Dungeon mantle, p.14
Dungeon Mantle, page 14
Justia shook her head. “There’s still stuff around here that she can do to help.” She pointed her ax. “She can start looking for leaves or branches for the shelter as soon as she’s done sorting fruit.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew she had a point. There was no way that Ether and I would make it to the old camp and back and only work. We messed that up last night while we were supposed to be on watch. Knowing we wouldn’t have any interruptions, except possibly a monster, made the temptation all that much greater.
Justia was right, and as much as I didn’t want her to spoil the fun, there was a lot of work to do.
“You have a point.” I turned so that only Ether could see my face and mouthed sorry. The red-eyed Tank pouted but nodded as if she understood.
“I’ll see if I can’t bring the rest of the stuff back in one trip.” I didn’t wait for Justia to acknowledge me as I took off. At least if I was alone, I could use all of my Speed stat.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I flew through the woods.
For the first time since I had received my Mantle, I was able to really let loose and it felt great. I was also sped up by the possibilities of what might happen between me and Ether. I didn’t know when something was going to happen, but I knew something was. The possibility alone was enough to send goosebumps all over me. I wanted to get the camp moved as fast as I could, then maybe there’d be a chance for the two of us to slip away.
I knew that we needed to focus on defeating monsters, collecting Crystals, and leveling up, but we were already going so much faster than we had. I could only imagine that once we got better weapons and armor, we’d be clearing things that much faster. We deserved a little break in my opinion. A reward for making it through the third day of being abandoned in the Dungeon.
I slowed down when I got close to the old camp. I didn’t want the others to know just how fast I was, though I had a feeling Rix knew something was different about me. There was just something off about her and the way she interacted with everyone.
“Any monsters?” I asked as I walked into camp.
Rix and Aelin were pulling up the last of the fence.
“Nope.” The blonde looked around. “Where’s Grumpy?”
“He convinced Justia that he would be more helpful setting up the new camp.” I shrugged. “So I came alone.” I looked at Rix. “Really? Nothing?”
The redhead shrugged as she pulled up the last of the stakes. She started lashing them together with vines.
“Does this mean that Justia is the party leader?” Aelin teased. “Do you love her?”
The teasing had me do a doubletake. “It’s not like that between me and Justia.”
“Oh really?” Aelin batted her eyes as she handed Rix sticks. “Why do you do whatever she tells you to?”
“I…” I cut myself off as I started to think. I had been taking direction from Justia, but the priestess was voicing good ideas or things I hadn’t thought about. There was a part of me that was a little scared of her, considering how she had acted last night. And given that she’d just cock-blocked me and I had barely resisted, I found myself wanting to find something the serious young woman was wrong about.
“I guess she hasn’t been wrong yet.” I shrugged. “But trust me, even if there is a level of respect there, I can guarantee you that there is nothing romantic going on between us.” The way Aelin rolled her eyes told me that she didn’t believe me.
“It’s true! We both have our eyes on other people.” I blurted, trying to save face.
“Really? Grumpy? Ewww.” The blonde made a face.
“What!? No. That’s not who she’s watching.”
I realized my mistake when Rix stopped what she was doing to look at me.
“Seriously? She’s like that?” Aelin dropped the stakes and ran over to me. “Which one of us is it?” She nodded towards our Shooter. “I bet it’s Rix.”
The redhead blushed and went back to tying the stakes together.
“It’s not Rix.” I didn’t want to continue the conversation, but I felt like I had to save Rix from potential embarrassment.
“If it’s not Rix…” Aelin tapped her chin. “And you and Ether are boning.”
“We haven’t…” I realized my mistake as soon as she interrupted me.
“So you are together.” Her face lit up as she landed on the only other option. “Really!?!”
Before I could speak, Rix darted across camp and shoved a stake in my hands. She was holding the broken sword out and I realized she had a large knife in her other hand.
“Monsters?” I looked around the small clearing and realized that we were surrounded. Except it wasn’t Bramble Skeletons.
“So you figured out the scarecrow.” The words came from an imposing man, not much older than me. He was wearing full leather armor and a sword at his hip, and he knocked over my Bramble Skeleton on the forked stick.
I made a mental note that hanging up a monster like that was probably a monster deterrent. I would have to ask Trent about it when I saw him next. None of the farming groups I’d been in had done something like that, but they’d actually wanted to run into monsters, so the handful of times we’d stayed overnight in the Dungeon, there’d been no reason to try to keep the monsters away.
“So this is the group that our teacher dropped us for.” Another young man stepped forward, his red eyes flashing with scorn. He was wearing a Caster’s overcoat, and had bright scarlet hair that matched his eyes. “You seem a little light. Where is the rest of your team?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
It was Trent’s entire old team.
I hadn’t thought about there being other teams on this floor of the Dungeon. I had assumed when the mouth was sealed, that none of the first years would be coming in. A group could warp back to the entrance after they went past the first floor; they could also warp down to a lower floor if the higher floor’s boss had been beaten. Because of the teleporting system, groups rarely went up floors. Because of that, I had assumed we’d be the only group on the first floor for the rest of the week.
