Earth

Gatineau Park Dungeon, Quebec

August 15, 2019

07:44 EDT

Shortly after we finished off the floor boss, there was a rumbling sound and a small section of the stone floor gave way, revealing a staircase leading down, presumably to the seventh floor. First up, though, was gathering all the stuff left behind by the skeletons we killed.

While everyone else went over and picked up all the Mana Crystal Shards that all the skeletons left behind, I stepped forward and picked up the items dropped by the floor boss for this level of the dungeon. Along with the Mana Gem, Skill Gem and key, there was also a pair of plate boots. Normally they would probably go to myself or Mason, but any of us would be able to make use of them, thanks to the armor we’re wearing. As I picked up the boots, I was able to see the stats they would provide to the wearer. They weren’t anything special, but stats are stats.

After I had everything gathered, I turned to my friends who were putting the shards they had picked up into a sack being held by Mason. I walked over and placed the Mana Gem in the sack before holding up the other items in my hands.

“Alright, we’ve got a pair of boots, a skill gem, and the key to that locked room we had to skip earlier. We’ll do the skill gem first,” I said, rolling it in my fingers until I could see the numbered face. “You’re up, Ben. What is 152E?”

He had his phone in his hand and it took a few seconds for him to find it. “152E is Raise Skeletal Warrior. It costs two hundred fifty mana and allows you to raise up a skeleton to fight for you. The description says they will be pretty weak initially, but as the ability levels up, they can be quite strong. Amount of skeletons you can summon, as well as the amount of time they last will also increase as it ranks up.”

“Sounds like a spell for our resident caster. Any objections?”

Silence was all I heard, so I tossed it over to him. “Congrats, Ben.”

“Now for the boots,” I said, passing them to Mason first. “Take a look and then we’ll roll. Even though they’re plate, I’m not going to limit them to Mason and I, since we have this armor.”

Everyone took a few seconds to look at the boots before they got back to me.

“Alright, take out your phones and let’s roll,” I said, taking my own phone out and navigating to our team page. I tapped on Roll, and after a few seconds there was a chime, letting me know everyone had rolled. Five numbers were immediately displayed, with the person’s name beside it. I rolled 57, Mason rolled 23, Ben rolled 42, Anja rolled 54, and Sonja rolled 11.

“Congrats, Jonathan!” Anja said, followed by everyone else.

“Thanks, guys.”

I put the boots in my inventory and then looked at my stats. My Constitution and Endurance rose by five and seven, respectively, while my movement speed also increased by five percent. My physical damage reduction was now sitting at forty-two percent, and my health was just shy of one thousand, with it sitting at nine hundred eighty-six.

I put my phone away and then looked back up to my friends, who were busy spending their attribute points. Each of them leveled as soon as the boss died, and were all level 8, and nearly caught up with me.

“Ready to see what lies behind that door?” I asked, holding the key out in front of me.

“Yeah, we should definitely hurry though. The dungeon is already down to 6%, so we’ll have to be fast if we want to level two more times before getting booted out.”

“Alright, let’s teleport over there, walking will take too much time.”

Everyone nodded, and there was the familiar pop after pop of air rushing in to fill the area left behind. Once the last person teleported, I followed them. When I arrived in the room, I looked around to make sure everyone was with us. Having seen the four of them, I walked forward and inserted the key into the keyhole. I turned it and heard the door unlocked. I moved my hand down to the handle and opened the door. As the door swung open, torches came on around the room, lighting up the chest that was sitting in the middle.

I heard an arrow whiz past my ear, but rather than it hitting the chest, it impacted the floor beside it. I was about to look back at Sonja, but a second later, lightning shot out of the arrow and began coiling around the chest. When it had circled it once, it constricted and the chest shot up off the floor, or at least it tried to.

The lightning was keeping it tethered to the arrow that Sonja had shot into the floor. The mimic tried opening up its mouth while trying to free itself, but wasn’t having much luck.

“What skill was that?” I asked.

