New Story -- Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Too worn out from what had already been an extremely long day to concentrate on his message feed, Thaden instead checked his new-found Inventory to see what had accumulated inside of it while he hadn’t been paying attention. He had been somewhat aware that things were being deposited inside of it while they made their way through the dungeon, as now that he had knowledge of its existence, it was like hearing a new band on the radio that he really liked; he was conscious now of its presence, and the act of random things being slipped inside of it every once in a while was like catching a snippet of their hit song in passing. It was all in the background, but every time it happened he was vaguely aware that it was happening.

Opening his Inventory, he found that it was quite full of… stuff.

Inventory:

19 Gold, 57 Silver, 38 Copper (Total value)

46X Shadow Cloth Scrap (Common)

24X Cracked Phylactery (Common)

36X Arcane Bone Dust (Common)

1X Death Cowl (Uncommon)

1X Ring of the Lich (Uncommon)

1X Necklace of Shifting Shadows (Rare)

1X Scythe of the Reaper (Rare)

The coins he had acquired, as far as he could tell, were actually a whole bunch of copper and silver coins instead of the 19 gold and whatnot the pocket in the grid actually said; it appeared that there was a function of his Inventory that added it all together for a total value, which was certainly handy. As for the rest, the Common-rarity materials were somewhat familiar to him, as he’d collected Bone Dust before, though not this Arcane stuff; what was more, he was fairly certain that it was simply a big pile of the stuff instead of neatly packed into little test tubes that he used to turn in Resource Collection Quests. There were also a few Uncommon and Rare items that looked in intriguing, as he hadn’t ever gotten a necklace or a ring in all his runs through the Medial version of the Mausoleum. He wanted to try them on to see if his Class could wear them, but he was actually unsure of how to get it out of his inventory. A few experiments in trying to poke the window or willing it to appear in his hand didn’t work, so he resolved to ask Sarah once she regained consciousness.

I should probably learn how to put things in as well; my only interaction with it has been things going in automatically upon extractions of Undead remains, but I have no idea how to put things that I want in there. Even more to learn, huh?

He had been so angry after he learned of its existence that he hadn’t even thought to ask those important questions, but now that they weren’t in the middle of running through the dungeon, he figured he’d have plenty of time to learn those kinds of things. Just before he closed his Inventory, he looked again at the four extra items that were Uncommon and Rare, remembering what he’d been told about higher-rarity items that were obtained by a party; he thought that they were supposed to perform some sort of random number generator to determine who got them – and he was confident he had done no such thing, as he probably would’ve remembered something new like that. Another thing to ask about.

Shaking his head at his continued ignorance, he almost got up to start extracting whatever loot the corpses around the room held, but decided against it. The party members seemed like they enjoyed doing it and he’d rather leave it them to figure it all out. As much as he was curious as to what might come of it all, once he sat on the floor he really didn’t want to get up quite yet. Besides, even as he debated with himself on whether to get up or not, he saw Rayana beginning to stir, followed by Aki, Sarah, and then Diallo.

“Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a bus – and then was healed from that, only to be hit by another bus,” the Soldier said as soon as she awakened, groaning as she picked herself up off the floor.

“No, it feels like I just went on a weekend-long bender and then had to fight off a dozen charging bulls,” Sarah said almost immediately after, clutching her head as she struggled upright. “I’m not hurt, but I feel like my body and my mind have been tossed into a washing machine and turned up to high.”

Thaden smiled at their discomfort with a bit of schadenfreude at their expense, his earlier anger fading slightly as he saw the condition they were in. Dark circles under their eyes made them look like they had gone without sleep for days, while their bodies appeared as if they were trying to recover after lugging a couch on their back for a few miles. They weren’t hurt anymore, but their exhaustion caused by the Monarch’s horrific pressure had done a number on them, nonetheless.

It was only when they had all sat up or scrambled to their feet that the seemed to remember where they were. All four of them froze in place within a second of each other, before looking around with just their eyes, refusing to move their head – as if afraid to alert a predator with their movement. When the saw Thaden’s quickly put-upon innocent face staring back at them, they seemed to relax a little.

“You’re awake! Did you have a good nap? You know, I can’t really recommend falling asleep on the job, because I’ve heard these dungeons can be dangerous.” He couldn’t help digging at them a little while making fun of himself because of his previous experiences in a dungeon – but they didn’t need to know that last part.

