Ch 37

Ben's RV had been moved months ago, and almost nobody knew why he left the relative comfort of town to live out in the middle of the desert wasteland. His friends had questioned it, but Ben had assured them he would let them know if it all panned out. Ben distinctly remembered Polk's expression after she had finished helping him move, the look of someone who wasn't sure if their help was going to be used in an elaborate suicide plot. Louden, however, knew something more than she should have. Somehow, she knew.

That was nine months ago. At first, Ben had tried to balance the time he spent in the dungeon and the time he spent away from it, but the arrangement quickly fell apart after Ben quit his job and had nothing pressing to do but smoke weed; an activity he'd lost most of his interest for in the last couple of months.

Ben was currently digging a hole, hunched over the opening and struggling to get more dirt out, the pit he dug approximately 3x3x4 deep. Next to him was a small wooden crate, small enough to fit in the hole, rough cloth visible through the large slats, filled to the top with rough, sharp gold nuggets. Ben took a moment to drink some water and wipe the sweat from his forehead, looking around as he did so. Arranged in a grid pattern, spaced evenly, was the evidence of dozens of similar holes, each with their own bounty.

“Analyze,” Ben said, and the skill activated, each hole being highlighted by a blue square on the ground, and others across the property also lighting up in his vision.

Hole. Contents: Crate of Gold. Approximate Value, 7.3 million dollars / 1460 ENC. Status: Concealed.

Ben smiled, eyes wandering over the many windows with similar information and dollar amounts displayed. Reading the status windows was optional, as Ben could just as easily glance at one and will himself to 'know' the information, but that burned through his skill faster than simply reading. A small timer in the bottom right corner of his vision revealed that his analyze skill would extinguish after about a minute.

Ben glanced down at the hole, Analyzed it, and received the measurements as near as he could tell, which was pretty exact; his Analyze level was quite high. Ben looked to the horizon and locked his focus on the distance, and got the measure of how far it was to that point. He picked up a rock and threw it, an arc appeared and showed where it was going to land, but only after he threw it. If he wanted to know before, he would have to activate Aim.

“All right,” Ben said, having exhausted the Analyze skill and turning his attention back to the hole “That's deep enough.”

With a grunt of effort, he lifted the crate and set it in, covered the top with cloth, and began burying it.

His first chore of the morning completed, Ben entered the RV and grabbed a large, fifty pound bag of grass seed, hoisting it on his shoulders and carrying it outside. He set it in a trailer attached to a four-wheeler ATV, then went inside and repeated the process, grabbing nine more bags and stacking them pallet style in layers of three, the tenth bag on top. He secured his load with ratchet straps, cinching them tight; he'd only made that mistake once, and didn't intend to lose his load again. Finally, Ben grabbed a large duffle bag originally meant for holding La Cross gear, but which now held things like shovels, automatic rifles and landscaping equipment.

The final item, one which Ben kept on his person at all times, was a small metallic egg, about the size of a pear, that looked a little like a flower bud before it bloomed. Without it, Ben had a feeling he would have died many time over.

–

These days, Ben's day job was saving the world, one acre at a time. Up and down the mountain and the surrounding lands controlled by Casimer, Ben walked, a handheld grass seed spreader equipped to his back, cranking it as he walked, leaving a wide arc of seeds in his wake. Ahr, was outfitted with a cowboy hat, a pair of thick jeans, no shirt and a pistol at each hip, slowly drove the ATV behind Ben like an extremely tan body guard. Casimer, in the form of a large rain cloud, followed far behind them, raining both water and soil down on the ground, burying everything. Though they were driving on a mountain, Ben couldn't recall a single instance in which they encountered an obstacle that couldn't be passed.

After about two hours, Ben's phone began beeping, and Ahr got off the ATV and switched roles, aggressively cranking the grass seeder as he walked, leaving an absolute carpet of grass seed behind him. It was a hot, lazy kind of day in the dungeon, Ben playing classic game music, enjoying the occasional breeze generated by Casimer's experiments with the weather.

There was no timer for Ahr, he usually worked until he was exhausted, or until they ran out of grass seed, whichever came first. Today, it was grass seed. Ben could have returned to the RV and gotten a second load, but didn't really feel like it. He could tell Ahr wasn't feeling like it either.

As always occurred after the job was done for the day, a window appeared in front of Ben, informing him that Ahr had completed his 'quest' and should be appropriately rewarded. Ben, as usual, was prompt in delivering the reward, a 'good job', a pack of cigarettes, and a beer.

Ahr took the payment with a smile, making a grunting noise that indicated thanks. He had come a long way in terms of becoming civilized, but had outright refused to learn how to speak. Ben could tell he would be able too, but just didn't have any desire for it.

