Chương 113: CDM 2, Chapter 49: Bootstrapping

For the first time since the trip to Taiwan, I got called in to close a D gate. In the midst of getting my gear out of the back of my car, in the parking lot of an old Pizza Hut, I heard a familiar voice say, "Brother Dorion! It's good to see you!"

"Hi Isaiah."

"What are the chances? This is my good friend Luke." Isaiah gestured to a farmboy-looking man in full platemail and carrying a battleax.

"Luke, meet Dorion. I met him on one of my first crawls." Luke shook my hand.

"You were what, level 7 last time we talked?" Isaiah continued.

"How far you get?"

"Managed 10."

"Whoa. Congratulations."

"Thank you." I looked around. The gate was an upright sewer grate in crumbling masonry, but the iron was clearly hand-forged. This wasn't a perfectly fit, mass-produced grate like I was used to seeing around the city. I knew the captain and the guard, but the other three people on the run–Isaiah, Luke, and a younger woman–were settlers. Three CDM and three settlers? I didn't like that.

For a CDM cull, I might not know all of my party members, but we all used the same methods and formations from crawl to crawl, so teamwork was generally pretty good. Not perfect by any means, but we rowed in the same direction most of the time. I hoped the few runs the settlers had done with the CDM would be enough for this to go smoothly. If it didn't, it was a D gate. I'd be fine. Ha! Listen to me being cavalier about running a D gate. I had run B gates in fucking China. A D gate was nothing.

A few months of crawls and hunts had taken me farther than I realized. My confidence was up, but I still respected the danger we were in. If my party wiped, even an E gate could kill me. There were no free runs as far as I was concerned. I couldn't allow myself to forget that. The captain was a level 13 fighter and the guard a level 11 defender. Isaiah was now a level 7 ranger–he was level 5 when we first met–and his buddy Luke was a level 5 fighter. The younger woman was also a level 5 fighter.

Instead of having two party members who answered to "fighter," Luke would answer to "ax" and the woman to "sword." Those were the weapons they used. Very clever, I know.

"We're probably looking at a goblin gate," the captain said, addressing the party.

"That's not confirmed, though, so eyes open. Questions?" No one had any. We ventured into the black portal. I couldn't immediately place the dungeon type either. We were in an unremarkable cavern, which typically meant goblins, but kobolds and gnolls could also appear in caves, though gnolls were exceptionally unlikely for a D gate. Did I smell saltwater?

"Smells like the beach," Luke said, so I suppose I did smell saltwater. That was strange.

"Then we got a variant," the captain announced.

"Heads on a swivel." We continued moving through the caves until we came to a metal door. The captain studied the passage and reached for his belt.

"I'll be damned if we get bloodlocked on this." He wedged a knife against the door frame. If the gate tried to shut, the knife would keep it from latching. We passed through the doorway. The rear of our party–yours truly–was three steps farther into the dungeon when metal slammed on metal. The force broke the knife in half, and the lock latched anyway. I grabbed the bars and tugged.

"Carmino?" the captain said.

"Locked."

"Fuck my life," the captain grumbled. He took a deep breath and said, "Settlers, I don't know this variant, but a bloodlocked gate is bad news. Please fucking listen. We can't play around on this one. Let's move out." Crashing waves and a heavy rain joined the smell of saltwater. The exit in the distance looked like it emptied into a ravine.

"Captain," I called.

"Do you recognize this dungeon yet?"

"Nope."

"I ran a B gate like this, but that can't be right."

"B as in bravo?"

"Yes, sir."

"What was in it?"

"Ogres and sea monsters." The captain sighed.

"No, that can't be right, but tell me when you're sure."

"Yes, sir." Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Archer, how bad was it?" Luke asked. Spinning on his heel, the captain pointed a finger at Luke.

"Worry about what's in front of you. No good talking like that." Luke nodded. We stepped into the rain and traveled down the ravine. When the beach came into view, the captain stopped and squatted.

"Those are ogre footprints," he said despondently.

"Back to the cave." Once we were out of the rain, the captain took off his helmet.

"Carmino, how did your party clear this?"

"Yeah… I was with a party of boosters, so I got carried."

"Boosters?"

"Yes, sir." His eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed.

"That party was heavy with defenders," I added, "but I can still tell you what we're in for even if I don't have tactics to offer."

"Continue."

"The ogres are fishermen. We'll see nets, hooks, chains, anchors, and sometimes harpoons. Their range is nuts, so we relied pretty heavily on mages for most of the real damage. Getting in close enough for melee is really, really tough.

"The sea monsters are more dangerous. Krakens and giant squids will reach out of the water to try and drag you in. If we have to cross water, we need to watch for black sharks jumping at us. Most of it is avoidable if you stay away from the water, but losing track of that distance is really easy to do in a fight." I looked around at our party. Isaiah and I were the only people with ranged weapons. Our defender might survive an ogre hit. The rest of us would be paste.

