Dungeon world 4 a dungeo.., p.19
Dungeon World 4: A Dungeon Core Experience, page 19
That was nearly the extent of how far they had progressed because it had been less than a day. Still, it was impressive how much was accomplished, and it also proved something that Fred had considered as soon as he learned about his Adapted Abilities. The SDIA and Interface from the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate was an excellent tool for those who needed help in figuring out how to use their Power, and also provided “tried-and-true” Classes for those who needed direction in how to specialize their abilities; for all of that, it also stymied the Humans’ and Adventurers’ natural inclinations to improvise and create their own spells and abilities through the manipulation of their Power.
Normally, for those who didn’t really have a support system set up that could help instruct them on the use of their Power (or who didn’t care to wait for that instruction), the Interface was perfect for them; it allowed them to go out and start delving through dungeons without too much hassle, and their development pathway was relatively planned out – even if there were hundreds of different choices of Classes to choose from. Every combination had likely been tried and/or considered, so there were no surprises there; the townspeople of Gatecross, though, had broken free from a lot of those constraints on Classes and were probably able to do anything they wanted to.
They were just lucky that they had so many other people around them that had the same starting abilities as they did, because they were able to help each other develop at a rapid pace. The higher difficulty in learning another “Class” of spell – like the Fire-based townspeople learning Heal Minor Wounds – mirrored Fred’s Instructor ability to Teach; the chance of success of Teaching a different-Class ability was very low, which matched the success rate of them learning the healing spell. The major difference in learning it “organically” as opposed to Fred’s Teach ability, though, was that they weren’t locked out of ever learning it through instruction again. It was entirely possible that anyone who could learn how to “feel” and “see” their Power could learn how to do anything they wanted, with enough time to practice and a good instructor.
Overall, it appeared as though his friends, his Guild, and the townspeople were getting along much better than he had been. Fred was still disappointed in his own failure to produce something viable for their salvation, but he was also encouraged by their development. If they can figure out how to do all of this, then certainly I can figure out how to save us all. It was a lofty goal, but it was also one that he wanted to reach – and reach quickly.
“What’s all of this?! Are you celebrating? How can you celebrate in a time like this?” a voice practically roared through the first dungeon room, just as he was congratulating everyone on how good a job they had done while he was off doing his experimenting. Fred recognized it immediately as Roady, who was using the same loud battlefield tone he had used when fighting against the Light-based Defenders aboveground.
And still in his arms, all the way from that battlefield, was the bloody and lifeless form of Chareese.
Chapter 19
Eisa could almost feel the restrained violence emanating off of the massive armored man like some sort of physical force, and she involuntarily flinched back at his angry and obviously grief-stricken tone. However, some intuition of hers told her that it was warranted, especially after she looked at how he was holding the body of the woman in his arms. The man – which Fred had told her about earlier and said his name was Roady – wasn’t holding her like she was just a friend that he had inadvertently killed, and he felt guilty over the accident.
No, their relationship appeared to be much deeper than that – like a lover or some sort of stronger bond than that.
Eisa felt relieved. Sure, it was wrong, out of place, and entirely ill-timed, but she couldn’t help but feel reassured that the woman hadn’t been trying to get her claws into Eisa’s man. She couldn’t help the feelings of possessiveness she felt earlier around Fred, whenever she caught the Inquisitor staring at him with a funny expression on her face. Apparently, though, it had all been relatively innocent and was likely due to her curiosity over what he was, instead of who he was. Eisa couldn’t help but feel a little protective of Fred, of course, because of how she felt about him; she mentally chastised herself for previously thinking ill of the dead woman. Chareese obviously had someone else she was in a relationship with, so Eisa was seeing things when nothing was there.
“How dare you make light of the sacrifices of those who lost their lives today! Of those whose families wouldn’t ever see their loved ones again! And for my sister to have died by my own hand, because of something you did!” Roady screamed out, tears finally making an appearance in his rage-filled eyes.
Then again, maybe not.
“She…was your sister?” Fred asked the silence that had descended upon the dungeon room. That wasn’t exactly what Eisa would’ve asked or even said, but she didn’t stop him.
“Half-sister, but we were close enough that the distinction hardly mattered – and now it doesn’t matter at all, because she’s dead!” The big man took a threatening step forward and there was such menace coming off of him that everyone except Fred took a step back.
Fred just stood there, not looking scared at all; as much as she loved him and didn’t want to see anything happen to Fred, the sheer physical presence of the massive man walking as if he wanted to rip her love apart made her joints and mouth lock up, preventing her from trying to help him. But all he did was just stand there, not even looking at Roady, but instead looking at the corpse in the massive man’s arms.
Regnark wasn’t frozen, though. Eisa watched him try to intercept the man, but was brushed aside with barely any thought; “brushed aside” probably wasn’t the best portrayal of what happened, however – thrown across the room with such force that he crumpled into a heap when he smashed against the wall with tremendous force was probably an aptly better description.