Ben received a quest almost immediately, 'Lend a Light, Repeat Quest', and he accepted it before handing a lighter to Ahr. The quest status turned to pending while Ahr lit a cigarette, then was completed when he gave it back. There was no reward or benefit to having completed the quest, it was just how Ahr communicated, carefully tutored by Melchsee.

“All right,” Ben said, then his face froze with intense concentration. It wasn't a skill, not yet, that Ben used, just something he had been learning from Melchsee to make things a little easier. The ambient mana in the air twitched, then slowly, very slowly, flowed like cement into his visualization, like ghostly blue light forming a rectangle in the air. Ben had stopped breathing, prompting Melchsee's voice, an automatic reminder, to say 'Breath', then direct him in the proper breathing tempo.

It took about twenty seconds, and then there was a soft flash of light, and a blank status window appeared, and Ben took about five seconds to impress his thought on it, like an embossing tool. If it hadn't been his most commonly used quest, it could have taken much longer.

Escort to the Wellspring, Repeat Quest

He mentally pushed the window towards Ahr, it briefly vanished, then reappeared in front of his target. Ahr glanced at it, psychically understanding the words without being able to read, and accepted it. Ben still thought it was a pretty dramatic way to ask for someone to drive while he shot at things, but was nonetheless comfortable doing it.

A new quest window appeared in front of both Ben and Casimer, this one with a gold border, indicating that it came directly from Casimer.

Monster Suppression, Repeat Quest

The dungeon is hungry and requires blood and combat! Survive 5 waves of attackers and be granted unfettered access to the resources of the dungeon. Failure will result in death. Untold riches await those who succeed.

Melchsee must have written this one, Casimer was usually more direct, with something like 'Please head to this location and kill these monsters, I'm getting kind of hungry.' She had a flair for drama, and it showed in her writing.

Ben accepted the quest, and immediately, the skill 'Aim' dropped on the ground some distance away. Knowing how much of a bitch Melchsee could be, Ben began running towards it, hearing caws and screeches of rage in the distance. Casimer was the one who waited till you were ready to start the fight.

As he ran, he heard the sound of Ahr's pistols, high density projectiles of mana whizzing through the air, making a sizzling noise. There were some indignant caws, and then a deep screech, as if from an unnaturally large eagle. Ben picked up the speed, breaking out into a sprint, then jumped onto the skill, immediately knowing he had twenty eight shots. He called to Ahr with a high pitched whistle, and the ATV peeled out as it rushed towards him.

Suitably armed, Ben looked up to see what they were dealing with. In the sky above them, all five waves of monsters flew, a combination of crows and eagles, each with an extra eye on their chest, all larger than normal birds. The ATV skidded next to him, and Ben jumped on, opening his duffle bag and pulling out a large, mana powered rifle. It was heavy, a solid bar of metal in the shape of a .22 rifle, all gray and textured like it was made from shiny solder material. Without activating Aim, Ben began firing, some shots hitting, and most missing.

Ahr gave an angry ook, pointing to the sky and miming throwing his hat to the ground as he drove.

“I know,” Ben said, continuing to fire as the first wave of birds approached “There's over sixty damn monsters! This is outrageous!”

The first wave consisted of eight crows, and one eagle. The eyes on their chests were glowing, and they all dropped shots of explosive light that fell like bombs from WWII, swooping back into the sky the moment they fired. Unfortunately for Ben and AHR, the shots did not miss, and they jumped from the moving ATV moments before it was struck and reduced to smoldering wreckage.

Ben flipped the birds the bird, and Ahr reproduced the gesture, grabbing his guns and firing several shots, most of which hit their marks.

“Remember,” Ben said in a combat shout “I need to be the one to kill the eagles, otherwise this was all pointless, and we'll have to do it again.”

Ahr let out a monkey like screech, then started firing again, each shot only hitting a crow. With a grimace, Ben took Aim at the eagle and fired.

–

“Longest twenty minutes of my fucking life,” Ben grumbled, firing his last couple of shots at the largest and last eagle. It had red and purple feathers, an extra set of eyes in the wings in addition to the one on it's chest, and could fire shots from all three eyes. It could also dodge 'like a motherfucker', in Ben's own words.

You have competed the quest Monster Suppression X. You have been rewarded with limited immunity for 24 hours.

Ahr, in accordance to the terms of the quest Escort to the Wellspring X, began the process of searching the surrounding area for all the loot that dropped from the birds. Ben lamented the loss of his ATV, then saw a new one, sitting atop the scorched earth the old one had occupied at the beginning of the fight. The trailer in the back had also been replaced, though Ben's duffle bag was still some distance away, contents scattered. He walked over and gathered it all up, inspecting his pick ax and seed spreader for damage, and cursing when he saw most of his water bottles had broken. He would need to head back into town and get another load by tomorrow at least.

