Chapter 5: Arcane Knight

  Raiden stared in awe at the notification window. His lifelong dream had finally come true.

  Dungeon: The Gauntlet. Completed.

  Rewards: loot chest.

  Optional rewards: Earn a class. Completed.

  Class unlocked: Arcane Knight.

  Class description: The Arcane Knight is a warrior who fights with both their body and the mana coursing through their veins. They employ a variety of weapons. Their skill in magic is in their ability to imbue weapons and objects with their mana. They specialize in the utilization of armor and magical constructs and are potent melee and ranged combatants. The Arcane Knight is feared on the battlefield. Due to their focus on fighting with both their body and magic, the arcane knight generally focuses on growing the distribution of their stats fairly evenly among both the magical and physical categories instead of focusing on a few stats.

  Current Stats:

  Physicality

  Agility F-

  Strength F-

  Endurance F-

  Constitution F-

  Magic-

  Mana Control F-

  Mana Flow F-

  Mana Recovery F-

  Mana Pool F-

  Abilities: New ability unlocked. Imbue mana.

  Ability Description: Mana is the pure magical energy of the world. This ability grants the user the ability to imbue physical objects with their mana. This allows the user to power up magical objects such as weapons, armor, and guns. The user can let a far greater portion of their mana flow into objects than would normally be possible. This ability is always active.

  Soul Traits: None

  Lives: 2

  Raiden was ecstatic. He had done it. He had beaten the dungeon, and he had survived. Not only did he live to tell the tale of running the dungeon, but he also earned the class that had been his lifelong dream since he was a child. He was an Arcane Knight. If his father were still alive, Raiden knew that he would be proud of him.

  His stats had finally progressed from unranked as well. He was at F- in all of his stats, which surprised him. He thought that he still might be unranked in at least a few of them. Maybe his intense fighting with the rats had pushed him harder than he thought. Raiden flexed his hand once again and felt the power of mana flowing through his veins. Before, it had been so slow to activate. Now with his new ability, Imbue Mana, the magical energy was at his beck and call at all times since it was always active.

  Raiden wondered what his mother, Katie, and his little sister, Amberly, would think when he came back home. They needed him to succeed here. After Raiden’s father had died, his family’s situation had become desperate. Right now, he needed to head back out of the dungeon and up to the surface so that he could meet with Chapter Commander Mortimer, who was stationed at the dungeon entrance to await his successful dungeon run. He had earned his right to join the order. Anyone could get a class given enough time, but by running the dungeon solo, he proved that he had what it took to face the challenges that the order tackled on a constant basis. That was why the test to join the order was set up this way.

  As he was in his musings, a light descended at the far end of the chamber next to the patch of large mushrooms. Raiden gazed over at the beam of light and noticed something materializing on the ground. His eyes lit up, recognizing it for what it was, a dungeon chest, loot granted to him for his reward by the dungeon.

  He walked his way forward slowly, as it was still hard for him to breathe with the impacts he had taken across his torso. His breastplate was dented, and he could feel a few broken ribs from his fight with the giant rat.

  As he approached the loot chest, he examined it closely. It was a simple wooden box about knee height and adorned only with the letters of his name. He opened the lid and peered inside. His gaze landed on the sole item in the chest. A small glass bottle with red liquid inside. His spirits raised high as he snatched the bottle from the bottom of the chest and pulled off the lid. This was a healing potion, and it was something that he desperately needed at the moment.

  Without waiting any longer, he downed the contents. A warm feeling coursed through his body in gentle pulsating waves. He could feel an itching in his side and on his neck and head as the skin began to stitch itself back together. His broken ribs also began to heal. He stood there patiently waiting for the process to run its course. It took a long while, but by the time the potion’s effects had worn off, Raiden felt as good as new again.

  Raiden wondered how long it would take for this dungeon to respawn its monsters. An instanced dungeon like the Gauntlet would have the creatures inside of it reform from the ambient mana. He looked around the cavern, checking to see if he had missed anything or if there were any other enemies nearby. The cavern was well lit, however, and there was no danger in sight.

  A stirring feeling arose from the very center of his being, and he recognized it as his soul space calling to him. He sat down on the ground cross legged and began to meditate. His consciousness drifted in and out, and he felt a thread of something, something familiar. Allowing his consciousness to drift towards it, he allowed the impression to take hold. And in the next moment, he was experiencing the sensation of standing outside of his home. Although he knew it wasn’t really his home, it was what his mind and soul space constructed as a representation of his powers and abilities and who he was as a person. The house stood alone as if it were the only thing that existed. Everywhere else he looked was nothingness. That didn’t disturb him, however. Somehow, it felt right, like only the home was supposed to be there. He examined it closely. The house was small and run down, with a roof that was shoddily patched up with a mix of haphazard tiles in places, indicating quick repairs that were poorly done. The paint and the woodwork on the home were old and cracked. Exterior stonework looked worn and dirty. A shutter on the front was crooked, and one of the front windows had been boarded up.

