Chapter 40 | A Lucky Man

Chapter 40: Chapter 40 | A Lucky Man

Kai woke up at four.

Not the alarm. Just woke up.

He lay on the couch staring at the ceiling for about three seconds.

’Today is the day,’ he thought.

He sat up.

He pressed his palm to the floor. Both rhythms. Both already awake. Neither of them sleeping.

’Of course.’

He got up quietly and went to the kitchen. Started the kettle. Looked out the small window above the sink at the city still mostly dark outside.

He thought about stone elementals.

Two beat preparatory vibration. One is the weight shift. Two is the joint compression. Half second window between them.

He had been thinking about it since Han Dori sent the dungeon details.

The kettle clicked.

He made three cups of tea without thinking about it and left two outside the relevant doors and took his to the couch.

He sat there in the dark drinking tea and running the sequence in his head.

Lock. One beat. Rotate. Hold full cycle. Release at joint connection point.

Three hits per elemental minimum.

Higher air pressure underground means fifteen percent stronger output.

Don’t overextend because it feels better than training.

He drank his tea.

From behind both doors he heard the sounds of his wives being awake and not saying so.

=============

Breakfast at six-thirty.

He made rice and eggs and the specialty rotation and set the table.

Shira came out first.

She looked at him the way she had been looking at him all week. The direct expression doing something it didn’t used to do. Like she was running numbers and keeping the result to herself.

She sat. Found her spoon.

She said: "Eat everything. You won’t eat again until you’re out."

"I know," Kai said.

"Dungeons drain energy faster than surface combat. Even C-rank. Your body will be working harder than you think just processing the mana density."

"I know," Kai said.

Shira looked at her bowl.

"I know you know," she said. "I’m saying it anyway."

Mira came to the table.

She sat. Located her bowl. Picked up her spoon.

She wrote something immediately and held it up.

Did you sleep.

"Enough," Kai said.

She wrote: That means no.

"That means enough," Kai said.

She put the board down and ate.

The three of them ate breakfast in the particular silence of people who had things to say and had decided not to say them because saying them would make the morning into something heavier than it needed to be.

Halfway through his bowl Kai looked at both of them.

Shira eating carefully with the brace. Mira’s hand finding the cup without fumbling anymore.

’Eleven days ago I carried them up a staircase,’ he thought. ’Now I’m going into a dungeon and they’re both awake at six in the morning making sure I eat, I am one lucky man.’

He ate everything in his bowl.

==========

He geared up at eight.

Resonance dampener calibrated. Protective layer on. Gloves fitted. He checked each item the way Han Dori had shown him and then checked them again.

He picked up his bag.

Shira was in the living room.

She was looking at the window. Not at him.

"The elbow," she said. "First beat. Not second."

"First beat," Kai said.

"The joint strike sequence. Lead dominant side. Non-dominant follow-up comes faster than they expect."

"I know," Kai said.

"I know you know," she said again. Still not looking at him.

’She’s nervous,’ Kai thought. ’She is not going to say that she’s nervous. But she’s nervous.’

He went to Mira’s door and knocked. Three knocks.

It opened immediately. She had been standing just inside it.

She held up the board.

Come back in one piece.

"I will," Kai said.

She wrote: Not two pieces. One.

"One piece," Kai confirmed.

She wrote one more thing and held it up.

The cavern air pressure will make your output stronger. Don’t get cocky.

Kai stared at the board.

"How did you know about the air pressure," he said.

She wrote: Shira told me.

He looked toward the living room.

From the living room Shira said without turning around: "She asked."

Kai stood in the hallway between both of them.

’These two,’ he thought.

He picked up his bag.

"I’ll be back by evening," he said.

He left.

=============

Han Dori was waiting at the dungeon entrance at nine sharp.

The Verren Caverns portal was a standard city-managed gate on the north side of the third district. Grey concrete building around it. Two gate officials at a desk. Other hero teams waiting their turns.

Han Dori looked at Kai’s gear, nodded once, and handed him a communication device.

"Clip it to your collar," Han Dori said. "I’ll be outside monitoring. If you say abort I pull you out immediately. No questions."

"Understood," Kai said.

"Assessment criteria," Han Dori said. "Threat perception in real dungeon conditions. Output consistency under sustained combat. Decision making when the situation changes from what you planned for. I am looking for all three."

"Understood," Kai said.

"Questions," Han Dori said.

"None," Kai said.

Han Dori looked at him.

"You seem calm," Han Dori said.

"I’m calm," Kai said.

Han Dori looked at him a moment longer.

"Go," he said.

Kai walked through the gate.

=========

The Verren Caverns hit him immediately.

Not visually. Sensorially.

The air was different. Denser. The mana concentration pressing against the resonance dampener and the dampener adjusting in real time the way the shop assistant had said it would. The sound quality changed too. Underground acoustics. Every surface returning information.

He stood just inside the entrance passage and breathed slowly.

He expanded the Nerve Sense.

The passage ahead. Twenty meters, then a turn right. Beyond the turn he could feel three distinct presences. Heavy. Slow. Stone elemental movement pattern exactly like Han Dori had described. Weight shifting in the stone mass with the particular density of dungeon-grade mineral composition.

He could feel them before he could see them.

’Good,’ he thought. ’This works better down here.’

He moved forward.

The passage was narrow enough that he had to move sideways at one point. The walls were rough-cut stone. No lighting except the faint bioluminescence of dungeon moss that grew in patches along the lower sections.