I had expected that there’d be some amount of hazing from the older students, but this was the class I dreaded running into. The way that the Archbishop had talked about Trent, I got the idea that students wanted to be taught by him. Depending how the new teacher was treating them, this class could be very resentful towards us.
Judging by the expressions on their faces, I was correct in my assumption.
“We don’t want any trouble.” I tried to keep my eyes on them, but there were too many to keep any more than half of them in my field of view at once.
“You drew weapons, but don’t want to use them?”
I realized that a shorter woman, with hair the color of spring leaves and eyes the color of a lake, had her finger against the tip of my stake.
“It’s not very sharp.” She pushed the tip of the stake.
I thought about resisting, but there was no way that Rix and I would be able to beat an entire class of first years. And these were second years. They had to be at least Level 5, and might be as high as Level 8. Considering who their teacher was, I was willing to bet that they were closer to eight than five.
A Level 2 against a Level 1 was a significant difference considering that once Adventurers started getting skills and spells, they became exponentially stronger.
I decided that the best course of action would be to pretend to be weaker than I was, and hope that they’d either lower their guard or decide we weren’t worth the trouble.
I didn’t resist as she pushed the stake out of my hands.
“Adventurers shouldn’t fight each other.” I continued to try diplomacy. I was glad that I had left Edward at the other camp. There was no way the entitled Noble wouldn’t start a fight, even if it should have been obvious that it was a fight he couldn’t win. By the time he realized that he had gone too far, it’d be too late to stop the fight.
“Then the Adventurers shouldn’t steal from other Adventurers.” She picked the stake up and pointed it at Rix.
I stepped in between the woman and my party member.
“Oh good, looks like we have a white knight here, Wrye,” she taunted, turning to the man who’d first approached us. I assumed he was a Hitter.
“A naked white knight,” the man said, scowling. “Phila, show him that black and blue are better colors for him.”
The side of the stake slapped across my face. I’d been hit harder, but I went down anyway. I covered my head and curled up in a ball as she beat me with the stake. I felt the tip scrape against my side, and then the beating stopped. I peeked up and saw a look of confusion on her face.
“He’s the Tank.” She drove the stake into the ground next to my head.
My sides burned and my head was ringing. I rolled onto my hands and knees and tucked my feet under me.
I saw boots walk up to me and looked up to see the Hitter looking down at me.
“A Tank needs to do defense training.”
This time, when the stake came down, it cut into my back. I felt splinters rain down as the stake shattered from the force of the blow. Even if I had wanted to brace against the attack, it still would have knocked me over.
This person had to have at least 20 Power.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Rix exploded as Aelin screamed.
My redheaded Shooter charged at the Hitter, slicing with both of her weapons as she moved over me. I saw her draw blood and knew I had to act.
I hooked my leg behind him, knocking him off balance, which was enough for her to dodge the counterattack. I leapt to my feet and grabbed both of the discarded pieces of stake. I planned on pounding them on their Hitter, but saw their Shooter start pulling her bow off her back. Thankfully, they had all been so confident that they hadn’t drawn any of their weapons. I still didn’t think we had a chance, but there was a part of me that was expecting Trent or their teacher to break up the fight if we could hold out long enough. Since diplomacy had failed, we were going to have to try to outfight them.
I threw both pieces of the stake at her as hard as I could. She didn’t try to dodge as she pulled out her bow. The jagged broken part lodged into her right arm. She screamed and dropped her bow. I thought about picking it up but remembered the warning about trying to use equipment that was too high for my level.
Instead, I ran over and hit her as hard as I could. I turned to Rix and saw that she was throwing sand in the face of their Caster. Their Hitter was holding his throat, blood oozing out of it. Another robed figure, this one with their hood up, was screaming something while pointing at the downed man.
The first punch had only knocked the green-haired woman down, so I hit her again. My fist screamed as she dropped to the ground.
“AELIN! LET’S GO!” I bellowed.
Aelin snapped out of her stunned state and started moving, running away from their Tank. They were wearing metal armor and had a large shield, and placed themselves in between us and the dying Hitter. I started to think about trying to finish them off, but there was no way that we were going to beat a Tank of that level with sticks, a knife, and a broken sword. It wasn’t going to be long before the Hitter was healed and then we were in trouble.
I looked over at their Caster and saw him on the ground, also clutching his throat.
Rix had taken advantage of their overconfidence and that had cost them. Something that I’d heard Adventurers talk about was how, despite the Mantles, you could still die if you were stabbed enough times by a low-level monster. These guys had gotten cocky and thought there was nothing to fear from us.
They’d been very wrong.
While a Level 8 might have higher stats, they hadn’t done their first double. So Rix could apparently slit the throat of some of them with a Level 1 weapon.
