Chapter 98 - Finally Free

  It took us more time than I liked to gather up the crystals from all the monster bodies littering the place, but the effort was worth it. When all was said and done, there had been one hundred and twenty of the pods, each containing a fungus monster of one sort or another. That got us a wild collection of crystals in a mixture of clear, white, grey, and black colors.

  The clear ones were for every stat, a solid mix of all of them. The white stones came in only a handful of types. We found spells to Heal, Cleanse, Cure Disease, Cure Poison, Healing Aura—an area heal, and a heal over time spell called LifeBloom. The grey stones were a mix of Regeneration and Natural Armor. The black ones were oddballs. There were only two, and they were both Darkness spells, which made sense given where we’d found them.

  Mushrooms like to grow in the dark, right?

  For myself, I ended up with seven tire three Natural Armor crystals, because Alex wanted to rank me up to tier ten as quickly as he could. I also got a tier three Intellect stone, three tier three Heal stones, a tier three Charisma, and a tier three Strength.

  Alex took me aside for a word as we were collecting the crystals.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Those white stones. Are you planning to pop them in? It doesn’t really match with your build, so far. Sort of a shift in direction for you, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head. “I thought about it, but between Regeneration and Drain Life, I have plenty of self-healing power. I don’t really need Heal. Cleanse might be nice, but if I’m not taking Heal, it makes more sense to not take any white crystals.”

  “Then why take those?” Alex asked. “I can get the others to swap for things that’ll do you more good. I think we got you every Natural Armor stone we found. Did you get enough to reach tier ten?”

  “Not yet. I’m close, but I’ll have to go find some armored enemies to finish it. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done. I know you want to see what happens.”

  “It’ll be good data to have, for sure,” Alex said. “But even if there’s no more Natural Armor, we can get you some Strength and Stamina, and get those white crystals to people who plan to focus on healing others.”

  “That’s sort of what I have in mind,” I replied. “I took three Heal spells from the loot when we split them up. I figure I’ll drop one each to the MIT, Fenway, and Harvard groups. That way, they’ll be able to Heal their people, too.”

  Alex frowned. “I am sure they’ll appreciate the gesture, but do you think that’s the best use of crystals our people risked their lives to acquire?”

  I cocked my head sideways. “Yeah. I do. It’ll keep more people from dying, which helps all of us.”

  “Personally, I’m of the mind that if they want Heal stones, they ought to form their own party and enter the dungeon themselves.”

  I stared at Alex for a long moment, trying to figure out if he was joking, but he certainly looked serious. That just didn’t make sense! Why not share the wealth? “Alex, we got dozens of healing crystals here today. Your people will have tons of them to use. Isn’t it the smart call to share them out to our neighbors, so they can Heal their wounded, too?”

  He shook his head. “Not really.” But then Alex shrugged. “They’re your loot, though. If you want to give them away, that’s your loss, I suppose.”

  Alex stalked away from me without another word, leaving me wondering if I’d just screwed up somehow. He was the smart one, after all. Alex’s Intellect was far and away his strongest asset. It was part of why his spells hit so hard, sure. But it also made him able to see sides of things that someone with less Intellect might miss.

  I glanced his way again. Alex was tier seven, which likely meant his Intellect was tier seven. Maybe his Will, too. I’d have to ask to be sure. But I had a tier six Intellect and a second stone socketed, at tier four. He had sixty-four tier one stones worth of Intellect to my forty.

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  If he was against sharing out these Heal stones, maybe there was a point I just couldn’t see. Perhaps I was missing something, and if I just had another twenty-four stones worth of Intellect, maybe I’d know what that was.

  But that just didn’t ring true for me. It didn’t track. I’d always believed that when we help others, we lift everyone up. And lately, I’d begun taking to heart the old adage about how ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’ Cliche? Sure. That didn’t mean it wasn’t true, though.

  I’d keep on as I’d planned. No other group had the manpower to handle a dungeon like this. Heck, there were few if any people other than myself who could have even activated the dungeon, and killing the fungus giant without me would have been next to impossible. I was certain others would test themselves against this dungeon in the future, but only the strongest and most skilled would survive it.

  In the meantime, people were dying from wounds that could be easily Healed with these new white crystals.

