by Dakota Krout
“What did you do to him?” Alexis chuckled and helped Joe get back on his feet while he was spitting out blood. “He was pissed.”
“Used the ritual on him. For ten minutes he loses three percent of his total stamina every second and takes half that as magical damage.” Joe moved over to Jaxon, using his lay on hands spell to fix an arm that had been crushed. “I think he regains enough stamina to stave off exhaustion, but the more he moves, the more likely it is that he will only be able to make one attack every few seconds!”
According to Alexis, the Betrayer’s health bar was steadily declining now. Just as they were celebrating that fact, one of the spiders crawling on the smith stabbed into his arm. The spider died instantly after that, but the smith’s arm began to writhe. His muscles bulked up as if he had been taking steroids for years, and his attacks with that arm became too fast to dodge without serious effort and forethought on their part. Howling with agony once again, the smith started swiping back and forth with his giant hammer.
Agony’s area damage washed over Joe, causing his health to drop by three-quarters in an instant. For the others, seventy health was not exactly fun but was certainly manageable. For him, it was almost a death sentence. Spitting out yet another mouthful of blood, Joe healed himself and sent a shadow spike into the smith’s legs. “He’s starting to slow down!”
Of course, the shout coupled with the spike brought the Betrayer’s attention firmly to Joe once again. Using his ‘jailor’ ability, he swung at Joe with his off hand. A chain unraveled and wrapped around Joe’s torso, pulling and cinching tight. The Betrayer’s hammer came down, driving a spike through the chain and into the ground. Right about then, the boss’s stamina failed. Over the course of three seconds, the smith slowly walked toward Joe, ignoring other attacks even though he needed a rest break after each long, heavy step. Joe struggled to get the chain off of himself, and he had almost succeeded… when a shadow covered him from above. Joe looked up, just in time to see the final movements of a hammer being brought down on his unprotected head.
You have died! Calculating… you lose 2000 experience! You will respawn in 10 real-world hours. Seriously? You charged back into a dungeon where you cannot fight any of the monsters on your own?
“I could fight the spiders!” Joe uselessly shouted a clarification into the air of his respawn room. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.
~ Chapter Twenty-six ~
Ten hours with not much to do. Joe amused himself by prank calling a few people since there was no way to trace calls and harassment back to him. It was fun for all of five minutes, then he decided to do some searching into the game. He really wanted to understand how crafters like Alexis were allowed to level up so quickly. He felt that the game was putting them into a bad position, and it was a trap he would have fallen into without Tiona pushing him to join in combat.
What he found out was surprising, but it shouldn’t have been. Crafters can level extremely fast and make incredible money but only for a short while. At a certain point, they began needing more… specialized goods. Then they had to go out into the world and get those resources themselves, buy them from people that already had them, or steal them if things got really bad.
This would either turn them into an adventurer who was behind everyone else with their terrible combat skills or would cost them a majority of the cash that they had made selling low-level items to other adventurers. Meanwhile, all the other crafters that had been following a similar playstyle would reach that point at the same time. Because of this, long-term gamers were rubbing their hands together, hoarding goods for the day that the market would begin correcting in their favor.
“Game economy is nuts.” Joe shook his head at the implications that were rearing their ugly head. Pretty soon, around the time they specialize, crafters were going to start needing a ton of material to continue leveling. Rare or unique components were going to skyrocket in price just like mana potions had. Joe decided that it might be time to start dipping into his savings when he got back into the game. He was almost… glad that he hadn’t survived the dungeon. If he had learned about this much later…
He thought about calling his mom, but from her perspective he had only called… what, five hours ago? Ugh. He felt like a failure. Joe sat through some more online classes, determined to get better at his skills one way or another. This time he focused on paper making, chuckling about the fact that just about anything could be found online. Most of the information the class contained was fairly useless to him, as he didn’t have industrial equipment. Some was quite useful, though, such as ways to make primitive binding agents work as well–or better–than mass-produced paper. Only on a small scale, of course; it was far too expensive to use some of these methods on a large scale, but for Joe… this might be exactly what he needed to get an edge on his skills.
Taking as many notes as possible, Joe worked right up to the deadline of the portal allowing him access to the game again. He would need to sleep in-game, but that would be a more effective use of his time anyway. Getting a full eight-hour sleep in four hours or sleeping for only a couple out here? Easy choice. When the portal opened up for him, he stepped through, full of ideas and plans for the next few days. The shrine was empty, and the darkness proved that there were obviously a few hours before dawn. Joe was having trouble keeping his date and time straight; dying could really mess with your inner clock.
Before moving on, he noticed that he had plenty of blinking icons waiting for him. He braced himself for the deluge of information and opened the first one.
Exp: 900. (2 * 225) * Sapling Ghouls x2).
Exp: 2000. (2 * 1000) * Triplet Livingwood Ghoul Miniboss x1).
Exp: 360. (2 * 30 * Phobic Spiders x6).
Exp: 5000. (2 * 2500 * Betrayer x1).