It also meant that their total stats were less than mine. Leveling eight times would give them sixteen extra stat points, bringing their total to fifty-one while I had sixty-two. I could probably take any of them one-on-one, but there were three of them, and time was on their side.
“RIX!” I yelled as she stabbed him in the chest. “Leave him!”
I grabbed Aelin’s hand and pulled her with me as I started running away from our old camp.
I was about to turn around to see if Rix had followed when she caught up to us.
“Grab her!” I yelled as I reached around behind Aelin. I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to explain as I lifted Aelin off of her feet.
Rix grabbed the other side of Aelin and we ran as fast as we could.
We ran for over an hour without stopping. We reached the trail at a bridge and ran across the bridge, then back into the woods.
“Why can’t we stay on the trail?” Aelin demanded as we ran.
My arm was burning and I was going to have to take a break soon. “Hold up!” I said as I slowed down.
Rix dropped Aelin to keep from falling and skidded to a stop.
I slung the blonde around in front of me and wrapped her in a hug to keep her from falling. We could still see the bridge from where we were and with the creek running from west to east, it would take the other team a few minutes to cross the bridge after they came out of the tree line.
“We have to buy time.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Hopefully one of the teachers will stop them.”
“No one is going to save us.” Rix was leaning against a tree trying to catch her breath. “You should have let me finish them.”
“They had a Healer.” I looked at the redhead. “You weren’t going to kill them.”
“A Healer can’t heal them if they don’t have a head,” Rix fired back.
“About that.” The irritation I was feeling was getting funneled towards her. “You are way too comfortable with killing. A Mantle does not teach you how to fight like that.”
“Not every orphan has the luxury of being raised by the All-Church.” She glared at me. “Or being employed by the Dispatchers. Some of us had to claw our way out of the Outlands to get here.”
“You came from the Outlands?” There were cities in the neutral zone between realms, but the Outlands were the areas away from the cities and roads that connected them. The place where there was no government and the law was simply ‘might makes right.’
She just glared at me, but didn’t say anything as she turned away and sank to the ground against a tree. She faced away.
“What about you?” The anger I was feeling was gone, but I needed to know. “She’s from the Outlands and I’ve seen worse as a Porter. Why don’t you seem bothered at all by seeing her cut people up?”
Aelin hung her head. “I had to run away when I was fourteen.” She shook her head as if she was trying to ward off memories. “I’ve seen some stuff.”
Before I could respond, Rix interrupted.
“They’re here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
All six of them were crossing the bridge.
A part of me had hoped that they would be too wounded to follow us. Or that they’d just give up. But if anything, they looked even more determined to find us.
“What do we do?” Aelin shivered, hugging herself.
She may have seen some stuff, but I had a feeling that, unlike Rix, she hadn’t killed anyone.
“We can’t win a fight with them.” I began backing up as I realized they were following our trail.
“If I can take out their Healer, then we can pick them off.” Rix pointed at the other robed figure. The one whose robe wasn’t covered in blood.
“How?” I pulled on Aelin’s arm. “They are tracking us. There is no way that we’re going to get a chance to surprise them again.”
“We can’t outrun them.” Rix pointed at their Tank. “You and I are faster than the bucket, but she isn’t. And we can’t carry her like that again.”
The other party was across the bridge and heading into the woods.
“We have to go.” I started moving deeper into the woods, but neither woman followed. “What are you doing?”
“They’re tracking us.” Rix pointed at the woman with green hair, who was directing them. “If we run, we die tired.” She looked at me. “But if we split up, then maybe they lose the trail.” She started moving towards them.
“What are you doing?”
The redhead looked at me. “If they have to choose between you and me, they’re going to pick me.” She looked at Aelin.“Get her through the water and maybe it’ll wash off whatever is allowing them to track us.” She shrugged. “Even if they catch me, you know they won’t kill me.”
I was about to tell her that there were things worse than death, but the look in her eyes told me that she had already survived some of those. Since they weren’t going to kill her, it gave me hope that it would limit what they would do to her. Because whatever they did do, they’d have to answer for it once we all got out of the Dungeon. I knew that there were monitors in the gates between the floors, so if we all died, then it would be an almost certainty that the only other team to enter the floor would have had something to do with it.
“Maybe you’ll get away?” Aelin offered.
We both knew that wasn’t going to happen, but I wasn’t going to point that out.
“All you have to do is buy time, right?” Aelin sniffled.
“It’ll be dark soon.” Rix nodded. “That’ll give me more cover. I just have to hide until one of the teachers gets here.”
Honestly, I couldn’t believe that Trent had let this go on for this long. I was starting to worry that maybe he wasn’t watching us.
“You don’t have to do this.” I said, trying to convince myself almost more than her.
“I’m the only one who can.” Rix took off without waiting for a response.
I thought about running after her, but she was right. We weren’t going to win if we fought them and we couldn’t outrun them. The only chance we had was to hope that she would be able to give them the slip.
