Azure: Gunner

One of the most common Dungeoneer Skills is simply called ‘Observation’. Not to be confused with the Scout-type Skill of the same name, Observation lets the Dungeoneer see exactly what’s going on in their dungeon. Shocking, I know.

The Families require their pet Dungeoneers to take this Skill so they can keep tabs on their employees – can’t have anyone stashing away a little extra loot in their Inventory, after all. The Guild, however, puts this Skill to a much more noble purpose.

Training videos.

With enough Levels, the Dungeoneer can project a type of illusion that lets others see everything that Observation does. Add a little magitech, and it can be recorded and watched again later. At least eighty percent of you will immediately loathe this, but you’d better fucking get over it ASAP.

This is a luxury that you’ll never have again, mark my words. Don’t waste it. Every time you go through the debrief, you’ll see yourself make at least one mistake that might have been fatal if repeated. So pay some fucking attention and learn from it!

- Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 10.8 – “The Guild’s Dungeon”

I sat on the couch in the basement of the watchtower, uncomfortable despite the soft cushions. Our last dungeon run had gone… fine. It had been a very strange – to me – dungeon, where the environment constantly changed. It was really nothing but a series of large rooms, ranging from sand to freezing snow, each one totally different.

I had not enjoyed my first encounter with snow and hoped it would be my last. The fact that Raylan had snuck up on me at one point and dumped a double handful of the stuff down the back of my armor definitely had nothing to do with it. It was purely because the orcs nearly froze that I had firmly decided to detest the cold white stuff.

Now I was being forced to watch the recording of our fights, with Wolf picking apart every move I’d made. It was Wasted useful, for sure, but also uncomfortable. The good news was that I’d reached Level 8 fairly early in the dungeon, and Jayce, G’hala, and H’ruk had all reached Level 7 before the end. Combined with gaining Levels in a few Skills, I felt good about my growth. Actually, I’d felt amazing before Wolf started his critique.

Once I finally escaped, I waved jauntily to the decrepit old Dungeoneer on my way out of the tower. Wolf had saved me for last again, and I practically ran back to the range to join my team in a Sprint before dinner. We fell back into the routine of training hard for most of the week, the only interruption being a goblin attack. This time we met them on the Academy's walls, fighting alongside the few remaining guards, while the instructors kept a watchful eye on things.

It was the most boring fight I’d ever imagined, sitting high up on the safety of the walls and picking them off one by one. The stupid creatures were unable to climb the smooth, fused rock of the wall and didn’t even have ladders or anything else. They just ran up and pounded futilely on the heavy gates while their few Archers and Mages wasted their mana trying to shoot us off the wall.

The only excitement came when a group of hobs and chieftains charged the gates as one. The power of the Tier 1 elites rattled the heavy metal and wood gates, but that was about it. I put Pierce to good work, using the Skill every time it came off of cooldown. One of the things Wolf had chastised me about was not noticing the way the Skill affected the spread of my projectiles.

It turned out that Pierce really did help projectiles cut through anything in their path – including air. The result was that my buckshot stayed in a much tighter group at longer ranges with the Skill active. That made it perfect for sniping at goblin heads from the top of the wall. Despite the faint glowing trails left by my empowered projectiles, it was far less spectacular than some other Skills.

WHUMP-BOOM!

“YESSS!” Jayce screamed in glee as an explosion ripped through a group of goblins, sending several of them tumbling while blasting at least one of them into bloody mist.

The Sound Mage had taken Roll the Dice, an uncommon Skill with unpredictable results. At the cost of added mana per Spell, it added an additional modifier. The catch was that they couldn’t control which modifier was added, so while it enabled them to cast Spells effectively a Tier more complex than they could normally manage, they didn’t know what was going to happen until it did.

“Nice one babe!” Raylan shouted with glee. The Knife Fighter was happily flinging his throwing knives at the closest goblins, but I wasn’t sure he’d actually managed to take any of them down. He’d have been better off with his wand, if only he could manage to form a Spell properly more than once out of three or four tries.

