Dressed to kill 14 (Patreon)

I couldn’t just walk past the guard. There’s no story that would talk my way out of it. I was out of health, mana, and options, pinned in the dungeon. And I desperately wanted a shower and my bed, the ash sticky and pressed onto me, my lungs heaving and desperate for air. I wanted to see my mom again.

Could I even survive in here?

I started walking out of the Dungeonheart, my ankles and lungs aching, occasionally coughing as I walked. Once the dungeon closed, as it did every night, days would pass inside. The [Farmers] who lived in our village used that to their advantage, using the wide open ranges of the first floor of the dungeon to grow a huge amount of crops year round.

Fields stretched out before me in a dead quiet night. I had never focused on it before to see how unnatural it was. There were no small animals or insects stirring in the dark, which let the sound of the distant river and irrigation canals wash over the landscape.

I walked toward the water until I saw its reflection in the moonlight. Then I sunk to my knees and grabbed at it, drinking water as fast as I could, trying to wash away the ache in my throat. Finally, I collapsed by the shore. At least I wouldn’t freeze I closed my eyes and reached out to open my system, praying that I would get some kind of skill or level to get me out of the dungeon unseen.

[Skill Shop]

►Mending I

[COMMON] Allows user to repair clothing from patterns they are unfamiliar with. Additional levels increase quality of final product.

►Unweaving I

[UNCOMMON] Grants user the ability recycle items into base materials

►Thread Sensing I

[RARE] Grants user a metaphysical sense of threads they are connected to, allowing them to see where they are through walls and what is in contact with them. Additional levels allow farther sensing. Grants Thread Mastery I

Nothing. There was nothing that could help me. I groaned. Was it too much to ask for bonus mana? If I was a noble I would’ve had a free attribute point to dump into my Willpower and increase my pool. I kept reading.

►[Rare] Factory Workers Coverall Pattern (Intermediate)

Grants large bonus to Constitution. Inflicts penalty to perception. Grants set bonus based on craft quality and materials used.

►[Uncommon] Miner Pattern (Basic)

Grants minor bonus to Perception and Constitution. Grants bonus to mining skills depending on craft quality and materials used.

►[Rare] Shell Dress Pattern (Advanced)

Grants bonus to Speed and Dexterity. Grants minor bonus to Perception. Inflicts minor penalty to Constitution and Strength. Grants set bonus skill based on craft quality and materials used.

My eyes stopped on the last option. It wouldn’t solve any of my immediate problems, but from my understanding, the system wouldn’t offer patterns you couldn’t get the material for. So what did it mean by shell?

We didn’t have crabs here. There was no ocean on any floor of the ocean I had seen. So this must have been a spider shell dress that granted a set bonus. It was far stronger than anything else I had seen, and a logical next step. It wouldn’t help me escape, though. I selected it and stood back up, examining the fields. There were rows of growing wheat swaying in a soft wind.

It wasn’t as if I could just magic up a loaf of bread. And I didn’t have a knife to make wolf meat. Farther down the path were more recently planted root plants. I dropped to my knees and pulled one out. They were like carrots but baby blue. I brushed the dirt from them.

These were half grown and stumpy. Normally they had a soft, sweet flavor. I bit into one. My teeth didn’t carve all the way through. It was rock hard. I groaned. Maybe I could order some mana potions from the next round of merchants. Come to think of it, I never asked how much money we earned from our work order. Maybe I could’ve bought a mana potion earlier. I groaned.

All I needed was a long rest to recover my mana. I propped myself against a tree and closed my eyes.

Sleep refused to find me. The sun rose in the dungeon while I was still wandering the floor. In deeper floors or higher level dungeons, there would be the kinds of herbs that were needed to make potions or rarer materials. I heard that instead of Farmland, the dungeon of Foundry contained mines. Here there was almost nothing.

The gigantic moon above fell and the sun rose in its place, perfectly on the opposite side. Despite the illusion of being real, this dungeon was fake, propped up by magic and forced into existence. Exhaustion made me weary. Out of curiosity and boredom I walked to the exit. The dungeon gate that normally showed a wavy image of the village instead showed a flickering image. One moment it showed a forest on fire. Then a town made of black rock and filled with purple fog.

It wasn’t like it was closed.

I ground down the baby blue carrots as I explored every inch of the dungeon. The wolves had yet to respawn, though the dead ones were melting away. I didn’t want to sleep anywhere near the Dungeonheart. The deeper portal was open, showing that the floor had reset. A canopy of leaves danced in the wind. The deeper portal would reset three times before I left, not that I would risk clearing that floor alone again.

I almost died.

There was nothing much else to do. I sat in a field, feeling the soft warmth of the artificial sunlight pouring down on me. I woke from sleep to find the sun low, blinking myself awake, still exhausted and now covered in dirt.

My system snapped open before I had the fully conscious thought that I wanted to see it.

[Gwendolyn Tailor][Human, Lv7][Seamstress]

[Health: 8/10][Mana: 10/10][XP: 0/10]

[ATTRIBUTES]

►SPD: 10 ►WIL: 5

►STR: 5 ►DEX: 22

►CON: 5 ►PER: 16

[SKILLS]

►Crafting I ►Running Stitch I

►Hand Spinning I ►Thread Mastery I

►Wardrobe II ►Quick Change I

[PATTERNS]

►[Hunter Pattern] ►[Shell Dress Pattern]

[RESISTANCES]

►Shadow: 5

[TEMPORARY SKILLS]

►[Bow Proficiency I] ►[Shadow Cloak I]

My lungs ached less. A long rest restored half of my health and worked at restoring my aching ankles too. I would still need to do some work to bring my clothing set all the way to max.

