Kaldalis caught another sixty-four pale perch before finally turning in for the night. He stopped briefly in the middle of the fishing binge for dinner, and learned that Balrim’s skill level was coming along slowly, but surely. He was making things at item level three already. Kaldalis managed to score a couple of upgrades from the pile of randomly-rolled equipment, replacing his two remaining item level one charms. One was for armor, neatly replacing his armor charm, and the other was water affinity - not directly useful, but the base item level bump was nice.

He checked over his character sheet before going to bed.

Kaldalis, Level 5 Bodyguard

HP: 915/915

Aplomb: 100/100

EXP: 1157/1500

Acumen: 107

Clout: 112

Vigor: 178

Armor: 101

Attack: 75

His elemental affinities were now mostly fifty-four, except earth and water, which were seventy-three and sixty-six respectively. His debuff affinities were at sixty-six, except gust, which was at eight-five thanks to his weapon. His spear and fishing skills were maxed out at twenty-five each, while harvesting and mining were lagging behind at sixteen and fourteen.

They’d catch up eventually, as soon as quests turned him back to that task.

Sleep came easily, considering the trouble he had the night before. He was awake bright and early in the morning, feeling refreshed and ready to go despite only getting about four hours of sleep. Kaldalis wondered if this was going to be the real curse in five years when he got back to the real world; he was going to be used to having so many active hours a day, and be struggling to remember how an actual physical body operates.

As before, Kaldalis made for the mess tent, and made small talk with the cooks again while they were working. The company brightened their spirits and got his breakfast plate with almost a double helping of sausage.

A win all around, by his reckoning.

This morning, Balrim and Myrin joined him at the table before Haldir, but not by much. They ate in companionable silence until Kaldalis finished his food.

“So today is dungeon day,” Kaldalis said as he licked sausage grease off his fingers. “What do we know? How does it all work?”

Haldir tilted his head, looking at Kaldalis with open confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean. You were there at the entrance. You know everything we know.”

“Rmmf,” Myrin made a mumbling sound around a mouthful of breakfast, pausing just long enough to swallow before continuing. “Kaldalis skipped the tutorial. He doesn’t know shit about shit.”

Haldir gave Kaldalis a look that was almost a glare, but he shook his head and shrugged before Kaldalis could read too much into it. “Once we enter the dungeon, things will be very different. So it’s good that you asked. I would have assumed you knew and then we’d have been in real trouble.”

“Alright, good to know,” Kaldalis said. “So different how? What do we know?”

“First and foremost, monster attention works differently,” Haldir began. “For example, you probably noticed that up here, anything you hit sticks to you like glue no matter what, right?”

“Yeah,” Kaldalis said, perking up. “I was actually kind of frustrated with that. Is there actual mechanics for enmity in dungeons?”

“Yes,” Haldir said carefully. “What you’ve experienced is called the Overworld Hate system. When choosing what actions to take, an enemy has to choose an action that will target a Bodyguard that has damaged it. Not so in a dungeon.” Haldir started to gesture with his fork as he spoke, pointing the handle back towards the north end of the camp, where the dungeon was waiting just outside the walls. “In there, all actions taken generate what we call Hate. Inside dungeons, the person with the most of a monster’s hate is treated as the Bodyguard regardless of their class.”

“Alright,” Kaldalis nodded, “pretty standard. So what can I do to make sure I have the most hate?”

“I’m sure you’ve been told that you need to hit the monsters, right?” Haldir asked. “As a Bodyguard, you will naturally generate more hate from actions you take than us, but you still have to take actions that generate hate in the first place.”

“Right. So what generates hate?” Kaldalis asked.

“Anything that does one of two things: it either hurts the monster, or helps someone who has generated hate on the monster.”

“So obviously attacking it works,” Kaldalis said, thinking through things aloud. “And so will activating my jump and endure abilities, since they help me, right?”

“Yeah, since they’re buffs, they’ll give some hate. I’m not sure how much, though.”

