by Shane Walker
“It is a unique Ranger ability, sir. Similar to a Mage’s Familiar except that the Familiar is more of a servant whereas the Companion is more like a friend.” came the AI’s explanation. “Additionally, Mages can seek out specific Familiars or be assigned one based on their playstyle. Rangers do not have this choice. An Animal Companion that is unique to you and your playstyle will seek you out.”
That caught me off guard. What sort of Animal Companion would go to a Master of None like me? Maybe I should ask Rowan if he has one since he knew about the Ranger Job.
As if my thoughts summoned him, Rowan messaged me.
“Sorry to bug you so late, lad, but we need to talk. I got bad news about the Thieves Guild.” the message said, sounding far more ominous than I really wanted to deal with this late. However, I considered Rowan a friend and didn’t want to leave him hanging if something was bugging him, so I told him to swing by the warehouse.
A few minutes later I heard him coming in and giving his long whistle he used to show he was impressed. “I like what ya done with the place, lad. To think I was going to use the warehouse for storing extra clothes!” he said as he took everything in.
“Wait, you were going to turn this into a Men’s...you know what? Nevermind.” I said as I refused to follow that train of thought. “What’s got you so bothered this late at night, Rowan?”
“Oh, right. Sorry I didn’t give more details in my message.” he said as he motioned for a chair. “Let’s have a seat.”
After we were both seated he continued. “See, in this world, ya got three types of dangerous areas: open areas like that mine you got yourself. Those can turn into lairs, which are the homes of a specific and powerful type of monster whose power is amplified by the lair; if ya leave a lair too long though, it turns into a full fledged dungeon full of whatever nastiness the big bad monster managed to gather.
“Now, this is bad because the concentration of mana that accumulates during the lair phase will eventually become self-sustaining and keep the bugger in there alive forever. A thousand adventurers could come through and murder the prick that started the dungeon and he’d pop back right as rain every goddamn time.” he finished.
“OK, what does this have to do with the Thieves Guild?” I asked, knowing good and damn well exactly what it had to do with the Thieves Guild.
“There’s been a string of disappearances in the sewers around where the Thieves Guild enters and exits their hideout. The more they send looking, the more disappear. Originally they were going to send you out as bait for whatever was sneaking around the sewers, but then they found the problem.” he said. The concern was painted all over his face as if he didn’t want to finish what he was getting at.
“Last night,” he said, “the Thieves Guild found a Lair underneath their HQ.”
“Let me guess,” I said as I fought to keep my eyes from rolling. “They want me to clear it.”
“That they do, lad, but you got no dungeoneering experience. Hell, I heard you almost died to a pack of kobolds!” he said stifling a chuckle.
“OK, first of all, Nik promised he wouldn’t say anything. Second, there were a hundred of the bastards.” I said in my own defense.
“Your past mistakes aside, lad, we gotta get you trained up on how to handle yourself in there before I send you to meet them.” Rowan said with an almost fatherly tone. “Plus you need to get some levels on your Jobs. There’s only one good way for getting all this done, lad, and you ain’t going to like it.”
“Oh no. Don’t tell me...” I trailed off in defeat.
“That’s right, lad. It’s time you soloed a dungeon.”
26-The Firm
“DES! A little help would be nice!” I screamed at my bodyguard. The same bodyguard I’d suddenly decided was grossly overpaid based on services rendered.
“My job is to make sure you don’t die. I’m not here to make this easier on you.” came her matter-of-fact reply. She seemed very nonplussed as she continued to polish her rapier without so much as looking up at the fight.
She had a point, though. Rowan had two stipulations for this dungeon run I’d agreed to. First, that I don’t take any of Nik’s flash grenades with me. He said I would become overly reliant on them. Second, for much the same reason, was that Des was only there to bail me out of a life or death situation.
At that moment, Des and I were having a minor disagreement about what constituted life or death. I was at a quarter health after getting blindsided by a patrol of orcs while I was sneaking up on a sentry. So far all I had seen were orcs of the nameless grunt variety. None of those who had shown up were at the level of the big ugly bastard we’d fought in the mines.
The situation was doubly embarrassing because it was literally the beginning of the dungeon. I ran across the sentry guarding a door after entering the dungeon proper and hoped to keep my presence masked for as long as possible. That meant I was in my Thief Job doing my best to survive with Koboldsbane and Gnomesgain.
“Hey, boss, didn’t Rowan say something about changing Jobs to fit the situation? Seems like Thief is a bad fit here, unless this is ‘Operation Get Your Ass Kicked’ and no one told me.” Des chimed in as I dodged another blow.
Goddammit she was right. She was being an asshole about it, but she was right. Rowan had warned me about getting stuck using the wrong Job just because it was the one I already had equipped. Of course I got hit with tunnel vision on my first outing into a dungeon. Thief could Dodge OK and was great at stealth, but we were beyond sneaking. I needed to survive long enough to get back to sneaking, sure, but that meant killing the Orcs in front of me.
