“Aeshma, you gotta take this Level,” I wheezed. My vision was swimming with elevation-change indicators and various confusing topographic contour lines. The stone trailmarker ahead of us was looking more and more engrossing with every passing second.
“So now you want to lose it, huh? The great Cartographer, Roland, brought to heel at last. You couldn’t have just trusted me to get us here, could you? Just had to get fancy with it,” Aeshma retorted, with a shake of her head that sent the dark waves of her hair bouncing dramatically against her shoulders.
“Aeshma, please,” I begged. “I’m tripping over my own feet here. I seriously don’t understand how people operate with this Class.”
“Aeshma, you’re not allowed to navigate anymore,” she imitated me in a nasally, unflattering sort of way. “You couldn’t walk in a straight line to save your life, Aeshma! Remember when you said that? I’m Roland, let me take a Class I barely meet the prereqs for, that’s the only way we’ll make it to that giant, obvious landmark!”
Trippy, inscrutable symbols were pouring out of the weathered stone trailmarker. It was nauseating, but also kind of trippy. “Even with my Level in Cartographer, we barely managed to make it this far,” I said. “Remember how long we walked around in circles? Don’t pretend like you could’ve gotten us out of Sylvandroon’s grove without it.”
As I spoke, secret words came tumbling out of the trailmarker. Mindbending knowledge poured into me: Queen’s Threshold, 1.5 distance units (DU). Dungeon Vista point, 3 DU. Golbane, 25 DU. It was almost too much to bear. “Aeshma, seriously, will you just–”
“Fine, fine, pucker up then,” she said, her voice cutting through the jumble of terrain-type indicators that now filled my mind. She paced over to me, walking gracefully along a small igneous ridge on the ground. This wasn’t the most optimal path – it would’ve been a half-step faster if she’d taken more of a zig-zag approach to better utilize the downhill slopes. On the other hand–
Warmth shot through me, blossoming from my mouth and melting away the cartographic symbols that had overcome my vision. A honeyed scent filled my nose and threatened to drown me. Aeshma’s face, framed between waves of downy black hair, came into full focus, her ruby eye cracked open just a sliver.
“You know, Roland,” she whispered through our joined lips, “it’s kinda weird to kiss with your eyes open.”
“O-oh. Sorry.” I allowed my eyes to close as Aeshma pulled away, leaving me with an odd empty sensation. It was preferable to the stomach-churning elevation lines that had been beginning to form on her face.
“I, uh… Thanks. Good. Much better now.”
She stood back up to her full height. She was so much taller than me, she had needed to stoop down for the kiss. “That’s alright, dude, I was just busting your chops a little. Gimme a sec to take care of this Level.”
Aeshma looked off into the middle distance to focus on her UI. I took the opportunity to check out my surroundings, now that my vision was free of map markers. The trailmarker that had me so enthralled was just a weathered, though freshly repainted, stone signpost. The dirt trail we were standing on was wide, flat, and obviously well-traveled. Other than the trampled bushes behind us, where we had cut into the trail from the woods, all of the trees and shrubs that surrounded us were manicured and nicely shaped, as though they had recently been trimmed back.
I glared at Aeshma suspiciously. Did this trail go all the way back to the city we started in? I wouldn’t put it past her to have us traipsing through the woods for no good reason.
I couldn’t be too upset, though; I had gotten a Level out of the experience. I guess more accurately, Aeshma had gotten a Level out of it.
“Whatcha lookin at?” Aeshma said, trotting up beside me again.
“Nothing, I was just wondering who maintains this trail. Do the Monsters in the Queen’s Threshold take care of it?”
Aeshma looked at the trail and the surrounding foliage, then shrugged. “Hmm. I’ve never really thought about it, I guess.” She sounded uninterested. “Listen, Roland, up ahead there’s… well let’s just say getting into the Queen’s Threshold is gonna be its own little adventure.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was exhausted. I had basically pulled an all-nighter last night, and on top of that I was grimy, sweaty, and sore. More than anything, I wanted time to rest and recharge before diving into another dangerous experience.
