Chapter 36: An “Easy” Dungeon Dive

“Are you sure this is safe?” Thomas’s mom, Sue, asked for about the hundredth time. She leaned forward and gazed with the utmost skepticism at the green and brown shimmering dungeon entrance. “I’ve seen videos, you know. People die from these things.”

“If you’ve seen videos of inside the dungeon, then they were made up in a studio or with AI,” Thomas’s father, Peter, said flatly. “No higher technology is allowed in the dungeon. That means no cameras.”

Thomas traded a slightly exasperated look with the dungeon guard. They had ten minutes to enter the instance, and Thomas’s mother had been waffling for four of those minutes. It didn’t sound long until you had a line full of people staring at your back, probably wondering why two elderly boomers were going in in the first place.

“Mom,” he said with forced patience. “It’s safe, and I’ll be with you every step of the way. You read the guide I gave you, right?”

“I was never too good with tests,” she muttered.

Peter put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s now or never.”

“Healing crystals won’t work on you until you enter a dungeon,” Thomas reminded her. That little factoid had been filtered through the media over the last few days, probably because it encouraged reluctant people to try out the dungeons for the first time.

Some countries were even instituting mandatory dungeon entrance for newborn babies. A nurse, close family friend, or religious leader, depending on preference, would take a swaddled newborn quickly into a level one dungeon and then directly out again.

It wouldn’t unlock the child’s Gift, as they would have to be 15 years old. But the simple act of passing through and back out again was enough to make healing crystals work on them.

Sue’s chin trembled slightly, but she had been taking pain pills for increasing arthritis problems for years, and the promise of being pain-free without aid finally overrode her fear.

Clasping her husband’s hand, they both strode through the Vegetable Greenhouse dungeon entrance.

“Finally,” Thomas heard someone say from further back in line.

Thomas turned, flipped the man off, then followed his parents in… where he almost immediately crashed into the back of his dad.

“Is this the dungeon?” Peter asked, proving that he had not read the dungeon guide at all.

“This is just the safe room,” Thomas said, already feeling a little exasperated. “The dungeon itself is through that door. You ready?”

Peter shifted his grip on the maul Thomas had given him, which had been a brand new purchase from the local Ace Hardware. Thomas had even tied a red ribbon around the handle.

His mother was armed with a shovel.

Yes, it looked ridiculous, but he knew that if he gave his mother an actual weapon, she would not come within two hundred feet of the dungeon entrance. His parents had the exact opposite problem from Ashton: he had to show them that a dungeon could be survivable.

“There’s a cabbage monster about five feet from the door,” Thomas coached his father. “Just swing down on it. It won’t hurt you unless you actually step on it.”

“Be careful,” Sue commanded Peter as he opened the door.

It was funny seeing how stunned his parents looked as they came out into the dungeon. It was a large enclosure with green-tinted greenhouse glass off in the distance. His mother, who was an avid gardener, made a little sound of appreciation.

“There it is,” his father hissed, spying the killer cabbage. It wasn’t hard to spot: this was an easy level one dungeon, and the cabbage made no effort to hide itself.

Cautiously, Peter raised his maul. “Do I just sneak up on it?”

“No, it has no feet to run off,” replied Thomas, amused. “Go to town.”

With a fairly impressive war cry, his father brought down the blade side of the maul in a single chop, and the cabbage was no more.

“Good job.” Thomas gave his best golf clap. “That was enough to unlock your Gift.”

His father was breathing heavily, though he wasn’t wheezing, so he was nowhere near the danger zone. “That’s it?” He frowned. “It seems a bit… anticlimactic.”

“Do you feel any different? Can you shoot lasers out of your buh—I mean, eyes?”

“Thomas,” his mother scolded, not having been fooled for a moment. “What a thing to say.”

He grinned at her. “Let’s stay here a minute, let Dad catch his breath, then you’re up.”

“I’m fine,” Peter said, straightening up, though he was still breathing heavily. “Sue, really, it’s not worse than chopping wood.”

“I’ve never seen wood that chops back,” she said primly. Though she was standing a little more stoutly, looking more ready for battle than Thomas had expected. He’d once seen her cry over accidentally running over a rattlesnake with a lawnmower.

“Where’s the next monster?” Sue asked.

“There’s a killer squash just around that bend.” Thomas glanced at the entrance door, then carefully pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. They had three minutes.

He tried to make the motion subtle, but his mother clocked it immediately. “Thomas Alexander Coldstrike,” she said, three-naming him. “What exactly aren’t you telling me?”

He didn’t want to do this. He just wanted his parents to worry, and more importantly, be healthy again. But he’d also made the almost fatal error once before of not respecting the ten-minute instance limit.

