by Ryan DeBruyn
It takes a few minutes of walking before we pass by one of the blue notices. It’s just close enough that I can read it.
Skeletal Dungeon
Rank: F-7
The notice hangs above a pile of broken concrete that seems to have no easy entrance that I can see. After blinking a few times, I keep walking, trying to act natural. While this could be an exciting discovery, it isn’t something I should share with just anyone, exactly like the Training Room.
Still, when they reach the gray flag, I read:
Rodentia Dungeon
Rank: F-4
By the way Markus and Jamie react, though, there’s a problem I’m not seeing. Markus kicks at something near the gray flag, and a small stick flies into the air. It takes me a moment to see the little red flag on the shaft.
“Someone beat us to it. We’re gonna have to go deeper.” Tin curses.
“Is that what the flag means?” I ask, tracking the small thing as it comes back to Earth.
“Yes, flags are left by another team.” Markus spits on the ground the same way he did in the square.
The group splits up then and climbs over the ruins trying to get a vantage point. I move to the top of a pile of rocks that has grass growing all through it. From the top, I see a great many black flags, green flags, and blue flags, but I don’t see a gray flag immediately.
“Over here,” Esmerelda shouts, and the group meets at her vantage to continue traveling. We pass within fifty meters of a black flag, and I check it out.
High Orc Dungeon
Rank: B-6
A second, much sturdier flagpole with a white flag designed with two crossed sabres is planted beside the first, and a group mills around outside the entrance. At a glance, I can tell these aren’t adventurers or members of the prestigious Sabres Guild that the symbol depicts.
“Who are they?” I ask Tin.
Tin glances at the group while Jamie and Markus both growl something I can’t make out. It’s Boyle who answers, though.
“They are miners, alchemists, herbalists, and other tradesmen and women. We affectionately call them the guild groupies.” The way Boyle says that doesn’t make me think it’s a very endearing nickname, at least not from this group.
“They enter after the dungeon is cleared to pillage the place for the guild. There is a lot of ore, plants, liquids, traps, and other stuff that is worth quite a bit in high-ranked dungeons. They take no risk and live on the handouts from the guild they work for.”
“Buncha scared rats,” Jamie asserts in the direction of the milling group, a little too loudly. A few of the ‘groupies’ hear his name-calling and make rude gestures in our direction.
“Go crawl back into whatever shade hovel you crawled out from,” a man easily the size of Jamie, with a mining pick hanging from a hand, shouts at our group. A few others shout back as well but their voices merge into something unintelligible. The group I am with laughs, like their insults are meaningless, but I can see Markus’s fists clench around the daggers at his waist.
“Haven’t found a Frog dungeon to run yet? Bunch of dirty toad scum.” Another man with a mining pick steps up beside the first and adds his insults loudly to the first.
Jamie joins Markus in balling his fists, and they begin to turn around, but the other three members of Ride or Die create a wall to prevent the conflict. They still have to hold back the two men and fight against them as they slowly edge the brothers out of the area. Jamie and Markus both shout unintelligibly at the other group, and I watch with wide eyes. The little bits I understand sound very threatening and bring the mood right back to where it was before we left the Suburb.
I can feel my heart racing for the next few minutes as I wonder if I’ve made a horrible mistake.
“So, kid, what’s your story? Why aren’t you in the E-ranks?” Tin asks as soon as Markus and James are turned around and moving to the next gray flag again.
“Oh,” I respond, his question surprising me. I take a moment to recall the excuse Crash and I worked out. “My parents were hunters and left me in the house when they were working. They wanted me to be a bit older before I joined them.”
“How old are you?” Tin asks with a squint.
“Thirteen,” I say quickly. This lie stuff is coming easily. My emaciated look and low rank should help support this, too. Crash poking fun at me is proof.
“Really? Damn, kid, what happened to your folks if you’re forced to begin dungeoning with rabble like us?” Tin continues and laughs as he gestures around. I notice no one else laughs, but his self-deprecation reminds me of Alrick a bit.
