Name: Jeremy Wilkins
Race: Human
Sex: Boy
Age: 10
Character Class: Child-Rogue
Level: 15
Health: 11
Mana: 9
Attributes:
Strength: 12
Endurance: 5
Vitality: 6
Dexterity: 19
Agility: 20
Perception: 26
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 6 (+1 ring of wisdom)
Will Power: 5
Charisma: 4 (+1 clown nose)
Extra point: 2
Active Skills:
Identify: 5
Sneak: 8 (+2 magic shoes) (+1 camouflage ring)
Detect Traps: 7
Charmed Object Activation: 3
Passive Skills:
Enhanced Physical: 2
Poison Resistance: 7
Mental Fortitude: 4
Pain Tolerance: 5
Skills:
Melee Weapons: 5
Archery: 3
Knife Throwing: 2
Spells:
None
Dungeon Account:
12,614.78 dc
Titles:
Big Slayer
Gifts and Blessings:
Blessing of the Spider Queen.
“What would a strong adventurer's stat sheet look like?” he asked, talking as much to himself as to Flint.
“Not like yours.”
“Thanks, Flint, that really helped.”
“That's why I'm here.”
***
Jeremy sat on the alien blue-green grass lawn in front of the police station. He pulled out his two bows, placing them next to each other, and did Identify, pushing his skill to get as much information about the two bows as he could.
Child's Spider-bow of Aradok
Rank: Epic
Charmed:
Durability: ***
Concealment: *****
Accuracy: *****
Child's Elite Dragon Slayer
Rank: Superior
Charmed:
Durability: *****
Arrow Speed: *****
Power: *****
“Well,” Jeremy said. “My first bow is accurate and hard to see, but the second is clearly stronger and more powerful.”
Curious, he drew his new bow and found he could barely pull it back, and when he did, his arms were shaking so much he didn't think he could aim properly, reminding him of the first time he'd used a bow back in Clown Lord's Fun House.
He put his last two points into strength, raising it to 14. Even with the additional two points of strength and his archery up to 3, it was hard to draw the bow. Pulling his new bow back as far as he could, he fired it into the front of the police department.
The armor-piercing arrow went several inches into the stone wall. Jeremy broke the arrow trying to pull it out again. Wow. Impressive.
He fired his old bow. This time, his arrow bounced off the police station wall. “I need a more powerful bow, but I don't want to give up my old bow's accuracy and stealth,” Jeremy said. “What if I velociduck taped the two bows together? Do you suppose that would work?”
At that point, Book started vibrating so much that it bounced up and down on the ground where Jeremy had left it next to his backpack.
Curious, he opened Book.
The adventurer named Beeg Dumi had two charmed weapons he liked very much, so he tied them together with rope and went hunting monsters. His two weapons came apart while fighting a monster. The monster killed and ate him, and now he's miserable.
This paragraph ended with the picture of a monster's belly, somehow transparent, showing a very miserable-looking adventurer in pieces inside the monster's stomach. “I'm pretty sure if a monster killed this Beeg Dumi, Beeg Dumi isn't miserable, he's dead.”
”I can't help thinking when Book says Beeg Dumi, it's referring to you,” Flint said.
“Shut up.”
Book continued.
Smirt Giy, on the other hand, took his two favorite charmed weapons and all his money to a master smith or craftsman. There, he had his two weapons merged into one weapon that would serve him well throughout his life.
This paragraph ended with a picture of a proud adventurer holding up a sword.
“Wait. You can merge charmed weapons? Not sure how that helps,” Jeremy said. “Where am I going to find a master smith or craftsman on the second floor of a dungeon?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“You are in Dungeonville,” Flint said.
“The town with empty stores,” Jeremy said. “So what?”
“You only checked the food stores,” Flint said. “Is food that important to you?”
“Yes.” He packed his stuff and stood up. “I guess it wouldn't hurt to look around before we take on the bank quest.”
***
Second Journal Entry
Day ??? plus 1.
I look at my watch sometimes before remembering it's broken. It's impossible to tell how much time has gone by in the dungeon. I'm in a strange dungeon town of Dungeonville. The townspeople can't speak and the cop is mean. Glad I'm passing through. Have a dungeon book that's giving me quests. If Book thinks the last quest was easy, I don't want to see its hard quests.
