Azure: Gunner

It is commonly hypothesized in academic circles that the System itself runs on Essence, though this theory may be unverifiable. We simply observe that there are actions which should result in a release of Essence, and yet no Essence is received. The most commonly-cited example is when a person kills a monster that is two Tiers below them.

The same phenomenon can be observed in non-combat situations as well. A Tier 2 Blacksmith gains no Essence when forging simple nails, even though they would at Tier 0. Where does this missing Essence go? Almost certainly to the System, but what it is used for, none can say with surety.

- Rufus Veres, Level 37 Verbose Historian, A Brief History of the System

My stomach lurched and I nearly threw up. Elin actually did, which gave me a bit of sadistic pleasure. Raylan looked a bit green, especially after Elin emptied her stomach, but Zaire seemed quite resistant to the gory sight. Stepping carefully around the pool of Elin’s vomit, I forced myself to move down the corridor towards the bodies. As I approached, I realized that their proportions were shorter and wider than a normal human.

<They look… a bit like Vale. At least they have the same kind of build she does.>

<They appear to be dwarves, Gunner Az,> Zaire informed me.

<Is that what she is?> I asked curiously.

<You truly do not know of dwarves?> he asked me, surprised. <They are not uncommon, and I thought, quite well accepted among humans.>

I shrugged. <I can recall seeing a few caravan guards that had similar builds, but not anyone that lived in Sunland.>

<That is very strange, Gunner Az.>

<It seemed normal to me at the time. I didn’t know anything different.>

<Surely you must have learned about them in school, at least,> Zaire seemed surprised.

I laughed. <I grew up on a farm outside the city and didn’t go to school much until after my parents died. And even then, I wasn’t the best student except for when we were learning to fight or do Cantrips.>

Zaire sighed. <Dwarves are a dungeon race, one that’s been mingling with humans for hundreds of years. They are, as you can see, short, strong, and have a tendency to utilize that strength by wearing thick plate.>

<Raylan, can you Identify one of them?>

<Level 3,> he responded, understanding what I wanted to know.

<Shit, I guess they didn’t have any ice or water magic. Too bad we couldn’t have teamed up with them against the golem.>

<They would have been hostile to us as well, Gunner.>

<Not to mention, in a confined space like this, we’d probably have gotten slaughtered even if we’d fought with them,> Raylan added.

<But they’re intelligent, they really can’t be reasoned with?>

<Outside of a dungeon, orcs are also quite intelligent,> Zaire answered, and I sighed.

<Well, if these are really just dungeon monsters, we should see if they have anything worth taking I suppose.>

Sadly, they did not, at least not after the golem had finished with them. Even the pieces of armor that weren’t smashed were soaked in blood and… other bits, and none of us were feeling up to cleaning them off. The few remaining weapons were trashed as well, evidently having been beaten futilely against the golem’s armor.

The only items of value were the tiny mana crystals powering the lamps hanging from brackets on the walls. When we eventually gave up and moved forward, we stripped the crystals out of each lamp as we passed. Raylan Identified them as Level 0, which meant they weren’t worth a lot, but they still had value and were very small.

At the end of the hundred-yard long corridor, we found a heavy wooden door, locked tight. It was barely Elin’s height but wide enough for two of her. I wondered why the golem had ignored it, but it seemed to have turned around once it had killed the last of the defenders. We hadn’t seen any keys on any of the bodies, and I wondered if dungeon monsters could have Inventories. Maybe I’ll learn about that in Delver training…

Zaire tried to punch through the lock with an Earth Spike, but he couldn’t get a good angle on it and the spike glanced off the door and broke off. It took two Force-infused slugs from my shotgun to blast through the lock. Once we’d gotten through the door, we found another corridor, but this one had a pair of doors on either side.

Thankfully these were unlocked, and we carefully opened the first to find a storeroom, full of barrels of food and water. We left those alone, not needing the supplies - also not trusting them to be safe. The second room was full of raw materials - stacks of wood, stone, and even a couple of crates of what Raylan Identified as iron ore. Not knowing if anything there was valuable, but knowing it was all heavy, we left it alone.

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Disappointed, we moved on to the third room, where we finally had better luck. There was a small cache of weapons, and I found a replacement for the shortsword we’d left buried in the golem’s head. There were enough shortswords that we each took one to sell - or to keep as a backup weapon - along with a couple of daggers and a small battle axe each.

The weapons were dwarf-sized, but seemed well-made, and I hoped they would be worth something in East Bank. I had to leave behind a waterskin, as did Raylan and Elin, but Zaire seemed to be able to get everything into his Inventory. The fourth storage room was empty except for dust and a few battered tables. Continuing down the corridor we encountered a stone stairway leading up and out of sight.

