“I did what?” The flickering lights were fading.

  “Made a level. I was wondering if that would happen. When you gain enough experience points you accrue greater powers. But, you were zero level. Zero level people never level up. You should bring up your stats again, see what’s changed.”

  “Okay.” I concentrated, and it didn’t take long before my stats appeared.

  Josh Hester

  Class: Open Level: 1 Health points: 13

  Race: Human Alignment: Neutral Good

  Strength: 11 Intelligence: 11 Dexterity: 11

  Charisma: 11 Constitution: 12

  Languages: English Special Abilities: Stat Divination,

  Poison Resistance (25% chance no damage: half damage otherwise)

  Heal Light Wounds (1d4+1: 1x day)

  Special Attack: Precision 3x day:\

  attack ignores opponent’s armor class

  Known Spells: Lightning Bolt (2x day)

  Magic Items: Trip Ring, +1 Cloak

  “This is amazing,” Gerik said. “But also, absurd.” He was almost glaring at the floating words, as if daring them to continue saying what they were saying.

  “Absurd, how?”

  “Well, your class is still listing as ‘open,’ but that can’t be right. It was marginally acceptable when you were zero level, but now that you’re first level you have to be categorized. And, you’ve accrued a fine number of health points, there. More than I would’ve thought, but even stranger is that several of your attribute points went up. Your strength went from ten to eleven, for instance. That will happen over time, but . . . so soon?”

  “Oh.” I flexed my arm, trying to decide if I felt any stronger. I certainly didn’t feel tired anymore. I felt rejuvenated. I actually wanted to go deeper into the dungeon.

  “And now you have more special abilities, including spells, which would lead me to assume you’re a magic user or some related class, but then why do you get a special attack?”

  “I… don’t know?”

  “And your spells categories are mixed. You can not only heal, but shoot lightning bolts?”

  “I can?” I didn’t feel like a man who could shoot lightning bolts, but then I didn’t have any good idea what that man would feel like, either. I paced up and down the corridor, which was a wide stone tunnel covered by relief carvings depicting warriors battling wolves and elephants. The carvings were badly chipped and largely covered in moss or with stalactites that hung from above, merging with the walls.

  The hall was huge, as if we were in a corridor made for giants. The air smelled of static electricity and dust, as well as urine, since Gerik was taking the opportunity for a bathroom break, pissing against the wall.

  “I want to go deeper into the dungeon,” I said. Gerik’s gaze swiveled to me. I was surprised I’d spoken, and wishing I’d waited until after he was finished pissing.

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Gets in your blood, doesn’t it? Always curious what’s next? Matching yourself against men and monsters? Finding treasures? Discovering new stories to tell in taverns, regaling women whose clothes always seem to slip away with the hours? This is the life for me. I’m well pleased to be here, with you, Josh of Apartment 3B. I always enjoy life the most when I’m in a dungeon with my friends.”

  “I look forward to meeting your other friends,” I told him.

  “Oh, they’re dead now. All dead.” He gave a satisfied nod, tucked his penis back in his pants, and off we went down the dusty corridor.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  “We’ll have to climb down,” Gerik said. We’d come to a ledge, a rough balcony hanging out over a void in a cavern the size of a city block. A river rushed through the cavern, with waters so cold I could feel them from where we were, fifty feet above the rapids.

  The cavern was sparsely lit by torches stationed on the cavern floor. With the exception of the river’s edge, where stretches of glowing moss worked in tandem with the torches only pockets of light existed. There could have been armies hiding in the shadows, and if there were, we couldn’t have heard them; the river was too loud and too echoing. Gerik and I needed to shout at each other to be heard.

  “Climb down?” I asked, peering over the edge. That didn’t seem wise, because the cliff only had sporadic foot and hand holds amidst stretches of practically sheer stone, and many of the rocks looked risky as far as supporting any weight. The river’s edge was littered with fallen, broken stones. Plus, there was only a yard between the river’s edge and the base of the cliff. If we fell into the water we’d be swept along in the raging current, carried along by the river until it disappeared into a gaping pit, swirling with a whirlpool.

  We stood looking at the drop for a couple minutes, during which time there were four surges in the river, each of them sending waves slapping against the base of the cliff. A basketball-sized boulder rolled free at one point, tumbling into the water.

  “It’s the only way forward,” Gerik said, producing a length of coiled rope. Just where he’d been storing it, I had no idea. But at least we weren’t going to be climbing down freehand. That said, the best idea was not to climb down at all.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Gerik said, “I can see hesitation in your eyes, Josh of Apartment 3B.”

  “You could see it in my ears, nostrils and balls, too, if you looked.”

  Gerik considered this, glancing to me even as he tied one end of the rope to a stalagmite, which he’d kicked several times to make certain was sturdy, likely weakening it as he did. When the rope was tied off, he walked to the edge of the drop-off and stood there with me, looking down to the river, unspooling the rope to allow it to drop below, where the fierce waters toyed with the end, tugging on it in playful fashion.

  “Salena was my friend,” he finally said. I barely heard him. He was speaking low, and the water below us echoed throughout the cavern like a drumbeat that never ended.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I have few friends,” Gerik said. “I’ve had many companions, but few friends. Salena was one of the latter. The first time I met her, she was leaving the Great Tooth Dungeon. I myself was heading inside. This was years ago, of course. I wasn’t the man I am now. Far worse in some ways, I admit.” He was testing the rope, but in ridiculous fashion. He had his boots on the very edge of the drop-off and was leaning back into the void, holding onto the rope, seeing if it would support him. But . . . what if it didn’t?

