Dungeon Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Things weren’t looking good.

Even with Harley combined with two healers doing their best, I was forced to stop using my mana beyond what it could regenerate.

“Heal.” Charlotte pressed a hand to my back that recovered the cuts from the frogmen swarming us, but my mind was feeling like it was stuck in the mud, sluggish and becoming slower to respond.

A frog came at me swinging its stick.

I blocked with my sword, my dagger punching up under the frog’s chin, blowing it into a puff of smoke.

Something glittery fell down on the ground where it had been, but another frogman stepped over it to fight me and whatever the item was, it was lost in the chaos that was my group just trying to survive.

Des cried out for the first time.

It was so startling to hear the serious woman in pain as a frogman bashed in her knee with a good strike and she fell to a kneeling position.

“Earth stomp.” I sent a wave in front of her to try to cover her as the priest healed her and they got her back to her feet.

Des got back up, but she was fighting like a wildcat.

All she had was a dagger, meaning she was using her other hand to block and punch.

A difficult thing when faced with clubs and stones.

“Ken. We need a plan to get out of here.” Des said as she grabbed a frogman’s stick and knifed it in the eye.

Unfortunately, the stick was part of the monster according to the dungeon, and it burst into smoke before Des could even swing it.

I looked out past the frogmen, but there seemed to be no end to them. “Which way is even back?” With all the monsters, I had lost view of the ground and the path back through the bog.

Desmonda cursed as she realized the same thing.

Her CID chirped at the same time as Charlotte’s and mine.

But the rest of the group didn’t utter a peep.

Des looked down quickly. “We leveled up.”

I was shocked; we had gained experience so quickly?

She kicked back a frogman and started hitting something on her CID before grinning. “Shadow Bolt.” She blasted a frogman to pieces with the spell. “Shadow Bolt.” She threw another spell, adding them into the mix more confidently with her other hand.

“What did you do?”

“Put all my points in mana.” Des grinned.

I frowned, we were in the middle of an ambush of frogmen. Wouldn’t something like dexterity do more for her?

She must have understood my look. “I’m still a caster at the end of the day. Eventually, I need to be standing back with Charlotte, blowing things up.”

“Heal.” Charlotte said, and it seemed to glow a little brighter. “I put my stats into magic power. I’ll make my healing more efficient.”

Flipping open my own stat sheet, I didn’t give it a careful look over, instead just started hitting dexterity.

Only for my CID to make an error tone and flash.

I didn’t have time for this.

Pushing dexterity again, it made the same angry noise.

So I pushed on strength.

Only to get the error tone again.

I cut angrily into the next frogman.

“What did you put your stats into?” Charlotte asked.

Only making me grumble. “Nothing. I can’t.”

There was a flicker of concern from my party, but they dropped it, understanding it was something we’d deal with later.

The archer in the other party went down, and the frogmen jumped over her, tackling Harley.

“Get off!” Charlotte fired her wand at the frogmen as the priest tried to smack them away with her staff.

But the damage was done.

Harley was coughing, struggling to breathe.

“Heal.” Charlotte shouted, healing the bard.

I knew it wasn’t so easily fixed.

Their mana was going to dip low until we could get Harley playing again.

“Heal.” Charlotte shouted again, getting the archer on her feet and they all fought to get the frogmen under control in the center of our group.

“I’m out of mana.” The priest staggered to the side like she was drunk.

“I’m low.” Charlotte said the words as if they pained her.

“Harley, get back on your ass and be the hero for your priestly beauty.” I shouted at the bard.

It seemed to add a little spark back to her eyes as she started playing the flute furiously.

The blue-haired priest was confused, but accepted it as she stopped stumbling from mana depletion.

“Blizzard.” A shout came from somewhere else.

A chill wind blew over our group before icy pellets rained down on one side of our group.

“Fireblast.” Another voice shouted, and a fireball rocketed into view before exploding and taking out all the frogmen in a twenty-foot radius.

Katie came into view with a group of five other ladies wearing the UG vests. “Frost Wave.” She waved a large ornate staff and a wave of snow rolled out from her, catching the frogmen in front of me and carrying them away as they puffed into smoke.

“Get behind us.” A woman with a large shield came forward, stabbing it into the ground. “Wall of protection.”

The shield seemed to stretch out into a half circle, protecting them.