And Christ, Luke and the young woman–Terra was her name, I learned–were level 5. What the fuck were we doing in a B-ranked dungeon? The captain stared at the ground, his eyes peeled back. He was desperate for a solution. This door was bloodlocked. We had to kill every monster to get out. Did that include the sea monsters? I was pretty certain we missed a slime or two in the squid dungeon variant but killed everything else. The gate unlocked then.

Maybe that would be the case here, and all we had to do was kill all of the ogres. All we had to do.

"Captain," I said.

"I might have an idea." The first fight would be the hardest, I told myself. Once we acquired weapons and materials from that batch of ogres, our odds would be much higher. There was still a B-ranked boss at the end of the dungeon, but that was a problem for later. Since the ogres were fishermen, we lucked into finding a net and loads of rope piled up with some fishing tackle not far from the cave. It wasn't as large as the nets the ogres used, but it was better than nothing.

The first encounter was a group of three ogres. Our seaside trail curved around a corner to a sandy but rock-laden inlet. Two ogres sat by a fire, baiting big treble hooks with rancid meat while a third watched two lines already in the water. The pouring rain wasn't enough to stop the ogres from fishing, it seemed. The rockiness of the dungeon was a gift for us. If this had been a wide-open beach of only sand, we would have had no cover, and the ogres could have run us down handily.

With this terrain, we had a chance to outthink them. My dexterity was the highest in the party, so despite my preference for the backrow, I ventured toward the beach by myself while the others took up their positions for their parts in the plan. I pitched a stone at the back of one of the seated ogres. With the length of the dungeon crawl ahead of us, I couldn't afford to waste any arrows. The monster turned, more curious and confused than startled, to look where the rock had come from.

It stared at me and bumped the ogre sitting next to him. That ogre seemed even more confused than the first. The first ogre smiled and started to stand. The second and third ogre watched as the first grinned and started toward me at a jog, wholly unconcerned with the potential threat of my bow. That was lucky. I expected at least two to chase me. I threw another stone because fuck it, why not, and then booked it toward the rocky corner of the beach where the rest of the party waited in hiding.

A nubby finger grazed my back. Oh shit, it could run faster than I thought. I picked up my speed and added a few zigs and zags. I turned the corner, thankful that I chose a dex archer build. In my periphery, a fishing net slapped the side of the ogre. Isaiah sent two arrows in a row at the ogre's head as it thrashed. One missed. The other lodged in the ogre's cheek. A loop at the ogre's feet tightened violently as three members of our party yanked as hard as they could.

The monster landed on its back, its head bouncing off the rocky beach. We descended on it with a flurry of stabs, even me. The captain took a rough backhand when the ogre panicked, but we killed it. Luke chopped off a foot and threw it into the water like a Hail Mary pass. A tentacle snatched it up immediately.

"Proves your theory at least," the captain said, collecting himself.

"So now we go fishing?"

"I hope we catch something."

"Heh. Yeah, I do too." The remaining two ogres didn't make the same mistake as the first, but we did trick them into making new ones. Me, the captain, and the guard moved onto the beach. I carried two trebblehooks the size of hand baskets, one in each hand. The captain split off to my left and the guard to my right while I held my position. We needed the ogres, each weilding harpoons, to separate as much as possible. I would work with as little space as I had to, but wider was safer.

The ogres didn't seem concerned about us as threats even though their friend chased one of us and never came back. One moved toward the defender, and the other moved toward the captain. I ran as fast as I could directly between the two ogres. The ogre targeting the captain saw me and swung a sweeping blow with his harpoon. I ducked, stumbling for a second from the wind it generated, and continued on. The captain took a risk and lunged in to recapture the ogre's attention.

It worked, and it nearly cost him his life, but like me, he managed to avoid death by inches. When I was through the gap, I tossed one hook left, the other right, and yelled, "Pull!" As hard as they could, the settlers yanked on the ropes. The treble hooks bounced along the rocks before impaling the ogres. One hook sank into a thigh and the other into a back.

"Good!" Isaiah and Luke threw an ogre leg wrapped in rope into the water. A squid snatched it, and the lines tied to the treble hooks went taut, nearly decapitating our captain, and raced out to sea. The ogres clawed at the sand and the rocks, but the water monster was fast and powerful. They were gone in seconds. The captain stared at the dark, frothing waters.

"Shit. It worked." I was pleasantly surprised as well. Partway through explaining my plan, I became exceedingly aware that if I was wrong, people would die. I pushed through that, but I didn't push past it. Even though we had just killed three ogres, I still worried that my plan was the wrong one. It worked once. We had to make it work several more times if we were going to survive this. It was wet and cold. Our very first encounter had exhausted us, and we only had so much squid bait.

Eventually, we would have to kill another ogre ourselves if we wanted to continue repeating our strategy. And we could easily run out of rope and hooks. But our way out was blocked. We had no choice but to press onward.