Dungeon Chapter 14 (Patreon)

I darted in, stabbing at Charlotte with the wooden knife.

She bashed it away with her staff, sweat flying from her forehead as she had to step back to avoid my wooden sword swinging in next. “No fair, you have two weapons.” She swung the staff in a low sweep, driving me back.

At least it created a little space for her.

She had discarded her school jacket for a sports bra and yoga pants.

Really, I didn’t know she had so many curves.

I was distracted for a second as she breathed heavily, taking the pause and trying to recover her stamina.

“Ready?” I asked.

She shook her staff at me. “Come at me.”

I performed a similar attack, only leading with my sword and stomping down when she swung low trying to drive me back.

My foot caught her staff and knocked it out of her hands, the staff hitting her leg on the way down causing her to wince and my knife sweeping in after, for what would have been a lethal blow, but the weapons were just wood for practice.

Charlotte sighed and just fell down on her butt. “You are too good for me. Des, can you bully him?”

Our warlock was watching from the side and taking a break from her round with Charlotte before this.

We were rotating in and out. Crimson demanded that watching two people fight was just as important as fighting.

That and it gave us all a chance to take a break.

Bun-bun grabbed a towel and water bottle before bouncing over to Charlotte and handing them to her.

“Don’t feel bad. You were trained on how to keep something away from you, because you are a supporter. He was trained to get in close and kill. Ken was trained to defeat you.” Des comforted Charlotte, who stubbornly glared at me.

“She’s not wrong.” I agreed with her assessment. “So, what does that make you?” I teased Des.

“Someone who was trained against her weaknesses.” She held a single wooden dagger and had a small stack of round wooden balls in her pocket that she could pretend were shadow bolts.

Charlotte got up after a moment and went over to a camping chair next to where we were sparring. We had all our things piled over by it.

Bun-bun picked up a fan and started going at it, trying to cool its master off.

The Haylon gymnasium was something else. They had any equipment you could dream up, and the place was larger than other schools, entire sports campuses with areas encompassing every terrain you could imagine in the dungeon.

Right now, we were over in a rocky area with an empty space to fight.

There was another group close to us, a group from one of the other classes.

“Pay attention.” Des reminded me. “We’ll make this the last one. We are all getting too tired for more.”

Her words energized me, and I gripped my wooden weapons tighter. So far we were tied in our sparring today, so I decided to up the ante.

“Loser has to transfer two hundred coins to the other?” I offered.

Des narrowed her eyes.

It wasn’t a devastating loss to either of us, but a small motivation. Especially after we dropped off our next stack of loot, we earned quite a bit from the invasion of frogmen.

“Deal.” She said punctuation her words by throwing one of the wooden balls at me.

I expected it and dodged out of the way, closing the distance between us with a few quick steps, lashing out as soon as I was in range with my sword.

Des blocked with her wooden knife while she was fishing out another wooden ball from her pocket.

I struck with my knife, trying to beat her next shadow bolt.

“Shadow bolt.” She shouted and jerked her hand out of her pocket.

It forced me to jump back to avoid… nothing.

Des had the biggest grin on her face as she successfully faked me out.

I wanted to gripe, but she got me fair and square in a competition with no rules.

She then twisted her hand to an overhead pitch and threw the ball at me as hard as she could from less than two feet.

At least she telegraphed the move.

I was able to dodge by throwing my body out of the way, but I had my own tricks as my knife spun through the air, right for her forehead.

She brought her knife up to block, but that only set her up for my next attack.

Now, with two hands on my short sword, I swung hard and fast from above.

Considering she didn’t have many options, she blocked with her knife, but there is a sizeable difference in leverage with the length of a sword versus a knife, not to mention blocking high was harder on the arms than cutting low.

She held me back gritting her teeth as she tried to turn my blade, but I knew she couldn’t counter quickly from that position, so I kept my weight on the blade and tried to force the deadlock, or if she tried anything else, I would cut down on her.

I grinned, knowing I’d won.

Des glared at me, one of her eyes perpetually covered by her purple hair, but the bright red of them seemed to cut through, regardless.

She tried to turn my sword once more, and my blade slipped off hers, coming hard down on her shoulder.

“Shit. That was harder than I meant.” I apologized.