<We must be getting close to the top, right?>

Someone started to respond but was drowned out by a burst of sound in my head.

[TAH-TA-DA-DA-DAH-D]

“Argh, I hate that sound, stop it!”

[Your alarm is completed, Gunner!]

“Yeah, I got that, PAST.”

I rubbed my ears - which did absolutely nothing to help them feel better - then I looked at the rest of the team.

<OK, it’s been four hours since we got into the dungeon now, which means it’s been more than four hours since Mason left and he should be back. Now we just need to figure out how to get out of this Wasted place.>

We climbed the wide, twisting staircase for much longer than I expected. By the time we reached the next level, I was sure we’d climbed much more than one floor. We stopped in front of an identical door to the one we’d blasted through, except this time we were on the side with the lock.

<Should we open the door and explore this level, Gunner Az?>

I hesitated. <I’m not sure… We think the exit is up, and we’ve been in here long enough, part of me wants to keep heading up. On the other hand, that could leave monsters behind us that could come out and attack anytime.>

<Even if we clear this floor first,> Raylan noted, <we could still be attacked from behind by anything coming down the stairs from above.>

<That’s… a good point. If we could get ambushed either way, I’d much rather have the strong enemies in front of us and not surprising us from behind. So, since up has led us to stronger monsters, I think we should go up first.>

Raylan and Zaire didn’t object. Elin did, for a moment, until she was glared into submission by the three of us combined. The stairway continued up through what seemed like another full spiral before emerging onto a large landing. A broad, arched doorway led into a much nicer hallway than the one on the lower level.

It was brightly lit with mana lamps hanging from high ceilings, a wide dark blue carpet running down the center of the stone floor, and four more doors set into the walls. They were larger, more ornate, and further apart than the storage room doors below. The first one on the right led us into a kitchen, which was barely visible through clouds of reeking black smoke emanating from something left sitting unattended on a stove for far too long.

Coughing, we reeled back into the hallway and slammed the door on the worst of the smoke and the stench. Unanimously we decided that nothing we were likely to find in there was worth exposing ourselves to that again, and moved on.

It was Elin’s turn to be the first one through the next door, and after she opened it and looked inside, she immediately backed out and firmly closed the door with a strange expression on her face.

<What is it?> I asked impatiently.

<It’s… I don’t know, see for yourself!> she responded.

She stepped back to make room. Curious, I dismissed my gun, pulled the door open again, and had my gun back in my hands as I stepped into the room. At first, my eyes didn’t register what had repulsed Elin so much. The room itself was quite nice and richly decorated. The low wooden table was surrounded by small chairs, half a dozen of them at the far end occupied by dwarves who were sitting there with completely blank faces. They were waiting in front of empty plates, holding metal utensils, and not saying a word. I wasn’t even sure they were alive, at first.

I stood there, gaping at them for several moments, my gun in the ready position. Raylan pushed in behind me to see for himself, and I stumbled slightly, kicking one of the chairs with my boot. At the sound, every head at the table slowly swiveled to stare at us. Then, in almost perfect unison, they pushed back their chairs and stood, turning towards me. Their faces slowly twisting into parodies of rage, they lifted their daggers and forks and started towards us.

The sight was so deeply unsettling that I immediately started shooting. Each shot of my 4BK punched into a fixed grin, smashing through teeth and flesh simultaneously. My mind was almost completely blank as I moved from target to target, Raylan’s shout of alarm buried by the thunderous reports of my gun. I felt Speed Shooting aiding me, my body absorbing the stout recoil and sweeping from target to target more easily than before. Red dot on face, squeeze. Pump, swivel, repeat.

Only one of the dwarves even made it within reach of Raylan, and it was hopelessly overmatched, a four foot high figure with short arms and an even shorter blade against the much taller, quicker Knife Fighter. His knife flashed out and cut in a blur, then it was collapsing with a spray of red from its throat. Still in my mental flow, I swept my gun back across the room, seeing nothing but bodies and blood.

There were a total of six dead dwarves on the floor. I’d fired exactly five times, each one a kill. I took a deep breath, willing my racing heart to slow down. It had happened so fast, it was hard to believe it was already over. That was… easy. Too easy. Suddenly nervous, I called out to the others on the Comms even as I got a very small flow of Essence.

<Zaire, Elin - is there anything out there? Any more coming?>

<More what, Gunner? I see no hostiles out here,> Zaire responded.

<Dwarves. Practically unarmed, they went down fast. Too fast. Raylan, what Level were they?>

He visibly swallowed before replying. <They were Level 0.>

<Level 0? Level 0 what?> I asked, confused. I had assumed everything up here would be at least Level 3 like the bodies we’d found below.

<Level 0 dwarf adolescents,> he replied slowly, reluctantly.