The City and the Dungeon: And Those who Dwell and Delve Within

by Matthew Schmidt

  High Perception is very strange. You start hearing, seeing, even smelling, everything. It explains why a Black can happen to butt into any conversation we have, no matter how quiet. They are able to hear it in detail from across the common room. You have to learn techniques for ignoring things, or you'll go insane in crowded rooms.

  But there is something to be said for having a high average. It means there's nothing you can't do—the sheer unstoppableness of your talent can become addicting. Nowhere is inaccessible, no mountain too high, no book too complex, no race too hard. Everything, everywhere, yours.

  Sure, there are still Class Restrictions on your gear, but there comes a point when a stat requirement a few points above yours is no longer an immutable wall. It merely requires additional, possible effort. When we crossed that point, that was when I began thinking of us as a good party.

  And good we were. Soon we were not merely 15th Qualified, but 20th.

  * * *

  The deepest monsters of the upper Dungeon were not as fearsome as they had been made out to be. War Trees, sure. It's just how stupidly high their Health is, not to mention that they pound you into a pulp while you're trying to kill them. If it's got a Burning modifier so that it doesn't have weakness to fire... Ick. No one goes into War Forest rooms if he can help it.

  Other monsters—fast, spellcasting Horserers, poison spewing Swamp Monsters, Jabberwoks, Long Worms, Wumpuses and the like—are painful. But something we could stand to fight. But the most annoying, without a doubt, is the Nurikabe. It's a completely invisible monster that acts as a wall that blocking corridors. It has no attack, but even more Health than a War Tree. More than one party has perished trying to retreat through one, not knowing it had blocked the corridor behind them. I'd heard there are even more obnoxious versions in the Deep, such as the Master Nurikabe, the Nurikabe King, and Daedalus, the deadly Unique version.

  But whatever was below, what was above soon became irrelevant. Perhaps it was that we had the backing of a High House, or perhaps we were just good. Or lucky. But soon enough...

  It was time to face the 25th Boss.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Slayer Hunting

  The 25th Boss: the barrier between the upper Dungeon and the Deep. There is nothing nastier in the upper Dungeon; it's the notorious final challenge before a party faces the Deep itself.

  "I don't know if we can do this," I said. "It's too likely we'll hit a Boss with an attack we don't resist. Pop! We're wiped. It might be years of leveling before it's safe."

  "Let's just find a superparty," Elise said. "No reason we have to try it alone."

  "They're pretty rare," I said.

  "I'm sure we can find them sooner than 'years'," Xavier said. "No point not looking while we're leveling."

  * * *

  25TH BOSS SUPERPARTY

  25th Floor, any section, details offered to questers.

  Ready to see the Deep? JOIN US!

  Requires: +100 alignment, 20Q (only), full party.

  Straight division

  "Sounds good," Sampson said.

  "Same," I said. "Any objections?" Without any, I ripped out a page and set it on the Kiosk, then pulled the lever. A light flashed on the Kiosk. Requirements not met. "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "I bet it's your alignment," Elise said. "Remember the case?"

  Oh. Oh no. I did remember the case. And now it finally cost me.

  "Seriously?" I said. I wanted to throw something, so I threw the quest book away. It bounced a little.

  "That's the way alignment works," Elise said. "You make a mistake; you're punished for it. Complain about the City in general if you're going to do that."

  "I know, but..." I sighed.

  "It's not that difficult," Xavier said. "You're back to +97 now, right? Just get three—three more alignment, and you're good."

  "Have you considered slayer hunting?" Elise asked.

  "No, actually," I said. "Are you all cool with doing that?"

  "No," Andy said. "I'm not hunting."

  "You'd be needed, honey," Elise said.

  "No," she said with even more emotion. “Never again.”

  "I'll admit," Xavier said. "I'm not enthusiastic about fighting slayers. I've had enough of it as it is."

  "I can just go myself, then," I said. "I'm sure some slayer hunter party needs a healer."

  I picked up the book again in spite and flipped to the back, black tab.

  SLAYER HUNTING SUPERPARTY

  20-25th floor, section known, danger of slayers.

  We are intending to destroy a slayer camp.

  SHA membership not required. Free legal representation.

  Requires: 20Q, interview.

  Proportional Share of All Bounties and Loot

  "At least they don't have an alignment minimum," I said.

  "They do," Elise said. "It's just assumed you're not a slayer if you actually sign up."

  "Yeah," Xavier said. "They're slayer hunters, not irony hunters."

  * * *

  There are a lot more ways to become Chaotic than Lawful. For the latter, the easiest way is to do no Chaotic action or have unresolved charges. Over time your Lawfulness will slowly increase. That's the easiest way, but horribly inefficient. You might get a point a month, and less if you're already high. Anyone with a sufficiently bright Lawful aura—the kind you see at the Bank and the Courthouse—has at one point been a slayer hunter.

