The City and the Dungeon Read online

  "Really," I said. "Take it. You deserve it."

  "You're really not feeling guilty for some reason?"

  "No," Elise said. "It's enough that you stayed with us for a time. It's not our place to say where you go."

  "But if you ever change your mind," I said. "You're always welcome with us."

  "Thanks," she said. "But I'm going." I could feel the snap—gentler, but definite—as she left us.

  Chapter Ten:

  The 5th Lock

  If someone had asked me what I thought High House life would be like, I wouldn't have expected it to be so... causal. Sure, they're boundaries. But it wasn't all that uncommon to see a Black in the common room, talking with some random liegeman, or even a liegeman outright going over and chatting with a Black.

  I worked up my courage and did the latter.

  You can't sneak up on any delver above blue. Even if you don't trigger their telepathy, their Perception will notice the tiniest footfall. "Hello," Alice Black said before I even came close. "Alex Kenderman, is it?"

  "Yes, um-mam-um, Alice Black."

  "Yes?" she asked.

  "I, uh, wanted to apologize for, um, the stat loss—" How could I say more? I had thought for hours in our assigned room in the barracks for what to say to her, what I could tell her...

  She sighed. "It's not a big deal, just more of an inconvenience. Set me back a month, at most."

  "A month?"

  She blinked in confusion. "You don't—oh, you're new. My build is going for Black Cherub."

  "Black Cherub?" I asked, unwisely. There is a certain incredibly important fact about Alice Black which becomes immediately apparent after discovery. That is, asking her about a subject she is interested in will inevitably lead to her telling you every single detail about it. Time alone prevents this from taking all eternity.

  "Second-highest class in the Angelstone. Everyone tells me that I should go for Black Seraph. Pfft. Nobody's gone for Black Cherub before, so how can anyone say what it's like. And look at the features! Tetramorph, infinite carrying capacity, the Wheel, all kinds of N-Type scrying..."

  "What's Tetramorph?" I asked.

  "Class feature," Alice Black explained. "Four stats, Strength, Agility, Wisdom, and Charisma are immediately maxed. A thousand Strength—think about that. You could use red gear to poke a hole in anything. Or quadruple-wield anything whatsoever.

  "And see, infinite carrying capacity," Alice Black continued. "Infinite. Every delve is limited by the resources of the party. You can replace spells with item use, but you can only carry so many items. But infinite carrying capacity means you can carry entire shops worth of goods into the Dungeon. More! A delve can continue indefinitely! The world has never experienced what this would mean in practice. What would it be like?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Of course not! No one does! And that's no reason not to do it."

  "So, um, why not try for Black Seraph afterwards?" I asked.

  "It's not possible," Alice Black said. "You can only have one class from the Angelstone. We've tried. Selecting one means you lose the other. I'm not even sure what being both a Black Cherub and a Black Seraph would be like. They're both polymorph classes. I'm only a Black Archangel at the moment because I need the power to get the stats to get the—Listen," She took my hand. Her grip was strong—immense Strength already—and she pulled. "There's an easier way to explain this."

  I was too bewildered to protest as she pulled me along, down corridors and up stairs. We passed through an open door labeled BLACK PERSONAL CHAMBERS—KEEP OUT!

  "I'd have expected there to be more guards," I said as we went beneath another arch in the corridor. I hoped no other Black would object, but Alice Black was still dragging me.

  "The wards alone would kill any low-level intruder who tried," Alice Black said. "Which is why you're holding my hand. And precisely who would guard us? Here we are."

  She opened a door covered with runes and pulled me inside the small room. On an unadorned pedestal was the Angelstone.

  The Angelstone—for some reason, I had expected it to be white, or black, or a mixture. It was actually night blue and sparkling, like a pure sea had frozen at midnight into crystal. Something about the crystal was beyond words—great, terrible, unnerving. Alice Black walked up to it, pulling gentler now, and indicated the second highest ridge of the nine scattered around the crystal.

  "Go on, touch it," Alice Black said. "It won't hurt you."

  My body disagreed with this notion, but I was even more afraid of her. I touched it. Then recoiled.

  The requirements for Black Cherub were insane!

  "Figured you would have that reaction," Alice Black said.

  "The Experience..." I said.

  "Yeah, been leveling other classes for it for a long time now."

  "The stats..." I said, more of a whisper than a statement. Hundreds everywhere. How could you even be that smart, or beautiful?

  "Yep," she said. "But stats are weird when you get to my level. The curve becomes exponential—more and more items to get that next point. But it's going to happen. Soon, maybe later, but it's happening."

  I didn't dare touch the stone again, but I asked. "Is... was there a requirement not to move diagonally?"

