Part 2 - Outside the Dungeon
Chapter 7
“Why didn’t you grab the scepter!?” Colin yelled again. This was the third time he had asked the question, voicing the entire party’s frustration with me.
I was sitting in the Roosevelt Training Dungeon’s hospital bed, getting my right arm wrapped. They also gave me a rabies shot which hurt far more than I thought it should’ve. They didn’t do needles here, they used some weird air gun that felt like it was ripping through my skin when they gave me the shot.
“I said I tried,” was all I could repeat. It had been half an hour since Bria had grabbed the scepter and I could still feel my fingers brushing it… before it was quickly pulled out of reach.
Bria’s team had won. They had gained the treasure at the end of the dungeon. They were going to be Roosevelt’s new Minor team. We weren’t. It was as simple as that. After two months of training every day at Roosevelt, we were being dropped cause I was a split second too slow to grab the scepter.
If that fucking kobold hadn’t cast that spell, I’d have had enough Stamina to easily grab the scepter! Or maybe if I had realized that the warding bone spell was going to ruin my easy kill, I wouldn’t be in this hospital getting my arm wrapped after it was treated like a chew toy. I could’ve grabbed that scepter. It was so close.
“Colin,” Huck said, his voice of authority snapping my attention, “it’s not Aurea’s fault. We all fought together. We failed together. Had we gotten rid of the skeletons sooner, we could’ve helped Aurea with the necromancer. She had to deal with the boss at the end of the dungeon by herself!”
Huck looked at me with an appraising look, “That was a fine job you did killing the necromancer, Aurea. You did good.”
I looked at Huck, a bit confused. He hadn’t said much since we had left the dungeon. I thought he had been upset with me, but instead… he seemed, impressed? I couldn’t tell. Or understand. Maybe he was just trying to save my feelings.
I was upset with myself. I didn’t need someone thinking what I had done was good. I had failed. The party had lost their only chance of getting into Lethality. Everyone here had to go back to normal life. Go back to being like my mother and barely getting by.
I winced in pain as Elise pulled me into a tight hug, squishing my damaged arm between our two bodies, much to the annoyance of the tech who had been trying to finish wrapping it.
“Aurea,” Elise said into my ear, I could hear what must’ve been tears in her voice, “You are so brave.”
She didn’t say anything after that, but she hugged me tighter.
I had no idea what the hell she was on. I just needed her to stop hugging me as the pain was only getting worse.
“Tha-thanks,” I gasped out between the throbbing pain in my arm, “please let me go.”
Elise gave me one last squeeze, sending a shock of pain up my arm, before releasing me. She wiped some tears from her eyes and turned her back to me. Ordinarily, I’d have appreciated her hugging me, but my arm felt like it had been chewed on all over again by a kobold.
The tech grabbed my arm with a disapproving look over at Elise, and fixed the wrappings before checking I still had full movement of my fingers.
“You’ll be fine,” the tech finally announced, “Just take the painkillers when you need them and give it a few days to heal. Most of the kobolds grown for Lethality aren’t old enough to have too many diseases when they bite, but make sure you take the antibiotics I gave you.”
The tech then abandoned me and headed over to another bed on the other side of the room where another would-be diver was laying down. That diver, Lyn, had been on the last team to enter the dining hall with the skeletons and necromancer. They had taken a nasty cut from one of the skeletons, leaving a huge gash on their neck.
Thinking of the wound, I turned to look at Huck who no longer had a huge smear of blood across his forehead.
“You take any damage?” I asked, wincing every time I moved a finger or adjusted my arm, “You had a good bit of blood on you in that final battle.”
“Me? No,” Huck responded, “it wasn’t my blood. It was Trevor. He’s the mage in Bria’s party. He had gotten a nasty slice down his forearm and the blood had gotten on me. No big deal.”
I nodded and looked at Elise and Colin, both had a few bruises on their head and arms starting to form and swell. Otherwise, they looked fine.
