Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 50: Dungeons and...

Meredeath demanded to go first, because of course she did.

Which meant when she dipped down into the shimmering hole, my last connection with [Your Mom's Party] disappeared.

[Heartbeat] echoed endlessly, waiting for a response.

Silence.

Meredeath was supposed to poke her head back through and let me know it was okay.

Nothing.

Then, the rope suddenly jerked before going completely slack.

Fuck.

Did I go after her?

If she needed help, I couldn’t just stand around.

I slung a leg over the lip of the well, rope in hand. The greasy pit smelled repulsive.

Time to be the hero.

If this was really a mistake, at least I had [Cheat Death] off cooldown.

My foot slipped, and the sudden weight on my hands snapped my grip. I fell uncontrolled headfirst into the...

[Quest Granted: [First Run]

You have discovered the [Basic Wild] [Unnamed] dungeon beneath Eddie's Mill. This undiscovered dungeon has had [0] successful completed attempts. Complete the dungeon to earn naming rights, faction association, and a [Dungeon Treasure Chest]. Adventure Onward!]

...dungeon.

I somersaulted, landing hard on my ass.

"Glad you could join me," Meredeath looked down at me. “Good thing I didn’t need any help.”

"Why didn't you--" I said, then looked at the rope dangling fifteen feet off the ground.

Meredeath explained, "Once I fell, I couldn’t reach it. You figured it out. No harm, no foul. You know anything about this [First Run] thing?"

“Not a clue. I barely qualify as an [Adventurer].” The truth hurt, even when I said it.

“Might as well be from Kansas, huh?” Meredeath offered me a hand up.

Standing, I looked around at what was apparently a dungeon in the sewer beneath Eddie's Mill. I'd never heard of an [Unnamed] dungeon.

Concentrating, I brought up the party map to see if [Partial Rapport] showed any details on Tandy and Leo's location. For the first time in weeks, I grinned.

"Looks like Tandy and Leo are doing just fine." A detailed map of what they'd explored so far appeared with three blinking marks indicating the location of our absent party members.

We headed south, towards a maze of tunnels with branching junctures and dead ends.

I expected sewers to match the leviathan’s colon in terms of grossness, but the sewer was oddly clean. Except for some leaf litter in a few corners, nothing stuck out. It was as though something had eaten anything that didn’t belong.

A low hum came from the dungeon's ambient light source, an embedded magical filament running along the ceiling.

The dank tunnel was pretty dull for a real dungeon. No monster ambushes, no acidic moss, not even a distant growl. Small glistening piles of slime could be found once in a while, but I just assumed they were from Richard.

"Do we have to worry about traps?" Meredeath asked, breaking the monotony.

"We're just retracing their steps. They should be disarmed or already triggered, right?" I paused as Meredeath grabbed my arm. "Why are you asking?"

We were a dozen feet away from a juncture. From the map, it looks like Leo and Tandy continued forward.

"People have died here," she said.

"How do you know?"

"It's a skill, okay? [Detect Death]." Her voice lowered, as though she didn't want to admit her skill. “I turned it on after the docks.”

The skill certainly would have saved us some embarrassment.

We approached the juncture cautiously. She was the one who saw the trap first. An inconspicuous plate sticking up marginally higher than the others.

Throwing a rock at it, we were rewarded by an audible click, followed by a high-velocity burst of water. The streams would easily flay flesh from bone as they crisscrossed the trigger plate.

“Damn, that would have hurt,” I said, impressed. My [Gills] would have done nothing to prevent that death.

“Yeah, be careful, there’s probably more,” Meredeath said blandly.

We sidestepped the trigger carefully.

"I'm surprised Leo hasn’t stepped onto one of these,” Meredeath commented as we avoided several more suspicious-looking stones. Her [Detect Death] skill hadn’t gone off again.

"Oh, that’s Tandy’s fault. She’s always looking out for him, us. With the clout of her family, she could have done much better than us for friends.” I’d long ago stopped questioning the illogic of her friendship. Her presence was as immutable as the mountains.

The quiet of this god-forsaken dungeon freaked me out. Where were the monsters? Giant sewer rats? Goblins with poor hygiene and sticks? Even [Basic] dungeons should have had some martial challenge beyond traps, right?

"Is that blood on the wall over there?" Meredeath knocked me out of my thoughts as she pointed to one of the oozing walls. A splash of red stood chest high, looking for all like the spray off an axe.

"Do dungeon monsters bleed like that?" I asked.

Meredeath looked at me like I was a world-class dumbass.

"How the hell would I know? I’m from Kansas, remember?"

"Well, I'm just a loser with an [Immortal] sentient slug," I threw back at her.

"G-reat," someone moaned down the split to the left. "And here I was hoping you'd be able to help me."

Meredeath and I exchanged a look. Had we just spilled the beans on our most important secrets to a stranger? She unsheathed her daggers, and I gripped my hammer as we turned down the tunnel, finding an old friend.

