Reyleigh was in the middle of a spar with Owen. It had been a couple of days since the lecture and her anxiousness about the upcoming exam was worsening her already fraying her nerves. Alistair was still gone, and the recruits felt the absence of their hero-captain keenly. His presence made every move important and every failure dire. With only the sergeants, the training field felt empty and boring.
Some might think that Alistair being such a central part in training all the new recruits – even though he was the de facto leader of the Watch – was strange, but it had been that way for so long that the Watch was relying on it by this point. Even though they relied on him, they didn’t question his disappearances, chalking them up to his powerful, mysterious ways. Come to think of it, Reyleigh had never heard Alistair talk about where he went or what he did. She supposed she had never asked.
The Watch was structured in a military fashion with sergeants leading squads, captains leading sergeants, and the general leading the Watch. No one knew much about the current general. Reyleigh had heard his name was Devon, since Alistair had mentioned him a few times in passing, but she had never seen the man nor heard him speak. Alistair was officially a captain, but since he could raze most of the city single-handedly, even the general listened attentively when he spoke.
Flicking her wrist to deflect the long dagger coming at her abdomen, she miscalculated and grimaced as the blunted weapon hit her side. Her daydreaming cost her dearly, as Owen kept the momentum and landed a second blow to her shoulder. Cursing herself and forcing her thoughts back into the flow of combat, she leaned back slightly to let a third stab glance off of her armour. The sudden movement made Owen over-correct, which in turn forced him off balance. Reyleigh reacted on instinct and reversed her grip on her sword before slamming it into the side of his head. With the thump of steel hitting flesh, she realised too late that she had put her full force into the blow and Owen crumpled like a doll whose strings had been cut. With a yelp, she dropped to his side.
“Shit. Owen!” she shouted.
His eyes rolled up into his skull, and his mouth hung ajar. Tossing her helmet to the side, she shook him, tears blurring her vision. Suddenly, a mailed hand gripped her shoulder forcefully and shoved her to the side.
“Don’t panic, recruit! That helps no one. You!”
The sergeant who had grabbed her pointed at a random recruit standing slack jawed behind Reyleigh.
“Hold her and don’t let her interfere.”
Uncorking his waterskin, the sergeant bent down and held Owen up before splashing its contents in his face. A second passed, then another, before Owen started gasping and sputtering. The Sargent leaned down and hit his back a few times.
“There you go, right as rain.” He paused before looking at Reyleigh.
“Recruit Reyleigh.” he said solemnly. “Please don’t kill your fellow recruits. It looks bad, and it’s quite unnecessary.” He smiled a little stiffly, obviously trying to put her at ease.
“Your training’s been paying off, but with more attributes comes more strength and speed. The higher your attributes, the more every lapse in concentration is paid for double in combat. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse this time.”
He stood and turned to the other recruits, who had formed a circle around Owen. “This goes for you lot as well. Even now, without a Class, you rise in power and gain strength. If you don’t respect it, it will lead you to tragedy.”
“Anyway.” He paused. “Training’s over. Dismissed!”
Reyleigh ran over to Owen as soon as the recruit holding her let her go.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry Owen, I wasn’t paying attention…”
Reyleigh hung her head as she tried to get the dust off of Owen’s armour by slapping it repeatedly. Owen caught her flailing hands and looked at her.
“It’s ok Rey, I know you didn’t mean it.”
Awkwardly scratching his cheek, he smiled back at her a little unsteadily.
“I knew you were close to a breakthrough, but damn, you’re really strong now. You must be close to reaching the limit of unclassed attributes if you’re not already at the top.”
Owen held a hand to his head, but still motioned for Reyleigh to help him up.
“I need to catch up to you anyway, but please don’t hit me like that again. I’m not sure my head can take it.”
He laughed, but Reyleigh didn’t join in, still a little too shaken.
“I promise I won’t… Here, lean on me, I’ll get you back to the barracks.”
Reyleigh supported Owens’ weight easily on her shoulder.
I really have become strong. She thought. I’ll have to be a lot more careful…
The two of them hobbled off the field and joined up with Harald, who was hovering at the edge of the field, trying to not look worried. He was a little worried at first, but loosened up when he saw that his friend was fine. Soon he was making jokes about Owen’s thick head and Reyleigh’s hard pommel all the way back to the barracks. When they finally entered the sweltering building, things were almost back to normal if you discount the large welt on the side of Owen’s head.
Rayleigh dropped Owen on his bunk and started fussing over him, but looked up sharply when a familiar voice ripped her from her ministrations.
“Listen up!”
Alistair was sitting on the top bunk in the middle of the room. He swung himself down while talking and came striding towards the recruits, who were still funnelling in.
“The exams are coming up and we have one group this time.”
He held up a single finger, and the recruits started murmuring immediately amongst themselves. Only one group at a time were usually picked for examination, so that wasn’t unusual. There was precedent for two, but it had been a couple of years since the last time.