“An adventure. I see. Are you going to explain what it is we’re charging into, or are you gonna keep it a surprise?”
“I think I’ll keep it a surprise!” Aeshma said with a grin as she plodded off past the signpost.
“Oh come on!”
It was a struggle to match Aeshma’s pace, but even as I huffed and puffed my way along behind her, I had plenty of time to appreciate how beautiful the trail was. The tree canopy above us had been shaped into an arched tunnel, thin enough to scatter mottled light along the path. White flowers blossomed on the arched branches, occasionally littering the path with their fallen petals.
It was pretty, but that didn’t put me much at ease. “Is this the kind of surprise that ends with me getting kidnapped again? Blown up? Stabbed?” I asked Aeshma when I caught up beside her.
“No one’s getting stabbed. C’mon, dramatic much? Look around, we’re perfectly safe here.”
“How are you so sure? Just because it’s pretty here doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
Aeshma rolled her eyes at me. “Well, Roland, if you must know, I was gonna be the Boss of the Threshold. I went through all the training and everything. So I’d say I know a rather lot about the Dungeon, including how safe it is in the, uh, vicinity.”
“Wait, hold on, you were going to be the boss here?” I stammered. This seemed like big news. Was Aeshma actually someone important? “Is that… can you, like, unpack that a little for me?”
“Yeah, sure. Actually, hold on a sec – we’re almost there, can you hear it?”
I sighed and strained my ears. I could barely make out a distant sound, a low-pitched rumble… no, a murmur, like the far-away roar of a crowd. “It sounds like people’s voices. Why are there so many people all the way out here by the Dungeon?”
Aeshma grinned at me. “Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”
The trail had curved sharply to the left, and now I could see that far ahead of us, past the end of our tree-lined canopy, a giant stone wall stretched high into the sky. I craned my head up. It wasn’t a stone wall, exactly, but rather the sheer, almost vertical face of the great stone mountain Crankshaft had pointed us towards.
At the base of the mountain, not too far from where we stood, there was a sizable outpost of colorful tents, booths, and wagons. I could make out hundreds of people milling around, some of them inside the booths, some of them wandering up the central lane. Their voices were still unintelligible at this distance, all merging together into a hum, but it was clear nonetheless what they were doing here.
“Why is there a marketplace here?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t it dangerous? This is right by the Dungeon entrance, right?”
Aeshma chuckled. “Nah, I told you, perfectly safe! Dungeon Bosses looooove stuff like this. It’s a win-win: merchants make a bunch of coin selling greasy food and bunk items. They even run little tours of the entrance hallway for people who are too chicken to walk in on their own!”
A greasy, doughy smell wafted through the trees and made my stomach gurgle. “And what do the Monsters get out of it?”
“We get fresh, totally unprepared adventurers wandering in, expecting a walk in the park. Instead, they walk into a meat grinder! And the more people who die in the Dungeon, the more experience we get! The more Levels for the Queen!”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
She sounded a little too excited about that. I figured it must have been her Boss training showing through. She cleared her throat self-consciously. “I mean – not us, Roland. We’re not walking into a meat grinder. We’re gonna do just fine.”
“Are all dungeons like this?” I asked. “Don’t folks realize how many adventurers never come back?”
Aeshma gave the air a heavy sniff, perking up a little at the smell of fried food. “Mmm, what is that? Donuts? Well, people are dumb, Roland, y’know? Like, they think the minimum Level recommendation is just a suggestion. Or they don’t do any research at all before they come out to the Threshold. Or they attempt the Dungeon with a party that they, like, just met a day ago and barely know, and they don’t know how to work together yet, so they die.”
That all sounded suspiciously like the situation I was in right now.
“Not like us, Roland,” Aeshma said. “Again, we’re gonna be fine.”
I sighed. “Okay. So… you were saying that you were almost the Dungeon Boss?”
