Quest for Vengeance

by Benjamin Douglas

  Her words would have seriously alarmed me if I hadn’t been in the middle of a breakthrough. Fuck spiders, they could wait. This was important!

  The thing was, I did know a rune. Or at least I was pretty sure I’d seen one. And given its location and apparent function, I thought I had a pretty good guess as to how I might be able to use it.

  “Genius,” I muttered, activating Mana Sight once more.

  I easily picked out the non-native mana threads within the Manual Mandible because they shined with a slightly different hue than those native to the weapon. They were all mostly just white, and sort of transparent, and glowed like electric light, but those that had come from the spider had a sort of pinkish hue, while the others veered a bit more toward blue. Fashioning my fingers into a long, focused tool of mana, I reached inside and pushed the spider threads toward the sharpened edge, where I wanted more concentration. They floated easily, meeting the native threads and bumping into them. Now, how to make the rune?

  First I tried to sharped the point of my hand as much as I could, like a tiny pen-point, to try to actually draw or engrave the M-like symbol onto the threads. But this proved fruitless in a number of ways. For one thing, the mana itself was of an enigmatic form. Was it solid? Liquid? Pure, raw energy? I couldn’t tell. For another, I had no “ink” for my mana pen, and no knowledge of how I might engrave with mana upon mana. The analogy broke down in my head as the reality before me refused to cooperate. I was getting nowhere with the idea of writing the rune.

  I visualized its shape in my mind. Two long, adjacent lines, two diags that met in the middle. Simple enough in theory. It dawned on me as I gazed at the floating threads.

  I had an abundance of lines to work with.

  Could it possibly be that simple?

  I dove in again and made my hand/mana tool a pair of long, narrow pincers, like tongs, to grab the threads and reorient them. Then I pushed the majority of the spider threads up against the native threads along the sharp edge, to increase the weapon’s damage, and selected four individual threads for the next step. One on each side, forming a barrier between the spider threads and the surrounding native threads, and then two arcing down from the top of each to meet in the middle. When the shape of the rune was made, I willed the last bit of mana I had into it, making it glow fiercely for a moment. Then my MP ran out and I popped back to normal sight.

  Had it worked?

  I hefted the weapon, my mouth open, and read its new stats:

  Weapon: Manual Mandible, modified

  Class: First Tier

  Range: Close Proximity

  Attacks: Slap, Slash, Stab. Can be thrown with requisite skill.

  Damage: 3HP min, 12HP max; 25HP with Power-up

  Durability: 10/10

  “Oh, shi—”

  Passive Skill Leveled Up: Mana Manipulation

  My, you’re a quick study, aren’t you? It seems like only yesterday you were learning about mana for the very first time. Now you have begun to explore how it can be shaped and weilded as a tool and weapon. It will take a long time for you to be a true master of mana, but everyone starts somewhere. Mana Manipulation is a passive skill that can only be leveled through use.

  Skill: Mana Manipulation

  Type: Passive

  Level: 4 (scalable)

  Effect: 12% increase in ability to manipulate mana from user’s body; 9% increase in ability to manipulate mana from environment

  Passive Skill Leveled Up: Mana Sight

  Congratulations, you have gained a level in the skill Mana Sight! This is a passive skill that will be leveled both by use and as your mana pool increases.

  Skill: Mana Sight

  Type: Passive

  Level: 5 (scalable)

  Effect: 15% increase in ability for mana to illuminate surroundings and other mana sources

  Cost: 1MP per 3 minutes

  Passive Skill Unlocked: Runecrafting

  Congratulations, you have unlocked the ancient, arcane art of Runecrafting! This complicated, painstaking skill can take a lifetime to master, but when used well, can make you a true force to be reckoned with. Runecrafting is a passive skill that can only be leveled with use.

  Skill: Runecrafting

  Type: Passive

  Level: 1 (scalable)

  Effect: 5% increase to likelihood of properly crafting and activating a rune

  Cost: variable depending on rune; variable from crafting to activating as well

  Congratulations, You Have Learned a Rune!

