Dungeon Salvation

His parents had expected Elias to be home last night. Instead, he arrived the morning after, looking dirty as all hell and barefoot. They had already shown surprising restraint in waiting for him to take a shower before sitting him down to talk. Most likely, it was so he wouldn’t dirty the rest of the house.

Sighing, he sat down on the bed in between them and gave them a pitying look, hoping to at least stall out this conversation until after he rested. His father just chuckled while his mother narrowed her eyes, arms crossed.

“Eli, care to explain why you didn’t get back home last night? Your mother didn’t even sleep waiting for you. Now, imagine our surprise when not only did you not return, but we got a visit from two police officers instead,” said his father.

Elias winced at that, he didn’t think the police would come by so soon. He also hadn’t expected that his mom would wait up for him, and he said so.

“I’m sorry mom, I didn’t think you would be waiting for me to come back home like that. As for the police officers…” Elias then recounted what had happened to his parents. Unlike when he told the story to Melinda’s party earlier, he left nothing out this time around.

He recounted how proud and happy he was at gaining points in Vitality and how disheartened he’d been when ambushed. He spoke of his anger and frustration, of the promise he made in the dungeon Temple. His mother gave him a soft hug of reassurance and they stayed in silence for a while.

Of course, he made no mention of his promise to find and beat up his aggressor when the opportunity presented itself. He didn’t think his parents would approve of that tidbit.

“I’m proud of you for remaining resolute, son. The dungeon is a source of many wonders and opportunities, but is also filled with many dangers. Too often, other adventurers can be just as dangerous as the dungeon’s creatures, if not more. I doubt this will be the only setback you'll face in your journey, so it can only be a good thing if you come out stronger for it,” said Peter. The look in his fathers eyes spoke of sympathy, of having experienced the same pain he felt. He continued speaking after remaining quiet for a while, letting his words sink in.

“That being said, you should have come back home after the robbery. Your mother and I have trained you ourselves and we know we didn’t teach you to be this thoughtless. The dungeon is not a playground, for you to go have fun in. If you want to be a professional adventurer, you need to take this seriously, and that means thinking analytically, not emotionally. You went back there tired and angry, and that’s exactly how accidents happen.” This time, his father's words took on the exasperated tone of an instructor.

“Exactly, even though the starter zone is safe for the most part, the rest of the dungeon is most definitely not. Building such dangerous habits now may cost you your life in the deeper levels. You promised us you would be careful. Please Eli, we would be devastated if something were to happen to you. We worry, so the least you could do is keep us informed when something like this happens,” his mother said softly.

Elias stayed quiet for a while, not knowing how to respond, his eyes glued to the floor in guilt and embarrassment. He mumbled another apology and promised to keep them better informed in the future.

It warmed his heart that his parents still supported him so much, only wanting to be a part of what he was going through. They didn’t try to solve his issues for him or condemn him for making a mistake. Having said what they needed to say, he was left alone to rest and think over their words.

Despite the heartfelt conversation, he didn’t even remember going to sleep.

*******

“Wake up Eli! Mom said that lunch is ready.” Elias woke up with his cute little sister shaking him.

He briefly wondered what it said about his adventuring career that ever since he started, he’d been shaken awake twice as many times as he went to sleep. Hopefully, this wouldn’t become a theme.

“I’m awake Bel, now get out of my room,” he moaned out, annoyed. When she didn’t stop shaking him, he tried to grab her wrists, but she quickly let go and tried to run away.

Not one to waste an opportunity, he quickly wriggled and turned in bed until he was in a seated position. Pulling his pillow behind his back, he aimed and threw it at Isabela’s retreating back with all the strength he could muster. The soft pillow connected and forced her to jerk forward slightly with a yelp.

“Ha ha, you’re so weak! That didn’t even hurt!” Despite her words, his sister did not stop running away. She even took his pillow with her.

She shut the door to his room with a bang, muffling the sound of her footsteps speeding towards the living room. Soon after, he heard a thud, quickly followed by a high pitched “ouch!”. Now that drew a smile from him.

He arrived at the living room a few minutes later to find his mother placing plates of food on the table while his father set out the plates and silverware. His sister was pouting while holding a bag of ice to her forehead.

“Hey Bel, why are you holding that ice to your forehead?” He asked with a mocking smile. She glowered and mumbled that she hit her head on the door frame. He smirked.

“Oh really? Well, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t run around the house like that,” he said. The comment did, of course, begin a round of bickering between the siblings, which only stopped as lunch was served.

His sister’s drama aside, lunch was a quiet enough affair. His mother had made carbonara pasta and it was delicious. The sauce was thick and heavy with cheese, with plenty of cut sausages and bacon bits.

It always impressed him how effective a good meal was at enforcing peace in a household. It probably had something to do with everyone being too busy eating to speak. Unfortunately, all good things came to an end, and Isabela eventually finished eating.

“Eli, where’s your machetes? Dad said he’ll teach me how to use them. You promised to let me use them when you weren’t,” said Bel. She said that in a semi-accusing way, as if she expected him to renege on his promise. She looked a bit vulnerable too, which surprised him.