  He said, “The Great Tooth Dungeon has a cavern at the beginning, lit by sunlight thanks to a partially collapsed ceiling. That’s how I first saw Salena. She was scuffed and bloodied and stumbling out of the dungeon, barely upright, bleeding from a gaping wound in her side, half her hair burnt away, and she still looked beautiful. She always had that nature about her. A presence. A draw.”

  I nodded, thinking about how I’d seen her naked that time in the bathroom mirror, but then my mind replaced that memory with the countless times I’d seen her smile. Despite the allure of what I’d seen in the bathroom mirror, my memories of her smiles were fonder.

  But, to think of her being wounded, hurt? When had that happened? What was she doing—in those days when she’d been my babysitter—with the rest of her time?

  “The other members of her party had been obliterated,” Gerik said. “A Mine Troll. Nasty bastards. Sulfur and coal. Molly’s husband died that day. Hogarth was his name. Ripped near in half by a dull stone axe.” I thought of those nights Salena had been crying in her room, me listening in mine. Could it have been over Hogarth’s death? But, no. The timing wasn’t right. It was something else. I wondered if I would ever know.

  Gerik was satisfied with the rope and began wrapping it around his waist.

  He said, “That woman, coming out of the dungeon, was carrying a baby bulljaw. You know what those are?”

  “No.”

  “Picture a bulldog crossed with a bull.”

  “Bulldogs already look like bulls. That’s why they call them bulldogs.”

  “They call them bulldogs because they were bred to attack bulls as a sport. But, regardless, a bulljaw has a great deal more ‘bull’ to it. Far larger. Muscle. Formidable teeth. They’re carnivores. Voracious. The babies are cute, though. During her battle with the Mine Troll, Salena had been forced to flee the caverns, leaving all the dead, including Hogarth, behind. The troll came after her. It was a desperate race. At one point Salena would’ve died, but a mother bulljaw had thrown herself at the Mine Troll, rightfully believing it was a danger to her baby. The Mine Troll slaughtered her. The battle took only ten, maybe twenty seconds, but it was enough time for Salena to gain some distance. She’d used part of that time to rescue the baby bulljaw, knowing full well that it was about to be orphaned. She hugged it to her bloodied body, using magics to support its weight as she ran through the caverns, full of rage and sorrow, and fear as well, for Mine Trolls are single-minded creatures of pure destruction, and it was still in pursuit.”

  “Fuck,” I said. A scintillating addition to the conversation.

  “It wasn’t until just before the dungeon’s entrance that she was safe. There’s a long bridge of rope and wood that crosses an abyss. Withered wood. Frayed rope. Certainly nothing to support a Mine Troll. The monster was forced to stop at the edge of the chasm, lobbing stones the size of pumpkins as Salena stumbled her way across.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Salena raised that bulljaw. You have to understand, Josh of Apartment 3B, that bulljaws are terrible things. Full of rage. Vicious. Their tempers are like constant explosions. But during my visits with Salena, in the following years, I watched as Biscuit, the baby bulljaw, grew into the sweetest creature I’ve ever known. They grow amazingly fast, bulljaws. Blink your eyes and they’ll double in size. Picture this, my friend; Biscuit was a beast with twice the bulk of the largest bull, with six times the muscle and teeth like that of a wolf, set in a jaw the size of whale’s, but all Biscuit wanted to do was nuzzle and play. Biscuit loved music, too, she did. I swear she could dance. And all because of the love from that witch. All because of Salena. All because of the woman I first met on the day she stumbled out of that dungeon, leaving bloody footprints and a dead husband behind. You think on that. You think of how even then, even at that moment, Salena had love in her heart.”

  “I—”

  “But then you think of how someone murdered that woman. You think on that as well. And you think on how if you want to find that person, if you want to do something about how your babysitter was murdered, then your only choice is to climb down this cliff, to press on through this dungeon, and to earn the strength and the skill necessary to shove your blades through the eye sockets of whoever it was that burned Salena alive.”

  I swear even the river quieted. The walls refused to echo anything but Gerik’s voice. I could even hear the reverberations of the way he was gritting his teeth. I thought of the blurred man and everything he’d told me. I thought of the foxes he’d burned into my flesh.

  “Show me how to use the rope when I climb,” I told Gerik. He stared at me for some moments, and then his face broke into a grin. Well, a grimace with the merest traces of humor, but that was pretty good for him.

  “Good,” he said. “You’re starting to understand something. The little people, the ones on the sidelines, they believe that a hero is a man so brave that he never shits his pants in the face of danger. But the truth of the matter is, a hero is a man who still fights, even when his pants are full of shit.”

  “That’s gross praise,” I told Gerik, and then he climbed down the cliff, shouting up to me the whole time, showing me the methods of securing my weight during the climb. It only took a minute until he was standing by the river’s edge, holding the rope not only to keep it steady for me but also so that he wouldn’t himself get swept away by the surging water. I couldn’t hear him anymore over the roar of the river and the echoes from the cavern, but I could see him gesture that it was my turn, beckoning me down. I wrapped the rope around my waist and clenched it in my hands. When I’d watched Gerik descending I’d promised myself I wouldn’t hesitate when it was my turn. If I hesitated, then my fears of falling would only grow. Gravity wasn’t going to dissipate while I waited to build up my nerve.

  I took a breath, thought of Salena, and swung my foot out over the edge.

  comic image unrelated except I kinda think this is what ghouls look like and Gerik hates ghouls. Also I've been working on a horror project so I've been looking at old horror comics)