  Raiden took it all in. This was the abode of the House Starshroud. His house. He didn’t let the state of his family’s current situation discourage him. If anything, he felt more resolved than ever to prove himself. He walked towards the front door and stepped inside. As he expected, no one else was there. Floorboards creaked as he entered the living room. In the fireplace was a blue flame. He felt the flame as his newfound power through his Arcane Knight class. Above the mantle of the worn fireplace were his weapons. His simple short sword and his mana gun hung next to each other on the wall.

  He had done it. He had become an Arcane Knight. His current abilities and strengths, represented by his soul space at this point, might be simple, but he knew in time they would grow. And the changes would reflect themselves here in this mental world. He resolved himself to keep getting stronger, no matter how hard the challenges got or what he had to face.

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  Raiden let go of his hold on the soul space, and reality snapped back into focus. He stood up from his meditative position and was about to turn to leave the dungeon when he felt something warm close to his neck. He slid his hand under his breastplate and realized the feeling of warmth was coming from the rectangular stone piece from the necklace that he wore, a supposed family heirloom. It was the one that his little sister Amberly had made him promise to wear today. She claimed that it was his good luck charm. He had honestly completely forgotten about it. He pulled the necklace out and held it in his palm. The necklace began to levitate and slowly drift towards the edge of the cavern, where the large patch of mushrooms sat.

  He quickly grabbed the necklace out of the air and put it back on around his neck, not wanting it to drift away. Feeling rather perplexed, he wasn’t exactly sure what was happening. The necklace kept drifting despite now being on his neck and pulled itself taut. The small stone rectangle continued to point at the cavern wall, tugging him ever so slightly in that direction. He was going to be late returning to the surface if he didn’t hurry up, but curiosity got the better of him, and he let the necklace guide him forward. After weaving his way through a few dozen mushrooms, he stood in front of the cavern wall. It was plain and just like every other section of the cave. Just as he thought he might be wasting his time with whatever was happening, a crack appeared in the cavern wall. Glowing lines then appeared that made a rectangular shape like a door. The stone slowly began to push inward.

  The next thing Raiden knew, he was looking at a hallway that extended down farther than he could see. He wanted to turn back, but the amulet was still pulling him forward, almost as if begging him to follow it. Raiden took a few dozen tentative steps forward in the dark tunnel. Just as he was about to stop, he heard a terrible grinding noise, then a series of sharp cracks. As he turned to sprint back out of the tunnel, he found his feet weren’t propelling him forward. They weren’t propelling him anywhere. The light of the doorway began to drift up in his vision. He was falling, and he could hear a jumble of rocks above him give way as the tunnel collapsed. His speed quickly accelerated. The light of the doorway grew dimmer and dimmer until more sections of the tunnel came free, and the light from the cavern above him disappeared, and he fell into darkness.

  Raiden expected death at any moment when he finally hit the ground. He tensed, expecting the impact to come at any moment. When it suddenly and violently hit. The impact was jarring and abrupt. Then, he felt himself sinking lower and lower; he had fallen into water. Everything around him was pitch black. Giant slabs of rock from above pummeled the water and then finally subsided. He wanted desperately to breathe, but he knew he couldn’t, submerged in water as he was. Desperately, he struggled, unsure which way was up. Flailing and kicking, he strove for what he hoped was upward. His lungs were burning, and he convulsed. Close, he was so close to inhaling. Raiden knew that if he did, though, it would spell certain death. He continued to push and kick; that was when he felt his hand break the surface, and he nearly prematurely opened his mouth, but he resisted the temptation. And a split second later, his head broke the surface. Blissful air entered his lungs.

  After a dozen gasping breaths, the reality of his situation finally sank in. He could see nothing and hear nothing besides his own movement in the water. Raiden felt very exposed, unable to see anything, and doing his best to keep himself afloat in an underground lake that held the possibility of very real danger lurking within it. He picked a direction and began to swim. His breastplate was heavy, but he wasn’t ready to abandon it just yet. And he also wasn’t sure if he could take it off in his current situation, seeing as it had been dented in and would be incredibly difficult to remove. He felt around for his weapons and was relieved that they were still there, his blade in its scabbard and his pistol holstered on his thigh. He continued swimming for a few minutes until he felt his fist collide with a rock, and he stopped. Grasping with his hands to get a hold of whatever it was. He quickly realized that it was a rocky wall, one that he was unable to scramble up. He picked a direction and began to swim alongside the wall, using it as a guide and reaching out every few strokes to ensure that it was still there.