  Don't think of it as for money, though there are crystal bounties on the heads of certain notorious slayers. The biggest reason is that attacking a delver with a -100 or worse aura, as long as your own aura is Lawful, can increase your own, as I saw with Alice Black. Anything dropped by slayers is valid loot although there are enough rules around it that's not particularly worth it. Returning heartstones the slayers have stolen brings its own set of bounties, as well as good feelings. And killing another delver in any situation is one of the biggest sources of Experience.

  But there are reasons it's not everyone's favorite pastime.

  The primary danger in slayer hunting is the slayers. After all, they are just as dangerous, if not more so, than yourself, and they have no reason to have mercy. Many slayer hunters never return—their heartstones still kept by the slayers they failed to kill.

  And yet there's another danger. What it does to you.

  * * *

  The interview consisted of two questions.

  "You ever fought slayers before?" the superparty leader, a Knight Templar, asked me.

  "Yes," I said. "Way over level than us, but we made it."

  "You're ready to repeat the experience?"

  "As long as it's them dying, yes."

  "You're on."

  * * *

  I was already regretting my decision as we approached the slayer camp on the 23rd.

  "Buff when I ask," the party leader said to me. "Are you some kind of idiot?"

  I thought about making a snarky reply. But I hesitated, and the moment passed. We were trying to sneak through the 23rd, anyway. If the slayers still hadn't detected us, every exit was blocked. Unless they planned to dig—but they wouldn't have enough time if we succeeded.

  Watch for ambush, the superparty leader thought.

  "Someone hunting the hunters," I joked, half-heartedly.

  Metahunters are a slayer hunter's worst nightmare, thought a hunter nearby, entirely serious. Now shut up.

  CONTACT! It was a controlled thought-shout from a scout, but nonetheless a thought-shout. I was too stunned to cast as they attacked. Fighting slayers feels nothing like fighting monsters. It's ten times as terrifying, and the enemy is far more intelligent than any thought-rule.

  But monsters don't retreat in panic either. I regained enough sense to cast a Full Heal on our Grim Knight, who countered a would-be fatal slash from a slayer with his own mortal blow. The other three fled.

  You idiot! You could have gotten us killed! Our leader thought-shouted at me as we charged after them into a clearing. />
  Shut up, I thought-shouted back at our leader. I'm not taking this kind of abuse from you.

  Another of our parties burst into the camp, only to discover, as we did, that there were many more slayers in the camp than we. As another slayer party moved to engage us, an ear-piercing explosion caved through a gate, and our main force broke through. Monsters don't panic, but the slayers took too long to react. Fireballs flew everywhere, and I hit the tiles just as one passed overhead.

  A blue Fire Wizard spewed balls of flame all around him, but our Knight Templar ignored this and ran through, running the mage through with his sword.

  And they were routed.

  * * *

  I discovered that, as much as I disliked the slayer hunters, the slayers were far, far worse.

  Most of the camp had been destroyed in the fighting. The "buildings," if you could call them that, were a mixture of crystal structures and Dungeon walls. Were. Between our initial assault, clean-up of any survivors, and deliberate destruction, there were few left.

  One of those "few" was intact. Our leader was unusually quiet as I healed our party before it. He thought to me, You're about to enter where they kept the slaves. It's going to hit you hard, so just remember that this is why you did this.

  Slaves? I thought back.

  But he didn't explain any further. He didn't need to.

  Our Rogue opened the lock, and we stepped into the pen. Delvers in rags, clinging to each other, heartstones lying on the ground, chains, collars and whips...

  A withered delver grabbed my hand. By his voice, I could tell he was little calendar-older than I. "You... save us?" he croaked.

  "What did they do to you?" I asked, my voice quiet from horror.

  A slayer hunter blandly answered instead. "Killed and revived him repeatedly. Punishment, fun, cruelty, didn't matter. And that's the kind of thing they start with. You'll want to not know the rest, all right?"

  I wanted to vomit, but no digestion in the Dungeon. "Um, we're going to take them out, right?"

  "We're going to make sure someone isn't taken out, first."

  * * *

  There's no requirement for slayer hunters to return their prey's heartstones, allegedly for a technical reason. If the Law required delvers to take the heartstones of the Chaotic, then the Lawful would be punished. But as we went to the shaft our Miner had dug, I found that reason was only an excuse.

  No one wanted a slayer to be found, ever again.

  "Here you go," my party mate said, as he handed a stone to me.

  I threw it down without thought or regret.

  * * *

  But it was the next day, thinking about it, that I regretted it.

  "It was so satisfying to see it bounce down that hole," I told my real party. "But... I basically made someone lost."

  "That was the point, no?" Xavier said.

