The differences between Class and General Skills are significant. First, Class Skills typically increase in Level faster than General Skills. As usual, the System refuses to explain or to even admit to this well-documented fact.

  Secondly, Class Skills naturally , while General Skills do not. Lunge allows Classes like Duelist to traverse a significant distance and deliver a powerful thrusting strike. Lunge will only work, however, with a weapon Skill the Duelist possesses as a Class Skill such as Swords.

  Note that the division of Skills between General and Class can change when you Tier Up and choose a Class Evolution. Typically, Skills only ‘upgrade’ from General to Class and only very rarely will a Class Skill be ‘demoted’ to a General Skill. This can result in interesting Skill interactions, according to the System’s whims.

  -

  I tried to get Wolf’s attention during Ranged Combat the next morning to ask what had happened, but he brushed me off. When I ran through my speed shooting drills, I imagined Yuri’s stupid face on every target I blasted. It helped manage my irritation, for a few minutes anyway. I got a Level in Recoil Management though, so I must have been doing something right!

  Our teacher for Dungeon Basics was a lean, scarred woman who was missing most of her left leg. She was wearing shorts that exposed one tanned flesh-and-blood leg, and one that mostly ended just above the knee. At the end of her thigh a metal band was clamped around her leg, and from it flowed a light sheen of pale energy that formed a translucent outline of the shape of a normal leg and foot around what looked like a knee, lower leg, and even a foot made just from bone.

  She introduced herself to us with a big grin.

  “Hi kids, my name is Trick Step, and before you ask – yes, the name comes from a long time before this!” she reached down and patted the glowing outline of her leg. “In case you’re wondering, you should always avoid necrotic traps! But, as a consolation prize, if you fuck it up you can get a cool magitech prosthesis like this one. Let’s get on with the lecture so we can get to the fun part afterwards!”

  The first lecture was about the origin of dungeons, and I found it terribly boring, even though I liked Trick’s enthusiasm. It seemed to be a very long-winded way to not-quite-say that ‘we don’t fucking know’. Next, she gave a longer version of the explanation I’d already heard from Mason about the different types of dungeons. She stopped after about an hour with another smile.

  “Whew, now that the boring part of the day is over, let’s talk about the fun stuff – traps! Specifically, basic ones that you might find in any low-Tier dungeon. Before we start, let’s do a little background.”

  She went on to explain that while there dungeons with frequent traps, they were rare. Most dungeons only had a few, if any.

  According to her, it wasn’t worth it for a team to have a Delver with a trap-focused Class. Instead, everyone needed to learn what to look for. As she described several basic traps like pitfalls, dart traps, and crush traps, one of the students raised a hand to ask a question. It was one of the dwarves, a Lightning Mage from my Ranged Combat class.

  “I don’t understand how just describing these things is going to help us very much!” she said, and a lot of the students nodded along, myself included.

  “That’s because it won’t! Which is why we have something much better for you. Lemme just finish a couple more, then we’ll go get you started.”

  Quickly wrapping up what she was saying, Trick Step led us out of the room and towards the valley wall, which was a hundred yards or so behind the building. The path led up to a door built into the rock. She stopped outside and looked at the group of now much more interested students.

  “Beyond this door,” she paused and gestured grandly behind her, “lies our most diabolical creation! The one-of-a-kind, magnificent, fabulous, educational, fun for all ages, FAKE DUNGEON!”

  A few students laughed at her theatrics and she joined in.

  “Once we’re through the entrance hallway, follow me to the right and down the stairs. Once we’re all assembled in the waiting area, you’ll each be going through a series of hallways full of traps! That’s right, real, live, mostly harmless traps! Follow me!”

  Without waiting for questions, she yanked the door open and strode down the long stone corridor behind it. With a shrug, the first Squad followed her in, and the rest of us trailed after. A hundred yards deep into the hillside, there was a junction, and we went to the right and down a couple flights of stairs. At the bottom was a large open chamber just big enough for us all to stand around. A few mana lamps barely lit the space.

  We had entered on one of the short sides of a rectangle. On each of the long walls there were three doors, widely spaced at least ten yards apart. The far wall held a pair of doors. Trick Step walked to the middle door on the right side and stopped.

  “This is the beginner’s trap area! Past the first and third doors, you’ll find identical hallways, each of which contains quite a few fun surprises! One of you at a time will enter each door and proceed down the hallway, dodging as many of the traps as you can spot! Don’t worry, the traps are calibrated to do minimum damage even if you do set them off!”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I didn’t like the gleam in her eyes when she said ‘carefully’ and ‘minimum.’

  “The hallways are divided into four sections, each fifty yards long, with a small room with green lighting in between. Those are the safe rooms, nothing in there is trapped! When you get to the safe room, you’ll see a small panel on the wall by the far door, like this.”

