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The Human From a Dungeon 116
🕑 Added 2025-08-11 10:05:52 +0000 UTCChapter 116
Nick Smith
Adventurer Level: 11
Human – American
The freshly awakened orc was absolutely frozen in terror at the sight of Larie. She stared at us with wide eyes while we stood frozen, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, Garin sighed, then walked over to her and kneeled.
"Hey, there's nothing to be afraid of. They're friendly, and saved our asses," he said gently. "Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah, what happened? F-friendly?" she stammered.
"Yes, friendly. We'd be dead if they weren't, right? Can you stand?"
"P-probably. A-and I guess that makes sense. How long was I out?"
"Not that long. You took a pretty nasty hit from that hammer, but the lich healed you," Garin said, helping sleepy to her feet. "Healed the rest of us, too."
Once he was sure she was steady, he turned back to us.
"Thank you for all of your help," he said.
"And thank you for yours," I replied.
"W-wait, aren't you that human everyone has been talking about?" sleepy asked.
"Yeah. This dungeon is where they found me," I said.
"Oh shit, we haven't done introductions yet, have we?" Garin asked with a laugh. "I'm Garin, our party's two-handed specialist. Kirea here is our healer, Nifth is our archer, and Dosten is our mage."
"It is a pleasure to meet you," Yulk said with a small bow. "I am Yulk. This is Nick Smith and Larie VysImiro."
Larie and I nodded our heads as Yulk gestured at us.
"Woah, wait. Yulk?" Garin asked. "As in Nash and Yulk of Clan Alta?"
Yulk's face fell a little, and I clocked why pretty quickly. He didn't really want the fanfare that came with being a member of Clan Alta at the moment. Or the reputation that came with being part of "Nash and Yulk".
"We should probably keep moving," I interrupted. "I'm tired, but..."
"You're right," Yulk said, sneaking me a grateful look. "I'm afraid that we are in quite a rush and must press on."
"Really? Even after all that?" Garin replied, gesturing to the broken robots. "Why?"
"It's a rather long story, and as I said, we're pressed for time."
Garin stared at us for a moment, seemingly lost for words. Then he turned to look at his party. Pole orc, or Dosten, pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
"Don't-"
"We should go with them," Garin interrupted the exasperated mage. "They saved our asses and we owe it to them."
"We HELPED them save our asses," Dosten argued. "Sure, it was nice of them, but ultimately we-"
"Nah, we should go with," Nifth said, adjusting his bow. "If they'll let us."
"Well..." I trailed off, glancing at Yulk and Larie.
"Their presence may increase the odds of our success," Larie said. "Especially if we can retrieve Garin's hammer."
"That's another reason we need to go with them," Garin laughed. "That hammer was expensive. Not to mention the fact that we dropped our packs to run faster..."
"Yep. All of our loot was in the packs," Nifth added. "We either push forward with these guys, or we return as penniless beggars. I don't know about you, Dosten, but I've got bills to pay."
Everyone stared at Dosten, and after a few moments he sighed dramatically.
"Fine!" he grumbled.
A few glances were shared, but no further arguments were made. I pulled my sword out of the robot's face as Garin joined me at the front of our formation. Then we continued further into the dungeon. After walking for a while, he cleared his throat.
"So... What brings you to Delver's Dungeon?" he asked.
"We've gotta get to the end of the dungeon," I shrugged.
"The end?"
"Yup."
"Well, that's a... Er, noteworthy goal. From what Dosten says, only two groups have made it that far, though."
"According to the records," Dosten added. "There've been several attempts, but only two groups have faced the final boss and emerged victorious."
"Yeah, I imagine the reset and teleportation thing has something to do with that," I laughed. "But, for reasons I can't get into, I don't think that's going to be a problem for us."
"Some sort of human-magic?" the mage asked.
"He said reasons he can't get into," Garin scolded. "Wait, you're a he, right?"
"Yep."
"So humans have females?"
"Yep."
"What do they look like? Is it like with us and elves and such?"
There were several more questions of a similar nature, but I answered them to the best of my abilities. We ran into some more drones, but they were easily dispatched with Yulk's Electrical Pulse spell. Eventually, we stumbled upon the orc's stuff. Since Dosten and Yulk were on the verge of exhaustion, we decided to rest.