“Tethering Shot. It allows me to keep enemies stationary, as you can see. I knew this chest was a mimic as soon as the door opened.”

“That’ll be handy,” I said before looking back to Mason. “You wanna take care of it, Mace?”

He grinned and nodded, before activating Whirling Leap. When he landed, his mace struck the mimic which broke the tether and sent it flying into one of the walls. There was a really gross sounding noise as it slid down the wall, but it quickly disappeared, being absorbed back into the dungeon. It left behind a Mana Gem and another Skill Gem, which Mason quickly picked up. He put the Mana Gem away and then handed me the Skill Gem he picked up.

“We should probably wait until later to hand out Skill Gems and other stuff if this dungeon is going to start resetting soon. Let's get down to the seventh floor and continue,” he said, dropping the gem in my palm.

“I agree. Let’s teleport back to the floor boss room.”

I put the Skill Gem into my storage, and then teleported after my friends, who were already descending the stairs to the seventh floor. I could see the waygate light up as Mason got close to it, but everyone just ignored it. We would all be teleported out when the dungeon reached 0%, so we wouldn’t be using it, anyways. They stopped long enough for me to take the lead, and then we continued.

This floor was nearly identical to the previous floor, the only difference being the different layout. It was about a two minute walk before we came across the door to the first room. The scene on the other side of the door was very similar to the first room on the previous floor, though there were a couple of Skeletal Archers in the group, rather than just Skeletal Warriors.

“You’re up, Mason,” I whispered, as they hadn’t yet noticed us and were still grouped up. A perfect opportunity for Mason.

He used Whirling Leap once more, one shotting the entire group of five warriors and two Archers. We were so overleveled for this dungeon, that it was actually faster to have Mason take care of everything. That would probably change as soon as we went to the Algonquin Park dungeon. Mason picked up all the Mana Crystal Shards and we continued going room to room, killing everything we came across.

We had to stop a few times to deal with the traps that were on this floor. There were a few new ones, like one that shot flames when triggered, and another that caused a pendulum blade to swing down the center of the hallway we were in. All of them were easy to take care of. Sonja would either shoot an arrow, or we would have Ben use Raise Skeletal Warrior and have the skeleton trigger the trap. It was a little weird to see a skeleton crawling its way out of a solid floor, but it did the job.

The seventh floor was smaller than the previous floor, only having eight rooms before we came across another set of double doors. There hadn’t been a locked door anywhere, so we chalked up the last one to being a random bonus. We did all end up reaching level nine, though it was a lot slower than previous levels.

While we were walking, Ben figured out that we were getting around eleven or twelve experience per kill after Legendary Insight kicked in, which means that we would have been getting only two or three experience per kill without it. All of that is a result of us being four levels higher than everything we’re fighting.

Dungeons eventually adapted to prevent people from just doing one dungeon over and over to level while gaining tiny amounts of experience. For each level higher a person is, the less experience they earn, with it being around twenty percent less experience. So with us being level eight and the skeletons we’re killing being level four, we’re only getting twenty percent of the experience.

Upon opening the doors to the floor bosses’ room, we were greeted by a very similar scene. On a raised platform, there was a Skeletal Archer dressed in some fine looking leather armor and wielding a longbow, and in front of him were three groups of nine skeletons. The ones on the left and the right were composed of six Skeletal Warriors, and three Skeletal Archers, while the middle one was a bit different. It was composed of three Skeletal Warriors, three Skeletal Archers, two Skeletal Mages, and one other type of skeleton, though we didn’t know what it could be.

It was dressed in a long robe and had a staff as well, but a warrior, archer and mage checked the three major boxes. We’d have to find out. This time, we stayed outside of the room while we planned, since if we walked in we knew they would start running at us.

“What percentage is the dungeon at now, Ben?” I asked.

“Lemme check,” he replied, taking his phone out of his storage. After a few seconds of navigating on his phone, he put it back in his inventory. “2%, so we’ll probably be able to get this room done before getting kicked out. We should hurry, though.”

