by Rue Vespers
“Character upload percentage,” Jenner said.
Permanent Character Addition
You are being uploaded to the game. Check in at any time for an update.
Current Upload: 10.6%
“Shirvath,” he swore vituperatively.
He needed to fight in the rings, but first he had to learn how to fight at a school. And instead of learning how to fight at this school, he got thrown into a training dungeon without a single lesson. Now he was going to get scrambled.
If he scrambled to human, well, at least he knew what to do. If he scrambled to something else . . . then he had a whole new world to learn, a new body, new rules, new skills, new problems. He couldn’t get into the gladiator rings as a damn sea monster!
For a moment, he felt too defeated to get up.
If all he did was sit here, he was placing his life in the hands of Fate. Better to get scrambled in the dungeon and start over, giving himself a slim chance to find a way to make money in his new form. In fact, he could just stab himself in the heart with his own dagger and get the process underway.
That wasn’t fair to Rosy, though, whose future was just as uncertain as Jenner’s. Jenner owed the teacup an honest effort in this dungeon. Even if scrambling was pretty much the only way this ended.
Reluctantly, he stood.
The best weapon to bring to a dungeon is a second set of eyes! Though solo rovers say companions get in the way, most dungeon raiders agree that the best offense is a good defense. Form a team and maybe you’ll leave this dungeon with not only your life but a wonderful new friend!
Uh-oh! Your reputation with Hellsbore is -1. Maybe if you-
Jenner looked away.
Hellsbore got to his feet. A flat disc appeared in his fingers, white and with jagged teeth around the circumference. It was a throwing star made of ice. Cautiously, the demon peeked out into the corridor.
Had this been a TV show or a movie, this was the point where the two mismatched characters would decide to stick together as allies out of necessity. Jenner couldn’t name those TV shows or movies, but he was positive that that was what came next in the story.
Yet something about the demon’s cold-shouldered stance stayed his tongue. Hellsbore wasn’t interested in making friends, or just watching one another’s back until they were out. They came here together, yet Hellsbore was alone. He looked human, despite his eyes, yet he was not. He was something else entirely.
So when the demon stepped out of the room, Jenner said nothing. Wait up. Be careful. He thought those things to the demon in the ragged clothes, but his lips remained sealed. Hellsbore crept along the passage without a backwards glance, the throwing star dripping onto the rocky floor.
“Rosy?” Jenner said. The teacup jumped from his boot to his hand to his shoulder, and Jenner drew the dagger from its sheath.
“Steady on, kid,” Rosy whispered.
“What do you know about training dungeons? How close are they to the real thing?”
“Schools purchase training dungeons,” the cup replied. “It depends on what the specific school wants in its dungeon features, and what it’s willing to spend. No matter how that tennus talked them up, I seriously doubt a chum school shelled out top dollar for the very best training dungeons.”
Something roared in the distance.
Jenner’s blood chilled in his veins. He froze at the entrance to the claustrophobic corridor. Ten paces ahead, Hellsbore shrank into the wall and stayed very still.
The sound was distorted, changing volume each second. Was the creature advancing? Retreating? It was impossible to tell. It could even be staying put wherever it was, the only movement being in how the beats of the roar itself were bouncing off the walls.
“Just a monster,” Rosy said nervously. “Usually the cheap dungeons have a few battle rooms that you can get through in an hour or less. The best ones take several days. He probably got a three-for-one deal on these, so they’re total crap.”
Jenner hoped that Tennus August was grossly exaggerating about the quality of the school’s dungeons. He had never hoped for anything so hard as he hoped for that. “Fingers crossed they’re the cheapest training dungeons ever made.”
“They aren’t,” Rosy said in a voice that was far from comforting. “The cheapest come with tap-outs for overwhelmed students. You can’t get scrambled in them. It sounded to me like plenty of students get scrambled in these.”
Awesome. That was just awesome.
The roaring stopped, and they sneaked forward.
