Dungeoneer (The Weight Of It All): A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure

by J. J. Thorn

  “Wow. You should all go. I’ll be okay. And thanks, but I don’t know how much the healer will cost. I didn’t bring all of my money, just in case. You guys go and try to get as many Skinks as you can.”

  “Oh, shut it. Terrence. We knew you’d say that, but we already talked it over. We go together, or not at all. Besides, I checked on you, and the majority of your pain is from your shoulder and ribs. Even though it probably feels bad, I’m guessing they’re just cracked and not broken. We’ll figure it out.” Cassie shut down my objections as the rest of my friends nodded and reassured me that they felt the same.

  We spent the next little while talking over some of the fights in greater detail. Everyone had been able to increase their percentages a little bit.

  Especially Zane, who was thrilled to find out that his Skill worked on monsters. He had guessed that it would but hadn’t been able to check as yet on a real monster. As a result, he felt much better about his current progress.

  After an hour, Gavin, John, Tara, and another man stormed into the room. I expected that the other man was probably the aforementioned healer.

  Without a word, the man came up to me and started to use a Skill. I could tell because his focus changed from looking at me to looking at something else. Probably a dialogue letting him know my condition.

  “Yes, cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. The rest is mostly a lot of bruising. I’ll charge twenty-five silver for a full heal since it’s fairly minor. I’ll be focusing on the cracked ribs, but it will also deal with the bruising. The dislocated shoulder can be dealt with afterward. Who will be paying?” The man looked at Gavin first, as he relayed the information.

  “Not me,” Gavin responded. “The blonde one there said they would be paying.” He locked eyes with Zane.

  I tried to object, but Zane pushed me back into the bed and cut me off.

  “Yes, here you are.” Zane handed over twenty-five silver.

  “Thank you, young man. You wouldn’t believe how many people think I can do this for free. I need to make a living as well, and Borson doesn’t see many Dungeoneers.”

  He stopped talking and put his hand on my chest.

  “Minor Heal,” He said. ‘Minor Heal’ was the standard Rank 2 spell for HEAL Affinity users.

  As I felt his Energy enter my body, I felt my body react to the sudden influx. My chest started to feel better, but as he continued to channel the spell, other parts of my body felt better as well.

  When he eventually stopped, I felt a hundred percent better than I had moments ago. Conversely, the man looked exhausted, and probably wasn’t very proficient in his Skill.

  My shoulder still hurt, but as he mentioned, I would probably have to re-locate it myself. There were some things magic couldn’t solve, after all.

  “Okay, phew. Few more cracks than I thought but you should be good now. Thanks for doing business. I’ll be off now.” He nodded briskly and left the room.

  We were all startled by his abruptness but didn’t think much of it.

  “Downstairs in ten minutes,” Gavin ordered, before also leaving with John. Tara stayed behind.

  I looked at my friends as I was finally able to sit up without feeling any pain.

  Tara smiled as she edged closer to the bed. I hadn’t interacted with her much as yet, but was thankful for her help after I had passed out.

  “Thank you for helping me, Tara,” I told her as I started to stand up and feel my shoulder.

  “No worries. We really should get downstairs. We just have to deal with that shoulder of yours. Most don’t like this part, so I thought I may as well stick around.” Tara came up beside me.

  “Yeah. Do I just push it back in?” I asked.

  “That’s the basic idea, but you need to be a bit forceful with it. Here, bite down on this.” She handed me a bundle of sheets from the bed.

  My friends all looked awkward as they watched her prepare to push my shoulder back into its socket.

  As she counted down, I didn’t know what to expect. When the pain finally came, I could only wish that they had let me continue sleeping.

  * * * * *

  The adjustment hadn’t taken long, and we found ourselves downstairs sitting at a table with Gavin and John. Tara took a seat with Barda and Quinn at another table. We each took a seat and waited for Gavin to speak.

  “We’ll be leaving for Pinslo Lake in the morning,” he said. “We got here on time. You’ll get to sleep in beds for the evening. You’ll be paying, of course, unless you want to go sleep out in the woods. We’ll be doing that for the next week anyway, so you might as well start now. Before that though, we’re going to go over your fights. Frankly speaking, you all did terribly. Zane was the only one who showed anything of note, but not by very much.”

  “I’ve had enough of this!” Britta stood up quickly. Her chair fell down behind her. “Uncle Gavin, why are you treating us like this! Terrence could have gotten hurt! I know you want to help us, but that was dangerous!”

  The Inn was loud with some chatter from other guests, but her outburst was still noticeable.

  “Britta, I told you. This is not a field trip and I am not a bodyguard. You could have stopped the fight at any point. It would have meant you couldn’t participate, but no one explicitly forced you to fight. And besides, if it looked like you were about to be killed, I would have intervened. Like I said, you were never in any mortal danger. I treat you differently now because on this trip you are not my best friend’s daughter. No, on this trip, you are my teammate. And for me to trust you as a teammate, you need to show me that I can expect you to stand and fight. “Sure, you all did so poorly, but you didn’t run. You protected your friends when you needed to, and you tried your best. For that, I commend you.” Gavin did not scold this time, instead, he spoke frankly and honestly.

