Elementalist: Darkfire (eBook)

Prologue

Jack was 18 years old and standing at the entrance to the Trial Dungeon. He, like other young men in the area, would enter the dungeon, attempt to make his way to the deepest level of it, try to kill the boss, and acquire his first class. Then he would be accepted into the Adventurers Guild and get his first quest.

Jack was lanky with brown hair. His skin was tanned from long hours of farming. Standing next to him was a tall bearded man, the representative from the Guild. The man hadn’t said a single word since Jack had arrived. Ten minutes passed and Jack finally said, “So ... Um, Do I just walk down the steps?”

They were standing at the bottom of a mountain with a few unoccupied tents pitched around them. Next to them, there were steps leading down into the mountain base. The man turned to Jack and slapped him on the forehead. Jack staggered back, blood dripping from his head. “Ahhh! What was that for?”

“Implant,” the man replied gruffly.

Jack touched his bleeding forehead, feeling something smooth in the center. The man pulled a mirror from a bag holding it up for Jack to look at. In the center of Jack’s forehead was a small blue stone. As Jack watched, the stone slowly disappeared - sinking into the bloodied skin; as it did, his forehead healed and it looked as it always had. He stared at the man in confusion as text began appearing in front of him:

ADAPTING: ADAPTION COMPLETE, NAME: JACK, RACE: HUMAN, LEVEL 1, AGE: 18, HP 80, MANA: Not Actable, RAW STATS: Strength 10, Constitution 8, Dexterity 10, Intelligence 11, Wisdom 10.

Jack was perplexed, “What is happening? I see words and numbers?” The man replied in a bored tone, “Did no one tell you? Oh, of course not! Do you even know what a class is?”

“Of course I do,” Jack replied, “a class is what happens when you finish the dungeon and join the Guild.” The man stared at Jack in disgust then sighed, “What you’re seeing is your stats.”

“My what??” Jack interrupted.

“Your stats! You can see and affect them because you have a gem implant; everyone gets one before going into the Trial Dungeon. It shows the power you’ve amassed; it’s your link to Essence.”

Jack remained confused, he knew nothing of this. Until the past year, he had spent his life working at his family farm. One afternoon, when he was working the fields, he returned home to find that bandits had ransacked it, and slaughtered his parents.

From there, Jack went to live with his grandfather who had told him stories of great heroes, and how a day would come that Jack would get the chance to be a hero. His grandfather had told him that when he turned eighteen he would have the option to venture into the Beginners Trial Dungeon.

Sadly, a similar catastrophe struck again. When Jack was seventeen he had been out fishing when ruthless bandits murdered his grandfather. He had returned to a burned down house; the only salvageable thing was his grandfather’s old sword. Jack had picked up the rusty sword, held it high, and swore oath that if he ever saw a bandit, he’d kill it. All at once, the hot sword burned his hands, smoke from the fire stung his eyes, the weight of the sword caused him to stagger backwards, he dropped it, tripped and cut his knee on the rubble. It was then that Jack had decided to journey to the Trial Dungeon and attempt to join the Guild.

Now, as Jack stood in front of the steps leading into the Dungeon, a prompt appeared: CLOSE STATUS? Jack focused on the prompt and the text disappeared. “Well,” said the bearded man, “you’d better get going,” shoving Jack down the steps. You have entered a Beginners Trial Dungeon, you will not recover HP and MP when Leveling Up inside the Dungeon. As Jack staggered, gaining his footing on the top step, a slab of rock appeared and blocked the exit. The only way to go was down.

As Jack descended into the dungeon with nothing but his grandfather’s rusty sword, he couldn’t help feeling nervous. His grandfather had told him that most people entering the Beginners’ Trial Dungeon didn’t survive. In fact, he had once said that only one in a hundred people survive the dungeon; but his grandfather had also said that he’d seen a dragon - so Jack knew he wasn’t the most reliable source of information.

After a few minutes of walking down the torch lit steps, Jack arrived at the first floor. There was a large room carved out of stone with torches hanging on the walls, about five hundred feet away Jack saw more steps leading down; a cavern? Jack wasn’t quite sure, there was an abundance of greenery and small bushes, even flowers, carpeting the floor. As Jack began to walk towards the steps at the end of the room he felt uneasy, as it almost felt like the dungeon was trying to put him at ease.