Still, I couldn’t leave yet. I waited until the exit opened before finally activating [Shadow Cloak] and slipping by the guard. Days passed in the dungeon, but outside, it had only been an hour. I wasn’t eager to repeat the camping experience. Mud and ash warred for positions on my clothes and skin. I placed my clothes into my Wardrobe and retrieved them one at a time until they were all clean before rushing home and collapsing into bed.

I woke to someone violently shaking my shoulder. Smacking at the hand, I blinked away my sleepiness.

“Gwen?” Sandy asked, looming over me. Mom was in the doorway, wringing her hands.

“Yeah.” I said, blinking away sleepiness.

Sandy threw a look back to Mom, face full of concern, then she looked back at me.

“You didn’t show up to the thing today.” Sandy said.

Bleary eyed, I looked out the window. It was evening already.

Sandy ate a meal with us. The conversation at the table was stiff and quiet. Mom left a little while after I woke up. Then we headed to Sandy’s workshop.

We had piles of leather from the earlier clears. I reached to grab a piece to work on. I needed to get Sandy’s stealth skill. My hands still shook thinking about the second floor.

“So? Did it open?” 

“Yeah. And I almost died.” I said with a grimace.

“What?” Sandy asked with a scoff. “The monsters there can’t be that much of a threat, can they?”

“No. I uh, dropped the lantern.”

“Oh. Are you alright?” Sandy asked.

I grimaced again. She changed the subject.

“What’s the second floor?” 

“A forest with giant spiders.”

“How giant?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Dog sized?” I stopped and stared at the piece of leather in my hand. There was a mental pull for which direction I wanted to move on Sandy’s set, now that I had two patterns. The pattern of the Shell Dress pushed at me. Memories of viable materials for it washed over my mind. It needed leather and cloth still. String. And then shell. I saw a few different types used.

I had been borrowing much of that material from mom’s workshop to complete the previous patterns, but there was a limit on how much I could steal before we needed to start buying things.

Crab. Turtle. Giant, monstrous armadillo shell. Or chitin. The spider’s exoskeleton would work.

“Not too bad then.” Sandy said, chewing her lip. “Be careful Gwen. Don’t push yourself.”

“What?” I asked, shocked, and looking up from the piece of work I had in hand. Sandy had been the more aggressive between the two of us on pushing more floors and clearing more of the dungeon. But today she suddenly stepped backwards.

“I just mean — don’t die.” She said, looking at me sincerely.

“I wont. I can’t yet.”

I worked into the night. There was no mana to spend, which meant every stitch had to be done by hand. Step by step, I continued work on Sandy’s clothing set.

[Hunter Pattern][Ragged(0%)][60% complete]

[Tacca II]

►[Cloak: 100%][98% Shadow Aspect][+2 skill shard]

►[Outer Shirt: 100%][95% Shadow Aspect][+2 skill shard]

►[Inner Shirt: 2%][1% Shadow Aspect][+2 skill shard]

►[Pants: 100%][98% Shadow Aspect][+2 skill shard]

►[Shoes: 0%][0% Shadow Aspect][+2 skill shard]

[Projected Skills]

►[Shadow Cloak I] ►[Random Hunter Proficiency I]

I paused and looked up at Sandy.

“If I brought my equipment in, I could probably use the accelerated time in the dungeon to finish the rest of your outfit in a night.”

Sandy looked up from a book she was reading on her bed, considering it seriously.

“No. The mayor will leave in a few days.” Sandy kicked her legs off the side of her bed and stood up. “How much experience were the spiders worth?”

“Four for the one I killed.” I replied. “But I leveled up right away.”

Sandy nodded like she expected that.

“How…” I asked, then paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the question. “How deep do you need to go?”

Sandy grimaced.

“I’m not sure. It’s not like she took me with her. It’s dangerous no matter how skilled you get. You can clear the dungeon perfectly a thousand times. You only have to mess up once. A tiny trip. A slip. Health points protect you. But its not like we can raise our constitution much. My dad did what he could.” Sandy’s face soured. “Specialized meals to raise stats. Took him entire days to cook sets of the stuff.”

Sandy grabbed a bag from the workshop table and started heading outside. I put down the piece I was working on and followed her.

Around back was a huge dilapidated pen she had started repairing, a wooden fence that used to house animals for her mom to butcher. Now it just had Cinnamon.

Sandy pushed the door open and the dog ran out, jumping up to her.

“Who’s a good boy?” Sandy asked, scratching the dog behind the ears.

What felt like months ago the caravan guards of the priest had found the dog in the woods and given it to Sandy. It was huge, its body covered in cinnamon-orange fur with white swirls through it. The dog licked Sandy’s face and she laughed.

“He is growing kinda fast.” I said, bending down and petting him. He turned his affections to me. My eyes lingered on his claws. They were huge and ivory white. The dog already rose to my knees — it was a puppy so recently.

“He probably has a little bit of wolf in him.” Sandy said with a shrug. “He’s friendly. It’s okay.”