The first thing Jeremy noticed when he entered the fourth floor of the dungeon was that it was hot. Not 100-degrees-in-the-shade hot. Hotter. If it weren't for his enhanced physical and skin toughness, he'd have trouble functioning under these conditions.
The next thing he noticed was a desert as barren as it was hot. The only living things were cactus-like plants bristling with long thorns, and sparse, skinny grass. A wind blew through the dungeon, but instead of cooling him, the wind seemed to make the heat worse. Two large suns, one yellow, the other red, blazed down on him with enough heat to suck the life out of everything. Yet another sun rested on the horizon. How many suns did this section have?
The third thing he noticed was two massive seven-foot-tall clay statues, some fifty paces away.
The statues opened their mouths, let out deafening roars, and stepped rapidly in his direction on their large clay legs. For whatever reason, his concealment skill wasn't working on them.
“Those would appear to be golems,” Flint said. “They're magical constructs. Their power source is near their middle.”
As if reading their minds, the two golems brought their arms forward to shield their chests. Jeremy fired several arrows with no effect.
Coming up behind the golems were two bipedal fighters that most resembled oversized kobolds, covered head to tail in armor that blazed in this floor's suns. He did Identify.
MEAN KID!
Sross
Race: Saurian
Sex: Male
Child Fighter: Level 17
MEAN KID!
Sorret
Race: Saurian
Sex: Male
Child Fighter: Level 18
Uh, oh.
“Run!” Flint said.
Danger Sense lit up the surrounding desert like a Christmas tree. Traps were everywhere.
On his left, the desert consisted of rocks and boulders; on his right, there was nothing but sand.
He ran towards the rocks, ignoring the debilitating heat.
Reaching the rocky terrain, he jumped from rock to rock, avoiding traps.
A fast-moving saurian wearing leather armor emerged from behind a boulder and threw something at him. The next thing he knew, he was trapped in webbing. As he struggled to escape, the leather-armored saurian he Identified as—
MEAN KID!
Soppett
Race: Saurian
Sex: Male
Child Rogue: Level 18
—ran up to him and brutally clubbed him. Soon, he was surrounded by saurians, who proceeded to beat and club him before taking his possessions. They even removed his tiny storage ring. He thought of using his electric attack, but there were too many, and he was pretty sure the only thing he'd accomplish was pissing off his captors.
“Squeak!” Squeak to the rescue! But his familiar couldn't get within ten paces of the saurians. They must have some kind of defense. Jeremy sent his familiar away to hide before they discovered it.
“Jeremy Wilkinss,” Soppett said with a sharp-toothed smile. “Sso good to meet you. The prinsse will be pleassed.”
“I don't even know you guys,” Jeremy moaned when he'd recovered enough to do so.
“Ssilensse, filthy degenerate!” The saurian fighter Sorrett kicked Jeremy hard enough to make him cry out. “When we leave thiss dungeon, we will find your world and exssterminate your filthy, degenerate sspeciess.”
“What did I do to you?” Jeremy protested, only to be kicked again. Why was every alien trying to kill him?
“An unfortunate aspect of dungeons is that adventurers can encounter atypical members of another race and mistakenly believe the rest of their kind are similar,” Flint said. “Interplanetary wars have started this way. If I were able to communicate with these aliens, I would hasten to assure them that you are an atypical member of your race, and a substandard one at that.”
“Shut up, Flint,” Jeremy said under his breath. He hadn't done anything that bad, had he?
The saurians dragged Jeremy to their encampment a short distance away and into their giant, gray-green tent. They threw him onto the floor and left him there. It was cooler inside the tent, but only slightly.
Some time later, two servants poured water over Jeremy's face and body to revive him. They dragged him to the tent's center.
He raised his head and saw a large saurian sitting on a throne, looking down at him.
A saurian he Identified as –
MEAN KID!
Sstetakidis (Noble Prince) Blessed and Devoted Servant of Syritha, God of Purity.
Race: Saurian
Sex: Male
Child-Fighter: Level 27
Sstetakidis glared down at him from his large, elevated chair. His slit-pupiled eyes oozed with hate. Heavy polished armor covered him from neck to tail. Jeremy's reflection in the armor looked as terrified as he felt. Next to Sstetakidis was a second, smaller, more slender saurian in white robes.
MEAN KID!
Ssrethadis (Noble Princess) Blessed and Devoted Servant of Syritha, God of Purity.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Race: Saurian
Sex: Female
Child Spellcaster: Level 29
What shocked Jeremy the most was the flag hanging above them.
“You're with Cleansing Wind?” Jeremy asked in shock. “You realize they hate you guys?” There were six races Cleansing Wind tolerated, and saurians were not among them.
“Ssilence!” A saurian clubbed him from behind.
“Sstetakidis, son of Ssreth, doess not sspeak to degenerate vermin!” The prince motioned to his servant. “Tossi, you will assk the quesstionss.”
“Yess my lord,” the servant Tossi said, glaring down at Jeremy. “Degenerate filth. On the ssecond floor of the dungeon, you sspared the livess of goblinss. Iss thiss correct?”
Unnoticed by the saurians, Flint appeared next to him. “I remember telling you that you would regret sparing the goblins. If, through some miracle, you survive this, perhaps you will listen to me next time.”
“You realize Cleansing Wind wants to kill off your kind?”
“Ssilence!”
One of them punched Jeremy in the back hard enough to knock the breath away and send him slamming against the ground.
“Did you spare the lives of the goblins on the second floor of this dungeon? Yes or No?” Tossi asked again.
“Yes,” Jeremy answered. Oh, oh. This was not good.