I leaped backwards to dodge the overhead strike coming from the axe-wielding Orc of the group and gave the mental command that would switch between Jobs. The Orcs now found themselves facing Jack Alltrades, Novice Ranger!
OK, so the title needed work, but the defenses were what mattered. These orcs hit like trucks, but they lacked the speed and finesse of someone like Rowan or Destreza. I was suddenly almost ready to close my eyes mid-battle just to make it interesting because of how ludicrously slow their attacks were. Of course, I didn’t because I had learned some sort of humility in the first half of the fight.
I’d also gotten the hang of combining Parry and Dodge by knocking attacks slightly off course and stepping the rest of the way out of the path of the incoming attack. It allowed each movement to use minimal energy. It all came down to something Rowan called “economy of movement.”
It only took about forty-five seconds for one to screw up badly enough that he got ran through by my longsword. In his frustration, he had attempted a blind thrust with his zweihander. Using both longsword and main gauche combined with a side-step to my left, I ensured his momentum pulled him forward. With his center of gravity off and his momentum still carrying him forward, I thrust towards his belly with my sword and his weight finished the job.
You have slain Orc Soldier!
As the first Orc fell, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I was about to fire at it with a crossbow until I realized it was a fox chasing some bugs in a side tunnel. Rowan had said that there would likely be some animals like that inside the dungeon. It’s how they existed as a sort of self-contained ecosystem. “Orcs need to eat to, lad.” was his response earlier in the day when I’d asked why the fuck mundane animals would spawn in a dungeon.
Seeing one of their brethren fall, the remaining Orcs took the time to reassess their opponent. They said something to each other in their native tongue before the sentry turned to run. I wasn’t sure where he was headed but my gamer senses said it was to warn others, so I did the smartest thing I could think of: I shot him in the ass with two crossbow bolts.
This was my first time trying a “called shot.” Normally when aiming the game helped auto-aim based on your skill towards center mass. If you wanted to hit somewhere else, though, the game could sense your intent well enough to allow you to aim for that specific spot. Unfortunately this was at a penalty to
your hit chance since it was a harder to hit a target in a particular body part than it was to hit them in the middle of their torso.
Now that that’s explained, when I say I shot him in the ass I mean it in the absolute most literal sense of the phrase. I was attempting to hit his legs in an attempt to hamstring him, but I accidentally aimed too high and hit his ass cheeks with a bolt each. It still worked out because he got two steps before he fell with a yelp and attempted to pull out the bolts.
While his friends turned to see the source of the pained yelling, I took the distraction as an opportunity to pick off one more with a sword through the throat. When the remaining two turned to see what this noise was about, I was already running towards the sentry. He had just gotten the second bolt out and was beginning to push himself up with his hands when he looked up and was staring directly into the business end of both arm crossbows.
You have slain Orc Sentry!
Now it was two versus one and I liked those odds a lot better. Still, when they came after me I opted not to take any chances and planned to end things quickly. The first swung a beaten bastard sword my way, which I was able to block with my longsword. Following up with a hard push with the main gauche, his sword was left hanging lamely at his side. It did him no good when I ran my sword into his stomach and sent him to the floor.
Just as I was preparing to finish him, his friend came charging at me and forced me to engage him rather than finish the other foe. I got lucky on the parry and disarmed him, but he responded by just bear hugging me trying to squeeze me to death. He would have succeeded if my forearms had gotten pinned. Since they didn’t, the “hugger” got six arrows directly into the mass of vital organs that was his torso.
You have slain Orc Soldier!
You have slain Orc Soldier!
After receiving the second notification, I looked over only to see that the first had Orc bled out while the other Orc tried hug therapy on me. I was thankful for that. If he hadn’t, I’d have had to waste more bolts or get dirty for the execution. Knowing I was safe for now gave me a chance to look at other notifications.
It looked like the XP was split between the two Jobs since I’d used both for the fight. Each got 1,000 XP and that was enough for both to jump to Level 5. My stats for each class improved and I got my usual five points per level. I decided to play into strengths with Thief and put all twenty points into Agility. With Ranger, I decided to play Strength and put all twenty points into Strength. Yes, I’m very clever.
“First encounter a success!” I said as I mustered a little false bravado for Des. She didn’t buy a bit of it.
“Oh my, the brave hero Jack Alltrades has slaughtered five level eight monsters with only a
nineteen level advantage! How strong and powerful he must be!” she said rolling her eyes the entire time, somehow. “Please show poor little Destreza how you could be so strong!” her eye roll stopped and turned into a malicious grin full of knowing. What did she know? That’s easy. She knew she could kick my ass up and down this old musty hallway in-game OR in real life since she was a champion fencer and martial arts enthusiast there, too.
“I’m not going to lie, Des, I’d almost pay good money to see it in person if that’s how you treat the boys in your fencing club like you’ve said before.”
