When Aiden lived on the mountain, his mornings usually began in one of three ways.
The first was a sunbeam landing directly on his face.
The second was Misty lightly spritzing him awake.
The third was Misty deciding he had offended her in some way and splashing him with enough water to make him question whether he had fallen asleep outside or inside a pond.
Without any of that, waking up felt a little lonely.
Unfortunately, his wake-up call that morning was neither gentle nor nostalgic.
It was Jax.
More specifically, it was Jax somehow not looking where he was going, stumbling over Aiden, and elbowing him directly in the stomach as he fell.
Normally, being elbowed in the stomach by someone tripping over you would hurt, but it would be fine.
Jax, however, was a pugilist.
His entire class was designed around artificially increasing the striking power of his body.
Party Leader Jax has landed a strike against you.
You take 16 damage.
For a moment, Aiden was fairly sure his ribs had cracked.
He rolled onto his side and writhed on the ground, trying to both gulp down air and cough at the same time, which was apparently not something the body was designed to do.
"Oh crap," Jax yelled, looking around in a panic. "I think I killed him."
Aiden tried to tell him that he was not dead.
What came out instead was a wheezing noise that sounded like a kettle begging for mercy.
Each cough made his vision dim for a second as a searing pain ran through his chest.
Kaelen rushed over, robes flapping as he dropped beside him.
"Damn it, Jax!"
He raised his staff and called out,
"Hear me, Mother of Love and Family. Let your embrace wash over your people and mend their tired bodies before your loving hearth!"
Party member Kaelen has used Prayer of Healing (E).
You recover 16 HP.
Golden light washed over Aiden.
It felt strange. Warm, but also pressing, almost like being pulled into a tight hug by someone who was both comforting and very insistent that his ribs return to their proper position.
Aiden finally drew in a full breath.
For a moment, he just lay there and enjoyed the feeling of air being allowed inside his body again.
Then he grabbed Jax by the shoulders and shook him.
"What in the hells was that for!?"
"It was an accident, my bad," Jax said apologetically.
His tail was tucked between his legs in a way that reminded Aiden of a regular dog who had been caught tearing up a pillow.
By that point, everyone else in camp was awake.
Selene seemed genuinely sympathetic and quietly agreed that Jax needed to learn how to control his strength. Liora, on the other hand, was laughing.
Aiden sent her a dirty look.
She laughed harder.
Breakfast was more rations, which everyone ate with the enthusiasm of people who understood that food was necessary for survival but wished survival had better seasoning.
While they ate, Aiden told the others about the extra potions he had made.
Before the sun had fully risen, they were already making their way through the woods.
As they walked, Liora moved beside Aiden and subtly pulled him back from the others.
"How was she during your shift?" she asked quietly.
Aiden thought back to Thalia's potion attempt and shrugged.
"Honestly, she seemed more awkward than malicious. Did she do anything during your shift?"
"No," Liora admitted. "But then again, she may be onto the fact that we don't trust her."
Aiden nodded.
Part of him still did not fully understand Liora's paranoia about Thalia. But he was determined to be as good a teammate as he could be. Besides, if Liora was right, then keeping watch could save the group.
And if she was wrong, nothing bad would happen.
It was a win-win.
Assuming no one got stabbed in their sleep over a misunderstanding.
As they approached the trapdoor at the base of the tree roots, Selene stepped forward. She reached down, grabbed the handle, and took a moment to wrench it open.
The passage below showed only the first three rungs of a ladder before the darkness swallowed the rest. Even with sunlight peeking through the trees overhead, the inside of the hole was pitch black.
Aiden walked over to peer inside.
A System window appeared.
You have arrived at the entrance of the dungeon.
Crypt of the 23rd Brigade
Dungeon Stats:
Item Rank: E
Item Quantity: 3
Dungeon Danger: Medium
Total Previous Attempts: 2
Attempt Log:
Attempt 1: Sirius Oxhouse - Status: Deceased
Attempt 2: William Oxhouse - Status: Deceased
Would you like to enter?
YES / NO
Aiden stared at the floating text for a moment before turning to the others.
He had no idea what most of that information meant.
Kaelen and Thalia, however, were already talking.
"Since it has three E-rank items, it should be a twelve-room dungeon," Kaelen said, looking at the screen. "And from the sound of it, the Oxhouses were probably a child dreaming of adventure and his father discovering where he went days later."
He shook his head slowly.
Aiden looked back at the attempt log.
Sirius Oxhouse.
William Oxhouse.
Aiden had no experience with dungeons. He had barely any experience with monsters aside from the Ash Spirits and the Blood Trent. Even so, he could imagine what kind of death followed a dungeon with the word crypt in its name.
A pitch-black tunnel.
Undead soldiers.
Rotting bodies still trapped in whatever uniforms or armor they had worn in life.
Driven insane by the feeling of flesh decaying, and then by the lack of feeling once there was nothing left to rot.
Aiden swallowed.
"We should make an attempt to locate their bodies as we explore," Thalia suggested, adjusting the backpack on her shoulders. "If they were close enough to stumble upon the dungeon, I believe their home may be nearby."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
After that, they lined up in the formation they had discussed earlier in case they encountered tight corridors.
Jax and Selene would take the front.
Kaelen and Thalia would stay in the middle.
Liora and Aiden would bring up the back.
One by one, they pressed yes on the dungeon screen.
A strange feeling of weightlessness washed over Aiden as his body began to glow blue. It lasted only a second before the light puffed away into small sparks and flowed down into the open trapdoor.
Then the world shifted.
A chill ran through Aiden the moment they arrived inside the dungeon.
Part of it was nerves.
