‘The bastard shoved me!’

  The freefall snapped Merrick out of his boss-induced terror as he scrambled to find away to survive his current predicament. When he’d glanced down the holes while passing, the small amount of light in tunnels allowed him to do some [[Quick Math]] on the slope. Granted he didn’t have any complex mathematics skills, what he did know told him that the incline was steep enough to be lethal unless he figured out a way to slow his acceleration.

  Doing the only thing he could think of, Merrick pulled his pack around to the front of his body and made himself as small as possible behind it. His body impacted the top of the steep tunnel before getting knocked down onto the floor of said escape chute. With his thick explorer’s pack between him and the tunnel, protecting his head and most of his vital organs located in his chest, he’d be spared the worst of the bumping.

  Avoiding a concussion was certainly on the top of Merrick’s to-do list, second only to ‘don’t turn into a pancake’. Unfortunately, Merrick’s legs were still trailing behind him. They managed to help him collect some more information about his descent. He quickly learned that the tunnel wasn’t nearly as smooth as it seemed in the dim lighting provided above, though the lesson cost him some tears in his pants and a shoe that got caught in an small alcove or opening.

  After a few moments of sliding, Merrick realized that the incline seemed to be tapering out a little. Not enough to make the fall any less dangerous, but certainly a noticeable amount. Shortly after the observation, Merrick began to feel obstacles popping up in his path.

  He opened his eyes and peered out in front of him, directly down the shaft, and realized that there was more light there than he’d had above. Small holes were spread out across the tunnel, some with soft yellow glows that told him there were mulberry roots located in them and some that just had vines that crossed the cavern and entered a different hole.

  Those vines were what Merrick had noticed, not thick enough to stop his descent and spread out too far for them to solve that with numbers. They were, however, helping in slowing his free fall when working in conjunction with the slowly leveling slope of the tunnel.

  Convinced he might be able to survive the fall if his circumstances kept improving, Merrick resolved to keep his eyes open and start looking for ways to get out of the shaft. Of course, the moment he started to get optimistic about his chances, his backpack slid over a particularly large hole in the tunnel, causing Merrick to jerk his head down and bite his tongue.

  He made it a point to start moving his body in a way that would help his pack avoid the small holes. Even if the bumping wasn’t painful for him, he didn’t want his pack ripping open on one of the holes. It was the only reason he still had most of the skin on his body considering it’d have long since been ripped off due to friction otherwise. At least, if his legs and exposed foot were anything to judge by.

  Blinking the tears of pain out of his eyes, he took in the sights. The tunnel was mostly smooth, as if it had been bored out by a water mage using pressurized water, with small openings interspersed about. It was wide enough that Merrick fit comfortably, though he’d struggle to fit with another person. If he had to guess, the tunnel was about as wide as the Poison Plantaconda.

  Once he gave it some thought, he realized it was also about the same shape considering how cylindrical it was. The thought sent shivers down his spine, but he focused his eyes forward regardless. Even if the tunnel belonged to the snake, the odds it’d follow him down the tunnel rather than consuming his companions were slim.

  “Besides, there’s no way it’d fit with a James in it’s gullet. Even if it could, the speed I’m descending shouldn’t be able to be matched by it slithering behind me.” Merrick muttered to himself, not allowing himself to vocalize that it wouldn’t just be James in the snake’s stomach, but Mary and Rod as well. Logically he knew that he couldn’t save them and it was better for at least one of them to survive, if was even going to be able to survive delving so deep, but he still felt guilty.

  With a frown on his face, Merrick allowed his [[Quick Math]] skill to whisper numbers into his mind. At the rate he was falling and the length of time he’d been doing so, there was no chance he was still located in the first Expanse of the dungeon. He would have long since flown past the first threshold. The skill kept whispering to him as he focused on the leveling out of the escape tunnel, as he was choosing to mentally refer to it, and he realized that unless something changed soon he was going to pass by the second and third expanse before his fall became a non-lethal project to halt.

  He hadn’t seen any records for anything past the third threshold and had no idea what to expect. Apparently, the fourth expanse of the dungeon and beyond were considered sensitive information. He was sure that with the correct skills and levels, and most likely a contract to participate in a few group delves, he could have obtained that information but as it was, it was unavailable to the public.

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  What he did know was that there was no chance he would be able to battle his way past the threshold bosses. If even one of the first threshold bosses, the snake that guarded the transition between the first and second expanse of the dungeon, had him and his peers fleeing for their lives.. well, he didn’t fancy his chances.

  Luckily, he knew that as someone delved deeper into the dungeon, there were less rooms and tunnels. As far as he knew, there were 18 points of entry from the first to the second threshold, each with their own boss monster guarding the transitionary area. Then there were 9 points of transition from the second to the third expanse and only 4 mapped areas to descend to the fourth expanse.

