Jarod woke up, his bed straw and his blanket threadbare. Somehow, the prison cell was more comfortable. He didn't remember drifting off to sleep, but it must have been before the initiates returned. They however, were all still asleep. He didn't know what time it was, since it was always sunset in this place, but felt it was about morning. At the foot of his bed was a neatly folded white robe, and what appeared to be linen underwear. He remembered he wasn't wearing underwear with his exercise clothes, and he was starting to smell a bit if he had to be honest. So he leaned up to grab the clothing, and wriggled them under the covers. Then he started the arduous but well practiced process of squeezing into clothes while under covers. Once he had finished, the robes were surprisingly warm and comfortable. They felt soft as wool, but far less scratchy. It was when he popped out of the covers he noticed the man in the bunk next to him was staring right at him. They made eye contact.

"What the hell was that?" He whispered

"I'm putting on my clothes…" Jarod responded.

"Why didn't you just get up to do it? That would have been less weird."

"I didn't think it was weird." Jarod's bed was at the end of the row, a total of ten beds in these barracks. On the other side of the judgemental man, the covers started shifting. A blonde man stuck his foot out of the covers and grabbed his robes with his toe, then pulled them under his covers and similarly put them on as Jarod did.

"Aha! I'm not the only one!"

"Traitor!" The judgemental man was still quiet, but was caught off guard and sat up. He threw his covers off, revealing he was stark naked. He proudly stood up and slipped on his clothes. He then turned to the two and bent over with a judgemental slant.

“That’s how one should get dressed in the morning.”

“Can you guys shut the fuck up?” A deep voice came from the next bed over. A dark skinned man with curly black hair, he pulled the covers over his face.

“I’m trying to get some sleep.” He finished his statement.

“Aye.” Said an even deeper, rougher voice, from further down the room. Jarod curled into his place in bed. The clothes were warm enough to make him want to stay in bed.

Though, it was not meant to be, a horn sounded from the distance, and everyone in the room scrambled out of their beds and put on robes. The judgemental man was the only one who went commando, it seemed.

Jarod crawled out of bed, motivated by the other's sudden vigor. They filed In a line of nine people including Jarod, and they went to a small meal hall. A similar line of women entered at the same time, eight of them.

At the center of the room was an old man wearing priest’s robes.

“Good morning, priest Pardim. Normally we don’t see you until lectures, what brings you here?” The judgemental man said. Overly polite.

“Well, as you all know we have a new initiate. Jarod will be treated as one of you, I’d suggest introducing yourselves at your own leisure.” He hopped up with plenty of energy, and strolled out of the room. Straight and to the point. Now, Jarod noticed behind where he stood was a table with a heated pot, bowls, and spoons. It seems it is warm soup for breakfast. The judgemental man was first to the table, took a bowl of soup and sat at a meal table. He was joined by a handful of others, and Jarod was soon after taking his own bowl of soup and claiming his own table. Five others sat with him, and all leaned forwards with inquisitive eyes.

“The name is Ramek.” The dark skinned man held a hand out, the one who told everyone to shut up this morning. Jarod shook it. At least handshakes were the same.

Ramek Lost-son

Class:

None

Stats:

Strength - 0 Endurance - 0 Agility - 1 Willpower - 1

Ah, Jarod had almost forgotten about analysis. Though, Ramek Lost-son was an interesting name. Though so far he hasn’t heard a single name that sounded like it was from Earth.

“I’m going to cut straight to the point, us five have a betting pool as to what your situation is. We were only told that you were rescued from the defilers, and that you were special. My guess is that you’re a homunculus. Crafted to be a servant and that you might have our secrets. It’s perfect because us initiates don’t really learn much new, aside from training practices.” He had piercing hazel eyes, and a proud demeanor.

“I’m sorry to say, nope. I was taken from another dimension, I’m pretty sure.”

The group turned to eachother, then four of them passed a few bronze coins to a woman, who looked incredibly smug with herself. Each person introduced themselves, the pale man with blonde hair from this morning is Chen. A ruddy skinned, scruffy man with a thick black beard was next, who introduced himself as Agden. Then, the woman who won the bet had dark skin and curly hair, she is Jiina. Lastly, a pale quiet girl with pale orange hair named Tin. They spoke about the training, and Jarod listened. Mostly it was complaints about the difficulty of the training.

“Now tell me, who is that judgemental guy from this morning?” Jarod finally asked.

“Ah, Steel.” Ramek sighed.

“His name is Steel?”

“We’re both from the iron hills, a region built off of our metals industry. Most of us are named after metals.” Tin said.

“Fair.” Jarod responded.

“Anyway, he leads a clique we’ve taken to calling the zealots. They’re not bad, they’re just dedicated.” Ramek said. He didn’t seem to have any ill will.

