The Human From a Dungeon

Nash Alta

Adventurer Level: 8

Orc - Nulevan

"Up and at 'em, Nashy-poo," Yulk whispered in a mockingly paternal tone.

I sat up and glared at him, making certain that my distaste for his antics was apparent on my face. I hate being woken up by Yulk. If it isn't his relentless mocking that I wake up to, it's a prank. My brother's affinity for magic makes his pranks all the more infuriating. He's one of the only people that can easily use ice in his antics.

"Fuck you," I grumbled as I started wrapping up my bedroll.

Thankfully, the current environment had him on what amounts to his best behavior. I glanced around, everyone else was already awake and packing up. Nick was already packed, a sign of uneasy sleep. Makes sense, this mission has pretty high stakes for the boy. No matter which way this goes it has the potential to be emotionally taxing.

If we don't find anything, he's going to feel stuck and unsure of what to do next. If we do find something, there's a decent chance that it'll be useless to his plans of getting home. Even if we find him a way home, though, he's going to have to say goodbye to his new family. I can't say I know exactly how he feels, but I'm guessing it's going to suck no matter what.

"C'mon Nash," Yulk broke character. "We've got to get a move on. It wouldn't do for either of us to cause a delay."

"Yeah, yeah. How come you can't just wake me up like a normal person?" I asked, knowing the answer already.

"There's no fun in that," Yulk replied with a grin.

"Whatever," I sighed as I finished packing my gear.

Some of the others were eating breakfast, but I didn't join them because I'm not a breakfast person. It drives my mom nuts, but it's just not my thing. Feeling full right after waking up makes me lazy for the rest of the day, so I prefer to snack if I get too hungry before lunch. I slipped a pack of breakfast jerky in my pocket to snack on while we walked.

"Finish up, everybody. We're burnin' daylight," Yhisith commanded.

Obligatory grumbling followed, including quips about daylight being irrelevant in a dungeon, but everyone was marching soon after. People outside the business hear someone described as a professional adventurer and imagine someone with manners who can take down monsters. In actuality, this was the professional side of adventuring. What needs to get done gets done, but hardly anyone gives any regard to manners.

The trip to the hidden passage was spent in silence. Tensions rose the further we had to walk. After another thirty minutes of walking I was worried we were going to have to start cracking walls to find the hidden passage again, but we finally saw the light from the passage and the tension eased up some. It was still pretty thick, though, for one very good reason.

"I hope that barrier held up," Nick voiced everyone's concern.

The breach of silence caused all eyes to turn on the boy. I expected him to wilt under the combined gaze of the adventurers, but he didn't. Thunra chuckled at the unintentional audacity.

"We'll check it before beginning our investigation, but until we confirm its integrity we'll want the element of surprise," Matri said softly.

"That's a polite way of saying shut the fuck up," Thunra laughed.

"Oh... right," Nick replied.

Quiet chuckles came from the other adventurers before the silence settled in again. We continued on for another few hours before we came to the fork in the path, and then another couple of hours before we came to the barrier. The bright purple glow was a welcome sight, but what lay beyond it was another story.

The only light down the rest of the passage was from the barrier itself. There were deep gashes in the walls and ceiling, as if something went absolutely berserk trying to get through. The thing had even tried to dig below the barrier.

"Jesus," Nick whispered. "It's a good thing the barrier goes below the ground."

"Forty feet in each direction, to be exact," Jino added. "That's the maximum it can go, and that's what the barrier team used."

"Interesting," Nick replied as he walked over to one of the walls and ran his hand over a brick. "It must have been hard to damage these walls. These bricks feel tough and there's no mortar lines. What are these made out of?"

"Looks like bronze," I answered. "But..."

"They're too perfect," Matri finished my sentence. "No pits, dents, or anything that you would normally see even in polished bronze. Also, I've never seen bronze flake quite like that."

She pointed to the rubble on the other side of the barrier. I looked closer, and she was right. Some of the claw marks ended in what looked like string, and pieces that had fallen off had a shape closer to shaved wax than shredded metal. I walked up next to Nick and tapped the wall. The rapport was strange as well, it sounded like a dull thud instead of a metallic ring.

Nick drew his sword and swung at the wall. The rest of us stared at him in disbelief, shocked by the suddenness in which he had acted. Then we were shocked by the results. Not a single dent showed in the bricks he had struck. He switched hands and shook the hand that had been holding the sword.

"Damn it, boy!" I shouted. "Don't be swinging your sword for no reason!"

"It wasn't for no reason, Nash," he replied. "I hit that wall hard, and didn't leave even a scratch. I thought it might be made out of a thing called plastic, but I've never seen plastic that can stand up to steel before."

Plastic? I turned to look at the bronze colored bricks again. Then I looked back at the rubble and my blood ran cold as the implications set in. I looked at the over-twenties and saw the steel in their eyes. This confirmed that the monster's going to be one that even they have to take seriously. Then something else occurred to me, and my blood started running hot again.

"Let me see your sword," I growled at Nick. He cautiously held it up to me hilt-first.

I snatched it from him and flipped it blade-side up. Just as I thought, the damned thing was notched beyond the point of a whetstone.

"You absolute fucking idiot," I spat at him. "Look what you did to your sword!"