At the end of the passage was a fork. Hellsbore drew an arrow to the left with his chalk and tiptoed away in that direction. A stick of chalk appeared in Jenner’s free hand as he advanced upon the fork, and he drew an arrow to the right with two cross-hatches through the shaft. If his mark wasn’t unique, he would have no way to tell whose arrow it was.
He continued along, the ceiling getting higher. A strange humming sound danced at the edges of his hearing. It was coming from around a curve in the passage.
Jenner’s feet slowed, and he chose his steps with care to make as little noise as possible. The humming was nowhere near as terrifying as the roar, but calculating the amount of danger by volume seemed foolish.
He pressed to the wall, his grip tightening on the dagger, and risked a peek.
Nothing. Not monsters at least. He blinked hard at the interchanging green bars, which sizzled into view along the passage ahead.
The bars were in motion. Some rolled up and down, meeting with a crackle in the middle; others flickered left and right randomly. After Jenner’s eyes adjusted, he saw that the bars were in grids, three separate grids along the passage with empty intervals in between them.
“Well,” Rosy said bracingly, “at least it’s not a training dungeon for elves.”
“How can you tell?” Jenner asked.
“You didn’t play too many games in the outer-world, did you?”
“No. I don’t think so, and neither did you.”
Rosy snorted. “What do you think those wizarding students talked about most during their labs? Games. Games, games, games. Good games, bad games, new games, old games, the regular stuff you find in games and the innovative. This is a classic laser hallway trope. If any of those bars touch you, whatever part of your body it touches will be chopped off and you’re scrambled.”
Jenner gaped at the bars. “That’s ridiculous! Why would a dungeon have lasers in it and what does any of this have to do with elves?”
The cup sighed wearily. “Kid, for starters, dungeons have more challenges than just monsters in them. Second of all, nobody ever said Scrambled Lives was a great game. It’s decent. It’s good at times. But it’s not great. This dungeon has a laser hallway because whoever developed it got a naughty little junk tingle at the thought of lasers hacking up players into bite-sized pieces. And, thirdly, a laser hallway tests your speed, smarts, and agility. You’re human, so you have none of those things in comparison to an elf. What are your stats?”
Insulted, Jenner said, “Current status!”
Your Current Status
Name: Jenner
Age: 21 years
Race: Human
Sub-Race: Grakel demon (scales only)
Job: Janitor (former); weapons caddy (former); gladiator student (current)
Level: 4
Health: 16/16
Stamina: 9
Intelligence: 6
Agility: 5
Dexterity: 6
Perception: 4
Charisma: 3
Special Skills: Basic Sword-fighting (1); Grakel scales (25)
Advanced Options: see more
Some of his stats had improved with his leveling-up. “My stamina is 9-”
“Great,” the teacup said with profound sarcasm. “A Level 4 elf has a stamina score of 27, meaning they can run a lot faster and a lot longer than you can.”
“My intelligence is 6,” Jenner said defensively.
“Incredible! Yo
u’re a lot smarter than a troll. Their intelligence rarely hits a 3 even at the upper levels. Intelligence for a human peaks around 10 to 12, and 10 is where elves start. Your agility and dexterity are probably about 5 or 6 and any elf you encounter is twice to thrice that. My point is that a laser hallway is deadly dangerous to you, but it’s a joke to their kind. Obviously, this dungeon is not intended for elf students, because it’s far too easy for them.”
Disgruntled, Jenner said, “Well, I have something they don’t have. Those lasers can’t get through my scales.”
Rosy gave him a hearty, if painless, bitch-slap with the spoon. “You don’t know that! All you know is that you can’t be stabbed by a dagger, nor can you be chomped on by a troll. Wizards play around with lasers. Are you wizard-proof? Or are those lasers going to punch right through those fucking scales since they were never meant to withstand wizard magic?”
Shit. Jenner didn’t have the answer to that.
Irritated with the cup, he focused on the closest grid of green. The lasers were vertical, appearing in pairs of three on the left side, then the right side, and after that, the center of the passage. But then they changed as Jenner watched. After they flicked out of the center, they reappeared to the right. Then back to the center.
