PART TWO - GETTING STARTED

  CHAPTER 30 – FIRST DELVE

  The first thing they purchased upon reaching the shopping district was a reusable tier one compendium scroll. Duncan’s Subject Interface now showed him the compendium scroll description of the three identical tents he and Phevona had just purchased.

  All three tents were common rarity. Duncan took his notebook out of his storage space and flipped to the notes he’d taken when Neta had explained the rarity scale during one of their swordsmithing lessons.

  An item’s rarity mostly had to do with the types of materials used to create it, while a resource’s rarity had to do with its potential when used in crafting. Duncan hadn’t ever seen the descriptions of the gear he trained with at the O’Leon estate, but Cinder had told him everything he’d used was uncommon or lower on the rarity scale.

  Just below the chart of rarities in his notebook, Duncan had also written a chart of quality classifications.

  Where rarity depicts the materials used in a craft or the potential of a particular resource, the quality classification measures exactly as the name implies—the quality of the item or resource.

  Duncan could likely make a rare sword if he had rare or epic materials to use, but that sword would almost certainly end up as trash quality. He wasn’t a good enough smith to properly use high rarity materials. According to Neta, quality always trumped rarity, as a high rarity item could always be bottlenecked by its quality.

  All three tents they had bought were low quality, the second classification on the quality scale. They were likely created by a relatively new tier one crafter, but it was all the team could afford after the rest of their purchases.

  “I can’t believe how much all of this cost,” Duncan said, shaking his head after the last of the tents disappeared into his storage. He brought up his realm coin balance to check how much damage the last couple of hours of shopping had done to his finances.

  “What did you expect?” Phevona asked, handing him more supplies they’d just paid the shop clerk for. “It may only be tier one, non-enchanted camping supplies, but it’s still all created for Adventurers.”

  “I know. I’m just thinking about how much it’s going to cost to get a new perception-boosting item. I miss my hairpin.” Duncan raised his hand to rub his thumb along the smooth, straight stick he now wore in his hair in place of his favorite enchanted item.

  Less than a minute later, Sonny walked into the store, smiling broadly as he found his friends had nearly finished loading the supplies. “Alright, I’m all set. DJ has all the arrows outside.”

  “Perfect,” Phevona said, handing a campfire cooking pan to Duncan, then looking back at the counter. “I think that’s the last of it. Let’s see. Sonny has his arrows. I’ve got my wand.” The mention of her wand came out as a sigh of regret more than a statement of fact. She reached for her right thigh, where said magical item was sheathed. It was nothing like the finely crafted wand she’d used since her Choosing. “It’s not nearly as high quality as my last wand, but at least it has a healing Ability.”

  “On top of that, we’ve got three simple water skins. Enough travel rations for two weeks, assuming DJ finds his own food. We have a fire-starting kit, a few cooking pots and pans, and some spices. We have some extreme weather clothes along with extra pairs of boots. Sleeping rolls and tents. Three hundred meters of rope. A compendium scroll for identifying items.” Phevona paused, looking from Sonny to Duncan, then back. “I can’t think of anything else we immediately need. It’s not like we can afford anything else either way.”

  Sonny nodded his head in agreement. “I’ve got everything I need for now.” The wolfkin looked at Duncan for the final confirmation.

  “I’m good to go,” Duncan said, taking a second to pull up a mental image of everything he’d packed into [Quintessential Armory]. Despite everything he’d already stored, the eight cubic meter space wasn’t even a third of the way full. Cinder and Neta had always told him that enchantments wouldn’t be able to compare to his personal Abilities. His old spatial ring could barely hold a standard greatsword, which had only been possible because the space was much longer than it had been wide or tall.

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  “Alright then,” Phevona smiled, rubbing her hands together as she led the way out of the adventurer supply store. DJ stood just outside the front door with four bundles of arrows draped across his back. As soon as the wolf noticed them exiting the shop, he walked up to Duncan, shoving his head into the human’s chest.