She stared at what could only be his corpse from the impact, but she saw him still breathing; not only that, but she could’ve sworn she saw some slow movements in his chest, as if his body was regenerating itself. Fred also looked at Regnark and barely batted an eye, so she felt a little better about his chances of living. Must be the Dark Mana inside of him healing him similar to how Fred is almost impossible to kill.
Almost, but not quite, impossible.
Eisa briefly thought Fred was considering that he wouldn’t really die if the massive man got ahold of him, but he didn’t look like a man bravely accepting his fate; instead, he looked like a man with a plan.
“What if she wasn’t dead, Roady? What if your sister—sorry, half-sister—was back with us?” Fred said calmly, which stopped the massive armored man in his tracks.
“What lies are these? I won’t let you use any Necromancy on her; if I wanted that, I would’ve had Agelstein do it – because he’s likely much better at it than you. But that’s not what she would want, nor is it what I would want; what I do want, however, is to rip you limb from limb for what you did – and don’t try to deny it, because I know it was you!”
“Wait!” Fred yelled and put his hands up in front of his body, just as Roady’s arm was cocked back to strike him. “It won’t be Necromancy – it will be the same thing I used on Eisa and Regnark, in fact. I want to see if I can make her a Shard.”
“Roady, wait. If what he says is true, then she really will come back alive – no Necromancy about it, as far as I can tell,” a voice she recognized as Agelstein came from behind the massive man. She hadn’t even really noticed that there were other people in the room, because the frightening presence of the armored man was enough to block everyone else out.
“No, he deserves to die for what he did, and I won’t have him touching my sister with his filthy, murdering hands.”
“Roady, think! Is this what Chareese would’ve wanted? Or don’t you think she’d appreciate anything that might help her live again?”
There was a tense moment when Eisa thought the frighteningly strong man wouldn’t listen, but finally he sagged in his armor and put his arm down. “Fine. You’re right, she wouldn’t have wanted this, and she would want to live again if she had the chance,” Roady said softly, his voice changed from the violence-filled one from before…at least for a moment. “But if I see you doing anything funny, you better believe that I’ll rip you and all your friends apart before you can even blink.”
With that threat, the armored man placed his sister gently on the floor and stepped back a little; he was still within grabbing distance, since he was so large, though Fred didn’t seem to notice or care. All Eisa saw was him looking at the woman with her chest essentially…gone; now that the Inquisitor wasn’t being held up against Roady’s body, she could see exactly why she had died – having a giant hole through your chest, even with the best healers nearby, was basically an immediate death sentence. It was almost as bad as getting your head cut off, but there was usually a slim chance of surviving with a chest wound like hers, as opposed to decapitation – there was no coming back from that.
Usually.
Fred reached inside his pocket, casually pulling out the glowing stone he had shown them earlier. From what Eisa understood, it was essentially a Dungeon Core, though it was apparently missing some of the key components that made it possible to contain some sort of consciousness. It was like an empty vessel, sort of like the undead creatures she would create back in the day when she was a Necro-Healer; their bodies were reanimated and made relatively “healthy” for the duration of her ability, but there was nothing behind their eyes. If there had been, of course, something like that would probably be considered torture of the beasts’ souls, and consequently outlawed. There were a lot of things that Adventurers did that skirted the border of morality, but that would be like smashing right through that border without stopping.
When Fred reach over to place the glowing “Core” inside Chareese’s empty chest cavity, Eisa saw Roady tense up and visibly restrain himself; she just hoped that the missing parts of the Core weren’t important for the process. She still didn’t know exactly what was happening when a Shard was created – and she wasn’t entirely sure that Fred did, either – but she prayed that it would work; if it didn’t, then all of their lives were at stake, and she really didn’t feel like dying…again.
Fred kept his hand there and appeared to be concentrating; soon enough, however, Eisa started to feel something coming from him. She couldn’t see anything, of course, but either her further practice with manipulating Earth Mana attuned her to feeling other types, or her practice touching and attempting to manipulate her Adventurer Power made her more aware of what Fred was doing. Again, she couldn’t see what she assumed was a massive amount of Mana being used on the Core inside the Inquisitor, but she could definitely feel the energy coming from such concentrations.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the townspeople and a few of their Core Power Guild members flinching away from what Fred was doing. For Eisa, however, it felt powerful…but “normal”, she supposed. Manipulating Mana has probably made me accustomed to it or it could be because I’m a Shard. She didn’t know why, but that’s the way it was.
As for Roady and Agelstein – and a few other people behind them that she didn’t recognize – they didn’t seem to feel a thing. Which, when she considered it, was probably a good thing; the amount of Mana that Fred seemed to be manipulating was fairly impressive, and it might…alarm them more than a little bit.
