Beginner's Luck (Character Development Book 1)

by Aaron Jay

  I couldn’t believe positive thinking actually worked. Touch one outcrop and from a very specific angle I could just see a faint blue light that faded away almost immediately. Hope spiked in my chest.

  Pressing the small outcrop where I saw the faint glow, a faint click came from behind the wall. I held my breath and waited. Nothing. The boulder was still stuck like the three-thousand-pound rock it seemed to be. I couldn’t budge it in any direction no matter how hard I tried. I held the outcrop down and tried shifting the boulder this way and that, but still nothing.

  I searched around the boulder. On its opposite side there was another small outcrop that shifted when I twisted it. Another faint click. Aaaand… still nothing. With growing horror as I pushed, pulled, and banged on the door I realized that you needed to work both outcrops at the same time. Simple as pie if you are in a party. One more way the dungeon was clearly not designed to be soloed, and I would rot here for the next ten months and then a lifetime…

  …if not for my time doing yoga with Mordecai and Lemminkäinen. My left hand twisted the outcrop as I stood planted on one foot. Using my hips as a pivot I balanced over my planted leg and managed to raise the other leg. My back bowed more and more as I worked to lower my torso below the fulcrum of my posted leg in an attempt to get the free leg the half a foot higher I needed to trigger the other outcrop. Getting into this position was even harder than describing it. All the while I hung onto the twisted rock. My grip started to get sweaty and I feared I’d lose my hold when I finally got my foot over the outcrop and I heard the second click. Nothing else happened for a second and my stomach started to drop at the fear that there was a third trigger to this god damned door. But slowly the boulder started opening towards me. It knocked me out of my pose and opened the rest of the way.

  Jumping up I rushed into the room. Wyrmmdigger’s Bastion here we come! NPC elven enchantress with an oral fixation! Give daddy that sweet sweet item that will help me clear this thing.

  The room was empty except for a pick-axe and a note. The note was written in a hurried and sloppy hand.

  “Harthor! The kobolds have overrun the guards. I won’t let them get their hands on one of the Stonebeards’ greatest treasures. If you are reading this then I didn’t make it. Look after Helga and the bairns. When one of them is old enough and worthy, give it to them. - Jordun of the Stonebeards.”

  I hefted the pick-axe. “One of the Stonebeards’ greatest treasures.” I looked at its stats.

  Stonebeard Greater Mining Pick-Axe

  Strength +1

  Constitution +1

  This legacy of a Dwarven Clan who have reached the pinnacle of mining and delving will raise its user’s mining skill by one entire level.

  (Novice miners work as Beginners. Beginner miners work as Journeymen, etc.)

  Cannot be used as a weapon.

  Well, that was really unhelpful.

  Out of sheer stubbornness I kept my search up. I found and killed another handful of basic kobold scouts, warriors, and regular clan members. I found and disarmed some more traps, but pretty soon I found myself back at the cave with the pool, the named boss chieftain and his backup singers. The dungeon was searched and cleared to its bones.

  I kept thinking about whether there was anything I could do with the Stonebeard pick-axe. Images of a vid my dad used to show me ran through my mind. This wisecracking rabbit could tunnel as fast as most people could drive. The crazy rabbit would dig his way to his vacation spots. Even if I could dig my way somewhere, I’d find out that I should have taken a left turn in Albuquerque. It was a great item--just absolutely useless for solving my current problems. I was sure if I ever got out of here I’d have future problems, so maybe it would help with those.

  But as for the inhabitants of the pool room, there was no way to take those things on without dying.

  Something about that statement felt like the faint glimmer of an actual idea. There was no way to take these things on without dying. Okay. Let’s assume that this was true. I couldn’t take these things on without dying. Did this mean I could take them on while dying? Dying didn’t have to mean failure--as long as I could take them out with me.

