DTK 33

There was an explosion as Sandy’s skill met the bear’s attack. At first it was a noise like thunder as the skill magically gathered all of the bear’s attacking force. Then her [Parry] redirected it and the sound turned to tearing flesh and creaking bone.

Blood splattered her as the monster’s chest caved in, muscle parting as easily as anything else. The bear staggered backwards.

And stayed standing.

“Oh shi— ” Sandy didn’t get time to finish her sentence as the monster swung at her again. She tried to block with her cleaver, which just led to the broken edge of the cleaver cutting her as it flew into the air. Then Sandy went flying.

I dropped the strings I was holding, pulling out the giant sewing needle and activating my skill.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 9/10] [Cancel]

The needle parted flesh like butter, sliding through the monster’s skill and into its graymatter.

It collapsed to the ground in a heap, ripping the needle from my hand. I took two quick steps back.

The entire fight had happened so quick. It was almost anticlimactic. I turned to look for Sandy. She had already risen to her feet, brushing off dirt and blood from herself. The shoulder of her armor had been cut open, and half of her cleaver was broken off. It was still a cleaver… just a lot shorter.

“Sandy!” I said. “Are you alright?”

Sandy looked up at me, then back toward the monster.

“Did you get an XP notice?” Sandy said, reaching down slowly and grabbing the cleaver.

“What? I…” I felt my eyes widen. I tried to throw myself forward.

The world turned upside down as force hit me like a car crash, shock and pain erupting on my side. Then it was dirt, rocks and plants scraping me as I tore apart the foliage. I tasted earth in my mouth, twitching on the ground as I struggled to move.

The monster had played dead. My thoughts raced as I struggled to process the sudden disorientation, choking and spitting up dirt. By the time the world started making sense again the bear was crawling toward me. Moonlight glinted off the needle stabbed into its head. Blood and ichor seeped from the wound in its chest, torn open.

Both of its eyes were destroyed.

But it continued sniffing at the ground, coming closer and closer. I tried to breath, but my lungs refused. I felt weak. I tried to push myself off the ground as the monster slowed then stopped only feet from me.

It rose on its hind legs, lifting up a single paw to crush me. I wouldn’t survive two hits in one night.

Then Sandy’s cleaver slammed around the back of the monster, quickly buried half way into the monster’s neck.

The bear staggered backward. Sandy grunted.

Then the blade was ripped free, blood pouring out from the freshly revealed wound deep into the monsters flesh. She brought the cleaver down again, and again, until the bear’s head rolled off its neck and its body collapsed on the ground.

[+10 XP] [Level up]

“Holy shit.” I said, finally pushing myself up off the ground. I was shaky, but I was alive.

And I was afraid to check how much Health I had left. That next hit the monster was preparing for would’ve killed me.

Sandy stepped around the monster, lifting the helmet off her face. It was splattered with blood — not hers. Red spilled down the chest of her outfit and dripped to the ground. Sandy was panting.

Another notification popped up.

[Tier 0 Dungeon Cleared!]

[Weekly Clears: 1/1]

[Opening sub-dungeons.]

[Opening Return Portal]

A shimmering gate opened, showing a distorted image of the town center.

“That easy, huh?” She asked, lifting up the broken cleaver.

“We almost died.” I replied, pushing myself to my feet again and circling the monster. The camoflouge patterns of its fur were marred and matted by the blood drying on it. “How the hell are we going to drag this thing out of here?”

Sandy grunted, reaching into her helmet and trying her best to wipe away the blood sticking to the inside of it. After a moment of thought, she leaned down and dipped it into the river, washing the helmet but making it soaking wet. She shoved it back on.

Then she reached down, bending and throwing her arms around the monster. She pulled as hard as she could. It moved a few inches.

“Nope.” She said. “We’re not getting this out in one piece.”

I reached onto the needle jammed into the monster’s head and tried to pull it free.

It was stuck hard, buried in the bear’s skull. I put a boot to it and pulled, stumbling backward when it came free. Then I began the arduous process of recalling the thrown needles one at a time, bundling the wire back up and shoving them into my belt. The wires and needles were covered with crusting blood.

I wondered if my new inventory would clean them as it did with my clothes.

Sandy got to work without comment, pulling out sheathed knives from her own much smaller pack and carving into the monster. She gave up on using the smaller knives after only a minute or two, switching to using the broken remains of the weapon Gerald had made her.

