Chapter 13: A New Normal

In the morning, Astrid did much the same as she had the day before. After she was fully outfitted in her armor, she made her way down the stairs. To her surprise, an unarmored Petr was eating, and she had to respectfully stay back in the hallway while he continued. After a short while, though, he stood, looked at her, and bowed his head. Stark, who Astrid more and more came to understand was more than just the guy who took care of the counter, clicked his tongue at Petr, who raised his hands in what might have been an apology.

After he stepped to the side to allow Astrid to pass, he spoke. “Sorry.”

Astrid wasn’t able to bring herself to respond civilly, so instead, she ignored the Shieldsman. He didn’t seem to mind, and just retreated up to his room. When Astrid went to Stark to order her breakfast, she also asked, “Who’s with me today?”

Instead of saying anything, Stark pointed to a table that Astrid hadn’t watched, given she’d been paying attention to Petr. There sat Lariche and Willem, and when they saw her attention on them, Lariche wiggled her fingers as a hello. Willem merely nodded.

“Thanks, Stark!” Astrid said as the man ladled a particularly full bowl for her. Then, sitting beside her “escorts”, she asked, “Do you have any requests for me or what I do?”

“I think you’re misunderstanding somewhat.”

Willem, surprisingly, was the person who spoke. “You’re under supervision, and we’ll bail you out if someone messes with you. Lariche, being Lariche, will heal you whenever she thinks you need it, but I’m not here as a supporter for you. Make whatever choices you would if you were delving by yourself, because that’s what you’re doing. This isn’t us just pampering you, but making sure that nobody has it out for you. Otherwise, getting experience and levels will be up to you.”

“Yes, sir.” Astrid fell back into her habitual response. “I’ll make sure to be safe. Thank you.”

Willem shrugged. Lariche sighed and said, “Now that he’s said his part, I’ll just say, I’m excited to see what you can do today, miss level 1! Grom trusts you enough that he thinks you can keep yourself alive by yourself, barring more than two wargs ambush you. I’d love to see that in action! However, I will let you know that for the most part, we won’t be interacting with you inside the inn or outside of the Dungeon. Even inside of it, we won’t really interact. Sorry.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high.” Astrid warned. “I’m just a level 1. And it’s ok. I get it.”

The two party members spoke with each other and largely ignored Astrid. She fought off the slight feeling of being excluded and instead focused on what was in front of her. She’d be effectively alone against the wargs. Her priority, over everything, would have to be making sure not to draw more than two at a time. If she did, then she’d be completely out of luck. While she didn’t think that Willem and Lariche would just watch her get torn apart by wargs, it would also be immensely embarrassing to need to be helped out when she’d been touted as someone particularly worth keeping an eye out for.

Once she was finished, Astrid carried her cutlery over to Stark’s counter, where she left it and then walked out the door. If she wasn’t supposed to interact with her minders, she wouldn’t. She was fine. The journey to the Dungeon’s entrance went quickly, and once there, Astrid felt some measure of reality settle over her. The past… 11 days? Yes, the past 11 days had been the source of her life changing entirely, and she had tried her best to just roll with it, but now, here she was, a level 1, going into a dungeon all by herself. Did she have a death wish?

Shaking her head, Astrid instead focused on the day ahead of her. She had done this already. She hadn’t even been very hurt when she fought three wargs the first time. Now, she just needed to do it again. And again. And again. Until she’d gained another 900 experience.

With nothing else to do but get in the Dungeon, that’s what she did.

***

“Oh, come on!” Astrid shouted as a fourth wave of wargs in quick succession appeared. The first pair she’d fought were simple enough to kill, and she’d quickly forgotten about her minders down here. Instead, she focused on killing every warg that appeared. That she’d managed to find two right off the bat had, in her mind, served as a good omen for the rest of the day’s delving. As soon as she’d dealt a killing blow to the second one, though, another warg appeared. Then, when she’d killed the third warg, another pair showed up. And now, another pair of wargs leapt, snarling and slavering, towards her. The kill notifications were great, a total gain of 27 experience plus whatever these two provided, but Astrid was getting too tired to keep this up without any mistakes.

