by J. T. Wright
Dreq was from a proud lineage. His was an ancient heritage, filled with bravery. He had been sent into the world to find a partner worthy of that history, and he thought he had. However, the remembrance of his ancestors was far away. With jaws open wide, his short legs scrambled to push himself forward. It was an image that filled his head, one of Trent wounded but victorious next to a Dire Bear. It was a Beast the boy had no business defeating, and one a hundred times more dangerous to Trent than a Swift Beetle was to Dreq. With that example how could he fail? Dreq howled his rage as he closed his jaws, to snap and crush the face of his foe.
His teeth drew blood when they clamped down on air and the tip of his own tongue. Dreq stumbled as his paws slapped down, not on a Beetle but on stone. A stick lay on the ground in front of him. Dreq’s eyes widened as the length of pointy wood disappeared. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place! Where had it gone?
The snap of a string, the thud of a solid object hitting a black shell, drew Dreq’s attention to his back. The first Beetle was gone, and another stick replaced it. Bewildered, Dreq watched as this scene repeated itself. Soon all the nearest threats lay on their backs, legs scrabbling at the air as the fallen Beetles rocked back and forth, trying to return to their feet.
“Don’t just stand there! Do something! Move!”
At Trent’s shouted command, Dreq realized who was responsible for the sudden turn of events. Had Trent thrown the sticks? That was possible. They were longer than the darts Trent preferred but shorter than the sticks he had used to disable the children the day before.
Why had Dreq ever doubted the boy? Trent could defeat a dozen children while standing on Kerry’s shoulders! How hard would it be for him to do the same with some insects? Filled with confidence, Dreq bounced forward and bit down on the leg of a Beetle that had managed to roll to its side.
Blood flooded his mouth again as a barb cut the roof, and Dreq let go with a squeal. That probably wasn’t what Trent meant when he said to do something.
“They’re getting up! Better start running!”
The words were so like those Trent had shouted when they were playing in the woods that they banished Dreq’s fear and relieved most of his pain. Later, drifting to sleep in Trent’s lap, he would wonder why such a shout should motivate him. For now, he was caught up in the game.
Dreq ran, dodging between the legs of one Swift Beetle and narrowly avoiding the snapping bite of another. He barked cheerfully, mockingly, at the misnamed bugs. Yes, they were fast, but Dreq had practiced dodging Trent, and compared to Trent, the Beetles were snails!
Dreq fell into a pattern, rushing to gain some distance and then whirling to snarl and snap at the charging insects, allowing his Stamina to replenish before weaving in and out of the legs with their cutting barbs. He quickly became used to the bugs’ movements, and by the fifth iteration, Dreq started to plan.
He had two Skills. The first, Shadow Lunge, was out. That Skill would drop him on an opponent’s blind spot and leave Dreq completely drained. That left Paralyzing Howl, which would freeze his enemy without doing harm. It might buy him some space. It would also drain almost all his Stamina.
Wisdom is how well you use what you know.
Why had Trent told him that? What was he supposed to use? His teeth were ineffective, and his claws wouldn’t scratch the bugs. What else did he have? His two Skills wouldn’t kill. What did Trent expect him to do?
Dreq had added Points to Intelligence to give himself the wherewithal to speak. Even before he had done that, he hadn’t been stupid. Yet he felt like the dumbest of animals as the answer to his question occurred to him. Trent had never said to kill, that wasn’t the purpose of all this.
Dreq was in a pack, Trent’s pack, and a pack was stronger than the individuals that formed it. Dreq simply had to find a way to be a part of the fight, not win it! He had to make things easier so Trent could finish the bugs!
While Trent hadn’t implied any of this, not through words or actions, Dreq felt he’d found the answer. Summoning every bit of speed he could muster, Dreq ran in circles around the cavern. Swift Beetles were a lot like Kerry. Quick in short bursts while attacking, slow and cumbersome otherwise. In the first pass, he had to dodge through legs and avoid mandibles. By the second, all twenty Beetles had crowded in a group to chase him. He maintained a short lead for a while, slowly increasing it until, by the third lap, he thought he had gained the room he needed.
