Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 12: Heart

"I hope all dungeons aren't this gross, or I will cut my adventuring career short. One of you needs to become a water mage. Either that, or we’ll need to invest in cleansing potions." Tandy had finally managed to get to her feet, but she was covered in slime. Her hair rose on the right like a giant dog had licked her.

"We need some crystal wash," Meredeath said, her elongated black fingernails poking at one of the molars.

"Whatever the hell that is." Tandy was irritated. "Are we going to start this dungeon, or brush its teeth?"

The system must have taken this as a clue that we were ready to begin the crawl, as it triggered a message:

[Quest Update: Welcome to the [Trial Dungeon]. This is the final test to receive your [Adventurer] status. You have three attempts in the [21 hours] remaining on your clock. Health, Mana, and Stamina stats have now been unlocked. Beginning levels for these are calculated based on attributes during your tutorial period. Your continued choices will influence final classes and skills achieved, assuming you survive. Adventure Onward.]

As the system notification faded, three bars appeared in the corner of my vision. Focusing on them, I realized they were meant to represent my health, stamina, and magic, all of which sat at 25/25 points.

Great, now I knew precisely how unequipped I was to be an [Adventurer]. It was incredibly unfair. The system and the guild expected us to tackle a dungeon without a single combat ability? They might as well line us up outside a slaughterhouse.

"No skills?" Leo was focused on his stats. "How are we supposed to survive the dungeon?"

Meredeath gave him a deadpan stare, "With your brain? Although I can see where that'd be a disadvantage for you."

"At least you have your axe, and Cole's got Richard, for whatever he's worth. No offense, Richard," Tandy said distracted, her face plastered in a frown of concentration. "Some new party features have opened up. I'm just going to activate them."

Whatever she did, it felt like she'd taken the air out of the room. My ears popped, and my head felt like it'd been put inside a drum. My mind unrhythmically pounded, pulled to the left and right.

Leo groaned, bent over double, "What did you do? I feel like I just got food poisoning." His words echoed painfully in my head.

It was like a discordant band was tuning its instruments in my head. I'd focus on one, and as soon as the sound started to isolate, it'd sharply hit off tune, losing me in the moment.

Isolate each one.

Richard's words floated across my consciousness.

I focused on a deep, resonant drum. The strike of the mallet was inconsistent. It hit square, sending a powerful thrum through my body, but then would strike the drum hoop painfully, cancelling the expected resonance. Part of me recognized it was Leo, his strength, his commitment. When it hit, the sound shook my soul. As I accepted the dissonance, as something I recognized in my friend, it faded to the background.

Richard's words came back to me: Isolate each one.

The next instrument was a fiddle. It danced along a hundred notes, reeling freestyle. The notes taunted themselves, with an off-key hint at a sabotage attempt on the melody. Something deeper, claws to be free, as I could hear the bow fraying under the fiddler's hand. In my mind's eye, I could see Tandy reweaving the bow and strings as she snapped them with her pressure. The painfulness of the tune faded.

I'd only heard a cello once, when a troop of performers had been making a tour of the frontier. They'd travelled with several wagons, affording the store of such an instrument. The sound I heard now was reminiscent. I could tell what the instrument desired: a lingering haunting melody. However, each stroke of the bow produced a muffled, muted sound. The strings would squeak.

I couldn't grasp why until I imagined the player: Meredeath. She played, but the strings bit into her fingers. A mixture of blood and tears on the strings dampened each stroke of the bow. As my understanding grew, my mind allowed the sound to fade.

The last two instruments played in my mind.

I listened to a music box from another era, off-key. Slowing with each rotation, it kept plunking out one more note. Each time I drew closer with my mind, the box would reinvigorate, the music louder, the tune more off color, less understandable. It was all other, alien, and immortal. The song of a mysterious slug. The tune faded.

Finally, there was one last beat left. As much as I knew it was mine, who else was left? The method eluded me. A drum? My head winced, bringing a bright drum hit to mind. Sharp, clear, and direct, none of this mimicked my inner melody.

It sounded too hollow, too weak for a drum. Each hit caused a stringed resonance. Was I beating a stringed instrument? The idea caught, and I couldn't let it go. I imagined myself holding an old, frayed guitar, hitting it with the palm of my hand.

I snapped back into my body, head clear. I felt rather than saw threads of connection running between myself and my team. Each thread held information. I could pick one up and understand whether they were healthy or sick, in Leo's case. That magic danced along their nature like Tandy, or power like Meredeath.

I looked at Richard, who had two tentacles giving me side eye. For a fleeting moment, I understood why we were bonded. I glimpsed his feigned immortality. As the minutes passed, the insights I'd gleaned began to fade.

A system notification blinked in the corner of my vision.

[Skill Acquired: You have gained a new [Meditation] skill, [Stillpoint]. When mental overload strikes, you reach inside for the stillness to recognize each beat. Centered, you can organize incoming chaos into sensory bundles and categories to be revisited or ignored. This skill is passive.]

[Skill Acquired: You have gained a new [Party] skill, [Heartbeat]. While not your team's strongest or most intelligent, you have heart. This platitude rarely comes with perks. However, with this skill, you can feel the connection between yourself and integrated team members. Status, knowledge, and insight will flow through these connections if you pay attention. Warning, as the heart of the team, you are more susceptible than your teammates to see what you want to see. This skill is passive.]

[Skill Acquired: You have gained a new [Party] skill, [Partial Rapport]. This allows for sharing basic data between party members, including enemy identification, and alerts for low health, stamina, and mana. This skill can be upgraded if team cohesion statistics warrant such an upgrade. This skill is passive.]

