by Dakota Krout
With no other option, Joe went to the front of the lines to get to work. As expected, the shorter line was filled with guards and had triple the amount of healers working in it at any time. Joe got to work healing damaged prisoners, getting into a battle rhythm of healing any life-threatening injuries and ignoring any other type. Broken arm? End of the line. Hole in your chest? Head injury? Deadly poison? Get healed.
By the time the line had been reduced by half, Joe was mentally exhausted. His eyes darted to the side to check his notifications and widened as he saw what was waiting for him.
Skill increased: Mend (Apprentice III). For breaking into the Apprentice rank, an extra effect has been added! Bones are now twice as easy to repair!
Skill increased: Lay on hands (Apprentice III). As a subskill of Mend, this skill shares the additional effect Mend was granted.
Skill increased: Cleanse (Beginner IX). You sure are clearing out a lot of poison! Did you let your pet poisoner go wild or something?
“You there!” The abrasive healer that had put Joe to work tapped his arm. “I was told you were a healer. You’re a cleric? Get out of this line and come fix up the guard; they need true healing more than these animals.” He ordered one of the slower healers to go work on prisoners and motioned Joe into his vacated position. Before Joe could comply, he was tackled to the ground and a shiv was mercilessly and repeatedly stabbed into the area over his kidney. Luckily for Joe, his Shell was still in position and the damage was almost entirely negated.
“You bastard!” Joe’s ear was screamed into. “I have another month in here! Do you have any idea what-” Joe didn’t get to hear any more of the rant because the man was beheaded with a single clean slash. A wash of blood flowed over his Shell and slid off, leaving him clean.
“That’s handy.” Joe looked at the head on the ground, recognizing it after a moment. “Headshot?”
“That’s the last of him we’ll see for the next twelve hours. Moron. He must be approaching level one by this point.” The healer that had been directing things inspected the scalpel he had just used, putting it back into an easily-accessible pocket when he saw no flaws. “You’ll get that sometimes, no worries. I’m just glad you have some basic protections. Get back to work.”
With Joe’s help and seemingly instantly refilling mana pool, the remaining Royal Guard were back to duty within twenty minutes, and the last in the line of prisoners had been sent away about two hours after that. Each ‘Lay On Hands’ cost two hundred and forty mana, so even though he could heal each person quickly the spell couldn’t be used constantly. Joe had gained another rank in his two healing spells, but the increase to Cleanse that he was seeking eluded him.
Joe was looking around for more patients when the healer came back over and started talking, “That’s all for today. For now, I should say. Go get food, then come back and find a cot to sleep on. We don’t make people like you sleep in the common area like the others. I’m told you turned yourself in just because you knew it was the law? Admirable. If more were like you, this Kingdom would be a joyous place indeed. Go.”
Joe nodded and started following the stream of exhausted healers to the dining area. When he felt that no one was looking, he pulled a folded paper out of his cheek and glanced at it with mixed feelings. He hadn’t been searched when he got here, so he could likely have held onto a few of his more useful items. But, it had kept the map safe… ugh. He opened the map, and sure enough, it had updated. There was now a floorplan for the entire dungeon and it–good lord it was three dimensional. The map floated above the page, showing a small room off a main hallway three floors down.
“Ugh,” Joe grunted, sounding like a fully constipated man who had just polished off a wheel of brie.
“Right? They overwork us to a horrible degree.” One of the healers that was walking in the loose formation tapped his hand on Joe’s… Shell. “You get used to it, though. Plus, the skill increases are excellent, aren’t they? Working on people that have a good chance of dying if you mess up, constant work, and the threat of death from all sides all adds up to skill gains out the wazoo.”
“Don’t get much of a chance to chat with other people down here?” Joe inferred with an eye roll.
“Not even close! We get beat for talking, draws in the monsters.” The other man showed him a manic smile as guards closed in and gave them both a hefty wallop. Joe didn’t flinch, but the other man now had on a creepy smile as he was beaten. “Harder!”