Was it random? Or was there a pattern?
Left. Right. Center.
Brief pause.
Right. Center. Left.
Brief pause.
Center. Right and left simultaneously, repeat.
Slightly longer pause.
Left. Center. Right.
Brief pause.
Center. Left. Right.
Brief pause.
Center. Right and left simultaneously, repeat.
Slightly longer pause.
He studied it for another minute. The only consistency was the step before those pauses which were just a tad longer: the center lasers flashing before the six bars appeared, three to each side.
If he walked through immediately after those center lasers flashed out, he had the split second where the bars were over to the sides, plus the longer pause afterwards. “I don’t remember laser death bars in Corazon’s Journey,” he grumbled.
“I can’t watch this,” Rosy said, clenching its eyes shut.
Jenner let the pattern unfold one more time, and braced himself for action. The moment the center bars vanished, he jumped through the grid to the patch of passage beyond. There was an unpleasant sensation on his skin, so unpleasant that he glanced down to his arms to see if he’d gotten burned.
He was fine. It was the sheer, deadly energy radiating off the bars that he was feeling. “I guess this isn’t a dungeon for trolls either.”
“Nope,” Rosy said, daring to open its eyes. “Those stupid fuckers would walk straight in and make a nice troll shish kebab on the floor.”
They studied the next grid. The laser bars undulated in waves from side to side, creating open pockets that didn’t last long enough to pass through. Rosy wasn’t helpful at all, shouting, “There! No, there! No, THERE! NOOOOO, THERE! Wait, kid! What about over there? You missed it!”
“I will put you in my pocket,” Jenner threatened. “And it’s been a very sweaty day so far.”
Rosy simmered down at once, mumbling, “Gross.”
The waves flowed on. This was not a challenge for an impatient teacup. In time Jenner understood when and where and for how long the pockets would appear. The best one, unfortunately, was at the very top along the ceiling. Had he those nifty ice plates, he could have made a staircase for himself and squeezed through.
The second-best option was at the bottom, but it was a distant second best. He wasn’t even sure that the pocket existed long enough for him to crawl through before the bars rolled back and separated him from his own ass.
He thought about it. “Rosy, I’m going to push you through first.”
The teacup was not enthused about this as Jenner sheathed the dagger and got down to his knees. Setting Rosy upon the ground, Jenner dropped onto his side.
“What in the fuck are you doing?” Rosy asked.
“I have to roll through,” Jenner said, and shoved the cup.
Rosy skidded through the pocket, shouting, “You asshole! You asshole! You . . . oh, I’m fine.”
“You’re welcome.” Jenner waited for the pocket to return, disliking how these wizard lasers had all the hairs of his body standing on end.
From far away, he heard a cry. Hellsbore was facing a challenge of his own.
Jenner tensed. The pocket reappeared, and he went for it. Rosy leaped out of the way as Jenner rolled into the next empty space.
One grid was left. He got up to learn its secrets.
“Uhhh . . .” Rosy hopped along the solid wall of bars. “Am I missing something?”
Sporadically, one bar or another flicked out of sight, but it was back within a hot second and the pocket wasn’t wide enough for a grown man to fit through anyway. There wasn’t any way to pass. Yet Jenner could see another fork in the passage on the other side, so there had to be some way to reach it!
“Maybe there’s a switch,” Jenner said.
“Maybe you went the wrong way,” Rosy countered.
They searched every inch of the passage between the two grids. The rocky protuberances on the floor and walls concealed nothing; Jenner tugged and kicked them vigorously. The ceiling was too high to reach, though it didn’t appear that the solution was up there either.
Several minutes later, he conceded. They had gone the wrong way. “Goddammit.”
Now Jenner was the one consumed by impatience. He tempered it with long, deep breaths before allowing himself to get back down on the ground. Rolling to the other side after the cup was through, they dealt with the next grid before returning around the curve.