The guy who jumped into the dungeon sat against the tunnel wall, axe on the ground before him, holding a wad of cloth against his shoulder. It was soaked in blood.

"Uh, hello again. Happy to help, that looks bad," I said, clipping my hammer as I knelt next to the guy. He wasn't going to be a threat in this shape.

Meredeath stayed on guard, daggers in hand.

"What got you?" Meredeath asked, braced for an attack from him or his assailants.

The man groaned as I took over, holding the compression in place. The rag was covered in sticky blood.

"I'm embarrassed to admit, oversized raccoons. Damn bandit-faced jerks came at me with knives. I didn’t expect that in a [Basic Wild] dungeon. The one that got me had some sort of anti-coagulant on its blades." He must have picked up on my blank expression. "You an [Adventurer], son?"

I nodded, his blood oozing between my fingers.

A squeak echoed down the tunnel. Meredeath and I exchanged looks.

"We're new at this," I waved down the hallway. I moved his rag to take a look and gaged. The wound was deep, muscle cut down to the bone. His arm hung limply.

"I see. Well, let’s get me patched up, and we can talk. Do you have any [First Aid] skills? I've got some, but I can't use them on myself. I'm Andrew, by the way. What's your name?" His voice was a lot calmer than mine would have been if the circumstances had been reversed. "Gods-damn-it, you're whiter than I am." He snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Focus on me, boy."

I took a couple of breaths, holding the cloth against the wound, and focused on the guy's face. He was a little older, with some grey streaks in his beard. An old scar ran across his face from cheek to chin. This guy had seen a few fights. If he wasn't panicking, I could hold it together. Even if I didn't know what to do, he did.

"Okay, open up my pack. There's a red tin, grab that. Every [Adventuring] party should have their first aid kit, regardless of whether anyone has [Healing] capabilities," Andrew lectured. The man reminded him of Marta. That calm explanation of how things should work. "Remind me what your name was?"

A faint scratching of claws on stone echoed ahead.

"Cole."

"Right, Cole. Did you find the red tin? Yes, I see it. Great, now pop it open. There should be a jar of powdered herbs, yes, that's it--"

That's when the raccoon bandits attacked.

Three bounded down the hallway, three-foot-tall armed bundles of fury. Their eyes glowed blue with magic as they clutched knives in their hands. I turned to meet the attack, but Meredeath stood tall, defending us in leather and lace.

"I've got this, Cole," Meredeath said calmly. She didn't even glance back at us. Instead, she spoke her first skill, "[Death's Kiss]."

Green flames erupted along her daggers as Meredeath crouched, ready to take on the monsters.

The raccoons didn't hesitate as they surged forward, eyes glowing red in the eerie light. My hand went for my hammer, but Andrew stopped me.

"She's got this," he murmured, eyes plastered to my teammate.

Just as they closed the final distance, knives gleaming, Meredeath called another skill, "[Whirlwind of Death]."

Her body spun, and the unsuspecting raccoons paid for their stupidity. Meredeath's daggers cut through the creatures like butter. Arms, viscera, and blood went flying. Not once did her protection amulet flare, as she danced through any resistance.

When the skill ended, Meredeath staggered to the wall. She retched, dizzy and disgusted, covered in blood. The flames cut out on her blades, but her eyes still blazed green, the internal fire almost hinting at the skull under her skin. It was a stark change compared to her slitted cat-eyes.

"A [Death Knight]?" Andrew whispered next to me in awe of Meredeath's destruction. "That's a harsh road. Maybe your team can survive down here."

I squatted next to the guy, fumbling in his tin of healing supplies. [Death Knight]. He'd revealed the secret Meredeath had been holding on to in just one example of her skills. That's what the [Lich] had offered her, or one of her options. She chose this.

The gills along my neck flapped uselessly in the air. I wondered how Rhi Voss, [Lich] Queen of Niyatgra’s [Sponsorship] cost compared to Richard’s.

I suspected neither of us had paid the ultimate cost. Yet.

My hands shook as I poured the powdered yarrow and plantain into Andrew's wound. The mixture stopped the oozing.

"Alright, now clean it out, then we'll get to stitching and making the poultice. If we can get it closed enough, I've got a minor [Regeneration] skill that should take care of it."

I nodded numbly at the man's words as he talked me through each step. I focused on the task in front of me. I was afraid to look at Meredeath and the carnage she'd caused. She hadn't just fought the creatures, she'd dismembered them.

[Skill Acquired: You have gained a new [Adventurer] skill, [First Aid]. Your efforts to heal injury will now be [10%] more effective, and attributed regeneration will be [20%] more effective. This skill is bolstered or hindered by your knowledge of treatment for wounds.]

"You get the [System Notification]?"

"Yes, how'd yo-"

"Good, now we can get moving." Andrew stood up, using both arms to leverage himself off the wall. "It seems like you’ll be useful after all. I’ve been tracking a lost kid, join me and I’ll share the [Quest].”

[You have been invited to the [Two Angels Party]. To join this party, you must leave [Your Mom's Party]. Do you wish to join?]