“Don’t speak above a whisper and you are okay,” another healer leaned into Joe’s side and whispered. “He’s a bit… off ever since he got a high-powered drop from in here. It’s a cursed item called ‘The Beard of Charles’. Gives you a big constitution bonus and makes you resistant to the effects of alcohol but switches random things that you are trying to say, kinda like Tourette syndrome. Makes you speak in ways that force you to seek out pain. Now he takes a beating at least once a week when the effect kicks in. I bet he didn’t really want to say ‘harder’.” The man chuckled softly.
“Sounds terrible,” Joe murmured in reply. “Lot of cursed stuff in here?”
“Yuppers. Don’t put anything on without getting it checked out first. You get drops in here for, like, no reason. Sneeze too hard? Bam. Specialty item just for you that prevents sneezing when worn but reduces how well you can breathe by a quarter. I’d say ninety percent of any items in here are cursed.” The healer spoke a bit too loudly, and a guard showed him his club at high speed. Quiet reigned once more after the meaty thunk.
Joe felt contemplative. Almost no creatures or beings he had fought before now had actually dropped system-generated items. Usually, they had to scavenge what their opponents were wearing or the bodies of their foes directly. Now he was really looking forward to seeing what this place had to offer.
~ Chapter Thirty-eight ~
Like any other day when he had slept and gone to bed at a reasonable hour, Joe woke up the next morning. While this may seem a bit arbitrary to mention, this time it was an exciting awakening. *Thud*. *Thud*. Joe looked at the man standing by his cot with resignation. “Are you trying to beat me with a sock full of soap?”
“Rocks.” The man dropped the sock and looked seriously put out. “Well, that was a waste of time. Headshot wanted me to beat you up, and I owed him one. I tried; I’m calling it close enough and saying that I paid off the favor. Sorry about that. Nothing personal. See ya.”
“And they say people are unreasonable.” Joe stood and looked around then called after the inmate. “Where’s the coffee?”
“You think we get coffee in here? No drugs allowed. Caffeine is a drug.”
For the first time, Joe’s hands shook and he realized that he was really in prison. He gripped his bald head with wild eyes and whispered, “I need to get out of this place. This place is the abyss. Abyss?”
“There are a few things you can’t say; you should know that by now. The game turns them into the local equivalent. So lack of coffee is what drove it home for you? Odd.” The thug started to turn away again but was stopped by Joe’s grip on his arm.
“Alright, I need a few answers.” Joe stared at the man, fire in his eyes. “Tell me about this place. Why can’t people speak loudly outside? What do they do here? How can I bribe guards or the Warden to get me down to the third level?”
“Third level? You’re out of your mind. There are only two levels, and even if there was a third level, you could never get to it. The reason that we can’t speak loudly is that it draws in Shades. Think a shadow that was once a ghost but got lost in the dark too long. They are the only thing in here that just ignore the walls around the camp. They get close and stab your shadow, giving you a shock of nasty corrosive poison somehow. You need spells or enchanted gear in order to kill them. Do you know why the rest of us are here? Because we are louder than Mages. They need someone to take the hit so they can kill the Shades.” The man was spitting mad now.
“And there other things out there?”
Joe prompted impatiently.
“Minor annoyances, mainly. They hit hard but are pretty slow. Usually, they only land a hit on ya if you are going around corners, and they manage to surprise you. Dirt elementals, I think they’re called. A good blow will blast ‘em apart.” He shook a bit, reaching for a weapon he didn’t have. “Lots of ‘em have spikes on their bodies; that's where you see the cuts from.”
“Thanks, I think I’ve got what I need.” Joe waited for the man to walk away before refreshing his Shell and walking near the wall. There weren’t any guards around him, so he started talking in a conversational tone, slowly speaking louder until he saw a patch of darkness that was shifting. It looked like a human shadow, and it strolled along the ground while remaining totally flat. It was horizontal from his perspective. Joe could hardly take his eyes off the thing; that was a very strange way to move.