Jack made it halfway to the steps when he stepped on something, something that hissed. He looked down, seeing the largest snake he had ever seen - it was twelve feet long and half as wide as his waist. The snake bit Jack on his leg and he screamed in pain, HEALTH 71/80 Poisoned, Jack dismissed the notification as he drew his grandfather’s sword. He swung at the snake, hitting it, as he did he got another notification: DAMAGE DEALT TO SNAKE 10. The snake hissed and began wrapping itself around Jack, at the same time Jack slashed upwards with the sword, preventing the snake from wrapping around his arms, and dealing another eight damage to the snake. The snake recoiled, then it struck, HEALTH 67/80 Poisoned, Poison Damage Taken -4, HEALTH 63/80, Bleeding Health 60/80. Jack swung the sword again, he missed and the snake struck again HEALTH 43/80 Poisoned Bleeding. Jack screamed in pain he wouldn’t die! Not here! He swung his sword at the snake, chopping its head off CRITICAL HIT: DAMAGE DEALT TO SNAKE 24, Good job you killed a snake, have some Experience: EXPERIENCE GAINED 200, LEVEL UP, You have reached Level 2, +10 HEALTH, You have 1 Stat Point to Allocate.

Jack sat down, pulling some rather large leaves from a plant, he pressed them on the bite wounds as he read the notifications. He was confused at the oddly rude notification. Also, he’d leveled up, what did that mean? He opened his status reading over the information:

NAME: JACK, RACE: HUMAN, LEVEL 2, EXPERIENCE 200, HP 53/90, MANA: NOT ACTABLE, FREE STAT POINTS: 1, RAW STATS: STRENGTH 10, CONSTITUTION 8, DEXTERITY 10, INTELLIGENCE 11, WISDOM 10.

From what Jack could tell, when he’d killed the snake he’d leveled up; that was a good thing - his health had gone up and the poison had stopped hurting him, he also had a new stat point that he thought he could put somewhere, he decided to drop it into Constitution, that being his lowest stat. Right after doing so, Jack’s body spasmed for a second then it stopped, and he felt better! HEALTH 73/100 His health had gone up!

Jack was shaken from his thoughts as something stabbed into his back HP 58/100 he jumped to his feet, dismissing his status and turned to see a large rabbit, but this wasn’t your average rabbit - this rabbit had a long horn jutting from its crown, dripping with blood, Jack’s blood. As Jack stood there, two more rabbits stabbed him in the back of his legs HP 58/100. Jack stabbed at a rabbit, but it nimbly dodged out of the way. The three rabbits turned and ran back into the shrubbery, Jack ran towards the steps, he was almost there when the rabbits reappeared and charged into his legs, impaling them HP 38/100. He had never been in more pain; he fell backwards, crushing a rabbit as he did, the other two scattered. He staggered to his feet, happy the horn of the rabbit he’d fallen on hadn’t damaged him further.

He turned to see the remaining two rabbits charge at him, he jumped, avoiding them, he stabbed one with his sword, killing it, the remaining rabbit backed off into the shrubbery. Jack ran to the steps, halfway down them notifications appeared, and Jack sat down to rest. Both of his legs were bleeding, though the wounds weren’t that deep. EXPERIENCE GAINED:100, Stabby Rabbit x2, he sighed in disappointment, he hadn’t leveled up, the extra health that came with a level up would have been greatly appreciated. Jack rested on the step for ten minutes, he received notification saying he’d regained 5 HP, putting him at 43/100. He thought about resting longer but he was in so much pain and wanted to get this whole nightmare over with. He descended deeper into the dungeon.

The second floor was different then the first: there was a smaller room, at the end of it was a tunnel. Jack studied the room before entering. It was bare stone, except for a patch of dirt in the center; and in that dirt patch was a tree with arms and a face. The tree was eight feet tall and it’s long arms ended in sharp points. He would have to pass the tree to get to the tunnel, so he picked up a torch from the wall and threw it at the tree. It hit, and the tree caught on fire and began screaming. DAMAGE DEALT TO TREANT: 10 x2 FIRE VULNERABILITY, TOTAL DAMAGE DEALT TO TREANT = 20, he waited a minute, then two, then five, when the Treant had taken three hundred eighty damage...