DungeonFall – [A Dungeon Creation / Cultivation Story]

Nate shook the blood from his kukri as he sank to the ground next to the portal. He had been doing halfway decently as long as he stuck to the beasts that were on the bridge. Strictly speaking, they were all far stronger than him, but his kukris still cut through them, unless they had natural armor. The traps on the bridge were what had been letting him keep up for the most part.

The small width of the bridge itself had helped as well. It limited the beasts that came out ability to maneuver. They could not step side to side otherwise they would fall off. All they could do was move back and forward; all while being hit by the arrows from the traps.

That left Nate with the option of attacking their front. Then, once they were far enough along the bridge, he would jump over them and attack their rear.

He had been making the entire thing work, but it was physically exhausting, and still very dangerous. Leaping over a beast was rarely a safe proposition. Case in point, with the latest round of holes that had just been introduced to his body. Going over the porcupine had been a foolish move and one that he was currently regretting.

Pulling out the spines was painful and left him with the feeling that he had slivers still inside his body.

He had managed to get a few more rainbow orbs for his efforts, along with another set of herbs. Overall, he didn’t consider it too bad of a haul for the night. He had gotten a lot of practice with the kukris in as well, which made it all even better. Sure, he could have gotten even more items by using the gun, but practice was just as important.

The journey was just about over for the night for him. The porcupine spines were the attack that had simply tipped him over the edge. At this point, his avatar was riddled with cuts and gashes. His armor had barely managed to protect him from getting gored by a tusk earlier as well. The bruise he got instead still made moving hard though.

Which only made his inevitable end come faster.

Even now, after all the times he had died in his avatar form, he still found the idea of it unpleasant. No matter what, it was something scary. He didn’t enjoy pain.

On the first floor, Aura had passed a while earlier, after taking out all but one of the shadow beasts. Not that it had survived much longer anyway. After seeing the rest of its kind fall to her, it had fled with her passing. Only to then die to a trap it had been unable to dodge in its injured state.

Nate could feel his blood dribbling out as he leaned against the wall. His breath was getting weaker by the second. One of the techniques he needed to learn was how to heal himself.

***

When Nate opened his eyes the next morning to the annoying sound of his alarm going off, his body hurt. The healing bracelet had already started healing the injuries he had suffered from the avatar’s death. Unfortunately, the item’s power wasn’t very high, and it would take a few more hours before the internal bruising was gone.

Luckily, the damage that crossed over was never extremely dangerous.

After a nice hot shower, he grabbed his notebook and backpack and headed downstairs. In the kitchen, he found his mother pouring over some paperwork while his dad didn’t appear to be around.

“Where’s dad?” He asked, grabbing some toast and a glass for the pitcher of juice already on the table.

“Hmm?” Nina wondered, distracted by the papers in front of her. “What did you say?”

Nate repeated the question as he sat down across from her.

“Oh, he had to take care of some business with the bureau because of the pump and dump Donovan did. They wanted copies of all the footage John took. He was also going to check on the condition of the truck and rig as well. Jane always does a good job cleaning everything, but it is always a good idea to double-check. And well, the faster the repair work is done to the trailer, the sooner your father and I can go out on our own again.”

“How long will your trips last?” He asked, quickly demolishing the toast.

Nina put her pen down and rubbed her eyes. “We don’t want to be gone for too long in case something happens here. At the same time, we need to make sure each trip is long enough that they are worth it. For now, we are thinking each expedition will be between two and three days in length. Monday is our rest day. Tuesday we would head out again, and then either Wednesday night or Thursday night is when we would return.”

Nate nodded. “That would give you time to rest up for the weekend expedition with me. Not a lot of time around the house though.”

“I know, and I’m sorry about that, sweetie.” She returned, reaching across the table, and grabbing hold of his hand.

“It’s alright mom, I wasn’t complaining. Well, I guess I was, but I was mainly just making an observation. That’s a lot of time for me to be alone and get into trouble, just think of all the raging parties I could host.” He said with a lopsided grin.

His mom snorted, trying to hold back her laughter. The attempt failed after only a few seconds. She was still chuckling when there was a knock on the door a minute later.

His ride to school had arrived.

Nate tussled his mother’s hair and picked up his bag. “I’ll see you after school, mom. Bye.”

She waved goodbye, and went back to her paperwork, still chuckling at the thought of her son throwing a party.

Lindsay was waiting for him when he opened the door.

“You know, you don’t always have to knock. I mean, I appreciate the personal touch, but I do have a cellphone.” He told her as they walked the short distance to the waiting car.

“Which you never gave to me,” She immediately replied while sticking out her tongue. “I can’t exactly use something I don’t have. Angie has it but she rarely brings her phone to school with her.”