“Thaden! You’re alive! And… we’re alive, too! Wait—you didn’t have to resurrect us, did you?”

He shook his head with a smile. “No, you all survived. Knocked unconscious at some point, probably from the Boss’s odd pressure – do you have any idea what that was? I haven’t encountered anything like that before.”

Sarah rubbed her temples as the others looked around the room, slightly more alert and looking for any threats. “It’s what we were told was called Level Compression.  It comes from the large disparity between your Level and that Boss, as well as those Mini Bosses. I think it’s usually not felt until you face someone at least Level 45 or 50, and you need to be a much lower Level for it to take effect. I’m actually surprised you weren’t turned into a little puddle on the floor once the Monarch turned his attention to you. Good job baiting the Boss, by the way, because he nearly killed us despite not being the major focus of his Compression.”

“Level Compression? Yeah, that seems about accurate. It’s apparently also mind-based in addition to the heaviness that seemed to sit on me, as I was able to briefly lessen the effect by using one of my Cure Mental Affliction spells,” he noted.

“Uh, ok. I don’t really remember much after he started to attack you, because I felt like I was being smashed into the floor just by being in closer proximity to him. I don’t know about any mental affliction that come along with it, but I figure that you would know better than I.”

Thaden hesitated for a moment before he asked, “Are you alright? That was a bit intense there at the end.”

Sarah stopped rubbing her temples and looked over at him. “Yes, just some lingering phantom pain, I think. But we survived, thanks to you, for which I’m grateful. For everything, in fact, because this was – as much as it worked out at the end – a mistake from the start.”

“I agree,” the Lifewarden said, relief in his voice as he nodded. He was glad to hear that he wasn’t the only one to think that bringing them in here was a bad idea. “Things could’ve gone so much worse for us if the fight against those Bosses turned out differently; as it was, I still nearly died. If that had happened, then you wouldn’t have lived too much longer. I may be strong, but I’m learning that there are some things out there that can still kill me if I’m not careful.”

“Very true,” Sarah agreed. Looking around, she asked, “Would you like to do the honors of extracting from the corpses?”

Shaking his head, Thaden waved at all the fully dead Undead. “No, it’s all yours. Though, I did happen to look at my Inventory while I was waiting for you to wake up, and noticed that I have some Uncommon and Rare items in there. What’s up with that?”

“We all passed on RNGing on them, since you were doing all the work. If you want all of our Common items, too, just let us know.”

He just shrugged. “Not really, though I do want to ask you more questions about my Inventory at some point. For now, though, you should probably concentrate on finishing up here so that we can get back to town. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could sleep for a week after the craziness of today.”

She chuckled at that, nodding before going to join the others, who were already extracting loot from the corpses of the Undead waves from before. Even though there were a lot of them, it didn’t take the four party members long to finish with them all, before they went looking for the higher-Level monsters that Thaden had slain.

“Where are the Mini Bosses and the Monarch? I don’t see more than pieces of them around here and I can’t extract from them alone,” Aki asked as they set about tracking down any of the larger pieces they could locate.

Unfortunately, despite looking for nearly 15 minutes, none of them could find anything, especially after he told them that Nehetmo had exploded similarly to the three Mini Bosses. He was sure that had he used another method other than overloading the Boss with endless quantities of Mana would’ve left something behind to loot, but he hadn’t really been thinking about afterward while he was in the moment.

“All that’s left is the treasure room, I would assume,” Thaden said once they were done, their expressions downcast after not having any luck looting the Bosses. It was only compounded by the fact that, despite dozens of other Undead corpses, there hadn’t been any additional Uncommon or better items extracted – just the same Common ones they already had, as well as some more coins.

While they had been working, the Lifewarden had been looking around the room, and he spotted the tell-tale sign of a doorway leading to the treasure room at the end of the room where the Monarch had first appeared.

“It’s over this way.” Thaden led the party across the room, which took a little bit of time since the space was so large, but once they arrived at the far wall, he placed his hand on the glowing section and pushed. A section of the wall revealed itself to be a doorway, as he expected, and he led the others inside.