“While we were on the second floor,” Tossi continued, “we gained the confidence of some degenerate kobold filth who mistakenly believed that because we also have scaled skin and tails, we were their friends. After we treated a few of the kobolds to a drink that's popular with their kind, they became quite talkative. They told us all about you and how you are highly regarded by both the kobolds and the goblin horde. To the goblins, you are practically one of them.”
It wasn't Jeremy's fault that the goblins were crazy. Though to be fair, he still wondered if he should have killed them. Either way, best he keep silent.
“You are also highly regarded by the filthy merchant known as Lard Lump. After our business negotiations with this merchant broke down, she offered this same horde of goblins an herb known as smokessis in exchange for our heads. Which, let me point out, is considered a war crime by my people. Lard Lump's actions resulted in an engagement that killed two of my lord's favorite servants.”
“Well, that is interesting,” Flint said, floating off to the side. “Not that they fought, but that the goblins won. I would have thought those goblins would be badly outmatched by this group.”
“The kobolds also informed us that you were planning to kill an adventurer named Mezirma, son of Melidas. An individual known for his benevolent nature and kindness to the less fortunate.”
Jeremy burst out laughing and was clubbed in the back again.
Tossi continued. “You, Jeremy Wilkins, are a terrible being.”
The saurians glared down at Jeremy. He saw something that gave him chills. Around the neck of one of the saurians was a kobold's finger; from the rings on the finger, it had belonged to Shark—poor guy. Jeremy wondered what happened to the rest of him... and the others.
Sstetakidis tilted his head back and shouted. “BOGGAN!”
Boggan appeared. “Greetings, Prince Sstetakidis . What can I do for you?”
“Wait,” Jeremy said. “Boggan comes when you guys call him?”
“We are superior beings,” hissed Tossi. “We are part of the sacred three civilized races, surrounded by hordes of degenerate filth like yourself. You would not understand.”
“This creature,” Ssteta motioned to Jeremy, “who openly sides with goblins, kobolds, and related filth, has been wrongly classified as human by this dungeon. This offends me on the deepest possible level.”
“I see,” Boggan said. The little garden gnome looked up at the adventurers. “Throughout the millennia, dungeons have encountered many beings and learned to classify races based on similarities. Goblins are green and have big ears; orcs have large tusks, and humans have short teeth and smooth, mostly hairless skin. There has been speculation as to whether these races came from the same source or developed in a similar manner on different worlds. Sometimes similar races from different worlds can interbreed, and sometimes they cannot.”
There was silence.
“Once in a long while, we encounter a race that matches none of the previous races, and we have to come up with a new classification.” Boggan walked over to Jeremy and stood over him. “Normally, we wouldn't change an adventurer's race because another group of adventurers dislikes them, but we've received many complaints concerning Jeremy's not living up to his human status. 'He's very strange for a human, perhaps he's a shape-changer,' said one adventurer. 'You shouldn't have tried to kill him,' one adventurer said to another, 'he's not like other humans.' Yet another group went so far as to say they wouldn't have tried to kill Jeremy if they hadn't mistaken him for a human. To prevent confusion in the future, we've decided to change Jeremy's race from Human to Other, until a more accurate identification of his race can be made.”
There was a change on Jeremy's stat sheet. Instead of Human, he had Race: Other.
"Now, as for your saurians who've received the title Honorary Humans from Cleansing Wind, I will change your race from Saurians to Saurians who identify as human."
“You've got to be joking,” Jeremy said under his breath. Curious, Jeremy did Identify, and sure enough, next to their race was. Race: Saurian. But identifies as human.
“Excellent. Thank you, Boggan,” Ssteta said with a pleased, cat-like smile. “But tell me, why do you even allow these vermin into your dungeon?”
Boggan looked up at the saurian lord. “As I've told you previously, the dungeons do not take sides in interracial conflicts. If a race is capable of speech and tool use, their children are granted dungeon access.”
“Those speaking, tool-using goblin filth killed two of my people and ate them in a safe room while we watched!” Ssteta roared.
Boggan seemed unbothered by the saurian's rage. “Had you not been trying to kill the goblins at the time, the goblins would have been harshly penalized for this. They explained to me that their religion demands they eat the flesh of their enemies. You should try to be more open-minded to the beliefs of others.”
Ssteta's response was a wordless roar. “We exterminate those vermin wherever they walk, crawl, slither, swim, breathe, or breed! That's what we believe!”
“Well, maybe if you were more open-minded to their beliefs, they'd be more open-minded to yours,” Boggan responded with a reproachful sniff.
“The goblins are vermin! How dare you judge us for trying to kill them! Do you know who I am? My father is the most important person in my solar system!”
“Do you remember who I am?” Boggan responded. “I am part of The Children's Dungeon.”
There was a short staring contest in which Boggan didn't seem the least bit bothered by the rage directed at him.
“On a different matter,” Boggan continued, “you have cleared out the fourth floor of the dungeon, and it's time for you to move on.”
Princess Ssrethadis spoke for the first time. “Boggan, we know there is a secret section on this floor of the dungeon. We beseech you to give us more time to search for it.”
“Very well,” Boggan replied. “You have ten days. If you haven't found the secret section in the next ten days, you will either leave or be forcibly evicted.”
“What about me?” Jeremy said.
“We do not take sides in interracial conflicts, Jeremy. We expect you and the humans to work out your differences in a civilized manner.”
“Of course, Boggan,” Ssteta said, eyes filled with hate. “This dispute will be resolved in a civilized manner. You have my word.”
Everyone,
three months. This pause is both for the long vacation I have planned and to give myself some needed time for recharging.