  After a few more minutes of paddling, he felt his feet hit the bottom, and after a few more strokes, solid ground was beneath him. Standing up, he waded through the last few feet of water to get to what he assumed was a shore. He was no longer in the instanced dungeon of the Gauntlet; no doubt filled his mind about that. He must have fallen into a normal section of the Maw that wasn’t fully governed by the World Heart. If he had entered another instanced dungeon that was overseen by the World Heart, then he should have gotten a notification by now. He would have to be extra on guard. An area like this one was a normal part of the world and would be unpredictable, unlike the Gauntlet, which only had specific monsters that spawned. That also meant he didn’t know the rank of the monsters here and there wouldn’t be any loot chests for him.

  The ground beneath him was rocky, and there were a number of small rocks and pebbles that he could hear himself kicking as he walked forward. He stilled his breathing, listening for any sounds. Unnerved by the stillness, he drew his weapons. Then a thought struck him. He began to charge his mana gun, and when it was ready to fire, he set off a round into the air. The little blue ball of mana gave just enough light for him to see by as it jetted away.

  The mana bullet faded away as it dissipated after its maximum range. During that brief glimpse of light that he had taken in, the cavern seemed like it wound upwards. It was a long and wide cave as far as Raiden could tell. He charged his pistol once more, and when it was ready, he set off another round almost directly ahead of him to reveal the path that he needed to take. There were a good number of rocky shelves and mounds of earth that he would need to climb, but he knew he could go in that direction without fear of falling off a cliff or into a giant hole of some kind. Raiden shuddered at that thought as he made his way forward, up the slopes. After a few steps, he put his sword away, realizing he would need at least one free hand for climbing. The pistol stayed in his other hand just in case he needed it to see by or in case he ran into anything unfriendly down here. The two mana bullets that he had fired had drained a small portion of his energy. He wouldn’t be able to fire them indefinitely as he would soon run out of mana.

  After about another twenty minutes of climbing, he charged his pistol and fired it forward once again. Just ahead, there was a tunnel after a few more rocky ledges were traversed. He began to pick his way forward when he heard a sloshing sound behind him. A loud groan echoed through the cavern. The low bass of the sound reverberated through the rocks under his feet. Raiden holstered his pistol and began to race up the rocks as fast as he could. The sloshing sound grew louder, and a series of squelching sounds reverberated as something landed on the shoreline. The sounds grew louder and closer, and he raced upwards as fast as he could in the pitch black.

  He stumbled a few times, and he fought to pull himself up. The crunching of rocks behind him threw his instincts for survival into a frenzy as he pulled himself up another ledge. The noise grew rapidly nearer. The sounds were close, so close that they couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet away. He flailed with his hands to feel for the next ledge or hill of rocks that he would have to scramble up, but after a dozen paces, none came. As he was running blindly, he smashed into a boulder that knocked him off his feet onto the ground. He rolled and continued to scramble forward.

  The crunching sounds behind him grew louder; they couldn’t be more than a few dozen feet away. He sprinted as hard as he could ahead, guessing at where he needed to go. He tripped several times, landing harshly, then got up as fast as possible, ignoring the scrapes and bruises that began to accumulate. Another loud groan sounded behind him, and the ground beneath him trembled. He stumbled over another rock and smashed his face hard on the ground. That ended up saving him from some terrible fate as he felt the air move as something passed over where he had just been. Raiden sprang to his feet and kept running for his life until he finally slammed into a rocky wall. His hand extended to touch the wall so that he could keep his balance and use it as a guide. He ran at a full sprint into the darkness.

  On and on he sprinted into the darkness; his footsteps grew louder, which let him know that somewhere along the way, he had made it to a tunnel. An angry bellow echoed in the tunnel behind him. Raiden didn’t stop, and he didn’t look back. He just kept running. After about a minute, he slowed just enough to fire a shot ahead of him. The tunnel ended about a hundred paces away. It looked like a smooth stone wall. The light from his mana bullet quickly disappeared, and he charged on ahead. He didn’t dare slow down to guess where the wall was, so he fired off another round when he knew that he was likely a dozen paces away or so. Raiden had guessed correctly and soon found himself at the new wall. He used this too as a guide as he continued his mad dash away from the danger that was behind him. Nothing sounded as if it was right on his heels at this point, and angry bellows echoed as if they were a good distance away, but Raiden didn’t let up his frantic pace.

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  What do you think — how will Raiden survive being trapped in the Maw?