“Glad we found you.” Katie grabbed my hand. “Just hold on a second. They said Crimson is pissed.”

As if summoning the devilish woman, there was an explosion several times the volume of the fireball and all the frogmen were blown away just by the wind alone, turning into puffs of smoke and shattering the protective barrier.

I was awed by the power behind whatever had done that, but what surprised me more was just how shocked Katie and her group were.

“That was just a basic attack.” The tank said, still holding her shield, but it looked like she was using it for support.

“Restore.” Katie’s healer cast a spell on the tank.

She must have taken the damage for us.

Like a red phantom, Crimson was suddenly amidst our group.

Those glowing blue eyes of her stared at me like they were rifling through my soul. “You are okay.” She almost sounded relieved before she turned to the UG members. “You warned my students too late. I will be speaking to your superiors after this.”

She maintained eye contact with the tank. Not looking as her whip lashed out and seemed to branch into thousands of strands. Or maybe it was just moving so fast that it looked like it.

Each one of them hit a frogman, blasting them with a crack that split the air like a thousand small bombs going off in the dungeon.

Smoke filled the air blown every direction as I had to shield my face from the resulting wind.

“Yes, ma’am.” The level twenty tank looked like she was about to piss herself while trying to maintain eye contact with Crimson.

Charlotte leaned against me, and I leaned back against her. The two of us only staying standing by some miracle after the pressure of the frogmen was removed.

Crimson turned to me. “Loot, you have two minutes and then you will leave.”

“Yes.” Charlotte snapped to attention just a little faster than me and I almost toppled over but regained my feet with a little help from my dexterity stat.

I didn’t acknowledge Crimson’s demand, but just started stuffing anything and everything on the ground into my CID.

Now that the frogmen were gone, I realized just how many we must have killed.

The dungeon floor was carpeted with drops, and we could barely pick them up fast enough.

Even Harley was full of energy again as she chanted ‘dress’, snatching up everything she could.

“Ken. What happened with your stats?” Des asked as I was looting next to her.

I didn’t need to look to know, but I still wanted to see it for myself.

Ken Nagato

Class: Aberrant

Level: 2

Experience: 15/300

Strength: 10 +

Dexterity: 11 +

Stamina: 10 +

Magic: 8 +

Mana: 13 +

There were flashing plus signs next to each, but when I hit it, my CID made a warning noise, all of my stats flashed and nothing happened.

“My mana went up one, though.” I said, trying to find the silver lining.

“Just got your first skills and you’ve been spamming them like crazy. Not unusual that you got some natural boost to your stats.” Desmonda nodded. “Those things get harder to train, though.”

I felt Crimson’s glare on my back and looked back to see her frowning at me.

Yeah. I’ll talk to you after Crimson.

More of the UG personnel were moving throughout the first floor, but suddenly they had nothing to do after Crimson showed up.

I couldn’t help but wonder why now that Crimson was on the scene. She had done their job for them and quite easily at that.

She really was freakishly powerful.

Were all adventurers over level fifty this strong?

These thoughts couldn’t help but flit through my mind as I continued to pick up the loot.

“Alright. Looting time is over. Time to head out students.” Crimson’s vision swept over me and she shot me a wink.

“Come on, follow us.” Katie led our two groups out.

Crimson stepped up to my side. “Let me see your CID.”

I frowned, but took the device off my wrist and handed it to her.

My teacher held it up and rotated it in her hands a few times before she clicked her tongue and handed it back to me. “I’ll see what I can do. We need to get you able to use your stats.”

As she talked to me, everyone gave us a wide berth, yet at the same time, everyone was staring at the two of us.

“What are you going to do?” I slid the CID onto my wrist.

“Check the backend with Marlow and the UG. See if there is something that can be fixed. The CID is a human technology that interacts with the experience you earn in the dungeon. They aren’t infallible.” Crimson explained.

“And if there isn’t a simple solution?” I asked.

“Then you have to change your class or get a second one to keep diving in the dungeon. Otherwise you’ll fall too far behind.” Crimson said it so casually, but it was like she had dumped a giant bucket of ice water on him.

Neither of those options was as easy as she made them seem.

“Cheer up.” She pat my shoulder a little too hard.

I watched as Katie’s eyes went as round as saucers, watching Crimson comfort me.