As recompense for the failure of a quest giver to pay upon completion, you have been given partial ownership of the quest giver’s most valuable holdings. You will receive 25% of the value of material sold from a nearby mine, which has been marked on your map.
You have gained enough experience to reach level ten! Now that you have reached level ten, you are able to specialize into a more powerful version of who you want to be! You can look at specialization options at any time!
How odd. You should have received this message at your previous level, which was… ten. Calculating… you have died twice in the last day. Potential for level loss. This matter deemed unnecessary to elevate to a higher level.
Joe breathed out slowly, mentally looking for the menus that would let him see specialization paths. Look at that, his team must have finished off the smith! He hoped they had been able to escape the dungeon after that.
Your sigh of relief has been noted.
Drat. That wasn’t ominous at all. Joe rolled his eyes and marched toward the town, hoping that there would be no further looking into this matter. From what Tatum had told him, there could be serious repercussions for his meddling. For no good reason either, in his opinion. He had gained enough experience to put him at the correct level soon after… Joe decided to stop thinking about it. He had other things that he needed to do. For instance, being partial owner of a mine seemed pretty neat. With his Darkvision, he had no issues following the path, but when the town came into view he stopped and stared.
The walls were still high, twisted, and black. Hadn’t the dungeon only been scheduled to last a single day? Then he noticed that there were people moving freely through the gates; obviously, the instant dungeon had vanished. Joe walked over to the gate and made sure that it was a normal town again before walking in. It wouldn’t be a great day if he walked into a dungeon by himself. He actually shuddered a little at that thought.
“If they are still out of their minds, bring them to the weaver’s place. Plenty of blankets, and if that isn’t enough to calm them down we have a lot of rope stored there.” Joe recognized the commanding voice, so he walked over to see Tiona barking orders to large swaths of her guild members. He
paused and simply took in the sight; it was good to see her again.
After waiting for a lull in the conversations, he walked over and said hello. She turned toward him with a frown on her face that transformed into a weary smile as she realized who was talking to her. “Joe! Good to see you. I’m sorry, though, I don’t really have time to catch up. I’m only here right now because I have a twenty-four-hour leave from my training with the Kingdom, and this place is a mess.”
“What’s going on, and how can I help?” Joe instantly got into a working mindset.
She nodded appreciatively but declined his offer. “No, you look like you are about to drop. Go get some sleep. If you must know, the people that were transformed remember their time as monsters. They are… most of the people that had been living here are pretty messed up. The ones that were killed most often are the best off, contrary to what we would have expected. Dying kept their mind together.”
The revelation left Joe a bit sick to his stomach. “What’s going on here then? Are we helping them?”
“As much as we can. But if they don’t get better…” Tiona shrugged a bit. “Makes me glad I’m not the one that has to make that call. We are taking over the town, though. These walls are better than anything except the city walls of Ardania. We don’t know what they are, but we do know that they offer serious protection. We can’t even scratch them.”
“Alright. I get that. Um, in that case, we should really have a few people guarding the gates. I just walked in here without getting a second glance thrown my way.” Joe flinched from the look of anger that crossed her face.
“They aren’t there? I swear, if they abandoned their post to go tease that Bard again, I am going to lose it! See you around, Joe, and thanks.” Tiona waved at him and walked away with a stilted gait, obviously working to control her temper.
“Bye,” he uselessly called to her retreating form. Well, alrighty then, time to get to work! No. Bed. Bed first. He asked around and was directed to… what appeared to be a campsite. Okay. At least it was within the walls. He found a bedroll that was available for use and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
He didn’t sleep well, but as morning arrived and the sunlight stabbed his eyes mercilessly, he found that he had gotten enough sleep to function. Upon waking up, he went to the picnic tables that had been set up as an outdoor eating area, drank the guild-provided coffee with delight, and turned his focus to his puzzle cube. Joe had already lost two days of work on it and didn’t want to get distracted and forget about it again today. He twisted and flipped, solving logic riddles and challenges, and was almost startled when he got the notification he had been working toward.
Characteristic point training completed! +1 to intelligence, wisdom, perception, and dexterity! These stats cannot be increased further by any means other than system rewards, study, or practice for twenty-four hours game time.
Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Mage (Actual: Ritualist)
Profession: Scholar (Actual: Occultist)
Level: 10 Exp: 55,599 Exp to next level: 10,401
Hit Points: 100/100 (50+(50))
Mana: 1276/1276 (12.5 per point of intelligence, +100% from deity, -11% from mana manipulation)
Mana regen: 13.35/sec (.25 per point of wisdom, + 9% from Coalescence)
Stamina: 95/95 (50+(25)+(20))
Characteristic: Raw score (Modifier)
Strength: 14 (1.14)
Dexterity: 18 (1.18)
Constitution: 15 (1.15)
Intelligence: 46 (1.46)
Wisdom: 49 (1.49)
Charisma: 18 (1.18)
Perception: 35 (1.35)
Luck: 18 (1.18)
Karmic Luck: +1
Joe read through his stat sheet and was excited to see that his wisdom was about to cross the next threshold. When had his Karmic Luck dropped? He scrolled through notifications, but there didn’t seem to be anything that explained the odd loss. Joe thought about looking into his specialization menu, but something told him that he needed to finish his quest first. There were likely going to be great options, and he didn’t know if he would be able to stop himself from picking something that might end up being suboptimal.