“Since you obviously impressed someone—Gods know it wasn’t me—I get the pleasure of hauling your sorry asses into a newly discovered dungeon.”
The murmuring immediately stopped and turned to shocked silence.
Dungeons were a familiar part of daily life after The Fall. Some said that the Gods summoned the dungeons during The Fall to help the struggling mortals after they disappeared, others claimed that some evil god had spawned them to bring about the realms’ downfall. The general population didn’t know much about dungeons, but everyone agreed they had appeared at the same time as the gods fell over a thousand years ago.
Reyleigh wasn’t really religious. It was hard to be when all the Gods were officially dead, but she still lamented the loss with everyone else. Mostly because divine healing magic had disappeared when all the paladins and clerics lost their powers. Civilization had taken a massive hit as well and society had regressed both technologically and socially as calamities rent the earth asunder, moved mountains and drained seas. The world became more dangerous, especially when dungeon monsters started roaming the wilderness, cutting off cities and towns and even countries from each other.
Some might wonder how new dungeons could spawn when the dungeons hailed from before The Fall, but as far as Reyleigh knew, no one knew the answer. Not for lack of trying. The Watch’s lessons had said that there had been great mages and scholars at the peaks of power who ventured forth to find the cause of the dungeons and try to unlock their mysteries, but eventually they all gave up or disappeared, no matter how powerful.
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Finding a new dungeon now, especially around a large city, was unheard of. They could and would spawn, but usually in the wild areas, where powerful dungeon monsters battled each other without regard for the mortal races. Finding one within reach of civilization could be a massive boon to Unbern, or a catastrophic threat. Seeing as they were sending a team of recruits into it, it was probably the former.
“Where is it?” a deep woman’s voice asked the question.
Two recruits stepped out of the way and revealed a small woman with short brown hair and olive skin. Freckles adorned her face and arms, and she looked like she had lived most of her life outdoors. She had a silent beauty to her, which was easily missed but impossible to ignore once noticed.
Reyleigh knew the recruit’s name was Purity. She almost never talked, and Reyleigh had only ever heard her say a couple of sentences. She was not in the same group as Reyleigh, but they had sparred together a time or two. Reyleigh couldn’t remember who won.
“It’s past the Northern Forest, into the plains, and manifests as a door inside a gigantic lone tree. Its domain seems to be nature, and preliminary reports indicate low leveled monsters.” Alistair stood with his arms crossed and a small smile on his lips as he answered, the amusement at the bewildered state of the recruits evident on his face.
“This seems dangerous. Why are we going?”
Purity spoke again with clipped sentences, and the crowd hushed as they waited anxiously for Alistair’s answer. He was appraising the small woman before his smile widened.
“You’re expendable,” Alistair answered, throwing his arms wide, “and the higher ups want to explore while risking as little as possible. You will scout while I kill whatever you can’t handle. It’s dangerous, yes, but not much more than one of the known dungeons. This one is low leveled after all.”
A gasp of awe rippled through the crowd.
A low leveled dungeon was one that had relatively easy monsters suitable for similarly low leveled delvers. It might contain higher leveled monsters deeper inside, but on an exam, they would never go farther than a couple of areas past the entrance. As far as Reyleigh knew, all dungeons were different. Some were low leveled all the way through, others just had a single high leveled monster, and some were riddled with godlike beings. There was only one universal truth about dungeons and that was that you had to be prepared for anything.
The reason for the powerful reaction to the news was that the two other dungeons near Unbern were both filled with medium leveled creatures in the first areas with massively dangerous monsters spawning in high numbers deeper inside. As such, they were really only suitable parties above level ten, but since the Watch had culled some areas, designated places were manageable for examination candidates. Fatal injuries were common, and only seventy percent of those who underwent the examination survived. It was a harsh reality that all the recruits faced every day; they were tasked with guarding the city, and that meant laying their lives on the line.
Alistair waited for more questions, and when none were forthcoming, he read off the names of the examinees from a small piece of paper he materialised from somewhere.
“The lucky candidates this time around are as follows: Purity, Owen, Harald, Themis,” Alistair shot her a quick look, “and Reyleigh.”
She expected her name to be read, but Reyleigh’s heart still fluttered. Thankfully, she was going with Harald and Owen as well as Purity. Two of whom were her friends and one who seemed reliable, even if she was a little weird. The last remaining addition didn’t come as a surprise either, but it still put a sneer on Reyleigh’s face. While she was busy lamenting her fate, she could see him jostling with his friends, some of them smirking her way.
“Be ready by first light tomorrow. You know what to bring.” Alistair paused before continuing. “If you have questions, I’m available for the next fifteen minutes in the sergeant’s barracks. After that, it’s all up to you.”
Alistair made his way out past the dumbfounded recruits, who unconsciously parted like water. A slight scraping noise from the door closing was all it took before everyone started talking at once.