Her stance relaxed just a little bit and her smile became much more amicable. “Does that mean I get a raise?” she said with an almost innocent look in her eyes, but I knew better. Deep down Des was someone that could kill. I mean honest to god take a life if she needed to. I think a part of me saw it that first day and it’s why I basically threw money at her to get her on my side.
“Absolutely not, Des. In fact, after this dungeon there might be some pay cuts!” I said, faking the indignation. “Also, you really don’t have to use the spiteful and violent persona around me, Des.”
She softened a little more after that. “I know, boss. I have to keep the act up though or I might get rusty! You know, like you have after spending all your time on arts & crafts!” she said with a wink as she walked through the doorway.
As I was about to follow her out, I heard a voice behind me. “Excuse me, are you by any chance Jack Alltrades?” The voice was soft and kind, which was completely out of place in this dungeon.
I turned to see who was addressing me but saw no one. The fox was still chasing vermin around in the halls, but other than that and the corpses I was very much alone.
“I am Jack Alltrades, but I have no clue who’s asking. It’s rude to ask questions while you’re hiding, you know.” I said as confidently as I could given the circumstances. The fox seemed startled by the sudden noise and stared at me before scooping up some sort of bug and devouring it.
“Do you not know who I am, Jack? You believe me a threat at worst, an inconvenience at best, but I am none of those things. Think of all that has recently happened to you and you’ll understand why I’m here.” came the voice. I spun around again but there was nothing there. The fox came into the chamber I was in and started sniffing for more bugs.
It dawned on me suddenly that the voice didn’t come from behind me, it came from inside my head. It was communicating like Alfred did. I thought back to the last few days trying to remember what had happened that would be a clue and then it hit me out of nowhere.
“You’re my animal companion aren’t you?” I thought towards the voice in my head. Then I turned and looked at the fox and said out loud “And you’ve been keeping tabs on me waiting for me to be alone?”
The fox regarded me with a head cocked sideways before letting out an excited yip and beginning to transform. It took on an eerie glow as it started growing. It’s fur changed from its common brownish orange to a beautiful and pure white. By the time it was done growing, it was roughly five times the size of a normal fox and covered in a thick coat of fur that looked like snow.
“That’s right, Jack.” the fox replied finally. “Obviously, I am not a regular fox. I assume you gathered that, though. Much like you, I am something more, how should I put it, adaptable.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “What exactly would that be? And what should I call you?”
My new companion gave his most welcoming smile and replied “I am a kitsune and you may call me Zen.”
27-Junior Partner
“Wait, what?” I asked while looking at my new companion in shock. “It’s hard to wrap my head around how I ended up with a Japanese fox spirit as a companion. No offense or anything. I mean, you seem like you’ve got some cool powers, but that’s my point. How did I end up with you? I spend most of my time crafting and running a business!”
Zen let out a chuckle. “I am only as powerful as you. While that is true of all animal companions that call Rangers friend, it is doubly so for me.
“Normally, an animal companion would simply gain power along a linear path parallel to your own. As you gained levels so would I. Along with these levels, I would get some special abilities. Still, all you would have to do for me to gain strength would simply be level up.” he continued. “Due to your status as a Master of None with several Jobs combined with my ability to shapeshift, however, I gain exactly what power you do. Nothing more, nothing less.”
I thought on what he said before it occurred to me what exactly he was implying. “Wait a second. You can shapeshift, you gain power as I do, and it has to do with my Jobs. What, you can use my Job abilities?”
“Not quite, but close.” he said. “Kitsune are known for their ability to transform into humans. Usually this is for deception or trickery. For me, it is to use your abilities as though I were you. To be more concise, I can transform into any of your Jobs so long as you yourself are not currently using that Job.”
“So that’s why your power is limited by mine more directly.” I stated as I put the pieces together. “It’s not just gaining levels. I have to develop skills and unlock Jobs for you to use more of your potential. Now you make a lot more sense, Zen.”
“Who are you talking to, boss?” Des said as she re-entered the room.
“Ah, my apologies, Jack. She cannot see my spirit form. I will return to my corporeal fox form for now so she doesn’t think you’re insane.”
“This is my animal companion I received as a Ranger. His name is Zen.” I said, introducing him to my bodyguard. At the mention of his name, he let out an excited yip and hopped in the air a bit. This was followed immediately by running up to Des and sniffing her.
“Aw he’s a cute one, ain’t he?” she said. She reached down and scratched his head behind his ears, which earned a pleased trill from Zen.
“Yeah, he really is, but let’s see what he can do in a fight!” I replied as I continued deeper into the dungeon.
“You’re taking him into a fight?” came her shocked response.
About five minutes later, Des had her answer regarding whether or not he should be fighting. When we encountered another patrol, I stayed in my Ranger Job and engaged. Zen immediately shifted into a humanoid form with slightly pointed ears and a somewhat elongated face. It looked like a mix between my face and his spirit form. When I inspected him with my Perception, I saw he’d taken my Thief Job and was using some fairly basic equipment. I’d need to remedy that sometime soon if I could.