Chapter 30: Loading For Bear

Thomas reached down for the skill shard and found it was still warm from body heat. His System helpfully tagged it as

Whatever that meant.

Had the shard been the robber’s skill? His Gift? Had the dungeon just treated any person who died in it like a monster, dropping loot?

With an inner grimace, Thomas turned to the other body. What was left of the man was in shreds, and Thomas didn’t think he would ever find that meme funny again.

But he’d had nothing to do with this man’s death. That made him a valuable data point.

There, lying in the middle of the, uh, meat, was a white mana crystal. He wondered if the bear had been trying to get to it. Possibly, there had been even more mana crystals at one point.

As he picked up the crystal, he felt its strength. It was a level one, C-Grade.

The robber had dropped a level one crystal in a level two dungeon. That suggested the loot had been generated directly from him and not as a consequence of this dungeon. Maybe. He’d have to see more bodies to know for sure.

With that lovely thought in mind, Thomas turned his attention back to the skill shard.

Despite the horror of the situation, his greedy, loot-lovin’ heart wanted to keep it, but…

“Hey,” he said, looking at the National Guardswoman. She had been standing by, quietly keeping watch with a sick expression on her face. All told, that wasn’t a bad reaction. “Do you have any skill slots left?”

“What?” She startled. “Skills? Do I look like a millionaire?”

Skills were pretty rare, and expensive.

Thomas inwardly weighed his options, still hating them, but didn’t see much of a choice. He held the shard out to her. “My System says it’s called ‘Still Water on a Razor’s Edge.’ I don’t really know what that means. But if it’s a combat skill, that will be a huge help.”

She stared at him like he had two heads. Fair. It was a little like a complete stranger offering up the keys and title to a brand new car. And Thomas was visibly not a game show host or a YouTube sensation.

“Why don’t you take it then?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Because you get one skill slot for every level, and both of mine are full.” He wiggled the shard, hoping to tempt her with it. “So?”

Again, she hesitated. Then her shoulders slumped. “That’s kind, but I can’t pay you. Guarding this place was… it’s a temp job.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She looked sheepish. “I was sort of hired from a staffing agency. We’re supposed to work with the National Guard doing basic admin work.” The story poured out of her as if she’d been keeping it a terrible secret, her words coming faster. “Because everybody’s stretched thin, don’t you know. But then a lot of teams were called away to the hubbub in the valley. They asked if I could shoot a gun. I’ve always hunted, so I said yes. Next thing you know, I’m assigned to guard duty at a dungeon halfway down the mountain in the middle of nowhere. No driver’s come all day, until you and those hoodlums—” She stopped, blushing. “Sorry.”

“You’re not military,” Thomas said, feeling his stomach dip. He had sarcastically thought of ‘security theater‘ with the guards before, but now he realized that had been close to the truth.

By the numbers, the United States had more service people in one branch than many other countries had in their entire military complex.

And now they were so overwhelmed they were hiring temp workers from staffing agencies, and putting them in fatigues to plug gaps.

Slowly but surely, the stitching that held together society was unraveling.

That was… yet another thing he did not truly have time to think about.

“Look,” he said. “I guess you can call this an emergency situation, and… I haven’t even introduced myself, have I? I’m Thomas. I’m a level two, and I’m mostly a healer. I have a few fun tricks up my sleeves, but not a lot of combat strength. I think I can get you out of here, but it would be a lot easier if you could also take care of yourself. So what do you say?” Again, he wiggled the shard.

She stared at it, clearly tempted. “I’m Joanne,” she said. “Call me Jo. And… I thought you said you don’t know what this shard can do?”

He shook his head, wanting to be honest. “I don’t. But even if it just does your taxes for you or whatever, it’s better than nothing at all. I’ve never heard of a bad shard. There’s a chance it could be for combat.”

She took a breath and looked around. Clearly, there wasn’t much of a choice. “Okay. I guess. What do I do?”

“Have you absorbed a mana crystal before?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “A couple of blues from my first dungeon run.”

That was a good sign. It was just a guess, but since ‘water’ was in the skill shard’s title, maybe it required water mana.

“Using a shard is the same thing. Just focus on it, and it will do the rest.”

Jo nodded, and when Thomas handed the shard over, it immediately sank into her hand like it wanted to be there.

“Oh,” she said, taking a step back. “Oh, golly, that’s so weird.” She shook out her arms, from the elbows down.

“What did it do?”

She stared at her fingers. “It went into my hands and arms. What do I do now?”

Boy, he really did not like being the all-knowing mentor here. He barely knew what he was doing. “Keep an eye out. When your skill kicks in, you’ll know. My first skill showed up when an enemy tried to attack me, and I figured out how to dodge.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She nodded and looked around. “I still don’t think I should be going up against one of these bears. How do we get out of here?”

That was a good point. Thomas reactivated his healing sense and cast out across the rest of the dungeon.

Well, the two robbers were still alive, but they were both some way off in opposite directions. It looked like they were hiding.

And there were bears… oh, approximately everywhere.

But his healing sight felt a little strained. He glanced inward and realized that the free-floating motes were running seriously low. He was feeling fine now, but his body had taken a lot of healing to get back to tip-top shape.

For now, though, there were no bears in the immediate vicinity, so they were safe to prepare.

He reached into his pack, pulled out a Ziploc bag, and plucked out two B-grade level one blues.

“Here, absorb these,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll help with your skill, but more mana can’t hurt, right?”

“…Thanks.” Again, she looked wary of him just casually tossing money at her, but went ahead and absorbed them.

Should he absorb anything? It wouldn’t be a bad idea.

He thought for a second, found a level one Healing mana crystal, then paused and dropped it back in his pack. Why was he messing around with level one stuff? He was in a level two dungeon. It was time to get serious.

With an effort, he maximized his healing sight and let it burn through the few motes that were still in his body. He was still level two, of course, but healing himself from what had probably been a mortal injury and using his healing sight to its max without replenishment had pretty much depleted all of his gains since level one. He was scraping the bottom.

He couldn’t drop below the level one base. That was his floor, and it generated a little trickle of free-flowing mana. But he could build back up, and do it right.

He wasn’t going to build his level two base using level one mana.

Ruthlessly, he burned through what little was left. At the end he felt… strange. It was almost like being thirsty, except he craved mana crystals. His body was parched for magic.