Nifth and Kirea used Dosten's heat-stone to make a soup, and I was surprised at how much my mood improved from the warm meal. It was a very meaty soup, but it still tasted better than the dried foods. I set my cup down and watched the symbols dance along the shields, wondering how we were going to get any sleep with the mirror-like walls reflecting the light dozens of times over.
"Won't be long before we reach the machine-boss," Garin said, checking his hammer for damage. "What do we know about it?"
"It's a large construct, originally believed to be an iron golem," Dosten explained between soupy sips. "Its behavior is akin to that of a drone, meaning it won't attack unless we show aggression by attacking or attempting to bypass it. It has been noted to have extremely effective ranged attacks that are almost impossible to dodge, and its melee attacks are pulverizing."
"So hit it with all we have right at the jump, and hope that drops it," I added with a yawn.
"That has been the most effective strategy for defeating it so far, yes. Some parties with extra-durable shield-bearers have managed to beat it without an overwhelming opening salvo. But our shield-bearer retired."
"Retired?"
"Yeah, for personal reasons we can't get into," Garin grinned and winked at me.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Dosten chuckled. "Though it is somewhat of a long story."
"We've got time," Nifth said. "You want to tell it or can I?"
"I'll do it," Kirea smiled. "Our party originally formed in Blurpus, at the behest of Great Chief Tormon. Our mission was to hunt some beasts that were attacking caravans, and we meshed really well. Once we took care of the beasts we decided to continue to work together and began taking quests."
She explained that the group took a few jobs together, then decided to start exploring dungeons. After their third run, which paid pretty well but not as well as they had hoped, their shield-bearer revealed that she had been silently suffering from claustrophobia. Instead of forcing the party to return to waste-wandering to accommodate her, she opted to retire as an adventurer. The rest of the group respected her decision, and she returned to her family while her party continued diving into dungeons. Eventually, she became a guard-captain for Great Chief Tormon.
"We were thrilled to hear it, of course," Kirea laughed. "By the time we got the news, though, we'd already moved here. A few months before they found you, actually."
"Yep," Garin nodded. "Our first run went pretty well, so we decided to do another dive. And then another, and another."
"Our latest, as you've seen, hasn't gone all that well," Dosten said. "So now that WE'VE shared..."
"Right. Well, I'm not comfortable going into detail, but..." I trailed off and looked at them for a moment.
They seemed to be decent enough people, but I couldn't shake the warning that the higher one gave me upon our first meeting. So, I explained our goal instead of the journey thus far. I told them about Cass, awakening with Yulk and Nash standing over me, our oath, and that we were hoping to find answers at the end of the dungeon.
"Oh yeah... Where's Nash?" Nifth asked. "I've always heard of you two as a duo."
"He's been made the captain of the guard," Yulk said proudly.
"Nash Alta is the new Guard-Captain of Nuleva?" Dosten asked incredulously.
"Yes, well, the rumors surrounding my brother and I do not do us justi-"
"Chief Gluhern couldn't find anyone else, could he?"
"Just so," Yulk sighed, slightly deflated.
"Nash is a very capable orc, though," I said. "He would probably struggle being a run-of-the-mill guard, but he'll shine as Guard-Captain. He's tough, fair, and pretty good at training idiots. I would know."
"That's not a fair assessment of yourself, Nick," Yulk said. "It's likely that he will consider you one of the best pupils he's ever trained. He'd never admit it, though."
A small sort of sadness took hold deep within me, but I pushed it aside and chuckled. The sadness wasn't because I longed to hear Nash sing my praises or anything like that. It was because things were changing.
With Nash becoming Guard-Captain and Yulk being a professor, it was entirely possible that I would have to continue my journey alone. Part of me was bitter about it because they had sworn to help me, but I knew how immature that was. Like it or not, they had their own lives to live, and those lives didn't revolve around me.
Plus, it was kind of cool to see them grow and become successful. If I had been told what they'd become when I first met them, I wouldn't have believed it. Well actually, Nash getting married before Yulk did was certainly believable.
Kirea had been glancing at Yulk with all the subtlety of a tank. As usual, though, he was completely oblivious. It wasn't that he was intentionally trying to ignore it or anything, he just genuinely didn't seem to notice. The rest of us, though, had already shared knowing glances.
Poor girl. Or girls, actually. He'd kind of left a string of them, come to think of it.
"So, let's say we make it to the end of the dungeon," Garin said. "What's next for you three?"
"No clue," I shrugged. "It depends on what we find."
"What if we find a door that leads you home or something?"
