Chapter 14

"PRIVATE RICHTER, REPORT FOR DUTY!"

As he says those words the house starts to rumble and shake before steam starts flowing out of the front door.

Through that steam steps my dad, his eyes glowing a mad red, his muscles bulging, and a look of absolute disgust on his face.

"Long time no see, Sarge. I mean c'mon you've got to be stupid not to see this coming", a fist flies out from my father, making a thunderous sound as his fist contacts a golden shield of light and Chris is thrown out into the yard

"Roboro". As he says this a transparent golden blanket spreads over Chris' body.

The next clash between the two is more balanced as a fist flies over his golden shield and slams my dad over the jaw, barely doing anything to him but make him mad.

Suddenly my dad's fingers straighten into a spear-like tip and dark purple smoke flows off of it and striking forward, his hand goes straight through the shield like it wasn't even there, making Chris dodge, only for him to jump into a kick thrown to his back. But instead of fly as he did before a loud smack rings out and he stands his ground sending a bolt of fire towards my father, which he blocks with his forearm and the skin is only burnt for a second before healing.

My dad walks forward and tries to kick him in the head only to have it deflect off of his shield. Chris takes the opportunity to take him down to the ground but gets a few knees to the nose for his attempt, leaving him dazed.

Thomas goes for his throat as his hand slams into his neck. Grabbing him, he picks him up by his throat and slams him into the ground. Vibrations go through the ground as his back collides with the dirt.

"Magna Cura! Magna Flumen!"

A golden light shines out from Chris. Suddenly a huge lightning bolt comes out of a set of clouds above us and stabs into Thomas' back with a loud crack. Arcs of electricity fly off his body connecting him to the ground like some a terrible rendition of a spiders legs.

Thomas yells out in anger as his entire body convulses on the ground, steam rising from his skin.

"Thomas, this is what happens when you fight first, ask questions later. You know I'm just here to talk, why else would I be here?", asks Chris, seemingly free of wounds.

Through through burnt skin and cracked lips, laying on the ground Thomas says," What. The Fuck. Do. You. Want."

Getting to his feet Chris walks over to my father as he had been blasted a few meters and stands above him before dropping into a squat. "Well now since you're so inclined to listen, The Association sent me as backup since your last report of how an overgrown mutt kicked your ass. Personally, it seems like you need my help."

"I don't need your help Chris, and what the hell is my son doing with you?", says Thomas angrily.

"Oh we caught him out in woods near the nature trails, I don't know what he was doing out there, probably got lost from a party or something.", says Chris throwing me a look, one I'm sure my father saw.

I caught my father's eye and his look told me to get over there. I mean I won't argue with the dad-son telepathy. He gets up and I can't help but notice the giant patch of black and bloody, skin and muscles.

When I get over there the look I see on him surprises me, he's not angry anymore his face has a serenity to it like he just got attacked by a bunch of puppies. This motherfucker.

"Dad can you get him to heal you? I know that's painful.", I say pointing at Chris.

"I'm fine it'll heal in time. I'm used to pain. Either way I don't want to have to do a favor for him for something so trivial," says Thomas.

My eyebrows raise and I give him an incredulous look, like 'really?'.

Seeing that the atmosphere had generally cooled off I say," Well since this is over with I'm going to go inside and get some sleep, if any of you want to keep me here for any reason speak now, but since y'all are going to be working together it would probably be a great idea to settle your differences, one way or another." I walk into the house not before hearing a small, "Smartass" coming from my dad.

I went to the kitchen and picked up a family sized bag of spicy sweet chili Doritos along with a liter of root beer from the fridge. I then went to my room booted up the Xbox and played call of duty until midnight. I passed out from being exhausted after yelling at 12 year olds for four hours.

[ Christian, do you want to do any quests?]

Said Adel.

'Oh yeah, almost didn't remember. Pull up the quest menu please'

[The Regiment]

[Tap to expand]

[The Delver]

[Level 5 recommended as well as all stats to 15. Description will be provided when initiated].

[The Artist]

[Level insufficient. Level needed 7. Covers training in non-combat skills. Usefulness of skills taught scale with level.]

[The Specialist]

[Level insufficient. Level needed 10. Covers training in combat skills. Usefulness of skills taught scale with level].

[The Explorer]

[Level insufficient. Level needed 15. Unlock details at higher levels].

'Alright I choose The Delver sounds interesting and totally not what you think it is, *wink*'

As my vision blurred into the darkness of sleep I woke up in a room where thick blocks of rough stone made up the walls.

On the wall to the right of me hung two chains connected to the wall with manacles on each end. The stone was covered in moss and dust to make it seem like nobody has been here for a long time.

And on the right there is a skeleton in leather armor is slumped up against a wall, a mace sitting in his grasp.

Suddenly a green screen pops up in front of me.

[Hello Christian, I am the Dungeon AI and if you couldn't tell by now you're in a dungeon. So here's the rules, you can use yourself and anything in your inventory, as well as all your skills and attributes. The goal is to beat all 100 floors and beat the boss at the bottom, where after you beat him he gives you a legendary martial art, along with a legendary grimore. The floors get harder the deeper you go, yada yada you get the deal. Use anything you find in your environment to smash, slice, and puncture your enemies. And you get as many tries in this mode as many hours you sleep. Try not to die and have fun.]