Fred was seemingly frozen in place, kneeling next to Chareese’s mutilated body for what felt like hours – but was probably only minutes. Eisa kept expecting someone to say something, for Roady or one of the others behind him to say to stop wasting their time, since it was obviously not working…but no one said anything. Moreover, there wasn’t a single person moving, and her slight head turns to see everyone in the room was the only movement she saw; if she didn’t see the slight rise and fall of their chests when they breathed, she would’ve thought that time had stopped somehow. Actually, looking closer at everyone, she saw that Deecy and Regnark (who was almost recovered from his injuries) seemed immune to the frozen state everyone else seemed to be in, though even they were only moving slightly more than the others.
The feeling of Mana felt like it was flooding the room, and then the intensity of everything ramped up gradually at first, but it quickly became almost painful to be around after another minute. When it started to feel like she was suffocating under the blanket of Mana surrounding the area, a bright light started to emit from Chareese, beginning with the “Core” inside of her chest and spreading until her entire body seemed to glow.
And then Eisa and everyone else was blown off their feet by an explosion of light, which also nearly blinded her; she was fortunately already closing her eyes most of the way from the bright glow the Inquisitors corpse had already been emitting, so she was pretty sure she was going to be okay. When she pulled herself up off the ground after being pushed back a few feet, she looked up to see the former corpse replaced with the perfectly healthy body of Chareese – repaired clothes and all. Eisa was glad for the woman’s sake that Fred had learned from her own resurrection as a Shard and didn’t bring her back naked for everyone to see – especially with her brother right there.
Eisa wasn’t the only one to see the Inquisitor’s repaired body there; Roady sat up, blinking furiously – probably to attempt to remove the afterimages of the light burst – and set his clearing sights on his sister. “Chareese! You’re…all fixed up!”
His voice must have woken the resurrected woman up, because as she quickly sat up she held her hands in front of her body like she was trying to block something coming for her – and then she screamed so loudly that it reverberated inside the relatively small dungeon room, leaving those already half-blinded and knocked down to cover their ears in pain. Fortunately, the scream didn’t last long as Eisa could see Chareese’s eyes slowly focus on what was around her.
“What…what happened? Did we get away in time? How many did we lose? And why am I underground surrounded by all of these people?” The Inquisitor asked one question right after another, which Eisa couldn’t blame her for; if her last memory had been of the battle right before she was killed, her surroundings were probably quite confusing. Actually, when she thought about her own resurrection, Inquisitor might not be the appropriate word anymore; there was a good chance that Chareese was de-Rated all the way back to a Classless G-1st-Rated Adventurer.
It was only then that Eisa saw Fred, who had been blown back by the blast of light as well; unlike the others, however, he seemed to be unconscious and unmoving. She raced by his side in a flash, placing her hand on his chest to see if she felt movement. A weak heartbeat and erratic breathing showed that he hadn’t died as a result of what he had done, though for some reason – completely different from when he had brought her and Regnark back – he looked…drained. His skin was almost waxy and extremely pale; accompanied by his weak heartbeat and shallow breaths, she would’ve said he was on the verge of death. Immediately, Eisa used her Earth’s Renewal to try to heal him, but it didn’t seem to make much difference; whatever had happened to him wasn’t an injury she could fix.
Fortunately, within seconds he started to look better as the color came back to his face, and his lungs finally filled completely with air, causing his chest to rise – and for his heartbeat to strengthen enough that he didn’t seem to be in any danger. She wouldn’t want to see what would’ve happened if he had died while his territory was established; while burning to death and having his head chopped off hadn’t seemed to do much on that front, being blown to pieces by an exploding Earth Core had apparently done the trick. She wasn’t quite sure where the line was – and hoped she never had to find out.
Watching a loved one die was never easy…even if they eventually came back from the dead.
Eisa ignored everything around her, though she could hear lots of conversation going on; instead, she was joined soon by Deecy, who lay down by Fred with her head on his shoulder, looking for all the world like a dog who was waiting for their master to wake up. The Dire Wolf didn’t say anything, so she figured it would only be a matter of time before the man she loved woke up.
As she sat there, she pushed down feelings of anger directed towards Chareese and Roady, who had practically almost killed Fred. Though, after a few moments she lost most of her resentment towards the woman, as it wasn’t her fault in the least; the big armored man, on the other hand, took the full brunt of her ire. Granted, no one knew that this would happen to him – she didn’t think even Fred knew what was going to happen – but she couldn’t help but be mad at the giant of a man for putting him in danger.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Eisa finally felt movement under her hand on Fred’s chest that wasn’t attributed to his normal breathing – he was waking up. Moments later, his eyes shot open and he smiled strangely; she thought there might have been some damage to his mind in addition to his body that hadn’t been healed yet, because she didn’t think this was any time for smiling.
“Fred! Is it you that I need to thank for bringing me back to life?” Eisa heard Chareese ask before Eisa could say anything, which was fairly perturbing.
Fred, for his sake, barely seemed to hear her or even care all that much for some reason. “What? Oh, yes – that was me. No thanks are necessary, I’m sure you’d do the same for me if you had the chance,” he answered her with barely a glance in her direction, his vision far off in thought, apparently.
