Dungeon Diving 101 Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Harley was still rubbing her head as we walked out of the shop.

“We have the rest of our lunch from earlier.” I turned to Des. “But these rations were dirt cheap.”

She frowned at them. “I bet they taste like cardboard, but thanks.” She let me transfer a few to her CID as we moved down the tunnel to the first floor.

“Hold up.” Harley said, hurrying in front of me. “Look, I know I’m probably supposed to be on my knees to thank you for saving me out there yesterday. I even thought about it before I vommed in my mouth at the idea.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Where is this going?” If she was trying to say thank you, she was doing a terrible job at it.

She tugged at her vest and pulled a book from behind her back. “Well, I bought it and took a small loan from Des. So, thank you.” She handed me the book we’d been looking at in the store.

I took the Dark Strike spell from her. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t say that. I went into debt to Desmond, the devil herself, to get you that.” Harley danced away from a threatening Des.

“Then, just thank you.” I took the book and added it to my CID, where I used it. The CID’s were amazing in how they worked to channel the energy our bodies received from the dungeon and use it to improve ourselves. Even using something like a spell book to imprint a skill into my class.

There was a flash of light around me and my character sheet changed.

Skills:

Dark Strike

I grinned. My first skill, even if I likely had two other hidden ones.

“Wonderful. Maybe Des will let me pay her back with sexual favors.” Harley bounced her brows.

Des stepped forward with her hand held high to chop at Harley’s head.

But the Bard danced away, pulling the flute from her inventory. “Come on, we got monsters to kill.”

Charlotte laughed at their antics.

“Hey, wait up.” I suddenly realized she was being reckless with how far away she was running to escape Des.

Harley screamed and dodged to the side as a boggart took a swing at her.

“Dark Strike.” I raced forward as my short sword gave off a faint purple light and I stabbed it into the boggart.

My blade cut cleanly through the boggart’s chest, nicking and shattering its mana crystal.

It exploded into smoke, and I dodged out of the cloud of smoke, grabbing Harley.

“Careful.”

She clapped excitedly. “Yay, you used the skill.”

“Idiot.” I still smiled, though. Her excitement was infectious.

“Harley. Why did you run?” Des had a stiff smile on her face and the pink-haired bard dodged behind me.

“Save me, Ken.” Harley hid behind me and promptly started playing her flute like she was busy.

“Let’s stop playing around. This is the dungeon.” She didn’t make a move to hit Harley.

I nodded along with her. “Harley, in the dungeon, stop playing around. As soon as we cross that threshold, I need you to be serious.”

She trilled on her flute and nodded, pointing at another boggart shambling their way.

We were at the entrance to the first floor, and there were only a few of them.

I took the lead, cutting down boggarts, my new dark strike allowing me to slash deep enough for a chance to hit their mana crystals.

But after three in a row, I had to take a break as a strange new exhaustion set in on my limbs.

“Feeling the mana drain?” Desmonda asked, noticing me step back.

“Yeah.” I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “Makes it hard to keep fighting. Feels like I’ll make a mistake.”

“You should probably get used to it. It’s going to happen at a critical time, eventually. That or always keep your mana full enough that you don’t have to worry about it.” She reasoned.

The second sounded like a possibility, but there would always be the time when everything was going wrong and I needed not only to push my mana, but my fighting as well.

“Right.” Then I shook my head. “We don’t even know if I’m going to be a melee class.”

“Damn shame if you aren’t, but we can have Harley tank if you aren’t.” Des chuckled evilly.

The bard turned at the sound of Des’ laugh and shivered.

I took a breath and got back in there, this time pushing myself a little harder with another Dark Strike to take down the boggart, but I missed the mana crystal even as the fatigue set in.

My grandfather had described it as a mental weakness and not one of the body, something he could ignore and rely on his reflexes and instincts to pilot his body when he was low on mana.

The boggart swing came, and I dodged back just fine, having done it a thousand times by now, and I was there cutting through its arm a second later, working to whittle it down with damage as Charlotte fired her magic wand at it.

Pushing myself further, I jumped and performed another Dark Strike, this time with my dagger, and cut through its shoulder before I jumped back, feeling unsteady on my feet.

“Bun-bun, help!” Charlotte shouted, and the rabbit jumped between me and the boggart like a brave defender attacking at its chest. The druid grabbed my arm and pulled me back while the boggart lumbered after me. “Don’t get that low on mana. Harley play for him.”

Harley twirled and played her flute. The notes resonated within me and each beat lifted me up from my fatigue.

Bun-bun finished the boggart.

“Okay, when I said push yourself, I meant a little at a time. Your mana stat is low enough that the difference of an extra attack at this level is huge.” Des sighed and rubbed at her forehead.

“You two pump out spells.” I groaned, feeling more like myself by the second.

“Duh. Even the skirt chaser there has a better mana stat than you.”

“Really?”

Harley winced, but stopped for a second to show me her CID.

Harley Sucre

Class: Bard

Level: 1

Experience: 38/100

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 11

Stamina: 13

Magic: 12

Mana: 14

Besides being a pansy when it came to strength, Harley was actually pretty darn skilled with her stats.

