Aeres Academy - Chapter 14 preview

Emerging from the depths of the fault into daylight – fading as it might be – made me squint and my eyes to water. I shuffled to the right, out of the way of other laggards – not that I noticed any as I jogged back and up the staircase – and waited for my eyes to adjust. 

Ascending after a short break to strip, loot and package the gear from my three opponents, had been mostly uneventful. I’d faced a couple of scavengers and opportunistic attacks; worms, a jumping insect that squished well and a dirty, disheveled knocker had been the biggest dangers that were unavoidable. I assumed it was the sheer mass of blood and viscera on me, the smell of both my blood and the creatures I had cut open that attracted the creatures.

Late into the day, with so many aspirants pursuing their entrance fees, even the most recalcitrant monsters had either died or hidden themselves away. Later, in a few hours, the true predators, the creatures that hunted the weak and tired, the ones injured by the fighting would emerge. As much as we liked to think we were the nastiest fellas around, there were always roaming apex predators, the ones who picked the weak out at night.

Best for us to leave, before they emerged.

Yes, I know underground there should not be a day-night cycle, and yet – there was. It was, I assumed, more a predator-prey cycle that has shifted due to our own presence and timing, creatures forced into the same kind of schedule over the hundreds of years of hunting on our side.

Or perhaps there were other reasons. The turning of the core, perhaps. Subtle changes in Mana density. Again, not a dungeon biologist. 

All that being said, the biggest delays came from having to stop and offer aid. First, there were a trio of aspirants on the second floor who were caught in a swarm attack. I almost chose not to join the fight – the xael wasp were a bad match up for my current fighting style – but considering how close the three were from being overwhelmed, I had little choice if I wanted to sleep better.

Not well – I was not fooling myself I was going to be sleeping well any time soon. 

I walked out of that with only four more shards – as I said, not a good match up – and my vault significantly lower. The only good news I had was the small notification I received, after having been stung – and cleansed – of the venom repeatedly.

Aesp Venom Resistance Increased – 11%

Venom Resistance Increased – 0.008%

The first line was a resistance to the very specific venom within the wasps. The second was overall venom resistance, which, considering it was broad based was particularly nice. Not that I intended to grind my resistances.

For one thing, my vault drew from my general wellbeing. I could only conserve what was there – which meant I generally healed slower than others. Only marginally so, as the ratio of amount conserved and the amount I slowed down was not a 1:1 factor. I wasn’t entirely certain why, and had no one to ask till now. Truth be told, I mostly didn’t care. 

Since my ability to focus the healing energy was low, I generally found myself healing over everything, leaving in optimal condition. So working venom resistances, of any kind was just a bad idea as the tradeoff would not be in my favor. 

Now, some might think, it would make more sense to speed up healing of the muscles and tendons and ligaments, so that I could push myself to ever greater heights of physical potency. It certainly had struck me as an option, and if I had been on a tight timeline, perhaps I would have. However, there was only so much healing energy; and I could work out the normal way for the basic gains. Add the fact that what my limit was continually increased as my body soaked and drew in core energy; and trying to game the system made little sense.

Not when I had time.

One thing getting old taught you - some things were never as much of a hurry as you expected.

Dealing with the wasps was a pain, but my second stop was simpler. Bandaging up the idiot who I found face down, half-out of a passageway and bleeding to death had taken a little longer than I’d like. There was so much blood, finding the main source of where he was bleeding from had been tricky. I had to waste quite a few bandages - and a few rags, stuffed into wounds to stem the seeping - before I was relatively certain he'd live.

No, I didn't carry him out. For one thing, it would have slowed me down too much, and once his bleeding had stopped, the cleanup crews would grab him and drag him the rest of the way out. There was some, minor, chance that he would be eaten by a monster before the crew came along, but with so little time in-between the end and the regular-ish traffic here, I was a lot less worried about that than failing to exit on time. 

As I said, I'd like to think I'm nice - but only in the way most people are nice. I would help, so long as it did not inconvenience me too much. In the end, I would not compromise my own objectives too much. After all, every individual had their own lives to live - and there was only so much that you could help another before all that aid became a crutch they leaned upon.

Learning the balance... well, that was the work of a few lifetimes.

"So, you managed to make it." the drawl that came along issued from a rather familiar, wizened salt and pepper face. The same guard who had checked me over, who now looked me up and down and frowned. I was sporting some injuries, but nowhere near as much as the amount of blood and the damage to my armour would indicate. "And you encountered and fought the bosses."

Or maybe he was staring at the roughly strapped together loot I had on my back. "Just a few. And what do you mean bosses?"

That drew the notice of some of those waiting, a group around a score in number. At least half of them looked like adventurers, clad in light armor with a variety of short ranged weapons. The rest had basic coats of leather or brigandine but lacked the hard edge of violence that I had come to associate with proper delvers. Some had skinning knives by their sides, but the majority had little potion pouches and easy-access first aid equipment.

"The knockers sometimes have a council rather than a single chief." He shrugged. "We figure it's because one or the other aren't strong enough to hold position alone. Means that individually, they are weaker than a normal knocker chief. More dangerous in some ways, though."

“More people to look out for,” I said, tapping the bow that I had slung around my body. “And ranged.”

“Exactly.”

“Idiotic to have an archer in a cavern though,” I muttered.

“You got shot, right?”

“Yeah?”

“And you managed to survive it. Not many do. The first few levels might be tight, but there are wider spaces in some levels. You would be surprised at how many times you can get a decent sightline.” The older guard shook his head. “Don’t be thinking you know everything just yet, young’un.” For a moment, I consider pointing out I’m older than him, but he continues before I can get my dander up. “You’ll want to register the loot with Petra over there. She’ll get you a good price for it, unless you want to keep it.”

“I can keep it?” I said.

“Oh yeah, if you hit your goals.” He looked the weapons over, sneered a little. “Though might be, your fists are better than that crap. Most of that is going to the scrap pile.”

I could not help but deflate a little. Being told that the items you dragged all the way up were nothing else but scrap was rather defeating. I would have thought at least the sword would have been worth something. 

“I bet you were thinking one of them might be enchanted. We don’t get those till much later, and generally only in the main dungeon. Fault’s rarely see them.”

“Really?” I muttered, not having picked that bit of information up. 

“Yeah. You’ll learn about that,” the guard said, looking me up and down one last time. “And I’ll probably be seeing you more too, eh?”

“I believe so.”

“Got to work on that confidence, boy. No reason to be so down on yourself, this early.” His grin widened, a scar I had not noticed above his eyebrow puckering up and growing starker, highlighting the salt and pepper of his hair underneath his helmet. “Well, best get going. And you can call me Glen.”

“Glen.” I tapped my chest, briefly. “Lin.” And then, as the clock ticked over the hour and released a set of metal balls as alarm, I hurried around the group waiting here. I knew who they were now - the adventurers and cleanup crew who had been waiting for the end of the exam. All of them moved in now, though anyone on their feet and still moving on their own power would be left to make it back on their own. 

As for me, well, I was out. And that, I hoped, was sufficient.