The World Which Is

Brandon spreads dirt on the back of my armor. “Don’t worry, the webbing should dissolve in a few hours. This is just going to make sure you don’t stick to anything you lean against.”

Helen used fire to cut me down, starting at the edge of the web out of fear it would flash burn, but it proved surprisingly resistant. She managed to collect some using a telekinetic spell, as well as ash that was left behind, to study. She said that just about everything can be turned into spell ingredients once its properties are understood.

I have no idea how that works. Since the system runs everything, hasn’t it assigned everything already, and it’s just about querying it?

I move, pulling on the shoulder and there’s some resistance from the webbing, but not so much it’ll affect my fighting. My shield’s free of webbing, courtesy of Helen’s fire. My knife was used to cut the webbing from my arm, and that was cleaned by fire too.

“We good to go?” Brandon walks past the spider’s corpse without waiting for an answer and something registers.

“Aren’t we going to loot the body?”

Brandon gives me a disgusted look. “There’s no—” he looks at it. “Actually, go on, loot it.”

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. Unfortunately, I have to touch it to loot, so I take cautious steps, and access its inventory, ready to pull away, the moment my finger tip makes contact.

Dungeon Spider Corpse

Sticky spit

3

Spider Entrails

1

“What is that? Where’s the good stuff?” If I had a higher Zoology—or does this fall under cryptozoology?—skill, I could have gotten information on them. As it is, I’d have to take them out and look at them to trigger a perception check, and they look too disgusting to hold.

This doesn’t even count toward raising the relevant skill since I’m not in danger. All this fighting, and not even one point gain.

I look up as I feel Brandon’s gaze on me. “Sorry, what?” I have the sense he just stopped speaking.

“Did you learn anything from the system?”

“What? No, I was just…I was just lost in thoughts.”

“What you missed was me telling you that this is what you get in unexplored dungeons, so I’m not bothering with looting. Until people adventure in, for it to get ‘real loot,’ all you get is stuff that follows the theme. This is a wilderness dungeon, so it’s going to have ‘wilderness’ type loot. You know, stuff left over from animal dying. If we make it deep enough, there’s a chance we’ll get stuff like rough gemstones, maybe ores if those occur naturally in this area. But I doubt we’ll make it that deep.”

“Look at you,” Helen says, smirking. “Mister ‘I haven’t researched dungeons’ telling us how it’s going to be.”

“Like you,” he replies, irritated, “I listen to people talk. The clubs always have newbies looking for a shortcut to filling their research quests, and the older folks have no problem going on and on and on about what they know to them. Those people really like hearing themselves talk. What they’ll find in dungeons comes up often enough I ended up picking up a thing or two.”

“You mean from when you asked them, trying to complete those research quest faster?” she asked.

“But this is worth something, isn’t it?” I ask, before this escalates. I look at Helen. “You said everything can be used for spells, wouldn’t those count?”

“I am not touching them,” she replies, disgusted.

“I meant to sell.”

Brandon chuckles at his sister’s reaction. “The problem with that is finding someone willing to buy those. Those who need them can have that harvested from just about any animal or creature out there, so there are plenty of hunters doing trade in them. Again, deeper, you’ll get rarer stuff. Unless you have the skills to refine junk loot into something more valuable, you really don’t want to waste time with anything below the first treen.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry to shatter your illusions of wealth from just this one dungeon.”

“That’s not it,” I reply, offended at the implication. “It’s just that every story I’ve heard about adventuring usually has a dungeon making them rich at some point.”

“That one’s yours to answer, Silver,” Brandon replies with a chuckle, then walks ahead, joined by Helen.

Silver saddles up to me as I follow. “I’m going to let you in on a secret,” she says in a conspiratorial tone. “We’re always exaggerating stuff when we tell stories. It makes them more exciting.”

“I know. I mean, I really know. I just got caught up in the moment, I guess.” I try not to let on how foolish I feel.

“Hey, you’re allowed. You took down a big bad spider a treen minus meters in height, single-handedly.”

I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t that big, and you helped.”

“It will be when I sing about it, and all I did was play accompanying music.”

“Please don’t.”

“Stories have—”

“Don’t downplay your importance. If you hadn’t buffed me, it would have killed me.”

“I wasn’t….” She trails off.