“Total asshole, in my opinion.” Jiina said. Chen snorted with a laugh.

“Aye.” Said Agden.

The issue dropped, and they talked of meaningless things. That in itself, helped Jarod far more than any lecture or inspirational speech. Everybody here was in their late teens and early twenties, save for Agden who’s almost forty. He had all his stats above zero, save for agility. Interesting how no matter how high your stats get, if they all aren’t above zero you can’t progress. It’s odd thinking about people’s stats. Very odd.

After eating, they entered a room like a classroom. But it was a large circular table with a raised platform in the center where the lecturer would speak, but Pardim waited just inside the door, and gave a gentle handshake and a pat on the shoulder to everyone who entered. When he greeted Jarod, his stats were revealed.

Pardim Colshotte

Class:

Sun Priest (tier 3)

Stats:

Strength - 2 Endurance - 3 Agility - 3 Willpower - 27

Jarod really needed to learn how to control this better. But the fact that this man was somewhat advanced in his class, but only had one good stat was interesting. The rules for this world seem so arbitrary. He sat down at the round table, following the other’s example.

“It is good to see you all today! Last week we talked about the founding and structure of our order. I expect Jarod will have help catching up.” Pardim nodded to Jarod for a moment, but then turned back to speaking to the full room.

“Today, we will talk about our position on dungeon seeds, the enigmatic portals to dangerous realms. The seeds themselves aren’t inherently evil, and oftentimes are simply violently defensive. The thesis of our position, is that they are tools to be used. You may only use the soul of a non-sentient being to generate them, but if you do, there is no restriction to taking the artifact held within. In fact, it is encouraged, even, to use the seeds to make yourself stronger. The artifacts you find might even allow you to progress to rare and exciting classes, which in turn would allow you to serve Aurella better. Now, to speak of our history with dungeons and important artifacts retrieved from them…” He began to dryly list names of artifacts, without really elaborating on what they do, just names of who owned them.

Jarod leaned to Ramek next to him.

“Can you explain these dungeon seeds? Do these portals looks like silvery mirrors?” He asked. Ramek leaned to Jarod in response.

“They do. Is that how you came here?”

“It is. Would it be possible to take the same route back?”

“Unlikely, seeds disintegrate once their artifact is taken, and I assume whatever artifact you were with is in defiler hands.” Ramek stated.

“Ah, well I am the artifact, actually.” Ramek raised his eyebrows at that.

“Interesting, I’ll say, I’ve never heard of dungeons actually going to different worlds, they tend to create them. So this might have been a special seed that stayed intact?” Ramek guessed. Jarod was thankful for the attempt at giving him hope, but didn’t believe it.

“So what are they?”

“They’re magical orbs, they show up in places of nature where people are scarce. You can feed them a spirit to create a dungeon. The dungeon will be the strength of the seed you find, and the soul you put in it. Inside will be traps and monsters, ultimately with an artifact at the end that you can feed spirits to to increase its power and give it abilities. I suppose that means you can do that too, huh?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how does one normally get spirits?”

“Well, usually lengthy rituals, and they can be found after a dungeon monster is slain. But that’s only a rare occurrence. Some spells can harvest them, but those are usually restricted to tier 4, specialized classes.” That surprised Jarod. He could do it instinctually.

“Well, what has a spirit?”

“Pretty much everything alive. Every mouse, spider, tree, and human has one.” Jarod nodded, then turned back to Pardim. This was valuable information. Incredibly valuable information, actually. He was starting to understand why the sunset order wanted him on their side.

Jarod stood atop a tree stump, one leg in the air and the other one cramping from keeping balance. He was frigid, and in his underwear. He held his arms straight out, to hold a heavy wooden training sword. Every time his leg came down, the harsh instructor Kalem smacked him on the back with a quarterstaff. He barely had the energy to keep standing by the time they were allowed off.

Then, of course, the combat drills started. They were to practice a single strike of the sword. If their form was but an inch out of place, they would be smacked by Kalem’s righteous fury. Jarod couldn’t lift his arms anymore by the time training was only halfway over. It didn’t help that he was embarrassed of his body, soft and pudgy, while everyone else here was well defined and strong, likely training before they ever got here. Ramek had a strength of 0, and he appeared so much stronger than Jarod already, how long would it take for Jarod to reach someone else’s zero? He didn’t have much time to think about it, as he kept getting smacked by the quarterstaff.

And training continued this way. Breakfast, lectures, lunch, physical training, dinner, sleep. Every day he woke, his muscles sore and mind raw. But there was some magic here, for he woke only with the pain, and not the exhaustion. He read that not resting your muscles would cause damage, back when he had spent a week trying to get in shape a year ago. He started his rest period, and never really picked back up. But now his muscles weren’t getting hurt, and he could keep pushing himself.

Then, after two weeks, an opportunity came up.