Well, look at that. It'd been a while since I'd gotten a new skill in [Meditation], and I'd never earned two skills at once, much less three. I was not sure what either of them would do for me in a fight, but it was a nice boost of confidence.

I could feel that Tandy had resolved her internal turmoil at the threads of information, so I repeated Leo's initial question, "Tandy, what did you do? This is incredible."

She also turned your brains into spaghetti. You need to read the warning labels before you do these things.

Leo was leaning heavily on Tandy. Tandy looked exhausted, and Leo was actively sweating. He looked to be in pain.

"I turned on [Team Synergy], [Overlap], and [Rapport]. Which may have been a mistake." I could feel the guilt in Tandy's expression, so I didn't press.

Didn't stop Meredeath, "Are you insane? No, not insane. You saw the incentive script. You chose this on purpose.” Meredeath’s voice dropped to a hiss, her accusation bare.

[Heartbeat] skill or not, I hadn’t read the truth of Tandy’s decision.

"We need any advantage we can get. None of us is prepared for this," she waved at the teeth and the beckoning throat. "If we're going to survive, we must take risks."

Meredeath, green eyes flashing, stepped forward, her heeled boots sinking into the flesh of the dungeon.

"If you kill us," she pointedly at Leo, "before we get started, it won't matter."

Tandy and Meredeath matched energies. I could feel them pulsing through our bond. My dad always claimed that guilt couldn't stand in a staring match. Tandy looked away first.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice broken. “I had no idea it’d be that bad.”

"You might be the designated [Team Leader], but you can’t make decisions like that for all of us.” Meredeath’s words sat heavy. Tandy gave a slight nod of acquiescence. Meredeath stared at her briefly, green eyes boring into Tandy, before continuing, “Did it work? We only got [Partial Rapport]. Leo might have a headache for the rest of his life if we can't get his mana higher. Did it work?" The words came out through gritted teeth. I realized she was angry, but also reacting to the attempted skill acquisitions.

"The system did grant a bonus upon completion of the [Trial Dungeon], but nothing that helps us right now."

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to give anyone hope that the new skills I got would be helpful in any way. None of them were combat-ready.

Meredeath sighed. Her anger had receded, but the tension across her forehead stayed. "Let’s share our base health, mana, and stamina. I want to see what we're working with."

Tandy, Leo, and I shared glances. We all noticed she didn't share her stats. It was a standoff. I looked at Meredeath. She wore her clothes like armor, closing herself off from the rest of us. Wherever she was from, it shouted she wasn't from here. She didn't belong. I could understand that.

I stepped forward, "I'm at 25/25/25 across the board." Tandy frowned, thinking I was taking Meredeath’s side. I responded to her silent accusation, "Look, my gut says, if we're going to survive this, we're going to have to trust each other."

You sure you're thinking with your gut?

"Leo, man, what's your stats?" I spoke more gently, trying to coax it out of the guy.

"I'm at 50 health, 90 stamina, 10 magic. When we'd earned the [Partial Rapport] skill, it warned me that I didn't have the minimum mana to earn it. Then it granted it anyway." His voice was taut. He was paying for the deficit in other ways.

Mana illness, he's taking a debuff to his health.

Tandy and Meredeath were still standing off.

"Guys, we need to work together."

Meredeath sighed, pulling off a ring with a blue inset emerald, "Put this on. It'll boost your mana by 10 and should get you out of the deficit."

Leo took the ring, ready to protest that it wouldn't fit. Magically, as it changed hands, it grew to accommodate his size. He slipped it on an index finger, and the relief was immediate.

Where'd she get a [Minor Ring of Mana]?

Good question, but I wasn't about to interrupt Tandy, "I'm worse than Cole on health and stamina, I've only got 10 of each."

"Good thing you have mana, or you'd be dead." Meredeath's eyes narrowed. "How much mana do you have?"

"Two hundred and fifty," Tandy finished quietly, as though her having more mana than Leo and my total stats combined was something to hide. I started to protest the unfairness, but I stopped myself. This was Tandy. She rushed to make herself smaller, "I don't have any magic though, no spells, nothing I can use it on."

"What about you?" I put all of my spine behind the question. Green eyes flashed at me unhappily.

"Believe it or not, I'm the one in the group who can take a hit. I'm at 100 health, 50 stamina, and now 30 magic. I've got several magic items on me, and before you ask, no, I didn't steal them. They were gifts, mostly from my mother." She unconsciously touched her necklace. "I think she thought I needed talismans to protect me."

“Alright, are we done with math? I’m ready to hit something!” Leo emphasized his point by smacking a tooth with the flat of his blade. The hit resonated, sending vibrations through the air, causing me to wince.

A deeply unsettling sucking sound followed. Leo backed away, wide-eyed, as two teeth pushed themselves out of the dungeon’s gumline.

These teeth weren't molars. I stepped back in horror as several more dropped from the ceiling. The teeth' roots transformed into armored legs that looked like stout, angry crabs.

Richard's system identification message was shared across the team thanks to [Partial Rapport].

[Root Canal - Level ?? - These sentient teeth are a real pain. Immune to most damage types, they are susceptible to crushing and drilling damage. Slow to attack, they are difficult to survive.]

I looked at Meredeath, waiting for her to jump in front of us. Take the heat while we figure out what to do.

She caught my panicked look and grinned, waving as she jumped down the beast's throat.