  Well hello there, nerd! You have learned a truly powerful Rune, the Rune of binding. When inscribed and activated properly, this rune will bind objects, people, places—anything that contains or channels mana! But you already knew that, didn’t you? MP cost varies depending on what is being bound.

  You Activated a Rune!

  +10XP

  This time I’m afraid I did cackle. Like a maniac. The cascade of skill notifications was a rush. I couldn’t wait till the next time I hit so many sweet spots all at once.

  Angie’s eyes snapped open and she squinted at me in the gathering dark. “Should I be worried?” she asked.

  I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face. “Only if you’re a Newlander.”

  CHAPTER 12:

  DUNGEON DIVING

  _________________

  May 1, 2049

  Janus Industries

  Letter from the Board

  To Rod Ignes, Project 309 Leader

  RE: Congratulations and Welcome

  CONFIDENTIAL: This letter is for Mr. Rod Ignes only.

  Rod,

  We the board wish to extend a hearty congratulations on your new position, and to welcome you into the fold of senior directors at Janus Industries. We recognize that your talent and efforts have already paved the way for great things for our company, and we want to say thank you. Welcome aboard, Rod. There’s a bonus in the envelope.

  Board of Directors

  Janus Industries

  ___

  We stayed two days.

  In vain I hoped my mana and spirit stats would remain doubled, the time only counting against their countdowns once we were outside of Thrannick’s dungeon, but somehow the game had accounted for the time discrepancy. After 24 hours my stats returned to normal. Still, I could hardly complain. I’d gained some good skill levels, I’d unlocked Runecrafting, I was only about 10XP shy of reaching my next character level, and we had a great collection of weapons I could carry around in my shadow bag. It had been a damned productive two days.

  We thought about staying. We could have kept foraging food from the mobs. The second day we’d managed to make something like basic leather armor from the bat wings, though it wore like a big burlap sack and hampered agility almost too much to be worth wearing. Might be decent for range fighters, but not for melee.

  Such thoughts were what brought us to the realization that we had to go back, though. Even though we were both reticent to trust any of the other prisoners, at the end of the day, neither of us could stomach the thought of going on the way we were while we left them to rot in their chains. They were our comrades in imprisonment. How could we leave them behind?

  And besides, I thought as I dropped the last modified M&M into my shadow bag. Dungeons were made for dungeon parties. If we wanted to take full advantage of it, we needed more players.

  So it was that Angie and I agreed on a set time after another two days. I went back to the pickaxe. I slept in my cell. Then the pickaxe again. The off-shift before we were to meet, I spilled the beans to my cellmates. They received the news quietly, faces blank. Why weren’t they excited? I furrowed my brow. Then I realized. They didn’t believe me.

  “Look,” I said, “believe what you want, but just come with me tomorrow, ok? What’ve you got to lose?”

  Nemo shook his head, unable for once to come up with a biting retort.

  Ten minutes into our next work-shift, I led the way.

  Getting everyone to the fissure wit
hout being noticed was the hardest part. In the end it came down to timing. I’d been keeping an eye on our guards and had noticed something like a pattern. The ones in the cavern with us rotated out just after our shift began. If we could all slip away behind the guard who was exiting, we could get there before the new guy came from around the bend in the connecting tunnel. And half the time he stopped to shoot the shit for a few minutes with the equip goblin, too, giving us even more time. That was our window, and we took it.

  The guard on duty had turned his back and was trudging toward the tunnel when I shot a look to my cellmates and quietly but quickly began to follow him. In my peripheral I saw Angie leading two more players toward the fissure as well, coming from our right.

  We were almost there. I began to breathe a sigh of relief with the fissure in sight.

  Then the shit hit the fan.

  “What the—” The new guard, a bearded man with a rough look about him, had arrived early. Or on time, rather, but it was the first time I’d seen him do it. He picked a fine time to become punctual. “What’s going on here? Get back to work!”

  My cellmates stopped dead in their tracks behind me. I paused, holding the man’s gaze, and gave one short, curt shake of my head. “No,” I quietly said.