  "That's correct," she said. "No diagonals, no turning. I've been practicing, but it's hard. Anyway, a lot of the Tier One classes have stupid requirements. Black Seraphim can't show their face or feet. Kleptarchs can't leave treasure behind. Berserker Kings have to kill everything, Titans in general... Anyway, it won't matter for a support class. Though I still think it could be a perfectly good frontline. Again, quadruple-wielding with 1,000 strength. Or quad-casting—be the second person to do that for serious.

  "Anyway!" she said brightly. "Won't be a thing you'll ever have to worry about, probably. Juggling Tier One and Tier Zero subclasses is the curse of the powerful."

  "Right," I said. I could not say I wasn't disappointed at that.

  * * *

  It's not so much that we have assigned tables, but given parties tend to take the same tables in the common room over and over again. Sitting in another party's spot, while they are in the Dungeon, is considered bad luck and tremendously disrespectful. (After all, if a party hasn't returned for long enough that another's taken their spot...) If a party never returns, they physically wheel the table elsewhere. No one can bear to look at it.

  We sit at our own table often enough that I've memorized the gnarls in the wood. So many things have happened there. So many...

  "So," I said, looking around at my party. It had been just one day, and only one of appeared particularly comfortable about where we were or what had happened. Elise looked especially wretched. Andy looked like she had been crying. Xavier didn't look like he slept either. Sampson looked hyped. "If Seth Black is the Acting Head... who's the real Head?"

  "I know," Elise said. "And I'll tell you all, so you won't go asking any of them.

  "Adam Black the First was one of the foremost delvers of his day. He and his brother, Seth Black, had immigrated to the City and delved from the start. For a time they were just green—back when green was one of the highest ranks of delvers. On a lucky delve into the Deep—and back then every delve into the Deep was lucky, or the party never came back—he found the Angelstone. Two days later, the brothers bought a Housestone. Within months they were one of the most powerful Houses. He had every kind of success.

  "Then he fell in love.

  "The girl he met was a surfacer, one of the few who lived in the City. It was more of a camp back then, I think. Anyway, she fell in love with him, too, and pretty soon they got married. They had five kids. But after Isaac's birth, Mrs. Black—I don't know her first name—got an infection. She refused to become a delver, and a few days later, she died."

  Sampson interrupted. "They couldn't heal her?"

  "Healing spells don't work on surfacers," I said. If only.

  "After that, Adam Black I delved deeper an
d deeper," Elise continued, glaring at our interruption. "One delve, he and his party never returned. His shards were later discovered, or some of them anyway. The House has been searching for the rest ever since. Seth Black took over the running of the House. When the kids were old enough, they start delving themselves, deeper in search of their dad's shards."

  "That's awfully detailed," I said.

  "I know this stuff, all right? Anyway, I know they haven't found all of Adam Black I's shards, because if they had, they'd have revived him immediately."

  "That's generous," Adam Black (II) said, and stood by us. "Most think that Seth Black wouldn't give up his position."

  "If we thought you were evil," I said, "why would we have joined you?"

  "Power," he answered. "Many delvers seek that, and that alone."

  "What's wrong with power?" Xavier asked. "You even use dark magic, and you're not evil."

  "But what is dark magic?" Adam Black asked. "What makes it different from light magic, or fire magic? Different resistances? Different status effects? Different colors that appear when you cast spells?" Adam Black gestured all around. "We are Lawful, and we use dark magic every day. It is not good or evil any more than fire magic is. Or consider P.L. Nancy, the Light Bandit, who slew hundreds before she was captured. Did her use of light magic make her a better person? No, it is simply an element. It is not a morality."

  "So there," Xavier said. "You just said—"

  "Said what? I am pointing out the flaw in your argument. It is not more praiseworthy or blameworthy that we use 'dark' magic than if we used paralysis spells."

  "But you are seeking to revive your dad," I said.

  "Some of us have more hope for that than others," he said, and walked away.

  "How are we supposed to interpret that, I wonder," I told them.

  "Cynicism on the part of the disappointed," Elise said. "Adam Black I has been lost for over a decade. The Black family has probably mapped the entirety of the 50th Floor by now. Where else could they look?"

  Another Black approached us—Alice.

  "All healed up from your adventure?" Alice Black asked us.

  "Sure," I said.

  "I've been planning to delve for stat items. Come along." She looked at us. "Come on, you want to, right?"

  "I didn't, um, think we could go deep enough for stat items," I said.

  "It's efficient if you rove the upper Dungeon at first. Really. Come along."

  I wondered if she was just trying to reward us. Then I wondered what class of stupid I had to even think anything but accepting. "Of course," I said. "Guys?"

  * * *

  We used the Blacks' Private Entrance, a wide spiral staircase that went downwards into darkness.

  "Have you ever wondered where the Dungeon is?" Alice Black asked us as we descended.

  "Underground?" offered Sampson.

  "Why would you say that? How would you know?"

  Elise spoke in cautious, measured words. "It's in this world, at least."

  "For once I agree with you," Xavier said.