“I am,” I slowly began to say, looking down at my scuffed shoes. The shoes were old and worn, with a piece of white duct tape holding my left shoe together. I tried to say sorry, but it wouldn’t come out. It felt like a large lump in my throat that refused to budge.
“We know,” Huck said, cutting me off before I could finish my apology. “It sucks, but Bria and her party won. No sense in worrying about it. Can’t change the results of the dive.”
“I’d like to hear the apology,” Colin said flatly, staring at me. “It’s cause of her I won’t get my chance at Severe!”
“Oh like you’d survive a second in Moderate, let alone Severe!” I shot back, blood rushing to my face. “If you weren’t so busy hiding behind Elise’s skirts, we might’ve won!”
“Guys - Guys!” Huck was yelling while Colin and I continued to shout back and forth at each other. We weren’t stopping for Huck.
“My fault? You couldn’t deal with one kobold! It was a single kobold!” Colin yelled back, his dark skin getting darker in anger as his voice shouted over mine.
“IT WAS THE BOSS!” I countered, “AND NO ONE HAD MY-“
I was cut off as a loud and sharp whistle tore through the air. I spun in bed to see that our trainer was here and she was looking disapprovingly down at us. She was really good at whistling, all during our training she had taught us to fear whenever she would whistle.
“While you are in Roosevelt’s medical room, I expect everyone, including guests, to behave themselves,” She said, an ounce of contempt in her voice.
“Guests?” Elise asked, a little confused by the word. We had always been trainees before. We thought of ourselves as divers, though Vita never let us use that word.
“Yes,” Vita said flatly, “You are guests. Don’t look at me like that. You failed the dungeon, you failed to join the Minor team. Roosevelt has no need for you on their roster. You’re out.”
I felt myself jerk involuntarily at the word. Failed. I already knew we weren’t going to join the team, but the way that Vita talked about our loss was worse than actually losing. I had failed plenty of times. My mom was never happy with my grades. I had never graduated. I never could make the school’s track team. I had just failed and now I’ve failed the one thing I had wanted since I could remember.
I felt hot tears welling up and I looked down at the bed I was sitting on, watching as dark spots appeared on the blanket.
Vita didn’t have anything to say to us. There wasn’t anything else to say. She turned around and walked out of the room, leaving us in silence.
“Well,” Huck finally said, breaking the silence that had hung over us, “I guess this is it. We did good.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, my voice sounding distant and far away. I was too focused on how Vita had pronounced failed.
Colin didn’t say anything, just walked out of the room. Elise sank into the bed next to me, also with tears in her eyes. I tried not to notice as she touched my undamaged shoulder.
“Maybe we can still stay in touch?” Elise said weakly, I wasn’t even sure she believed that.
“Of course,” Huck responded reassuringly, placatingly. “We have each other’s feed. I’ll make sure Colin gets notified once we settle in. It’s going to be weird not having a room with just one roommate.”
Huck’s family apparently had a lot of kids, far exceeding the normal limit. He lived on a government-owned farm and his family was able to ignore that sort of thing.
There wasn’t much left to say between the three of us. Elise hugged both of us and left in tears, going to pack and leave. It was just me and Huck, who awkwardly cleared his throat and said, “You did good. I mean it. You took down the boss while the rest of us were held up by the minions. I should’ve been there for you. If anyone deserved to join the team, it’s you. Even Bria was letting herself get distracted by minions instead of focusing on the boss. If you hadn’t dealt with it, it would’ve likely had a lot more spells it could use to ruin the dive.”
I didn’t respond, I was too busy staring down at the bedsheets and dwelling on Vita’s words. We had failed. I had failed. My mom was right, I was never going to get into Lethality. It was amazing that Roosevelt had even bothered to let me join the training group.
I mumbled a goodbye to Huck, wanting to avoid any more talks about doing good and being proud of what we accomplished. I walked out of the medical room, heading to grab my single bag from my bunk.
I mentally turned on my feed, ignoring the ad as I walked, and opened the messenger.
to Mom // Heading home