“Do you think they’ll find treasure?” Someone yelled. Another was punching Harald’s shoulder, while Owen was fist-pumping air. The ones not picked for the exams were milling about, asking questions with wide-eyed excitement, masking a healthy amount of trepidation. Losing someone to an exam was commonplace, and never an easy experience.
Reyleigh was watching the chaos before she shook herself and started packing her bags. Her hands worked at their own accord while she thought about the exam expedition. A dungeon was a national undertaking, especially a low leveled one, since it could be used to train and provision a whole nation if it was the right Domain. The Domain of this one was reportedly nature, which meant it had the potential to become a goldmine. The two other dungeons around Unbern had Domains inhospitable to humans and were hard on anyone who delved them. One was of the fire Domain while the other was darkness, the former filled with lakes of lava and endless streams of fire-immune monsters, while the latter was shrouded in permanent magical darkness where creatures with too many teeth created traps and ambushes with their unnatural cunning.
A nature dungeon would presumably contain creatures native to its Domain which meant beasts, nature elementals, fey and other creatures closely tied to nature. Which would mean skins, meat, and magical materials in abundance.
Why aren’t they marching in the army to secure it? She thought.
Alistair had always been critical of the council, and this seemed to Reyleigh as the latest in a string of inexplicable decisions. She guessed Alistair had a large amount of influence, and from the way he outlined the expedition, it looked to her like he didn’t agree to send the recruits. If he had voiced his objections and lost, some powerful forces seemed intent on them going.
Shaking her head, she stopped her train of thought before it led her too far astray. Questioning orders would get her nowhere. She was joining the Watch and protecting everyone like Alistair wanted her to. Nothing else mattered.
Looking down, she realised she had already packed her bags. They lay neatly tied together, with her bedroll fastened to the side. The temperature was usually pretty high around Unbern with its dry and arid climate, so on expeditions they usually only put up shelter when the winds grew too powerful, or the annual rains swept in. The rains weren’t due for another few months, so she reckoned the bedroll would be enough. She had also packed the required three weeks of provisions, consisting mostly of dried meats and fruits, with a sprinkling of cheap cheese and hard bread. She hoped they would encounter some wildlife or monsters on the way to supplement their diet.
“Hey Rey?” Owen meandered over to her and tapped her shoulder.
The kerfuffle in the barracks quieted down, and an intense atmosphere replaced it. The examinees were packing while the others talked quietly amongst themselves or encouraged their friends.
Reyleigh turned around and saw that he had a rare serious air about him. “This all seems a little weird, don’t you think?”
He paused and looked around the room, making sure that no one was listening to them.
“Why the hell are they sending us? We have no business being anywhere near a new dungeon like this, and Alistair’s explanation doesn’t make sense. I can see the bigwigs thinking we’re expendable compared to the rest of the Watch or even the army, but couldn’t they just send adventurers or mercenaries instead? Doing that would be much cheaper than training new recruits and they’d be more competent too?”
Reyleigh cupped her chin. Owen seldom asked questions like this and him doing so now gave her pause.
“I honestly don’t know, Owen… I joined the Watch to become stronger and protect everybody. Beyond that, I just follow orders like everybody else. Alistair says we go, so we go. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess. This just seems so weird. I can’t help but think there’s something going on. The councils never been fond of Alistair putting you in the Watch and suddenly, when your exam is due, they do something like this. It can’t be a coincidence, right?”
Reyleigh looked at him sceptically.
“I think you’re reading too much into this. It’s not like I’ve been discriminated against here. Things like that are much worse outside the Watch’s grounds. Why would the Watch suddenly start doing stuff like that now, when they’ve had a decade to get rid of me? Theres been exercises outside the walls, guard duty, and lots of other dangerous stuff. If they wanted to do something, they didn’t have to wait for a new dungeon to appear to make their move. To be honest, I also don’t think I’m that important.”
Owen frowned and looked at his feet. “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. But something is making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, Rey, and I don’t fucking like it.”
“Yeah. I’m not saying this isn’t all kinds of weird, Owen. It’s just that we can’t jump to conclusions, and if we look at it logically, we don’t really have a choice in the matter, anyway. The last thing I want to do is disobey a direct order.”
Owen started at her mention of disobeying orders. They both knew what happened to those who refused to do as they were told, and it was not pretty.
“No!” he waved his hands in front of him. “Of course I’m gonna do it! All I’m saying is that we should be careful…” His words tapered off, and he looked around nervously.
Clearly Reyleigh’s insinuation about rejecting orders had rattled him and he mumbled something about packing before scurrying off. Reyleigh felt a little bad about bringing it up but couldn’t help herself. She was going to make Alistair proud, and if that involved going into this dungeon and completing the exam in this weird manner, then nothing else mattered.
Turning back to her half-finished pack, she busied herself with adding her last remaining items, including her waterskin and her pendant. She never went outside the city without it. Securing the silver chain to one of the straps and putting it in a side pocket, she breathed out slowly. Her heart was being a little faster in anticipation and, frankly, she couldn’t wait. In a few days’ time she would become a true watchman and unlock her Class.