“Thanks for the lesson. I guess this is why we have a party. Thanks for the hand, Charlotte.” I looked over at my healer and nearly brushed noses with her.

“N-no problem.” She blushed and pushed me away. “If you are feeling better, go kill more monsters. Let’s level up.”

I was blushing too with how close I had accidentally been to kissing her. “Yeah. Let’s kill more.” I jumped into action at another boggart, this time letting my mana restore and working it down without my new skill.

But after that one died, I jumped clear and checking my CID.

Katie had come through with the list of skill.

“Shadow bolt!” I shouted excitedly at the next boggart.

“What are you doing?” Desmonda yelled at me.

“Trying to find out my skills. Power attack!” Neither of them worked, but that wasn’t about to stop me.

“Chaos ultimate beam of destruction!” I shouted at another boggart without so much as a fart.

Desmonda burst into laughter.

“That one couldn’t have been on there.” Harley paused in her playing. “Was it?”

Des rolled her eyes. “Of course it wasn’t. Keep playing. Ken, don’t make me laugh while I’m fighting.”

I smirked but kept at it, taking on boggarts, while working my way down through the list.

Quickly, the four of us settled into a healthy rhythm. Harley was dancing about dragging boggarts from the left, while Bun-bun brought them from the right. Charlotte manned the center point while me and Des rotated around and slew boggarts to our hearts’ content.

We cut down the boggarts like professionals.

Then again, this was just the first floor of the dungeon.

I was reminded by that fact when my CID pinged at the same time as the other two in my party.

“Hold up. Finish what we have here.” I said to the group.

“All dungeon divers on the first floor are advised to return to the surface. Adventurers on the second floor are to evacuate immediately. Please be advised.” Charlotte read out loud for the rest of us.

Harley played her flute for another few beats before rejoining us as Des and I took out the last boggart.

Only then did I have a chance to open up my CID and see the same message from Katie. It went into more detail after that.

The monsters on the second floor were experiencing a population boom and even spilling out into the first floor.

While it wasn’t uncommon of for a monster to cross from one floor to the next, it wasn’t often that it happened on a large scale.

Most people considered it to be a way to ease themselves into the next floor by fighting near the connecting staircase to experience the new monsters.

But I had never heard of a mass of them entering a prior floor.

“Do we head back?” I asked the group.

“The second floor monsters should be tougher, but we can take one on as a group, right?” Charlotte asked with a stubborn set of her face. “Besides, we aren’t some weak group.”

Even I could tell she had something to prove.

“Des?” I asked the most logical one in the group.

“We could see what we are up against. I’m afraid to say I expected us to keep killing boggarts for another few days before we went down to the second floor.” She lifted her CID, and it reminded me to as well.

56/100 experience.

We were making good progress, but she was right. We had at least another day here on the first floor.

“Maybe we could level even faster.” Harley said excitedly. “And get enough points for that dress.”

“That’s a level three dress.” Des pointed out. “Experience and the value of items go up linearly through the levels and then jump after every tenth level.”

Harley sighed in defeat.

“It’s still a valuable lesson to see the second floor monsters if nothing else.” I tried to cheer her up. “Besides, we should also make sure our classmates get out of the dungeon, too.”

Harley turned to me with stars in her eyes. “You mean I could go play hero for some lovely classmate?”

I chuckled. “If that’s what will get you on board, then yes.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Harley kicked off the group by starting to play her flute again, and led the way.

“Numbers wise, they should only be a little stronger than boggarts, right, Des?” I asked before rushing forward and killing a boggart with a Dark Strike.

“Their stats will go up just a little, as if they were a level higher, but stats aren’t everything. If we are honest with ourselves, boggarts are a piece of cake. They have decent stamina and strength stats, but they are slow. For someone starting out, that speed difference is a large part of what makes them easy.” Desmonda explained as she dodged out of the way.

“Predictable patterns and slow speed. It makes them easy to adapt to for us.” I agreed, jumping out from the smoke of Des’ kill.

“Right, later in the dungeon, every party needs a tank. We won’t be able to dodge everything like this forever.” Des said.

She had a point.

What we’d been getting away with on the boggarts wouldn’t last forever.

“Char, make sure you are ready, then. None of us is a tank.” I reminded our healer.

“You can count on me. Besides, you could be a tank. You never know.” She perked up as Bun-bun chittered at her. “Bun-bun says you are too weak to tank, she will instead.”

I nearly choked.

Damn rabbit.

“Hey look. More students.” I saw a group of five from class B fighting up ahead.

Harley waved at the other group. “Are you guys staying too?”

“Of course we are. Just some second-floor monsters. These boggarts are too easy. Now go away. We already claimed this spot.” A blue-haired girl with a priest’s staff flipped her hair at Harley before the priest noticed me. “Oh, you guys are Crimson’s class?”

“Yep.” Harley said excitedly as she got friendly with the priest. “She’s so awesome. You should come by the class. I’d be happy to be your excuse to see Crimson.”

“Can we put like a warning label on her?” I asked Charlotte, who stifled a laugh.

