Magical Engineering Chapter 35: A Dungeon With the Boys

“Alright boys, there are currently eight dungeons on this world that don’t have active claims. There are seven that I think are doable in the ti left to ya. The eighth is the persistent desert that y’all already know about, and we can discuss the possibility of that if and when ya clear the first seven,” l said. We were in a small private room connected to the Adventurer’s Hall. l had said it was used for more advanced private briefings and that this certainly qualified.

After last night’s reading-induced anxiety attack, I had decided to turn in early and distract myself instead with another dungeon. There was no way I was going to continue to climb at my current rate unless I added more options to the simulator. Ti spent with what few friends I had here was an added benefit as well. It was easier to clamp down on the intruding thoughts when others were around to distract . Even better if they were others I happened to like.

“So what’s first?” Cecile asked.

“I’m getting there, don’t rush ! I got more to say first on this whole plan. If it weren’t for the ti constraints, I’d be incredibly against any of this, but I’m the one that told Dave to push as hard as he could, and now y’all know why. There ain’t no backing down at this point, so we need to catch ya two up with Dave as quickly as possible, which ans I’m giving ya the Undead Wood dungeon as your first choice. It’s still pretty far out of yer leagues, but I think it’s within Dave’s. Now rember, there’s still a shit ton he don’t know about how any of this works, so even if he’s the one in the front, ya two are going to have to give him as much coaching as ya can. Treat this as a reverse of what happened in the first dungeon ya guys did together. Got it?” l asked after his unusual style of pep talks. We all nodded in return.

“Assuming I can get these new dungeons into my simulator and do a power-leveling session each night after we finish one, do you really still think we won’t be able to take on the desert?” I asked. I knew it was dangerous, and considering my abject failure with the Basents of Shadow, I could see how it might just be impossible for us, but I wanted to at least know why.

“Ya hit level two-fifty, and we can talk about the desert, and even then, I don’t like the idea of ya trying it without any class levels,” l said. I had seen the class listing before for myself back when I was first sent to the Spiral when we were at the Spire; I hadn’t thought much of it since, but just what were class levels?

“Uh, maybe this is sothing I should know already, but what are class levels?” I asked.

“Actually, yeah, when do we get to pick a class? No one at ho knew anything about that,” Elicec said. I was glad for once not to be the only ignorant one on the topic at hand.

“How do ya not know what classes are? What did ya think Paladin of Knowledge ant?” l was glaring at with his return questions.

“I just thought they were like an organization Elody belonged to, I guess,” I said. I hadn’t even really considered it beyond her words. I figured it was just her job, like the master librarian job she had had here.

“That’s exactly what a class is Dave, a specialized area of learning with access to very different abilities. As fer when you can get a class, technically anyti after level one. Realistically, though, none of ya will have access unless ya decide to go off to the Arena, which is a terrible idea considering Dave’s other problems. It’s possible ya could find an organization to ntor ya or soone to apprentice to, but we don’t have any ti or funds for either, so fer now, we do this all classless. Any other questions, or are ya done yapping and ready to go raid a dungeon?” l’s glare moved back and forth across all three of us. He was certainly in a bad mood today, and I wasn’t sure why. Was it just the idea of sending us off to a possible death? Not wanting to make anything worse, I nodded in agreent.

“We’re as ready as we can be at the mont,” I said, hoping to lessen so of the glare.

“Good, transport is ready to go outside, and ya damn well better co back alive! Ya hear ?!” l yelled. So he was worried after all. We said a quick goodbye and boarded the transport, ready to tackle the new dungeon.

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“So, what level are you guys anyway? I hit one twenty-two last night myself,” I said, watching their eyes once again go wide.

“I’m forty-two, and Cecile is forty-four. He got ahead of with so of his gardening breakthroughs,” Elicec answered. So my simulation wasn’t the only skill we had to increase our leveling, though Cecile’s did seem to fall far behind it.