This time, Jayce had lucked out and gotten what I assumed was Blast. Half the time I couldn’t even tell if the Skill was working, and it had a minute-long cooldown, so they weren’t able to use it too many times. Once the rest of the goblins were killed, we had to go down and help with the clean up. Their blood stank, and though we’d gotten through the actual fight without a scratch, we ended up covered in blood and guts as we helped pile up the bodies for one of the guards to burn.

I think I set a record for the most mana used washing and re-washing myself in the shower afterwards. It was a personal record, at least. As I lay in my bed that night, trying to fall asleep, I found my thoughts drifting back to LA. I wasn’t sure when I’d see the city again, but I missed the kids. I’d sent them a couple of letters, but hadn’t received a reply yet.

I had debated whether or not to write one to Maria, and ended up putting it off each time. I had no idea what to say to her. My feelings were still mixed up. Even though I was generally now more annoyed by Tara than anything else, there were still times when I noticed her hair glinting just so in the sun and caught myself staring. Or the way she filled out her clothes, when she wasn’t wearing armor. Or… I rolled over and groaned, burying my head in the pillow and eventually drifting off.

Training continued, with much of the team exploring the uses of their new or new-ish Level 7 Skills. Roll the Dice didn’t require much practice – other than learning not to cast it on a target anywhere near themself or anyone on the team. It seemed to pick Burst as the modifier maybe one out of five times, and it only took one incident to learn to be wary of catching even the edge of a Sonic Burst.

In some ways it was worse than being a little too close to a fireball – my barrier would protect me from fire. It only stopped part of the sound, and what got through was loud enough to make my ears ring. As Jayce had Leveled and improved, their Spells had grown much louder than my shotgun.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Zaire and H’ruk spent some time comparing the effects of their different versions of Elemental Armor. Zaire’s earthen shell offered far more protection, but H’ruk’s flames didn’t impede his mobility and it would seriously burn anything that tried to grab or bite him. Plus, while Zaire looked cool covered in a sheet of earth like an elemental, the sight of a seven-foot plus orc burning with flame was downright terrifying.

H’ruk had possessed Elemental Armor for a while though, having taken it at Level 5. His newest Skill was the amusingly-named Barrier Boost. It did exactly what it sounded like – at the cost of fifteen mana it instantly restored ten points of his barrier. On top of letting him partially bypass the normal fifteen-second barrier recharge delay, it had another useful property.

He could use it even when his barrier was full, actually overcharging it past the normal maximum. Interestingly, any extra points would discharge rapidly after a fifteen second delay. It was sort of the reverse of waiting for it to start recharging, and it meant he couldn’t just walk around with an extra-strong barrier all the time. Still, fifteen seconds was long enough in a fight.

Raylan’s Elusive was passive, and therefore slightly boring, but it worked. The days of me being able to truly keep up with him in melee were pretty much over at this point. I could claim it was entirely because of his Skills, but that wouldn’t have been fair to my friend.

The Knife Fighter had been working hard, and he was flat out better than me with a blade now – especially since he had two to my one. We could still train together, but he had to hold back slightly to keep things competitive. My cutlass had more reach, but the advantage wasn’t nearly as big as with something like a longsword.

On top of that, my blade was designed for heavy chops, and the speed advantage was heavily on his side. I could still push him, yet it was clear that the gap was only likely to grow over time. It both annoyed me and made me happy for him. He should be the superior melee fighter, after all.

Two days later, we gathered around the portal again, excitement and nerves intermingled. Wolf had secretly warned us to expect a longer dungeon this time, but claimed not to know more than that. Whether he did or didn’t, we’d agreed to try to conserve our energy without making it obvious we were doing so. Just like I had every time since the first, I whispered to myself before reaching out to activate the now Level 6 portal.

“Into the depths, Delvers go!”