“Alright, here’s what I want us to do; When we walk inside, the archer up on that platform will probably tap the floor with his bow triggering one of the groups to run at us. I’ll be using Precognition to see which one that is, and I’ll call it out,” I said before looking over to Mason. “Mace, I want you to take that group down first, I figure you'll be able to do it with a Whirling Leap. As soon as I call it out, I want you to cast a Meteor Shower on the group on the right, Ben. That will leave the middle group for Anja, Sonja and myself.”

“Works for me,” Mason said.

“I’ve got another ability that should help as well. Let me use it before running into the middle group you two,” Sonja added.

“Will do. Alright, everyone ready?”

There were nods all around and we walked inside the room. I activated Precognition and saw the Archer tapping the floor with his bow, causing the left group to start moving forward.

“Mason left, Ben right!” I called out. I turned to Sonja next, “Do your thing.”

She nodded and then pointed her bow up in the air with an arrow appearing on the string. As she drew it back, the arrow began glowing a silvery color. She released it and Anja and I watched as the one arrow split into a dozen or so, with each of them arcing before impacting the group of skeletons in the center. Five of them were taken out immediately; two of the warriors and all three archers, leaving only one warrior and the three casters, who erected shields to protect them. The mages’ shields were blue in color, while the one in the middle had a white shield.

Sonja fired arrows as Anja and I ran in. As we got closer, the robed skeleton in the middle lifted his staff in the air with the top glowing white. He then made a gesture with his other hand and the skeletons Sonja had just killed began to get up.

Before I could say anything, Mason Dashed behind the three casters and Cleaved them all. None of them were ready for it, so all three of them were smashed to pieces, leaving only the Skeletal Warrior and its newly-raised allies. Between the four of us, we made short work of them.

I looked around when the fighting stopped, and saw that both Mason and Ben had easily taken care of their two groups. Mason’s group was launched all over the place thanks to the impact of his mace, while there was nothing but smoking craters where Ben’s group used to be.

We all looked over to the floor boss who just stood there. After a moment, he tapped his longbow before raising it and nocking an arrow. He immediately aimed and fired, but I was already moving thanks to Precognition. I activated Mana Shield and stood in front of Ben, who was the target of the shot. The arrow broke on my shield, and did no damage whatsoever. It did drain my mana slightly, but I quickly regenerated it.

“I’ve got this one,” Sonja said walking forward.

The archer switched his attention to her and nocked and fired an arrow. Just before we all thought it would hit her, she activated Ride the Lightning and appeared behind the archer with an arrow nocked and her bow drawn. She loosed the arrow and was surprised when the Archer turned into smoke and appeared on a balcony on the left side of the room.

They proceeded to dance around the room for the next two minutes or so, each of them trying to land a hit on the other. Sonja even tried using Tethering Shot once, but the skeleton just turned into smoke and appeared somewhere else. Eventually, a male voice was heard all around us.

“This dungeon will be closing in two minutes, at which time all adventurers will be teleported out. I repeat: This dungeon will be closing in two minutes.”

“I might need some help!” Sonja shouted, while continuing to try to land an arrow.

I nodded, turning to Anja and Ben. “I’m going to activate Precognition and point to a balcony whenever it moves. As soon as I do, I want the two of you to fire off Ice Shards and Fireballs, alright?”

Both nodded and I turned back around. I activated Precognition and waited for it to move. After a few seconds I saw it move to the right-most balcony. I pointed and Anja immediately started launching her instant-cast Ice Shards, while Ben casted Fireball. One of Anja’s Ice Shards connected, staggering the archer slightly and allowing Ben’s Fireball to partially connect with it. It didn’t finish it off, but it staggering also allowed Sonja to put an arrow through its eye, finally taking it out.

“Sonja, gather whatever it dropped and then come back down here,” I shouted before lowering my voice. “Hurry up and pick up all the Mana Crystal Shards, I need to switch back to my human form.”