What he hadn’t been expecting was the literal treasure trove of chests and items he found inside the large room. With dimensions that were at least twice the size of the treasure room found at the end of the Medial difficulty version of this dungeon, there were a full 16 chests on the floor and 5 weapon racks, which were completely full. In two corners were also armor stands, but instead of being filled with rotting or rusted armor like they were in the Mausoleum, these held pristine-looking armor sets that were a sight to behold. Thaden didn’t really know much about armor or armor quality, but he was certainly impressed at the detail on the all-black sets, one of which was heavier like the armor the Monarch had worn, while the other seemed to be some sort of leather – though for all he knew, it could’ve been something completely different.

“Whoa,” Sarah said, walking in behind him.

“Whoa, indeed. This is much more than I thought there would be,” Thaden admitted.

“Well, it’s all yours, since you’re the one who did everything.”

He opened his mouth to tell them that such a statement was ridiculous, because there was unlikely to be much that he could actually use within all the different items, but he stopped himself as a thought occurred to him. Turning to the Novice Druid, but also taking in the other party members, he asked seriously, “What are you going to do after this?”

Sarah seemed at a loss of words at the question, and it took her a few seconds to respond. “Uh, well, I was thinking that maybe we could go to another dungeon or something—”

“And have me do all the work again? While I do appreciate your help with my questions, and I have many more I would love to be answered, I’m not sure how helpful that would be for either of us. This dungeon alone proved that, even in an ideal situation where my spells are perfectly suited toward killing the Undead, it is still a risk for you to be in a dungeon with such high-Level monsters.

“That’s even with the additional Levels from the PICK you’ve accumulated from this dungeon run. Even if you were to get to Level 30 today, do you really think you could survive against or even kill the monsters you’ve seen in here?”

She took a second to think about it before shaking her head. “No, but we’d have you—”

“Again, that would just be me doing all the work. And while you might gain some more Levels as a result, I’ll also be gaining Levels, and pretty soon this dungeon won’t do anything for me anymore.” Thaden sighed. “I’m not trying to be mean here, but I don’t see what I would get out of this relationship with you and your party. This,” he said, waving his hands all around him, “was a mistake, as we’ve already established. It was also beneficial for me, personally, because I needed some questions answered about what was going on, but I don’t think I have enough questions to last for another few dungeon runs.”

The party was silent, staring at Thaden, and he nervously ran his fingers through his hair at the attention. “Look, answer me this straight, if you would. What were you hoping to gain from all of this?”

“To get stronger, so that we can save the people we love back on Earth,” Sarah said without hesitation. This was backed up by the others, who nodded in agreement.

“And do you feel stronger now?”

“Well, not yet, but as soon as we Level up—"

He interrupted her. “Not from Levels and PICK, but as individuals? As a party?”

The young Novice Druid looked at the others in confusion for a moment before she seemed to understand. “No, not really,” she said slowly. “We… we did pretty much nothing other that loot what you killed, and was nearly the reason you died. I know what I saw, and you deliberately endangered yourself in order to kill that massive Lich so that we wouldn’t be slaughtered by the Undead she was trying to raise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m appreciative that we weren’t ripped apart by those monsters, but you did everything yourself and everything we earned feels… tainted somehow.”

“Exactly. You’re not stronger now, even if you were gain a bunch of Levels from this. By your own statement, you’re doing this to help the people back home, which is a worthy endeavor, but I won’t always be there to help you. I’m not a Contender, remember?”  At first, Thaden thought that would be a bald-faced lie when the question passed his lips, but he wasn’t so sure now. He was so changed from what he had been when he arrived on this world that it was possible that he wasn’t included in the general pool of Earthen Contenders anymore.  Yes, his World Firsts still said Contender on them, and he was able to evolve his Class, but he still didn’t feel like he was a part of them.  What exactly he was, he didn’t know, but that was something he’d have to find out along the way.  “So, even if I help you become the top Contenders in this world, as soon as you succeed, what happens after that?”

“We were told that we will leave here and join the larger defense force that watches over all the worlds under threat from the Adversary.”

“That’s what I thought. You said that this is a developmental world, one that is designed to develop Contenders so that they can do just what you said. But if I’m not able to come with you for some reason, then what will you do? If you come to rely on something but then have that taken away just when you need it, do you think you’ll be prepared to save the people from Earth?”