“They didn’t come back yet, and I’m all out of food at the house,” I reply, continuing the tale, smiling at Tin and enjoying the conversation. It’s helping to distract me from the walking and foul mood of those around me.
“Ah, I see. They must’ve been pretty powerful to leave a subspace item with you.” Tin nods appreciatively.
I shrug, feeling a little uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. I change topics. “What about you, Tin? Why are you out dungeon diving?”
“Got a few kids and a wife at home in the shaded parts of the Suburb. I’m trying to earn some coins so I can keep them fed. It would be even nicer if I could afford a place in the city one day,” Tin responds, his voice sounding dreamy toward the end.
“That’s never gonna happen, Tin,” Boyle interjects with a hearty laugh. “I’m surprised they let a gray-haired, ugly shit like you into the Suburb as it is.” Boyle claps Tin on the back. This is so much like the mercenaries that I even manage to join the two.
Small conversations with Tin and Boyle continue for three more dungeon flags that we visit. They all have a red flag planted at the entrance, and after the second, even Tin goes quiet. I can tell that the group is getting more and more frustrated as we start circling back toward a flag Tin had dismissed earlier because it was so far away. I have seen a great deal of dungeons of many ranks that haven’t been marked, and I start to wonder if it was a mistake not to speak up. But how would I explain how I knew the rank and classification of each dungeon? It’s impossible to explain away, and so I keep quiet as the mood darkens, right along with the day.
The final dungeon doesn’t have a flag planted in front of it anymore. No, it has a band of people walking away from the entrance, carrying full bags and sporting happy smiles. The members continue to approach, and I study each of the individuals. They are certainly better dressed than Ride or Die and myself, but their lack of expensive looking armor and weapons also tells me they are likely E-rank.
My [Identify] triggers and confirms that they are indeed in the mid E-ranks and their success in the dungeon leaves a sour taste in my mouth. That means we could have cleared it as well. The sun is starting to go down and I can feel my weariness from all the walking. I sigh, trying to summon some excitement for the other group. They did all the work and likely left earlier than us from the Suburb.
I force a smile in the direction of the leader with orange hair, and try to include the four others. Two others behind the leader seem to be carrying shields, but one of those has a sword and the other a morningstar. The final two walk together behind everyone and seem to have a spear and a bow for weapons, but I can’t make out much with the swaying bodies in front. I look to my own group and see only glares. I guess that’s fair. I’m upset about missing the opportunity myself. . .
“Sorry, all cleared out for today, boys,” the orange haired leader of the other party explains, rubbing in the obvious, as he draws within ten feet of our group. I start to nod—
I don’t see Markus move, but the smile on the leader’s face fades fast, right along with all the color, as blood spurts from around one of Markus’s knives. Jamie, charging with his shield, bashes into the morningstar-wielding tank. On impact, I hear what sounds like a dropped watermelon hitting concrete, and blood flies again. The two didn’t even have time to respond.
“You dare!” the second tank with the sword shouts and fights
to get his weapons unhitched. He gets a spear in the gut from Boyle before he can do much more than reach.
The final two members, who were at the back of the other group, fall to the ground as they try to draw weapons but tangle their steps. Their wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror probably matches mine right now. The one with the bow raises his hands and I can see something swirling in his palms, but a knife blooms from his throat a moment later.
“Please don’t. I have family,” the spear-wielder pleads. Markus moves without hesitation and ends the man’s life with a vicious slash across his throat. Markus then calmly strolls to the man who had attempted a spell and slits his throat too. The casual ease and speed of everything that just happened freezes my limbs further. Tin looks at me and then the bloody bodies.
“Dammit, Markus, we were supposed to be turning over a new leaf. You know this is putting us in an awkward position with the kid, right?” he scolds.
My pounding heart tries to break free from my body through my sternum. I wheel around and attempt a sprint, but my first step turns into a trip, over Boyle’s spear shaft. I begin falling forward but am brought up short by Esmerelda’s bosom as she stands in my way.
