Tell Me a Story

We remained cloistered in that room, still too scared to test the world that lay just beyond the thin door of meagre cloth. Even without the terrors of the outside, problems remained within. Javier needed real heat. Merely huddling together for warmth was not enough. We needed to light a fire, which was a risk all its own. If I could be greedy, a blood transfusion would’ve been great as well, but we weren’t in the modern world.

Thanks to the ruined ancient furniture left in the room, a broken chair and a warped bed frame, a fire was possible. Still, there was the danger of suffocation, and making a small hole for ventilation in our blanket-door seemed far more dangerous. Would the creatures of darkness be drawn to our smoke? Even with so many dangers, neither Amparo or I needed much convincing to start a fire. We craved the warmth and comfort that a flame promised.

With a great deal of effort and my sword, we were able to break the old furniture into manageable pieces of firewood, and soaked them in lantern oil to help the flame catch. Using the lantern's flame as a mother source, our pile of wood magnificently caught fire. A small opening was made at the top of our door to let smoke out, and we prayed that nothing came by.

Amparo pointed out the deep cuts on my shoulder. Funnily enough, I hadn’t noticed it until she mentioned it, and now that I was aware of it, it hurt terribly. The three claw marks had scabbed over already, but they were pulsating red from infection, and they burned terribly. Even so, we applied some of the honey-salve from the healer’s kit anyway, hoping that it would do something. It was during this time that Javier's orb of light finally fizzled out and left us with only fire light to guide us. Truthfully, I had grown tired of how blindingly bright it had been, and how it hurt to even glance in its direction.

We found other small cuts on each other and applied ointment, huddled together with Javier, wrapped ourselves in the other blanket and struggled to not pass out. The light of the flame and its warmth lulled me into dropping my guard. The reassurance of Amparo's body heat caused more tension to bleed from my nerves. Only Javier's ice cold touch kept me from relaxing entirely.

Despite being so comfortable, our situation remained relatively perilous.

"We cannot fall asleep." I told Amparo, "We need to be alert for anything that could come through the door."

"You will never catch me wavering." Amparo said, only to immediately yawn "That was not a yawn. I was only breathing deeply. I am not tired in the slightest."

"Tell me a story then, I have no stories."

"Javier said that this was a Dungeon, didn't he?"

"He did. Does that mean something?"

"It makes sense is what that means."

Amparo began to tell the myth of creation, specifically of the Dungeons. There once were two gods, one of the spirit and one of the physical. The god of spirits made souls, and things were good. However, the god of bodies made the world of things, but despaired because it was lifeless. So he seduced the souls into inhabiting bodies and creating life. This allowed the souls to experience joy and desire, but it also exposed the souls to suffering and misery, which the god of spirits said was evil, and ordered the god of bodies to release the trapped spirits.

They got into a fight, and in the end, the god of spirits defeated the god of bodies by cutting them apart and sealing their pieces deep beneath the earth. However, when the god of spirits tried to free the souls, they found that every soul was cursed to want to live, despite all their misery. Death would only cause them to be reborn to experience more pain. Only by embracing the love of the spirit and rejecting greed can a soul return to the god of spirits.

In that case, Dungeons are where pieces of the God of Bodies are trapped. They're forever shifting and changing to make sure that the piece can never escape. However, manifestations of the God of Bodies, monsters, can and do escape, so adventurers must fight to keep the evil sealed within.

"Is that why they're called dungeons, like the dungeon of a castle?" I asked, curious about the etymological connection.

"I don't know. If I were to guess, the dungeon of a castle is named after the Dungeons of God." She shrugged.

Curious, Dungeons with a capital D, and dungeons as a word.

"How do magic cores fit into the story?" I asked, taking out one of the gleaming, red, stones. It reminded me of an uncut gem.

"I actually don't know. The parish priest never got to that part." Amparo said, bereft of the strength to shrug, her eyes drooping.

Despite her knightly oath, Amparo was losing the strength to carry on. Attempts to sustain herself with idle banter about something, anything else, were defeated by yawns, and eventually sleep took her.

Exhaustion tugged at my eyes as well, but I found a strange restlessness burning away in my brain that kept me awake. Every time I dared to close my eyes, it would stab me awake. Now that I had the leisure to do so, I decided to meditate more deeply on my character sheet.

+++

Name: Loiel Krieger

Class: Lord of Tyranny (Slave Knight)

Species: Ursine Therian

Level: 6

HP: 502/720 FP: 10

Attributes: Vigor: F-, Mind: F-, Endurance: F-, Strength: F+, Dexterity: F-, Agility: F- , Intelligence: F-, Faith: F-, Luck: F-

Equipment: -Broken Sword, -Roughspun Tunic, -Satchel (-3 days of rations, -Climbing Kit, -6 F-tier Vitae Cores)

Effects: -Slave Mark

Class Features: -Unarmored Defense, -Reckless Attack, -Fury, -Danger Sense, -Undying Crusader, -Lethal Speed, -Fanatacism, -Hallowed Ground

Proficiencies: -Simple Weapon Proficiency, -Martial Weapon Proficiency, -Shield Proficiency, -Light Armor Proficiency, -Medium Armor Proficiency, -Heavy Armor Proficiency,

Skills: Perception: F, Athletics: E, Survival: F, History: F, Religion: F, Medicine: F-

Racial Traits: -Dark Senses, -Relentless Endurance, -Untrammeled Savagery

+++

Up until now, I hadn't much time to really think about the features and traits I had in their totality, nevermind the new features I'd gained. It was nice to see that I was getting stronger with an F+ in strength, but the lack of movement in any other attributes was worrying. When I leveled up, were attribute points being automatically allocated, or was I subconsciously choosing what to increase? I'd been desperate to have the strength to defend myself, and maybe that's why I was pumping strength. Whatever the case, it did make me wonder what my strength was like relative to an adult, or even that huge woman from earlier.