Ben loaded his repacked duffle bag onto the ATV's trailer, just in time for Ahr to return, a large bundle of cloth sacks held in each hand. For the sake of convenience, and at Ben's request, Casimer had taken to encasing loot in bags, crates, or some appropriate container that was easier to carry and transport out in the field.

Ben flashed his analyze skill, exhausting the final five seconds he had left, and the bags each glowed a different color, indicating their relative value to him. None of them were particularly exciting, so Ben had Ahr set the bundle in the ATV's trailer, then sent him out again to fetch the rest of it.

When he returned, Ben had him sit in the passenger's seat and started driving, hitting the acceleration and prompting Ahr to ook in a worried manner and put on a seatbelt. Ben couldn't help but laugh, pumping the gas a little more. Ahr might be a total beast in combat, but the fastest he felt comfortable driving was 5mph, and Ben wanted to get to the wellspring before Melchsee found some tricky way to start fucking with them, limited immunity be damned. She was a brutal, cold hearted mastermind of a teacher.

She was making him strong.

–

The Oasis dungeon had evolved considerably in the last couple of months. High, smooth cliff walls formed a rough egg shape around the once-campsite, open at the top where the walls didn't quite meet, and letting in only a little bit of illumination from above.

Below, the small puddle of water had become a pond, at least twenty feet deep and fifty feet across, the water glowed with a strong blue light and gave off a warm mist that filled the chamber. The pond had several openings that were large relative to the size of the pond, each extending deep into the mountain, forking and branching many times, supplying the ground with desperately needed water.

Ben cautiously approached the water, eyes seeing the hundreds of thickly packed Poison Spike Crawlers along the walls, their range more than enough to take him out. He had seen Ahr die from their attacks enough to know he never wanted to experience a direct hit. They ignored him, limited dungeon immunity, but nonetheless Ben moved extremely slowly, pulling the metal egg from around his neck, unscrewing the top, and filling it with water. He closed his eyes and meditated, focusing and directing his thoughts into the egg.

It grew warm in his hands, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the water inside the egg was glowing, and quickly drank it. Inside his mind, the skill Analyze revealed itself to him once again, indicating he had six minutes of use, a full minute more than his last trip had yielded.

Ben filled the egg again and repeated the ritual, this time screwing the top of the egg and putting the necklace back on. He'd be able to take the skill with him now, and even use it outside the dungeon's influence. Casimer had been right, his gift all those months ago after their first meeting had made him want to come back. He said thank you and headed to his final destination of the day, getting on the ATV and driving to the location he had his first conversation with the dungeon core.

The massive golden cliff had a good sized chunk missing out of it near the bottom, forming a cave that was about eight feet tall and eight feet deep. Ben jumped off the ATV, handed Ahr a six pack of beer and grabbed his pickax from the duffle bag.

“This never gets old,” he said, grinning like a madman and driving the pick into the gold, turning on analyze and prying a small chunk loose, letting it fall to the ground.

“Six thousand three hundred dollars,” Ben said, Analyze giving him an approximate value based on the spot price of gold. Ben swung his pick again, and pried another chunk loose.

“Eight thousand thirty three dollars, not bad for a moment's work!”

By the time evening approached, he was exhausted, and his trailer was almost critically weighed down by the bounty. Ahr was sleeping the alcohol off, and Ben left him there in peace, no longer needing his services. The drive down the mountain was direct, the road forming itself off in the distance just for him, and disappearing after he used it.

Not for the first time since coming to the dungeon, Ben yelled from sheer joy and hit the gas, a childlike glee propelling him to speed and activity. Ben turned up his radio as loud as it would go and sang along to whatever came on, the desert breeze drying the sweat in his clothes as he drove, not a single care in the world able to bring him down for a moment.

Ben parked the ATV alongside the RV and threw a tarp over it and the trailer to cut down on dust that would settle on it overnight, grabbed his last bottle of water and began to down it as he walked through the front door. Inside, sitting on his couch, was Polk, Louden and an unfamiliar woman. She looked like she had been crying very recently.

“Ben, this is Alice,” Polk began, but was interrupted when the unknown woman stood up, fresh tears running down her face.

“You're him!” she said, body quivering as her hands shakily reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded piece of printer paper. She unfolded it, racking sobs coming unbidden to her as she did so, Ben's stomach dropped and a cold prickle of sweat ran across his back and chest. It looked like she had printed it directly from the internet, a low quality picture of Ben, Melchsee, Casimer and Ahr, smiling and posing.

“Where is my husband,” she said, voice raw with grief and rage, composure on the verge of total devastation “Where's my Richard!