"Then... I guess I go home. But there's no way that it's going to be that easy."
"How do you know?"
"Can't say."
"Bah, that's no fun."
"Indeed," Yulk said as he rose to his feet. "Well I, for one, am exhausted."
"Yeah, me too," Dosten added, finishing his soup. "We should rest while we can."
After various murmurs of agreement, everyone except Larie tried to get some rest. My sleeping back seemed to be magnetic, but it took some time for me to finally get to sleep. Even though the earlier fight had taken a lot out of me, the upcoming boss battle provided enough nerves to keep me up for a while. But once I managed to get to sleep, I was out like a light.
I woke up to find Garin, Larie, and Yulk sitting together, chatting. I laid there, listening to Larie calmly explain what his father did to him. I couldn't even begin to imagine my own father doing something like that to anyone, let alone his own family. I tried, though, and my respect for Larie rose once I realized how angry I would have been at that sort of betrayal.
It would have cursed me with the sort of anger that never would have burned out. I wouldn't have been able to trust anyone ever again. But that wasn't the case for Larie. He hadn't let it turn him into a monster.
He could have easily eradicated the kobolds when he encountered them, but he hadn't. Actually, he had kind of civilized them, ensuring their longevity during his absence. Even with everyone's reactions towards him he hadn't lashed out. Larie seemed to be peaceful through and through, which made it all the more upsetting that he was betrayed like that.
"I-I don't even know what to say," Garin muttered. "That's..."
"Terrible?" Larie asked. "Certainly. Lichdom is likely the most insidious curse to ever be crafted by the clutching claws of greedy mortals. Through my efforts to find a way to reverse it, I've come to the conclusion that it is a sick form of punishment for those who are arrogant enough to believe that they can escape the greatest equalizer."
"Equalizer?"
"Death," I said as I joined them. "The most powerful emperors, the scummiest of criminals, and everyone in between will all die one day."
"Oh," Garin thought for a moment. "But not a lich, though."
"A lich can also die," Larie explained. "Everything that is of this world can be ended."
"How do you kill a lich?"
"Destroy all of their phylacteries, then their physical form."
"How many do you have?"
"I am prevented from answering that question truthfully by the curse. A lich cannot kill itself, nor allow someone to kill them," Larie looked toward the ground. "To quote Uregrana the Dark, 'A lich, as a foolish mortal that has forsaken death itself, must for all eternity shun its end. Even as it begs for death, it must claw at its unlife.'"
"I haven't heard of Uregrana," Yulk said.
"That's not surprising. She was one of the first mages to study immortality. Most of her writings were destroyed once her sins, which were many, were discovered."
Yulk nodded slowly, tactfully refraining from asking what those sins were. I was curious, but figured it would probably be something similar to what Larie's father did. Or worse, even.
"Well, I'm glad to know the good in you, Lord VysImiro," Garin said, standing up. "We should head out soon. I'm going to wake the others."
I bit into some jerky as he began to shake everyone else awake. By the time they were eating breakfast, Yulk and I were already packing our things. Once everyone else had caught up with us, we disabled the shield and continued on our way.
We came across a few more groups of drones, which were quickly dispatched thanks to Garin's hammer. Then we powered our way through a group of five robots. Occasionally, we would stop so that the orc adventurers could pick up something interesting that they might be able to sell.
As we walked, the mirror-like corridor slowly began to widen, and the groups of enemies got bigger. The robots were much easier to handle with everyone at full strength, though. The most eventful part of the fighting was when a drone managed to avoid Yulk's Electrical Pulse spell and fire a light beam.
The beam bounced off of the walls in an erratic pattern before hitting Garin in the shoulder. I popped it with my Bullet spell before it could get another shot off. Kirea healed Garin while I took care of the rest of the drones.
After quite a few more groups of enemies, the ceiling began to rise as well. This actually came as a relief, because the blinding effect of the mirrors lessened the further apart they got. After walking a bit further, we found ourselves in a massive room, the glints of our light barely visible in the distance.
"Well, this definitely looks like a boss chamber," Garin said. "Let's see if we can find-"
The floor shuddered as the screech of metal cut him off.
Comments
Ben Bass
TYFTC! I am glad to see that they found some additional members to help them with the fight, this is not going to be easy. I do like how Nick is maturing, not liking change however being able to see the need for it, as well as seeing how Larie was able to get past his anger and still be the same person he was prior to lichdom.
