Hector dressed, ate breakfast, and drank five expensive teas while waiting for the rest of his group. Rodrick was the first to arrive, wearing his usual armor and with a cheap armband light on each arm. He cheerfully took a seat. “Did you get your energy reserves up?”
“They’re about where I need them,” he lied. Nineteen percent at level five was like having thirty-eight percent at level four. Not nearly enough for him to be comfortable with what he was about to do. They were doing a quick run, though. It should be fine.
Zelda appeared soon after, hair pulled back into her combat braid. She also wore one of her shirts with the back exposed so that she could manifest her wings. “What about your friends, Rod?”
“They’ll be in the lobby in half an hour. They don’t eat before entering the dungeon.”
“Rookies,” Zelda decred.
“They delve multiple times a month. We’re the rookies.”
“We’re Coalition Army veterans. They putter around a dungeon.”
Hector squeezed in some more cultivation time as his friends ate. Then they went next door to the lobby. Rodrick, first in line, rushed to greet their comrades for this delve. Zelda eyed them skeptically as she approached. Last in line, Hector almost tripped when he saw their teammates.
It was the three Arahant swordsmen who’d given him a hard time before his first delve. The man with the ultra thin thrusting sword spotted Hector first among his group. His eyes went wide and he smacked katana man to get his attention. Finally, the one wielding a cymore noticed what was happening.
“The cocky level four Xian actually survived?”
“It looks like he’s level five now.”
“He’s not coming with us, is he?”
Rodrick and Zelda exchanged a gnce. “Uh, you know Hector?”
The cymore guy answered Rodrick. “We saw him a few weeks back. He was with someone dressed up like a Jinn commando. They talked about going deep like damn fools. It looks like they were just talking to sound tough.”
Zelda frowned. “I sense some hostility. Is there going to be a problem?”
“So long as the Xian knows its pce, we won’t mind its presence.”
“It?” Zelda made the word carry a lot of meaning.
The man with the katana stepped in front of his peers. “Forgive insult. Friend has rough tongue. We team still?”
While Zelda drew a proverbial line in the sand, Hector studied the man with the katana. In all his time away from Earth, he’d heard many odd accents. This was the first person who obviously spoke English as a second nguage, though. Were he still on Earth, he’d say the accent sounded middle-eastern.
Their alliance somewhat frayed, they proceeded to the building next door to take the elevator to the subway. Rodrick provided a buffer between him and the swordsmen while Zelda spoke to him. “They were quick to back down in the lobby. I don’t think they will do anything to hurt our alliance. But if you find them untrustworthy, let me know. We’ll ditch them and go our own way.”
“Thanks, Zelda. I’m fine sticking with them. In and out, right?”
“Less ambitious than your first outing?”
Hector kept a straight face. Zelda was fishing for a reaction. “In and out, no unnecessary risks, just like the first time I did this.”
“Right.” She made the word drip sarcasm.
The high speed train took them into the main station. Their new friends led them on the circumnavigating train to a different sector, where they walked forward until the System warned them they were passing the point of no return. Then they had to queue.
Hector saw that the moving sidewalk was still reversed to bring delvers out of the dungeon. It was that way for fifty minutes out of every hour. The other ten minutes was when a flood of delvers were sent inside.
The cymore guy took the opportunity to y out their strategy. “We swing right after entering. Just before where the ground turns to solid rock, head deeper into the dungeon. We’ll drop into the ravine. We rotate front man position. Whoever is up there needs to clear the path. Everyone else watches the skyline. Once the ravine ends, we head straight right and hit the wall. The exit will be close. If we make good time, we can use the next release of delvers into the dungeon to mark the spot.”
Hector had been straining his externality to refill his energy reserves since that morning and did a quick check to see where he was. Twenty percent. That would have to be enough. He was part of a group that exploited what he considered an unethical life hack, anyway. They maximized their earnings by avoiding monsters as much as possible. Their strategies stood in opposition to the actual reason for delving.
He couldn’t compin, though. His friends needed a gentler introduction to the dungeon than what he’d done. The thought made him wince. Zelda might be right about him and his Xian arrogance. He would need to figure out a way to cultivate the virtue of humility every bit as ardently as he did cosmic energy.
When the moving sidewalk reversed direction, a stoplight above its exit point changed from red to green. Their group aggressively cimed spots on the sidewalk and rode towards the dungeon down the slight decline. Rodrick moved to stand between him and Zelda, eyes alight with eagerness.
“We’re going to kill this, guys.”
“Don’t get overconfident, Rod,” Zelda snapped. “Coalition veterans should know better than to take any victory for granted.”
“I’m just the right amount of confident,” Rodrick said.
Hector kept quiet. The moving sidewalk ended and they rushed forward out of the tunnel, flicking on their lights to combat the sudden plunge into night. The trio of swordsmen led them at a jog, weapons held at the ready. Their aggressive entrance let them outpace the other delvers around them, pcing them in the lead at the cost of some stamina. Hector felt rising concern at the sound of harsh breathing coming from his team. Five minutes into the dungeon and they were winded?
He supposed he needed to better calibrate his expectations. Arahant were physically within the bounds of baseline humanity, even if they occupied the top one percent of what was possible. They weren’t modified by genetic tinkering and technological impnts like the Jinn and they certainly weren’t supernaturally superhuman like himself. Carrying combat gear at a quick jog while under mental stress wasn’t an easy task for them.