  “Okay, bud. Okay.” Duncan chuckled as he put a hand on each bundle of arrows, sending them all into his storage space.

  “So, what are we thinking?” Phevona asked, looking up at the sky. The sun had finally broken through the earlier cloud cover. “Looks like we have around four hours until sunset. Do we want to try and make it to the first realm entrance?”

  “Yes!” Sonny nearly shouted while Duncan was nodding his head emphatically.

  Phevona smiled, and without another word, began walking toward the city’s western gate.

  ***

  “It’s less than a kilometer that way,” Sonny pointed east, toward the base of Mount Myphen. As they were leaving the city, the scout used [Map Of The Realms] to add the three temporary realm locations to his personal map.

  It took the group another twenty minutes to reach the first entrance, finding it at the site of a relatively recent landslide. All three of them moved up to the distortion, and just like every time they’d seen a temporary realm entrance in the past, a heat haze-like effect prevented them from seeing what awaited them on the other side.

  Duncan was the first to reach the entrance, stretching out a hand to touch the rip as Cinder had a few days prior.

  Phevona and Sonny followed suit, taking in the information for a few seconds before stepping away from the entrance.

  “So, just prime elimination, but three of them,” Phevona commented, eyes distant as she began to think.

  “I’m surprised the Guild has this one listed as a normal difficulty, considering it has multiple primes,” Sonny said. “What do you think, boss?”

  While Phevona and Sonny began discussing the temporary realm’s information, Duncan scouted the area for a place to camp. The sun was setting on the western horizon, just as it would be if he were back on Earth.

  He knew Phevona would likely choose to tackle their first true delve on a full night's sleep, and even though he’d like to get started right away, it would take a lot for him to fight against her decision. She’d repeatedly earned his respect as his team leader during their hunts over the past year and a half. She’d trained for this, like he had trained to wield the sword.

  Just as he spotted a fairly level plot off to the side of the landslide, he heard Phevona call out. “Duncan, you ready?”

  “Are we not camping out for the night?” Duncan called back as he returned to the realm entrance, where Phevona and Sonny were still standing.

  “Normally we would, but I mean, it’s our first delve. Do you really want to wait another night?” Phevona asked.

  “No… I just thought you’d… never mind. What’s the plan?”

  “Nothing crazy. We’ve already gone over some Ability use scenarios for each of us.” Phevona looked over at Sonny, then DJ, who had lain down at the bottom of the landslide the moment they’d arrived. “DJ and Sonny will scout for the primes. You and I are sticking together until they find one, then Sonny will use his [Point The Way] Ability to share [Map Of The Realms] with us. He’s already made both of us packmates, so there shouldn’t be any problems.”

  “After that, we’ll regroup on Sonny and DJ to come up with a battle plan. If there are regular monsters, we will have to assess how they fight, but with just you and me, it’ll likely be a steady retreat, picking them off as we move.”

  Duncan nodded along as Phevona explained the initial strategy. They all knew it was good to have a plan, but as that old saying goes, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

  “Alright, any questions?” Phevona asked, looking each of her teammates in the eye. After seeing man, wolf, and wolfkin each shake their heads no, she nodded and placed her hand on the realm entrance. All it took was a minor flex of her will, and the entrance spread open to reveal the landscape beyond.

  One brief look through the now crystal-clear entrance was all it took for Duncan to start tearing off his clothes. He’d have to act fast, or monsters would start noticing the opening and try to escape the temporary realm.

  Seeing Duncan’s frantic actions and the environment they’d soon be entering, Sonny and Phevona followed suit, eventually handing their unwanted layers to Duncan, who sent them all into [Quintessential Armory]. None of them had any armor, as they all had to leave what their families and masters had provided behind, and anything worth using would have been too expensive for their meager savings.

  After another nod from each of his teammates, Duncan summoned his arming sword to his right hand and one of his two short swords to his left. He missed the buckler.