It irked him that the Beetles ignored Trent with his short bow and Kerry with his shield, each time Dreq led his flock of black shelled monsters by the cavern’s entrance. Those two looked entirely too relaxed considering the work Dreq was putting in. Dreq told himself it was fine. It would make the inevitable conclusion all that much more glorious.
Judging the time and distance to be right, Dreq spun around and faced the horde. They were closer than he thought. There was no time for regret or second thoughts. Filling his lungs and pushing Stamina into his Skill, Dreq unleashed Paralyzing Howl.
From a Werewolf, the howl was fearsome and dreadful. Dreq’s was thin and warbling, much too high-pitched and ending too quickly. The sound swept over the Beetles, stopping all but the last in their tracks. Their legs stiffened, and the bugs dropped to their belly as Dreq sagged to his.
That last one that he hadn’t reached was a worry, but not for long. Dreq’s expectations became reality as Trent discarded his bow and descended on the disabled Beetles in a flash. Dreq’s tongue lolled from his mouth as Trent stomped and scattered the Beasts. Sorrow and Strife in their hatchet form broke through hardened wings and exoskeletons, splattering Beetle goo through the air.
The Beetles were three feet long and stood two feet high, dwarfing Dreq in both size and weight. They were similarly outmatched by Trent. In Dreq’s eyes, Trent was a giant, crushing villages beneath his feet, and Dreq knew that one day with a little help from a good thing, he’d be able to do the same.
Finished with the insects, Trent knelt beside Dreq and ruffled his fur. “You did it!”
Dreq baked in the warm glow of Trent’s approval and waited for more.
“Ah,” Trent felt Dreq’s expectations and supplied him with the only acknowledgment for a job well done that he was familiar with, “Took you long enough. Be faster next time. We're burning daylight while you’re fiddling around like a simpleton with a shiny rock. I suppose you expect me to clean up the mess as well.”
Dreq was nonplussed by the dubious bit of what was not at all praise that dropped on him. He started to growl in protest, but Trent was already walking away. In his hand, Sorrow and Strife had been replaced by his Harvesting knife. Fortunately, Dreq found a Beast tooth lying on the ground in front of his nose, proof that while Trent’s words were out of place, he did think a reward was in order.
Dreq chomped down on the hard remains of a Dire Wolf. Trent used them to craft weapons. To Dreq, they were medicine that closed the small wounds he had gathered and sharpened his own natural tools. He would have to find the time to tell Trent that with another thirty or so, his teeth might get sharp enough to kill a Beetle on his own.
Trent would probably say to level up, spend his Attribute Points, and keep his greedy paws to himself. That was something that Dreq was willing to do now. Trent’s training regimen had worked. Dreq had Wisdom in his Status now!
Name: Dreq
Age: 8 weeks
Animal: Dog
Level: 8
Health: 10
Stamina: 10
Mana: 80
Strength: 4
Agility: 3
Constitution: 1
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 1
Free Attribute Points: 29
Skills
Shadow Lunge Level 1
Paralyzing Howl Level 2
**********
“Do you know what we just watched?” Kerry’s shield lay against the wall of the cavern, and his helm was safe in his lap as he sat with his legs stretched out b
eside Felicia. His Party’s financial difficulties and teammates’ fondness for the Lucky Pig meant that Kerry didn’t delve as often as the rest of his classmates.
He asked this question of Felicia because, while the Mage Apprentice didn’t have a permanent team, her Specialized Class and boosting Spells made her welcome to tag along with any group she wanted to join. He had not seen anything like what they just witnessed before, but there was a chance she had.
“To what are you referring?” Felicia had kept to her feet instead of sitting, and she looked down on Kerry, both figuratively and literally, as she asked for clarification “Have I ever seen a Dog forced to fight in a Dungeon before? Or a common animal with a Skill? Or maybe you mean, have I ever seen a professed Swordsman fight with a bow and then wade into battle with hatchets that I could have sworn were knives?”
She gave up and slid down the wall to sit beside Kerry. “Whichever you mean, the answer is no. I've also never seen an Adventurer give a valuable crafting material to a Dog either. Where did you find this guy?”