Elias winced slightly, thinking on how to explain that he couldn’t let her borrow the blades, since he didn’t actually have them anymore. He opted to try a distraction.

“How about I tell you how my first day went instead, Bel? You can play with the machetes another day,” he offered, praying that she would take the bait.

“Yes! I’ll get the ice cream. Hmm, can I have some ice cream mom? It’s just this once. Please, please, please?” His sister asked, looking at his mother pleadingly. She went all out with the puppy eyes too, even holding her hands together as if in prayer.

“Sure honey, just this once,” answered Vivian, with a doting smile. Elias was immediately suspicious. That had been way too easy. He realized then that this was Isabela’s angle from the start.

The curiosity must be killing her, huh?

While his sister was always energetic and rambunctious, today she seemed even more restless than usual. He even suspected that his parents didn’t actually ask her to wake him up for lunch.

This time, he told an ever so slightly dramatized version of the story. The narrative followed a more exciting and adventurous tone, while remaining truthful to the facts. At least, that is what he told himself.

In truth, he was lying through his teeth about most of it. The parts that were true, were also heavily exaggerated. Even though he pretended not to care, he really wanted to be admired by his little sister.

That level 10 Hanging-Tree Sapling turned into a level 15 tree monster. Its vines crackled with lightning mana and even the slightest touch could paralyze a grown man.

Similarly, he omitted any and all aspects of his hunt that painted him in a bad light. His undignified ambush by said sapling, almost being bit by a small alligator fish monster while taking a bath, and most importantly, getting all his stuff stolen. He either ‘forgot’ to mention them or told a story completely dissociated from the facts. It helped that his sister had been sleeping when he returned.

Telling his story for the third time definitely helped put some of his experiences into perspective. It really was just like many other adventuring stories he’d heard along the years. He doubted the more embarrassing details made it into the final versions of those stories.

In a moment of poetic inspiration, he even thought to liken the difficulties he faced with the trials of the dungeon. Only through overcoming challenges can there be progress.

Struggling against adversity is the price of growth. When life came to collect, he would pay the tithe gladly. At the exact point in his train of thought that he was getting full of himself, his sister spoke.

“At what point did you get robbed?” Asked Isabela innocently. Elias groaned and looked at his parents accusingly. They shrugged and said that she must have overheard them talking about it at breakfast. He then looked to his sneaky, sneaky little sister and glared.

He did not deign to answer her trap of a question and just started to get ready to leave for the dungeon again. Like his mother had said, habits were the most important thing for adventurers.

Although he had gotten excited due to his fast leveling, grinding is akin to a marathon, not a race. As he was about to leave, he spotted his father waiting for him at the door, his face stoic.

“Well, well, now where do you think you’re going?” Peter looked at him with raised eyebrows, as if trying to understand how his child could be so dimwitted.

“Hmm, I was going to the dungeon… Don’t worry, I’ll stay on the outskirts until I get my stuff back, I promise.” He meant it too.

“I think you’re misunderstanding something, Eli, you’re not going. Vivian and I had a talk about what you told us and we agree with the spirit, if not the execution, of your actions. You’re a man now and you shouldn’t rely on items or weapons to get by. So, here’s what we will do to help.” Peter then explained the plan he and his mother had concocted.

Every other day, instead of going to the dungeon and grinding monsters for experience, he would train with his parents. They’d be training him in hand-to-hand combat exclusively until he reached level 10. In fact, he was as of now forbidden from using any weapons in the dungeon until he gained his Skills. Apparently, this was already in line with the training they had planned for him, except now they wouldn’t wait until he had Skills to begin.

Officer Priscilla came back by the house when he was sleeping. The man who robbed him had turned himself in and would be serving a light sentence. Apparently, he didn’t even have a gun, only a device that made a sound similar to a gun cocking, much to Elias’ embarrassment. Still, his parents confiscated his returned equipment, only to be returned when he reached level 10.

Peter and Vivian deemed his decision of heading to the core regions of the newbie zone as a sign of over-reliance on equipment. It was his first day and he should have stayed in the outskirts for a few days at the very least, before heading deeper.

“The monsters of the newbie zones are really weak, dad. What kind of adventurer would I be if I couldn’t even beat those?” He argued, frowning.

Most people didn’t even consider the place to be part of the dungeon in truth, just a place to safely gather exp. Those that stayed in the outskirts were typically too weak to go any deeper. How would he join a good party if everyone continued to think he was weak?

He knew how to fight and was good at it too. His abilities should improve exponentially now that his low attributes would be catching up to his peers’. He would finally be able to properly leverage his superior combat skills and show his worth.

“It’s not about being weak or strong, Eli. The starter zone is a place for you to develop and test the strategies that will get you through the other zones of the dungeon. What do you think would have happened if you did the same thing in a Novice ranked zone? You would have died! You will have to kill more monsters to gain exp but that’s also a good thing as it will give you more time and experience,” his father explained in an admonishing tone.

Elias didn’t have a rebuttal to the argument and simply nodded in acceptance. For the foreseeable future, it seemed like he would be a pugilist.

At first, Elias was elated with how his training was going. It was the first time he trained with his father after raising his Vitality and the improvements were apparent. Strikes that would have given him pause before now barely made him wince.