Aeshma grinned smugly. “I won the cross-Camp competition last year. Came in first place. The Threshold is the pre-eminent Dungeon in Zone One, and as the winner I got the right to call dibs… along with enough Levels to effectively take on the role.”
It sounded like Aeshma took the Levels and ran, which explained how she’d gotten so high-Level despite still puttering around Zone One. “So you accepted the job offer, then ran off with the signing bonus. Aren’t they going to, like, come after you now? Try to claw their Levels back?”
“Pffft, it’s chump change. I doubt it even crossed anyone’s mind to try to get the Levels back from me. They literally just went down the list to whoever was in second place, and put him in charge of the Threshold instead.” Aeshma pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder who they ended up putting in charge after he died…”
It sounded like Aeshma had given up a prestigious, if dangerous, gig. “I know you wanted to do your own thing and everything, but it sounds like you would’ve been in a pretty decent spot as Dungeon boss. Plenty of excitement, respect… probably a bunch of minions, too, right?”
“Yeah, the respect would’ve been nice. But I get plenty of excitement going rogue.” Aeshma wiggled her eyebrows at me. “And who’s to say I don’t have minions now?”
Before I could launch my angry retort, Aeshma was already running towards the marketplace, laughing maniacally. “You know it's true! C’mon, let’s go get some funnel cake!”
–
“So I just put the money in the thing’s mouth?” I asked. I smoothed out the five-dollar bill that had been tucked away in my pocket.
It was horrifically crumpled and was missing a decent chunk out of one corner… but at least where I was from, it still counted as legal tender. Besides, having been smushed all the way down in my pocket was probably the only thing that kept it from being noticed by Camilla and her crew when they robbed us.
Which was a good thing, too, because this fiver was the only money of any variety that Aeshma and I had anymore.
“Yeah, you just stick it in there and it’ll exchange it for Zone One coins. I’ve never used an exchanger totem with Reborn currencies, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work,” replied Aeshma with a shrug.
The bill was crinkled so badly that a normal vending machine wouldn’t have taken it, but there was a queue forming behind us and its members were rapidly growing antsy. I fed my money into the snarling maw of the currency exchanger totem and hoped for the best.
At first, nothing happened; then, slowly, the totem let out a strange grinding noise. It started softly, but grew in volume until it was about as loud as a gas lawnmower. “So how long does this usually take?” I whispered. Behind us, folks were starting to grumble.
“Oh, great. They’re using other-world money,” one person muttered.
“Aww man, I just needed to break up some coins, man! My favorite booth’s about to close!”
“Can it!” Aeshma barked over her shoulder. “Or we’ll exchange even more of them!” The sight of an angry, giant Succubus seemed to cow even the most vociferous whiners.
Aeshma turned back to me to mutter, “I dunno Roland, these totems usually work pretty quick. Like, instantly. This is a bit weird.”
The exchanger totem continued to groan noisily, occasionally letting out a loud metallic clunk. If anyone queued behind us was still grumbling about the hold-up, at least we couldn’t hear them over the sounds the totem was making.
My mind started to wander. I felt like I was forgetting something…
“Oh, shoot! Did I ever level the Mimic up?” I honestly couldn’t recall. My memory from the time I had that Level in Cartographer was kind of… muddled. Like I was remembering things through a haze of meaningless lines and numbers.
“No, I don’t think so,” Aeshma said. “Mostly you were just mumbling about, like, altitudes and slopes and map projections. I don’t think you said anything about the Mimic.”
I closed my eyes and conjured my UI. Sure enough, the Mimic’s Level request was still floating there at the edge of my vision. When I brought it into focus I was confronted with a baffling array of Stats and options. To start, I settled on giving the Mimic some extra Strength and bonus Shapeshifting speed.
Choosing a Perk was a more difficult matter. There were so many options that my vision was packed with fine, dense text.
[...]
Antidote saliva - Your saliva has curative properties. A creature which consumes it in sufficient quantities is rendered temporarily immune to common poisons of Item Level 4 or lower. Prerequisite: Drool (Moderate).
