom: 25

Intelligence: 38

Willpower: 21

I was now level seventeen and had already caught up with Emiri in total mana. I didn’t know why, other than maybe my gains were higher because of the system I had.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing, though.

My shade, or something like it, probably wasn’t lining up correctly with my body.

I shrugged that thought away. No sense speculating about what I didn’t actually know. Instead, I slotted Push into a spell slot.

When I looked back at the group, they were staring at me again.

Emiri put her hands on her hips. “You leveled up again, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. Is that a bad thing?”

Horus shook his head. “This is bullshit. Do you know how long it takes to level normally? Being with us seems to make you the fastest-leveling person around. I mean, typical people can only gain so much experience from a kill, and you seem to have some kind of higher limit.”

Emiri looked from Horus back to me. “What Horus is trying to say is that experience is capped to keep us from exploding from too much life energy. Normal people can’t handle that much.” She turned to Lyris. “Check his shade. It has to be a mess by now.”

Lyris looked at me apologetically. “Sorry. Do you mind if I check?”

I smiled at her. “No, I don’t mind. I’m just as curious as they are.”

She placed her hands on my chest, and a warm pulse ran through me. After a moment, she looked up at me. “Your shade seems to have stabilized. What did you do?”

“That seems a bit personal,” I said with a wink. “I bought an ability that helps stabilize my shade. Thought it’d be a good thing with all the shade talk.”

Lyris nodded. “I’d say so, but still be careful. No one fights monsters this much higher than them because there’s no reward.”

Lyris turned to the others, then back to me. “However, with you, I’d worry that high risk actually does mean high reward. If you overload your shade, you could go catatonic, or worse. We don’t know what would happen if you absorbed too much life force, so I’m really hoping there’s some kind of limiter.”

She frowned. “If there isn’t, I think you’d surge and burn yourself to a crisp.”

Bhoarn chuckled lightly and shook his head. “I think this stray we found is going to live up to the legends of Ferna. I know the book is a fictional retelling, but damn if it isn’t starting to look less fictional.”

Everyone turned to Bhoarn at the same time.

Emiri looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve read Ferna the Faithless Saint?”

Horus laughed so hard I thought he was going to hyperventilate. “You? The big stoic guy?” he said, taking in a deep breath. “I didn’t even know you knew that book.”

Then he straightened and coughed into his hand. “I mean, I of course haven’t read it.”

Lyris looked at Horus and laughed, trying to say something but unable to get it out.

Emiri looked from Lyris back to Horus, clearly trying not to laugh. “I think she is trying to say that you just admitted you read it too.”

Then she let out a quick laugh and recomposed herself almost immediately.

Horus straightened. “Hey, I liked it,” he said, frowning. “Everyone wishes they could be her.”

Lyris nodded rapidly and squeaked out, “Yes.”

I looked at them in confusion, then walked over to the flying bear and thought, loot. The thing kind of fell apart into organized piles, leaving me amused and slightly irritated as I remembered the first beast I’d skinned myself.

When I turned back, the group had calmed down, and Horus was already walking toward me, his bear skinned.

“Mind if I grab my arrows?”

I gestured toward the bear. “Take anything you want. I have zero space for any of it.”

He chuckled. “Ah yes, the dilemma of an adventurer. So much loot and never enough space. It’s alright. When the dungeon resets, it’ll reabsorb all of this. I mostly do it to get my arrows back.”

“Wait,” I said, caught off guard. “The dungeons reset? How does that work?”

He chuckled as he picked up his arrow and slid it into his quiver. “Beats me. I just kill shit and go for the treasures.”

With that, he turned and walked back toward the group.

Emiri was already looking ahead. “I think I see a gate in the wall. Let’s go check and see if we have a sub-guardian or just a place to rest.”

When we finally reached the gate, Emiri shushed us.

“Looks like a sub-guardian. Adam, we are going to do this fight alone. It’s too risky for you to come with us. If a monster crosses your path before we come out, just try not to die.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “Comforting. You know I can’t fight these things alone, right?”

She smiled at me. “You can try your luck with this guy if you like.”

I looked past her, through the gate, and paused.

That was the biggest bear I’d ever seen. It dwarfed the Jagged Ursa, a monstrous thing easily four times as large, with a broad grey mark on its chest that split into three points like a trident.

It appeared to be asleep, curled amid piles of stripped bones and cracked skulls. More than a few of those skulls looked like they had belonged to other bears.

Was this thing cannibalistic?

Then I realized I still hadn’t identified it.

I cursed under my breath. Why did I keep forgetting to identify things?

With that, I identified it.

Elite Ashen Denmother Ursa

These monsters are highly aggressive and territorial. Known abilities include Sonic Roar and Denmother’s Call. They also have extremely tough hides.

Their meat is biologically compatible with your biology.

Usable materials: hide, teeth, entrails, claws.

A dungeon core will reward you for defeating dungeon elites, usually with one to three reward boxes.

I stared at the window for far longer than I intended to. A dungeon core rewarded people for killing elites.

That sounded normal for a game. In a real place, it sounded insane. Why would something reward people for invading its body and killing its defenders?

Unless that was the point.

The monsters, the treasure, the levels, all of it. Maybe the dungeon wasn’t protecting itself from adventurers. Maybe it was growing them.

But why?

I moved back behind the wall and nodded to her. “All yours.”