“Buy a woman dinner first,” she mocks with a sneer. I begin standing up and feel something round crack into the base of my skull.
Chapter 17
August 30th, 151 AR
Jeff Turle
I wake up feeling weightless, but then my stomach collides with a semi-soft surface, and I feel another moment of freefall. I’m being carried like a bag of potatoes over someone’s shoulder.
“Boyle, why did you knock him out? He could have carried most of this gear!” Esmerelda complains loudly from somewhere behind me.
“Shut up! Did any of yous find the item on the boy?” Jamie’s surly voice reverberates from the body underneath me.
“Boy’z awake, Jamie. Put him down!” Markus says from beside me, and I am quickly jostled onto the rubble underfoot. “Tin, talk ta the kid.”
“Sorry you had to see all that, Jeff.” Tin steps out from behind the man and smiles ruefully as he tries to conciliate. My eyes are riveted to the bright red stain on his sleeve and his bloodied hammers, though. Tin notices my scrutiny and pauses to hide the reminders under his green robe. After he catches my eyes again, he continues, “Listen, kid, we all have to eat, right?” That reasoning doesn’t sound right to me, and I immediately know why.
“Why can’t you just absorb some sun or moonlight for the day?” I ask, my voice sounding like a whisper even to my ears.
“We have families and people that can’t enter the Suburb who count on us. If we don’t get them meat, they will start wasting, Jeff,” Tin pleads.
A shiver crawls through my body. Why would Tin plead with me? Wait, he isn’t pleading with me—no, it’s for me. . .
A knife stabs into my quads as Markus sneers at Tin. “You spooked the bait!” Markus scolds his teammate. It takes a second for me to register the pain shooting from the knife, and I begin to scream. Someone claps a hand down over my mouth from behind and manages to catch my nose as well. The pain fades as my lungs scream a new horror at me. The rough hand of one of the men is going to suffocate me. They plan to kill me right here— The hand releases me, and I take a deep breath in. The relief from my lungs drowns out the searing agony of the knife for a split second.
“Don’t scream, or we’ll cut off your mutated, pointed ears! Freak,” Markus snarls in my face, and I feel tears well up in my eyes.
“No wonder his parents hid him from the world,” Boyle calls out. “I bet we could even sell those things as monster ears.” He begins laughing his normal laugh. Like they didn’t just kill an entire dungeon team and aren’t now torturing me. That same laugh having put me at ease earlier is like a second knife to the gut.
“Why ugly-thing killing other ugly?” I hear someone say, and I look around through teary eyes, trying to find the strange voice.
“There is no way out,” Tin chimes in over my labored breathing, thinking I am looking for an escape route. I turn back to him as he continues, “Just hand over the subspace item, and we will let you go free. Or join us if you’ve got nothing else.”
“I can’t—”
“What Mur know about square-teeth killing each other? Ugly-things strange,” a voice interrupts me, and I look around again. This time part of my brain registers the fact that no one else reacted to the voice. I replay what I actually heard; a grunt, throat clear, followed by a few mumbles, a tongue click and a crack. Was the squeak also part of it?
“Don’t worry, kid, it’s just some nearby monsters. Probably some cockroach goblins. . .” Tin explains. “Just hand over the item.”
“I can’t. There isn’t an item, Tin. It’s a—” The knife sucks out of the wound, and the hand clamps back over my mouth, which prevents the scream I was about to unleash.
“I don’t think you understand your situation, Jeff.” Tin’s voice changes to a menacing growl. “Either hand over the item willingly, or Markus here will torture it out of you. . .” A slash cuts open my clothing, the black Lycra, and my skin. I can actually see the flap of skin hanging open.
The man or woman behind me hasn’t blocked my nose this time, and I suck in air as the pain of both wounds begins to overwhelm me. I circulate some of my qi to cut off the pain and slow the blood flow, but I know that’s temporary. My brain goes into overdrive as the blood pours from my two wounds. Wait—I start putting together what Tin said with the voices I am hearing.