Mason used Whirling Leap to quickly get to one pile, while Anja ran over to another, leaving Ben to pick up the crystals in the center. Twenty seconds later, they had everything gathered and were standing in the middle of the room waiting for me to finish shifting.

“This dungeon will be closing in one minute, at which time all adventurers will be teleported out. I repeat: This dungeon will be closing in one minute.”

“Here, give me all the crystal shards,” Mason said, holding out the sack.

Once they were dropped in the sack and I was done shifting into my human form, I looked over to Sonja. “What did it drop?”

“Not as much as we were probably expecting after that last floor boss. Just a Mana Gem and a Minor Skill Gem,” she answered, dropping the former in the sack being held open by Mason and handing the latter to me.

“Alright, well there isn’t enough time to look it up and roll it off, so we’ll just wait until later.”

“This dungeon will be closing in thirty seconds, at which time all adventurers will be teleported out. I repeat: This dungeon will be closing in thirty seconds.”

“Well, this will be interesting,” I said.

With ten seconds remaining, the voice began counting down. At zero, we were all teleported out to the parking lot. There, we saw a few groups of adventurers who were also teleported out. Each group was a different size, though they were all around our age. All of them were walking back into the building though, probably to sell off anything they acquired while inside the dungeon.

[We just got booted out of this dungeon, Abi. How long until the shuttlecraft is ready?]

[Just under forty minutes,] she answered.

[Thank you, we’ll probably be up shortly and just wait for it to finish.]

[I just spoke with Abi,] I said, adding them all to a single conversation. [The ship I have her making won’t be ready for another forty minutes, so that’s how much time we have to kill.]

[Well, we can kill a minute or two sorting out those two skill gems. Why don’t se sort those out now?] asked Mason.

[We can do that, though not around here. Those other teams could be back out soon and I would rather not have to answer questions about our suits. They are rather unique.]

[That’s true,] Ben agreed. [Back to the base?]

I nodded and teleported to the lobby of the base. Less than a second later, I heard a series of four pops.

“Not having to teleport multiple times is a lot better,” Mason chuckled.

“Sure is,” I said, walking over and sitting on one of the couches. My friends followed and I took the two Minor Skill Gems out of storage. I rolled the first one around in my hand until I could see the face, and then turned to Ben. “First one is 485E.”

“Rapid Fire,” he replied after a moment. “When activated, it allows the user to fire and reload more quickly. Duration is longer and effect is more powerful at higher ranks. At rank one, it lasts for ten seconds and allows the user to fire and reload 20% faster. Costs one hundred mana and comes with a two minute cooldown.”

“All yours, Sonja. Congrats,” I said, passing it over to her.

She nodded in thanks and immediately learned the skill.

“This one is 417E.”

“Hmm...this one is pretty interesting,” Ben answered after reading the description. “It’s Tame Beast. The description says that it allows the taming of Class-E animals, giving them the ability to level up. It also increases the animal’s stats by a percentage of the user’s stats. At rank one it increases stats by 10%, and at rank one hundred, it will increase stats by 20%. It doesn’t say anywhere what constitutes a Class-E animal anywhere though.”

“Can you check a search engine to see if there is a list of animals and which Class they’re in?”

Ben nodded, “Give a minute.”

“Depending on what animals fall in Class-E, that could be a pretty cool skill for one of us to have. Maybe we all get the skill and tame a pack of wolves,” Mason said with a laugh.

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that wolves, and the majority of predators are Class-E. The only ones I’m seeing that are Class-D are Polar bears, Grizzly bears, tigers and lions. It appears that size is a factor, since animals like elephants are rhinos are both Class-D as well,” Ben replied.

“Ah, it’s too bad that Grizzly bears are Class-D, since I believe there are some in the enclosure below us. Still, it could definitely be worth it for each of us to learn the skill. How much are they, anyway?”

“Just under eight hundred credits each.”