  She indicated a rectangular plaque about a foot wide and six inches high, near the door handle. She touched something and the panel started glowing a muted green.

  “The panel indicates when the person ahead of you has cleared the next section of the hallway. If it’s red, you wait. When it turns green, you can move on. The traps get progressively harder to spot as you move through each hallway, but you need to keep going through all of them to reach the end! After the fourth hall, you’ll find an exit that leads to this middle hallway here, which will bring you straight out, no traps.

  “The traps will magically reset for each new person going through. Since we have a full group today, you need to clear each section within about three minutes, so no stalling! Once you make it through, head right back and wait for the rest of the class to finish.

  “I’ll be listening to make sure you’re not warning each other what to look for! Your Squad Comms won’t work down here either, so no cheating! Now, give me four lines here, here, there and there, so we can get started.”

  She pointed to the first and third door on each of the long sides of the room and we nervously shuffled into place. I made sure to lead my Squad to a door on the opposite side of the room from Yuri, who glowered at me.

  Everyone in my Squad looked at me, which was unnecessary because as the fearless leader I would have volunteered to go first anyway. Definitely. The lights by each door turned green, and with a deep breath I turned the handle and walked into the dark. Literally, as it was pitch-black inside until the door closed behind me. Then a muted glow appeared from mana lights spaced along the ceiling.

  I looked down a simple, stone corridor about ten feet wide and thirty or forty feet long. At the end, there was a doorway and what looked like some steps leading further down. I crouched low, looking carefully along the floor, and immediately spotted two stones that were raised slightly higher than the others.

  Remembering the time limit, I forced myself to start walking gingerly forward, testing each stone as I stepped. I made it through without incident, then peered into the stairway. It descended at least a floor, so I couldn’t see whatever was past it. I didn’t spot anything out of place, so I stepped onto the top stair.

  whump!

  The stairs rotated under my feet into a smooth, angled surface, and I went sliding down them. Landing on my butt and skidding helplessly to the bottom, I rolled into a heap before dusting myself off.

  “SHIT!” I yelled in frustration. I wasn’t hurt, thanks to my barrier, but I was embarrassed. When I turned and looked back up the stairs – which had already rotated back into place – I noticed that the top step was significantly shallower than the rest. Was that the clue that I’d missed?

  The next corridor was similar to the first, only the stairs at the end went up. I stepped around a couple of obviously-higher stones, as well as a few more that I wasn’t sure about. Nothing bad happened, but my heart was still racing. The second staircase had not one, but two, steps of different heights than the others. I avoided stepping on those and made it safely to the top.

  The new hallway was tiled in black and white squares. The design was symmetrical – almost. As I looked carefully, I spotted a few tiles that didn’t match up with the other side. Hoping I understood the clues, I went around those. This hallway ended in a door that I assumed led to the first safe room. I stared at the door handle suspiciously, before summoning my shotgun and using the tip of the barrel to carefully push the handle down.

  click

  A hail of small darts burst out of the wall to my left and streaked in front of me before pinging off the far wall and dissolving into mist. With a shaky breath, I looked where they’d come from, noticing the gaps between the stone bricks were a little bigger than the rest of the walls. Through the door was the safe room, and since I was the first one in the panel was already green. Checking that my barrier was full, I moved forwards.

  I made it through the first room, but when I reached another set of stairs, I saw that this one was made out of wood. Rotten-looking wood, with a nice damp smell to it. I probed one of the upper steps with my shotgun and the barrel went right through into the darkness below.

  click fwoosh!

  A blast of flame shot down from the ceiling and I cried out as it raged around me. My barrier flared and I felt a brief flash of heat and then it was gone. I stumbled down the rest of the stairs on shaky legs, needing a moment to collect myself at the bottom.

  The less said about the rest of it, the better. I endured two hails of darts, one blunt spear, fell into one three-foot-deep ‘pit’, and narrowly dodged a giant swinging blade that dropped from the ceiling. Not to mention another fake fireblast and a gust of icy wind that caught me right in the face. And I was pretty sure I’d avoided at least half the traps.

  Finally, I stood before the door to the exit, breathing hard from the stress. Neither the second or third safe room doors had been trapped, but I was certain the last one was. I looked around carefully, checking the floor, walls and ceiling.

  On the ceiling directly in front of the door was a group of nine suspicious looking holes. I decided they probably dropped darts or spikes, so I reached out with my gun to turn the handle.

  click splash!

  Fluid out of the holes at high velocity, just missing my gun as I dismissed my weapon. The liquid hit the floor and splashed up onto my legs. The icy cold shocked me, and I jumped backwards on instinct.

  click

  I’d landed on a large, slightly recessed stone that I’d carefully avoided – until my instinctive dodge. I barely had time to look up as a deep rumble