“Okay, only eighty levels or so to catch up, and the closer we get, the easier the next few dungeons should be. Right, guys?” I said, smiling. Despite l’s warning, I wasn’t overly worried. The fear of our destination paled in comparison to my nightmares of the last night. With the deadline looming ever closer, those had returned in force. How much sleep did I really need any more? Could my healing abilities resolve sleep deprivation? Probably sothing better left unexplored at the mont.

Neither of them had a chance to answer my voiced question as the door flung open. We had already arrived at our destination, much faster than I’d have expected. It seed this dungeon was even closer than the first we had visited. As I stepped from the vehicle, I saw a giant dead tree in front of us. Carved into the center of its trunk was what looked like a mouth.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Cecile said. I agreed. It was not the most inviting sight.

“Nope, but the sooner we go through it, the sooner we can get out of here,” I replied as I walked toward it. The mont I passed through the opening, I felt the sa thing I had felt in the other two dungeons wash over , and for the first ti, I realized that wasn’t sothing the simulator had duplicated. Did that matter at all? I wasn’t sure, but it was sothing to ask l about later.

The path sloped downward, with the walls on either side of us covered in dead yet sohow still wriggling tree branches. Movents that, even if alive, would look unnatural. Based on the na l had given us, I started to suspect we were heading into so kind of cross between nature and zombies. The deeper we walked, the less the light was able to reach. While my new senses were compensating sowhat, I wasn’t sure the sa could be said for the brothers.

“Hey, you two doing okay? I know I can barely see, so if you’ve got anything to light up the path, now wouldn’t be the worst ti,” I said, rembering that I needed to ask Elicec about how the elental orb worked exactly. I’d do that at the next mont of calm.

“I’m working on it. It feels like sothing is fighting against , so give a mont,” Elicec said. His needed mont didn’t take long as what looked like small dancing balls of light flew from his hand down the path. They followed us as we walked, constantly repelling the darkness.

“How do you do that anyway, Elicec? I unlocked so skills on both my elental orbs and specialized one to fire and the other to aether, and I seem just stuck with the sa Fundantal Forces tier one skill they started with,” I asked. The light of his spell had relaxed enough for the curiosity to bubble up to the forefront of my brain.

“When you rank up your elental orbs, you should get so new tier two skills branching off of Fundantal Forces. I'm a little surprised you haven’t yet, considering how far ahead you are in levels,” Elicec said.

“I haven’t ranked up a single mana orb itself, just applied skill points to increase the mana skill ranks within them. Also, there’s a difference between my simulator runs and these real dungeons, I only realized it when I ca in. There’s none of that feeling of being in a dungeon. Do you think that’s hurting my ability to level up the orbs?” I asked. It was the only thing I could really think of that was different between the two that I experienced so far.

“I don’t know. I was under the impression mana orbs only grew more powerful as they absorbed so of the ambient energy your core released, and that shouldn’t be any different during the simulation runs, especially considering the backlashes you’ve been experiencing,” Elicec answered. So it was back to l still for an answer there.

“Remind to ask l when we get back; I don’t want to forget about this topic; it seems like sothing I really need to figure out,” I said. The lights moved past us out of the corridor we had been walking in into a large open chamber. There were three branching paths, two to our right and a single to our left. This place was much larger than the last two dungeons we had been in.

“What’s that in front of us?” Cecile asked. I hadn’t seen anything, so I glanced that way again. Was he referring to the weird dead tree? I was about to ask exactly what he ant when the thing’s trunk opened wide and roared as its elongated branches whipped at us. We had found the first enemy, or more accurately, it had found us.

Dungeons are a huge problem across all worlds in the Spiral. Still, they remain a problem without a solution, not only because of how useful the rewards are for clearing the higher-level ones, but also because they are almost impossible to find before they fully form. Generally speaking, the only ti they are ever found before they beco dangerous is when soone hunting for unclaid natural mana sources accidentally finds one on the cusp of transforming. This almost never happens, and instead, those hunting the natural mana sources often end up as so of the first people lost to a new dungeon.

An excerpt from The Adventurer’s Prir Volu 1 by Hu Grenderson.