The rest was the frigid air.
There was almost no light around them. Ahead, maybe fifty feet away, Aiden could see what looked like the faint dancing glow of a campfire.
He reached out to steady himself in the darkness. His hand brushed against dust-covered brickwork. The corners crumbled slightly under his fingertips.
"I was told these things had light," Jax said.
A thump followed.
Then Selene stumbled into Thalia.
Then Thalia bumped into Aiden.
"Well, this one does not," Aiden said, steadying himself. "I have three night vision potions for emergencies, but for now, let's try to head toward that fire up ahead and figure out where we are."
They shuffled into the next room, barely an arm's width away from each other as they moved.
The room itself was a simple square chamber. As they stepped inside, faint bits of light became visible from two hallways, one to the left and one to the right.
It was not much, but it was enough to get a rough look around.
Liora turned to the wall behind them. Using the metal cap on the end of her staff, she scraped an arrow into the brick, pointing back toward the hallway they had come from.
While she did that, Jax and Aiden started toward the room on the right.
Normally, they would have stuck together, but they could see the back wall of the room even from where they stood. Besides, Aiden wanted to grab the torches.
The room looked like a training area.
Two torches flickered on either side of the doorway.
A dust-covered shortbow sat on a table to the left with a bundle of arrows beside it. Farther in, a cabinet held a set of javelins on top, though the drawers had been opened and whatever had once been inside was gone.
Beyond the cabinet, a rack of spears stood with their tips pointed toward the ceiling.
Three targets sat against the back wall, arrows sticking out from different points across them. A rack of four longswords rested on the right side of the back wall, and along the right wall stood three training dummies.
One of them had lost its head.
Judging by the splintered neck, someone had been very enthusiastic about training.
"We got two torches and a room full of weapons here," Jax called to the others.
Aiden stepped inside and looked over the weapons.
A strange thought occurred to him.
Should he use one?
When he had dreamed of adventuring, he had always imagined throwing potions at enemies or learning some magic combat skill that could destroy whatever stood in front of him.
He had never really thought about what a weapon could do for him.
Selene took one of the torches. Kaelen took the other.
Aiden looked at the bow first.
Then he imagined shooting one of his teammates in the back by accident and immediately decided against it.
The javelins had the same problem, with the added issue that he did not have the strength to throw one properly.
Then he turned toward the swords.
The sword was often called the king of melee weapons because it could do a bit of everything. Unfortunately, doing a bit of everything required competence, training, and at least some level of confidence.
Aiden had none of those things.
So he looked to the last option.
The spear.
It was said to be a beginner's weapon. The first weapon many soldiers were trained with. Simple, practical, and able to keep an enemy at a distance.
For someone like Aiden, who had no intention of standing close enough to a monster that it could introduce its teeth to his face, distance sounded lovely.
He grabbed one.
The spear shook off decades of dust as he lifted it. The wood felt old but solid in his grip.
Aiden knew it was probably childish, but there was something exciting about holding a weapon. It was like some half-buried part of his brain had woken up and gone, Yes. Stick with sharp end. Excellent.
He turned to the others, but none of them seemed interested in taking anything.
As they headed toward the room on the left, Aiden thought about it.
Selene fought with the arm she could sharpen, so she did not need a weapon.
Jax used his paws.
Liora had her staff to channel magic.
Kaelen had his own staff for prayers.
As for Thalia, Aiden had no idea, but he could only assume she had some kind of extenuating circumstance.
Or strings.
Probably strings.
When they stepped into the left room, Aiden was surprised to find what looked like a kitchen area.
From the doorway, a small corridor led to a shelf covered with decrepit, expired spices. The sides of the hall were lined with sacks of old food that had long since rotted away, judging by the dark stains beneath them.
To the left sat a fireplace, the fire still dancing beneath a cauldron.
Across from the fireplace was a line of cabinets, a cutting board, and empty spaces where food had likely once been stored.
Beyond the fireplace and cutting area stood a large set of double doors.
A metal nameplate sat on them, covered in dust.
Selene stepped forward and wiped it clean.
Captain Lisa Simonas.
She tried the handle.
It jiggled slightly, but the door did not open.
"T-the door's locked," Selene said, turning to the rest of them. "I can try to break in, b-but that would make noise."
Aiden looked to the others, unsure what to do.
Then Thalia silently stepped forward.
She pulled off her backpack, set it down, and turned to them.
"Do we have any reason we would need this door intact later?"
Everyone looked between each other for a moment before shaking their heads.
Thalia nodded.
She pulled out what looked like a leather roll and unfurled it, revealing a set of carving tools.
After a moment of inspection, she selected a small blade. It looked almost like a tiny chef's knife, with the cutting edge only on one side and a handle several times larger than the blade itself.
She placed the tool against the door above the mechanism and began to spin it.
Little wood shavings fell away with each turn until a small hole opened in the door.
Then she switched tools, taking out a small saw and cutting away at the wood around the lock.
On a newer door, the job probably would have taken a while. But age had weakened the wood, and Thalia worked with precise, quiet movements.
Once she finished, Selene and Jax pushed on the doors.
The bottoms scraped against the floor before the doors opened into a simple office.
A small green rug sat just beyond the entrance.
Past it was a wooden desk with a letter opener and several dried vials of ink. In the far left corner, an open chest held what looked like a good number of gold coins. In the far right corner, a dusty bed sat neatly made.
Jax and the others moved deeper into the room, most of them naturally gravitating toward the chest.
Aiden walked to the desk.
A small brown notebook rested there.
He picked it up and blew the dust from the cover.
Written across the front were the words:
Journal of Captain Pices.