Chapter 32: Bored (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cbyCYGpjuoe99wPh_hr9vZG3tPuzv_U8SsuR6vvHIAM/edit?usp=sharing

--

Cayden didn’t realize that he could be simultaneously so tense and so bored.

They advanced slowly through the dungeon, sticking close to the barrier in case of any mistakes, only advancing close enough to any zepple for Andy to shoot it with her bow.

After the first dozen kills using this method, Cayden and Jerome stepped forward to aid in the kills with their spears, which would hopefully speed up their progress to something a bit faster than a crawl. Cayden lead the way, walking close enough to his target that its tentacles started twitching and the body began to drift in his direction. The rest of his teammates stood by, ready for whatever might happen.

The zepple moved faster after it had sensed Cayden than when it was simply drifting on the wind, but not so much faster as to catch him off guard. He waited patiently while the zepple approached, each bob bringing it slightly closer, until, when it was barely inside his spear’s range, he struck.

The membrane and even the core were both pitifully weak, and the zepple’s bobbing was easy enough to predict. The only stat that was truly of importance in this instance was dexterity: could Cayden hit the core on his first strike?

Luckily, dexterity was one of the stats boosted by [Spear Mastery], and the zepple died instantly. Jerome took care of the next zepple with his spear with similar efficiency, and soon enough their pace through the dungeon tripled with three of them killing zepples.

They never spread out too much, nor did they attack any zepples that were too far away from the edge of the dungeon. They were going to play it safe, as even the slightest mistake would cause an explosion that could force them to withdraw from the dungeon, keeping them tense and on their toes.

Yet still, Cayden was bored out of his mind.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing it, the rush of combat as he had engaged the ratlings in a desperate bid for survival. How much he had anticipated it in his return to a second dungeon. Yet now he was here, and all he was doing was repeatedly stabbing his spear at a slowly moving target the size of an apple. Sure, the risks and tensions were high, and each stab rewarded them with an experience crystal. But to Cayden it just felt like another day of training. Even worse, a day of ineffective training.

He hadn’t had enough experience to conclusively determine how the system determined skill growth, but Elise claimed danger was one of the factors that boosted it. But even with the potential danger the zepples represented, he couldn’t imagine that the system would reward his repetitive thrusts into their cores with a level in [Spear Mastery], much less with a stat gain or improvement in any of his other skills.

His teammates weren’t there to grow their skills, though; they were there to make a quick buck, and they were certainly accomplishing that. Even split five ways, Cayden suspected that he’d already made more from this run than he had gotten from the ratling dungeon. And as the team leader, he couldn’t let his boredom, of all things, dictate his actions.

Although…

He glanced back at Elise, who was in the process of recovering an experience crystal from one of the zepples shot by Andy.

If Elise wanted to get some experience with enchanting, they would need to leave the edges of the dungeon. Enchanting materials were seldom found close to the entrances of dungeons, which was why enchanters had to tag along with adventurer teams rather than simply waiting outside of the dungeon. Even for someone investing completely into agility, enchanting materials would lose their magical properties long before they could be carried out of a dungeon.

The entire purpose of Elise coming on this dungeon run was to get her the opportunity to try and enchant something. Without a successfully completed enchanted item, she was just some no-name F-ranked adventurer affiliate. But if she could prove that she was able to successfully enchant something worthwhile, there likely wouldn’t be a single team that wouldn’t be eager to take her on their next dungeon run. And as for the rest of his teammates, a good enchanted item would be worth more than what they could gain in hours of slowly killing zepples.

Decision made, he double-checked to make sure none of his teammates were preparing a strike on a zepple, and then raised his voice.

“Let’s group up closer and then turn to the center. See if we can’t find enchanting materials.”

The siblings and Elise all nodded and regrouped into a closer formation. Turning their attention away from the blue barrier, they slowly advanced to the center of the meadow, once more letting Andy kill any zepples in their path. Jerome and Cayden walked along the sides of their group and occasionally stepped away to kill any zepples that came too close to their flanks. They wouldn’t be able to maintain it forever with the zepples constantly drifting around, but they wanted to keep a clear path back the way they came for as long as possible.

Another thirty minutes passed as they moved in silence, only occasionally calling out a nearby zepple as a target or to slightly change their path. They steered away from larger congregations of the monsters as much as they could, slowly but surely making progress and filling Elise’s bag with crystals.

Until finally, it happened.

“Over there!” Elise called, pointing to their right. “I’m not sure if it’s enchanting materials, but it’s certainly different!”

Elise had learned the general skill [Mana Sight] in preparation for this delve, and had been intermittently activating the skill as they walked through the dungeon. The skill was a fairly popular one, as it could be used in everything from identifying casted skills to more precisely crafting potions to being better able to spot hidden monsters, but Elise was using it to hopefully detect enchanting materials. Which turned out to be a very wise decision.