  “No?” He drew a nasty-looking long knife, tapping the blade against his thigh. “Alright, then. This here’s Griselda, and she’s thirsty. Hasn’t tasted blood in weeks. I guess yours will do, even if you’re just a filthy elf son of a—”

  Fangs threw his pickaxe like an expert assassin. The man barely dodged in time.

  “Whoa now!” he said. “Violence will significantly increase your punishment!”

  Shit. Any hope of keeping our cover was gone. If we let him go, he’d start a manhunt for us. If we killed him, he’d respawn and start the hunt an hour later. No matter what, we were fucked.

  Angie’s group reached us just then, and my big kid-sis picked the burly man up in a big, ogre-sized bearhug, planting one hand over his mouth. His eyes widened in fear. Yeah, that’s my sister, I thought. I bet you didn’t expect a prisoner to have stats leveled that high. She began to haul him toward the fissure.

  “What are you doing?” one of her companions, another human man, hissed. I recognized him. He was the guy who’d come in with a bound parchment. The one who’d wet himself.

  “He’s coming with us,” she grunted, “unless you can think of a better solution.”

  “Kill him!” he said, his voice high with fear.

  Angie shook her head. “No good. Just respawn and come after us. Let’s go, everybody in!”

  We all slipped inside as fast as we could. I kept an eye out until I was the last one, then followed. So far as I could tell we hadn’t been spotted after kidnapping the guard, but each time I snuck into the fissure I felt I was increasingly abusing lady luck.

  “Well,” Nemo muttered from inside the adjoining cave, “we are well and truly fucked.” He was watching Angie drag the guard down the tunnel toward the lantern-lit door. The dungeon entrance.

  “We already were,” I said, following.

  I watched with some pleasure as my cellmates’ faces shifted from fear and anger to shock as they all read the dungeon description.

  “C’mon everyone.” I held the door, making a show of ushering them through. “You can all stand around reading later. There are mobs to slay, treasures to find, spiders to eat…”

  “Spiders to eat?” Jane raised an eyebrow as she passed.

  “You’ll see.”

  The guard thrashed and fought the whole way down the stairs, but he was no match for Angie. Damn, she was strong. He must not have prioritized brute strength in his build; surely he had a few levels on her. It didn’t seem to matter. The half-ogre had been hewing rock all day and mopping Cave Crawlers all night, and she had the muscle to show for it.

  When we reached the bottom, I took her aside and nodded at him.

  “What do we do about…?”

  She shook her head. “You’re the ideas guy. Give me some ideas. Can’t kill him. Can’t send him back. Don’t really want him in our party; I’ve a nasty feeling he’d take particular pleasure in stabbing me in the back.” She looked him in the face. “Wouldn’t you?” He glared at her, his eyes narrowed.

  She was right. We were stuck with him. Far less than ideal, but it was what it was.

  “Well we can try to tie him up, but without knowing his level or skills or anything…” I trailed off. I’d been about to suggest a few of us would have to stay behind to watch him, when it occured to me. I had a way to make sure he didn’t go wandering off anywhere.

  “Hang on,” I said, my mind racing. “I need, uh, some rope. Or something like rope.”

  Angie nodded. “Got it. Here.” She handed the guard to my cellmates, who looked a bit more imposing than her own. “I got something for you.” She nodded to Fangs, who grunted. Then she opened the door and ran into the cavern.

  “Help!” The guard threw his head back and screamed. His voice filled the staircase chamber. “Someone help me! Prisoners are loose! They have me!”

  Nemo crossed the space in a leap and sucker-punched the man in the gut. “Yeah, we do. We have you. What’re you gonna do about it?”

  The man glared at him. “You stupid little motherfucker. You are gonna die, and die, and DIE for this! You all are!”

  “Oh,” I said, “so something new?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Who are you people?”

  Angie trotted back inside, a long, gauzy silver thread wrapped around her arm. “Here! Think this’ll do?”