  Britta could say nothing to that. She picked up her chair and rejoined the table.

  “Now, as I was saying. I commend your ability to stand and fight. But the fighting itself was terrible. I’ll give feedback to all of you. This is the same thing I did for John after his fight, where I advised him of another way to use his Skill. And that’s my first comment to Jen. You have a Skill. Use it. You shouldn’t need your teammates to tell you to use your Skill. Even if it does no physical damage, figure out a use for it.

  “That might not always be possible, but in this case, it was the reason you won. And even then, you could have used that same Skill to disorient the Monster in other ways. I can’t tell you how to use your Skill, but you need to think about it further.

  “Next is Zane. You said your Affinity is IDENTIFY, so I’m surprised you fought alone. With that said, you do have some ability with a dagger. I gather this is because of your upbringing. Regardless, I would try to start focusing on your martial skills more.

  “This was a G-Rank monster. You dispatched it well, but it was sloppy and took too long. More monsters around you and you would have died. I do believe your use of the terrain was useful though. And you also took the initiative in the fight. Two good qualities.

  “Now, the trio at the end. Let’s start with Britta. You blocked well, and even saved Terrence a few times. That’s good. With that said, you have no current way to deal damage back to your opponent. If you’re facing several monsters, it’s probably reasonable to focus on just your shield, but against one opponent, you need to have another source of damage.

  “Even in the fight, you hit the Monkin with your shield a couple of times. If that was possible, you should have tried that more often. And most importantly, you need to learn to minimize how much Energy you use to take hits. Hits that can be parried or deflected require less Energy.

  “Cassie, you obviously have little knowledge of the dagger you were provided. You are intending to be the healer, and you kept a good account of the fight. This helped Terrence several times as well, but it’s not enough. Healers are unique in that they can be helpful by healing alone. Once you reach Rank 2, this might be your only
use, but to become a truly great healer you will need to work harder. A healer who is only helpful after the fight is near useless. And is frankly dead weight.

  “Take the man from tonight as an example. If he came on a hunt, he would be useless unless one of us got hurt. Take up a weapon or start working on different uses for your Skills, because otherwise, you will be left behind.”

  Gavin was once again very harsh as he went through each of our faults.

  “And lastly, Terrence. I’ll let your Cousin John give his impression. Before he does, a couple notes for all of you. You need to get stronger, of course, but you need to think about your situations a bit further. Jen, you were so eager to volunteer, that you didn’t consider the rest of your team. If you had been with Cassie and Britta, that final fight would likely have gone very differently. Despite his faults, Terrence might have been able to overpower the Chipper or even the G-Rank Monkin. Now, John, what feedback would you like to give Terrence?”

  “Your ability to use a sword is terrible.” John kept his voice flat, gentler than I expected. “I recommend trying a different weapon altogether. The only time it became useful was when you flailed it around wildly. Your reactions in the fight were incredibly delayed and your teammate had to save you twice. Your failure could have killed Britta if that had been a stronger monster.

  “Luckily, you were able to subdue the monster at the end. But even then, you had no secondary weapon to do any damage. You over-relied on your teammates and it almost cost all of you your lives.”

  I was surprised to hear that there was no joy in his voice. The old John would have relished in the opportunity to chastise or mock me. Still, John didn’t show his usual way as his remarks were hurtful, but nowhere near as personal as what I would have usually expected.

  And in all honesty, I agreed with most of what he said.

  “Good account of the fight,” Gavin said. “But I would have been less lenient. All things considered, you were the weakest fighter today. You failed your team and yourself.”

  “How is that fair? Because of Terrence, they won the fight,” Jen shouted.

  “I would barely call that last fight a win, but I will allow one of you to answer for me. Zane, how about you answer this one. You were directing the teams, after all. Why did the trio lose?” Gavin looked at Zane who had his eyes down as he listened to the conversation.

  “The healer was the only one left standing at the end,” Zane grumbled from under his breath.

  “Yes. Despite what I said to Cassie, healers can be extremely helpful. The ability to heal in a fight can be incredibly useful. And it is a Front-Liners job to keep them safe. A job they did not do. In the third fight, Terrence caused Britta to be hurt to the point of passing out. And then he passed out himself. This was against one monster.

  “If there had been even one more monster, Cassie would have died, and so would the rest of the team. Your actions affect the entire team. Everyone must pull their weight, otherwise, they jeopardize the safety of the entire team. Now, hopefully, you’ll understand what I mean when I try to stress how real all of this is. I am harsh because people will and do die.

  “Under any other circumstance, you would have died. If I not been there or if my team hadn’t been there. You would have caused the death of your entire team.”

  Chapter 16 – Nest

  “Terrence, are you awake?” Jen whispered from her sleeping position on the floor.

  After Gavin’s admonishment, we all decided to just head to sleep. We didn’t know what else to do.

  We decided to all stay in the same room sleeping on the ground. We didn’t have much money as is, and at ten silver a night, we didn’t think it was worth it to get separate rooms.