"Shit," came his reply.

"Shit? That's your response? You're going to need to have this repaired! You'd better fucking hope that we don't run into anything that you need to fight!" I yelled as I pushed the sword back into his hands.

"You're right, my bad," he said with regret in his voice.

"Just use your magic," Yulk chuckled, diffusing my anger a bit.

"Or we could do some of that unarmed melee training now, if you'd like," Thunra added with a grin.

"Whatever," I grumbled. "Just don't do shit like that again. Your equipment is your life-line. You're lucky you have more than one, but NEVER take that for granted. Some things don't give a shit that you can do magic, you know."

Nick glanced at Yulk and back to me. Then he nodded his understanding and after a moment of cold glaring I relented. With a sigh and a shake of my head I turned away from him and looked at the barrier. Arcane glyphs swam peacefully across its surface, completely oblivious to the destruction laying just beyond it. I wondered for a moment where the monster had gone when Yhisith cleared her throat.

"The barrier's in place. Let's get moving, we've got intel to gather," she ordered.

She was met with several nods, and we all began backtracking down the passage. Nick had a dejected expression the entire journey to the labyrinth portion of the passage, which made me feel a pang of guilt. Was I too hard on him? Was there a better way that I could have handled that? Maybe, but Nick's actions had been damned foolish so he deserved a little embarrassment.

Sure, in certain situations a calm and collected explanation is the best way to go, but when the situation's dangerous you should have some emotion involved, right? To really hammer the point home? I glanced down at Nick and a terrible thought occurred to me. I'm massive compared to the boy, did I... scare him? I quickly recalled all of our recent interactions and realized that I've been harsher than I probably should have. I knew why, too.

My father was a great mer. He taught me that satisfaction with your progress leads to complacency, and complacency is the most dangerous foe to an adventurer. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have as fast as I have without him, and I shudder to think what level Yulk would be if dad had been around to train him.

He had two different personalities that he switched between. The first was a happy-go-lucky mer who did silly things to make us laugh and cheered us up when we were sad about things. The second was his training personality, which was cold, calculating, and harsh. He never hit me, but I would have preferred that to some of the ways he explained my failings to me.

I almost laughed as I realized that I had been emulating him. I wonder if he'd be proud of that. I glanced down at the boy again and realized that I need to change tack. I grew up in an emotionally sound environment, and had been well prepared to suffer the barbs of my father's training. I don't know how Nick grew up, but recent events had to be traumatizing to the poor boy. If I'm not careful, he might have a mental break. Fuck. I gritted my teeth and swallowed my pride.

"Nick," I whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I shouldn't have yelled at you back there. I'm sorry," I apologized. "It was harsh of me, and you didn't deserve that. I'll do better moving forward."

"Oh... okay. Thanks," Nick replied with a very confused expression.

I debated explaining further, but decided to drop it as we reached the first turn.

"Alright, Nash. Where are we going?" Yhisith asked.

"Left is a dead end," I answered. "I kept my left hand on the wall and just walked. We can save ten minutes or so by doing the same thing and skipping this left turn."

I took the lead and traced our path. About an hour later we reached our destination. A large, spacious room with mirrored walls and several broken altar-looking things. It looked almost the same as the last time I saw it, the only exception being that Nick wasn't on one of the altars. The altar that he had been on wasn't lit up like it had been, either.

"This is where I found him," I told Yhisith. "On the only intact altar thingie. It was lit up at the time, but the lights turned off once I picked him up. A few seconds later I was teleported to the entrance."

"Okay. There's only one entrance so you'll hang out with Thunra on guard duty. The rest of us will have a look around for clues."

I nodded and everyone spread out. Thunra came up beside me and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. He stared out into the empty hallway, so I watched the others wander around the room. The altars were a mess. Some of them looked as if they had crumbled over time, but others looked as if they had been intentionally broken. Some even had jagged glass jutting up from their sides. I turned around and started eavesdropping.

"I can't read this," Jino mumbled.

Heh, I'm not the only one. Nice.

"Do you recognize this text, Nick?" Yulk asked.

"No," came the reply.

"If we don't recognize it, that means it's likely Drakon, Anyelish, or Daimun," Jino said. "Or perhaps it's an ancient lost language."

"Well that's a problem. It's not like there are a ton of scholars who study Anyelish or Daimun, and Drakon was abandoned in favor of Elvish script. Going to be tough to get this translated," Yulk sighed. "I've grabbed a rubbing, just in case... Is something wrong? Nick? What's going on?"

I turned back in alarm and watched as Nick lay back onto the altar I had found him on. Yulk reached for him as glass suddenly sprang up around the boy and lights began flashing all over the altar. I rushed over.

"What the hell?" I demanded as I looked over the altar. "What did you let him do that for?"

"I didn't let him, he just did it. Didn't breathe a single word, just climbed right on. Or in, I suppose," Yulk explained. "Do you see a way to open this thing?"

There wasn't even a seam in the glass that was now surrounding Nick. I grabbed my axe and swung it sideways so that I wouldn't chop the boy like a log, and was shocked as my axe bounced back without so much as chipping the glass. I stared at my axe in disbelief. It was missing three teeth.

"Shit," I whispered.