A guard finally noticed him and came running, looking furious that Joe was standing near the wall. When the Shade was in range, Joe lifted a hand and used Shadow Spike on it. There was a sound like a balloon popping, and the Shade was rolled up and formed into the spike. Joe released the spell and looked, but it seemed that the Shade was indeed dead. He checked his combat log just to be sure.
Critical success! Savage blow! Corrupted Shade takes 300 transformation damage! Corrupted Shade has died. Exp: 25 (50 * .5 * Corrupted Shade x1)
The guard that was jogging at him slowed down, seemingly confused. “How did you kill that thing? It takes a half-dozen fireballs to put one down!”
“Shadow magic. Extra effective, apparently.” Joe looked at the guard with a critical glance. “I need to speak to the Warden.”
“Shadow magic? That’s completely counterintuitive.” The guard seemed like he wanted to believe Joe, but he was a prisoner. “If you want to go to the Warden though… I hope you have a good reason. The man does not like to be interrupted for minutiae.”
Joe spiked another Shade, smiling slightly as it also died with a single attack. “I think he will want to hear what I have to say.” The guard shrugged and motioned for Joe to start walking. When they got to the Warden’s office, the guard knocked twice and went to sit down. Joe looked at him oddly, but the man simply shook his head and gestured at a seat next to him.
They waited for a good ten minutes before they heard a faint reply, “Enter… if you must.”
“That’s your cue.” Joe nodded in appreciation to the guard as he opened the door.
“Good morning, prisoner five-nine-three-zero-zero-one.” The Warden glanced over Joe and motioned for him to take a seat. “You have been here for a little over fourteen hours; why are you already in my office?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Conjugal visits are not allowed, nor would they be something that I was interested in. If that is all, please see yourself out to the punishment station,” the Warden spoke in a very collected voice, almost making Joe not realize what he was saying to him.
“What? No!” Joe’s face may have looked a touch too disgusted because the Warden arched a brow and steepled his fingers. Joe hurried to pull out his map and allowed the three-dimensional image to appear over his hand. “I have a map of this dungeon and can easily slay Shades.”
“We have plenty of Shade slayers.” The Warden’s face didn’t change, but he couldn’t hide the fact that his eyes were looking over the map carefully. “You seem to be misinformed. That map has three levels, and the dungeon has only two.”
“I was given this map by a deity. It is leading me to a tome that has the possibility to turn the tables on the Wolfman army that is marching on my Guild’s town. It shows my location, here. While I would be more than willing to go after this book on my own, I would prefer to bring along a group so you can test the veracity of my words.” Joe was a bit out of breath after his little speech, but the Warden didn’t seem to mind.
“No, you can go alone. That’s fine,” the Warden replied instantly. “Anyone is free to go deeper into the dungeon. They all come back, one way or another.”
“How unpleasant of you.” Joe took a breath and looked at the Warden, full of confusion. “You have no desire to delve deeper into this place? Learn its secrets?”
“None.”
“I see. I’m sorry to bother you… is that coffee?” Joe saw the Warden take a sip of something that was hurriedly placed under the desk.
“Get out.” After Joe left the room, a side door opened and the Warden glanced over at the Traveler standing there. “Pose as a prisoner. Go with him and report everything that happens.” There was no response to his orders, but then… he hadn’t expected any.
Joe was in a real foul mood. He walked around looking for a group that was going dungeon diving, but there didn’t seem to be many motivated people. He had learned that if you didn’t go into the dungeon, you didn’t get to eat unless you did some other kind of work in the camp such as healing. It seemed that a lot of the players simply didn’t log in until their prison term was over, allowing their character to die of starvation a few times. Joe shuddered at that thought; to him, they were real people that died because they didn’t take care of themselves. Gross. He went over to the stacks, which is what they called the piled up limp bodies of players, and cast Cleanse on each of them, a few times to hydrate the worst-looking ones.