  The dungeon appeared to funnel delves together the deeper they went and the scholars suggested it was due to the increased strength and therefore ambient magicka requirements of the monsters that were located there. It likely cost the dungeon almost no upkeep to sprinkle bramblekin everywhere but that obviously wasn’t the case with the Plantacondas.

  Merrick shifted his body weight in a way that caused his pack to do a full circle around the tunnel. As terrifying as the trip was, Merrick realized it was also extremely fun. He started making a game of avoiding not only the holds, but even slipping past some of the vines without getting caught on them. Even though that meant they wouldn’t be slowing down his fall, he was a long way from the slope leveling out enough for it to matter anyways.

  [Skill acquired: Sledding 1]

  Merrick was rewarded for his efforts. Apparently his Status decided that his backpack qualified as a sled and he’d shown enough talent and effort to acquire the skill. Like with all passives, the skill presented itself as inaudible whispers of tips and tricks in his mind. He was quickly able to incorporate the invasive thoughts and more efficiently shift his weight to move the way he wanted.

  After a few more minutes, his [[Sledding]] skill had risen to 3 and he recalled something that Rod’s father had told him during his exploratory apprenticeship. Skills seemed to level faster in life-or-death situations, or any situation that involved intense amounts of risk or adrenaline at that matter. There were a few theories about why that was, from the body being able to mine deeper for potential when it was pushed to extremes to scholarly theories about the chemicals altering the brain’s composition enough to make it more malleable to the Status.

  Regardless of which theory was correct, Merrick was glad to be taking advantage of the phenomenon. His [[Sledding]] skill, which he used the esoteric function of his [[Merge]] skill to sort into his Utility section of his status, was starting to impart him with tips and tricks to slow his rapid slide. It was just as well, because Merrick’s [[Quick Math]] skill let him know that he’d just passed the elevation that the fourth expanse was supposed to begin at. Give or take roughly 30 seconds of free-fall. His skill was [[Quick Math]] Afterall, not [[Accurate Math]] or [[Trigonometry]].

  Merrick found himself discontent with the amount of knowledge he had about the dungeon, not for the first time that day. At least previously, it was because he hadn’t bothered to read the relevant texts or pay for a delving guide. Now, however, he was upset that information about the deep delves wasn’t publicly available. He wished he at least knew how deep the dungeon was supposed to descend.

  Merrick had no way to know that nobody had successfully made it to the end of the dungeon yet. That knowledge was withheld for a few reasons, not the least of which was the general anxiety it would cause the public living in Steelhearth. Not many humans would be comfortable dwelling on top of a magical dungeon filled with aggressive monsters that humans hadn’t even finished conquering yet.

  The slope’s rate of leveling began increasing rapidly and Merrick subsequently stopped avoiding the vines, which had begun getting thicker and more populous as well. After a few more minutes of slamming into vines and breaking through the vines, they abruptly disappeared, and he resumed sledding without the assistance breaking. It was hard to gauge the degree of the slope without standing on level ground, but Merrick predicted it was somewhere between 38 and 46 degrees. Still far too steep to climb, but survivable.

  Finally, he was able to see the end of his escape shoot which looked a bit like a glowing semicircle in the distance.

  “Shit.”

  Merrick realized that the exit wasn’t a semicircle, that was only what was visible to him. He attempted to pull his legs up to his chest, trying to get as much of his body on top of the large backpack as possible. The maneuver cost him his second shoe, but he was almost able to get into a fetal position as he hit the bottom of the tunnel and began rapidly ascending again. The tunnel ended in something akin to a ramp and he was tossed airborne.

  He opened his eyes as he soared, seeing first a ceiling absolutely covered in thick roots as large as himself, glowing berries danged from them, with vines flowing between them covered in vibrant flowers that were shades and hues of colors that Merrick had never seen. He realized quickly how large the room was and looked down, seeing that he was only six or seven feet in the air as he traveled forward. His upward momentum was quickly seized, and he began his rapid descent back to earth where he belonged.

  With a large crash, Merrick landed on a particularly large bush.

  The fortunate thing was that Merrick was still breathing, though with some difficulty considering how hard he’d just been winded. He’d managed to shield his head, lungs, and heart from the crash landing. Unfortunately, his legs were basically ripped to shreds below his knees from all the friction and abrasion of his fall. He also had a few ribs that were bruised at the least, though more likely cracked or broken all together.

  He’d been falling for almost 10 minutes, near terminal velocity for most of it. His [[Quick Math]] skill told him that was almost 20 miles between him and the exit of the dungeon (A/N 32 km). 20 miles to trek, and he didn’t even know if his legs would hold beneath him when we went to stand.