Unexpected Guests - Chapter 4 - Challenge Accepted

When I emerged from Lanivia’s lair a couple minutes later the squad all rushed forward.

“You okay boss? Everything okay? What did she say?” Bandit asked.

My meeting with the Lich was strange, some parts of our discussion were extremely clear while others were… what did we talk about? I shook my head, trying to clear the fogginess. 

“She was polite, and quiet, but she had this presence. It was intense to say the least,” I explained before shaking my head again. “She’s confident that she’d be able to get us back to our world, but we need to do something for her first.”

“What? To study our tech? To cut one of us open? To take one of our weapons?” Deadbeat huffed. 

“Actually no, she doesn’t seem to have any interest in any of our gear. The team that was supposed to challenge the dungeon today couldn’t make it, so she wants us to take their place,” I said.

“Why…?” Spooky asked, drawing the word out.

“Fuck, I don’t know! It was her only request, and since she might be the only one capable of sending us home, I wasn’t going to ask a ton of questions,” I growled.

“Would you like me to escort you to the challenger area?” Luther asked, from his position by the door.

“Please,” I sighed. “Lanivia also mentioned there might be some equipment we could borrow for the match. Could we take a look at it please?”

“I’ll have a selection brought to the dressing room,” Luther replied, as he reached behind his back and seemingly pulled a tablet out of thin air. He floated out into the rotunda, not once looking up from the tablet, only pausing when he was a good ten feet away. “Coming?”

“Of course,” I said, jumping slightly at the question before rushing after him. 

“How are we supposed to do this without knowing the rules?” Dusty whispered, as he slid up next to me.

“I know the rules,” I replied quietly, causing most of the squad to look at me in disbelief. “Lanivia explained some of it and… implanted the full rules in my brain. I think.”

“What do you mean you think?” Deadbeat hissed. “Did she do this without permission?”

“Of course not! The book looked like a dictionary, so she offered to implant it in my brain. I say ‘I think’ because I have no fucking clue how magic works, but it does appear to be up there.” I explained.

“Anything we should know? You know, since you’ve already volunteered us for this?” Bandit asked.

“We’ll be fighting in some sort of simulation that duplicates both our physical abilities, and gear.

The Dungeon is split into ten ‘floors’ and we need to conquer all of them in order to earn the chance to challenge Lanivia. We’ll get respawns, but they’re limited.”

“Why did you ask for gear,” Bandit asked. “Won’t our guns be enough?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “How much ammo do you have?”

The fox frowned, and subtly removed the magazine from his weapon. “Half a mag.”

“Unlike the regular squads we don’t normally carry extra ammo, and instead rely upon Nyx providing reloads. It allows deadbeat to travel lighter, and only carry meds. Great tactic normally, but it’s kind of screwed us here,” I grumbled. “I have most of my mag, but I doubt that’ll get us through ten floors.”

“So, what? You expect us to fight with swords? Like LARPers?” Dusty asked. “We don’t have any experience with that shit, we’ll get destroyed.”

“I’d be surprised if anything here could destroy you lot,” I muttered. 

During our discussion Luther had led us up to the second floor, then through a labyrinth of corridors, only stopping once we came to a fairly unassuming wooden door.

“There’s about twenty minutes until the match starts,” Luther declared. “You can use the remaining time however you want, but we ask you to enter the projection booth around five minutes before the match, to ensure that everyone is ready. Do you have any questions?”

“The weapons?” I prompted.

“Will either be inside, or delivered shortly. We can’t provide you with any artifacts, but we provided you with some exceptional pieces from our reserves. Hopefully you can make use of them,” Luther explained.

“Then… I think that’s it,” I said. “I guess the next time we see each other will be during the match.”

“I look forward to it,” Luther declared. He bowed slightly, and came up wearing a slightly disturbing smiling mask. “Good luck to you all!”

Once he’d floated away I pushed through the door in front of us. It was a surprisingly modern looking waiting room, with a long vanity table containing a number of cosmetics, a number of comfortable couches and chairs, and even a small plate of fruits and cookies.

