Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 8 preview (Patreon)

The seventh floor of the main Haeros dungeon complex was a mist-laden place, a massive cavern with rolling hills, sparse and brambly bush and worn pathways that traversed the valleys between the hills and the occasional footpath upwards. There were numerous stone buildings at the top of caverns, overlooking the hills in a variety of states and degrees of complexity. Some were formed from shattered rock stacked together in a makeshift hut, others had mortar or clay utilized to stick the works together, whilst the largest – and more often, inhabited – dwellings might be full-on houses, with carefully cut stones and walls all around “their” land.

“So you’re saying that there are people, living their lives here? Whole villages?” I said, once again to clarify the matter.

“Yes. There was a whole town on the first floor, why would a series of villages – really, hamlets – be that surprising?” Brand said, looking at me puzzled.

“Because there are monsters down here?” I said, gesturing around. The cry of the ubiquitous goat-analogue creatures rose up around us. The group shifted, tightening our formation as the first of the creatures appeared over the rise with their weird, six-legged, stumbling gait that looked clumsier than they truly were.

Stubby-faced with nearly no neck, their body and face both connected more like a lizard’s than a herbivorous creature that needed its neck to feed on bushes for the majority of their diet. Like goats, though, they would eat everything they could get their hands on – their mouths a carnivorous and herbivorous mixture of sharpened teeth at the front and flat, chewing molars at the back.

They even had the multiple gut feature of cows in our world, which was a good thing, since the vegetation around here was all kinds of brambly and thorny and probably had very low nutritional value. Though, from what I’d learned, there was a high chance that a high percentage of the energy needed to run a body was actually pulled in from the surrounding core itself, rather than food.

Still, it was only a high percentage, not entire, which meant that the bramble goats ate constantly, but were always on the lookout for more dense caloric sources. That came in the form of the minotaurs or other dungeon monsters that ventured lower at times to reach the core, or the occasional creatures pushed upwards from lower floors, unable to compete, as well as the various other lower-leveled denizens of this floor. That included a variety of pesky monsters, from brightly colored, poisonous, buzzing insects half the size of a hand, to lurking flatfish in pools, to the squishy, mollusc-like trap plants that hid amongst the brambles and tugged in those that ventured too close.

In fact, our first encounter with one of those had been via the sight of the last quarter of a still-kicking bramble goat as it was tugged deep into the thorns, tearing itself apart and slowly bleeding to death as the bramble traps held them close.

Now, we were staring at a small pack of the bramble goats, spreading out with their tough hides, razor fur and slightly insane-looking eyes, lips peeled back to showcase too many canines. A second row of needle-sharp teeth lay right behind as it opened its mouth wider and I shuddered, grateful the others were taking them on.

Kira’s wisps were the first to go forwards, two hanging around near us rather than darting away, to ensure we had enough light to fight by. The other two went for the first creature in the front, since it would take at least that many to keep it distracted.

Sophia slipped her own mirrored fractals in the way, managing to get lucky as the bramble goat stumbled into it and sliced a whole foot off. It let out a long shriek, more upset than in pain – damn things had a ridiculous pain threshold since they had to eat the brambles – and kept charging forwards. We knew by now that she likely had it sorted, though I edged forward to deal with the monster if it did manage to reach us.

In the meantime, both Brand and Yorrick bounded upwards to take on their own attackers. Yorrick was a touch more careful having been bitten by one of the creatures and having had to heal up the large chunk of muscle that he’d lost in his thigh from that attack. He led with his shield, bashing the monster’s head aside and stabbing constantly while Brand kept the other off his friend’s back, battering the creature around with his sword and leaving long, thin wounds across its face.

Dangerous as they might be, the goats weren’t particularly difficult for the team, not outnumbered as they were. I didn’t even have to get involved, instead keeping a close eye on the surroundings since the goats could – and did – come to the sound of battle.

A couple of frantic minutes later, and the battle was over. The smell of cooking goat – and it really did smell that way – filled the air, and Brand took the cue to slice off some choice parts for us. There was no reason not to eat, what with an easy heat source and cooking flame on hand, and it meant we could move and chew. With so many monsters, we could take the best parts too and leave the rest to be dealt with by others.

We couldn’t hang out too long, or else the goats that were attracted to the battle would begin to swarm.

“How do you live like this?” I muttered.

“Warding stones around the houses, tunnels between residences and properly built doors and gates,” Sophia answered. “It’s not what I’d choose, but many who come down here are either escaping from something above or truly believe in the freedom of the dungeon.”

“Some of them are Coreists for sure,” Yorrick said. “There’s always preachers asking for converts to come down. A few cult compounds around here…” He gestured about. “Once you join, you don’t get to leave either. It’s why you don’t talk to them, as a kid.”

“Rumors are, sometimes if the numbers drop too much, they don’t exactly ‘ask’ anymore,” Brand added. “Especially if you can show a signed wedding certificate or bridal sale.”

“That’s… disturbing.” Not surprising. It took us until the twentieth century or so before child abuse laws were in play on Earth, never mind the way arranged marriages were still a thing in some areas. Heck, even in the West, the jokes of passport bros and bringing over trophy wives never stopped, then there was the volume of US army personnel who brought back their “submissive” Asian wives.

If anything, we were lucky that widespread slavery was not the norm here, not with the way the control of skills were important. The amount of money that a particularly gifted skill user could bring was staggering, even if they were not delvers.

It was mostly the establishment of delvers, their power and their ability to come back and deal with those who were pushing things too far, that kept people in check. Also, the difficulty in stopping someone like, say, Brand from going out of his way and ending your life if he really wanted it to.

Of course, that wasn’t to say there weren’t cities that took slavery or enforced serfdom and adjusted the rules. Those who could delve, who had powerful skills – or learnt how to use their skills in a good way – were gifted their freedom and other slaves by the state, making them co-owners, while giving each slave a chance and opportunity at freedom themselves.

Made for a nasty system, or so I understood it, at least from the rumors I’d heard. Of course, the exact details and how it played out, well… I would have to journey to the western cities to find out. Or, you know, not.

“We try to stamp it out, but the cults have enough supporters and the dungeon is… well…” Brand trailed off.

“The dungeon.” Which meant that laws from the city above didn’t really extend all the way down. Theoretically, of course, you weren’t supposed to kill others, and you weren’t allowed to break the basic laws. But theory kind of fell by the wayside of the simple expedience of practicality – there was no one around to enforce the laws.

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Kira said, accepting a cooked piece of basically sirloin – the cut near the back legs – to eat. “We got a lot of ground to cover.”