They turned to the direction Elise pointed, killing two more zepples along the way, and Elise let out a squeal of excitement as they came upon a patch of grass that might have been slightly more green than the grass surrounding it.

“Verdant grass!” Elise called in excitement as she pulled out her soul notebook, flipping through the pages as she knelt in the dirt next to the patch. “I should be able to use this. I can use this.”

Cayden stared at the grass, waiting for any strange desire to take control of his body. When nothing happened, he stepped closer and surreptitiously ran his fingers through the tips of the tall grasses, once more waiting for something strange to happen.

Nothing.

“Circle up and kill any zepples that come close,” Cayden called, and the siblings followed his instructions. “How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked Elise.

Elise was carefully reading through one of the pages of her book, but she paused to glance up at Cayden. “I’m…not entirely sure. Once I start, I won’t be able to stop without losing it all, and it will finish when it finishes. Beyond that…” she hesitated and then shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Cayden stared at her for a few more seconds, then nodded. “Just focus on what you need to do. We’ll take care of any zepples.”

Then, with the rest of his teammates, Cayden returned his focus to his surroundings and to the zepples that drifted aimlessly all around.

--

Thirty minutes later, Cayden once again was battling boredom.

Wait, wait, and wait some more. Thrust. Wait. Look around to make sure the siblings were handling things on the other side of Elise. Wait, thrust. Move forward to collect experience crystals, then wait some more.

Behind him, Elise muttered under her breath as she continued to work, just the slightest backdrop of sound against the silence, the twang of Andy’s bow, and the whoosh of gasses escaping from dead zepples.

He was so bored, but he maintained his focus. By this point, he felt that he could kill zepples in his sleep, but he knew that to be false confidence. All it would take was one mistake, a single moment of inattention–

Behind him, he heard a strange hum, different from anything he had previously heard in the dungeon. And then a shout.

“OH–”

WHOOOMPH!

A wave of heat washed over his back and Duncan’s spear flew over his head as Cayden ducked. He turned in place.

Twenty yards away on the other side of Elise was a blackened sphere of burnt grass, only the edges still aflame. And just outside of the circle, Jerome lay on his back, his quilted leather armor blackened from the explosion. For a moment Cayden assumed the worst, only to breathe a sigh of relief as the air elemental raised a single hand and coughed, the translucent skin that normally contained his form wispy and amorphous.

That was probably one of his evasion skills he had claimed, likely a racial skill, and it might have saved him from an otherwise deadly encounter. Cayden hadn’t even stumbled from the blast, but he knew explosions got exponentially weaker the further from the source you went. Also on the other side of Elise, further than Jerome but closer than Cayden to the explosion, Xavier remained standing, though Andy had been knocked from her perch on his back.

“Are you okay?” Cayden called to Jerome, but then immediately returned his focus to their surroundings when he noticed the brother reaching for his belt on his own. If he was able to feed himself a healing potion, he would likely be fine, and they had more important things to worry about.

Around them for hundreds of yards in every direction, the tentacles of the zepples twitched towards the explosion. And then slowly, but faster than the previous movement of any of the monsters, they approached.

The path they’d carved through the monsters to get to the verdant grass had long since filled with randomly floating zepples, but they were less dense in that direction than in any other. As long as they were quick and didn’t make any more mistakes, they should be able to carve their way out before too many zepples closed in on the site of the explosion.

He glanced at Elise, who hadn’t even looked up from where she was fiddling with the grass.

Cayden was sure she had felt the explosion. Even [Focused Mind] wasn’t enough to ignore such a powerful external stimulus. But she remained focused on her work, trusting that Cayden and the siblings would protect her as long as possible, and pull her out if needed.

It was her first enchanting opportunity. Cayden was sure there would be many more in the weeks and months to come, that this wasn’t the end-all-be-all to her enchanting success. But this was her first. And Cayden knew she dearly wanted it to be a success.

Every second he hesitated, the zepples drifted closer. If he was going to make a decision, it had to be now.

“Stay with her!” he yelled out as he dashed to Elise’s backpack. On the other side, Jerome had finished off his health potion and was pulling himself back to his feet while Andy climbed back onto her bother’s saddle. All three of the siblings looked at Cayden confusedly at his words. With quick, sure movements, Cayden slipped his pouch of experience crystals from his belt and swapped it with another pouch in Elise’s backpack, this one containing only health potions. “If too many are still coming, pull her away! And put out those fires!”

Cayden stood and patted himself down, making sure he had everything he needed. He looked over his friend and temporary teammates one last time. And then, fighting the smile that threatened to spill onto his face, he dashed toward the closest group of approaching zepples.

Previous Chapter -- Next Chapter