“That’s pretty pricey. Give me a few minutes and then I’ll roll this off.”

[Hey, dad, do you have a few minutes?]

[Sure, what’s up?]

[We just got the Tier E version of Tame Beast, so I have a few questions. How does one go about taming something, and do we have any more of the Tier E versions in storage?]

[I’m not actually sure about your first question as it isn’t something I have any particular interest in. I do think it takes a lot of time to tame a grown animal, or it can be started when they’re very young. If you would like more information, there is someone on the base you could talk to about it. She is the one responsible for the four enclosures you saw below. As for your second question, I’m sure we have plenty. Would you like four more for your friends?]

[Absolutely! Mason had an idea that would be quite fitting with our team name, but would also require us to all have the skill.]

[I’ll go grab a few. You’re in the lobby, right?]

[Yup, just killing some time until Abi is finished making a ship for us. It should be finished in thirty minutes or so.]

[Alright, see you in a few minutes.]

[Okay.]

“Alright, my dad will be here in a few minutes with Tame Beast for all of us. It sounds like it’s a pretty involved process, though. We would have to raise an animal we want to tame from birth, or spend a lot of time befriending an animal before we could tame it. He said he doesn’t know much, but there is a woman on the base who is responsible for taking care of all the animals in the enclosures below. She’ll probably be able to tell us more.”

“Sounds good,” Anja said. “We probably wouldn’t want to get started right now... perhaps tomorrow afternoon we can go down and talk to her?”

“Works for me,” I replied. “I wonder what class Vixa would fall into, and how strong she would be.”

“She could get pretty strong, I think. Especially if she falls into Class-A or Class-S. Animals that fall into either of those categories would gain a huge percentage of your own stats once tamed. Class-A starts at a 50% bonus, and Class-S at 75%.” Ben explained.

“I’m betting the Seotross down below is Class-S. How awesome would it be to tame that,” Mason said.

Before I could answer, there was a popping sound and my dad appeared in front of us carrying two small pouches.

“Here you are,” he said, handing the pouches to me. “Do you want me to set up a meeting with Tamara?”

“Tamara? That’s the woman you were talking about?”

“Yes,” he answered with a nod. “Tamara Ridley. She’s been operating those enclosures for hundreds of years and has tamed quite a few animals over the years. She is what you might consider a Beastmaster.”

“We would like to meet with her, yeah. We were thinking about tomorrow afternoon, though that depends on how long we will need to meet with her.”

“Ah yes, your date. It shouldn’t take long so you’ll have plenty of time. I’ll try to set the meeting for 12:00 or 13:00.”

“That should be fine,” I said looking over to my friends who all gave nods as confirmations.

“Okay, I’ll talk to her later today and then let you know what she says either later tonight or tomorrow. I need to get back to work though. It’s going to be a very busy next week or so.”

“Thanks for these,” I said, holding up the two pouches.

“No problem. See you all later,” he replied, teleporting away.

I opened the first sack dumped the contents onto my hand. They all said 417E, so I passed them out. When everyone had one, I opened up the second pouch and dumped them all out. I rolled them around until I could see the number on each, which was 706S.

“Ben, what’s 706S?” I asked while passing them along.

“Looks like it’s Portal.”

“Oh, awesome. I let my mom know I wanted the skill and was wondering if she had forgotten about it.”

I learned both skills and then put the empty pouches in my inventory.

“Evidently not,” Ben said. “I know we still have some time before the ship will be ready, but should we head up?”

“Sure. Maybe we can watch while she finishes.”

We got up and walked over to the portal leading to the portal room. The light was actually green for once, so we stepped through without waiting.

“Hello again Zogyr, Zaszi,” I greeted, having recognized the two of them from the day before.

“Morning boss,” Zogyr said. “Where to?”

“The Moon please,” I answered.

“Sure thing,” Zaszi replied, hitting the button on her console. “You can head on through.”

“Thanks, and thank you both for remembering what I said yesterday.”