Resentfully, Jenner drew an X over his crosshatched arrow. There had to be a reason for a dead-end, though! It wouldn’t just exist.
What if it did just exist?
Like in the gladiator ring when he was chasing after the baby troll, it wasn’t only a matter of brawn. The other human players hadn’t recognized how impossible the task was with those narrow-mouthed nets. You had to keep your head in a fight, not just physically but mentally.
Jenner had been so focused on the individual grid in front of him that he didn’t look beyond to the ones behind. Had he done that, he would have seen that the passage was effectively blocked off by that final grid. The bars hadn’t wasted his time; he wasted his time by not being observant. By not thinking a few steps ahead.
This chum school dungeon was teaching him how to fight, but he had to be open to the lessons.
He drew another cross-hatched arrow under Hellsbore’s mark, and went on.
Chapter Twenty
Drying puddles here and there bore testimony to Hellsbore’s presence. A fairly recent presence, too. While Jenner was playing around with those pointless wizard laser grids, the demon had been exploring this part of the dungeon at a pace akin to a crawl. Arrogant, yes; unpleasant, definitely; but he was not foolhardy. It put Jenner in mind of something Dan the Troll said about demons. They were foolish in a group.
The uniquely intelligent troll had not said individual demons were foolish. Perhaps they were rather like humans in that regard. Otherwise smart, rational human beings often made incredibly stupid decisions in a group for a variety of reasons that Jenner could not define; it was something that existed in his missing memories, though the conclusion was slipping through the nets. Then you factored in that this game was slightly enhancing the poorer personality traits of its demonic players, and maybe even subtly designing the world around them to reinforce their darker sides. In that light, foolish group decisions among their kind appeared inevitable, a natural consequence borne of their jealousy and suspicion, conceit and deceit and cruelty, impulsivity and laziness, whatever each individual brought to the dynamic.
It was interesting information, if currently irrelevant. Jenner made a mental note of it
for future interactions with demons, and on the off-chance that one day he scrambled into a demon himself.
The passage trailed on and on. Larger puddles stood in the places where the demon had stopped. Rather than jaunt blithely around the curves, Hellsbore took his time to see if anything appeared. Only then did he go on. Impulsivity was certainly not one of his faults.
At another fork was an arrow, indicating that the ice demon chose the left side. There was no obvious clue as to why.
Jenner hesitated. The demon chose correctly at the first fork, but that didn’t mean he’d chosen correctly at the second. “What do you think?” he asked Rosy.
“Left,” Rosy said without hesitation.
“Why?”
“Let him be your red-shirt, kid! Monsters spawn and respawn in dungeons, but it’s not immediate. Whatever he’s already fought, if anything, you won’t have to fight yourself as long as not too much time has passed.”
That made a lot of sense. Jenner drew his own crosshatched mark on the wall and went left.
The creature roared, the sound so distorted by the winding dungeon passages that he couldn’t tell if it was forty feet away or four hundred. He stayed still out of reflex until the echoes died down.
For a moment, it had sounded to him like the roar split into two different octaves. Two voices, a baritone and an alto, but then they came back together again as one. More distortion? Or more monsters?
“Maybe it’s a giant bunny,” Rosy said hopefully once the dungeon returned to that cemetery-like stillness.
“I don’t think so,” Jenner replied.
“It could be.”
“All right, it could be.”
“You don’t know. But this isn’t the right part of the game for that glitch. It usually happens in Silverspring Forest, although it’s been reported elsewhere in Talvenor. There’s a side quest in Silverspring where you have to heal the poor little fucking bunnies of the fucking forest, who are afflicted with some demonic brand of fucking rabies. The glitch pops up if you chase one of the bunnies towards the dungeons in that area. If a rabid bunny enters a dungeon, it infects all of the monsters inside. Except they don’t get rabies. They all turn into fluffy, harmless little bunnies instead of rabid monsters. It’s the easiest gold you’ll ever pick up in this game since they just run away from you.”