Des only winced and looked at Charlotte.

The druid looked like she’d melted into the chair as she lazily waved her hand. “Heal.”

Green light wrapped itself around Des and likely prevented a pretty nasty bruise.

“Good job.” She held up her CID.

Right, the bet.

Des tapped at her screen and bumped her device to mine, which chimed happily at the new infusion of funds.

“Des, help me back. Ken beat me up.” Charlotte whined.

“Sorry, Char. I can help you.” I offered, coming over.

But she waved me off and stuck out her tongue. “No. I’m just having too much fun teasing you. You both were great. I probably improved a lot from this. Besides, Des can help me all the way to the bench in the locker room. I’m completely beat.”

I smiled, realizing that she had just gone a little far teasing me. “If you say so.”

Des grabbed Charlotte and put one of her arms over her shoulder. “Do me a favor and take back the gear? I can’t carry all of that and Charlotte.”

“No problem.” I could handle the equipment easily. “Catch you guys later.” I started folding up the chair and stuffed the weapons in a duffel bag. Even if they stuck out, it was better than nothing.

Then I headed back towards the equipment lockers.

There was no male locker room, so I would just have to head back to the visitor’s center to wash and get into clean clothing.

My eyes tracked the girls heading back to the locker room and a few, less chivalrous thoughts flit through my head at what was happening in there.

I smacked my cheeks, trying to drive away those thoughts.

Harley was infecting me.

Oh god, she must be in heaven in there.

I picked my way down the hill to the large room filled with wooden weapons, chairs, exercise equipment and just about anything you could ask for.

Harley was by the door, giggling with her priestly beauty. The blue-haired girl was blushing furiously as Harley tried to pressure her into something.

The bard caught my eyes as I paused to watch them and she grinned wide. “Ken, you’ll join us for a double date, right?”

The priest looked nervous, but seemed to relax at the suggestion, focusing on my answer.

Ah.

Harley had been trying to get a date, and she was nervous. A group made things like that easier.

I was about to deny her, though, because I had no one to ask.

But Harley had her hands clasped as if she was begging with wide pleading eyes.

“Sure.” I said.

She mouthed ‘I owe you’ before the priest turn back to face her and she dropped the begging act for a smooth smile and leaned against the wall, wrapping up the conversation as I dropped off my gear.

When I came back out, the priest was gone and Harley was dancing from one foot to the other with the biggest grin ever on her face. “Thank you!” She squeed and gave me a big hug.

“Now I have to find a date.” I sighed.

Harley pulled away and looked at me like an idiot. “You can ask Char or Dessy. Take your pick, though Dessy will probably play a little hard to get, making you chase her before she ensnares you. She’s diabolical like that.”

I blinked stupidly at her. “What?”

“Just ask Charlotte.” Harley rolled her eyes. “She’ll say yes, I guarantee it.”

“Really?” I wasn’t quite so sure. Maybe there was something there, but…

“Don’t be an idiot. Just ask Charlotte.” She repeated herself. “Look. I promise, they are both interested. Neither are going to drop their panties for you, but they will both go out on a date.”

“Harley, why did you have to go all the way to sex right away?” I sighed and rubbed at my face.

She only laughed. “Duh, because that’s the end goal.” She wrapped an arm around me and waved a hand in the air. “We are in fucking heaven, you and me. Surrounded by the best and most beautiful beauties in all of adventuring. Seize life, Ken. Form a harem.” She made a dramatic fist and stared at me.

“Harley. We are here to learn how to dive the dungeon…” I held up my hand to stop her. “… But, yes. Maybe you are right and I should look for a girlfriend at least.”

“Just one?” She asked.

“Just one.”

“We’ll keep working on you.” She pat me on the shoulder. “Eventually you’ll realize just how much of paradise you are in.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

Her dreams of a harem were nice, but they were predicated on my ability to stay in school. If I couldn’t figure out how to utilize my stats, I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with the class. I had no illusion that Marlow would use that to expel me.

There were bigger problems for me than finding a harem. At least for now.

“Maybe one day when I figure out this mess of a class.”

Harley only shrugged. “Maybe if you bone all the girls in the school, you’ll pick up some strange class. You never know.” She smiled innocently, her eyes drifting off to the side like she was going into a daydream.