They both nodded, and my friends and I turned to go through the portal leading up to the moon.

“What was that about?” Mason asked.

“I met them both yesterday, and when they recognized who I was, they both kneeled. I didn’t like that or them referring to me as ‘milord’, so I chewed them out a little bit. I do like ‘boss’, though. It has a nice ring to it, I think,” I answered.

“Ah. Back to the taming thing. Do you think there is armor for animals similar to the stuff we’re wearing right now?”

“That’s a good question.” After thinking about it while we walked, I continued, “I would think so, otherwise animals wouldn’t be able to take any hits without receiving some serious injuries. We’ll be able to ask Tamara that when we see her tomorrow.”

“Ben also said that an animal will be able to level up once tamed. Do you think they’ll be able to learn skills or perks?”

“I don’t think so,” Ben replied. “At least not any animals native to Earth. Scyftan foxes and other alien animals might be able to learn skills, but I imagine they will just gain attributes whenever they level. Besides, there are a bunch of abilities we can learn that affect pets. Kill Command and Ravage are two off the top of my head.”

We arrived at the hangar door, so I pulsed it with mana and waited for it to open. When it did, I gestured my friends to walk forward. I walked just inside the door and waited for it to close, and then started walking towards Abi.

“She is a lot bigger since the last time we saw her,” Anja said. “What is she at now?”

“Eight hundred twenty-two point five meters long, two hundred thirty-five meters wide and one hundred seventeen point five meters tall,” I answered after a moment. “By the time she leaves to take the dragons and their eggs to a new world, she’ll be over a kilometer long.”

“Wow!”

[We’re here, Abi. What side of the ship is the hanger on?]

[Port. There is already an entrance over there for you and your friends. There are about fifteen minutes to go before it will be finished.]

[Cool, thanks.]

“There is an entrance to a new landing bay on the port side. Follow me,” I said, changing direction to walk behind Abi. While walking, it gave us the opportunity to look at her from a few different angles. The six thrusters were absolutely massive in size, and were in triangular clusters of three. There was a gap in between the two clusters, which was used for two of the now four energy weapons mounted on the back to dissuade any pursuers. When we got to the port side, we could see an opening in the side of the ship, as well as a ramp leading up to it.

It took a few minutes of walking, just because of her current size. When we finally arrived at the landing bay, Ben immediately burst into laughter.

“You didn’t,” he said, continuing to laugh. Mason and the twins had no idea what he was laughing about, since none of them had watched the show.

“I did,” I replied with my own chuckle.

“How about explaining for those of us out of the loop,” Mason said.

“Go for it, Ben.”

“None of you have watched any of the Stargate series, so you’ve never seen what is affectionately known as a Puddle Jumper. In the shows, it was a ship created by a very advanced race, and was built to be able to transit through stargates. It seems like Jonathan wanted Abi to replicate one.”

“It is similar, but quite different as well,” Abi said, her voice coming from all around us. “It will be quite capable though, and have both a shroud and a shield.”

“I don’t see any weapons,” Ben said, walking around the ship. “Does it have weapon pods like the show?”

“Four of them,” she answered. “One dorsal, one ventral, one port and one starboard. The dorsal and ventral ones are turreted energy weapons, able to fire in three hundred sixty degrees, while the port and starboard ones will fire missiles. It has been fun building it and might be good enough to build more of them in addition to fighters later on. We’ll see.”

“What would it be, a transport?” Ben asked.

“It could certainly work as a troop transport, but I was thinking of something along the lines of a bomber. There would be space for the crew, but it could carry a sizeable amount of torpedoes and missiles.”

“That’s pretty cool. Will all of us get to fly it?”

“You definitely could after piloting lessons. Unfortunately I can’t download the knowledge on how to fly it, as I can with Jonathan thanks to our bond. I can pilot it remotely, though, so if there is ever a situation where Jonathan is incapacitated, if you get him on the ship I can pilot it back.”

“Well, let’s hope that never happens,” I said.