Why did everyone act so strange when they saw Crimson being nice to me? She wasn’t that bad of a person.

There was a bright flash from another part of the dungeon floor.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Headmistress Marlow.” Crimson’s eyes glowed blue. “She’s not a pushover, even if she is a bitch.”

“Crimson.” I scolded the adventurer before suddenly realizing my tone. “I mean, she’s the headmistress. We can’t talk about her like that.”

But she just threw her head back and howled with laughter. “That’s good. Oh.” She wiped at a few tears in her eyes. “Let’s keep going people.”

I hadn’t realized the others had paused and all of them except my party looked tense.

No doubt they were all paying attention to our conversation.

“You are an aberrant, though. Do you not have issues with the CID and your stats?” I asked.

She showed me hers. It was different from mine that was made of fairly simple looking plastic. Hers was embedded in a thicker metal casing. “I do have an issue, but at my level, the UG works specifically with me on my CID. For anyone pushing to new floors of the dungeon, we are entering territory that the CID has never seen. Our data is oftentimes the first of its kind. Besides, my strength is at the point even if the CID messes up a little, it only hurts a little.”

I frowned. “They can mess up?”

“The reason your CID won’t let you level your stats is because without your class, the CID isn’t calibrated to your body. How it interacts with the classes is all different, meaning it could do you some actual harm if it tries to level your dexterity like a fighter’s when you are really a mage.” Crimson explained. “But if you get a second class, it can interact with that one and increase your stats. So, that might be the best option.”

People didn’t change classes on the first floor, that was something far in the future. Could I really dive the dungeon without access to stat increases for that long?

As I was lost in my thoughts, we got to the end of the dungeon and climbed together out of the dungeon.

A UG member stood at the top of the stairs.

“Hello. I need to inform everyone that this dungeon entrance will be closed for at least several days while we investigate the disturbance from today. Until we resolve it, no one below level five will be allowed to enter.” She told us politely, only realizing Crimson was there as she stepped out of the shadows.

Sweat beaded down the UG representative’s brow.

“We’ll have to figure something out for the first-year students.” Crimson said by way of dismissing the sudden awkwardness. “Ken, come find me later. I need to go meet with other teachers.”

“Yes, Teacher.” I replied formally.

She frowned at me but left after a swish of her dark hair.

Katie grabbed my arm. “You really are friendly with Crimson.”

“Yeah. He’s practically her apprentice.” Harley leaned on my shoulder. “I’m his dedicated supporter, too.” She bragged.

I wasn’t sure which of the surrounding ladies she was trying to seduce this time.

Sigh. Harley will be Harley.

At least this was normal, though.

“Come on. Let me treat you guys to some tea and snacks. Technically, we need to get a written report from you guys as we try to figure out what upset the dungeon.”

“Serenity, come with us.” Harley tugged at the blue-haired priest’s arm.

“My name isn’t Serenity.” She frowned, even as she let Harley pull her.

“Yeah, but you make my heart at peace.” The bard giggled and pulled her along.

Des looked at me, and I nodded.

Harley’s punishment was swift as Des chopped her head.

“Sorry.” I apologized to the priest. “She’s a lot. But she’s good in the dungeon. Go meet up with your representative.”

She nodded dumbly, and I pushed Harley down the hall.

“Char-char, come heal me. Dessy hit me too hard.” Harley made a scene.

Katie just looked at me like I attracted crazy.

“Don’t worry, this is normal.” I couldn’t believe those words came out of my mouth. “She’ll calm down a little when we get her away from the priest.”

“My priestly beauty!” Harley turned around, but Des raised a hand threateningly and the bard turned back around with an innocent whistle. “Let’s get this reporting thingy over with.”

“Maybe if we finish early, you can go see if that priest can heal you better than me.” Charlotte said, following us while carrying Bun-bun.

“I knew I liked you best, Char-char.” Harley shot the druid a wink, only making us all groan.

AN - End of October, I made some really great progress on my goals of a book and a half in Oct. A little behind, Dungeon is only on chapter 12, but still just happy to be getting a pretty decent amount ahead on my projects so I can take some time off late Dec. I would normally be writing this Dec 15th-Jan 15th to publish on Feb 9th. Nov I'm still pushing to get this to maybe 30 chapters by the end of Nov.