Fried chicken. Ice cream. Burgers. French fries. I think of food a lot. Evenings are the worst. Nothing to do but feel lonely and scared. Mom must think I'm dead. She must feel horrible. I miss my friends, my house, not my brother, though. If I ever get home, I'm pounding that creep. With my new strength and speed, it should be easy.
***
Before getting his bows merged (if that was possible) and taking on whatever monsters infested the bank, he decided to do some exploring and find out more about this strange town.
Though neither the students nor the teachers could speak, by looking directly at him and pointing in the direction he'd come, they made it clear that Jeremy wasn't welcome inside the school.
When he used Sneak to get inside, he saw nonspeaking kids sitting at their desks listening to a nonspeaking teacher and doing non-schoolwork. With level 11 Sneak, they didn't seem to notice him. He saw a few pieces of paper on the floor and reached down to pick one up. Words popped up on his stat sheet.
WARNING! ADVENTURERS SHOULD NOT STEAL!
What? He stopped and put them back where he'd found them. It seemed these NPC characters weren't supposed to be treated like monsters. Which meant he couldn't take their stuff. No problem. He'd yet to see anything he wanted.
He left the school and kept walking, looking for a smith or craftsman. With the monsters as large and dangerous as they were, he needed to up his game.
Soon, he could see the entrance to the town bank in the distance. The monsters inside had torn apart the bank's entrance, and it was just a bleak, dark hole into the unknown. He turned around and walked the other way.
After several more hours of searching, he found a smithy. It was a small building with the sounds of loud clanging and the roar of a fire coming from inside.
Inside the smithy, a huge, bald, ash-covered man got up from his place at the forge and approached. Unlike the other townsfolk, this one didn't smile and wave. Instead, he stomped over to Flint and Jeremy, emitting an odd grumbling noise. Not saying anything, exactly, just grumbling.
Not sure what else to do, Jeremy held out his two bows and told the man what he wanted.
“Grumble, grumble, grumble,” the large man held out his hand.
“I believe he wants you to pay him,” Flint said.
“How much?” Jeremy asked.
“Grumble.”
With a shrug, Jeremy put a hundred dungeon coin in the man's hand.
The man didn't move. “Grumble.”
“Book did say to bring all your money,” Flint said.
With a sigh, Jeremy continued putting dungeon coin in the man's hand until he reached two thousand. “How much is this going to cost?”
“Grumble.”
“Do I really need this?” Jeremy asked, looking over at Flint.
“Considering how weak an adventurer you are and how much you depend on your longbow. I would say yes,” Flint responded.
“Great.” Jeremy kept adding dungeon coin. The dungeon coin in the smith's hand increased to three thousand, then four thousand. It wasn't until he reached four thousand five hundred that the man withdrew his hand, and with another loud grumble, took the two bows to the back. There were sounds of hammering.
“I hope he knows what he's doing,” Jeremy said. He tried to sneak into the back room to see what the man was doing and maybe learn something, but the door was closed. He tried his magic key with no success. The man had somehow blocked the door from the other side.
Around an hour later, the smith returned, holding one large bow, and handed it to Jeremy. “Grumble.”
Jeremy held the bow and did Identify:
Child's Elite Spider-bow of Aradok
Rank: Superior
Charmed
Durability: ****
Arrow Speed: *****
Power: *****
Concealment: *****
Accuracy: *****
“Its ranking dropped from Epic to Superior,” Jeremy said, “and it lost a point from Dragon Slayer's Durability.”
“Grumble.” The large man turned away and went back to whatever he was doing.
“Well, you did merge the two bows, so you have to expect the stats to fall somewhere in between the two. But overall, you have a much better bow. Good work, Jeremy. For a change, you were not a complete idiot.”
“Let's go do the bank quest, but first, an experiment. I can't waste my poison arrows on every little thing.”
He filled a used flask of healing potion with water, then put in a drop of spider poison. He dipped two of the arrows into the mixture. The heavy metal arrowheads hissed as the poison ate through them over the next several minutes. He was down to 17 of his new armor-piercing arrows. Great. He put the flask of diluted poison in his pack. It still might come in handy.
***
As he approached the bank, there was a prickling sensation in the back of his mind. It would seem he was being watched despite wearing his spider-silk cloak of invisibility and using Sneak. He casually looked around him. There was a shadow deep in a distant alleyway behind him, a second shadow to his left, and a third to his right. He heard screams in front of him, along with the sounds of running and quieter snorting and grunting.
It seemed these monsters had taken the initiative, and he'd walked into a trap.