“Damnit Harley. Get your head out of the gutter.”

“Come on.” She pulled at my arm. “Let’s go. If I don’t get you to ask Charlotte out now, you are going to chicken out on me.”

Rolling my eyes, I got my arm back and walked with her. “When is this date?”

“Tomorrow night. So we can do this tournamenty-whatever that Crimson cooked up and then relax with a lovely lady on our arms.” She sighed.

“You really are into her?” I asked, knowing that she was talking more about herself than me.

“She’s a knockout, Ken. Ten out of ten on everything I want.” She skipped a little. “And she’s willing to give girls the ol’ college try.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course she is. What’s her name?”

“Meredith. Or Mere for short, because that sounds a lot less formal.” Harley was all smiles as we walked back to the girls’ locker room.

“Not going to go in there and enjoy yourself?” I teased her, finding it satisfying to turn the tables.

“What? No.” She looked away. “Mere is in there and she’d totally judge me for feasting my eyes on all the lovely, soft, nubile flesh.” Harley’s gaze drifted back to the locker room.

“You really want to go in there now, don’t you?”

She just puffed out her cheeks. “If I do, you’ll run away and I’ll lose my double date. The sacrifices I make for your love life. Ken, one of these day’s you’ll thank me when you find yourself in bed with both Char and Dessy.”

I held a finger to my lips. She was talking far too loud in front of the girls’ bathroom for my comfort.

While we waited, girls came and went, giving me an odd look while some of them looked at Harley as if thanking her for keeping me away.

But one girl caught my attention.

She was tall with a sharp cut to her blue hair. A longsword hung from a belt loosely strapped to her waist.

Who ever she was, she had an air of arrogance around her as she kept her chin aloft, which made her look down at me even though I was taller.

Her eyes flashed with a little fire when she saw me. “You. You are the boy? The one that Crimson brought?”

“Hi, I’m Ken.” I extended my hand, but she didn’t take it.

“Penelope Saint-Clair.” She watched me for a second and when I didn’t react, she only got a little angrier. “I will crush you in the tournament. Don’t disappoint me and fall out early.” With that, she whipped around, sending her hair flying before it settled behind her.

After a moment, I turned to Harley. “What’s her problem?”

“She must have a chip on her shoulder. But she’s the level four and a Frost Knight too. I’d bet she feels threatened by your involvement with Crimson.” Harley nodded to herself.

“How do you know all of this?” I frowned.

“Gossip. Gossip is amazing.” She rubbed her hands together.

“Then when we get the schedule for the tournament tomorrow, do me a favor and help our group get intel on all our opponents.” I tried to put some purpose into her love of gossip.

She nodded. “I can do that, the perfect job for an amazing supporter like me.”

Charlotte and Desmonda came out of the bathroom in fresh clothes not long after Penelope.

“Speaking of supporting. This is your chance. I’ll be the distraction.” Harley jumped into action. “Dessy! Save me!”

“What nonsense are you going on about now?” Des was less than amused as Harley clung to her and she couldn’t pry her off.

Charlotte continued walking for a few steps and watched before coming to stand by me. “You didn’t have to wait for us. Besides, what’s wrong with Harley?”

“Uh…” I hesitated. “She’s distracting Des for me.”

Charlotte raised a curious eyebrow and waited expectantly.

“Will you go on a date with me tomorrow? It’s a double date with Harley and her priestly beauty. You see—“ I was rambling.

“Yes.” She cut me off and blushed. “I’d love to go on a date with you. Even if it’s a double date with Harley.”

“Thank you.” I rubbed the back of my head, happy that it had gone easier than I expected. “Think we should save Des?”

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Charlotte asked instead with her face turning redder by the second.

Smart enough to know you don’t turn an opportunity like that down. I grabbed her hand and pulled her along. “So, what kind of food do you like?”

“Anything really, except sea food. Well, I can do some fish, but not octopus or things that come out of shells.” She wrinkled her nose, and it was adorable.

“Then I’ll make sure we have none of that.” I promised as we walked out of the gym with Harley still ‘distracting’ Des behind us.

AN - I need to get more of these out to  you. I'm on chapter 18 now, but I keep putting off editing them.