Skill increase: Cleanse (Apprentice 0). Sometimes the only way to grow is to do the right thing for no expected reward. Someone, somewhere, is bound to notice and thank you for it. Look at you, making strides toward being a good person! +2 Karmic Luck.
That was the first time he had ever gotten a notification for a change in his Karmic Luck. Joe was still not sure what it did, but he was glad to see that a higher amount was gained for doing good things. So more was better, and… that’s all he knew. His thoughts were interrupted by a voice.
“What are you doing over here?” A man in heavy armor clanked toward him, creaking and squeaking loudly. “They have nothing to steal; you may as well leave them alone.”
“Not stealing or trying to steal. Some of them are really dehydrated, so I was doing my best to heal them. They can survive a lot longer without food than they can without water.” Joe stood and faced the man, unsure of what else to say. “Is your armor unoiled so that you draw more attention in the dungeon?”
“Ugh. Yes. Finally, someone who gets it without needing information spoon-fed to them. The guards provide common weapons and armor if you ask for them, but they take ‘em back each night.” The man shook his head, wincing at his own noise.
“You have room on your team for a healer and a guy who can kill Shades in one hit?” Joe asked with a hopeful expression.
Looking a bit uncomfortable, the armored man responded, “No, I can’t take two more people. If you have more than five people in a group, you get swarmed by at least double the amount of monsters out there. I could take one of you, but I’d prefer the killer.”
“I was, um, yeah I was only describing myself. Both of those people were me.” Joe was the awkward one now.
Just to move the conversation along, the other man spoke, “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m Bill, come on. I gotta warn you, my group is pretty touchy. We are devoted to clearing this dungeon, though, and we think there is a way out of this place or at least a way to get a good reward. A dungeon wouldn’t exist without good loot, right? It can’t all be cursed junk.”
They strode toward Joe’s temporary new party, and the others walked over and took turns hugging him and each other. Joe looked at Bill, who was rolling his eyes. “So when you said they were touchy, you meant they are all about human contact. I was expecting… short tempers.”
“I know you were.” Bill showed a fox’s grin. “Let’s get going.” Joe was shown to the armory where he was given a shoddy casting orb. They didn’t have any cleric weapons, so Joe simply accepted the fact and got moving. In Joe’s admittedly biased opinion, the first floor was insanely easy. With a single spike, he popped the Shades and the team c
ould move on. His Darkvision allowed him to easily distinguish between the Shades and natural darkness, so surprise attacks weren’t an issue for this group.
The others–once they began to understand that the Shades weren’t getting to them–started to have a good time. They went full force at any elemental they found, blasting the misshapen creatures away with pure force of arms. Joe followed his map, allowing them to avoid wrong turns and branching tunnels. They passed several groups along the way, and Joe always made sure to pause and clear away any poison or serious injury.
“I’m feeling so altruistic today,” Joe mentioned to Bill, getting a chuckle from the man in return.
Bill laughed as Joe finished healing a man, only to get a one-finger salute as payment. “I’m sure they want to thank you but don’t want to seem weak in front of their team. This is still a prison. Don’t drop the non-existent soap and whatnot.”
“Sure, sure.” They kept moving through the darkness, only a single torch carried by one of the others allowed the majority of the group to see where they were walking. “We are almost at the stairs; you ready for floor two?”
“I’m not sure, Bill,” one of the others spoke up. “We got some good loot today. Two ‘Charles’ type beards and one ‘Chatbeard’.”
“That’s new. What does that one do?” Joe questioned without stopping. He had found that if he talked and walked, the others would simply follow without really noticing that they were doing so.
They were on the stairs before anyone else really thought about it, but beyond a few groans and hugs for support, no one complained. “It’s a cream, also the only way to remove the ‘Charles’ type beard without a powerful anti-curse spell. It gives you a two-week debuff that makes people think you are younger than you are, but at least you stop cussing and insulting people when you probably shouldn’t.”
“How fun,” Joe voiced without any conviction. “You guys know anything about this floor?”