He grunted and slid into the car after her. “I’ll give it to you later if you want. I had honestly forgotten. I rarely use the thing for its intended purpose. Anyway, what did your parents say? Were they mad about how my parents handled the expedition?” He asked with a wince, bracing himself for the bad news.

Angelica closed the weapon listing for a new sword on her tablet and looked up. “Mine were indeed rather mad for most of the night. However, after they spoke with the guards more, they eventually came around. I think they originally wanted me to have the entirely safe curated experience that the others with our sort of money get. After speaking with the guards, I believe they eventually decided that what we received instead was the much better option. All of our skills rose much more than they would have otherwise.”

Lindsay nodded along. “It was more or less the same with my parents. It may sound odd, especially if you know them, but I think mine were actually a little less mad about how it all turned out than hers. Usually, my mom and dad are super protective of me and my siblings. For whatever reason, after we got back to the house, they didn’t take much convincing that this was the better option.”

“That’s better than I was hoping, honestly. I was worried they were going to try and keep you two from even talking to me or something.”

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Both girls laughed and shook their heads. “Our parents wouldn’t do that. Not after everything with Jace, anyway.” Angie told him with a grin.

With the mood sufficiently changed and relaxed, they settled in for the drive to school and began talking about their plans. Both of the girls had already started shopping for replacement weapons. They had also started looking into their secondary weapons. Those were a little more difficult to do quickly, unfortunately, as they were entirely new to them.

For his part, Nate told them about how he already had a crossbow lined up as his secondary weapon. However, he hadn’t even started looking for a pair of replacement kukris yet.

Angie showed him the website she had been browsing earlier for her own weapon, and he wrote it down in his notebook. Undoubtedly, his parents knew about the site already. If they were going to start up their expeditions again, then things were going to fall through the cracks. They would all need to adjust and learn as they went, and that would mean he would need to pick up some slack.

In this case specifically, that meant shopping for his replacement weapon would likely fall on his shoulders. It would be nice if he could get another pair dropped from the dungeon, but that seemed unlikely. The drops seemed somewhat geared towards him and his needs, but still somewhat random.

How else could he explain the full extra suit of armor he had gotten, along with the gun and crossbow? The only one that truly stood out as an oddity was the kriegsmesser sword. Even then it also still made a modicum of sense. He or at least the original body’s Nate had been trained in various swords and weapons. And if he had to pick a sword to wield instead of kukris, that would have been the one he would have chosen.

The car pulled up to the school while he was lost in his thoughts.

Nate hopped out and then stopped. “What is our first class today? They were further shifting around our schedules beginning today because we completed our cores, right?”

Lindsay nodded as she joined him on the sidewalk. “We start our orientation classes this morning.” She reminded him.

He nodded, finally remembering. That was right. The class was meant to teach them everything they needed to know about expeditions and their new cores. Nate thought his parents had done a decent job introducing the world of expeditions to them. However, he also knew they had intentionally kept certain things basic because the three of them would be attending this class.

Inside the school, they headed directly for the classroom, where they would be spending their first-class period for the rest of the semester. The subject matter would gradually get more complex after the first two weeks and focus more on their cores. Nevertheless, it was still considered the same class.

The room was small, with only six comfortable student desks in front of the teacher’s desk. Even in a preppy high-end school like theirs, it was uncommon to have more than that number form their cores at the same time. There were several versions of this room that could be used whenever a student formed their core. Unlike the school Nate had come from previously, they wouldn’t simply force the teenager into an already ongoing class. They did things properly here.

It would be an interesting experience for sure. He just hoped that whoever the school got to teach the class was someone interesting. For the most part, the teachers at the school had all been pretty decent. There had been one or two obviously that brought the average down, but as a whole, they had been good.

The three of them placed their bags down on the desks and sat down as they waited for the teacher to make their appearance.

“So, are you two grouping up for this week’s expedition? Are your family’s hiring the same companies?” Nate asked after they had gotten comfortable.

A look of discontent flickered over both girl’s faces as they nodded. “We had to fight to be placed in the same company originally. It might not be your parent’s company, but at least the two of us will be together, sorry.”

He waved away their apology. “Don’t worry about it. I know I’m the interloper here. You two have been friends since you gave each other communal swirlies back in pre-school or kindergarten or something.” They both gagged at the thought. “I’m happy you’ve brought me into your little circle of friends, but I know you have plans that have been in the works for a long time. I don’t expect you to drop or change them for me. I enjoyed our weekend together, but I never expected either of you to ditch your original plans.”

“Still-“ A sharp clap from the doorway interrupted Angie as their teacher made her appearance.