  “Okay, people!” Alex called out. He was marching toward the portal. “We’ve collected all the crystals. Let’s blow this place, shall we?”

  There was a unison of agreement from the party. None of us wanted to remain there any longer than we had to. We’d won through the worst this dungeon could throw our way and earned some incredible rewards, but we were worn down, exhausted from what felt like days of constant fighting. I’d all but lost track of how long we’d been down there. It had to be at least the next day, outside. Maybe two days had passed?

  We gathered at the portal, staring into the green swirling disk.

  Dara spoke first. “What if it just pops us into another dungeon? Or back to the beginning?”

  Nobody said a word for a long moment after that. I stood there, pondering those ideas. I mean, it was possible. We didn’t know how this stuff worked, yet. Maybe this portal would bounce us back to the beginning of the dungeon and we’d have to go through it all over again.

  I didn’t think so, though. “That’s not how dungeons in games work. If magic is taking inspiration and form from our games, then this will probably follow familiar patterns.”

  “Makes sense,” Dara said.

  “Besides,” I went on, “if it is a portal back to the beginning, then we’ll just have to go through and fight our way through it all again. We’ll figure it out, win through, and then bust ourselves out of this place another way.”

  “Cameron is right,” Alex said. “Wherever this portal leads, it’s the only way out. Time to see where it goes.”

  Then he stepped forward, vanishing into the portal.

  The others followed, one after another. I stood my ground, waiting until everyone else had gotten out. If something else popped up and attacked, I didn’t want one of our weaker party members stuck here defending themselves against it solo.

  Nothing bad happened, though. No new monsters arrived. One after another, the party vanished into the glowing green mist, until it was just me left behind. Then I jumped through, too.

  I appeared instantly back outside the dungeon building, next to the gong I’d rung to set this whole thing going. The doors to the dungeon were closed again. The gong stood there, the same as it had before, ready to be rung by another set of fools who wanted to brave the place inside.

  We’d made it. Sunlight glinted from the west. It was heading into evening, then. My best guess was we’d been gone a little over a day.

  A squad of Alex’s men held positions nearby the gong, guarding it and the building. They seemed relieved to have their leader back, and were congratulating the other party members.

  “We all back?” Alex asked, doing a head count. “Excellent! Good job, everyone. Let’s get back to base. I want to lay in the biggest feast ever to celebrate our success!”

  “And a memorial,” I added.

  Alex shot me a look, like that addition hadn’t really been welcome, but then his smile faded, and his face grew more serious. “Quite right. We need to do a service for Kelly. He gave his life so that other people wouldn’t.”

  As I recalled it, Kelly had died because he was too stupid to recognize an obvious trap when it was right in front of him, and had then violated orders on top of that. But I wasn’t going to say that aloud. Better to let them memorialize the guy. People needed heroes, and it was kinder to recognize someone for a sacrifice than revile them for essentially picking up a Darwin Award. Kelly had made a mistake, a bad one, and he’d paid the ultimate price for it. That was enough. We didn’t need to do more.

  I glanced at the sky, already wanting to be on my way. I’d been gone over a day, and there were people I wanted to check in with.

  “You coming, Cameron?” Alex asked.

  I turned to him and gave him a broad smile. “Wouldn’t miss it! I’ll be there. Just have a couple of errands I want to run, first. Some people I want to see.”

  “Wouldn’t be Maggie, would it?” Alex asked with a grin.

  I rolled my eyes. The thing was, Maggie and her sister were two of the people I wanted to check in with. I cared about them both, and wanted to be sure they were still all right. It wasn’t like Alex was suggesting… That would be wrong.

  Amanda hadn’t been dead that long, damn it. And Alex knew that.

  He must have seen something of that old pain in my face, because his look softened at once. “Sorry, man. Was just kidding. You go do your thing. Don’t be too late, though! You won’t want to miss this! You’re our guest of honor, after all. We couldn’t have beaten this dungeon without you.”

  “He’s right,” Ruiz said.

  “Spot on,” Marion added.

  “Thanks, guys. I think we needed all of us, but…thanks. I’ll be back soon.” Then I turned my gaze toward the sky and activated my Flight, streaking up toward the deepening blue of the evening air.