Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 14: [Reassemble], Break Down

Gravity pulled Richard and me through the terminal hole, dumping us into free fall.

[Root canal defeated. You have earned experience. Further details and rewards will be aggregated and awarded upon [Trial Dungeon] completion.]

My “fuck you!!!” scream echoed in the dark cavern. A light source flared below, as I watched a foamy, acrid lake rapidly approach.

The smell of bile confirmed it. We were about to bathe in a lake of stomach acid.

Richard clung, as I held my breath, waiting for impact.

I belly flopped right into the lake, Tandy's pack knocking all the air I'd been hoarding out of my mouth. The liquid ate at my eyes, so I squeezed them shut as I awkwardly kicked my feet, trying to get my head above water. Trying not to choke on the acid I accidentally inhaled. Between the hammer on my hip, my bag on my shoulders, and Tandy's pack in my hand, I just sank.

When my feet touched the bottom, I kicked off awkwardly, hoping it'd give me enough momentum to break through to the surface. A small part of my brain told me to let go of Tandy's bag, unhook my hammer, detach Richard, and slip away.

My lungs burned as I hit the apex of my jump. Instead of panicking, all I felt was the heavy weight of regret.

Then something grabbed my shoulders. Breaking the surface suddenly, I didn't care if it were a monster, I just sucked in giant gulps of air.

Lungs satisfied, I began fighting for my life as I was hauled across the water like a hooked fish. Kicking and thrashing, my eyes were blurry.

One of my feet brushed the bottom of the lake. The water was shallower here. If I could get enough leverage, I could toss my attacker.

It's Meredeath, you idiot.

I stopped fighting, and the helping hands relaxed their grip. Wiping the frothy lake water off my face, I tentatively opened my eyes. Everything burned slightly like I'd received the season’s first sunburn. As my vision cleared, the dark-clad Meredeath stood.

Her clothes and hair were damp, probably my fault, but otherwise she looked in perfect health. A glowing orb bobbed above her head, and a ring on her right hand glowed quietly.

Sheepishly, I gave a head bob of thanks.

"What took you guys so long?" She asked as we watched Tandy fall from the ceiling. She screamed, too, but had enough presence of mind to ball up before hitting the lake.

All of my anger at her deserting us drained out of me. Seemingly, she really had expected us to follow her.

"We tried to fight the root canals."

"Huh," Meredeath began wading out to retrieve Tandy. "I can't tell if you guys are brave or stupid."

Stupid.

"Probably both," I called, ignoring Richard as I shivered by the cavern wall.

The place smelled atrocious, like a compost bin in the kitchen when it hadn't been turned frequently enough. Chunks of half-digested food floated in the liquid.

The walls rumbled, sloshing the lake. Ripples formed, impacting each other and generating a foamy aftereffect.

I decided it was time to stop ignoring my notifications and immediately regretted the choice:

[Indigestion Event - This terrain is undergoing acidification due to an indigestive event. Acid levels will increase until irritant is removed.]

[You are [Acidified]. Lose one health point every thirty seconds until this environmental condition is removed.]

I focused on my stats. My health had already dipped to 20/25 health points. It wouldn’t take long for the lake to kill me, and even less time for it to kill Tandy.

[You are [Diseased]. Bites are one of the worst sources of infection. Bites in an acidic lake of biological pathogens are even worse. That numb feeling in your foot is not a good sign. You lose one stamina point every ten minutes until you are cleansed.]

Tandy had bobbed up with Meredeath a few feet away. She looked a lot more put together than I felt.

"We're in trouble. I've been informed there's an [Indigestion Event] that has given me an [Acidified] debuff, and I'm losing two health points a minute. I've got less than 10 minutes, and Tandy had even less."

A giant blob of something green floated by, caught in an invisible current. I tried hopping on it to escape the goop, but it sank under my weight.

The walls of the cavern, the stomach, stretched and gave as I tried to climb up, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get my body wholly out of the soup.

Meredeath watched quietly as I wore myself out.

My skin itched, every bit of it soaked. My foot throb was muted, which only made me worry more. My eyes burned, and everything had a hazy halo effect.

Meredeath looked perfect. She was damp, but for all her journey to rescue the two of us, she looked like she'd just taken a dip in an alpine lake. It had to be magic.

Uncharitably, I was grateful that Tandy looked as bedraggled as I felt.

Out of ideas and frantic energy, I stared off into space numbly.

"Any ideas?" Tandy was exhausted. She leaned against the wall, her hand sinking into the mid-forearm.

"I can't believe how this stuff affects you. I must be immune." She looked at us, almost bored, unimpressed with our lack of self-preservation. Like any idiot would have prepared to be immune to acid in a dungeon. My eyes narrowed. How could she possibly be immune?

My anger flared as I spoke, "Yes, it's affecting us. You need to help us losers, or you’ll be without a team, and according to Malyc, that means you'll fail the dungeon too."

She abandoned us to the hangry teeth above, then acted superior. That her gear and skills backed her attitude up just pissed me off even more.