“Please, Lariche! I need a break!” Astrid shouted as one of the wargs caught the edge of her shield in its jaws. She smashed her hammer down into its skull as she tried to twist fast enough to avoid the other. The one died, but the other succeeded in its attack. It caught her ankle in its jaws and lifted her foot from the ground. With a roar, Astrid whipped her shield around and smashed it broadside into the warg’s ribs. It grunted and flew back a couple steps. Even so, it wasn’t done, and went for her ankle again. With her experience, though, Astrid was prepared for the dodge around her shield and uppercutted the monster with her hammer. Its bones cracked as the kill notifications appeared.

Warg slain. 6 Experience gained.

Warg slain. 5 Experience gained.

Even though she’d pinpointed what she thought was the source of her suffering, Astrid didn’t lower her guard. After all, whatever the reason was for Lariche bringing more and more wargs here, Astrid didn’t know. If it was a hidden agenda to injure or even kill her, she couldn’t expect anything but continued attacks from the monsters or even other delvers until she died. Looking around and listening, there were no signs of wargs approaching, and Astrid stepped back to lean against a nearby tree. Keeping her eyes peeled, she pulled her canteen out and lifted her helmet off just long enough to take a couple long pulls from it. Still, nothing appeared as she refastened her helmet under her jaw.

Although there wasn’t anything to indicate as much, Astrid stayed prepared for something else to come. In fact, with the rest she had, her ankle had started throbbing from the bite she’d taken. Adrenaline and exhaustion had hidden the worst of the aches and pains from her, but now that she had a little down time, standing on her left foot was almost too painful to do. There was nothing to do but to activate her Skill. As the cool relief of Quick Recovery washed over her, Astrid flexed her ankle and groaned. When she heard movement in the brush nearby, Astrid, hefted her shield and hammer, ready to kill more wargs.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It was weird that there weren’t any other monsters in this part of the Dungeon, but that wasn’t a concern for now. Instead, she listened for anything approaching from behind.

“Astrid, you’re ok. Take a break.” Lariche’s voice echoed out to her, but Astrid didn’t relax.

“You’re going to stop sending monsters my way?” She demanded, keeping her head on a swivel.

“Yes, for now.” Lariche replied as Willem nodded beside her. “Grom gave us permission to test you for this first time, and so that’s what we did. The rest of our party is here in the Dungeon, and we used our Skills to funnel the wargs to you. I have to say, you’re even more impressive than I’d thought you’d be! Never faltering against pairs of wargs? That’s not anything I’ve ever heard of a level 1 doing! So, I wanted to come see if I can get your secrets now that you’re exhausted.” The grin on the Healer’s face was teasing, but her tone was genuine.

“I have a Bronze weapon Skill.” Astrid insisted. “Blunt Weapons Mastery.”

“So it helps your shield too.” Lariche nodded. “I guess that’s part of it. But you’re still not being honest with me. There’s something else…”

Astrid shrugged. “You ambushed me with monsters. Call me stubborn, if you need to.”

“That’s a fair point.” Willem said as he gently tapped on Lariche’s head. “Plus, you have no intention of bringing her into our party. Quit your prying and do your job.”

“Even the Duchess herself would be insistent like this if she was in this position!” Lariche complained. She made a cutesy pouting face, and Astrid pictured herself making that face at someone. Trying to appeal cutely to someone. She snorted. It only sometimes worked on her parents. For everyone else… she didn’t dare try. She’d be mocked enough to regret it real quick.

“What’s funny?” Lariche asked, flipping her attention from Willem to Astrid without any warning.

“I…” Astrid debated not sharing it. Then she nearly did, but the possibility of offending the only other Healer in the small delving town here on her second full day was too much. “I was just laughing at how I thought I would be able to finish at this part of the Dungeon really quickly. My plan was to be completely finished by the end of next month. Even now, unless you were feeding me kills like that all day every day, it’d be hard to make it that quickly.”

“Well, yeah.” Lariche shrugged. “It’s a total of 15,000 experience to get to level 6, and it just gets harder from there. The first levels… well, they’re the proving grounds.”

“I know. That’s why I was laughing.” Astrid figured she’d gotten away with it, but Willem narrowed his eyes enough that she wondered if she really had. But, there was nothing she could do about it now, she instead of continuing to worry, she instead focused on the task ahead. Now that she’d had a little time to recover and let her Skill take care of her, Astrid was ready to keep going.

“So. I’m assuming I’m not going to be getting any more wargs fed to me?” Astrid asked.

“Eh.” Lariche shrugged. “We probably still will. Matthias is off getting experience not too far off, and Calliope and Thomas helping him out. We’re doing what we were already planning on, just a little different and higher in the Dungeon.”