If those are goblins nearby, and I can understand them, could I talk with them? Thanks to the qi relieving some of the pain, my brain is somewhat clear. I replay the way their language sounds—
I slump forward, allowing a bit of the pain through to help with my acting. My hands have been clutching the two wounds already, and I begin to mumble, attempting to sound incoherent.
“Ugly-ones try torture location goblin dungeon from this grass-chewer!” I insert into the middle of my whining gurgles in the Gartuski language. The strange names they use for us are the only way I can identify the problem.
“Stop mumbling, and hand over the item,” Tin responds directly into my ear as Markus simultaneously adds another cut. With three cuts and two hands, I can’t clamp down on all of them. I am about to scream when the hand is back. Dammit! I flood qi into my nerves, locking down on the pain receptors, then further block the blood flow to the new wounds.
“Did hear that? The ugly one attacking other grass-chewer to attack goblin!” one of the monsters grunts loudly enough that my group turns to look.
“Gather tribe!” Mur’s voice responds with grunts and snorts, which sound extra menacing when I replay them as the sounds they are.
“Shit, we should get out of here. Sounds like we’re upsetting the monsters,” Boyle says from behind me. Not close enough to be the rough hand on my mouth, though.
“Hear that, boyo? The monsters are coming. Hand over the item, and we won’t let them ate ya alive!” Jamie’s voice growls in my ear, confirming that it is his hand on my mouth.
“Guys, can you hear that?” Esmerelda calls from somewhere nearby.
The qi from my Dantian is already cut in half, and I don’t have long before they make a decision to either kill me or knock me out. This time, when Jamie releases my mouth, I raise both hands, pleading for them to stop. I only have a single option left, and I don’t find it particularly good.
“I will get the item, but I can’t grab it sitting down. It’s kind of hidden where the sun doesn’t shine,” I shout. There had been a mercenary who for some reason hid all his valuables up there. For whatever reason, the others somehow believed that he would never lose things that way. It’s the only thing I can think of in such a desperate moment.
To my surprise it seems to work. Looks of disgust cross Tin and Markus’s faces, and both back away a step. No one stops me as I get to my feet, either. I guess the deed of retrieving the nonexistent item from my fictitious
hiding place is too much for even these hardened killers. My breathing is ragged as I begin unlacing my pants; there’s only so much time this ploy will buy.
A horn blare causes everyone in the group to turn away. It is coming from just behind a copse of gnarled and twisted trees. The thicket of trunks grows from between the decayed wood and brick of multiple crumbled buildings.
I take off, managing to get two steps into a sprint before anyone reacts. I feel Boyle’s spearhead skid along my ribs, ripping clothing and flesh. As I flinch and fire the muscles on that side of my body, my head moves minutely, and a knife whistles by, causing pain to bloom from my ear. Then a growling horde of four-foot-tall goblins begins streaming over and around the rubble from the direction of the horn.
My qi continues to slowly flow away like water through cupped hands as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Quickly, I pull the six remaining drops of circulating Sun qi out of my River artery and back into my Dantian, giving myself a few more moments of painless escape. If I can’t get away, I’m dead one way or another. A distant part of my brain screams that I’m not efficient with the qi, not going through the body’s pathways as Crash explained, but this isn’t the time.
I make it to the edge of a pile of crumpled house and turn back to see the party engaged in a desperate fight against a horde of green men. Tin manages to glance in my direction, but even as they kill the goblins in huge numbers, more keep coming to take their place. I pray that they will be overwhelmed, but if not that, I hope they will be occupied long enough for me to escape.
My qi is down to five drops, and I stop circulating the liquid to keep a bit of a reserve. I might need it. The pain washes back over me, and each step becomes a chore as I hobble around the corner of the house and further into the ruins. My hands are holding the skin flaps around my core closed, but I can see the blood from my leg leaving a pool behind with each step I take. I have stored all of my leftover food in the subspace, and if I can get somewhere safe, I can use it to heal more of the wounds.