  "Yes, but that's..." I shook my head. "Am I really one to judge?"

  "The Law already did," Elise said.

  "The Law marked them as Chaotic. They were never tried," I said. "I mean, I saw what was going on in their camp. I don't think for a moment they deserved the slightest mercy. But, am I really the one to decide who will live again, and who will be lost?"

  "You're not going back," Andy said.

  "No," I said. "I'll just see if I can volunteer or donate the rest of the way."

  "Excuse me," Seth Black said as he came to our table. I could now, like them, sense when someone approached. "I take it you are disturbed by your trip?"

  "Yes, sir," I said. "It was... Ugh."

  "I know. I did my share of slayer hunting when I was your age," Seth Black said, though not wistfully. I wondered how old he really was.

  "Did you, um, regret it?" I asked.

  "Had I not done so, the slayers would continue to be terrorizing innocents. As, no doubt, you saw."

  "What will happen to those who were drained?"

  "There are charities set up for them. You can always donate some of your crystal to those you found."

  "I will," I said. "It's just not... fair." Fair what happened to them? No, but the Dungeon was never fair. What was different? Was it that death by a monster is death by something unaware, but death by a human being was true, knowing cruelty? Yet, I too was human. What little evils did I do that I could dismiss as mere inconvenience for others?

  Seth Black had taken the pause for my thoughtfulness. "You may wish to visit a slayer support group. They are for everyone, from those attacked to those taken captive, and for those who fought them. You have had two run-ins with them yourself, and that is not a small thing." He took out a card from his coat and handed it to me. I realized he had planned in advance to give it to me. That was one of the small ways that Seth Black showed his care.

  "Thanks," I said. "Thank you, sir."

  "You are welcome," Seth Black said, nodded, and walked on.

  "I'm sure we can find something that'll give you the rest," Xavier said. "You don't need to do this again."

  "But you can never tell if you'll be ambushed by slayers again, either," Elise said.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  The 25th

  One day longer, and it would have been too late. I ended up giving about a blue to a slayer-attack-recovery fund, which bumped me up the rest of the way. That I did not regret at all, even if I sometimes thought what else I could have spent a whole blue on.

  "Be warned," Alice Black told us before we left. "It'll be a lot more dangerous than any Boss you'll have fought before. Don't imagine you can't be wiped by it, because you can. And don't go down, either. The Deep is... Just wait, OK? There's a reason it's our policy. The 25th is dangerous enough."

  * * *

  Her warning echoed in my mind as we stood inside the 25th Lock, even grander and more ornate than the four locks we had entered before. The other parties stood around, waiting for their own prebattles to be finished. Prebattles? After you get strong enough, they become the difference between victory and death. Any buff, bonus or other kind of protective spell could be the edge necessary to win. Prebattles are important enough that nearly every caster with them—including myself—has a second set of gear to briefly change into before battle.

  Final order of command, our leader, Alexander, thought to us. We had decided to call him Alexander, and I just Alex. Alex Kenderman, you're after me.

  I thought about protesting, but didn't send it. Yes, sir.

  Come on, no need to stand on rank. The thing I want to stand on is the Boss's decaying carcass.

  Sure, I thought. Let's do this.

  Right. After Alex...

  I spent my time as others cast prebattles examining the parties. We had a variety—as public superparties tended to produce. One party had two Spellshapers who doubtlessly had trained in combining their spells. I saw some weirder classes—a Jester Knight is the sort that everyone else likes except the one who has it. I don’t know how many people get up in the morning hoping they can successfully draw the aggression of all nearby monsters.

  "All ready in ten seconds," Alexander ordered. "Ten, nine..."

  How close we were. One battle, and we would be in the Deep. Or, one battle, and we would be lost.

  "Three, two, one!" A Speed Bandit dashed to the stone, hit it, and dashed back.

  The four Nurikabe it summoned around it were the first warning. Only magic-using Bosses protected themselves that way as they appeared.

  It was bent over, an emaciated creature with a staff in its only hand. The feet were also missing, replaced with claws at the end of its thin legs. Many tattered cloaks hovered like storm clouds over its withered backside. It cackled, both loud and raspy.

  I was stopped in shock, until I fully understood. We had had the second-worst luck; our Boss was a Giant Lich, the second greatest killer of would-be Deep delvers.

  A Seeker read the Boss, and thought-screamed It's got Summoner!

  She needn't have done so, as with a wave of its staff it summoned monsters everywhere. />
  "Keep calm!" our leader shouted. "We can win this, just keep calm!"

  I tried, but it wasn't helping that the Seeker was still thought-screaming. Then an Infernal Hound breathed on her and she died.

  "North Nurikabe, get the north Nurikabe!"

  Andy swung her mattock, but even her full force only made a crack in the invisible wall.