Screams erupted behind them.
“Keep running,” Cymore guy shouted.
Their position as front runners let them avoid that first attack. Hector clenched his hands into fists. Everything about their strategy felt dirty to him. They were avoiding the monsters they were supposed to be culling. They failed to offer aid to their fellow delvers. They weren’t even doing a great job of managing risk in his mind, considering the rough breathing he heard – becoming too exhausted to effectively fight in this environment was a terrible idea.
They broke away from the wall, moving deeper into the dungeon. A few hundred meters ter, they encountered a broad gash in the ground and the three swordsmen dropped into it without hesitation. The three friends followed at a more cautious pace. In the retive safety of the ravine, the gasping cymore guy pointed ahead. “We can go slower and recover on the move. Xian, you take lead first since you’re fresh still.”
Though he suspected the appointment was intended to be sacrificial, Hector took it without compint and began forward at a quick walk. He felt confident that he could handle any threat likely to face them in the ravine. Not only did the geography ensure he only needed to concern himself with what was directly in front of him, his lighting harness illuminated his surroundings quite nicely. There was no terror from fighting in the dark this time around.
Not long into the trip, Hector spotted his first victim. A monitor lizard charged heedlessly towards them, tongue flickering in the air as it scrabbled forward on its cws. Hector snapped a cable onto its head, causing the lizard to face-pnt and skid to a stop. It rose once more, however, proving its body too tough for a head shot to end it.
Hector wound a cable around its mouth to take away its main weapon as the distance between predator and chosen prey shrank. He shed at its one eye, but the skull shape made it hard for him to nd a clean shot.
Suddenly a form shot past him, almost sending Hector tumbling as he was mid-step. Cymore guy swung his long sword down like he was chopping wood. The bde pierced deep into lizard neck, slicing from top to bottom in a clean line. The lizard thrashed while the swordsman leaped back. His eyes narrowed as he watched the animal gush blood from the neck wound.
“I didn’t take it out in a single strike. How embarrassing.”
Hector yanked the lizard’s head to the side, further exposing the wound as the swordsman came forward to finish the execution. This time, the head ripped free entirely. “Get past the beast before miasma stains the ground,” cymore guy commanded. He pointedly looked at Hector’s bare feet as he spoke, silently indicating what he thought of that particur clothing choice.
The trio of swordsmen took turns being in the lead as they jogged once more. There were a few more beasts they had to handle. A jaguar, a giraffe, and a penguin of all things. Then Rodrick volunteered for a turn up front.
Hector knew they were nearing the end of the ravine based on the reports issued by their leader. They were on track to be out of the dungeon about one hour after entering. It seemed too easy, but considering Hector was down to eighteen percent energy reserves, easy was for the best.
Then came an ironic twist of fate. At the point where the ravine floor rose in a series of natural steps to bring them level with the walls of the gash crouched a monster in the shape of a praying mantis. It rose on its four legs and flexed its two massive arms.
“Stop!” Cymore guy spun and looked to the sheer walls to either side. “Xian, lift us out of here! That thing is built for frontal attacks, we need to swarm it on open ground!”
Hector looped a cable around Rodrick, who hadn’t stopped advancing, and hefted his friend free of the ravine. He set Rod down somewhat further back to dey the csh until allies could be in pce. Zelda cpped him on the back as she rose on her own, wide bat wings scooping air.
He lifted the trio of swordsmen free one at a time and then it was his turn to escape. Hector briefly considered flying out, but decided he didn’t have the reserves to be wasteful like that. Instead, he sprinted at a wall and jumped high, driving fingers hard into the contours of the stone. He slid a few feet before he found purchase, then he scrambled upwards, mastering the rock face with the casual effort of a mountain goat.
They converged upon the mantis. It crouched to steady its base and shot out an arm, which straightened to a much greater length than Hector expected. Rodrick almost lost his head, but the man flinched back without slowing his forward momentum, doing a baseball slide as he summoned his sword for the first time.
Zelda appeared then, dropping from above with both hands extended as if she intended to cw at the beast. Sparks birthed between her fingers and grew into fierce balls of fire that she hurled downward.
Katana guy swung his sword and a glint of bde extended ten feet past where the metal ended to scrape across the chitinous exoskeleton. Rodrick rose from his slide and swung up and across with his anime weapon, bumping an arm up and off course as a second strike streaked forward.
More fire fell from above as the mantis threw hands like a supersonic insectoid boxer. Each punch cracked like thunder. The sword strikes flying from four sources failed to penetrate the natural armor of the giant insect. It watched them with alien indifference on its triangur face.
That ck of passion was an illusion, Hector knew. Monsters hated them most fervently. The children of Tiamat sought to wipe the children of the Ophanim from existence. At least so went the story told by the Yazata.
While the ultimate origin of monsters may be uncertain, what could not be denied was that their team had yet to injure the mantis in any way. Fmes were ignored. Fshing metal failed to penetrate. The members of the team shouted hasty orders, all of them contradictory.
“Knock it back into the ravine!”
“Everyone scatter in different direction!”
“Run for the wall!”
“We need to hit it all at once!”
Hector smacked the beast in the eye with a cable, an act whose only impact on the fight was to have the mantis briefly gnce in his direction. It then continued on like an unfeeling robot, boxing at the nearest opponents and taking ponderous steps forward.