Undying Crusader was useful, even if it wasn't something I ever wanted to actually use. It ensured that if my HP ever hit 0, so long as I was in a Fury, I could not actually die. I could actually lose limbs and organs and still keep fighting this way. Sounds great, until you get into the weeds of the ability. I didn't become invincible, I would merely not die, and still take damage going into the negatives. If I wasn’t healed by the time the Fury ended, I would die anyway. Not a problem in a party with a healer, but my saint was currently on death's door.

Lethal Speed just meant I ran faster. Useful for running into, and away, from things, at least at first glance. When combined with something like a full bodied tackle or charge, the increased velocity made it possible to just trample people. It also meant that unless their classes somehow made them faster, I could easily outpace Amparo and Javier. I'd need to be careful about leaving them behind. I wonder; if I entered a Fury state, which besides the other benefits, also increased my raw physicality, would I be strong enough to pick up Amparo and Javier? If so, could I then just use my enhanced speed to carry them away from danger? They could latch onto my front and back, or one could sit on each shoulder.

Hallowed Ground was a weapon of last resort. I'll only use that if I'm certainly by myself and there's no way I can hurt any of them. It did make me curious how it would actually appear in reality. In game it manifested as a black aura, and enemies would just take health damage until they died. How would that work here? Would they just feel increasingly worse or suffer internal injuries until they keeled over? Or would something more graphic occur. Another mystery I was both interested in testing, and too scared to find out.

My hp had grown to a whopping 720 HP, which meant that it was growing at a rate of 120HP a level. I hoped that was a good amount of HP, but without anything to compare to, it figured I ought to continue to assume that just like in real life, everything was possibly lethal. Funny, real life. Somewhere in my heart, I still wasn't accepting these circumstances

502 points of life until I died remained, and I hoped they'd recover in time. Now, the gashes the monster had inflicted on me were not minor at all, they deserved at least a trip to the hospital. However, I didn't think the cuts I'd sustained were worth 218 hp, but maybe that's because it wasn't just those cuts. HP damage in game didn't just represent general toughness and the ability to take a hit, but also general wellness.Maybe the raw physical exertion I made to run at full speed for so long while carrying a boy weighing more than me had inflicted some real damage.

In Otherworld Online, pushing a character beyond their physical limits was known as overclocking, and it was the number one cause of accidental suicide. Beginner areas were littered with the bodies of players who'd forgotten to turn off exertion. Still, the benefits were incredible- faster stamina regen, shorter cooldowns, increased attributes. The longer and harder you pushed, so too did the damage rise exponentially. Death by exertion was a very real danger, but since it was a game where death was cheap, the mechanisms of exertion turned HP into just another resource.

There were entire builds devoted to exploiting overclocking, built around passive scaling HP regen so that you could theoretically be overclocked at all times without danger. Others lived on the edge of death, abusing a web of skills that kept the character just barely alive, and other skills that made you stronger the lower your hp, all while still overclocking. Moreover, as a player, you didn't need to live with the pain and agony of literally destroying your own body.

However, I was now experiencing the mechanic in a very real and immediate way, and it made me regret my build choices. Loiel was one such character who lived on the edge of dying. Besides relying heavily on exertion, I took other skills that inflicted grievous bodily harm to myself because Loiel's roleplay was that she was absolutely deranged, only a step above a villain, barely an anti-hero. The Lord of Tyranny build could only go so far by dragging its enemies into the mud. I needed other multipliers, such as Fanatacism, which would increase my attack speed the lower my hp.

"Killing people faster the more dead you were" was no longer as attractive, because I actually cared whether I was more dead.I feared the day I unlocked -Pain is Meaningless to Me.

"Killing people faster the more dead you were?" A weak and confused voice asked, interrupting my thoughts. I didn't realize I'd murmured that meme phrase aloud. "Pain is meaningless to me?”

"Javier, you're alive?" I asked, turning to find his eyes still closed and body still deathly cold.

"I'm so thirsty." He said, his voice barely above a death rattle.

I pulled the water skin out of my satchel and brought it to his lips. He drank greedily, nearly emptying it. "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm dying." He croaked, "What happened? Where are we?"

I described the arrival of the mysterious monster and our desperate escape. He listened carefully, or at least I thought he did, but when he failed to respond, I figured he had passed out again. It was only a few minutes later, after I'd thought the conversation had died that he asked "Is that why we're under this blanket together?"

"Yes. You were deathly cold because you'd lost too much blood. We needed to keep you warm"

"Thank you, thank you so much." He said still weak, "Mauricio is dead, isn't he?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"We came down here believing we were all chosen by God. We were arrogant." He gasped out, "I know how to escape. Once I've recovered, I'll guide us out."

"Really, how?" I almost yelled, bolting upright.

"I'll make sure you both live. I promise."

"But how?"

He didn't respond, and I tried gently shaking him back awake, but he seemed to have truly passed out this time. I also noticed that he had gone from being deathly cold to burning up. He had only just survived going into shock, was he suffering from an infection as well?

The thread of hope was keeping me aloft, but just barely. If Javier died, I was terrified I would completely snap. If I lost Amparo, I would definitely go mad. If I lost them both, then I don't know what I would do.

I just don't know.