by Dakota Krout
Frank did not take kindly to the whining. “Until sundown, you are going to wear that armor, each day until I tell you otherwise. You are far enough behind your group that you will need to train constantly to catch up. Your muscles will hate you now, but you’ll thank me later. Eventually, you might move to a different fighting style, and wear less armor, but for now we do things my way.”
A staff member walked over, and handed Dale his bill. “Here you are Sir Knight, we have applied the Guild discount, of course.”
Dale’s eyes nearly left his skull as he saw the total. One platinum, thirty gold, forty silver, and six coppers. That was more money than everyone on this mountain combined had ever seen before. Would he ever be able to pay this off?
“You are going to need to work hard, but I think you have what it takes to succeed. I sense serious ambition in you lad.” Frank spoke kindly. Dale’s mind flashed to murdering Tim, and he nodded. Dale had ambition in spades. “I’m going to send you to your tutor now, pay attention to what he says, because that armor will mean nothing if you fail to improve yourself.”
They walked over to a group of men preparing their armor and weapons. Unlike Dale who had shining armor, those in the group who wore it had scratched, dented, well worn, and patchwork armor. Walking directly to a man wearing only wrapped cloth, no discernable armor at all, Dale introduced him as Craig, a monk and Essence specialist. A monk was not a religious man like a cleric, but someone who focused on their chosen martial arts to the exclusion of all other knowledge. As an Essence specialist, he would have focused all of his life on cultivation and Essence management, making him an unmatched expert and teacher in his area of study.
“Craig will be your supervisor and tutor. He also has an affinity for earthen Essence, so he will be able to give you the very best guidance.” Frank handed a memory stone to Dale, telling him that it would allow him to skip a few steps in learning how to control his Essence. “Craig, if you would be so kind as to teach him how to properly cultivate, I would appreciate it. It’ll be better if he knows now, before we strip him. Last time didn’t work out well.” With this ominous foreshadowing, he handed Craig a small item, wished Dale good luck, and set off to start working for the rest of his busy day.
“Nice to meet you all, my name is Dale.” Dale stated, “So… How do we start?”
“You the guy who found this shithole?” One of the men grunted, polishing a massive shield.
“Um. Yeah.” Dale stammered. The other man coughed, hawked up some mucus and spit to the side.
“Great.”
Craig spoke then, ignoring pleasantries and launching directly into lecture mode. “Dale, you are what we call a ‘fishy’. This means you are an F-ranked newbie, thrashing around trying to figure out what is going on. You are going to be useless in there today, and even more so tomorrow. Let me be very clear about what we want you to do. Your job in the dungeon is to not die. No heroics, you do only what we tell you to. That is it, you follow?”
“Yes. Sorry.” Dale apologized, not even sure why he was doing so.
“Don’t be sorry, just pay attention. We were all there once, but for us it was many years ago. I’m going to give you a cultivation technique, and since it’ll be going through a memory stone, you’ll be able to use it without years of practice. That’ll let you catch up quick, once we fix this…” waving his hand at Dale’s entire body, “cesspool of a center you have going on here.” He reached out and motioned for the stone Frank had given Dale. Dale dropped it in his hand as he wondered what could possibly be so bad about him that everyone kept mentioning that he was filthy on the inside.
Craig took the memory stone and placed it against his head. Focusing intently for a few moments, a silvery light streamed into it. Handing it back to Dale, he told him to press it against his forehead and try not to fall over. He enunciated ‘try’ a bit too much for Dale to be happy about.
“That’s it?” Dale inquired, looking at the glittering stone in his hand. The light inside of it seemed to whisper to his senses.
“That’s it.” Craig promised.
Pressing the stone against his head, knowledge of how to consciously pull in Essence from the earth and earthen sources flooded his mind. Dale saw how to control the Essence, allowing it to flow through into his body to his center without damaging himself or gaining too much corruption, and how to begin a Chi spiral so he didn’t waste the Essence he gained. Most importantly to Dale, he could finally see what his own center looked like.
The clearer the energy, the better, as it showed high refinement and low corruption. When it was poorly processed, it would look more like the Essence it came from. While Craig's memory of his center, which came along from the memory stone, looked quite clear with only a tinge of coloration showing his affinity, Dale’s looked like a mixture of mud and feces. Cesspool of a Core indeed.
“Oh my.” Dale nearly gagged and tried to start the Chi spiral like he was supposed to, but the thick Essence in his center only bubbled and moved like mucus, refusing to do more than ooze in a circle. “What actually is this corruption?”
Craig was watching him, and nodded when he saw him try to move the corrupted Essence. “Good question. Listen up, I’ll only explain this now, and never again. Corruption is a side effect of the energy of the heavens and the earth being turned into the universal basic elements. Everything begins as purest energy, but the world creates things out of it, yes?”
Dale nodded. “So, rocks and stuff?”