That is, until his father realized his mistake and quickly rectified it, increasing the strength behind his strikes until they were sufficiently strong once more. He caught the look of pride in his father’s eyes, however, and couldn’t help but puff his chest out slightly.

Peter punched, he blocked. He kicked, but it was pushed aside. On and on they went in a rhythmic cycle.

They’d done this many times before and it was hardly a challenge for him anymore, unless they sped up more. They would set a slow rhythm and trade blows over and over to train his reaction over certain blows, like a game of tic-tac-toe. Then, his father did something he had never done before and Elias was completely lost.

He wasn’t faster than before, the blows weren’t stronger, or more complex, but the subtle change made it hard for him to follow along. The movements were even slower than they had been just a moment before and it was still harder to keep up. Peter motioned for him to stop and they both paused in their sparring.

“I taught you once before that fighting is like a game of strategy. You move, your opponent moves. A game of action and reaction. Today, we’ll be introducing another aspect to that game, rhythm and timing.” His father paused for a moment to let what he had said sink in, then continued. “The movements and techniques, actions and reactions, give the power and initiative in a fight. After all, it is all about hitting your opponent as hard as you can, where it hurts. If you can exchange a punch to the side for a punch to the face consistently, you’ll win. If you can hit harder, you’ll have the advantage, and the right techniques give more power to your hits. However, it is through rhythm and timing that you can control a fight.”

Peter walked Elias through a few different rhythms that he would be switching into during their spar. They started once more in the monotonous rhythm they were in before, but at a much slower pace. Punch, block. Punch, punch. Block, block.

The rhythm changed like a musician changing songs midway through a chorus. He stumbled and took a hit, but kept going, thankful his dad had toned down the power behind his punches. He stumbled for a few more seconds and started to assimilate to the new rhythm. Punch, block, punch. Block, punch, punch.

It was all about the hip movements and a pretty simple concept in theory, but hard to execute. The greatest difficulty lay in switching the way he was already used to moving. Usually, sparing is like playing rock or pop music. Although there are many different rhythms out there, most songs are in 4/4 time. In fighting, it's the side-to-side dance. 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2. It’s a simple and elegant hip movement, cycling between right and left like one of those Hawaiian bobblehead dolls. Now, it was like the doll was forced to move twice to the right for every left, and you kept expecting that left that never came. 1,1,2. 1,1,2.

They continued like that for a long while and every time that he’d just gotten used to a certain rhythm, his father would switch it up once more. They took many rests between sessions, but went back and forth like that until the sun started to set.

By the end of training, he was beginning to get used to the different rhythms. He still stumbled during the transitions often, taking hits, but could now follow his father in the complex dance if they moved slowly enough.

“Alright, we’ll stop here for today, but I hope you can appreciate the importance of controlling the rhythm in a fight. It’s much easier to win when you know when your opponent is going to strike and they don’t know when you will.” With that, they both went to take a bath and get ready for dinner.

This time, dinner was a quiet affair during and after the meal. His little sister had thankfully tired herself out after eating large amounts of ice cream in the afternoon. He was also tired from his long training session, compounded by the lack of sleep from the night before.

He felt Kitty brush against his leg as he was eating, realizing that he hadn’t seen her all day. He must’ve been so tired that he hadn’t even noticed her sleeping the afternoon away somewhere. He sneakily fed her a piece of his chicken when nobody was looking, using the opportunity to pat her a few times while she ate it.

After dinner, he prepared his things for his dungeon delve tomorrow before going to sleep. He wouldn't be taking much with him this time around since the only thing his parents returned to him was his energy card. They said that he looked ridiculous walking around with all his energy crystals in his pocket.

At least he wouldn’t need to walk around without any shoes anymore. It wasn’t even that he disliked being barefoot, but it was incredibly annoying to clean up afterwards. The soles of his feet were the color and texture of humus when he got home this morning. He had to scrub them for several minutes until they could be considered clean in any way. He also kept stepping on bits of wood and small rocks, which he was glad to avoid now.

It was annoying having to go to the dungeon without his supplies, but he knew this was for the best. The expeditions of high level adventurers could last for weeks, or even months. It was better for him to learn how to get by with little now, than not know how to later.

Elias woke up late the next morning and left for the dungeon after breakfast. He pondered on his strategy for effectively grinding exp as he walked. He decided to arrive at the dungeon around lunch time, having stuffed himself with food as much as physically possible at home. Then, he would remain there until late at night or until he got too tired, or hungry.

The outskirts of the dungeon were actually much harder to hunt at, especially in the morning, because there were a lot more people there. More people meant fewer monsters. The number of people grinding in the zone tapered out throughout the day, as those who didn’t wish to become full-time adventurers left to go elsewhere. Few people remained after lunch time.

Many people even chose to save up money to pay for stronger adventurers to help them level faster. They would kill monsters much stronger than they would otherwise be capable of, gaining large amounts of exp quickly. Even then, that strategy was only effective up to level 20. Afterwards, lacking Skill masteries would bottleneck their progression.

With a smile on his face, Elias arrived in the newbie zone once more.