  This was going to be unpleasant. I made my way back to the secret door and stripped down until I was in my birthday suit. I picked through the best of the junk equipment I had gotten off the kobolds. It left me armored in the heaviest armor I could find and with a cruel looking if sadly underpowered short sword. The armor was foul smelling, like rancid dog.

  I was going to die. I couldn’t afford to lose any of my gear. The only way to ensure I didn’t was not to be wearing anything I cared about when it happened.

  I closed the secret door and made my way for the third time back to the named boss. Third time would be the charm. Nothing had changed with the Chieftain or his shamans. After sitting and meditating I cast invisibility on myself. A counter dropping down from four minutes began. Enough time to cast my second spell and leave me with just enough time to put my plan into effect. Chanting and breathing in rhythm, I held out my pointer and pinky finger and closed the rest of my fingers and thumb. Nandhimudra. Nandhi was a sage’s son who was transformed into a bull by Shiva the god of death. There was double symbolism for me. My spell was granting me the strength of a bull. I was also going to die.

  As strength flowed through me, I kept my breath and chant even till the spell was finished. My strength was raised up to 17. I was now as strong as your average black pudding, choker, or large shark. Hopefully it would be enough.

  I raced into the room. Even with my strength-enhanced speed and invisibility, Grumth managed to draw and begin swinging at me as I rushed toward them but his blade was too late. He misjudged where I would be. Grumth must have thought I was going to stop and fight but that wasn’t the plan.

  I rammed into the Shaman to Grumth’s left. My shoulder crushed into his solar plexus and his breath exploded out as I almost lifted him up into a carry. The water was an icy shock as we both fell into the pool with the water wheel. I clamped my arms around the Shaman, squeezing as hard as I could to stop him from getting a last breath as we sank into the cold, dark water.

  Lifeguards use ropes, poles and flotation devices because drowning people will fight and sometimes drown the very people trying to rescue them in their panic. A kobold shaman is no different. I was sure that without my enhanced strength he would have clawed his way out of my grip. He flailed and scratched and clawed. Half the world went even darker as one of his claws tore down my face and across my eye. I refused to care. All I cared about was driving us down deeper into the pool. I managed to get one stab into him and what dregs of air remained in his lungs floated out as bubbles from his screaming mouth.

  We hit bottom. The Shaman writhed and twisted. He seemed like he was made of steel cable. I couldn’t believe a caster type had such strength, but despite his frantic efforts I kept a grip. He managed to get an arm or leg free for a moment but never for long enough to get us moving back towards the surface.

  The shaman settled for a minute. I think he was trying to think his way out of my trap. I took the opportunity to shift and improve my hold. I curled my legs around his and got my arms into a lock on his. I was holding him from behind now with my back on the pool’s floor.

  Above us, faintly seen through the dark waters, a bright light from outside the pool flared and I realized the other shaman was casting some sort of fire based spell at me. Live by the fire-oriented racial preference, die by the fire-oriented racial preference. The spell fizzled out before it reached us. The shaman in my grasp began struggling again when he realized that his ally wouldn’t be able to do much for him.

  His struggles started to fade and there were periods of stillness from him as his life faded. My breath was like a caged animal in my chest at this point. I tried to hold him as still as I could while not wasting any excess air or energy. I kept telling myself that all I needed to do was hold my breath longer than the Shaman. Just one second long
er. Another second and another as my heart beat started pounding in my ears. Finally, a notice that the Shaman was dead appeared.

  With frantic strokes, I started for the surface when the Chieftain entered the pool in a whirl of air bubbles. I don’t know if I would have made it out of the pool even without the Chieftain blocking my way. His sword struck through the water and into my stomach. I couldn’t help but scream, which replaced my lungful of air with water. Some irrational part of my fading mind was happy that I was dying from drowning rather than letting the Chieftain take my life. As if that mattered. The last thing I saw as sight faded from my one remaining eye was the Chieftain’s hand reaching for my throat. Too late Grumth. I died.

