by Matthew Peed
“You’re an astral projection, not a ghost!”
Starburst bucked, and I remembered something I’d meant to ask him earlier and I flew off. I spun around and wrapped my astral, I guess, arms around his neck. “Hey. Hey. How come my body came back yesterday? Well? Well?”
“Normally you are in this form, but when a human wishes to have dealings with you and you don’t have a minion set to receive them, then your body will be re-created. There are other times when it will happen, but those aren’t likely to happen for a long time.”
“EHH! I have to wait for a human to come in!? BOO!” I said with a pout.
“Never mind that! Your second floor. You normally have to kill a few people to be able to open a second floor. We need to build it since you can.”
“Roger!” I gave him a salute. “What to do?” I tapped my chin, trying to think it over.
“AH!” Starburst shouted, losing his temper. “Just set it to random!”
“I CAN DO THAT!?” I shouted back.
I flew to the center of the hollow and used the floor spell. Aether poured out of me as the surroundings changed. Soon, I found myself in a square box of a room that had three doors. I flew through the door to the next room and found it was exactly the same, only with more doors. After more rooms than I cared to count that went up and down, I made it to the second floor of the mansion.
“How does that work?” I mumbled. “Magic, I guess.”
“What did you get?” Starburst asked.
“A maze . . . I think.” They looked like a random assortment of rooms to me. I would need to decorate them later. Just boring stone rooms was lame. A bit of pink wouldn’t hurt. I already had an idea for a doll for it. I ordered the mole dolls to start digging toward the next floor.
I moved to the center of the maze and pictured what I wanted to summon. While I could have used the complicated system, Starburst had told me of an easier way to do it. Most of it would still be random, but this would get most of the idea into the creature, or rather doll, that I attempted to summon.
Magic sparks started to jump through the air as a magic circle formed in front of me. I had a good image in my head, so the magic didn’t take long. A pink teddy bear that came to about four foot in height stood in front of me. Once all the Aether finished flowing into him and the magic died down, he blinked, coming awake for the first time.
“SO CUTE!” I screamed as I tackled him with a hug. Of course, I couldn’t feel anything and flew right through him. The only one I appeared to even be partially able to interact with was Starburst.
“What! What is it?” the aforementioned unicorn shouted as he bounded down the stairs into the maze.
“Look how cute it is!” I said.
Starburst looked at me, then back to the pink bear several times before he just shook his head. “How is that going to stop anyone from getting through this floor?” he demanded, his tone gruff.
I grinned but decided not to tell him. It would ruin the surprise, and I really didn’t want him to force me to change it if he didn’t like it. Whether the divers got through or not wasn’t my concern. I know he said it would be dangerous for me, but I hadn’t met anyone but that one Lance guy, and he hadn’t done anything to me.
“Secret! You’ll just have to find out when some people actually get here,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him.
“Fine! Don’t blame me if you get killed!” Starburst shouted at me, then cantered off.
“Sour head!”
Looking around at the dull maze that the magic had created for me, I decided to brighten it up a bit, but first I looked at my new friend’s stats. I went ahead and named him Tenderheart.
Tenderheart
Age: 0
Level: 2
Race: Sentient Doll
Type: Manipulator
Another Manipulator? I just shrugged. Lucky me! He was also a higher level than Lucy and Stella after just being summoned. Maybe because he was summoned on the second floor. He did cost more Aether to summon.
“Can you talk?”
It tilted its head, then shook it.
“No. That’s too bad.”
Tenderheart nodded and bounced on its feet.
“What do I want you to do?” I thought it over for a second, then nodded. “Go ahead and summon some of your monsters for this floor. I’ll give you some Aether.”
It nodded again and started waddling down the passage. A tiny version of itself would pop out every twenty feet or so. These only got between one and two feet tall. I couldn’t decide if Tenderheart or Starburst was cuter as I watched him walk down the passage.
A few minutes went by before I came to a dead stop as a realization came over me. I COULD TOUCH STARBURST! I exploded up through the roof, looking for my unicorn.
Chapter 8: Dive
Lance Teron
Right after Azaria provided healing, spun my shoulder but didn’t feel any pain. Azaria had really healed me completely as well as given me a gift of the skill, though I doubted it was on purpose. The core didn’t seem that experienced. With my head working better, I pulled out my phone and quickly sent my mother a message with a rough report of what had happened. Mainly I just told her to be careful. I would have sent one to my sister, but the brat didn’t like cellphones.
Next, I flipped through several social media and news sites. I wanted to know if Kyle had already tried to alter the truth. When I came to the largest news site for the area, I clicked “Play” on the video that had his face.
Sure enough: “Is it true that you were attacked in the dungeon?” a reporter asked with an obviously fake look of concern. I wondered how much he was paying her.
“Yes. I don’t know what came over him! We were about to leave the dungeon, and he threw a vial of corrupted lizard blood on me. If I was any lower level, I would have died!” Kyle said with grimaces of pain mixed in. His waist and parts of his legs showed hints of bandages. I smiled that I’d managed to inflict a bit of harm on the bastard.