Appetizer platter - Gain bonus XP when you consume multiple creatures in quick succession.
Archenemy (Slime) - Deal five percent more damage to creatures with the Slime Class.
[...]
“I have no idea what to pick for him, Aeshma. Maybe we could go over some of these Perks together–”
The queue behind us broke out in a series of loud shouts. “Gorby’s cheeks, are they Leveling right now? Have they no shame?” one gentleman cried.
“Just pick whatever sounds good. It doesn’t really matter,” Aeshma said, ignoring the man’s comment.
That didn’t sound right to me. Unlike Aeshma, the Mimic was going to be gaining Levels at a normal, unaccelerated pace. Every single one counted. It was my duty to plan out the little guy’s future responsibly.
“How about ‘Acid Spit’, does that scale well?” I asked. “No, nix that, I don’t want him melting my leg off by accident. How about… how about getting him to talk, like that big one we met in the cellar?”
Aeshma shook her head, exasperated. “Not worth it, dude. Even if you devote twenty Levels to getting the thing verbal, it’ll probably only be smart enough to say a few words. Seriously, just have it take ‘Magic Weapon’ or whatever. Something useful.”
I guess she had a point. There wasn’t actually a Perk called ‘Magic Weapon’, but maybe…
Anyshape (Lesser) - Take on the form of any simple object with no mechanical parts that holds a value of no more than ten silver pieces.
That sounded like it could be useful. With a little ping, the Mimic gained his Level. “Okay, check this out. Shield, go!” I said, presenting the Mimic-dagger in front of me. “Shield, go?” I repeated, giving the unchanging dagger a little shake.
“This guy some kinda potion fiend?” a woman asked loudly behind us.
“More like some kind of idiot,” someone else replied.
“Bro, my brother was a Level 10 Idiot, and he never scored himself a hot Ogre chick.”
The dagger twisted and wormed about in my hand, almost like it was unsure of what was happening. “Is he okay, Aeshma? Does he know I picked out a Perk for him?”
Aeshma sighed. “Yes, ‘he’ should know that ‘he’ has a new Perk,” she said, doing the scare quotes with her fingers. “But the Mimic is still… and I mean this as kindly as I can… a dumb little pest.”
I glared at her. “C’mon, you can do it. Try to turn into a shield!” I told the Mimic. The dagger’s blade went slack, then seemed to stretch and sag like putty in my hands. The metal of the blade took on a light brown, almost woody hue.
“That’s perfect! A shield made of wood works great! But you have to get more… circular? Hm… what if I just…”
I moulded the Mimic into a large, round disk, trying my best to approximate a shield. I finished it off with a strand looped around the back, like the handle of a buckler.
POP
Seeming to finally understand what I wanted, the Mimic sprang into the shape of a nice wooden shield, complete with a metal rim and rounded boss. It took a second for it to settle fully into shape.
“Okay, that whole process was kinda gross,” Aeshma said, “And inconvenient. But hey!”
The shield looked pretty good to me, though. I patted the surface, where a pair of little fangs were pressing out from between the wooden slats.
“He needs a name, Aeshma.”
Her ruby eyes rolled to the back of her head. “Fine. Naming a little pest, why not. How about Jie?”
The Mimic wriggled contentedly against my arm. Jie it was, then.
PING!
With a triumphant jingle, the currency exchange totem stopped its loud whirring and spat out a seemingly random assortment of copper and silver coins. The queue behind us let out a collective groan of relief.
I did too. After all, it was time for funnel cake.
PARTY (3/3)
----------------
Roland LV0
Ancestry: Human
Class: Not yet chosen
-------------------------------
Aeshma LV10
Ancestry: Monster
Class: Succubus
PERK UPGRADE - Strength Boost (II > III)
-------------------------------
Jie LV2
Ancestry: Monster
Class: Mimic
NEW ATTRIBUTE: +1 Strength
NEW SKILL: +1 Shapeshifting Speed
NEW PERK: Anyshape (Lesser)
-------------------------------