“Just remember that you’re important to the team, even if the system’s stupid and doesn’t reflect that in how experience is distributed after a fight.”

She nods and I crank the light until we catch up to Brandon and Helen standing in another bifurcation.

“Like before,” Brandon says. “Me and Hel are going to check down that one to see if it turns back. You two stay here. I didn’t see signs of creatures as far as my light shines, so you’ll be fine.”

“If not,” I say, “I doubt they’re going to be tougher than that spider. Me and Silver can deal with them.”

He looks at me with what I think is pride, but Helen grabs his arm and pulls him away as he opens his mouth.

“Oh, please. Don’t encourage him,” she tells him. “He seems to have at least some common sense.”

I feel…I mean, it’s not like he’s my dad or anything, but he is a lot more experienced than I am at this, and it means something that he approves of how I’m dealing with this.

Bradon pulls his arms out of her hand with a nod, then looks over his shoulder, opening his mouth, and suddenly there’s a rock wall blocking the passage.

I rush to it, but an explosion from the other side makes me step back.

“Are you fucking insane, Hel?” Brandon yells, but his voice sounds like it’s coming through a meter of solid stone. “What if you’d brought all this down on us?”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Bran,” she replies. “Unlike you, I noticed everything’s stone now.”

“That back blast nearly fried me!”

“I’m sure none of your friend will care if you’re shy a few layers of skin. Unless you owe even that to them?”

“I you two okay?” I yell, stepping to the wall.

“Don’t get too close,” Brandon yells back. “My sister looks like she’d rather bring everything down on us than stay here with me.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to rejoin them and make sure they’re safe?” she demands. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re fine,” I reply, although Silver looks scared. “Can you really magic this out of the way?”

“Yes!”

“Not if you kill us in the process!” Brandon yells.

“I don’t see you doing anything!”

“Unlike you, Hel. I know my limits, and stone is well beyond it.”

“You’re just scare of—”

“Enough!” I yell, silencing them. “Yelling at each other isn’t helping. Helen, realistically, can you get rid of this wall?”

“Ye….” The pause stretches. “I don’t know,” she finally admits. “The wall’s stone, and by the way your voice sounds, I’m guessing there’s at a meter and a half of it. The most destructive spells I have are fire and electricity. Fire barely left a scorch mark. I doubt a lightning bolt will do more.”

“Brandon, how about you? Can you really not do anything?”

“Come on Dennis, do you really think I’d hold out if I had something that could take this away?”

I don’t say what my concern is, but Helen has no problem voicing it.

“Of course you would. If this was in your power, it’s exactly the kind of stupid thing you’d do, so they’d find themselves in danger and grow faster. You are such a selfish bastard that you’d—”

“That enough,” I say, although I can’t muster the strength to yell. So I’m surprised she stops. Silver looks about to panic. “Brandon, do you think that tunnel turns up and rejoins the branch we passed earlier?”

“I…don’t know. We’d have to check further in. My light doesn’t shine far enough to tell.”

“Okay. You two do that and come tell us. If it does, we’ll just backtrack and meet up, and we aren’t splitting up again.” And if it doesn’t…

“We’ll hurry and be back in a few minutes.”

I turn to Silver and hold her shoulders. “It’s going to be fine,” I say in as confident a voice as I can.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispers. “I’m not made for this. I’m just a musician.”

“Breathe, Silver. You aren’t going to die. I’m sure that Brandon’s going to be back with good news. Then we’ll rejoin with them and we won’t split up again, just like I said. All we have to do is wait here for them to come back.”

She nods, and her breathing slows. “I’m sorry. I just….”

“It’s okay. I guess you never thought you’d be quite this close to one of the stories you sang about.”

Her chuckle’s nervous. “And didn’t I say this is exactly what I wanted? To have songs of my own?”

“I get the feeling you meant more like song of people you saw putting their lives in danger, rather than being the one….” Okay, better not finish that.

“I guess I thought I’d stick to the sidelines. Where it’s safe.”

“Dennis!” Brandon calls through the wall, and I can already tell this isn’t good news. “I have bad news.”

I try to crush that kernel of excitement at the news as I pull Silver against me.

We are on our own. We don’t have anyone to keep us safe anymore.

We are in actual danger.