  I took it from her.

  New Item: Night Weaver’s Web

  You’re an odd duck, aren’t you? You’ve collected a thread from the mysterious Night Weaver’s web. Be careful; it’s strong, resilient, and stickier than a bottle of glue in a can of paint. Can be used as all-purpose rope, plus the sticky factor. An excellent binding agent.

  “Oh, hell yes. Hold him still.”

  A few minutes later the guard was wrapped head to toe with the stuff, and I’d managed to manipulate the mana within into a binding rune to bind the threads around him. Now he was mundanely and arcanely secured. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Shit!” he yelled. “C’mon, guys! Ok! Look! Take me with you. I can help. I’ll be an asset. I have some pretty sweet skills actually, and I—”

  I silenced him with the last coil of spider silk, passing it over his open mouth like a gag.

  “Sorry bud,” Angie said. “You’re just not worth the risk. Anyway, don’t feel too bad. I hear being held against your will is all the rage these days.” Her eyes glinted and she turned to lead us into the main cavern.

  Once there, I pulled the modded weapons from my shadow bag and began to distribute them. Eyes grew wide. Heads nodded. M&Ms were swung through the air with appreciative grunts.

  “Alright,” I said, “these are homebrew weapons. The real bespoke stuff. Don’t expect them to take the same kind of beating a real steel sword would, or to do the kind of damage a well-crafted bow could. But they’re a hell of a lot better than nothing.” I lowered my voice and added, “I hope.”

  “They are,” Jane said, turning her spear over in her hands. I was pretty proud of the ranged weapons, which had taken the most time. I’d concentrated most of the mana at the tip, as I’d planned, but the bindings had been trickiest on these, due to the limited amount of space. Somehow I’d just managed it. Altogether we had 4 spears, 6 M&Ms, and 2 Elder M&Ms, which dealt a bit more damage but also took more strength and stamina to weild. Not a huge problem for us, since we’d all been mining stone for weeks on end.

  “Thanks.” I flashed her a brief smile. I was nervous. I still didn’t like this. I didn’t want to share the dungeon. I didn’t want to lose it. “So anyway, let’s figure this out. Melee fighters, raise your hands.” Fangs, Nemo, and Meatloaf all did.

  Nemo nodded at Angie. “What about her? Not gonna be on the front
line with the rest of the boys?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Angie? No. She’s the tank, obviously.”

  “Oh, obviously,” Nemo said, as if I was the one who’d just embarrassed myself. Dumbass.

  “Fangs,” I said to the mongrel player, “you’re not range?”

  He shook his head. “Not until my magic skills are more leveled and I have some spells. For now, I can do the most damage hand-to-hand. I could probably scout in a pinch.”

  “That’s actually not a bad idea.” I hadn’t thought about scouts, but had envisioned us all just moving forward as one block. It would be better to send one level-headed player ahead to see what lie in our path rather than all stumble into a den of OP’d Night Weavers or something.

  Fangs nodded. “Done.” He turned an appreciative gaze on the players who’d taken the spears and stood in the back. Jane and the two players who’d come with Angie—the man, who called himself Glitch, and a elf maiden called Gemma. “Those are some pretty impressive ranged weapons though, for homebrew.”

  “Thanks.” I was holding one of the bag-like bat wings I’d tried to craft into armor. “You probably won’t want to wear this. Nasty agility penalty.”

  He waved it away. “Could be good for the ranged fighters.”

  “Good idea.” I passed the item back down the line.

  He looked out into the darkness. “You been far yet?”

  I shook my head. “Haven’t finished the first room. I mean, it’s enormous. So far we’ve just mopped up some of the locals. And crafted, I mean.”

  He nodded. “This’ll be a big dungeon. We could spend weeks, maybe. An elder god?” He stood silent a moment. “This is big, man.”

  “Hey.” Nemo pushed his way over to us. “Who died and made you party captain, huh?” He was looking at Fangs. “I don’t remember taking a vote. And I’m sure as hell not gonna follow a mongrel to my untimely death.”