The guards at the entrance seemed on the up and up this time, but how could he really be sure?

“It’s good practice,” he said carefully, “to guard the dungeon entrance until the next instance rolls over.”

“Why?” his father asked, though judging by his tone, he had probably already figured it out. Peter could be stubborn but he was not an unintelligent man.

“In case somebody else barges in,” Thomas said, choosing his words carefully.

His father let out an annoyed breath. “Does that happen a lot?”

“I knew it,” his mother said. “These things are death traps.”

“It’s not a death trap.” And this easy level one certainly wasn’t. Irritated, Thomas checked his pocket watch again, then opened the entrance door and peered in. The room was still empty. No one was waiting to ambush him. This time. “Like I said, it’s just common sense, and it only cost us a couple of minutes. Why don’t you check the cabbage for loot? Sometimes they drop crystals or other things.”

His father gave him a sideways look like he didn’t believe a word of it, but they did have a couple of minutes to kill, and he was plainly curious. He went over and toed through the remains.

There was nothing. Welp, it looked like Peter hadn’t gotten the Gift of loot.

His mother, though, exclaimed in mild surprise and bent over the body of the cabbage, picking through it as if the mess didn’t bother her at all. “Look at this.” She held up her hand. There were three bloody chunks of something in her palm.

“Sue, what in the world is that?” Peter asked.

“They look like seeds, though they’re certainly not from a cabbage. These look more like pumpkins.” She turned them over in her fingers, studying them. “I wonder what would happen if I planted them?”

Thomas didn’t know, and he realized he had never considered parting out the monster corpses for additional loot. Had he been leaving money to get reabsorbed back into the dungeon all this time?

Then again, he didn’t feel the need to butcher dungeon monsters for their parts, or paw through their guts.

“I’m going to plant them,” Sue announced, sticking the three seeds in her pocket, gore and all.

Peter frowned. “You’ll be growing little baby monster pumpkins.”

“Oh, Pete, don’t be dramatic.”

Speaking of monster pumpkins, Thomas activated his health sight and kept an eye on the wandering pumpkin that had tried to eat Ashton last time. It was hanging around but still kept far enough away that he wasn’t worried about stepping in.

His parents bickered back and forth, and finally the ten minutes were up. Thomas felt comfortable moving on.

He had expected his mother to have a lot of trouble, conceptually, with killing a monster. But the moment she saw the squash, she set her jaw and beat it with the flat of her shovel like it owed her money.

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“Go, Mom!” Thomas laughed.

“I hate squash. Remember when you were in middle school and I had one volunteer plant completely take over the back half of the garden? I turned my back for two days and it had strangled my tomato seedlings.”

With a final strike and a squeal, the squash monster split in two.

“Hey, look at this.” His father bent and picked up a brown mana crystal. It was small, either a D or maybe an F grade. But it was something.

“That’s an earth crystal,” Thomas said. “You know, they’ll trade those things for money or casino chips at the state line casinos.”

His father exchanged an amused look with his mother. “Well, I think you just found your next slot money, Sue.”

“Do you guys want to continue with the monsters?” Thomas asked. “Or go straight to the boss and get out of here?”

His mother surprised him yet again. “We’re here, aren’t we?” Then she shot a look at his father. “And I’m feeling the hankering to play some slots this weekend.”

So they went through the dungeon, Thomas guiding his parents while Peter and Sue took turns killing the extremely simple vegetable monsters. They bickered the entire time, which was perfectly normal for them, and it brought Thomas right back to his childhood.

Honestly, it felt good to run a low-stress dungeon. He’d needed this.

It had been two days since the grizzly bear dungeon, and Thomas was doing better than he thought he would be. He suspected that his healing mana helped protect him against PTSD. He definitely needed some downtime afterward, but he wasn’t feeling overly traumatized or having more than uneasy dreams afterward.

To his surprise, he found that he had grown stronger. Even the Chipmunk Forest Fire dungeon felt easy. He’d cleared it in less than an hour, though he hadn’t tackled the boss. He just wasn’t suited for phoenix rebirth powers. Though he had gotten a cool fire stone from one of the chipmunks. Literally, there was a lick of fire encased in the rock.

Now he was looking forward to another challenge. He wanted to get to level 3.

But before he did anything else, he wanted to take care of his parents.

They were doing great in this dungeon. The only time Thomas stepped in was to slay the boss, and that was mostly so he could try out the clawed glove.

The super low-level boss was no match at all for a level two item. He slashed it twice in an X, à la Wolverine, and it sort of squirted tomato juice everywhere and died, leaving behind a B-grade earth crystal and an A-grade water crystal.