“Seems like he saves all the good magic for himself.” Sandy said, grunting as she struggled to slice open the monster’s back, working the cleaver into it like a saw. Without her mana, she had no skills to help her cut it.

I think it only hit me then as I stared at her cleaving the monster apart.

“We did it.” I said, my voice an overpowering whisper in the dungeon’s quiet.

“Yeah.” Sandy said, stopping cutting and looking up. She leveled an even stare at me. “This will keep the town going. Indefinitely. We could expand it a lot, even. We’d have to find a way to get someone here to build more houses… unless we just want to build them by hand. But we still need to go farther.”

I nodded.

“I haven’t forgotten. Now we need to… find her.” I said, unsure how to broach the subject. “Valjean can’t stop us if he comes now. We can keep the town expanding by clearing the side dungeons…”

Sandy looked up and out over the forest, staring at nothing. Then she stabbed back down with her knife, cutting the monster apart. I looked at her Stormcaller armor. I would have to level [Warddrobe] all the way to X to be able to carry that for her. I wondered what the upgrade for the skill would be. One of my points from the level up was going to that without a doubt. There was a cut along her Stormcaller outfit’s shoulder.

As for the other… I opened my skill menu.

[Skill Shop]

►Unweaving I

[UNCOMMON] Grants user the ability recycle items into base materials. Additional levels increase the amount recycled.

►Alteration I

[COMMON] Aids user in retrofitting clothing to increase its quality level and repair it. Additional levels allow user to upgrade old equipment to higher levels.

►Mending I

[COMMON] Allows user to repair clothing from patterns they are unfamiliar with. Additional levels increase quality of final product.

With mom working with us, I didn’t need the [Mending] skill yet. Getting outfits from others was a non issue. [Alteration] would be great… once I had more skills to raise the quality of an outfit. For now, I only had low levels of [Embellishment] — I would be better off leveling that skill and improving my future outfits.

And as for [Unweaving,] I had a practically limitless amount of material to work with. With that in mind… I put another point into [Warddrobe,] bringing it all the way to eight. Then I loaded my arms full of still bleeding chunks of monster flesh, as much as I could carry, and followed Sandy out of the dungeon. Luckily we didn’t have to climb the rope out while carrying these.

We washed what we could in the still rivers before bringing them to Sandy’s workship to be stripped and tanned.

I found the workshop’s light on when I got home.

“Mom?” I asked, pushing the door open to find her inside. She looked up in surprise. She was taking apart a piece of the furniture that had been long since left abandoned, nails and hammers out to repair it. There had been no point to doing so before when it was just me and her here.

“You’re back!” She said, stepping back from the table she left on the floor and wiping her hands against the leather apron she was wearing. “How is it going?”

I stepped in and shut the door behind me.

“Sandy cleared the dungeon tonight.”

Mom blinked in surprise. Then she smiled.

“Good. Good! I’m glad.” She said. “Did the… did it help?” She asked the last part like a conspiracy, a hushed whisper.

“Yes. The skill on that armor was… crazy.” I replied. “What was that designed to do?”

“Eh.” Mom replied, sort of waving her hands. Her eyes trailed up like she was remembering something; probably memories from inside of a dungeon. “Sort of a… lightning rod, for dungeons with adverse conditions. My embellishment reworked the lightning redirection skill into something hopefully more useful.”

I nodded. I needed to learn to do that. If I could control the outcome of skills like that…

“What skill is that?” I asked.

“Embellishment X.” She said.

“Ah. Of course.” I frowned. Everything came down to levels and power, as always. How many more levels would I need to gain [Embellishment] ten? I had to raise [Warddrobe] to ten as well.

Mom smiled knowingly.

“You’ll get there, light. Especially when Sandy starts bringing back materials from the sub dungeons.”

I nodded at that.

“You need help?” I asked, waving at the furniture.

Mom paused for a moment.

“No.” She said, taking apart the leather apron and throwing it aside. “I was just getting ready for bed.”

When I laid down, I found myself staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep for more than an hour.

We had done it. We won. For the most part. Now we had to find and bury Sandy’s mom. That dark thought hung over me.

The dungeon’s four ancillary entrances had opened, each one opening to a new environment. I stayed up imagining what would await me inside of them. Would the first floor of each new dungeon be as difficult as the third floor of the first?

Or would they be even worse?