“Would you believe on the southern road, walking on his hands?” Trent was pulling all the Beetles into a row and flipping them onto their backs. The sight tickled a memory at the back of Kerry's brain that wouldn’t come out and tell him why it was pertinent.
“When you showed up in the market, I wouldn’t have. Now, I'd believe anything!” Felicia stuck her hands in her sleeves and rubbed at her forearms. “You met a man walking on his hands, and your first thought was to invite him to clear the Dungeon with you?”
“No, my first thought was, ‘why did I fall down?’” Trent had finished lining up the Beetles and was flipping a knife in his right hand as he studied the bodies. It was when Trent shrugged and knelt to stab into a thorax that the memory that had been tickling Kerry surfaced. It was a memory of how one should Harvest a Swift Beetle. Since he didn’t have the Skill, Kerry hadn’t paid close attention, but some information had sunk in.
“Trent, no! Not like that!”
He shouted, holding out his hand as if he wanted to pull Trent backward, even though he was thirty feet away. It was too late. Kerry’s shout reached Trent’s ears right as Trent’s knife pierced the Beetle. The knife cut through the exoskeleton of the bug as quickly as it slipped into a sheath. Trent didn’t have time to continue his cut, and there was no need to. The dead bug erupted, a thick lime-colored goo sprayed into the air, and bits of legs, head, and shell shot across the room; those that didn’t ping off Trent’s mask and armor, at least.
“You need to remove the mandibles and wings first,” Kerry finished, letting his outstretched arm fall into his lap. “It relieves pressure, or something. Cutting into Swift Beetles directly makes them…”
“Spew junk that smells as bad as a Hill Troll’s armpit?” Trent shook his arms downwards violently, trying to dislodge some of the filth that covered him.
“Yeah, guess you figured that part out on your own,” Kerry added, in one last attempt to be helpful. “And keep flames away from it, it goes up at the smallest…”
He coughed and stopped talking. Trent was too busy casting Self-Clean to hear him.
“You were saying?” Felicia prompted, nudging Kerry’s side.
“He’s not going to be using fire anyway,” Kerry muttered, scratching his chin. “I don’t know why they tell us that.”
“Not about the bug, about how you met Trent and fell down. Why would falling down bother you? You trip all the time.” She tried to say this gently but didn’t pull it off. No one wanted to hear they were clumsy.
“I don’t fall down all the time, and I didn’t trip!” Kerry glared at her, and Felicia held up her hands, saying that she didn’t mean anything by it.
“People always say that.” Kerry let his head fall back against the wall. “But it wouldn’t be on their tongues all the time if it were true.”
They sat quietly, Kerry embarrassed, and Felicia abashed. Trent was gathering up Beetle goo into jars. The jars had been an impulse buy, one he regretted moments after the Merchant who sold them to him packed up his stall and rushed off. They cost Trent 10 coppers each, and he bought five silvers worth. They seemed like a smart purchase now that he discovered one of the Harvestable bits of a Swift Beetle was copious amounts of slime.
Kerry pulled off a gauntlet and cleaned out his ears with his little finger. There was something wrong with his hearing. It sounded like Trent was laughing, chuckling, as he scooped up the goo that was spread across the ground. No amount of picking at his ear changed anything, though.
Maybe that was why Kerry had never been able to pick up the Harvesting Skill no matter how many wild Beasts he cut open. Maybe to get it, you had to enjoy touching what should not be touched. If that was the case, Kerry could do without Harvesting.
“I bumped into him, and I'm the one that fell. Trent didn’t waver in the least that I could see,” Kerry mused. “I've run into three-hundred-pound Laborers before and knocked them off their feet. I fell too, but they went down just as quick.
“Trent was walking on his hands while balancing a Dog on his feet, and he didn’t budge. It was like running into a wall. He asked me if I was alright.” Kerry slapped his chest, his hammer of a hand banged against his breastplate. “Fine, I'm not light on my feet, but I am solid. What I hit goes down, only, not Trent.”