Even Bun-bun laughed with me.

“What’s that?” Another girl in the other party pointed as a frog head poked up out of a deeper part of the bog. “It’s kind of cute.”

But it was too big to be a frog. The head was about the size of a dog’s.

“Guys. That might be a monster from the second floor.” I pointed out.

“Great! Now get out of our spot. We were here first.” A girl drew back her bow and fired at the frog head, hitting it dead center between the eyes and it puffed into smoke.

They cheered briefly before another popped up out of the bog.

Then another.

And another.

“You sure you don’t want us to stick around?” I asked them.

But the archer girl started rapidly firing arrows into the frogs. “Not a chance. These are ours.”

It seemed like they were appearing with increasing speed.

They started to come out of the bog water.

The frogmen had the heads of frogs with green humanoid bodies. They were only about three feet tall, and held simple weapons like sticks. Some of them even had stones tied to the ends.

I stepped back, but didn’t leave the other group too far. “Okay, let’s try a few.”

From another watery area, frog heads appeared.

Charlotte thrust her wand forward. A burst of magic from the tip took out a frogman, the smoke exploding even through the water.

“Yes! See, they aren’t that bad.” She jumped a little with excitement. “Such easy experience.”

“Watch out.” I slipped behind her as another frogman tried to ambush her from behind. “Dark Strike.” My blade cut clean through the monster and killed it without striking its mana core.

“Des, I thought these would be harder? Are they giving you the full experience you’d expect?” Harley asked as she danced away from the three encroaching on her. She played and buffed Bun-bun, the rabbit coming to her rescue and destroying two while I took the remaining one.

“Yes. Two experience each. But have you not realized the risk they pose?” Desmonda spun in a slow circle.

Only then did I realize we were surrounded.

“Unlike the boggarts, we can’t face them so easily. Not to mention we can’t kite them.” I said. More reward, but with much more risk.

“They likely have discarded much of the stamina we saw in the boggarts for dexterity.” Des agreed.

“It doesn’t matter. We fight.” I said, cutting down two frogmen in short order, before spinning and taking another that had been trying to creep up on Charlotte. “Get in the middle, Bun-bun, me and Des will take three points around you two.”

The rabbit was having a blast.

It was finally fighting something more its size after Charlotte buffed it and increased its size to that of a dog.

Yet Bun-bun was fast, faster still than the frogmen.

I cut two down again, jumping back to avoid the smoke, and bumped into Harley.

“Watch out.” She cried.

“Sorry.” As soon as the smoke cleared, I pushed back out, but had difficulty regaining my prior position. “Fireblast.” I shouted and nothing happened.

“Is now the time to keep playing with spells?” Charlotte asked, turning this way and that shooting blasts with her want between shouting heal at Des.

I took a stick to the side, but only grunted before my knife stabbed through the frogman’s head.

“Earth stomp.” I shouted, and it felt like some hand grabbed my leg and thrust it into the ground.

The ground within maybe five feet in front of me rippled and the frogmen in that area were tossed into the air before becoming clouds of smoke.

“YES!” I cheered. “Earth stomp!” Three more frogmen were smoked, and I wanted to do a dance.

Harley noticed immediately and started playing her flute vigorously at me and I felt the fatigue of mana depletion fade instantly.

There was a scream from the other group that was just at the edge of our vision.

The archer was beating back frogmen with her bow, and the priest had two wailing on her.

“We need to help them, Ken. The priestly beauty!” Harley pointed, seeing the same thing as me.

I grumbled under my breath, but I was with Harley on this one, only for different reasons.

“Behind me. Des, Bun-bun, get the sides, Harley, keep my mana up and we’ll go get your priest.” I stomped the ground. “Earth stomp.” The ripple cleared a path, and I took two bounding steps before repeating it. “Earth stomp.”

Harley was behind me, trilling on the flute and restoring my mana, while Charlotte and the others kept the frogmen from our sides.

We got close enough, and they realized what was happening.

The archer used her bow like a bat as the quiver over her shoulder bounced without anything in it to hold it down.

They had a fighter with a small round shield, but they couldn’t seem to get the frogmen to focus on them while also too scared to take a swipe at the two frogmen harassing the priest.

Unfortunately, the other two in their party were nowhere to be seen.

“Heal.” Charlotte shouted as soon as we got in range. “Bun-bun, get them off the priest.”

“You.” I pointed to the archer. “What happened?”

“Bridget got scared and ran Sammy…” She looked around and didn’t find their fifth. “Are we going to die?”

The bold archer was gone, replaced by a scared girl.

“Circle up.” I shouted. “Supporters in the middle, we hold out. Des, can you send a message from your CID to Katie?”

“On it.” The warlock was all business.

“Earth Stomp.” I killed another two frogmen before switching back to my blades to conserve mana.

Even with our group larger than five, the dungeon didn’t seem to be increasing the difficulty on us. Then again, we were already fighting a swarm of monsters from the next level.

I chuckled.

This was the dungeon taking pity on us.

Crimson always called it a living thing. Now I understood just how little mercy it had.