I ignored all that, and instead wandered over to the variety of weapons and armor setup on the various stands across the room.

“They sure are efficient,” Bob chuckled. “If only the delivery companies back home were this good.”

“Efficient, but ultimately not useful,” Bandit grumbled. “We’ll look like clowns swinging these things around. I don’t have a clue how I’m supposed to hold most of these.”

“It’s not like we have a choice,” I muttered. “Unless… Hey Nyx, and chance you could send information across the link? You know, some training sequences on how to wield weapons?”

Not for you, you never bothered to install the dream learning implants, but I could probably upload something to the bears.

“Okay, not ideal, but at least that’s something,” I said. “Everyone find a weapon that looks interesting and Nyx’ll set you up!”

“What about you?” Deadbeat asked.

I glanced along the rack, at the dozens of different weapons. Swords, maces, spears and dozens of other weapons I didn’t even have a clue what to call. All of them way out of my comfort zone.

With a sigh I leaned forward and reached for a mace, probably the easiest weapon to handle, when something was thrust in front of my hand. I followed the shaft of the weapon back to find Heavy holding his Thermal Axe by the head, offering the handle to me. 

“Here,” he grumbled, neither of us moved, or said anything for several seconds. When I finally accepted the axe, and felt the familiar weight in my hands, Heavy just stepped past and grabbed the mace. No more words were exchanged.

It took a minute, but everyone selected a weapon that seemed to suit them. Bandit took a bandolier of throwing knives, Deadbeat a crossbow, Dusty and Spooky a pair of short swords, Heavy added a massive shield to go with his mace, and Bob took a mace nearly as large as he was.

“This’ll be easy,” the massive bear laughed as he casually swiped with the axe.

“Remember, it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, so let’s just have fun out there,” I exclaimed. 

“Please… you’re one of the most competitive people I know, you hate losing,” Dusty snorted. “Are you saying you don’t want to win?”

“I didn’t say that, I just said it didn’t matter,” I smirked. “Alright, we only have a minute or two left, so here’s the plan. We’ll take our guns in with us, but keep them in reserve, in the case of emergencies. Bob, no using the anchor or pile drivers unless I tell you.”

The big bear tilted his head to the side. “Why?”

“Because I want to have some trump cards available, and unless they have a real fucking monster in there, I doubt anything will even scratch you. No point in going overboard unless we have to,” I explained.

The lights in the room dimmed slightly, and the air seemed to grow heavier as something deep in the complex thrummed. Echoing through the complex.

“It’s time,” Deadbeat quietly declared.

“Alright, everyone into the chairs,” I barked, as I moved towards the backroom. There were eight reclined chairs lined up against the wall, along with a number of animal pens. Each chair and pen had a crystal canopy hanging above them. “They’re easy to use, just sit down and pull the canopy down over top of you, like a tanning booth. Make sure you don’t forget anything when you sit down, if you get up it counts as a death for our team.”

“These are going to let us fight in the dungeon, really?” Spooky asked suspiciously.

“According to the book in my head,” I confirmed as he hopped up. As soon as I lowered the canopy Spooky went limp and the little monitor behind his chair lit up, showing the bear standing in a stone room, confused. “See?”

“I don’t know about this,” Bandit muttered, “but you’re the boss.” 

One by one the bears hopped into a chair, and were loaded into the simulation. When everyone else was done, I hopped in one of the empty chairs and pulled down the canopy.

I had a moment of disorientation, as I went from staring at the crystals to standing in a rough stone room with the rest of my squad. As I quickly checked to make sure I had all my gear, Lanivia’s voice echoed through the small room.

“Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen. I apologize for the delay but the scheduled adventuring team was unable to make it tonight, and we needed to find a replacement. Thankfully we had a volunteer. Give a round of applause for Teddy and her Bears…” I couldn’t hear any applause, but I could imagine it. “Find your seats, the match will start soon in two minutes!”

The wall on the far side of the room shimmered, becoming transparent that we could see a trail through a rotted wood just beyond.

“Here we go,” I muttered.