The reporter turned to face the camera. “Lance Teron is a Harvester who has recently been active over the last two months. His sister has already declined an interview, as has his mother. The police believe he planned this from the start to steal the materials gained from the dungeon. As the audience is aware, dungeon materials are a very lucrative source of income.”
She glanced to a point behind the camera for a moment, then my picture appeared on the screen. “If you see this man, please proceed with caution. He is believed to be armed and dangerous.”
The interview continued for a few more minutes, relating the points of how pitiful Kyle was and how evil I was. I checked the time stamp and saw the video had been uploaded over six hours ago and had already received nearly six hundred thousand views.
“Fucking great,” I said and spit, clearing my mouth of a bit of blood.
I switched apps on my phone and checked the area around me. My prospects weren’t too great. This was on the outskirts of the city, with mainly old shops and homes. I clicked off the phone to save my battery. It would last forty-eight hours, but I’d already used nearly twelve of that with my usage from yesterday.
I lay there for nearly three hours just trying to think of what to do. Nothing good really came to mind other than skipping town. Even that would be hard to do. With the Aether Shift, monsters had spawned out in the uninhabited parts of the map. This resulted in cities, towns, and anyone trying to settle somewhere to build walls. Although the monsters were in the wilderness, once a large enough horde of them formed, it meant the cities became targets for food. Long story short, that meant if were to attempt to leave, there were only a few ways in and out of the city. Even if I did get outside, it was almost as bad as being in a dungeon.
“FUCK!” I screamed, only to get an echo back. I sighed while looking around. What was I going to do? I stared for a few minutes at the darkness past the train when, finally, I had an idea.
This dungeon was undiscovered. That likely mean
t it was new. I didn’t know what that meant for the dungeon itself, but it could be weak. Definitely weaker than many of the dungeons in the city right now. That could also mean it was naïve. If I could bring Azaria more materials, she might flood me with Aether again and increase my power.
Speaking of, I needed to investigate what this Harvester skill was. It wasn’t on any of the public records. Sure, there were plenty of abilities that users kept secret. You didn’t want to give away your biggest trump card, after all. “Only one way to proceed.”
I quickly pulled out my phone and checked the dungeons around me, as well as the shops. I wasn’t above robbing a place to stay alive. That was annoyingly hard, given magic was a thing now, but these out-of-the-way shops shouldn’t have anything like that.
I found what I was looking for, a level-one dungeon three stations from here. It was a lowly goblin dungeon that people hated diving. There were theories about why it never grew more, but they weren’t exactly easy to prove. If I stayed on the first floor, I should be able to handle the low-level fodder it used.
I checked the time. It was just about two in the morning. Today would be the worst time to head out. I was only a short way from Station 62. I wouldn’t have been surprised if police and Kyle’s goons were combing the streets for me. Better to wait until tomorrow night.
I tried to find a more comfortable place to lie down and rest. It was going to be a boring twenty-four hours. I couldn’t even use my phone, as I didn’t want to kill the battery too quickly.
“Fuck.”
~~~
I stretched after my third nap. The first actually came quickly and easily. Major blood loss does that. It lasted a good eight hours. The other two took a bit of an effort to make happen. The biggest issue: I was hungry.
I quickly checked my phone and found that I still had a few more hours. It was already dark, but I wanted to give it a bit longer. On the good-news side of things, I received a reply from my mother. She believed me and was laying low. Not exactly a hard thing to do when my family were stuck in their respective places.
My stomach growled with a large amount of pain. It felt like it was trying to eat itself. I checked my pockets even though I knew there wouldn’t be anything for me to eat. In the breast pocket of my coat, I found a scale from one of the lizards. I grinned at the item. It was something I’d been going to smuggle out of the last dungeon for myself since my party was a group of assholes.
I pulled it out just to have something to do, but blinked in surprise when I found it glowing with a soft red light. I tilted my head. This had never happened before . . . before I got the Harvester skill. I sat up and looked at the scale more closely. What do I do now? Is it an Identification skill?
I thought about some of the parties I’d been in and swallowed. “Harvester,” I said lightly, not sure if it would do anything.
The scale melted in my hand, almost freaking me out. The liquified object flowed along my arm until it reached my chest, where it sank in. I waited to see if anything else would happen, but there was nothing. Next I mentally pulled up my status.
Lance Teron
Age: 20
Level: 6
Race: Human
Type: Harvester
Aether: 30/100
Skills: Harvest
Harvests: Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance
Achievements: Trading With Chaos – You achieved something few could claim. While it might appear to be dumb luck, even luck has a place in the universe. Aether gain +1 per hour.
Resistance! That was something people paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire. I managed to get a freaking fifty percent resist just like that! Fuck yeah! I whipped out my phone and brought up my guide for monster parts. I still wanted to do the goblin dungeon later tonight, but I’d never done it before. Thus, I wanted to double-check what materials you could get from them.
~~~
“Damn. Why is the street so busy at two in the freaking morning?” I said with a low growl.