  They had offered the one bed to me, but after sleeping in the bed for the entire day, I didn’t think that would be fair.

  But instead of sleeping, my thoughts were going wild with what Gavin and John had gone through.

  What else am I supposed to do after being told I could have been responsible for all of my friends’ deaths?

  “I don’t know how I could sleep after what I just heard,” I whispered back.

  “I’m not going to tell you to ignore what he said, but you did the best you could under the circumstances. I wouldn’t be so far in my progression without you, and I mean that. We’re sixteen-year-olds that only started learning this stuff four months ago. But in that time, you’ve pushed all of us to work harder than most of the other students. Thank you, Terrence.”

  “Honestly, I get that, but I think he’s trying to tell us that it shouldn’t matter. In my Energy Manipulation class, Professor Wilks usually tells us how hard things are. And every time she does, I think she just means Energy manipulation, but I’m starting to realize she was probably talking about all of it. The monsters. The fighting. The Energy manipulation.

  “She talked about how fifty percent of people just stop. They realize they have no need to progress and they just stop. And after today, I can see why. And don’t get me wrong, I still want to move forward, but today was a bit of a wake-up call. We’re not just weak physically, we also weren’t equipped to deal with today. And I think that’s what Gavin was trying to show us.

  “He was harsh, sure, but this motivates me more. I never want to feel like how I felt today. The pain from getting beat up by the Monkin was one thing, but the pain of knowing I could have killed you all hurt more…”

  The room seemed a bit darker as I explained my somber thoughts.

  “You’re putting a lot on yourself, Ren.” It was Zane, talking from the bed. “I could have put you against the G-Rank and gone with Britta and Cassie instead. And if I had, I don’t know if we would have been able to win at all.”

  After being offered, I asked for Zane to get the bed because he had paid for my healing. Currently, he sat in the bed with Cassie, who had been open to bunking with him.

  “Sorry, Zane, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I apologized.

  “You’re not the only one that got scolded, buddy. I doubt any of us were actually sleeping. We just needed to be in our own thoughts. Isn’t that right, Britta?” Zane said, sitting up in the bed. Cassie also sat up to look at Jen and me on the floor.

  Britta was also on the floor, and at Zane’s comment, she sat up as well.

  “I guess that makes sense… It is a pretty small room.” I chuckled and stopped whispering, since I knew everyone was awake anyways.

  “Along with Trish, all of you are my best friends,” Britta said. “I picked you because I want us all to get better together. I wouldn’t want to dungeon dive with anyone else, and I mean that. I don’t blame you for what happened at all Terrence. We all made mistakes.”

  I looked around at each of my friends. We had already been through so much together and I couldn’t have hoped for better people to spend my time with.

  “Exactly,” Jen said. Her smile shone even in the dark. “The important thing is that we are alive, and we know that we want to improve. I don’t know about you guys, but my percentage went up after my fight. Everyone was right, I was neglecting an important part of my Skill. When this trip is over, we have a lot of testing to do.”

  The rest nodded.

  “But for now, we have a lot of hiking to do tomorrow,” Zane said. He lay back down. “We should get some sleep, guys. For now, we need to focus on this trip and what we can do now. Our next big test will be the Dungeon trip, but for now, let’s just try to not get in the way.”

  I looked at Jen, who was still sitting up. We spent a few quiet moments looking at each other before finally laying down as well.

  Zane was right. I could spend the night lamenting Gavin’s words, but that would only make it harder for me on the hike tomorrow. If nothing else, I wanted to show Gavin that we wouldn’t be dead weight.

  * * * * *

  “You were a bit harsh on the kids tonight, Gav,” Tara said at the table. She was seated with the rest of Gavin’s team, including John.

  �
��They needed to hear it. Think of all the friends you’ve lost because they took the job too lightly. Better they hear it now.” Gavin sipped at his drink.

  “I get that,” she continued, “but you could have done it a better way.”

  “Have you gone soft?” Quinn snapped. “Don’t be a NATURE Affinity cliché. The world they’re trying to enter is a cruel one. They don’t need people holding their hands the whole way. Like Gavin said, too many people die after Prep is over as is. And it’s still better than what it was back when Prep wasn’t mandatory. Gavin is protecting them by making them aware. Isn’t that right, Barda?” He chomped down on a leg of meat.

  “…”

  Barda looked up from his food and nodded at Quinn’s words.

  “The rest of the trip will be less frantic, Tara. Don’t worry.” Gavin paused, choosing his words. “We’ll showcase what a team is supposed to look like. Don’t put yourself in danger, but if you want to show off a bit I won’t mind. The monsters are low Rank, so I’m not too concerned. Our goal is still to get as many Skinks as possible but keep them safe.”

  Each person around the table agreed.

  “You’ve been quieter than usual, John. How do you think your cousin will react when we leave tomorrow?”

  “Terrence is persistent. He hasn’t got a lot going for him, but he won’t give up.” John stood up to leave.

  “I don’t know about you, but I think persistence is a good trait to have,” Gavin lectured.

  * * * * *