Oh how insightful.

A thought flickers across my mind and I hate myself for even thinking it, before I think some more and seeing it has promise I ask a question.

"Hey, Adel what is Joffrey? Is he human, is he not? What is he?".

[Joffrey is a system construct made from the system and off of real world events. Constructs are incredibly complex beings that have as much life as you, or any other living person. The only real difference is that they were conceived by the system and not a human being, oh that and they can't die from old age, as in the system time is relative.]

"So, does that mean they can grow in power, the same as I can?"

[Yes, although growth of strength is limited by many factors such as talent, effort, and the means by which you get this strength. In Joffrey's case he has natural martial talent as the way he fought in that battle was all him, he didn't have any type of training.]

Thinking back, he was pretty good with offense and defense, and could most definitely hold his own in a fight.

"My main concern is, if he dies in the system, does he follow the same rules I do, or does he just die?"

[I see what you're getting at here, yes he follows the same rules as you do and for example with this scenario he would die as many times as you do. At the end, when you or he run out of lives, he goes back into your inventory, completely safe].

Sounds like a fuckin plan, now for the hard part.

"Adel, inventory please".

A blue box appears in my vision with two lines of ten spaces, representing item places. Twenty inventory slots is a good start.

The sole item in my inventory is a slot labeled 'Joffrey'. I tap mentally on the box and a flash of light appears in front of me, where slowly from the feet up, a figure clad in half leather, half brigandine armor flits into existence, motes of light flying off of him and fizzling out on the ground.

Around his shoulders and chest is a hard brigandine armor, along with a chainmail shirt over a hard but flexible leather shirt. Steel-lined gauntlets adorned his forearms with similar arrangements set for his shins. His chest armor had faulds, which is a kind of metal skirt connected to the main armor that protects the thighs. No weapons are apparent on his person, except for a small knife attached to his calf by a sheath.

His eyes have a dark hue to them as a glimmer of consciousness flickers across his face.

"W-wha- where am I?", says the disgruntled mercenary.

"Joffrey, it's me, Christian, before you do anything, tell me the last thing you remember", I say with a serious voice.

"Oh yeah, thanks for ye assistance back there, the last thing I recall was looking at ye walk away from me, poke at the air a bit and then I end up here.", he says while walking around the room, examining the walls.

"Well, where in hell are we anyway?", he says.

"Look, Joffrey, what I'm about to tell you is going to change your entire world, I need to you to tell me you're ready," I say grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a serious look.

Before talking he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes before opening them again and speaking," I'm ready, I trust you".

"Well, don't say I don't warn you, I'm not a mercenary and I'm someone you should never have met", I say with a sigh.

"What do you mean?", he says raising his eyebrows.

"Well do you know the concept of the future?", I say.

"Yea, the events that haven't happened yet but are fated to happen, I spoke to a shaman once", he says.

"Good, well I'm from there, very far into the future, and the device that made traveling into the past possible has taken you out of your time and given it to me as a reward for completing the battle. The reason I was able to take you was because without me you wouldn't have survived the battle.", I say.

A long pause ponders on as I see a million emotions fly across Joffrey's face, from surprise to disbelief to sadness to anger to relief and finally acceptance.

"So I'm following you through time and I have to help you on your adventures.", says Joffrey with a kind smile on his face.

"More or less, but I don't usually travel through time, I plan on bringing you to my present, get you familiar with the new age.", I say hopefully.

"Oh I'd love to, I had nothing holding me back to England, both of me parents died making ye old sack an orphan. I don't have any siblings either. I'd be honored to take on this adventure with you ", he says his perpetual smile losing a bit of its luster.

"Well it's a lot different in my time, it's going to be a large learning curve, but I'm ready to teach you.", I say.

"That's all great and dandy, but as I was saying earlier, where are we?", he questions

"Well, about that, the thing that sent me her is called a system and it sent me here in a similar fashion to that battlefield, with an intention to get stronger. The reason you're here is because I wanted your help, and to make you stronger.", I say.

"That still doesn't answer your question though. This place is what the system calls a dungeon. It is a tower of sorts, of which we are on the top floor. We need to go down 100 floors and at the bottom there will be an incredibly strong being called a boss, but no worry we'll be strong enough by then.", I say

"To be honest I'm way out of my field of expertise with this. I'll take ye advice for now. Wait, strong enough? We'll be fightin?", he says.

"Yeah, we aren't going to be able to just waltz our way down to floor 100, we have to fight our way down. You will get stronger as you go farther down by getting exp from monsters you kill", I say with excitement.

"Monsters?!", he balks in fear.

"Oh shit yeah, we won't be fighting humans, we'll be fighting things from your mythology, monsters. Things like goblins and kobolds", I say with a nervous chuckle.

Once again his face goes through a storm of emotions. Fear and lots of it, nervousness, anger, and an annoyed acceptance.

"Fuck it, I ave to do it anytime now.", he says with determination.