“It’s all individually set,” Balrim said. “Every buff in the ga-... um. Every buff in the world has a different value assigned.” The talsar pointed out over the ocean. “There’s apparently research and records in the library in Baimer that established units of measurement and outlined enmity values for most known abilities.”

“But, unfortunately, that’s in the library in Baimer, and not here.” Kaldalis grimaced.

“Yeah. Unless one of the researchers here know the details off the tops of their heads, you’re out of luck,” Balrim confirmed.

“There’s also the other usual suspects,” Myrin said. “Links and pats, you know.”

“What?” Haldir asked. “I’m not familiar with that phrase.”

“Links and pats,” Myrin repeated. “Groups of monsters respond together when one is attacked, and come to the defense of their allies. And then some monsters roam the dungeon and could wander in to join a fight already in progress.”

“Right, the standard stuff,” Kaldalis said with a nod. He’d assumed such was the case, but it was nice to have confirmation.

“If we’re done eating,” Haldir said, pointing to the empty plates before them, “then we should get moving. The sooner we get down there, the sooner we can be done and back here.”

“Any other mechanics to worry about?” Kaldalis asked as he stood up.

“Just the sorts we’ll have time to talk about,” Haldir said.

“And by that you mean boss fights, right?” Myrin said, rubbing her hands together excitedly. “I’ve been itching for a real DPS check since we got here.”

“The infernal horde invasion wasn’t enough for you there?” Haldir asked.

As they started across the camp towards the exit - which was now flanked by a pair of sturdy wooden doors that were being installed already - Kaldalis started to feel a nagging doubt. What if he wasn’t up for the task? Tanking in a dungeon sounded extremely different than what he’d been through so far. And even though it sounded very similar to the MMO gameplay he was used to in the real world, there were elements that made him fear for the upcoming performance.

For one, he was the tank. That meant that he was the point man here, intended to start every fight, lead them in the right direction, and keep aware of his surroundings. While that usually wasn’t a problem for him, he usually wasn’t tanking a dungeon from a first-person camera, let alone focusing some amount of attention on dodging attacks instead of letting defensive stats cover for that.

He also didn’t have a guide video to watch to make sure he knew what mechanics were going to get thrown at him.

For another thing, he had basically no abilities. Endure and Jump might not be enough. Where was provoke? Where was an AoE threat-generating attack? Was he even supposed to be doing dungeons at this level?

“Are you alright?” Balrim asked as they were hitting the jungle.

“Yeah!” Kaldalis started as he looked up. He realized he had been lagging behind, and Balrim had stopped to let him catch up. “I was just thinking, you know. I was a great tank in Colossus, but I don’t know how much is going to carry over into this.”

“You’re not the only one,” Balrim said, grabbing Kaldalis’s shoulder with a scaled hand. “We’re all going in blind here, and we all have zero experience with dungeon parties. You’re gonna do your best, just like the rest of us.” His hand gave Kaldalis’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “This is going to be a learning experience. And you don’t have to get it right the first time. Otherwise, it’s not really learning at all, is it?”

Kaldalis let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “You’re right. Thank you. We take this nice and slow, going at our own pace. We’re not in a hurry, right?”

“Not at all.” Balrim gave a toothy smile. Perhaps Kaldalis had been in this world too long, but the sight of a bunch of serrated lizard teeth bared at him felt pleasantly reassuring rather than threatening.

Haldir led the way to the dungeon, and when they reached the opening in the tree roots, the group carefully squeezed through the opening one at a time and picked their way down the stairs. The moss covering them almost made Kaldalis slip and fall every other step, but they made it down to the carved stone archway eventually.

Kaldalis took the lead when they reached the bottom of the stairs, being the first to step through the archway. He expected to feel something happen. He knew there wouldn’t be a loading screen, but what he didn’t expect was the pop-up that filled his vision.

Sunken Ruins of Aruna

There is no previous clear time for this dungeon. World-first completion will set the record time for future runs.

Interesting.

A thrum of anxiety wormed its way through Kaldalis, but was instantly replaced with excitement. He pushed forward, dismissing the pop-up without a second thought.

This was going to be fun.