“Pretty much. To do this, the item is formed, but then it's ‘identity’ seeps into the pure Essence, corrupting it. A rock, which at its basic form is this stored energy, adds it's ‘identity’ to the energy, which then becomes earthen Essence. Essence joins together in complex ways, to form combinations which form what we call higher Essences. Fire and water to form steam, water and earth to plant, and so forth. Those lucky enough to gain affinities in multiple elements can become higher level cultivators very quickly, if they have access to all of the elements they need. For instance, fire, water, and earth form a ‘soot’ affinity. The combinations are endless, allowing for any kind of material, or even life.” Craig lectured briefly. “Essence is endless, and the more of each type of basic Essence in an area, the more Essence is generated. If you somehow got all of them to coexist together, you would have a very powerful Essence generator.”
“Your job now is to try to purify all the Essence you can accumulate back to its cleanest state, within your center. Now you understand? Any more questions? No? Good. We’re going to take care the mess you have right now, don’t worry. After that, it is up to you, and your hard work.” Craig finished, ignoring the fact that Dale actually was trying to ask more questions.
They began their descent into the darkness below.
~Twelve~
The group approached my entrance, moved into formation and started their workday. Now that I had semi-intelligent creatures under my influence, I could move into my Mobs’ minds and directly control their movement. I was only good enough at this to do it one at a time, but was assured (by Dani of course) that with practice I could control a squad of monsters at the same time. The rabbits were hidden in the thick vegetation, so the room had no significant difference from the original mushroom-Mob appearance. This would be fun!
The men walked in and began slashing at the Shroomishes, quickly targeting the ranged Banes. When their attention was focused on a particularly thick grouping of mushrooms, I sent
ooking! He must be really aware of his surroundings.
The dozens of rabbits were almost entirely silent, but when they hit armor it sounded like metal being beaten, or as Dani told me, a ‘gong’ or hail falling on tin. The man who had fallen was being pummeled, but his thick armor allowed him to quickly regain his footing. One man stepped on a spike filled shroom, which had to hurt as he twisted his ankle, but even the underside of his boot was armored enough to stop the spike from entering his flesh.
The men had been taken by surprise, but were an efficient team and quickly turned the tides against me. A sword dropped down, slaying some Bashers, but most of my creatures were nimble enough to avoid it. A few of the fighters used weapons that required less skill, such as a staff, while another struck with his fists, and these quickly decimated my ranks. Sounding a retreat, I directed the Bashers into a bolt hole which made it impossible to attack them without magic.
“Did they just run away? I’ve never seen Mobs run away before.” One of the men sounded suspicious of my motives. Good.
An answering grunt came in reply, then resolved into words, “Ugh. Just keep an eye out, we don’t want to be ambushed again. These aren’t magical Beasts, right? Just weird looking mutated rabbits?”
“Looks that way.” A few answering grunts showed the other’s agreement.
They moved further in, ignoring the other plants. Entering my first tunnel, I really wanted to hit them from behind, but they were too wary. I didn’t want to lose more creatures, though I captured the energy they released upon death, which was enough for me to bring a new one back to roughly the same stage of life. If I made them young instead and let them grow unaided at an accelerated rate, I gained much more Essence than I had invested in their progenitors, actually a nice way to gain Essence quickly.
Skillfully avoiding traps, the group rested just before entering my second room. When they had finished catching their breath, and with looks of determination, they moved to attack the denizens of the second room. A similar situation developed, and by the time they had killed half of the prolific Bashers, their legs had to be in great pain. Take that! Minor inconveniences! Even with the armor, each hit was as strong as a decent mace blow landing, and must have been doing some damage. The only one I couldn’t seem to hit was wearing almost no armor whatsoever, just some kind of cloth, and I was nervous that he would be casting spells soon.
Sounding the retreat once more, I watched as they inspected the loot I dropped for each death, usually just a couple copper, but if they managed to take out the one I was inhabiting I gave them a bit extra. Nothing major, usually extra coins or a boot if I felt I could get away with it. So far they had found three left boots. Maybe I am evil.
I really was getting frustrated. Why did I have such high level groups? I studied them as they entered the next tunnel, and could see that most of them were C-ranked, but the one with the shield was F-ranked! I decided to focus on him as my most likely meal.
When they entered the third room, I waited until they had cleared about half the room before the Bashers attacked, and I had most of them charge at the shielded one. Right before they jumped, a Bane hiding on the ceiling fired a thorn directly at his head, and he blocked it! This did open him up for attack from the Bashers, and sensing victory they pounced as hard as they could, pummeling his shiny armor from multiple sides.
He dropped to the ground! Redoubling their efforts, they slammed against him, trying to crack his metal shell. He weakly counterattacked, but the Bashers easily dodged. They continued throwing themselves at him, then I realized I was down to only two in the room. I had gotten too focused and forgot to retreat, dang it. The group finished the remaining two off, and tried to gather their collective breaths.
“What the hell?” Gasped the one I had been beating on.
“They must have decided you were the weak link and gone for the kill. They seemed to frenzy a bit there, none of em ran this time.” The unarmored one verbalized. “You ok to continue?”
“Yeah,” Dale spit out a bit of blood, weakly finishing with, “Try not to let em hit your chest, guys.”
“Duly noted.”
“And why are there so many boots down here?!” That got a chuckle from his team, and from me.