It hadn’t come together for Kerry until he was back in his dorm room the night after he met Trent. Detect Traps and Rogues had interested him. Those were what his conscious mind had focused on. Trent’s… stability… was what was fascinating as he tried to go sleep.
“Be careful, Kerry,” Felicia warned. “He’s dangerous, you… you know what he is, seen his face? His eyes?”
“He’s Al’rashian!” Kerry arched an eyebrow. “I've never met one before, and I've heard they can be touchy, but you can’t tell me the Academy’s only half-elf is sensitive to race.”
“He's more than Al’rashian, the violet-eyed… just be careful okay.” Felicia’s hand touched her ear where behind her hat and beneath a layer of cloth it came to a mild point.
“I think he’s younger than us,” Kerry scoffed. “He plays with farm kids and dances at festivals. I'm not worried about Trent. And if you are, then why come along?”
“Because he’s dangerous, and he has Harvesting.” There was no reason to hide her intent, and Felicia spoke freely. “There’s something I need, and no one else can get it for me.”
“You don’t know anyone with the Harvesting Skill? There are at least four at the Academy. I can introduce you when we get back.” Kerry dug a ration bar out of his satchel and offered Felicia a bite, which she turned down.
“I know them as well. They won’t go to the fourth floor.” Felicia was glad to have her veil as Kerry answered with a full mouth, spraying her with crumbs.
“You think the three of us will?” Kerry paused to wipe his mouth and swallow. “Excuse me! We won’t see four, we'll be lucky to clear the first floor!”
“You’ve met Trent. You don’t know the violet-eyed. You haven’t heard the stories.” Felicia scooted farther away as Kerry took another bite. “What they set out to accomplish, they see done. No matter what gets in their way.”
Chapter Thirty
Trent held up a crystal vial and stared at the viscous green liquid it contained. He had learned a lot from Harvesting Swift Beetles. The most important lesson was to remove the wings first. Just as important was the fact that a single vial of the Beetle’s inner slime was all you had to remove to make its body disappear. The vial he held in his hand was a drop from that first Beetle, which was convenient since he had filled all his jars before opening the third.
His leather sack sat at his feet, half full of loot the Beasts had dropped. They had been quite generous; four vials, twenty coppers, and various miscellaneous goods each. He remembered Kerry commenting that they would probably get three to five coppers from each Beetle as they watched Dreq scramble. Three to five coppers and nothing else. Kerr
y was going to lose it with excitement when he saw what actually dropped, but Trent was uneasy.
It would have seemed like a little if Kerry had not mentioned the Trial’s normal rates. Trent would have been disappointed by the drops which couldn’t compare to others he’d earned by himself. That the Trial had increased its rewards meant it had changed other things as well. Kerry and Felicia’s knowledge would be less useful going forward.
“Should we split the loot now?” Trent asked, jogging over to the other two Adventurers.
“You hold on to it, if you don’t mind.” Kerry stood and extended a hand to help Felicia up before picking up his shield. “Normally, I carry things for my party but since you have Storage, it will be easier for you. We can divvy up the spoils when we’re done.”
The three fell into a line and reentered the narrow corridor, making their way back to where the tunnel had split. Trent didn’t ask the others for their opinion of which area to explore this time. He chose the right-hand passage and trotted ahead until he was beyond the effect of Felicia’s Light Spell.
He activated Stealth and stalked forward in a crouch, bow in hand. Now that Dreq had been successfully trained, it was time to work on his least favorite Skill. Trent intended to learn the Create Arrow Skill contained in the short bow, so he could finally set the thing aside. Triple Shot, the second Skill that could be obtained by using the bow, would have to wait until his Mana pool was larger.
Kerry and Felicia followed Trent perhaps a little more casually than they should have. They were aware that the Dungeon had altered, but it was still the first floor. The first floor never had traps, and Beasts hardly ever attacked in the corridors. The dangerous places were only the caverns and rooms. There was no need for excessive care.
The clicking noise approaching from behind went unnoticed by Kerry until the Swift Beetles were almost on top of him. Looking over his shoulder and seeing a line of the giant bugs approaching, Kerry shouted, “They’re behind us!” He turned and attempted to block the tight tunnel with his shield and bulk.