"Hey guys! Anything I can do to help?" Leo's voice called cheerily off-key from my outburst.

The cavern vibrated, sloshing foamy acidic liquid everywhere. Richard whined as a wave broke over my shoulders. My health points kept dropping.

"Good to know you have a backbone after all," Meredeath murmured, giving me a wink. What the hell was wrong with this woman? She tapped her ring and threw another light ball out of it, towards Leo.

"My vision's still hazy, can either of you see him?" I squinted at my friend, but everything was still foggy.

The idiot has embedded his axe across the hole and is standing on it.

"Do you have any rope? Can we climb up to you?" I called. It was the obvious solution, although I wasn't sure how much weight the shaft of Leo's axe could take.

"No rope in my pack." Well crap.

Tandy broke in, "If we could find my pack, we'd be fine."

I frowned. "What's in your pack?" I held up the bedraggled bag that'd almost drowned me twice.

Tandy looked at it stupidly before her face split with a huge grin. She sloshed over to me, hand outstretched like I held something precious. I happily let her take it. Tandy plopped her bag on a green floating chunk as she rifled through the bag, pulling out a small slice of the same type of rope I'd untangled an esophagus ago.

She held it up like a long-forgotten messiah, shouting, "[Reassemble]!"

The skill pulled her up off her feet. Meredeath grabbed her other hand, helping support Tandy as the magic took effect. The rope’s end glowed with her usual warm golden magic as it tried to restore itself.

"Ouch, what the hell?" Leo's curse rang out, a good sign. Tandy started sliding again towards the middle of the lake. I helped Meredeath, wrapping my arms around Tandy's waist.

The rope snapped together. One end was held tightly in Tandy's hands, and the other was tied to the distant tooth in the mouth of the dungeon.

As though the [Trial Dungeon] knew we'd outsmarted its trap, the water level dropped dramatically. I ignored my internal warning bells, grateful the water level was only hip deep below the rope. My eyes finally started to clear, and I could see Leo waving with a stupid grin.

"I don't have much health left. Do you mind if I go first?" Tandy's voice had an edge to it, and for the first time, it hit me how fragile her base stats were.

Meredeath looked unconcerned, so I spoke up, "Of course, I've got a few more minutes. Let me give you a leg up." I bent down, cupping my hands so she could get some lift. The faster we got her out of the water, the better.

"Climb on up!" Leo yelled as she stepped onto my hand.

Tandy pushed onto the rope, grabbing on as though her life depended on it.

The cavern rumbled again, the water dropped briefly, and something long and sinuous flashed below. Was it a fish? A snake?

"Did you see that?" The question was out of my mouth as Tandy broke free of the water.

"I sure did," Meredeath eyed the water suspiciously. It was a frothy greenish-yellow on top, but the water underneath was a dark brown. It wasn't hard to understand that this was an oversized stomach. A giant seed pod floated by, half digested and covered in slime. "Is it me, or do the walls seem... closer to us?"

I squinted at the walls, but it was hard to tell. The light from Meredeath's orb ring wasn't too powerful, but they did look ominously closer.

"Maybe closer. More worried about what's in the water with us. Tandy, how are you doing?"

"Better, now that I'm out of the cesspool, my health has started climbing, but now my stamina is draining."

If I remembered well, she didn't have much of either. We'd just traded sure death for a slow death.

"Do you have a skill that will knot the rope? If you had a perch, it wouldn't be a strain." I threw my idea out, nervously hoping as something rubbed against my calf.

"I can pull you up!" Leo shouted down as Tandy's body surged upward. The rope slid through my unprepared hand, biting into my palm.

The cavern rumbled, sloshing Richard and me.

Pulling her up wasn't a terrible idea, but I noted my health was down to 11. Did we have enough time to pull us both out?

Leo needs to shut the hell up before he kills us.

Realization dawned too late as Leo boasted, "This isn't straining my stamina at all!" Leo's yells triggered the stomach-quakes.

The cavern shook violently, geysers of acidic juice spouting into the air, showering us with filth.

"Leo, shut up!" My words came out jangled as I was tossed left and right.

The acid reflux didn’t stop this time, each choppy wave splashing up as they collided. Tandy was above the splash zone, but Richard and I were getting scrubbed on the washboard.

Worse yet, the rope started to sizzle under a gelatinous splash.

To make matters worse, something long brushed against my leg. I unclipped my hammer, watching the water.

"There's something in here with us," I called to the team, eyes glued to the froth.

Meredeath was on guard, calling on a skill, "[Claws of Death]." Her face twisted in pain as her fingernails slowly elongated into claws.

A dark aura shrouded her body, making her hard to decipher. She felt dangerous.

"Cole, look," Meredeath's call hissed across the lake as she pointed to a roiling spot of water. A mass of thin white ribbons of flesh thrashed.

Suddenly, something wrapped around my ankle with a bone-crushing grip, and it pulled me under.

My scream was cut short as my vision and mouth filled with the miasmic soup.