They limped toward the final room, preparing to meet the Boss. Peeking at him from around the corner, they decided on their battle plan. Too bad for them I could hear every word, of course. I adjusted my plan accordingly, and got ready for their charge. None of them had ranged weapons, an obvious lack, which would put them in the best range of the Bloody Bane. Since he had no real intelligence, I could not directly control him, but the hidden Bashers were ready for my hostile takeover. I watched the group countdown to zero on their fingers, then silently charge the Boss.
The F-ranked man had stayed near the entrance, so when the Bloody Bane released a cloud of poisonous spores he was outside of it. These men were so strong that the poison was really only enough to deal a little damage, make them cough and whatnot. The poison would have been far more effective on the weak one in the now-not-so-shiny armor. Ah well, such is life. Time to go with plan B. The carpet of moss constricted, grabbing the weak one’s foot. A Basher hitting him from behind convinced the youngster to fall flat on his face into the moss as it dragged him as fast as possible to the Bane. The other members were finishing off the Boss when the lightly armored one noticed his predicament and came to his aid.
Drat, I had nearly maneuvered around that armor! I let a holy symbol drop as a token of my appreciation for the good fight, and would make sure to talk to Dani later about ways to improve my tactics. They got very excited by the holy symbol for some reason, probably the etched Inscription that came pre-made on it, so I decided to make that more… rare, in the future.
~Dale~
“You guys ok? Dale uttered around a swelling lip.
“My legs feel tenderized, but I’m fine otherwise.” Grouched the burly man carrying the massive shield near the front.
“Pretty good for such a low ranked place.” Commented a man who was wielding daggers. “Did you see that necklace? I wonder if it is legitimately inscribed...”
“Let’s bring it to a cleric when we are done here, could be worth something. We need to move on to the next stage though.” Craig abruptly cut off the conversation.
“What would that be?” Dale voice wavered apprehensively, as the other men turned to look at him with varying degrees of either pity or excitement.
Craig exhaled through his nose, and turned toward Dale, “Remember how we said we were going to get rid of that corruption?”
“Well, yeah. That was the whole point of this right? That’s why we had to be near that Silverwood tree... right?” Dale looked at the men nervously while pointing at the small sapling.
The men had surrounded him now, and Craig continued in an eerily calm voice, “Not quite, for one thing that tree is too immature still, but mainly that is a higher level technique. It helps people break into the B ranks, and convert their Essence to Mana. No, we are going to actually remove all the Essence from your center... by force.”
Dale started looking around a bit wildly. “Um.”
“It isn’t like we are going to beat you, kid. Relax.” The dagger wielding man tried to calm him down. “Still, it isn’t exactly a fun process. Here, start drinking.” He handed Dale a water skin. “Drink until you think you are going to hurl, then drink more.”
“Ok…” Removing his helmet with hidden relief, Dale took the water and drank. Every time he stopped or slowed the other men told him to keep going. When he was looking queasy, and obviously holding back his bile, Craig motioned for him to stop.
“This next part is dangerous for you. You are going to swallow this.” He handed Dale the small package the Guild Master had given him. “It is a Beast Core. What happens when a Beast Core is swallowed is very, hmm, interesting. If done willingly, all of the Essence in your Core
will flow into the gem, taking the corruption with it.”
“Then, it will continue pulling Essence from your body, until there is nothing in you but your personal life force, which it will also take if possible. Unwillingly ingesting one leads to a different fate, but we’ll not have that issue, right?” Craig eyed Dale with a threat lingering in his voice.
Ensuring Dale was paying attention, Craig looked him in the eyes and enunciated, “When I tell you to, and not before, you need to begin cultivating as fast as you can. You now know how to, that technique is a permanent part of your memories. Draw the Essence in this cavern into yourself as fast and cleanly as you can with your new technique. We’ll start your Chi spiral before we leave. Make sure you follow my directions exactly, the timing of this can be tricky. If you start too early, you are going to leave corruption in you. Too late, and you die. Get it? Listen to me through the pain.”
“The pain?!” Dale challenged, his head swimming.
“Forceful removal of what allows you to live tends to hurt a bit. The job of your fine squad members is to get that Core out of you when it is time, hence drinking all that water. You’re going to get punched in the stomach a bit. Which reminds me, armor off the top half.” Craig directed, as if he had not just told Dale he was going to be attacked by the shield holding mans’ ham sized fists.
Dale complied, forcing himself to stay calm, though the whites of his eyes were showing and he was starting to breathe heavily. After reducing the weight on himself, he grabbed the water skin drank more. He was nearly sick, but he told himself that anything to reduce the following stomach blows would help in the long run. Bracing himself, Dale waited for Craig to give the signal to start. It didn’t take long.
“Go.”
A bit more water helped the small gem slither down his throat, and Dale focused his mind on the filthy energy within him. There seemed to be no effect, and he wondered if this were just an excuse to terrify him or beat him up. Then, he ‘saw’ a tendril of light leave the gem and reach for his center, twisting and turning through channels that Dale couldn’t understand. The light connected, Dale then saw a gentle brown light pull away from his center back to the Core. It was a nice, tingly feeling; until the murky brown Essence touched the surface of the Core.