I walked as calmly as I could, but I wanted to be outright running. This must be a really fun area, I thought, if it was this busy during the night but dead in the morning. Well . . . while I said it was busy, there were only a couple dozen people spread out over several blocks. I’d just planned not to run into anyone. I guess plans never go as planned.
I snickered at the ridiculous thought. A convenience store was still open ahead, and I groaned at the sight of food only a few dollars away. With gritted teeth, I quickly glanced inside to see if there were any cameras. I saw two that I felt I could avoid with enough work.
Grabbing a small basket, I started filling it with enough junk food to kill a person. I was about to check out when I saw a backpack for sale. It was priced three times its value, but I needed something to carry stuff. I made it to the register and did my best to keep my face pointed away from the cameras.
The bored cashier rang me out. “That’ll be seventy-five dollars and ten cents.”
I handed him four twenties and told him to keep the change while shoving everything into the bag. Leaving, I quickly made my way to the dungeon entrance. I hated sneaking around like a thief. Kyle would pay for this!
Luck was on my side, as the guard in front of the entrance was passed out. Not that I could blame him. No one ever used this dungeon, even during the day. It’s like getting paid to just sit there. I carefully snuck past him and made my way down the stairs.
“This is either going to be my first step toward getting my freedom back, or I’m going to die. Either way, I’m ready!” I muttered as I went through the thin barrier that lets you know you’re in a dungeon.
The stench smacked me in the face harder than a smell had any right to. I covered my nose and mouth, but the smell was already saturating my senses. I had to fight hard to resist emptying my already empty stomach. “Not sure if I can manage to eat in here,” I murmured.
The ruined subway station greeted my eyes as I took a moment to look around. Just past the old tracks sat an entrance to another tunnel. According to the information on the site, this dungeon was mainly a cave system, with a few swamp floors mixed in. The system was quite extensive, but there were only a few basic traps.
I saw a few scraps of wood and decided to try to burn the smell away with smoke so I could at least stomach eating this junk food. The wood caught easily, surprising given how rotted and dry it was. My plan worked for the most part, and the smell from the dungeon dropped to a manageable level.
While I chowed down on some chips, I checked my dagger. I hadn’t had a chance to maintenance it after the lizard dungeon. It was made from dungeon materials, the only thing I actually owned that was. It held an edge better than a weapon made from plain old steel.
Checking the edge, I was glad to see it wasn’t chipped. There were no cracks along the surface either. I spent the next twenty minutes going through the process of cleaning it as well as sharpening it.
“First floor usually has single goblins,” I recited as I checked my blade.
With my stomach filled and a sports drink to top it off, I packed up everything and walked over to the entrance. My heart was beating a mile a minute. The last time I’d attempted to challenge a dungeon was in the beginning days. Without an ability, it was hard to get past the first floors. Usually just the first floor became almost impossible to finish.
I crept along the edge of the tunnel that was clearly made for a smaller-sized creature. I couldn’t help but wonder how the hobgoblins and even larger ogres were supposed to fit through there. A light appeared around the next bend, so I leaned around the corner to take a look.
A single goblin was asleep and leaning against a spear. He was about the size of a seven- or eight-year-old child. While I thought I could smell him from here, I was glad he wasn’t covered in boils and warts like some of the pictures depicted.
I moved forward carefully, trying to avoid anything that might make a sound. When I was about three meters
from him, I used my Harvester skill to see if anything would happen. Several colors appeared on the goblin. I felt an almost intuitive understanding of the colors.
Light gray meant it was common and didn’t offer much. Orange was more important but not by much. The only other color I saw on this one was red, which was his heart. At least, I assumed it was his heart, as his chest was glowing. I took a deep breath and moved forward until I was right in front of the creature.
I tightened my grip on my knife, then, using the dismembering technique I’d learned over the last year, I swung my blade across his neck, severing his vocal cords instantly. I followed through by jumping back to avoid both the spray of blood and his last moments of struggle.
The goblin jerked and held a hand to his throat, but soon fell forward. I’d cut through his arteries and jugular. He kicked once but soon came to a stop as a puddle of blood formed under him. Just to be safe, I moved over and slammed my knife through his back into his heart. He jerked once more, then stopped altogether.
“Even his blood smells rank,” I commented as I wiped my hand on the wall.
I attempted to use Harvest again, but nothing changed. I pulled my knife free and started harvesting the body parts like I normally would. After about a minute, I had all the parts laid out on the shopping bag from the store.
“This is just morbid,” I mumbled, glancing over the heart, claws, fangs, and a few bones that my skill pointed out. I touched the heart as it had glowed red. “Harvest.”
The heart melted into a puddle of blood and flowed up my arm like the scale had. Unlike with the scale, I felt a searing pain when it entered my body. It lasted for several moments before it finally passed.
I suddenly worried that I might have been cursed or something, and it would actually make me weaker. I quickly pulled up my status and focused on the Harvest section.
Skills: Harvest
Harvests: Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance
Tunnel Goblin Heart – Savagery
“That can’t be good . . .”
Deciding to plunge headfirst down the rabbit hole, I absorbed the rest of the materials. Doing the claws and fangs, I found something interesting.