  Wracking coughs shook me as I found myself at the entrance to the mines once again. It felt like something was still trapped in my lungs when I tried to breathe in. Something was blocking air from getting to my lungs. I coughed and wheezed and tried to recover. On second thought, I would have rather had Grumth stab me to death. Drowning seemed to have had some sort of psychosomatic effect on me--and I still had to do it another time.

  Sitting there coughing, I wasn’t sure I could go through with this again. I had been in the game for a long time and its virtuality was harder and harder to remember. It was difficult to remind myself that I wasn’t really going to drown. Avoiding pain and danger is hard wired into the human animal. Knowing that the pain and danger aren’t real only gets you so far. Every sense my stupid brain relied upon to know how to feel about things was telling it that I was going to kill us… again. Pain and fear occur in the mind. My mind knew I was planning to drown it and it was rebelling.

  A short yip drew my attention to the exit of the instance I couldn’t escape through. Remus was sitting there looking at me. A dog’s eyebrows are more expressive than most people’s entire faces. This goes for wolves too. Somehow the angle of his eyebrows communicated humor restrained by concern. I walked over to the edge of the instance and knelt down in front of my one friend in the game. Actually, my one friend in the world.

  “Remus!” I tried to shout and finished with another coughing fit.

  Remus looked me over as I continued coughing. He sniffed at the barrier as if he could tell how I was doing by smell even if he couldn’t touch me. Maybe he could.

  Remus yipped again and gave me a panting smile. One amazing thing about animals is that they never feel any self-pity. They never feel pity at all. They seem to be able to feel concern but not pity. It makes their expressions of concern pack quite the punch. After weeks alone in those damned mines a friendly face with unpitying warmth and concern just about broke me. I tried to scratch him but my hand just passed right through him. He gave me a notional lick.

  “I’m doing it, Remus. I’ve almost beat this thing. I think I’m going to finish soloing this dungeon. I’ll finish with less experience than I entered the damned place. Maybe even at a lower level than I started, but I am going to make it,” I told him. The death penalty had put me back to the beginning of level 4. My next planned death would drop me back to level three.

  Remus’ laughing grin expressed a cocksure certainty that he was the top dog around, including me. Just like he felt no self-pity and would never pity me, his expression told me he had always expected any brother of his to overcome any foe or die without complaint. And dying was for lesser beings—which included anything other than wolves.

  I realized that wolves live in the moment. Pity demands that you care and think about what was once and was lost, or what should have been instead of what is, or terrible things you think the future will hold. Remus’ concern was for the me of right now. It held no expectation of what should have been or what was coming. His pride in me was for me right now--the only me that actually exists, not the possible me or the me of the past that has gone. What had taken me weeks of meditation under the threat of death to achieve, Remus came by naturally. Or, as naturally as a virtual wolf gets. Wolves are naturally mindful.

  Sitting with my friend was a respite. It was a solace. Something that had been clenched within my chest loosened. Suddenly I was filled with an excitement to play, win and get back to the game. The last time I had looked forward to playing this game was walking with Jude on the way to my roll-up. But for the moment, I was happy. Two more mobs and I was out. Yes, the last one was a named mob over three times my level but so what? I’d win or die trying like any brother of wolves would.

  A wolf would drown in its own blood, prey to some other predator, without ever feeling sorry for itself. Death is lighter than a feather. Duty is as heavy as the rock of this mountain.

  With a few more air pats and licks I made my goodbyes and headed back towards the mine. Escape was in sight.

  “Be back in an hour or so,” I told Remus over my shoulder and entered the mine.

  Wyrmmdigger’s Bane and the rest of my equipment was still in the hidden room when I got back there. I left it all, replacing the short sword my death had left behind with another trash weapon. I also grabbed the heaviest armor I thought I could move quickly in--the better to sink and drown us. I went back to the final room. Chieftain Grumth and the last Shaman were just where I had left them. The only difference was that they were gnawing on some bones. With a shudder, I realized that the bones were mine.