  One deep breath and two confident strides later, he was once again in another realm.

  ***

  Phevona watched as her adopted brother summoned a sword to each hand, then took two steps forward. That was all she had time to notice before she, too, was moving. It took less than a second before she joined Duncan in the rocky desert they’d seen through the realm entrance.

  The shock of the temperature change was extreme, and she was glad she’d followed Duncan’s lead in taking off the winter layers she’d had on over her standard adventuring clothes.

  As she glanced around their starting point in the new realm, she started to miss the basic leather armor that master Boetin had given her. Growing up, she’d always thought the no-external-help thing was a stupid tradition, and likely contributed to a large number of early deaths.

  Now, after experiencing the Subject Trial, she thought those deaths had likely come because of overconfidence or not taking the Guild’s expected difficulty ratings seriously. Most of the time, a little armor couldn’t cure stupidity. Making sure new Adventurers got used to working with and planning around what they had was likely the real goal of the tradition. She could get behind that.

  Five seconds after Duncan first stepped into the desert, they had all arrived, and the portal back to Dintarnum closed behind them. They could reopen the passage, but they wouldn’t have to return this way if everything went well.

  Phevona turned around and gave Sonny a nod. The wolfkin returned the gesture with a smile, then ran off to do his job, his loyal wolf bond running alongside him.

  Phevona and Duncan stayed near the entrance for a few minutes, taking in their surroundings. Phevona had never actually been in a desert before, though she’d studied them. This was a rocky version, with deep canyons and various shades of orange, brown, and tan as far as the eye could see.

  “Reminds me of the Grand Canyon,” Phevona heard Duncan mutter to himself as he continued to scan their surroundings for threats.

  “Let’s go,” Phevona said. “Might as well start looking around while we wait on Sonny. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a Prime or some mana-rich resources to take back.”

  Duncan didn’t respond, simply beginning to walk at a 45-degree angle to the direction Sonny and DJ had gone. They had entered the realm high above the canyons on a plateau, and keeping the high ground gave them the best chance of finding anything interesting.

  Ten minutes later, something interesting found them.

  It was Duncan who spotted the shadow first. The dark spot on the ground just before him continued to move and shift as they walked, until it nearly disappeared altogether. He didn’t know what it was, but he did know it had to be above them.

  Phevona noticed Duncan’s shifting gaze and the abrupt stop immediately, only taking a fraction of a second longer to look up.

  Both of them dove to the side a moment later, narrowly avoiding the monster crashing against the ground directly where they’d just been.

  Coughing up dust from the impact, Phevona glared at the back of their first enemy. Duncan was already backpedaling as the bird- a giant buzzard- began hopping toward him, flapping its wings to gain height and lashing out with its talons.

  “Trap in four,” Phevona yelled, ensuring her voice carried despite the buzzard’s screeching and frantic movements. Duncan nodded, then threw his short sword at the advancing monster, making it flinch back.

  The sword never reached the beast, disappearing in an instant. Phevona knew it was back in Duncan’s [Quintessential Armory], waiting for him to call for it once again. It had never been meant to harm the monster; it just had to make enough room for Phevona to use her one and only Combat Ability.

  A burst of vines, roots, and branches reached out of the ground, entangling the buzzard’s legs and wings. Phevona took control of the growing plants with her combat Subject’s Primordial Ability.

  The giant buzzard stood no chance of escaping Phevona’s trap. It thrashed and screeched, but failed to make any headway against the magically enhanced plants holding it to the ground.

  Duncan wasted no time, using the arming sword still in his right hand to end the monster’s life with a quick stab.

  Phevona smiled, having expected the notification. She looked up at Duncan’s face, expecting a similar expression, only to be met by a face filled with confusion.

  “What? You get realm coins for defeating monsters in temporary realms?”

  Phevona just shook her head with a sigh. “You still don’t know how money works? I swear…”