“Do the lower floors just have higher leveled monsters?” Astrid asked as she checked every buckle and strap on her helmet, shield, and armor.

“And there’s more of them.” Lariche confirmed. “But the Dungeon is experiencing a minor surge at the moment, so we’re making sure that there’s not too many monsters on the higher floors.”

The word “surge” sent a wave of fear down Astrid’s spine. “If there’s a surge happening, why are we in here?”

Willem shook his head. “Calling it a minor surge is an exaggeration and just untrue. This isn’t a surge, the Dungeon just has… tides, I guess you could call it. It’ll produce more monsters sometimes, and at those times, Grom is in here more frequently, and we delvers who are near the top of the level here take time to comb through the higher floors and make sure they’re not getting overrun. It was because we weren’t ready for the ‘high tide’ right now that you ran into that level 5 yesterday. That won’t happen again, because now we’re paying more attention and we’re culling the numbers, keeping them from ascending each floor, things like that.”

“Ok.” Astrid answered, still concerned. Even so, there was nothing she could do but cut off the seven ears of the wargs for her spoils, and then prepare to fight. As the bushes rustled and monsters approached, Astrid held her weapon and shield at the ready, and prepared herself for the oncoming waves of monsters.

***

The rest of the day passed in a blur of bone-shattering blows, desperate attempts to shield herself, and painfully learned lessons. Each warg was a new challenge, and each taught her more about how to use her Skills to kill monsters. At the end of the morning, with dozens of ears in her pouch, Astrid stumbled out of the Dungeon and, as she walked towards the town, took a look at her experience.

276/1,000

That… was too high! She’d gained almost 200 experience in a single day!

“That’s not going to happen again.” Thomas said as Astrid walked in shock. When she turned her exhausted gaze up to the Mage-Errant, he chuckled. “We stayed on the first floor all morning because we were culling the monsters. Even when we have someone keeping an eye on you from now on, we won’t be funneling experience and money to you. It was impressive though!”

The short man shrugged. His thick clothing almost resembled the gambeson Astrid had below her armor, quilted and somewhat armorlike, but his grimoire and wand kept her from taking it seriously as anything other than a presentation of his willingness to fight.

“I’m tired.” Astrid admitted. “I don’t think I could do this every day.”

“I kinda get it. I mean, I walk and cast spells while the frontliners and finishers get covered in blood and sweat. But it’s basically the same thing, right? Mana expenditure and fighting for your life?” Thomas smiled as he jokingly punched her shoulder. Well, he tried. She was so much taller than him that he couldn’t comfortably reach the shoulder, and his fist scraped along the chain mail of her sleeve. Somehow, the mage managed to tear the outermost layer of skin from his knuckles when he did so, and he blushed as he noticed. For the first time, Astrid considered Thomas not just as a fellow diver, but as man. Though short and generally without any notable musculature, his face was serious, and his jawline defined. As she took his hand in hers to look at the blood pooling between his fingers, her thick gloves served as an obvious contrast to his soft skin. She pulled the right glove free and twisted his hand back and forth to evaluate just how much he’d been injured.

“Tendons are fine.” She reported as she unbuckled her helmet to clear her view. “Not too much blood. I can wrap it if you’d like.”

“Orrrrr…” He drew the word out with a teasing tone. “I could just tell Lariche and she could heal me.”

Astrid blushed. Of course. The pretty Healer. “Yeah, that’s an option.”

“I don’t want to go with that option.” Thomas whispered conspiratorially as he leaned in. “Then I’ll have to explain that I somehow managed to injure myself while walking back to town. Kinda a bad look.”

The emotional whiplash had Astrid wondering what was going on. Instead of saying something that made sense, though, she nodded. “Yeah, having scarred knuckles is good.”

Thomas nodded slowly, entertaining the thought. “Yes. Yes it is. Better than inkstained and papercut, at least! After all, a Mage-Errant is to journey and fight monsters, isn’t he? To find beasts to slay and maidens to save! Or…” he trailed off as he looked up at Astrid, “perhaps maidens to be saved by? I’m amenable to both. Perhaps comrades in arms!”

Even as he said something like that, he didn’t hesitate, his mouth continuing to run as he continued joking in a way that made it obvious he genuinely saw Astrid as a potential friend. She enjoyed that, and walked to the inn while occasionally chiming in with her own observations or thoughts about what Thomas continued saying.