He left the dining area, deciding to find his team and see what they were up to. Joe really wanted to know what he had missed after he had been sent for respawn. After searching around for a while, he found that Jaxon had set up a stall to sell adjustments to people–which essentially amounted to charging for buffs–and Alexis was restocking her poisons and working on a few items. Bard was having serious drinks with a few other charisma-based classes, leaving him with only Poppy as a valid option for discussion.
Joe found the Duelist working on his technique at a small training area the guild had set up. Training dummies with various armor were thrashing around, moving chaotically like a mechanical bull at a cowboy bar. Poppy would pull back his rapier, thrusting forward every few seconds. He didn’t rush his attacks, but he still missed openings in the armor fairly frequently. Still, when his attacks connected correctly, the training dummy would stop moving entirely. They had been designed to do that only when the attack ‘killed’ them. Joe felt a newfound respect for the methodical attacks of his newest teammate.
After the last dummy stopped moving, Joe stepped forward. “Hey, Poppy! Got a moment? I was hoping to hear about what happened in the dungeon.”
“Joe? Welcome back!” Poppy grabbed a cloth and wiped off his face, then went over to a whetstone and began sharpening his weapon. “Heard anything from the others yet? No? M’kay. Well, after you got nailed into the ground, we had a much easier time taking out the boss. After it demonstrated its jailor technique, it was fairly simple for us to avoid it. We whittled it down to a quarter health when one of those spiders scuttled to his chest and–speculating here–it seemed to inject adrenaline right into his heart. His stamina went from nil to half-full over three seconds, but that also let your ritual do a bunch of damage to him.”
Poppy took a drink out of a canteen. *Cough* “Woo, sorry, wrong pipe. Anyway, we basically turned it into a war of attrition. Alexis dropped right at the end because of agony and I almost went down, but we finished him before the skill could proc again. We found a bunch of gold in his shop, as well as a bunch of rare-ish metals and tools. At that point, we were offered the chance to warp out with the full knowledge that the dungeon would vanish. With only three of us left, we took the deal.”
“Dang. That sounds like it was awesome. Sorry I got caught.” Joe grinned sheepishly.
“No worries. By the way, we looked up one of his abilities, shattering blows? It makes attacks do triple damage against shields, armor, and structures. Don’t get too worried about your magic armor; it will still be good in a normal situation.” Poppy noted the look of relief on Joe’s face and stood up. “What’s the plan for today? I think the others decided that they wanted the day off, but I don’t mind hanging out if there is something on your mind.”
“Hey, thanks!” Joe opened his menu, looking at the very basic map included in it. The mark Tatum had added looked like it was a few hours walk away, but Joe decided that they could likely make the trip with just the two of them if they didn’t start fights with any packs of animals. “I have a class quest a couple hours away, and I could really use a walking buddy if you are willing.”
“I don’t mind.” Poppy started strolling away. “If it’s just the two of us though, you’re buying the meals! Drinks, too!”
Joe couldn’t think of a particularly good argument against that; Poppy was going out of his way to help him. Or could he not think of a good argument because…? Ah-ha! Poppy's blasted charisma! Joe followed the Duelist with a knowing grin, glad that he had seen through the man. “Works fine for me.”
~ Chapter Twenty-seven ~
After a bit of preparation and buying a few easily-transportable meals, they left the gate which was manned by a few slightly familiar but now-bruised faces. Joe waved, speaki
ng to the man on the left. “Hey, Dave, we are going off on a quest. We should be back tonight, hopefully before dark. Just in case anyone comes around looking for us.”
“Sounds good!” Dave smiled as best as he could with a busted and bleeding lip. “One thing, though, who are you?”
“Oh. I’m Joe; I’m a cleric. Actually, let me…” Joe healed both of them easily, and their faces showed obvious relief. “What happened to you?”
“Tiona found us-”
“Got it,” Joe interrupted with a grin while walking away with Poppy. They had planned on a quiet walk together, but as they started down the road, they met up with a large group from the guild going on a quest together. Joining them as far as they could to mitigate risk, Joe and Poppy didn’t get much of a chance to chat. After around an hour of speed-walking–speed-skipping in Joe’s case–they separated from the large group and turned away from the road to follow a simple animal path.
From there onward, there were a few encounters with some wildlife, but if the creature was alone it was easily dispatched. Not too many natural animals could survive a hundred points of damage through the chest when he used shadow spike on them. Luckily, they were walking through the wilds in sparsely populated areas with no real historical value. Otherwise, Joe was certain they would be stalked by something far more powerful.
“It feels too… easy.” Poppy confessed after another hour of walking. “We are mostly being left alone, but we’re getting almost no experience for what we do kill. Even that bear dropped pretty quickly. Sure, it was held in place by a chest-high spike and was easy prey for me, but I feel like we should have taken some damage by now.”