  The invisibility spell and Bull’s strength wouldn’t cast correctly. My cough wouldn’t go away and kept interrupting my breathing pattern. But after two tries at the proper meditation and chanting, I made it on my third try.

  Seeing Grumth gnawing on my femur made me think that, within some constraints, the boss would alter his behavior based on what had come before. I decided to clip the Shaman below the waist rather than hit him in the solar plexus like last time. I was glad I changed it up, as the chieftain’s sword swung exactly through where my neck had been the last time I did this. His blade’s tip scored along my back just before the Shaman and I tumbled into the water.

  The Shaman didn’t have the breath knocked out of him this time. He and I grappled and struggled. He managed to get a spell off before I managed to force his mouth under the water. With some growled words in his language, the shaman’s hands lit up with magical fire. They managed to add some light and odd flickering shadows to our underwater struggle. Most of the fire damage the spell would have caused was blocked by the icy water we were battling under.

  Grumth, being a scion of a desert kobold tribe, seems never to have learned to swim. He prowled the edge of the pool looking to get close enough to attack but for the moment he wasn’t willing to dive in to get at me. That wouldn’t last long.

  The dagger I had grabbed on my way back down here worked better in this kind of fight than the short sword I had used the last time. After all the fights using Wyrmmdigger’s Bane I knew just where to strike. Air bubbles flew out of the shaman’s snout as my blade ripped into his armpit at an angle able to move between his ribs. It was a fight between his claws and my dagger.

  I forced his head down and managed to get a quick gulp of air before we sank. A moment later he escaped my grasp. We both surfaced and he managed to get half a breath of air before I got a better hold of him and we sank again. A knife thrown by the Chieftain grazed me even through the water as we sank. The shaman and I had gotten a breath at about the same time before the waters closed over our heads. A silent struggle ensued between us. His claws scraped and pulled at my arms and legs as I kept us dropping down into the depths of the pool.

  He was a caster type and I had magically enhanced strength. He was over twice my level and that damned cough I had picked up from drowning kept threatening to erupt and waste all my husbanded air.

  It was so dark in here it was hard to tell which way was up. That gave me an idea. Crocodiles kill by latching on and rolling their prey over and over till their pray don’t know which way to go to escape even if they manage to get free for a moment. I spun the kobold over and over in the icy depths and stabbed at the shaman’s eyes to further disorient the monster. Neither
of us knew which way was up anymore.

  My vision was blurring when another cough forced the air out of my lungs. The Chieftain was likely to come join us any second. The edges of my field of view darkened and grey closed in. Still no notice that the Shaman had died. I couldn’t hang on any longer. He escaped my grasp and I feebly tried to swim to the surface when all went black. I died again.

  Once again, I was back at the entrance. I would have cursed up a blue streak but this time the coughing felt like it was going to kill me. I couldn’t get breath into my lungs. With a wheezing rasp, I managed to pull some air into lungs that felt like they had locked up. I had failed. And next time I tried to pull this off I was going to be another level lower.

  Remus was still here. Something about how I looked must have worried him. He whined, leaned up against the barrier and scratched at it with his claws. I stumbled towards him.

  A notice popped up.

  LEVEL 10 SHAMAN HAS DIED

  How?

  He must not have made it back to the surface. We both drowned. Even better, I died before he did and so got the experience for killing him after the experience penalty from my latest death. As a level three credited with killing a shaman seven levels higher than me, that was enough to get me back to level four.

  I smiled weakly as I kneeled in front of Remus.

  “Hey boy,” I wheezed.

  Despite my smile he didn’t seem reassured about me.

  Thank god, only one mob left and then I could get out of this damned place. Despite my best efforts to stay on my knees, I lay on my side trying to breathe shallowly. Anytime I took a deep breath it unleashed another wave of coughing. With a wrench, I found myself vomiting. The idea of trying to tackle the kobold chieftain and drowning again was impossible to face.