  "What are you all talking about?" I asked. "Where else could it be?"

  "I don't know," Alice Black said. "But why assume it's under the City, just because we go down from the City. After all..." On perfect cue, we came out into the Dungeon. We drew our weapons, and her wings appeared and unfurled. "It doesn't take that long to get there from the top of a spire. By the way, there are actually rooms directly beneath our Private Entrance including the dining hall, for instance."

  "Has anyone ever tried digging straight down from the City and seeing if you eventually hit the Dungeon?" I asked.

  "Yes," Andy said. "Too deep. Hard."

  "What do you think?" I asked Alice Black.

  "I don't know. But you should think about it, too."

  A pair of Goblins entered through a door. We took formation, but bolts of black lightning from Alice Black incinerated them. Then she moved on.

  * * *

  That was essentially how we traveled. Alice Black did not appear the slightest distressed by the Dungeon. She would occasionally make some conversational comment about strengths or common drops as we went along, but otherwise it was as if the monsters did not even exist. For her, I suppose, they didn't. A throw of her spear, one wave of her hand, a bolt of lightning, or nothing I could see at all, and they died.

  For us, it was Experience like a steady stream. And down we went, the gains faster and faster.

  "So," I asked. "Um, why does Adam Black have an overleveled class?" Beyond the 100th level of any class, the Experience to get to the next increased exponentially.

  "My brother's on a quest to beat J.R. Jackson's damage record," Alice Black said. "He did the math and found that the Black Knight's Reflect Damage could hit for more against the right enemy. And so he's been overleveling it." She sighed. "Don't try to tell him it's pointless. He's got his heart set on it. Like Dad did—when he wanted something."

  I didn't know how to reply to that, nor did anyone else.

  We were already through the wide door of the 5th Floor Lock before I realized what we were doing. The grand arched ceiling inside was taller than any ordinary room in the Dungeon. Strange designs were carved into the walls, gilded with some golden, yet not gold, film. The whole room had this sense of—timelessness? Power? From the moment we entered, I was on edge.

  So were all of us, except Alice Black. "Wait!" I managed to say.

  Alice Black had already gone to the Lockstone in the center, which covered the downstairs, and frowned. "One of you isn't qualified."

  None of us spoke.

  "I'm not upset. I'm just wondering which of you it is," she said and thumped the Lockstone with disgust. "It's not going to open as long as there's someone here who hasn't beaten the 5th Boss."

  "Um, none of us here have," I said.

  She winced. "Great."

  "Can't you just kill the Boss for us?" Sampson asked.

  "Doesn't work that way. It won't spawn while I'm here." She turned to me. "You seriously aren't 5th qualified?"

  "No," I said, as my face turned crystal red.

  "You have Revive. That's only found on the 7th to 9th Floors."

  "We bought it," I said.

  "For quite the price," Elise said.

  "How could you do it, stat-wise?" Alice Black continued.

  "A bunch of stat potions," I said. "And I had pretty good natural stats in that area."

  "But you're... 20th Acolyte?"

  "He was actually 14th when we found you," Sampson said. I winced.

  "The success rate of a Revive at 14th is horrible," Alice Black said. "Sixty percent, max! You'd have like one cast!"

  "It was sufficient for the quest requirements, though!" Sampson said brightly. I tried to glare him to death. "All he needed was the spell!"

  Alice Black stared at us, specifically me.

  "Um, there's actually a good explanation," I said.

  "Sure," she said calmly. "Go on."

  "We, um, we weren't looking for you per se. We just knew that there'd be enough high-level delvers in the section to reduce the danger. Then the seekerstone found your heartstone, and we went for it. Then we hit the slayers, and, I, um, emergency revived you. We weren't planning on it."

  Alice Black listened to my explanation without a word.

  "Um, sorry," I said.

  "I don't mind," she said, in a tone that implied she did. "But whatever. You'll have to kill this Boss yourself. Like I said, it won't spawn while I'm here. You, in the gold—Xavier, was it? You have Return?"

  "I do," Xavier said, blushing slightly.

  "Go home and prepare for Boss-fighting. You'll be the lowest leveled in our house otherwise." That metaphysical snap, and she left the party.

  "Thanks for this," I said. I couldn't tell if she was mad, but either way I knew I didn't want to stay. "Xavier?"

  He moved his staff, and then we were gone.

  * * *

  Bosses are the reason delvers can
not simply dive all the way to the bottom (if there is a bottom).

  Every fifth Floor, the downstairs are in Boss Rooms, also called Locks. We had inadvertently blocked Alice Black's progress when we came because of the simple rules. If everyone is qualified, the Lock opens. If some are qualified and some aren't, nothing happens. If no one is qualified, then a Boss can be summoned. Defeating that Boss would qualify everyone in the party to go deeper, as well as providing a marvelous bounty of treasure.