Still staring at him without saying anything, it was finally Diallo who broke the silence. “You speak the truth. We would be nothing but shadows of who we could be at that point, if we were to rely on your impossible strength. But what do you suppose we do about that?”

Shrugging, Thaden said, “I don’t know. Maybe find another Support Class that will grow with you rather than relying on someone at a much higher Level? The major problem with all this is that I have to fight strong monsters in order for it to even give you any experience, which comes with the inherent risks of near-guaranteed death. But with someone your own Level, or at least close to it, will be able to party with you and learn to get stronger along the way.”

Sarah shook her head. “But there aren’t any that aren’t already affiliated with a party.”

“That’s not completely true, is it? I think you mentioned that there were plenty of them back at the Coalition.”

“Yes, but they’re the broken. They can barely even feed themselves at this point, and most are too scared to even leave the building.”

Thaden remembered them mentioning that, but he had an idea. Based on how his Lesser Cure Mental Affliction had managed to affect what he was fairly sure was an inherent fear-quality to the Level Compression visited upon him by the recent Bosses, he thought he might be able to help at least one or two snap out of the depressive state they were in. He was sure it wasn’t as easy as casting a spell on them, but he figured it couldn’t hurt – especially if he was able to upgrade it again before he tried.

“I’ll see what I can do to help them,” he said, though they looked skeptical. “In order for their addition to your party be successful, however, you’re going to have to do something you’re probably not going to like.”

“And what is that?” Sarah asked.

He took a deep breath before looking her in the eyes. “You’re going to have to delay Leveling up.”

“What?! No way, that’s ridiculous!” she shouted in response, echoed by Rayana and Aki. Diallo, on the other hand, looked thoughtful, and he added his own response a few seconds after the women started their protestations.

“No, he’s right. We have to delay using our accumulated PICK.”

“Why? That sounds as crazy as he is!” Sarah said, rounding on the older man while waving toward Thaden. He was slightly offended at her accusation of being crazy, but he had to admit that his actions lately could be seen that way from an outsider’s perspective.

“Because if we are able to gain another party member, especially if they are one of the broken, then they’ll only be Level 1,” Diallo said calmly in the face of his party members’ angry looks. “If we Level up, then they will encounter the same issue we would have with Thaden here, as we’ll be a much higher Level and they will likely not have a chance to earn any PICK with us.”

“Yes, but—” Sarah continued to protest, but Rayana cut her off.

“They’re both right. We have to stay Level 2 for now, at least until we’re a bit higher in Level and can get our Support member up to speed. Later on, the additional PICK will be handy to get us to the next Level when it matters; remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ll have plenty of time to get us there, and we have a big head start already.” Turning to Thaden, she nodded in his direction. “That is, of course, if we can manage to snag a Support Class at all.”

There was still some grumbling, but they all eventually came to the same agreement to wait – which was exactly what the Lifewarden wanted. He had come to the realization while looking at the loot inside the treasure room that if he was to give them their choice of the powerful weapons and armor here, then they would no doubt be the target of attention as soon as any other Contenders saw them. That was the kind of attention that would likely lead back to Thaden, which he really didn’t want; not because he couldn’t handle himself, but he didn’t want to run into another situation like what had happened here with low-Level Contenders trying to convince him to essentially power-Level them.

The same could also be said for their Levels. If they came back to town at Level 3 or 4, they might get a few jealous looks from the other Contenders; if they came back to town at Level 8 or even beyond that, then the other Contenders would be searching high and low for whatever secret they had found that would allow them to advance so quickly. Which was why he decided to ask Sarah what she wanted to do after all of this, and to find a way to convince her and the others to hold off on raising their Level.

He wasn’t sure if he could get it to happen, but everything just seemed to fall into place for him.

I guess Fortuity really does work.

He would hopefully avoid unwanted attention with their lack of additional Levels, and he was going to keep all the items from the treasure room. Their deception wouldn’t really work if they carried around powerful weapons or armor, after all. Besides, he knew that they had plenty of money now from the shared extraction loot, so they could probably buy some things and anyone who saw them with some shiny new, store-bought toys would only wonder where they got the coins to pay for it – which could be explained away much easier than having gotten it from a dangerously difficult dungeon.

Now, if I can only figure out how to get all this stuff in my Inventory.

“Sarah? I’ve got another question for you….”